A/N: okay so, due to some unexpected downtime, I managed to write another chapter sooner than I thought I would lol. It's a leeeeetle bit shorter than my usual chapters, but that's just the way the cookie crumbled this time around. I have no idea when I'll have the next chapter ready, and it might be awhile since soon I'm gonna be back to having no writing time, but I promise that it'll be up as soon as I can manage it. Thank you guys so much for your reviews and follows and general amazingness, I love you all SO MUCH. Also big huge thanks to midnightwings96 who is as fabulous, helpful, and brilliant as ever, 100% of the time :D I love you guys and I'll see you as soon as I can! :D
Mid-morning after the kids had been picked up by Paul and taken to his house for the day, Summer found herself in a dilemma. The fact that it was a dilemma at all was rather depressing, but she had to play with the cards that she had been dealt and those cards were rather frustrating as of late.
She was in her and Bucky's bedroom, standing just outside of the bathroom door and listening to him get in the shower. They had a big day ahead of them with the trial back in full swing, and today was going to be one of the roughest days yet. The prosecution was calling Brock Rumlow to the witness stand, and considering the fact that he was the reason why the trial was happening in the first place - in addition to being a very familiar face from Bucky's days as HYDRA's captive - it was going to be a tense day, to say the very least.
Thus Summer's dilemma. They had to leave for the courthouse soon, and she needed to take a shower as well. In fact, if she waited for Bucky to get done, she ran the risk of running late and that was not an option. So the obvious solution was to jump in the shower with him and conserve both time and water, but that idea wasn't nearly as simple as it had once been. Not now that being naked in an intimate setting with him was almost out of the question.
Ever since the embarrassing end to Summer's attempted home date night, Bucky had barely touched her and she was afraid to even try to touch him. There were the regular pecks on the lips and she always managed to find a way to snuggle in his arms every night as they slept, but there was nothing more between them. If she even looked at him for too long or tried to drag out a kiss or two, it made him run the other way sometimes almost literally. He was terrified of failing again and she was terrified of making his mental state even worse, so she kept her distance and gave him space.
But now she had to break that habit if she wanted to remain on schedule. So, with a deep breath and a prayer that she wouldn't manage to screw it up, she pushed open the bathroom door and then stepped through it, eyes immediately darting to the blurry silhouette of her husband through the walls of the enclosed shower. She then closed the door quietly behind her and tried to shake off her nerves, telling herself to just do it as she pulled her hair out of its ponytail and started getting her clothes off.
The compromising of their physical relationship was a particular cruelty for them both. While sexual dysfunction was in all objectivity the least important problem that they faced, it was simply the icing on a horrible, miserable cake. It was hell on a woman with Summer's insecurities and even more hell on a man like Bucky who felt as if he was losing control of himself to his former captors yet again. The physical aspect of their relationship had always come so easily, so effortlessly, and without it, nothing else was the same either. Tack on the fact that Bucky was still not confiding in her and that their communication was also suffering, and their relationship was unarguably at the lowest point that it had ever seen.
Painfully aware of this, Summer did her best to put those thoughts aside and, once her clothes had all been shed, she pulled open the shower door and peered inside before stepping in. He was standing with his back to her, water cascading down his broad shoulders and back and pooling at his feet, and he was so pretty that it never failed to make her heart ache a little. She knew that he had heard her coming from the moment she walked inside the bathroom, so she wasn't surprised that he didn't turn to look at her. She expected him to stay just where he was, metal hand resting on the wall and head slightly bowed so the water could soak his hair, and that was what he did as she walked towards him.
Pressing herself against his back, she slid her arms around his waist and then laid her head on the back of his right shoulder, embracing him sweetly and silently. He acknowledged her by raising his head and placing his hand over both of hers where they were joined along his middle, and she felt him release a deep breath.
Then he turned around in her arms, and she looked up to meet his gaze far more shyly than she wanted to. His expression was unreadable aside from the usual burdened heaviness that was always present in his eyes, but she felt a nudge of encouragement when both of his hands went to her waist and he leaned down to kiss her. It was a soft, innocent kiss, but it lingered a bit longer than their usual ones did. Even more promisingly, when she slid her hands up into his wet hair and kissed him again, a little bit longer and deeper, he didn't stop her or pull away.
