Lightning Strikes | bucky barnes x reader
word count - 6.5k
warnings - angst, language, poorly written ending, mentions of blood/violence, torture, descriptions of panic attacks !! do not read if this could trigger you !!
summary - Y/N is kidnapped and experimented on by HYDRA. Nothing can stop Bucky from saving her. But... what if Y/N can't be saved? What if Y/N won't let herself be saved?
a/n - I had three of the most amazing beta readers ever for this fic !! many, many thanks to @cxddlyash, @thewxntersoldier, and especially @calpalirwin, who almost wrecked the car when I told you part of the storyline <3
tags - @bibliophilewednesday @givebuckyhisplumsnow (send me an ask or a dm if you'd like to be added!!)
Two months. It had been two months since the last time anyone had seen Y/N in person. Heartbreaking video footage had been delivered as if to taunt the team.
“Please, I don’t know anything about Project Delaware, I swear. Don’t put me in the room I swear, I swear I don’t know,” she sobbed. Everyone held their breath as they watched their teammate be tortured. The film cut to the next shot, obviously a few minutes later, if the new bloodstains and split lip were anything to go by, as well as the new setting. In the center of the shot was Y/N, lying strapped to a table, restraints fastened to her hands and ankles.
“Please,” she begged. “I can’t give you what you want, please just let me go.” Her cries went unanswered, disregarded as the scientists in the room continued prepping their experiments.
Bucky felt his stomach drop as they held her down, injecting vial after vial of some strange serum in her veins. His mouth went dry as she passed out after the third injection, a cry dying on her lips. His feelings for Y/N were far from hidden, with his longing stares and lingering touches that never seemed to be enough. Watching her in pain was his own personal hell.
Knowing this was a recording was another level of torment. This had already happened. There was nothing he could do to stop this. HYDRA had taken their time and already took her apart. But hearing Y/N call out his name, begging him to help - that was what broke him. He fell to his knees in the middle of the living room, reaching out to the screen to maybe, maybe just try to take some of her pain.
Her screams played on repeat in everyone’s heads as they worked tirelessly to find her - but no one seemed to work harder than Bucky. Sleep became a foreign concept to the soldier. Nights and days blended together to form some unforgivable mesh of consciousness. Dark bags formed under his eyes that put those he gained as the Winter Soldier to shame. His teammates looked at him with some strange mix of pity, confusion, and comfort. So when the day finally came when Y/N’s location was revealed, he was the first one to board the jet. Plopping himself down in his seat, he purposefully avoided Steve and Sam’s concerned glances.
“Pal,” Steve began, “no one would blame you for sitting this one out.”
“I would,” he replied harshly as he strapped himself in.
“She knows you’ve been working to find her. Maybe you should take a rest,” Sam tried to reason.
“I won’t sleep,” Bucky growled, “until she’s home. Until I can physically see and feel her, I will not close my eyes because she’d do the same for me. So don’t even try to talk me out of this.” His chest heaved with emotion as he all but hissed the last few words.
The captains shared a look, and silently seated themselves on either side of him. “We’ll get her back, Buck.”
The soldier stayed silent, praying that their words rang true.
~~
Bucky almost slipped back into the Winter Soldier as he fought his way through the compound. Blades and bullets alike found home in his targets, anyone daring to come in his way falling before they could move against him. The way to her cell was paved with bloody trails, some old and some new.
Her door was easy enough to find - the only one reinforced with more locks and chains than would typically be necessary. Bucky saw nothing but red as he all but ripped the locking mechanism away from the door, but the sight awaiting him made him want to blackout.
Y/N was suspended by the wrists in the center of the room, hands suspended above her head by thick gauntlets, a chain looping through a hook in the ceiling. Her head hung low, and he would have thought her dead if not for the worryingly subtle rise and fall of her chest.
Oxygen couldn't come fast enough as he mumbled into his earpiece. "I found her," he breathed, relief and apprehension apparent in his tone. He ignored the team’s questions as he forced his legs to move closer, commanding his body to listen and lower his friend. He cradled her beaten body to his chest, frantically searching for a pulse. Faint, but there.
