Stranded: Ch3( Bucky Barnes x Reader)

The airship's acceleration was enough to break the sound barrier, creating a large bang in the skies, as it fell and slid across dunes of sand, before finally stopping with a loud thud. Remnants of the aircraft were scattered everywhere, half buried in the sand, while the actual ship was a battered wreck and was .half way from breaking into two. The ice in the cryogenic freezer slowly melted as a few hours passed by. The cooling mechanism that it was attached to from the  walls through wires and tubes, were severely damaged. After the airship had crash landed, the frozen man inside, started to defrost. It didn't help either that the midday sun shone brightly, its emitting heat conducted by the metal surfaces of the wreck, causing it to heat its surroundings. As a few hours passed by, the blanket of ice and frost that covered him, melted away. The man inside felt his heart suddenly pulse as it slowly pumped blood around his body. And then he awoke, his sapphire eyes showing as his eyelids fluttered open, exposing his them to the harsh lighting of the environment. As he tried to flex his muscles in the small confined space, he then afterwards rubbed his hand against the circular, but cracked, glass pane of the door, expecting to see scientists.

But his view was a change for once. From what he could see, the room where he was in, was wrecked and silent. However he couldn't see much, since the coffin like structure of the freezer, didn't permit him to have a panoramic view, and the cracks of the glass pane distorted his vision. Cautious, but curious to see his surroundings, he used his mechanical arm to bust the door open with one strong punch. As the hinges of the door broke and fell with a loud clatter, he stumbled out dripping wet in cold water, droplets falling from his hazel coloured hair and unclothed body. He hesitated, waiting for the call of guards or alarms going off. He had done a similar thing like this before, but in a lab full of scientists. To his surprise no noise could be heard. His eyebrows furrowed a questionable look. Medical attention was mandatory for him, especially since he just got out from the cryogenics. All the preserving agents and chemicals sure did keep him young, but being injected with it frequently acted like poison to his body, making him feel weak. Pushing the thought of it away, he looked around further. He noticed that crates and boxes were spread across the room upturned, and their content spilling out onto the floor. The walls of the room was partly torn and dented, letting in some sunlight that gleamed on his left arm. But what caught his attention the most was...the sand?

What happened? Where was he? Surely he had woken too early during his travel to his destination? Wanting to investigate, but seeing as he looked 'vulnerable'  he first decided to ravage what he could find in the upturned crates. Luckily, he found his uniform, amongst the sprawled out items and his handy black knife. As he rummaged some more, he found a black gun, with a round of ten bullets. Finally clothing himself and only being lightly armed, he made his way to exit the room and look through the areas from what was left of the airship, trying to understand what happened.

After searching through numerous rooms and unexpectedly seeing a deceased HYDRA guard's bloody body in one of them, the brown haired man had caught his eye on a figure lying down. Taking a closer look, he could see it was, to his own shock...a woman. Interested but curious he went over to inspect her. She had (h/c) hair that was fanned out; her face was bruised and cut, that contrasted her flawless (s/c) skin. But most of all, he noticed the wound on her leg, causing a patch of blood on the floor. What happened to her? And why was she, here? More importantly why was a woman here? Kneeling down near her, he put his head on her chest trying to find a heartbeat to see if she was alive. But the sound of her stirring, answered his question, and his instincts suddenly kicked in as he quickly stood up and took out his gun.

***

Your P.O.V

Your mouth let a low groan escape from your lips as you blinked constantly to get rid of the heavy feeling in your eyelids and the blurry vision. The atmosphere seemed strangely hot however that wasn't something your worried about greatly. St the corner of your eye, you could begin to make out shapes of the environment from the broken windows. It was hard to srr through your blurry vision, however you couod see what looked like mountains of gold and yellow. Whete were you?  Suddenly you felt a concussion in your head and a staggering pain in your spine and legs as you tried sitting up. At least you didn't die. Things could of been worse. You weren't even blown up either and you made it in one piece. However your thoughts about your predicted death were cut off when your vision had focused, and you were staring through the barrel of a gun. Looking up, you could see that the person holding it was someone familiar. Raking your brain for answers, a flashback hit you and then you knew that it was the man from the cryogenic freezer.

