Recollection ★ Bucky Barnes

When Do We Start?

★ ★ ★

Bucky sat on Marlena's bed. His focus was on the wall at the opposite side of the room, and he was absentmindedly twirling Marlena's phone around in his hands.

After darting up the stairs, he immediately found his way into her room. He noticed the odd way one side of her comforter had been folded upward, while the rest of it was completely normal. Because of that, he assumed she had been hiding underneath her bed when Hydra first stormed into her house, only to be found and yanked out by a Hydra agent. After further investigation his assumptions were proven to be true, and it only made him feel worse about the entire situation.

For the past several minutes, his mind had been drifting elsewhere, though. He was not only angry and upset because Hydra had taken one of the most important people in his life away from him, but he was also confused as to how they had even found her house in the first place, let alone found out he was staying there with her. He knew Hydra wasn't to be underestimated—S.H.I.E.L.D. figured that out shortly after the helicarrier accident in the Potomac—but he had kept such a low profile. Marlena made it a point not to tell anyone about him. The only person who had known about him was Hallie, and even Hallie hadn't known who he truly was. . .at least that was the way it used to be.

The moment realization struck Bucky, Marlena's phone vibrated in his hand. He turned it over to see Hallie's name—along with several emoticons—being displayed on the screen with a small paragraph of text below it.

The text read: Hey, Mar! Would you maybe wanna come over for dinner tonight? I miss you, and mom and dad miss you. Plus, I felt like a nice, steaming hot bowl of chicken alfredo would make up for the stress I've caused you. Text me back when you can. Love you lots.

Bucky squeezed his eyes shut as he began to process the newfound anger flowing inside of his body. This was the very reason why Hallie had apologized to him the other day. It had nothing to do with her thinking he was a killer but everything to do with turning him in because she thought he was a killer. Hallie was the reason they had found the house; Hallie was the reason why they knew where to find him; Hallie was the reason why Marlena was gone, and he was going to make sure she was aware of that. She thought she had been protecting Marlena from Bucky when she called it in, but she had, in fact, only endangered her best friend further.

Although Bucky was increasingly angry with Hallie, he would not hurt her solely because of Marlena, as well as the fact that he grew to sort of respect her. He would, however, make her feel the pain of allowing her best friend to be captured by such a sadistic group of people, and he was going to make her live with that. In his eyes, from this point on, whatever happened to Marlena was now Hallie's fault rather than his.

Bucky let out a sigh and shoved the phone into his pocket. He turned to look at Steve, who stood by the door watching him rather intently.