I wake up, and immediately, the pain hits me. My body feels paralyzed. I'm still breathing—at least, I think I am. Each rise and fall of my chest feels like tiny needle pricks. My head hurts like hell, as if it wants to rob me of my sanity. Where am I? My eyelids feel like they're made of lead, too heavy even to think about opening them. I breathe evenly as I search my thoughts for answers. The battle against S.H.I.E.L.D. plays out before my inner eye—the Helicarriers, the Winter Soldier... Bucky. In that moment, I know I'm still alive. The dreams, they're all memories. I was Bucky's wife. I was an agent of Hydra... even before I joined S.H.I.E.L.D. I'm responsible for all the deaths that happened in 1944. It was my power that could have destroyed the world. I was trained by the Winter Soldier... that's why his fighting style felt so familiar. Next to me, I hear a constant beeping—most likely a heart monitor. Am I in a hospital again? Did we make it? Did we defeat Hydra? Where are the others? Nat? Steve? Sam?... Bucky? In my memories, I can only find fragments of the moment when the Helicarriers began to destroy each other, how they fell from the sky, flames everywhere. Did the others make it? The thought strikes me like a stab to the chest. That can't be. They have to be alive.
"You should've told her the truth!" I suddenly hear Nat's voice close by. She sounds upset. Who's she talking to? Are Sam and Steve here too? "I just didn't know how. I thought it would be better to spare her the pain. You didn't see her back then, Natasha, you have no idea what it did to her!" says a deeper voice, somewhere on the other side of the room. He also sounds irritated. There's a brief silence, and then I hear someone sigh. "Do you really think I didn't want to tell her everything right away? To remind her of who she really is? After we ran into Bucky, it's all I wanted." He lied to me and betrayed me. I still can't believe he kept all of this from me for so long. The entire time, he knew who I was, where I came from, what my past life had been, and he kept it all to himself. Looking back at what happened, I can almost understand, but he knew about my dreams. He knew that my subconscious was aware of the truth, how much it tormented me, and he just let it happen.
"She's going to hold it against you, you know that, right?" A weight lifts off my chest when I hear Sam's voice. He's here. He's alive. They're all alive. Since it doesn't seem like they're captives, we must have won the fight. For a moment, the thought makes me forget all the pain raging through my body. We destroyed them. We saved millions of people. Again, images of Bucky flood my thoughts. Is he here too? I feel so much lighter now that I know the truth and finally have answers to all the questions that weighed so heavily on my shoulders. But at the same time, it crushes me. To know how my life could have been, how Hydra took everything from me, and ripped me away from the person I loved more than anything. I had a loving family, a devoted husband, close friends, a dog named Carlos, a kitten named Alpine, a beautiful house—just the way I'd always wanted. I was a nurse at Camp Leigh. I had a purpose. None of that mattered to them because they only wanted to use me for their own ends, treating me like a wild animal.
"She has every right to hate me for it." Steve's voice is quieter now, heavier. There's no trace of irritation anymore. He's not upset but... hurt. Even so, I'd still love to slap him right now for all the betrayal. I take a deep breath and slowly try to open my eyes. I'm indeed in a hospital—how ironic. Beside me are a few machines that I'm hooked up to. My left arm is in a cast. Sunlight shines into the room through a large window.
"You've looked better, Eli," I hear Nat's voice say. She must have noticed first that I'm awake. That's the first time she's called me by a nickname, but I like it. If I remember correctly, Peggy always used to call me that. How long have I been asleep? I let my gaze wander through the room. Steve sits to the right of my bed, and when I look at him, there's so much regret in his eyes, as much as a person is capable of feeling. I spot Sam against the wall opposite my bed. He gives me a warm smile when I look at him. Bucky is nowhere to be seen, and I know he's not here.
"Where is he?" is my first question as I try to sit up carefully, but it doesn't work without Steve's help. I look at each of them expectantly, but they only exchange troubled glances with each other. "We don't know. I'm so incredibly sorry, Elora," Steve says after a while, and with that confirmation, my world falls apart again. Bucky isn't here, and we have no idea where he is. He was so close, and now he's unreachable again. A ghost. What if he went back to Hydra? Did he remember? I try to throw the blanket off me—I need to search for him, right away! But Steve gently grabs me by the shoulders, holding me back. My injuries still make it nearly impossible for me to resist. "Elora, you've been in a coma for a month. You're not in any condition to expose yourself to danger again. We've already searched for him, but with no success." Steve's words feel like being struck by a sword. I was in a coma for an entire month—Bucky could be anywhere by now.
Tears stream down my face as I realize that while we may have won the fight against Hydra, we've failed in the fight for Bucky. Nat is immediately by my side and holds me in her arms while the tears blind my vision. "He pulled us out of the river, Elora. He remembered. I should have told you the whole truth much sooner. It wasn't fair. I shouldn't have made that decision for you. I just thought..." Before Steve can finish his sentence, I slap him, sending his head snapping to the side. Grimacing in pain, he holds his jaw. "What did I tell you before?" I look over at Sam, who's grinning triumphantly and winks at me. "Yeah, I probably deserved that," says Steve, still looking like he needs to realign his jaw. Oh, if my body would allow it, he'd deserve far more."How much did you know?" I ask, skeptically eyeing Sam and Nat. I want to know right away who betrayed me. Natasha tells me she talked to Steve about my dreams after he mentioned our visit to the museum. He hadn't said anything deeper to her, but she already suspected that there was more to it. Sam assures me he only found out when Steve regained consciousness after the fight and told him the whole truth. Even though it's hard for me at this moment, I believe them. We have a lot to work through.
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Welcome back to the here and now, my loves <3
Over the past few days, a few memory chapters have come out, which summarize Elora and Bucky's already short time together. I thought it would be better to bridge the time while she's in a coma this way, rather than simply inserting a time jump.
There are still 1-2 chapters left before we move on to the *Civil War* film, and with that, we're also getting closer to reuniting the two. When I started this story, I had no idea how far I would take it or how much I would end up writing, but I love every single moment I get to dive into this world ;)
See you tomorrow <3
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Who the hell am I (english version)
FanfictionUPDATES EVERY DAY AT 5 PM! She remembers nothing. Where did she come from? What happened? How did she get here? Where is her family? In short: she doesn't know. For two years, Elora has wandered, never staying in one place for long. Always searching...
