Steve's POV:
Now feeling an entirely new weight on my shoulders I head back inside back to Luke and (Y/N).
"You okay?" I ask disheartened to Luke as I pick his mother up and carry her bridle style out of the room, her body limp and her head lolling around.
"I think so." He mumbles and looks down.
"How much did you see?" I ask him.
"Too much," he says quietly.
"Can you tell me what happened?"
"Isla and I heard noises so we came to check and all I saw was dad strangling mum up against the wall so I ran and jumped on him. He threw me off of him against the wall and I hit my head. It hurts but I think it's okay," he says and touches the back of his head, wincing a little. I don't remember some stuff after that but he was choking her for ages and then when you came he just dropped her and that's when I went to her but she was already unconscious."
I think about everything he's telling me.
"Okay." I huff. "We will get your head checked out. Hopefully that's okay."
"I don't know where Isla is." He suddenly looks at me in realisation.
"She's hiding. I came because she called us. Peggy is looking after her and you're brother. We will go find them now."
"Oh, few." He sighs.
"You know your dad didn't do it on purpose right? I know that might be confusing, but that wasn't him. You have to understand that," I try to explain.
"I know," he says, his voice trembling. "I know what the bad Hydra men did to him before. Is that why this happened?"
I nod. "Your dad when through something very traumatic. It's going to stay with him for a very long time. And sometimes it gets so scary for him that it causes him to snap back to those times and the bad men manage to take over him again."
He thinks about this looking sad.
"It shouldn't happen very often though and we are doing our best to stop it at all. You don't need to be scared of him."
"I'm not. It just gave me a fright. It hasn't happened yet so I just wasn't expecting it. Where is he now?"
"I don't know." I shrug and exhale. "You're very brave Luke."
He smiles at me sheepishly but I can tell that despite everything he's saying he's still very shaken and some trust will have been lost between his father and him, understandably so.
"Peg?" I call out.
"In here!" I hear her reply quietly from the bathroom so I head in that direction, guiding Luke to follow me.
He just keeps looking up at his mum with worried eyes.
I carefully push the door to the bathroom open to find Peggy sitting down beside the bath with Sarah, leaning over and holding Isla's hand who looks utterly terrified, curled up in a ball in the corner of the bath, sucking her thumb while tears stream down her face. Theo sits in the empty bath too and grizzles although he doesn't know what happened so he's probably more annoyed that his sleep was interrupted.
Peggy grimaces at the sight of (Y/N) and Isla only begins to cry harder.
"Mumma?!" Theo stops his complaining and looks up at us with wide eyes.
"Mum's asleep bud." I lie.
"What happened?" Peggy asks as she shuffles to stand up, Sarah stirring only slightly.
"He strangled her." I murmur quietly and watch her eyes go wide. "She has a pulse but she's not breathing."
"Oh god." She sighs and looks around. "We need to get her to the hospital. Where is he now?"
"I don't know." I huff stressed. "He bolted. But he's back to being Bucky now, or was at least."
"This is the last thing they needed right now with this case. I'll call Howard and we can get her into S.H.I.E.L.D, we can't let people know about this," she says.
I nod.
"Luke what happened? Are you okay?" She gasps and kneels down in front him to examine his head.
It's not until now that I notice the blood dripping through his sandy blonde hair and on my hand from where I was holding his head.
Peggy grabs some toilet tissue and gently dabs at the cut. "It's not too bad but I think we will still have to get that looked at."
We start to usher everyone outside. Theo calms down and just lets Peggy hold him along with a still sleeping Sarah, Luke just comes along silently but Isla won't stop crying and clings onto me which makes walking difficult because I now have to try hold a dead weight and a crying child. Her and Luke have both been traumatised in very different ways.
I can just imagine how Luke will be internalising and thinking about everything while she is frightened.
I drive us while Isla sits in the front to keep her away from the sight of her mum and Peggy sits in the back with Sarah and Theo on her lap, Luke beside her where she holds the tissue against his head to stop the bleeding and (Y/N)'s body beside them. When I check in the rear view mirror I can often see Luke checking for his mums pulse again.
Thankfully Isla doesn't ask where their dad is and Luke doesn't press for more details about it because I don't know what I'd tell them, they're just too distracted by other things because so much is going on right now.
