Hey everyone, it's great to see that people are pleased for my return! I have already churned four more chapters out for this and so I hope t have this segment of our series completely finished by mid-end May!

This chapter is for emmagnetised- thank you for your review!

Don't forget to review and let me know your thoughts!

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April 7th 2014, General Hospital, Washington D.C

The room was filled with the sounds of multiple machines beeping, and if Beth didn't feel so weak, she would have risen to turn them off. Instead, she settled for cracking one eye open and groaning at the brightness of the room.

"Shut them machines up would you?" she grumbled, her gravelly voice from lack of moisture telling her she'd been unconscious a few days at least.

"Considering they've been keeping you alive, I'm not even gonna try."

She flipped her middle finger towards Nat, the other woman chuckling as she moved closer to place a hand on her shoulder.

"You gave us a hell of a scare."

Beth's second eye opened, a task more difficult than it had any right to be. Frowning, she looked down to see her body covered in bandages and various tubes. She wasn't sure if it was a curse or blessing to know what each represented.

"How long?" she asked, throat grating.

Nat held a cup of water to her mouth and she took a few tentative sips, the coolness a balm to her unused muscles.

"Three days. Trust me, with the state you were in, they expected it to be a lot longer."

She almost choked. Even before Zola's serum, she'd never been injured badly enough to spend longer than a couple of hours out cold. Her mind flashed back to the period after her mother died, when she'd worked so hard she'd made herself seriously sick, resulting in a two day trip to the hospital after fainting and cracking her head open on the counter. She'd never forget the terror on Bucky and Steve's faces when she woke, the incident one that for a time had actually put a barrier between the friendship she'd held with Bucky. Thankfully, it hadn't stuck.

"Crap. I knew I was hurt, but I didn't realise it was that bad."

She looked back up, seeing the barely contained worry still in Nat's gaze, and realised how close it must have come for the usually unflappable assassin have such an expression.

"Steve was worse. He's not woken up yet, but knowing you both, it probably won't be long until he does."

If her own state was a shock, hearing that Steve was worse was enough to make her splutter.

"I don't suppose they'd let me see him?"

Nat smirked, her hand reaching out to prod Beth's chest before she could react. Pain arched through her, and she yelped, glaring up at the redhead.

"Pretty sure that'll be a no, but I'll go and find a doctor anyway. Don't be an idiot."

Beth rolled her eyes as the other woman walked out of the room, but she didn't defy orders. She had a sneaking suspicion she couldn't even if she wanted to. Taking the moment of peace to think, she looked around the room, noting she wasn't in the SHIELD medical bay. It didn't surprise her too much, her injuries probably too extensive for the medics there to handle.

Nat returned to find Beth poking at the bandaging on her stomach and frowned, marching up and slapping Beth's hands away. The doctor that followed took note of the glares the women sent each other, a shudder running down his back as he decided he would not like to be on the wrong side of either of them. Noticing him, Beth's attention turned to him and she gave him a sheepish smile.

"Hi Doc. Could you give me the full rundown? I'm going to guess that I had multiple rib fractures and likely a punctured lung, but I have a feeling from the padding that there was more damage involved."

He looked at her, clear surprise on his face, before she realised she had gone into what the Howling Commandos would refer to as 'medic mode'.

"Don't worry, I used to be a surgeon and field medic in the Army. It's how I guessed."

He knew who she was from the new reports over the past year, was aware that she was like her brother in being a super soldier. He hadn't expected her to also be a surgeon like himself as well.

"R…right. You're correct in everything, except both lungs collapsed. You also no longer have a spleen and the packaging is because a shard from one rib perforated your diaphragm and into the bowel, so there was a significant amount of bleeding in your chest and abdominal cavities. You also broke both your radius and ulna, had a fractured cheekbone, and multiple contusions across your body. Your palms were quite shredded and we will need to test whether there is any nerve damage now you're awake."

She wasn't usually one to scare easily, but as he reeled off the injuries, she found her stomach clenching uncomfortably. And she was the least injured of the siblings?

"What about my brother? Are you his doctor too?"

If the doctor was surprised by her complete lack of regard to her own injuries in favour of her brother's, he didn't show it. He simply nodded.

"Yes, I am. He had multiple facial fractures and swelling on the brain that took two days to recede. He too has multiple broken ribs, but only one lung damaged. He was shot in the abdomen, which caused considerable damage to his stomach, and there was a bullet in his leg that had lodged in his femoral artery. We almost lost him trying to get it out. He's still asleep mostly due to the trauma in his head."

Her chest grew tighter with each item on the list, until black spots began to dance across her eyes. One encounter had caused that much damage, and she couldn't get it out of her mind that Bucky was the one to cause them majority.

"Is he naturally down, or medically?"

"We had to medically sedate him to allow the swelling to go down. I'm shocked it's working so quickly, if I'm honest."

The band loosened a miniscule amount and she gave the smallest sigh of relief.

"I can deal with that. It's probably best if you bring him out of it now. He's not a typical man. If you keep him under too long, he won't heal properly. I know it sounds crazy, but that's just how we both work these days. I'd also like to see him if possible?"

Natasha was the one to speak up, her hand very firmly settling on Beth's shoulder once more.

