Rising From the Ashes • COMPLETED ✓

28.) Steve Rogers: Bucky Barnes

Author's Note: Yes, that is me singing. Yes, it's very bad. I recorded it at 1 AM, give me a break, hahaha. Hope you enjoyed! (It's for something later in this chapter. Hehe.) If you decide to sing this and put it somewhere, PLEASE GIVE ME CREDIT! Just do a little "song lyrics/song go to waverlyyellow on Wattpad." Thanks and I hope you enjoy the chapter! :)

BUCKY BARNES - WHITE WOLF

July 15th, 2017, Wakanda

My heart has never felt so much joy.

I wonder why Steve's smile touch hasn't touched my own before. It suddenly seems like being in cryostasis for these past years was worth it. And it truly, truly, is. My mind feels clear. 

There used to be this invisible barrier—one that mentally and physically blocked me. It's gone, now. A warmth in my core lets all those decades of ice melt away. I haven't felt that warmth in a long time. Love.

As I look into the sparkling, sapphire eyes that belong to the person that means the whole world to me, I realize something.

Steven Grant Rogers is my everything.

"Bucky?" He says, looking at me with worriedly. There's an intense beeping in the background noise of life. Why do I feel so lightheaded all of the sudden? All I see are Steve's wonderful blue eyes. Striking into my soul. Making my heart explode.

"Steve?" I respond.

A tsunami of memories crash in with frightening speed—so intense that I drop back down onto my hospital bed, feeling Steve's fingers lose their grip on my body. So many reminiscences come rushing into my mind that I feel like I'm about to burst.

Steve and I playing ball on a playground. My mom making chicken soup for him when he had the flu. Us making pillow forts at midnight when we couldn't sleep. Me beating kids up for making fun of him. Admiring his drawings. Staying still so he could sketch me. Sharing a beer with him. Teaching him how to throw a punch. Bandaging his wounds. 

Seeing him as the super soldier. Recognizing the strong heart inside of the once tiny man. Hearing people cheer for Captain America. Opening my eyes to Steve hovering over me in a HYDRA base. Talking about Coney Island. Falling off a train. Falling, falling. Looking into Steve's blue eyes one last time before everything went black.

Waking up to seeing the face of Dr. Zola. Having a metal arm. Killing. Blood. So much blood. Blood, blood, blood. Being frozen when I remembered those blue eyes. Blue, red, blue, red, blue, red, black. Steve, blood, darkness, cold, warmth, and love and hate. Hate. 

So much hate. 

Hate at my reflection, hate at the metal arm attached to my body, hate at the world for being cruel to Steve, hate towards the people who didn't believe in equality, hate for the war for taking so many lives, hate for the plague that took the family, hate for God for letting me down. But God didn't let me down.

I let myself down.

Suddenly, the feeling of being on a hospital bed is familiar—and it's awful, awful, awful. Red, blue, red, blue, red, black. Colors flash. A metallic tang of blood fills the room. Shuri and Steve and Natasha and Sam and that random boy and Shuri and T'Challa. They all get flushed out by the noise inside my head, by the images playing in my mind. 

The clinking of metal tools and dirty scalpels moving against each other. The electric shocks that would wipe my brain. The terrible lines on my back from the whips that stung my body. The love I felt from before is instantly overtaken by a terrible agony.