|1| Promise Me ✦ {Bucky Barnes}

Chapter 12: Just a Dream

A/N: Hey guys! It's been a hot minute since I last updated... oops. Seriously, get on me, I'm okay with aggressive peer pressure.

Anyway, I wanted to provide a couple of updates regarding this story. First of all, this story is FAR from over. We're going to be here a while, so please, hang tight. 

Secondly, I need an opinion from you guys. Because of how long this whole story is going to be (I have the ending planned out), I was thinking of splitting it into two books. It wouldn't necessarily be a sequel because this story only follows one plotline, but more like a part two. If I leave Promise Me as one book, it might over be eight hundred pages, or (in Wattpad terms) over forty, twenty-page chapters. We've got a long way to go before I have to make a decision, but I'd like your input because I seriously don't know what to do. You guys can vote in the comments about it below.

Anyway, sorry for the long update, I know you want to read the actual chapter. I hope you guys like it! Happy reading!

- Harper E. Pierce

BUCKY:

I was falling for her. I couldn't even exactly tell when I began falling for her, but I know I never realized it until I had it bad for her. She was just perfectly imperfect, in her own way. It was definitely before the neighbour incident.

That trip to Tennessee opened my eyes. I saw her for the first time as something more than someone who understood, or someone who was assigned to me. She was a person. She had a family- a sister, a niece and nephew who she cared about more than anything. She loved country music, and jazz, and danced like nobody was watching whenever it played. Actually, she danced like nobody was watching with all kinds of music, the bar was just when I first noticed.

But she frustrated me beyond belief. Every night since our last night in the apartment she came to me. She told me how we shouldn't do the things we did. Keep things professional, stay friends. Every night I'd ask her why, and she'd give me the same answer- she could lose her job, or get fired and never see me again. There was validity in her response, but no authenticity. Nothing genuine about her excuses. Which was why every night, she'd stay for more than just a talk.

I'd tell her I could protect her. If they found out, we could go away together. Live on our own. We'd both gone through HYDRA's torture, we both knew how to disappear. We could do it together. But she didn't want that. She wanted to stay. She didn't want to leave behind Steve, and especially Natasha.

As the winter months passed and I got more comfortable living with the Avengers and living closely with Steve, the blonde began to prod me with questions about her. He'd ask me why she came to my room every night, and why she stayed until the early hours of the morning. And respecting her wishes, I never told anyone. I told Steve we just spent the time talking, about the Avengers adjustment, and things she could put in her weekly reports to email to Fury.

But Steve seemed apprehensive. He'd prod to see if he could get something more out of me, but would never ask directly if there was something more going on. I knew he knew something since Steve's agitation gradually climbed from my dodgy responses.

I wondered why Steve cared if I was with Briar in that way. But more importantly, why didn't Briar want at least Steve and Nat to know about it? I understood that her job was on the line. But with Steve's constant prodding, Briar's odd secrecy about the whole thing and the conversations we had every night, I suspected something wasn't right.

Almost six months passed since Briar and I moved to New York City. The winter in New York was pretty, but I hated the cold. It reminded me of the train. At least now, it was almost May- and I had to think of something to get for Briar's birthday. It was on the seventh of May, For my... I believe it was my ninety-eighth birthday, she and I went back to Coney Island. It felt like a date, even though the redhead insisted the whole time that it wasn't, and we were just two friends going out.