Captain America Bucky Barnes Winter Soldier Steve Rogers Fan Fic - The Constant

Chapter Eighty-Three: The Rescue

The Rescue

Steve Rogers watches James Barnes.

His friend cannot settle; it is not the first time he has been like this and it will not be the last. He knows why they are waiting until the following day to carry out their plan but it doesn't mean he has to like it. He can just about cope with that - but the Winter Soldier cannot. Since he found out that Freya is still alive, he simply cannot let the thought go. She is his. She belongs to him. They are delaying him because they want her for themselves, they want to give her freedom, to make her leave him.

He can't allow that. If he does then he will die. To find her after all this time when he thought she was dead, and then for them to take her away again? Bucky has his Steve, so why can the Soldier not have her? The internal struggle inside his mind is tremendous. Two opposing forces, one with an iron will, the other just clinging on to the vestiges of himself. His reasoning makes no logical sense, but then again it never has and probably never will. Bucky has not slept and is irritable, talking to himself and Steve genuinely does not know what to do to calm him.

He's aware that Rogers is watching him and he tries to calm himself down, tries to sit and read quietly, but how can he concentrate? Tony is with them at the moment talking to Rogers about what they will need to take with them. From time to time he turns and asks Bucky questions. This is a waste of time, he wants to shout. We should just get going!

The conversation in his mind is daunting; it flips from one personalty to another and it causes physical pain. I need to keep her. You can't! Why not? I won't hurt her this time, I won't...You will, you always hurt people. She is mine! No she is not, she is her own person. We have to let her go, we owe her that. I need her. I know you do. No you don't! You have Steve and he has you. She is all I have! She is mine!

"I can't believe that someone let bombs off thirty miles outside of Washington and no one thought what the hell?" Tony is grumbling. His temper seems to be sympathetic to the Soldier's own bad temper. All this time wasted when the answers may only be thirty miles away.

"I asked Armand about that," Steve says. "He explained that Pierce had Hydra people in the seismic research centre and they would alter the readings to show there had been a minor earthquake, that there was nothing to worry about. It shows you how Pierce had covered every base. I guess that day with everything else happening, a low grade quake was nothing."

"I still don't like it," Tony grumbles as a parting shot leaving them finally in peace.

Steve has gotten used to Bucky disappearing at times. He knows he is always to be found in the exercise suite Tony has set up. Bucky told him that when the Soldier is at his most vulnerable, at a point when he wants to explode with fury, he goes running on one of Tony's exercise machines and this is what he tells Steve now. He looks exhausted.

"I'll just run for a while and then shower and sleep. I'll use my old room for tonight and see you in the morning." And Steve nods. It is rare, but there are times Bucky needs his space.

It is a shame that Steve doesn't realise that Bucky is already asleep. That only the Soldier is awake.

*

"You're going to have to tell lover boy we're not going tomorrow," Tony's tone of voice is argumentative. They need to be prepared because they do not know what they are going to find. Tony has asked for another twenty-four hours in case they need to bring heavy excavating equipment in. Steve doesn't like it but he can see where Tony is coming from.

"I know, Tony, and please stop calling him that!" Steve takes a deep breath. Tony may be a good friend, but sometimes he feels he could punch him in his perfect teeth when Tony gives him that Stark smile. "His name is Bucky," Steve reminds him.