#the same star

The relapsed soldier starts towards him. Dead, almost gray eyes connecting with Steve’s vibrant blue. Steve stands his ground. Refusing to run from his friend.

“Bucky, stop. It’s me, Steve Rogers. I’m your best friend. We saved yo-” Steve gets cut off as a flesh hand wraps around his throat.

“You’re my mission… You’re..”

Steve notices the grip on his throat tighten, “Stevie,” Steve chokes out, “I'm-Your-Stevie.” He says as his vision starts going dark.

Suddenly the hand is gone. Steves breaths turning to urgent gasps, making him think of his asthma attacks from the past. 

As his vision returns he hears a sobbing breath from his side, “Stevie? Stevie talk please.”

Steve could barely breathe, let alone talk, but he knew his friend needed him.

When Bucky asks someone to talk, whether its Steve or Natasha or Sam, it means just that. He needs to be grounded. Sometimes he asks after a panic attack, or just on a bad day. They typically say the same beginning, then something the two went through together. Steve’s is always the most detailed.

“Your name is James Buchanan Barnes, but your friends call you Bucky. You were born March 10th, 1917 in Shelbyville Indiana. You were drafted into the United States Army, a sergeant starting in 1943. Even though you told me you enlisted, to spare my feelings. You’re the only son of George and Winifred Barnes, you have three sisters, and although you’d never admit it Becca was always your favorite. She’s still alive and is waiting for you, but knows it may take time for you to feel comfortable…     Um, when you were 12 and I was 11 you saved me from Joseph O’ Conner. He was 16. He’d been grabbing on girls, pulling up their skirts and grabbing at their chests, of course I couldn’t have that.” Steve smirked at that, and could’ve sworn he heard Bucky scoff under his heaving breaths.

Steve looks over at his friend hoping to see him coming out from his ball on the ground, but sees him still curled up tightly, staring into his knees. Seeing this, Steve knows he needs to continue his story.

“Anyway… I saw him walking towards Barbara Jones, I think she was only 14 at the time. He reached for the bottom of her skirt and I just saw red. I was more than a foot shorter than him but I ran up and grabbed him by the collar and pulled. Damn guy barely moved an inch, but it let Barb get away. Next thing I knew I was getting dragged into the alley behind the movie theater on Pennsylvania Avenue. I was already having an asthma attack from being dragged, but when the kickin’ and hittin’ started I was sure I was done for… last thing I remember thinkin’ was that you would probably be the one to find me, and how would you tell my mom…”

Bucky was still gasping, but it had gotten a little smoother, not as ragged.

“Next thing I knew, one last punch landed against my ribs before I felt him get ripped off of me. I have no clue how you found me, but you did… My guardian angel. But I was still having an asthma attack, and I could feel fluid going into my lungs and I knew something… something was wrong, something bad. I was now more worried that you would have to watch me die, I didn’t want that for you, I knew you would feel like it was your fault and I didn’t wanna die knowing you’d blame yourself. I think I heard you bang on the back door of the movie theater, and the old man working there, I think his name was Mr. Wilson, well he ran out… Turned out he was a doctor ‘in a past life’ as he said when I visited after I was better. He kept me alive till the ambulance got there… You kept me alive Buck.

Steve was stuck in a flashback, but was pulled out when he heard his best friend’s voice.

“I found you, ‘cause from the first time we met… I made a habit of looking down every alley way I walked past… Just in case.” He said in between gasps for air, his words incredibly shaky, but still coherent.

Steve looked over at Bucky, who was no longer in a ball but still unable to make eye contact with Steve.

“I’m not a guardian angel Stevie, I’m a monster… a murderer. I hurt Tony, I tried to kill you again. What if I do this to Y/n… what if she doesn’t survive? It would be my fault anyway.”

Steve wraps his arms around the shaking man. 

“You are not a monster Buck. You have saved me so so many times. I’m sure you didn’t notice, but you didn’t use your metal arm, at all during your relapse. You may not have felt in control, but you obviously were, at least subconsciously. You are getting better Bucky… And Y/n will be fine. She is strong, so strong. She is your soulmate, that means she is like you, a fighter. You need to believe in her, and believe in yourself.”

