Saving Bucky (Bucky Barnes x Reader)

Chapter 50 - Disturbing Origins

Sometimes words in all their meaning, mean nothing. Even when they mean more than anything they have before. 

And as James speaks you hear the words he's saying. On their own, one by one, you understand them. But strung together you're suddenly unable to comprehend their meaning. You stare at him blankly but he waits, a single warm hand gently resting on your cheek. That hand is too warm and you pull away, pushing yourself farther down the bed away from the words that mean nothing. Because if they meant something, then everything you've believed about yourself, everything you were ever told, would be a lie.

"Y/n," James whispers as you back away, wide-eyed. "Do you want to read them?"

"Read what?" you ask, disoriented and detached.

"The documents," James says, brow furrowing in concern as he points towards the holographic terminal a few feet away.  "They're about you, princess. It's...everything. I think. Where you came from. Why you were taken. Why you have to take those pills."

"It explains the pills?" you ask breathlessly, still hazy on exactly what James is asking you, struggling to focus.

 James nods. "The pills and more. It even talks about your family. Gabe, he-"

"Family?" you ask, interrupting as your gaze cuts to James' ice-blue eyes. "N-no," you stammer. "I don't have a family. Gabe told me I don't have a family h-he said I didn't have a family h-h-he said we were -" your mouth continues to move, but words stop coming as your body goes entirely numb. 

"No, that's not true," James says. "You did have a family. A mother. A father. And...a brother. Older. By a few years."

You let out a strangled gasp as adrenaline causes your pulse to race.

"Wh-what happened to them?" you ask in a small whisper.

James presses his lips together and frowns, hesitating before holding out a hand to you, offering to pull you back in to his arms. But you pull back, demanding an answer. James sighs and pulls back his hand. 

"Your parents both died when you were six," James says tenderly. "And your brother...the documents don't say. They don't trace him. They only follow you."

You shake your head, tears brimming in your eyes. The noise in your head gets louder and you struggle to get full breaths as you move even further down the bed, nearly at the foot, your gaze stuck on the blue eyes that seem to be the only safe thing in the room.

"You're starting to panic, Y/n," you hear James say in a low, even voice. "I need you to stay calm."

You move back again, partially falling from the end of the bed but catching yourself as you stagger to your feet and retreat further into your room, away from the holographic terminal. Your gaze flits rapidly between it, and James, who remains seated on your bed - unmoving. He's unnaturally still as he watches you, as if moving might scare you away for good. For several long minutes you're stuck, a butterfly in a web, wings tangled in a sticky mess as you try to sort through the confusion in your chest and the pain in your head. 

"Y/n." Your gaze cuts to the voice that utters your name - soft and sincere. Those blue eyes watching. "I'm here."

At those two simple words your knees weaken. You throw out an arm to catch yourself on the edge of the sofa, but before you can James has already leapt from your bed and crossed the room, using his right arm to pick you up by your waist, holding you tightly to his chest as you wrap your legs around him and bury your face in his neck, chest-heaving sobs breaking free from their prison as tears soak through the fabric of his t-shirt.

James simply holds you like that, pressing gentle kisses to your cheeks, in your hair, on your ear - wherever he can reach. He whispers quiet affirmations as you cry. Tears of anger. Of confusion. Of grief. Mourning a loss you never knew you had experienced. The harder you cry the brighter your vision becomes as colors start to blur together, and a pounding sets in behind your ears.