Stranded

The next however many minutes it was seemed to pass in a haze of fluctuating awareness, almost as if he was a flickering light, his consciousness only recognizably present in the fleeting moments that the bulb flashed back on before sinking back into darkness.

This meant that Peter wasn’t completely sure how long he’d been slumped on the ground, back against the hard wood of the cupboards in the nursing station, before he came fully to. All he could really note, though with a kind of dazed slowness that he knew should be sending warning bells flashing through his mind, was that he was sitting in a small puddle of his own blood, and his breaths were coming out as faint, wet puffs as blood continued its already marked trail down his chin and neck.

He wasn’t sure what station he was in, to be completely honest; he didn’t think he’d climbed many floors. He remembered listening in as best he could for anyone close by, and, having heard nothing, he’d made his way… somewhere.

Well, here, obviously. Wherever here was. One of the med bays.

It didn’t matter much in the end, as long as he could maneuver himself long enough to reach supplies.

So he did exactly that, moving at a snail’s pace even as every second that ticked by sounded like a death toll with his flooding lungs and his throbbing skull and side. 

More time faded away, and then Peter was blinking down at the large, syringe-like object in his hand. 

He shakily rose to his feet and hobbled over to the bed station in the corner. He lowered himself to lie flat on it, wheezing on a wet inhale.

He’d seen Bruce and Cho do this more than a handful of times, but he was still present enough to realize that that was like saying he’d watched someone fly a plane so he was more than ready to do it himself. Well. He hoped it wasn’t exactly like that because Peter wasn’t going to be trying to fly a plane but he definitely was going to have to do the other thing.

‘The other thing’ being plunging the chest tube into his, well, chest in order to drain the blood out of his lungs.

Sure, he’d gotten curious enough and over his minor squeamishness to let Bruce lay it all out for him when Clint got a punctured lung that one time and Steve the other, but it was a whole other matter entirely to be hovering the sharp plunger over his own chest with fingers that were shaking hard enough that he could barely maintain his grip. 

He faintly realized that his thoughts were definitely not being conductive to the process, but he was also well aware that they weren’t going to be going anywhere, so he’d just have to make do. He hiked his hoodie further up, tucking it securely under his armpits even as his ribs screamed from the movement, and stabbed himself into the right side of his chest before he could think twice about it. 

-

Ten minutes later, after more than one panic attack, some near hyperventilation, an utter ‘oh shit’ moment thinking that he’d potentially messed it all up, and finally taking a gasping inhale that wasn’t completely flooded by blood, Peter let out a quiet breath.

That had been… one of the most unpleasant experiences of his life, at least on the self inflicted scale. Today as a whole was wrapping up to be within the top three for sure. He was blatantly ignoring how, in a very large and very significant number of ways, today had definitely been the absolute most horrific day of his life. Overall, though, he still thought the top day went to his last with Uncle Ben, but at this point he was struggling to tell if that was the truth or just the self denial talking. He gave an inward shrug, partially because he was too tired to do so outwardly and partially because he was not going to subject himself to any more pain than he had to. Maybe, he thought sluggishly, the two days could be tied for number one. 

His eyes fluttered slightly, and Peter let them droop fully shut.

He wasn’t exactly sure what floor he was on or even what side of the building, really, but the door was closed, and he couldn’t hear anyone nearby.

He’d already drunk four more bottles of water and a small stash of granola bars along with a package of apple slices, so now, what he needed was rest. 

His body was too tired to fight it.

-

Peter’s eyes snapped open to the sound of a door creaking, and he blinked them a couple of times up at the ceiling, feeling… heavy. He didn’t want to get up yet, his eyelids sinking back down again even as he tilted his head to the side to see who’d so rudely woken him up.

That was… huh. That was Bucky.

Bucky didn’t usually wake him up.

Nobody really did - except Tony or sometimes Clint, though the latter usually was up to something if that was the case. FRIDAY was presence enough for the task.

But that was Bucky, cast in shadows and silhouetted in the door frame.

What was Bucky doing here?

Peter tried to sit up a bit and felt a spike of pain shoot up his ribs, making him choke on an aborted inhale as he collapsed back down. He took a few short gasps of breath before he managed to somewhat even them out, his abdomen and even his arms burning.

