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( CHAPTER ELEVEN )
JAMES DIDN'T COME BACK THE NEXT DAY. Nor the next one. Three days in Arden was starting to lose hope about ever seeing him again.
She spent her time researching Bucky Barnes. She didn't know what else to do, she couldn't think about anything else. And on the off-chance that James came back, she wanted to have something for him, a way to help him through... whatever this was. His journey to self-discovery. The trip down memory lane.
"Just... what the fuck." Arden said out loud in the empty room. It felt a bit liberating at least. She picked her phone back up with a sigh and kept scrolling through the results on "Bucky Barnes".
James Buchanan Barnes. Born March 10, 1917. Assigned into the 107th Infantry Regimen during World War II, he quickly raised through ranks to become Sergeant. Member of the Howling Commandos. Active in the battle against HYDRA, the Nazi deep science division, alongside the nation's superhero Captain America. Not only that, but his best friend since childhood. Ambushed during a mission. Declared dead.
It seemed like the cruelest of jokes.
Somehow, Bucky Barnes had survived the fall. Somehow, HYDRA had found him and given him the bionic arm. Somehow, he had lived through several decades, while not aging a bit.
Somehow, somehow, somehow. There were too many questions. Too many unknowns.
Soon enough her room started feeling too empty, too suffocating. Arden spent the next few days buzzing in and out of public libraries, archive sections of World War II and Captain America, searching through the internet for every scrap of information she could collect. Every time she went out, she left the door of the room unlocked, in case James came back, and a piece of paper on the table, "be back soon" neatly written on it. It was risky, but she didn't have much to lose.
She locked the drawer with the gun and the knife still inside, though, even if someone like James could have very well smashed the thing to pieces. She just hoped that, wherever he was, he was even remotely okay. She couldn't imagine what he was going through.
Arden always gravitated back to the exhibit though, so much that she knew the words of every panel by heart. She liked to go just before closing time, so she could enjoy the slow, lulling flow of people, the quiet. The first time with James they had barely rifled through it, got stuck at the memorial and exited quickly after that. Now she stopped to see the projections, to read carefully every date, every place, every name. It was nothing new from what she had searched through internet and books, but the videos, the photographs, every single object instilled a sense of longing into her, a nostalgia for something she had never lived in the first place. It was a bit addictive and incredibly easy to get lost in.
