A/N: heyyyy everyone! :D So, I had this written maybe about a week ago but between life being chaotic and moving, I have just now had a chance to update :D No guarantees on when the next chapter will be done, but I'm gonna try my best to get it up soon. Also, I just saw Civil War last night and I'm DEAD - DEAAAAAADDD - so if anyone wants to message me and freak out with me, feel free to do so! I AM ALL EARS. And just because I anticipate a few people asking me this question, I won't be incorporating aspects of the movie into this story because well, it's pretty close to being over (I estimate within 8 chapters or so) plus I don't see how I really could anyway. BUT. I do already have an idea or two for writing one of my short 5 chapter-ish stories and working Summer into what we now know is canon, probably pre-Civil War, so... don't be surprised if something like that pops up :D
Anyway, my huge HUGE thanks to midnightwings96 for her help and feedback and for being EXTREMELY high on my favorite people in the world, and my huge thanks to all of you for reading and following and making my day with your reviews. I love you all SO much. *giant hugs*
Just outside of the city in a house full of happy kids and two almost perpetually exasperated parents, David was sitting on the living room floor playing toys with his baby sister. They were used to spending a couple days a week at their Uncle Paul's house, and while David didn't prefer to leave the tower and come there, it had become a part of his routine and he had accepted it. Adelaide had been a different story at first, but David had learned how to help keep her happy and calm when they were away from their parents.
His older cousins at school and the younger ones bouncing around everywhere and playing like they always did, David was focused on building his nearly two year old sister a castle made of pink and blue Legos when the big flat screen TV in the living room cut into breaking news coverage from its previous programming. David tended to ignore such things, especially since he started seeing his parents on the TV a lot since his Daddy had been arrested, but for some reason he looked up and glanced at the TV anyway.
What he saw made him drop the turret he'd been working on and his heart fall into his stomach. There on the TV, plain as day, was shaky but clear footage of sheer chaos outside of the courthouse that Bucky's trial was being held at. People were scattering and running all over the place, and the sound of gunshots firing one after the other punctuated the images. David watched carefully, scanning the faces and bodies in the crowd for his parents, and the first people that he saw and recognized were Natasha and Sam. Sam was flying off and carrying her somewhere as she pointed her guns up and out, and then the footage cut to something that made David feel a sense of terror that he'd never felt before.
It was his mother, lying on the bottom steps of the courthouse and bleeding badly from the right side of her stomach as his Daddy and Steve both hovered over her. She looked pale and utterly terrified, and then Steve was pulling Bucky away so paramedics could look at her.
The bottom of the screen displayed the headline Wife of Winter Soldier shot by sniper outside federal courthouse. The last thing that David saw before the footage began replaying from the beginning was Bucky crying and an ambulance carrying Summer leaving the scene with their lights flashing.
That was also the moment that Sarah walked by the living room, carting her youngest daughter on her hip and talking to Paul on the phone as she checked in on David and Adelaide.
"I know," she said mid-conversation, "I just think that if we're going to be paying for ballet lessons and cheerleading that we're gonna have to seriously consider..."
Her words trailed off as she glanced at the TV, did a double take, and then gasped as she nearly dropped the phone. She stared in horror for a moment before putting Marina down and then hurrying into the living room, picking up Adelaide and gently telling David not to look at the TV and to follow her into the dining room.
"Paul," she said quietly into the phone as she hustled the kids away from the living room, "your sister, she... on the news it says she was..."
Tuning out the voice of his aunt and feeling true panic set in for the first time in his young life, David let Sarah get him into a chair at the dining room table and looked down at his hands in his lap as they began to shake beyond his control. The images from the news burned into his memory, he started to feel as if he couldn't breathe, and that only fed his sense of panic. He'd never felt like this before, even though he'd been through more traumatic and scary things in ten years than most adults had in a lifetime. The reason why was that he'd always had either his Mama or Daddy with hm through all of those bad things, but now he didn't have either one of them and he had seen his mother on the TV laying there on the ground bleeding and looking like she was dying.
Now he was hyperventilating.
"David?" Sarah said, setting Adelaide in Marina's high chair so that she could kneel in front of David and take his hands. "David, sweetie, look at me. Look at me, honey, breathe. Slow breaths, okay? Calm down."
He tried to do as she said, but he couldn't help it. He felt like his throat was closing up and like all the air had gone from the room, and all he could do was take shallow, too-quick heaving breaths that weren't reaching his lungs or his head.
Adelaide, sitting there in her chair and watching her brother have the first full-blown panic attack of his life, watched silently for a moment before letting out a terrified wail. She had no idea what was happening but seeing David like that was enough to scare her to death and start crying her distinctive scared cry.
Sarah glanced at Adelaide and then back to David before pulling him close in a hug, trying to comfort him as best she could and get him to breathe before he made himself faint. She didn't know what to do and she could only pray that their mother was going to be okay, because with their father facing the very real possibility of life in prison, those two kids needed Summer more than ever.
Putting down the phone and rushing to the nearest waiting room, Paul felt all the blood draining from his already-pale face as he found the right room and then ran straight to the TV mounted on the wall. It was already tuned to CNN, and he ignored the strange looks of the folks already sitting in the room as he grabbed the side of the TV and jabbed at the volume button until it was as loud as it would go. Then he stood back and watched the footage play in horror.