"Y/N, sweetheart, you gotta come back to me, wake up for me." He pushed a strand of hair back away from her eyes. She didn't respond.
"Barnes, we gotta go. Reinforcements will be here soon." Stark's voice rang through the comms. "Get her to the jet, we can put her in the cradle until Cho can take a look at her."
A hardened mask fell over his features. He would do this. He could handle this because Y/N needed him to. "Copy that."
~~
Two weeks and she's still unconscious. Dr. Cho had yet to decipher what HYDRA had injected in her. Bucky was furious.
How dare they? How dare they take Y/N, who refused to kill the bugs that found their way inside, instead choosing to carry them back out. Y/N, who smiled and cracked jokes when everyone else was too solemn to. Y/N, who was never afraid to approach Bucky when everyone else was.
He'd taken it upon himself to hunt them down. Every agent who was rumored to be even affiliated with the base she was on - they found a bullet between their eyes. James Barnes had gone rogue, and there was nothing the team could do. He had cut off communication from everyone except Cho, who updated him on everything relating to Y/N. And so far, nothing had changed, so the bodies of HYDRA agents kept piling up.
He sat alone on a rooftop in Madripoor. This city never was his favorite, but he'd go just about anywhere to find these assholes. The loaded rifle next to him served as a constant reminder of what he was actually doing here, of the price these agents and scientists had to pay for experimenting on someone who deserved the world at her feet. The operative he was currently tracking, Samuel Geigler, was a scientist mentioned to have been the one developing whatever serum they'd forced into Y/N.
Movement below signaled his mark had left his apartment. This was his chance. Bucky readied the rifle, bracing against his shoulder and peering through the scope. Just a little to the left, and the target's skull was just in the crosshairs. His finger rested on the trigger. Geigler was about to get in his car. Bucky took a deep breath, braced his shoulder, and --
A hand came to rest on the assassin's left shoulder. Bucky whipped around, bringing a hand to the unexpected visitor’s wrist. His free hand found the knife at his hip and within a few skilled moves, his guest had a blade pressed against their throat.
"What do you want?" he hissed.
"Buck," Steve began, "you've gotta come back."
"They're still out there," he responded harshly, pulling the knife away from his oldest friend's jugular. Looking down, he saw his mark's car was halfway down the road. Damnit. That's another day he has to spend in this goddamn city.
"Buck, you're not hearing me. She's progressing. She'll wake up soon. Come back home."
"You said she'd wake up soon the moment we got her back. I won't be home until she's awake or I kill each and every one of them who laid a hand on her. Whichever happens first."
James began packing his rifle, ready to spend another night chasing leads.
"This isn't who you are," Steve breathed. "This vigilante justice, rogue assassinations, it's not what she would want, it's not you."
"The U.S. Army trained me as a sniper." Bucky spun and jabbed a finger in Steve's chest. "I was the sniper, oh sorry, assassin, on the Howling Commandos. HYDRA made me a goddamn assassin, too. This is exactly who I am, Rogers. Don't try to say it isn't. This is what they made me, this is what you made me."
"And Y/N? What about her? What would she think when she wakes up and finds out you killed fifty people because of her?"
"Because of her? Steve, I'm doing this for her. So that she doesn't have to wake up to a world where people can do to other people what they did to her. So she can rest easy knowing they won't come for her. Things I would have loved to have known when I escaped." Bucky's chest heaved as he glared at the blonde.
Steve sighed, knowing there wasn't much else he could say. Admitting he was right would be like condoning his actions, and arguing against him would be like saying Y/N didn't deserve the peace of mind Bucky was trying to give her, the only way he knew how.
"Buck, I'm not here to fight you. Cho--"
"Has been keeping me updated of Y/N's conditions. I'll know when she wakes up. I'll be there."
As if on a cue, his phone vibrated against the pocket of his jeans. Steve raised an almost perfectly trimmed brow.
"I'm going back home, Bucky. I hope you will too." With that, the Captain turned on his heel and walked away, hoping his friend would follow.
