Secretive - Bucky Barnes

44 || Wrong

[Nova]
»I didn't.« I respond, the first time I speak since we left New York City. As unsteady my voice is, as steady is my will to keep this short-timed. I got other things to do, things that are more important.

Head holding high, I observe them just the same way they do me, only better. Heart paces, the rhythm of in- and exhales, the hormones spreading in their bodies. And not only theirs, but the ones behind the mirror, too. 

Above me, the plain, white light draws shadows onto the grey table my hands are resting on. They are tied onto it, too, and I let it be for the sake of their calm. I must not, and I think they know that this tiny, thin mental will not hold me if some situations come to show, but I did not come as far with studying psychology for nothing.

The conversation is held in German, a tongue sounding somewhat foreign to me after all this time, yet not and never to get out of my mind. I can understand why other people think it as aggressive or complex; with all the broken ends of words and combinations of letters, it may really seems a little brusque, far more unmelodic than french or engish, but it is my mother tongue still, and I would not trade that for a million dollars. No matter how awful Germany has been in the past, we also have been improving and developing, and I will not for only mere a second not be proud of where I am coming from.

So, foreign or not, it somewhat feels like sunshine and happy days in my childhood - if they are to be called like this, looking back -, and a pleasant feeling of familiarity settles in my heart.

The elder man continues, slightly annoyed with the obviously foreseen comment of mine. Opening the file in our front, he gets out the pictures taken from the scene of horror, taken what feels like ages ago. Staring down onto them without turning a hair, I take the mess in that once has been a comforting living room.

There are several photos, each of them portraying some part of the blood-painted wall above our couch, the red-smeared windows leading to our garden, the table that seems like an attraction for vampires. Who would have thought people survived such a blood loss? Well, they did not. But it still is astonishing how many litres of blood a human body can hold.

Then, there are images of their bodies. Holey from different kinds of common guns, guns everyone can buy on the black market or underground groups. Their clothes drunken in red liquor where it is not cut, their eyes opened widely in a state of shock. My mother seemingly the second one to die; in the position they are in, she seems like having kneed before falling down onto the corpse of my father. I can very well imagine the metallic smell in the house. Stephen King would have found his muse in that very room.

It is a lot to see this. They raised me, they trained me, they stood behind me all these years – yes, they tortured my brother and praised me, but it is a lot still. Seeing the two of them holding hands even in death, seeing them drowning in their own blood, in a mess that once was home and became hell. Whatever they did to us, they deserved to die another way. Not a coward one like this. Not behind their own doors not given a chance to fight. Not from someone originally targeting me, trying to get onto me, making them nameless for the devil's welcome. Just two other people, collateral damage; it could have been anyone else. If my parents were called Myla and Engelbert, they would have been slaughtered just the same way.

I really wish to go in a way more proud and for more than this.

But I do not show it. Not portraying a single sign of weakness, just as I learned and am trained to do for more than just a couple years. Thanks to the almost soulless people on the photos, before and after their death.

»Do you have anything to say about this?« the agent asks, cocking an eyebrow in reproach.

Another time my glance is directed downwards, but this time to the suit of the man talking. Then, it is back in his eyes again, my own having already created the most giant, flat wall one can imagine. Even James would have his problems now seeing through me if it was not for this mysterious bond in between us. »Mister Roth, all I have to say about this is what I already said. I didn't do it.«