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jonogueirawrites · 1 year

Text

Save him from himself.

Chapter 8

Summary:

It finally happens, and Bucky doesn't know what to do or feel when he faces his worst fear. Or should he admit 'fears'?

TW: murder, blood, fight.

AO3

Relentlessness.

As expected, Zemo managed to escape amidst the fighting, and with nothing else to do, they decided to leave the apartment. On their way out, Sam stopped Bucky when he noticed that Lilly stayed behind. Giving the other man a hard stare, Sam closed the door behind him when he left, leaving the two alone.

The silence in the air was far from what Bucky thought it would be. There was no tension in it, only anticipation. A fragile line that was about to be crossed. One that Bucky didn’t know if he wanted to. If he was ready to.

He watched as Lilly opened the cabinet and took a cup from it, filling it with water. Keeping her eyes away from him. He walked up to her and pulled on the hem of her t-shirt to be closer to him. Without a word, she let herself be guided to his arms. He rested his chin on her shoulder and gave her jaw a lingering kiss. He pulled her free hand up and kissed her wrist, making circles on her palm.

“I never wanted to hurt you. I never want to hurt you. I know that what I did wasn’t what you wanted, but I had my reasons.” His arms squeezed her. He took a deep breath and rested his cheek on her shoulder. “I just… don’t know.” There was grief in his voice. An apologetic tone lacing his words.

“You don’t know.” It wasn’t a question, and it hit Bucky like a rock.

“It’s hard to explain. Please, Lilly, bear with me-”

“Bear with you?” She turned in his arms to face him. “Bear with you? Do you have any idea what it is like to see you doing this?” She looked around and took a step back, making Bucky try to get her back into his arms, but she refused his contact. “To watch as you sell yourself short. Tell me that you want me, love me, but push me away the moment you need me.”

“I’m not pushing you away.”

“Yes, you are.” She ran her fingers over her hair, tucking the strands behind her ears and whispering again, “Yes, you are.”

“What do you want me to do? Tell me, and I will do it.” He took a step in her direction but decided to give her some space in the end.

“I thought I already had.” She walked around the counter, and he watched as she put distance from him. “I want you to want me. I want you to include me.”

“I do. I do, Lilly.”

“You don’t even see what you’re doing.” Her unamused chuckle made him flinch. “You repeatedly ignore me. Don’t listen to me at all. You don’t think before you act and don’t care about the consequences. All you want is the shield.”

“No.” Bucky’s voice firm. There was no doubt in his mind.

“And here you are again. Lying. To me, to you, to everyone.” She crossed her arms over her chest, and Bucky wanted to hug her.

“I’m not lying.” All his conviction turned into weariness.

“Maybe you’re not lying, but you are deceiving yourself. You want the shield? We will get you the shield, and I just hope you don’t regret the losses along the way, James.”

Bucky watched her walking away from him again. Walking away from them.

He closed his eyes and cursed himself. How could he explain to her that the shield meant a lot to him? That it was a connection to his past. To when he was just a man and not a walking assassin with so much blood on his hands that even if he drowned in the ocean and rotted in its bottom, the stains would never go away. To a time, he had a family and Steve, and everything was simpler. Even the war was easier than living a life plagued with nightmares and things he would never get used to. To a future, he was never meant to see.

If he could just make her understand, make her see that there were still things stopping him from letting go. How he desperately wanted to leave things behind and have her by his side always. Always. No matter what. Build a life he always wanted but never thought he could have. He didn’t think he was worth having. “Lillian.”

Talk to me. Her words echoed in his mind, and he regretted them. Just talk to me.

