Not That Lucky

#18: Can You Hear Me Now?

"you can't forget someone when you're still hoping for them to come back." –j.b. [will i ever stop hoping?]

__________

"Hey, doll."

I wasn't breathing. This wasn't happening. Maybe I had a brain bleed? The doctor had cleared me from getting hit in the face with a gun, but hey, maybe they missed something. That was the only logical explanation as to why I was talking to a missing man that multiple agents of SHIELD still couldn't find.

"Did I leave you speechless?" He said with another chuckle.

"Tos— James Buchanan Barnes?" I gasped.

He hummed over the line, "It makes sense that you would know my real name now."

Suddenly, my mind connected the dots to what was currently happening. I scoffed and gripped the phone tighter, "Yeah! Yeah, I do! No thanks to you, Toska." I heard him chuckle, but I kept going, "What the hell would you have done if I got the word Toska tattooed on my forehead only to find out your damn name is—"

I stopped myself before shouting out his name.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to lie to you, I just...It was nice meeting someone who didn't know who I was. Got caught up in it, I guess."

"That's... fair, I guess." I grumbled. "James—"

"Bucky." He corrected quickly. Despite using the name Bucky with Steve, I didn't plan on calling him that to his face just because it didn't seem polite? I don't know. I figured James had been a safe bet.

"Bucky." I repeated. "How is...How is this happening? The scary Russian guy? He said his debt to you is fulfilled?"

"I didn't mean to scare you. He's a guy that owed me. I gave him a little help a few weeks back. He's been waiting outside the Tower for you to step out alone."

I leaned back in my seat, "If it were up to the Avengers that would've been, uh, never." There was a beat of silence before I spoke again, "Why now? Why reach out to me at all? Shouldn't you be reaching out to someone like Ste—"

"I tried to forget you." Bucky replied. The words shouldn't have meant anything to me, but I frowned at them, nonetheless. "Figured it'd be safer, but...I saw you on the news."

I groaned, "Oh, God, that awful picture of me made worldwide news?"

"You looked good, doll."

"You're only saying that because the last time you saw me I was an amorphous, bleeding, blob of a person." I said and he laughed over the line. Hearing his voice, his laugh, was a relief. He sounded okay. He sounded safe. Sometimes a word or a feeling would put me back into that dark hellhole of a bunker and I'd feel like I was freezing from inside out. Bucky's voice put me back there, but not in a negative light. Instead, I remembered the warmth of his smile and how I clung to that when my body screamed of nothing but pain. "Bucky, I miss you."

I hadn't meant to blurt that out. He must have been equally as shocked because I heard the soft intake of a breath. It was silent for another beat before he spoke, "Are you okay, Aj? Are you safe?"

"I am." I replied then followed it up with, "Steve misses you too."

"Aj, I have to go—"

"No!" I shouted and ignored the glances that looked over at me. I shook my head, "Please, no, don't hang up. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I won't mention that again. Please...Please don't hang up."