I've held you in suspense long enough.
This chapter holds the introduction of Kára Valkyior, a character created by Saint-Brooke-Lynn, who won the faceclaim thing I had forever ago. She's pretty awesome and will be coming up a few more times in this story.
I have one note for you all; it's my understanding that Bucky fell off the train towards the end of 1944, November/December-ish. With the story I have planned, that won't happen until early 1945. I want to keep this somewhat real-ish, so he'll, eh...[I DON'T WANNA SAY IT]...go MIA well before May 1945.
Leave a review if you feel so inclined. ;)
~Christianne
Omniscient POV
"I got 'er! I-I got 'er!" Howard had yelled, getting Steve's attention. The blond tried to pick Anna up; they had a little ways to walk back to their plane, and it would be easier for Steve to carry her than Howard. But Anna wouldn't budge, she was latched onto Howard's arm so tight there was no way Steve was taking her without spraining a wrist.
"I-I got 'er." Howard repeated. He wasn't running anymore, he had gotten out of the bad areas. There was still fighting going on.
Anna was shaking as Howard carried her, and he was getting worried; if she shook anymore, she'd be convulsing, which was making it hard for Howard to hold on to her, and he was having enough time as it was. That blast had thrown him a good distance, and scraped Howard up pretty good. He wasn't sure, but he guessed he had a pretty bad concussion.
He'd told Steve his suspicions at least five times.
Howard didn't have to look up to know who was running towards him. He also didn't need to look to know whose arms grabbed the blonde from him.
Bucky held his Glow tight, mumbling what Howard could only assume were prayers thanking God. Bucky was led by Steve back to the plane. He didn't let her go for a minute; wrapped her up in a blanket and helped Dr. Matt get her onto a stretcher. There were canvas straps that they would buckle over her body once they started flying, so nothing happened to her. They made Bucky uneasy.
Bucky lost track of time quickly as he held her hand as Dr. Matt cleaned the cut on her temple. Howard started the plane, against Dr. Matt's requests. Howard was in a blast, he'd hugged Anna to his chest and took most of it with his back. He was alright, he didn't have much pain, but Dr. Matt worried about a concussion. Steve was outside, shaking Kevin's hand. His Navy boys would be leading the coming events; rounding up the HYDRA personnel left in the castle, cleaning up the bodies (from both sides) and searching the castle for information.
After Howard had the plane in the air, Bucky lost track of time again.
The other Commandoes were half-asleep. It was impossible to actually sleep on the plane. The closest thing they could get to sleep on the plane was passing out; like James. The Brit had managed to get himself shot in the arm at the compound. It wasn't that serious, but it hurt like hell and would put him out of commission on the next few raids.
Bucky was sitting by Anna's head, her hands and arms were under the thick, warm blanket and under the canvas straps. Dr. Matt had wanted to set her up on an IV, but in her current state he thought it best to wait. So, Bucky was by her head, one arm on the edge of the cot, and the other was gently stroking Anna's greasy curls, her graceful cheekbone, the gently curve of her chin, anything within his reach that wasn't going to hurt her.
When she made a sound, Bucky pull his hand back quickly. He sat up, alert, when she thrashed her head to the side, her shaking worse.
"Hey Doc…" Bucky called slowly, watching as Anna strained against the straps. "Doc!" Bucky yelled when vomit came from Anna's mouth after some rough coughs. Dr. Matt yelled for everyone to 'Shut up and move!' as he went quickly to Anna's cot. She was starting to choke on her own puke, and shaking so hard her chest was arching forward.
"Get her on her side!" Dr. Matt barked, trying to keep her head stable as she thrashed.
"I'm trying!" Bucky growled, yanking at the buckles on the stretcher. He let out a frustrated huff and grabbed the six inch trench knife he always had on him. With quick precision, his blade cut through the canvas straps quickly and grabbed Anna's convulsing body, turning her on her side. She coughed out vomit and gasped for air.
