Those Ocean Eyes and That Charming Smile

185

The next time I wake up, it doesn't feel like I crashed into my own chest and broke open everything in my body but this time, my eyes lightly flutter open to squint at the golden lights that dim the room a little instead of brightening the room with the harsh ones. My eyes are a bit blurry from being closed for a long time after they cracked open and I blink them a few times to get the clouded vision to fade away before I look over and see Bucky sitting in the chair to my left, sleeping in a black tank top with the light music of 'Turning Page' playing out of his phone at a low volume.

"Bucky." I whisper when I see his arms are crossed over his chest and his hair hangs down in his face that is facing his lap in his sleep and it makes me smile softly but, my body is sore when I move my hips a little after feeling the pull of my stomach that makes me remember everything from being stabbed, to dying, to seeing my dead parents, to waking up and scaring Cass when I had a seizure, to now when I lift my heavy hands to push down the blanket covering me

Oh, poor Cass.

"Hm." I ignore the many wires and tubes taped to my chest and the back of my hands as my plum painted nails pull at the buttons of one of Bucky's dress shirts to undo each of them until I open the sides to see that I'm not wearing a bra

But that doesn't concern me.

It's the large vertical, stapled and stitched wound that runs from under my breasts to the band of my underwear that I have on where two tubes leading from above each of my hipbones attach to a small football looking plastic bulb that has some pale colored blood swishing around at the bottom. Thick metal staples help hold the small black stitches of my stomach together that are basically suffocating in the swollen, purple rounded edges of my skin that don't even look cut.

It just looks like someone folded my skin and stapled it together, causing the insane dark blue and purple bruising around the cut that extends almost from side to side and spills over onto the petals of my tattoo that still has a tube coming out of the center of a rose from where Steve sliced my side open but this hole looks like a paper cut compared to the monstrous one on my stomach.

"Oh, my God." I breathe and tip my head back when the sudden breath hurts my stomach. "Oh, my fucking God." I start to freak out and grit my teeth at all the pain that settles in my body and it wakes Bucky up at my groaning voice when he lifts his head up in surprise

"Hey!" Bucky smiles wide but his face falls when he sees my stressed look. "You're okay. We're alright, baby. Don't freak out." He drops his voice into a softer tone and grabs the two ends of his shirt to button it back up and cover my bare breasts that were trying to expose me to the empty room

"No, no, no." I shake my head and feel tubes pull against my nose. "It hurts. I'm hurting." I groan

"It hurts." He repeats and looks up at the clock on the wall just as he pauses the music playing from his phone. "Oh, it's time for your medicine." He mumbles and moves his hands to a table beside my head and grabs a syringe full of clear liquid that makes my eyes widen and move away from him in a flinch

"No!" I breathe a sharp breath and hold my stomach that throbs. "Ugh, I don't want to go to sleep again!" I swallow hard where I feel something tickle the back of my throat

"It's not going to make you sleep, sweetheart." He promises and holds up his hand in a calming manner with the syringe pinned between his palm and thumb. "It's morphine. It takes the pain away." He reassures me

"I know what morphine is." I nod after calming down a little and he slowly drops his hands. "No needle." I sigh

"No needle." He agrees with my word. "It's going in the IV tube." He promises and raises his eyebrows at my left hand that holds my stitched stomach under the two buttons he did up