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leascorner · 6 months

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j.b.b. | Bullet

Summary: Before he could comprehend what was really happening, he noticed the red liquid dripping through her fingers. Shock transformed into horror as they both realized that blood was literally flowing out of her body. Nobody needed to be a doctor to know the bullet had most likely struck through a major artery and that she would be dead in a matter of minutes.

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Avengers!f!reader

Warnings: Major angst, description of wounds and mention of blood, mention of violence, mention of guns, probably inexact medical facts, deaths, mention of trauma/PTSD.

Word Count: 3k

Masterlist

Bucky jumped to his left, purposely moving away from the path of the bullet that was fired from afar. He heard it pass through the air, finally not too far from him and eventually entering in contact with flesh, piercing through the guts of the person behind him.

A quick look behind him made his blood run cold. Y/N was standing there, a look of pure shock on her face, a look that Bucky was now mirroring at the perfection. Her weapon was on the ground a few steps in front of her; it looked like her body had taken a few steps back under the impact. His eyes went from his position to the newly formed tiny hole in her belly that both of her hands reached out to cover immediately.

Before he could comprehend what was really happening, he noticed the red liquid dripping through her fingers. Shock transformed into horror as they both realized that blood was literally flowing out of her body. Nobody needed to be a doctor to know the bullet had most likely struck through a major artery and that she would be dead in a matter of minutes.

Lashing out the full ammunition of her gun on to the soldiers in front of them, Natasha wrapped her free arm around Y/N’s waist, supporting her before she collapsed on the floor. Steve was screaming in his earpiece, but Bucky couldn’t hear him over the sound of his own blood rushing in his ears.

Covering for Natasha, Bucky also shot whatever was left of his ammunition in front of him while they moved to a cover place; he didn’t even look to make sure his shots were going in the right direction - and they probably were not. His eyes were on Y/N at all times.

As soon as he felt like no other bullet could hit them, Bucky dropped his gun and helped Natasha lean Y/N against the wall. His first reflex was to take his jacket off and press it hard against her wound. She hissed in pain, yet he couldn’t bring himself to look at her. Against his palms, the materials of his jacket had become sticky, absorbing all of the blood that was coming out of her body.

“Bucky”, her voice called him out.

Bucky’s eyes were still staring at her belly that was shaking with every pump of her heart. He couldn’t look at her face, not when he needed to focus on keeping her alive, just a little bit longer while Steve found a way to bring them a med jacket that would stop the bleeding in an instant or that Natasha finally found one in this fucking bag they were carrying for this mission.

“Love,” she reached to his cheek to have him turn and look at her. She grimaced at the blood that was now covering his cheekbone and beard.

“It’s okay,” she whispered.

Bucky shook his head no; tears falling down his cheeks without being able to control them. She looked so livid that for a moment he thought she was already dead. He would have liked to seem cool headed and yet, his own hands had becoming shaky, betraying his own fear. As she seemed to notice, she put one of her own very shaky hands above his, squeezing them ever so slightly from the lack of force.

He was losing her.

“You’ll be fine,” she reassured him with a weak smile.

No, he wouldn’t be fine. He couldn’t be fine. He couldn’t live without her. She had brought so much joy and love to his life when he thought he was going to finish his days lonely, in a world he didn’t know anymore. She had only smiled at him, and he had fallen head over heel for her. In only a couple of years, she had brought him back to life. She made him: catch up on all the new music; watch all the episodes of that stupid medical TV show in which everybody ended up dying; discover all of the food possible - Sushi, Thai, Italian, Chinese, you name it; appreciate the Avenger’s gathering, their found family like she said. And she even made Tony’s horrible gala more bearable.

Yes, she had literally changed his life. Bucky was now realizing he had never really told her. How he owed her his life. And at this instant, while her breathing became even more difficult, he wanted to scream for someone - anyone - to help her. If only had he believed in God, he would have prayed for his mercy. He would even have given his life only for her to live.

“I love you,” she said, and Bucky had no time to answer her back.

She was dead.

Bucky sat up abruptly in his bed, eyes wet and hair stuck to his forehead by his sweat. It took him a minute to remember to breathe, but all he could do was gasp for air in between sobs. His chest was aching. Aching from the burn the lack of air did to his lungs. Aching from the heartbreak. Aching from the feeling of loss.

“Bucky?”

The mattress besides him shifted and one of the bedside lamps was switched on. Bucky’s eye fluttered open for a couple of seconds, trying to adjust to the sudden bright light. All his senses were in alert. He could hear the voice of the city in the background. He could feel the linen fabric against his skin. He could feel the warmth irradiating of him - it was much warmer than the outside of the warehouse, where he was only a couple of minutes ago. He could smell the magnolia fragrance Y/N always sprayed on their pillows before they went to bed.

