Siren Song ~ A Bucky Barnes story

Spring Cleaning (in September)

A/N: trigger warning for mentions of past abuse.

I lean against the closed door and let out an irritated sigh. I know Bucky didn't mean anything by it, but it still irks me.
It happened all the time at shoots. A makeup artist or photographer would ask my age, the response always being some version of 'wow, you're just a baby!'. People were always surprised when I told them, mainly due to the fact that I look like, 5 years older with makeup on.

Now, most people would consider it a compliment to be called young. For me it's always been quite the opposite. I've always found that people wouldn't take me seriously because they thought of me as some kid.

What they don't realize is I haven't been a kid in a long time.

Life at the orphanage was no cake walk. You see, our caretaker was a lazy bitch, and that's putting it nicely.

She treated the little ones decently, she liked them because they were cute. But once you stop being cute, she puts you to work. Apparently for her, I stopped being cute around the age of five. While she would watch tv or paint her nails, I was made to clean the house and look after the children. It wasn't terrible at first. A few older kids helped with the work, but soon they were adopted, leaving me to do the work on my own.

The only thing our caretaker ever cared about was getting money from the state. The better our grades, the more prestigious the orphanage. Well at least in this case, because she also happened to be the teacher for all the children.

That being said she was incredibly strict. Half the time she would beat us if we gave a wrong answer. Or if the beds weren't perfectly made, or for any other reason she saw fit. I being the oldest, felt it was my job to protect the younger kids, so I took most of the abuse.

Did I mention she also starved us? The dumb cunt spent too much of the money that the government gave to keep the orphanage running on herself that there wasn't always enough left to feed us. Of course, I would always give my food to the younger children when there wasn't enough. Perhaps that's why I've remained so thin all this time, my body having learned to survive on less food.

Luckily for the children, I exposed her once I got out. It wasn't hard to get her arrested with all the photographic evidence I had been taking all those years.

There is movement on the other side of the door, drawing me out of my thoughts, followed by a soft knock.

"Hey Adeline, I'm going to go walk around for a bit. See if I can get some old memories to resurface. So just text me if you need anything." Bucky says through the door. I hear a few footsteps leading away but he stops. "I'm sorry if I upset you, I didn't mean anything by it, really." He sighs, footsteps fading away as I hear the door open and close.

Crap. Now I feel bad. I guess I overreacted.

Oh well. I'll worry about that later, I should really get to work on cleaning this place up.

I start grabbing things from the bags, using the broom first. I lift up the (surprisingly light weight) mattress and prop it up against the wall.

It takes me about 2 minuets to sweep the small room.

After the bedroom I decided to fix up the rest of the apartment as well. Sweeping all the floors, replacing the dark and dreary curtains with the new light ones, and putting up a shower curtain in the bathroom.

Before I moved on to cleaning everything with chemicals I made sure to open the windows, not wanting Bucky to come back to find me dead on the floor from inhaling too many chemicals.

I start in the kitchen, rubbing away the grime from the bar to reveal a marble counter top.

Huh. That's nicer than I thought it would be.