GROW (BUCKY BARNES x OC)

35

Panic. Terror. Fear.

It felt suddenly as if her past two years in the Tower had been some kind of dream, and now she was awake. She wake awake, but this wasn't reality. It was a nightmare.

Chris had found her. He was coming for her. He had made it inside the Tower, inside her home and entered her bedroom to leave the package and kill her plants. Why he didn't just abduct Aurora right then and there if he had access to the Tower, she didn't know. She was the only one on the floor. She was alone.

Her panic attack seemed more intense than it'd ever felt before. Her heart was pounding so fast she thought it might've stopped altogether. Her chest squeezed together and the walls of the room came rolling forward. She was trapped. Imprisoned.

She could feel him there, watching her, looking for her weakest spot before attacking. She could feel the blows as if they were happening in real time. The agony of each contact made her bones tremble. His hands were touching her. She had forgotten that awful feeling but now it came back clear as day. She might've vomited, but it was hard to tell when everything was blurry and her lungs were gasping for breath anyway.

Aurora was powerless as he hurt her. She could do nothing. She was weak, so weak. Aurora wanted to fade into the blackness, to fall unconscious and escape this hell, but relief wouldn't find her that easy. Behind her closed eyelids the HYDRA logo burned, searing into her mind.

No. No. No.

She'd worked too hard, come too far to be brought back to the house. Aurora had escaped. She and Olivia had found a home, a family, a place they were loved. She had found Bucky. Usually the thought of him filled her with warmth but now it was replaced by cold dread and fear. Chris would hurt Bucky. He'd kill him. He'd make him suffer while he made Aurora watch, powerless, and then Bucky would die. And it would be all her fault.

How many times had Chris told her she was his? To not spend time with, touch, look at, or even think about another man. He'd told her so many times, yet she had done it anyway. She had practically sentenced Bucky to death.

And Olivia. Her little girl, her hope, her life. Chris would surely kill her as punishment for the whole ordeal. He would take the light out of her daughter's eyes and Aurora would have to watch it fade away into nothingness.

She would be left alive that long, just to see all the horror she'd inflicted on the ones she loved, then she'd probably be killed. Aurora knew there was no hope even in death. For all the people she'd hurt, all the murder on her hands, all of lives lost, she'd go to hell. She'd go to hell and never see her family again. Never get the chance to apologize. Never get the final chance to tell them she loved them.

There was a hint of color edging into her vision, but she didn't want to see it. Aurora didn't want to look at it. She wanted to push it away and crawl into the darkness so far she'd never be dragged out. The red mist grew and despite all her terror, this mist didn't feel as awful as everything else. Is was just mist, after all, how much could it hurt her?

The red grew until it was all Aurora could see, think, or breathe. Then there was a voice, speaking out like an echo.

I'm sorry.

Then there was nothing but darkness.

Bucky had watched Aurora leave for her nap with reluctance. He wanted to go with her, not just to escape Wanda asking him to do the harder tasks with his mental arm, but to be with his girlfriend. Aurora hadn't been gone long when they felt it.

It was a strange sensation grasping onto each one of them and slowly draining their energy away. They grew tired, so exhausted, and felt heavy. The desire to fall to the floor was slowly growing, but one thought came into Bucky's mind. Aurora.