It going to be Bunnie moments from here on out kids! (p.s. best ship name guys!)
Chapter 21
Annie slowly became aware but she wished she hadn't as splitting pain burst from her side. She grunted as she opened her eyes and attempted to examine it. The area from her waist to her hip was covered in bandages. The job was clumsy but effective. She looked down curiously at it, her face scrunching. The angle began to strain on her neck and she fell back onto her pillows. The shock of pain sent from her hip at the action made her regret falling so carelessly.
She was in a room, on a bed that wasn't hers. She tilted her head studying the unfamiliar room she found herself in. The walls had used to be a deep colour but had since faded communicating the age of the building. The room was sparsely decorated, absence of photographs, paintings and much furniture. The items that did occupy the room were rickety but had a vintage beauty hidden within them.
A light clang came from another room and Annie's body suddenly tensed. She didn't know who was here but she didn't want them to find her helplessly laying on a bed if they happened to be hostile. Her slowed hands moved to her hip looking for the guns she remembered strapping there. They were gone and so was the holster. She sighed, she had liked that holster, it was convenient and to be honest made her feel cool.
Guns aside she still had to move. Annie endeavoured to lift herself from the bed as silently and painlessly as possible but with each movement a shot of pain darted up her side. She crept across the small room looking for possible weapons as she went. The room offered nothing practical to defend her. Pressing her back up against the wall she peered through the open door way.
The short hallway was barren which Annie was relieved by. She snuck down it, ignoring the cries out outrage her side made at the movement. Annie had identified the sound coming from the second doorway of three and stopped next to it. She looked as much as she dare over the wooden frame and into the inhabited room. She could not see the individual inside it, she narrowed it to only one person within. Her eyes did catch a knife on a counter. It was the first helpful thing she had come across in the empty apartment. If she didn't want to remain vulnerable she would have to reach it.
The person was still in the room fiddling with a pan, Annie decided the run for the knife was worth it. She shut her eyes are a second to settle her nerves and steady her mind. Her eyes snapped open as she twisted out from the wall and into the room darting for the blade.
Before she had even neared it there was a cold, powerful arm was crushing her against a wall. She clenched her teeth at the new pain which intensified the other and looked at her assailant.
She inhaled sharply as she recognised the face between the wild hairs, "Bucky?"
He seemed to realise who she was as well and removed his arm which restrained her. But the contact was not lost for long and an unrestricted smile broke along Annie's face remembering seeing Bucky before. "You're alive", she breathed as she wrapped her arms around him.
Bucky stiffened not returning the gesture. He searched his mind for a memory or clue of how to handle this situation but all he came up with were unsuitably violent options. He simply stood there frozen as the strange woman tightly embraced him. There was that unsettling warmth again. He had no doubt in his mind that she had known him.
Annie noticed his reluctance and pulled away her smile disappearing. That was not like the hugs from Bucky she remembered. They were warm, safe and overwhelming yet comforting not distant and tense. She meets his hard gaze which released none of the humour and charm she remembered.
He turns his head away from her and states, "You shouldn't be out of bed."
She doesn't move much to his annoyance. She stays where she is but with a confused expression that is slowly transitioning to heartbreaking. "Bucky?" She calls his name but sees no recognition in his hard eyes. "You don't remember me?" she questions in a weak voice.
Bucky says nothing, refusing to look at her. He flinches as he feels a hand on his metal arm, his eyes darting to the limb and then her face as she watches it. He lets her keep her hand on his arm, he doesn't know why. He hasn't known a lot of things since he's met her.
He grows curious at her expression. She doesn't study his arm but watches it. There is no pity or fear present in her gaze only an empathetic sadness. As if she had experienced the same pain he had. Her hand is soft on the smooth metal as she murmurs more to herself, "You must have been through hell."
Her gaze finally moves back to his face which was already directed at her. Her large, clear blue eyes search his face. Her sad smile telling him that she didn't find what she was looking for within it. Her eyes grow clouded as she asked, "You're not the Bucky I remember are you?"
Bucky does not answer. He gazes at her as she swallows her emotions and offers him a smile holding out her hand, "Well then we should be introduced. I am Annabel Clare Rogers. But Annie is good." The name suited her well.
He hesitantly stared at her outstretched hand which anticipantly awaited his. He searched his chaotic mind for his name. HYDRA hadn't given him a name aside from the Winter Soldier and sometimes they would call him asset but he felt like those two didn't classify.
