Screw it, we're doing a bonus chapter. I had more time than I anticipated this morning and y'all deserve a shortened wait for that awful cliffhanger.

Bucky XVI: The Call

"Come on, Barnes!" Josiah urged. "You scared?"

"As a matter of fact, I am." Bucky hesitated just long enough to draw the attention of all his teammates, each poised to call him out for his cowardice. Then, with a sly smirk, he added, "For you." The room erupted into shouts and whistles, encouraging the challenge to continue.

Josiah nodded acceptingly. "Let's see if that fear's founded then, shall we?"

"All right." Bucky agreed and sat down across the table from his opponent. Their teammates packed themselves in around them to get a closer look at the action, jostling for the best spots. "If I win, do I get your leg?" he questioned.

"I don't need it to play tomorrow, so why not?"

Pinky cleared his throat and proclaimed himself referee. "I'm assuming this will be a right-handed match?" he stated.

"You assume correctly," Bucky retorted.

"Alrighty then." As the two men placed their right elbows on the table and locked hands, Pinky adjusted their positioning to ensure a fair match. He kept his hand wrapped around theirs and counted down, "Three, two, one, go!"

Josiah put up a fight. Bucky would never admit to this, but he toyed with him just a little bit, testing the strength that was there. Playing soccer on crutches did wonders for a person's upper body strength, but so did having only one arm to perform the duties of two. Bucky could do pull-ups just like anyone else on the team, and all that strength was contained in only a single set of muscles. The room echoed with the chants and jeers of the team, some encouraging Bucky to end it and others pushing for Josiah to take him down. Just as he was about to throw the rest of his strength into the match and win it, his phone started vibrating in his back pocket, blaring a ringtone he instantly recognized.

"Interference!" someone called.

It didn't matter. Bucky ended it quickly now that he had another task to attend to, smashing Josiah's fist into the table with so much force it shook the cups resting on it. He didn't waste any time relishing in his victory, because that ringtone belonged exclusively to one person. And Sarah Rogers only ever called him for one reason.

"I'm sorry, I have to take this," he said, brushing past his teammates offering him congratulations. He stepped outside and brought the phone to his ear, dread filling him up high enough to seep out his ears.

"How bad is it?" Bucky questioned immediately. The last time she'd called him…Bucky still shuddered when he recalled the events that had ensued.

"It's not," she said, which threw him for a loop. If there was no bad news, that could mean only one thing.

"Are you serious?"

"We got the call six hours ago. We thought it would be another dry run, but it's not. They just took him back, and he asked me to call you."

"Oh God, this timing sucks," Bucky sighed.

"Joseph and I will keep you updated," she promised.

"Keep me updated? No way, I'm coming to you."

"Bucky, you don't have to do that. Tomorrow is a huge day for you, and I know how important this team is to you—and how important you are for the team. Steve knows that too."

"I know he does, but he's got another thing coming if he thinks playground games are more important to me than he is."

"Nothing I say is going to stop you, is it?"

"No ma'am," Bucky proclaimed. "I'll be on the first flight back."

"Okay," she said resignedly. "See you soon."

Bucky hung up and marched back inside. "Was that your boyfriend calling?" Pinky asked teasingly.

"No. It was Steve's mom." They all knew who Steve was, and Bucky hoped they would understand the gravity of this moment and not hold it against him for abandoning them. "They have lungs for him. He's in surgery right now. I have to go."

"But it's the World Cup," John reminded him, as if Bucky didn't know that.

"I know, and I'm sorry, but I can't miss this."

"No, you can't," Josiah agreed. "There will be other World Cups. And next year's a Paralympic year, so we can really show them then, okay?"

"You bet." Bucky turned to Lemar Hoskins, their backup goalie. "This is your time to shine. Don't let this team down."

"I won't," he promised.

With that, Bucky raced back to the hotel, crammed his things into his suitcase so fast he probably forgot most of them, and took the first cab back to the airport. By a stroke of luck there was an available flight departing in a mere hour. Quickly running the numbers in his head, Bucky determined that—barring any crazy delays on his end or superhuman speed on Gravesen's—he should make it back before Steve woke up. If he woke up. With an operation this delicate, there was always a chance that wouldn't happen, and Bucky almost reached for something to throw up in at the mere thought. Steve could stroke out, or reject the lungs, or get another systemic infection, or a whole host of things that could mean the end of his life. The entire duration of the flight, Bucky repeated one singular statement over and over again in his head, hoping that thinking it enough times would make it a reality. Please let this go well so I can see him again.

~0~

The plane landed at five o'clock in the morning, and Bucky was in such a rush to get to Gravesen that he nearly forgot his luggage. On the cab ride to the hospital, he called Mrs. Rogers back. "Hey, how are things going?" he asked.

"Someone stepped out about two hours ago to tell us they finished the first lung and things were looking good, but we haven't heard anything since," she explained. "Where are you?"

"I'm about twenty minutes from you." The good thing about driving at five in the morning was traffic wasn't nearly as bad.

