Recollection ★ Bucky Barnes

I Need Your Help

★ ★ ★

The golden sun shone brightly in the afternoon sky, eliciting a comfortable temperature of about seventy degrees which was normal for spring time in Washington D.C. Countless tourists sauntered through the streets of the famous city, while most of the residents rushed through the streets in an attempt to arrive at their work on time. It was just another Saturday afternoon for people in the city, despite the events that had taken place a week prior. The issue regarding the three S.H.I.E.L.D. helicarriers had left everyone particularly shaken, but it wasn't long before the residents were able to get back to their normal routines, one of these residents being nineteen-year-old Marlena Claire.

The petite brunette wandered aimlessly through the Museum of Natural History corridors with her best friend, Hallie Walsh, trailing slowly behind her. Marlena knew the popular museum inside and out, almost better than she knew the back of her hand. Every other weekend—for as long as she could remember—her dad would bring her to the museum to teach her about all of the things history had to offer, as well as teaching her about the very men who fought alongside her great grandfather during World War II. It was their definition of father-daughter time, and although everyone else's definition of father-daughter time usually involved shopping or going out to eat at some expensive restaurant, Marlena wouldn't have wanted to spend her time with her dad any other way; she only wished that she had been granted more time with him than she was given.

When Marlena was only eleven years old, her father was lost in the line of fire overseas. Even at the tender age of eleven, she knew the dangers and the threats he could possibly face while overseas, but never actually believed he would meet them. It wasn't until a man clad in army attire showed up at her doorstep with a condolence letter that rainy day back in 2005; it changed Marlena's life in both good and bad ways. The death of her father took a dangerous toll on her emotional state for some time, but when she met Hallie at the age of twelve she found everything in her life slowly getting better. Hallie was the reason why Marlena continued her and her father's tradition of going to the Smithsonian every other Saturday; she even tagged along with her just so she wouldn't have to be alone, despite the fact that she absolutely hated history and everything involved with it. But if torturing herself for an hour every weekend meant seeing her best friend (the most important person in her life) happy, she was perfectly okay with it. She would do anything in the world for Marlena, just as Marlena would do the same for her. Their friendship was quite possibly the most important thing the two of them had, without the exceptions of their families, of course.

In reality, Hallie never pictured herself finding a best friend in someone like Marlena Claire. The two attended the same elementary school when they were younger; they were even in the same homeroom as each other but had never interacted until after Marlena's dad passed away. They were polar opposites. Just looking at them out in public together was enough to prove such a claim to be true. Hallie was socially outgoing and spoke fluent sarcasm, whereas Marlena was not. Any aspect of the two traits that appeared in her personality was solely because of Hallie's influence on her over the years. Marlena was rather sassy but had an awkward side to her; she could also be one of the most talkative people in the world, something that proved to be a problem every once and a while. Their opposite natures didn't exactly matter to them, though; the two were great friends regardless, and that was really the only thing that was important to them.