Chapter 30 :

It had been a total of 38 hours since Bucky and Luna had been taken away by Icarus and the team hadn't stopped working to find them since. Everyone had been affected in different ways. Natasha had fallen into a terrifying version of there Black Widow, entirely focused on doing whatever she could to find her friends and bring them back from Hydra's control, not stopping for anything or anyone. Clint had become insistent that he would cheer everyone up, although considering no one was really talking to each other, slowly his determination to make the team smile switched from being funny to doing everything he could to find Luna and Bucky. Wanda and Vision had practically retreated to their floor from the second they got back, only entering the common floors of the tower for the daily update meetings, otherwise working from their apartment isolated from the rest of the team. The groups emotions were too much for Wanda, she couldn't block them out. Sam seemed to be spending all his time with Steve, which essentially meant they were working themselves into the ground in training, as Steve worked for 20 hours a day, making sure he would be better, would be enough to help save Bucky and Luna. When Sam wasn't with Steve he spent his time cooking, or being a listening ear for any of the other avengers who were still talking to other people. Bruce and Tony had hunkered down in the lab together the second Tony was allowed out of the Med-bay and immediately the two had begun work on tracking down any possible places that Hydra could be keeping Bucky and Luna, whilst simultaneously having F.R.I.D.A.Y working and synthesising countless upgraded weapons for the team to use. The chip in Bucky's arm wasn't registering and Tony had practically devoted himself to figuring out how to boost the signal from the chip without having it in front of him to work on.

At some point Peter had been taken back to his room. In fact that moment might have been the only time Tony wasn't working away in the lab. He'd carefully woken Peter about an hour after he'd passed out in Tony's hospital bed. Thanks to Helen's cellular regeneration chamber Tony was pretty much as good as new, but Rhodey was still laid up in a med-bay bed, with his broken spine creating complications with the developing technology. The second Tony could, he pulled the exhausted boy into his arms and, cradling him close to his chest, brought the boy in the elevator up to his own room. Tony had placed the kid softly down onto his bed, pulling the duvet up over him, before bending over to place a gentle kiss on the teens forehead, before heading out of the room and determinedly towards the direction of his lab. But Peter hadn't stayed asleep for long.

It started out as him just shifting in his sleep. Something that looked to innocent, something that should have made him more comfortable. But his mind. His mind was torturing him. He didn't know when it started, but all he could hear around him were Bucky's screams and all he could see, playing on a loop over and over again in his unconscious brain, like a never ending reel that he couldn't break out of, was Luna shooting him off the tower. He'd heard Bucky's screams before. Of course he had. It'd be insane with all that the super soldier had been through to not expect him to have nightmares. But then Peter had watched the footage. From when they'd first found Luna. Her screams.

He hadn't meant to. Or he had. But not in a bad way. Mr Stark had just introduced her to the team and suddenly she was living with them and it just didn't feel right. And he had only wanted to make sure the team was safe. That was all. But now, now the echos of her screams were haunting his nightmares alongside Bucky's and that image, that image of her being taken away by Icarus and the thought of what those bastards at Hydra could have been doing to them. Peter tossed and turned, as a cool sweat appeared on his forehead and a terrified whisper of Luna's name tumbled out of his mouth.

He'd woken up pretty soon after that. Eyes, bleary and red rimmed, Peter slowly made his way into the elevator. "Take me to her room" croaked out Peter, voice broken and hoarse as an after effect of his nightmare. F.R.I.D.A.Y didn't even respond, instead simply choosing to do as asked. Peter didn't know if she'd alert any of the team, to be honest he didn't really care; it wasn't as if anyone was going to come and speak to him. That wasn't what he needed and they knew it. He needed them to find Luna and Bucky, and he needed them to do it quickly. Peter felt pretty assured in the fact that until they had any new leads, any real new leads that wouldn't get Peters hopes up just to crush them, he would be safe from any interruptions. And so, the doors to the lift opened, and Peter's feet started moving in the direction of Luna's apartment. The door opened before he had even reached it and immediately Peter found himself in Luna's room, staring, frozen at the sight of a hoodie lying on her bed. The sight of his hoodie lying on Luna's bed. Inside of him, Peter felt as though someone had punched into his rib cage and was slowly crushing his heart inside of him. He fell to his knees beside Luna's bed as he began to cry into his hoodie, that still smelt lightly of her, of oranges and chocolate, his heart breaking, somewhere deep inside of him. He needed to get her back.

