Winter Soldier's Soulmate Ch. 09

Bucky's nose was buried in something that smelled like lavender. He sleepily buried his nose further into the intoxicating scent and breathed in deeply.

"Bucky! Bucky! Bucky! Smell!"

Bucky looked down to see his sister demandingly shoving her wrist into his face. He breathed in the scent of lavender, his mother's favorite perfume.

"Have you been using Mama's perfume without asking again?" He demanded with a raised eyebrow, though his eyes twinkled and his lips twitched.

She giggled back, not answering him. Becca pranced away from him and into the bathroom. He followed her. He guessed that she was roughly thirteen. She grabbed their mother's lipstick off the counter and applied it to her mouth as carefully as she could.

Bucky just shook his head at her. "Don't you go out looking like that or I'm gonna have to knock some poor boy's head in for looking at you."

Bucky saw Becca roll her eyes in the mirror. "Why do you think girls wear makeup? Besides, you wouldn't be that mean."

Bucky raised his eyebrows in disbelief "You really think I wouldn't defend my sister's honor. Becca if someone so much as even thinks impure thoughts about you, I'll punch their lights out."

Becca turned to face him. "What about when I get married? Are you going to come over to my house every night and knock my husband out so we can't have sex?"

Bucky sucked in his breath. "You bet your ass I will. And don't say that word."

"What word? Sex?"

Bucky growled. "Yes, now don't say it again."

"Sex, sex sex." Becca taunted him.

Bucky lunged forward, trying to grab his sister and give her a knuckle sandwich. But she ducked out of his way like she expected it and sprinted out of the bathroom and into the main room of the apartment.

Bucky recovered quickly and chased after her, she shrieked with laughter as she tried to dodge him around furniture. He finally grabbed her and tickled her mercilessly, not stopping until she gasped for mercy.

Bucky pulled himself out of the flashback. It was harder this time than it had been before. The memories were coming faster and lasting longer, it was both wonderful and terrifying. Bucky was afraid that the next time he may not be able to pull himself out.

He pulled Lucy closer to him, cuddling her soft feminine body in his arms. Lucy let out a muffled grumble as she resituated herself in his arms before letting out a contented sigh and falling back to sleep.

Bucky wanted to join her but his mind was still racing. What did this all mean? And what did that man on the helicarrier, Captain America, have to do with all this? He seemed so familiar and yet if he was so important why hadn't he shown up in any of Bucky's flashbacks. The man had known his name. He had called him Bucky but.....

What he needed was more information. He just had no idea how he was going to get it. He was dragged out of his thoughts by the feel of Lucy stirring once more. She turned in his arms to face him, eyes still closed. She moved a hand haphazardly up his chest, feeling as she went until she cupped his cheek.

"I can hear you thinking. What's up?" She mumbled still half asleep.

Bucky turned his head so he could casually kiss her palm. "Just trying to put some pieces together in my head."

"Tell me about them." She persisted burying her nose into his chest.

"I keep seeing this guy in my head."

"Mhm."

"I'm pretty sure he's known as Captain America. I think he has the answers to some of my questions, but every time I've tried to think about him and how I knew him, my head feels like it's splitting open from the pain so I've stopped thinking about it."

"Captain America?" She mumbled still in that half-asleep state. "He's one of those-" she stifled a yawn. "Avenger guys."

He grunted.

"Blond hair, blue-eyed, big guy, always dressed in spandex. I think his name is.......Steve something....."

Lucy's voice trailed off as if she was falling back asleep. Bucky jolted upright at the name, causing Lucy to grumble in irritation at his sudden movement. He grabbed Lucy's shoulders and shook her slightly. She cracked her eyes open and glared at him through half-closed lids.

"What?" She demanded.

"Do you remember his last name? Luce please I need to know. It's important." Bucky begged his whole body tense.

"Hold on let me think." She yawned and rubbed at her eyes. "It's Steve ummm, Steve Rogers. Captain Steve Rogers."

Bucky let her go as his mind seized with a flood of memories. He curled in on himself with the onslaught of visuals. Steve and him running through the woods somewhere shooting enemies. Him sitting in a tree with a sniper rifle watching Steve's back as he ran into a warehouse. Them around a campfire with others laughing about something or other. Bucky falling from a train, Steve's hand reaching desperately for him, the look of anguish on his face as he watched Bucky fall.

It was too much, the bombardment of knowledge that had once been lost, he couldn't keep it all straight. There was no clear timeline to the memories just one after another. The war, they had been fighting in a war in Europe.

Cool hands were touching him, trying to soothe him. He focused on them, trying to shut off all those memories, or at least contain them until he could process them.

He grabbed on to those hands, Lucy's hands and held on to them, focused on her presence, the sound of her voice and the way she was cooing to him.

"It's alright Bucky, I'm right here. It's ok, it's all going to be ok. Breathe for me."

He sucked in a shuddering breath, then another. He opened his eyes and stared into Lucy's worry-filled ones.

"I'm ok." He gasped out, trying desperately to reassure her and himself.

"I'm ok." He repeated more calmly now.

"Ok, you had me worried there for a sec."

"Honestly, me too."

She gave him a sardonic look. "You know that doesn't make me feel any better."

Bucky let out a soft chuckle and just shook his head.

"So you want to tell me what all the theatrics were about?" Lucy asked as they resituated themselves back into a spooning position with him behind her.

He let out a sigh. "A lot of memories."

She turned her head and looked at him over her shoulder curiously.

"Steve Rogers, Captain America. We were friends." He paused before adding "during the war."

"Wait, the war? You mean World War II?" She asked flipping over to face him.

"Yes." He rasped out.

