The Silent Shadow || marvel

15- showers and seattle

Washington was very green.

It was also very cloudy and cool, a great substitution for the insufferable heat they had endured on the East Coast.

They arrived early at 5 a.m. before the sun had even risen.

Neither of them had slept a wink in unspoken fear from the SHIELD agent that appeared out of nowhere.

Bucky had driven through the entire night instead of stopping to sleep and his eyelids were practically closing from exhaustion.

After entering the state, they drove around until they spotted a nice park to stop the car and get a few hours of rest before continuing the drive to Seattle.

They slept for a decent amount of 6 hours before starting their journey's home stretch. At noon the pair snacked on the rest of the half-full cup of Coco Puffs and rode in silence.

Svetlana's eyes were glued out the window and they didn't leave that location for an hour. She was obviously using what she was taught to detect if they were being followed.

She felt terrible for not sensing they were being tracked. She had let herself get too comfortable and let her guard down- something she vowed she'd never do. Yet here they were, even more on the run than they already were.

The only bright side was that she had gotten a Little Debbie strawberry roll and a peach Snapple from that gas station.

After a long while of silence, Svetlana broke it along with her eye contact with the outside world.

"I was right." She mumbled.

Bucky broke his attention from the road to glance at the girl whose attention was on the window in front of her. "What?" He asked in confusion.

"I was right," Svetlana repeated in a tone more assertive than the last one she used.

Bucky let out a small chuckle. "Yeah? About what?" He questioned.

"If I ran away she would've taken you away from me and I would've had to be all by myself." She answered. "But I didn't run because I wasn't scared of her."

Bucky opened his mouth to answer before she interrupted him. "Do you wanna know what I was afraid of though?"  

"Sure, Sunshine."

"Being alone."

Bucky's lips fell into a small frown as guilt crept up his nerves and into his heart like a parasite invading his brain.

"Do you want to leave me? Is that why you told me to run?" She asked in a voice so small and trembled that in his eyes she became 4 years old again, in his chamber saying her goodbyes for the first time again.

His baby, the reason he was still stood, thought he didn't want her anymore. She thought the only person in this whole fucked up world who hadn't hurt her, didn't want her.

This moment, in this car, in this state, was the moment his heart officially broke. It could no longer withstand the small cracks and fractures it endured every time Svetlana revealed just how badly HYDRA had broken her. And god, it felt terrible.

James struggled to keep his voice from wavering when he opened his mouth to respond. "Baby, of course not, I just wanted to keep you safe that's all."

"But I'm not normal, I'm strong, I can fight," Svet argued.  "I don't have to run."

"I know you can, but I'd rather have you find some nice place to live than be locked up for the rest of your life."  He attempted to reason with her as he endearingly pushed a loose strand of hair behind her ears.