LIGHTNING ▷ BUCKY BARNES [UNDER EDITING]

11| LIVE NEWS

Valerie hasn't left her room since she heard the news about Winn. She has done nothing but sleep in her bed and use her journalistic skills to search for anything HYDRA related. Sometimes she'd just log into her social media and stare at pictures of her and Winn smiling like nothing in the world could stop them. She'd shed a tear and move on again, hoping to find something Winn related, but also hoping she didn't. She wanted confirmation that he was alive but she didn't want him to be under control of HYDRA.

A knock on her door made her look up from her computer towards her window. Sunlight tried to glim into her room but the dark shades of her curtains stopped it from doing so, leaving her room as dark as the void.

Valerie walked to her door, slowly opening it just to see Bucky Barnes standing in front of her door looking at her with worry. She squinted her eyes, not because she didn't want to see the man but because the hall outside her room was brightly lit. And she hasn't seen light in 24 hours. She locked herself in her room, trying to find anything about her lost best friend. The guilt building up in her body increased with every second and she accepted it. She deserved that bad feeling. "Hey... what are you doing here?" her voice was soft and barely above a whisper. "I made dinner. I thought you'd like that seeing you haven't eaten in a while."

Valerie looked down in confusion. In his hands, he was holding a plate of pancakes with honey streaming down on it. She felt her stomach twist into a knot and that's when she realized she was hungry. Her stomach growled and the man smiled down at her, offering the plate to her that she gladly took. "Thank you. And I'm sorry, James," she said, taking Bucky off guard as he didn't think he'd receive an apology least of all from her or just anyone. "It's you I need to apologize to, really."  both of them grew quiet, the only sound heard was the live news playing in the background on Valerie's laptop.

'There has been another fiery attack on one of New York's finest banks. The attacker hasn't been identified yet, but it has been known he has stolen over 2 million dollars...'

Valerie looked back at her laptop, its screen radiating a bright white light against the wooden headboard of her bed and so it highlighted the small pictures pinned in the corner of her bed. "I'll let you to it..." Bucky whispered, throwing one more glance at one particular picture where Winn and Valerie were hugging before he strutted towards the elevator and left her sight.

Valerie sighed to herself, closing the door behind her and slowly, tiredly and purposelessly walked towards the window, throwing open the curtains and dropping her plate of food as she had to shield her eyes from the incoming gleams of sunlight. To her luck, the plate didn't break but the pancakes stuck against the wooden floor. She looked down at the pool of honey sticking against the wooden floor in disappointment. The orange substance slowly spread around her floor, reaching her grey carpet and making the fabric stick to each other like glue.

She sighed in annoyance, reaching down to her plate as she put the pancakes on top of the plate again. She let the honey stick at the corners of the carpet as she stood up again. Giving up on trying to have a good morning as she made her way towards the gym.

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