Summer had been shot. She had been shot by a sniper on a rooftop who had clearly not been aiming for her but rather for the man that she had been walking hand-in-hand with as that first shot rang out.
His sister had been shot, and Paul knew all too well as he watched the footage of paramedics carrying her into the ambulance that it was bad. It wasn't a graze or a shot to the limb or something else fairly minor - no, he knew exactly how bad this could be and all the different medical ways in which she could succumb to an injury like that. It was his curse as a doctor to immediately see and anticipate the worst possible outcome, and he could do nothing else.
Once he had seen enough, he turned and tore out of the waiting room and headed straight for the ambulance entrance at the emergency room. His hospital was the one closest to the courthouse and thus the sure destination for the ambulance currently transporting his sister.
He made a pit stop at the nurse's station in the ER and told her to page the chief of surgery as he grabbed gloves and other gear that was protocol to put on when receiving a trauma patient. He knew that Summer would need surgery and she needed the best surgeon in the building to do the job, and that was the chief of surgery.
Another doctor and a handful of nurses joined Paul as he waited, none of them questioning his presence or whether he should maybe let the others treat his sister first. They all knew how headstrong and stubborn he was - it was a family trait - and he wouldn't have moved from his spot if the President himself had showed up and personally ordered him to.
When the ambulance rolled in with sirens and lights still in full swing, Paul watched and fought the urge to be sick. The horrible pit in his gut only grew worse as the ambulance parked and the two back doors flew open, and when the medics carefully unloaded the stretcher and began to roll it towards the entrance, Paul got his first glimpse of Summer and nearly burst into tears on the spot.
She was pale and unconscious, an oxygen mask on her face and clothes stained with blood around the wound that was still bleeding despite the pressure being applied to it. Paul watched and let the other doctor present take point when the medics met them and began giving the overview of the injury, her vitals and how much blood she'd lost, and Paul took one side of the stretcher and stared down at his baby sister as they wheeled her to triage.
Horror and hope collided when her eyelids began to flutter, and he watched as her eyes then opened and stared up at the ceiling before shifting slowly and finding him. Voice stuck in his throat for only the briefest of moments, he put his hand over hers and told her, "Hey, Squirt. You're okay. You're at the hospital and we're gonna fix you up, okay?"
He watched as realization dawned on her, as she remembered what had happened and why she was there and why she hurt so badly. Though he tried to stop her, she reached up and weakly pulled off her oxygen mask from her face just long enough to croak out, "It wasn't his fault."
He knew exactly what she meant. He nodded and gave her hand a gentle squeeze. "I know. I know."
"Tell him that," she urged him, using up the last of her strength on those words. "Tell him that if I don't..."
Her hand dropped then, and her eyes closed as she once again fell unconscious. That was when they reached triage, and a hand on Paul's arm stopped him from entering the room.
It was the chief of surgery. "You need to stay out here, Paul," the man, a talented and renowned surgeon of 35 years told him gently. "I've got this. I'll treat her like she was my own sister."
Paul nodded, holding back a sudden wave of tears as he thanked the man and then watched as he turned and left him standing alone there in the hallway, Summer now behind a closed door and in the very capable hands of the others. Paul stared at the door for a moment, trying to hold himself together before turning and heading back out the way that he had come, through the ER.
In the midst of his mental anguish and stomach-churning fear and anger that this had happened to his only sister, he passed by the nurse's station just in time to see the doors to the ER burst open and two very familiar and distraught faces storm inside. He halted his steps immediately, that sickening feeling inside getting even worse when he saw the puffy, red-rimmed eyes and pale face of Summer's husband.
Bucky and Steve immediately made eye contact with Paul and thus ignored the nurse telling them that they weren't authorized to be where they were, both marching right up to him and Bucky asking almost desperately, "Where is she? Did you see her?"
Paul swallowed down a lump in his dry throat and somehow managed to answer him without dissolving into pathetic sobs like a very significant part of him wanted and maybe even needed to do.
"She's in triage," Paul told Bucky with a shaky voice. "I was there when they brought her in."
"How does it look?" Steve asked, afraid to know the answer.
"I don't know," Paul replied honestly. "She... she woke up for a minute and she spoke, but then she -"
"What did she say?" Bucky asked, tone desperate and eyes welling up all over again. The tears were beyond his control, just like the terror coursing through his veins and the fear that was evident if one only spared him the slightest of glances.
"She told me it wasn't your fault," Paul replied softly. "She didn't get to finish her sentence, but... she wanted me to tell you that this isn't your fault."
Though Summer had surely intended those words as a comfort, they only made Bucky feel even worse. The fact that she'd used those few precious breaths to give such a message made him feel wholly unworthy of her and like he was less than the dirt under her shoe. She knew him so well and knew even in her current state that he would be blaming himself and she wanted him to feel better.
And this was the same woman that he'd been systematically pushing away and even occasionally bringing to tears over the last month and a half. Now she might not even live long enough to grant him undeserved forgiveness for everything that he felt so unbearably guilty for.
"She's in the best hands possible," Paul told both Bucky and Steve. "The chief of surgery is in there with her right now. He's one of the best surgeons in the whole country. If anyone can fix her, he can."
