Electric / Steve Rogers x OC x Bucky Barnes ✓

Chapter 36: James Buchanan Barnes

BUCKY 

I wake up startled, covered in sweat. I am panting as I look around in a panic, until I realize I'm in my room at the Avengers compound. Once I settle down a bit and my heart rate reaches a normal state I plop back down on my bed. Another nightmare. Great.

They always used to be the same thing. Me, being captured, the first few months of torture by Hydra. Brainwashing. More torture. Brainwashing. Electrocutions. More brainwashing. I remember the grey walls and the dirty floor. My room which was not a room, but a prison cell. A tiny bed. Nothing familiar, nothing safe, nothing comforting.

But then, after Bucharest, they changed. Ever since then they have been different.

They are no longer about me. Now, they're about Madeline.

I see her, in the chair, over and over again, being tortured. I see them forcing her to feel pain. See them use that damn glowing thing on her to provoke her powers. I see her light up in blue, I see the explosions and then I see her. Over and over again. Her big blue eyes, looking into mine. Pleading. Asking me to save her. And I see myself, ignoring her, leaving, not realizing because I was too far gone. And then I hear her scream as I leave. The same, terrifying, piercing scream.

After Steve found me and I left Hydra and went into hiding, I left Madeline too without realizing. It took me a while to rescue her. I needed to remember before I could. I would be in my apartment, waking up in terror and all I could remember was a pair of big blue eyes staring into my soul.

I rescued her before Steve found me in Bucharest. I brought her with me there - Steve didn't know that. When he found me and tried to help me then, she was there. Hiding. And when the police came for me and I ran, Steve and T'Challa following me, she was still hiding in the bathroom.

They found her and brought her to Fury. And because she had been under for much less time, they were able to save her. She remembered who she was, what she stood for. Remembered that her family was gone. Realized that these people were the only family she would have. Well, them and me.

When I went to Wakanda I knew she was safe with Fury. He had told me so himself. But I don't think he told Steve. I think he just told Steve that he had found a new recruit and that she was training with the other recruits.

The first thing I did when Fury wanted to bring me back was to ask about her. If she was safe. And he told me she was here, training, quickly on her way to becoming an Avenger. Part of the reason why I wanted to come back here was to be near her, close to her. Protect her. I didn't know about her and Steve when I came back.

And once I finally spoke to Steve I realized he didn't know about her. He knew I knew her, he knew that we were close. But he didn't know who she was, who she is. What she's capable of. And he definitely doesn't know that I was in love with her back then. And that I might still be...

When Steve told me about him and Madeline at lunch, I was devastated. I tried to hide it. Tried to play it off like I always do. Despite everything, I never told him I had feelings for her because I wasn't sure myself. I didn't fully realize until I went to Wakanda and thought about her every day, wondering how she was doing and how she was feeling.

Shuri was actually the one who made me fully realize. When she worked on my brain we would talk afterwards. Every day. She would ask me if I remembered, she would test me and my brain and eventually she started to ask about my relationships with people. Steve and Madeline always came up.

Steve was there for me through childhood but Madeline was there for me through a much more difficult time. The time after I left Hydra, after I went back and destroyed everything in that base and saved her. And we would talk every night about our lives. She would help me remember -she would tell me stories about us. Stories she had heard, that she still remembered because for her it had only been months. For me it had been 70 years.