The woman he now knew as Annie seemed to have realised and clasped his metal hand, looking at his face for acceptance. "Pleasure to be acquainted with you James Buchanan Barnes. Do you mind if I call you Bucky?" Annie continued as if he had offered his name.
Bucky looked relieved as she continued. She had seen him tense and knew he was struggling. She took his lack of resistance as signal to his acceptance of the old nickname.
Bucky's expression seems to soften somewhat as he spoke finally, "Annie you shouldn't be out of bed, you're injured." It was nice to hear him say her name again but it wasn't the same. Annie had to let go of the Bucky she knew to see the one in front of her.
Injured. How did she get injured? Fury flew into her eyes, outrage in her opened mouth as she remembered how she had been injured. "You shot me!" she exclaimed.
Bucky was taken back by the sudden outburst and change in mood. He didn't know what to say. "I dropped my gun and you still shot me," Annie continued half confronting Bucky and half recalling the event.
Bucky sighed as Annie continued with her rant. She needed to be in bed healing. He went over to her and picked her up as gently as he could manage and walked them to the bedroom. She gasped at the abrupt contact and then grunted at the movement, clutching her side. Bucky was surprised as a deep, gnawing feeling sunk into his stomach for causing her pain. Her cringing expression causing him his own grief. He pushed these foreign reactions aside and said in an emotionless tone, "You should have gone to bed when I told you."
Annie simply frowned at him but didn't squirm in his grip. He placed her slowly on the bed and covered her with the blankets. It was odd nursing someone instead of injuring them, though he had already done the hurting when he had shot her. But he liked this feeling better. There was no cold detachment that was ever present as he pulled the trigger on a gun. And although the warmth of contact frightened him he found himself hoping it wasn't the last time he experienced it.
Annie nestled into the bed, suddenly intensely tired. She smiled up at the intimidating man beside the bed. She had already forgiven him for shooting her. She noticed that he didn't smile, something that truly separated him from the Bucky she knew. Even if he was a different man, she wished he would smile.
He turned to walk out of the room again and Annie searched for something to say, "Why didn't you just leave me?"
It worked as he stopped mid-step and turned to her with a curious look. Annie repeated, "When you shot me you could have left me, why didn't you?"
Bucky didn't offer an answer but paused for a moment with distant eyes before leaving the room. Annie frowned at this. As sleep clouded her mind her last thought was a promise to get him to talk to her. Something other than go to bed.
Anne was unsure as to how many hours had passed since she had awoken in the strange room and met the pained man behind the alias 'the Winter Soldier'. She knew that it was Bucky but she didn't want to take any chances as she surveyed the room through the thin curtain of her lashes attempting to appear sleep. Bucky was beside her bed lounging on a rickety chair, vacantly staring out the small window.
Her eyes snapped shut as his gaze fell on her as if he could sense her conscious state. Apparently he could as he murmured, "I know you're awake."
Annie released a sigh of defeat and opened her eyes. Her head still rested on the feathery pillow as she asked, "Why long have I been asleep?"
There was a pause before Bucky answered bluntly, "First time: three days. This time: one day and a night"
She grimaced at him, "How long has it been since you slept?"
The Winter Soldier or Bucky now, according to Annie, paused in shock. He was unsure as to whether she was assessing how much of a threat he was or whether she was genuinely concerned for his safety. The furrow of her brows and look in her eyes as she examined him suggests the latter. Bucky blocks out the warm pooling in his stomach at the notion of being worried for and straightens his gaze.
He didn't answer and Annie had translated that to not at all. She continued to ask another question, "Is this the only bed?"
"Do you count the couch as a bed?" Bucky replied.
"No."
Bucky sat deeper into his chair, "Than yes."
Annie started to get up, about to demand that Bucky get some rest and argue that she had had enough sleep as Bucky ordered, "Don't get up."
She didn't listen but his hand held her down and she couldn't combat his strength. "I-" she began.
"You need to heal," Bucky cut her off. His mind seemed to travel somewhere as he stood and left the room.
Annie found this as her chance to leave the bed but Bucky stuck his head back into the room and ordered, "Don't get up." With that he darted away again.
He returned shortly after with a series of bandages in his arms. Annie raised an eyebrow and he explained, "I need to change the bandages."
Annie nodded understandingly as she studied the items he had brought. Her eyebrows lowered and expression tightened in apprehension as she noticed a missing item from the selection. "Bucky?" she cautiously called.
He pulled his determined gaze away from the bandages to Annie's troubled face. "Did I fall on the ground?" she asked.
Bucky nodded curiously before she continued her expression intensifying, "And did you use alcohol to clean the wound?"
