Monster [Book One]

Chapter 10

Another intense chapter and so will the next one!  I hope you enjoy! :)

Chapter Quote:
“You were made to be ruled. In the end, you will always kneel.”
~Loki in The Avengers
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Chapter 10

Bucky 

Annabeth learned fast.  In just a three days, she had mastered all the basic defense maneuvers taught her.  We hardly encountered any problems except for a single major one.  She trusted me not to hurt her, but she didn’t trust herself not to hurt me, even in the littlest way.  Annabeth was genuinely afraid of hurting me, even though the damage she could do was nowhere near the caliber of what HYDRA did to me, and I used this argument in convincing her to use the defensive techniques on me.  It took around four hours of convincing though.  Finally, I won the debate.  She did give me a few bruises, and to be honest, I was probably going to hurt a little the next few days because of it, but I didn’t tell her this.  She’d already been apprehensive enough about this.  No need to tell her she’d actually somewhat hurt me because then she’d refuse to practice with me in that manner again, but she wouldn’t learn properly if she didn’t use me in that manner.  However, the pain she inflicted on me was miniscule compared to what I went through with HYDRA, yet another thing I hadn’t mentioned to her.

The videos I’d watched, along with giving me some more good memories about Steve and some new people –such as Peggy Carter and Howard Stark- also flooded me with bad memories.  Horrific ones.  Annabeth had kept from telling me about those videos for a reason, but now with the dreams I was having, I comprehended her actions even more.

The two of us had just finished sparring.  Annabeth was sweating because we’d been practicing for over three hours, non-stop.  I didn’t even get winded.  She gave me a playful shove due to her annoyance at my endurance.  She announced to me she was going to go take a shower and get cleaned up before dinner.  I nodded and went upstairs to sit in the living room and watch television.  It was so strange that it was in color now.  Everything was in color.  It fascinated me completely.  I mainly watched the history channel to catch up on the things I’d missed out on over the years.  I’d tried watching the news but the politics had become so corrupted overall that I could barely stomach it.  Most importantly though, the television became really good at keeping me awake.  After the first night of non-stop nightmares of my past actions, I couldn’t fall asleep.  I’d gone three days now without sleep.  If Annabeth noticed anything, she hadn’t said a word to me about it.  I was glad.  I didn’t want to burden her with another problem of mine.  She was already handling all my others.  She could take a lot, but I didn’t want to overwhelm her.

Problem now was that I found myself slipping off into sleep every once in a while, just barely waking up before the dreams started.  If I allowed myself to fall asleep and dream, I wouldn’t be able to wake up until they were over, and god only knows how long that would take.

Today, the history channel was showing a documentary on none other than the Howling Commandos and their leader, Captain America.  It felt strange, watching a documentary about myself in the 1940s, looking exactly the same then as I did now when I should’ve had white hair, wrinkly skin, and a cane to hit stupid people with.  There were interviews with people who had known the Howling Commandos.  According to one person, Dugan had a nasty habit of taking bets and losing them, no matter how many people told him not to do it; Gabriel was fluent in German and French.  Dernier was a crazy man who lay down in front of a HYDRA tank so he could attach an explosive device on the bottom of it.  Falsworth was a lord who wanted to fight for his country and did a damn good job of it.  Morita took crap from no one.  Steve was their fearless leader.