Steve's girl

Chapter 13

Sarah got up and walked in to the hospital room, Steve was laying in his hospital bed, he looked tired and beaten. Sarah was hesitant and stayed close to Nat. The past weeks had been so confusing and scary she couldn't think straight, "you wanna see him?" Nat asked, "no, I wanna go home" Sarah said and quickly left the room. "I'll take her" Bucky said and the others nodded, Bucky followed her out and put his hand on her back, guiding her out to the car. Sarah got in the car and they drove back in silence, Sarah didn't understand how she felt it was like nobody was the same anymore.

They arrived back at the compound and Sarah didn't say a word, she just went to her room and shut the door. The others were exchanging looks "what happened?" Clint asked as Bucky put the car keys on the counter, "Steve's ok, but she didn't wanna see him she won't say a word" Bucky answered sounding tired and worried, "she's probably overwhelmed, she's 8 years old and all this is hard for us adults to handle" Pepper said and walked towards Sarah's room, "I'll talk to her." Sarah heard a gentle knock on her door then Pepper walked in and sat on the edge of her bed, Sarah was curled up in a ball facing the wall. "Hey, you feeling ok?" She asked put her hand on Sarah's leg, she said nothing and just stared at the wall. "You know it's pretty scary right now for everyone, can't imagine how you must be feeling" she said leaning against the wall, "I don't know" Sarah said quietly making pepper lift her head slightly, "don't know what?" Sarah thought for a second "I don't know what I'm feeling, it's like everything at the same time" she admitted. "That's called being overwhelmed, it means you've got so much going on that your brain kinda goes in to a meltdown" she replied, Sarah turned her head to look at her "how does it stop" she asked "you talk about it" Sarah gave a small sigh. "Everything's different, my dad never gets hurt, not badly that means the bad guys are getting worse so what if that means that they get too bad and we can't fight them anymore?" Sarah said feeling like she had just removed a rucksack of bricks off her back. "It's ok to be worried about things like that, there are always gonna be bad guys wherever we go no matter what we do but that just means we train harder, bet they didn't tell you that the mission was successful and they got some really important intel" Pepper said making Sarah sit up, "really?" She smiled "really" Sarah smiled back.

Sarah walked out her room with Pepper and sat on one of the chairs whilst Pepper approached a concerned and impatient looking Bucky "I talked to her" Pepper said and started making coffee, "well....what'd she say??" Bucky asked, "she's scared, overwhelmed, confused" Pepper answered, "she misses her dad" she continued "what do you mean? She chose not to see Steve?" Bucky said, "she misses the old Steve, she's scared of him getting hurt she's scared of everyone getting hurt" Pepper answers. Making Tony and Bucky sigh, "why didn't she say so"
Bucky says almost guiltily, "she's a kid, they try to mask how they're feeling then all of a sudden they explode" she says looking over at Sarah as she watched tv quietly, "but she hasn't exploded yet" Clint says looking at her, Pepper gives a nod.

Sarah heard the elevator ding and Nat and Sam walked through, "how's he doing?" Bucky asked, "he's ok, he keeps asking for Sarah" Sam said and Sarah turned her head towards them. She took a shaky breath and shifted nervously in her seat, then got up and walked towards them, Sam put his hand out and she moved to him, he squeezed her shoulder as reassurance "you wanna see your dad?" He asked. Sarah thought about it for a second then nodded, "I'll take you" he said and grabbed his keys, "I'll come with you" Bucky said and followed as she walked with them out the compound and to the car.