Secretive - Bucky Barnes

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[Nova]
It takes a lot of time until Tony eventually calls for the meeting, a lot of time I have to think about myself.

There is no way my thoughts would get around my recent realization.

I do not doubt anymore the existence of two versions of me, but it is frightening. How is it possible to have turned out like this? How could my soul become bipolar?

On one side, there is... me. Me, being shy around handsome strangers, asking for permission to speak in front of dominant people in business. Me, careful not to step on the worm on the staircase and always either reading, or cuddling, or fucking my boyfriend. At times, meeting with friends and studying responsibly for exams, working hard to get things done. Helping neighbors with their shopping bags, recommending books at my work, hearing the small changes of mood in people by only listening to their voice, and empathically always get to make them feel better in minutes.

On the other side, there is... her. She licks on my conscious when something drives me angry, like always in there, waiting for someone throwing a saw to get free. She is inside of me, like a second me, consuming me. Like a mask, shadowing everything out. She is darkness, belonging to the night as if born in it. Ruthless, dangerous, careless, irresponsible – there is no actual emotion that can warm her icy soul. That is, if a soul is existent. But she is not all bad, I have to give her that. She is courageous, not afraid of her appearance or impression in front of others. She helped me survive so often. Confident, murderous, beyond clever, skilled. A perfection of a weapon.

Then, there are the things they both have in common. Firstly, I am not only free from pain when I am her, but when I am me, too. The fast reflex, too, both contain, and the strength. And finally, they share their attraction, their addiction to James. He is the only one able to touch them both, the only one able to be listened to from her. Not even my family, my brother reached this.

It is mind-spinning. I know I declared mum for crazy when she blamed so much on my genes, day after day after day, but after what today happened, maybe she is not. Maybe she is right. Maybe the comparison between Banner and me is right. Maybe, only maybe, there is something in my veins that changes me into her in occasions I need her. In occasions I need to become something else.

The question is: Will I ever be able to control it? What if, at some point, the change is not healthy anymore? Or not retractable?

Like the time I nearly burned Jonas.

My thoughts start circling, running in a labyrinth without a good goal in sight. They flick from worry to a feeling of self-security, from minding to hurt people to putting myself first, and seeing why there is the priority, instantly regretting the thought. It goes from the memories she gave me, a massacre in Paris that ended up in me colouring the Seine, to the time I was not able to kill a spider at home and had to call James at two in the morning to make it go away.

Breath hitching, I feel my body heating up. I feel caged in it, in my thoughts, as if desperately trying to get out but there is no key. There is not even a door. There are simply walls, and these walls come closer, closer and closer until they are painfully squeezing. They just will not stop. Whenever I try to distract me, they come back within seconds. Falling down on me like thick ice cubes, leaving a mixture between cold dots on my skin and heated red bloods, open wounds.

It has not been right to use Steve like this, but is it really necessary to think about him when my life is in danger? To think about his feelings in a situation so severe? It was about me, about me being hunted, about Stark having gathered information about me without my knowledge or permission. He could have done else what with it. He could have sold them, could have given them to my followers for whatever reason that suited him, or simply out of fun. Steve's feelings are nothing compared to a lifetime on a run, now, are they?