But she didn't want to push her luck, so she gently broke the kiss and then turned them around so that she could get fully under the shower's warm spray. With him facing her and his eyes fully on her, she tipped her head back and got her waist-length black hair wet, reaching up both hands to push it back and out of her face. She knew how the motions lifted up her breasts and the view that it gave him, and while she hoped that he enjoyed it, she didn't expect it. She wasn't trying to seduce him or lure him into any kind of encounter, but she hoped that he at least still found her attractive. In her lower, less rational moments, she sometimes wondered about that.
But it was hard to believe that he found her anything but desirable when he looked at her the way that he was, like she was utterly gorgeous and like he couldn't stand to look at anything but her. She stepped away from the water as she lathered her hair up, letting him get back underneath the water, and he didn't take his eyes off of her once. They switched back and forth silently, eyes on each other and occasionally brushing up against each other or otherwise innocently touching as they rinsed off, and then they both paused when they ran out of things to wash and reasons to stay busy.
Summer was the one currently under the still-beautifully hot water when they fell still, and she felt a nervous thrill run through her veins when Bucky took a step closer to her and reached both of his hands to her face. He pulled her close, flush against him, and then he kissed her with a passion that she hadn't experienced since the date night gone wrong.
She melted into his kiss and into his arms, her body all but singing for him as it molded to the hard planes and lines of his larger one. She wrapped her arms around his neck and opened her mouth to welcome his tongue as he let his hands wander, the metal of his left slick with warm water as it slid from her back to her upper thigh and back again, and for awhile, everything was perfect again. They were warm and pressed together and touching and she was soaking up every last minute of it.
But they didn't have much time to waste, and soon - much too soon - Summer noticed something that made her heart sink. Throughout all of their deep, thorough kissing and intimate, sensual touches, none of it was apparently enough to rouse him. There was no hiding it, not with the way that she was pressed to him everywhere, and that sent her on a mission to do everything she could to help him along.
She kissed his neck and sucked and nipped at his most sensitive places, ground her hips into his and made sure that every time he did something to make her feel good, she would moan and let him know. He groped at her breasts and kissed the hell out of her, holding her nearly tight enough to hurt, but when she opened her eyes and took a good look at his face, she could see how much it was killing him to not be even half ready for what they were heading towards.
She couldn't go on like that. Even if they'd had the time, every second that went by felt more and more like torture and less like a pleasurable experience between two lovers. He was so determined to make it work but it just wasn't, and when she finally stopped kissing him and put her hands on his chest to put some distance between them, her ears were burning with embarrassment and growing panic.
"Bucky, this isn't... it's..."
"Come here," he said simply, tugging her close again and kissing her skillfully enough to almost make her forget why she'd stopped in the first place.
She broke the kiss and shook her head. "But -"
"Shh," he urged her, turning her so that her back was to his chest. He pulled her tight against him and dropped his lips down to her neck, right hand snaking between her legs as he murmured, "I can still take care of you."
She closed her eyes and felt her heart just about break apart. He was trying so hard, so very hard, and his lips on her neck and fingers playing expertly felt wonderful, but... she couldn't properly enjoy it unless he was too. And the fact that she could feel how very little he was enjoying himself ruined any chance she had of even wanting to try anymore.
She put her hand on his wrist to stop him. "Stop. I can't..." she shook her head, "I can't do this if you're not into it too."
"I'm sorry," he muttered almost brokenly near her ear, his tone full of embarrassment and disappointment in himself. "Just... just let me get you off. Please." He kissed her under her ear and cupped a breast with his metal hand. "I can still do that."
She suddenly felt as if she might cry, hearing his voice sound like that and listening to him beg her to let him feel like he wasn't completely useless or non-functional. She couldn't deny him, so she let go of his wrist and did her very best to let go and let him take her where he couldn't go himself.
But only another moment or two proved that idea as futile as the last. The mood was ruined yet again and her mindset was nowhere near what it needed to be, so she once again took his wrist and stopped him, this time with a whispered, "I'm sorry, I'm... I can't do it. I'm trying but I..."
