M A R V E L O U S

“No, you can’t. Made it almost three decades of my life with you being nothing more than a picture in a textbook to me.” You argue. Bucky blanches at that - you can tell, even through the phone - and yes, it’s a hurtful tool to wield, to remind him of his untimely past, but it’s the truth. Bucky’s protection was a sentiment only recently introduced. And to deem it necessary would only be an insult to everything you’d managed to achieve thus far on your own.

“Can’t you just trust that on some things, I just know best? Jesus, do you think you have something to prove here?” Comes the strained crackle of his voice.

“No, I think I have a mission to do.” You rebuke. “Fury cleared it. Fury assigned it. He trusts me.”

“Fury, huh? And no simple man can ever make a bad judgment call?” Bucky argues. “It’s an active base; you’re not going. Not with just Clint. That’s a suicide attempt. Just wait for me and Natasha to get back–”

The dimensions of your surroundings seem to nearly fade out of focus, before sharpening back in blindingly clear. “Bad judgment call?” You repeat.

There’s nothing in your ear then except for labored breathing. “Wait, look, Y/N, no, you know I wasn’t referring to tha-”

You hit end call, leaving Bucky on a dead line before chucking the phone so hard it hits the cement wall nearest and shatters into half a dozen sharp mouths. Breathing hard, you fight the urge to slam your foot into something - rage personified. This was typical. You were always too human or too woman or too young to handle yourself. There would always be something to be too much of. You could be robotically engineered to execute a task and Bucky would still find a way to argue that it was too dangerous, that you should just sit this one out like a child with her hands taped over.

It takes twenty minutes to hit the belly of the beast after the Quinjet lands on a dying grass strip just outside of South River. The base is a wild tangle of a thing, all interlocked corridors surviving off of bent support beams so tangled a single gust of wind could very well send the structure tumbling to the ground. Evil lurks inside - the sort of mindless, barbaric savagery that goes hand-in-hand with aligning yourself to what the enemies inside had.

“Y/N,” walkies in Clint, from where he’s mousing his way down in the lower levels of the base. The reception isn’t good so far underground, leaving his voice hawking through as a cluster of static. Time seemed to work differently in the dark. The two of you must have been there half an hour, tops, but it felt no longer than three minutes. “We can have a safe evacuation now, and come back for the copycats we missed. But, uh, we have a ten second window of decision, because, well…the structural interrogation isn’t looking too hot from where I’m standing. It’s your call. I know you feel strongly about this one.”

“They’re going after children. Testing on kids.” You state, admonishing the course of action with a clench of the jaw. It was nonnegotiable. And, quite a pressing issue, because through the haze of adrenaline and the warmth of gore soaking your clothing, you could make out through little scraps of communication with Clint that somewhere in the base there was a jet, and the jet was leaving, and very bad things were going to happen to the American society if the jet left. It didn’t matter if it was voluntary; teenagers were being genetically mutated in hopes of the next anti-Avengers. “What’s option two?”

“We yippee-ki-yay this mother, go out like heroes. I could do it with a special arrow I have.” Answers Clint calmly, in reference to Die Hard. All guns and glory and going out in a haze of explosion and grenade smoke. In perfect unison, some pipes crossing overhead like a spider’s web start to groan under unimaginable weight. “We could probably make it out. Probably.”

“Well, fuck, Clint,” you rasp. “If that’s that…at least give us a head start, will you?”

More static clicks through your earpiece; Cint has his speaker enabled, but he’s hesitating. “You’re sure about this?”

“I mean, no.” You lament, dodging lone chunks of debris. It wasn’t the ideal route of the mission. “But option one isn’t exactly sounding like an option right now. If I don’t make it, tell Bucky this doesn’t make him right.”

Clint sounds like he wants to pry, but decides there isn’t enough time. “Okay, sweetheart, hang tight.” He sounds muffled then, like he’s pressing his cheek to his shoulder as he did during archery. Your mind could only just begin to conjure the sort of incendiary weaponry currently nested in the quiver hanging from his back. “I’m just at the hanger they’re loading the jet from…can’t even see me coming…”

It’s quite canny how nondescript everything that follows goes down. An explosive arrow is slung, and rocks rain down from overhead in a million different directions. You’re close enough to the exit, but not close, and the last thing you can consciously make out before everything is smothered in dark sleep is the feeling of gravel kissing at your cheeks.