"You can barely move, let alone get up."

Beth had sent her plenty of glares in the past, but this was the first time Nat actually took a step back from her friend. The doctor said nothing but did give her a look that clearly said he thought she was insane. He seemed to know better than to argue, choosing instead to order one of the nurses to bring over a wheelchair.

"This is going to hurt to the point you're likely to pass out." He warned.

"Yeah, well, I'll just have to hope you guys catch me if I do." She growled back, already beginning to pull herself up.

If she had to imagine what being hit by Mjolnir was like, this would be it. Everything screamed in protest and a flash of white-hot agony tore through every nerve ending in her torso, but she pushed through it, teeth bared and sweat forming on her brow. She was panting heavily by the time she eased into the chair, her hands grasping so hard they began to crush the metal of the arm. She could barely see for the pain blurring her vision, simply grunting to let them know she was ready.

Fortunately, Steve's room was next to her own, her brother hooked up to more wires than she had been. Sam was perched in a chair next to the bed, flipping idly through a magazine. He didn't look pleased to see her wheel into the room, seeing the state she was in.

"You look like hell."

"Have you looked in a mirror?" she quipped back, her focus barely on him.

She reached out to take Steve's hand, tears threatening to spill. Right now, he was back to the scrawny punk who'd barely been able to breathe, rather than the strong soldier he'd become. Seeing him so pale, with so many machines controlling his body was a punch to the gut she hadn't expected. It hurt like hell, but she wheeled herself closer to run a hand through his soft locks, her fingers trembling. She began to hum a melody their mother would often sing when they were unwell, silently asking him to wake up even though she knew the sedatives were going to keep him under for at least another few hours after they reverted the process.

She managed only a few moments until the pain began to overwhelm her. By the time she was back in her own bed, tears were freely spilling down her face, her breath coming out in shallow pants. She didn't care. Now she knew he was safe, she could rest.

"That was dumb."

"I know, but I had to see. I forgot how it felt to see him like that."

Nat gave her friend a soft glance, knowing she herself couldn't understand how Beth felt in that moment. She stayed a while longer, flicking through various news articles on her phone as Beth fell into an uneasy sleep after her overexertion. Most of it was a frenzy, the media gagging over the leaked HYDRA files, HYDRA desperately trying to remove as many as possible from public view. Natasha herself had secreted two copies of everything and had secured a vault of hard files from Pierce's office shortly after Nick put a bullet into him. She had a lot of red in her ledger, but it was nothing compared to some of the things she'd read so far.

"Anything interesting?"

She almost jumped, hating that Beth and Clint were the only people who could get the drop on her like that. Beth hadn't even changed her breathing between sleep and being awake.

"Not much. I leaked HYDRA's files to the world, and the world is exploding."

Concern flashed across Beth's face and Nat gave her a reassuring look.

"Don't worry. I managed to hold off on sending anything out about you. I tried to claw as much about Barnes back as I could, but he's pretty hot news too right now."

It was the first time Beth had given a thought to Bucky properly since waking. Where was he now? Had he been captured again by HYDRA or finally broken free from their clutches?

"He's in the wind. HYDRA is desperate to find him, but he's a ghost."

"I hate that you can read me so easily." Beth moaned, folding her arms.

"Don't forget it goes both ways." Nat replied, standing and reaching for her jacket as it was nearing midnight.

She snorted, knowing full well even she couldn't read the assassin when said assassin didn't want her to. Nat shrugged on her jacket and reached for her bag, pulling out a file and placing it on the stand next to Beth.

"I didn't want to give you this yet, but I know if it was me, I'd want to know. We found it in Pierce's office. It's the file they had on Bucky."

Beth's hand halted, hovering over the file like it was about to bite her. She nodded, swallowing down a lump in her throat, but before she had chance to say than you, Nat had gone. The need to know overrode the wish to bury the file and she flipped it open. The first thing to greet her was a photo from Bucky's days as a solider, his face relaxed as he looked slightly off camera. She recognised that expression all too well, knew it was her he was looking at. She even remembered that day, had thought that photo had disappeared from existence. She took it from the file and placed it under her pillow. Like hell she was letting that one go again. Turning her attention back to the file, it wasn't long before her tears began to fall once more, reading torture after torture. It took them thirty years before he broke. There was even a note that he would regularly scream out her name when they strapped him to the chair.

Unable to take any more, she flung the file onto the table and lay there sobbing until she fell into an exhausted slumber. She woke some time later to the awareness of a person in the room. Blinking to clear her vision, she caught a glimpse of a hooded figure in the doorway, their back turned.

"What did they do to you?" she asked, her voice pitiful even to her own ears.

There was a pause, the figure freezing at the door, one metallic hand resting on the handle. He didn't turn fully, his head moving only slightly in acknowledgement.

"Everything." Was the single worded response, the door closing behind him as he left.

It wasn't until she turned her head that Beth noticed the flower laying innocently next to her pillow. She was so sick of crying, yet there she was again as she touched it, having forgotten herself how much she loved Hyacinths. What struck her more than anything wasn't the fact he'd come to visit her. No, there was something even more touching.

He'd remembered.