the outbreak
summary: your bruised heart and shattered mind have feelings for Bucky and you had planned to tell him very soon, however, the disastrous outcome of the last mission and a heated argument make you think the best option was to keep quiet.
pairing: bucky barnes x f!reader
words: 8k or so
warnings: implicit reference of suicidal thoughts, some suicidal accusations, maybe like get your shit together kind of stuff, a lot of bad words, angst. there's just no happy endings in this account. mentions to explosions. also, there's a plot in the plot? that kinda got there out of nowhere, but i liked the way it turned out. probably do a second part later.
note: hey! i can't believe I actually managed to get one thing done and ready to be published in one day, i think i got lucky. im still working on the next part of how to break a routine in one year but it's been a rough journey, i don't know how it would end up in the end. still hope you like this and know that feedback is really appreciated! really love reading your comments and opinions 💜
1.5, part 2!
You were static all the way back to the Complex. Your ears were still ringing from the vibrations of the bombs that exploded near you and which, by sheer luck, didn't cause your death. You couldn't look up from your clasped hands and you couldn't shake the chagrin in your chest that hadn't left you since you saw the look on Bucky Barnes' face when you were found in the rubble.
It was supposed to be a simple mission. Extraction of information, no more than five hours and you would return to the Complex. But it got complicated when you were ambushed, as if they were already expecting an Avengers team to show up in that building and they were ready for anything. You weren't supposed to face anything that day, otherwise you wouldn't have gone on the mission in the first place.
You knew you were always going to be the team's priority when they went on an extraction mission, whether it was information or people. You weren't the most skilled or the most resourceful, so the team had to keep their eyes on you and the mission objective. That in itself felt like a burden, so you always tried to just do your job and not complicate things for the others.
This time, however, you couldn't keep yourself safe, not even despite the orders given to you by the team and the mission leader: Bucky. You were casually perusing the shelves of a room where you knew the information they were looking for, which was vital to knowing the enemy you were dealing with at the moment, was to be found. You were so close to getting it that electricity surged through your limbs and little shots of adrenaline coursed through your body.
But, at that moment, Bucky's voice reached your hearing.
“Y/N, get out of there right now and meet Wanda on the first floor.”
“Hold on a second. I've almost got it.”
“I told you to get out of there right now. It wasn't a goddamn recommendation.”
“Can't you wait a second, Bucky? This is the key to everything and you know it.”
“I don't give a fuck about those documents, Y/N! Get out of there right now!”
And you should have listened to him. You should have listened to him the first time. But you always had this constant need to prove yourself, to make your time count for others and for them to notice that you were worth something. That you weren't a burden on the team. For a while the line of that goal was blurred, you didn't know if you were trying to convince them or yourself. On that occasion, you decided to make the decision to prove your worth and stay to find out what they had spent weeks focusing their time on.
“Fuck,” you heard Bucky curse. “Wanda, can you come in for-?”
The sound of a large explosion caused horrible interference on the team's communicators.
Sadly, until that moment you understood that maybe you should have listened to the team leader. Still, you held your place for a few more seconds until you found your target. But it was too late by the time the building began to shake.
It had taken the team about twenty-five minutes to find you. They didn't even know how you had survived.
“Bucky, what happened in-?”
“I'll give the mission report to Fury later,” the man cut off Steve Rogers' words, walking past him without giving him a glance, and continued on his way straight to the entrance of the Complex.
Steve turned his gaze until his eyes rested on yours. You felt like you had a lot of words stuck in your throat, a lot of overflowing feelings that you couldn't control. You just looked down again and approached him to hand over the mission objective. For which you risked your life almost without thinking. Then you walked straight back to your little room and didn't leave for the rest of the day.
---
Your friendship with Bucky was great. From the moment you joined the group, he was the person you hit it off with the fastest, surprising almost everyone on the team. Even before you got to know Bucky, even though you didn't consider yourself an outgoing person, you would tell him stories about your day and mundane things you did every day. At first you didn't even know if the man was listening to you, you just knew he was there and never left until you were done talking.
The situation wasn't so bad. You were used to talking to yourself since you started living on your own, a couple of years before you joined the team. Sometimes when Bucky came into the kitchen or appeared in the living room, you were already mumbling to yourself about something.
For a while you never knew why he stayed to listen to you.
And months went by like that. Each time you would show up wherever he was or he would show up wherever you were and you would just tell him something. A story from your childhood, a story from your grandparents' lives, a news item from around the world, an extremely strange and bizarre fun fact.
That little interaction was something you quickly got used to.
That is, until outsiders had to dip their spoon in and stick ideas that didn't belong in your head. Ideas you weren't supposed to have or even consider once. You knew it, but you learned it again the hard way.
“Have you seen Bucky today?” you asked Sam Wilson once when you walked into the kitchen.
“No,” the man quickly replied, finishing his coffee.
You pursed your lips and were already on your way back to look for him elsewhere when Sam's voice reached your ears again.
“You hit it off pretty quick with him, huh? I thought he was a tough nut to crack.”