It felt like home.

It was only then that he realized where he was. In the Avengers’ compound. In his room. In his bed.

“Oh, Bucky,” Y/N sighed.

Y/N, who was previously sleeping next to him, reached out, slowly, just like she had learned to do, as to not to startle him. By now, she had made acquaintance with his nightmares, though they came less and less as times had passed. Yet, the sight of him, tangled in the bed sheets, hair all other the place, crying, made her heart ache.

“I-” Bucky tried to explain, but words got stuck in his throat and another sob hit him abruptly. He knew that Y/N in front of him was very much alive, yet he also felt like a piece of her somewhere else wasn’t. And it broke his heart.

“Hey, hey,” she shushed him. “It’s okay.”

She took him in her arms, stroking his hair and rocking their bodies slowly in an attempt to calm him down. All while Bucky was holding on to her as if his life depending on it, crying on her shoulder, even wetting her pyjama top with his tears.

Although she had been woken up by way worse; like the nightmares where she had all the trouble in the world to bring him back to reality, or the ones she had to physically neutralize him to calm him down, she had to fight back her tears from seeing him in this state. Just like every other time, she would give everything she had just to be able to lighten his burden.

She held him until his breathing evened and even after, when he started slowly to fall asleep. She continued holding him even closer as she promised herself to continue to hold him until the end of times, if it means bringing him some well-deserved peace.

Months later, Bucky found himself with déjà-vu.

Walking first, closely followed by Y/N, he was escorting her to a warehouse in a port somewhere in eastern Europe. Natasha was a few feet behind, covering their backs. All until then had gone according to Steve’s plan. That, of course, was before a first bullet landed in the concrete wall behind him, only a few centimetres away from his face. Before he knew it, the three of them were under the fire of the militia guarding the warehouse.

Now, with a dozen of men in from of him and only his body to protect Y/N, Bucky realized why this situation felt so similar. It was exactly like one of his nightmares had started. The only one he had ever had about his girlfriend. The same one in which, in only a couple of seconds, a bullet would strike through her stomach, and he would watch her bleed to death. The same one that made him so afraid of falling asleep in fear of reliving it again that he went to Banner, so he could give him something - anything - to make him sleep and stop having nightmares.

There was irony in this, he thought; all those nightmares about his time in Hydra and he refused any medication, like he thought he had to endure all these memories. Yet, he dreamed of losing her one time, and he was begging to never live this again. He would never close his eyes again without taking his medications. And he promised himself he would do anything, everything, to protect her.

Guns were firing all around them and all they could do for now was lashing out their ammunition on them in return, praying that it would hit a few of them and leaving the three of them unarmed. Steve, waiting in the aircraft that had brought them here, was trying to get them air support all while telling them to try and find a way out in their earpieces. With the insurgents now on their tail and head, stuck in an alley between two warehouses, it was nearly an impossible mission. Oh, that he wished he had Sam’s wings now, or that his friend was here to grab her and get her the fuck out of here.

Out of nowhere, a hand grabbed his jacket to bring him backwards and Y/N’s arm appeared in front of his eyes to take down a man a couple of meters away that Bucky hadn’t seen before. She winked at him playfully as she turned from him to aim at another man on her left, totally unaware that she had just saved his life when he should have been the one saving her.

Only a minute later, he heard yet another bullet split through the air, the one that he knew was coming right in her direction. That time, he knew exactly how it would end. However, he had decided a long time ago that today was not the day his worst nightmare would come true.

Bucky did not hesitate a mere second. He moved to his left, purposely on the bullet’s path. The bullet struck him right in his gut and yet he didn’t feel a thing, only hearing the cry of horror that Y/N made when she saw his body take a few steps back under the impact.

A quick look behind him made his blood run cold. Y/N was standing there, eyes stuck on his belly, a look of pure shock on her face, a look that Bucky was mirroring at the perfection. He watched her weapon fall to the ground at the same time as both of her hands reached to catch him before he collapsed onto the floor.

One of his hands reached out to the new formed hole in his belly. He had no need to look at it; he knew the bullet had struck through a major artery and that probably more than two ounces of blood was leaving his body with every heartbeat. He would be dead in a matter of minutes.

