Unlimited || Bucky Barnes

The Snow

The next couple days were rough. As Fury instructed, I went to see Bruce at his lab once a day to monitor me. Our first time was a little difficult, because we didn't know what we were getting ourselves into. It became easier after a few times.

The sessions after that were mostly the same. We did a few calming exercises together to clear my mind, and then he would hook me up to some wires. After we knew I was still able to burn out candles and flicker the lights, he kept me at a steady pace of progression.

The harder part of our visits were the mind-reading studies. After I went a little too far into his thoughts, we suggested it might be better that I trained everything else first. The mind is an extremely complex concept. Not only are there thoughts, but memories, inner desires, personality traits...fears. I can see fears of someone while they are 't even aware that they have them at all.

Staying away from those things besides communicating was our plan. I found it quite funny that Bruce even stutters when he thinks, always thinking of a calculation or theory to anything and everything.

And even after Bucky's short speech last week, I still couldn't help but feel guilty every time I talked to him about my sessions. I felt like since he wasn't out in the field, all he could do was listen to me yammer about my problems. Just because I ran after him once doesn't mean I would do it again, right? I mean, he was in trouble and I was emotionally overloaded, what was I supposed to do? No matter what though, I had to respect his choice of not being included on missions. At least when he's here he's safe from Hydra.

I wandered to my room after Bruce excused me, and quietly opened the door. Bucky was sitting facing the window, listening to Maroon 5. He had a backpack next to his chair, which seemed to have multiple books in it. I tiptoed behind him and ran my hands through his hair.

"What are you doing?" I whispered, resting my head on his shoulder so I could see.

"Just jotting down some stuff," he answered, his eyes focused on the paper.

"So, you have a diary?" I giggled.

"It's a journal."

"And in your backpack...more diaries?" I tapped his backpack with my foot lightly.

"They're journals- wait, how did you-" he gruffed, closing the backpack and shoving in underneath his seat.

"Am I not supposed to know about these? I mean, there's a lot of them," I tried to say.

"I know, it's just...what I write in there is very personal," he mumbled, closing the one he had in his hands shut, but with the pen sticking out as a bookmark.

"How personal?" I inquired, scooting my body so my back was against the window, and I was face-to-face with Bucky.

"I started those journals awhile ago. After I pulled Steve out of the river and ran away, I began writing down everything I knew. Every memory, every detail about my life, including things I did that day in case I lost my memory again. When the whole Sokovia Accords thing happened, they were taken away from me. But before I was put back in cryo, Steve had managed to swipe them from the government for me to write in them one last time before I went under," he explained, shoving the drafted notebook into the backpack beneath him.

"When was the first time you've written in them since then?"

"Last week. It was your first morning here and you were asleep on the couch," he smiled. I could see him imagining me in his head, sprawled out next to him while Friends played.

He stood up and I smiled at him, both of our pulses racing. He held his arms out and guided my ear to his chest, as usual.

"How was today's session?" he stroked my hair, his voice humming through my body.

"It was good. I was able to do a twenty-piece puzzle without touching it," I beamed.

"Nice. What picture did it make this time?"

"It was a cat wearing a top hat and bow tie," I laughed.

"Better than yesterday's dog wearing mittens."

"Aw come on, that one was funny," my nose scrunched up from giggling.

The sky was gloomy and the clouds were almost grounded to the windows. I touched the glass and the pad of my thumbs stung from the cold.

"Anything else?" Bucky asked, his eyes glowing from the overcast lighting from outside.

"Well, we thought that for the time being, it would be best if I didn't do any mind searching. Deepest darkest secret kind of stuff," I told, wrapping my far hand back around Buck.

He nodded, his chin bumping the top of my head slightly each time.

"You never did any of that kind of stuff on me, did you?"

I hesitated and pursed my lips a little.

"When we first met, yes. I only saw flashes, since your mind was too tightly sealed for me to see further."

He sighed with relief and flushed his cheek against my head.

"It's sealed like that for a reason Darby. No one should ever have to see what's in there, even I don't know all of it. Anything that was ever able to escape that lock is written in those books. Things that don't want to come out, probably shouldn't," he whispered.

"Agreed," I hummed while I was soothed my the thumping of his chest.

As we were gazing out at the gray horizon, small flakes began falling from the sky. It started with crystals, and then sheets were flying from the heavens.

"It's snowing! I love snow!" I let go of Bucky and pushed my face close to the glass.

"I know you do," Bucky smiled. "Do you want to go outside?"

I flipped my head around and met his crystal blue eyes.

"But I can't leave the tower, Fury won't let-"

"Who said anything about leaving the tower?" he smirked, grabbing my hand and two big coats.

We shoved our jackets on and rushed to the elevator like two little kids. We went almost to the very top floor, where we stopped on a landing bay where a quinjet would normally be parked. The dusty powder laid itself against the ground and fell to the streets below. I looked up, snow falling on my nose and gathering on my eyelashes. My face felt like I slept with a hanger in my mouth because my smile was so big. Bucky kept his fingers entangled in mine, with his other in his pocket. It was freezing, but I didn't care. Not for a minute did I think about my powers, my fears. I didn't think about Steve, or even Hydra. There was only me, Bucky, the snow that found itself trickled in our hair, and the fluttery feeling in my chest that hadn't stopped for over a week.