“Don't talk about him as a thing. And it's really not that complicated to get to know him. You just have to make an effort and not push.”
“Roger that, Captain,” Sam smiled and took a sip of his coffee.
Hearing that lit a light bulb in your head.
“And have you seen Steve?”
Sam shook his head as he lowered his mug to rest it on the kitchen counter. “No. They must be together because I haven't seen them since yesterday. Maybe they went out on a mission?”
You nodded at his words, thoughtfully.
“But he didn't tell me he had to leave today…” you mumbled, but it reached Sam's ears.
“Does he usually tell you what he does in the day, too?”
You turned to look at him, distracted.
“Something like that. He only does that when I ask him to go shopping with me.”
“He goes shopping with you? Really?”
“Sure,” you quickly replied focusing all your attention on his surprised face. “It's a dangerous world for women, you know? I can't take chances.”
“Clint goes shopping once a month. You've never ordered from him?”
“No, I like to walk around the supermarkets and look at every single thing on the shelves. Clint is very fast and boring.”
“Ah, so the only person you feel comfortable with at those times is Bucky.”
You shook your head in a nod, completely unaware of what the man was trying to imply with his words.
“Natasha once accompanied me, but because she flashed the knife hidden on her hip at every man who saw us for more than five seconds, she was banned from more than seven venues and the police were almost called.”
“Mmm,” Sam nodded. “Sounds very much in keeping.”
“So yeah, that's why Bucky is my shopping buddy. Steve is very inquisitive, Tony brags every two minutes about how quick and easy he could do the market from the app on his phone, Wanda gets lost in the movie section and I can hardly ever get her out and you just don't shop because you leave it all to Clint.”
“And Bruce?”
“He leaves a list for Clint or asks FRIDAY to take note of every time he says he needs something so she can forward it to Clint.”
“Wow, who knew the Avengers were such bad shopping buddies.”
“Yeah. Bucky just walks with me, reaches for things that are too high and does his own shopping quietly. Or sometimes we chat. About shopping stuff.”
“That's very domestic of him.”
You let out a short laugh, agreeing with his description. It was something you thought about from time to time.
“Bucky is a very domestic person, actually.”
“You seem to know him well.”
“Maybe so. Only from what I can see of him by his actions.”
“He's not very active with you in talks then.”
“Not very much. But if you can get to know him well, it's easy to tell what he means just by his behaviors.”
Sam gave you a nod, his coffee on the counter long forgotten.
Then, as if his mind hadn't processed what he meant, out of his mouth came the last words you would have wanted to hear in the world.
“You two would make a good couple.”
You snapped out of your head for a moment, almost abruptly. You turned to look at him as if he had a magnet that attracted your gaze and you almost pulled a lung out of your chest from how loudly you snorted at those words. That man had lost his mind.
“What?”
“What?” Sam repeated, his brow furrowing without losing the hint of amusement it caused him to see you so flustered for saying something so mundane. “It's no secret to anyone that you're the person he spends the most time with in the entire Complex. You do a lot of things together, including shopping. Like a couple would. You know what? You already act like a couple even if it's not official.”
“You have no idea what you're talking about.”
“Oh, but I do have an idea. We all have eyes here, Y/N. It's not hard to notice the look in both of our eyes when-”
“All right, that's enough!” you exclaimed, and Sam just shrugged. “I don't want you ever hinting like that again, is that clear?”
And he didn't do it again. But you should have paid more attention when he spoke in the plural. Even though he was the first, he wasn't the only one to express his opinion freely about your friendly relationship with Bucky when you didn't ask for it. It was as if Sam unleashed a horde of unwanted comments about the normal, domestic things you did with Bucky.
It wasn't long before you began to feel uncomfortable when the two of you were in some room in the Complex with some third party who was intruding.
“Are you okay?” Bucky asked you once you were in the common room of the Complex.
You remembered turning to look at him in bewilderment as you snapped out of your cloud of thoughts. You saw him sitting next to you, a safe distance away. Like two normal friends. You were telling him a story your mother had told you about your grandmother many years ago when you felt a look on your face. You ignored it at first completely because you were too engrossed in your story and felt you didn't care if anyone else came into the room.
But then you met Clint's eyes. And everything went into a tailspin.
“Yeah. All good,” you shook your head trying to play it down, but you underestimated Bucky's knowledge of you. “Why?”
“You were quiet.”
“For less than ten seconds,” you let out a nervous laugh. In that moment you felt like a pressure cooker, your mind moving anxiously like the lid blowing the air out.
You noticed out of the corner of your eye that Bucky averted his gaze and you turned to look at him to realise that he had focused his attention on the person sitting in one of the far armchairs with a comic book in his hands. He looked so deep in concentration that his presence in the room was barely noticeable.
“Does it bother you that Clint is here?”
“What?” you exclaimed, suddenly a little louder than you should have. “No, of course not, why would it bother me?”
Bucky arched an eyebrow.
“That's what I'm trying to understand.”
His unwavering expression couldn't give you any answer as to what was going through his head. You mentally berated yourself for trying to find out something you didn't want to know, that you shouldn't even be considering.