"Who are you?" You asked. The hazel haired man looked at you with his cerulean eyes with no emotion but with a hint if curiosity, as he held the gun inches from your face. You swallowed the rising lump in your throat while you slowly used your hands to slide and back away, to a nearby wall where you saw that you were cornered when your spine hit the wall. By now, your breathing had become shaky, especially when he wrapped his intimidating metal hand around your neck, as he kneeled down near you, his arm making a sound between a knife getting sharpened and metal whirring.

You flailed slightly under his grip, trying to get more air into your system, while you tried to pull his arm away. Of course, that only gave him another reason to tighten his grip even further. As the air was cut off from reaching your lungs, you felt like you were being sapped of your own energy.
However, you swiftly used the last of your strength to use one of your legs to knock the gun out of his hand. You brought a strong uppercut to his jaw, while the other hand took the knife from your belt and slashed at his chest, making him stagger and toss the gun a few feet away, giving enough time for you to run. As soon as he released his grip on your throat, you quickly took a deep breath to replace the absence of air in your lungs. Getting up in a flash with the help of your hands and putting the knife back in your belt,  you went to take a step forward. However, you instantly remembered the wound that the bullet made, when your felt the agonizing pain the moment you put some weight on your right leg. It was already hard enough to stand, but walking, or more like limping, felt like a thousand knifes with every step. Using the wall as support, you tried making your way out of the room to escape. Unbeknownst to you, the man you knocked out, got up from his short daze as he wiped some blood from his mouth. Seeing that you were having difficulty walking, he didn't bother reaching for his gun, and he headed towards you, his footsteps getting louder and louder as he took each stride. Glancing back, you regretted it. He looked at you darkly, like he wanted to rip you apart.

Nearing you from behind, you pivoted and struck him in the jaw again, but this time, his arm blocked it, while he used the metal one to shove you to the floor. Lying on your back, you saw him stepping over you. Using your left leg, you swiped at his leg, causing him to lose balance and topple over. He landed on top of you, and both you and him wrestled, trying to get eachother off, as you both flipped eachother, ine with their back to the floor while the other was on top. At one point, both your faces were just a few inches away from doing the unthinkable. Successfully,  you ended up pushing him further away. You used your elbows and forearms to wriggle and move away, you felt a hand roughly grab your ankle. Turning your head, you tried shaking him off by kicking him again. Taking out his knife, he pulled at the loose hem of the trouder leg from your body suit and stabbed through it, nailing you to the floor. A small groan left your lips as you felt the burning sensation of the blade grazing the skin of your ankle. He got up again and stepped in front of you, kneeling down a few feet from you and looked into your eyes. You could see he was pouring with sweat, and he looked as if he was in no mood to be getting false answers. He lifted your head up by holding a bunch of your hair tightly. Using your elbows for support to lessen the strain on your neck, you looked back into his emotionless sapphire eyes, while you slowly slid your hand towards your knife getting ready to strike.

"I'd like to ask the same question." He said, replying late
Within a  sudden quick move, you stabbed it deep into his metal arm, causing a violent whir that was unlike the sound it made when he strangled you from before. Of course he felt no pain, but his face seemed to tell a different story.

With that, he hit you with his metal arm across the temple, knocking you out cold.

***

Your P.O.V.

The air woke you as your body shivered to the different change in the atmosphere. You could feel a tightening sensation around your wrists, while you focused on hearing the sound of crackling. Looking around, you could see that you were just outside the airship, in front of a small fire.  The dim light lit up your surroundings. The floor was rough and sandy...like the environment of a desert. Wanting to feel more of the warmth from the fire, you tried to go towards it, but your wrists were bound with handcuffs...again. But this time, they were attached by a chain that was looped around a heavy piece of debris from the airship. You sighed in disbelief. You went through all that effort to escape the HYDRA guard, survive the crash and take on a random stranger, only to have yourself tied up again. You could move a few feet, but it didn't make much of a difference to you. Hearing footsteps, you closed your eyes and leaned on the debris, trying to pretend to be asleep, but kept your eyes slightly open, enough to see.

