It was the route down the street, around the park, and back home again. The route Buck ran nearly every morning since he moved into the shitty little apartment seven months ago.
It was an alright run, he supposed. If he didn't think about all the birds that lined nearly every paved surface in the park, who often left wet globs of poop on said pavement as well. He also just couldn't think about the broken sidewalks that were barely walkable on most of the route to the park. Or the tree branch that hung at the exact right place across one of the park trails to nearly decapitate him every time he ran past.
But other than that, it was a pretty alright running route. He had been on other, better ones, but this was good for him for now.
Today his run was going good, it was going great in fact.
That was until his shoelace came untied.
He cursed, and knelt down to retie it, hoping it wouldn't come undone again after that.
"Evan?" he heard someone call out his name as he stood back up and prepared to start running again.
He looked around, but couldn't see anyone he knew, anyone who would be trying to get his attention.
"Evan!" he heard someone shout out his name again.
He swung around to where he heard the voice coming from. In the distance he saw a blonde haired woman stalking across the park field in his direction. He blinked, he didn't know her, pretty sure he had never seen her before, but she obviously knew him from somewhere.
"How dare you just ghost me like that!" the woman started screaming. "After everything I had told you too!"
Oh great… she was another one of those girls that was catfished by that asshole. And just when he finally thought all that drama had wrapped up…
"Hey, I think we might have some misunderstanding," Buck said as he stepped backwards, trying to keep the distance between him and the woman, he lifted his arms and put her palms up in her direction, as if to say 'I mean you no harm.'
"Oh, we have a misunderstanding alright," she said as she continued walking towards him.
Buck continued backing up until he felt something come in contact with his back. He quickly glanced back and saw it was the fenceline that had lined the perimeter of the park. He was pinned. Crap.
Before he realized what was happening, he felt something slam right into his gut, sending him doubling over to the ground.
What?!
Before he knew it, he felt something else strike his head, right next to his eye and sending a pain ringing through his head. Ah fuck, that will leave a bruise. What was even happening to him?
Then he felt a kick, a series of kicks repeatedly striking his torso around where he wrapped his arms around himself for protection. With everything going on, he couldn't even think about fighting back, just focusing on how to provide the minimum amount of damage to his body.
And as soon as the woman had come up to him, she left, yelling more obscenities as she did so.
Buck groaned as he clutched his arms around his stomach. That woman sure did have a kick to her. A very powerful one at that.
He rolled over to lie on his back and just stayed there for a minute, trying to catch his breath. It hurt.
"Is that… Is that you, Buck?" he heard a familiar voice ask. He couldn't exactly place a face to the voice due to the amount of pain he was in.
He managed to lift his head, and through the slowly forming black eyes on his left and the dirt smeared right side of his face, he made out the now familiar form of Sergeant Athena Grant.
"'thena," he said around a wince. Moving his head really sent a pain through his neck.
Athena squatted down in front of him, and Buck noticed she was wearing her police uniform, she must be on duty. "Now what happened to you here?" she asked.
"Wasn't my fault," Buck mumbled. He could only guess what kind of thoughts were running through her head right now. None of them were probably thinking that highly of him.
"Really?" she asked.
"Yeah," Buck sighed, releasing a breath of pain. He then heard her say something into her radio. "Who you talking to?" he asked.
"I'm calling you an ambulance," she said.
"What?" he asked, his eyes widening as far as they could go with one rapidly swelling black eye. He didn't need an ambulance. He was fine, a little banged up, but fine.
"Really?" she asked, lifting an eyebrow. "Try and get up right now." Buck huffed, and moved to sit up on his elbows to get his hands underneath him to push himself up, only for a pain to shoot through his ribs, sending him back to the ground. "Thought so," Athena said as she pulled her phone out of a pocket and began calling someone.
"Who are you calling?" Buck asked.
"Bobby," Athena answered. Bobby? Since when did they share numbers? "You're going to need someone to look after you," Athena said. Look after him? What was he, five?