Secretive - Bucky Barnes

8 || Unlocked

With one kick of my right leg, the door bursts open, hinges clattering onto the stony ground and the huge metal-plate crashing into the wall in the dark on the opposite. »Nova?!« I shout, nearly cry, stepping into the room, flashlight illuminating the edge I saw the flicker of hair. I fear that with a blink of mine, this could all turn out to be an illusion, but when I do, her stature, small and fragile, odourless and noiseless, still lays lifeless on the ground in the edge of this cellar room.

I am fast on my knees next to her, flashlight dropping to the right of my knees when my shivering hands slide below her skeleton frame. God, what have they done to her? She is weighing nothing; she is all bones and skin, no muscles, no single percent of fat on her body left. Her skin seems even paler than it used to be, and when I turn her as gently as I can, afraid I might crack her if there is a motion to fast or not careful enough, her head falls back in her neck, dangling against the cool metal arm of mine. 

Tears stream down my face, and I only recognize it when they drop onto the ground, the sound the only thing in this dungeon next to my shuddering breath, my heart galloping inside my chest.

She cannot be gone. She cannot have left me alone. Not Nova. Not my poor, strong girl that literally sacrificed the world for me. She cannot leave me to find her corpse in some crappy organization's underground halls, not for my sake, but because it would shatter her heart if she watched this scene from paradise. She cannot have died. She is far too strong. She is far too incredible. She is far too clinging to life. She simply cannot.

Completely cold to the touch, I straight her up cautiously whilst bending down to detect heartbeat. Not even her chest is heaving anymore; she does not breath. If there's anyone above, please don't let your anger for what I've done turn my consequences into the ones of my best girl. Please, don't.

I will myself to hold on, to get back together. I cannot be sure if I do not hear, and focus on hearing above anything else. Above this devastating urge to kill every single one of Hydra's alliances, above the booming tingle the mere sight of Nova evokes inside my chest, just not warm this time, but bitter cold in the fear of having lost her, the core of my life's sense, forever. Above the need of screaming, even if it may tear this house in half and bury myself in it, both in excitement to have found her, and in tormenting agony about her emptiness.

I should calm down. Nova does not need to breath to live. She is able to survive hours without any air streaming through her lungs. She even may has survived worse. I mean, God knows what she had to go through during her education, right? 

No. This is the worst.

I bite my tongue, hard. The metallic taste spreading in my mouth for once should taste like success, success for something that should have made me concentrate on the pain, anything but the view in my front, to make me focus in my senses. But it does not work. It does not. The pain inside me is worse than a simple cut, a simple small hole in my tongue, is so much deeper and more penetrating.

The next tactic finally works. Counting down from ten, I am finally able to focus, if only for a brief few moments. Then I place my ear against her flat, formless chest, trying to listen for the slightest indication of a heartbeat.

Moments pass. Slowly. Excruciatingly. Grievously.

These seconds are the longest I have ever experienced. I swear they could have been days instead, not even the sun daring to fall into this room to interrupt my torture. I guess I deserve this. But she does not.

And they know it. Whoever they are, they know it.

I fall back into my former seat on my heels, head thrown back, face contorted into a wicked smile in between tears creating salty rivers down my heated cheeks.