"I'm gonna sedate her, try'n keep 'er still." Dr. Matt said, rummaging through the kit that was next to the cot.
Bucky used one hand to tuck the heavy blanket as tight around Anna as he could, keeping her legs down. He moped up Anna's chin and the sweat on her face. Her eyes were open, darting around, unfocused.
"Anna!" Bucky called. "Glow, darlin' look at me!" He kept talking, trying to get Anna to look at him. While Bucky tried to keep Anna still enough for Dr. Matt to get a needle in her arm, Anna started mumbling. It wasn't anything Bucky understood; it was in German.
Dr. Matt grabbed an arm, and held it down as he tried to get the cap off the syringe.
Anna let out a scream, and something in German, and wrenched her arm away from Dr. Matt in a way that made Bucky wince. He held her down, crossed his arms over hers and leaned close to hers.
"It's me Anna. It's Bucky, I got you, ok? I'm not gonna let anything happen to you." He said lowly. Anna's thrashing slowed, and she looked at Bucky. Her face was blank, and her pupils went in and out of focus, they briefly focused on him, then they went back to darting around, but her thrashing slowed.
Dr. Matt used some surgical scissors and cut a gap in the jumpsuit Anna was dressed in, and managed to get the needle in her arm. Anna yelped something in German that Bucky just knew was some dirty swear word, but settled down quickly.
Since he'd cut clean through the straps that were keeping Anna safely on the cot, Bucky sat back where he was, but this time had an arm along the side of her body, ready to catch her if she started to fall.
He'd be there when she needed him this time.
Bucky hadn't moved in over two hours, not that he had much a choice.
They were in a hospital on a base in France. They needed to sort out all the sick men before they could go home. Dr. Matt assured Bucky that the sedative was out of her system, but she still hadn't woken up.
She hadn't woken up. She was just lying in her hospital bed.
Someone had given her hair a wash, so it wasn't as greasy as before. The curls were droopy and sad though.
For a while, Bucky was holding her hand, but it seemed like when he did she got restless, uneasy. It probably hurt; her hands were wrapped up. It'd been hard for Bucky to deny the flicker of pride he felt when he saw her hands all bruised, bloody and split. She'd fought this time. Just like he told her too. The purple and blue bruises around her wrists made him angry; she'd been handcuffed.
Dr. Matt told Bucky he shouldn't be concerned; she'd been through a traumatic experience and suffered a blow to the head. She'd wake up when she was ready.
"Sgt. Barnes."
Bucky looked up when Peggy spoke. "Colonel Phillips ordered me to tell you to get some sleep."
"I've been sleepin'." Bucky muttered. "Almost caught up, I think."
"Dozing off in a chair does not count as sleep, Bucky." Peggy said, exasperated. Bucky looked up at her; she'd rarely called him by his, albeit not real, but preferred, name.
"No." Bucky sighed. "The only way I'm leaving this room before she wakes up is feet first in a body bag."
Bucky jolted awake when he heard the lamp on Anna's side table fell over. His instinct was to grab the gun he usually had at his side, but that went away once he saw Annie.
She had her back pressed to the wall, knees to her chest and her head on her knees. Her shoulders were shaking.
"Annie." Bucky said. It took all he had not to grab her in a tight hug. Annie was in worse shape mentally that he was, and if she'd just ran up to him in his worst hour, he might've…There would have been a chance he would have hit her.
"Annie…Glow." Bucky said softly, and the shaking Annie slowly looked up at him. Her eyes were wide and rimmed with red. She blinked at him; Bucky didn't even breathe.
She just stared at him for a few seconds (its felt like hours to Bucky) with those wide, whisky-brown eyes.
Then she grabbed his collar and, with strength Bucky didn't know she had, Anna pulled him as close to her as she could.
After a moment of surprise, Bucky repositioned himself. He stretched his legs out in front of him on the bed, had his arm around Annie's tiny, shaking form, holding her close to his side with her head resting over his heart. His other hand was resting on the back if her neck, thumb drawing lazy shapes on her neck.
