When Bucky opened his eyes the following morning, two things immediately struck him. First, he had awoken peacefully for the first time in a very, very long time. Second, he had actually slept, and he couldn't remember having had a single dream in the process.
Blinking in slight confusion, wondering how in the world he had managed this, he shifted in the bed a little bit and realized that Summer was still curled up against him and his left arm was slung carelessly over her middle. He slowly pulled it away from her, knowing how heavy and therefore uncomfortable it might have been for her, then glanced over her towards her nightstand, where her digital clock told him that it was just shy of six in the morning. He had slept for a solid and uninterrupted six hours, which was absolutely unprecedented.
A little bewildered by this, he silently pushed the sheets back and then stared for a moment at himself, confused for half a second until the night's events came flooding back into his mind. Then he looked back at Summer, passed out still in her half-torn off dress, and he had to swallow down the sudden urge to tear it off entirely and wake her up in a way that she would probably never forget.
But he had to leave soon, and that couldn't be helped. Making himself tear his eyes away from her, he slipped out of bed, grabbed his clothes and the duffel bag he'd stashed in the corner of her room, then headed to her bathroom.
Feeling rested was a strange sensation, and his thoughts were less chaotic and more organized than they normally were as he showered on autopilot. It was nice to not have to start with the water cold to wake him up fully, and even nicer to have the last night to think over and replay in his head rather than nightmares and dreams that he didn't want. How Summer had gone from profoundly embarrassed to, in his eyes, pure vixen in a matter of moments, and how she had completely disarmed him, made him remember what it was like to let go and simply feel...
And he hadn't hurt her. Nothing bad had happened. No flashbacks, no broken furniture, no unintentional bruises, nothing.
He had to wonder if she could possibly understand what that meant to him, the magnitude of what she had given him. He just hoped that he'd given some of it back. The way that she'd clawed at his hair and moaned into her pillow to keep quiet told him that he had at least repaid the pleasure she'd given him, and her sleepy kisses and shy but sweet gaze were the last things he remembered before sleep had taken them both.
If he could have, he would have spent the whole morning thinking on those memories and plotting how to make more, but instead, after his shower was over, he found himself faced with preparing for the day ahead. Inside his bag was a tactical uniform provided by Steve, wherever he'd gotten it from, and every other piece of equipment he would need for later, including one that he was having a particularly hard time coming to grips with, but he chose to ignore it for the time being.
He'd gotten the pants and a plain black t-shirt on, leaving the rest of the suit for later, when he heard a soft knock at the door. Not thinking of the open bag at his feet, he reached out and opened the door to find a tired and yawning Summer on the other side, wearing his black button down shirt and little else, her hair a wreck strewn across her shoulders. In other words, she looked perfect.
"Not trying to leave without saying goodbye, are you?" she asked, stepping inside and closing the door behind her. He shook his head, not prepared for the sort of effect seeing her in his clothes had on him, stepping aside while she bypassed him in favor of grabbing her toothbrush off the sink and turning on the faucet. If she was perturbed at all by his watching her brush her teeth, she didn't act like it.
Afterwards, she replaced her toothbrush and then turned around, looking him over before sighing, "So you really do have to go."
He nodded, watching as she frowned and then reached behind her to grab a hairbrush from the sink before hopping up on it. She tugged down his shirt when it rode up on her hips some, then started brushing through her tangled dark locks as she asked, "When will I see you again?"
"I'm not sure," he replied, feeling a magnetic pull bring him closer to her.
While his hand attached itself to her outer leg and the inches between them diminished, Summer asked, "Think you'll have super secret business down here a lot?"
He shrugged. "I don't know."
She sighed a little, brushing the back of her hair and replying, "This long distance thing seriously sucks."
He looked up in her eyes as she then set the hairbrush aside, and his hand curled around her hip and nudged her closer as he replied, "Then come back with me."
She smiled, shaking her head slightly. "Very funny."
"I'm serious."
Her smile faded slightly and she placed her hand on his cheek, quietly saying, "If it was that simple, I'd do it in a heartbeat."