“Even if it bothered me that Clint was here, why would that be relevant?”
The man next to you raised his eyebrows as if you'd asked the question with the most obvious answer in the world.
“Because you're uncomfortable.”
You frowned.
“Do you care that much that I'm uncomfortable?”
“Yes, because you haven't finished the story. I still don't know what happened to the chicken.”
His words left your mind blank for a few seconds. You didn't know whether to be flattered, because he seemed genuinely interested in what you were telling him, or offended because he seemed to take it only as a method of entertainment. Either way, the important thing was that you had his attention, right?
Oh, no. No, no, no.
You were suddenly annoyed to realise that your thoughts were taking the wrong turn, being fully influenced by the words Sam and the others had let out about your relationship with Bucky. You couldn't allow yourself to drift slowly into a place you didn't want to return to, because you knew well the consequences and side effects. Even though sometimes you felt you were already in that place.
You were fine with the way you were, nothing else mattered. You were fine with the way you were, nothing else mattered. You were fine just with the way you were, nothing else mattered….
“Do you want to go somewhere else?”
“You know this is the longest conversation we've ever had?”
Impulsively you changed the topic of conversation. And you knew Bucky had noticed by the way his eyes narrowed and he didn't say anything for a few seconds. You stood in silence, a small staring battle, Bucky trying to make you give in, until he let out an exhausted sigh and averted his gaze.
“It's not the longest conversation.”
“Yes, it is. You talked to me more than five times.”
Bucky let out a short disbelieving laugh, his head jerking in rhythm with the sound coming out of his mouth. You watched him carefully for the duration of the gesture, because it wasn't something that happened very often.
“I'm sure we've had longer conversations.”
“The monosyllables you answer me with at the mall don't count.”
Bucky let out a breath and his lips pressed into a thin line. It was your turn to laugh, genuinely amused. His eyes flickered up to meet yours.
“You give yourself a lot more credit than you should,” you told him after a while, when your laughter had subsided and his expression was more serene.
“Yeah, whatever,” he mumbled. “What happened to the chicken?”
Over time, you learned to manage your awkwardness so that Bucky wouldn't suspect your uncomfortable behaviour and avoid questions you didn't want to answer. Sometimes, you thought you were excellent at hiding what your body wanted to show with its language, and other times you felt that Bucky just didn't bring up the subject to avoid making you even more uncomfortable. But surely he wanted to ask.
So that was the routine you usually had. It wasn't strange for anyone to see you walking around the Complex together or going out together, and it wasn't strange for you to see everyone with knowing smiles as you passed each other.
Even though it was difficult, you felt you coped well. Always ignoring that voice in the back of your head that tried to alert you that something had happened in the feeling system. If you just ignored it, then it was nothing.
Everything was still relatively normal.
Until that damned mission where you decided not to listen to him.
It had been a week since the incident and if Bucky had looked at you at least once when you were in the same place, that was a lot to say.
Sam had tried to ask you several times what had happened on the mission and why Bucky didn't even acknowledge your presence when sometimes you were right next to him, but you were never able to answer him. You didn't want to talk about it when every time you remembered the cold look he'd given you the moment Wanda removed the chunk of concrete that had almost fallen on top of you, only being cushioned by the wall you'd stuck to before it all came crashing down. His light eyes had always felt warm, made you feel welcome to him the moment you wanted to enter, but in that instant his eyes were watching you as if he wanted you to disappear from the face of the earth.
You couldn't bear the memory. Not when you were already used to his presence and his silences; to his short laughs and mumbled answers. Not when you were already starting to feel comfortable with the ideas you were getting in your head despite trying to convince yourself otherwise; that maybe Sam and the others weren't so wrong. That maybe… they might be right.
But they were just that. Ideas. Stupid thoughts that were going around in your head to salve your poor heart.
Ever since you came back from the mission, you knew how unlikely it was that everyone else was right. The only thing they saw between the two of you, that they talked about so much, was your own feelings bouncing off all the walls that Bucky had and that he hadn't dropped at any point like you thought he had. It was only the reflection of your adoration for him in his eyes. There was never really anything about him that gave them to understand that he felt the same way you did about him, it was only the extent of your love that covered him too.
But nothing was ever really reciprocated.
And coming to that conclusion wasn't as difficult as you thought it would be.
Being hopeful wasn't your style. Although you were always cheerful and tried to put your best face to the world, you weren't one to fall easily for the words and actions of others. That's why you kept your relationship with Bucky at bay for so long, because you knew it wasn't possible for him to see you with the love you longed to give him. You were always sure. But then, and you didn't really know how you got to that point, you began to think that, if other people could see it so clearly, then suddenly it might be true. Maybe Bucky could return your feelings and then the world wasn't just black and white.
Wrong.
For a moment you allowed yourself to forget and let your defences down for that little flame of hope, even though you knew you shouldn't have, that you hadn't done it in years for something and it didn't have to be any different this time. You did, and it was a mistake.
“So, what do you say?”