When she didn't stop shivering, Bucky awkwardly managed to squirm out of his blue jacket and wrap it around her. It covered her whole body, seeing as she was curled up in a ball and pressed to his side.
Bucky brushed some of her tangled curls out of her eyes, his fingers trailing lightly over her cheek.
He pressed a lingering kiss to her sweaty forehead and rested his cheek gently on her head, thinking the same thing over and over; Thank God she came back to me.
Bucky didn't sleep long. He was perfectly content just looking at Anna and holding her and dozing off and on.
There was a window into the hallway in Anna's room. It was a few hours after sunrise that Bucky woke up from a brief nap, and saw a fairly large group of people outside the window. Steve, Peggy, Howard and Dr. Matt at the front. It was odd seeing Howard in the state he was in; bruised and cut up. He'd insisted, and ignored Phillips, to worm his way into the HYDRA camp with the Commandos, the Navy guys that Kevin brought with him, and more Army men from three countries.
Howard was trying to mouth something to Bucky through the glass, but after several attempts and a handful of confused looks from Bucky, Howard huffed and grabbed a clipboard from a passing clerk. He uncapped the pen and wrote in big letters on the first page (over a report about the number of pens the SSR used); How is she?
Bucky, I turn, grabbed the nearly empty chart from the foot of Anna's bed, keeping an arm around her. He used his teeth to uncap the pen, and, like Howard, wrote in big letters on the first page; She needs to see a doctor.
Instantly, everyone pointed to Dr. Matt, who nodded quickly and started to open the door, no one saw the hand gestures Bucky was giving, clearly saying 'DON'T COME IN!'
As a last resort, he threw the overturned lampshade at the doctor as he started to open the door. Anna whimpered in her sleep and clung tighter to Bucky. Dr. Mat quickly shut the door and sent Bucky a sort of 'What the Hell?' look through the glass.
Howard held up new words on the clipboard; You said she needs a doctor!
Yeah, he did. But Bucky saw how bad she was. He wrote on his own clipboard; A GIRL DOCTOR! He underlined 'girl' several times and went over the letters several times.
Howard glanced nervously at Peggy before writing again; Are there any here?
Bucky shrugged; Find one!
Howard sighed, straitening his tie. This was the third infirmary he'd gone to. Steve, Peggy and him completely understood why Anna should see a dame doctor, but since they were currently a little low on funds and there was some back-ass-wards policy that prohibited Howard from flying one out here himself, they had to find one.
"Hello." Howard said, giving a charming smile to the young blonde woman behind the desk, who didn't look up from the game of solitaire she was playing on her desk. She shoved a clipboard at him.
"Fill this out and take a seat. If you're guts are hangin' out just go in." She mumbled, her cheek in her hand as she chewed on the corner of a five of hearts.
"Oh, no, I'm not here for medical help." Howard said, tossing the clipboard on the stack she'd taken it from.
"Then leave…I'm busy." She mumbled, putting the card down and picking up another.
"I think someone called here earlier, we're looking for a female doctor." Howard said, the woman dropped the deck of cards she was holding, scattering them over her desk.
"A female doctor." She repeated.
"Yeah, I'm supposed to talk to the boss here, see if they have someone." Howard explained.
"Oh, uh, well, we-we do have someone." The woman said, her gray eyes were wide, but still managed to be sharp. So sharp, she was one glare away from being intimidating.
"Really?" Howard said, relieved. "That-That's great, I need to talk to them."
"Well, uh, you sorta are." The woman said, standing up and holding out her hand. "Kára Valkyior." She introduced herself.
"Nice to meet you, Howard Stark. You're a doctor?" Howard said all in one breath.
"A doctor-doctor? No, no degree. But, I can tell you're stressed and need somebody yesterday and I can guarantee I'm the best you're gonna get." Kára said confidently.
