Secretive - Bucky Barnes

32 || Goodbye

[Nova]
This is not so bad.

This is not so bad.

This is not so bad.

These five words ricochet through my mind like a prayer while walking down the corridor, avoiding every human soul in Stark's tower, locking myself into my room, and stepping into my shower.

This is not so bad. I mean, I needed time with James anyways, needed time to start the progress of erasing his trigger. I should be glad. I should be happy about this. No one in the tower but me and him, no one to watch us. The less ears, the bigger the chance he actually will talk.

And yet, Tony's words seemed like a blow right in my face. Like a magnet pulling the needle from haystack I so desperately wanted to hide it in, pulling my guilt right onto the surface. 

I cannot face him like this.

With my warm hands running along my body, stroking soap onto every inch, just the touch on each part reminds me on Steve. His rosy lips covering my jaw, my neck, my collarbone, my breasts. Not a square left for him to discover.

It is not like we are a couple, James and I. I can do whatever I want without regard – theoretically. I mourned our relationship longer and graver than the deaths of my own parents – there has to be a point, a goal that says it has been enough. Something that makes me stop regretting, that makes myself starting to believe in my own worthiness, my own value again concerning its independence from the man with the cybernetic arm.

Nonetheless, the huge knot made of the strings of my heart does not ease, just clenching tighter onto one another, choking the love organ for torture.

Shrugging, I realize someone is banging at my door. But the tension leaves as fast as it had been there; I know James's knock-rhythm like the back of my hand. This is not James.

»Only a second!« I shout, hoping whoever would hear me through two closed doors. Quickly, I step out of the shower, drying myself as fast as possible, putting a grey, fluffy bathrobe on and open the door to my room.

I wish I had not.

I got enough problems currently, could they not have waited another couple of weeks?

Right on the corridor – however they got Stark to let them in – I glance into four familiar faces. Sam, Carly, Brian and Lucas are standing in my front. My best friend holding a cake matching her white blouse, the red line written on it striking: We're sorry.

At once, my self-training and -discipline is down, shut down by surprise. I gasp when their smells hit me; Carly like Coconut, Sam – probably because she has been late again – a little sweaty and like rosemary, her black hair braided today, Brian is smelling like some very expensive cologne from Douglas I cannot quite put a finger on, and Lucas's scent, with his eyes wide in shock, pupils blown, is dominated by pheromones. They smell slightly different than the ones I am used to, but their root is the same.

Meanwhile, their colours are striking. The dark of Brian's hair almost as attention-seeking as the white of his face, Lucas's blonde hair dirtier than I dare to remember. Sam's mint green shirt almost makes me whine, the light colour being brightened by the white lamps above and way too light for my eyes to adjust, and Carly's blouse is even more agonizing.

Then, their hitched breaths when they first look upon me, look upon me like I was a completely different person, like they would not trust their eyes; well, who were they to blame? Combined with their fastened heartbeats, especially Lucas's and Carly's, almost making me shout for a first-aid attendant.

The sum of my senses rushing down at me at once, some part of the back of my brain registers a door slamming close from a few rooms away.

Perplex, I start to blink, start to focus on what has to be focused on, start to get myself back and not let my senses take over.