His other hand grabbed her vest, holding on to it as if his life depended on it. Lashing the full ammunition of her gun on to the soldiers in front of them, Natasha wrapped her free arm around his waist, helping Y/N to support his weight. Steve was screaming in his earpiece, but Bucky couldn’t hear him over the sound of his own blood leaving his body. All he could do was stare at Y/N, trying to force into his memory this last sight of her as his breathing became unsteady.

“Stay with me,” Y/N commanded.

Bullets continued to be fired in their direction and Natasha was the only one with a gun now. Yet, they were able to retrace their steps and bring him to safety without being hurt by some kinds of miracle.

As soon as they sat Bucky against some wall, one of Y/N’s hands went on top of his, pressing hard on them. It made him winced, and it was the first time in the last couple of minutes that he felt any kind of pain. Her palm was quickly covered in his blood, yet she did not seem to react to it as her voice was still steady as she instructed him over and over again to “hold on”.

Bucky wanted to talk to her - tell her that she was going to be okay, she was the strongest person he knew after all - but her face was looking the other way. All he could see from his limited eyesight now was that the bag she was previously carrying was now at his feet and her other hand was deep in it, probably looking for the medical kit.

Feeling his last strength leaving him, Bucky focused to produce what he knew would be his last effort. He put one of his hands on top of the one Y/N was pressing against his belly and squeezed it ever so slightly. As he was fighting to keep his eyelids open, Y/N’s face finally turned to his. He saw her lips moving yet he didn’t understand what she was saying. He suddenly remembered her face, in his nightmare, as she was dying in front of him; he remembered the helplessness he had felt. He wished for Y/N not to feel the guilt, not to be angry at the world for taking him away from her – he had had a long life, a very happy one all the time he had been with her.

As his eyes started to close, Natasha quickly replaced Y/N’s hand with both of hers, trying to contain the bleeding for a little longer as Y/N was opening the med jacket she had finally found in the bag.

The last thing he heard was Y/N saying:

“Bucky, it’s going to hurt.”

His whole body felt like it was on fire, yet Bucky didn’t regret a thing. Sure, now that he was thinking of it from his hospital bed, it seemed like he could have only pushed Y/N out of the way, sparing them both the struggle of this situation. He hadn’t fully realized until after the bullet was deeply lodged inside of him, that the serum running through his veins wouldn’t prevent him from bleeding to death.

Steve, who had been there when Bucky woke up from the anaesthesia, had told him that Y/N hadn’t left his side one minute during the Aircraft ride, the surgery he had underwent to get the bullet out and stitch him up (of course, she wasn’t in the surgery room, but waited just outside) and waited in his hospital room for him to wake up.

With her arms wrapped around her legs so she was in some sort of foetal position, Y/N had finally felt asleep, exhausted. The small frown on her face and the shudder of her figure from time to time indicated that she wasn’t having the best sleep of her life, probably dreaming about the events of those last thirty-two hours.

From the dark circles under her eyes and the lack of colour on her cheeks, he could only imagine the fear he had inflicted on Y/N. Though his intent was to protect her in the first place, he had only caused her more ache.

For this, he would never forgive himself.

“Bucky?”

Softly, he smiled at Y/N’s sleepy eyes, trying to reassure her silently. From the way the corner of her mouth twitched as she stood up and the clouds he could see in her eyes, he understood that he did not look better than she did. After all, he had loose a significant amount of blood and his whole torso was wrapped tightly in a bandage against the hot skin of his wound. If he looked as bad as it hurt, he could only comprehend her reaction.

“I thought I had lost you,” she murmured as she had made it to his bed.

Standing next to the bed, Y/N had never looked so small and fragile to him. While he could still see her determined face while she was attending his wound before losing consciousness, her mask was now falling apart. Slowly, he grabbed her hand and kissed her knuckles.

“I thought I would lose you,” Bucky explained as if it was a reason enough to have let himself get shot instead of her.

Y/N shook her head in response, tears falling down her cheeks. She leaned on to his side to hug him gently, trying the best she could not to touch his stomach and cause him pain. Bucky held her as if his life depended on it; all while she cried in silence, her face hidden in the crook of his neck.

In all those years together, it had always been the other way around: Y/N comforting Bucky after his nightmares; Y/N dealing with Bucky single-handedly when he didn't feel worthy of love and happiness after all the pain he had caused as a Super Solider. She had been so strong for the both of them and now, she was letting it all go.

How was he wrong to assume she could put up with all his pain and sorrow. He knew now more than ever what a wonderful woman she was, and he would make a point to reminder her every day for the rest of their life.

“Don’t you dare pulling anything like this on me ever again,” she sniffled against his neck.

Bucky kissed her temple in response, never quite telling her that he would still take a bullet for her any time.

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