Target [Winter Solider/Bucky Barnes short story]

8.

(Hey, double update. -8/30)

(Or not o.o 8/31 & 9/1)

My sleep was interrupted by someone shaking me, yelling for me to wake up.

"Alex, wake up. We need to leave." The Winter Soldier hissed. My eyes snapped open. He looked like he was panicking.

"Wha- what's going on?" I yawned.

"They found us."

The words were like ice water, they woke me instantly. I swung my legs over the side of the bed and stood. We both cleaned up the room to the best of our ability then ran like hell.

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"Somewhere safe." He answered. I glared at him for a while, wishing he'd be more specific. "Glaring will achieve nothing." He stated, not even missing a beat. I groaned.

"Seriously? We're just gonna walk until we find somewhere you deem safe? And you expect me to have no issues with that?" I asked. He stopped walking and turned to face me. His expression sent a wave of fear to overload my thoughts and emotions.

"Yes."

"O-okay." I stuttered. A look of regret flickered across his face.

"Can I ask a question?" He asked, turning back around. He started walking again as he waited for me to answer.

"Yeah." I answered meekly, afraid to piss him off.

"Why Alex? Why not Alexa? Or Lexi?" He asked. I laughed.

"Because, if you haven't noticed, I'm anything but a girly girl. Yes, I freak out over somethings, but I refuse to wear skirts or dresses and I just generally don't act very ladylike." I answered. "Plus, my best friend started calling me Alex and it just kinda stuck. Can I ask you a question?" He nodded and I assumed that he meant I could. "What's your name? Like, your actual name, not your code name or whatever."

He paused for a brief moment then started walking again, taking ages to answer. "James." I stared at him and nodded even though he couldn't see me.

"Yeah, you look like a James." I mumbled. "Do you mind if I call you James? The Winter Soldier is kinda a mouthful." He snorted, laughing bitterly.

"Kid, if I had an issue with you calling me by my actual name I wouldn't have told you my name." He said. I grimaced.

"I'm not a kid. I'm eighteen, legally I'm an adult." I corrected him. James laughed again.

"You're still a kid to me."

"What? You're like, twenty five. How am I a kid to you?" I asked, my voice rising an octave or so. James shook his head.

"Just leave it, I don't want to explain." He said. I blew a raspberry, probably not helping my case.

"Fine. Be that way. Call me a kid again though, and you'll regret it." I threatened.

"It's that a threat, Sterling?" He asked, sounding amused.

"No, it's a promise, Soldier."

"Oh really? What are you going to do about it, kid?" James asked. I lunged at him, tackling him. James groaned and tried rolling onto his back.

"I don't break promises." I hissed quietly, keeping him pinned to the ground. I knew one of my hands was close to a pressure point, found on the neck, and I knew if I were to hit that pressure point it'd at least cause pain.

"Okay. Okay. Let me up." He said. I laughed.

"No way. Not until you admit I'm not a kid."

I could almost hear how irritated he was with me, but I didn't care. I was having fun. That is, until he managed to reverse our positions and had me pinned to the ground.

My eyes went wide with fear, my agraphobia kicking in and causing my breathing to become quick and shallow and my vision to become blurred.

I had sever agraphobia, or I guess you could say I had virginitiphobia- the fear of being raped. Let me clarify, agraphobia is the fear of sexual abuse. Which is something I was terrified of.

"Let me go." My voice was quiet and quavering, very different from my normally strong, stubborn attitude. "Right now. Let me go." I started to struggle, my vision blurring more and my breathing becoming quicker and shallower as my panic grew. "Please."

Almost immediately I was up on my feet again, a soothing hand placed on my shoulder. I curled in on myself, forcing my panic down, bottling it up.

"Alex?" James asked, his voice colored with concern. "I'm sorry. Are you okay?" I let out a choked sob and fell forwards, only to be caught by the man I was beginning to trust.

"I'm sorry." I cried. "I'm sorry." He pulled me closer, hugging me, and rubbed my back.
"Hey, hey, it's okay. Don't cry. I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you that badly." James said softly, trying to calm me down. "I shouldn't have done that. I'm sorry. Please don't cry."

His words did little to console me, but for the sake of dignity I forced myself to stop crying and bottled the fear, the absolute panic I had felt, shoving it into the corners of my mind.

"Sorry." I sniffled. "That was a bit weird for me to react like that. I can't blame anything other than myself, my fears. Agraphobia." I stopped before stating the other fear.

After a short discussion we both agreed to just stop talking about it and move on. We walked until we were tired of walking, telling each other about ourselves to pass the time.

I told him my phobias, which is quite the list. He told me his full name, James Buchanan Barnes. I told him about the time I broke my arm. He told me about HYDRA, how they would wipe his memory and make him kill their enemies.

This made me think for a while. I was an enemy to HYDRA. I was on the run with their best asset-turned-biggest loss. I practically had a target painted in my chest.

A while later, once we had stopped for the night, I realized I was overcoming a fear in my list.

Philophobia. The fear of falling in love.

(That seemed like a good place to stop. I hope this isn't moving too quickly. Anyways, I feel the need to point out my birthday is 9/5. I'd love it if the silent readers commented, that's all I want for my birthday, is for my silent readers to make themselves known. Just vote or comment or shoot me a PM telling me your opinion on the book, whether or not you like it or if I am writing Bucky really out of character or anything, anything at all. As long as it's constructive criticism because I get really self conscious about my writing and half the time I wanna delete it but I don't because... well just because. Anyways, word count (including this long ass author's note) is 1,158)