Eyes of Fire | Bucky Barnes

33

The chair disappears, the bindings, the muzzle. The fight. The cold. He's in his apartment. He couldn't say how he got here. There's an odd breeze – an open window. He locked that, didn't he? He wouldn't have left it open, especially with how late into the night it was.

Who the hell is screaming?

He scrambles up off the tiles, pulls himself to his feet by the lip of his kitchen counter. A kettle on the stove clearly requires his attention, and as he moves it to a cooler surface, the screaming stutters and whines and eventually stops. He must have been making tea, must have put that kettle on, but that doesn't make sense. He hasn't taken off his blood-soaked clothes, hasn't even washed his hands, but he's making tea?

He goes to remove the shirt he used to like, rigid and unrecognizable now, and that's when he notices his forearm. It's dark – too dark, though, darker than any blood he's ever seen. Black, completely. He holds it up, examines it more closely, and it hits him. Right in the nostrils.

The smell. The nausea. Wrong, wrong, wrong. He's retching for the second time today, gone and burned up half his arm making tea he didn't even want, doesn't remember wanting. He was sure he must've been seeking something else, someone. Someone who his mind associated with this damn tea.

He doesn't feel any pain, but whether that's due to nerve-damage, adrenaline, or just an acquired tolerance for it, he can't be sure. Of all the stupid fucking—

Focus, Barnes. Barnes! That's the name he'd been looking for. James Barnes. James Buchanan. James Buchanan "Bucky" Barnes. What a mouthful. It seems so obvious now, it was there all along. Of course it was. Focus, now. Clean yourself up. Go from there.

He strips off his ruined clothes, bundles them up in a garbage bag. He'll take them somewhere more discreet and dispose of them later, but for now, he's got other priorities. It isn't until he's in the shower, scrubbing caked blood from his skin (was it really this much blood?), gently cleaning his fresh burn, that it starts to dawn on him just how strange his night has been.

Jesus Christ. He blacked out. He lost time. He forgot his own name, for fuck's sake. He could've done anything, thank god he peaked at trying and failing, somewhat spectacularly, to make a pot of roboos.

He rinses his mouth out. Water, Listerine, a swig of the kind of stuff that's closer to hand sanitizer than liquor. It burns like hell, burns like his arm should, melts those pennies down so he can swallow them once and for all. For the first time since he spilled all that blood, he can't smell it. Can't taste it. And a small, quiet part of him resents that.

As much as he'd like to just finish this bottle, pass out, and pretend none of this ever happened, he knows he can't do that. He needs......

The bottle goes back in the freezer.

It's not an easy decision. He pours his no-longer-boiling-hot tea, figuring if it cost him that much skin he might as well at least enjoy it, he takes a deep breath, and he dials.

His heart, fickle and traitorous, pounds in his chest:

Don't pick up, don't pick up, don't pick up.

The longer the phone rings, the more he's inclined to agree with that sentiment, and when he's finally sent to voicemail the relief he feels at ending the call rolls off of him in one huge, anxious wave.

He sips his tea, feeling perfectly justified in that he did TRY to reach out. It's not his fault his aid of choice isn't available tonight. Guess he's just gonna have to finish this tea and crack that bottle back open, 'cause—

Bzzzzzzzzzt.

No.

Bzzzzzzzzzt.

Shit. He hadn't even considered that he might get a call back. Maybe if he just...lets it go a little longer.

Bzzzzzzzzzt.

Does it always ring this much? Seems like it's ringing more than usual.

Bzzzzzzzzzt.

Finally, after what feels like an eternity, the buzzing stops. And before he has time to feel bad about it, Bucky turns his phone off altogether.

He drinks slowly. Tries to savor it. It was pretty damn expensive, all said and done, and he tells himself it tastes better than it actually does.

Afterward, he rinses out his empty mug, swaps it for a glass – he did consider drinking straight from the bottle, but ultimately decided it might be nice to hang onto some small scrap of dignity. He's still pouring when he hears it:

Knock-knock-knock.

Fuck.