Without You

“You have to stay!” Steve yelled as the car approached the plane. We were running out of time and room, but I wasn’t going to sit back down.

“No chance!” I shouted as I readied myself for the jump.

“It’s too risky!”

“I’m prepared to take that risk!” I insisted.

Steve’s face fell as he realised that he was fighting a losing battle. The timing was right and we both leapt onto the plane, Steve giving me a hand to steady myself before we broke inside.

“Why are you doing this?” he asked in a hushed voice, his hand reaching out to prevent me from moving forward with our mission and ignoring him.

“I’m a soldier and-“

“I’m not buying that spiel, not today,” he interrupted with a tiny grin and my gaze dropped.

“I have to…” I breathed, squeezing my eyes shut for a second to rid myself of the image that flashed before me. His face, fearful as he fell… “For Bucky.”

“For Bucky,” Steve agreed with a nod before moving forwards.

We split paths, each taking on a few of Hydra’s suicide bombers before Steve jumped on one of the bombs and was dropped from the plane. I neared the hole that Steve had disappeared through and nursed my wound, cradling my left forearm where one of the men had sliced with his knife before I managed to turn it on himself. I watched on as Steve and the Hydra pilot struggled and, after hearing some gunfire from above, moved out of the way for Steve to crash-land the bomb back inside the plane. I offered him a helping hand out of the cockpit and he grinned, taking it and heaving himself out.

“What happened?” he asked with a gesture to my arm, not letting go of it. I looked down and saw the dried blood smeared across my forearm, but I failed to see the cut that had been there a few minutes earlier.

My mouth opened to explain but words failed to come out. I looked up at Steve, pleading him with creased eyebrows to not make me say the words out loud and make them real.

He didn’t let me go. I had no other choice.

“When I was Hydra’s prisoner, they injected something into me, experimented on Bucky and I,” I began and Steve gave a nod, his eyes focused as he listened intently. “I didn’t know what it did to me at first, I didn’t feel any different, but… I think it has made me able to heal quickly.”

“It could be something similar to what I was injected with… Was it dark blue?” he questioned but I shook my head.

“No, a pale blue. It was glowing too, it was really strange.”

“So Bucky was given the same thing? He might still be alive? You should have told me this earlier!” Steve exclaimed, reaching out and grasping both my arms as though he wanted to shake me for being so foolish.

“We were too scared to say anything,” I confessed before lowering my gaze. “And Bucky’s vial was a murky grey colour. He didn’t receive the same treatment as I did, so God knows what it did to him.”

Steve’s face fell and his grip loosened.

“I can be useful because of this, though. Maybe we can use this power now, to go and save the world,” I said softly. Steve nodded in agreement, releasing me and leading the way up a flight of stairs towards the cockpit.

And we defeated the Red Skull. Well, Steve did most of the work, but I was by his side when he needed a helping hand. And then we decided it would be best for everyone if we crashed the plane.

As Steve said his final words to the woman he loved, I curled up in the co-pilot’s chair and hugged my knees to my chest. I stared out the window at the quickly approaching water and then closed my eyes.

A tear slipped from the corner of my eye as I pictured Bucky, smiling and full of happiness and life, and then everything went black.