He was about to protest more when she silenced them both by pulling him forward and kissing him. He wasn't yet done trying to convince her, but he gave in for the time being, nudging her legs apart to stand between them and pull her fully against him as he took over the kiss. She happily yielded, and when he broke away after a long moment, brushing his lips across her jaw, she asked quietly, "Are there a bunch of guns and grenades and stuff in that bag?"
"No, those are in my trunk," he replied, taking a handful of her hair in his left hand and pulling her head back so he could place kisses across her neck.
"Oh," she replied in a half-gasp. "Good to know..."
He made a noncommittal noise as he started suckling on her skin, making her groan before she muttered, "Why do you always do this before you leave? Makeup only covers up so much..."
"That's the point," he murmured, leaving several reminders along the side of her neck and down towards her shoulder before she pulled him back up and kissed his lips.
He was reluctant to let her go, but after a few moments she pulled away and asked quietly, "You hungry?" His eyes flashed a little as they dropped down her body and then back up to her face, and she amended with a grin, "For food. You should probably eat before you go off on your super secret adventures."
His hand playing idly with the hem of his shirt where it ended on her, he simply continued to look at her, enjoying the way he could still make her squirm and blush just from prolonged eye contact. In fact, after last night, she seemed to blush even more deeply than usual, casting her eyes to floor eventually to escape his gaze. When she did, he noticed her expression become curious just before, to his chagrin, she slid away from him and hopped off the counter.
Something from his bag had caught her eye, and she carefully reached down to pick it up. It was the thing he didn't want to think about, and he suddenly felt mildly uncomfortable as she looked it over.
"Is this... your same mask as from before?" she asked quietly, turning it over, looking at it without the discomfort he was currently feeling.
"No."
She glanced up at him and then said, "I guess... you have to wear it since you're... kind of... wanted?"
"Kind of" was putting it mildly. HYDRA's leftovers weren't the only ones looking for him. Tony Stark was technically harboring a fugitive by letting him stay in his tower, and Steve had crossed that line a long time ago, and so had Summer herself. "Yeah."
She nodded and handed the mask back to him. "Sometimes I forget that having you here in my house is kind of a felony."
He barely heard her, too busy half-glaring at the mask in his hands. He understood the reasons for having to wear it, but a rather large part of him would rather smash his fist through his own face than cover it up the way HYDRA had.
Then her hand covered his, and she took the mask from his grip before dropping it back into his bag. She then stepped closer to him and placed her arms around his neck, looking up into his eyes as she said, "It's not you. You know that."
He nodded half-heartedly, his rare good mood almost derailed by the mask and the unwanted memories that it brought. But she pressed her lips to his, and he had to wonder how it was that he could instantly feel a little better from such a simple touch.
After pulling away, she smiled and said, "So. Breakfast. Come on. David will be asleep for another few hours, so it's just you and me."
That brightened him up rather quickly. She shot him a grin and then turned around, opening the door and heading out to her kitchen, and he followed just far away enough to be able to fully watch her hips as she went.
Her decision to take a page out of the romantic comedy playbook and sashay around Bucky in his shirt and little else had worked out perfectly up until she learned the hard way exactly how distracting he found it.
As it was, trying to competently cook a man breakfast while said man lurked behind her and did everything in his power to try to make her screw up and burn something was a uniquely testing experience. She could handle the hand wandering along her waist and the maddening little kisses to her neck - barely - but she'd slapped his hand with a spatula when he tried to sneakily unbutton his shirt on her, which wasn't a very effective defense, because it only held him at bay for a moment before he simply slid his hand between the buttons in search of flesh that his kneading and light squeezing of left her a bit breathless. She gave up protesting, however, when she remembered that he would be leaving very soon and he really deserved the luxury of uninterrupted groping, if that was what he wanted, and she wasn't in much of a state to truly protest anyway.
