Honesty ♧ Bucky Barnes

Like a Theif In The Night

He hated her. 

He loved her. 

He hated her. 

He loved her. 

He couldn't make his fucking mind up.

The only light in the street came from the waning moon and the flickering streetlamps above Bucky's head as he strode purposefully through the dark streets of Washington DC. He didn't know where he was going, he just knew that he had to keep moving. 

He knew that he shouldn't have gone snooping in her room, but he had been curious. He'd wanted to learn more about the woman who had helped him get his life back. He had done recon missions before, he knew the kind of stuff he would find. He stumbled across childhood photos and letters from her brother in Scotland in her cupboard, and when he'd found the small leather notebook he had mistakenly assumed it had been a diary of some sort. He'd felt guilty opening it, of course, but the feeling had been overpowered by his curiosity. He'd wanted to know if she'd written anything about him inside it. That was his first mistake. 

He knew by the first page that he was dead wrong. 

'CLASSIFIED. FOR S.H.I.E.L.D. EYES ONLY

MFCTS TRIAL AND PRODUCTION

CHEMIST - Erin Jefferson: S.H.I.E.L.D. ID - BC-00778'

The writing was in block capitals in Erin's untidy handwriting. There had been a small flower doodled into the bottom left-hand corner, and for some reason, Bucky had thought it a good idea to keep reading. The first ten pages had been full of unintelligible writing. Chemical formulas and named elements, numbers and symbols that Bucky didn't even understand. Erin was incredibly intelligent, there was no denying that. The next few pages had documented the initial testing process, the rats and mice that the serum had been given to, as well as the first human test. 

There was then a blank page, and a new section added:

'MFCTS SUBJECT TEST

JAMES BUCHANNAN (BUCKY) BARNES alias THE WINTER SOLDIER'

That had piqued his curiosity, but his heart sank as soon as he had read the first sentence. 

'Subject came to me asking for help, appears to have no recollection of previous life. MFCTS may assist in retrieval of lost memories.'

The tone had been emotionless, purely scientific. When he had confronted her about it, he had been hoping that she would say something to make him feel better. Tell him that she had only written it for scientific purposes, and she really did have feelings for him. 

Instead she had clamped up completely.

He shook his head to himself and continued walking, pushing his hands into his pockets. He was confused. 

He hated her. 

He loved her. 

Fuck. 

Half of him wanted to never see her again, and the other half of him... Well. The other half of him wanted to hold her and never let her go, feel her skin under his hands, her lips on his. The other half of him wanted to sit up for hours talking to her, drinking in every detail of her life, every smile, every laugh. The other half of him wanted to bury his head between her thighs until she was shaking and every person in that goddamn block of flats knew his name. 

He blushed red at the thought, but his mind didn't stop wandering. He recalled the night that he had taken her to the fairground, the night that he had kissed her whilst they were dancing. The feel of her firm body under his hands had made him want to do things that he hadn't done in a long time. A long time. He had stayed awake the whole of that night, his mind working far too fast on the possibilities.