The World Keeps Changing

Chapter 27

Bucky was pacing on the patio, when the house came in sight. His favorite knife was drawn, the Ka Bar blade spinning between his fingers, flipping between his hands with practiced ease. As I got closer, I could see the tension in his movements, stress coiling his body tight rather than the fluid grace he usually had with a blade in his grip, all quick movements and sharp thrusts. He heard me and looked up, taking a deep breath with just an edge of relief. He sheathed the knife but he didn't move toward me, waiting for me to approach him. I'd warned him not to follow me, so he was going to wait until I was fully back.

I stepped onto the patio pavers, and his fists clenched and unclenched, flexing with the force of anxiety in his body. "Cookie, I swear I don't know. Please believe me."

I looked at him, and I know my expression had shut down. I was wearing the poker face I held when my emotions felt too large. "I believe they didn't tell you who it is." It made sense, I didn't think he'd agree to keep quiet if he knew. "But, I still feel betrayed. By all of you."

"She just told me there was a SHIELD asset here. That they kept to themselves and as a rule don't interact with anyone if it can be helped. That we wouldn't even see them before they go out on mission again. And to not tell you, because you would worry too much about it, 'try to draw them in like a stray cat'." He looked down at the ground, staring at his bare feet. "I thought maybe they were someone like me, but not ready to interact with people yet. Or still unstable and quarantining themselves, so they were here and not in the main building. I thought Nat and Steve were just trying to protect you, sweetheart. I thought that's why they left me with you."

"You all must think I'm stupid." His eyes snapped back to mine, even more lost. "They honestly believed I wouldn't figure it out. But you." Tears welled up in my eyes against my will. "You'd rather act like nothing is going on, try to distract me when I started piecing it together than just tell me all that? What the hell did you think I was going to do? How did you think I'd feel about it?" My lips drew together and I fought back the tears.

His face crumpled, somewhere between contrition and panic, "We all just wanted to-"

"Protect me. Keep me safe. I'm well aware." The anger rising up again as I felt my mask crumble. "I don't need that from you," I snapped. "Any of you. In case you forgot, I'm not a fucking child, or an invalid. I thought all of you were my friends, but apparently I'm just some kind of pet or mascot that can't be trusted to make decisions about how to act in my own best interest. It's like you all forget the kind of situations I've handled. The kind of weird I've dealt with regularly since I've been here. The people I'm closest to in the whole world and you just... I've never felt so betrayed in my life, Bucky. So..."

He reached out to me and I stepped back from him. "Don't touch me right now, Bucky. Not when I don't feel like I can trust you."

He retook that step toward me, his expression pained but unhesitating. "I didn't make love to you because someone told me to, Cookie."

"I'm sorry for accusing you of that, Buck. But, the other morning when I asked what was going on? Tell me that I didn't end up on that table at least in part because you were uncomfortable with my line of questioning." He didn't deny it. "Tell me that while we've been here you've never leveraged my affection against me, used my own body against me just to stop a conversation you didn't want to have."

"I- I didn't think-" He looked at me like I'd struck him. Like he just realized something. I don't know if it was realizing that's what he was doing, or that I would take it as a betrayal of trust. His face and voice went quiet and he choked out my name. "I'm so sorry."

Another crack formed in the wall I was holding up around me. I couldn't hold the tears back anymore and I walked past him, jerking away from his hand reaching for mine, as I pulled the patio door and went back inside.