Pushing Daisies [BUCKY BARNES]

19

"You can't keep her chained up in there like that!"

I was finally able to force my eyes open, not that I wanted to. I remembered it all, almost like it was an out of body experience. Usually with HYDRA it was almost like your existence was flushed down a drain, but this time I remembered it. The yellow energy, the killing. I remembered being inside my own head, and for once I didn't want to remember. For the first time since I started this journey of remembering the forgotten, I wished I couldn't remember.

I was in some sort of warehouse, and from the sounds of their voices Bucky, Steve, and Sam were standing just outside the doorway. Heavy chains were wrapped around my arms and legs, holding me to the ground. I could feel the metal digging into the skin at my wrists, could feel the blood leaking from the wounds there, but I couldn't give any less of a damn.

'You deserve this!' The voice in the back of my head was screeching at me, 'you deserve to die for this! Look at how many people you killed, how many families you destroyed! Look at you!'

I blinked tears out of my eyes, staring at a spot on the ceiling and choking down the lump in my throat. That little voice was right. I had just obliterated some little girls father, killed some woman's husband, murdered someones daughters and sons. I was a killer. I was still HYDRAs little slave no matter how far away from them I ran.

"I have to, Buck. Those chains are magic dampening, straight from SHEILD. If she wakes back up and is still under HYDRAs control-"

"But she won't be!" James hissed, and I could only imagine the angered look on his face. "If she isn't wiped she'll remember. You shut down her other side with her kill-switch." It got quiet. "Steve, she's gonna wake up and she's gonna remember who she killed."

"Maybe she deserves to remember." Sam now.

He was right. I deserved every bit of this.

"No she doesn't!" James roared, and I heard the clang of his metal arm bashing against something else metal. Maybe he threw something. "If you both think that I don't deserve to be jailed for what I did under HYDRA, then neither does she!"

"Buck-"

"Shut the hell up Steve, you're on his side." A sigh. "She's the sweetest girl you'll ever meet. You'll never find another one like her, she deserves this less then anyone else."

Tears welled in my eyes again. While I did believe that I had everything coming for me, that I deserved to be punished for what I did, his words meant everything to me. No matter what I did, he would be at my side.

Footsteps echoed closer, and while I wanted to pretend to be asleep I simply pulled my knees up and tucked my chained hands into my lap, looking down at them with a blank expression.

"Lil?"

I flicked my eyes up, seeing James standing in the doorway, and then looked back at my hands. "Hi."

I could see his shoes out of my peripheral vision, and he took a few steps closer. "How are you feeling?"

"Shitty." I answered, earning a chuckle on his side.

He walked closer now, knowing that I was back in the real world and wasn't going to try to kill him. He knelt down in front of me and took my tiny hands in his. "Want some help with these?"

I nodded slightly, and he reached to pull a key out of his back pocket. I stopped him by putting  a hand on his chest. "I'm sorry. For everything."

"Hey," he murmured quietly, reaching a hand out to lift my chin. My blue eyes locked with his, and it felt like he was staring into my soul. Warmth flooded my chest and I felt it again, the thing I didn't want to think about before. Love. "You don't need to be sorry. It's not your fault."

I didn't say anything, just looked back down and let him unlock the chains, pulling them away from my hands and feet. "I didn't hurt you, right?" I could practically smell Steve and Sam standing right outside the door.

"Not at all." He took my hands and helped me stand up, then proceeded to pull a handkerchief from his back pocket and hand it to me, "to clean up the blood, I don't want to hurt you."

I smiled a little at the little scrap of bright red fabric, 'you can do it!' written in white scripture in the middle. "This was part of the shirt I was wearing when I first found you." I looked up at his face to see the blush ghosting over his cheeks.

"When you tried to throw it out I just pulled it apart. Felt like having a piece of you with me."

Now I could feel the blush climbing into my face, and I look his real hand in mine. "It's cute." Then I went back to trying to mop up the cuts at my wrists.

He placed his hand on the small of my back and led me out of the room, his thumb rubbing reassuringly.

Steve and Sam stood just outside the door, as I predicted, trying to act like they weren't just listening.

Steve was the first to speak, "Lillian, how-"

I launched myself at him, wrapping my arms tightly around his middle in a hug. "I'm so sorry, Steve."

He hesitated for a moment, and I understood why, but soon he was hugging me back tightly. "I missed you."

"I missed you too."

"You're not allowed to run away like that again. Especially not with a guy."

I laughed now, and he rubbed the top of my head affectionately as he let me go. "I won't. I'll only run away with him," I giggled, throwing my thumb over my shoulder to point at the super soldier, who was standing behind me braiding a few strands of his hair.

He looked up at us then, "wut."

The three of us who had watched the encounter cracked up, while James just stood there, confused as ever.

"What are we laughing about?"

"Nothing."

"Lil, tell me!" He whined, walking over and wrapping his arms around my shoulders, "please?"

I shook my head, laughing, and reached up to hold onto his metal hand. When I looked up at Steve, I could see a mix of emotions in his face. Amazement, shock, awe, happiness, and a little spark of sadness too. I wouldn't be surprised if he was thinking of a time before this, where the side of James that I had managed to coax out over the past few months had once ran free at all times.

I did wish, even if it was only to myself, that I would have been alive in the 40's to see James at his finest. To see him in all his glory, not that he wasn't good now. I just wished I would have been able to see him without years of torture weighing down on his shoulders. Looking between the two super soldiers and watching them interact and laugh in that tiny warehouse, though, something in the back of my mind whispered that I had seen both of them in their glory days. It whispered that I just didn't remember it.