Let Me Go (Book Four)

Chapter: 10

DAY: 214

Winter Soldier

"Come on! You can totally do better than that!" Lark laughed at me as she pinned me to the floor, straddling my hips, her hands forcing my wrists down to keep me still. She leaned down over me, her hair draped over her shoulder in a velvety curtain of red.

"You know I'm just letting you win." I told her.

"I know." she kissed me once and then slid off of me, sitting up on her elbows beside me.

"Steve says that we're moving out a week from tomorrow." she said sighing. "Guess we're actually leaving for that mall you were talking about."

"Seriously? He's actually going through with my idea? Since when did he start listening to my plans and actually agreeing?" I scoffed.

"I don't know, maybe it's because he's afraid that Hydra's going to find us again." she shrugged. "Or maybe it's the Aether."

Lark lifted up her arm and I noticed the ash colored scars. I sat up beside her and took her hand, our fingers intertwined together. I kissed her temple and she leaned into me.

"I promise I'll save you from this." I told her, "I promise I'll figure out a way to get the Aether out of you and keep you safe from any more harm."

"I know you will." she told me. "You constantly tell me."

"I do it because I love you and I want to see you safe." I said. "Seeing you hurt, emotionally or physically kills me inside. And I'm tired of seeing you in any pain."

"You help me to forget it." Lark whispered.

"Tell me, Bucky. Do you remember her screams? Her painful cries for help when you brought her home?" Alexander asked me as his guards unclasped a cuff from around each of my wrists. "Do you remember her painful eyes and terrified plees? Please tell me you do."

"You know the answer." I said to him, staring at the stone cold floor at my feet. This was what I was going to get from him. I knew my punishment was coming soon enough, I knew that he'd deal it out at some point soon. I was his weapon, I betrayed him. Why wouldn't he?

"Good." Alexander stood in front of me, but I wouldn't dare show him the decency of looking at him, he didn't deserve that from me.

Jack stood only a few feet away, tending to the bloody nose I gave him on the way to this cell block.

"Because, if you didn't then I suppose I'd have to show you her painful screams as she was tortured in the cells those many many months ago." Alexander said.

I bit my tongue as I remembered her crying out in the night, sobbing and shouting in pain and terror. Lark was so scared and weak when we first brought her back home, when we rescued her from Hydra's cells along with Peter and Wanda.

Lark couldn't sleep at night, she'd wake crying out and screaming. I comforted her, as much as she would allow me to.

"I can't breathe." she told me, sitting on the cot, her leg shaking, her hands tangling in her hair, she was breathing deeply but it didn't seem to be enough.

"Lark, just breathe." I told her.

"I can't." she said, tears brimmed in her eyes and she shut them tight and shook her head.

"Breathe, it's okay." I told her.

Lark quickly stood up and walked to the railing of the platform, taking in low deep breaths. Watching her like that terrified me beyond comprehension.

I stood and walked over to her slowly, I noticed that she was gripping the railing tightly. Her knuckles were white, her arms were shaking and goosebumps were rising all over her skin. I picked up my jacket from the floor at my feet and wrapped it around her shoulders, loosly so she wouldn't feel like she was trapped in any way. Lark flinched and backed up from the railing and turned around.

"It's okay." I told her. Lark just cried and I pulled her into my arms. "I'm here."

"Are you listening?" Jack punched my jaw and I snapped out of a memory.

I turned back and looked at him, no, I glared at him. Jack stepped backwards and Alexander stood beside him.

"Did you hear anything that I just said to you Bucky?" he asked.

I guess I was so deep in memory that I hadn't realized that I was standing freely. But in a glass cell, and both of them had just stepped out.

"I might have heard you, but why don't you enlighten me one more time since you're bound to just tell me over and over again while I'm here." I said.

"Lark's not doing too well." Jack said. "The Aether spiked back up in her system again. Twice in only a fourty-eight hour period, which is dangerous to both mother and child."

"What are you saying?" I stepped towards the glass.

"We're saying that Lark doesn't have much time before her body begins to fight off the Aether with more dangerous mean." Alexander answered. "And that pain and discomfort can cause her to lose her child. We can help her, Bucky, you can help her."

"How? You've got me cornered into a cell." I said, and it wasn't against my will either. I had agreed to come with Alexander, so long as he protected Lark and stopped going after her. Which I know wasn't inevitable.

"We can keep you here, torture you into sharing with us information about S.H.I.E.L.D. and the whereabouts of the renegades who hijacked our tanks." Jack said.

"Or, we can give you an antidote, an antibiotic if you will. For the Aether." Alexander said, he stepped up to the glass. "The antidote, which we're calling Hera, has the ability to set back the Aether's affects, prolong her life and your sons life. We'll release you, to give it to Lark, but only that. You won't be able to stay, we'll have eyes and ears on you. We'll track you. But that'll be it, that will be where you say goodbye."

"Wait." I said, stopping him from continuing. I stepped back from the glass, feeling my legs weaken and my heart pound. "You said son. What are you saying? Does that mean--" my voice was quiet and shaken.

"Yes, I did." Alexander said, there was a slight grin on his face. "Lark's carrying your son. Only four people know of this now. Including you."

Jack smiled wickedly beside Alexander. "It's your choice now, Bucky. Save her life and your sons, or rot."