The Liberty War || Infinity War & Endgame

Chapter Seven: Two Ghosts

Music is "Sleepwalking" by The Sweeplings.

Picture is Bucky Barnes.

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CHAPTER SEVEN: Two Ghosts

After the sun sets over the Wakandan horizon, I find myself even more sleepless than the years I thought Bucky was dead. I spent most of my life haunted by him in my dreams, or the ghost of him, but now that he's alive and on-ice just a few meters away from me, I find it even harder to slip into unconsciousness.

Everyone else is long gone to the dream world. Steve and Nat are in the room across from mine, and Sam is in the room adjacent theirs. Evidently, those are their assigned rooms when they visit. Grant sleeps in apartment nearest the University now. Apparently, I'm the only one that's still not used to the two years that have passed since the last time I slept in this bed.

And that was when Bucky was sleeping beside me.

I heave a heavy sigh and roll onto my side on the king-sized mattress, hand absently reaching out to grasp the covers on the empty right side, the side where Bucky usually sleeps. I've been lying down for hours yet still can't find the peace of sleep. Glancing over my shoulder, I see the clock read past midnight.

It's March 10th. Bucky just turned 101.

I should be with him, or maybe he should be with me. I'm not entirely sure there's a difference anymore, seeing as we're a broken part of each other. I used to hate the saying that soulmates were two halves of a whole. I always saw it as demeaning, the thought that he or I weren't a whole person on our own, that we needed someone else to complete us.

But the hard truth about Bucky and I is that it's true. We are broken and incomplete and lost. We are soldiers without a war and heroes without a villain. So we're left fighting off the nightmares and PTSD, waging war against our memories or lack thereof. We've given away parts of ourselves to the wars we fought and the people we lost. Some of those pieces we got back, in friends and family--Grant and Steve and Natasha among those. But some pieces have been crushed under the weight of a century apart. Calling us two halves of a whole is an oversimplification and understatement; we're less than a half after what we've been through. We haven't been a whole person in decades. We're just ghosts now.

But maybe, just maybe, we get a semblance of peace in each other. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same. I think that's why we can sleep dreamlessly together. Without him, I can't sleep at all. I don't care if I'm a whole or a half or even a fraction of a percent of a whole human. If I have Bucky, I'm as whole as I need to be. If I have him, I can live with being a ghost.

I pull myself from the mattress and tip-toe for the door, pulling the Wakandan-style robe of multiple colors tightly around my frame. The hallway outside the room is dark, but I find my way in the dim nightlights past the other rooms and into the vacant laboratory.

Bucky is still in the ice, as if he'd be anywhere else. I've been here so many times since I woke up, not letting a few hours pass before I check up on him. I know there's a very slim possibility that he'll melt like I did--Shuri has made sure of it--and that's not what bothers me. What gets under my skin is that I have to spend any amount of time away from him, especially on his birthday. I know it can't be helped, and it won't last much longer, but it still makes me wish I had stayed a few weeks longer in the ice.

I heave a sigh and place my hand on the cold glass, feeling the ice chill my palm. My eyes glue to Bucky's face, and tears form in my eyes. Shuri promised me it wouldn't be much longer until she could perfect the operation needed to return Bucky to the way he was--to take out the Winter Soldier--and I have complete faith in her. But I want nothing more than him in my arms right now.