THE FADING FALLEN ● Bucky Barnes X OC ● 18+ ● ENGLISH [COMPLETE]

Chapter 5

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His pure blue eyes seemed to literally pierce her like a glacial peak. There was a mixture of attentiveness and confusion in them.

The grip on her wrist tightened and she looked for a fleeting second at the cold, mechanical fingers clawing at it.

Emilia was in a state of shock at the realization that was slowly making its way to the surface.

"Bucky... Sgt. Barnes... You are... alive...?!"

As she uttered the words, he flinched slightly. He had heard the name before today. And now there was someone right in front of him calling him that again.

Everything was spinning in his head. That's why he didn't notice at first that the large grate flew open with a loud bang and the two guards rushed in. His gaze was fixed on the astonished woman in front of him.

Only seconds later, an alarm signal sounded.

Emilia staggered a bit as one of the heavily armed guys separated her from Bucky. She wasn't quite sure yet what she had just learned. So many questions were shooting through her synapses.

'He died...'

How had he survived falling off the train? Why was he here? Why did he remember Steve and yet not?

Steve's stories about his best friend rumbled in her mind. She just couldn't imagine that he was here voluntarily. He was one of the good guys, after all.

Suddenly she realized what the reason must be.

Still in the grip of one of the guards, she was aware that Bucky was one of those who had been manipulated. There was no other way to explain it.

They had taken his memories and made a puppet out of him. As if by thorny threads, the beast with the many heads held this once good man and friend captive.

'... a spark of good...'

Her father's voice echoed in the rising vacuum in her mind.

She herself had lost it.

Her wish for revenge had blinded her and without hesitation she killed people believing she was doing the right thing.

Uncontrolled, the darkness swallowed her and she just kept falling down into the endless depths.

As Rumlow stormed the room with several more Hydra soldiers, she shook her head shortly to get rid of that numbing feeling. She glanced at Bucky, who had straightened in the chair under visibly tense muscles. Confused and transfixed, he eyed Emilia.

Rumlow walked past her and shoved him rudely back into the chair.

'Pull yourself together and suck up your self-pity, Emilia! You've got to try to free him. He thought he recognized Steve - it wasn't too late!'

In a flash, she had freed herself from the grip and was hurrying toward him and Rumlow.

"Don't worry! I'll get you outta here, Sgt. Barnes!"

With a powerful blast of air, she hurled the men around her to the ground. When she got to him, she jiggled the cuffs of his right wrist.

Bucky jerked for a moment under the warm touch of her fingers on his skin. A strand of her hair had fallen out of its tight ponytail and hung over her face.

Without saying anything, he stared at the woman in front of him.

Before Emilia could act on her idea, and make the rigid metal brittle with cold and heat, she was already grabbed from behind and torn away from him.