CHAPTER TWENTY
❝ safe in your arms ❞
STEVE WASN'T USED to running.
For his entire life, the blonde did everything he could to avoid such strenuous activity. His asthma wouldn't allow him to run very far, leaving him a panting mess every time he tried to do so. Bucky and Lucy would always scold him, scared half to death each time that he would be thrown into a coughing fit.
Speaking of Bucky and Lucy, in the span of a few horrid hours, Steve found out that both of his best friends were potentially dead.
First, Colonel Phillips had told him that the entirety of Bucky's infantry was either captured or killed by HYDRA's forces. Then, Howard informed him about the attack that he and Lucy were involved in, his voice trembling as he mentioned how they shot her and dragged her limp body away.
So even though he was running through a HYDRA base in Azzano using his new, serum-improved body, Steve felt like a scared little boy again. Like he was having one of his asthma attacks and he couldn't breathe.
After what seemed like forever, Steve finally located the cells where all of the prisoners were held. He counted the number of guards in the room, quickly formulating a plan of attack before jumping into action. It was easy for him to sneak into the room and knock them all out cold with his shield alone before they could call for backup.
All of the prisoners stared at the man in red, white, and blue with their mouths agape, shocked that he was able to take down all of the guards alone. "Who are you supposed to be?"
Steve shrugged at the soldier's question, grabbing the keys from the jacket of an unconscious agent. "I'm... Captain America."
"I beg your pardon?"
He unlocked the doors to each of the cells, setting the soldiers free from their restraints while simultaneously searching through the crowds. Steve's heart sank when he failed to spot Bucky and Lucy. "Is there anybody else? I'm looking for a Sergeant James Barnes and a Nurse Lucy Everhart."
"There's an isolation ward in the factory," a man with a French accent told Steve. "But no one's ever come back from it—"
"Wait, wait," a soldier with a burly mustache interrupted him. "Lucy Everhart as in Barnes' girl? She's here too?"
Steve whipped his head back to face the man. "Yeah, you know Lucy?
The man extended a hand towards Steve. "The name's Dugan. She patched me up back in Brooklyn once before the war. But even if I didn't, Barnes doesn't ever shut up about her. He goes on every day about how badly he wants to win this damn war and go home to her."
Steve nodded and a smile tugged at his lips at Dugan's words. "Yup, that's Bucky. All right, the tree line is northwest, eighty yards past the gate. Get out fast and give 'em hell. I'll meet you guys in the clearing with anybody else I find."
After Steve gave them instructions, a different soldier stepped forward. "Wait. You know what you're doing?"
Steve tilted his head, trying to stifle the smirk on his face. "Yeah. I've knocked out Adolf Hitler over two hundred times."
Before any of the others could question his last statement, Steve turned around and continued his mission. On his way to the isolation ward, he used his shield to fend off the HYDRA agents who attempted to stop him, still shocked at the sheer strength he had.
A short doctor stumbled into Steve's pathway. The man froze when he laid eyes on Steve, slowly backing up. Steve was about to run after him but froze when he heard a familiar voice coming from a doorway on his left.
Carefully inching into the room, Steve carefully scanned his surroundings. His eyes landed on a medical table that sat in the middle of the room and his blood ran cold.
"Sergeant, 32557." Bucky was mumbling his tag number, so weakly that Steve almost didn't even hear him. In some state of shock, Bucky had his wide eyes locked onto the ceiling.
Steve hurriedly rushed over to the table. He peered around at all of the machines surrounding them before resting a hand on Bucky's shoulder, horrified at his best friend's state. "...Bucky?"
Bucky was so disoriented that he couldn't even register Steve's face hovering over his. Steve's heart was racing as he ripped the leather restraints holding Bucky down apart. "Oh my god."
"Is that..." Bucky's eyes finally found Steve's and his eyes softened a bit.
"It's me," Steve nodded his head in confirmation, trying his best to keep his voice steady. "It's Steve."
"Steve?" A dorky grin grew on Bucky's face as his best friend tugged him up.
"Come on," Steve said, helping him to his feet.
Bucky allowed Steve to take his arms, sliding off the table and landing on shaky legs. He still couldn't believe his eyes. "Steve."
Steve was practically holding Bucky up, his worry growing at his friend's weakened state. "I thought you were dead."
Bucky patted Steve's biceps with his hands, trying to decipher whether or not he was real. "I thought you were smaller," the brunette muttered in disbelief as he studied his best friend's physique. He was tall and buff, just like Lucy said—
"Lucy," Bucky breathed out, the memories from their cell hitting him like a tidal wave. He ripped himself out of Steve's grasp and began to stumble towards the doorway in search of her.
"Buck, hang on," Steve grabbed Bucky by the shoulders, stopping him from tripping over himself. "I haven't found her yet, do you have any clue of where they took her?"