After barely escaping ruining his food, she managed to wrangle them both to the table, where they ate in a pleasant silence punctuated by his occasional still-heated glances and her answering blushes. She let herself be distracted by him to avoid thinking about his impending departure and wondering how long it would be until she'd see him again. It would have been hard enough, but then last night had happened, and she was pretty sure that the world had spun off of its axis a tiny bit. And they hadn't even actually slept together. The universe might implode when that happened.
And yet, she wasn't sure if she'd ever look at his mouth the same way again. Watching him eat now seemed vulgar somehow, thanks to what her mind did when she'd see his tongue dart out or his lips close around a fork, and it took all of her self control to not squirm in her seat. But how could she not, now that she knew what that mouth was capable of?
At first, she had wondered very silently if he would even remember what to do, but apparently it was one of those things a straight man never forgot, even when they'd had their brain fried multiple times. It had ended up being worth every bit of the effort of swallowing her nervousness and mild embarrassment. Now she finally had a level of understanding for certain things that she had been lacking before, and she was withholding the urge to jump on the roof and scream jubilantly about it.
Instead, she kept her screams to herself and snapped back to reality, slightly, when she realized that he was done eating and she was done trying to pretend to be hungry that early in the morning. Acting out of habit, she got up and rounded the table, reaching out to take his plate and deposit it in the sink, only to yelp and break out into a smile when he grabbed her wrist and pulled her across his lap. She tried to think of something witty to say but he wasted no time in devouring her lips, holding her in place with his left arm while his right hand instantly started messing with her buttons again. She could feel his heightened desires, let loose just a bit more thanks to last night, and the way that he kissed her and touched her let her know that he didn't want to leave without at least some degree of a repeat performance.
But, she quickly discovered, their luck of avoiding interruptions had officially ran its course, and his phone rang in his pocket just in time to still his wandering hand as it had been sliding up purposefully between her legs. She smiled at the way he grimaced and straightened up, leaning back in his seat and taking the phone out to briefly glance at it before silencing the call and turning back to her.
"Have to go?" she guessed, running her fingertips through his hair as he nodded in reply. "Well... text me when you're done with whatever you're doing, so I don't worry."
He nodded but grinned a little as he answered, "Don't worry about me."
"I will worry. Worrying's what I do," she grinned back. "So don't forget to text me."
He nodded again, pulling her forward for another kiss. It was too short, and all too soon he was unwillingly easing her from his lap and standing up. He left briefly to grab his belongings from her bathroom, and when he came back, she hadn't moved from the table, wishing that she didn't have to say goodbye again so soon.
But, reality was reality. She sighed when their eyes met and then walked with him to the door. When they reached it, she turned around and pulled him into a hug. It was nice how he now immediately sank into her embraces and pulled her in closer, as opposed to his earlier, awkward responses to her hugs the first few times she'd ever given them. They had come a remarkably long way since then.
"I'm glad you came early to see us," she said, chin resting on his shoulder. "And thank you for beating the crap out of Mark yesterday. It was weirdly awesome to watch."
She felt his chuckle more than she heard it, and then she pulled away and smiled up at him as she said, "You know that what you did was basically avenge me, right? You know what that makes you?"
His eyes narrowed slightly. "Don't say it."
Her grinned widened. "I'm gonna say it."
"Summer..."
"My Avenger."
He groaned and she giggled, but she couldn't get anymore teasing in before he kissed her quiet. She enjoyed it while it lingered, which was as long as he could let it, before he let her go and kissed her forehead. Against her will, she then stepped aside so that he could reach the door. Then she spotted his jacket on the table and grabbed it, handing it over to him and grumbling, "You're about to walk out into below-freezing weather without a jacket. Maybe I do need to move in with you just to make sure you don't catch pneumonia."
"I don't think I can," he said quietly, taking the jacket and setting down his bag to slide it on.
"Well. Still."
The corners of his lips quirked up a little at that, and he leaned in to place one more kiss on her lips before picking up his bag once more and then opening the door. "Stay safe."
She nodded at his now-standard parting words and replied, "You too."
