Eyes of Fire | Bucky Barnes

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Bucky sat up in his bed, his chest heaving with ragged breaths that barely drew enough oxygen not to pass out. His heart was racing, and his hands felt... wet.

He stared at them in the darkness, but only the metal of his arm glimmered faintly in the light creeping through the uncovered window.

He scrambled for the bedside lamp somewhere on the floor next to the mattress he'd been sleeping on. He finally found the switch and pushed it. His hands were clean, as they always were nowadays, but he could still feel the blood sticking to them, could smell the odor of fear and death lingering in his nose. He wasn't sure if he'd ever lose that one. It was ingrained in him. Nothing, but one, smelled good anymore.

He brushed away the trails of water streaming over his cheeks and pursed his lips. God, he hated this, hated all of this. Why was he even here? For atonement? There was no such thing for people like him.

Everybody wanted him to set things straight and then get on with his life. But how was he supposed to do that? When nights were filled with oceans of blood, wide-eyed people begging for mercy, and him being dead inside, so utterly empty.

Everybody told him to get a life, a new life, but how could he? Everyone he knew say him as the killing machine, the monster; either pondered how to reactivate the Winter Soldier, how to use his skill set for their own purposes, or how to shut him away for good.

Uxolo wasn't in any of those categories. She wanted to make him smile, wanted to remind him of the man he used to be—the loving brother, the loyal friend, a believer in justice. She wanted him to forge a new path, to become the Bucky he would be proud of.

Still, Bucky was none of those anymore. He didn't deserve to be alive, for he had no mission beyond redemption.

He'd thought that having someone — her — to hold him when he woke up as he does every single night, someone to brush fingers through his hair and tell him that everything was going to be alright. He'd thought that he would believe it, for the time being, would sleep well.

Uxolo had done that for him, refused to leave him alone with all this shit in his head, in an empty apartment, dealing with a life that is so different than the one he remembered.

And yet, it still hadn't worked. What a fool he'd been to think he could get lost in the romance and affection of a brilliant woman, never to relive his nightmarish past again.

This... thing he had with her — for her— it didn't solve anything. He could play pretend all he wanted, could dote over her and play perfect boyfriend — be happy — but that didn't clean the blood from his hands, remove the skeletons from his closest, or making him any more deserving of that happiness.

Luck hasn't visited Bucky for a very long time. Everyone he liked was bound to end up hurt, one way or another. He was bad luck. He needed her to realize that Bucky was a lost cause, if only to keep her from experiencing a single bit of pain.

Bucky knew she'd bring up the kids in Wakanda, how they touched him curiously, how he slowly thawed under their gazes and touches. But for them, he was just a curiosity—a white man with only one flesh arm. They didn't see the monster. Not even the adults did.

Maybe that's his true punishment. Restlessness. He'll never find peace till the end of time.

It seems befitting his crimes. No joy. No music that warms his heart, no flower that tempts him to pluck it and give to a person he cherishes. He should moving forward with a single-minded notion, do his tasks and let his life be defined by the sheer force of the rising and setting sun.

He felt like a stranger in his own body, like an intruder in this world that called the music he used to love classics and the fashion of his youth a costume to slip on.

He switched off the bedside lamp, sank back into the mattress, and closed his eyes, ignoring the tears still streaming down his face. He's pathetic, but who cares? Nothing will change. Ever. And he'll have to deal with it.

He welcomed the next nightmare.

There was a cold comfort in knowing that this nightmare will never end, no matter how hard he tries. Maybe when he leaves this world one day, he'll find hell much less daunting than he used to when he was young.

Hell's got nothing on this. He's sure of it.