Take What You Can Carry

Today was the day of the parade and nervous was definitely an understatement. I don’t think I have ever left this much pressure and stress in my entire life. I turned my head to where the clock was and it reads 04:12. The anxiety that was taking over was so intense that I couldn’t bring myself to sleep. I stared at the ceiling for the past hours trying, and failing; to get some rest before the big event but sadly, luck was not on my side. Everybody has been working like a dog the past 2 days preparing and I have been living on caffeine; Redbulls and Cuban coffee has been my loyal companion. I was surprised that I didn’t have a heart attack.

Sighing, I threw my legs off the bed and quietly crept into the bathroom, leaving Bucky sleeping soundly. After the whole stand-off incident at the Compound, Bucky hadn’t left the apartment and was locking himself in, surrounding himself with fast food and binge watching Netflix. It was an awfully depressing sight to see and it doesn’t ease my anxiety at all. I feel like I was staring into the near future, like what happened to Bucky will happen to me. Feeling like a failure, like I wasn’t worth anything and that everything I work on will eventually burn and die.

Of course I didn’t say that to him, or anyone for that matter.

I washed my face, getting rid of the tiredness on my eyes and sauntered to the kitchen. The sound of Cuban coffee beans being grinded brought joy to my ear and I immediately perked up at the smell of them being brewed. I heat up some leftover sandwich and decide to do some last minute checking for the event. While waiting for the laptop to turn on, I went back to the kitchen to grab the coffee and the sandwich before settling on the dining table.

To save myself from unnecessary headache, I took the liberty of printing a typed checklist of things I should be paying attention to and it is ordered by priority. I glanced at the very top of the list that says LOCATION typed with bolded letters and I checked my binder to make sure that everything in that location was already set and done with. I moved further down the list and after about 5 minutes of going back and forth between the list and the binder, I felt like my head was starting to spin. I tried to shake off the feeling that was starting to overwhelm me by keeping my eyes on the list and pretend that this wasn’t happening, but I couldn’t concentrate enough to rid the feeling away.



I felt my breath started to quicken and my palms clammy. My heart rate was accelerating rapidly and as soon as I stood up, I felt like the entire room was spinning and that everything was upside down. I pushed away the list and the binder, accidentally knocking over the cup of coffee and spilling its contents all over the papers before falling onto the floor with a loud shatter.

The dizziness was so intense that I couldn’t even bring myself to walk up the stairs to get my meds. I could only manage to crawl my way to the couch, leaning to one of the sides and put my head in between my knees. I was sobbing and was trying to control my breathing but nothing I did seem to ease the panic attack, it wasn’t until I felt a hand on my back that I lifted my head up to find Bucky kneeling in front of me with a terrified look on his face.

“I… I can’t… I…” I croaked, between sobs and gasps of air.

“Hold on, I’ll be right back.” With that, he blitzed up the stairs and was back with an orange bottle in hand. He popped the bottle open, shook two pills out onto his palm and handed them to me.

I popped them into my mouth with my shaky hands, dry-swallowed them like I’ve done countless times before. Bucky stood up, disappeared to the kitchen and came back with a glass of water for me to drink.

The Benzos didn’t work as fast as I hoped it would, but they did help. I could feel my heart rate slowing down and I was breathing normally. Bucky didn’t say anything, instead, he put his arm metal arm under my legs and picked me up, carrying me up to the bedroom.

He didn’t say a word, he knew just how much I needed the silence and I was glad he was giving me the much-needed headspace. He did, though, stay close enough to me that our skin was touching, but not too close that I felt suffocated. After all, this was not his first rodeo.

After a while, my sobbing had stop and I was in a much better state of mind. Bucky had noticed that and turned his body to face me, pushing back a strand of hair that fell in front of my face.

“You okay?”

I sighed and turned my head to him. “No”

“What’s wrong?”

I rubbed the itch on my eyebrow and run my hand through my damp and greasy hair. “Nervous, I guess. I’m scared,” I said quietly.

“What are you scared of?”

I didn’t actually want to talk about this because I know, as soon as the words leave my mouth, I would realize that this was all unnecessary and it was just my stupid brain making things up.

“Cath?” He scooted closer to me, grabbing my waist to pull me back to our conversation.

“Failure, I guess. I’m scared this thing isn’t going to go well and that my business is falling apart and this is the first time, in a very long time, that I’ve taken a challenge this big.” I took two deep breaths to calm myself down.

Bucky pulled me closer onto his lap and wrapped me tightly with his flesh arm, with the other stroking my hair gently. “Everything will be fine, I promise you. I have never seen you work this hard, ever. Trust me when I say this will all be worth it”

He kissed my hair and I nodded.