Bucky stayed rooted to the ground. “That place isn’t my home until she’s back in it.”
The Captain hesitated, then continued onward with an overwhelming air of defeat.
Later that night, Bucky opened the notification he had been too anxious to read. Would she be okay? Would Cho tell him she hadn't made it? That the injuries were too severe? That the injections were actually a slow-acting poison?
Two words made his whole world stop.
She's up.
~~
Constant, slow beeping. A heart monitor. Someone adjusting an IV. Likely injecting another foreign substance in her.
"Please…" she groaned, "no."
"Y/N?" Someone called her name. Strange, HYDRA usually just called her Experiment or bitch. "Y/N, can you hear me?" The woman was familiar somehow, like from another lifetime.
"I can't," she whined groggily. "Don't make me, please please don't." A hand gripped her arm. The handler, she presumed. "I can't," she cried. "I can't, I can't. Please, it hurts, I can't control it, don't make me."
Something shook her. "Y/N come back to us, kid." This time the voice was male.
"Don't touch me!" A scream ripped through her chest as she jolted up, arms thrashing and chest heaving. She fought off the hands that tried to restrain her.
"Kid, kid, look at me." Someone was talking to her, someone she knew, but Y/N couldn't bring herself to focus on anything but getting free.
"Don't make me do it," she sobbed as a face came into her field of view. Her eyes met brown, and Tony Stark was in front of her, his hands bracing her shoulders, keeping her arms still enough to not hurt herself.
"Kid, please, breathe for me, yeah? In and out. No one's gonna make you do it, okay? Just breathe," he tried to soothe as she continued to whimper.
"Tony," she breathed. "Tony, oh my god."
"I'm here, Y/N, I'm here." The billionaire pulled Y/N into his arms. She tucked her face into the crook of his neck and cried.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry." The endless whispered apologies flowed from her lips as she refused to lift her head.
"Kid, what can you be sorry for?"
"I failed. I got captured, I could have hurt you. I'm so sorry, Tony, I tried to stop them, I tried." Her cries increased in intensity as she recounted her shortcomings, and Tony's heart broke. He glanced over to Dr. Cho, who had been standing on the side, apprehensively ready to sedate if necessary. Stark knew the only person who could potentially calm her.
"Notify Barnes. She's awake."
Helen nodded and exited the room.
"Y/N, you're alright. It's okay. You don't have to talk about it. But we need to do some lab work, yeah? Now that you're awake?"
Her head lifted instantly, terror apparent in her eyes. "No, no, no needles, please. I'll do whatever you want, just no needles please, I can't do it, you can't put that stuff in me again," she begged desperately.
"Y/N? Y/N, listen, nothing is going-- Y/N!" Tony struggled to keep her still. He shook her shoulders once, twice, and she still remained frantic.
"I can't-- I can't, Tony, I can't control it, I-I-I'll hurt you guys and I can't do that, no needles, I can't hurt you, I can't, I can't-"
"Doc!" Tony called frantically. "Helen, she's hyperventilating and her pulse is increasing."
The next thing Y/N felt was a short prick in the neck before her eyelids fell too heavy to stay open. The last thing Tony saw on her face before she passed out was a look of utter betrayal.
~~
The first thing Y/N noticed when she was awake was that she was alone. No familiar face sat at her bedside, no one was poking and prodding. The room, the same room as before, was empty of any other persons.
Was this real? No, this had to be some sort of trick. She wasn’t actually home. HYDRA had created some new hell, some new way of deceiving her mind into thinking she was home.
The door creaked open. This was it. The scientists were coming back, they’d come up with new experiments and they would stick her with serums and tubes and the electricity that coursed through her veins.
The moment a body came into view, she released all the tension that was building up. Sparks flew from the tips of her fingers, as electricity shot in all directions. A scream ripped through her body as Y/N let go of all the strain, heat, and power that she’d been trying to keep under control.
Y/N was panting as the light died down. When she opened her eyes, Dr. Cho was standing in the doorway, cradling her left arm. All emotions drained from the once-hero immediately as she saw what she’d done. Cho’s lab coat sleeve was singed, and Y/N could spy blood seeping through the ruined edges.