They want to airdrop you directly to Helen Cho herself, but Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital was closer, and this was the sort of situation where every second mattered. There’s tubes everywhere - down your throat, into your veins, even one vaguely resembling a catheter, for a horrible twelve hour period. You don’t remember much, just that you feel so bone-tired all the time, like a capsized ship clinging to the surface only for a thousand more waves to come plunging from somewhere overhead. It’s probably the drugs they’re pumping into you to not scream from the pain of a fully dislocated leg, an artificial sort of sleepiness, but it makes you exhausted nonetheless. It reminds you of when people are freezing to death and just feel warm.

Except, you are very much not dead and that becomes achingly present by day three, where you’re so hungry from the diet of liquid antibiotics and sugar water they have you strung out on for your own good that you start cussing out the nurses. It’s a nice place, all clean and fast-paced, but it doesn’t change the general clause that being in a position where you have to stay strapped down to a hospital bed sucks. Clint comes then - coming down from the drug haze, you realize you think he might have been there sooner, you just can’t remember, exactly; a lot of people came in and out during your unconsciousness - two matching black eyes being held up on that skinny frame. He holds your hand and fluffs your pillow and informs you that while the nearest hospital was the right move, not being at a S.H.I.E.L.D. authorized one meant that certain people did not, exactly, know quite where either of you were for half a week. Fury found out the same time Helen did, and the two of them had arrived within the next hour. The place was swept up in all the excitement, then - it wasn’t everyday that you had a Class B superhero taking up a room on the third floor.

Bucky found out halfway through day two. He tried to come. “Try” being the operative word: the police were called instantly. He ripped a door off on his way to the trauma unit and put up such a fight upon being told he wasn’t allowed further into the hospital to get to your room that they had to sedate him with a dosage that bordered on lethal - Cho’s direct orders. Apparently, the nurse went for his left arm first in a panic. It almost makes you laugh, the thought of the two of you being conked out at the same facility, sleeping in the same sort of bed, separated by only a linoleum ceiling.

Mission synopsis: cutting the plug when you did ended up being the right move. It was risky, and quite frankly, fucking mortifying on the playback, but who knows what would have happened if you didn’t. Collapsing the tunnel the way it did ended up cutting off the only doctor able to replicate the genetic manipulation you and Clint had been sent to stop in the first place. So, it was a win in your book.

It takes a while for the confusion to lift, but Bucky’s there then, filling up the open frame of your room’s door and peering in around the corner with a low knock against the side. He was carrying a dozen white gardenias and a bruise that painted the side of his forehead purple. The flowers are crumpled at the stem, like he can’t help but to crush them in his grip. You sit up too fast at the sight of him, rubbing at your eyes while the room spun.

“Hi.” He says, voice ambivalent.

“Bucky - ow, fuck. You have bloody knuckles.” You state, lamely.

He sways down low to be at eye-level, gaze slowly inspecting over every inch of visible skin before leaning in and pressing a dry kiss between your eyes. You can conjure a mental image of him striding through the hospital like a rooster, very calmly informing doctors and other medical staff alike that if even the smallest of mistakes was made pertaining to the patient in 304, it would be their heads, not his. “Don’t worry about that.”

He sets the flowers down then, on the nightstand nearest, before silently walking over to the sink and running a plastic cup underneath the cold tap. Mutely yet, he crosses the room back over to where you lay, half-sitting, half-planking, in that damn paper-thin dress, before holding the lip of it to your mouth. His other hand finds your shoulder, gently, urging you to sip. “Are you alright?”

His voice is like the gravel that scraped against your face, low and raspy and so, so full of warmth. Hesitant, though, like his own fondness was scaring him. You almost start crying then, and it’s not animal instinct that makes you reach out to take Bucky’s left palm into your own hands and press it against your face. Cool, cool metal against burning skin. He stays willfully silent - confused, most likely - when a second knock at the door breaks you both from the trance.

It’s Natasha, arching a sculpted eyebrow as she gave you a tight smile. Vaguely, you wonder if she’s been here all along, or if she came just to keep her companion in check. She was close with Clint as well, closer than she was Bucky, so either possibility seemed feasible. “Barnes…maybe you shouldn’t be here right now. You cause another scene like you did earlier and the media will have your ass. Worse than what they already do.” Gently, she reminded him that this was a public facility, not one with the sort of confidentiality the hospital back on HQ would provide. It was bound to be over Twitter already that the Winter Soldier was camping out in Jersey after shoving a handful of doctors to the floor. “Besides, she needs her bandages changed. There’s a nurse trying to get in.”