"You're hired!" Howard chuckled. "Do I need to talk to your boss?"
Kára let out a laugh. "You know, I really wouldn't. She's not the…nicest person in the world."
"I got a plane waiting." Howard said, helping Kára put her olive green jacket on; something that didn't go unnoticed by Kára. "You don't have anything against flying, do you?"
"Honestly, Stark," Kára said, with a slight chuckle, as she grabbed a bag from under the desk. "I miss it."
Kára was copilot as Howard flew, and told him exactly why she was so eager to leave that infirmary.
She'd been in charge of a dozen beds, like every nurse there was, but there was one man, who'd lost his right arm, that she had been concerned about. She told his round's nurse, and the ward's doctor that the man was severely depressed, and they told her he was 'just unhappy he'd lost his arm.'
When she was doing a midnight check, she found him trying to kill himself; he'd gotten his hands on a scalpel and started gouging at his leg, trying to find an artery. She'd sedated him, but by then he'd lost so much blood, Kára took matters into her own hands and had him brought to surgery. He'd done so much damage to the surrounding flesh, she made the executive decision to amputate the leg six inches down from the hip.
Halfway through, the ward doctor came in and demanded she stop. Kára refused, and kept trying to save the man's life. When the doctor tried to stop her by physically grabbing her shoulder and trying to yank her away from the man, she grabbed a syringe, stabbed his neck and sedated him. He was still laying on the floor unconscious when she wheeled the man into recovery.
The soldier lived, he was home now (Chicago) and had written her several letters thanking her for not letting him die. He was getting married in five months. But, all the hospital cared about was that she sedated a chief officer and preformed an unauthorized surgery. She was probably going to be discharged in a few weeks anyway.
"So, who's my patient?" Kára asked, loosening the beige tie around her neck, the same shade as her blouse. She'd already left her olive jacket with the rest of her things to be taken to her quarters. Howard, who was walking with her, handed her a file.
"Annabelle Brightman." Kára read, then looked at Howard. "Anna Brightman—The Anna Brightman? The girl who worked with Dr. Erskine and made Captain America?" She asked, shocked.
"Yup." Howard said, beginning to walk again.
"Jee, no pressure there." Kára sighed, catching up with Howard. "So, what happened?"
Howard bristled. The SSR was a close knit group; they did spend a lot of time together in the bunker. When they had a visit from a suit from Washington, it didn't matter who you were, you didn't say a word. You let Col. Phillips, Howard, Steve and Peggy do all the talking. Telling someone else was…odd.
"We're…We're a little hazy on the details." Howard admitted. "She was kidnapped a little over a month and a half ago. We got her out yesterday; found her in the castle she blew sky high.
"What?" Kára asked, shocked.
"There were over 500 of our POWs in there, she needed us there right away. It was a pretty effective message." Howard explained. "She's…Well, she hasn't said a word."
Kára nodded, looking over Anna's medical file. She frowned, and asked "Anna isn't a particularly clumsy person, is she?"
"In general? No. With Barnes in the room?—Well, once she almost blew up the bunker when he winked at her." Howard chuckled. Kára just nodded and kept flipping through the file.
"Right in there." Howard said, stopping at the window.
"I take it that's Barnes." Kára said, seeing the dark haired man holding a small blonde tightly.
"Yeah. Bucky." Howard said. "If you want him out of there, just…just be gentle, ok? This was hard as hell on him."
Kára nodded and opened the door. "Hello Anna." She said pleasantly, a small smile on her face. It wavered and she was briefly just staring at her, mouth slack and lips slightly parted. Her sharp eyes darted quickly around Anna's shaking body. When Kára met Anna's brown eyes, she smacked the small smile back on her face, but it wasn't as sincere as it had been, it was a little more forced.
"I'm Kára." She added, glancing at Bucky.
"You're the doctor?" Bucky asked, getting a nod. "I-I've been talking for hours, nothing snaps her out of it."