The man with brown hair who you fought earlier, sat down near the fire, putting his non-metal arm near the fire to warm it.



"Stop pretending." he curtly said, not bothering to look at you, but stare at the fire. Exhaling, you opened your eyes, and turned your head to look at the floor. It was silent for the first few minutes, not you or him uttering a word to each other, just the crackling sound of the small fire. You thought to yourself in the silence. You were lost and stranded, with someone you didn't know, in what seemed to be a desert. You hadn't eaten in ages, or drank anything within the past twenty-four hours, and you were tired, hungry and injured. Thinking about it, if you actually reached the HYDRA base that the airship was destined to go to, at least they would of, probably, let you die a quick death. But instead, you were here. If this carried on, there was a highly likely chance that you would die slowly and painfully...unless the man by the fire killed you with a fatal gunshot, or you were sneaky enough to take your own life. Despite the fact you were tempted to, your thought wavered when Steve came into your mind. What would he say if you were gone? You two had become so close during your training at SHIELD, was it just a waste of him to just welcome you with opening arms and then toss all that friendship away? He was the one that helped you every time you failed: the one who was always there when you felt like crying, because you thought you couldn't do it. If you committed suicide, what would he think of you? But this was you're decision. He would understand...wouldn't he? There was a possibility that he was gone too. You saw the way the HYDRA guards took him, the moment the airship departed. Realizing what you had to do, you made your decision. You could either live tomorrow and endure what was coming ahead or end it all, and maybe meet Steve, if he was there.

"Kill me." you said, in defeat. Hearing those words, the brown haired man looked at you, trying not to show shock on his face, however he said nothing and resumed to continue looking into the fire.

"Kill me," you repeated louder, a few tears falling as you hid your choked sob," You were going to before, so what's stopping you?" you sternly whispered the last words. You looked at him, expecting a reply, but he didn't say a word. Trying to get on your feet and making you're way towards him, by using as much of the chain possible. He wasn't a talker-that was definitely for sure.


"Is it that hard just to ask who you are and then change my mind instead so I can ask to die? Because clearly the way you were earlier seemed like you wanted to put a bullet to my head." raising your voice as you neared the end of your sentence, breaking down.q. He pulled the gun out from his belt, aiming it at you. Good. He was going to do it, finally ending your pain.

"I didn't say I was going to kill you." he lashed back, through gritted teeth.

"You sure have a funny way of matching what you say to your actions." You whispered,  hoping he would pull the trigger already. To your own shock, he put the gun back into his belt and looked away. Irritated at his response and realising that you hadn't made any progress, you slumped down on the sand, hugging your knees together to hide the weakness you showed while you cried quietly.

***
This was the first time. The first time he had witnessed pain. He had never seen anyone cry before-well the last time he remembered. It wasn't like HYDRA was a place to show emotions. He felt a little dicomfort, seeing as he never handled anything like this before. She had asked for two simple requests: explain who he was or end her life. They weren't exactly difficult to do. However, the first request, he couldn't answer-he didn't even know his own name...The request to kill her, seemed out of the blue. He couldn't though, despite the fact that he knew deep down, what his true nature was. A reason may have been because: she probably knew what happened to cause him to be in the situation that he was in right now; killing her straight away would mean she would take the answers with her to her grave. But why didn't it seem like that was the wrong answer? That was the only explanation he could get from the top of his head.

After sitting in silence again, he dexided to speak.

"There's not much to know about me..."he said trailing off. The woman looked up, wiping her tears from her (e/c) eyes.

'And you shouldn't need to know either." He said, finishing off, still staring into the flames of the fire. "You?" He asked, hiding his curiosity. She looked away from him, almost annyoed in a way.

"Why would I tell you about who I am, when you barely told me anything about yourself." She replied turning her back against him, and curling up into a ball, leaning against the debris for support. He mentally scolded himself. He tried to communicate, and that was where it got him. But then again, why was he actually trying?