You wake up screaming. You were used to this after almost 20 years of waking up from the same nightmare every single night. You always remembered the dream, how could you not? It was a memory: the night your parents were killed by the Winter Soldier.
You had been at home, sitting at the kitchen table doing your homework. Your dad was in the kitchen making your favorite meal when your mom came running in with a gun. She was screaming about how everyone had to leave, about how they had to get you out of there before it was too late.
She was screaming until a bullet went through the back of her head and she fell face first to the floor.
A man with a metal arm and a mask on his face appeared in the doorway. Your dad pulled a gun out of nowhere and told you to run. The only problem was you were frozen in your seat, staring at your mom and at the blood pooling around her head.
When you look up, your dad was falling to the ground with the same hole in his head. The metal-armed man turned to you. He raised his gun, aiming it at your forehead but before he could pull the trigger, sirens sounded and flashing lights were visible through the windows. The man looked at them for a few seconds before slipping silently out of the back door. That's when you screamed in horror and how you always woke up.
At the time, you didn't understand why your parents were killed or who that man was. That was before you learned that your parents had worked for SHIELD. Your father had been the target as he was the head of the science department. He had been on the cusp of inventing a technology that would be able to destroy the world. Your mother had just gotten in the way.
You hadn't been aware of your parent's significance until you were in your senior year of college. You were working at a bakery in D.C. to try to pay off your already looming student loan debt when a black man with an eyepatch walked in and asked for introduced himself as Director Nicholas Fury of SHIELD. He told you about your parents and apologized for their death. He asked if you wanted to join SHIELD, saying that if you were even half as good as your parents, you would be incredible.
You had told him to give you a week to think about it. You ended up accepting his invitation, deciding you wanted to work in the scientific division as a chemist.
At 24, you became the youngest person to ever run the Biochemical Weapons lab.
At 25, you were the only person to survive an explosion in the lab you were running.
One second you had been helping one of the interns write the correct chemical formula for Ethylene glycol and the next you woke up in the hospital with a pounding headache. You didn't go back to work for almost six months.
A week after you came back, you had been absentmindedly daydreaming on your lunch break. You were busy thinking that another explosion would destroy another lab. It was only until you found yourself being shaken out of it by Director Fury himself that you realized something was wrong.
You allowed test upon test to be run on you as everyone tried to figure out what you had done. It turns out that what you had been thinking up in your head was being seen by everyone else as though it was actually happening. You ended up calling it Reality Creation. The chemical explosion had given you the ability to create an alternate reality within your own. You could make people be in a situation that wasn't even happening. They would be living that reality until you dismantled it.
Nick] had wanted you to switch to the field agent side of things. You refused, happy to be working in your lab and ignoring the very existence of your powers. You didn't want to hurt anyone. That all changed when Loki arrived on Earth You joined the Avengers, figuring you could help save the world and then go back to manufacturing biochemical weapons in peace when it was all over.
You had made friends with all of the Avengers and had even been offered a place of residence at Avengers Tower. You declined but would allow yourself to be called away from your lab to help save the world when it was needed.
You finally became a full-time Avenger when Natasha Romanoff and Steve Rogers were being called fugitives and you found out that you had been developing weapons for Hydra. You found out that you had been building weapons to supply the Winter Solider, the man that killed your parents. You had then happily accepted a spot at Avengers Tower and were now a member of a family.
That's why every morning, Bruce would let himself into your room to calm you down from your nightmare. That's why every morning, Steve had a cup of tea waiting for you in the kitchen to help ground you. That's why every morning, Natasha and Clint invited you to spar to get your anger out. That's why every afternoon, you would go through books that Thor had brought you from Asgard to help you learn about your powers. That's why every night, you spent your time in the lab with Tony drinking and trying to delay the inevitableness of sleep.
That all changed when Steve Rogers brought the Winter Soldier to the Tower. It turns out, the Winter Soldier was his old best friend, James Buchanan 'Bucky' Barnes, and that he had been brainwashed. He hadn't wanted to kill your parents. He hadn't wanted to use the weapons you had helped develop. He hadn't wanted to do anything that he had been forced to do for the past 70 years.
Nowadays, you mostly kept to yourself. Bruce still came to calm you down but Steve now brought you the tea. You worked out by yourself with a punching bag hanging in the corner of your room. You had read all of the books from Asgard, so you wasted time on Netflix. You drank by yourself every night, hoping that for once, you wouldn't remember the death of your parents.
A knock on your door brings you out of your head and to the present. You call out a weak 'come in,' expecting Bruce. But instead, the door opens to reveal the Winter Soldier. Bucky, you correct yourself, you needed to call him Bucky. You tried not to look afraid; you tried to fight the urge to trap Bucky in a reality that would force him to relive the death of your parents.
As you internally struggled, he walked over slowly as to not spill the tea he carried in his hand. Wait, why was he bringing you tea? You didn't realize you had voiced your question aloud, so you jumped when Bucky spoke, "They were called on a mission to take down a Hydra base. They left me here and they didn't want to bother you."
This was becoming more and more common. You barely went on missions anymore. You remember on one of your rare ventures out of your apartment overhearing Steve and Natasha discussing you, you had caught only a few words: therapist, depression, and PTSD.
You knew they were right, but you didn't want to accept it, you couldn't. You dragged yourself out of your head to reply to Bucky, "But...how did you know I had tea in the morning?" Your voice was hoarse from the screaming, one of the reasons you liked the tea.
"I watch Steve make it every morning. He brings it to you after Banner comes up here." He keeps himself away from you, looking about as scared as you felt. "I just thought you would want to know that they weren't here and I figured I could make it for you, but I'll leave you alone now."