"Okay. We're in one of the family rooms on the surgical floor. If they give you any trouble at the desk, just give me a call."

"Will do. Thank you." Bucky hung up and once again thanked whatever fates had brought Sarah Rogers into his life. She was a force to be reckoned with. Bucky looked at the time once again and ran a few quick calculations in his head before using the last fifteen minutes of his cab ride to call Natasha, Thor, and Wanda and let them know what was going on, reminding himself to call the rest of their friends at a more reasonable hour of the morning. Both of them wished him good luck and asked for updates as frequently as possible, which Bucky promised to provide.

He paid the fare, thanked the cab driver, and walked into Gravesen with his suitcase behind him. When he asked after Steve Rogers, the person at the front desk didn't try to bar his entry because he wasn't family, just directed him to where the Rogers were already waiting. Bucky couldn't help but be a little disappointed—he'd wanted to see what Sarah could do. She and Mr. Rogers were sitting side by side in two of the four occupied chairs in the small waiting room. The other two sat a young woman and an older man, both reading magazines with glassy eyes that clearly weren't internalizing anything. As soon as Mrs. Rogers saw Bucky she stood up and walked up to him for a hug.

"I'm glad you're here," she said quietly.

"Me too," he replied. "Any word since we last spoke?"

"No. They told us when they started it could be anywhere from six to twelve hours. We're at about hour eight right now."

"Okay." He took a seat across from the Rogers so they could hold a conversation.

"You really dropped everything on the eve of the World Cup just to be here?" Mr. Rogers asked, looking at Bucky like he wasn't sure if he was a hologram or not.

"Yeah. Of course I did. The US team has a backup goalie, but last I checked Steve only had one best friend."

"Well, I can't argue with that," Mr. Rogers conceded. "He's lucky to have you. We all are."

"Right back at you."

They lapsed into silence for a long time. Bucky was both too tired and too high-strung to consider reading one of the magazines strewn about, so he just stared off into space and tried to let his mind go blank. Without his conscious control, his hand drifted up to his ribcage where the purple and gold ribbon tattoo sat. Yet another permanent mark would adorn Steve's chest after this ordeal, one much bigger than any of the others. Bucky wondered if he'd react to seeing this scar in the same way Steve had reacted to seeing his bare stump for the first time.

He also thought about the donor of these lungs, how someone's death was awarding his best friend a new chance at life. It was a beautiful and horrific thing all at the same time. Bucky hoped the donor's family members were helping each other through this trying time, that they'd be okay after such a loss.

"If all goes well, we'll be bringing him home without oxygen," Mrs. Rogers remarked wistfully. Bucky didn't remember the last time he'd seen Steve's face without the clear tubing snaked across it. How long would it take to get used to him without it? As another hour dragged by without an update, Bucky remembered that statement had begun with 'If all goes well.' Well, what if all goes south? He started to bounce his knee in anticipation, his nervousness manifesting in the form of phantom pain more severe than he'd experienced in years.

"You doing alright?" Mr. Rogers asked when Bucky winced for the third time in five minutes.

"Just worried. It's been almost ten hours."

"I know," Mrs. Rogers sighed.

"Hopefully we'll hear something soon," Mr. Rogers said. The instant he said that, the doors opened and someone walked in. Bucky's heart lurched into his throat, but they walked over to the young woman in the waiting room instead. It was too good to be true, thinking that an update would come so soon after Mr. Rogers wished for one. Another thirty five minutes elapsed before another doctor emerged and headed straight for them. Bucky hadn't been here when this all started, so he didn't recognize her, but the Rogers evidently did. They clasped their hands together more tightly and straightened up to await the news.

"He's all done," she announced. "The new lungs are just beautiful. His blood pressure dipped below what we like to see a few times, but other than that it was smooth sailing. We're keeping a close eye on it and everything looks great right now."

"Can we see him?" Mrs. Rogers asked.

"Last I checked they're still getting him settled in the ICU, but you should be able to come back in the next twenty minutes or so."

"Okay. Thank you so much."

"Thank you," Mr. Rogers echoed. The collective exhale of relief was so loud Bucky feared they'd wake up the old man who'd fallen asleep in his waiting room chair. Fortunately, he slumbered on. Bucky knew he wouldn't be able to handle sitting still for another twenty minutes, so he checked the time once again and stepped out, asking the Rogers to come and fetch him when someone arrived to bring them to see Steve. It was almost eight in the morning, late enough to call their friends and let them know what had transpired overnight.

"Shouldn't you be warming up or doing some cult-like pregame ritual with your teammates?" Tony asked in lieu of a hello.

"I would be, but something else came up."

"What do you mean something else came up? Is everything okay?"

"Yeah, yeah," Bucky assured him. He should have led with the fact that this call was to share good news so that Tony wouldn't worry. "Everything is great, actually. Steve's mom called me late last night to tell me that they found donor lungs. I'm at Gravesen right now waiting for them to bring us to see him."

"Steve got new lungs?"

"Yeah."

"That's amazing!" Tony exclaimed. "How is he?"

