Better Love || A Bucky Barnes Fanfiction

- To Sleep, Perchance To Dream -

The day passed by quietly. The original avengers had gone down to the lake. To grieve, to talk, to do something, anything. Elena didn't know. As soon as they had gotten back, Elena had walked away from the group in silence. Now she lay in her room, listening to the silence. 

She didn't know how long she had been there for. It could've been mere minutes or a month. Eventually, though, the darkness was broken by a small crack of light coming from her bedroom door. There had been no knock. These days, they didn't knock when it came to each other. 

He didn't speak as he crossed the room and made his way towards her. The bed sunk slightly when he sat down beside her, pulling his legs up onto the bed before he shuffled down. She had retired beneath her covers with only her head sticking out. When they were face to face, he said her name.

"Elena?"

She could hear the sadness in his voice, could almost feel it coming off him. She knew that he and Natasha had always been close. Shared life experiences, he had once told her. She wondered how he felt about her death. She wondered if he wished she had been the one to die.

"I was going to do it."

"What?" Steve said, recoiling slightly in shock. In truth, it was the sound of her voice that had made him jump at first. It was quiet, rough, as though she had been crying a long time. Steve didn't doubt this. Even with the dim lighting in her room, he could see her usually pale cheeks were flushed red, her eyes sharing the same colour. Eventually, though, the words she had spoken sunk through.

"I was going to jump," Elena said again, the bottom of her lip trembling as she thought back to that moment, one she hadn't been quick enough to take. "I was right at the edge, Steve, I should've... I should've just..."

Elena trailed off, unable to bring herself to finish the sentence. She shook her head softly and let out a sigh. She could feel Natasha's hands on her again, pulling her away.

"She stopped me," Elena whispered, feeling fresh tears beginning to well in her eyes. "She called me her sister. Clint, he tried too, we both did we just... we didn't want her to go."

Steve frowned, watching as small sobs began to wrack her body. Gently, as so not to shake her form anymore than she was already doing herself, he sat up. Softly he coaxed her blanketed form closer to him, pulling her up until she was sitting beside him, head lying against his chest as he wrapped his arms around her.

"Nobody did," he said honestly, pressing his face against her blonde hair for a moment to hide the tears that had begun to fall down his face too. He sniffed, resting his cheek on top of her head.  "We would be in mourning no matter who it was, El. You, Clint... Nat. We would've all mourned whoever it was. She did what she believed in, what she had been trying to do for years now. She trusts us to make her death count."

As Steve talked, he could feel Elena's sobs subsiding. Eventually she was still once more, breathing heavy and sniffing occasionally, but still. As the silence wore on, Steve began to think that maybe she had gone to sleep. But then she sat up and turned around to face him properly. 

"I just wish she was here," she murmured, giving Steve a sad smile that he returned, pushing a strand of her hair behind her ear.

"So do I. I wish they all were."

Elena nodded gently before sighing deeply, leaning back against the headboard and tilting her head up towards the ceiling. From where she sat a shard of light from her window cut through the blinds, lighting up her scarred cheek, ear, and the whiteness of her neck. Steve noticed that it had a small bruise on it, one that looked distinctly like one Natasha's widow bites would leave. He touched it softly, making Elena smile slightly.