You raised your head to look at Wanda's expectant face. Her raised eyebrows and the way she moved her hands in her lap gave you a hint that she was feeling nervous. She was trying to hide it, but you could also see that she was a little afraid. Her light, barely perceptible voice gave you the feeling that she was afraid of unleashing a storm with her conjectures.
“That it's crazy.”
“It's definitely crazy,” the woman in front of you sighed, her eyes drifting from your figure to her surroundings trying to deal with the weight of the revelations she'd had these past few days.
Your body leaned against the armchair behind you, and you lowered your head until you could look at the book lying on your crossed legs. You looked at the letters and frowned as you tried to understand again what it was all about.
“That could also be just a story.”
“I don't think so,” Wanda mused, then raised her head to look at you. “There's a reason these books are here.”
“Yeah, just like there's a reason for us not to be in here.”
“Then why did you follow me?”
Wanda crossed her arms under her chest, an annoyed expression taking over her face.
“I didn't think you were going to show me something like this,” you admitted, taking the book in your hands and running your eyes over the text and figures once more. “I didn't even think it was possible.”
“I told you my dreams were starting to become more accurate.”
You shook your head in a nod, your mind trying to figure out what that could mean for your friend's future. You knew it was possible that Wanda was doing her best not to see the whole horizon of negative possibilities emerging from that situation, but you were also aware of the weight she must be feeling with all those thoughts running through her head coupled with the likelihood of not having an answer. Your head schemed for a possible solution that might not be welcome.
“Why don't you go talk to Strange?”
Wanda twisted her lips, the reaction you expected.
“I get the impression that the first thing he'd do would be to lock me in his magical dungeon.”
You wanted to contradict her, but it was partly true. You knew Strange to be a man who didn't see nuance in black and white. It was only about good and bad, with no in-between. But you suggested it because he was the only person besides Wanda who knew as much about magic and sorcery as she did, even more thanks to the position he held. His methods were questionable, probably, but the range of his knowledge was something greater than either of you could question.
You closed the book and ran your fingers over the material of its cover, so stiff and dirty that you could barely even try to guess what century it was from.
“Even if what this book says is true, we don't have the original book to confirm it. We don't even know if it exists.”
“The Darkhold is real,” Wanda contradicted you almost immediately, and the certainty in her voice sent a shiver down your spine.
“What, you've seen it in dreams too?”
When Wanda averted her eyes from yours, you had to restrain the urge to hit her over the head with the book you were holding.
“Wanda!”
“I'm sorry!”
You saw her quickly get up from the floor and start walking around the place you had taken over in the library you were in. From the outside, it looked like a small room with a few shelves full of books, but the further you went in, the less it seemed like it would have any end to it. It was one of the largest rooms in the Complex. And, courtesy of Wanda, you now knew that it was the only room with another hidden room that almost ninety-five percent of the Complex staff were barred from entering. You were convinced that only the Director, Maria Hill, Tony Stark and Stephen Strange were allowed in there.
Now, how could Wanda concentrate enough energy to find and open the hidden entrance to that place? A complete mystery to you.
“The Darkhold was the first thing I saw before my dreams started getting weird. It was only a couple of weeks ago.”
“After you dreamt about it, you started having the lucid dreams?”
“Yes, it was very strange,” Wanda shook her head and stopped her feet in front of you, her expression thoughtful as if her mind was conjuring up all her dreams at once. “Sometimes I dream things where I'm sure it's me, that if I looked in a mirror I'd be sure it was me. But other times, I feel like my dream is focused on showing me someone else's memories. Like I'm inside someone else's mind… but that person is me.”
The woman looked at you, her face contracted in confusion and exhaustion.
“Why didn't you tell me this before?”
Wanda sat back down on the floor in front of you, her legs crossed and her elbows resting on her knees. You watched her run her hands over her face repeatedly before answering.
“I didn't want to worry you. I didn't want to worry anyone. At first I had thought this was too crazy for anyone to believe me, but when I came here and found that book I started to fear for myself. I didn't want to get locked up if anyone found out.”
“Don't say that. No one's going to lock you up.”
You threw the book with the stiff cover somewhere on the floor and moved from your spot to approach your friend. You didn't hesitate for a second to wrap her in your arms and squeeze her against your body.
You didn't know how you had gone so many days without noticing the tiredness in her eyes and the dark bags under her eyes. You'd been so wrapped up in your own head that you hadn't even been able to notice when something was eating away at your friend's sanity. Being one of those things… mhm, you know….
“Don't worry. You're not going to go crazy and want to rule the universe. That sounds too surreal.”
“I'd like to know if my dreams are fabrications or visions.”
You turned away from the woman, your brows furrowing at the implication of her words.
“You're not going to become what that book says.”
“But what if…?”
“No, Wanda.”
“What if it's tipping me off?”
“And who's doing it?” you inquired as you sat back on your heels, your gaze focused on your friend's obfuscated expression. “The Darkhold? Some silly alternate version of yourself from another universe? Now that's crazy!”
Wanda turned her head away and her shoulders slumped.
