Worth Fighting For| B. Barnes

~Three~

~~~ Flashback~~~
Sunday
May 31, 2015
11:36 PM

"Ivory Please...it's enough..." Bucky sighed wiping the angry tears from his eyes. He had given up on trying to keep himself together for Ivory hours ago. This would be Ivory's fourth time tonight, waking up in hysterics and Bucky has tried just about every tactic to keep the girl sleeping.

Currently Bucky had been laid flat on his back in bed, Ivory sat upright beside him screaming, and inconsolably crying above his head. It seemed as if Ivory went through never ending cycles where she goes from getting a good nights sleep, to never sleeping at all. Bucky wanted to understand what was wrong with the child and how it was possible for her to still be having crying outbursts midway through the night.

After a full year of raising this girl, Bucky still felt like he couldn't quite figure Ivory out.

Bucky couldn't help but wonder...Is there anything more he could've done to prevent these sudden outbursts? How else was he supposed to be helping Ivory? More importantly...Was this normal behavior for a one year old?  but it seemed as if he could never find a permanent solution to this problem.

Bucky had lost so much sleep at night not only because of Ivory still waking up at night, but because of his nightmares. Recently his night terrors had been so bad that he became accustomed to napping whenever Ivory napped, seeing as he had been more exhausted than usual.

"Uh-Uh-Da, Uh-Da!" Ivory cried angrily rubbing her eyes, then pulling at her hair.

"No Ivory, No...don't pull your hair..." Bucky sighs in frustration as he works to pry Ivory's fingers from her thick bush of curls.

"Ivory...I don't know what you want...I offered you milk and you didn't want it...I tried laying you back down and you don't want to sleep...I-I don't know what's wrong..." Bucky says trying to remain calm.

"D-Daddy, Uh-Daddy!" Ivory cries, rubbing her eyes as the man heavily sighs.

"Ivory..."

"Da-Dad-"

"Ivory...Calm down...it's late, and I know you're tired...you need to sleep..." Bucky says sitting up in the bed, staring at the girl.

"Uh-Dada...up, up!" Ivory whined, holding her arms out to the man, showing him she wanted to be held. Bucky sighed and gave in to the sad girl, wanting nothing more than for her to be at peace.

"It's okay, I'm right here..." Bucky sighed, wiping away Ivory's tears, before wiping away his own tears. Ivory continued to cry and hyperventilate as she laid her head on Bucky's bare chest and held onto the man for her life.

"Da-Daddy..."

"Shhh...it's okay, no more crying. Daddy's got you." Bucky whispered rubbing Ivory's back in soothing circles.

He then lifted Ivory onto his chest and paced around the apartment with her trying to calm her down, eventually succeeding.

"Shhh...everything is going to be okay. I got you." Bucky says rubbing Ivory's back in soothing circles as she hiccuped and traced patterns into his metal shoulder. Moments later Ivory managed to find her thumb, placing it in her mouth then used her free hand to twirl her fingers through her father's hair. It was almost as if she wanted to be sure he was still there.