My Heart's A Wall of Stone

Epilogue

Alexia's POV

They say that life isn't easy and that it only gets harder the older you get. I can not even begin to explain to you, the reader, how true that is. When I was a mere child, life was all rainbows and sunshine and kittens and family. I didn't have a care in the world. The only worries were what I was having for lunch that day and how much time I got to spend with my friends at recess. That's completely, COMPLETELY different from the way I'm living my life now.

You see, my father was the lead scientist for an organization known as HYDRA. Their main goal was to destroy SHIELD, the opposing side. They never did. My father experimented on Wanda and Pietro Maximoff first. Once he realized what his experiments could do, he sent Alexander Pierce after my mother and me. My mother died the day HYDRA took me, prisoner. I learned that day that no one, no one, could make me fall. I wouldn't let them. I made her a promise that I would be better than the people who would destroy me from the inside out.

Then I met him. The man who would become the love of my life. My everything. My world.

James Buchanan Barnes.

Bucky.

The word around HQ was that he was terrified and that I was supposed to be afraid of him. Here's the thing. Why would I be afraid of someone who was forced into what he was a part of? Killing people, the brainwashing, the horror of all the training he had to go through. I wasn't afraid of him. I wanted to help him.

I'm not going to lie, that's probably why I fell in love with him.

Most of my nights in HYDRA were either spent in his arms or screaming on a lab table.

Have you ever felt was it's like to be unmade? I have. Bucky has. Michaela had. So have Wanda and Pietro. You feel like they're taking away everything that makes you human. Your mind, your soul... Your heart. They took mine the night I escaped and placed it in front of Bucky Barnes as if to say, "This is hers. She left it for you. Don't you want it?"

And now I'm sitting here just mere months later, my whole family has gone and the only comfort in my life is my new family, My Avengers. Not to mention Bucky who is just now telling me everything that happened with Michaela. And when you realized that you killed your father, and your sister sacrificed herself for you so you could marry the man she saw you were in love with...

It's enough to tear an already broken soul to pieces.

My name is Alexia Gracelyn Carver Barnes. I'm married to Bucky Barnes and I'm happier than I ever imagined I could be. After what feels like an eternity of running away from our demons, we're finally free. We don't have to worry anymore.

Anyway, You're very privileged to be reading this. It means you got past the stone wall that had settled around my heart. Kudos to you on that one, dear friend.

Don't take life for granted. You never know who could be alive in your life one moment and dying in your arms the next. And remember, don't forget to fall in love.

It's been a bumpy ride, but it's not over. Is it?

Yours truly,

Alexia Barnes.

FIN