“I know. I just… I guess I was just overwhelmed and I didn’t want to believe that my anxiety is back because of this. I wanted to have control.”

“Why didn’t you tell me anything?” He let go; his tone was laced with concern.

“I just didn’t want to worry you,” I gave him a small smile. “You have so much on your plate right now with recovery and training, I just didn’t want to add more.”

He let out soft ‘tsk’ and pulled me back towards him. “You’re being silly. Don’t ever think that I’m too busy to care about you.” He mumbled just loud enough for me to hear.

I nodded and buried my face into the crook of his neck.

“I’m sorry for waking you up. Why don’t you go back to sleep.”

“You’re the one who needs sleep. Come on, just for a little while.” Bucky laid back and gently pulled my body down to the mattress.

“Promise to wake me up at 8, I can’t be late.” I mumbled, already half asleep.

“I promise.” Was the last thing I heard before the Benzos started really kicking and forcing me into a deep slumber.

Bucky delivered his promise and woke me up at exactly 8:00 AM, with steaming hot coffee and a heated pastry from yesterday. I hopped straight to the shower after finishing the breakfast Bucky prepared for me and when I got out, he was waiting by the bed.

“I’m coming with you today, can you wait while I get ready?” Bucky stood up and grabbed fresh new underwear from the dresser by the bathroom door.

“You’re coming?” I asked surprised.

“Well yeah, I gotta keep an eye on you, right?” He jabbed playfully, but at that time, I took it as an insult.

“I’m fine. I don’t need a babysitter.” I said flatly and walked away from Bucky to the opposite end of the room, where the mirror was.

Bucky’s smile fell and I could see the instant regret on his face as he made his way to where I was standing.

“Hey, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that.”

“Sure sounds like you do.”

“You know I don’t. Come here.” He turned me around and planted soft kisses from my forehead down to my cheeks and eventually my lips. I wasn’t going to kiss him back, but God this man is impossible.

I pulled away after a few seconds. “I’m fine, really. I’m going to be extremely busy anyway and I don’t want to have you there just to ignore you.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

“Alright, well I guess I’ll just head off to the Compound then.”

“Okay,” I smiled, gave him a small kiss and then something hit me. “Say happy birthday to Cap for me!” I shouted just as he disappeared into the bathroom.



The midday sun was glaring at us as the July fourth parade went underway. People were swarming the Capitol area with big smiles on their faces. Some even had theirs face-painted with the national flag or something of red, blue and white. The crew and I have begun setting up since this morning and even before the parade started, people were already crowding the booth area.

“How’s everything?” I asked Jessica, who was putting the cupcakes on display.

“Good, good, yeah. So, we’ve got the red velvet cupcakes with the flag fondant on the first tier, blue velvet with red sprinkles on the second tier, blueberry cheesecake cupcake on the third tier,” she said moving on to the other table. “Carrot cupcake on the this one, Irish chocolate on that one, and the last one is the mocha with chocolate filling.”

“Alright, good, good. Where’s the centerpiece?”

“Ah, over here.” Jessica walked to the back of the booth and pull out a centerpiece made out of mini cupcakes to be put in the middle of the cupcake display.

“This is amazing, you guys did a great job.” I smiled and Jessica’s face lit up like a light bulb, despite the unforgiving heat.

Everybody finished setting up just in time for the first wave of crowd to flock in. We take turns in manning the cashier and the display because it got overwhelming really quickly. After about halfway through the day, the cupcakes we stocked were got alarmingly fewer and Jessica and I noticed that immediately.

“We need more cupcakes.” Jessica said with wide eyes.

“I see that. Do you think you can manage here without me for a little while? I’m gonna see if we still have a few in stock back at the store.”

“Yeah, yeah. Go.”

I did a fast-walk to my car, thankfully it wasn’t blocked by people or other cars and I did a quick run to back to the store. Upon returning, I was stunned by the number of people surrounding our booth.

“Excuse me!” I kept repeating the phrase over and over out loud to get the everybody to make way for me and the boxes of cupcakes I have in my arms. “What the hell is going on?” I muttered to myself.

“There’re plenty of cupcakes for everybody! And thank you for coming!” I heard a familiar voice shouting above the noise.

“Ah, everybody please make way to the woman behind these amazing cupcakes, Miss Catherine Harries!” Suddenly, it’s like when Moses parted the red sea, the crowd move apart just enough for me to make way into the booth.

I nearly dropped the boxes of cupcakes when I saw them.

The Avengers.

In uniforms, standing on a makeshift stool, handing out cupcakes.

“Wha… What are you guys doing here?” I asked, half-shouting.