Bucky swallowed hard, rubbing a hand over his face in an attempt to get a better grasp on reality. "I... Shit, I don't know, Steve. They separated us a while ago."
He wasn't sure how long it had been since he had last seen Lucy. Bucky's brain felt like static, a product of the electric shocks that they had tortured him with just before Steve had arrived. All he remembered was begging them not to hurt Lucy. That she was innocent and they could do whatever they wanted to him if they would just let her go.
Steve guided Bucky out of the room. The distant sound of gunfire popping on the other side of the facility reminded him that their time was limited. "Okay, okay. We're gonna find her."
Bucky nodded, attempting to keep up with Steve's unfamiliar fast pace. He had to stop and catch his breath as another memory came back to him. " I proposed to her."
Coming to a halt, Steve froze and turned around. His heart clenched at the sight of seeing his best pal in shambles. "Buck..."
"I did. And I don't regret it at all, but I was so caught up asking her to marry me that I didn't see them coming. I-If I had just been paying attention—"
"No, Buck," Steve interrupted him, laying a hand on his shoulder. "There was nothing you could've done. You were both heavily outnumbered. Don't blame yourself, okay? We're gonna find her."
"I just," he sighed, his eyes boring into Steve's. "I need to find her, Steve. I'm not leaving here without her."
Steve nodded and guided him down the rest of the hallway. "Neither am I. Till the end of the line, remember?"
───
Lucy had never been more terrified in her life.
Well, she's had moments that were certainly comparable. Like when she would come home to a drunk and grieving Thomas Everhart. Or when Steve's asthma got so bad that it almost killed him. And especially when Bucky was drafted for the war
Fear, however, took on a whole new meaning as she laid flat, tethered to a medical table in the middle of a HYDRA facility.
She had woken up dizzy and disorientated but not enough for her to skip over the fact that there were dozens of wires and tubes protruding from her body. Her skin burned, feeling as if a fire was lit within her chest and the heat was spreading through her veins.
Despite the pain, the worst part of it all was that she had no idea if Bucky was alive or not.
As Lucy was trying to figure out how long it had been since she last passed out, the large steel doors at the head of the room swung open. Two HYDRA agents, dressed in black tactical gear, lead Arnim Zola and Johann Schmidt into the room.
"Lucy Everhart, correct?" Schmidt asked her, standing in front of the table with his hands clasped behind his back. Zola circled the table and fiddled with the tubes and wires that were attached to Lucy, writing down her stats on his clipboard.
Lucy stayed silent, leaving his question unanswered. She knew better than to give into Schmidt's sadistic cravings. He wanted her to beg. Beg for him to set her free and have her life spared.
She couldn't help the protesting whine that escaped her mouth as Zola lifted the hem of her shirt and began prodding around her stomach. Lucy was so focused on the lingering burning in her veins that she had completely forgotten about her bullet wound.
To her surprise, when she craned her head up to examine it, she saw that the wound was actually healing. The once red and irritated area around the injury was gone, leaving some scabs and lingering pain in its wake.
Zola excitedly grinned at the sight. "Sir," he said, catching Schmidt's attention. "Her levels are stable and the wound has healed. The serum worked."
Lucy felt her chest constrict at the doctor's words.
Serum?
A frightening grin took over Schmidt's face. The man took slow steps forward, stopping when he reached Lucy's side. He outstretched an arm and ran a finger down the side of her cheek, watching in satisfaction as Lucy scrunched up her face in discomfort.
"Hm," Schmidt hummed. "I'm surprised that a weak little thing like you could handle the serum. Although, we didn't have any other option. You were going to die from that bullet wound and we still have information to get from you."
Lucy's heartbeat was so frantic that she wouldn't have been surprised if everyone in the room could hear it as well. The burning in her veins seemed to intensify at his words, now knowing what the cause of it was.
"You still aren't very talkative. We will be back after we go visit Sergeant Barnes. Maybe then you will be more inclined to talk."
As Schmidt and Zola were about to exit, the former turned around and dropped his voice dangerously low. "Miss Everhart, I am willing to go to extremes to get the answers that I need. Just keep that in mind."
Lucy felt like her head was going to explode as they walked out, leaving the two guards to watch her. She couldn't wrap her head around Schmidt's words, about the serum they had given her.
She reluctantly shook those thoughts from her mind. There was no time for panic at that moment. If she wanted a chance at going to help Bucky and getting them out of the facility, she needed to focus on her plan of escape.
Her eyes scanned the room for anything that would help her take down not only one but two guards in her weakened state. She released a breath of relief when she saw a hefty knife sitting right on top of a metal tray beside her. If she shimmied over a bit, she could easily reach it and use it to cut off the leather straps restraining her.
