TWENTY-EIGHT—LEAVING
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THE AIR LEFT my lungs as soon as I opened my eyes. It had all been too much, so I'd just stood there, shoulders hunched forward and my hands covering my eyes that were leaking with tears. It was still surreal and in all honesty, it had happened faster than they showed in the movies. On the big screen, directors took time to choreograph every fight scene, where each person's leg was supposed to be, what their faces had to look like—hell, they probably made sure that every damn hair on their head stayed exactly where it was supposed to be. 

No. This was not a movie; it had never been so clear to me than it was now. This was not choreography, it was chaos. And it had just swept through my life, turning the world on its axis. 

I stayed there for a few more minutes, inhaling shaky breaths and struggling to do anything but breathe for the time being. I was barely under control of my emotions when I heard the front door creak open. 

"Sweetie? Why don't you come inside, we can get you cleaned up," my father spoke softly like he was sympathetic to the hellfire I'd just witnessed. Of course, I knew it wasn't sympathy I was hearing in his voice, it was pity.

My hands dropped from my face, the tears drying on my cheeks. I bent down and picked up Cade's baseball bat that had fallen from my grip and trudged to the door where my parents were waiting, nauseatingly gentle smiles on their faces. 

"That's it, El, hand me that bat, you're safe," my mother said, her smile faltering as she spotted the blood on the end. Snatching it away from me, she held it in between her thumb and forefinger, a sour expression twisting her aging features. "Honestly, Elda, your brother's favorite bat?" She mumbled, to which I shrugged numbly. 

"It's not like he's around to use it anymore, though, is he?" I deadpanned, walking away and aiming for the bathroom, where I could take a hot shower and collect my thoughts and wash off the dark blood that was still drying on my skin. 

Behind me, I heard her scoff. "Now, who's fault is that?"

My blood turned to an icy slush. My hands shook and I curled them into fists to keep from lashing out. My muscles tensed up. The air was charged. I opened my mouth and the words were surprisingly steady as I growled them out. "What did you just say to me?" I didn't have the guts to turn around—if I did, I wasn't sure I would be able to keep my hands from throwing a real punch for all the shit she'd put me through for my twenty-six years on this earth. 

"Ladies," Dad warned, but his efforts were proven futile when my mother chose to fight back. 

"Who's childish idea was it to bring up the idea of the CIA to a boy who had a bright future ahead of him?" She snarled, her voice getting louder as she stalked forward. "Who told him to pursue these impossible dreams of his when he should be at college getting a degree right now? Who, Elda?"

I whirled around, the momentary numbness melting into a fiery rage. "What do you want me to say?" I roared, vision going red. "That I'm sorry?"

"It wouldn't do much good anymore, don't you think?" She was all of a sudden in my space, her eyes leveling with mine despite the fact that she was shorter than my tall frame. 

"You don't think I know that?" I spat, my features etching an expression of fury. "You don't think I regret it every fucking day? That I think about him all the time? That I—"

"Of course you don't think about him all the time, you've got a criminal sleeping in his bed now! You have for months!" She huffed. My eyes hardly registered the movement of my father behind us, trying to calm us down without getting yelled at himself. But my focus shifted back to my godforsaken mother quickly, a new fire rising in my gut as she mentioned Bucky. 

I leaned in, towering over her and bellowed, "Not anymore, thanks to you!"

"Yes, much thanks to us!" She hollered, our voices ricocheting off the walls. My dad flinches as if he were hit by one of them. "If it weren't for us, he would have sucked you into his plots, he would have gotten you killed—"

A scoff erupted from my lips. "Like you'd care."

"We do care, Elda," my dad put in earnestly, but his interruption did nothing to slow her down. 

"It's for your own good, Elda." Her voice was scarily steady as she glared right back into my eyes. "We told them for your own good." When I opened my mouth to shout again, she held up a hand and continued, "Our first priority was keeping you safe. So when we told them that you were harboring a known fugitive, we pleaded with them to let you go free, we couldn't let them take our baby, not after Cade. So they agreed, and they let us come with when they came to take that...murderer out of our lives forever."

Some of what she was saying didn't make any sense. They just agreed to let me go? That doesn't sound like the CIA. They suck as many people in as they can. But I just jerked in a sharp shake of my head and stepped away. "You have no idea what you're talking about."

"He's dangerous, El," my dad interrupted again, "it was for the best."

I pointed a shaky finger at the two of them. "You both have no idea what you're talking about. You don't even know him." So disgusted by their words, I stalked up the stairs and went straight to the bathroom. 

In the midst of my fight with my mother, I'd forgotten how dirty I was. Dirt covered my clothes, my hair was a knotted mess, no doubt from the man who'd yanked my head up by my hair. And the blood...it seemed like it was everywhere. The metallic tang of blood rose in my mouth again, and I keeled over and gagged into the sink, though nothing came out. It was an illusion, yet I couldn't swallow it away. 

Forcing my head up, I wiped the back of my hand across my mouth and set my lips in a thin line. I turned on the shower and waited for it to get hot enough, my usual routine falling into place faster than I'd expected. Stripping down to nothing, I tossed the dirty clothes onto the floor and stepped into the shower, steam rising from the hot water. 

