Ultraviolence ☢ Steve Rogers

1.6

PART ONE CHAPTER SIX

PARANOIA WAS NOT A FAVOURABLE TRAIT. Violet hissed through her teeth as she snagged her finger on a metal contraption, which caused her skin to split and plum coloured blood to ooze out. She brought it up to her mouth and sucked on her finger as Bucky looked at her from the corner of his eye. She rolled her eyes and, upon examining the trap, nodded and stood up from her position on the floor. After two days on edge, she had finally finished the set up of a maze of traps that would alert their presence of anybody else who happened to step foot in Alexander Pierce's huge house.

The two had lived there for a total of two days. They had lived in silence for two whole days, still not sure how to communicate with each other outside of work related topics. Bucky looked up from the contraption and, too, stood up. They shared a glance, a brief upturn of their lips as they looked back at the trap, proud of their work. Violet turned to walk off before a brief motion appeared at the forefront of her mind and caused her to stop in her tracks. She spun, her hand raised in what, as Americans would call it, was a high five. Bucky, (she started to acknowledge that as his name now) looked at her raised hand confused and Violet sighed. And, for the first time in 2 days, spoke.

"It's called a high five. It goes like this," she grabbed his right hand in her non-raised hand and made them slap with some force, all the whilst Bucky looked at her with a confused expression. "You do it when you are proud of something- oh, you know what? Never mind. You clearly don't want to know how to live normally." She spat. Over the past two silent days, Violet had made it her business to know how to live somewhat normally- by that, she invested in Alex Pierce's television. She sat in front of the device for hours and absorbed years worth of content from cooking shows, reality shows, entertainment shows like Modern Family and The Middle- she didn't move until she had memorised every line and movement from each episode. She didn't move until she started to understand what normal was.

She turned away from her partner and stormed out of Pierces' library/office that took up the whole of the third floor, with a large gap in the ceiling that was occupied by a glass pane to let in as much natural light as possible. She left Bucky standing there, confused, as she walked down to the basement, where they had set up their camp. She had decided that it was best not to get used to the luxury of sleeping in Pierce's California king sized bed, because they knew they would have to move again soon. Violet got down and settled in their makeshift bed; one that consisted of everything that made up a bed aside from the comfort of a mattress and a bed frame. Before long, she felt the other side of the duvet lift up and felt Bucky get settled in beside her. She kept her eyes shut and held her breath as his cool metal arm automatically wrapped around her waist and he pulled her closer to him. She let out a shaky breath as he buried his face in the space between her neck and shoulder. Soon enough, they both drifted into a sleep- their ears constantly alert.

☢

ON THE THIRD DAY, BUCKY BROKE HIS SILENCE. He muttered a simple 'thank you' as Violet handed him a small stack of pancakes, which she had learned to cook from one of Pierce's many cookbooks. They were by no means great, and rather looked like piles of white mush covered in syrup, but nevertheless she smiled at him and he smiled back. Violet felt like she had finally begun to get used to cooking, felt like she had the swing of things, especially as she enjoyed all the foreign flavours and recipes- it was as though they came from a whole new galaxy compared to the generic mush they had back at base. It was nothing like the taste of blood, or the taste of perspiration that hung on her top lip after completing a mission. It was better.