His mind was still in a haze, though, thoughts scattering to the far corners of his mind and refusing to come to the forefront even as he scrambled to get his bearings.

Bucky had taken a couple steps in from the doorway, a sliver of light slanting across his face, revealing its eerie blankness.

Peter’s thoughts stuck onto the first piece, though. 

The doorway, he drifted.

It wasn’t Peter’s doorway.

It wasn’t… it wasn’t Peter’s room.

The walls weren’t a soft blue and the door itself wasn’t the solid steel painted over to blend almost like wood. His desk wasn’t by the side.

No.

Here, the walls were a sterile white and the door was the same. There was only empty space on either side.

Peter’s fingers twitched, the covers scratchy under his grip.

“Bucky…?” he rasped, trying to move again only for a burst of agony to lance up his spine. He let out a pained gasp, hand flinching to hover over his ribs.

He got hurt. 

Yes.

How did he get hurt?

The pain still hadn’t faded away, almost as if he’d inflamed or reignited singed nerves that’d only just been numbed down.

Singed nerves.

The back of his neck gave a pulse of recognition.

He forced his face to the side again.

Bucky was closer now, the edge of his shadow touching the bedframe Peter was laying on.

“Danger,” Peter managed to get out, eyes darting to look at the empty hall behind the man, straining to see, to hear, anything.

There were only his ragged breaths and the completely steady ones of the figure now looming over him, and all the hairs on the back of Peter’s neck stood on end.

His eyes widened, and his memories collided into him with all the force of the punch that slammed into his sternum at the same time.

His chest creaked as his limbs spasmed upwards like he’d been electrocuted, a soundless scream forming on his lips as he clawed his hands onto the other side of the bed and yanked himself off of it as soon as Bucky’s fist reeled back off him.

He sent himself crashing onto the floor in a tangle of limbs and covers, scrambling to get up as he heard nearly inaudible footsteps make their way around the bed. 

He didn’t have time to process his recollections, his menagerie of wounds more than enough to pitch him into near hysteria without connecting them to those who’d put them there.

The covers tangled with his legs, sending him collapsing back onto the ground just as Bucky made the short bend and came to a stop before him, shadow completely engulfing Peter in a threatening loss of light.

He felt his breaths coming out too fast, and he could only scramble backwards, legs still completely knotted in the covers and his eyes refusing to leave Bucky long enough to properly disentangle them. He felt like an animal caught in a hunter's trap. Eyes wide while his pupils shrunk to the size of pinpricks and his limbs shook with the amount of adrenaline that was rushing through them without an outlet.

And then the man took a menacing step forward that Peter barely even had time to register before a boot stomped down on his ankle, crushing it with a grinding crack of bone and sinew and tearing a hoarse, jagged scream from his throat at the sudden redoubling in pain that finally jolted his hands into motion. He ripped the thin, sterile hospital blanket into shreds, freeing his legs and kicking himself backwards with his good foot. His gaze caught on his crushed ankle for a flicker of a second, enough to process that his foot was now facing sideways and a jut of bone was piercing out the front, leaking a slow flow of blood.

His back hit the wall and Bucky’s knee snapped forward. Peter jerked his head to the side just in time to avoid having his face smashed between the appendage and the hard surface behind him, the knee connecting with the drywall with a savage sound.

Harsh fingers dug into his hair and fisted, yanking the strands and his head back with them and drawing out a cry from him as he automatically brought his hands up to try and tug the wrist away. He’d be able to, he knew, though not without ripping out several clumps of his own hair.

Then he saw the knee come up again, and his hands immediately snapped in front of him to catch it, and he forced Bucky back half a step only to be dragged with it from the forceful grip still held in his locks.

Bucky kept trying to shove his knee forward against Peter’s grip, which was admittedly weaker than normal since Peter was, as a whole, admittedly weaker than usual. 

So Peter didn't realize it was a distraction until he took notice of the fist coming towards his face at the last second.

There was a flash of silver in the corner of his eye, and he abruptly realized he didn’t have enough time to stop it. He clenched his eyes shut and flinched to the side as much as the harsh hold in his hair would allow him to, which was to say: not at all.

