The Collection- Bucky Barnes

Collision Course- i

Earth-2176.

There are two things Aurora knows for a fact. 1. She's an extremely powerful person. 2. Her husband loves her.

No. Her husband loved her. He's dead.

That new fact of life continues to slip her mind, sand through fingers. She is only snapped back to the harsh and grey reality of her life by small details. The half-empty cologne bottle in the bathroom. The single grey coffee mug now sitting alone it the cabinet. Empty right side of the bed, pillows delicately and perfectly fluffed and the comforter drawn up tautly, as always. The gun stuffed in with his socks, the gun under the sink, behind the tv in the living room.

The ziploc bag emboldened with the insignia of Mount Sinai Beth Isreal Hospital, holding his phone. His keys. His wallet.

The newly made headstone that is now staring back at her.

It must have, she realizes, been placed yesterday after she'd left. It's simple, effective. Right to the point. Something he'd like, which was what Steve had said when they decided on it. Funny, because now he doesn't like anything, since he's dead.

James Buchanan Barnes. March 10,1917- November 1, 2018.

That was it. No quote. No phrase of how great he was, what a beloved husband and friend he was. His entire life, all 101 years, summed up with his name and two dates.

Not anymore. She's going to fix it.

The air around her shifts. It turns dry, stiff. Her mouth burns at the taste of metal. Even the ground changes. Under her hands, small clods of dirt crumble and the grass begins to wither.

Aurora swallows, and then she looks up at her new company.

"Knew we'd find you here."

She hasn't seen more than one person at a time since the funeral. Three weeks and they're scared to face her in pairs or groups. Like she's a startled deer, they try to coax her back to normalcy. But she doesn't know what that is anymore. And now, Steve Rogers and Tony Stark stand above her but that isn't her first clue of something amiss.

No, the air had changed, the ground had moved. Steve is too rigid. Tony has the hands of his Iron Man suit on stealth mode, but she knows.

"I'm always here." She gets to her feet, brushing off her jeans. "But you knew that."

Where else would she go? Home? To the empty house where his memory suffocates every room, to the dog that was more his than theirs. The compound and their shared piece of escape? Back to work? There's nowhere else but here. Because here is where he is.

Her entire life, she's wondered why she was given the gift of life. The most forbidden of the arts, never to be used, only to be studied with utmost secrecy. The ability kept her from everything else. Sitting there, in the back of her mind. It forced her from her home; ostracized her from her fellow pupils in training. But with the team...they never asked. In other places, all her life, it made her different. Wrong. But with them, it made her special.

Her whole life, the gift taunted her and mocked her with the inability to use it. She had gotten away with small things. Birds and mice, raccoons and opossums on the side of the road. But obituaries and news stories haunted her. Tales of tragic accidents and reckless murders she had the power to reverse but couldn't. Not for fear of upsetting those who watch from above.

But now...Now she knows what it was all for. The waiting, the impatience, the fear, the heartbreak. It was all for this. And she'll be damned if anyone tries to get in her way.