It was small. It was dark. And it had a faintly unpleasant smell—somewhere between musty and something else not quite definable beyond neglected—that made his nose wrinkle involuntarily in disgust.
It wasn't the worst of the abandoned Soviet and HYDRA safehouses he'd been in during the months now that he'd been hopping around Europe.
But it was far from the best.
It took every ounce of effort and will he had not to think about a skinny little townhouse he'd left behind that, while perhaps not in the best of condition, was still lovingly tended and cared for to the best of its owner's abilities.
He couldn't let himself think about the townhouse because it inevitably led him to thinking about her.
But the comparisons forced their way into his thoughts anyway.
His backpack fell with a low, muffled thud on the grimy, wood-planked floor as he let loose a resigned breath. He couldn't help but make comparisons. The kitchen was little more than a fridge, a sink and a small countertop stove in an area barely larger than the single sagging mattress little more than a stride-length away. The wallpaper was floral, faded and flaking; it wasn't even peeling, but disintegrating on the walls. He didn't even want to look inside the tiny bathroom to his left.
It was nothing like the cozy space she had made for herself, her very presence making the small apartment she'd lived in warm and inviting with its smattering of hand-me-down furniture and outdated décor. Even the sparsely furnished apartment he'd been renting downstairs before he'd begun virtually living in hers had been infinitely nicer than this place. Compared to this matchbox of a place, her home had been a mansion. It had certainly been better kept. She'd made sure of that. She'd taken such pride in taking care of her aunt's place. It had been welcoming because of that care and that pride. Because of her.
It had been his refuge. His sanctuary. His haven.
His home.
All because of her.
He choked back his heartache at the involuntary thought, trying to push it aside as it surfaced yet again. Her home had become his home before he'd even let himself believe or even consider that he could actually have someplace to call 'home' ever again. The feeling surfaced at every abandoned and forgotten safehouse he'd stayed in in the last several months. But it was hitting him harder here. Maybe because now—for the time being, at least—he could stop running. His hands fisted, the mechanisms of his bionic arm giving off a metallic groan as he fought back the heaving waves of guilt and the longing that gnawed in the pit of his stomach.
He'd regretted leaving almost as soon as she'd been out of his sight. Hell, he'd regretted leaving before he'd even left, before he'd actually made the final decision to leave... Even now, the image of her falling to pieces on her front steps and the stifled sound of her sobs as she fought to hold them back haunted Bucky as some of his worst memories did. He'd wanted nothing more than to abandon his reasoned and rational resolve to move on in favour of the persistent and unrelenting instinct to stay. He'd wanted nothing more than to rush to her side that day and pull her into his arms, the apologies he would have laid at her mercy surging forward even as his body had taken him farther away from her.
He'd wanted nothing more than to stay.
But he'd forced himself to keep going, to keep moving, no matter that his head, his heart, his conscience and his instincts were warring with each other over leaving her.
Even here, in this cramped, dusty little apartment, they continued to war, leaving Bucky even more torn and ashamed than the day he'd left.
He shouldn't have left her.
And he definitely shouldn't have left the way he had. His heart clenched painfully, self-loathing rising with bile to choke him at his own cowardice and his own lack of self-control.
He'd never intended to go back that night, not given how shaky his resolve to go through with leaving had been, and he'd certainly never intended to fall into her embrace the way he had. Knowing as he had that he was on the verge of leaving, he'd known better than to give in to the desire—the need—to see her one last time. But that hadn't stopped him. He'd been too heartsick and tired to deny that one, simple need to see her one last time.
And then she'd woken up, and she'd held out her hand to him. The unmistakable love in her eyes and her silent plea had been his undoing. In that moment, he'd wanted nothing more than to brand the feel of her safe in his arms into his memory. So against all his better, more honorable instincts, he had given in. He'd definitely never intended to make love to her; he hadn't even allowed himself to dream of doing so.
But he could never regret it. Never. That night, despite what he knew had come the next morning, was a warm, bright place in his memory that he held onto like a lifeline. It helped keep him sane. So he couldn't regret it.
But he did regret how he'd left.
More than almost anything else he'd ever done.
He hadn't been able to face actually saying goodbye, even before she'd woken to find him sitting on the edge of her bed and before what had followed, knowing full well that she'd utter those two small words if he'd had the courage to try. And if she had, his resolve would have cracked and crumbled away.
He would have stayed. He wouldn't have been able to help himself. Not if she'd asked him to.
But another part of him knew he'd had to leave. He was good at covering his tracks. They'd made sure of that when they'd made him into what he was, and it had been knowledge that he hadn't lost despite the mess his mind had been, that it still was. It was how he'd been able to stay as long as he had. But eventually they still would have traced him to that skinny townhouse...and to her. She was safe now that he was out of her life. Yes, part of him insisted, there had been no other way. Sooner or later they would have traced him to her despite his careful precautions.
