Chapter 14: Slightly Pink

For the last practice before Thanksgiving break, they got to play a scrimmage game. Bucky played keeper for John, Jonathan, Sam, Jack, George, and Hector, while Lemar played for Josiah, Robert, Pinky, Dino, Jacques, and Jerome. Bucky's team was up one to nothing when it all came to a screeching halt.

He saw the ball coming and reacted instantly. He dove left at such a steep angle he ended up horizontal in the air, reaching as far above his head as possible. The tips of his fingers just barely reached the ball, but it was enough to slow it down and stop it from reaching the goal. Bucky didn't see where it ended up as he twisted to hit the ground at a more forgiving angle, nor did he see what happened next, for it happened so quickly that would've been impossible. However, he felt the results, and could make a reasonable guess as to what occurred.

He'd been standing pretty far away from the goal, far enough that some of his teammates ended up behind him. His save halted the ball's momentum and as he hit the ground front side first, it landed just behind him. One of his teammates and an opponent both ran for it at the same time, the former to kick it as far towards the other side of the field as possible and the latter to shoot for the temporarily-unguarded goal. The latter got there first. Just barely. He kicked the ball out of the way in almost the same instant someone else tried to kick it in the other direction. Instead of the ball, his foot rammed Bucky's left side so hard he swore he felt his internal organs shift. The pain exploded from just above his hip all the way through his spine and ribcage. Lamberg's whistle blew in concert with Bucky's yell of anguish.

"Oh my God, I'm so sorry!" He recognized the voice of Sam Sawyer. Bucky rolled over onto his back to wrap his arm around his throbbing side. Sam stared down at him with concern etched so deeply into his face it would probably never come out. His face was soon joined by seemingly the entire rest of the team, plus Lamberg.

"Are you okay?" Josiah asked.

Bucky wished he could say yes. "I dunno," he grunted instead. "Help me up?" Being stared at like a pinned specimen certainly didn't help matters any. Sam tossed one crutch to the ground and extended a hand to help him up. Bucky let go of his left flank long enough to stand, and the motion hurt so badly he seriously thought he might vomit right here on the field. As soon as he was on his feet, he went right back to bracing it.

"What happened?" Walker asked.

"Sam accidentally kicked him. Hard," Pinky explained. He'd been the one to kick the ball out of the way right before Sam's foot made contact.

"I'm so sorry," Sam repeated.

"'S fine. It was an accident."

"Let's go sit down," Lamberg insisted. Bucky refused to move his arm from its spot protecting his injured flank, so Lamberg merely followed him over to the bench, hands hovering awkwardly close in case he stumbled. Though it hurt, Bucky managed to make it to the sidelines without falling over. Coach sat him down on the bench and forced him to move his hand long enough for him to look at it. Bucky glanced down and saw the red splotchiness that he could tell would turn into a ferocious bruise within the next day.

"How does it feel?" Lamberg asked.

"It hurts," Bucky said through gritted teeth.

"Do you think he broke a rib?"

Bucky took a deep breath, which didn't make the pain worse. "I don't think so. He landed it just below them."

"Okay. I'll get some ice. You're definitely done for today."

"Okay." Bucky had no intention of continuing to play like this. But with him out of commission, his team had no goalie, so they were forced to end the scrimmage early and switch to running drills. Nobody complained, though he could tell they were all somewhat disappointed. Walker, he knew, had been looking forward to scrimmage day for a long time. The ice helped ease the pain, but he had a sinking suspicion this was not the type of injury he could come back from in a day. Despite the ice, his left side had begun to turn purple from his hip to his ribcage by the time they wrapped up for the day.

Sam apologized to him twice more in the locker room while they gathered their things. On the drive home, Josiah commented on how macho his bruising looked and, "couldn't wait to see the fun purples it turns." Bucky only rolled his eyes at him. Just getting out of the car in front of his house hurt like someone stabbed him in the side, and so did making his way up the stairs to the porch. Steve glanced up from his spot tucked sideways on the living room sofa when he heard the front door open and saw Bucky shuffle in.

"What's wrong? You're walking hunched over."

"I got kicked," Bucky said matter-of-factly.

"Oh my God, are you okay?" Steve launched himself to his feet and raced over.

"I'll live." That comment did not elicit laughter as he'd hoped, rather the Eyebrows of Deep Concern. "I already iced it some," Bucky tried.

