Soldier

CHAPTER ONE

BUCKY'S POV

Once again, I wake up screaming with images of war flashing through my head, and my girlfriend's dream had come true. I lost my arm in an explosion in East Timor, then I was poked and prodded by scientists and turned into a weapon.

I'm now free of their control and living at a compound with old friends and new, though I don't talk much and I avoid people most of the time.
I hear someone rush into my room and in an instant, I have a gun aimed at their head but I drop the gun as quickly as I aimed it when I realise who came in.

"Nat, I'm sorry." I apologise, breathing heavy and trying to will my body to stop shaking. "I'm so sorry."

"What was it about tonight?" Nat asks, sitting on the edge of our bed.

I just shake my head, not wanting to talk. Nat nods and moves closer and starts running her fingers through my hair that I let grow out after being discharged from the army. My unit was captured and tortured for a year and a half. I was the only to survive with one metal arm and lots of nightmares.

I had broken up with Natasha four years before that deployment, right before my first because I didn't want her to wait for me to come home. That wasn't fair but when I got back and joined Shield, my nightmares are only bearable because she would come and calm me down. Ground me.
We now spend most nights together in the same bed - not having sex, you filthy person. I also only really talk to her and Steve now but even then, it's a handful of words.

"Why do you always come running?" I finally ask her, trying to avoid the side of me thinking she doesn't care, she has to help but that thought just keeps coming front and centre.

"Because I care." She states, smoothing my hair down then running her fingers back through. "We broke up but I never stopped caring about you."

"Oh." I slump down with a heavy sigh. "I never should've done that."

"I understood that you didn't want me to wait for you but I did anyway." Nat tells me, making me feel worse rather than better. With one hand still in my hair, she pulls a familiar gold chain from around her neck, the black titanium ring still hanging from it. Then she reaches over to the bedside table and grabs something from it. "Tony found these when he was using his tech to find you."

Nat opens her palm to show three necklaces. My dog tags, the necklace Clint gave each of us for Christmas of an arrow, and the silver chain with a rose gold ring hanging from it, identical to Natasha's.

I stare at the three of them, feeling nothing but pain from my dog tags and guilt from the promise necklace.
I gingerly pick up the arrow necklace and secure it around my neck but I just stare at the other two with uncertainty.

"I broke my promise," I mumble, wiping my cheek with my right hand, unable to bring myself to look at the woman I'm in love with. "I don't deserve it any more."

"Yes, you do." Nat says firmly, picking the necklace up and fastening that too around my neck. "You're my cheesy lover boy and that'll never change, whether we're together or not."

I search her eyes for any kind of joke, just waiting for her to say she hates me or something but it never comes. My eyes move down to her hand on my chest over the ring hanging from the chain. Then to her other hand that has the dog tags sitting there.
I take them into my robotic hand, prepared to crush them but finding I can't. Instead of trying to force myself to crush them, I dump the metal onto my bedside table.

"I can't wear them again yet." I sigh, leaning against the headboard. "Not until I find out who I am again."

Nat settles down next to me, her hand still on my shirt covered chest playing contently with my necklace and her head on my shoulder. I've missed this so badly in the past eight years.
I don't end up falling back to sleep but at least the screams in my head have died down enough for me to relax.
When Nat stops playing with my necklace, I know she's asleep. I'm glad she fell asleep, I feel bad that almost every night for the past couple months, I've been waking her up from my cries. Steve has tried calming me after a nightmare but it didn't work, so Nat tried.

I cuddle Nat until I realise I will never get any sleep, then I carefully move her and pull on a hoodie when I get out of bed. I look over at the red head asleep in my bed, wondering whether we can have a relationship again. I'd like to be her boyfriend again, I wouldn't break up with her again. Not for anything.

When I reach the kitchen, I see Clint in his mission stealth suit, his bowl slung across his back and in his hands is a jug - yes, a jug. Not a cup or something practical - of hot coffee in his hands. There's a large fresh bruise on his cheek because he's a great assassin but also a massive klutz who likes taunting people when he can.

"Hey man," I take the jug off him before he can put it to his lips and pour some into a mug. I give the whole thing back to him after. "Can't sleep either?"

"Just got home," Clint mumbles, chugging some coffee. "You?"

"Nightmare, again." I shrug, sipping on my coffee after mixing in some sugar and milk like a normal person. "Nat is always helping me."

"And you don't feel you deserve her help because you dumped her?" Clint guesses. I keep forgetting he actually has a brain up there. I nod, plopping down on a stool. "Do you know what happened after you two broke up?"