Home is where the heart is - A Bucky x Reader Story

Season 2, Chapter 1

"This... this is all my fault..." Bucky breathed, dropping his head into his hands. "I shouldn't have left her alone. I-I..." "No Bucky, you couldn't have known. Don't blame yourself. It's not your fault." Nat said through tears and tried to continue comforting Bucky. He knew he'd feel guilty forever, no matter what the others would say. Had he been there earlier, had he taken Y/n with her... Y/n would still be alive.

After what felt like hours of grieving (really, it had only been a few minutes), Steve and Thor carried Y/n's corpse into the Jet. It felt wrong to put her on the jet, but Steve had to be the voice of reason and said that they couldn't stay there forever... they had to find a good place for Y/n to find her final place of rest. After carrying her into the Jet, Thor and Steve came outside to get the others, and they followed, none of them able to speak, all of them in a trance-like state of sadness after what had just happened. They had lost a piece of themselves.

Bucky was barely able to walk on his own, so Bruce and Wanda were supporting his unstable self, when a sudden tingle startled Wanda and broke her out of the tunnel of emotions she was in. She felt something, but wasn't sure what it was, so she stopped in her tracks and looked around. Until her eyes landed on Y/n. She thought she had seen a tiny movement under that white cloth, but there was nothing. There couldn't be. Right? She was dead. Y/n was dead.

"What the... Guys?" Wanda whispered, but nobody listened. She quickly dried her tears, let go of Bucky to walk towards Y/n and knelt down next to her. She could've sworn she had just seen her move under that cloth again, she was almost certain. Or had that just been one last twitch of a nerve? It couldn't be anything else.

„Wanda, what are you doing? It won't... you can't bring her back." Bruce whispered with weakness in his voice. „I... I know. I just... I could've sworn I saw-"

Suddenly, Y/n jolted upwards and sat up straight, drawing in a deep breath and trying to punch away the cloth. That breath was deep as someone who had just been drowning, someone who had thought they'd never be able to breath again. But she did.

Wanda screamed in surprise and jumped back in shock, and everyone turned around. Quickly, Wanda composed herself and, together with Bruce who was equally as confused, helped Y/n get the white cloth off of her, but she was full of utter confusion.

„What the hell...?" „Y/n!" „What just happened??" Whatever had just happened, it left everyone baffled and puzzled, but mostly relieved.

"Doll!" Bucky shouted out and shoved himself past Wanda to wrap his arms around his girlfriend, who was still disoriented. "I... we thought you were dead!" He said through tears of relief.
Tony followed suit and ran up to his daughter to give her a tight hug and a kiss on the forehead, shedding a few tears of relief, but none of them could quite believe what they were seeing.

"W-what happened?" Y/n asked, her voice shaky. "Why are you all so... I just remember... someone rang at the door, and I... I thought it was you, Bucky... and then I saw Zemo... and he shot me and I..." "We thought you were dead, squirt." Tony said, his voice almost breaking. "She was." Wanda said. "Sweetie... I checked. I can tell when people... pass. You were dead." "But how am I... what... why?" Y/n tried to build her confusion into a sentence, a question to find out why she was suddenly back amongst the living, but failed miserably at that. Regardless of her not finding the words to express her confusion, everyone knew what she meant.

"No idea..." Wanda breathed, wiped away her tears with a soft smile on her face and then turned towards Bruce, who usually had an answer for everything, but he just shrugged, his eyes still wide in surprise. "Sorry little one, I don't know either. It shouldn't have been possible... it's impossible. You were... you were dead! But then again, it shouldn't have been possible for you to heal as quickly as you did after you had been shot the last time so..."

"Hey, maybe we shouldn't be standing around here like this. Bucky, go back inside and grab your stuff. Y/n, you packed a little, right?" She nodded at Steve. "Ok. We'll go grab your things, and then we'll fly back to the compound. I have a feeling it's not safe here." Steve said and let his eyes trail through the trees around them through the windows of the jet. He had a feeling they weren't alone.

"Also... we should probably do something about Zemo." Nat suggested, but Bucky, who had just returned to the jet with bags full of his and Y/n's stuff, huffed angrily and said "He deserves to stay there and rot until the animals eat him. Fuck him." He growled the last two words in a way that made you not want to cross him. He sat down next to Y/n and wrapped his arm around her waist to pull her close, and she let her head rest on his shoulder, her eyes trailing around the jet. Her dad was sitting in the front of the jet and stared out into the forest, kneading his hands. He seemed to be lost in his thoughts, but Y/n decided to carefully wiggle out of Bucky's arm and talk to her dad.

"Y/n, where ar-" Bucky started, but Y/n interrupted him and said "I'll be back in a sec. I just... I want to talk to dad. I think he feels guilty. And if it's not that... I don't know. Something seems off. " I whispered. Bucky sighed, but let go of her and looked after her as she made her way to the front of the Jet.

„Dad?" Y/n pulled Tony out of his thoughts, but his face softened when he saw his daughter. „Your cheeks are rosy again." he said quietly with a slight smile on his face. „Dad... what's going on? You're not blaming yourself for this, are you?" she asked, coming straight to the point. Tony sighed and looked out into the forest. „Y/n... squirt... of course I'm blaming myself. It's my fault this happened in the first place. I should have been transparent from the start. I shouldn't have kept it a secret where you're from and that I adopted you. And I should have tried harder to protect you. I should've come to get you earlier, I should have-" „Dad stop! Please dad. I mean it. I don't blame you for anything, and you shouldn't either. This could have happened either way. Zemo was apparently set on finding me in a... well, moment and place where I wasn't surrounded by everyone." I said and gestured vaguely around the jet full of avengers. „I'm an Avenger, dad. And that comes with having enemies. But I... I want to know more. I want to know everything you know about me, everything they did. Everything there is to know." I said and looked at him with pleading eyes. „I know this might not seem like the best time to ask, but please let me go back to the old Hydra lab you found me at so I can find out more." I whispered, dad's gears visibly turning. After a period of silence, he sighed, looked at me and said "Not alone. You will have to take at least one more person to go with you." I felt a mix of relief and being nervous, but the fact that Dad would allow me to go actually surprised me. "I want to take Barnes with me." I said and looked over in his direction. He was now pacing around the other side of the jet, nervously kneading his hands, just like dad had been doing before. "I'm sure there are things he would want to find out about himself as well..." I said, thinking about how Bucky always blamed himself for the many deaths caused by the Winter Soldier. "Yeah... you're right I guess." Dad replied, but I knew he wasn't exactly happy about me wanting to go. But I have to find out more.

Who am I?

What am I?

And most importantly...

How the fuck could I possibly have survived this?