“Selling cupcakes.” Tony Stark, or should I say, Iron Man said as-a-matter-of-factly.

“I thought… Why didn’t…”

“Just put the cupcakes and get your little butt over here, we have cupcakes to sell!” Bucky–who was dressed in civilian clothes–came up to me with a smile on his face.

I felt like my heart was going to explode. I can’t believe they were actually here, in this heat, selling cupcakes for me.

“Oh, thanks for the centerpiece.” Steve nudged me with his elbow and grinned. “It’s really nice.”

“You think so?” I looked over at the red, blue and white cupcakes that were stacked into a circle to resemble his shield with HAPPY BIRTHDAY CAPTAIN AMERICA written in frosting.

He grinned in response and began handing out cupcakes to eager customers.



It was dark and the parade had finished about an hour ago, but the hype was very much still alive. We were gathered around in my tiny apartment, drinking beer and having one heck of a time. I sat on the couch, feet propped against the coffee table with Bucky’s hand around my shoulder and as I watched the scene in front of me, I couldn’t help but to smile.

Captain America, with a beer in hand, was sitting on the arm of the couch and laughing at something Falcon said in banter with Iron Man. Black Widow, to my surprise, was also here and sitting with one hand holding a beer bottle and one on Steve’s thighs, laughing along with him.

What surprised me even more was Bucky being uncharacteristically affectionate. He has not left my side the entire time we were all gathered here and all that time, he has been stealing kisses and playing with my hair and whatnot. The warmth of his breath as he nuzzled his face into the crook of my neck sent shivers down my spine and gave me goose bumps. I giggled and somehow Tony heard and his attention was now on the two of us.

“Well would you look at the time? It’s getting late and I think Metallica here is about to get laid.” Tony clapped his hand and stood up.

My mouth was basically hanging open at his remark and my face was bright red. Sam was laughing so hard they were gasping for air; Natasha shot me a smirk, while Steve and Banner shared uncomfortable looks at each other. Bucky, on the other hand, was sending Tony death glares and I swear, if looks could kill…

“C’mon kids, it is late.” Steve said, also standing up and soon everybody followed. “Thank you, Cath, for having us.”

I stood up and put my hand on my chest as a gesture. “No, no. I’m the one who needs to thank you guys. You guys have no idea what your support today means to me, I’m really grateful to have you guys in my life.” I said, mentally cringing at how cheesy it sounded coming out of my mouth.

“So sentimental.” Natasha rolled her eyes my way, but due to my incredibly good mood, I shot back a smile instead.

“No worries, kiddo. We’ll all be lost without your delicious goodies.” Tony said, as he waved to me on his way out.

“See you, Cath.” Sam gave me a one-armed hug and dr. Banner and Natasha waved as they went out.

The sudden silence in the apartment was odd but appreciated, especially after today. I let out a long exhale as I just felt the tiredness creeping up and settling in my body.

“I’m starving.” Bucky said from the living room.

I laughed. “Do you want pasta?”

He pursed his lips and shook his head. “The tuna egg sandwich you used to make, I like those.”

“Alright. Can you open the balcony door? It’s stuffy in here.”

Bucky went to the far end of the room and opened the balcony door before rummaging through the drawer under the TV for a movie. I mean, I love Netflix, but before all this digital multimedia platforms, I was a huge DVD collector.

I was cutting up the crusts on Bucky’s sandwich when I heard fireworks exploding in the distance. A smile immediately crept up my face and quickly turned into a huge grin. I love fireworks; the color, the shapes, but the overall vibe of celebration was definitely my favorite. The fireworks got a lot larger and a lot closer and just as I was about to turn around to watch, I saw in my peripheral vision, Bucky standing still with his body as stiff as a concrete wall.

“Bucky?” I dropped the knife on the counter and rushed towards him. “Babe, what’s wrong?” I put my finger under his chin, but out of nowhere, his metal arm grabbed me by the wrist with force.

His eyes met mine and for a second, I thought I saw Winter Soldier in there instead of Bucky Barnes.

“Make… It… Stop…” he said through gritted teeth.

His grip grew stronger as I tried to squirm my way out of it. “Make what stop? Bucky, please, you’re hurting me.”

“Make it stop!” He shouted and flung my arm away with enough power to knock me to the floor.

He was grabbing his hair in frustration and covering his ears, roaring as if he was in pain. Then the realization hit me, the fireworks. I scrambled to my feet and practically ran towards the balcony and closed them to draw out the sound of the explosion.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize.” I said, from a distance.

He was hunched by the couch but his breathing had slowed down. I walked slowly towards him and his head snapped so quickly to face me. His eyes were watery and the look he gave me was gut wrenching. He looked broken.