𝒑𝒖𝒑𝒑𝒆𝒕 || s. rogers & b. barnes

8||; 𝒋𝒂𝒎𝒆𝒔 𝒃𝒖𝒄𝒉𝒂𝒏𝒂𝒏 𝒃𝒂𝒓𝒏𝒆𝒔

⤷ april 29, 2015
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Irina groans, sitting up in her bed, swallowed whole by the darkness of the night. She shoves her face into her hands, scrubbing it as she lets out a muffled curse.

This time, it wasn't that she couldn't remember.

She just couldn't sleep.

And while, mentally, it felt better than trying to figure out why she wasn't remembering whatever dreams she'd been having lately...

Physically, it would be worse for her.

With a sigh, Irina slides out of bed, shoving on red flannel pants over the bagging white t-shirt she wore over her upper body that went down to her mid-thighs, and pulling her hair out from the collar to let it fall down her back freely.

She makes her way out of her bedroom and across the lone floor she resides on to the elevator. It slides open for her, and she steps in. The lights are softer on her eyes, and she has no doubt that it's J.A.R.V.I.S.' doing after her countless groans of pain during her late night leaves from her room.

"Where to, Miss Irina?" He inquires in his perfectly accented, smooth voice.

"You know, J," she answers.

He doesn't respond, but the elevator jolts softly into motion, taking her just a few floors up to Steve's.

The doors slide open onto the dark floor, and Irina steps out.

Right away, her eyes find the dark figure hunched against the island.

"James," she greets in a quiet voice, though the dark room carries it to the soldier, whose head tilts up just slightly, and she sees caribbean blue eyes peering at her through the darkness.

Irina slowly approaches him, taking in his weary and slumped form; his damaged metal arm, and the dark bags under his eyes. She stops just a few feet across from him, the two of them just staring at one another in silence.

Her lips part after a moment, questioning words in her mind, before she speaks. "They got Mr. Strucker today," she murmurs.

Barnes stares at her for a long time before she realizes her words, and curses. "Shit - Strucker. Just...Just Strucker. They - We - We got him," she corrects hastily. "He's - He's gone and he's not coming back. The last of them goes with him."

"Them" being the unspoken term of HYDRA between the two of them, the name too cursed to speak when it was just them, with no comfort after hearing it from anyone else.

After another long, suffocating moment of silence, Barnes tilts his gaze back down, staring at the floor with a blank gaze. "No."

Irina stares at him, but he continues to stare ahead, eyes lost in the nightmares that haunted him. "They're never gonna be gone," he murmurs. "They'll always come back for us."

She sucks in a sharp breath, eyes sharpening for a moment on him before they soften, and she nods jerkily. "Yeah...yeah, you're right," she mutters.

Because they both knew far better than most.

Irina sniffs, looking up and away from Barnes. "But, you know...we have this now. The Avengers. Steve. They'll - He'll - " she punches out a breath, "...he'll keep us safe."

Barnes doesn't respond, and Irina sighs, getting behind the island to begin shuffling around, readying to make two cups of herbal tea.

Right after she begins heating the water in the kettle, she sets her hands on the countertop and leans over it, looking down at a photo frame Steve had propped up on it. A recent addition since her last visit into his kitchen without his knowing.