Bring Me Home // Bucky Barnes

Chapter XXIV - Fire and Ice

There was a buzz in the air; a living, breathing buzz, a connectivity between every single atom and molecule, a burning link that felt like it pulled her in every direction. Her mind burned in the depths of the blue flames. Ocean blue. Ice blue. Cerulean. She was drowning, dying, gasping for her breath in the ocean of fire. As she fell pain consumed her. As she cried, silence surrounded her. She was completely alone in her pain. Lost.

Alone.

Angry voices carried in by the light called to her. She reached for them. She clung to them. She scrambled to get to them.

*

"Whatever the hell that was happened because she saw him." Tony's eyes burned with protective anger as he pointed towards the room Elizabeth now lay unconscious in. "Until we know what we are dealing with we say nothing. That's final." He ran a hand through his hair as Steve took a step back and looked away from him. He knew Steve's mind was reeling, that he couldn't think past the name Bucky Barnes, but he also knew that whatever happened out there meant that Lizzie was unexpected. And unexpected things had a way of obliterating things in their line of work. Tony was determined to keep her from hurting herself or anyone else.

"I won't lie to her Tony," Steve shouted. His back was now turned, his head down and his shoulders rounded. He was breaking. "He was everything to her Tony. Everything." His voice broke as he thought back to happier times, back to Bucky's plans. She was everything to him too. "She deserves to know he's alive. I won't take that from her."

"How do you even know it's really him Cap!?" Tony was exasperated and exhausted. It had been four hours of the same argument and it always came back to one thing: they loved Bucky. He wasn't trying to hurt them. He wanted to protect them. Both of them. "He sure as hell didn't know you, or her for that matter! Besides, who's to say she remembers today? You want to put her through that pain again?"

"Fellas," Nat glared at them both as the door down the hall slowly opened. "You might want to stop talking. Now."

Three sets of eyes traced her from head to toe as she stood shaking in the doorway. The darkness of the chocolate brown of her eyes seemed almost black with sadness as the flecks of green and gold hid from the light and her skin seemed to have a milky translucency to it. She was weakened by the buzz of the world around her.

He stepped towards her slowly, tentatively while she stared, wide eyed and frozen, afraid to move.

"Steve?"

As he wrapped her in his arms her heart shattered all over again. Sobs raked through her, pulling her apart as she felt the pain of loss, the devastation of death, over and over, pulling her under and pinning her down. Wordless wails filled the space as she crumbled, held together only by Steve. She clawed at his back, gripping his shirt, pulling herself closer to him as she shook. Her breath was thick as the lump in her throat choked her, pained her. She was falling through space and time, lost in the darkness of mourning just as she was in those first, excruciating moments.

"Hey," he crooned, his arms holding her tightly as she fell into him. "Shh. It's okay. It's all going to be okay Sweetheart. I'm here. It's okay."

"I grieved him Steve." She seemed to rattle with every cry. "I grieved him in the forties and then when we woke up... I - I had to lose him again. I had to grieve all over again and I - I," her pain was inescapable. "I gave up on him."

Steve pulled away, taking Elizabeth's tear soaked face in his hands, gently brushing away the tears as they fell, and stared into her eyes. He was met with pain. Miles and miles of pain and suffering. As she stared into the ice of his eyes, the steel strength, she slowed her breathing, matching his, and her cries seemed to quieten. As she calmed, he spoke.