"Can I have the room?" She asked somewhat bluntly. She saw Bucky's arms tighten around Anna's body. "I want to help her, alright?" Kára added, a little uncomfortable under Bucky's gaze.
Bucky looked down at his Glow, and gave her a lingering kiss on the forehead. "Take care of her." Bucky said as he got off the bed and walked out of the room. Kára shut the shades over the window and sat in the chair next to her bed. Anna was sitting with her back against the wall, arms wrapped around her knees, hugging them to her chest.
"Can I take your pulse?" Kára asked, holding her hand out to take Anna's wrist. The battered blonde just blinked at her.
Kára was good at what she did; helping people who were physically broken. Head-broken, though, she understood and didn't know how to help. It didn't feel right; she was good at helping people, it was all she did. When she couldn't help people, Kára felt defeated.
"How about you do it for the guy who just left?" Kára asked after a minutes, making Anna's mouth part slightly in a slight gasp. "How about you let me make sure you're…all…ok 'n stuff." There wasn't a response. Kára sighed and started writing on her charts, noting everything the noticed.
Anna looked at her lap, and slowly moved towards the edge of her bed, hanging her legs off the side. It was then that Kára realized how small Anna was; her feet dangled off the bed, not quite touching the ground, and she looked like she weighed 100 pounds soaking wet.
Anna slowly held out a shaking hand to Kára.
"This, uh, this won't hurt." She said carefully, frowning at the deep bruising on her wrists.
Kára gently took Anna's wrist, and bristled when her fingers came in contact with Anna's skin. She froze, and briefly looked up at Anna with wide eyes, but they weren't sharp anymore; they were filled with an emotion Anna didn't like at all; pity.
Anna frowned the smallest amount, and made her wrist twich in Kára's grasp. The doctor snapped out of her daze and put two fingers on the inside of Anna's wrist, looking at the watch on her left hand. She didn't keep count or watch the time.
She scribbled Anna's heartrate down on the clipboard.
Several hours later, Kára was walking with the young nurse who was pushing Anna's hospital bed, on which said blonde was dozing in an out.
"Hey! Hey, what's wrong with her?" Bucky asked, stopping Kára; Howard had told him and Steve all about the new doctor.
Kára let Howard and Peggy look at the charts. "Physically; she's a little dehydrated, has some sever bruising on her wrists and one is sprained, deep bruising on her right shoulder—almost dislocated it, a couple of cracked ribs and a mild concussion."
Steve, who had been looking over Peggy's shoulder looked up in surprise.
"That-That's it?" Bucky was wondering the same thing; after his stay with HYDRA, he was almost 40 pounds under weight, had a torn tendon in his leg, God-knows-what-running through his veins and a list of other stuff wrong with him that might make pre-serum-Steve look like the picture of health. He was ecstatic Annie was in better shape, but it confused him to no end.
"Yeah, I mean, she lost a little weight, but who ever took her made sure she was well fed and kept her from being knocked around so much." Kára explained. "I took a little blood, but I'm not expecting too much from it, she really does seem alright to me." Kára said, gnawing on the inside of her cheek.
Steve, Peggy and Howard breathed a sigh of relief, but Bucky didn't relax at all. He actually seemed to get more anxious. "Why isn't she talkin' then?"
"Do you know what happened to her?" Kára asked, looking between the four. "Well, must'a been traumatic. There's not too much physically wrong with her, you just need to give her some time."
"Ha." A gruff voice said, causing Kára to turn around. "'Just give her some time,'" the man repeated in a mocking, condescending tone. "What kind of medicine are you practicing?" he scolded her.
Kára put a hand on her cocked him and looked the man in the eye. "The kind that's saving her, thank you for asking." She snapped back, looking the older man dead in the eye.
"What are you doing here?" Steve asked coldly.
"Anna's father. Harrison Brightman, the biggest asshole that ever come out of New York." Howard murmured to Kára out of the corner of his mouth. Kára raised an eyebrow, looking at the man in a whole new light.
