TWENTY-SIX—IT'S FATE
————————————————————

MY HEART WAS in my throat as I shifted my wide eyes from Bucky to Sam and back again so many times that my vision started to blur. "What happened?" I asked breathlessly, at the same time that Bucky said lowly, "When?"

Sam reached up and ran a hand down the side of his face. "I don't know. I was just barely able to get out of there before..." he paused, then met my eyes. "Do you mind if I change into another set of Cade's clothes? Mine are kind of..." he trailed off and gestured to the pathetically dirty clothes he was wearing. They were vaguely familiar when I really looked at them, but the thick layer of dirt and grime on them covered up any kind of resemblance to my brother's clothes. 

"Yeah, sure," I answered as Bucky said, "I guess."

My best friend cocked an eyebrow and scoffed, an amused grin growing. "Figures," he mumbled, "Steve was right." He pushed past us and went to Cade's old room, where Bucky had practically moved in. 

When I looked up at Bucky, he was blushing furiously. Rolling my eyes, I followed Sam to the room and let out an indignant, "Excuse me? What do you mean, Steve was right?"

He didn't reply for at least a few minutes, while he rummaged in the dresser drawers and the closet for a new shirt and pants to wear. Finally, he shrugged and answered, "The night we left you guys here, Steve told me that you'd probably succumb to his...charms. Of course, I believed that you would keep things strictly professional around here. But then again, you were always a hopeless romantic." He turned around and grinned, holding a new shirt with a look of triumph. 

My jaw went slack as the words sunk in. "You...made a bet?" 

Sam shrugged again. "It was good for morale. The nights got pretty lonely, just the two of us. Now," he added, "if you don't mind, I'd like to change without you and Barnes ogling my irresistible physique." Winking, he walked up to the door and closed it, leaving us in the dark hallway. 

"God, he makes my skin crawl," Bucky whispered, grabbing my wrist and pulling into the kitchen. Running a hand through his hair, he blew a breath out of his lips. "He can't just come in here, warn us, and then refuse to tell us anything more than 'you need to leave.'" He rolled his eyes and stuffed his hand in his pockets. 

I scoffed. "Come on, don't do this now."

"Do what?" He flicked his eyes up to mine. 

"That whole testosterone, manly protectiveness thing. Not a fan." I waved a dismissive hand. I loved it when he whispered my name, when he brushed a hand over my hair, sure, but that didn't mean I wanted any of that other stuff. It was unnecessary, and rather annoying if you asked me. 

Bucky's mouth fell open, about to reply, when Sam came back into the kitchen and cracked his knuckles, crossing his arms. "Okay, El, it's time to go."

"What are you talking about? You don't really think I'm just going to pack up and leave without an explanation, do you?" I reached for the cabinet, pulling down a coffee mug. "Let me make you a cup of coffee and you can tell us all about it, sound good?" Though my voice was steady, my hands shook so much that I was afraid I would drop the mug and shatter it on the floor. 

"Elda, we don't have time for coffee and chitchat," Sam said lowly. "We need to get out of here. They're coming."

Inhaling a shaky breath, I struggled to keep myself calm as the words sunk in. I ducked my head so they couldn't see me squeeze my eyes shut to keep the darkness there, centering me as the world began to spin around me. A hand hovered over my shoulders, squeezing with a gentleness that could only belong to Bucky. 

"We messed up, El. Steve and I...we thought we were doing everything right. But it looks like we weren't hidden as well as we thought, we weren't smart, and now it's all gonna fall apart." He looked at me with those sad eyes, the ones that had haunted me when he first came home from war, and I took him in for the first time since he'd gotten here. Really looked at him.

His clothes hung off his shoulders like a curtain, his muscles that I used to fantasize about, that used to ripple over his skin, reduced to a thin frame that hunched over. His eyes were gaunt, the bags underneath them dark as if with a bruise. They might actually be bruises, I thought in horror. The sight of my friend used to be so comforting, so reassuring, but now all it gave me was striking fear in my heart. Wherever he had been, whatever he'd done, it had all taken a toll on him and now he was all but tearing at the seams. 

"Where's Steve?" Bucky asked roughly, bracing himself with a hand on the counter. He tensed beside me as if anticipating a punch to the gut.

Sam's face, if it was even possible, got even emptier. "He was...they got him. Everett Ross, or whoever the hell his name is. Steve's in the hands of the CIA."

My heart sunk as I realized what that meant. If Captain America was captured, then it was up to the three of us to stop them from taking Bucky and locking him up like a wild animal. Things were beginning to feel as hopeless as ever. 

If it was hard for me to hear those words, it was torrential waves of torture for Bucky, who stumbled back and breathed out, "Shit." His hand went up to clench his hair, nearly pulling it all out at the root. "Shit, Sam." 

"I know. I was hardly able to get away when it happened, and then they said your name, Elda, they know, I don't know how they found out, no one knew..." he shook his head, sinking into a chair at the dinner table as a memory tickled the back of my brain, panic flooding my body. 

Did I let something slip at work? I racked my brain for answers. Am I the reason for all of this?

"I don't understand," Bucky said, staring at Sam with furrowed eyebrows. "How did they find you two at all?"

There was no reply from the starved man at my table, just a jerking shake of his head.

I was still carding through my memories, trying to figure out when I fucked this all up, when I unconsciously made everything so much worse, when the back of Bucky's hand brushed up against mine. I turned to look at him, his hair hanging in front of his face. He looked at me with the most painful look in his eyes, the icy depths melting me in their gaze as he said in a hushed voice, "This is it, El."

When my skin would typically heat up after hearing my name wash over me like a baptism, I was merely hardened by the sentence. They were the words of defeat. He truly thought this was the end. "What?"