“That would mean my dreams are unexplained. They're just dreams.”
“Maybe that's for the best. Even the multiverse theory hasn't been proven enough for us to conjecture beyond our own reality.”
“Still, isn't it strange?”
“Of course it is. It's just too weird. I just meant that it doesn't mean you're destined to become that bizarre alter ego.”
You saw her press her lips into a line, then nod her head slightly. She didn't really look convinced, and neither were you, to be honest. Of everything she had told you, you couldn't understand half of it, and the other half you could barely believe was true. The magic was a few levels above your understanding of reality and altering it all in a few minutes was proving to be a really complicated job.
Still, seeing her anguished face at the possibility of what her dreams and that book implied, you knew you had to say something to try to calm the thoughts in her head. Even if it was something tiny that couldn't even come close to being true. You couldn't let those evil ideas fill her head and make her think she was some kind of villain when it couldn't be further from the truth.
If that was the future, it wasn't the future of the Wanda in front of you, her gaze lost and her eyes full of fear. Someone who worried like that about what might happen, even if she wasn't completely convinced of it, only thinking of the slightest possibility, couldn't have an ounce of evil in her.
“Maybe you're right-”
“What the fuck are you two doing here?”
You cringed as you heard a new voice join in the room when you hadn't even heard the footsteps of anyone approaching. Least of all from the two people who had just appeared down the same path you and Wanda had come down.
“Uhm…”
Your voice came out shaky, not at the prospect of receiving yet another punishment for being in a forbidden place for the level you were at as an agent, you'd already seen that coming, but because standing next to a very angry Tony Stark was Bucky. And he was staring at you so hard you feared he might punch a hole in your soul.
You felt Wanda's gaze on you. You turned to see her slowly, as if making any sudden movements would upset the bundle of fury in front of you. You could almost see the veins in her forehead pop.
With one glance, you knew that Wanda had no idea that the room had any kind of sensor. Even though it would make sense for it to have one, it would be illogical because it's a door hidden with magic. Normal people wouldn't notice it by looking through matter or something.
Nevertheless, it was magic that was what it was all about. Surely Strange would have some magical failsafe, kind of.
“None of you are going to respond?”
“I believe the situation responds on its own,” Wanda answered him, and Tony's dark eyes settled on her in a matter of seconds.
For a moment you thought his face had faltered, that his expression had slumped, but just as quickly you noticed, just as quickly it was gone.
Then, his gaze wandered across the floor where you stood with a number of books around you, until it settled on the book you had been reading moments before his arrival. You hadn't realised where it had fallen when you threw it when you got up to hug Wanda, but that must have been your lucky day because it was far enough away to make him think that it had only been taken out, but not opened.
Tony moved quickly to take the book in his hands and then gave you a wary look.
“Did you open this?”
As if we were going to say yes.
“No,” you replied quickly, averting your gaze from the frozen man behind Tony.
“Good.”
You watched him tuck the small, stiff book into his jacket before glancing back at the mess of books on the floor.
“Move along. Strange isn't going to be happy.”
The two men moved sideways, clearing the way for you and Wanda to exit the way you came.
Without a second's hesitation, you both got up and started walking in the direction of the exit.
“How the hell did you know where the entrance was?” Tony questioned Wanda once you were all out of the hidden room, and the aforementioned turned around to watch the door slam shut before disappearing.
"I guess I got lucky."
Tony clicked his tongue, but said nothing more. He turned on his heels to begin his walk towards the library exit followed by Bucky who clearly didn't give you a single word other than judging looks.
Wanda nudged you lightly with her body, the previous topic almost completely forgotten, with a half smile on her face. You didn't know if it was good to drop the subject so spontaneously, but you did know that you didn't want her to continue to have those thoughts running through her head.
“You haven't spoken to Bucky?”
“I'm puzzled that the subject is funny to you.”
“I'm not amused,” Wanda tried to rectify, lowering her voice as she saw that the two men in front of her had stopped at the library exit. “But I don't think he's mad at you.”
“Today is your day of the wildest theories I've ever heard, how can he possibly not be mad at me?”
Wanda sighed and watched the back of the aforementioned, who was apparently talking to Steve Rogers.
“You scared us all that day. But Bucky was… terrified. I knew you were alive, and I told him, but he wouldn't believe me until he could see it with his own eyes. He was too scared at the time. And, to be honest, I think that scare made him realise something he doesn't want to accept now. That's probably why he's staying away from you.”
You watched your friend with narrowed eyes, your body turned in her direction.
“Did you get inside his head?”
“Of course not!”
“Because that's wildly accurate, Wanda. How can you conclude something like that just by looking at someone?”
“I've had a week to do it,” the woman waved her hand in the air, downplaying the matter before resuming her walk when the men up ahead finally moved. “And I happen to be very good at reading people's body language.”
“Yeah, right.”
Wanda grunted at your tone of voice.
“I really didn't get inside his head, Y/N. I swore I wouldn't do it again and I'm keeping my word.”
“Alright, let's say I believe you,” you agreed and turned to look at her just as she rolled her eyes at your words. “That's not reason enough to talk to him.”