Bucky nodded absently, dragging a hand over his mouth and feeling like his lungs were burning with each breath he took. He only looked up when Steve's phone rang in his pocket and he picked it up to answer it. Only a few seconds passed before he glanced at both Bucky and Paul and said, "Sam and Nat have the sniper in custody."
"Who the fuck is he?" Bucky all but growled, more than willing to rip the man from limb to limb if anybody gave him the chance to.
Steve listened for a few more moments and then shook his head before murmuring, "Don't know yet. Sam said he's got an Eastern European accent, doesn't speak much English."
Bucky furrowed his brows for a moment before looking down and trying to process that. He certainly had no shortage of enemies and it was his habit to first suspect HYDRA of being to blame for every threat and attack, but that didn't seem to fit this time around. A lone sniper on a rooftop who hailed from Eastern Europe wasn't what he expected. This was hardly some backwoods American with a hunting rifle deciding that it was time for some vigilante justice for JFK's killer. This had to have been methodically and carefully planned out and executed, albeit poorly since the bullet had hit the wrong target.
"Come on," Paul said, gently touching Bucky's arm and gesturing down the hallway to their right. "You guys can't stay here. There's a private waiting room down the hall and to the left. You can stay there and I'll keep you updated."
Bucky nodded and kept his eyes downcast as he turned to follow Paul. That was when the doors burst open again, this time thanks to a gaggle of FBI agents who suddenly streamed into the relatively small space with their weapons not drawn but at the ready nonetheless. Bucky turned towards them and tensed for a fight out of pure instinct, ready to rip apart anyone who would get in his way and keep him from being as close to Summer as he could possibly be, but Steve extended a hand his way as a silent order to stand down.
The same agent who had been the one to arrest Bucky emerged from the group of other agents and held out his hands in a non-threatening gesture. "Everybody stay calm. I'm not here for a fight. But you're not supposed to be here right now."
The agent gestured to the monitor on Bucky's ankle that had indeed been on alert ever since he had arrived at the hospital. Steve eyed the agent harshly and said, "His wife's just been shot, the whole country saw it."
"I know," the agent said. "But according to the agreement that his bail was conditional upon -"
Steve opened his mouth to continue defending his friend, but Bucky beat him to it and interrupted the agent. "I'll die before I let you people take me away from here. You can post guards on every door and follow me everywhere I go, but I'm not leaving my wife unless you kill me first."
The agent fell silent and looked as if he wanted to roll his eyes and sigh. That became even more true when Steve added, "You'll have to go through me first."
"And me," Paul added. When every eye present turned on him, he sniffed and then shrugged, "I'd be pretty easy to go through, but I'm just saying."
This time, the agent did sigh. He then instructed one of the others to go and remove Bucky's ankle monitor, and then he turned his eyes back on Bucky and told him, "We will be keeping an eye on you. You won't so much as go to the bathroom without an agent following you."
Bucky was about to bite back with a seething retort along the lines of have fun with that, fuckers when Steve replied first with a much more diplomatic, "Understood."
After that, the three men and a handful of agents headed off to the private waiting room. The ankle monitor was removed and then the agents left to stand outside the door, keeping guard over Bucky despite the fact that he posed zero threat to anyone in his current state.
Well, anyone besides the man who had put a bullet in his wife's stomach, but Bucky knew he'd never be let within a hundred feet of that man. Whoever he was.
Once the security matters had been settled, Bucky found himself alone in the sterile, bland and distinctly non-comforting waiting room with Steve and Paul. Almost as soon as the agents had walked out the door, Paul cleared his throat and decided to bring something up that he knew would only add to Bucky's stress.
"I was on the phone with Sarah when I found out what happened," Paul said quietly, Bucky reluctantly meeting his gaze as he spoke. "David, he... he saw the news on TV. He knows."
Bucky's face crumpled and he felt as if his already-battered heart was being mercilessly stomped on and left to die. "Fuck."
"He... she said that he had an anxiety attack. Full-blown anxiety attack."
Bucky paused and stared at Paul for a moment, letting those words sink in. "What?"
Paul's light blue eyes were pained as he added, "He's okay now - kind of. He's calmed down but... I don't know if you want to have Sarah bring the kids here or have someone else pick them up, or..."
Bucky let his eyes drop to the floor and he closed his eyes as a dull pain radiated through his head. He was the only parent those two little kids had at the moment, and though he felt like the least qualified person to care for anyone in his current mental state, he knew that he had to step up and do it. He didn't want to bring the kids to the hospital just yet - it would likely only make David more anxious and Adelaide would be bored to tears - but he didn't want to leave them at Paul's house where there were about a thousand other kids and only poor Sarah to look after them all.
"Wanda," he finally said, going with his first instinct. He looked at Steve and said, "Can you call her and have her pick them up and take them back to the tower?"
Steve had already pulled out his phone and brought up her number in his contacts. "Of course."
Wanda would keep David calm and Adelaide happy. David saw her as the big sister he'd always wanted, and when Summer was out of surgery and recovering, Wanda could bring the kids and let them see with their own eyes that their mama was going to be just fine.
That was what had to happen. Bucky couldn't entertain any other potential outcome without losing his damn mind.
