Chapter 8 :

They walked out of the lift and for a moment it was all Luna could do to stare at the size and niceness of Bucky's apartment. She had spent the last 6 years of her life moved from damp stone cell to damp, cold stone cell, so for Luna to see Bucky, the only other person she had ever know that was like her, living somewhere that looked like this. It sparked a small fire of determination in Luna's gut. She was going to get better. She was going to get her life back, but sure enough that fire was dampened with the grim remembrance of what had just happened. And suddenly Luna wanted to retreat back into herself. Bucky should be pissed. He had saved her, looked after her, helped her. Ands how had she repaid him ? By attacking his friend. By loosing her cool and trying to hurt one of the people who had saved her. By letting the Black Moon back in. She shrunk into herself, stopping still while Bucky carried on moving forwards, seemingly unaware of the thoughts running through Luna's mind. No he was too preoccupied with his own thoughts. He would never admit it to anyone, but the second Luna had disappeared and the Black Moon taking her place, he was terrified, and he froze. He couldn't have fought Luna, regardless of if she was in control or not. He couldn't hurt her, that would've made him no better than the Hydra monsters that had taken her in the first place.

"Why aren't you yelling at me?" A meek voice broke through Bucky's stream of consciousness. His stomach dropped as he turned around to face Luna who more resembled a frightened deer than the fearsome warrior she had turned into mere seconds ago. Bucky quickly made to move across the room, intending to sweep Luna into a reassuring hug, but upon seeing Luna visibly flinch as Bucky made his way over to her, which made his blood boil and his stomach twist in rage, he realised she though he was going to hurt her. God, they had broken her. Bucky made a different call, instead choosing to move towards the sofa, motioning for Luna to join him. Bucky focused on making himself look unthreatening, relaxing his arms and shoulders. Practically trembling, Luna slowly made her way over to the other side of the couch, stiffening when Bucky slowly moved closer to her. "Please, just make it quick" she whispered out.

Within a second Bucky had her wrapped in his arms in a soft hug as he whispered out "I'm not mad Luna. Im not gonna hurt you. What just happened was Hydra's fault and Hydra's fault alone. It wasn't you. Nat's fine. You're fine. Everything okay. Now we know for what kind of triggers we need to look out for, and thats kinda a good thing"

""Could you let Natasha know I'm sorry, I didn't realise that she would be here. It just caught me off guard and in my panic she took over, I let her take over." Asked Luna, a small look of shame in her eyes.

"Im sure she already know kid, but I'll make sure F.R.I.D.A.Y passes the message on."

They stayed like that for a while, neither one moving, simply happy to be in the others embrace. After a while Luna broke away from Bucky letting out a humourless chuckle as spoke "Jesus, they really did a number on me without you there Buck, didn't they?" Looking up into Bucky's eyes. With a sad smile Bucky replied "Yeh, doll I think they did, but you're with us now and we're gonna look out for ya."

The remainder of their morning was spent relatively quietly. Bucky had entertained Luna for a while with some new stories he remembered about him and Steve from the 40's. It had always been a way that the two of them could hold on to who they were when they were still trapped by Hydra, and whilst Luna didn't have many new memories to share, Bucky had tonnes. Eventually that conversation came to a close however, as Bucky attempted to ask Luna about her time with Hydra. Quickly it felt as though all the air had been sucked out of the room but instead of hiding within herself Luna simply drew in a deep breath and chose to say "I won't talk about it more than once, get everyone together later and I will tell you all at once." Bucky drew her in for another quick hug, one that this time Luna didn't fear, and told her she could go use his bathroom to get cleaned up.

For the first time in years, Luna could have a long, hot shower, and she wasn't going to waste that opportunity. Once she walked into the hot steamy room Luna took note of her body. It was covered in scars and she knew that most of them had begun to fade. But luna wasn't stupid, she was well aware of the marks on her back that would be there forever. She refused to look at them, knowing it would either infuriate her enough to accidentally release the Black Moon, or that it would send her spiralling. So instead she looked at the already healing bruises on her body, noting a dark montage of bruises spreading out farther than the wrapping on her broken ribs was covering, although they too were already tinged with yellow. She was healing. She unwrapped her ribs and stood under the waterfall of heaven that was falling from the ceiling and she relaxed.

