Relapse ★ Bucky Barnes

A Small and Broken Family

Marlena stared down at Bucky's sleeping figure with tear-filled hazel eyes. She ran her hand gently over the side of his face, being careful not to wake him. At first glance, he looked so calm and so peaceful, but Marlena knew not to be deceived by his appearance. Not only could she see the pain he was in even as he slept, but she could feel it too. It radiated off of him in horribly intense waves, despite his state of consciousness.

Wanda had come to Marlena about two hours ago after the incident had happened. She had explained everything to her older cousin; she had explained his attempt, her promise, and the way he had cried himself to sleep in her arms as they sat together on the floor inside the weapons room. Steve had carried him back to Wanda's room so he could sleep, and that was where Marlena was now.

Marlena sat on the queen-sized bed beside Bucky, her back pressed against the soft cushion of Wanda's headboard. She wiped her face as a few stray tears managed to make their escape. She had been trying not to break down since Wanda had told her what happened, but as the time passed it seemed to become harder and harder to keep her composure. She hated seeing the person she loved the most in so much pain—she hated that his pain tortured him to the point of him not wanting to live anymore. Marlena wondered what she was doing for him that was so wrong—she wondered what she could've done better to help him.

His selfishness regarding his attempt to end his life angered Marlena greatly, but her determination and her will to make sure it never happened again seemed to outweigh that anger tenfold. She loved Bucky more than her own life and always would no matter what happened between the two of them; the video Ross had shown her the day before was proof of that. Of course Marlena was still incredibly upset over the revelation of how her father had actually died, but she was willing to look passed the face behind the mask in order to look at the facts. Bucky was not responsible for her father's death, but Hydra was. Both were victims of the organization, as were so many others.

Marlena had never hated Hydra so much in her life—not even when they had taken her and turned her into yet another one of their puppets. It was only now as she sat gazing down at the broken shell of the man she loved that she realized just how much she hated Hydra. They had broken him, but Marlena would not let them destroy him. She refused to sit and watch as the very people Bucky had spent so many years fighting against took control of him again. Marlena would help him—Marlena would do whatever she could do in order to see the light shine in his blue eyes again.

Beside Marlena, Bucky began to stir in his sleep. Marlena watched as his blue eyes slowly fluttered open, and a small smile pulled onto her face. Quite a few more tears fell down her face but she quickly wiped them away before placing her hand back down onto Bucky's face. The gesture startled him slightly, as he wasn't fully awake, but Marlena did her best to calm him down as quickly as she could.

"It's okay, Bucky," she spoke quietly to him. "You're okay."

Bucky looked up at the sound of her voice, his eyes brightening slightly as he met her hazel ones. "Marlena," he breathed out.

"Hi, sweetie," she greeted him as she ran the pad of her thumb over his cheek.

In a single instant, Bucky's mind had taken him back to everything that had happened earlier. His eyes began to well up with tears as he thought back on what he had almost done—the pain he had almost caused—and he began to feel the overwhelming amount of regret.

"I'm so sorry," he said to Marlena as the tears began to flow out of his eyes.

Marlena only let out a sigh and held her arms out to Bucky, to which he responded to immediately. He hugged her small body as he cried with his head pressed against her chest. Marlena held him tightly in her arms, her cheek pressed against the top of his head. She held him as if she were terrified to let him go, and a part of her was; a part of her was terrified that if she did so it would be for the very last time, and the mere thought of it nauseated her.