He nodded, then turned and headed out into the snow. She took the doorknob in her hand and ignored the very cold wind blowing on her bare legs as she watched him go, leaning against the doorframe and noting how it kept getting harder to say goodbye with each time one of them had to walk away. It was enough to make her wonder if maybe, just maybe, she really could seriously consider moving to New York.
Could she?
She was freezing by the time his "borrowed" car crunched its way through the snow and out of her sight. She sighed and closed the door, leaning her back against it and taking the collar of his shirt between her fingers, playing with the material as she brought it to her nose to enjoy his lingering scent on it while it lasted.
It was a particularly cold night in Alexandria, Virginia, but Bucky didn't feel it much as he stood on a hilltop obscured by white-covered trees and about a foot of snow. In front of him, down the hill and a stark contrast against the mostly bare landscape was a sprawling, state of the art medical complex. The last employees had left the now-closed facility a few hours ago, but apparently, underneath the building lay the reason why he was here.
"Tell me again why this is supposed to be HYDRA?" he asked the man who stood next to him, dressed in his darker uniform but with the distinctive stars obscured the same way the shield on his back was. It was a little pointless, but nonetheless, Steve was trying to avoid recognition from anyone.
"Got the coordinates from one of the leaked files," Steve replied. "And the neurological wing of the complex is named after Pierce."
He twitched a little at the sound of the man's name, but he ignored the feeling and kept staring ahead.
"I know you're sick of me asking, but -"
"Yes, I can handle it, and yes, I'm fine," Bucky interrupted, not bothering to mask the annoyance in his tone.
"I just want to make sure that you know there's no shame in changing your mind."
"Not changing my mind," he replied. There were many warring emotions simmering under the surface - anxiety, of both the good and bad kind, unease, anticipation, but no reluctance or doubt.
"We could go in there and find nothing," Steve added, "or we could find a lot. Just hope you're ready for either one."
Bucky didn't reply to this, briefly preoccupied by the distinct familiarity of the current situation - standing in the snow next to Steve, looking out over the site of their next mission. What he wasn't sure of was if it was familiar due to his own unreliable memory or due to the stories Steve had told him, but either way, it took him a moment to shake the feeling off.
Natasha's voice in their ears told them that she'd successfully disabled the security feed from within the facility, and that was their cue to begin.
He slipped on the mask and a pair of night-vision goggles, hiding a slight shudder when both were in place. It was too familiar and would have brought him to a very bad place mentally had he not reminded himself to stay calm and breathe, that this time it was he himself who chose to put it on, to be here, to fight. It was his choice, and he wasn't changing his mind.
He glanced at Steve, expecting him to be wearing a grim or at least slightly disturbed expressing at facing him like this again, but his expectation was not met. Steve simply gave him a nod and asked, "Ready?"
He nodded to the affirmative, and then it was time to go.
Sam followed them from behind, muttering something about being invisible and definitely not needing his own pep talk at all, while the three of them disappeared into the night.
"You were only Internet famous for like a week. Highly disappointing."
Summer rolled her eyes, holding her phone to her ear while stirring a pot of soup and answering her brother, "Yeah, I know. They stopped posting death threats after like three days and they all forgot about me like a month ago. Which I'm happy about."
"Meh. I was hoping someone would do some investigative reporting. Since my own investigation is about as successful as your novel writing."
"Hey!" she immediately protested, "I'll have you know that I have been writing lately."
"Writing what? The next great Twilight/Spongebob crossover fanfic?"
"Ew," she wrinkled her nose. "Is that a thing?"
"I don't know, but I'd ship Bella and Squidward. They're perfect for each other. Same expressions and everything."
"My gosh, don't say 'ship'. Doctors don't say that," she cringed. "And no. It's not that."
"What's it about?"
She paused and briefly closed her eyes when she realized that she couldn't actually tell him much about it, and anyway, why did she say anything in the first place? "Uh... a guy... and a girl... but it's nothing serious and I've just written little things out of boredom." Boredom and unspeakable frustration, though at least Bucky had temporarily eased both with his visit.