This time he didn't fight her. His entire body went still for a moment before he drew his hand away and then, to her surprise, turned away from her with a curse that wasn't in English. He left her standing there like that, all but storming out of the shower and leaving her to stand there under water that was now lukewarm and almost as unpleasant as what they had just experienced.
She reached up and flipped the water off, shivering a little and trying her best not to cry. It didn't work, however, and a few tears escaped as she stepped out of the shower and grabbed a towel to dry off and warm up with.
She should have just waited. She shouldn't have gotten in the shower with him and allowed such a situation to occur. She heaped all of the blame on herself and then went out to the bedroom to check on him and make sure he wasn't breaking things.
He wasn't. He was sitting on the edge of their bed instead, a towel on his hips and his elbows on his knees as he stared miserably into nothing.
She lingered cautiously in the bathroom doorway for a moment or two before making herself step forward. He didn't look her way once as she came closer, stopping once she was near but still far enough away to give him some space before she quietly said his name.
"Don't," was all that he said.
Holding her towel tight under her arms, she sighed and said, "Just tell me what to do. Tell me how I can help you because I don't know and I'm..."
His eyes snapped up to hers. "You think I've got the slightest fucking clue?"
The bite in his tone made her shiver in a distinctly unpleasant way. She looked down and closed her eyes briefly, feeling words starting to make their way to the tip of her tongue despite her best efforts to shove them back down. "Is it me? Is it just... are you just not... do you not want me like that anymore? You have all your memories back now and maybe you just don't feel the same anymore?"
She didn't know what felt worse, the way that it felt saying those words out loud and voicing fears she'd barely even acknowledged to herself, or the way that he stared at her as if it was some kind of great betrayal to even think such a thing.
"That's what you think?" he asked with sheer disbelief.
She swallowed nervously and shrugged, "I don't know what I think. But before, the last time, you were able to at least... get started, and now I can't even get you -"
He suddenly stood up, the unexpected movement cutting off her words mid-sentence. He looked angry. "Dammit Summer, shut up."
She blinked at him in shock. She wasn't sure that he'd ever spoken to her like that, in so angry and bitter a tone.
"All this time and you still revert to this," he said, waving a hand in her direction. "It's getting old. I've got too much other shit going on to have to worry about you and holding your hand and fucking convincing you over and over that I love you."
His words cut deep, especially considering that the last thing she wanted to be was a burden on him when he already had the weight of the world on his shoulders. "That's not... that not what I'm asking you for."
"Then what?" he asked impatiently.
"I just want to know what I'm doing wrong," she admitted in a small voice.
"Nothing," he replied instantly. "None of this has anything to do with you, Summer. Not a damn thing."
"How?" her eyebrows furrowed. "How can it have nothing to do with me when it directly involves me?"
"Because you're not in my head," he replied. "You have no idea what I remember and what I spend every minute of every day wishing I could forget."
"Then tell me," she all but begged, stepping closer and looking at him pleadingly.
He merely stood his ground, looking at her hard and shaking his head. "No."
"Why?" she half-shouted. "This isn't like you. You've always told me everything - how else are we supposed to get through this? I can't help you if you don't let me."
"I don't want your help," he replied stubbornly.
"Then what do you want?" she asked a bit desperately. "What the hell do you want from me? You won't let me in, won't talk to me, you barely kiss me, you can't sleep with me anymore. I'm barely even a wife to you right now."
"Maybe that's a good thing," he said with a smile that was completely humorless and fully bitter. "You should get used to it now, 'cause when they put me away none of this is gonna matter anymore. The kids'll forget me and you won't have a husband anymore." The bitterness and anger faded into sadness and self-loathing as he then added, "Should have done you all a favor and never even met you in the first place."
With that, he turned on his heel and left her standing there with her mouth agape and tears burning behind her eyes. She couldn't believe what she had just heard, and she was too saddened and too shocked to fully grasp it and certainly too blindsided to say anything back. He grabbed a suit from their closet and then went back inside the bathroom with the door slamming shut behind him, and for a few very long, very painful moments, Summer lost all hope for the future.
