Pre War Bucky Barnes One Shots

Return the Favour

You don't know quite how it happened. One minute you are walking along the bridge in your own little dream land, the next you're in the water.

Fair enough the bridge has an extremely low barrier that really doesn't provide any safety at all and maybe you should've been aware. But next thing you know a car drives past, straight through a muddy puddle and splashes you causing you to stumble backwards in fright and trip over the barrier sending you plummeting into the deep, fast moving, fowl, muddy, freezing water of the river below.

It all happens so fast but once you are submerged in the murky water it's like time stops. It takes you a few seconds to realise what is happening and when you do you desperately start to try and kick and fight and claw your way back to the surface but it never comes. You are surrounded by darkness being tossed and turned about by the rapids. It's all very disorientating. For all you know you could be swimming down deeper instead of up to the surface.

Your lungs are screaming for air very quickly. Because you didn't expect it you didn't have a chance to catch your breath before you went under, in fact you probably swallowed some water in the middle of crying out. Your limbs are soon burning and going weak, the coldness and lack of oxygen turning you limp and numb.

Soon enough as much as you try, you find the pressure of the water all becomes too much and you just let it take you, let it pull you down into it's unknown depths, let the icy water rush into your nose and mouth, invading your lungs and filling them up. It gets to a point where it feels kind of nice actually, it's quite peaceful. The lonely quietness is comforting.

This is it, you think to yourself. This is when I'm going to die.

It wouldn't be so bad to go this way actually. It doesn't hurt anymore, the water in your lungs has gotten to a point where it it feels normal. You no longer need to breath. You no longer want to breath.

The pressure of the water drags you down just like the pressure of life has been doing lately. Except this time you feel like it is towards safety instead of chaos.

Bucky's POV:

I walk home to my best friend Steve and I's apartment after a long day at work. By now the sun is just setting on the horizon creating a brilliant, bright orange sky.

It's a rather quiet night, no one is around really except for a lady walking a little bit ahead of me. Most people are home eating dinner now. But out of no where a car drives past just as I'm nearing the bridge across the cannel. Next thing the car drives through a puddle creating a big spray and that's when the girl stumbles back and trips, disappearing out of sight before I hear is a scream and a splash.

My blood runs cold with dread and that's all it takes for me to break out running. When I get to the spot where she fell I peer over the edge and see the foamy, bubbly patch in the water where she fell into.

Without thinking twice I rip off my coat and dive in to the water. The temperature is enough to knock the breath out of me and instantly panic sets in as I feel the strong current push me along and down. I scramble for the surface and gasp for breath just as I breech it. I've already been pulled a significant way away from where i jumped in. All I want to do is get out of here but I steal myself and force my head back under.

I kick downwards and forwards figuring that the girl will be sinking since she hasn't come back up yet. I can't see anything, the pressure of the water pushes down on me making my lungs start to ache very quickly and I can tell it's going to be hard to get back to the surface let alone potentially pulling another person with me. All I can do is just will myself to keep going and feel around blindly, reaching in front and beside me.