arm's length away ━ bucky barnes

chapter twenty-four: nightmares

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TW: mentions of homophobia, abuse, and panic attacks. brief mention of conversion therapy

note: this ✶ marks the beginning and end of a flashback (the flashback will be in italics) and if someone's speech is in bold, it means it's spoken in italian (eg. "i love you")

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Aurora Amedeo didn't have an easy life.

She couldn't quite pinpoint what is was that made her who she was today but she knew it was something from her fucked up childhood.

Maybe it was being born with powers that she couldn't quite understand or control or maybe it was having to hide them.

Maybe it was because her emotions were never quite private. Harmless green sparks shot out of her hands when she was angry, lights flickered when she was sad and she glowed whenever she was happy. Whatever emotion she felt, it was on display for her family to see.

She had to force herself not to feel anything when around other people just incase they saw her powers and knew she was a freak.

Maybe it was conditioning herself to be straight at the ripe age of 6 because she knew her parents wouldn't like how she looked at the pretty girls in their skirts.

Or maybe it was the fact that she moved to the United States at 7 while only knowing how to speak Italian and getting bullied for it.

Maybe it was because when she finally came out as bisexual at age 10, her parents shunned her for it.

She was never outright abused, is what she told herself, there was the occasional slap across the face when she talked without permission and being told her feelings were invalid everyday.

Emotional abuse, her therapist had called it years later.

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Aurora never told her brother why she changed her name at 12.

She didn't tell him that it was because she had nightmares of her mother screaming "You're disgusting, Emilia!" and her father yelling "You are no daughter of mine, Emilia! I wish you were never born!" every night.

She figured if she changed her name, then the nightmares wouldn't affect her because she wasn't Emilia anymore, she was Aurora.

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She was 13 when she learned the green sparks that danced around her fingertips when she was angry weren't as harmless as she originally thought.

She remembers the day like it was yesterday.

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A 13-year-old Aurora Amedeo had just gotten home from school when her mother began yelling at her. That wasn't anything new, but on this particular day, Greta Amedeo looked livid.

"Why did I have to hear from your cousin," that was never good, Aurora's cousins hated her. "that you have a girlfriend?!?" Mrs. Amedeo spat the last word out like it was poison and Aurora instinctively flinched away, dropping her backpack on the hardwood floor with a thud.

"Mama I-" She could feel her eyes burning with unshed tears as she racked her brain to come with something- anything- to say to make the situation better.