As Steve called Wanda, Paul excused himself to go and see if there were any updates on Summer yet. Bucky stared sightlessly at the floor after he left, his head all over the place and as much of a mess as everything currently was. He couldn't believe that he had told Summer twice that day that he regretted their relationship and said things that he knew he didn't really mean. He could blame his behavior on stress and anger and fear until he was blue in the face but nothing could make him feel better now. Not when there was the chance of Summer not making it and some of his last words to her being the most hurtful that he'd ever uttered to her.
"Buck," Steve said softly, jarring Bucky from his thoughts. "Try to stay calm. I know how hard it is, but... you and I both know how strong she is. She can make it through this. I know she can."
Bucky let out a shaky breath that he just barely kept from becoming a sob as he replied, "I've been mean to her. I've treated her like shit ever since..."
"Don't do that to yourself," Steve urged him quietly. "Not right now. None of this is your fault."
"The bullet was meant for me," Bucky pointed out, still staring at the floor. "If it's not my fault, I don't know whose it is."
"She knew you were gonna say that," Steve remarked. "That's why she told Paul to tell you that it wasn't your fault."
Bucky shook his head. "She's wrong."
Steve let a moment of silence pass before he spoke again, having gathered his thoughts. "The thing about Summer is... you know she would have jumped in front of that bullet and taken it for you if she had seen it coming."
"That's ridiculous," Bucky muttered. "I've got HYDRA's fucking serum. I can take it, she can't."
"Still," Steve shrugged. "You know that she would have. And you know what she'd tell you if she saw you sitting here beating yourself up."
He did know what she would say. He could hear her voice in his head as if she was sitting right there next to him, telling him I love you and I chose this, I chose the risks that come with being with you and I'd choose it again and again.
He took a deep breath and then blew it out. She just had to get better. She had to survive and recover, and then he could focus on groveling at her feet for forgiveness that he didn't deserve.
Paul walked back into the room a few moments later, looking at Bucky and telling him, "She just went into surgery. They have to remove the bullet and shrapnel and repair the damage done, so it's probably gonna be a few hours until we hear anything new."
Bucky gave Paul a short nod and then lowered his head, closing his eyes and telling himself to keep breathing and keep going.
Just keep going.
While Summer was in surgery, almost every person that she knew and was acquainted with came to the hospital. Pepper and Tony were the first to show up, the former of the two absolutely horrified and pulling Bucky into a hug that he wasn't expecting. Tony was more quiet and reserved on the matter but just as worried and dumbfounded. He'd grown quite the soft spot for the awkward, brave girl who had first taken refuge in his tower after her home had been blown up. He told Bucky that if he wanted, he'd have the best surgeons and doctors in the world there within a day's time.
Matt and Foggy arrived right on the first pair's heels, both of them having missed the chaos outside the courthouse due to having been speaking to the prosecutor inside when it had all happened. They were as horrified as anyone else, assuring Bucky that they were there for absolutely anything that he needed and that they would handle the press and make sure Bucky wasn't penalized for technically violating his house arrest by coming to the hospital.
Next to arrive were Esteban and Nicolo, both of whom were just about hysterical. Esteban was in tears from the moment he arrived, having found out about the shooting from a Facebook post of all things. Nicolo was sniffling too, and the sight of those two men crying over his wife made Bucky almost lose it all over again. She had so many people who loved her, and that had never been more clear than it was that day.
Sam and Natasha showed up next, the latter of which was equally as distraught as she had been when it had been Nick Fury laying on an operating table. She had just come from interrogating the shooter nearly into a coma, and she had some information for Bucky when he asked for it about two seconds upon her arrival.
"He's a mercenary," Natasha told him. "And while we're not sure who he's working for yet, he was definitely sent to kill you. If I had to guess, he was probably hired by someone who wants the Winter Soldier to face justice and isn't happy with how slowly the trial's moving."
Bucky scowled and looked away, trying to ignore the hot prickles of shame brought by her words. The Winter Soldier had made many enemies in his day, had killed important men and women all over the globe, and it was no secret or surprise that there were plenty of people who wanted to see him dead. He had just never thought that it would be Summer paying the price for those sins.
Three hours passed and more people came and went, Avengers and civilians alike, people who knew Summer and were hoping and praying for her recovery. Natasha stayed in the waiting room along with Sam, and Clint drove up from his farm to join the vigil.
As they waited, Natasha kept an eye on social media and was stunned by the outpouring of support and well wishes for Summer, even from those who believed that Bucky deserved to be convicted. A decent amount of well-known names tweeted prayers and wishes for her recovery, including journalists and news anchors, a handful of politicians and even some celebrities who were known to be politically aware and outspoken. And none of that was even counting the small legion of fans that Summer had amassed as an author, blogger, and controversial public figure.
A few years ago, when she had been hit by a car and her leg had been crushed, she had been just another face in the crowd that nobody knew aside from those closest to her. That day, however, she was a famous, accomplished, and popular woman whose name was the top trending topic on Twitter as she laid unconscious in an OR while surgeons worked to save her life. What a difference a couple of years could make.
Four hours after she had first gone into surgery, the door to the waiting room opened and the chief of surgery walked through the door bearing news.
"Mr. Barnes?" he said, reaching out his hand to shake Bucky's. Bucky shot up out of his seat within an instant, eyes wide and heart suddenly pounding as he shook the surgeon's hand and awaited the news. "I'm Dr. Brown, Chief of Surgery. Your wife is in recovery now."