Immediately, tears sprung to her eyes. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, Helen. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to,” she began.
The doctor stepped forward, but Y/N held her hand out. Cho’s flinch as she moved didn’t escape her notice. “Don’t come closer to me,” Y/N breathed. “I might do it again.”
Cho opened her mouth to speak but was cut off when voices were heard in the hallway.
“What was that?!”
“It came from medical.”
The telltale voices of her teammates flooded her senses, and dread filled her mind. Of course, she missed them and wanted to see them, but what if she hurt them? What if she couldn’t control it again, and hurt them like she did Dr. Cho?
“Don’t come in here!” Y/N thought she said the words softly, but it came out more like a yell. She saw as most of her teammates gathered in the doorway, where Helen stood like a barricade between two worlds. Wanda, Natasha, Sam, Tony, Thor, and Scott stood paralyzed in the entryway.
“Y/N...” Wanda, who had always been like a sister to the girl, breathed a sigh of relief at the sight of her friend finally awake.
“Put me in solitary.”
“...Excuse me?” Tony, the father of the group, elbowed his way to the front.
“I can help, Y/N. You know I can. If you let me into your mind, I can find the block. I can show you how to… guide it. It may take a few tries, but Y/N, anything is better than this.” Wanda tried to reason.
“No. I can’t control it,” Y/N whispered. “I can’t let myself hurt you guys. I’ve done enough. Put. Me. In. Containment.”
~~
It took every ounce of restraint that James Buchanan Barnes had in his body not to leap off the plane the moment he landed. He shoved agents aside as he ran off the tarmac and barrelled through the doors. Steve tried to intercept him as he stepped off the elevator to the residential levels, but Bucky expertly avoided his outstretched hand.
“Buck, there’s something you should know first.”
“I’m going to see her.” He made a sharp left, heading for medical. By this point, other members of the team had caught up.
“You won’t find her there.” Wanda’s words made the super-soldier freeze. With deathly focus, he spun slowly on his heel.
“What do you mean?” The question came out more as more of a growl than words.
“She’s in containment holding,” Natasha answered through a grimace.
Bucky stilled, and the rage that fell over his features was murderous. He whispered, with deadly calm, “You put her in lockup?”
“Barnes it wasn’t like that,” Tony tried to explain. “She--”
“You took her out of one cell and put her right back into another. I got her out of one prison and you all sat her right back in one.” His chest began heaving as his voice raised. “Is that what you did? She needs help, and you locked her away.”
“Barnes, what they did to her-- they experimented on her, and she’s not the same.” Steve put his hand on his friend’s shoulder, but Bucky whirled and jabbed a metal finger in his face.
“You. You didn’t tell me. You knew and didn’t tell me she was locked away, that you put her in some jail cell of a room and called it a kindness.”
“I didn’t know until I landed back here.”
Bucky’s nostrils flared. “Take me to her or I swear to God, I’ll give you a real monster to chain up and put away.”
~~
"Y/N?"
Y/N's head snapped up at the sound of her name. On the other side of the glass cage, there stood the one person she was really missing. "Bucky," she breathed.
"I'm gonna get them to open the door," he promised. "I'll get you out of this."
"Bucky, I--"
"I'll get it open then we can talk about what happened and we can get you help and--"
"It's locked from the inside."
He froze. "What?"
"Buck, I've got to be in here. I don't know what they did to me, but I can't hurt you guys."
"Whatever it is, it can't be that bad. Doll, I need you to let me in. Open the door for me."
"No, Barnes, I can't hurt you too."
He felt his heart break a little. "Doll, you gotta let me in, I need to see you."
"F.R.I.D.A.Y.?"
"Yes, Ms. Y/N?" The automated system replied. If it were possible for a robot to have pity in their voice, it was there. The devastation was clear on Bucky's face as his eyes shined with some heartbreaking emotion that couldn't quite be labeled.
"Call Steve, tell him I need him to get Bucky." Before the automated system could do as she asked, she turned to the 106-year-old man with his metal fist pressed against the glass. "I'm sorry. I have to make sure you're safe."