"Uh huh. So the usual, then. You know you're gonna need to get a job soon if you want to, you know, keep eating while you don't write a book."
"Yes, I'm aware," she rolled her eyes.
"And you know that I work at a hospital that I could easily get you a job at if you moved out here."
"I know," she replied in a less clipped tone.
"You could probably even get a boyfriend that you wouldn't have to hide from me."
She grinned and shook her head. "I don't think that one's changing anytime soon, regardless of where I live."
Paul groaned and eventually replied, "Of course."
Still stirring more out of habit than necessity, Summer suddenly wondered what Paul would say if she told him that she was half-seriously thinking about moving to New York. She almost blurted it out just so he could freak out and talk her out of it, but at the last minute, she bit her tongue. It probably wouldn't happen anyway - no sense in getting wailed at for an hour about it.
"So it's getting serious then?"
She bit her lip, considering her potential answers before replying, "I think it sort of always has been."
"Well, you know that traditionally, when relationships get serious, that's generally when you introduce them to the family. Or at least give the family their name."
She smiled and replied, "Well, I'm nothing if not unconventional."
She heard a burdened sigh on the other end, followed by a muttered, "I found an actual gray hair on my head yesterday. And it's your fault."
She snickered and went on to talk to him for the better part of the night, using his conversation as a means of curbing the urge to worry and overthink until she received the text from Bucky that he'd promised her.
But, long after she had hung up and ran out of things to occupy her mind and deter worry with, she still hadn't gotten the text.
The first shot that Bucky fired that night was silent and flew smoothly into the head of a HYDRA guard after he and Steve had descended silently down a stairwell towards the basement of the northeast wing of the facility. The guard had been rounding the corner towards the stairs, and Bucky had fired before Steve could throw his shield and neutralize the man in a less lethal way.
Steve glanced over his shoulder at the masked, slightly off-putting face of his friend and nodded. "Thanks."
Bucky acknowledged his words with a slight nod, stepping over the body and only glancing down at it to take note of the tiny but distinct HYDRA pin on the guard's collar. Apparently, here, they weren't even bothering trying to hide their true allegiances.
Feeling nothing one way or the other about taking that particular life, he followed Steve down the corridor, their footsteps silent and path empty until they reached a corner that led to another stairwell. Two more guards waited there, but Steve acted first this time, his shield hitting one in the head and then bouncing directly into the other's head, knocking them both out before they could so much as touch their weapons. Bucky stifled annoyance at the men being left alive, but followed Steve down the second stairwell anyway. Natasha and Sam were supposed to be waiting for them at the bottom of this one.
At the end of the stairs lay the basement, and a part of the facility that was locked behind a very large, very locked steel door. Four guards lay crumpled near it, courtesy mostly of Natasha, who he and Steve found affixing an explosive to the door.
"Took you guys long enough," she muttered quietly. "Senior citizens really do move slow."
Ignoring her jibe, Steve asked, "How many hostiles are we expecting in there?"
"Six heat signatures," she replied, stepping back from the door and adding, "On my count..."
Bucky watched as the door blew open a few seconds later, steeling himself for whatever lay inside and staring down the scope of his gun after impulsively tearing the goggles from his eyes and letting them clatter to the floor. They were little more than an afterthought as they stormed inside the room.
Everything happened in a blink of an eye, like a movie being rushed to the end credits, and that was what he had expected. Shots rang out immediately in their direction and the room erupted in instant but very brief chaos; Natasha took out two shooters with just her guns first, Bucky shot another in the head as they tried to dive for cover, and Sam covered Steve as he took on a very stupid hostile and felled him with a single punch to his head. Of the two remaining hostiles, one hid and the other tried to engage in a firefight, but was shot through the shoulder by Natasha and dropped with a loud cry. All in all, it was over in less than two minutes.
