Red Star ✴️ Bucky Barnes X Reader

7: Screams & Tears

It was nice to take a shower for the first time in a decade. 

Bowman didn't mind much for the layout of her home-sweet-prison. She could tell they really tried their best to make the space work, and she appreciated that she at least had her own bathroom. After fiddling with the handle for a minute, Bowman figured out how to turn the shower on and slowly reintroduced her skin to the feeling of warm water. 

It was nice, feeling droplets roll down her face and shoulder-length hair. It felt like tears without the pain of actually crying. For the first time since she woke, her mind was allowed to properly wander. She closed her eyes and let herself finally feel.

The sound of a dripping IV.

Being hastily ushered to a concrete room besides five other "volunteers".

The feeling of leather straps running against her skin.

Fire slowly moving through her veins so painfully slow she could feel exactly where the serum was in her body.

Screams of pain surrounding her, leaking through the walls. Coming from her throat. The screams. The screams. The screams.

A thud.

Get up Bowman, you have to get up.

Forcing herself to her feet to face her metal-armed opponent.

A punch to the face.

The throat.

Blood pooling her mouth.

Stop it. Stop it. STOP IT.

A body laying on the ground. Commands she could not comprehend surrounding her foggy brain. For some reason - an unknown reason, something just beyond her comprehension - she heard a command in her brain.

Her eyes rose to meet the Man in Red's.

Kill.

Bowman's eyes jolted open in the shower. She tasted salt on her lips. It took her a moment to realize the water droplets on her face were tears. 

She turned the shower off, hoping that somehow turning that knob would also stop her tears from flowing. Instead, her arm launched for the nearest towel and curled up on the floor as everything hit her at once.

My brain told me to kill. Kill him, yet he gave me a second chance? Why would he do that? HOW could he do that?

What if my brain does it again? What if they find out what my purpose was? My mission?

What if my brain betrays me? What if I fulfill a mission I don't want to do?

I don't want to kill. I'm not a killer. "I'm not. I'm not. I'm NOT!"

Her body shook violently with each gasp from her raspy throat. The cold air forced her to pull her towel closer and closer to her body.  Her body acted on its own, and before she could comprehend what happened, a voice echoed from outside her door.

---

Bucky sat upright. 

He had been laying against the floor, tossing a stress ball one of the doctors had given him up towards the ceiling before catching it again. But something sounded... off. 

He could barely hear the sounds coming from Steve and Bowman's neighboring rooms. He could tell both of them were taking a shower, and that Steve was singing a very off-key rendition of It's Been a Long, Long Time. But it took him a second to piece together what the new sound was. 

His heart dropped when he realized.

He could barely make out Bowman's sobs, but they were definitely there. Unsure of what to do, Bucky sat against their adjoining wall for a second, taking in the sound and trying to decide how to react. 

Do I talk to her? he wondered. She might need a friend right now, but that's probably not me considering the number of times we tried to kill each other in training. I wonder if she even remembers that. 

The sobs only continued to worsen, slowly turning from grief into painful yelps. He heard her shower shut off, only amplifying the painful sounds.

...I should do something. No person who makes that sound deserves to be alone. But what do I do? What do I say? Do I knock on her door? "Hey, I heard your wails of pain and anguish through the wall, do you wanna talk?" Like? That makes me sound like a stalker. Or a creep. Probably both. 

Suddenly, a scream. "I'm not, I'm not, I'm NOT!"

Then, a loud slam.

Fuck. 

That was enough to snap Bucky out of his thought process and jump to his feet, nearly running out his bedroom door to hers. "BOWMAN?" he yelled out, knocking on her door. "Bowman, are you okay? It sounded like you fell."

"I-I'm fine!" she answered with a wavering voice. "I'm... I'm..."

Her voice trailed off. She sounded like she was choking. 

Against his better judgement, Bucky opened the metal flap of her door. "Bowman? Are you hurt?"

There she stood, wrapped in a towel. Across the room was her showerhead that she had ripped from her shower and flung across the room. Droplets of water sputtered from the cord while concrete crumbled from a small dent in the wall the showerhead created.

Bowman's eyes snapped to the door, seeing a set of blue, piercing eyes stare back at her. Her eyes were filled with a guilty anger as tears ran down her face. She seemed more pissed that he saw her crying than he saw her in a towel.

"What the FUCK are you doing!?!"

"Sorry!" Bucky squealed, closing the metal door as quickly as he had opened it. He just stood by the door, waiting for her to say something, curse him out, start crying again, anything.

It was silent.

"... Are you oka--"

"LEAVE ME ALONE."

"Right! Right." he stammered, turning on his heels and returning to his room.