Winter Soldier (Book One)

Chapter: 10

DAY: 6
Lark

I sat down, pulling off my jacket. Winchester came up to us and informed us that we would be in the air for a few hours. And by my own knowledge, that would mean several hours, not just a few. So Bucky got comfortable, or about as comfortable as you could with a bionic arm and an alertness that never seemed to go away. 

I got up after a moment and went back into the bathroom. I locked the door behind me and pulled up my shirt. There was a large bruise, almost shaped like a hand, over my rib cage. It didn't hurt too bad, only when I took in a deep breath. The rest of me probably looked just as banged up. I knew how badly my shoulder looked, if how it felt was any inclination. 

I was still shaken, still grappling what'd happened in the truck and how I managed to get out so easily. 

Back then, when I worked for SHIELD, Winchester and I were training partners. We ran courses, studied together. Even off duty we'd hang out together from time to time. But I knew him to be a womanizer, a player, there were always girls in his phone and always someone he took home from a bar. 

I hadn't seen him since he was assigned in Stockholm. It'd been years. Seeing him now, surprised me. He almost hadn't changed a bit from the disheveled, tall-dark-and-handsome stereotype.

"Hey, Treadwatter, you okay?" someone asked, startling me from a stupor. I could tell that it was Winchester.

"I'm fine, be out in a minute." I answered. I ran the water for a few seconds and listened as the footsteps diminished off. I waited another minute longer before shutting off the tap and stepping out.

Bucky was sitting across from my seat, his arms folded over his chest, no longer wearing his jacket. He looked up just as I sat down.

"Did you get lost?" He grinned at his own question, looking out the window as if something caught his interest.

"It's a bathroom, there are many things one can do in a place like that." I told him, almost grinning. I folded in my arms over my chest and sat back in my seat. The regretted the movement, wincing even as the pain slowly subsided from my shoulder.

"Get some rest, this will be a long flight." I said to him after a brief moment of silence.

"Right." he answered, he turned and looked at me. "You sure you're okay? You look like you could use a hit."

"Me? You should see yourself, I mean, we're both probably not going to be voted the 'sexiest people alive' at the moment." I answered him, "We're both a mess."

A grin appeared on his face where a scowl once was. His hair was in his eyes, as if he had intended it to be there. I wanted to badly to reach out and move that brown curtain back so I could see him better, so I could look at him without feeling that there was something off about the situation or off about himself, or if there was something there that he was trying to hide.

"Were you lying about the whole heights thing?" I asked him without thinking.

"What?"

"You said that you 'love it'. Heights, I mean."

"Well yeah, why?"

"Well, according to SHIELD archives you fell from a moving train on a mission with Cap." He swallowed hard, aiming his partial attention to something on the floor.  "It was in the mountains. Fall like that should have killed you."

"As you can see, I'm still very much alive."

"It doesn't make you afraid?"

"Of heights? No. No, if anything I was afraid of the impact. The fall was peaceful, it's hitting the ground that's the terrifying part." Bucky kicked his feet up onto the arm of my chair. He sat back and flicked his hair out of his eyes and looked at me. "What about you? Hate flying?"