While Luna took a shower Bucky went to ask Natasha if she had any clothes that might fit Luna, mentioning again how bad Luna felt about the 'incident' from earlier that day, and he was quickly reassured by Nat that "Its fine, I like the kid, now go tell her to stop worrying" whilst simultaneously throwing some more clothes towards Bucky for Luna to wear. He passed through the common floor just as most of the avengers were arriving to grab some lunch from Sam, who had made fajitas. "Hey guys!" Bucky called out, yelling over the cacophony of noise coming from the avengers.

"Buck hey, we didn't think we'd be seeing you for the rest of the day" said Steve in the now silent room.

"Im just dropping in. Tonight though, Luna wants to talk to everyone, so make sure you're all in." Said Bucky simply, grabbing two plates of food for himself and Luna, both piled high to account for their respective metabolisms. Sure enough Bruce was quickly walking towards Bucky, pulling out a vial of pills from his pocket, saying "We heard about what happened earlier with Luna," Bucky stiffened, ready to defend Luna's actions to the team as he turned to look at them all, prepared to remind them of just how rough his own first months away from Hydra were. But instead of angry, accusatory expressions, he was met with looks of understanding and reassurance, no one was pissed. "I made these in the lab with Tony, they're stronger painkillers than yours and Steve's, they're for Luna." With a grateful smile Bucky thanked Bruce, but quickly retreated from the group, wanting to go back and check on Luna. F.R.I.D.A.Y quickly got him back to his own floor, clothes from Nat, food from Sam and meds from Bruce all in tow. Placing the meds and food on the counter in the kitchen Bucky turned towards his bathroom, knocking gently on the door after hearing that the shower was off. "Clothes are outside kid." And sure enough a small hand reached through a slit in the now partially open door to grab them from Bucky and he chuckled to himself and moved back to the kitchen to eat his lunch.

Luna started at the knock on the bathroom door she was stood in front of the (way too large in her opinion) mirror in Bucky's bathroom. For the first time in years Luna had the chance to get a good look at herself and to be honest she was a little shocked. She looked older than she remembered, her jawline and cheek bones more pronounced than she remembered them ever being, she could see her collar-bones clearly and knew it was likely she was quite underweight, she was a 17 year old with a super-soldiers metabolism after all, and hydra hadn't exactly been over concerned with her nutrition. Her body took on an hourglass figure, and her legs were tones and long. But Luna knew better than to turn around. The scars were there, she could still hear Bucky's screams as they had done it to her. Remember the pain she felt. The gut-wrenching sick feeling that had settled in her stomach as on her back was cared the Hydra symbol with a moon, claiming her as theirs. No, she thought. You're safe now, and Bucky doesn't know about the new ones. He cant know. It'd kill him. It was why when he knocked on the door she jumped, span herself around at the speed of light. He didn't need to know, no one needed to know. So, quickly to avoid any questions Luna walked to the door to the bathroom, slipping her arm out and grabbing the clothes Bucky had picked up for her. In her head she thanked the gods for the fact that her and Natasha's figures weren't too dissimilar. She quickly slipped on a pair of blue denim jeans and the black v-neck t-shit Bucky had handed her and stepped out back into Bucky's apartment as he was sitting down to eat some food.

"Ooo fajitas is it ? Remind me again what happened in Mexico the last time we were there together ?" Smirked Luna as she stepped towards the kitchen, unable to keep in a snigger as the fond memory resurfaced.

"Ha ha very funny kid, need I remind you about France in 2018?" Bucky retorted

"Nope definitely not," replied Luna as she hopped onto the stool next to Bucky's and began eating, humming happily as the delicious food entered her mouth.

"hmm, I'll tell Sam you like his cooking then?" joked Bucky as Luna practically inhaled her food.

The rest of the day passed quickly, Bucky putting on some Tv show in the background as the two caught up and soon enough it was time to head downstairs and meet the team properly, and definitely not attack them this time, definitely not, though Luna as she stepped into the lift, drawing in a deep breath as it slowly started moving down.

-AN-

Hello everyone. I didn't post yesterday as i got some quite upsetting news and my posting over the next week may be a bit more random than normal as a result, apologies. Hope you're all good :) sorry this chapter is a little dull - lots of exciting things coming up in the next couple chapters though !

love as always

ERS xx