"That's good, I suppose. Has it bruised already?"

"See for yourself." He offered his left side to Steve, who gently lifted up the hem of his shirt.

"Shit. That looks like it hurts."

Bucky looked down and saw it had already darkened since he left the field. "It does. But I still need a shower."

"Okay. Don't let the water hit this spot directly."

"I won't." He didn't need to try it out to know that would sting. Bucky left his soccer bag where it lay by the front door and trudged to their bathroom. Showering proved rather difficult since he couldn't bend or twist at the waist without pain. He wrapped up as quickly as possible, dried off, and got dressed. Before heading out to the kitchen to help with dinner, he went back into the bathroom to use the toilet.

One of his five chemo drugs had actually turned his urine orange while he was on it. And for another one, they had to put him on additional medications to prevent side effects such as bleeding. That drug also dramatically increased his odds of developing a secondary cancer in his bladder or urinary tract, so they checked it every year at his oncology follow-up. He'd been warned countless times that any sign of blood needed to be immediately reported. But he hadn't been on chemo in years. Did pissing blood still constitute an emergency? Not willing to take any chances, Bucky quickly washed his hand and tracked down his husband.

"Steve?" he said hesitantly.

"Yeah?"

"I, uh…I'm bleeding."

"What? Where?"

"I just peed blood."

"After a kick like that? Bucky, we need to go to the hospital."

His heart did a kickflip inside his chest. "Are you sure? It wasn't that much."

"Get in the car."

Bucky knew better than to argue. Steve lectured him on the way there. "Twenty five percent of your blood is in your kidneys at any given time. If that kick ruptured something, you could become anemic, or go into kidney failure."

"I got it, I got it," Bucky groaned. "I'm doing what you asked, aren't I?"

"I need you to understand that this is serious."

"I understand."

"Do you feel weak or dizzy?"

Bucky actually had to think on that for a moment. His shower hadn't reinvigorated him like it usually did. "Not really?" he decided. "It hurts enough that it's making everything kinda fuzzy."

"Jesus."

"I have a high pain tolerance."

"How much blood was it?"

"I don't know!"

"On a scale of slightly pink to looking like pure blood, where does it fall?"

"Do I really have to answer?"

"No," Steve said frankly. "You don't have to answer me, but if they ask you then you'd better."

"Fine. It was not quite halfway along that scale, closer to slightly pink."

"Okay."

Bucky did, in fact, have to repeat that exact analysis to the triage nurse looking him over in the ER. Naturally, she knew Steve from his work at this very hospital. Both of them had all their oncology/transplant/CF appointments at Gravesen, but for an acute situation like this one they headed to the nearest one. She asked him a lot of the same questions as Steve and took his basic vitals, which fortunately came back normal. Still, he was seen within thirty minutes, a surprisingly rapid turnaround for a busy emergency department.

After listening to him recap the incident and his symptoms, the doctor ordered a CT with contrast to observe the severity of kidney trauma. Bucky's first instinct told him this was an unnecessary level of caution, but one look at Steve made him shut his mouth before he could question it. "Good luck finding a vein," he told the unfortunate nurse tasked with getting a line into him. At his oncology check-up last summer, they'd gotten it on the first try, but only thanks to thirty minutes of heat treatment. They didn't have time for that in the ER.

"Which arm would you prefer?" he asked Bucky jokingly. Steve didn't find that particularly funny. Bucky found it hilarious.

"What would you do if I said left?"

The nurse shrugged. "I dunno. It would definitely be a first."

Bucky braced himself for repeated pokes, but this guy got one right off the bat. If he ever found himself in the ER again, Bucky reminded himself to ask for this nurse. The CT itself took no time at all. He was accustomed to hour-long bone scans, and when the table beneath him slid back out of the machine, the first thought to cross his mind was, "I haven't even taken a nap yet!" Though he didn't suspect any ribs had broken, they X-rayed him just in case. Luckily, they all remained intact.

"It's definitely bruised," the doctor said of his kidney after looking at the scans. "But there's no internal bleeding, which is a good sign." He forwarded the results and prescribed recovery—two weeks rest with plenty of fluids, and proof of no more hematuria before returning to soccer—to the team doctor, and sent him home. Steve filled Bucky's biggest water bottle and told him to drink it down at least twice a day for the next week.