~~
Bucky spent days waiting for Y/N to come out. At some point, during the first day, as he was arguing with Steve, Y/N had commanded F.R.I.D.A.Y. to turn the walls opaque, thus limiting anyone's visibility of herself.
She knew Bucky wouldn't give up so easily, which made it all the more heartbreakingly endearing when little notes started coming along with her meal trays. Sometimes they were short messages, like:
Hope your day is going okay
I know you want space, but we live in a glorified dorm so…
Or her personal favorite,
I miss you. We all do, but I miss you the most.
Other times, he left long-winded messages of the day's accounts, making sure to tell Y/N about all the times Sam 'tripped' and face-planted in the kitchen. They always ended the same.
I’m waiting for you, whenever you’re ready to come out. -B
So when she wrote back on the third day, leaving the note atop the same dish it came in on, James Barnes was ecstatic.
Can we talk?
Three words had never left the supersoldier so elated, except maybe when he was told the triggers were removed. He sprinted back to the solitary halls, almost tripping over himself when he saw that she’d cleared the walls again, allowing him to see her clearly.
“Y/N.” Her name was a gentle whisper on his lips, but it speared through the silence she’d experienced for the past three days like a battle cry.
“Hi Buck,” she breathed.
“Can I come in?”
She hesitated. “What if I hurt you?’’
“You could never hurt me.”
Y/N didn’t seem convinced.
“Doll, I know what it’s like to wake up and have been experimented on. I know how much it hurts, having this… thing… that you didn’t ask for. But we have to live with it. HYDRA took so much of my own life from me. Don’t let them take it from you too.”
He watched as she took a deep breath. Then, “You can come in.”
It took all his self-control not to run to the door the moment she said the words. One steadying breath later, he was crossing the threshold, entering the prison that Y/N had made into her home.
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
The woman scanned all around the room, suddenly hyper-aware of her surroundings. Bucky wasn’t looking at anything but her.
“Sorry about the mess.” She flitted from place to place, hastily cleaning up. “I didn’t think to--”
“Y/N.” His voice made her stop in her tracks. Slowly, she turned to face him. Meeting his eyes, her resolve broke. Tears sprang to her eyes, and she flung herself into his arms.
“I’m sorry,” she sniffled. “It’s too much, I can’t control it.” Tucking her face into the crook of his neck, she felt his arms come up, one hand finding a home around her waist and the other cradling the back of her head.
“You’re okay,” he soothed. “We can figure this out, you’ll be okay.”
"I don't know what to do, Buck." Her whimper broke his heart.
"You can't be alone right now, doll. It's not doing anything but scaring you. We'll figure out how to control it. But isolating yourself is just gonna make it hurt more." His eyes begged her to understand. Could she? Could she see how this was hurting her?
Y/N bit her lip, thinking about what he said. She broke away, eyes fixating on a spot on the floor. Was that burn mark there before? "I can't tell sometimes. That I'm back home. I have flashbacks, and it convinces me I'm still there. Still being poked and prodded, still being someone’s science project. It paralyzes me. And I have these, these--” she struggled to find the words. “These powers now that I never wanted, never asked for. I don’t know how to manage them, and the thought that I could hurt you, or anyone else-- I can’t take that risk.”
“Y/N, you locking yourself away is hurting me more than your hands ever could.” He carefully held her face in his hands, thumbing away a tear that started falling. “I know I can never fully understand, but I think I understand better than you think I do and probably better than anyone else here.”
It wasn’t until she looked up at him, met his eyes, that he realized just how dark her under-eyes were.
“Jesus, doll. Don’t take this the wrong way, but when the hell was the last time you slept?”
Y/N let out a half-chuckle. “Not medically induced? Probably too long ago.” She carefully eyed his reaction.
“You need sleep, Y/N,” Bucky chided, taking her hand in his. “You’ve been through so much recently, you have to let yourself rest too.”
Y/N paused haltingly. “Will… will you still be here when I wake up?”
The soldier smiled softly. “As long as you want me here.”