“And why not?” Wanda raised her voice, quizzical. “I practically gave you the answer.”
“Knowing doesn't make things any easier, woman.”
Wanda let out a whine so loud and exaggerated that several of the people walking past her frowned at her.
“The real answer is to just talk to him. Do you know how many problems are solved a year just by talking?”
You shook your head in denial. “He's avoiding me-”
“And you seem to be okay with that.”
“I'm not.”
“Then why haven't you done anything to change it yet?”
You knew she was right, but to be honest and to no one's surprise, you didn't want to deal with the confrontation and find out that what you always thought and the reason you kept yourself on edge was true. Even though it clearly was. But to have the chance to hear it come from his mouth directly? You were definitely past having that experience. You no longer doubted that his feelings for you were as non-existent as you first thought and that you should never have listened to people's words, giving yourself false hope. You didn't want to face your own mind and the fact that you got into this heart trouble on your own when you had always been so cautious. Weighing the risk of Bucky pushing so far inside your head that you knew the real darkness was reason enough to be a little content with silence.
Talking to him would solve a percentage of the situation, the professional. You would apologise another thousand times for not listening to him during the mission, you would tell him that you would do everything in your power not to react that way again, and that was it. But the other percentage of the situation would not be resolved; the percentage that involves you more than him. Even if you apologise and he accepts your apology, nothing could assure you that things would go back to the way they were before, that you would go back to being attached to each other as you have been since you met.
And that should be good, because you could finally get away from him and get all those feelings off your chest and out of your mind like you should have done in the first place to avoid the eventuality of him suddenly knowing too much about you, but at the same time you didn't want to end something that could have been so good. Even without getting romantic, your friendship with Bucky was one of the things you cherished the most, and you didn't want to make yourself forget it as if it had never happened.
“What is it that scares you?”
“That I was right all along.”
Wanda gave you her reprimanding look and paused to stare at you with that scowl on her face. You inhaled sharply and stopped in front of her, watching her expectantly.
“I'll take Tony,” she blurted out suddenly, not wiping that expression off her face.
“What?”
“I'm taking him and you better hope that when we meet again you have good news.”
“What are you talking about?”
Without answering, Wanda turned her body and walked in the direction of the three men who had stopped once again to talk. Bucky and Tony had their backs to you, but you could see the typical serious expression disappear from Steve's face to give way to surprise the moment Wanda landed in the middle of him and Tony with a big smile.
The woman shared a few words with the stunned blond, before turning to Tony and sending you a fleeting glance over the man's shoulder.
“Don't you think you're keeping Strange waiting too long?”
“How did you know that he-?”
“I didn't. But you already gave me the answer. We'd better go now.”
Following her order, Wanda curled her arm around the arm of a paralyzed Tony and started walking, waving goodbye to the others.
“Bye, Y/N! Don't stand in the middle of the hallway!”
You cringed as the gaze of the people walking past you landed on you, and gritted your teeth as you saw Steve's gaze on you. Without a bit of disguise, Steve ran his gaze over you and then over Bucky and back again as if he was having a short circuit inside his head.
You weren't too far away to notice Bucky's stiff shoulders, and you guessed he was saying goodbye to Steve when the blond turned his gaze to watch him. Seconds later, the black-haired man started to walk the way Wanda had gone with Tony, but Steve stopped him before he took any more steps away from the tense atmosphere.
“Wait,” you heard Steve's voice and flinched as you watched Bucky look down to see the Captain's hand clutch his left arm, then look up and give him a look that you knew would have chilled you from head to toe, but Steve seemed to ignore it as if it was an everyday occurrence. “Actually, since I've got you two in one place, I need to talk to you.”
You watched the blond shake his head pointing to the door next to him then walk in his direction.
You followed them from a distance and closed the door behind you. It was one of the small common rooms around the Complex. You still remembered how surprised you had been when you first arrived to see how many clear work areas they had in that place. Of course, to house and protect the peace of mind of hundreds of workers.
Bucky slumped into one of the green armchairs carelessly and Steve stood on his feet in the middle of the room.
“I spoke to Fury this morning,” the blond began, alternating his gaze between the two of you. “You'll be back on a mission next week.”
You raised your head expecting to see that Steve was referring to Bucky, but no. He was staring at you from his position.
“So soon?”
“What do I have to do with this?”
You and Bucky spoke at the same time, and you couldn't hide the pain that settled in your chest hard as you heard those were the first words you'd heard from him in seven days.
Steve pursed his lips and alternated his gaze again before speaking again.
“Fury agreed to let you go on the mission after a recon team inspects the site in case of possible attacks.”
You nodded slightly. That was a little ugly to hear, too. Just a little.
“You'll go with Clint and Bucky on the mission.”
You were expecting those words to come out of his mouth because there was no other reason to have locked them both in here. What you didn't expect (though you should have) was to see Bucky roll his eyes and drop his head on the back of the couch in the most horrible gesture of disgust and ennui you'd ever seen from him since you'd known him. During this week of being a zero to the left for the aforementioned, you'd noticed that Bucky was very expressive when he wanted someone to realise that they were strongly hated by him.
