365 Days (Part 1) | ✓

191. Cartoon

191. Cartoon: Think of your favorite cartoon or comic. Write a poem or story that takes place in that setting.

I've never actually read a Captain America comic, but I'll be darned if I don't write about him and Bucky every chance I get.

*

Bucky hung his head. It was one of those times. God, what had he done to deserve this? How had he earned this? He was a monster and he couldn't help it. When they said that sequence of words -- a shudder ran through his body at the mere thought of them -- he became something he didn't recognize. He became a killer, with no conscience and only violence running through his veins. Yet he remembered everything. Why? Why could he remember everything he did while he was the Winter Soldier, yet he couldn't struggle against the mental bonds capturing his brain? Why?

He had been a good boy and a good man... but somehow... somehow it hadn't been enough. He had been forced to be the villain. He had been forced to attempt the murder of...

Steve. Steve Rogers. That was the name and that was the face, struggling out of Bucky's tortured memory. His friend, Steve. His brother, if only by love. He had tried to kill Steve. Oh God, what had he become? He couldn't think about it. He would go insane if he did. If, when he was Bucky and not the Winter Soldier, he only thought of what he had done when he had no control, he would lose what sanity he had left. So many faces, so many people... He could feel their blood on his hands, on his heart, on his soul. He would go to Hell for this.

Not Steve, Bucky begged to himself. He couldn't control himself when he was the Winter Soldier, and no one had ever survived when he was set against them, but not Steve. He was strong. He was Captain America. Somehow he, like Bucky, was still alive after all these years. Please, God, let Steve be strong enough to resist me, Bucky pleaded.

But he didn't believe it. Because Bucky remembered everything he did when he was the Winter Soldier, and he knew everything he was capable of. He knew the inhuman power he possessed -- more than any one person should have. And Bucky Barnes believed, in his heart, that he would kill his best friend, Steve Rogers, and he could do nothing to stop it.

I would fight on your side if I could, he thought miserably, and howled his pain. His matted hair flung back from his face as he arched against his binds. In a second men rushed forward and slammed him back against the seat. The metal halo came over his head and the machine switched on as Bucky in his helpless anger and raging frustration fought against his restraints. But then the shocks came, and it was pain, pain, pain... but it was different than the pain in his heart and mind, and Bucky welcomed it as a distraction... because what he was had become too much.

*

I had tears in my eyes as I wrote this. Bucky Barnes does things to my heart... 😭😭