"Are you kidding? I'll drown." Bucky only drank that much during summer outdoor training, when he sweat nearly the same volume he took in.

"Increased fluids means eight to ten cups a day. This bottle holds about four cups."

"Fine."

"Now do you want to ice it before bed?"

"Sure."

Bucky pulled the ice pack out of the freezer and wrapped it in a towel. Before he sat down, though, he asked Steve to take a picture of the vibrant bruise. He could just make out the outline of the toe of Sam's cleat in the darker center. The ice took the edge off the pain, but moving in any direction had him clenching his teeth and hissing.

"I can't believe I have to pass a urine test to go back to sports," Bucky chuckled. "It's like I'm a druggie or something."

"You're not a druggie. They're trying to make sure you don't go back to contact sports with a kidney that hasn't healed yet."

"I know, I know. It's still funny."

"If you say so."

~0~

The bruising was even more spectacular the next day. Bucky had Steve take another picture before he left for work. Then, as a sort of petty revenge against Sam, he posted the picture to Amputeam, tagged Sam, and captioned it, "What did I do to deserve this?" Within two minutes, Sam himself commented, "It was an ACCIDENT. I'm SORRY." And a second comment: "Are you trying to get me canceled or something?"

Bucky replied simply, "No." But he also pinned Sam's comment about it being an accident so that none of their followers would actually think he'd been assaulted by his teammate. Steve left the apple pie recipe out on the counter for him with instructions to at least start on it before he got home. Sarah and Joseph were hosting Thanksgiving and had delegated pie to Steve and Bucky. With nothing better to do, Bucky started it right away. It took him almost twice as long as it would've taken Steve, both due to his reduced carrying capacity and his lesser experience in the kitchen. By the time he pulled it out of the oven—and nearly dropped it—it wasn't even noon yet.

"This is gonna be a long two weeks," he muttered to himself. At least tomorrow, they'd occupy at least four hours or so driving to and from Brooklyn. With nothing better to do, he perused the bookshelf in the living room to find something hopefully less depressing than Steve's favorite war novels. He skipped over The Red Badge of Courage, All the Light We Cannot See, Catch 22, A Farwell to Arms—though that title made him laugh when he saw it—For Whom the Bell Tolls, The Things They Carried, and All Quiet on the Western Front before he stumbled upon the Hobbit. It seemed more likely to interest him than any of the others, so he grabbed it off the shelf and found a position on the sofa that didn't exacerbate the throbbing ache in his bruised side. He glanced up at the wall and glared at those fucking scratches beneath the TV. It looked like some wild animal had tried to escape through the wall. Bucky considered using these two weeks to fix them, but realized it probably entailed more manual labor than he was supposed to do. Pushing thoughts of the scratches to the back of his mind, he refocused on the book in his hand.

He skipped over the map, table of contents, and the random notes before he finally found the actual beginning of the story. "Chapter I: An Unexpected Party. In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit." By the time Steve returned home, Bilbo had just packed his dwarf companions into barrels and escaped the dungeon.

"Hey!" Steve called. "Whatcha reading?"

"The Hobbit," Bucky answered. He slid a bookmark into place and left it on the coffee table.

"Did you make the pie?"

"Yes. I covered it and put it in the fridge."

"How much water have you had?"

Bucky froze. Shit, he'd forgotten to drink the bottle Steve filled. He had one cup at breakfast and one at lunch, but other than that he'd been too busy reading to think about it. When he didn't answer, Steve opened the fridge and found the completely full bottle still sitting there.

"Bucky!" he chided.

"I'm sorry, I forgot. I was focused on getting the pie done like you asked, and then washing all the dishes from that. Then I picked up this book and got distracted."

Steve thrust the bottle at his chest and told him he'd better finish it by the time he went to bed. "Are you still bleeding?"

"Yeah, a little. Lighter pink than yesterday, though."

"Good. I'm gonna go change clothes and then we can start on dinner, okay?"

"Sounds good."

Steve left with a final warning to, "Drink." Bucky drank. He'd downed half the bottle by the time they finished cooking, and finished the other half during the meal. He suspected he'd need at least one bathroom break in the middle of the night at this rate. Fortunately, he got away with only one, though he woke up earlier than usual for having not set an alarm and had to go rather urgently. It was still tinged with pink.

