Haven [Marvel | Bucky Barnes]

Chapter 10

She'd fallen asleep curled up against him.

Almost afraid to move, he just held her, fingers tracing idly along her arm, his thoughts too full and too jumbled and his nerves still too on edge for sleep.

He'd said too much. He knew he had. It was a blur, what he'd said, his mind jumbling and falling over itself in his agitation. He hadn't intended to say any of it, either what he remembered saying or what he feared he'd said. But her quiet, tentative little why had shattered his resolve, his muddled thoughts surging up as though in answer to her question, the mix of fear, adrenaline and tension snapping the fragile leash he'd been holding the memories in check with. He knew he'd admitted his memory was in shreds, and he knew he'd let far too much slip out about the mindless monster he'd been, about the evil things he'd done.

But it had felt good to let it out. He hated himself for that too. The weight of his past and the pressure from the way his thoughts staggered and clashed with the chaotic, fragmented memories still battling inside his head had been too much, leaving him unable to stem the flow of words that had poured from him as he struggled to bring his mind back under control.

Yet, in that moment when she'd taken his head in her hands, his thoughts had stilled, allowing him a measure of calm, of peace as her acceptance had startled him out of the spiralling storm of memory, self-loathing and shame, letting him regain a small measure of control over himself again. It was still there, the dark, disjointed memories fighting and clawing through his mind, threatening a return to the near mindless confusion and agitation that had gripped him as the alarm and rage left over from the attack on Iris weakened what little mastery over his own head he'd been able to regain.

Then she sighed sleepily against him.

At the soft, contented sound his mind finally went blank, save for the woman in his arms too foolish to fear him and too stubbornly kindhearted for him to leave. He couldn't help but smile at the thought.

And eventually sleep found him too.

But then with a start he was awake, his skin prickling as his heart raced. The images that had woken him just as they did every night were just as disjointed and garish before his waking eyes as they had been in his dreams. Just as horrible too.

...Excruciating pain as blinding electric currents arced and seared through his brain, leaving him just as uncomprehending and blank about why as he had been before they'd even activated the machine...

...The pounding, aching pressure in his head, his body; the need to complete his mission, each and every one, no matter that he felt empty regardless. He felt nothing; emotionless, blank...

...A frozen river bed, his body broken and shattered; white-hot agony blending with icy, frozen burning, his own steaming blood melting the snow...

...Dead faces, dozens upon dozens of them; burned, bloodied, crushed, empty...as empty as he felt; blood, bullets, fists and blades; the crunch of bone and snapping of tendons beneath his cybernetic hand...

...A young woman, barely more than a girl but still just as deadly as he, looking up to him as horror began to bloom across her features, realization and revulsion blooming in her pale eyes...

...A face that was somehow—impossibly—more familiar to him than his own; swollen, bruised and bleeding, looking up at him with sad, knowing eyes as he promised that he'd be there 'til the end of the line...

...The abrupt vibration of a bullet's discharge shuddering through his shoulder as the reverberation echoed in his ears, while in the distance a target fell with a silent spray of blood...