"It was always too good to be true," he continued, "this was always bound to come to an end. Now it's here, and we can't run from it." 

Tears rose to my eyes, but I didn't want them there so I blinked them away and glared at him. "Don't you dare say that this is the end. I'm staying with you guys and we're going to figure this out, everything's going to be fine—"

"Elda, we have to keep you safe," Sam interrupted, voice laced with exhaustion. "Go stay with your parents, take a vacation in Europe, I don't care. But you can't be here when they come for us."

He probably thought that I would oblige to his requests, that I would be the soft-spoken, kind young girl that I'd always been around him before, but I was just warming up as I choked out, "That's bullshit, Sam, I'm not leaving either of you. I got myself mixed up in this, I knew what I was doing when I invited a fugitive into my home. It's gonna take a whole lot more to get me to leave. We're all in this together now." Huffing, I crossed my arms. "Now, what's the plan?"

"Elda." It was a small concession, breaking the tension that charged the atmosphere. "Can we talk?" Bucky enveloped my hand in his and pulled me away from Sam, aiming for the front door. 

I was too weak with shock and confusion that I couldn't protest his actions if I wanted to, so I let him drag me to the woods, the place I'd always found so quiet and comforting. "What?" I rebuked when he stopped somewhere in the middle, my house nearly out of sight. "Is this your plan? Leave me in the woods where they won't find me and go off to fight in some battle with only one arm?" I'd expected him to flinch at the low blow, but he merely chuckled. "God, you don't get it, do you?"

"Elda, there are things you don't know about me," he warned roughly, stepping back to distance himself from me. "I want to tell you—"

"Now is not the most opportune moment, wouldn't you agree?" I hissed, lunging forward to get in his face. "You can't just give up like this, Buck! I won't let you. And if you think that I wouldn't do anything for you, then you're more wrong than I imagined." He'd stopped trying to interrupt me; now Bucky was just staring at me, his jaw slackened. "Fucking hell, Buck, don't you know? I would stand there and take a fucking bullet for you! I would go to war for you, and all you're going to say is that 'this is it'? I can't be—"

Bucky surged forward, his hand roughly cupping my cheek as he closed his lips over mine, the kiss sloppy and rushed, but just as perfect as the others. My fingers went up and carded through his long brown hair and suddenly my back met the bark of a tree, my legs nearly collapsing when he darted his tongue out to caress mine. Time had slowed, I was sure of it. This was our own little pocket of forever, where I could pretend that there was no one coming for us. Where we could be safe.

But of course, all good things must come to an end, and when he pulled away, his eyes hooded and pupils blown wide, my lips suddenly felt cold without the contact. "Good god, Elda Reid," he rasped, his voice cracking over my name. "You're incredible." He sucked in a breath, swallowed, and then shook his head. My heart cracked as he softly added, "There's nothing we can do, doll. This is my fate. I have to accept that."

"Fate my ass, Barnes," I retorted, but the words lacked the venom I was trying for. Wiping my nose, I felt a few tears run down my face, carving a canal in the peaceful facade of my face. 

My eyes closed as he used his thumb to gently wipe away the tears, leaning in to press a kiss to my forehead. It felt like more of a goodbye than I wanted it to. 

"What the hell?" He said, looking somewhere past my shoulder, his face scrunched up as he tried to see clearer. His face drained of color and his hand dropped from my arm, reaching for the back of his belt, pulling out a gun. "El, you need to go."

I cocked an eyebrow. "You can't possibly think that's gonna work. Absolutely not. Now, give me one of those horrifying things so I can kick some ass." 

I held out a hand and waited, but Bucky replied with an attempt at being funny, but the humor was gone from his voice. "I thought you said that high-heeled boots were more your choice of weapon."

He remembered. Shaking my head to rid it of the surprise, I answered, "I think you've convinced me that it wouldn't work as well as I would hope." 

"I don't have another one on me, you'll have to go get Sam if you want to be armed," he said, no longer the voice of the man I'd come to know, but a soldier on his way to a fight. "Or you could just go back to the house and stay there," he mumbled, but the words lacked any vigor. 

Sighing, I patted his shoulder. "I'm done hiding in that house anymore. I'm twenty-six, I can't just sit around and let everyone tell me what to do." I almost started making my way back to my house, ready to fight whoever was insane enough to take Bucky away from me, whoever was coming for—

"We come for the White Wolf!"

Oh, shit. They were already here. I whirled around to look at Bucky, my expression of panicked confusion mirroring his. He waved me away, giving me the signal to continue my trek back to the house, but it was with an air of suspicion that I kept going. A line of bulky black, military-grade vehicles rolled down the driveway, weapons that looked like machine guns attached to the top and swiveling around, looking for someone to shoot at. "Dammit," I cursed softly. I was trapped. There was too much open space between the edge of the treeline and the side entrance to the house. There was no way I could make it there without being spotted, or worse—shot at. 

I watched as the door to the first vehicle opened, and I tensed as I waited for some snotty, too-handsome-to-be-real CIA agent with a black suit and tie to come out and take us.

But when two sets of footsteps stepped out onto the ground, I held my breath and shook my head. It can't be. I thought they—

Of course, my parents were always brighter than I'd made them out to be. 

"Elda?" My mother called. "We're here to take you home."

————————————————————

holy shitballs bitch!1!1! this chapter is so long and i'm actually proud of it, i'm getting that jittery feeling that you get when you get so excited by your own story that you can't help but squeeze your eyes shut and hold in a scream! so yeah, here's that. 

and also, i'm dedicating this chapter to cece because all throughout this chapter, I kept picturing her comments to each line, and every little belda thing that happened. here's to you, sweetie!!

we're almost done, people. shit's gonna hit the fan.

published on: dec. 30, 2018