Secretive - Bucky Barnes

45 || The Promise || slightly 🔪

[Nova]
In the next second, I throw all my luggage into a nearby bush and am on the run. The explosion has been a few hundred feet away, and I try my best to come there the quickest possible.

Smoke rises above the blown-up building like the breath of a demon, while the heat around me increases the closer I get there. Every sense of mine is at its best; without looking, I know my eyes glow golden like I just got activated by a button a second ago. There are no thoughts roaming around in my head, everything almost awfully quiet for once, and for once only. The mission is clear, and nothing else counts in that very moment – a familiar, and still unfamiliar, foreign feeling. Because for once, I am running there out of free will, and not because someone ordered me around or blackmailed me. And yet, my body reacts the same way it did every single time.

The building is on fire; the tongues of flames seemingly crave for touching the night sky, and the closer I get, the more impressive it is. The fence of the district is no challenge for me; from afar, I melt a hole in the size of my body into it; the special occasion making me grateful for the powers Lord knows who gave to me. 

I run further along the concrete road, my steps echoing heavily; it is an effort trying to concentrate on other things than the loudest. To my left and right, rocks of the former house wall lay in burned-down grass, still steaming. Some smaller, some bigger. All broken apart by the explosion either my team or the enemy created.

Seems rather like the enemy, and that is a problem.

It is due to Steve's strong but slowed down heartbeat that I stop mid-sprint next to a larger stack of grey material; the only thing breaking the steady rhythm of my footsteps, alarming in a way the explosion itself might had been.

I am next to the smoking spot in less than a second, trying to get the stones and rocks down from the still living body before anything worse happens. Not caring about where exactly I throw them at, then and now the jangle of metal erupts from further away with me hitting the fence. 

»Steve?« I ask rather loudly, hoping he would hear me. My own heart beats a little faster now, stomach dropping, in fear about him and the others. I have no idea what has happened, but from the looks of it, the mission turned out otherwise than according to the plan.

Soon enough, with his shield laying on the ground next to me, I laid most of his body free.

He looks miserable. Heart beating still, very fast from ine second to the other which worries me even more, the relaxed features of his face tell me he does not even have the strength to wrinkle them in pain. There are several injuries on his head; his temple and his lower lip, nose bleeding just as well. The golden hair of his is dirtied with ashes and smoke, his suit cut on several places, and I detect a nasty wound on his right lower abdomen; seems like someone tried to burn something into him, or he has been closer to the explosion than it was healthy. 

»Steven Grant Rogers!« I say a little louder, almost shouting, and this time, it is finally working. Slowly, agonizingly slowly, he blinks, confusion written all over on his face. The blue of his eyes sparkles still in the afterglow of a fight, regret and bitter insight still hovering through them like mist, like a damned ghost. With my fingers on his neck, convincing myself of the pulse I hear, I call for emergency with my free hand.

My glance secures the area wildly, on search for some place to hide. But there is none. Flat land, grass and concrete; no place for Steve to go. Damn it.

»Okay, Steve« I turn around, facing him. Adrenalin tingles through every nerve of mine, and I feel the need to do something and stop sitting there looking like a lost sheep. His eyes, lethargically, turn to mine. »Don't say a word. Save your energy. I want you to blink once for a yes, twice for a no. Understood?«