UK Avengers - Bucky Barnes x Reader

Seven

I knew I had been distracted in missions. Maria had refused to send me on solo missions as a result of my wandering mind. I was also now often help as a last resort on team missions because I had somewhat lost control of my powers.

Years of hard work, thrown away for an attractive ex-assassin with a nice smile. Talk about pathetic.

If I wasn't in the compound, I was to be found at the graveyard, sitting in front of James' grave, hardly speaking to him but comforted nonetheless by the place. Time and time again, I'd mull over what it would have been like if I'd followed Maria's orders from the start and not welcomed the Avengers with open arms.

I couldn't find it in myself to regret my actions. I loved Bucky, and that was the worst part.

I wondered endlessly whether he actually ever loved me, or whether he exploited my crush on him to get what he wanted. His words echoed in a continuous loop in my brain.

"It was an order"

He didn't love me.

I sounded pathetic repeating it to myself, but when you can't love yourself, and you meet someone who you think can love you enough for the both of you, a little piece of yourself crumbles and dies with them when they leave.

"I told him about you," I say to the empty grave yard. It was cold, for summer. Summer was the worst season for me, had been ever since I got my powers. "I told him about my dad," I continue. I'm staring at the gravestone, not quite taking in the words that were written there. I didn't need to read them, I knew what they were.

Beloved son, brother, uncle and a forever friend

The words didn't do him justice. James was the most important person in my life. His family meant more to me than my own.

If it wasn't for Maria finding me, befriending me, recruiting me, I probably wouldn't be here anymore.

"I miss you James, you'd be straight with me, tell me to man up and move on," I rest my head against my knee, blinking away tears. "I think I'm going to visit your Mum. She sent me a letter last week, checking up on me and inviting me over for your sisters birthday, I bought her a necklace, and framed a photo of us, Janie and Killian too,"

A breeze ran through the graveyard and I sighed, standing up.

"I should go," I say quietly. I felt bad leaving, even though I knew he couldn't hear me. Even though he wasn't around.

Toby nudged against my legs and I gave him and Max a soft smile, reaching down to pet behind their ears.

I set off back to the compound. Lilian and Lee were the only two people there. Lilian had woken from her coma a week and three days after the departure of the Avengers but was still on physiotherapy, and had been for the past week. Yes, two weeks and three days had passed since Bucky left, and I was still in mourning. Pathetic, right? Everyone else was on a mission and weren't due back until tomorrow.

I planned to set off to James' house tonight, I'd ring up his mother, Angie, on the train on the way there. She wouldn't argue, I hadn't seen her in a while and Stefie (James' sister) had been asking when I'd next visit, because her daughter, Janie, was asking about me. Her, her husband Killian and Janie were going on holiday to Switzerland in a week and wanted to see me beforehand.

The compound was silent when I entered it. It had been for weeks now, since the Avengers left. Perhaps it was because I no longer wanted to piss about with Jordan, or because Lilian and Lee were confined to the hospital wing. Either way, I had yet to get used to the new silence that followed me wherever I went.

Lee and Lilian were napping together when I visited them in the hospital wing. They looked so adorable and peaceful sleeping there that I didn't want to wake them, choosing instead to leave a note on the table next to them, explaining where I had disappeared to.

Seeing James' family would snap me back to reality. It would ground me again, take my mind off of Bucky and his betrayal, and so, with a heavy heart I boarded the train back home.