It practically burned my skin, but I welcomed the pain; anything physically distressing was mounds better than what was going on in my head. It was unbearable, the way I could see Bucky on the backs of my eyelids, the way I could hear his voice in my ears, the way I could feel his rough hands on mine. That was something the water couldn't fix.

So I closed my eyes, massaging my sore scalp, and let out a deep breath. He was gone. I had to accept it. Bucky's gone. My lips curved downward, but only for a second. I couldn't let myself fall apart. There was no point in that anyway. An icy wave washed over me despite the steaming hot water, settling over my heart and freezing it in its grasp. At least for the time being, when I had no distractions to take my mind off of him, I would feel nothing. Be nothing. 

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It couldn't have been more than twenty minutes after I'd gotten out of the shower when I heard a knock at the door. I grimaced as I squeezed the water out of my hair with a towel. Back again for a second round? I thought. 

My mother opened the door, and although I couldn't hear the exact words, she sounded confused. I decided to scope it out and kick some more ass if the situation proved necessary. 

The conversation became clearer as I padded down the stairs. "I'm sorry, I don't understand," Dad inquired, "weren't you just here? You already went through all this, and I think my Elda's been through enough for one day, so could you just leave us alone to heal—"

"I'm afraid I don't understand, Mr. Reid," a man responded, his voice vaguely familiar. "You and your wife told us that your daughter, Elda, has been harboring a wanted criminal for almost a year. I'm going to have to ask you to step aside so we can search the house."

As I came down the stairs and the front door came into view, recognition flooded my mind. "You," I spat in shock. "What are you doing here?"

Everett Ross flicked his eyes up to mine, just noticing my presence. "I assume you're Elda?" He reached into an inside pocket of his suit jacket and pulled out a gold badge. "I'm—"

"I know who you are." The image of Cade's acceptance letter flashed through my mind, signed perfectly by one Everett Ross. I'd expected him to be a crotchety old man, and while he was considerably younger than I'd imagined, his hair was dotted with gray and his eyes were aged, albeit alert. "Why'd you come back? Deciding I was worth the trip so you could take me in, too? Lock me up in a cell, huh? You'd like that, wouldn't you?" I'd gotten closer to him without noticing, my menacing words falling from my lips like poison. 

Ross furrowed his eyebrows, betraying a moment of confusion, but he quickly covered it with practiced nonchalance. "Uh, you've lost me."

My eyes widened and I snarled, "I've lost you? Let me just paint a fucking picture then, how about that?" 

"Elda!" Dad hissed, undoubtedly embarrassed by my poor manners.

"You buffoons, you show up at our doorstep, calling out for the White Wolf, whoever the fuck that is, and then you beat me and my—beat me and Bucky and Sam to a pulp, and then you take him away from me, and then you just leave, and now you're back? You already took him away from me, there's nothing more that you can take, I'm empty, it's all gone, you hear me? Gone!" I took another step toward him so we were practically sharing breath, and I only stopped my advances when I heard the cocking of guns on either side of me. 

Of course. What a fool I was. The CIA always had back up. Ross appeared alone outside the door, but there was no doubt that the whole house was surrounded, agents waiting for a reason to shoot. 

But Ross lifted a hand. "Don't shoot," he called out, but the silence that met his words let me know that no one was comfortable letting their finger off the trigger just yet. Looking back at me, he shook his head. "I have no idea what you're talking about. We've never been to your house, Ms. Reid, nor have we had reason to before this." He shifted his weight and crossed his arms. Glancing off to the right, probably alerting one of his associates, he added, "Are you suggesting that a different, possibly rogue group came before us and collected Barnes?" 

I stepped back in indignance. "No, I—" But even as I said it, the words didn't seem all that far-fetched. The men and women who had taken Bucky were dressed in black casual attire, while Ross and his fellow agents, as they stepped up behind him into view, were all wearing formal black suits and black ties, very much looking the part of CIA agents. 

My stomach plummeted. If Bucky wasn't with them, then...we don't know where he is. The words somehow hurt worse than the realization that he was gone. 

I stumbled back, shock spreading through my veins, and shook my head. "You...he's..." I couldn't finish the sentence before turning around, pushing past my parents, and storming upstairs. 

"I'm sorry, she's not usually like this," my mother offered, "she's had a rough day."

"Oh, fuck you, Mom," I threw over my shoulder as I held onto the railing, hauling myself up to my room. I was begging myself to hold it together until I was behind closed doors. I didn't care what happened now, I just needed to take a minute for myself and breathe.

But when I got to my room, the tears bubbled up and I let a choked sob erupt from my lungs. Clapping a hand over my mouth, I trudged to my bed, fully prepared to participate in any form of catharsis I could find. I was at a loss, I didn't know how to cope with something so traumatic when the only people around me were my disbelieving parents or a CIA agent that sent my brother on the mission that would eventually kill him. 

As I approached my bed, I bumped my bedside table, sending my book to the floor. Groaning, I bent down to pick it up when I spotted a white folded piece of paper on the floor, having slipped out of the pages. 

