Bucky Barnes/ Winter Soldier Imagines

Regrets We Keep, Love We Earn

soulmates au babyy

Bucky Barnes is staring at a blank on his S.H.I.E.L.D. file and wondering how in the hell he's supposed to fill it in. It is not the only one of such imposing empty lines, obviously, the sheer quantity of things that Bucky may or may not have done in his life that he has no idea about could probably fill another twelve dossiers or so, but this one in particular is enough to fill him with significant trepidation.

For once, this specific box to check likely marks empty spots on the files of many other S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, those both ex-brainwashed Russian killers and not. It's a box that even civilians can go their whole lives without ever seeing filled. Usually, you hope that you'll be able to find your soulmate before you take your last breath on this world but, well, no one's ever lucky one hundred percent of the time. Someone always has to be the loser, the kid who gets picked last for schoolyard games, the guy who can't manage to find his meant to be before it's too late.

Somewhere inside, Bucky harbors a fear that the guy might be him. After all, what are the odds that he'd get to find his soulmate after the weird life he's led? For all he knows, he left his soulmate behind in the 40s. Maybe they were supposed to meet him after he came back from fighting in the war and their paths never crossed once Bucky fell from that train. The visual makes his heart ache, picturing some woman growing old by herself all because he couldn't manage to come back from that mission.

In fact, his soulmate could have been born during any time over the last hundred years or so. Bucky has been put into and come out of the ice over so many years that it would be impossible to map out any decade when he should have found his soulmate but just didn't. In truth, he half wonders if he even has a soulmate at all. Were it not for the mark, he's fairly sure he'd be able to talk himself out of thinking it was possible. After all of the horrible things Bucky has done, why should he deserve someone like a soulmate?

Yet the mark remains. Everyone has one, even if they haven't managed to track down their soulmate yet. The idea is simple enough, although heaven knows it's been analyzed so many times by self called scholars that everyone has a different take on it. Most people can agree on the bare minimum, though. Your soulmate's biggest regret is written in their handwriting on your chest, right above the heart like an arrow between the ribs.

If you can use that scrap of information to find them, great. Bucky's heard thousands of stories over the years of couples locating each other through the smallest of hints, the biggest of coincidences. His parents both regretted a train they never took and met one night wandering the city alone, wondering about the places they should have been.

When his mother died when Bucky was just a kid, his dad's mark changed to something about not treasuring the little moments. Bucky thought that's what his would be when his father died a few years later, but he's committed enough atrocities now to wash out such a commonplace regret.

It's strange to think about what mark would be on his soulmate's body now, if she's still alive and not a corpse buried in time by now. What would it possibly say? Bucky has enough regrets to fill a thousand caskets, and he seems to be working towards that with every new job he takes. Bucky hurts and tortures and kills. It is the only thing he has known for quite some time. If he had any regret, it would be that someone has kept him alive for so long that he could have accomplished all these grievous tasks.

All these twists of fate have still led him to the same place, though, sitting in the S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters and staring at his file. One of the agents in charge of handling the Avengers has handed over the manila dossier in the hopes of coaxing some more information out of him. Instead, it's sent Bucky spiraling on a tangent of what he deserves in this life. Does he really get a soulmate after everything he's done? Or should he damn himself to solitude in some desperate plea for penance?