Slowly, awareness came back to Luna. At some point after her and Bucky's ordeals they must have fallen asleep. But it was cold now. Unnaturally cold. Luna almost immediately decided that Hydra was doing this. It wasn't unusual for them to try something like this. Adding to the list of reasons to make their captives brake by giving them no way to catch a break from their cruelty. There was a camera too, with a little red light constantly blinking, meaning that whatever happened they were being watched. Probably recorded to. Luna shifted her head slightly, realising that at some point she was going to have to try and move to figure out just how her back was healing. Slowly, and with considerable amounts of stilted breathing and grimaces Luna rolled herself onto her side, in the direction of where Bucky was evidently still asleep. Something inside Luna's stomach dropped at the sight of him, face scrunched up, looking stressed, uncomfortable and cold. With a groan of pain and a few preparatory breaths Luna shifted her weight, in an attempt to sit up. Clearly though, she wasn't as strong as she wanted to be, because she only made it half way to sitting up before her back screamed out in pain to her, and Luna let out a cry of agony as she crashed back onto the thin mattress in her cell. It was bad enough that she had hurt her back sitting up, but adding onto that the fact that she fell straight onto the highest of the three injuries on her back had her spluttering out a litany of swearwords in-between the gasping breaths she was pulling into her lungs as she tried to combat the pain now surging up and down her back.

"Kid. Kid hey look at me!" A voice broke into the cloud of pain that was surrounding Luna's mind and she forced her watery eyes open to see the concerned face of the man who had brought her so much comfort over the years. Bucky kept his hand on her cheek, his eyes on her as he breathed with her, helping her through the pain. "Sorry." Luna breathed out eventually. "I would've been more surprised if you hadn't tried something as stupid as that kid." Replied Bucky as he sat on the bed next to where Luna was now lying on her back. "Looks like they're pulling out all the stops to get us to break huh?" Luna let out a humourless laugh, nodding her head. "Yeh, looks like it." Suddenly Luna felt Bucky gently pulling her into a hug. She was shocked for a moment, before she heard him whisper into her ear, "You need to be careful. The sooner you can move the sooner they'll start working on you too." Bucky didn't give her the chance to protest that he would get hurt regardless and wasn't it better to split their attentions, he had already ,moved back across the room to lay on his equally dilapidated mattress. As silence fell over them for a while. At one point Bucky got up, moved to the farthest corner of the cell, which really was only about 10 feet from Luna, and started doing some push ups. Luna decided not to comment, figuring it was just one way Bucky was trying to keep himself sane as they just sat there, waiting for whatever horrors would come at the hands of Hydra. After a while Luna started to shiver. The room was getting colder and colder, and unlike Bucky, she couldn't start moving around to warm herself up. She shifted slightly, to pull herself into more of a sitting up position, resting heavily against the wall bordering her bed, much to Bucky's disdain, who whilst holding a plank stared at her with the tired eyes of someone dreading what he knew was to come.

They heard the click at the same time. The sound of a door opening down the end of the corridor and the heavy boots that followed them. Without giving him time to speak Luna practically pleaded "let them do what they want Bucky. I'll be okay. You don't need to get hurt over this." As soon as the last word has left Luna's lips the doors to their cell popped open and Luna made direct eye contact with Bucky, sending him what she hoped would be her most discerning look.

"Hello Assets. I hope you slept well," started the same woman they had seen the day prior, "Now, my men are going to check the Black Moon's injuries, do try not to cause a scene," she drolled out, staring condescendingly at Bucky as pure hatred settled on his face, but he stayed still, allowing Luna a second of relief before the men in black Hydra uniforms marched over to her bed and sharply pulled her onto her right side, meaning she could no longer see Bucky. She bit her lip tightly, refusing to give the men in front of her the satisfaction of any sounds of pain. Luna shut her eyes, trying to avoid any parts of her body tensing, purposefully trying to trigger a dissociative episode as she tried to blank out the searing pain stabbing through her back and the sounds of the doctor above her speaking aloud. Eventually, she drifted away from awareness as sound registered in her brain like a wave washing over the sand on a beach. With her eyes shut and mind zoned out to everything going on around her, Luna sat, unaware in her emotionless state, of the time passing, or of the doctor announcing an infection in her upper most wound. The one where her spine joins her neck. The one that perviously, allowed her to hide her scars from Bucky under layers of bandaging and a top. The one that now, along with all of Luna's scars, were on display for Bucky, and everyone else in the room to see. And Luna had no idea.

Inside of James Buchanan Barnes burned a fierce rage, that was currently burning a hot white. A group of men were surrounding Luna, blocking his view of her, and any chance he had of communicating with her, helping her, through what was about to happen. She was dragged over onto her side, like a child would a rag doll, and Bucky swore at that exact moment that something animal in him lurched forward, ready to attack whoever had just moved the kid, so clearly defenceless and easily moveable child in such a harsh way. The only thing that kept him stoically still in his seat was Luna's own pleading to him to do so. Then, they started pulling the bandages off of his baby sister's back and he swore he let out a low growl, questioning how they could even dare to hurt her. At once, all his rage and hatred for Hydra increased tenfold as they drew off the top bandage, and from where he was sat, he could see the angry red skin, pouring off heat and the grim crust that sat on top of the wound.

