The Avengers Marvel Everybody One Shots

The Thread - Bucky/Steve

Watching Steve pace when I'm to concentrate was driving me nuts.
"Sit. Down" I can't help but huff at him but he stops and looks at me before taking a seat. I hold tighter to the mask that had been Bucky's, a shiver from all the residual emotions covering me. Disgust fills me at the glee I can feel, whoever put the mask on him took a great deal of pleasure in doing it. Their need to hold the man behind the mask back was sickening. I could feel Bucky as well, confusion, pain, and a well of deep deep sadness. That's what I was searching for, to see if he was still in there. Hydra may have fried his brain over and over again, but a part of him still held on, even if he didn't know who he was. I look at Steve and nod, a relieved smile crossing his face. Dropping the mask, I had to scrub my hands on my pant legs, it felt like I was covered in tar. My skin crawled, the small hairs sensitive and making my flesh shudder. How that poor man could function was beyond me. A squeak escapes me when Steve scoops me up and hugs me tight, air wooshes out of my lungs and he puts me down quickly. "Sorry," He strokes my hair back and smiles. I feel my eyes flicker, my pupils dilating as a vision takes me. I can see Steve, his arms wrapped tightly around someone smaller, too small to be Bucky. I gasp when I see it's me, and I'm naked as he kisses me. When I blink my eyes open, Steve is watching me with worry in his, his hand cupping my face softly until I come back to myself. "What did you see?" he asks, he's wary in case it has something to do with Bucky. "Nothing important" I shake my head. There was no way in hell I was telling him that, it had nothing to do with Bucky and it confused the hell out of me. A small glimpse of, not the future so to speak, but a vision pulled from Steve himself. He saw me that way, it was a future he wanted to have with me.
"Y/n?" he asks and I shake my head, I was really not going to discuss it.
"It's fine, it was something else entirely" he nods and lets me go.

Steve was a pain in the ass, and his using me wasn't doing him any favours in my eyes. I understood he wanted his best friend back, but using my gift could be... awful. There was pain, suffering, and being overwhelmed by others' emotions. It all drained me, and it didn't stop. It could affect me while I slept, touch the wrong thing and I could end up in someone's head, living their feelings with them. I couldn't remember ever having a nice experience with my gifts. Sure I could feel other people's love and see how they cared. But over time it washed my own emotions away. I was never sure what I was feeling was me or someone else. And because of that, I tried very hard to not use my powers. And it would have stayed that way if it wasn't for Nat.

I had been working on some plans with her for an upcoming op. She handed me a file and I went into a trance, my pupils huge as I watched and felt the lives of the people in the file. She had kept my secret, for a while at least. Up until Bucky had shown back up anyway. And then she told Steve, who had come straight to me and asked for my help. And now I was being used as a bloodhound and helping hunt Bucky down before anyone else got to him. There was some resentment there for Steve, it was boiling away in my stomach. He had always pissed me off but now, now I had seen his want of me, and the resentment boiled more. He was crushing on me while using me.

"Okay, I need to concentrate. So shut up and don't touch me" I snap and Steve holds his hands up surrendering, backing away and sitting on the bed. Picking up the mask again I try to ignore the vision of blood spilling from it, resisting the urge to wipe my hands of it. I needed to find the thread, to follow it to him. My eyes flicker, I can see all the threads attached to the mask. Different people had handled it over the years, most indifferent to what it was, some taking too much pleasure in forcing it on his face. But there, mixed up in the spiderweb of it all was a calm one. It didn't vibrate or throb with emotion like the others. But it had a strange glow about it, I latched on and followed it. I'm drawn along, seeing glimpses of a past life. A handsome young man in a uniform, and like pages, it flickers back and forth. The young man turns into the winter soldier and back again. I had found him.