The pair of HYDRA agents he'd caught following him as he'd approached the Mexican border had made that perfectly clear.
Especially when he'd gotten one of them to admit they'd picked up his trail not far outside of DC, when he'd bought his bus ticket to the West Coast and his decoy tickets to Canada and New York.
They hadn't followed him after that.
Until then he'd managed to hold onto a hope—reserved and impossible as it was, but still a hope—that he'd eventually be able to make his way back to her. He'd been telling himself that it would have been simply to watch from a distance, to make sure she was safe, but he knew that was a lie. He would have gone back to her. Hell, he'd been on the verge of turning back ever since he'd left...
But on finding the messages left on the one HYDRA agent's phone? He'd realized just how futile and dangerous a hope it had been. The texts the agents had received from their handler had made his final decision easy and all the more agonizing for it:
Has the Asset had any further contact with the woman from DC?
Could she be of any use in apprehending him?
Assets can be mobilized to collect her if required.
Bucky's blood had run cold.
They had traced him back to Iris.
Unclear, the agent's most recent text had read, we'll get back to you once we have him.
They hadn't been sure what her connection to him was. The texts had told him that they hadn't answered definitively yet; Bucky had made them before they could put whatever plan for capturing him into place. And they hadn't lasted long enough to decide what to do about her...or to warn their fellows they'd been made; the last outgoing call and last incoming one on both agents' phones had been made two days before the last text. As he had held the HYDRA agent's phone in hand, with barely more than a split-second of thought, he had typed out a reply and hit send.
The woman is nothing.
Even knowing that the text—sent solely to protect her from those who would only hurt her...who would kill her without a second thought—was a blatant lie, sending it had nevertheless caused the already potent ache in his chest to grow heavier yet. Because she wasn't nothing to him.
She was everything.
His heart had sunk that day when he realized upon sending that message that he would never be able to go back to her, not even to watch over her from a distance. He couldn't risk it.
He couldn't bear putting her in danger like that again.
No matter that every night he dreamed of going back.
He'd then made it his mission to make sure she stayed as safe as he could possibly manage. And that had meant tracking down and taking out those who knew about her...the ones who had been behind the two HYDRA agents tracking him.
It had taken time, but in that he'd succeeded.
It was a small silver lining to being one of the best assassins in the world.
No. Iris was safer without him in her life. She was much better off. She deserved so much better than him, so much better than a damaged, broken, hollowed-out assassin who had far too much blood on his hands. Better than a man who barely had a grip on who he was, much less who he had once been. Better than a man who had left her the way he had... She deserved a good man whose worst crime was jaywalking on the way home from work. Not someone who had killed who knew how many people and toppled organizations and governments on the whims of evil men. Someone who could love her and take care of her the way he could have once, before he'd been destroyed and taken apart only to be pieced back together in a dark, mindless distortion of everything he'd been before.
A monster not even worthy of kissing her. He'd selfishly given into everything else, but that had been one thing he hadn't believed he was worthy to give her.
Yet he regretted that too.
Looking back now, he wished he had, that he could have shown her what she meant to him by simply letting himself kiss her. She was the best thing that had ever happened to him, and he had refused to even kiss her for the irrational fear that it would taint her. But part of him had also known it would have been the final admission; he loved her.
And if he'd admitted that, embraced it even, by letting himself kiss her? There was no way he would have been able to convince himself to do the right thing and leave her.
His eyes darted across the dirt-encrusted windows with their peeling frames, the nearly reflexive, calculating side of him already adding a plan to cover the grimy glass to the mental checklist he'd begun forming even as another part of him planned escape routes and analyzed tactical weaknesses to the tiny apartment.
But despite the distraction, part of him railed and raged against the way he was still trying to convince himself she was better off without him.
He knew he was definitely not better off without her in his life. The tenuous tether he'd had over his mind had weakened the farther away from her he'd run. Even the focus hunting down the people who had destroyed him and the HYDRA agents who had threatened her safety hadn't been enough to compensate. The stability and the comfort of her in his life had steadied him in a way he hadn't expected. He hadn't realized just how much of a calming, even healing effect she'd had on his shattered mind until she'd no longer been there. So much of the progress he'd made since she'd fallen into his life had eroded away with the stress and tension of being on the run...and the remorse and guilt over what he'd done to her...and the sheer hollowness in him from missing her.
He leaned back against the door, sagging beneath the weight of his guilt and his self-loathing as it pressed down on him.
He just needed to keep reminding himself that this was for the best. That she was safe because he'd left.
And he pointedly ignored that, with each passing day, it was feeling more and more like a poor consolation.
A/N: Thanks for reading!
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