salvation ; 𝐛. 𝐛𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐞𝐬 , 𝟐

as long as it takes

ONLY A FEW days had passed since Everett Ross, Deputy Task Force Commander for the CIA, had broken the news about the fall of Cerberus and the newly-granted freedom to a group of soldiers, both new and old. The group that had, together, saved the world from disaster and rescued a broken man from experiencing hell infinite times over.

In those few days, not much happened to our shambled crew of heroes. They savored the feeling of their new lives, reveling in the Wakandan sunshine. Their shoulders began to rise with nutrition and lack of stress, their bodies replenishing themselves as they recovered. A smile was offered in their direction, but never returned. Not for those few days, at least. Again, they'd come so close to the end of everything, hardly escaping with their lives. It was getting old, some of them decided, all the fighting. The uncertainty of tomorrow.

That's why Elda Reid chose to take as long of a vacation as she could, and stay in Wakanda. Her choice was practically made for her when Princess Shuri, easily among the brightest minds in the world, had estimated the timeline for Bucky's rehabilitation. 

"It might take months this time," the lanky princess had warned her. "The damage is more intricate than last time. Like his brain is rewiring itself."

But Elda had only shaken her head firmly. "I don't care." Grasping his hand, she squeezed tightly. "I'm staying with him, no matter what." Her eyes flicked to his, searching their blue depths for his usual protestations at her decisions. When she found none, she added, "As long as it takes." And that was that. Our heroine would not leave her hero; they were destined to remain at one another's side until the end of time. Two entities, incomplete without the other.

There did come a day when someone had to break the ever-wonderful "honeymoon phase." Elda's brother, Cade, was the first to do so. His grief still hung over him like a shroud, a gray cloud that refused to clear. But he was a man that could feel the rest of the world pressing in on him, and if he didn't get out of the fantasy he was living in, he knew he would never go back. He would sink, drown himself in his guilt, doomed to never return to himself. 

For a time, he convinced himself that maybe that wasn't so bad. He'd been dead for so long, forced to turn into a person he didn't recognize for the sake of what he'd been told was the "greater good." All the good that had done him was killed his parents and made him kill others—for sport, it seemed.

"You know, you aren't trapped here. You can go back to the States, you can get a job. You can do whatever you want," his sister told him that day. With a hand on his back, she offered a reassuring pressure to keep him from falling, from becoming numb to everything. 

Cade dropped his head. "Where would I go?" His hands wrung together anxiously.

She shrugged. "Anywhere," she hummed softly. "Home."

It was a tempting offer, but he shook his head. "I can't. It's too soon. It's where they raised us, I can't go back there." His hands shook now, with the memory of seeing his parents fall to the ground, seeing their heads crack open on the concrete floor of the chasm, red blood oozing out of their wounds in a glistening halo around their broken skulls.

"What did Ross say? What do you do with the CIA now?"

"Nothing. I turned in my badge, my gun, everything. I don't want any part of it. I'm finished with the CIA." The words rang clear, the only thing he was certain of. He didn't want to go back to an institution that had cost him his entire life. "I'll find a new job, a job that doesn't require me to...to kill anyone."

Elda slid closer to her brother, embracing him with one arm around his shoulders. "You can do that here, too. You can leave, but if you're not ready, T'Challa will help you get back on your feet. Shuri willl, too."

He chuckled. "Look at you, acting like the older sibling."

"Hey, I'm just helping you out. You may be my big brother, but when you've got shit to deal with, you'd better bet your ass I'll be there to dig my hands in and carve you back out of that shit-hole. Got it?" She leaned forward to make him swivel his eyes to hers. When he did, she could see the teardrops rolling down his cheeks.

He nodded with a small sob, inhaling shakily. "Whatever you say, El."

The Reid siblings sat together for a long while after that, contemplating their lives, their fantasies, and their realities. Having just been reunited, they were unsure of what the future would hold for them, both individually and together, but their bond was unlike any other. 

After being broken for so long, their lives had intertwined again, like the Fates of old decreed it. For families that were built on trust and cared for with love, they could never truly lose each other. They would be each other's ride or die. 

In death, Cade had returned to the living and found his life's meaning again. His own sister.

In life, Elda had crossed the threshold to death and clawed her way back to find the two most important people in her world. The two men that would deliver her salvation. However long it would take, she would get the life she deserved. 

A shattered soul could be repaired. 

||

omg my heart is full. elda and cade are sibling goals and everything is going to be okay and life is good and bucky is safe and everything is good—

or is itttttttt?

march 14, 2020