'Till the End of Time - Bucky Barnes x OC - Eng.

Nine

A/N: Song recommendation: Epic dramatic Music "Love Conquers all" by Erick DeVore

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They didn't know how much time had passed when both were jolted out of their thoughts by a loud metallic squeak.

The squeak seemed to come from the hinges of the heavy metal door that was just opened at the other end of the room.

Bright light streamed through the room and only the outlines of a few people could be seen walking quickly towards Bucky and Rosie's cell.

They opened the cell and three of the men approached them.

"Her" was the only thing the man uttered as he pointed his index finger at Rosie.

Her pulse spiked and she clung to Bucky.
Never in her life had she felt such fear as she did right now.

Bucky pulled her even closer.
"I'm going to get us out of here. I love you. Until the end of time." he whispered in her ear.

"Until the end of time, Buckster, Until the end of time."

He was about to turn away from the men with her when one of them grabbed Rosie by the arm.

Rosie cried out and clawed at Bucky's jacket with her other hand.
But she couldn't hold on to him for long, because by then the second soldier came and grabbed her.

"NO!" she screamed as loud as she could.

The men pulled her away from Bucky.
Rosie kicked with all her might trying to fight back but it seemed useless.

Bucky jumped up and in his rush stumbled toward the men just as two more entered the cell.
These took him under the armpit left and right and held him back.

"No. No. No. Take me. Not her!" he screamed desperately and begged the men, but to no avail.

Rosie who was still trying to resist got a shot in the neck and a few seconds later her body went limp.

She looked at Bucky. Both looked at each other with frightened looks.

"I love you" she whispered to him barely audibly, but Bucky understood perfectly. He understood every single syllable.

She sank down and the two soldiers dragged her behind them, out of the room.

Bucky had sunk to the floor and kept whimpering the words "No. Not her. No".

Tears streamed down his face and he felt a pain he had not known until now. It almost felt like his heart was going to explode inside him.

A feeling of powerlessness and guilt spread through him. Guilt for downplaying Rosie's gut feeling she had in the woods.

He felt responsible for the whole situation and there was nothing he could do about it.

Minute after minute and hour after hour passed.
The prisoners didn't know if it was day or night and how long they had been stuck here.

Again the loud squeaking of the metal door sounded.

This time four soldiers came directly towards Bucky who was leaning against the bars like a heap of misery.

The pain stunned him inside, without resistance he went with the soldiers into another room.

The light here was not much better than where the cells were.

In the middle of the room was a table like the one in an operating room. All around were medical utensils and equipment.

"Where is she?" was the first thing Bucky said since Rosie was snatched from him.

A short, fat, middle-aged man approached him.

He was half bald and what hair he had left was dark blond and combed back. On his knobbly nose sat a pair of circular glasses.

"Sergant Barnes. We have solved the problem. What's important to us now is you."

The problem solved? What did that mean? Was...was Rosie dead?

Bucky's brain shut down at that moment, the pain piercing his heart too great.

He gave up.

They strapped him down on the operating table and began to examine him.

Bucky was not present in his mind. In his mind's eye, he played back all his memories of Rose like a movie.

When they met as children through Steve.
When he had first bailed her out.
When Steve, Rose and he had run away from home to see the big street parade in New York.
Reading books together and dancing in the kitchen.

Their first kiss.

The proposal.

The forest.

Suddenly, a barely endurable burning pain ran through his body.

He opened his eyes, which he had closed until that moment, and saw that a vein had been laid.
An azure liquid flowed through it right into the crook of his elbow.

He could literally feel the path this stuff was making through his body. Every fiber of his body burned as if it were on fire.
A loud scream came out of him before everything around him went black.

Days passed and Bucky was examined again and again. He was locked in a small room with no daylight and hardly anything to eat or drink.

He was always addressed only as 'Soldier 3-2-5-7-0-3-8" - his identification number on his dog tag.

For them, he was no longer a human being, merely a means to an end.

A guinea pig.

One day, Bucky was lying on the operating table again, all the soldiers who had been in the room up to that point ran out.

Their base was under attack.

They left him behind like a piece of garbage. No one cared if he lived or died.

From the distance, he heard gunfire, loud bangs and screams.

"Bucky?"

"Soldier 3-2-5-5... Steve?"

Leaning over him was Steve.
Steve Rogers.
He wasn't sure if it was real or if his brain was playing tricks on him.

The straps that were strapped to his arms, legs and around his chest and pelvis were getting loose. Steve had yanked them open with a quick jerk.

He helped Bucky to his feet.

"I thought you were dead."

"And I thought you were shorter."

"Buck. Where's Rose?"

For a millisecond he had forgotten about that. He had blocked out the thoughts that she was dead for a brief moment.

"Steve... Rose... They have her... She's..."

Steve stared at Buck in disbelief.

"She's what Buck? What did they do to her?" He yelled at Bucky, shaking him.

"They said they fixed the problem."

Tears filled his eyes.

"Steve it's my fault. She had a bad gut feeling and I told her she was imagining it. I played it down. She wanted to turn around, I said we could walk a little further. And then there were soldiers, they captured us and locked us in the cells. I had her Steve. I took care of her. She was in my arms. And then... And then they took her away. I promised her I'd get us both out of here. Steve, she's dead. They said the problem was taken care of. They kept telling me she was dead. She... I would have given my life for her Steve, you know that."

He broke down. The pain he had been repressing for the last few days was now hitting him like a tsunami that could easily level an entire city.

He - He was to blame for the death of Rosie - the love of his life.