"How did it go? Is she okay?" Bucky asked, on the verge of an anxiety attack of his own.
"We removed the bullet and all of the shrapnel, and what took the longest was repairing the damage. There was some vascular damage as well as trauma to a few of her organs, which in turn caused some internal bleeding that we managed to get under control."
Blinking a few times, Bucky nodded and said, "Okay. What does that mean?"
"Well, she took quite a hit, but I'm optimistic that she'll make a full recovery," the doctor replied, and suddenly Bucky felt like he could breathe again. "It's gonna take some time and she's gonna feel like she got hit by a train when she wakes up, but she should be just fine."
"Thank you," Bucky told the surgeon sincerely, stopping just short of hugging the man. "Thank you so much."
He nodded and then glanced at Paul, who looked equally grateful. "You're very welcome. The nurse will let you know when she's awake, all right?"
Bucky nodded and thanked him again, and with that, Dr. Brown left the room and Bucky turned and sunk back down in his chair with a huge sigh of relief. Steve gave his shoulder a hearty pat with a relieved told you she'd pull through, and every other person present in that little room - Sam, Natasha, Esteban, Nicolo, and Clint - all shared smiles and deep breaths that they'd been holding ever since that bullet had first hit Summer.
Bucky told Steve to call Wanda and have her bring the kids to the hospital. He wanted Summer to see her babies when she woke up, and he wanted to make sure that they knew their mama was gonna make it.
It took about two hours for Summer to wake up thanks to the trauma that she'd been through and all the drugs in her system, but once the nurse cleared her for visitors - only two at a time - Bucky and Paul were allowed to finally go back and see their girl. Two FBI agents shadowed Bucky, of course, but he didn't even spare them a passing glance as he headed to Summer's recovery room. Nothing mattered but her and seeing her alive and breathing.
The door to her room was open when he and Paul approached it, and a nurse was in her room taking her vitals. Paul let Bucky walk inside first, and as he did, he took a deep breath and tried to prepare himself for whatever he was about to see.
The minute that he laid his eyes upon her laying there in that hospital bed, his heart felt like a ton of bricks had dropped on top of it. She was almost deathly pale, an oxygen apparatus lying under her nose and wrapped behind her ears, her eyes closed and breaths coming evenly as if she were sleeping. Bucky swallowed and quietly approached her bedside, ignoring the suspicious and slightly fearful look that the nurse gave him as he stood at Summer's side and reached down to cover her left hand with his right one.
She stirred at the touch, opening her eyes and then looking up at him. She smiled immediately and said in a crackly, hoarse voice, "Hey."
He smiled and sat down on a little stool next to her bed, lifting her hand and laying a soft, emotional kiss on the back of it. "Hey. How do you feel?"
"... Kinda like I got hit by a car again," she replied, blinking and then looking over Bucky's shoulder to see Paul standing there. She smiled again. "You were there when they brought me in, weren't you?"
Paul nodded and came closer, standing next to where Bucky was sitting as he smiled affectionately down at his sister. "Yep. You scared the crap out of us."
"Sorry," she said sleepily, closing her eyes and then grimacing. "Hurts to talk."
"Yeah, you had a tube down your throat for four hours," Paul nodded. "You don't have to talk."
"The kids are here," Bucky told her, rubbing soothing circles on the back of her slightly cold hand with his thumb. "Addie's curled up with Wanda in a chair asleep in the waiting room. David wanted to come in with us but they're only letting two back at a time."
"Is he okay?" Summer asked despite the pain in her throat. "Does he know what happened?"
Bucky nodded, jaw tightening slightly, and then Paul told her, "He saw what happened on TV."
Summer closed her eyes and furrowed her brows, letting out a long and distressed breath. Bucky gave her hand a squeeze. "Dammit. Poor little boy."
"Shh," Bucky hushed her softly. "Don't hurt yourself. Doctor said you're gonna be fine but that it's gonna take some time for you to get feeling better."
Summer nodded, and then Bucky leaned forward and placed a soft, gentle kiss on her forehead. All the while, the nurse was still staring at him as if she expected him to go ballistic and start snapping necks any minute. Bucky couldn't have cared less.
"I'll go get David," Paul said, giving his sister another smile. "I know he's dying to see you."
She nodded, then whispered so that she wasn't straining her vocal cords, "I love you."
"Love you too, kid," he grinned before nodding to Bucky and then heading out to grab their son. Once he was gone, Bucky turned back to Summer and brushed a piece of hair out of her pale face with his metal hand. That really got the nurse's attention. Bucky still didn't care.
"Pepper and Tony came by," he told her softly. "Matt and Foggy too. Clint drove up from the farm. He's in the waiting room with everybody else."
Her eyes widened and a surprised smile graced her face, giving it a bit more life. "Really?"
He nodded, smiling back. "Nat said you're the top trend on Twitter right now. Or top trending... whatever. Your fans have been freaking out almost as bad as I have."
"We'll need to put out a statement," Summer said, again grimacing at the pain in her throat.
"Don't worry about it," Bucky told her. "Everything's gonna be taken care of. Just rest."
She smiled at him and closed her eyes again, unconsciously shifting closer towards him. She was so tired and she felt like she could sleep for days, but she had to make herself stay awake long enough to see David. Luckily, that was just about the exact moment that Paul brought him in.
