Her body fell to the ground, her hair followed her move and before her spine could hit the ground, Barnes held her tightly in his arms. He clenched her side, kneeled and rocked her up and down like a baby, trying to calm her and himself down. He knew she was never going to forgive him.

'It hurts, captain,' she whispered. Barnes stared at the woman, not realizing she was awake. And when her brown eyes looked up, a sigh of relieve escaped his mouth. He was afraid to death that he had lost her, and yet here she was, her head resting against his chest. She closed her eyes again, and Barnes panicked.

'Hey, look at me,' he said, and immediately her eyes fluttered open once more. He tightened his grip around her and tried to make it more comfortable, tough he understood that a metal arm under your back wasn't quit as comfortable as a blanket or bed.

'You'll be fine,' he whispered, another tear rolled down his cheek and fell down his face, only to collide with the face of his maybe most loved one. She blinked, than her own tears started to come too, and the "heartless" soldier held the woman tight against her chest.

'I trusted you,' she whispered through tears. The bullet she had sent off hit the assassin in his heart. He had made a horrible mistake, maybe even an unfixable one, and he had to live with that for the rest of his life. He had broken her trust, enough to make her doubt him, and he promised to never to that again.

'Don't you trust me anymore?' he said, trying to blink his tears away, but he couldn't. For the first time someone had made him feel something that wasn't related to anger. And he wouldn't shut that small piece of humanity out. He had to take it in, even if it was killing his soul.

'I do,' she cried 'I have to,' she sobbed louder 'I want to.' She clenched her fingers around his shirt, which was still his armour, but the woman didn't care. Her fingers buried in the fabric and she cried harder. The man, frozen because of her words and not able to help her in any way, hugged her tighter.

'Don't cry. It's my fault. And I'm so sorry,' he whispered, leaning his head down so it rested on her own head. He felt how her body shook, like a gun reloading every time, then being fired off only to be reloaded again. Her face rested on his "normal" hand and her breath became slower, she was on the edge of sleep.

'They got me, and they won't let go,' she cried softly before her body relaxed. She had fallen asleep in his hands, and he would never leave her unguarded or alone for too long again. He hugged her once more, only to lay her on the bed.

'You'll get through this, I'll help you. Even if it's the last thing I do,' and with those words he rested her head on the pillow and threw the blanked over her. He tugged her in and stood up, hoping she wouldn't burn down the entire building while he was gone. He was going back to Rogers, but only to prove he was right, not to ask for help.

-

There he stood again, his back leaning against the wall as he watched his best friend get out of bed. He knew what he was doing was wrong, and he knew that it would have consequences, especially because of what happened earlier, but they at least had to try.

'You were right. She is dangerous,' he said as he took another deep breath. Rogers gave him a quick glance, his blue eyes giving him a concerned look.  The hero knew him better than anyone did, no one could top their friendship, how hard they tried. And the Brooklyn boy lived up to his promise. I'm with you 'till the end of the line.

'What happened that made you so sure of it?' he asked as he pushed himself off the white bed. Barnes ran towards him to steady his old friend, giving the blond a second longer to recover. His friend was panting, as he has almost died earlier, but that wasn't stopping him.

The assassin didn't know if he wanted to tell his pal, yet he thought it was the least he could do after allowing someone to almost kill him. And as he tried to desperately to get this feeling of guilt out off his chest, he knew it was never going away. It was another scar HYDRA had left on him, like his metal arm or his tortured soul.

'Every soldier from HYDRA can't write, read nor spell their trigger words. They can only say them, and if they do...' Barnes found it hard as the name of his own devil rolled of his tongue. He let out a breath he didn't knew he was holding in, wanting to continue, yet the now unfrozen man understood that it was still hard for him to talk about HYDRA.

'They trigger themselves,' he muttered and stared at his best friend, who only nodded. They both had a past that crossed roads with HYDRA, one of them more furiously than the other. They knew what the organization was capable of, but this even surprised the veterans.

'You asked her for her trigger words and she-' Barnes stopped him right there. It was only fair that his mistake would come out of his mouth, not out of the broken lips from his Small Steve. Though his Steve wasn't the one he saw every day, he still liked to think he was, and therefore always called him by his first name. Only if he was extremely mad or something important the pilot who now jumped more out of planes than he flew them tried to interfere with went wrong.

'Triggered herself,' he said it, his own mistake. He knew he was going to pay for this sooner than later. Maybe he would have to spend another year in hell for damaging this already broken person. He understood that the devil wanted him, but he didn't understand why Satan didn't take him already. Yet now he was extremely close to finding out.

'She didn't even attack me; she just looked at me with those emotionless white eyes. I panicked, told her I forbid her to lose control and she asked me if I was sure. She called me Captain James Barnes. No one has ever called me that, not even HYDRA. And then, she- she just collapsed. Their way of triggering is much more brutal than mine, and I'm afraid every time they are triggered there is a consequence. But I don't know that yet. Steve, what if she-'

He felt two strong arms around him, pulling him into this soft hug. The soldier laid his head on his best friend's shoulder and placed his arms around the muscular hero. His hair fell before his eyes, but he didn't care. All that he cared about was that his best friend had just hugged him. Human touch, it was still something weird for the Russian, but he secretly enjoyed his hugs with Rogers.

'She's fine, Buck. Otherwise JARVIS would've told us already. And besides, I don't think what you did was a mistake. You didn't know-' Steve, always the one who thought there was no blood on Bucky's hands, Steve, the one that forgave and forgot just because it was him, Steve, who didn't even know the person in front of him like he used to, but it was Steve, the one that cared about the assassin no matter what.

'I did know.'

The fragile, asthmatic, thin and not muscular boy looked at him, his Steve looked at him. Though it was fun sometimes that Rogers had muscles just like himself, Barnes still saw the young boy from Brooklyn who was too dumb to run away from a fight. 

He remembered when he was still "normal", around the Second World War; he used to check every alley to make sure Steve wasn't picking a fight again. And even when he was controlled by HYDRA, and he went on a mission, he always looked at every alley, but he forgot the reason why. Even now, when he knew Rogers wasn't picking a fight, he still made sure every alley was fight free.

'But still, now we at least now her trigger words,' and there came the forgiveness, the sentence that should make the victim feel so much better. It didn't. When that sentence came it meant he had messed up bad, and this time he had done way more than mess up bad.

'I- it's hard for me to think I did anything right today. I let her trigger herself, I didn't stop her. Trust me Steve, I feel guilty for what I've done. Now is one of these days I wish I could just erase everything from my mind,' the broken murderer muttered. He knew this wasn't the time for emotional talks but he had to get this off his chest. These thoughts and guilt were making it almost impossible for the Russian to breathe. Yet he was the same like any other man. He was human.

'Would you really Bucky? Would you really want to forget her? Or forget every friend you made?' the often tight trousered hero asked his friend. He didn't even mention himself, and slowly the experiment that had gone so perfectly and yet so wrong realized that he didn't want to forget. That everything he ever wanted was already here.

'Some times it feels like it. But you're right, I would never want to forget about you Steve,' the long haired man responded. Though he didn't often show his affection towards Steve like he did now, he could feel the happiness radiate from his old friend.