"Remove her top." Instructed the female doctor, and immediately one of the soldiers holding Luna let go of her, and with something to reminiscent of a smirk on his face he pulled a knife out of his boot and ripped the thin material of her top off. "Watch it." Bucky ground out from his position across the tiny room on his own mattress. "Would you rather the infection get worse and she die?" Bucky frowned furiously at her as he did his best to keep his breathing even. "With all the scar tissue on this part of her body, it'd be best not to operate, get Dr Michaels to put some antibiotics on an IV line and get it brought in here." Bucky's heart stopped. He literally felt it stop at the same time as his stomach dropped into his chest. What did this woman mean, scar tissue? In all the time he and his младшая сестра had worked together she had never once been injured across the back of her shoulders. And how many injuries could she pick up over the years in the same place. He dreaded to know. At some point he must have zoned out into a mind-field of worry, because the next thing her registered was the sound of Luna's body practically being dropped onto the mattress, now clad in only a bra and leggings. He snapped onto his feet, practically charging over to Luna when he saw them.

Them. The lines on her back. The uniform rows of scars. Scars, that were too uniform, too perfect, too straight and deep and similar to be anything other than human-inflicted. Rage boiled violently within him, filling him from his feet to his head with furious hatred and without even thinking he threw his fist into the nearest wall, creating a huge dent in it, over and over and over again. He didn't know how long he was throwing his fists about. He needed the pain. Needed the feeling. Needed the punishment. She was his little sister. And he had failed her. He had left her all alone. And look what they had done to her. What those monsters had put her through. How fucking dare they. And he hadn't been there to protect her, to look after her. He punched and punched and punched. At some point the Hydra soldiers must have left the room. He didn't notice. Tears began slipping out of his eyes. Angry tears. Furious tears. Heartbroken tears.

He would kill whoever did this to his little sister.

After a while, Bucky wore himself out. He slid down the wall he had only moments ago been trying to destroy and fell into an unceremonious heap on the floor. He sat there for a while. Trying to clear his own mind. Trying to make it shut up. But why hadn't luna told him. Did she not trust him ? Did she not feel safe around him? God, did she blame him? Bucky didn't think he could cope with any of those realities. Couldn't cope with the idea he had let down his baby sister so very badly. It was only when his ears stopped ringing from all the blood pulsing through them that he heard Luna's slow breathing. Her scarily slow breathing. Almost immediately, Bucky fell back into himself, going straight to her side to make sure she was okay and clocking her vacant expression straight away. Jesus. He'd been so fucking preoccupied with himself he hadn't even noticed how deeply Luna had dissociated into herself. "Hey kid," he spoke, softly, wincing at the hoarseness in his own voice. He gingerly picked up one of Luna's hands and placed it onto his own metal one, guiding her fingers across the groves in the metal as he always did. He spoke softly to her for a while, whilst in his chest rose panic. She had never before been so out of it. And it was scaring him. But, Bucky reminded himself, loosing your shit again isn't going to help her. And so, Bucky moved on to his last resort. Whilst at the same time running lunar hands over his arm, slowly applying some light pressure, he began retelling some of his old stories with Steve. Ones from before the war, that he rarely told, but ones that Luna loved to hear the most. To Bucky's utter relief Luna eventually seemed to come back to herself, as she squeezed his metal arm and opened her eyes, making direct contact with Bucky, her mind obviously still spaced out for a moment, before everything came rushing into action and Luna jolted upwards, letting out a cry of pain as she did so. Bucky quickly helped her to lay back down as his heart beat at a million miles an hour.

"What the hell happened to your hand buck? And why does my back feel like it's burning."

"You were gone for quite a while there kid, you scared me"

"And you're avoiding answering my question. What happened to your hand?" Asked Luna, blocking out any immediate pain from her back to make sure nothing bad had happened to Bucky while she was out of it.

"I saw Luna."

"Saw what Buck?"

"I saw your scars."

Luna's face dropped with immediacy to an expression that was somewhere between terrified and ashamed as she let out a gentle "oh". Her eyes had fallen to her now exposed stomach as she shivered slightly, avoiding looking at Bucky. Because she knew what she was going to see was rage, and anger and betrayal and disgust and she couldn't cope with that. Not from Bucky.

But above her she heard quiet shuffling and the next thing she knew, a warm, oversized top was being gently pulled over her head and down, swamping her smaller body. Luna couldn't look her her hands forever, and as she could feel her heart breaking, she looked up to meet Bucky's eyes. She had expected rage, but instead she was met with a heartbroken sorrow, as Bucky, with eyes filled with tears grabbed one of Luna's hands and said, "I am so sorry I didn't protect you."

-AN-

hi lovelies, i am so sincerely sorry its been so long since i last uploaded, i have been seriously struggling with my mental health and its been affecting my ability to write. i hope you enjoyed this chapter, and hopefully I'll be back with another one next week.

love as always

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