She didn't know that Bucky was way ahead of her and had already lost his own hopes some time ago.
A few hours later, sitting in the courtroom that had become hideously familiar over the last several months, Bucky kept his features entirely expressionless and blank as he watched Brock Rumlow swear on a Bible to tell the truth under questioning. He didn't know what was more laughable, the thought of Rumlow displaying nothing but honesty or touching a Bible without spontaneously bursting into flames.
Nonetheless, Bucky made it his personal mission to keep all emotions and potential reactions hidden under the surface for his own sake. It was bad enough that this was happening at all, but if he let his anger and rage that he felt towards Rumlow show in any shape or form, it would only give Rumlow a sense of satisfaction that he didn't deserve. And Bucky refused to give him that.
So, he sat there and watched impassively and didn't even flinch when Rumlow took a seat at the witness stand and looked right at him. Bucky stared right back, and Rumlow only looked away once the new prosecutor began to speak.
Katherine Campbell had taken over for Richard Strong following his censure from the court, and she was just as accomplished of an attorney as he had been. She appeared nonthreatening and even friendly on the outside, but she was nothing short of a shark in the courtroom and she looked at Matt and Foggy like they were particularly small and vulnerable fish.
"Mr. Rumlow," she began, approaching the witness stand as she spoke, "you are a convicted domestic terrorist who has been found guilty of multiple counts of murder, attempted murder, arson, treason, and obstruction of justice, among other charges. Correct?"
"Yes, ma'am," he replied, not showing one ounce of feeling in regard to anything that she had just said. He glanced again at Bucky, and then for just a brief second, he looked at Summer as she sat just behind Bucky in the gallery. He quickly looked away, but not before Summer's heart sank and her own anger spiked at having made eye contact with the man who had destroyed her grandmother's home and nearly killed her and David more than once, not to mention also given the Feds the information on her that led to this trial happening in the first place.
But she and Bucky both maintained their deceptively calm masks. They had to.
"During your time working as a SHIELD agent in Washington, you were recruited early on by HYDRA and became one of their highest ranked agents, correct?"
Rumlow nodded again. "Yes ma'am, that is correct."
"When did you first gain knowledge of HYDRA's secret asset, the Winter Soldier?"
Rumlow thought for a moment before replying, "Well, only the guys at the very top knew about him. Took me awhile to get there, so I'd say... somewhere around 2010."
Sitting next to Summer in the gallery, Steve clenched his jaw and let the furrow in his brows deepen. The entire time that he'd known Brock and worked alongside him - the entire time that Steve had worked for SHIELD - Rumlow had known that Bucky was in a freezer in a secret underground lab across town. There was a special place in hell reserved for such a man, and Steve would believe nothing else.
"And you became one of his handlers?" Campbell asked.
"I accompanied him on several missions, yes," Rumlow nodded. "For the most part he worked alone, but I led his support team and shadowed him, provided transport and backup, made sure he reported back to HQ immediately after mission completion."
"And were you aware of the Soldier's identity the entire time that you worked with him?"
"That was something I put together myself," Rumlow said. "Nobody used his name. That was rule number one of working with him - no names, no nothing. I recognized him from pictures I remembered from school."
"Tell us about Mr. Barnes as the Winter Soldier," Campbell replied, pausing in her steps. "What was his disposition like? What was his general level of awareness?"
"He was quiet," Rumlow replied. "Usually pretty submissive, but not always. He was aware of what he was supposed to be aware of and not much else."
"Was he the mindless weapon that the defense claims he was?"
"I wouldn't call him mindless," Rumlow replied. "He was brilliant. Seeing him work in the field for the first time was a shock. I've never seen anyone so brutal and precise."
"Elaborate," Campbell replied.
"Well, he's considered the best assassin of the last century for a reason," Rumlow said. "He was quick and efficient. Didn't blink, always did whatever had to be done. Always got the job done without question. And he didn't just show up somewhere and pull the trigger - the jobs were a lot more complicated than that. He got the toughest missions because he was the best at what he did."
"He was the best at killing?" Campbell asked.