She nodded as if to herself. “Okay. Okay then. I- I can’t wake up alone again.”
“You won’t,” he insisted. “I’ll be here, I promise. I won’t leave you.”
~~
Y/N talked in her sleep. That was something Bucky had always known, from the sleepless nights he’d pace up and down the halls and hear drowsy half-conversations from the other side of her door.
This wasn’t like that.
Y/N tossed her head, writhing as if in pain while mumbling quiet no’s. Bucky did his best to bear it, to try to let her sleep through it, thinking maybe it would end in the next few seconds. Ten minutes and she still hasn’t stopped twisting, sweat gathering on her brow as she fought off invisible restraints.
“Again,” the man in the lab coat insisted.
“I can’t,” she rebutted. She stared down the bullseye target pinned against the far wall, her fingertips outstretched towards it. A scorch mark lined the outer edges of the paper.
“Strike the target,” the handler hissed, “or the target will strike you.”
All at once, the paper target morphed into a silhouette, a man’s body that she’d know anywhere.
“I won’t.” The words this time were more severe, more intentional.
The wrong answer.
Without a cue, the Winter Soldier snapped into action.
“B-bucky,” she whimpered. “Please, stop, Buck no.”
The airy words broke the man’s heart. How could he let her dream on, if he was the one causing this fictional hurt?
“Y/N,” he tried. “Doll, wake up.” His flesh hand moved to her face, brushing strands of damp hair away from her eyes. “Can you hear me?”
Blow after blow landed, and she couldn’t feel anything but the raging fire inside her.
“Bucky,” she breathed. “I don’t wanna hurt you. Please, stop.” The words were disrupted by grunts of pain, and when he wound up for the next punch, the dam broke.
His metal hand reached to grab her shoulder, and that’s when the sparks flew. Pain was the only thing he could register as lightning coursed through the artificial appendage and made its way to the rest of his body. Tendrils of electricity danced across the vibranium fingers he could no longer control. The arm glitched and contorted, and he could almost feel the nerves fraying as the electronics fried.
“Y/N!” he shouted. The pain was nearly unbearable, but he wouldn’t -- couldn’t stop until he made sure Y/N was okay. Sparks jetted out in every direction as lightning struck every nearby object, but Bucky focused all his attention on her.
Her eyes snapped open, and everything stopped. The electricity vanished, and Bucky was guilty to find himself breathing a sigh of relief.
“Buck?” He heard her call out, but she just seemed so far away.
“You alright, doll?” He managed to mumble before the darkness swept over everything.
Y/N watched in horror as his knees seemed to give out from under him.
“James!” She screamed, kicking off the blankets and rushing to his collapsed form. “F.R.I.D.A.Y., get somebody down here!” More quietly, then, to Barnes, “What happened, Buck?”
She held his face in her hands but quickly ceased all contact when she saw it. Sparks still lingered around the fingers of his left hand. She glanced down in disgust at her own hands as she rushed to stand, pushing herself to the furthest corner of the room, eyes fixed on his crumpled shape on the floor by her bed. “I did this,” she breathed. “I did this, I did this, it was me, I did it.”
Y/N didn’t even register the sound of the door opening, the thoughts playing all too loudly in her mind as Steve Rogers and Tony Stark crowded into the room and immediately rushed to their fallen teammate. It wasn’t until red mist coated her vision that Y/N began to see clearly. Wanda sat in front of her, blocking her view of the scene. Without a word, the witch beckoned Y/N into a tight embrace. “Wanda, it’s all my fault,” she whimpered as she wrapped herself tightly around her friend. “I couldn’t-- I didn’t mean to, but I--”
“Y/N, you’re having a panic attack. Breathe for me, okay? In and out.” The Sokovian took a deep breath in, waiting for her teammate to mimic her actions before exhaling. In, hold, out. IN, hold, out.
“Okay, Y/N, are you with me? Name me five things you can see.”
“The-the burns,” Y/N mumbled, eyes fixating on the scorched black floors before searching the room again. “The blankets on the floor. You. Tony.” She peeked over Wanda’s shoulder to see the Captain exiting the room, carrying something-- someone away. “Steve, oh my god he’s--” Talons of dark emotion wrenched at her chest, restricting her lungs and making it hard to breathe.
