Chereads / The Summer Soldier / Chapter 7 - The Biting Truth

Chapter 7 - The Biting Truth

Will he be scared of what I am? Should I tell him his blood is intoxicatingly sweet to smell?

He interupts my thought with a groan. I look over to him. "What's hurts?"

"It's just my chest, Doll. Nothing to worry about."

"Don't give me that crap, Barnes. I will be back in a second."

I pop into the bathroom of a drugstore. I quickly leave the restroom to search for something to help with Bucky's cold.

On my way back to the special snowflake, I grab two cups of water from the kitchen. I hand him the packet of two tablets and one of the cups.

"Do you really want to know about the last monster?"

"Only if you want to tell me," he coughs out. 

"Will you promise me that what I am about to tell you won't make you run away?" He smiles and nods his head. 

"Have you ever heard of Count Dracula?-"

"I think so, but I'm not sure."

"Well, he would rid his victims of all their blood by drinking it. He is what people would call a vampire or the living dead. That is what the other monster is, and I absolutely hate it." I could no longer look into his eyes in fear of his reaction. 

My chin becomes cold as his metal appendages turned my head towards him. "That won't scare me away. I know you would never hurt someone unless given no other choice. You could never be evil; you care too much for that." Bucky smiles at me, but it quickly turns to a concerned look. 

"Why do you have red eyes?" I forgot that he never saw my eyes back in the 40's. I wish I didn't need blood right now.

"I can't be here anymore; I need to get out of here. I don't want to hurt you." I cry out as I teleport away from the tower. I figure out that I ended up right outside of my childhood home. 

As I walk through the door, I can hear the laughing of a little girl. I watch the scene before me; an enkelin running to her grandpa. 

I walked into the living room to find the Christmas tree was oddly still there along with a huge blood stain on the floor near the couch. The tree was also covered in spider webs with all the decorations still on it. 

Looks like no one moved in or cleaned the mess left behind.

As I leave the room and start climbing the stairs, I hear a child calling out "Tell me another story about Captain America and his team, Opa. Please just one more story. I promise I will go to sleep afterwards." I walk up to a door with a giant shield on it. The door creaks an awful sound as I open it. 

The room before my eyes is covered in red, white, and blue. It contains multiple newspapers filled with Captain America and the Howling Commandos articles. There are shields among other things related to the 40's everywhere. Faded drawings cover most of the walls. The colors mesh together in ways that I did not know was possible. 

The man sits on the bed with the little girl tucked in. Tears fill my eyes as I listen to the story of Bucky's fight on the train that leads to his beginnings as the Winter Soldier.

My throat begins to burn as the need for blood becomes stronger. I need to stop reminiscing and find an animal blood source. 

I rush out of the house and end up in a snowy field. The first thing my eyes focus on is a moose. I make slow and deliberate steps towards it. It stares at me, while I move closer to the majestic beast. I reach out to it and slowly pet it in a comforting way as I stole some of its blood. 

I will stay away from people for a while. As it turns out, I have been out of the Avengers' lives for almost two years. Yet, I notice in that time there was less animals and plants recently. 

Something is definitely not right, so I teleport to the compound. I find Steve sporting a beard and longer hair with Tony beside him. Tony has a melancholic look on his face as does Steve. 

I watch as Natasha walked into the room with a slight smile on her face and blonde hair. Thor, whose hair is shorter now and brown, walks into the room and picks me up. "It is great to know the snap did not harm you."

"I have no idea as to what you are talking about. What snap? Actually, I don't want to know. I also think I know why this 'snap' didn't hurt me. I can't die easily, remember. Where is everyone else?" They all just look at me depressed. 

No one seems to want to answer my question. It didn't take me very long to understand that the other were gone as in dead. 

Clint pulls me in for a hug. "It has been a while, kiddo. Where have you been? You missed out on a lot." I smile into the warm embrace. I tell them that I just needed some time away from people. I could not believe that the others were gone. 

"Snowflake is gone too, isn't he? Steve, please tell me what happened? If I could go back in time to change what happened, I would, but I don't know how to do that." 

Steve stares at me for a while before he finally speaks. Natasha and Thor watch Steve slowly move towards me. He pulls me into a hug as he continued to explain what happened with everyone. 

"So, let me get this straight. Some alien named Thanos snapped his fingers causing half of the universe to turn to dust. All because he wore a glove with stones on it. To be honest that is crazier than a hybrid that can't be killed except by two World War Two veterans." 

I walk over to Tony mentally asking if he was ok. He just shakes his head as tears fell from his eyes. I quickly pull him into my arms as I rock him side to side slowly. I tell him that everything will be ok. That I have a plan to fix it. I would not tell them the plan, at least not yet. 

I walk away and into my room. I tell Friday to not let anyone into the room. I pull off the key from my neck and look at the jet black stone on it. The key burns in my hand. 

All I could feel was the power of the stone coursing through my veins. I fall to the ground as my vision turns black. Voices are all around me, but I can't tell who said what. I can't even tell who is talking. 

I know that it will take some time to fix what the other infinity stones had done, but I can do it. Someone picks me up and places me on my bed. Steve, I believe. He kisses my forehead as he leads everyone out of the room. 

"Friday, let us know if anything changes, please." Friday responds back to him with a "yes". 

The key begins to burn at my hand again. It stops as fast as it began. My body jerks forward as my eyes pop open. I watch as everyone runs back into the room. Steve leading the group. 

I can feel all the monsters screaming at me. They were fighting each other for control. Everyone in the room slowly backs away from me as a growl rips out of my throat.

My surrounding changes in the blink of an eye. I am no longer at the compound. Instead, I am someplace that I don't know. All I know is that I am no longer on Earth. 

I work quickly to use my stone to destroy the other infinity stones on the purple alien's glove. I could feel my eyes change to black as I force his blood in his veins to freeze and rip his heart out causing it to burst into flames inside my hand. 

A deep growl makes it way through my body as I then make his body explode. I smile at the victory in front of me. Everything around me changes yet again.

Everyone, including people I don't even know, a tree, and a raccoon, crowds around me as I was at the compound again. I answer everyone's unspoken question by pulling out the jet black stone. Steve and Bucky pull me into a hug, as well as Tony.