"Put it this way," Rumlow said, "he didn't need a visual on the target to get his shot. He could extrapolate an exact location using the smallest of clues and still drop the target with a headshot. You can't say he was mindless when he used his head to complete every mission that the other guys couldn't. He was brilliant. Still is, I'm sure."
"You said a few moments ago that he was usually submissive but not always," Campbell said. "Can you elaborate?"
"Well," Rumlow sighed, "it depended on how long they let him stay out of cryo. If they just took him out and put him back in, there'd be no issue and he was easy to work with. But if he had to stay out longer due to travel or complications with the mission, whatever, that's when things would get dicey."
"Dicey how?"
"Dicey as in he'd start to remember things he wasn't supposed to and then he'd fly off the handle and start killing everyone around him."
Bucky kept his expression blank even though inside he was stewing with a mixture of anger and shame. He knew exactly the incidents that Rumlow spoke of, and while he was ashamed of those deaths, another part of him felt as if every one of those bastards had deserved what they got.
"Did you witness such an incident?"
Rumlow nodded. "Yes I did. He was like an animal thrashing around, trying to kill everyone in the room with his bare hands. We barely got him restrained and into the chair to wipe him. Five guys died."
"Keeping all of that in mind," Campbell then asked, "would you consider Mr. Barnes fit to be free in society? Do you think it's possible to rehabilitate such a man and allow him near, for example, children?"
"Look," Rumlow said with a slight shake of his head, "he can deny it all he wants but the thing is, I know what it's like to do what he does. I know how it feels and what it does to you. It's like having a beast inside of you, and that doesn't just go away. You can try to ignore it, distract yourself with whatever works for awhile like maybe a wife and a couple kids, but it's still gonna be there inside of you waiting to come out. And the more you try to keep it buried, the worse it's gonna be when you finally let it out."
"So that would be a no, then?"
Rumlow glanced at Bucky and then back to the prosecutor. "He didn't choose what happened to him. I know that, everybody knows that. But I think for once you guys in the government are doing something right trying to get him off the streets."
Campbell nodded and then turned, handing the witness to the defense as she returned to her seat on the other side of the courtroom. After a few quietly spoken words between Matt and Foggy, Matt stood from the table and, walking stick in hand, approached the witness stand next.
He took a moment before speaking, seemingly gathering his thoughts carefully before he lifted his head a bit and said, "As the prosecution noted, you are a convicted domestic terrorist, Mr. Rumlow."
"Yes, sir," he replied.
"Is it also true that you exchanged information leading to my client's arrest for a more comfortable prison cell?"
"I don't see how that's relevant to this case, Counselor," Rumlow replied. "But yes, that's true."
"And now you, a convicted murderer and terrorist, are the prosecution's star witness," Matt noted. "Can you give me a credible and convincing reason why the jury should listen to you - an unapologetic killer who was complicit in a conspiracy that would have killed millions of innocent citizens - over my client, who unlike you has expressed remorse for crimes that he was brainwashed into carrying out for an organization that he never pledged allegiance to, also unlike yourself?"
"Because I've got nothing to gain here," Rumlow replied. "I've gotten all the favors I can get and now I gotta live with rotting behind bars for the rest of my life. I've got no reason to be anything but honest. Unlike your client, who went and hid with his little super-friends and pretended to be a good guy until I helped the Feds catch up with him."
"But that's not what you did, is it?" Matt asked. "You didn't lead the FBI to Mr. Barnes. You led them to his wife, who you kept tabs on for years and attempted to kill more than once."
Before the prosecutor could object to such an inflammatory remark, Rumlow merely shrugged and replied, "I still don't see the relevance."
"That's because there's a lot of things you obviously don't see," Matt replied. "Upon your conviction, you were evaluated by a team of psychologists who reported that you present as heavily sociopathic with psychotic tendencies. Is this true?"
Rumlow chuckled as if Matt had just told a particularly funny joke. "Yeah, that's right."
"On the other hand, when the very same team evaluated my client following his arrest earlier this year, his report focused on severe PTSD and depression with some dissociative qualities, all of which are extremely normal and commonly found in soldiers and prisoners of war. And yet you claim he is the one who should be kept off the streets? Do you really expect a jury to believe a word you say?"