Bucky froze before his head twisted to the sides in a negative shake. Annie's mother had taught her a thing or two about nursing and one of those things was an infected wound was not good news.
Annie strained her neck to peer at her side that was covered in mildly bloody cloth which she started to unwrap, desperate to see if the wound was at risk of infection.
Before she could make much progress removing the bandage Bucky's hands reached out to hers and pulled them away. Her sight darted to him for an explanation as she burst, "Bucky, I need to see if it is infected."
His face remained calm as he responded, "Lay back down or you'll hurt yourself, I can check."
Annie glared at him with her inferior intimidation before sighing and leaning back down. Bucky began carefully unwrapping the bandages. As he neared the reveal of her wound Annie began straining her neck to see the damage. Bucky frowned and pushed her head back down.
Annie felt the air rush to the exposed open skin as Bucky pulled away the last of the bandage. She struggled to remain reclined as she asked, "Bucky does it have any pus, or large amounts of swelling or redness?"
There was a pause as Bucky decided if any of the described symptoms matched what he saw before him. The sinking sensation in his chest lifted as the wound was incomparable with the features of an infection. "No it doesn't", Bucky answered rewarded with a sigh of relief from Annie.
"Well that just saved us a lot of hassle. But Bucky I need some rubbing alcohol quickly. Did you get any?" Annie inquired.
Confusion tumbled about Annie's thoughts as Bucky rose without a word and exited the small room not returning for some time. After 10 minutes of his absence Annie risked venturing out of the bedroom to see if he was still in the apartment. Her search proved her suspicion as she found no sign of him. Had he thought that this was too much hassle for someone he didn't know?
She moved to the door, her mobility improving minutely and opened it to search just outside the threshold. As the decaying yet solid wood was pulled away Annie was met with a broad chest covered in leather. Her startled eyes darted up to the unhappy face of Bucky.
"What are you doing?" he asked hazardously.
The short woman placed her hands on her hips with a sour expression, about to defend herself. As her hand touched her left side she quickly recoiled from the exposed wound.
Bucky's frown deepened at her obvious pain. "I got what you needed," he bluntly stated, holding up the clear bottle of medical alcohol.
He hurriedly moved to the bed dragging Annie behind him, not happy about her wound being exposed for so long. Annie understood as she efficiently laid down on the bed and directed, "Pour it onto a clean cloth and hold it to the wound, you'll need to use a fair amount."
He quickly returned with the cloth and poured the sterile liquid onto it until it was dripping with excess. He noticed Annie was focusing on her breathing, apparently aware of the pain connected with cleaning a wound. Even though this is the only way to ensure that infection didn't invade the wound but he was dreading the pain he was inflicting.
As one would tear off a band-aid quickly to shorten the pain Bucky thrust the cloth to the open skin not wanting to drag it out. Annie bit back a scream as her hand grasped his vacant one, the metal one. She tightened her hold as if to release some of the pain, he firmly held the cloth to the wound but his gaze was glued on her hand that grasped his own. He could feel the pressure and warmth even with the synthetic nature of the limb. He felt as though he was helping subdue the pain slightly.
With her injured side cleaned and sterile Bucky bandaged it was she sat upright. Once done she instantly collapsed on the bed, the pain exhausting her. He could predict that she was moments from falling into sleep once more was her eyes closed.
Through her closed vision she said, "Thank you." Bucky once more took his place on the chair contemplating the expression thank you.
Annie awoke to the muted sound of deep breathing and smiled widely as her turned head revealed the sleeping face of the Winter Soldier. But at this moment he looked like Bucky. Annie twisted her body around so she was facing the sleeping form on the chair. She frowned wishing he would for once take the bed, she was very capable of fitting comfortably on the lounge in the other room.
His lengthened hair hung from his tilted head, a strand dangling close to his nose. Annie fought the temptation to brush it away not wanting it to disturb his much awaited sleep. She wondered why he had grown it out like this. Was it a result of HYDRA's poor care towards his secondary needs or did they hope it would make him more mysterious? Or did not simply care and it just grew?
Annie liked his hair short though, like this it covered too much of his face, something that she thought should never be hidden, not with a jaw like that. She would have to ask him about it when he woke up.
In her sleep she had been occasionally plagued with nightmares of the events that Bucky has had to endure the events that have led him to forget who he is and become closed. Annie knew that no matter what she did Bucky would never become the same man he was, he had been through too much for that. But Annie could help him regain some of his memories or at least inform him of who he was.
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