Wanda gently tapped a finger against Y/N’s chin, redirecting her attention. “Four things you can feel.”
Y/N took a deep inhale through her nose. “The floor, the air conditioning. The scratchiness of this shirt.” She took a moment to consider. “Your hand on my wrist.”
“Good, good. Three you can hear?”
“Tony’s suit as he moves.” She shut her eyes to focus. The panic was there, but starting to subside. “The fan blowing. The hum of electricity.”
“Awesome, two you can smell?”
Her stomach dropped and her eyes opened, filled with worry. “Blood and smoke.”
Wanda did her best to hide her wince. “And one that you can taste?”
She considered for a moment. “Bile?” she finally answered, worry traced across her brow.
“You did good,” Wanda soothed. “Tell me what’s going on.”
“I knew this would happen,” Y/N sniffled. “I let myself relax, felt the shock of everything finally wear off, and let myself sleep and I-- I had a nightmare. And my body-- I couldn’t help it. It just… happened.”
“I know, I know love,” Wanda soothed, bringing Y/N’s head to again rest against her shoulder, ignoring the static electricity buzzing against her skin. “I know you’d never do it on purpose. We all know.”
“You shouldn’t be here,” Y/N breathed. “I could hurt you, all of you.” Nevertheless, she couldn’t find it in herself to push away the physical contact she’d been craving since this all began. Wanda simply hushed the girl, holding her close and comforting her the best she could.
“Go inside my head,” Y/N whispered, forehead pressed into the crook of her neck. “Fix it, do whatever you can. I can’t do this.”
“Are you sure?” Y/N couldn’t see it, but she could hear as Wanda’s voice cracked that the tears must be starting. Pity, she supposed it must be.
“You said ‘anything is better than this.’ Make it right.” Y/N lifted her head and met the Witch’s eyes, sparkling with the beginnings of tears. “Help me control it.”
Y/N’s vision was overtaken by red as Wanda worked her way into her head. The last thought she had before slipping into the full grasp of her teammate was of Bucky; his smile, and how she prayed she could see it again.
~~
A heart monitor. An IV. The clasp of a pulse oximeter on his right index finger. All things he was aware of as he awoke, but what grasped his attention the most was the disturbing lack of a left arm.
Wearily, he opened his eyes and was met with the basic medbay rooms he was all too familiar with. The window blinds were opened just enough to cast a sliver of light directly into his eyes. When he went to lift his hand to shield the light, he found an unmoving pressure situated against his right side.
There she was. Beautiful and perfect as ever, and out of solitary. He was suddenly aware, once again, that he didn’t have a left hand to push away the fallen strands of hair from her face.
“Y/N,” he breathed, trying to shake the hand she clutched so tightly.
Groggily, she lifted her head. Her mouth opened in a silent yawn, but when her eyes fell on Bucky’s open blue ones, it felt like time stopped for her. “Buck,” she whispered as she joolted to her feet.
“Y/N.” He started tearing up.
Oh god, he was tearing up. Was he scared of her now? Did she ruin something she never even had the bravery to start? Was he mentally bracing for another shockwave to hit him, to bring him to his knees?
“I’m sorry,” she began, water beginning to pool in her eyes. “I didn’t mean to, it was an accident and oh my god, I never meant to hurt you. I never wanted to hurt you, Bucky, you have to know that. I couldn’t help it and-- oh my god your arm, I’m so sorry. Tony’s working on it now, but I don’t know if he even can fix it. If you never wanna see me again--”
“Doll.”
“--that’s fine, I just had to know you were okay, that I didn’t k-kill you or anything.” Tears began falling, not just on her face, but on the soldier’s as well. “I’m sorry, I don’t think I can ever say it enough--”
“Doll.”
“-- you just tried to help and I hurt you and I don’t think I can ever--”
“Y/N.”
She froze as he gently moved his hand out of her grasp, bringing it to cradle her cheek.