"I don't really care," Rumlow admitted. "I'm not here to make any friends or win any favors with anyone. But I am telling the truth. And you and Captain America can sugarcoat it all you want, but the truth is that Barnes is dangerous and always will be. And I bet even his little wife knows that deep down."
"Well, his wife can speak for herself when she takes the stand," Matt replied. "I only have one more question for you. Do you feel any guilt for having witnessed my client's abuse at the hands of HYDRA and aided it rather than try to put a stop to it?"
"No," Rumlow replied. "Because what HYDRA was trying to do and trying to accomplish wasn't easy or pretty. It required sacrifice."
"And Mr. Barnes's identity, autonomy, well-being - those were all inconsequential things to sacrifice for the greater good?"
"Absolutely," Rumlow replied. The prosecutor tried not to roll her eyes and cringe at the idiocy spewing from her supposed star witness.
"Just like all of those innocent people that Project Insight would have murdered?"
"Every great thing worth fighting for requires sacrifice," Rumlow replied. "I'd do it all again if I had the chance."
"No further questions," Matt said, finished with Rumlow now that he'd made him look like the homicidal and mentally unstable loom that he was. The members of the jury all appeared slightly horrified and more than a little confused, and Bucky made it a point to look anywhere but at Rumlow now that the questions were over. Summer didn't have the same qualms, however, and she watched intently as Rumlow was escorted out by armed guards. He stared right back at her, unapologetic and as hate-worthy as he had ever been.
Summer just wanted to punch him in his smug, scarred face. In some strange way, however, it was nice to be able to aim all of her anger at someone in particular for a change and have someone to hate, so that was exactly what she did.
After that, the court went into recess and the prosecution and defense teams retreated into their separate rooms where they took their breaks and strategized in. There was one other old HYDRA operative taking the stand that day, and they had about 20 minutes before the trial would resume.
"Well," Foggy said as he sat at a large round table, "I think that went about as well as we could hope for. Guy's more nuts than a can of cashews."
Bucky didn't sit with the rest of the team. As Matt and Steve began to talk and Natasha stood nearby listening, Bucky wandered over to a window in the room and stared out of it in silence, only half-listening to what was being said. Summer watched him a bit nervously, still in lingering shock from their argument earlier and unsure if she should try to speak to him or not. She never seemed to say the right thing anymore, and she felt like all she did was make things worse. But she loved him more than life and she couldn't not go to him, even after the mess they'd both made of things earlier that day.
She approached him quietly from behind, not touching him like she wanted to because she was afraid that he'd flinch and pull away. "You okay?"
He didn't answer her. He just kept staring out the window, lost in thought and barely seeing or hearing anything other than the noise in his head.
"I'll leave you alone if you want," she said quietly, and he blinked at those words. "I just... I love you. And I know that I really can't do anything to help you right now and that this trial is... hell for you. It's hell for me too. I just want you to know that whatever happens, I don't regret a single minute I've spent with you."
That was when he turned and finally looked at her, eyes stormy with emotions that she could tell he could barely contain let alone control. He looked her right in the eye and he said, "I do."
And there it was again, the tip of a razor-sharp knife piercing the very center of her heart. "What?" she asked barely above a whisper, her voice sounding utterly pathetic to her own ears.
"I meant what I said this morning," he replied evenly.
"But..."
"Don't," he said with a shake of his head. "Don't tell me I'm wrong when we both know I'm right. All I've done is fuck up your life and David's life, and I'm not coming out of this a free man."
"You don't know that," she argued weakly, tears springing behind her eyes and making her voice come out a bit wobbly.
"Yeah I do," he muttered. "If you don't, then you're just lying to yourself."
"Please stop talking like this," she begged him, reaching out and touching his arm only to have him jerk away from her, just as she had feared. It made the knife already lodged in her heart twist painfully deeply.
"Don't touch me," he muttered before side-stepping her and heading for the door. Steve, who had been half-listening, started to get up to stop him, but Natasha put a hand on Steve's shoulder to halt him. There was nowhere else Bucky could really go in the building aside from s bathroom just down the hall, and that was exactly where he went to get away from everyone for a few moments.