I rush, but not too much, there's not much we can do and I don't want to scare the kids further. We get to S.H.I.E.L.D and since it is a twenty four hour operation we manage to get inside quickly because the doors are unlocked. Howard isn't here though - obviously because it's the middle of the night - but there is still security around and thankfully doctors in the hospital wing which is where we head straight away.
Peggy holds the youngest two while I hold (Y/N) and luckily we manage to get Isla and Luke to follow and don't have to hold them.
"Nurse! Doctor? Help please! We need a doctor!" Peggy calls out.
Of course at her beckon call two nurses and one doctor come running out as if on cue. They see both (Y/N) and Luke's states straight away.
"What happened?" The doctor asks.
"Long story but he hit his head and needs to get looked at, I don't think he's concussed but still. And she was um, strangled to the point of unconsciousness. She's not breathing but she has a pulse. I'll explain the rest while we walk," I explain.
The doctor nods and motions for one of the nurses to take a look at Luke. She crouches down in front of him.
"Bring her with us," he says to you.
"Peg do you mind staying with him?" You ask.
"I'll keep the other kids with me for now too." She smiles understandingly.
I give her an apologetic look, feeling like I'm lumping a lot on her tonight, before jogging down the hallway after the doctor and other nurse. He leads me into a room and I lay (Y/N) down on the bed and step back to allow them to do their thing.
"So ah, Sergeant Barnes had a flashback which triggered the Winter Soldier and it seems he strangled (Y/N)... with his metal hand," I tell them as they check all of her vitals and hook her up to some machines because I know I can trust the people within these walls.
We are all here for one reason and no doubt they would've worked with Bucky at some point during his recovery as well.
"How long was he strangling her for?" He asks seemingly unphased.
"I can't be certain but judging on the phone call from their daughter compared to when I tackled him I would say at least five minutes." I shrug.
"Okay." The doctor nods. "Captain Rogers now all I can suggest for you to do is go with Agent Carter and help look after the kids, I'll come get you when there's news."
"Okay, thank you doctor." I nod and leave.
I walk down the hall and check all the rooms until I find the one where Luke sits on the edge of the bed while the doctor examines his head and immediately go over to where Peggy sits in the corner with the kids. I take Isla off of her and she quietly curls up and cuddles into my chest.
"What's happening?" I huff.
"She's just cleaning the wound but it looks like he's going to be all good, it's not deep and there's no signs of a concussion. What happened to him? Please don't tell me it was Bucky?" She whispers.
I nod gravely. "Unfortunately you're right. By the sounds of it Luke tried to stop him and he threw him against the wall."
"Oh god that's terrible." She gasps. "I hope that doesn't make him scared of Bucky."
"He says he understands but I know he's shaken by it. What about these two? Are they okay?" I murmur.
"Shaken too but not hurt. Poor kids, I found them in the bathroom, Isla trembling and hiding with wide eyes and tears streaming down her face. She had gotten Theo from his cot and locked them in the bathroom. Clever actually. But the first thing I got asked was "is daddy going to hurt us too?"" She sighs sadly.
"Oh god." I cringe.
"I think it's really going to affect Isla and it'll be hard to explain to her, she's still young," Peggy agrees.
"Hey Isla?" I try to say to her lightly.
She looks up at me innocently.
"Can you tell me what you saw?" I ask. "Is that okay?"
She nods before continuing. "Daddy was lifting up mummy and holding her neck and squeezing it so that she couldn't breath. Why would he do that? Why would he want to hurt Mummy? I thought they loved each other?" She whimpers getting increasingly upset at the memories.
"They do love each other Isla you have to believe that which is why I'm going to tell you that that wasn't your father who did it. I need you to try and understand that. There is a lot of complicated, awful things going on in his life right now and all I can tell you is that if he knew it was happening he wouldn't have done it. I can't tell you anymore because I think that is up to your parents to explain," I say slowly.
"But he did it! I saw him!" She persists. "Daddy's a bad man he shouldn't have done that to Mummy!" She starts to cry harder again.
"Isla calm down. You don't know the full story," Luke says with teary eyes.
"He shouldn't have done it." I agree. "But he didn't mean to."
How are we going to convince Bucky's own daughter to forgive him when she doesn't know the full story?