He suddenly felt arms wrap around him, tightly holding on to his friends body, face pushed into Steve’s chest.

Y/n!

He could feel the smile stretching across his face, but was pulled out of his daydream by a breathy giggle.

The most beautiful Y/E/C eyes were looking up at his. The smallest smile on her face, but he could tell it was real. He was in awe of her beauty, unsure how this could happen and waiting to wake up from this amazing dream, when suddenly her smile dropped, and she started coughing.

He could remember Steve’s coughs, whether it was from pneumonia, bronchitis, asthma, or whatever else was making him sick, but they never sounded like this. He could hear the rattle in her lungs on every inhale, her exhales were loud hacking coughs that sounded incredibly painful. He frantically tried to sit her up, his body remembering what he did with Steve in the 30s, but her whole body was tense. It was only then that he heard the alarms going off around them. He hadn’t noticed, but they each had our fair share of wires attached to them, and Y/n’s monitor was lighting up like Christmas. He was starting to panic, when the door to the room suddenly swung open and Tony, Nat and Bruce came running inside. 

Bruce came right up to the bed, and Bucky heard Tony tell FRIDAY to call Dr. Cho.

Bruce looked from him to Y/n, and then to her monitor, “What happened? You guys have both been stable since you touched, she should be fine now.”

“I- I don’t know… We woke up and she was fine. She just started coughing. What is happening!?” Bucky says, his breathing becoming frantic.

Tony looked at the pair with a weird look in his eyes, it wasn’t quite confusion, more like pondering. He looked at the panicked super soldier for a few seconds before his eyes widened.

“I think her body isn’t processing the union. You’ve been separated for so long that it is taking a toll on her.” Tony says before telling FRIDAY to run a full body scan on Y/n.

The former assassin looks at Tony with a terrified gaze, “But she was fine! I’m totally fine, if anything I feel better than ever! Tony what is happening!?”

Tony opens his mouth to reply, but was cut off by his A.I..

“Boss, I have Y/n’s results. She is in acute respiratory failure, Type 2.” Bucky’s eyes widen and his breathing hitches, but he doesn’t interrupt the voice. “ She is also in stage 2 of Multiple Organ Failure, she needs immediate medical attention.”

Tony is left speechless, but only for a few seconds before he turns to Bucky.

“You need to give her to me. Right now.”

Bucky was obviously in shock, he subconsciously gripped Y/n tighter, but he knew that Tony was the only one who could help her. 

“Where will you take her?” Bucky whispers, still holding the coughing girl, who is starting to turn blue. 

Tony looks at the man with sympathy, something Bucky has never seen from him before. “We need to take her to the ICU, FRIDAY called Cho. I’m not sure how to help her, the cradle may not do anything. We may need to put her on life support.” Tony says gently, as if speaking to a child. “We will help her, but you need to trust me… Bucky.” 

This caught Bucky’s attention. He couldn’t remember the last time Tony didn’t call him either an offensive name or just James. 

This whole situation, from the pair waking up to now was only a couple minutes, but to Bucky it felt like hours. Hours of hearing his other half coughing. Hours of feeling her tense muscles. Hours of watching her turn blue. Hours of hearing those damn alarms going off. 

He just wanted it to stop.

Stop.

STOP!

Bucky stood up abruptly. Holding the weak girl. Bruce came running over with a gurney. 

Bucky looked down at the girl, at his soulmate, the girl he had fawned over for so long. At this point she was barely breathing. Coughs turning to awful, wet wheezes. Her eyes were open, but you could tell she wasn’t present. 

Bucky locked eyes with Tony, and Tony was rendered speechless. Bucky looked terrible. Where only a few minutes earlier he looked good, healthy, like the young soldier from the forties taking dames on dates to science fairs, he now looks sallow, weak, and like he could drop to the floor at any moment. He looked like the pictures of him as the Winter Soldier, right after being wiped or brought out from cryo.