Steve immediately went after the hiding man, and for the first time since entering the room, Bucky allowed himself the chance to actually look at it. It wasn't just a room; it was a lab, and a rather large one. Equipment and machines were everywhere, all gleaming and new and lit up with data and calculations. Screens covered the walls, all flickering after the fight that had just ended seconds earlier, but a small hallway that was almost hidden in the far southeast corner of the room caught his eye more than anything else.
To his left, Steve was grabbing the remaining live and/or conscious operative, a man in a white lab coat, and shoving him in a chair while Natasha busied herself with retrieving data at what looked to be the main computer. Sam hovered near Steve, as usual, and the only one who noticed Bucky wandering off towards the hallway was Natasha.
He heard her discreetly tell Sam to follow him, but he ignored it as he raised his gun in anticipation of whatever awaited down the hallway. What he found were rooms, one after another, all empty of people, all containing various sorts of equipment that varied in how nightmarish they were. He kicked in the doors of each room and peered inside before moving on. Some contained nothing but large glass boxes, big enough to fit a human being in, while others held vials and vials of liquids, stores of chemicals and what looked like medical instruments. A few rooms resembled operating rooms.
A sick, knowing feeling settled in the pit of his gut as he neared the dead end of the hallway. The final room was guarded in a way that the others were not, behind a steel door of its own, and his heart was racing uncomfortably as he stared at it blankly.
Suddenly a hand shot in front of him and slid a security badge in front of a scanner on the door, and Bucky glanced up to find Steve, not Sam, as the culprit. He looked at the other man in slight surprise, but Steve merely looked at him with a gentle but serious expression as he reminded him, "I'm with you, remember?"
Bucky nodded, hoping the dread creeping up into his throat would prove to be unjustified. Then Steve pushed the door open, and Bucky held his breath.
The room was larger than the others, but it only contained a single item. It was large and stood all the way against the wall, tall enough to reach the low ceiling but narrow enough to leave plenty of space between itself and the walls. It was a tube-shaped chamber, and recognition instantly flitted behind Bucky's eyes as he let the barrel of his gun face the floor.
This was probably not the only cryo-chamber that HYDRA had owned. It was probably not the only one that they'd ever shoved him in. But as he stood there inching closer to it, staring at the dark exterior and the circle-shaped window near the top of the tube, a flash of memories flew dizzyingly through his mind and almost made him sick with the force behind it.
It was blurry and disjointed, but he remembered being shoved into the chamber, weak and confused and terrified after having had his mind ripped away from him. He suddenly remembered the stark white walls of the corridor and the doors of all the rooms, seeing them pass him by as he lay shivering and literally melting on a stretcher, being moved from one room to the other as he slowly regained consciousness near the end of a carefully executed thaw. He could nearly feel his long hair, icy and dripping on his bare shoulders as he blinked awake, facing the same terrifying state of confusion that he had entered his freeze in, waiting for instructions, waiting for something, anything, anyone, to tell him who he was and what he was supposed to do.
He barely heard Steve softly calling his name, asking if he was all right. His vision became dim and tunnel-like, he couldn't breathe, and he could feel the cold creeping up on him again, starting at his toes and his fingertips and quickly encompassing his entire being.
He was officially compromised. But he was also far too gone to recognize that or care.
Panic ringing in his ears, he stormed out of the room and rushed down the hallway, no longer in control of his actions or movements as flashes and horrors continued to assault his consciousness, building and piling until he felt cornered by his own fractured mind.
When he reached the end of the hallway and looked out at the lab with wide eyes and ears that could barely hear, his vision instantly focused on the white-coated man currently being interrogated by Natasha. The man looked up at Bucky once and paled with obvious and sinking fear and recognition.
And Bucky recognized him as well.
He marched towards the chair, knocking Natasha away with a backhanded punch from his metal hand that he didn't think about, sending her flying into a table. Sam backed off immediately, and Steve's yelling fell on deaf ears as Bucky grabbed the man by the throat with his left hand while he tore off his mask with his right.
