Attachment Theory - Bucky BarnesxOC

Part 40: two steps forward

18+ WARNING MINORS DNI

Bucky and Natasha's walk to the elevator is quiet. His hand reaches out to press the button, but she's faster than him. She always was, just by a hair, but sometimes that makes a difference between life or death. He smiles inwardly, knowing he helped teach her well. The doors open and they step inside.

"You didn't have to come with me."

She shrugs.

"I got back a few hours ago, and it's been a while since I bugged Bruce. Figured I'd help you out too."

He shuffles his feet.

"I look that pathetic, huh?"

She laughs.

"Not pathetic, Bucky. Scared. It's okay to be scared." Bucky nods, eyes fixed on the floor as he smiles. He can feel Natasha's eyes on him and lifts his gaze to meet hers.  "You're a lot different than the night I caught you eating Pop Tarts in the kitchen."

"I feel different," he whispers.

"Then chasing you across two continents was a good decision."

He laughs softly.

"Yeah, definitely – wait, two continents?"

"The guys went to Europe just to make sure you weren't hiding out. We had reports that The Winter Soldier was spotted in Paris."

"Well, you were half right," he replies. "I lived near an Eiffel Tower, just not the Eiffel Tower."

Natasha scoffs and shakes her head before looking him up and down again. Bucky isn't as tense as he was when she found him in the kitchen. He only had one nightmare last night, and that was before Alice was consumed by hers. The shower took his mind off of it. Sam told him that if he ever had them, he should get up, write them down and get them out of himself. Then, he should try to do something to relax instead of trying to go back to sleep and letting them consume his thoughts like poison.

So, Bucky slid out of bed, scrawled the dream in a notebook, and went to the gym, pounding out his frustrations on a punching bag. The shower was his way of trying to relax his muscles and clear his mind, letting the horrible images in his brain swirl down the drain along with the soap and sweat on his skin.

The nightmare was generic. No murder this time. Thank God. At least his brain gave him a break from that. He was back at Hydra being sliced and injected - with what, he had no idea. He mostly just remembered the pain. It felt like fire running through his veins.

Honestly, he was just surprised he didn't wake Alice up. Little did he know, she was experiencing her own hell.

"And you and Alice are good?" Natasha asks as the doors open on the basement floor.

"Better than I ever thought we would be."

"She's good for you. She's enhancing your life instead of becoming it."

Bucky doesn't necessarily see it that way. Alice and Alpine are his reasons to get up in the morning. She's the reason he never killed himself back in Vegas. When he first found her, he was at the end of his rope, wishing he could just fucking die. Sink into the earth and all of the terror and pain he caused could disappear with him. But then he saw her that first night, walking back into the dressing room. She caught his eye as he was taking a sip of his whiskey. He almost choked on it, but maintained his cool. From that second on, Bucky was head over heels for her. Totally obsessed. But he was too afraid to talk to her. He didn't know what to say, and he was certain she would just treat him like another customer or tell him to get lost.