Red Star ✴️ Bucky Barnes X Reader

5: How You Holding Up?

While T'Challa and Steve continued planning their next course of action, Bowman returned to the room where Bucky was being followed around like a science experiment. 

Two scientists knelt to either side of his arm, analyzing the support structure and how the arm was connected to his body. Shuri, on the other hand, was back at what looked like a computer, but with a holographic screen.

"Wow..." Bowman marveled. "I don't think I've ever seen anything like that."

"You get used to it." Bucky quipped. 

"What do you mean?"

"The newness of everything" he responded in a monotone voice. "New world, new fights, new villains..." he gestured to his arm, "new tech. It's hard to keep up with, but you just... do."

"Ah." Bowman responded, leaving an awkward silence in her wake. 

Deciding there wasn't much else to do, Bowman sat down next to Bucky on the bench they so graciously offered the injured man. She was about three feet away to allow other nurses to take his vitals and patch up his injuries from battle. 

Bowman tapped her hands against her knees, staring out the large windows in front of them. Out there was a glistening city, almost like something from a Norse mythology book. It was a beautiful sight to behold, but she felt much like a stranger in an art museum. Around her swarmed advancements in technology, architecture, life, and her... she was merely a bystander in the presence of something she couldn't quite understand. She unfocused her eyes, trying to daydream and pass the time like she would when frozen, but the bustling sounds of medical and technological personnel milling around her made it impossible for her to focus.  

In a desperate attempt to fill the room, Bowman turned to Bucky once again. "So... how you holding up?"

Bucky just shrugged. "About as well as a beaten-up amputee could be." His metal arm was fully extended out and was supported by a metal stand. "I'm just glad that I can't feel their poking and prodding."

Bowman giggled at the little joke, trying her hardest to smile at her current situation. She refused to let herself feel her emotions right now, wanting to do that when she got a chance to be alone. Her lost friends, her only family, the idea she would never see them again... the idea that she had joined a team with her sworn enemy... that she was in a country she never heard of in a place she didn't belong, a place where it felt like she wasn't even supposed to exist. Soon enough, she thought to herself. I can't falter now. I can grieve later. 

The sun always sets sometime. 

"What're you thinking about?" 

"W-what!?" she stammered, head whipping around to face the sudden noise. 

"Oh, sorry. It just-- looked like you were thinking about something. Your nose scrunched up and..." Bucky's voice trailed off. "Sorry. Not my business."

Bowman turned her eyes back to her bootlaces. 

"Though you might want to get rid of that emblem." Bucky quipped.

Confused, Bowman turned to her outfit. The last time she went under, she was introduced to her mission, her purpose, and given her suit. It was a green leather jacket over a yellow  jumpsuit and black knee-high tactical boots. She had straps across her chest with a metal clip in the center brandishing the Hydra logo in its golden glory.

She snapped it off and threw it across the room. 

The doctors around Bucky jumped when they heard the metal hit the concrete floor, skidding until it eventually tapped against the wall and stopped. 

"Well, that's one way to get rid of it." Bucky chuckled. 

Bowman couldn't help but laugh along. 

"Yeah." She smiled for the first time in years. "That's one way to put it."