“Thanks,” Bucky says dryly, slow as molasses and twice as brisk as he goes to set the cup down like Nat’s words were nothing more to him than an annoyingly curated breeze. He drags a chair up then, taking his time to scuff it over the floor before taking a seat. “But I’m taking it from here.”

“James-” She protests, sighing pointedly. He just cuts her off.

“Fuck, Natalia.” A bit of russian edge slips into his accent then. “I don’t give a shit what the press has to say about anything. Quite literally, it is the absolute last thing on my mind, now and generally, ever. Just drop it.”

She bristles at the obvious dismissal and shoots a firm look his way like she’s just itching to hatch a retort, but clears out soon enough with a begrudging nod. “If you want to just leave all rational thinking on the backburner, that’s your choice. I’m going to debrief Hill and draft a PR statement to be cleared. You know, damage control. Have fun playing Dr. Boyfriend.”

Bucky rolls his eyes, mumbling under his breath. “Superhero PR…stupid.”

No nurses looking to find a way in catch Natasha on her way out - she must have passed along the message that metal arm mama bear was with his cub. Bucky doesn’t meet your eyes again; instead, he takes to carefully peeling back the corner lip of the biggest bandage adorning your body: the gauze wrap that went over your chest. His arms flex as he works, thick muscles bunching and springing.

He lets out a low whistle. Then, he reaches for the sealed drawer closest. The next couple of minutes fade away in an antiseptic induced haze, everything just a blur of wrapping and burning and the skilled quickness of Bucky’s hands.

“Any stragglers?” You manage to rasp, finally, breaking the silence the two of you were caught in. “From the base, I mean.”

Bucky doesn’t answer for a long moment. His fingers ghost over the mark on your thigh where a knife had caught the skin. “A few.”

Panic crackles through your heart in an instant, making the stitches on your jaw clench. “Do we know where they went? Roughly?”

“No survivors.” Bucky corrects coolly, with the sort of casual blase you might have when supplying somebody directions, or anything equivalent. He sets his jaw then, keeping his face purposefully blank. “You and Clint smoked the rats out of the heart of the nest - they were easy pickings from thereon out. Killed them all myself when I was under the impression you were either kidnapped or buried under rubble.”

Hence the bruising. “Oh.” You say smally, forcing yourself to settle back against the bedding with a wince. Bucky’s touch gets lighter then, fast but extremely gentle as he cleans you up. Even with your wounds being monitored around the clock and free of infection, they were still leaking a watery pus that felt absolutely disgusting to sit in.

He shrugs. “Tony helped. Wasn’t just a mindless killing spree.”

The hands of the wall clock go around once, then twice. “Are you mad?” You dare to ask.

“Yep.” Bucky answers, strained. “Don’t worry about it, honey.”

“Are we going to talk about it?”

“Nope.”

You ignore him. “But the mission…it was successful?”

Bucky sighs then, carefully setting a roll of gauze down onto his own lap and squeezing around it with his metal hand. It’s his own version of an outburst. “Goddamnit, Y/N, there’s no objective answer to that. No, it was not successful, not from where I’m standing. Even though it may or may not have worked, the self-sacrificial move you made was a fucking stupid one and I had to convince myself not to break Clint’s jaw for letting you pull it in the first place.”

“Clint didn’t let me do shit.” You argue as you struggle to get up, feeling as if it was the safest portion of what Bucky was saying to dissect. “Nobody tells me to do anything. I make my own decisions. And it was my decision to put all the effort I had at the moment into stopping the immediate threat. That’s the job.”

“Nobody tells you what to do…ain’t that the damn truth.” Bucky mutters. He’s built up a pile of a half-dozen used bandages, some stained strawberry pink, that he discards into the waste bin nearest. “So stubborn…”

He fixes you a look then, lips pursed and eyes slit. “My momma’s momma would roll in her grave if she knew I was with someone so pig-headed as you.”

“Your grandma,” you clap back, “who probably survived The Depression with fourteen children on her hip at the age of thirty would applaud my brave nature.”