It wasn't something you wanted to know, really.
“Clint will be the backup so he'll stay inside the Quinjet flying over the structure in case of a possible attack. You and Y/N are going to enter the building and perform the extraction of one person.”
One person? That was new. You could hardly remember the last time you'd had such a mission.
“Why did he pick me?”
“I have no idea, Buck. He just gave me the order to tell you.”
“Who's the person we're supposed to extract?”
“That I don't know,” Steve replied. “Fury was very cautious with the information. Any minute now the report should reach you.”
“And you're busy?” Bucky asked again, his gaze focused solely on the blond standing in front of him.
At the time, you hated what he was doing. You understood that he didn't want to go on that mission with you because he didn't feel comfortable or just didn't want to see you, but it cost him nothing to have a little, just a little compassion enough to not try to get rid of you and that mission right in front of you as if you weren't listening to him.
“Bucky…”
Steve sighed, but the man in front of him didn't soften his expression or make any pretense of taking back his words.
“If you've got a problem with this, you should go talk it over with Fury,” the blond recommended, not answering his question directly, sending him a hard glare before turning to look at you again. “See you later.”
You nodded in his direction and the man quickly left the room.
The silence that followed was deadly.
You watched the man continue to sit in that armchair, his jaw tense, his hands clenched and his eyes fixed on the wall in front of him. He was so still he looked like a statue. It was scary.
You tried to take a tentative step in his direction, but noticing your movement roused him from his trance and he stood up quickly. He let out a sigh and walked out of the room without looking at you.
You felt a kind of courage catch in your throat when you called out to him.
“Bucky.”
“No,” the man replied almost instantly, his body near the door turning violently to stare at you and point his index finger at you. The angry look he gave you made you regret all the decisions in your life that had brought you to that moment. “I don't want to talk to you. I don't want to hear your apology. I don't want anything from you.”
With each word he moved closer to you until you had to start backing away. You were too surprised at how he had exploded just hearing you call out to him. He must have had too much pent up. Maybe it wasn't a good idea to do this at the time.
“If you want to blow off steam, talk to a fucking wall. But don't come near me or try to fix something you broke with your bare hands.”
You felt the air that entered your body freeze your lungs. His piercing eyes and angry expression shattered any willpower you had collected since Steve left the room, but it was the way his voice broke as he was finishing speaking that took the words right out of your mouth.
“You could have simply listened to me and you didn't. That's all. There is nothing you can apologise for because you yourself decided, within your will, that your life mattered nothing compared to the goal of that fucking mission.”
His eyes wouldn't leave yours and you hated the way you felt the prior sting of tears make your vision blurrier each time because you didn't want to miss a single detail of his face. He was so angry, furious, disappointed and... desperate to let you know how you had made him feel.
“And I don't know if you do, but I don't see what excuse is good enough to justify that.”
The thread of tension you felt in the air was choking you and you didn't know what to do to stop the tears from escaping your eyes. You would have expected anything but such an explosion of rage against you. It wasn't normal for Bucky to have such outbursts, and it also seemed that he knew exactly what points to make because you suddenly felt helpless in the way he was exposing his thoughts about you. Which perhaps weren't far from the truth.
“I didn't want to give you an excuse,” you were barely able to reply, at the tense look he was giving you. Your mind was working hard to avoid touching on the subject he was apparently trying to bring up.
“I don't see how that's any better.”
“I just wanted to apologise. I know I was wrong, okay? I think about it every day since we got back and I know I made a mistake. But I didn't throw my life away by just thinking about accomplishing the mission.”
Bucky let out a raw, lazy laugh without a hint of humor. You felt a shiver run through your body and it was unwelcome.
“I bet you didn't even think about the possibility of getting out alive after you heard the first explosion and that didn't matter to you.”
“It wasn't like that!” you replied instantly, raising your voice to match his, your head suddenly panicking.
“You didn't care because you were only thinking about the mission!”
“But how could we come back empty-handed, Bucky!? All that effort and time to be left with nothing!? Wasn't that worse?”
“Of course not! What the fuck makes you think we'd prefer an inconclusive fucking lead on a team member's life?”
“For God's sake, Bucky Barnes!” you roared and turned away from the man, a wave of anger coursing through your body burning away any trace of sadness you might have felt just moments ago. You knew that feeling and it wasn't welcome. You knew this argument wasn't going to end well, but seeing the look on Bucky's face you knew he wasn't just going to walk away if you asked him to.
Even though your mind was focused on avoidance, you tried to prepare yourself for the possibility that you might end up saying things you shouldn't, too.
“And don't give me any fucking shit about how you knew everything was going to be okay because I don't believe you.”
“Well don't believe me,” you exclaimed turning to look at him. “Don't believe anything that comes out of my mouth if that's what you want. That's not going to erase the fact that I do regret not listening to you and risking my life like that.”
“Lies.”