"They said overall it went really well. They're settling him in ICU as we speak."

"Who else knows?"

"As of now it's just his parents, me, Nat, Thor, and Wanda. I called them a few hours ago since it's not so early where they are. I didn't want to wake anyone up until I had more concrete news."

"You wouldn't have woken me up," Tony mumbled.

"You were up at five in the morning? Why?" Bucky asked.

"Working," he said nonchalantly.

"I don't even want to know what kind of work had you up at that hour."

"No, you don't."

Bucky glanced up as Mrs. Rogers poked her head out to let him know it was time. "I gotta go, they're bringing us to him now. Would you mind letting Parker, Nick, and Bruce know the news?"

"Yeah, I've got it. Tell Steve I send my best."

"I will. Thanks. And get some sleep, Tony."

"Never," he replied, and immediately hung up. Bucky sighed, pocketed the phone, and followed the Rogers back. This part of Gravesen made him sick to his stomach. His own journey had gone smoothly enough that he never landed himself in the ICU, thankfully, but the last time he'd been here had been after Steve's port got infected and he got so sick that doctors warned it might be the end of him. It wasn't—Steve fought back hard and escaped significantly weakened but very much alive—but being here still reminded Bucky of that fear.

The Rogers walked into the room first, Bucky just behind. There was a split second where Steve's parents could see him and Bucky couldn't, so he used that instant to gauge their reaction. It didn't help prepare him.

Every memory of sick Steve from every nook and cranny of his mind washed over him all at once. The time at the park Steve pet a dog and then stopped breathing. That time years ago, before Bucky understood CF, when his mother took him to visit Steve in the hospital and all Bucky could see were tubes and unfamiliar machines. The hardened, desperate glare in Steve's eye when he came home on oxygen for the first time. The guilt plastered over his entire face—except the part obscured by the endotracheal tube—when he had an asthma attack the day of Bucky's amputation. Steve on death's door, body desperately fighting pathogens that had gotten in the same way as the medicine designed to kill them off.

There were the less dramatic ones too. Steve rolling his eyes as Jim poked fun at him for eating every kid's dream diet, but then staring desolately at the last dregs of his milkshake as if finishing it were nothing less than his sworn soldierly duty. Every cough that made Bucky's chest and throat ache in sympathy and passersby look at them suspiciously. Those nights before midterms and finals when Bucky stayed late at Steve's to study and watched him flip through a textbook with one hand with his nebulizer in the other, the hum of the Afflovest drowning out whatever playlist they'd put on. Countless late-night FaceTime calls because either Steve was in the hospital and hadn't been around Bucky in a while, or Bucky caught a cold and couldn't be around Steve for a while.

All of those moments compounded together, weaving in and out of each other to create this image now. Steve, swollen almost beyond recognition and frailer than ever, with more tubes than Bucky could count sticking out all over the place. How could something that was supposed to save his life leave him looking so close to death?

Unintentionally, Bucky started counting tubes. He remembered doing the same thing to himself after his amputation as both a means to distract himself from the pain and to take stock of just how drastic the experience was. One in his mouth, one up his nose whose purpose Bucky didn't understand, one in his wrist, two attached to compression devices wrapped around his calves, one in his neck, multiple heart monitor leads, and one, two, three, four, five, six chest tubes, each draining some amount of blood and fluid. And those were just the ones Bucky could see. He shivered imagining what that might feel like. One of those lines had better be hooked up to the good meds.

By the time Bucky gathered himself, Mrs. Rogers had already taken Steve's hand, possibly the only part of him free from any medical equipment except a hospital bracelet. Mr. Rogers sat right beside her, both of them gazing at their son with fond smiles on their faces. Bucky wondered why he'd reacted like this instead of marveling at the miracle of organ transplantation and the fact that Steve had just leapt the biggest hurdle in his CF journey. Now that he thought about it, it seemed pessimistic. What kind of thoughts ran through Steve's head when he first saw Bucky post-amputation? Maybe he'd thought something similar, although Bucky had been an entire day post-op when Steve got his first glimpse. Bucky certainly hadn't been this inundated with tubes and wires.

He took a seat on the other side of Mr. Rogers, farthest from Steve's head, and twiddled his thumb. Mrs. Rogers took a photograph, about which Bucky didn't know what to think. He didn't understand why she would want to document this part, where her son looked so unlike himself. Bucky had banned his own parents from taking pictures of him within the walls of Gravesen without his permission, and he was pretty sure they kept their promise. Though he did sleep an awful lot, and they could've easily snuck some in. He supposed Steve wasn't quite as self-conscious as Bucky, or Sarah just didn't listen to him. The two were equally feasible.

Steve's eyelids fluttered open a little while after they were called back. Bucky had never been so glad to see those blue-green irises, for they were the crucial reminder that in spite of the foreign lungs now occupying his chest, he was still irrevocably Steve. His gaze wandered for a few moments, briefly passing over both of his parents' faces before settling firmly on Bucky.

Paralyzed by the unexpected scrutiny, Bucky blurted out the only thing he could think to say: "Hey there."