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

Chapter 49

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Delacroix, 2023

"I'm sorry, your T-shirt is soaked."

Emilia raised her head and looked at the dark spot on his chest: "Again..."

For a few minutes, in the dim light of a small floor lamp, they just sat intertwined on the dark wooden planks of the boat shack.

With each of Bucky's steady breaths, she calmed a little more. His heartbeat was like Emilia's natural sedative that she couldn't seem to live without.

He hadn't said a word the whole time, just holding her in his arms like a little wrapped up bundle. Until she had calmed down.

When he looked into her face now, slightly puffy eyes gazed at him. From her flushed cheeks, he looked down at himself.

"Don't worry, it'll dry up."

With a gentle smile, he looked up. They sank into each other's eyes for some moments.

"Actually... I never meant to tell you. But that wouldn't be fair on you."

Lowering her eyes to his chest, to where the stain was, she circled the wet fabric with her fingernail.

Bucky felt the slight tickle at the level of his heart. Underneath, however, he sensed far more the ache of her memories.

"Do you wanna... tell me about it?"

Emilia looked at him sorrowfully: "Do you really want to hear?"

After a short hesitation he nodded and she told about the weeks and months after the blip, how the world literally collapsed and how she felt when her own shattered into millions of tiny fragments.

Again, tears streamed down her face.

"Bucky, I'm... I'm sorry. If I had listened to Natasha and..."

He knew what she was about to say and pulled her back into his arms: "Shhh...it's not your fault, Mia."

Never would he have blamed her. There was no reason to. Although it was his child - his own flesh and blood - he had no right to do so.

He went through those moments just as she had at that time. As unexpectedly he found out that he might be a father, it was taken away from him just as abrupt.

And he secretly found out, that he was relieved. After all, children were something he hadn't thought about since the 1940s. And that era was a long time ago.

Back then, he was young and naive. Like every young man, he dreamed of having a family one day. A beautiful, smart and loving wife. Maybe even a dog that played with the children in the well-kept garden of the small family home on the outskirts of Brooklyn.

Now it all just scared him. Not the idea of being a father. More the knowledge of what kind of father he would be.

There was still the Winter Soldier in him. It seemed he would never get rid of this soulless killing machine and his past. So for what innocent creature in this wide world could someone like him be a good father?

War alone changed him. Hydra took care of the rest and crushed away his life with iciness. Bucky didn't know what to do with himself anymore.

His life was simply stolen from him and replaced by something else. Something that might as well have been replaced by a better version of the Winter Soldier.

With all the innocents he killed along the way and their happy futures taken away, how could it be his right to even think about having one himself?

The images of his victims just wouldn't let him go. The kind face of Nakajima was overshadowed by that of his son when he shot him.