“You can’t go with her right now, Cho and Banner will need as much room as possible to try and help her” Tony says in a soft voice, before asking FRIDAY to wake up Steve.

Bucky looks at him with weary eyes, “What do you mean try?” The soldier says with a weak voice, “She’ll be fine. She… She has to be fine.”  Bucky grips Tony’s shoulders tight, anchoring him, trying not to relapse. 

Tony stayed calm, even though he could feel his humerus bones straining under the grip of the Winter Soldier. 

“Bucky, you need to let me go. You’re hurting me” Tony says, trying to keep the other man calm. While he didn’t want two broken bones, at the moment he was more worried about keeping Bucky here and the Winter Soldier tucked away in the recesses of his mind.

Bucky gasped and tried to step backwards but tripped and fell. With frenzied eyes he quickly shuffles himself back into the corner of the room. Squeezed between a med cart and the wall, a space that didn’t look like it should fit his super-soldier frame.  

~Bucky’s POV~

He hurt Tony.

He hurt Tony.

He was in a corner, when did he get into a corner? Blood was pounding in his ears, his heart thudding in his chest. His hands shook, feet tingled. His vision was disfigured, hazy and like he was looking through a fisheye lens. He had to get away, he needed out of there, out of this room. He shoved past the man in front of him… who was he again? 

He burst through the door and looked down the hall, there was a man at the end.

Captain America.

Mission. 

Failed mission- Exterminate Captain America. 

The soldier was confused. When did he fail a mission of this capacity? Why had Hydra not captured and reset him. None of this makes sense. 

Oh well, his mission target was in front of him.

As Steve goes to stand, holding Bucky in his arms, he hears the elevator doors open and waits for the army he knows is coming to rush around the corner… And he was right, a solid two seconds pass before Sam, Nat, Wanda, and Clint come running towards them. They were all in a weird mix of their uniform and casual clothes, besides Clint who was fully dressed in pajamas, which upon closer inspection have little Black Widow symbols on them… Cute.

All were armed, holding guns or knives and Wanda’s hands were glowing. When they saw the Soldier unconscious in his best friends arms, they all lowered their weapons.

“What happened Cap?” Sam said. Looking worriedly towards Bucky, his inner therapist coming out. He knew how bad Bucky’s relapses were, and even helped coax him out of a few. 

Steve’s jaw opened and closed like a fish. Not knowing where to start, and not really knowing himself what actually set off the panic attack.

Before Steve could get a word out, he heard Tony from behind him.

“Something happened to Y/n, her whole body pretty much shut down. Bruce had to take her to the ICU and Bucky panicked when she was rolled away.” Tony looked at the floor. “He was holding on to me, and now I get that he was trying to anchor himself, but he was gonna snap my arms in half and when I told him he was hurting me it threw him head first into a relapse.” The inventor locked eyes with Steve for only a moment before he looked back down. 

“Sorry Cap, I shouldn’t have said anything. He hasn’t had a relapse in months.”

One of the nurses that works for Cho comes around the corner with a gurney for Bucky, FRIDAY must have called for it. Steve sets his friend down before turning and walking to Tony.

“It wasn’t your fault, he was hurting you and you reacted. He probably would have relapsed anyway.” The nurse speaks up then, saying Cho wanted to see Bucky. Steve tells her to go ahead, he’d be up there before Bucky woke up.

Steve turns back to Tony, “Let’s go look at your arms, and then we will go see Y/n and Bucky.” Steve says, taking Tony’s wrist and tugging him back toward the lab. “I don’t need you to mother-hen me Cap, I’ll be fine.” Tony says, trying not to wince at Steve’s tugging. 

Steve looks back at Tony, an annoyed look on his face, “I don’t care, I want to check and make sure nothing seriously injured before we go see Buck and Y/n. You aren’t going to see her before I look, and I know you see her like a daughter.” 

Tony stayed quiet and followed Steve, knowing it was futile to argue with a worried Steve Rogers. He was starting to think about fixing the wall outside the lab before he heard Steve mumbling something to himself, obviously not meaning for Tony to hear.