Chapter 24
He tries to hear the traffic noise outside. 4 Cars and a motorcycle.
4 cars and a motorcycle.
He continues staring at the sink, water dripping from his hair, wet from when he splashed water onto himself in the last ditch effort to wake himself up.
If he focuses, he can mute the dream.
Shakes slightly as he tries to remember how to breathe.
Feels the table underneath his hands. Romania, you're in Romania.
4 motorcycles and a car...?
Can feel the rumble of the motorcycle under his body as he tries to feel the floor underneath his feet, words reverberating off the back of his mind and he's finding it hard to catch his breath.
Memory doesn't care. Like a projector that won't ever turn off.
"Did you even fight, Buck?"
Shakes his head, muttering for his memory to stop replaying it.
4 cars and a motorcycle, come on Bucky.
Fights Steve on the helicarrier.
"Or did you just give up?"
(No, I-)
Feels like someone just burned his right arm, the star pulsing.
"You let your family down. You let me down."
Howard Stark and a motorcycle.
No.
"You can't run from your past Buck. It'll always catch up."
Shut up.
Steve's car and 4 motorcycles.
"You can never run from what you were-"
Zola and 4 Russian soldiers.
"-what you are-"
He punches the wall in front of him, and the dream crumbles.
There's pieces of broken tile in the sink, and the walk is busted up in that one spot.
He can hear the traffic clearer now, the wind blowing softly through a small crack.
He pulls back his hand, lowering it in shame as he comes back to the real world.
"James Buchanan Barnes: Hero or Villain?", a small article in the newspaper reads on the edition he left on the table.
Bucharest continues on behind him, carrying on as if the world didn't jerk.
Memory doesn't care. It just projects wherever it feels like it, blanketing everything until you can't tell what's real.
Memory doesn't give a rat's ass if it's been 2 days since you slept.
2 years since DC.
75 since you lost everything.
He begins picking up the pieces, throwing them out.
It's been 730 days since DC.
And he knows he's better off damn alone.