Change of Pace

Forest Of The Damned

It was peaceful that evening as Bucky forged a path through the thicket in the forest behind Charlie's residence. His mind raced with the darkest of thoughts, feelings overwhelming him, it felt as though the weight of the world were pushing him into the earth below his feet and he couldn't help but wish that he'd find a soft spot to suck him in and swallow him whole. Bucky knew what it was like to be buried alive. He knew how it felt to lose your breath and not find it again until someone else decided that you could. It would be so easy to do it himself.

Suddenly, the face of that kid, Emmett, swam into his mind, the rest of his family, and then Bucky's Bella and Charlie, stopping him in his tracks.

"Idiot!" He hissed at himself. The faces of those he missed from New York running through his mind afterwards. The people who knew him best and loved him most. The people who would mourn his loss. "Fucking hell!"

A sudden burst of rage had him swinging around and sending his metal fist into the nearest tree. There was a moment of near-silence as the tree made a few cracking noises, and then he had the displeasure of watching it fall as it snapped cleanly at his point of contact.

"For fuck's sake," Bucky slumped down, his backside hitting the ground. His elbows landed on his bent knees, and he hid his face in his hands. "Destructive bastard!" He grunted, taking a moment to punch himself in the thigh twice with his metal hand. His whole leg tingled as it deadened from the abuse. There would be a huge amount of bruising to deal with, probably some already, but he didn't care.

A brutal sob shook his body, and his hands covered his face again to mute the embarrassing sound. Christ, of all the things he'd seen and been through, it was a single day of high school that made him cry like an infant. Teenagers were fucking brutal.

"Hey, Bucky bear," a soft voice, like the sound of tinkling bells, sounded to his right. A small, dainty body took up residence against his side. Two skinny arms wound around his flesh one, shocking his body with the same alarming tingling that Edward had sent through him earlier. "Can you look at me?"

With a deep, bone-weary sigh, Bucky scrubbed his hands against his face hard and turned his head to the pixie-sized Cullen who had appeared beside him. She was truly a tiny little thing.

"Bucky bear?" He cocked a brow, lifting his arm to wrap it around the girl, Alice, if he remembered correctly, who was wearing only a t-shirt and jeans as if it were ever warm in Washington. He could feel how cold she was. "You should learn to dress better if you're going to be walking around in the forest at night, tiny." Bucky inhaled deeply, grunted, and then lumbered to his feet, scooping the girl up to cradle her in his flesh arm.

She made a small muffled noise, sinking her teeth into her bottom lip as she grinned up at him, one of her hands going up to smooth her palm over Bucky's cheek.

"You're Alice, right?" He asked.

"That's me, Bucky boo."

"Absolutely not! I will allow Bucky bear, at a push, but Bucky boo can fuck right off!" He cursed and shuddered at the horror of Alice's sickly sweet pet names. "Where am I dropping you off? You're freezing, and it's late."

"Are you okay, Bucky Bear?" The sudden change in direction of the conversation had Bucky shaken and confused for a moment, then his heart warmed. Alice was worried about him, silly girl.

"I've got some shit going on up here," he tapped his temple with the first knuckle of his metal forefinger and offered a grim smile. "But I always survive." The unspoken "even when I don't want to" haunted him.

"Poor Bucky," Alice pouted, a frown marring her face.

"Shut up, squirt." Bucky huffed a laugh. "I'll drop you on your ass." He added on the threat when she only deepened her pout in response.

"Please don't." She pulled a face throwing both arms around Bucky's neck and taking his left shoulder in a bruising grip. He could hear the gears there creaking and was quite glad that he couldn't feel it at all.

"Hey!" Bucky's head shot up to the music of thundering footsteps heading towards them through the brush. He growled, hunkering low to the ground and covering Alice as much as he could with his own person.

"Wait, Emmett!" Alice yelled in response to the approach.

There was silence for a moment. Bucky's gaze sharpened as he took in the heaving beast that was Emmett Cullen, still dressed as he had been for school. He looked how Bucky imagined he'd looked when he attacked that fucker in the canteen.

"Oh, come off it!" Bucky hissed. He placed Alice on the ground and turned on his heel, ready to storm away in disgust. "You can relax, big guy, I'm not trying anything on your little sister."

"You're not?" Alice pouted.

"Never." The look Bucky cut at Alice had her recoiling. He wasn't angry. He wasn't disgusted at them. He was disgusted by himself, wondering what kind of image he was putting forward that people thought he would go for someone who was obviously underage.

"Bucky," she reached out to him, but he stepped away to avoid her touch.

"He's your brother. Go home with him. I'm leaving." Bucky's voice was a snarl, teeth bared as he found himself regressing back to that frightened animal he'd been when on the run.

"Bucky, you should stay." Emmett advanced, he took up a much softer position next to his sister. "That was my bad, I wasn't using my senses. My brothers and I were just out hunting, I guess my mind hadn't turned off the kill switch yet." He didn't smile, didn't even try. Bucky could at least be grateful for that.

"Why should I stay? Especially since you seem to think that I get some sort of sick pleasure from children!" He barked.

"I never said that!" Emmett argued.

"You didn't have to! I saw your fucking face!" Bucky threw his hands up and hissed a sarcastic laugh. He couldn't believe that he'd used these kids as reasons not to kill himself, if only he could have seen the future.

"Bucky bear, please calm down. Please." Alice stepped between the two men and reached out to him again, but Bucky stepped further away and turned his head to the side. "I'm not underage, Bucky. He didn't think you were doing anything with a kid. He thought you were doing something with me."

"You are a kid, Alice!" Bucky cried, his arms flying out to the side. "You're in high school, and I am nearly a hundred years old. If Emmett thinks I could do something with you, then clearly, I'm a bigger shit than I thought!"

"Will you stop that!" Emmett roared, Bucky reeled backwards, landing on his ass with a thump. He scrambled back to his feet when the pair of Cullen's moved forwards to offer him assistance. Alice stopped looking downtrodden, Emmett ploughed into his space and took him in a crushing embrace. "I am sorry!" The bear arms crushed and shook Bucky as his head lowered to Emmett's shoulder. "We talked about this earlier. You get fiercely protective of Bella, I get fiercely protective of my siblings. If I'd taken the time to figure out that it was you here, then we could have avoided this, but I didn't. I just charged in and now you're all fucked up." Bucky grunted and pushed against Emmett's arms, he made a little headway before the kid squeezed him again. Somehow, they ended up pressed temple to temple. Bucky's eyes closed as he tried to breathe deeply and calm himself down. It was obvious that the kid was being honest, but there was a lingering worry inside Bucky that told him he needed to be careful. "Breathe, dumbass!" Emmett butted their heads together, the harsh collision between their skulls dispelling the last of Bucky's lingering worry somehow.

He dropped to his knees, eyes blank and staring at the ground without seeing a thing.

For a moment, everything was peaceful, despite the fact that he could see that both Alice and Emmett were trying to talk to him.

Then, he slumped forward.