Valorous (Book Three)

Chapter: 6

DAY: 107

Lark

Bucky's little episode wiped me out. The moment he said that I was beautiful, I knew that a part of him had come back. Bucky wasn't known much for saying compliments to anyone or anything. So it had to be the real him showing through the cracks.

As soon as I got Bucky back upstairs with a clear enough head, and under the care of Steve, I got myself cleaned up and taken care of. Natasha helped me with my burn on my arm and helped to clean off as much of the blood off the metal on my hand as she could.

I changed out of my sweaty shirt, replacing it with a clean sports bra, which felt good to put on since I felt like I was on fire. I took off the gloves and tied my hair up on my head loosely. Steve had been keeping an eye on Bucky since I left him with him. I'd been getting updates through my com link with Steve.

"Lark, Steve here."

"Got anything?"

"Bucky's been taking everything out on the poor mattress store. I can't tell if he's made any more progress or just gotten angrier."

"Where are you guys? Let me have a talk with him." I said.

"Moved us out to Dicks, there more room there to break stuff. I wouldn't recommend coming down here though. You know what he did to you, he could do it again."

I turned on my heel, heading back towards the center of the mall, taking the shortcut to their location. "Steve, just shut up and let me do something to help Bucky out. Tough it out, suck in your gut and let me work a little magic on him, I'll pull him out from under his little rain cloud." I told him. "I don't want to hear anything else about me not helping, you know that's not in my nature. I'm on my way."

"I know I'm not able to stop you anyway, but I just want you to be careful." Steve answered him. "But I'll be a few stores down with a few of the refugees, meeting about Gambit."

"Great." said it to make it sound like I was excited, but in reality I was a little annoyed with hearing about Gambit.

When I reached Dicks, Steve was already long gone. I walked right in, keeping my ears alert and my eyes peeled for anything. Though somewhere in the store I could her someone grunting with effort and something hitting something else.

"Bucky?" I called. I heard the sound stop, for a moment before it continued again. "Bucky, it's me." I called again. I made my way through the store until I reached the back where I found Bucky setting up another mattress against the wall, sweating trailing down his bare back over small white scars, his hair pulled back in a tiny bun. The other mattresses laid out in rows on the ground, beatten, battered and torn up on just one side from his bionic arm. Anyone who didn't know him would have thought he was on steroids or insane, but this was Bucky and this was his way of dealing with his stress levels.

"I called your name." I told him quietly. Bucky stopped but didn't turn around to look at me.

"I know." he answered me. I walked over to stand beside him, but he wouldn't look me in the eyes.

"Brooding silence doesn't help anything." I crossed my arms, using my elbow to nudge the mattress over slightly. "It doesn't scare me."

"Scares everyone else." he said, Bucky turned away and walked over to a water bottle next to a few dumbbells. "You'd think everyone would be used to it by now."

"No one is used to this, Bucky. I know that I'm not." I told him. "You can think that they don't mind it, but really, they're just giving you the space that you deserve."