I picked it up, absentmindedly placing the book on the bedside table again and opened the paper. The breath was forced out of my lungs as I read the words on the page:

Hey, doll. 

I knew that they would come get me. It was too good to be true, what we had. As much as that sucks, I've learned to accept that fact and try to move on with life. Unfortunately, I'm afraid that you won't be able to after I'm gone. So I wanted to write this to you in an attempt to change that and ease your mind. 

I sank onto the floor, holding the paper taut in my shaking hands. A tear blurred my vision, and I wiped it away.

Never been a writer, El. I'll be honest. Writing letters was always a woman's practice in the forties, but judging your feisty attitude, I'm going to guess you wouldn't like me saying that. 

A sad chuckle fell from my lips. 

I wanted to say I'm sorry. I'm sorry I never had the guts to tell you about what happened to me all those years ago in an event that I've tried so hard to lock out of my brain. I'm sorry I never told you how I lost my arm and why we needed your help. God, I'm so sorry I never told you. You deserved to know about it all so you knew what kind of monster you were harboring. 

"You're not a monster, Buck," I mumbled angrily, my voice cracking over his name. As I read on, he said it all, the whole story; I discovered there were about three more pages behind the first one. It was horrid, cruel, what happened to him. He told me everything, about a Fascist research group called Hydra, a doctor called Zola that cut off his arm after he fell off a train and replaced it with a metal one. 

Then it bled into the story of how he lost his metal arm, leaving the stump of a shoulder I'd come to know and love. A fight against Tony Stark, alongside Steve, that resulted in the second loss of an appendage. 

You deserved to know, Elda. I'm just sorry I couldn't tell you in person. 

I'm going to miss you, doll. Aside from all the horrible things I did, aside from the fact that I deserve what's coming to me, you are the best thing to ever happen to me. I'm going to miss you the most. I'm going to miss your biting humor that never failed to make me smile, the comforting smell of your hair that always gave me new breath, your lips that were so sweet, and those soft hands that were always so gentle. 

I was weeping for my lost love, sobs ripping out of my chest as I read his handwriting. 

I don't know how to end this letter. In all honesty, I don't want to. I wish I didn't have to. But I know that I must. I hope you understand why they took me, why it was my fate to be taken back into the ugly system that created me all those years ago. I've known all this time, Elda, even as you made me temporarily forget. As long as I tried to get away from it, I would never be able to rid myself of that part of me. I hope you know that. I hope you can see the truth. 

And most of all, "I love you, Elda Reid."

My chest hurt from holding in the sobs, and I let it all go, loud, warped sounds of pain rushing from my lips as I folded the letter and held it close to me, squeezing it as if I could squeeze Bucky again. I couldn't move, so I lay there for a while, holding the letter and smelling his scent on the sheets of my bed, enveloping me in an embrace I feared I would never feel again. 

The icy depths of my heart froze over again. My tears dried and I stood up. This is not the end. I can't just let him die like this. 

It was a blur from then on. The packing, kicking my parents out, the CIA having long gone on their way to search for the unknown group that took my Bucky. My Bucky. 

Reaching into my bag, I pulled out my phone and searched for the number that used to be Steve's. It rings and rings, but finally goes to the mechanical voice that tells me that the number is out of service. 

Chuckling humorlessly, I hummed, "It's a good thing you got rid of it." Nearly numb with the pain, I almost screamed at the phone but pulled myself together once more. 

I didn't know where I would go, or how I would do it, but I was going to find him. I couldn't just wait for Steve's so-called "friend" to show up before we could search for him. So I would go alone, and I would figure it out along the way. 

"Elda, you can't just leave," my mother said incredulously, refusing to leave. "It wouldn't be wise. The CIA will want to know where you are." 

"Please," I rolled my eyes. "I'm not playing into their hands anymore." I picked up my bag, tucking the letter into a safe spot, and hefted it on my shoulder, car keys and phone in my hand. "I'm gonna be gone long before the CIA picks their asses up off their chairs to come find me."

She stared at me, the shock obvious in her eyes. "Elda, you—"

"Enough." My tone was final. I stepped outside. The wind blew my slightly damp hair around my face. I made my way to my car, revving the engine and pulling out of the driveway. My house, my beloved house with so many beautiful moments with him, faded into the distance. I didn't know if I would ever step foot in that house ever again. I didn't know if I wanted to. 

I turned my focus to the road in front of me and inhaled, released a strong breath. I'm on my way, Buck. I'm coming for you. 

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holy shit. that's the last chapter. and it's 3,251 words. i've outdone myself. i considered making it several chapters, but it would have seemed too choppy, and i prefer it this way. 

my parents think i'm depressed because i go in my room and write by myself for a few hours, but it's fine! they're the ones trying to sign me up for a writing camp this summer and are still confused that writers are introverts and like to be alone. whatever, i'm not bitter. 

okay, enough of that, thank you so so so so much for reading!!!!! the "after credits" scenes will be up on friday after school, and then it's done! wow!

published on: jan. 2, 2019