Summer stood there staring at the door after he'd left, quickly wiping away a tear that annoyingly fell from her left eye. Natasha didn't hesitate to come her way, standing at her side as she told her, "Don't listen to him. He's nowhere near being in his right mind."
Summer shrugged and looked at her friend helplessly. "I can't even tell anymore. I've seen him at his worst before but this... I barely even know who he is right now. And I can't help him and it's the worst feeling in the world."
"I know," Natasha replied softly. "Just keep hanging in there. The trial'll be over soon enough."
"And what if he's right?" Summer asked. "What if he's not coming out of this a free man and they put him away? I mean, we all know that could happen, right?" She looked then at the lawyers and asked, "What do you guys think? What are the chances of him actually getting off?"
Foggy glanced at Matt before sighing and replying, "Honestly, I'd say it could go either way at this point. 50/50."
Summer then turned back to Natasha and said, "I don't know what I'm gonna do if it doesn't go our way."
"You're a survivor," Natasha replied simply, like it was a mere statement of fact. "You'll survive."
Summer believed her. She had survived a lot in the past and she would continue to survive whatever the future had in store. But the thought of going back to merely surviving after almost five years of thriving and being truly and utterly happy... it was almost more than she thought she could take. Like half of her soul was being ripped away right along with the man that she loved.
It would be the hardest thing she'd ever have to endure to let him go and move on with life without him. She could only pray with everything that was in her that they would catch a break for once and that she wouldn't lose him the way that Bucky was already convinced that she would.
The rest of the day's proceedings went by slowly and uneventfully, the remaining testimony not nearly as interesting or shocking as Rumlow's had been. By day's end, Summer was drained and tired and Bucky was too, and they were both relieved when it was time to go home.
As they exited the courthouse, Summer took Bucky's hand like she always did and was by his side as they began to descend the steps towards the car waiting for them. Despite the turmoil between them, there was no need for the public to see even a hint of that, so they kept up appearances and kept their heads down as they avoided the usual gaggle of photographers and reporters and the inevitable onslaught of questions neither one of them would ever answer. Steve and Natasha were just behind them, and they had almost made it down to the car when a camera in Summer's face knocked into her shoulder and made her drop her purse from her shoulders.
Bucky and the two others behind them stopped as Summer leaned down to pick the purse up, grabbing it and shoving it back on her shoulder as she glared at the offending cameraman, and it was just as Bucky took her hand in his once more that the deafening and unmistakable sound of a gunshot firing off hit their ears.
It all happened so fast, too fast, but Summer felt a burning pain like she'd never felt before right at the same moment that she heard the gunshot. She didn't cry out or make any kind of noise because she was instantly in shock, plus the next thing she knew, she was on the ground underneath Bucky.
Bucky immediately grabbed Summer and flung her to the ground when he heard the shot, instincts taking over and his metal arm covering her as chaos erupted all around them. There were three more shots - bam bam bam - and the third bullet ricocheted off of his arm and into the street. Whoever was shooting, they were aiming at him. But they missed.
There was shouting from both Steve and Natasha and the sound of the reporters running away from the scene as quickly as they could, and when Bucky looked up and scanned the tops of the nearby buildings, he saw a sniper on the rooftop of a bank just before he turned to run away. Natasha saw him too, and she pulled a gun from her ankle and aimed and fired while the sniper was still in their sights. He stumbled - she hit him, just like she always hit all of her targets - but he kept going, and then suddenly Sam was bursting from the car that had been waiting and hurriedly fastening on to his shoulders what he called his "emergency wings" that he kept in his car for situations like these. It was Tony's idea, and they all owed him even more now.
"He's on the bank," Natasha shouted to Sam as he ran her way. "He's headed south."
"I know, I saw," Sam said, opening his arms. "Come on."
As if they'd practiced this a thousand times before, Natasha jumped into his arms and his metal wings quickly extended out, and then they were flying towards the sniper with Sam flying them there and Natasha's guns out and ready. Police were on their way too, the scene still utter chaos, but once Sam and Natasha were on their way to apprehend the shooter, Steve jumped out the last remaining few steps to check on Bucky and Summer.