The man's face exploded with even more fear, and Bucky didn't say a word as he squeezed his fist and cut off the man's oxygen. He had nothing to say, no coherent thoughts, no agenda aside from killing the man he could suddenly remember poking and prodding him, jabbing him with needles and even helping to throw him into the cryo-chamber. His mind was blank and his mission was singular and simple - kill the man like he had never been allowed to do before.
Meanwhile, as Bucky choked the man to death, Steve was shouting at nearly the top of his lungs just a few inches behind him.
"Bucky! Let go! We need him!"
Recovered from her own attack, Natasha braced herself against the table and looked from the dying HYDRA operative to Steve before warningly saying. "Steve, he's losing it."
Steve kept shouting, to no avail, and Natasha could only yield to Steve for so long before she decided to make the decision for him and step into action. She leapt up on the table and then jumped off, landing on Bucky's shoulders like she once had in the middle of a highway, but this time she immediately placed her wrists on either side of his neck and shocked him with her charges.
Bucky let go at the unexpected electrocution and stumbled back, away from the man who fell limply out of the chair to the floor as soon as he let him go. The charges weren't enough to incapacitate him like most of Natasha's targets, so he was able to reach up and grab her by the arm and throw her to the ground as he staggered away, looking around wildly and trying to understand what the hell had just happened. The shocks had somewhat awakened him from his previous delirium, but now he was caught between reality and the images in his head, each yanking him in different directions and resulting in pure confusion and fear as he looked around the room.
Steve was suddenly in front of him, gripping his upper arms and saying frantic words that Bucky didn't understand. Sam announced from his place next to the operative on the floor that the man was dead, and Natasha was back on her feet, gun drawn and pointed at Bucky out of well-justified caution.
He'd killed their only remaining and best source of information, possibly making the entire mission pointless. He realized this in a fog as he stared blankly at Steve, his eyes nearly as dead and lost as they had been six months ago, and the more Steve spoke, the more he showed his fear that Bucky was slipping away.
Driven by two opposite, warring impulses and thus able to follow neither, Bucky pushed Steve away harshly and turned on his heel, storming out of the lab. His head hurt, ached with images and voices that were growing brighter and louder by the second, and he could only focus on one word to guide his actions: out. He needed to get out.
Steve tried to follow him, to make him stop, but turning around once to punch him hard in the face seemed to drive the point home to leave him alone. From there, Bucky slipped out of the now-familiar facility alone, disappeared into a surrounding thicket of trees, and eventually ended up on a street where he stole a parked car and started driving on autopilot, having no conscious idea of where he was going and simply trying to find his way back to reality in the aftermath of what had happened.
If he had been functioning at his normal capacity, he might have known that a not-quite dead HYDRA guard lying on the floor had seen him as he had hurried to escape the facility, recognized him without his mask, and by communicating to a few off-site comrades set into motion a series of events that would result in the night ending in a way that Bucky could not currently imagine, let alone anticipate or thwart.
While Summer put David to bed, she focused on reading him his usual story about a knight slaying a dragon and made a concerted effort to not let her mind drift to the text that she was still waiting for. It was a losing battle, however, because her mind had been running rampant with worry regardless of what she did, and it was not a comforting thought to know that this was something she was just going to have to get used to.
But she was hardly the only girl in the world to have to deal with such a thing. Military wives had been doing it for decades, on a much higher level than she ever would. Bucky was much more indestructible than the average soldier, but she worried far more for his mental state than his physical one. As well as he seemed to be holding it together these days, she had no doubt how truly delicate that balance was.
Still, she forced herself to focus on the task at hand, reading until the little boy curled up at her side was was fast asleep. She then sighed and checked her phone in her pocket for the thousandth time before shoving it back in and setting the book aside, kissing David's forehead as she settled him in and slipped away.
Wishing pointlessly that Bucky could be waiting for her in her bedroom this night like he had been the night before, she flipped off the lights and quietly stepped out into the hallway. She planned on walking straight into her room to climb under the covers and obsessively check her phone in peace, but her kitchen light caught her eye as she paused and peered down the hall in slight confusion. She had turned off that light nearly half an hour ago. Hadn't she?