She liked him even less now.
"I wasn't allowed to be a part of the search, you're not searching anymore, so I'm going to go see my daughter." Harrison said, hand on the doorknob, Kára's hand slammed on top of his, stopping him. He winced from her hand smacking his knuckles to the brass knob.
"Bucky, Steve, you're pretty good shots, right?" She asked, not looking away from Harrison. Anna had the same shade of golden brown eyes, only hers were deep and soulful, his were cold, glassy, and his pupils were slightly blown, only adding Kára's suspicions that he had been drinking.
"Yeah." Bucky said slowly, answering for the both of them.
"Good. If he—" Kára glared at Harrison. "—tries to go into her room, shoot him." She didn't look away from Harrison, who looked away at the two large, armed men who were glaring at him. He stormed off, no doubt to file a complaint against Kára. She could add the citation to her collection.
"C'mon in." She said, walking into the small room. Bucky immediately went to Anna's side. Howard leaned on the door frame, Peggy sat in the chair and Steve stood behind her. "I…I meant her boyfriend, but, sure, all of you can come into this tiny tiny room." She was mumbling towards the end.
Anna pushed herself up into a sitting position and looked around. She smiled a little bit as she met eyes with everyone, then looked towards Kára and held out her hand, reaching for the clipboard.
"Uh, well, I don't think I missed any…" She trailed off as Anna's brows fell. "Sure, take a look."
Anna took the clipboard. "I actually had a few questions for you-" Anna uncapped the pen and started drawing on her charts and Kára's notes. "Oh. Sure. Yeah, yeah you could…draw on it too…"
Bucky tried to see what Anna was drawing, but she sent him an annoyed look and turned away a little.
After a few minutes, she ripped the chart off and held it out to Steve. He looked at her oddly, glanced at Bucky, and then took it. It was a somewhat drawn, but it was clearly a face, clear enough to match it to a picture. "Dieter von Schwesterkrank?" Steve read the name under the drawing with a good amount of hesitation. "Is-Is this who took you?" He asked slowly.
Anna, who had already laid back down in the bed, eyes half shut, nodded slowly, grabbing Bucky's hand.
Anna was on her bed, her knees pulled tight to her chest, arms wrapped around them, as she looked at the file in front of her. Her name was written on the tab in Kára's scribbly handwriting. The young physician's handwriting seemed odd to Anna, it was big, squished into lines. The exaggerated strokes of each letter were sharp and blocky, but there was an enormous amount of loops and swirls in the rounded parts of the letters, making it a confusing mix between cursive and plain writing.
Slowly, Anna opened her file. She skipped over her basic information, height, weight, hair and eye color, and went to Kára's notes.
Patient is dehydrated—fluids ordered
Anna was curled up in a ball, hugging her knees to her chest as she waited for it to happen.
"C'mon, you-you have to eat something." Toby told her, digging around for some bread or a canteen.
"I'm fine." Anna said into her knees.
"Yeh hav'ta 'ave sumthin' in yer stomach if we're gunna-"
"I said I'm fine." Anna said quickly, cutting Ian off.
Severe bruising on wrists
Right sprained (not severe)
Anna, every time she was dragged to Dieter's office, was put in handcuffs. Why they thought it was necessary to restrain a small woman when all the guards had guns was something Anna had given up trying to understand.
Every time the cold metal was snapped round her wrist, she started pulling at them, trying in futility to get out of them.
When one of the guards would see her struggling, they would grab the small length of chain between them and yank. No matter the direction, it would wrench Anna's arms and wrists in an unnatural way.
But that only counted for the bruising. The sprain was from Dieter's crushing grip. Anna was sure he'd broken something.
Right shoulder—severally strained
Formerly dislocated, little skill was used in putting it back in place (i.e. slammed into a wall)
"Damnit, damn this thing-"
Silas's head jerked back and he fell to the ground mid-sentence.
