Eyes of Fire | Bucky Barnes

5

You are free.

Bucky never thought he'd hear those words, let alone feel that they were true.

The amount of relief he felt was surreal; it started off as fear as his triggers were uttered one by one. Fear of slipping away from himself, fear of forgetting and fear of being imprisoned yet again.

But as those words were spoken, the weaker they became until they were just that. Words.

Nothing more, nothing less.

And the fear that used to paralyze Bucky gradually turned into gratefulness and then relief, like a huge weight had been lifted off of his shoulders.

Then came the happiness, just pure and genuine happiness. Something that Bucky hadn't felt for decades.

Torture amounting to years were finally gone and Bucky could float in the air at how light he felt, at how easy it was for him to breathe.

In that very moment, Bucky felt infinite.

But he couldn't help but wonder, free of those words or not, whether any memory lost in his muddled mind would come at any time, the recognition hitting him hard.

He wondered if a time of distress like those would come again, breath caught and vision shook as fragments of distorted images raced through his mind along with the stench of human sweat, vodka and clouds of cigar smoke.

He wondered if he'd still have to close his eyes against waves of raw emotion and fragmented memory, too painful and volatile to emerge. If the same nauseating memories that had gnawed at him at night would return.

He wondered if his body would still tense in that way it did, every muscle frozen as his mind felt like a jolt of electricity ripped through him.

He wondered if his body would still slide yo the floor as he brought both hands behind his head, a strangled gasp of air as he went still, body shaking with tension. He wondered if those plaintive whimpers would return, terrified by his lack of control.

He wondered if those moments would come again, where he couldn't breath, couldn't focus, everything distorted and blurred and loud; where he felt like he was going to die, like a panic attack and a flashback but amplified and a hundred times worse. Where he was painfully aware of people around him but not who, every thought jumbled and distorted and so full of pain it was blinding, like being in the chair while at the same time having a grenade explode in his chest, the overwhelming agony was all consuming.

He was free.

But to do what?