The Earth's Child: A Bucky Barnes fanfiction

A Nightly Errand

"No, please! What have I ever done to you?"

The woman's begging did something strange to the Winter Soldier. But he didn't care. The orders were clear. Kill without a witness. He held up his gun as she trembled, clutching a diary to her chest.

Bang!

It was done. He looked at the body of the woman in her early thirties, a clean bullet wound at the centre of her head. He pried the diary from her fingers, the diary that possibly contained the formula for a secret weapon.

The Winter Soldier entered the base and he was received well.

All the officers in uniforms praised him as he walked stoically to his unit. A barred cell was beside his unit and a man was glaring at him from behind the glass.

"You killed her, didn't you?" the man asked the Winter Soldier and he nodded, surprised at being asked such a question. Of course, he killed her, that was the mission.

"THAT WOMAN WAS MY WIFE!" the man yelled and the soldier stepped back from his rage, taken aback by the sudden show of emotion. "DIE, YOU MONSTER! DIE!!!! YOU TOOK AWAY MY WIFE AND NOW THEY ARE ABOUT TO TAKE AWAY WHATEVER IS LEFT OF MY LIFE! THIS IS ALL BECAUSE OF YOU, YOU ROTTEN ASSASSIN. REMEMBER THIS, WINTER SOLDIER, YOU WILL LOSE THE PERSON YOU LOVE SOMEDAY, I SWEAR IT!"

Before the Winter Soldier could form a coherent reply, he felt himself being pushed into a cold chamber, which was basically his bedroom, and he felt the biting cold numbing his skin.

Bucky sat up violently in bed, his forehead drenched in sweat, in spite of the cold weather.

The cold always caused him such nightmares, and he knew he needed to get away from everything.

He was a burden to everyone out here, a liability to the person who was risking everything to help him.

He looked at the couch to see Bella sleeping quietly and as he decided to walk out of the apartment, he heard a soft moan.

"Please," moaned Bella, as Bucky started to come closer. "Please, don't hurt him. Please. Let him go."

Bucky's heart softened as he heard this. She had already been through a lot. Hearing about her best-friend's death had not been easy for her and he knew how much of a rough time she had had for the last two months. She would often come home with bruises and he couldn't say a word, she would always make something up.

She was obviously having nightmares about Jonathan now, as she had been having for a long time. Her nightmares weren't violent like his, but she did moan and cry a lot. And he wasn't sure if she was aware of this.

He sat down beside her couch on the floor, touching her shoulder lightly, and as if in response to that touch, she sighed loudly and then her trembling stopped, confirming that the nightmare was over.

This wasn't a one-sided thing. Sometimes, when Bucky was having nightmares, Bella would touch him softly and it would stop. Well, it stopped because Bucky would wake up but he never opened his eyes. He didn't want Bella to think that he was awake. She would make sure that his breathing was normal before going back to sleep again.

The nightmare replayed in Bucky's mind and he almost jerked away from her. He couldn't hurt her. The only thing he could do was hurt and he could never do that to her. He walked out of the apartment into the cold snowy night and then cursed himself. The weatherman had warned them about an unexpected snowstorm during the week. But he didn't care. He needed to get away from her.