The Home
“What’s going on kid? You’ve been ducking my calls for months, months. I think, ah well. Rogers is there, she’s just adjusting. She’ll talk to you when she’s ready. And then, on the one occasion I expect you to be there, Laura and the kids expect their aunt to be there, I find you’re not where you’re supposed to be.” Clint followed Y/N out of her room and downstairs into the living room.
“Oh my god, you’re overreacting. I had planned to video call in, I had planned to say hello and I miss you, and all that good stuff. Just because I’m not ready to be around crowds of people just yet doesn’t mean that I don’t love you or that I don’t care. I’m just not ready!”
Clint scoffed, “I’m sorry, I just call bullshit on that! You’re telling me you’re ready to play house with the Winter Soldier--which is something else I can’t even start with--but you can’t be with your family who loves you?”
“ENOUGH.” Y/N’s voice rang unnaturally through the house, as the lights flickered. In an instant, Bucky was out of his seat and headed to the living room, followed by Steve.
Clint looked like she’d struck him in the face. “This. This is exactly what I’m talking about. What, you have powers, and you decided you were just gonna, what, rough it? Go it alone?”
She huffed, “Stop it, don’t--”
“Hey, Clint. C’mon let’s lay off a little.” Steve’s voice was firm, but Bucky was trained on Y/N. She was losing it. A steady trickled of blood came from her nose and her breathing became labored.
“You know what Steve, no.” Clint spoke brusquely. “I’m done with all this. Now.”
And then, from nowhere, there was Wanda, sending a blast of telepathic energy right in the back of Y/N’s head. Clint’s gaze turned to Bucky in seconds, drawing from his bow. “You got something to say Barnes?”
Bucky could have killed him if it weren’t for Y/N wobbling under Wanda’s power and crashing to the floor. He rushed forward to catch her before her head smacked the ground. “What the hell did you do to her?”
Wanda panted, a light sheen of sweat formed across her brow. “She fought me. I didn’t know she could do that.”
Clint jabbed his finger toward the door, “Let’s get her to the quinjet. I wanna get her to the compound before she wakes up.”
“The compound? You’re shitting me.” Bucky’s voice was venomous. How could Steve let this happen? Clint Barton had always been a voice of reason, from what Bucky had seen. This deception, this betrayal. How was she ever going to trust any of them ever again?
“Clint, we didn’t agree to remove her from her home by force. How helpful do you think this stress is going to be on her? You’re acting like Fury.”
“Fury’s gone, Steve. I’m the one who’s left to care for her. Me, and you, and Nat, and we’re obviously doing a shit job of it. Otherwise, why didn’t we know about him?” Clint gestured to Bucky.
“I’m not leaving her.” Bucky pushed a stray blue tuft of hair from her face. “Where she goes, I go.”
“What, are you guys like an item now?”
He clenched his jaw, “I’m not leaving her.”
Wanda chimed in, “I can’t knock her out for much longer than the trip to the compound. Let’s all go, and we can deal with the consequences when she’s safe.” She turned to him, “This is the best way to help her.”
The long flight to the compound was mostly silent, with the exception of Steve occasionally leaning over to ask Wanda something Bucky didn’t care about. Once they arrived, they were greeted by Nat and Tony, the latter of whom was munching nonchalantly on caramel corn. “I see we have another guest.”
Bucky didn’t deign to answer, carrying Y/N in to the lab. Dr. Banner was waiting, and hooked her up to a host of sedatives and instruments. He allowed Bucky to wait in the room, not so much as lifting an eyebrow. After he was done, all that was left to do was wait until she woke up.
The room cleared, per Banner’s instructions, and Steve pulled up a chair beside Y/N’s beside. “I didn’t know Clint was going to react like that. I didn’t really even know that you’d still be there, Buck. I’m sorry about that.”
“What the hell is happening to her, Steve? You know, I almost wasn’t there. I was about to leave, and I said something wrong. Something that set her off, and suddenly everything went dark.”
Steve’s eyes widened, “Wait, you saw her use her power? We haven’t been able to get a glimpse, except for flickering lights here and there. Things moving when they shouldn’t.”
“This was total darkness, and cold. And then, I heard a voice, threatening her. And her screams. When the darkness cleared a second later, she was on the floor like she was with Wanda.”
Steve sighed, “A couple years ago, we were all at the Bartons’ place for my birthday. It was an outdoor affair--swimming in the creek, bonfire, all that kind of thing. Well, sometime during the swing of things, Y/N slipped down to the creek to grab her shoes--she’d forgotten them when we were all swimming. She didn’t come back. Clint’s daughter Lila went looking for her. She didn’t come back either. So eventually, Laura starts freaking out and we all go looking for them. Lila was unconscious on the shore of the creek and Y/N was nowhere to be found.”
Bucky sucked in a breath, but Steve continued. “Y/N was gone without so much of a trace of evidence. Lila said she didn’t see anything, just that Y/N’s shoes were still there and then she was knocked out.
Once Fury caught wind of what happened, every conceivable force was called in on the search. A few months passed and every lead we had led to nowhere. Then, out of the blue, we get a buzz at the gate, and it’s her. Barefoot, wearing the same clothes as when she went missing, with a blanket wrapped around her.”
Bucky’s grip on her hand had tightened over the course of Steve’s story. “And what, did she not tell you what happened?”
Steve shook his head, “She claimed to have no memory. And of course, we were so weak with relief, we didn’t want to push her. I don’t want to go into detail, but her injuries were...extensive. Our goal was to get her physically well while we assessed her mental state. Then, the nightmares started. And it was clear that she did remember, but she wouldn’t tell us anything. Once she was well, she packed her things and said she was moving back home. That was the last time she and Clint saw each other--and they got into it big. He was the most insistent of all of us to find the people who did this, and rightly so. Finally she snapped and told us there was no one to find. That she’d killed every last one of them, and burned their facility to the ground.”
Bucky looked over to Y/N, whose face finally looked a little peaceful. What had they done to her, the nameless people who she claimed to have eradicated?
“I had Nat do some digging, and around the time she was found, there was a massive fire at a facility in the Rockies. Fury identified them as former hydra operatives. 127 of them, all dead.”
As he finished, Y/N began to stir and Steve excused himself to go get Tony and Banner. She slowly opened her eyes, barely lucid enough to squeeze his fingers. Whatever sedatives they gave her were apparently working. She wheezed, “Ducky?”
He scooted closer to her, “Yeah, honey. I’m here. I wouldn’t let you out of my sight for a single minute.”
She groaned, “I wanna go home.”
“I know, love. But you’re not doing so well, and we’re all pretty worried.”
Banner tapped on the window, signaling he was starting the tests. Bucky just stoked Y/N’s hair as she quietly sobbed. Tony and Banner had both sworn that their tests wouldn’t be painful, that they were tapping into Wanda’s power to see whatever it was that was eating Y/N up, and also analyzing the nature of her powers.
She winced, and he kissed her temple. “Steve told me what happened.”
“Agh..Steve told you a version of what happened.”
He paused, “What is that supposed to mean?”
Her monitors began to increase the tempo of their beeping. Y/N was gritting her teeth. “It means, he knows as much about the home as he or anyone else will ever need to.”
He felt his stomach clench in horror at the blood coming from her ears. She was crashing.