Shrugging to herself, she headed down the hallway, towards the kitchen, hoping that her memory wasn't going on the fritz, only to stop dead in her tracks at the sight of the very man who had never texted her like he'd promised, curled up in a ball against her front door and holding his head in his hands.
Her mind went blank with shock and her heart sank. She just stood there, staring at the slightly pathetic sight that he was, praying that something horrible hadn't happened to cause this while she finally willed her feet to take her to him. A thousand questions raced through her head and a thousand horrible possible answers joined them, but she shoved the thoughts away as she slid to her knees in front of him, hesitating only briefly before placing her hands gently on his wrists.
"Bucky?" she called softly, her touch as gentle and cautious as her voice. "What happened? Are you all right?"
He didn't answer or even move. She quickly looked him over, finding no points of injury on him, and continuing to speak softly to him as she eased his hands away from his lowered head. "Bucky..."
He finally lifted his head up some as she took both of his hands in hers and gave them a light, reassuring squeeze. Slowly, his eyes met hers, and her heart dropped a little more at how red and exhausted they were. They were also startlingly vacant, and she started to fear the worst in terms of what had led him to this.
He blinked a few times, trying to focus on her, and she drew a breath when recognition started to fill his empty eyes.
"Summer," he muttered, his voice sounding like it was grinding against sandpaper.
She nodded, bringing one of her hands to his cheek. "Yeah. It's me. You're okay. Whatever happened, you're okay."
His right hand reached up slightly shakily to cover her hand and press it closer against his face, while his eyes stayed locked on hers. "I shouldn't have gone."
His admission sent more alarms ringing in her mind, but she didn't let it show as she nodded and edged closer to him. "It's all right, Bucky. Is everyone okay? Is Steve okay?" He nodded, and she breathed a very quiet sigh of relief. "Can you tell me what happened? You don't have to if you don't want to, but..."
He was silent for awhile after she trailed off, but she recognized his expression as the one he always had when he was gathering his words, trying to figure out how to say what he wanted to.
But it wasn't Bucky or Summer who eventually broke the silence. It was the rumble and hum of a helicopter slowly growing louder and louder as it moved closer to the house that made his eyes finally snap fully into reality. He was on his feet with a blinding, terrifying speed, all but running to her living room window and peering out while she watched in confusion and sudden fear.
"Bucky? Is everything oka-"
He turned around suddenly and with fiercely wide and serious eyes said, "Go get your son and run."
Her eyes widened and fear became shock. "What?!"
"Grab him and run towards the trees, now - go!"
It was the first time she had ever heard him shout. She immediately leapt to her feet and and ran down the hallway, while the helicopter's engine grew steadily louder in sync with the panic clawing its way up her spine. She burst into David's room and drew him up into her arms frantically, blanket and all, and then turned and ran back the way that she'd came, never once doubting the urgency of what she was doing.
Bucky was at her front door waiting for her. But, the moment that his metal arm curled protectively around her shoulders just before they made a run for it, a deafening, blinding flash of light overcame her sight and sent her flying forward. Her arms tightened instinctively like a vice around the little boy in her arms, and two much larger arms than hers pulled her almost brutally tightly into the body beside hers as the explosion rent her house in two.
The last thing she heard before she hit the ground and lost consciousness under the protective shield of a super soldier's body was the sound of a second explosion and her home, and everything that she had ever owned, being reduced to little more than worthless rubble.
A/N: dun dun dun :) hey, the crap had to hit the fan eventually, right? And I do love leaving everybody with a cliffhanger, if this qualifies as one. I guess it kinda does. Anyway, sorry about the shorter-than-usual length of this one, but my most eventful chapters seem to be shorter than the more boring ones for some reason. Thank you to all of you lovely readers and reviewers and followed, you are all the best :D also, thanks go midnightwings96 for having helped me with this chapter and the action-y stuff by assuring me that I had not, in fact, written the giant steaming pile of garbage that I thought it was (I hate writing action, utterly despise it). So with all of that said, I love you all, and I will see you in another week :D