Anna screamed as she saw the round, bloody hole in his forehead.
More German voices came, and they got louder.
"You gotta pull it real tight against your shoulder when you fire it." Bucky told me, putting the rifle to his shoulder. "The recoil's a bitch if you don't know what you're doing."
"It's bolt action, right?" I asked. "You have to pull it back before you fire each shot?"
"Yeah, that's right." Bucky said, a hint of pride in his voice.
"Load." Bucky said under his breath, pulling the bolt back.
"Aim." Bucky briefly looked down the rifle, one eye shut.
"Fire."
Anna grabbed the rifle from Silas's body, and pulled the bolt back, making the brass casing pop out, and jammed it forward to put a new bullet it it's place.
She stood on shaky legs and fired at the first HYDRA soldier Anna saw.
She hit him square in the chest.
The recoil dislocated her shoulder.
She fired again. Anna felt hot tears streaming down her face, as she dropped the rifle; it was empty anyway. Before she ran for it, she dropped the empty rifle and grabbed the pistol from Silas's body.
Bucky told her to protect herself, stay on high alert. Anna kept repeating that to herself as she took the pistol from Silas's belt holster. She knew she should be going, looking for the tank, but she stopped and looked at Si's face.
She took off his helmet, and placed it over his face. He looked like he was sleeping that way.
He was only 19. Someone that young…
Anna gathered up the files under her arms, and walked towards the door with the pistol in her hand.
The recoil from the rifle made her shoulder ache and burn; the recoil really was a bitch.
Firing the pistol made her wrist ache; she was holding it the wrong way.
Four fractured ribs—left side, bottom four
Mild concussion—perform tests once patient regains consciousness
Those were from a blast.
Ian had rigged up the first explosion, it freed the men in the dungeon and blew a hole in the armory, allowing them access to the weapons.
The real blast…Anna did that.
After she had Silas's gun, Anna picked a direction and ran.
She fired the gun three more times before she got to another door.
The Valkyries.
They were already built, ready to be launched. And there was one for every internment camp in the States; over 60 of them.
Along the side of the wall, there was a panel of buttons. Two for each missile; LAUNCH and ARM.
Anna swallowed, throwing the empty gun to the floor. She got a good grip on the files and started hitting buttons. Not LAUNCH, just ARM. Each one had a five minute countdown. When she hit the last button, she ran to the doors.
The first one went off just when I got out the door. It threw her to the ground, and Anna screamed in pain.
Her vision was woozy and blurry as she made her way towards light she prayed was coming from an open door. The next thing she knew, Howard was yelling her name,
After that, everything was black.
It was almost midnight, Bucky had returned to his previous place, stretched out on Anna's hospital bed, both his arms around her, hugging her to his side.
"I heard Phillips talking with Peggy." Bucky said quietly, gently stroking Anna's hair. "He-He want's to send you back to Manhattan. He thinks you're too delicate right now to be in all'a this. But, I know he's wrong. Darlin', I know you've been in worse situations than this." Bucky sat up a little, letting Annie's head rest on the single pillow. He looked down at her, propped up on his elbow. "So…Just say sumthin' for me, Glow."
Anna looked up at Bucky with wide eyes, the light from the moon shone on his eyes, making them seem bluer than blue. She nervously bit down on her bottom lip and moved closer to him.
She'd been here six days now; she hadn't said a word. Hadn't even come close.
She looked down at her bruised, scabbed hands, then back to Bucky, who's expression was nearing desperate.
"I…" She trailed off in a quiet, soft voice, closed her eyes and hugged him tighter. Bucky looked down at his girl anxiously. She parted her lips and took a few deep, shaky breaths.
"Bucky Barnes," she breathed, barely louder than a whisper. Bucky closed his eyes and let out a shaky breath he did know he was holding when she said his name. They shot open when her next words reached his ears.
"I-I love you...so-so much."