Around noon, he and Steve left for the Rogers' apartment. Bucky offered to drive, but Steve refused to let him because he could tell it still hurt him to twist. They packed the pie into a cooler, which they buckled into the backseat, and Bucky's water bottle. It was too big for the cupholders, so he held it between his feet.

"How are you liking the Hobbit?" Steve asked.

"It's pretty good. Have you read it?"

"Yeah, I read it in college. The copy on our shelf was a gift from a professor. It's not my favorite, but it's pretty good."

When they arrived at the Rogers', Bucky's parents were already there. And, of course, the first words out of his mom's mouth were, "Why are you walking funny?" Bucky thought his gait wasn't noticeably different, but he must've been hunched over from the pain in his side just enough for Mom to notice.

"I'm fine," he led with. "Minor soccer injury."

"He has a bruised kidney," Steve cut in. Bucky hadn't intended on divulging that particular detail because he knew it would freak Mom out, but now he had no choice.

"Oh, that sounds dreadful," she remarked.

"Mind if I take a look?" Sarah asked. Bucky agreed, because he knew resisting her nursing instincts was nigh on impossible. When he sprained his ankle as a kid, she'd been fascinated by his bruising pattern, showing Steve where all the tendons were. He pulled up his shirt so she could see the bruise, and his mother's visible distress was almost cartoonish. "Yikes. How did it happen?" Sarah asked as she gently probed around the edges of it.

"I was on the ground after a save, and the ball ended up right beside me. Two guys ran to kick it at the same time, and one of them missed."

"Ouch," Joseph remarked.

"Yeah, ouch," Bucky agreed. "I have to take two weeks off soccer, and pass a urine test before I go back."

His dad laughed, probably for the same reason Bucky found it amusing: its similarity to a drug situation while actually being completely innocuous. Steve offered his assistance in the kitchen, and was subsequently rejected by his father. Meanwhile, Bucky drifted over to the Rogers' family photo wall (or Steve Shrine, which he secretly called it), which had expanded since his last time here. The wedding picture they'd sent, Steve's motorcycle, and the picture of them with all their friends from Steve's birthday now joined all those from his childhood.

"Do you like them?" Sarah asked. "I know the wall's getting a bit crowded, but I just couldn't help myself."

"I think it looks great. A crowded wall for a jam-packed life."

"Mom, did you really put those up on your wall?" Steve asked. "People are going to think you're Norma Bates or some shit."

"Language," she scolded. "You may not live under my roof anymore, but when you're here, you'll be respectful."

"Yes, Mom."

"And I am not a Norma Bates. This is a healthy degree of affection for my only son."

"Okay."

Steve and Bucky exchanged a glance of half fear and half amusement. Mom offered to get him ice for his side, but Bucky politely declined. By now, it didn't help much. He drank his entire bottle full of water under Steve's watchful eye, then filled it up again and kept going.

"Before you leave tonight, I think you should take some Christmas ornaments home," Sarah suggested.

"That's a great idea," Steve agreed. "We don't have any."

"But we kinda already got a tree and put it up last week," Bucky added.

"It's never too early to get into the Christmas spirit."

Dad and Steve set the table while Joseph carved the turkey. Bucky offered to help, but at some point everyone in the house had come to the unanimous decision that a little bruise made him incapable of doing anything but sitting down and sipping at his water bottle. He almost wished he'd brought the Hobbit with him.

They sat down to eat at seven, and Bucky was finally allowed off the couch. Mom handed him a fork with a sharpened edge she'd brought from their place. Bucky didn't have the heart to tell her that they'd packed one in the outside pocket of the cooler for him to use, so he just used hers. He ended up not needing it, though, because she literally kept his plate hostage and cut up his turkey for him when he passed it to her to ask for a piece. Nothing else on the table needed to be cut at all. He hated when she did this in public, but here among family it was just kinda funny.

"Pass the salt, please," Steve said. Sarah fished out a spare salt shaker and gave it to him to keep with him throughout the meal. Once everyone had filled their plates, Sarah asked to say grace. Bucky knew enough to bow his head, but was almost late on the, "Amen." Luckily, only Steve noticed, and he kept his snickering quiet. Bucky thought to himself as they ate, "This is a feast worthy of hobbits."