Take What You Can Carry | Bucky Barnes

One Step Forward, Two Steps Back

We hung out in the living room after what happened this morning. Steve was stretched on the big couch, taking a much-needed nap after staying up all night watching Bucky. I was slumped on the smaller couch with my feet propped against the coffee table and Bucky sitting next to me, his hands stretched behind my head.

How To Get Away With Murder was playing on TV and as much as I adore Viola Davis and eye-candy Jack Falahee, I couldn't get my mind to focus, let alone understand what was happening. My thoughts were running wild inside my head and it was close to giving me an actual headache. I have so many questions about last night but I don't know how to address them without triggering Bucky or offending him.

"You okay?" Bucky murmured into my hair.

The voices in my head went quiet suddenly. "Mhm, why?"

"Connor is getting so much screen time but you didn't freak out, what's wrong?" Bucky shifted slightly so he could see my face.

I looked up and gave him a smile. "I just have a lot on my mind, that's all."

"You wanna talk about it?"

I thought for a second, and then nodded. "I do, but I don't know if you're up for it."

His body tensed when he realized what I was thinking about, there was a flash of hostility in his eyes and his body went into a defensive position before he cleared his throat and nodded.

"What do you want to talk about?"

I scratched at the itch on my eyebrow before turning around completely to face him.

"I just wanted to know what happened, you know, before everything happened?"

I didn't think it was possible, but his body got a whole lot tenser. Bucky started fidgeting around with his hand, trying to come up with an answer.

"It was a nightmare, but it wasn't the usual. It was different, new." His eyes were glassy, dark, and I felt awful for making him relive what happened.

"How different?" I asked, carefully.

He stared into the distance, his expression somber and mournful. "We lost a lot in the last mission. It was the worst one we've had so far, a lot of us got severely injured. Even Steve had to spend a few days in critical care. We were seriously outnumbered and at the time, our mission wasn't to destroy the base, it was to save the people that were taken hostage.

"I was put on guard outside of the base, along with Tony, Rhodey and Vision to make sure the civilians that were captured can escape safely, we were their long distance air and ground support. What we didn't know was, because we weren't on base technically, that they have this long-range laser tracker that literally evaporates people into dust."

Bucky took deep, shaky breaths before continuing.

"There were so many innocent lives taken that day, all because we didn't see it coming. There were children, Cath... Children. What could they have possibly done to be subjected to a HYDRA torture?

"I just... That night, the faces of those who died were etched clearly in my memory, they were begging for their lives to me. They were screaming, pleading and crying for me to spare them their lives. In my dream, I was the one killing all those people."

My heart was in pieces when he finished his story; his last sentence was barely audible from holding back the tears that were threatening to fall. I immediately pull the man towards me, planting kisses on his forehead in an attempt to calm him down.

"But it wasn't you, Buck. You've changed, you don't do that anymore."

"Yeah, but I failed to save them. That makes me just as guilty."