With anguish filling his heart and despair filling his soul, he left the place and hoped that he wouldn’t regret the losses he would have along the way.

~~~~~

Without a clear destination, the trio walked along the street, trying to come up with a plan. For the first time, they didn’t walk side by side. It seemed that Bucky had as much to think about as Lillian.

Sam, who tried to understand where things had gotten so bad, looked at them and sighed. He was about to say something when his phone rang. His sister’s voice made him halt his steps. As soon as he told them about the meeting up, Bucky immediately volunteered to go, and when they looked at Lilly, she scoffed and walked ahead of them.

At the meeting place, they had a brief conversation with Karli before Sam got another phone call, that time from Sharon warning them that John was on the move. Already in the air, Sam told Bucky and Lilly he would send them the address.

After giving Lillian a worried look, Bucky started to run as soon as she told him to go and that she would find a way to get there. Cursing her lack of powers, she headed to the street and stole the first motorcycle she saw.

It took her way longer than she had wanted, and she was met with chaos upon arriving at the new place. Bucky, Sam, and John fought against the Flag Smashers. Entering the fray, she got punched in the face, and soon her nose started to bleed. Bucky, seeing what had happened, tilted his head with anger in his eyes and kicked her aggressor, sending the man flying over the rail. Still upset with the whole situation, Lilly gave him a short nod in appreciation and started fighting another masked man.

Karli tried to kill John in the confusion, but Hoskins, who came from somewhere else right on time, stopped her. Lilly couldn’t see what had happened, but when her eyes landed on Hoskins’s body resting peacefully against a pillar, she knew things had gotten a thousand times worse. Karli and her friends fled the scene, and the trio watched as something inside John snapped, and he pursued them by jumping out of the window.

When they finally reached the new Captain America, a man lay dead by his feet, and his shield was smeared with blood. A crowd of civilians with their phones recording everything surrounded them. Everybody watched the scene in front of them with dread in their minds.

Without thinking straight, John fled the scene. He ran to a warehouse where the trio caught up to him.

Sam and Bucky tried to convince John to give them the shield, but he refused, saying they did not want to engage him. Lilly, who stayed on the sidelines, wondered why he wouldn’t just give the shield up already. It was three against him. One being a super soldier. Something was wrong, and it made her skin crawl.

Placing herself between Bucky and John. She turned her back to Walker and stood closer to Bucky. In a whisper, she warned him not to do what he clearly was about to, “James.”

She waited for him to say something and walk away from that fight. But when all he did was give her a glance and stare at the man behind her again, she nodded, finally understanding that there was nothing she could do. Nothing would stop him. He was relentless. Giving up on him, them, everything, she walked away, and with her back still to the trio, she heard the beginning of the fight. Lost, defeated, and desolated, she sat on a nearby crate and watched them fighting with her broken heart in her palm, waiting for the end. The end of it all.

The fight dragged on, and all Lillian wanted was to leave the place, close her eyes and open them to a different scene. One involving a cottage and a lake. A ring and a life together. However, all she saw when she opened them and left all the dreams behind was John pushing Bucky against a column and short-circuiting his arm, leaving him unconscious on the floor.

She stood to help him, but John threw a piece of wood her way. Raising her arm to shield her body from the collision, she screamed when she felt her arm split in two. At that moment, she understood that John had somehow taken the serum, but what she didn’t understand was how he had gotten so unreasonable in so little time. In the second her head took to stop spinning and her eyes to refocus, John stood above Sam, who had his wings torn and was about to kill him when Bucky intervened.

They had a brief fight, and they finally took the shield from the man, breaking his arm in the process. John still tried to get the shield back, but Bucky once again stopped him long enough for Sam to get there. After a moment, they all end up on the floor, the shield resting peacefully nearby.

Bucky stood to get the shield and was surprised to see Lillian walking his way with it in one hand and a visibly broken arm hanging loosely by her side. He watched in horror as she approached him and threw it on the floor in front of him. Her words tore him apart.

“I hope you’re happy.”

She cradled her arm with her trembling fingers and turned her back to him. Without a single gaze his way, she left the place behind… and him as well. For good that time, and there was no way he could convince himself that he hadn’t lost her. He sat on the floor, his eyes staring at the thing in front of him. How could he have let things get that wrong? How could he let her, the one thing grounding him from the madness, get hurt physically and emotionally, all because he couldn’t stop? Couldn’t tell her everything, afraid of losing the single thread of sanity and quiet and peace he had. Afraid of losing her.

Bucky cursed himself for doubting them.

~~~~~

A few hours later, the trio waited in a different building for Torres to arrive. When they got there, Bucky walked up to Lillian to look at her arm, but she dismissed his help with a simple Don’t. Message he understood loud and clear, making sure to give her enough space but not too much so as not to be far if she needed him.

When Torres finally arrived, he brought people to help Lillian and Bucky breathed lighter. He told them that Karli’s followers were arrested, but she was nowhere to be found. Sam gave him the shield, and Bucky felt that at least something was done. Even though he would have to fight harder for something that was worth more than it. A million times more.

After hearing the news, Bucky decided to leave; he had other things in mind. Sam asked him if he was going after Zemo, and he answered by giving Lilly a look waiting to see if she would follow him. When she refused to acknowledge his presence, keeping her eyes on the paramedic’s hands around her arm, he knew the end had indeed finally come. Nodding more to himself than to Sam, he left the place. Leaving his heart and soul in that damned place. Leaving his hopes with a broken heart and arm behind.

~~~~~

The paramedics advised Lillian to go with them to a hospital, and she agreed. Before she left, Sam approached, asking if she was alright. She chuckled at him and joked that it wasn’t the first time she had broken something. Sam countered, saying that she knew he wasn’t talking about that. Lilly sighed, telling him that she didn’t know. She wasn’t sure what would happen and that some wounds took longer than others to heal.

“He loves you.”

“I know, Sam. I love him too. But I think we need some time to think if this,” she lifted her ring for them to see, “If it’s really something we are both ready to do.”

Giving him a weak smile and a kiss on the cheek, she left. Feeling half of herself going with Bucky through the door on the opposite side. Hearing the echoes of devilish laughter in her ears and the warmth of a little hopeful flame in her heart, keeping the total and complete darkness at bay.

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