A/N: I do not own anything marvel. Also, I have the feels for Bucky =[ and wish their were more protective!team fics out there coddling him.
Thanks for reading, please let me know if you liked it!
Fevered Assets, Ch 1
The lights above the Asset were blindingly bright and It struggled to focus It's eyes.
It's mind was sluggish and seemed to dance in and out of It's train of thought leaving It confused, anxious, and worst of all scared.
The Asset didn't know fear. The idea of it was foreign, absurd even and went against his training in every form. Yet It knew somehow not only what it was, but that It was experiencing it at an incredible level.
As it flooded the Asset's mind and body, It's breaths began to come faster and faster as panic swelled inside of It.
It knew It was laying down on a surface, a slightly hard and cold one, one that hurt in some areas where it was digging in. It tried to turn It's head to the side and wasn't able to. It couldn't even move to look, or see past the blindingly bright overhead light. It did realize It's left arm had been damaged as pain and a heat radiated from the shoulder joint.
It realized with sudden crushing certainty suddenly that It couldn't move. There were bonds of some sort going across It's body holding it down, any attempts It made to move were both futile and extremely painful as lightning seared up and down It's arm, shoulder, back and side.
The Asset's mind reeled in anxiety and pain as the pressure from the bonds suddenly tightened and turned overwhelmingly, seemingly crushingly tight. The Asset began to struggle again, It's gasps coming in and out in short sob-light breaths as it realized It was trapped and severely injured.
It's attempts to free Itself, move, do anything became violent trashing with no regard to the injured shoulder as Fight or flight took over.
The bonds held fast however, the Asset was immobilized and fighting to control the raging sense of terror that filled It as figures began to approach, the light above cut out and in.
Above the Asset as the shadows grew the light cut in and out again sending a shot of fear through It again.
All of a sudden the Asset could make out in the outline glaring past the light enough to see these were men holding tools, dressed in clean white clothes.
One reached towards It with a tool and before there was any time to react a searing pain in his left shoulder exploded like fireworks down his arm, down his ribs and back. The pain felt like fire as it coursed through the Asset's veins and muscles causing It to scream as It struggled vainly to escape the men, their tools, the bonds and the pain of it all. The men in white flinched at sudden out burst and the sound of the scream which was a primal, almost unhuman cry of pain and terrified anguish.
Muffled voices filled It's ears and It's mind reeled unable to recognize the words, or who was saying them. Their tone however was authoritative and caused a spike of fear to jet through the Asset.
It didn't know why, but the idea of a military like presence suddenly fueled the Asset's strength enough to jerk against the bonds on It's right arm hard with enough force to finally break whatever was holding It. With one arm free It struck out hard and blind towards one of the men and then shoved at another before attempting to rip away the other bonds. It's left arm sending agonizing shooting bolts of pain in his shoulder that hurt so bad it stole the Asset's breath and caused It to scream in pain before tampering off into a whimper.
"Hold him down!"
A voice rang out startlingly clear, the first time any noise aside from It's own weak, panicked breathing had registered and been recognized.
"He's too strong, even like this! Watch his other arm!"
There was a moment beside the Asset and It was shifted until suddenly the bonds were back in place with the same strength and resistance they'd had before as a figure began to approach with a tool again.
'NO!' The Asset's mind screamed, 'No, let go! Arm, shoulder…please…' It's strength reserves were spend and the Asset was too weak to even think about moving. It's breath came out in weak sobs as It struggled weakly to remain conscious. :No…the shoulder, please it hurts so bad…please don't hurt it anymore.." It's begged of the figure who loomed above.
The figure stopped short and simply dropped the tool they'd been holding as if it had stung them. It hit the flood with a sharp metallic pang that was deafeningly loud in the suddenly silent room.
"Oh Mega Man…." The shadow said brokenly.
A shadow to his left who held him down by the chest and elbow spoke, sounding equally as broken as the previous.
"Buchanan, It's Banner...You're not with them James and we would never hurt you…we're just trying to help, you're hurt bad James…"
The Asset tried to ignore the shadows and their words and managed to weakly turn It's head away to the right.
"Please, Bucky. Its us. Tell him he's safe Rogers, please...I can't...Not while he think's we're those bastards...Not while he thinks we're hurting him like they did..." A barely controlled voice that shook said.
"Bucks..." The shadow to the Assets right where It was facing spoke to It while placing a cool hand on It's forehead.
