Who Am I? » [Stucky]

168. Finding the Facts

Bucky took a moment to read his surroundings, to figure out his exits, his tactics and his goals. The room was an octagon, eight whitewashed walls closing him like a suffocating cell and hi-tech lighting fixtures implanted in the plaster. A desk was scraping the back wall - opposite the doors - with a drifting tide of manila files, stacks that reached shoulder height, some splayed open with tatty curled pages falling out and withering with age. a desktop computer was planted atop of the creeping landslide of slipping paper. Bulging cabinets and crammed bookcases lined three other walls: squeezed full with more string bound beige files and Russian propaganda books, the epitome of a Soviet party representative. Bucky could see the computer tower and it's weaved web of wires beneath the desk and hear the whirring of the dust clogged fan distinctly. He figured his only escape was the door to his back with the windows leading to nothing but a fatal drop.

"Winter..." The Russian lilted curiously, prowling in spirals around Bucky like a lion, aching to pounce and snap his neck. His face was unreadable, expressing nothing but suspicion.

The air in the room abruptly changed its temperature, survivable warmth to hostile ice. Bucky felt his skin bristle beneath his stealth armour and every hair on his body stood to attention like an army cadet. His heart was racing like the beating hooves of stallions, and an adrenaline caused tremor wracked his body. Bucky poured all of his energy into maintaining composure. Lips, together. Breathing, steady. Face, blank.

He stood at parade rest: feet firmly hip width apart, hands resting at the small of his back, palm to back with the thumbs crossed. His eyes were boring in the wall ahead of him with intense attentive focus, his face non-descript and his eyes gazing into space. With years of mastering this posture, it wasn't difficult falling back into it; it was almost instinctive.

"What has brought you back?" The Russian clucked his tongue disapprovingly. He lurked behind Bucky. With a couple inches height advantage, his rancid breath trickled down Bucky's goose-pimpled neck in a waterfall: disturbing the hairs scraped back into a ponytail until they tickled his nape like feathers. It made his itch with discomfort.

"Captain America, sir..." Bucky stated respectfully, clear and not superfluous. Not a single word deviated from his intentions and his voice had regained that obtained Slavic ring to it habitually. His grip on the shield tightened in his metal hand. He wished Steve could be holding his hand, but for now, that was the closest he was to get.

"How did you find him? How did you get him here, of all places?" The Englishman questioned, perched on the edge of the desk in the office with just as intrigued an expression on his face. His eyes were making Bucky squirm with their dark brown intensity and unflinching attitude. He was far too aloof.

"The Captain may have brawn, but he doesn't have brains..." Bucky, falling into his role like a stage-trained actor cracked a smirk: attempting to look pleased with Steve's predicament. His own mouth soured at his words and his stomach gave a slosh of unease.

The wiry and bony pale hand of Bucky's senior lashed him across the cheek, each finger like a nine-tail of a cat: the knuckles snagging his zygomatic bones painfully. Bucky had barely a second to predict the incoming blow before the echoing sting of the impact resided in his heating cheek.

"You know better than to talk to your seniors like that. What do you say?" The Russian demanded, believing the less and less in the credibility of Bucky's act as he went on: disrespectful, cocky and showing emotion. Acting out was a sure sign of disobedience.

"Sorry, sir," Bucky gritted out regretfully, pain ringing out in his cheek and tears beading in his eyes, so many memories were flooding back. "Thank you, sir," he hissed, lip twitching with anger with the obedience drummed into him.