Fidgeting with his fingers the way that Summer did when she was nervous, David padded into the room slowly, peering inside and looking at his mother with wide, still-frightened eyes. She opened hers when she heard his little footsteps, and she smiled at him and reached her free hand towards him. "Hey, kiddo."
Bucky shifted and made room for David, motioning for him to come closer when he seemed to hesitate. David then shuffled forward, walking the rest of the way there and then holding on to the rail of the bed and looking over Summer carefully, as if to confirm that she really was there and alive and not a figment of his imagination.
"Sorry I scared you earlier, sweetie," Summer told him, letting go of Bucky's hand and grasping one of David's. "But I'm okay. Just gotta get better now."
David nodded, looking at her IV and all the monitors she was attached to like he expected them to come alive and turn into monsters any minute. But Summer just kept gently stroking his hand, and Bucky told him, "She's gonna be pretty tired for awhile, and she's probably gonna sleep a lot the next couple days. But she's okay."
"You've gotta help take care of Addie while I'm in here," Summer half-whispered, voice growing weaker the more that she talked. "Can you do that for me?"
David nodded, and Summer smiled and squeezed his hand before closing her eyes again. The beep of the monitors almost lulled her to sleep, but a shiver passing through her shoulders stopped her from falling asleep. She let go of David's hand and pulled at the thin blanket draped over her, frowning a little as she did so.
"What's wrong?" Bucky asked softly, watching her concernedly.
"Cold," she said, pulling up the blanket to her neck. Her nurse, who had been about to leave the room, looked at her and then glanced at the monitors before returning to her side.
The nurse grabbed a thermometer and gently prodded Summer into opening her mouth so she could take her temperature. Once the little device beeped, the nurse pulled the thing from her mouth and then read the result. She frowned, and that made a new wave of anxiety arise in Bucky's gut.
"Is something wrong?" he asked, and the nurse glanced at him nervously and tried not to make eye contact as she gave her answer.
"Just a slight fever, not uncommon," she explained. "I'll go get her some ibuprofen."
The nurse then quickly left the room, and Bucky turned back to Summer with a distinct sense of unease now prickling at the back of his mind. Summer took a deep breath and then exhaled with a visible shiver, and it seemed like she went from just a little cold to freezing in less than two minutes.
Then one of the monitors started beeping. It was her oxygen stats, which according to the numbers displayed had slipped from 98 to 82 and dropping. Bucky stared at the numbers and then looked back to Summer, whose teeth were chattering by this point, and between that and the dropping O2 stats, panic was starting to crawl up the back of his throat.
The nurse then returned with two others, both of whom had come in to investigate the monitor alarms going off, and Bucky grabbed David, stood up and backed away to give them room to work. Something was clearly not right, and he wasn't about to get in their way.
"What's going on?" He asked. "What's wrong with her?"
"We're not sure yet," the nurse said, eyeing the still-dropping oxygen stats with a deepening frown. Then she looked at Bucky and said, "You two need to step out."
Bucky was about to protest, but then Summer jerked in the bed and his eyes flew to her just in time to see her start shaking uncontrollably. The heart monitor went wild, numbers climbing up from 90 to 200 in mere seconds, and her blood pressure was climbing as well. One of the nurses cursed and hit a button on the wall, and after that, everything happened much more quickly. He and David were hustled out of the room and then the door was closed after two doctors rushed inside of it.
The relief Bucky had been basking in only moments before was shot to hell. He stared at the room from the outside, unable to see anything thanks to the closed blinds in the room's sole window, and he felt like he was going to be sick.
Beside him, David started hyperventilating again. Bucky snapped out of his horrified daze and looked down at the boy, cursing before physically grabbing him and lifting him up into his arms and carrying him away from the room.
"Breathe, David," Bucky told him, his voice shaky and unstable from the weight of his own impending panic and anxiety. Still, he rubbed David's back and steered them back towards the waiting room, trying to comfort him and quell his fear despite the fact that Bucky felt as if he might crumble from the inside out.
Summer was not fine. He'd heard the words seizing and intubation before the door had slammed shut, and he knew what those things meant. He knew how bad this was. What he didn't know was why. The surgeon had said that he'd fixed her, so why was this happening?
Bucky had made it halfway to the waiting room when David's breathing reached its worst and he had to stop. In the middle of a short stretch of hallway, Bucky turned and pressed his back against the wall, sliding down to the floor with David half in his lap. He took the boy's face gently in his hands and told him somewhat desperately, "David, breathe, please. Please, please, breathe. You've gotta calm down, you've gotta breathe."
But David was a wreck. Tears were streaming down his face, and in between hard, rapid, shallow breaths, two clear syllables could be heard on his usually-silent tongue: Mama. He was saying Mama, the boy who Bucky had only heard speak twice before.
That was the moment that Bucky lost what tentative control he'd had, and he started crying again for the second time that day.
"I know," he muttered, hugging David close to him and holding him there tightly. "I know."
It was all that he could say, because he wasn't going to tell David that she was going to get better and everything was going to be okay when that might have been a lie.
At both ends of the hallway, FBI agents stood there and watched as Bucky clutched a crying, hyperventilating little boy to his chest and cried with him. Bucky was barely aware that they were even there, his sole concern and sole focus being on the woman that he loved and the child that was scared to death in his arms. Nothing else mattered, and he wouldn't move from that spot until David calmed down and was breathing easy again.