"You hit?" He asked Bucky, who shook his head and moved off of Summer now that the immediate threat was gone.
"No, I'm fine," he said, looking down at Summer and then pausing as all the blood drained from his face and horror overcame him like ice through his veins. He was covered in blood that wasn't his, and Summer's light grey dress that she'd worn that day was stained red on the right side of her abdomen. "Summer?!"
His voice panicked and her eyes wide as she looked down and saw the blood for herself the first time, her mouth fell open and suddenly the pain finally hit her at full force. Steve stared in horror for a second before yelling for a medic, and Bucky couldn't believe what he was seeing. This couldn't be happening.
"No, no, no, no," he mumbled before putting his hand over the hole in her body as if that would do anything. Summer started hyperventilating, mind going blank with panic and the sudden horror of realizing that she might be dying when Bucky's eyes met hers.
He took off his jacket and wadded it up, pressing it to her wound to stifle the bleeding as he told her, "Stay with me, okay? Look at me, don't look down. Look at me, sweetheart."
She did as he said, staring at him as her vision started to go fuzzy from both the blood loss and the lack of oxygen to her brain.
"You're gonna be fine, okay?" he told her desperately, though there was zero confidence in his tone. "You hear me? You're gonna be fine."
She nodded and then burst into tears. The unexpected sight of her tears streaming down her face made Bucky's voice die in his throat, and then suddenly he could barely see through the tears in his own eyes.
"I'm sorry," she told him shakily through the tears streaming down her cheeks, reaching up and touching his face even though it took what felt all of her strength to raise her hand that far. He took her hand and held it to his cheek for her as she cried harder, repeating over and over, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry..."
"Shh, sweetheart, don't talk," he gently told her, kissing the back of her hand and knowing that her apologies encompassed so many things that weren't her fault in the least. She was sorry for everything that she couldn't fix, for everything wrong in their lives that she couldn't make go away, and now she was sorry for bleeding in his arms like this and making him feel the worst terror that he'd ever felt in his life. It was worse than falling, worse than watching her be hit by a speeding car, and the fact that she was apologizing for that made his own tears fall even harder.
That was when he felt arms pulling him away from her as the paramedics arrived and got to work on her. It was Steve who had pulled him off, of course, and before Bucky could tell Summer that it was okay and he loved her and that he was sorry for pushing her away and that she was the best thing that had ever happened to him, her eyes rolled shut and she fell unconscious. The paramedics put an oxygen mask on her face and started hooking her up to all of their equipment and portable monitors, and as they put pressure on the wound and got ready to load her up and take her to the hospital, Steve tried to keep Bucky from completely losing it.
"It's okay," Steve told him unconvincingly, still having to physically hold him back. "She's gonna be fine. She's tough. She'll pull through this."
Bucky shook his head, trying to pull away and get Steve off of him, but he couldn't. "I have to go with her, I have to -"
"She's gonna need surgery, Bucky," Steve told him gently. "You've gotta let them take her."
He knew that Steve was right. He stood there and watched helplessly, uselessly, as his wife and the mother of his children laid bleeding on a stretcher from a bullet that was meant for him. The paramedics quickly and carefully loaded her into the back of their ambulance, closed the doors, and then got on the road with sirens blaring.
Steve then quickly led Bucky to Sam's car, and Bucky numbly got into the passenger seat as Steve got behind the wheel and followed the ambulance. Bucky's ankle monitor would start blaring soon, being out of the acceptable range that he was allowed within, but he couldn't have cared less. If the authorities wouldn't give him a pass to be at the hospital with his wife who had just been shot, then they were even worse than he thought and he would deal with that later, once he knew that Summer was okay.
If she was okay.
Tears of shame and fear falling from his eyes and into his right hand as he covered his face and tried not to sob like the broken mess that he was, Bucky prayed and begged any God who would listen that she would be okay. He could lose his own life and his freedom, he could lose everything, but he couldn't handle that. She couldn't die. She had to be fine. She had to.
She had to.