Violet | Bucky Barnes

Six | The Note

Bruce had been examining the 'chip' he had removed from Lyla's neck, it seemed to be some kind of tracker but this part had stopped working. He sat in his lab pulling at the tentacle like strands that protruded from the rusting chip. It crumbled away the more he played with it. "Hmm... interesting."

He would mumble to himself occasionally, in awe at the technology in front of him. "Well I wasn't expecting that."

Bruce finally deduced, after putting the chip through as many scans and tests that it could withstand, that the chip had caused Lyla's powers to disrupt and become unstable, a support to the power draining cuffs she had to endure whilst tortured and locked up. Although an interesting and odd piece of technology, the chip was old and degrading, the final blast from Lyla's force field had caused it to malfunction.

Bucky had stayed away from Lyla since the night of her bad dream. He felt he was to blame somehow. He's had to endure the bad images of everything he did in the past, in his past, for such a long time and somehow he thought these had seeped into Lyla, like some kind of curse. It hurt him to stay away from her, they had finally come to an understanding. He had found a friendship he wasn't sure he would ever find again in their short time together. But he couldn't and wouldn't hurt her. It was unfortunate that he didn't see he was doing more damage than good.

A lot had happened that Bucky's mind was failing to comprehend, mainly his feelings and he couldn't understand them.

"We can't happen. This. Me. Her. She's a friend...isn't she." He thought to himself whilst alone in the training room one afternoon, he'd managed to evade Lyla and the training sessions Sam thrust on them this far, it hurt to turn his back on her. "Such a dick move." As Sam would say, he thought as he slammed his fist into the solid leather. Bucky was using the punch bag as a means to vent his frustrations, he'd punch holes in one and have to replace it with another; a discarded pile had started to build in the corner, sand trails snaking back to Bucky.

Lyla walked in then as the last punch bag fell to the floor with a thud, the sand within it seeping out onto the floor around his feet. As she entered Bucky averted his eyes, quickly scurrying past Lyla, not looking at her but concentrating on the door behind her, his escape route. She felt the air whip around her as he hurried past, almost ripping the door from its hinges. Lyla sucked in a breath smelling his cologne. Her eyes closed lightly at his scent. She turned around as he found his exit, prepared to go after him with demands to know why he had suddenly cut her off.

"Buck..." His name left her lips in a silent whisper as she held up a hand, which soon flopped back to her side.

Lyla sighed and walked forwards, retrieving a fresh punch bag and taking Bucky's place. She hung it up on the hook; proceeded to punch it as hard and fast as she could till her knuckles bled, she needed to release many pent up emotions. It didn't split and fall to the ground like Bucky's had, this bag had some resilience.

"Argh..." She huffed and grunted, practically screaming. Silent tears coming down her face as she fought to ignore the pain in her knuckles. She finally slumped to the floor in defeat, hitting the stone floor with her closed fist, sure she had broken it, she let the ache of the pain work up her arm. She sat for a while in the silence of the room before pulling herself up and walking to her quarters to shower and attend to her knuckles, which had begun to bruise. How was she going to explain this?

Bucky had continued to dodge Lyla around the compound and would bolt his door at night, for fear she would come to see him, it was childish of him really. It had been a little over a month since Lyla's nightmare and he had left.

"What did I do?" Lyla thought to herself as she sat on the end of her bed one night, looking down at her hands in her lap. She twiddled her aching swollen fingers, the bruises had started to heal, she had told Sam it was an accident, she had hit the bag at an odd angle.