Bring Me Home // Bucky Barnes

Chapter XXV - Alive and... Deadly?

"What if -"

A sad sigh seemed to sing in the air as Bruce entered the room. His face was worn from exhaustion, his dark eyes downcast and broken. He had removed his lab coat but the stain of blood clung to his shirt sleeves and the sting of pain pricked in his chest.

"How's Fury?" Nat searched his eyes for answers as he folded his arms and focused on Elizabeth. Pushing his glasses up his nose he took a few steps into the room and tried to smile.

"How are you doing Lizzie?" His voice was low and shaky.

"Bruce?" Nat pushed, stepping forwards and forcing him to look at her.

He didn't answer. That was answer enough. With another sigh he shook his head as silence blanketed the room, wrapping them in the fuzziest edges of grief. Natasha sank against the wall, the wind ripped from her lungs. Fury was dead. Tony turned to the small window, his back to his team as he hung his head and felt the pull of anger, and Steve's arms tightened around Elizabeth as a new kind of pain danced with the familiar remnants of loss he already knew.

"Lizzie?" Bruce prompted, desperate to think of anything other than the way Fury had looked on his table. Longing to see anything other than the pain of his closest friends. "How are you?"

"We were hoping you'd be able to tell us Banner." Steve cleared his throat as Lizzie pulled away to look at Bruce.

"Right. Of course." He offered her a helpless smile as he flicked through the chart on the end of her bed. "Your vitals are normal, which is good. Nat told me about a stone? We can talk about that later but I do have a theory. All this being said: theory or otherwise, you're looking better and there's nothing wrong with you medically speaking and I know you'd probably prefer not to spend the night in one of these beds so I'm happy to discharge you. I just want to draw some blood for some tests first, okay?"

As Bruce's brow furrowed and Steve gathered Lizzie's belongings from the chair a tall figure filled out the door frame, a smile in his eyes as he watched Lizzie try to peer over Bruce's shoulder at her own notes.

Sam Wilson traced Lizzie from head to toe as she perched on the edge of the bed. Her face was blotchy and red and her eyes were swollen. She stared at Steve as he handed her a pair of jeans and her trainers, oblivious to the man watching her intently from the doorway. When she didn't move to change Steve threw the jeans onto the bed and ducked down to slip her shoes on for her.

"So," Sam raised an eyebrow at her as she turned to face him. "Rumour has it you're a walking, talking fire bomb?" He walked towards her shaking his head, a smile on his lips and a chuckle in his voice, his arms folded across his chest as he came to a stop a few feet away from her. "Now when I said you were hot Lizzie, you do know that wasn't what I meant, right?"

When Sam winked at Lizzie she didn't respond. He looked closer at her and noted the shallow glaze of her eyes, the worry etched into her frown, the gentle creases of pain in the depths of her. There was an emptiness Sam had never seen before.

"Hey, what's wrong?" Sam dropped his arms and stepped forwards again, reaching down to take Lizzie's hand in one of his own as he looked over her again; his other hand brushing over her shoulder and arm as he searched for wounds he couldn't see. She didn't look hurt. She looked perfect. "Come on Beautiful, it's mission time! I thought you'd be all excited and bouncy like usual? You know; making bets, giving Steve his pep talks... what's wrong?"

Lizzie looked down at their hands as her eyes misted once more. This time it was as if the tears could not come, like she had cried every last tear she had and yet the pain, the way her sense of self seemed to splinter and break away as visions of Bucky wielding a knife against the man he had always, always protected filled her eyes and broke her heart was just as intense.

She watched his thumb gently rub circles against her skin and felt the reassuring squeeze as he waited for her answer. His hand was warm against hers. The skin was soft and comforting, and yet it pained her to see him holding on to her.

"Sam," Steve spoke, pulling Sam's focus away from the breaking girl beside him. "The mission is Bucky. And he just killed Fury."

"Bucky? As in Barnes? As in died in 1945 Bucky Barnes? As in your best friend and the great lost love Bucky Barnes?" He felt her hand slip from his as she got to her feet and made her way to where Nat sat against the wall. Watching her move he saw it; the pain and guilt, the blame. She slid down the wall and lowered her head to Nat's shoulder, closing her eyes as the world slowed and the void returned.

*

Sam had not looked away from Lizzie once. Not in the medical suite, not in the elevator ride up to the main floor, not as she curled in a ball on the couch and Steve had carefully wrapped her in a blanket. The story had been retold from the moment Jarvis alerted the team, to the fight against Bucky and all the way up to the moment Lizzie had exploded. Her strength amazed him. He could see she was falling apart, her eyes would glaze over and her breathing would hitch at strange moments, and yet she lay there without tears, listening to Steve recount what Sam knew was tearing her up inside.

"Okay," Sam huffed as Steve put his face in his hands. "That's a lot to take in, for sure. But what I'm getting from this is that I need to stop asking Lizzie out now because the ex is very much alive and..." he paused briefly as he searched for the word he needed, "deadly?"

A small sigh mixed with a laugh as it escaped Lizzie's lips and Sam's smile grew as he watched her soften and warm. He winked at her from his seat across the room and leaned forwards.

"Yes." She muttered, rolling her eyes. "That's the reason why you should stop. Seriously though, Sam. I - I need you guys to help him. He's going to be - He won't -" She couldn't seem to say what she needed to say. Instead she settled for the only thing she knew was true. "Others will be after him now."

Steve sat up and turned to face Lizzie as she lay on her side, her eyes imploring him to bring Bucky back.

"We've got this Lizzie. We'll get him back to you, no matter what."

"No matter what." Sam echoed, swallowing back the ache that now pulled inside of him.

*

She strutted into the room with a determination that was clear to see. Natasha Romanoff was on mission. She dropped a bag at Steve's feet and gestured to the door as she threw the keys to the SUV to Sam. Her face was cold, detached, determined. This was The Black Widow.

"Let's go boys." When she spoke there was no shake, no break, no sadness. The loss of Fury was something Natasha had never thought she would face. The man who saved her, who fought for her, who made her more than just a weapon, the man who gave her a family was gone and she couldn't think about it. Instead her mind was on the mission: find The Winter Soldier.

Steve planted a gentle kiss on Elizabeth's forehead and pushed her hair back from her face before turning to Tony.

"Look after her for me, okay?"

"Of course Cap," Tony got up from his seat and pulled Steve in to a warm hug. "Be careful out there... If it comes down to saving him and saving yourself, you've gotta pick yourself. Even if you don't want to."