You had never told Bucky what he had done, but you figured someone had. That must be why he looked terrified. He didn't want you to use your powers on him or maybe he felt bad for scaring you. You call out to him before he leaves, "I'd never trap you in a reality, you know. Even though you...killed my parents. I would never do that to you."
He pauses, turning around to face you, "I know. Everyone speaks highly of you, even though you've been up here since I got here." He sighs, his eyes closing before he speaks again, "I know this isn't any consolation, but I'm sorry about your parents. I didn't want to kill anyone but they made me. If I didn't do what they told me, they would torture me. They used to use regular weapons until some scientist invented these biochemical weapons and those made it so much worse."
"Did you...did you just say biochemical?" You had lowered your mug from your face. You had always thought he had used them, not that Hydra had used them on. "They used biochemical weapons on you? You didn't use them?"
"No, they didn't have time or effort enough to teach me how to, but they had enough time and effort to use them on me." He had opened his eyes again, looking sorrowful but less terrified of you.
You set your mug down and slide out of bed. "I'm...I'm so sorry." You walk over to him, leaving a foot of space between the two of you, "How are you even alive? I...I made sure that those weapons were lethal." You were worried about what the admission to inventing them would bring about.
He lets out a scoff of disbelief as he looks at you. You hear his arm shifting as he clenched and unclenched his hand. He finally spoke, "I guess we're even then. I kill your parents, you invent weapons to torture me." Before you could say that you didn't know that you were inventing them for Hydra, he continues, "I know you didn't know why you were inventing them but I didn't know why I was killing your parents. I know that's not the same on any level whatsoever, but I just don't want you to be scared of me and avoid your friends because of it. I've kinda had enough of people being terrified of me."
You accidentally let out a laugh at that, realizing that of course, a friend of Steve's had to be snarky. You almost apologize for laughing, but the small smile on his face stops you. You take a breath, "I'm never going to be over my parents dying. I figure if I was ever going to be, I would have been when I was 15. But, I think I can manage to try to forgive the guy who did it because he didn't want to do it as much as I didn't want them to die."
Bucky nods, letting out a rush of air that he must have been holding it, "I know this may sound forward, but do you maybe want to watch a movie or something? I usually hang out with Steve but seeing as he's not here and I really, really hate being alone after everything that happened..."
You cut him off before he rambled, "Give me 10 minutes and we can spar in the gym. Then we can watch a movie." His utter and complete human nature was playing in his favor. You had always pictured him as a mindless drone who didn't know right from wrong. That was true when he was still with Hydra, but since he had broken free, he had obviously regained those human traits. You also suddenly realized you had never actually talked to him since he arrived two months ago and that had likely been playing into your fear.
He smiles, this one more visible than the last, "Okay. That sounds good. Can I, uh wait in your living room? I don't really know where the gym is." He looked down at his shoes, his hair blocking his face from your view.
"Of course. Make yourself comfortable." You shut the door behind him and turn to lean against it. You couldn't believe how easy that had been. You were both aware that you were still uncomfortable around him and now that he knew you had developed weapons that had been used to torture you, he had something to hold against you. But the thing was, neither of you seemed to be bitter about it. Sure, you would always be bitter about your parent's murder, but you could separate the man sitting in your living room from the machine that had killed your parents.
It also helped that he looked really cute when he smiled.
Woah.
Where had that come from?
You shake your head as if you were trying to physically remove the idea from your brain. You may be forming a slow friendship with him, but you couldn't possibly think the man was cute, could you? Wouldn't that be wrong?
You had just said that he and the man who killed your parents were practically different people, so...it wouldn't be that bad if you thought he was cute. You push yourself off of the door as you down the rest of your tea and move to put on your workout clothing, totally not deep in thought about how his eyes were really pretty and how his hair probably was silky smooth.
You manage to put all thoughts out of your head as you step out of your room. You blink in surprise, your living room looked actually kind of clean for once. Your eyes landed on Bucky, who was straightening your pillows. He looked over at you sheepishly when you stepped out, "Sorry...I'm used to cleaning up after Steve."
"No, it's totally okay. I've uh...been neglecting basically any kind of care that isn't reliant to me not dying." Why did you just say that? This is the second conversation you've had with this man and you're telling him something that you had been in denial about since you had stopped your routine.
Bucky replied before you could apologize for springing the information on him, "I know how that feels. It's okay." You didn't quite understand how this guy who had 70 years of brainwashing seemed more mentally stable than you, but you figured that could be a conversation for another time, "So...sparring?"
"Yeah, sparring. Let me just grab us water." You wander over to the small kitchen, grabbing two bottles and filling them. You walk over to him, handing him one of the bottles and trying to ignore the feeling in your chest when his fingers brushed yours. What the hell was wrong with you?
You gesture from him to lead the way to the elevator, trailing after him and totally not checking out his ass. You had no idea what kind of crack your brain was on, why were you checking out this guy you had just met? You step into the elevator, telling Jarvis to take you to the gym as you sink back into your brain.
Whatever was going on would serve itself to be interesting because you could feel Bucky's eyes on you. When you look over at him, he quickly moves his stare forward, but you could see the faint pink on his neck. You smile to yourself as you look forward, this was going to be fun.
Expose yourself
to your deepest fear;
after that,
fear has no power,
and the fear of freedom
shrinks and vanishes.
You are free.
Jim Morrison
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Disclaimer: I don't own the MCU. If I did, Tony Stark would be alive and well with his 5 children. (Dumm-E, Harley, Peter, Nebula, and Morgan)
The title is based on the song Gasoline by Halsey.