The Asset flinched violently, as much as It's state allowed, and tried to turn away again but didn't have the strength and was unable to. The cool hand began to tread through the Asset's short hair before coming to rest, cupping the side of the Asset's head while stroking a thumb over It's temple.
"It's ok. It's Steve. You're James Buchanan Barnes and its 2015. Remember you're an Avenger now, your safe with your family." The voice paused before it continued softly. "Your pretty sick Bucky, your shoulder was hurt and got infected, we're trying to treat it. You're safe, please stop struggling Bucks, let Tony and Bruce help..."
As the room started to fade to black The shadow to the right of the Asset….no….The voice…Stevie?...images skirted in It's mind of small blond kid standing up to 4 kids twice his size, a warm reassuring smiles and Iowa sky blue eyes, high fives after battles and nights of playing pool flooded past.
"Steve..."
"Come back to us man, you gotta let us fix this. Who else am I gonna torment the others with?" the other shadow voiced.
'Tony?' flashes of red and gold mixed with images of a raven haired man who was quick to grin flittered through It's mind.
'Steve...and...Tony was right…and…Bruce..' It…No..he thought weakly.
That's right, it was Bucky….He was Bucky now. Not a tool, or thing...or Asset. HE was BUCKY.
And he was free, not with Hydra, but with is team, his friends. These weren't the Hydra engineers and surgeons, this was his family trying to care for him. They would never hurt him...never torture...
And the pain...his arm, he'd messed up and gotten it infected somehow. Must've gotten real bad if all he remembered were flashes of being in the Kitchen laughing this morning before being on the ground convulsing then nothing but this. His mind struggled to weakly grasp onto the here and now.
He body went lax suddenly as the realization settled in his fever mind and the strength he'd had from the fear left him weak and reeling. He managed to raise his fevered sea green eyes to meet Steve's blues ones trustingly and nodded before losing the battle to unconsciousness.
Tony walked into the Avengers Tower's Infirmary and was met with the sight of Bruce reading charts while Steve stood next to one of the bio beds where James Barnes, or Bucky as he'd asked them to call him half a year lay struggling to breath as his body betrayed him.
He'd been through so much after Steve and Sam had found him starving, confused and almost downright wild a year ago. It'd taken them half a year to help the broken Brooklyn find himself again and become part of their dysfunctional family/team.
Now thanks to a shoulder wound the man had received a a week ago and poorly treated himself, a habit he still had when he believed he'd messed up during the mission, they risked losing him.
The wound was a slash across the flesh of his shoulder blade and lead horizontally into his prosthetic where it cut into where the flesh met metal and dug deep into scar tissue. Although bad, it probably hadn't been too severe when it had originally happened, but the location of the slash was too awkward to clean and an infection set in and started working its way deep into the muscle around and supporting the implant.
Even then he might've been ok, the former assassin's super healing would've taken care of it but the infection had somehow settled so deep into the structure where flesh met metal and spread until his body had begun to reject the implant entirely, super healing included.
Now as Tony stood at the foot of the bed watching his friend on the bed breath shallow pants as he shivered it made Tony's heart clench.
'Dumbass….why didn't you say anything? There's no way you could reach that, let alone properly treat it…and I can't exactly remove that thing, its attached to your damn spinal cord and skeleton.'
As scared as Tony was for his friend's health he couldn't imagine what Steve was going through and promised himself to keep his fears to himself as he approached their blond leader.
As he passed Bruce he squeezed the man's shoulder reassuringly before turning to Steve who's eyes were locked onto Bucky's heart monitor.
Keeping his words light he tried to keep the grave expression off his face and damper the intense concern in his eyes in an attempt to comfort his friend and leader.
"How's he doing Stars? Any change?" Tony asked.
Steve shook his head slowly, "No…If anything he's gotten worse. His fevers so high Tony...Dr. Banner gave him the last dose of fever reducer that we can without causing an over dose an hour ago and yet its still climbed steadily. It just tipped into 106.2*." Steve paused and turned away while he took a sharp breath of air to calm his self.
"Tony If..." Steve said without turning to look at him, "If it won't go down soon we'll have to..." He swallowed unable to finish his train of thought out loud.
Tony understood and finished the sentence internally however and had been contemplating a plan b for awhile. With Bucky's fever so high and already at the maximum dose of fever reducers they could give him, if his fever didn't break soon they have to go old school on it and douse him in ice.
That of course would be a bad reminder to the man, and certainly set him off again. Something like that could push him over the edge and into another flashback.
Tony would do anything to prevent that if possible. But if it meant saving James' life, then he would just have to spare Steve atleast and be the one to do it.