Death Where is Your Sting? - B. Barnes

Chapter 3

Doors slamming.

A hand clawing at his metal wrist.

Metal fingers around a throat as he drags someone through the halls.

Long curly, dark hair on a cement floor.

"Do it."

"No."

"You'll be helping him."

"It won't work, you don't understand-"

"Soldat!"

His hand on the trigger.

Brown eyes.

"It's okay."

BANG!

Bucky jolted forward, gasping for air.

"Sorry, man, it slipped."

Sam, in his kitchen, frying pan in hand at the stove. Bucky felt disoriented. Was it morning? He looks at the windows. Light. Morning.

"Nightmare?"

"Mm," Bucky hums in response, dropping his head to his hands.

"Wanna talk about it?"

"...No."

"Alright." Bucky can hear the pan heating, smell the butter melting. "How is she?"

Bucky turns at Sam's question, his eyes coming to rest on the small figure still lying on his kitchen table. He watches her abdomen - rising and falling, so she's breathing. Good. He glances at her face - pale, but her lips are no longer tinged blue. "Uh...good, I guess. I didn't mean to fall asleep..."

"It was a hell of a night. I think you can be forgiven," Sam says with a chuckle. "Eggs?"

"Yeah, sure." Satisfied that Raven is still alive, Bucky rises from his chair, joining Sam in the kitchen to start the coffee. "I was going to move her, figured the table wouldn't be the most comfortable, but I didn't know if I should, if she could handle it, if she'd be able to breathe..." Bucky's voice fades off as he opens the cabinet for the bread to start some toast.

"You did fine, Buck."

Bucky nods, pouring the coffee, grabbing the bread from the toaster as Sam plates the eggs. They head to the living room to eat, Bucky takes the couch while Sam takes a chair. They eat in silence for a while until -

"I did some research. While you were sleeping."

"Sam-"

"Figured there had to be some mentions of a Reaper or Raven in all those files Nat leaked after the helicarriers."

Bucky tosses his plate on the table and throws his body back against the couch, pinching his nose in irritation. "Can we not-"

"Buck. Listen. I get it. You don't like to talk about Hydra and the Winter Soldier and all that. But I'm involved now. I have a right to know who I'm dealing with here, man. I'm not looking to make you uncomfortable but sometimes the shadows aren't so big and bad once you bring them to light."

Bucky peered out of one eye at Sam. "Are you trying to therapy me into talking right now?"

"I am giving you an opportunity to tell me the story before I tell you what I already found. I'd rather hear it from you. Hydra doesn't have the best track record of being trustworthy or forthcoming with their projects."

"You don't usually tell people about secrets, Sam." With a sigh, Bucky sat up and looked at the floor in front of him. "What did you find?"

"Not much. A few loose threads about the Reaper. Mostly details of her targets, a few mentions about success in getting her to follow orders but no details on how. A top secret project, like you. Came and went without a trace. Even the kills were almost untraceable - a heart attack, stroke, aneurism.  Law enforcement didn't even suspect anything unnatural until a young lawyer was found dead from a heart attack, autopsy said his heart looked like an 80 year old smoker's. Seemed to be bad timing because he had just had a full cardiac workup after his father dropped dead, also a heart attack, a few months before. The echo he'd had on his heart 3 weeks prior showed a picture of perfect health. Cops started looking at recent high profile deaths, found a whole bunch of seemingly natural deaths that didn't add up. They thought maybe a toxin, some kind of chemical, but all of the tox screens came back clean from the coroner. They never figured out who it was. Of course, after DC, Hydra didn't keep any records so the trail stops." Sam paused. "I couldn't find anything about a Raven, though. Or an identity for the Reaper."