You half-opened your lips, your face contorted in disbelief. It couldn't have been that easy for him…
“I just told you-”
“And less than twenty seconds ago you said how dare I even think about coming back empty-handed, instead of thinking about how I'd come back to tell the rest of the team that you were dead.”
“But I'm not dead.”
Bucky shook his head.
“Now, you're just telling me what I want to hear.”
“No, I'm telling you the truth.”
“You're not telling me anything, Y/N! Are you sorry for what you did? Good for you. But tell me something, would you do it differently if you had another chance?”
“What?”
“If you woke up tomorrow and we were on that mission again, me yelling at you to get out of the building, would you?”
You didn't even have to think twice to know the answer, but saying it out loud was much scarier than just being silent. Silence.
“I thought so.”
Still, even knowing you didn't have the upper hand in that fight, you tried to convince yourself otherwise.
“That doesn't explain anything, Bucky, I don't-”
“Stop lying already. If you really wanted to apologise to me you could have at least had the decency to tell the truth.”
“Fuck,” you muttered, the anger and irritability of your cowardice coming out to take it out on anyone but you. “You're a fucking genius then, aren't you? You know everything.”
“Well, it looks like you're the only one who doesn't.”
“You can't know what was going through my head at the time. You don't know everything!”
“Then fucking tell me: what were you thinking?”
Your mind went blank. And then words. Thoughts. Images. Nothing encouraging, nothing that would help your case. Again, fear came over you and you couldn't respond. You knew you were playing with fire, especially with him. Especially with the man who had learned to see beyond the cheerful, untroubled woman you were always trying to be.
“I was listening to you and I wanted to get out-”
“Then why didn't you?”
You didn't want him to keep pushing because you felt you wouldn't be able to keep running in the opposite direction. The weight of his words was more than the weight of your silence could bear. Silence.
“Now, with what face are you going to tell me you weren't lying?”
I'm sorry.
“This isn't fair.”
“Oh, so you're the one going through an injustice now. Funny.”
Your body felt his words hurt you, and too much, and instinctively your mind and your defence mechanisms leapt to take control of your words, even though you didn't mean to. Even though you knew you shouldn't because someone in that room was right and it wasn't you. Because you couldn't control the way your mind sought to get out and hide from the confrontations that questioned the way you lived. That was why you kept your distance. It was why you had boundaries with Bucky.
Damn the moment when you decided to believe what others said.
“Why does it matter now what happened back then? I'm here now, giving you an apology you don't want to accept just because I wanted to try to save what we had.”
Bucky raised his eyebrows and stood in a state of stupefaction for a few seconds. His eyes twitched and blinked rapidly as if his head didn't believe what he had heard and he mentally replayed it several times.
“What we had? What exactly did we have?”
“A friendship, Bucky! A mutual appreciation. A mutual respect.”
How you dare to talk about respect?
“Having a friendship implies that you worry and care about what the other person feels.”
Bucky watched you expectantly. His furious face gave no room for contradiction and you soon found yourself between a rock and a hard place. This man wasn't going to give up until he got what he wanted, and you didn't know how things would turn out when he did. You didn't speak, waiting for him to continue.
“When you were in that building, did you think about me, besides cursing me a thousand times for not letting you accomplish the mission while I was trying to save your life?”
Silence.
“Did you care, at any point, what would have become of me if you hadn't gotten out of that building?”
“Bucky, but that's not what-”
“Can you just answer…! Answer the fucking question.”
Silence.
“I… there was too much going on in my head at the same time.”
“But you weren't thinking about getting out of there!” he screamed.
“I thought I was a burden!" you screamed back, his hard stare breaking your self-control and you lowered your head. “I thought you always have to take care of me when I go on missions. I thought I don't really contribute anything important to the team. I thought I'd be a failure if I came back empty-handed when I was so close to making it. I thought… I thought nothing else mattered but accomplishing the mission.”
The last you admitted almost with shame. And though you struggled to think otherwise, your own mind accused you of not being strong enough to endure. You had to feel that shame because someone wasn't really supposed to know, not even for the fact that you had just admitted to him that you had crudely lied to him by excusing yourself behind a false apology, but because that was something that wasn't supposed to leave your head. Because they would always leave, they would abandon you, they wouldn't look back twice. And you were expectantly torn to see the moment when that would happen.
Bucky was just watching you. When you looked up to see him, you noticed that his angry expression had softened just a little. His gaze hovered over your figure for a few seconds until he let out a sigh.
“You've got a lot to work on, Y/N.”
And he left the room. You didn't try or think to stop him for a second. The stark truth of what you had said echoed off the walls and came back at you with such force that you feared it would tear you to pieces. But you did nothing about it. You let it come back because you didn't have the strength to move, you didn't have the strength to do more.
When you let your knees give way under the weight of your body, you curled up next to the couch and cried. You cried as if having said that to Bucky, finally getting those thoughts you tried every day to suppress out, had activated a little reason in your mind. As if, suddenly, you could no longer pretend that everything was all right and try to hide things behind a smile and a story.
You couldn't live your whole life believing that you could live behind a charade, after all.
