Without You

“Get out of here! I’ll find you later!” Steve shouted before shoving me away from him. We were under attack from Hydra again, and although it seemed like Natasha had the main assailant under control, I knew that Steve would be wanting to jump in and lend a hand.

“What if you need me?” I replied but he shook his head.

“I won’t, I promise,” he answered before turning and running towards the fight. Even though I didn’t have a shield and wasn’t exactly a superhuman like Steve was, there was still something extra pumping through my veins and I had a feeling that it might be what he needed today.

I kept my distance, weaving between cars and watching the fight unravel with wide eyes. Steve’s opponent was just as good as he was, and that was a scary thought. I pulled the pistol from my belt and gripped it tight as I moved in a little closer, hoping there would be a moment of opportunity.

A bang echoed around my head and a rush of air threw me to the ground, sprawled on my back. The muscles that should have been bruising instead warmed and healed themselves and I slowly pushed myself up on my elbows, shaking my head a little to try to regain focus. A car was on fire close by, gusts of smoke hurtling into the sky, and I guessed that was the cause of the explosion that had rattled me.

Suddenly a man appeared from the smoke, stumbling with his head down as he unknowingly continued towards me. His shining silver left arm and black outfit loaded with weapons immediately showed me that he was the soldier attacking Steve earlier. I clenched my right hand, only to find that the gun had been knocked from my grasp in the fall.

I looked around me for the weapon and spotted it just out of my reach. Lunging to my right, I stretched for the pistol to kill the enemy.

I cried out. He had stepped on my wrist with his heavy boot and my fingers were fumbling over the bottom of the gun to no avail.

“I don’t think so,” he muttered before sweeping his arm back to take a hold of the pistol.

As he aimed it at my head, his straggly brown hair shifted from his face and we locked eyes.

Instead of pulling the trigger, the man hesitated.

Instead of swinging my legs around to kick him and defend myself, I hesitated.

I would have thought it was impossible, that my eyes were deceiving me, but I knew now that anything was possible. Hell, Steve and I had been injected with science and then frozen for seventy years, and we were alive. And that was why the fact that the man who I had watched fall out of a train to his death was now standing before me actually didn’t seem that unrealistic.

“Bucky…” I breathed.

He jolted the gun forwards, as if to emphasise that he was in control of the situation and was a mere second away from pulling the trigger and ending my life before I was able to figure out this mystery.

But he didn’t shoot.

He hesitated again and I saw his jaw lock as his cold, unfamiliar eyes filled with perplexity.

With one swift motion, Bucky tossed the pistol to flip it and knocked my head with its butt, rendering me unconscious.