The only problem was the two agents in the room, them watching her quivering frame like hawks. The way that their hungry eyes trailed up and down her body made her stomach twist with dread.
When the men finally took their eyes off of Lucy and engaged in conversation with one another, she wiggled over to the side of the table, reaching over and quietly grabbing the knife.
She held it to her side, sneaking a look at the agents before slowly beginning to saw at the strap that was over her chest and arms. It didn't take long for the material to be completely frayed with how sharp the knife was.
The strap over her legs was going to be harder to access. Her arms were a bit too short for the task, so she would have to sit up to be able to reach it.
One of the agents guarding the door saw Lucy squirming in his peripheral vision but missed the knife in her hands. "Hey!" He walked over to the table she laid on, watching as she froze. "Stop squirming over there, or—"
A sudden onslaught of alarms cut him off. Both guards shared a look, instinctively reaching for their guns. "What the—?"
Lucy sat up and swung her knife at the leather strap that held her legs down, effectively cutting the material in one rapid movement. She lifted the leg closest to the agent beside her and delivered a swift kick to his chest, sending him stumbling back at the unexpected blow.
The other agent jumped into action, pulling his gun from his belt as he stalked toward the woman. Lucy hopped off of the table, quickly ripping her IVs out, and used the metal tray beside her as a shield to block the bullets coming at her.
The one she had kicked in the chest caught his balance, about to pull his own gun from his belt until Lucy swung the tray at his head and knocked him to the ground. She quickly leaned down and grabbed his gun, barely even hesitating to aim it at the one who was still standing and release a few bullets of her own.
Lucy shot the agent in the leg three times, sending him straight to the ground as he howled in pain. Adrenaline fueled her as she rushed past the two bodies, running to the doors on shaky legs.
Despite the abundance of panicked thoughts going through her head, there was one clear one at the forefront of her mind.
Find Bucky.
As Lucy pried the large door open, a movement coming from the hallway caught her eye. Blinded by the fear of it being more HYDRA agents, she quickly raised her gun, about to fire until she heard two familiar voices.
"Hey, hey! Lucy!"
"Luce, stop!"
She froze, her finger hovering over the trigger.
In front of her, Steve and Bucky stood with their hands up. They both noticed that Lucy's eyes were glazed over with panic, realizing then that she couldn't register who was standing in front of her.
Bucky turned to Steve and silently signaled for him to stay back before taking a slow step forward. "Luce? It's me, honey. It's Bucky. Can you put the gun down, sweetheart?"
She blinked a few times, the foggy panic in her brain beginning to disappear when she heard those words. Still, her arms stayed stiff as she continued pointing the gun, gripping the weapon so hard that her knuckles were turning white. She didn't know if her mind was just playing tricks on her.
Bucky took another step forward, gently resting his hand on the barrel of her gun and pushing it down. "It's okay. You can put the gun down now. The fight is over. You did so well, honey."
As soon as Bucky's praise met her ears, the grip that she had on the gun loosened, sending the weapon straight to the ground.
Lucy dove forward and wrapped her arms around Bucky's muscular torso, burying her head into his chest while gripping the back of his shirt tightly. "Bucky."
He sighed in relief and wrapped his arms around her, holding her head to his chest as he quietly soothed her and himself, "Okay, you're okay. I'm so sorry, Lucy. I'm sorry."
Lucy shook her head against his chest, dismissing his apology. She knew that their separation was in no way his fault. Besides, it didn't even matter anymore. They were both alive.
Steve stared at his two best friends with soft eyes despite the anger flaring in his chest at the fact that HYDRA had stripped them down to such a vulnerable state.
Bucky pressed a long kiss to Lucy's head. "We're gonna get out of here, Luce. Steve's here to help."
Lucy pulled her head away from Bucky's chest and peeked over his shoulder. When she saw Steve standing there, she smiled and reached over, engulfing the blonde in a tight embrace.
Chuckling, Steve wrapped his arms around her and tucked her into his chest. "Hey, Luce. Are you steady enough to run?"
"I'll carry you—"
"No, no. I'm all good," Lucy cut Bucky off, taking his hand and tugging him forward. "Let's just get out of here."
Neither of the men objected. Although, Steve did tilt his head in confusion while staring at the gun on the ground.
"Hang on, when did you learn how to shoot a gun?"
AUTHOR'S NOTE!
i know that a lot of people like to see the classic 'guy saves girl' trope (including me) but i really think that this was lucy's big moment to use her self-defense skills and finally be able to fight back for once in her life :)
this is definitely going to leave some nasty trauma for both bucky and lucy, which we will dive into in the next couple of chapters.
i hope you're all having an amazing day!
thank you for reading and supporting!
<3 mal