The Earth's Child: A Bucky Barnes fanfiction

Almost Dead

"I can fly!" screamed Shola as she cut smoothly through the air, followed by Sam Wilson.

"Be careful, don't break anything," warned Sam.

"Heavens," muttered Bucky, looking up, "now there's two of them."

Steve laughed at Bucky's face. He couldn't help but feel that Bucky looked like a really grumpy grandpa.

"Relax, jerk," said Steve, polishing his new shield. "We have finally found her. She will come back."

"I know," said Bucky, putting on his bulletproof vest, "I just hope I am strong enough to handle it when I finally see her. I know what Hydra can do, and I know how sadistic they are. I just hope I can fix her."

"You can. She loves you and you love her. That should be enough. Now, we have to board the Quinjet."

"Fury's coming with us?"

"No. He will just trace our entire mission, keeping some government regulations at bay. It's just you, me, Sam, Shola, T'Challa and Nat. And our pilot, of course."

"Spice?"

"She will stay here, helping Nick get those legal permissions from New York. Spice is one of Tony's favourites and ever since Tony agreed with the government's accords, the government will not dare to go against the Iron Man. So, she will stay here, keeping Tony updated so he can keep the government away from all this."

"Tony Stark is about to help us?"

"No. He is helping Spice by aiding in her twin's rescue. By the way, Bucky, I am very excited to finally officially be able to meet her."

"You should be. She is amazing."

"She is the reason I got my best-friend back."

Bucky looked at Steve who was smiling widely. He felt sorry for Steve, but he had to say the truth. He couldn't pretend to be someone else for long. He loved Steve, that was obvious. He didn't know why, he didn't care how, he just wanted Steve to be safe and he kept feeling that Steve was extremely breakable even though he was bulkier than him. But he had to tell him the truth.

"You didn't," said Bucky. "I am not the man who fell from the train. James Buchanan Barnes died a long time ago."

"I know. But you are still you. You might not be the man who held my hand and helped me stand up when my mother passed away, but you are the man who disobeyed the Hydra and refused to kill me even when you knew that you would be tortured because of it. You might not be the man who fought countless bullies just to keep me safe, but you are still the man who decided to come face to face with Zemo even though the thought scared the hell out of you, just because I told you that it is the right thing to do. It doesn't matter if they tried to make a monster out of you. You are still you. And I need to personally thank Bella for bringing out the amazing human being that still existed inside the cold Winter Soldier."

"According to our knowledge of Bella's powers," started Steve, his team huddled around him, two hours before they reached Tromelin, "she must be on a high-rise building. Her earth powers are really strong. So, in order to keep her completely overpowered, she must be in a building at least twelve or thirteen storeys high."

"Our drones," continued T'Challa, "which were released yesterday by Shuri, acknowledged that there is only one building there that matches this description and it has been built without the knowledge of the authorities owning that territory, owing to the high desolation of that place. We need to land on the roof."