Soul Stealer ~ (A Bucky Barnes Love Story)

Prologue

Two men flanked me on either side, their meaty hands wrapped around my arms painfully. The cut on my lip throbbed, metallic tasting blood coating my tongue from a cut inside my mouth. I was pretty sure at least one rib was bruised, if not broken, and my left wrist was swollen and discolored. The barrel of the gun pressed against the back of my head was a reminder of what would happen if I stepped out of line.

A door at the end of the hall opened and a group of armed guards shuffled out. They all wore the same outfit as my captors, a black shirt that was entirely too tight to be respectable, tucked into black cargo pants with a multitude of weapons strapped to various parts of their body. They were all tense, watching the man they were surrounding warily.

Even from a distance he was imposing.  He seemed to swallow up the space in the hallway, making the small space downright claustrophobic. My fight or flight response kicked into overdrive, and it was screaming only one word, flight.

The man walked like a predator, movements as graceful as they were deadly.  Somehow I just knew he could overpower his guards if he chose to, but instead he allowed them to corral him down the hall. He ignored their taunts and crude jokes at his expense. The fact he remained utterly unaffected by their jabs while they, in turn, were sweating profusely like he might kill them any moment made something that felt a whole lot like fear skate up my spine. To see him was to look death in the eye.

The men surrounding him were by no means small, but they were dwarfed by his sheer size. Their eyes never once left him, hands resting on the guns strapped to their thighs, but the man's eyes never left the floor. His long, dark hair obscured his face, but the tension in his shoulders and curled fists at his sides bespoke his agitation.

"Keep it moving," the guard holding the gun to my head barked, shoving me forward.

I lost my footing, stumbling forward, a high-pitched squeak falling from my busted lips. The guard on my left righted my footing just before I fell flat on my face, but the commotion drew the attention of the man being led in the opposite direction. His head turned slightly, so little that his guards didn't even notice. His piercing gaze slammed into me with the force of a freight train, and for a moment, I forgot how to breathe.

Despite the severity of my situation I stopped dead in my tracks, mouth hanging open in disbelief. My heart was racing, pounding so hard in my chest it actually hurt. My hand curled in my shirt like it might quell my rising panic and I swallowed hard trying to reconcile what I knew to be true with what I was seeing in front of me.

"B-bucky," I whispered.

My guards tightened their grip on my arms, forcefully pulling me down the hall so fast the tips of my toes drug on the floor. I was breathing hard, head literally spinning, straining desperately to get another look at him over my shoulder.

I was yanked through the door and my back slammed into the wall, but right before the door slammed shut I saw him again. He was standing at the end of the hall, his collection of guards screaming commands in a harsh language I didn't know.  He was breathing hard, feet spread wide, eyes blazing as he stared at me.  

He didn't know me. He couldn't, but that didn't mean I didn't know him. I'd grown up hearing stories about him. His picture was proudly displayed in my mother's living room.  He looked different.  He was taller, broader, a hell of a lot stronger with long hair and stubble covering his jawline, but I would know his face anywhere.

James Buchanan Barnes.

Bucky.

My father's best friend.

~ ~ ~

Are you hooked?  Hopefully this entices you to keep on reading :)

I've had this story stuck in my head for what feels like forever, and I decided it was finally take the time to put it on paper.  I adore the MCU and hope I can do it and all the characters we've grown to know and love justice.

Posting on Cap's birthday seemed an appropriate way to kick off this party!

I hope you enjoy!