Saving Bucky (Bucky Barnes x Reader)

Chapter 75 - The Burden of Family

"Silke, ich habe dich endlich gefunden."

"Mikolaj?" you utter, wide-eyed and confused as the old man takes another step to you. "I...I don't understand."

"Mein kleines Mädchen," he chokes out in a broken sob.

Tears line the old man's eyes as he reaches out his hand. But the puzzle-faced Spectre grabs his shoulder and pulls him back. Mikolaj's face contorts in pain - his frail body too elderly to be handled so roughly.

"S-stop," you say weakly, fingers resting on the pod's release switch as your head buzzes, trying to understand what's happening through your exhaustion. "Don't...don't hurt him."

"Then step away, 7124," Vex sneers, a manic and wild-eyed look on her face as several strands of white hair fall from her braid. "Step away and I will tell you everything about your family. Everything about you."

My family?

Your breath catches in your throat as your head pounds all the way down into your neck. It doesn't make sense. Could this old man really be family?

"Y/n, don't." 

You jump slightly, glancing over at James who strains against the metal braces keeping him shackled to the inside of the tube.

"Don't let her get in your head," he whispers.

"He...he's my-?"

"I don't know," James says, fixing you with a piercing stare. "But we can find out. We can save him," James says gently. "But you have to let me out."

"That would be a mistake."

You turn toward Vex's cruel laugh only to see her holding her dagger - the same one you had used against her - to Mikolaj's throat.

"Release the Soldat, and the old man dies," Vex smirks. "Your choice, 7124."

"If he dies, you die," James scowls, pulling against his restraints.

"I am prepared for that outcome, Soldat," Vex sneers. "But is she?" she says, glancing to you. "Will she forgive you for the death of her grandfather?"

Grandfather?

You inhale sharply and glance towards Mikolaj, on his knees. The memory of that young girl in the photo near his bed comes rushing back. You had looked so much like her. And the eyes...the eyes had been the same. Exactly the same.

Vex is telling the truth.

He's your grandfather.

The room starts spinning as tears tumble down your cheeks. The pain in your back grows as your knees buckle, and you grab the side of James' pod to keep yourself upright.

"What fate it was for you to discover his existence on your own," Vex croons, tightening her grip on the old man who watches you with wide, frightened eyes. "Clever, clever girl. I always wondered if I had kept him too close."

"I-I don't...he's not...I-I didn't know," you stammer in confusion, your glance flitting between Mikolaj and Vex as she keeps her dagger pressed tight against his wrinkled neck.

"Of course you didn't know," she spits, irritated as the blood from her mangled hand stains the old man's collar. "He is in no condition to tell you anything. We've kept him sedated for decades."

"Sedated?" you spit angrily, glancing in horror at the old man who watches you with desperate eyes. "He's confused because of you?"

"A good thing, too," Vex sneers. "When I learned you had paid him a visit I was concerned you may have learned our little secret."