“I’m just glad that you’re okay, that you’re out here.” He squeezed her hand softly as his eyes positively sparkled with unspoken words.
“But I hurt you. I-I physically hurt you,” she whispered, dropping her gaze.
“I would do it a thousand times over if I could save you the pain of what happened. In a heartbeat.”
“Why?” She demanded, meeting his gaze. “Why do you keep putting yourself in danger for me? Steve--” she faltered. At his encouraging look, she continued. “Steve told me about those weeks. About your … nights in Madripoor. You hunted them all, could have gotten yourself killed. Why?”
“Sweetheart,” he breathed. “I found them so that you wouldn’t have to worry about them finding you. I did it so that you’d never have to spend a night awake, worrying about if they could find you and take you back. I found them so you might be able to sleep at night. You may think me a monster for it, but I needed you to know you were safe.”
“Why, James?” She needed to hear it. The tears were already streaming down her face, but she needed to hear it.
“Because I love you, darlin’. And I’d do anything to be sure you never have to hurt like that again.”
The floor felt swept out from under her, but somehow she remained standing as she asked “Why me?”
“You are so… good.” Tears fell from blue eyes as he struggled to find the words. “You never treated me differently, when even Steve did. You donate to shelters and find homes for stray kittens and never say no when a kid wants a picture with you. You are the best person I know and you deserve a happiness that this life could never provide. I want to keep you smiling forever, and selfishly, I want to be the reason you smile. I want to see your shining eyes every day for the rest of my life. I love you, Y/N, and I won’t let you lock yourself away from me, not when I need you.”
“I’m broken,” she mumbled. “Wanda had to put a block in my mind for me to even be here. I don’t think anything short of Wakandan technology can help me, maybe not even that.”
“You’re not broken,” he insisted. “You were tortured. It’s not okay, what happened to you. But you are still Y/N, you are still the person who makes me coffee even though you hate the smell of it. You still think of everyone else before yourself, no matter how much you shouldn’t. You are still the person who I love, irrevocably and unconditionally.”
“I love you too.” The words were nearly silent, but hung like a shout between them. “I have for a while. Since Germany, I think.”
This was not the place Bucky had imagined telling her he loved her. He’d pictured a midnight walk through the woods, an open clearing with a perfect view of the night sky. He’d imagined her eyes would shine brighter than any star in the sky as he told her he loved her to the moon and back, wrapped in his arms. Instead it would be here, where he only has one arm and a thousand wires hooked into him, plugging him into various monitors that were likely keeping him alive.
“Go to Wakanda,” he urged. “If you think that will help you. I know how you’re feeling right now. Do what you need to do to feel comfortable in your own skin again. I promise you, doll, I’ll be right here waiting for you when you come back.”
She couldn't help but throw her arms around him, her body molding to his, craving his touch more than oxygen. “Do you promise?’
He never thought he’d miss the feeling of the metal limb, but damn if he didn’t wish he could snake his arms around her and pull her impossibly closer. He settled for wrapping his right arm around her waist, tugging her form down to lay basically on top of him.
“I meant what I said when you were down there. I’ll always be waiting for you, whenever you’re ready, as long as you’ll have me. As long as you want me.”
“Even though I fucked up your arm?” her fingers nervously toyed with his dog tags.
He let out a gentle chuckle. “Nothing-- and I mean nothing-- could stop me from loving you.”
She let out a smile, tucking her face into the crook of his neck. This, she thought, is what she really needed. This is what she wanted. She could feel the sparks tingling under her fingertips, but she pushed the thought away as she inhaled deeply. Bucky. Bucky was what she needed. This was all she could ever need; the safety and comfort of being with him.
“Although the arm thing, that is a bit of a setback--”
“Oh my god.”
~~
a/n pt2 - this, I realized as I wrote, is very much inspired by @wkemeup, who has not one single bad fic on their masterlist !! this was very much inspired by: Sacrifice, Flight Risk, and No Control. it wasn't intentional, but definitely recognized along the way. if you have a chance, be sure to check out her page!! always amazing <3 <3
Masterlist Found Here
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