Better Love || A Bucky Barnes Fanfiction

- Come Back To Me -

There was a moment, as Steve and the remaining Avengers walked into the room, where he had forgotten that he wasn't the only one who had lost Bucky today. It wasn't until he saw the top of her blonde head from behind the table Vision had previously been lying on that he remembered. A new layer of horror, of gut-wrenching sadness, fell over him. He thought he might be sick but he swallowed it down. He stepped into the room.

She was sitting on the floor alone, her back to them. She did not turn when they entered, did not acknowledge the fact that they were there. She contined to sit on her knees, kneeling over something that they could not see. For a moment Steve thought that she had been injured, or even worse - was dead and frozen into a lamenting figure of sadness, pain, death. But her shoulders were steadily moving up and down and he could hear her breathing slowly, deeply. 

But she was alone.

"Elena?" It was Okoya who spoke, stepping forward as she scanned the room. "Where - where is the princess?"

Elena did not answer. She did not have to. They saw it together, sitting a short distance across the room from Elena: a large pile of scattered ash. Steve could not stop himself from looking away from it when Okoya approached it, falling to her knees before it in open-mouthed horror. It was a silent scream that the group were not privvy to. She had lost her king, and now the young princess too. She was only a teenager. She was just a child. Steve swallowed. It was too much for him to bare. None of us should be feeling so miserable. This wasn't supposed to happen. We were supposed to win. We were supposed to survive...

As Okoya mourned for the loss of Shuri, the group watching on sadly as the death toll of today's events rose one more number, Steve turned his attention back to Elena. She still had not raised her head or turned around from where she was sitting. It was as though she had turned to stone. Softly he stepped forward, staring at the woman who was doubled over on the floor.  

"Elena?" He whispered. He was scared that if he raised his voice any louder than that it would cause Elena to shatter into a million pieces. She looked so fragile.

"I don't understand," her voice was barely audible. He stepped closer, knelt down behind her.

"Elena?" He said again, one hand on her shoulder. The contact made her move and, slowly, she turned her head to look up at Steve. Her blue eyes were brighter than he had ever seen them before, the tears swimming within making the colour shine. It made him think of the glaciers of ice he had once crashed into, beautiful and tragic and sad.

"I don't understand," she repeated, softer than ever before. "These things... These things don't happen. They're... They're not supposed to happen."

Her words shocked Steve. Does she know? He thought to himself, eyebrows drawn together in slight confusion. But she wasn't there. She didn't see him turn, didn't hear him say his name, didn't watch him fall.... Steve swallowed, wincing at the image. Why can I never catch him when he falls?  Faintly he could hear Natasha murmuring to some of the others, heard the catches in their voice, but eventually their voices escaped him and it was just him and Elena. Of course she knows, he thought. She must've felt it. Maybe.

"I know," he murmured, shaking his head. "I know, Elena. I'm sorry. It was so quick, I..."

"Steve..."

It was not Elena who spoke but Natasha, who had stepped forward while Steve had stayed bent behind Elena. Steve looked over his shoulder towards her, saw the way two small tears spilled down her cheeks. She shook her head.

"That's not what she's talking about, Steve," Natasha whispered, looking past him and towards the area Elena was leaning over, an area hidden from his view. A heartbeat, and then silence in his chest. He could feel himself growing cold, turning to stone too just like Elena. He hadn't noticed. He thought it wasn't possible. She wasn't on his mind at the time. Why would she be? When everything was covered in heartache but she - she's the embodiment of love and life and laughter and hope. She was not a part of something like this, she couldn't be, and yet...