The Black Swan (Bucky Barnes x OC)

Chapter 21

Tape 68

Moscow, Russia
1970

She'd been sitting in that bed for an hour and didn't even know how she got there, but she knew she had to wait for someone.

Who?

She was freezing cold, her hair was dripping and she was very conscious of the drops of water falling down her back. Why was she this wet? Nothing around her gave her any clue of where she was or what she was doing there. It was a dark room, the only light was coming from the big window next to her but despite that everything in there was black. The walls, the furniture, the sheets. There was no trace of color except for the red frame around a picture of a man hanging from one of the walls. His head held high with a devilish something on his face looking back at her from the picture, like he could read every single one of her thoughts. Like he knew her better than anyone. Like he knew everything.

She felt like his eyes were following her. And she hated the idea of being stared at by him but she didn't know why.

That wasn't what caught her attention, though. Or at least not for long. She fixed her eyes on the uniform he was wearing and suddenly the image of another uniform popped into her head.

A man standing in front of her with a green uniform.

He was smiling at her.

Who was he?

Thinking of him made her feel... safe?

But how could she feel safe if she didn't even know him?

It was something else. A warm feeling in her stomach that made her feel peaceful but also... nervous. Her heart started going crazy, like the thought of that man was enough to make her heart race like that. There was no explanation.

But she knew him, didn't she?

She recognized those eyes but they felt so far away... like it was a distant memory from another lifetime.

"Hello, my beautiful swan" the same man from the picture walked into the room, fading away the memory of the man with the uniform.

Every trace of warmth was gone, now. Everything went back to cold.

She felt so little under his look. He looked older than the picture, he was probably in his late fifties and she could tell that he was losing a little bit of hair but still he came out as such a powerful person. He was tall, blonde and grey hair covering almost his entire head and his back always straight. It gave her the feeling that she couldn't even hurt him if she wanted to.

And she did want to hurt him. She just didn't know why.

"I... hello" she answered with a low voice. It didn't sound like her voice, but she didn't know how her real voice was anyways so who could tell. Maybe it was her dry throat, but still something in her pronunciation felt foreign.

"I brought you something to eat"

She waited for him to walk towards her. To come closer with the plate or something. But he just stood there, and somehow she understood the message.

It made her whole body shiver, and this time it wasn't for the cold.

She stood up from the bed and approached him, her eyes completely glued to the floor and never to his face. He scared her, whoever the hell he was. He pointed at the ground with his index finger, and she instantly sat on the cool floor.

The man stood next to her, his fingers toying with her hair while he passed the plate to her. They both stared at the middle of the room, as if it was something incredibly interesting about the king size bed. She looked at it and the fabric of the blankets seemed familiar. She got the feeling that maybe she'd slept in that bed in the past, but she clearly didn't remember.