Unlimited || Bucky Barnes

The Raft

He told me everything. All the fragments that I saw when we were by the window suddenly came into place.

Dark. Where he was kept at Hydra was never lit or maintained. He was placed in containment and was paid no attention unless he was set on a mission.

Cold. Hydra kept him from aging and weakening by shoving him back in that stupid cryogenic freezer every time they were done with him.

Shocks. Memories stunned away with powerful electrical surges. Every little thing that he held dear to him was gone in an instant. How could anyone at Hydra live with themselves for pushing a man so far that he can't even remember his own name?

Needles. He couldn't recall how many were shoved into him while trying to perfect his arm and their own version of the "super soldier" serum. He slightly remembered how bruised he was each time they finished.

A train. He was on his way with Steve when it happened. I could vividly see his hands grasping onto the cold metal for dear life as Steve reached out to help, before slipping away to his presumed death.

Snow. Not the kind of snow that I think of. Not magical, crystalline fluff that melts in your palm. This was snow that was blindingly white and jagged from the rocks that innocently hid themselves beneath the surface. Snow that seemed so soft that when you fell in, you felt suffocating as it attempted to cave over your body with its massive weight and frigid cold. Snow that clashed so forcefully against everything else, everything including-

Blood. So much blood. I shuddered at the vision of this memory. I only ever let myself see flashes. I couldn't handle more than that.

He finally cracked open that safe I so curiously wanted to get into. His mind was not like a filing cabinet of times and dates and locations of everything he had ever experienced. No.

His mind was a cluttered mess heap of unsorted papers and misplaced files. Someone in Hydra ran through the cabinets, pulled out each one, mixed them together and threw some of them away. Nothing was in place. Papers were ripped, burned, thrown in the shredder, you name it.

He told me the story like an old grandpa would. He sat back in his recliner and fiddled with his thumbs after each sentence. He would shake his head, even pound his fist at times. I could read every thought without trying and he knew that, but the pure fact that he got so worked up telling me the story just made it that more impactful. That much more filled with hated, friendship, hope, sorrow.

"Thanks for listening," he gestured, leaning forward in his seat, drawing me out of his head with his gruff, crisp voice.

"Thank you for for telling. I know that must have been hard for you," I assured him, grinning shyly.

"Well, I've had some time to think everything over and ponder on how the story actually goes. You can believe me when I say it did take a few tries to get all the pieces set in the right order," he sighed. "Still, it was nice telling it to someone other than a shrink," he joked. "I still don't know everything about myself. I'm definitely not the same man before the war, but I'm trying."

I paused and acknowledged everything he had just did. Everything he put out in the open, just for me.

"We're pretty broken people, aren't we?" I hung my head.

He chuckled quietly and nodded, "I think so, Darby."

I smiled at his agreement with me and took a deep breath. I probably didn't inhale the whole time he told the story, to be honest.

"How are you feeling?" he calmly inquired.

I shrugged my shoulders and pursed my lips together. "I'm okay I guess. Much better than before. It good to know you're not the only one that's trying to glue themselves together all the while falling apart at the same time."

"I think that's most people, Darby. That's the reality of life. Maybe you wouldn't know that, but life sucks and everyone is just trying not to drown in it," he said intuitively.

"Well, I'm definitely drowning," I huffed.

He shook his head and furrow his brows.

"No you're not. I was in your position some time ago. I thought I was drowning too. The fact is that you've simply been under the water too long. You just need a life raft to pull you out of the water before you inhale," Bucky gestured.

"What was your life raft?" I asked, raising an eyebrow and meeting his gaze.

"Steve. He pulled me out of the water," he started to laugh a little, "both figuratively and literally I guess."

I paused again. "And what is my life raft?"

"Anything that keeps you from wanting to stay under."