RAISON D'ÊTRE ( bucky barnes ) 一 under editing

FOURTEENTH

RAISON D'ÊTRE
FOURTEENTH

BUCKY HADN'T SAID A WORD SINCE they left the museum. When they stepped outside, the last rays of light had begun to fade, and Rome had pulled him away. They'd walked in silence for a while before settling on an empty park bench for a good hour. His elbows had pressed into his knees, hands holding his head, with dark hair obscuring his face from Rome's vision. Her soldier hadn't tried to talk to her and vice versa. The blonde had no idea what must be going through his head; despite them knowing each other for a number of years, it was as if she was looking back at a stranger.

He'd read that plaque over and over again, stared at the words so much he could see them even when he shut his eyes. Bucky had stared at the picture of the man, the face of the tragic hero who suffered and died all those years ago. He'd pulled Rome into one of the small theater rooms, tightly holding her hand when people spoke of the Bucky he used to be 一 funny and mischievous, a lady's man, headstrong and patriotic, good. Then he pulled Rome out of that museum as quickly as they entered.

Slowly, she lifted one of her knees and pulled it to her chest, fiddling with the necklace around her throat as she did. Rome looked him, one hand hovering over his arm but she retracted it, allowing it to rest against the wooden bench.

"You know," she whispered quietly into the dark, "when I realized truly how messed up my life was, it was too late."

He still did not look at her.

"My father died before I was born, but my uncle had practically raised me as his own. He loved me like I was his own child, and I loved my cousins as if they were my brothers and sisters themselves." She smiled fondly as she thought back so long ago, when Aline and Maggie would braid flowers into her hair, when Kari would tease her and she'd throw mud back at his face, when Byron and her would climb high into the trees. Rome had loved them so much. "One day, my uncle had decided to wed me and my youngest cousin to a rival clan to bring peace; we'd been fighting for so long and it was finally time to end it. But we'd were young and stupid and we refused... so they attacked. I remember for years I'd blamed myself for all those lives lost." Rome looked down at her hand, as if she blinked, she'd be back at that night and the blood would stick to her flesh. "My mother and aunt created a spell to protect us, but instead it went so wrong. My cousins were turned into bloodthirsty creatures, monsters who needed innocent blood to survive."

She'd never hate Maggie and Aline, but that didn't mean she liked what they became. Aline and Maggie had always been considered outsiders as children, already shamed because the magical witch blood of their mother had been passed down along with their father's werewolf gene. When Rome's mother and aunt had tossed anger and bloodlust into the mix, everything had become much worse. They were so different, so very different from the children she remembered. 

"I wanted so badly to stay with them," she continued, her voice sounding sad. "Those spells had taken all the energy my mother and aunt had, and they were all I had left... so I made a choice." She looked up at the moon, its crescent shape shining over the darkening city. "So I became an immortal, another cursed being, but at a price." Rome remembered the thrum of energy that night, of how much pain had spread through her body as she shouted the words into oblivion. "It wasn't long before I regretted my decision, before I wanted to turn back time, but it was too late for that." So long as Maggie and Aline still drew breath, so long as her cousins remained immortal, Rome would never die. She'd live as long as they would, her lifeline chained to theirs. 

It was then that Bucky looked at her. His eyebrows were scrunched together in confusion. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because..." She sighed, gently blinking so the tears that built up in her eyes would fade away. Slowly, the witch turned her body to face him, and she smiled at him gently. "Because I know what it feels like to have to my whole world flipped upside down, to have everything I know be nothing but a curtain shielding me from the truth. I know our situations will never be the same but I need you to know that you still have me. You will always have me."

Neither of them had noticed how their hands had drifted closer, reaching to intertwine with the other. Bucky had paused, finally looking down at their hands. She was shaking ever so slightly but her green eyes hadn't strayed from his. In the darkening sky, he liked how her eyes looked, almost like pools of amber.

"He'll want to see me," Bucky said, lips pressed tightly together. They both knew who he was referencing. "He'll... he's going to try and find me, I know it."

Rome nodded. "But isn't that a good thing?" she asked, confused. "You've wanted answers as to who you are for so long, and there he is. He'll have them for you." She scooted closer to him, still keeping her hand in his.

He didn't respond. Instead his eyes remained on the ground by his feet, hand limp in Rome's. When he does speak, his voice was quiet. "I can't face him."

The way he spoke, the tremble in his voice, it's almost as if he was scared. Fear had never been a thing Rome had seen or heard from him before, not once in their years of knowing each other. He'd been the Winter Soldier, an unstoppable killing machine with only a dead target in mind. Another deadly assassin who comes like a shadow only to disappear into rumors. But when she looks at him, she doesn't see that anymore. The Winter Soldier disappears and James Barnes is no longer sitting in front of her.

Instead sits a scared man, a child confused and in pain. Here sits a man who has been stripped of everything he knows to be true 一 he's not the Winter Soldier and he's not James Barnes, and he knows that. 

Rome brought his knuckles up to her lips and she kissed his skin gently. He almost hummed at her touch, but he managed to grin as she placed another kiss in his palm. "Okay," she says softly. Then she moved to place his hand against her face, cupping her cheek.