"That was like 70 years ago." Her voice was rising in pitch.

He shrugged.

"That means you're like close to a century-old if not over a century old." Her voice was now a squeak.

He shrugged again.

"Oh my god. Oh my god, but you look..." her voice trailed off. "You look so young."

"Part of what they did to me," Bucky responded dismissively.

"Oh no, you can't just say that like it's normal. Normal people don't age like that. Normal people aren't as strong as you are. Normal people can't just leap up to a branch that's eight feet off the ground like it's nothing. Normal people don't casually say they can survive a car crash." She was starting to sound a little hysterical.

Bucky grabbed her face in his hands. "And normal people don't have a metal arm. I never claimed to be normal."

"Are you human?" She let out in a barely-there whisper.

Bucky pulled away from Lucy and let out a short pained laugh. "No, I'm not. Not anymore at least. I've done and seen things that make me nothing more than a monster."

She punched his shoulder which dragged his eyes back to her. She looked pissed which was not the expression he had expected.

"I didn't mean it in that way. I meant are you human, as in my species. For all I know you could be a Norse god like Thor or something."

"I'm no god. I'm pretty sure the same thing that happened to Steve happened to me. But I'm a little fuzzy on the details."

Lucy let out a small oh, then silence filled the room.

"You know, you're not like I expected you to be," Lucy said, breaking the silence.

Bucky grunted in reply.

"Your not the typical night in shining armor come to rescue the damsel in distress." She paused. "But I guess I'm not your typical damsel either."

"Those are fairy tale characters. And this is the real world." Bucky murmured into the darkness, not looking at Lucy.

She didn't reply, just curled up against his side, using his chest for her pillow. He wrapped his flesh arm around her and followed her into sleep.

*********

Sarah Elliot was making a pie. A blueberry pie to be exact when she heard the car pull up through the open window. It was an unusually warm day for the end of March, but perfect for airing out the house.

Sarah had the day off from work after completing a 24-hour shift the night before at the hospital. Her husband Scott was a fan of her pies, as were her two boys. They had been working hard to prepare the fields for spring the last couple of days and deserved a treat, hence the pie.

She was just rolling out the top when the car came up the drive. She had not expected any visitors, but then you never knew in their small community who would stop by to pick up or drop off this or that. Sometimes people came by just for a cup of coffee and a chat.

Sarah looked out the window, expecting a beat-up old car she would recognize as one of her neighbors and was surprised to see a sleek silver BMW come down the gravel driveway.

She wiped her hands on the edge of her faded red apron that read Moms make the best cooks and held aside the cheerful, yellow curtains to get a better look out the kitchen window.

A woman with flaming red, shoulder-length hair, stepped out of the vehicle. She was dressed in full black and had dark sunglasses that obscured her eyes from Sarah's curious gaze.

She walked up to the white-painted farmhouse, took the stairs up to the wrap around porch and out of Sarah's line of sight. The cook was already moving towards the front door when she heard the wrap on the screen door.

Sarah walked into the hallway of the old farmhouse and saw the strange woman on the other side of the door, politely waiting to be let in. Sarah paused before slowly opening the door and asking "May I help you?"

The woman removed her sunglasses as she glided through the barely opened door and into the house. Sarah took a hasty step back so as not to be in the woman's way, a little flabbergasted at this odd person.

"Are you Sarah Elliot?" The woman asked.

"I am."

"I wanted to speak to you about your daughter, Lucy Elliot."

"What about my Lucy. She isn't here, she's in Texas, at school." Sarah replied.

"So you haven't heard." The redhead replied back searching Sarah's face.

"Well the landlines through the whole town have been down for the last week thanks to a storm that swept through and we don't get a good signal out here for cell phones." Sarah's voice trailed off as her heart rate picked up. "Why, has something happened?"

"Mrs. Elliot I think you should sit down for this." The redhead replied as she guided Sarah to the sofa in the living room.

Sarah listened numbly as the redhead introduced herself as Natasha and told her that Lucy's apartment had been broken into three nights ago. Four men had been killed in some sort of altercation and there was no sign of her daughter. She listened as Natasha spoke about Lucy's soul mark and that the name, James Bucanan Barnes, belonged to a man that Natasha and her team were looking for to help. She numbly accepted the teacup that was handed to her by Natasha and took a sip at the woman's urging. It tasted like sawdust.

Sarah couldn't believe she hadn't known about her youngest daughter's disappearance for three days, three whole days. The pie lay forgotten and half made on the kitchen table.

******

Sarah came back to herself when Scott arrived home, with their two boys, Alex and Matt. She collapsed into Scott's arms finally allowing the tears to fall.

She vaguely heard Natasha explain the situation to the men but she was too busy clutching to Scott to care. She felt the man she had married and loved for the last 30 years stiffen beneath her and hold her in an even tighter embrace. He bent his proud head and buried it into her lemon smelling hair. He breathed in deep and let out a rush of air that ruffled her curly locks that were dyed a bright chestnut, to disguise her greying hair.

She had always been self-conscious about her age. From the stretch marks across her belly marking the fact that she had popped out four kids, to the way her breasts now sagged more. But her husband, her lovely Scott was always there to remind her she was beautiful no matter how old she was. He was her confidant, her strength, her love, her soulmate.

They leaned on each other to pull themselves out of their worry and grief to face this challenge head-on like all the others.

Sarah turned more steadily in Scott's arms and faced the intruder who had brought such horrible news.

"Tell us everything you know," Scott said speaking for them both.

Sarah squeezed his arms that were still wrapped around her middle, supporting her. Their boys, their brave, beautiful boys stood beside them. They were a united front, a family.