There Are Such Things As Wizards || Bucky Barnes

8- Nightmares Part 2

Bucky had awoken from another nightmare dripping in sweat. It took him a few minutes to relax and calm down from reliving another day of his past. Once he had finally calmed down, excitement grew in his chest. He and Elaina had been spending a lot of time together since facing their boggarts together. It became so common for the two to have chats in the middle of the night after waking from their dreams.

He walked down to the kitchen expecting for Elaina to already be there, but all the lights were off. He turned on the light, grabbed himself a glass of water, and waited. After a few minutes she still didn't show. Disappointed, he put his empty glass in the sink and started making his way back to his room. On the way he noticed the light in her den was on and the door slightly open.

He gently knocked and peeked his head inside. Elaina's back was to him with her wand to her temple. She slowly pulled her wand away as a glowing silver string held on to the tip of her wand before she dropped it into a tiny glass jar and corked it shut. "Hi," he said, staring at her.

"Merlin's beard, Bucky, what are you doing here?" a hand flew up to her chest. "I was waiting for you in the kitchen." "Oh right, sorry, I just had to do this first." she answered, gesturing to the jar and labeling it. "What is that exactly?" "A memory, some of them are dreams, other's nightmares." She put the jar away in a cabinet with other jars just like it, filled with bits of silver.

"So you're wiping your memory of your nightmares and putting them in jars?" She shook her head. "Not exactly. I'm not the best at memory charms. All of these memories that are in these jars are still up here." She points to her temple, "I just do this to push the nightmares to the back of my head so I won't be thinking of them all the time and give myself a panic attack."

Bucky nodded and thought for a moment. "Could you do that with me?" Elaina looked at him with shock. "Are you sure you want that? I would have to look into your mind in order to see what you want me to take out. Are you okay with that?" He nodded again, "I trust you and I just want as many of these memories out as possible. I just want to warn you-" "Bucky, I will not judge you for your past, don't worry about me." She smiled up at him. "Just let me know when you want to start."

The next morning, Bucky woke up extremely nervous. He and Elaina agreed to wait till morning to start helping him with his memories. He desperately wanted to open up to Elaina, but the thought of her looking into his head and seeing what he did in his most recent nightmare terrified him. Elaina was nervous as well. She knew Bucky had been through a lot, but she didn't know the extent of the missions he had been on as the Winter Soldier.

Bucky had walked down to her den after breakfast and found her pulling one of Tony's Arc Reactors from a Niffler. "I don't know how she keeps getting her bloody paws on these." She said when she noticed Bucky walk in the room. He smirked and sat in an empty chair by her desk. She put the Arc Reactor on her desk and sat in the empty chair beside him. "Now, I just want to reiterate that this is only a temporary fix and that I can do this for you whenever you want a memory pushed to the back of your mind. If you want something more permanent, I can find someone who is more keen with memory charms than I am, but I can't guarantee that the words won't have an effect on you." he nodded, taking in her words. "I think I'll just stick with this for now." She gave him a small smile and nodded, "Are you ready?" He sighed, "Let's do this."

"Legilimence."

December 16th, 1991

    The Winter Soldier waited patiently in the dark for his next victims. Once the car drove by, he turned the headlight on his bike on and followed them. He rode up next to the car, pulled a knife from his pocket and threw it into the tire, causing the car to spin off the road and head first into a tree.

    He hopped off the bike and made sure to not leave evidence by pulling the knife out of the tire. He then opened the trunk and found exactly what he was looking for. He then heard the couple inside the car start groaning in pain. The Soldier made his way to the driver's side first pulling the man from the car. "Howard!" The woman screamed for her husband. The Soldier held the man by the back of the head causing him to look up at him. "Sergeant Barnes?" The man asked almost as a plea to stop. But the Soldier didn't know who Sergeant Barnes was. The Soldier then repeatedly bashed his metal fist into the man's head until he was dead.

    Once he was finished, he dragged the body back into the car and propped the head against the steering wheel. The woman cried over her now late husband before the Soldier made his way around the car to her. He opened the passenger door and wrapped his right hand around her throat and squeezed until he felt the blood slowly stop pumping under his fingertips. After he released her neck, he noticed a security camera aimed right at the crime scene. He made his way around the car one last time and shot the camera. After placing his weapon back in the holster, he grabbed the contents from the trunk and left.

    Elaina didn't know what to say after witnessing that. She knew he wasn't in his own mindset when he did this and couldn't help but feel for him. "James... I'm so sorry you were forced to do that." He nodded in acknowledgement and could feel that she had many questions to ask him. "Y-you can ask me about it, if you want."  "Do you remember when it was?" "December 16th, 1991" she nodded and wrote his name and the date on a label and stuck it onto a small vial.

    "Alright, are you ready?" she asked, placing the tip of her wand at his temple. "Wait, that's all you wanted to ask me?" He asked, pushing her wand away, confused why she didn't want to know more. "Bucky, I am not an interviewer. Everything you tell me from your past, I want you to tell me willingly. I am not going to force any information out of you." He nodded and looked down. "Those were Tony's parents."

    Elaina was shocked and was filled with so many questions. Not wanting to contradict what she just told him, she stayed silent and waited for him to continue. "Tony knows, he says he forgives me and knows it wasn't really me but sometimes I don't feel like he forgives me." "Well forgiveness takes time, and I'm sure enough time has passed for Tony since he is allowing you to stay here. The most important thing is you take the time to forgive yourself."

He knew she was right. He gave a small nod and sat back in the chair, allowing her to put the tip of her wand to his temple again. He felt some tension along his forehead, as if the memory was being pushed right to the center and then pulled out of his head. He saw the similar silver string at the tip of her wand and then dropped it into the vial and corked it.

Bucky felt a sense of relief as the memory seemed to fade a bit. He relaxed, letting his shoulders drop as if a weight was physically pushed off of them. "How do you feel?" He gave her a sincere smile, "Better. Thank you." "Anytime," she smiled back and stood up to put the vial in the cabinet with all her memories.

Bucky had suddenly got a strange wave of confidence. It was as if all of his 40's charm came back to him in that one second. "You know that offer of taking a ride on my bike still stands, I'd love to take you out as a proper thank you." He said walking up to her with a small smirk on his face. Her smile grew wider as she nodded excitedly. "I'd love to." "Friday?" She nodded again, "I can't wait." He smiled and leaned down to give her a kiss on the cheek before walking to the door.

As he got closer to the door he noticed a familiar picture on the wall. "Where is this picture from?" She furrowed her eyebrows and walked over to him to get a better look at what moving image he was talking about. She laughed slightly when she realized what image it was. It was a photo of these two boys laughing and making fools of themselves in front of the camera.

"That photo was taken by my mentor Newt Scamader in 1926 when he was in New York City writing his book Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Whilst he was here, he took photos in some tourist destinations. So when he was taking a picture of Washington Square Park, these two boys jumped in and made faces trying to mess up his photo. Obviously, they didn't know he was a wizard and that we have moving images, so the photo caught the whole interaction. Newt knew I loved hearing that story so he let me keep the photo."

"Did you ever find out who those two boys were?" She furrowed her eyebrows at his question. "No, why?"

"Elaina, that's me and Steve."