Secretive - Bucky Barnes

15 || Fair

»You did what?« James's eyes are as big as I would have choked him for several minutes, his lashes creating a quiet stroking sound when they move along the skin beneath his dark eyebrow. Every color left his face, piece by piece with every word that I said. Standing stop and still and pulling his hand out of mine, he looks at me staggered, as if I just declared the end of this world instead of me creating some Serum for Hydra. »I literally told you what they did to me back then, and you had nothing better to do than to generate a new one?!«

Putting my hands into my hips, I turn into his direction, dark hair swinging with the movement. »What should I have done? Let you die?«

»Yes! Obviously.« he growls, turning away for a second as if he could not bear my sight. 

I knew he would not react very well to this. I knew it for years, and I tried to prepare myself for the very likely incoming pain. For the anxiety that would set in with the same force of a rumbling volcano finally erupting, but still, it was not enough. My heart contracts at the pure, rough hurt depicted in his eyes, him having stopped long ago to hide anything from me at all. »No, obviously not.«

Exhaling once deeply to keep his calm, James steps closer, his dark brown hair shining beneath the moonlight, the snow crunching beneath every of his steps. Underneath his breath, he continues, probably just so he would not start yelling. Although I deserved it. »You're so lucky mostly Sam, and a little bit of me, too, already dealt with that.«

»If you believe Nagel's Serum was mine, you're wrong. That guy took way too long, and regardless that he claimed it, his Serum was far from perfect. In my belief, John Walker should soon get the final clue and start searching for mine.«

James shudders all over, his arms waving through the air exasperated. He is tensed from head to toe, building up in my front, but I know he would never hurt me, not even now, and it is just him getting angry, trying to cope with the rage boiling inside his veins. For a very good reason. »Despite the fact that I can't believe you're proud to be so fast in creating it, you know about John Walker?«

Scoffing, I cross my arms in front of my chest, stepping from one foot to the other in discomfort. »I saw that guy even before he became the new Captain America.« And although I had my differences with Steve as well as good times, it sounds poisonously wrong to call anyone else but him with that title. »Before the Blip. Do you remember, before the world fell apart, when I called you in the middle of the night to pick me up in that club in New York? With my friends, because Lucas took a shot?« A dark brow raises, and I take it as a sign to continue. »Lucas didn't drink accidentally. Walker hit on me, and I told him that I had no interest and actually was taken, and Lucas didn't really get along with the news all too well.«

»You've got to be kidding me« James groans, laying his head into his neck and rubbing his hands through is face. »Why didn't you tell me?«

»Well, even though I didn't know about the whole Winter Soldier thing, I did know that you tend to get a little jealous.« At his disbelieving, stunned expression, I raise my hand, directing my thumb and my index finger close to one another like the Italian expression but in reverse. »A little.«

»I don't get jealous that easily.«

»Oh, really? So, you didn't beat up your best friend half-way to death?« Now, I am the one cocking an eyebrow, tightening the grip around myself. I know what I am doing here is nothing more, nothing less than distracting, and it will not last for much longer. But I could not stop myself from it, still want to avoid the peak of the conflict already incoming with a huge parade in its back.

»That was because you fucking slept with him. That's something else than a guy flirting with you in a dance club.«

»We weren't even together when that happened.« I snap, tone scolding, but it dies out as soon as his death glare reaches my eyes, his gaze cold enough, it makes the gold in my veins freeze. »I'm sorry, okay? But I won't let you die. Not if I can prevent it, no matter the cost.«