Buck had to physically stop himself from smiling. It just eggs your flatly comical nature ever so further. “Also: wow, what was that part about being with someone? Being with someone as in, dating? Like, us; like, you and me - we’re dating? Officially, you just made the executive decision to use that term? You want to call Romanoff back in here, tell her she has another statement to release? Do we need to tell Anita in HR?”

“Stop.” Bucky groans. He pushes his hips back into the chair, before sitting back up and thoughtfully resting his chin on the very edge of your hospital bed’s guardrails. He looks different for a second, nearly tender. He clears his throat. When he speaks, his voice is small, but rung with honesty. “I’m sorry. I was so scared I was going to lose you. I don’t want to face that feeling, ever.”

All the humor just sort of wilts out of you, quick to be replaced by a light, raw feeling. “I’m right here.” You whisper. “Very much alive. And I’m not going to lie and say I regret doing what I did, or that I would go back and change things…but scaring you was never in the cards. I know we were…arguing, right before I left with Clint, but this wasn’t supposed to be some big guilt trip. I’m sorry, too.”

“I know.” Answers Bucky, tilting his head. “Doesn’t mean there wasn’t guilt.”

You set your jaw. “That’s on you, Bucky. I can’t control how you feel. It’s going to be a hell of a lot easier for you in the long run to accept that nobody controls me. Trust me.”

“It’s not you I don’t trust.” He says. “You’re capable, that I’m sure of. A damn pistol. That’s what scares me. The fact that you can handle yourself leads you into the unknown with all these dangerous, dangerous people always coming out of left field, to test that. I know I can’t control you. I just don’t like being in situations I can’t control either.”

He leans back in his seat, folding his arms. “Also, it’s my job to watch out for you. I know you think it isn’t, but it just is. Doesn’t mean I don’t respect the way you can watch out for yourself, though.”

And that was that; it was like he was throwing the ball into your court and declaring your move. His eyes are too intense to be casual. Bucky’s entire face could be blank, and those blue eyes would still be piercing, still boring into someone else’s like he knew every single bad thing you’d ever done, and was trying to decide if he was okay with it. His lashes, fringes of black; his jaw, set like a rock.

A couple of hospital personnel rush by the door then, making both your and Bucky’s chins snap to attention. Quirking his eyebrows, he casually leans backwards to tug the alabaster curtain into place. He turns back to you then, giving a quizzical face, like the scheme - and there’s always a scheme - was no doubt already in motion. “Do you want to get out of here?”

“Yes.” You say, without even thinking about it. In the vast expanse of human history, nobody has ever found hospital food and strange, cold fingers in favor of familiar sheets and a queue of steaming services.

“Just a pinch.” Bucky says, as leans in to undo your IV. “Sorry.” He starts poking around then, rummaging through the room with intent. “Well, don’t be mad, but…”

He holds up what he’s found with a halfway apologetic look, and it’s the lower half of a pair of baby blue scrubs. “It’s all I can find. Natasha said they tore your suit.”

“Just help me get up.” You say, swinging your legs off the side of the bed with a wince. Your boots, at the very least, would be fine, so long as they could be found. Two minutes later and the both of you are stumbling out into the hallway, Bucky’s jacket hanging heavy over your shoulders and his arm slung firmly around your waist to keep you up.

The two of you end up at the nurses’ station. “Discharging Y/N L/N.” Says Bucky, briskly, as you stand there, draped in his clothing and offering a tight grin. Checking in like this wasn’t exactly necessary, but the staff present would probably appreciate the heads up that the member of the Avengers currently under their care was about to not be.

The nurse present is an older, firm looking black woman who gives Bucky a look. “Sir, I’m not sure that’s a good idea. The doctors will most likely want to communicate with…your people.”

Bucky gives her a blank look, feigning innocence. “Who are my people?”

“I’m his people.” You butt in, and Bucky flashes a proud smile.

She sighs, produces some paperwork, and tells you to not be an idiot when it comes to concussion monitoring and general wound care. She prints off a whole spreadsheet on the matter, complete with an Aquaphor sample and a glower.

“Are you okay?” Bucky asks softly, right before the two of you are walking off and about to hit the front doors. He reaches a hand out to tuck a wisp of hair behind your ear so gently it was as if he was grazing a baby’s skin. He had his body angled in front of yours protectively, so that anybody passing by wouldn’t be able to bump against your frame.

On cue, a knot in your stomach tightened. You ran a limp hand over it, before kicking the toe of your boot against his own foot intimately. “Yeah, I just really want a hot shower. And real food.”