The next hour was pure agony. Bucky couldn't get a straight answer out of a single nurse as to what was going on with Summer, and even Paul couldn't get a coherent explanation out of anyone. All they knew was that Summer had been sedated and intubated due to her plummeting O2 stats and that they were running tests on her to determine what the cause was of her distress. She was moved to the ICU, and then after that it was simply a waiting game.
David finally calmed down after nearly an hour spent clinging to Bucky and crying in his arms. Once they were all back in the waiting room, time seemed to move at a snail's pace. Hardly anyone said anything, and Bucky could hardly remember a time where he felt lower than he did in those moments.
If he lost her... if he lost her and the kids lost her, right before he was put in prison for life...
No. It was unconscionable. It couldn't happen. The world was cruel, life was cruel, but it surely wasn't that cruel.
But he couldn't even believe his own far-fetched thoughts. The truth was, life was just cruel enough to take her from them when they all needed her most. He knew that. They all knew that.
Almost two hours after Bucky and David had been shut out of Summer's room, the chief of surgery returned to the waiting room with news. Bucky again jumped up out of his seat the minute the man walked in.
Dr. Brown looked much less optimistic than he had a few hours before. "Mr. Barnes," he nodded, taking a look around the room before continuing on. "I'm afraid the news isn't great this time."
Paul shot up next and asked, "Oh God, what is it?"
"She's showing signs of multi-system organ failure," the doctor said, the words shocking just about everyone in the room. "She can't breathe on her own and her kidneys are on the verge of failing. None of this is consistent with the single gunshot wound that she received earlier today."
"What's that mean?" Bucky asked, unable to believe that the shaky and terrified voice coming out of his mouth was his.
"Well," Dr. Brown said, "it didn't make sense until I ordered just about every test in the book. Some of them won't have results for a few more hours, but one came back with what I think is at the root of things. Who shot her?"
Natasha spoke up. "Someone who was hired to kill him," she gestured in Bucky's direction. "He missed and hit her instead."
Dr. Brown then sighed and said, "That would explain why the bullet was laced with poison, then."
Bucky's jaw nearly hit the floor. "Poison?"
"It's gonna take some time for us to determine exactly what was on the bullet," the doctor replied, "but I'm confident that this is what we're working with. The problem is, we're gonna have to hit her with every antidote at our disposal and just hope we get it right. I've already contacted the CDC and they're on their way with a small arsenal to help treat her."
Bucky was speechless. He was in shock. It had been bad enough when he thought she was just dealing with a single gunshot wound, but this? This was... it was too much.
"Be honest," Bucky said, voice low and eyes full of fear and dread. "Tell me what her chances are."
The doctor looked at him sympathetically, then glanced at Paul and David who was listening just as intently as the adults were, and then he replied, "It doesn't look good. She's in a free fall right now, and I don't know if an antidote even exists for whatever that lunatic laced the bullet with. You're... enhanced, right?"
Bucky nodded, fighting the urge to fall apart and start crying right there and never stop.
"Then I imagine the substance was designed to be strong and lethal enough to kill you, which makes this even harder for us to deal with."
Bucky could hardly look the doctor in the eye. This was his fault. It was all his fault. Summer was gonna die and it was his fault.
"But I can assure you," the doctor said, "we're doing everything we possibly can to save her. She's getting more blood and an immunoglobulin transfusion right now, and we're on top of this. I'm personally overseeing everything and making sure she's the top priority."
Bucky nodded, thanking the man profusely, and standing just behind him, Steve frowned and looked down at the floor as an idea came to him. It was either the stupidest or the smartest idea he'd ever had, and given the circumstances, he had to give voice to it as soon as possible.
"Doctor," Steve said, making nearly every eye in the room shift to himself. "You said that whatever poison this is that it's meant to be lethal enough to kill a super soldier?"
"That's the prevailing theory at the moment, yes," the doctor nodded.
"Well," Steve said, "the serum that I received made me immune to basically all diseases, all bacteria, and all toxins. I can't get sick. I haven't even had a cold since 1943. What they gave Bucky though, it was different. Kind of like name brand versus a pretty good knock off."
"Okay," the doctor said, a slight furrow to his brow as he began to clearly wonder where Steve was going with this.
"I'm not a doctor and what I'm about to say might be incredibly stupid, but... what if you gave her my blood? My antibodies?"
Bucky's eyes widened and then flew to the doctor. He hadn't thought of that.
"Well, before we get ahead of ourselves, what's your blood type, Captain?"
"O negative," Steve replied.
"Universal donor," Dr. Brown mused. "That's lucky."
"Could it work?" Bucky asked, looking at Paul for answers as well. "Could it save her?"
Paul faltered for a moment. "I... it could. But if she's already in multi-system organ failure..."
"We'd have to do it now," Dr. Brown said. "And there's no guarantees. It might not do anything. It might be too late."
"But it might not? It might work?" Steve asked hopefully.
The doctor looked at Steve, then Bucky, then at the assortment of Avengers all smashed into the little waiting room. The last face that he looked at was David's, which was full of hope and fear and almost as pale as a sheet.
Then he nodded and gestured to Steve as he said, "Follow me."
