As Nat relieved Clint from his watch duty with a brief mutter in his ear she slunk around him to stare down through the vent into the room where Carter was currently 'resting' as Bruce put it. As Clint wormed his way back through the vents Nat contemplated the young woman sleeping below her as her left hand fiddled with the screws holding the vent in place. Just as she was working on the last screw the door to the room opened and a flash of silver caught her eye. Bucky slid into the room silently closing the door behind him and then he shot a glance at the vent. As if he could see Nat in the shadowy room he quirked an eyebrow at her and gestured for her to come down.
"Can't sleep?" she asked as she dropped down from the vent's opening, speaking quietly as she shot a glance at the still prone form of Carter.
Bucky nodded and picked his way over to the bed Carter was on. He seemed to debate sitting on the bed or beside it when the young woman turned in her sleep. "Clint said she was getting fitful," Nat whispered choosing to settle by the legs of the young Stark, "It's probably the meds."
Bucky settled himself on the ground by Carter's head and winced when he saw a light bruise of the crest of her cheek, "It's like someone slapped her," he spoke in a sickened tone. Nat nodded and as Carter tossed a little on the bed again they both saw her bandaged hands, "Bruce told me her hands were bleeding, like she had held broken glass between her fingers," she paused, "I think this one was about Tony."
Bucky's head shot up at her words, "Why?"
"The glass, the abuse, there's a bruise on her right side not dissimilar to a kick. It's textbook Howard Stark…Tony's worst fear. You saw how he was tonight…he has always been afraid of turning out like his father and now he thinks he has proof of his worst fear," responded Nat as she ghosted a hand over Carter's side.
The girl was curling in on herself as if on reflex despite the sedative it seemed the cobwebs of memories still permeated her brain. A particularly violent twist in the bed caused Nat to bracket Carter's head before she knocked into Bucky. The soldier stretched out his metal arm and ran a tentative finger down Carter's cheek in an attempt to be comforting. Shockingly, the woman did relax back into the restful prone position Nat had first observed her in.
Bucky kept his hand near her face, stroking her hair softly as if she was a fragile precious thing. Nat mused that she was, Carter was a symbol of their future, a future yet to come, one that none of them had even hoped to dream for and yet now she was here, in the flesh. But Carter wasn't whole; there was something wrong and if Nat did one truly good thing in her life she wanted it to be helping the young woman currently sleeping beside her.
When Phil came to relieve her of her shift he did not seem surprised that she had taken up a catlike guard position at the foot of the bed while Bucky dozed beside Carter, his hands still carding gently through her hair. He simply patted her on the arm a gesture, which conveyed much more sympathy than it seemed to yet she still left the two people in the bed grudgingly.
Phil's shift was quiet, mostly. He spent his time observing Bucky and Carter, the little Stark seemed quiet. By the time the sun began to rise Bucky was sitting upright on Carter's bed, hands still carding through her hair and Phil had long since gone to catch some shut eye.
Carter was still asleep but Bucky could tell she wasn't far from regaining consciousness. Part of him hoped that he would be the only around when she woke up, for some reason he felt that she trusted him. Implicitly. And that obviously was what was irking his best friend. Bucky had never seen Steve act as passive towards him as he had last night with the exception of the time Steve had assumed that Bucky was hitting on Tony. Yeah, that had been a riot. Bucky snorted quietly at the memory of how hilarious it had been to watch Steve struggle with not strangling him as Tony worked on improving his arm or when the pair of them had taken on tinkering with new gadgets.
"You were only trying to get to know Dad better weren't you?" asked a quiet voice from next to him. Bucky used all of his training to not jump at the sudden interruption from Carter, "How long have you been awake?" he asked instead of answering her.
"You first," she replied quietly.