|1| Promise Me ✦ {Bucky Barnes}

Chapter 14: Lost in the Moment

A/N: Hey guys! I hope you're all doing well. The next chapter is out for you all to enjoy! 

On a side note, who's excited for Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings? I'm seeing it in two days, and I'm super excited to just go back to a movie theatre for the first time since covid. And for those of you who have seen it, who else LOVED Black Widow?!

Anyway, happy reading!

- Harper E. Pierce

BRIAR:

"The news is loving you guys. Nobody else is. There's been no official call for Banner's arrest, but it's in the air." We were back on the quinjet, heading somewhere safe. After all the damage that happened on the African Coast and Ultron trying to find us, there was no way we could go back to New York now. I texted Bucky to let him know I was okay, but with everything that happened, we couldn't go home. He seemed happy to know I was fine. But I actively avoided telling him about the memory.

It wasn't just me who had their mind fucked with. If I was, I would've gone to Nat. But she was pretty shaken from her own encounter with the witch. Steve, Thor and even Bruce were all manipulated by Wanda's magic. Worst of all, Bruce as the Hulk. That's what most of the damage was caused by and why we couldn't go home.

I was still sitting on the floor, with my arms hugging my knees and staring at the ground like hours ago. Except now I was completely silent, like the rest of us. But my head was louder than ever.

I went with them willingly kept echoing in my head. Why had I repressed that? I repressed so much of it that my mind changed aspects of the memory. What else had I blocked out of my memory? What other horrible things had I done in my past? Part of me didn't want to know, and that part was definitely the one blocking these memories out.

Zola tricked me. He tricked me into thinking he'd actually let Bucky live free. But no. They killed him in front of my eyes... but they didn't really kill him. Bucky was back home in New York. He had been alive all these years. Zola broke the deal, regardless of whatever he said about the man he killed outside the base. I knew now that man wasn't Bucky. The shooter was.

That was the worst part. They used him to trick me. They dangled him in front of my face so obviously, just to take him away seconds later. They used his old uniform and shot a prisoner. And they used him to do it. Like they were getting rid of Bucky Barnes for good and making him their puppet. And they were doing it just to spit in my face. HYDRA had me fooled this whole time.

By the time they released Bucky, it would've been too late. They would've wiped his brain already like they did mine and given him that metal arm. This was Zola's plan the whole time. How could I have been so stupid?

I did it all for nothing. I gave away real information on nuclear bombs. I contributed to the Cold War. I spied on my home for them. I killed for them. And I did it because I believed a lie. They say a hero will sacrifice their most loved one to save the world. And a villain would sacrifice the world to save their most loved one. I couldn't do either. I betrayed both. What did that make me? Purely evil, or just a stupid, naive little girl?

"How's the team?" I came out of my thought-spiral when I heard Maria ask over the phone.

"Everyone's..." Tony sighed, feeling unable to lie, "we took a hit. We'll shake it off,"

"Well for now I'd stay in stealth mode, and stay far away from here."

"So, run and hide?"

"Until we can find Ultron, I don't have a lot else to offer." Maria's tone was grim.