Buzzkill: The Reckoning

Chapter 1

       There isn't a word in the known vocabulary that can describe the emptiness in your chest. The feeling as if there's a hole where something once was. It's not as if you feel like your heart has been taken out, it's something more. Something that shakes your mind, wracks your brain as if asking for permission to look into your thoughts. The nagging feeling that something's missing. A grief for something you can't even name.

       James Buchanan Barnes studied this feeling frequently. He remembered first feeling this when the dust settled, when his mind accepted the reality that Ruth was gone. She left him in a whirlwind. For a while there was a warmth in his house, a light. And in a day, a moment, all warmth seemed to have been taken away from him. There was an empty space beside him as he slept, a hollow place that he never knew would cause him so much grief.

       The truth was, he didn't know why she did it. The now-quiet days let his mind wonder why Ruth left him. Sure, at the start they both thought it was going to be a temporary living arrangement. But when they learned to trust one another, to care for each other, didn't things change? Why would she want to leave then?

       Was it because of him? Ruth had repeatedly gave him reassurance throughout their time together that she was never afraid of him. That he was truly something more than the monster that Hydra made him to be.

      Was it because of her? Was she afraid? If so, of what? To get too close? That somehow, in Bucharest, Romania, they would be in danger? As they walked down the city streets and through populated parks, Ruth learned to love being outside, pushing concern aside and allowing them to have casual strolls filled with banter.

       Even though the letters gave him communication with her, nothing compared to talking to her face to face. What they said to each other in the letters was small talk, filler just to pass the time. They couldn't talk about anything with meaning. How could they?

       Over two years since their last letter, James sat with the inexplicable feeling digging deeper into his chest. His fingers studied the woven thread that created the bracelet Ruth made for him so long ago. He wore it now on his left arm, a new piece of hardware given to him by T'Challa before he, Steve Rogers, and Sam Wilson left Wakanda. It was still something for him to get used to, the weight of the vibranium much different than the metal of his previous prosthetic.

       James laced his fingers within the bracelet as he sat on the flight from Wakanda back to Upstate New York where he would stay, along with many others, at the Avengers facility posted there. It was quiet, and far from the reaches of any publicity.

       His thoughts grew loud as the white noise from the Quinjet filled the silence in the room. The steel walls made the air feel cold, but he didn't feel the urge to want to move and grab a jacket.

       "Just an hour left, you feeling alright?" Steve asked James, standing next to him with an air of concern.

       "Yeah..." James replied quickly, Steve's words bringing him out of his thoughts. "Yeah, I'm good."

       Steve paused, glancing at the bracelet tied to Bucky's wrist that he caught him studying more often than not. Steve never asked Bucky about it, and Bucky never brought it up. More often than he noticed the interest in the bracelet, Steve noticed the cloud that seemed to drift over his friend's head. A darkness enveloped his expression most days, the light in his eyes seeming to have faded.

       "Tony said there's a room for each of us on the third floor. There's only one that's taken," Steve said, trying to keep a conversation.

       James nodded in acknowledgement. Steve had already told him about the rooms before, but he understood he just wanted to talk.

       The truth was, James just didn't want to talk. It wasn't against Steve. It wasn't against anyone. He just felt like he couldn't get the motivation to utter a word. It was that damn feeling again.

       That inexplicable feeling.