And then there was a second’s pause in which Peter’s frantic breathing filled the silence.

He flinched again as Bucky snarled, eyes snapping open against his say only to watch the man’s metal fist reel back once more and fly forward to collide with his cheek - to punch in his teeth - to crush his bones - to cave in his face - 

Only to stop.

Peter stared wide eyed at the gleaming fist, which hovered mere millimeters from his face, while his lungs, ribs, arms, ankle, everything screamed at him over how taut he was holding himself.

He dragged his eyes away from the fist, just barely, to look up at the man it was connected to.

There was a clear crack in Bucky’s previously completely blank expression; he was panting with a distinctly strained air, sweat dotting his temple and his form trembling as if in exertion from keeping himself so still.

Peter’s lips parted, a slow, tentative movement. “...Bucky?” he whispered, so faintly even he could hardly hear.

The hand in his hair fisted tightly, yanking his head further back and fully exposing his neck, covered in dried, crusted blood as it was, in an uncomfortable arc, and Peter snapped his mouth shut.

Still, Bucky didn’t do anything else, jaw clenching tightly and trembling growing more prominent.

Peter’s mind raced.

He didn’t know how long he’d been asleep in the med bay for. He was still in pain - in agony really - but that didn’t clarify much. Even if he’d gotten a full night's rest, that wouldn’t have been enough to heal the veritable landfill of injuries he’d amassed. He doubted he got that much in anyways - maybe a few hours at most, if he was being generous. 

But it was still time. Time that may have resulted in the gas’s potency beginning to fade.

And then Peter was slammed face first into the tiles below him, nose connecting to the linoleum floor with a sickening crunch, and his tentative hope shattered in just as excruciatingly painful a way as it had with Natasha - as it had with Thor. 

Honestly, he wasn’t sure which time had been the most painful. Well. At least in the first instance he’d still had some strength in him - both physically and mentally. Then afterwards, well. He'd gotten away, at least. Now, though? Now Peter just watched dully, slumped on the ground with his head tilted to the side as his nose poured blood he couldn’t afford to lose and his eyes hazily focused on Bucky, who was snarling at his own metal arm, clenching and unclenching the hand like it was something foreign to him.

‘Oh,’ Peter realized inwardly, black dots encroaching on his vision even as he tried to blink them away. 

He remembered now. And at the time, he’d thought it was so unnecessary. He’d argued against it, for god’s sake; though, in the end, he’d understood and agreed to it when given the reasons why.

Bucky had been so afraid - so worried - that he’d one day be forced to turn against the team again. That he’d be used as some mindless killer meat puppet like what HYDRA had basically made him to be. So he thought - decided - that if there was even the slightest risk of that ever happening, he wanted to ensure that he’d be able to make sure at least one part of him never betrayed his own. And what better part was there than the bionic arm that could literally be externally controlled to prevent exactly that?

Peter had never seen the results in effect. Even while Tony had done test runs with Bucky, inserting all the biometric data of the rest of the Avengers to make sure that the hunk of more-than-a-little-enhanced metal would recognize friendlies, Peter hadn’t ever gone up against Bucky as a ‘test run’ because, well. Mostly because Tony completely vetoed the idea on the incredibly slim chance that the concept, still in the finishing touches of the production stages at that point, failed. Which made Peter grumble while also being simultaneously pleased - for obvious reasons.

The point was, though, that even though Peter was informed in the end that it’d worked, he’d never seen the results in person, so he’d been completely expecting to have his head concaved by the metal fist of his teammate until seconds before, and he was only now realizing that Bucky’s ‘struggling with himself’ was him struggling to hurt Peter instead of him struggling to stop doing just that. 

That thought shouldn’t’ve hurt as much as it inevitably did, and, somewhere in the back of his mind, Peter realized that he didn’t have time to think about these things. That Bucky was no longer fighting with himself and had apparently taken to ignoring his wayward appendage. That Bucky’s face, framed by long strands of dark brown hair that cupped against the short stubble along his jaw, had regained the complete blank mask that he’d worn before.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Peter realized that he didn’t have time at all.