A new and albeit desperate wave of hope briefly and almost manically lifting Bucky's spirits, he asked immediately, "Can I come too? I just... I want to see her and... I don't want to be stuck here waiting and not knowing what's going on."
Surprisingly, the doctor nodded. "Come on."
Before dashing off, however, Bucky turned and knelt down in front of where David was sitting, putting his hands on his arms and telling him, "I'll be back, okay? I'm gonna go see Mama and try to help her get better. Stay here and help Wanda keep an eye on Addie for me."
David nodded, sniffling a little, and Bucky gave him a little squeeze before standing up and following Steve and Dr. Brown out the door.
He knew that this was a last-ditch effort and that it was more than a longshot. He wasn't even sure if the doctor believed in it himself or if he was just humoring them. But what he knew above all else was that this absolutely had to work. Everything was riding on this now, and if it didn't work... he couldn't even fathom that.
It was going to work. It had to.
Thirty minutes later, Bucky and Steve were holed up in a small, slightly cramped room in the Intensive Care Unit. Steve was reclining in a chair next to the single bed at the center of the room, and in his wrist was a tube that ran from his vein to a central line in Summer's chest. Bucky stood in front of them both, arms crossed and eyes fixed on his wife as she laid there unconscious and only just hanging on to life.
A machine was breathing for her, pumping her chest up and down in unnaturally even breaths. Her eyes were closed and she seemed to be sleeping, but the doctor had said that she was actually in a dream-like state and not fully out. He even said that she might be able to hear what was going on around her and remember what she heard when she woke up. If she woke up.
There were about five or six different IV bags hanging above the bed, most of them bearing names that were nothing but gibberish to Bucky. The monitors were calm for now, but it wasn't much of a comfort when he knew that machines were the reason why all was quiet. Without the tube down her throat and the medicine hanging and everything else she was attached to, she would be dead.
And now, what little hope that remained was contained in the little tube taking Steve's one of a kind blood and delivering it directly into Summer's own veins. Her blood volume was still down from what she had lost earlier, so Steve was not only giving her an admittedly low chance at recovery but also replenishing her blood supply.
Bucky knew that if it worked against all odds, it would take time. Nothing was going to happen instantly, at least nothing good. She wasn't going to suddenly open her eyes and start breathing on her own, but he still watched over her as intently as if he expected her to wake up and be back to her usual healthy, adorable self at any minute.
Eventually, Bucky grabbed a stool and wheeled it to Summer's bedside. He sat next to her, never taking his eyes off of her as her chest went up and down, up and down with each new breath. She looked so pale and so small, vulnerable and entirely breakable in that bed hooked up to all of those machines. Her arms were strapped down at her sides so that she wouldn't stir and accidentally pull out the tube, and for some reason that was one of the things that made his heart lurch the most.
He reached up and touched her forehead, careful not to touch any of the equipment or tubes, and he ran his fingers soothingly through her hair at the top of her head. Voice pathetic and broken, he managed to murmur, "I don't know if you can hear me, but... if you can, I love you. I love you and I'm not gonna leave your side until you're awake again."
To his surprise and slight terror, she actually stirred and moved, rolling her head towards him as if the sound of his voice had roused her enough to draw closer to it. He blinked and felt a sudden burst of fear at this, not knowing what to expect and having certainly not anticipated that, but he kept stroking her hair and speaking to her nonetheless.
"You're... you're getting some super-blood pumped into you right now, thanks to Steve," he told her softly. Steve watched from his chair and listened in silence as he went on, "It sounds funny, but it's true. If you were awake you'd probably be asking us if you're gonna grow a foot taller and start lifting motorcycles tomorrow."
Steve smiled sadly at that before looking away and doing his best to give them both a sense of privacy.
"I don't know what's gonna happen or if this is gonna work, but... I think I've prayed more today than I have my whole life. Kinda hoping God gets sick of hearing me bugging him nonstop and gets you better just so I'll shut up and leave him alone." He forced a chuckle, then fell silent for a moment and let his expression grow pained again. "I just... I need you to wake up and get better. I need you here so I can start making up for everything I've done, how I've treated you and the things I've said. I've been a fucking idiot and I hate myself for the things I've said to you. I didn't mean any of it and now sitting here and looking at you like this, I just..."
His words cut off as he held back a sob, forcing himself to hold it together. He took a deep, shuddering breath and kissed her forehead, wishing that he could just will her better. He knew that he couldn't, though. All he could do was wait and keep praying, and that was one of the most maddening things of all.
"I just need you to get better," he said, drawing back and looking at her closed eyes again. "I need you to wake up and be okay again. You've gotta get better so we can go have that second honeymoon once all this is over."
He might have been fooling himself to think that they'd really get the chance to have that second honeymoon with the trial still looming over his head, but for once he didn't care about that. He needed hope and she needed hope, and he would do his best to hold on to it for them both.
He kissed her forehead again, and this time when he pulled away, he saw a lone tear escape her eye and roll down her cheek. He didn't know if that meant that she had heard everything he said and that she understood it all, but it broke his heart and gave him hope all at once. He wiped the tear away and then took her hand in his, holding it and keeping it warm as Steve's blood continued to trickle into her veins and the clock continued to tick.
All Bucky could do was wait, and hope and pray for what would amount to nothing short of a miracle.