He’s at the hospital. Somehow he ended up in a hospital.
His head throbs. His thoughts fuzzy. When he reaches out and brushes a hand through his hair, clumps of it come off mixed with his blood.
They’d been chasing down a lead in Ukraine. He’d been on his bike following the not so conspicuous black USV. The truck had come out of nowhere and by the time he had safely avoided a collision he was already gearing towards the brick building head first.
There’s a doctor in the room. To his side, Sam.
“We tried keeping him awake for as long as we could but...” Sam says then trail off. Or maybe he just doesn’t hear the rest. The doctor in the white coat holds his eyes open and flashes a bright light on them.
His mouth is dry. Lips stuck together tasting like blood and cement.
“Oh good, you’re awake. We made it back.” He registers Sam’s drawl as he peers over his face. His eyebrows are squinted, expression souring.
“What?” He garbles out. “Something on my face?”
“Uhhh, it’s better if I show you.” He reaches for his phone in the back pocket and then turns it to face Bucky.
Oh. He sees what he means. His entire face is covered in blood and bruises. His lip is busted, eyes blackened and swollen, bloodied scratches and scrapes across his skin. The cherry to top the bloody mess off, is the huge gash running straight down his scalp from view.
The doctor also adds he probably has a concussion. He’s never had a concussion. Explains why he feels so jumbled. Sam thinks it apparently hilarious he can barely string two sentences together to save his life.
He tries to sit up properly. His head spins and he’s falling back down on the seat. His head continues throbbing even harder, vision getting more blurry. Words continue to make less and less sense and he’s this close to throwing up all over the doctor.
He’s done it this time.
“That was quite the crash man. If it makes you feel any better, Sharon was able to catch up to them.” Sam assures him. Honestly his mind isn’t on the job. He has a team for a reason, they were going to complete their objective either way.
He figures he’s not been out for too long, maybe a couple of hours if they’re just now transferring him to a room. He’s still in his undercover civvies, albeit covered in dust and red and grey brick particles.
Oh and blood. Can’t forget the blood.
He’s handed a hospital gown. The sort that exposes your entire backside. Sam helps him into it before the nurses come in. Nurse Thomas, he catches through bleary eyes helps wipe and clean off the blood on his face and apply ointment on the bruises. They end up having to shave the side of his head so the doctor can stitch him up there. The vibration tickles against his scalp. He blacks out.
He wakes up later again. His throat is parched but this time the light doesn’t hurt as bright. He sees the iv drip where it’s connected at his forearm and further down, finger nails caked in blood. Outside the hall, there’s music. It’s soft and muted without words. It’s... Christmas music.
Fuck.
Fuckfuckfuck.
He’d met Shuri three years ago at a robotics convention Sam had dragged him to on the rare day evil decided to rest. They were there for for Sam’s cousin but he’d wandered off and ended up at a booth about biomechatronic prosthetics. Two hours later, half the time having being spent with Shuri asking about his metal arm, he’d somehow roped her into going on a date with him.
“About time man!” Sam had said rather enthusiastically, he probably should’ve taken offense at it.
Their first date is casual. Bucky picks her up after her morning class and they have coffee. Just hearing her speak, and he’s already half in love. They talk about her class and what she plans on doing once she’s done with her degree. She tells him of her family and her country which according to her, has the prettiest sunsets. She doesn’t know jack shit about sports but has a competitive streak like no other. It’s fascinating watching her come alive when she recounts tales from her childhood he can’t help but lean in and take her hand.
“The thing I miss the most is the heat,” She says.
“Really?” He asks incredulously.
“Yes! T’challa and I would spend entire days just basking out by the pool. I’m not made for this New York cold James.” She says and proceeds to burrow herself into his side. He learns she likes her coffee sickly sweet, loves using her hands even while talking and for all her modernity would still rather pick up and read a physical book.
“It enhances the experience,” she tells him and he doesn’t disagree.
They go on a second date, then a third. On their fourth date, they visit their museum and by the end of it, Shuri invites him over for the night. Somewhere around three a.m when Shuri finally drifts off to sleep but his body is too thrummed up against hers, he comes to the realization Shuri knows nothing about him. At the very least nothing truthful.
It hits him. He hasn’t had any meaningful relationship since even before getting drafted in the war. He’s been living life as Bucky for years now but he doesn’t realize how hard it is to keep things, mainly his other murderous alter ego away from Shuri. The general public know that Bucky Barnes was found but the identity of the winter soldier on the avengers still remains a secret. It helps that the soldier decided to keep the mask get up and anyway he’s mostly glad for the privacy.
He’d never account that at some point in life he would fall in love. See Shuri, she’s not just smart. She’s clever and sharp in the purest way and he can see the way her eyebrows barely squint whenever something he says doesn’t add up. She knows he works for SHIELD but not what exactly. She knows he doesn’t have any living family members. It was hard explaining how a guy seemingly in his thirties could lack any family whatsoever.
A year and a half later and they’re leasing a new apartment together in Brooklyn. He still hasn’t told her about the other guy.
They throw a small get together to celebrate. Halfway through and he’s getting a call from Fury telling him a quinjet’s on its way, he’s needed at HQ and to pack an overnight bag.
This is how it continues. He’d almost missed her graduation ceremony and subsequently almost missed his first meeting with the parents. Multiple dates he’s either had to walk out off or not show up at all because some sea monster decided to attack Coney Island. He can’t even count how many times he’s had to leave in the middle of the night without telling her.
“I feel like I'm the only one that’s in this relationship Buck.”
“Shuri--” he tries to assuage.
“...I didn’t sign up for this,” she says, eyes red and teary. “And I know you’re keeping something from me.”
There are footsteps outside his room. Even without the benefit of super soldier hearing he would’ve still heard them on account of how they keep shuffling as if the owner can’t decided whether to enter or just go.
Outside the hospital window he sees the snow falling on the trees.
The steps continue to shuffle and oddly enough the repetitiveness of them make him doze off for a few minutes until someone comes in.
“How’d you find me?” He asks and then realizes how stupid the question is. She’s his only civilian emergency contact. Not that he ever needed to check in at a hospital before, SHIELD being able to handle most of his injuries.
His mouth feels like cotton but he still tries to say something, anything to explain why he looks like he got in a fight with a building and lost.
“How are you doing?” Shuri says after a while. She’s moved forward and has her palm on his arm where she’s seated. The other is untangling the hair that didn’t get shaved off. He tells her he has a concussion. Then she asks about his face and his only reply is that he’ll heal. That is no lie, the serum works fast in a few days his face will look like nothing ever happened.
He doesn’t like the silence that’s permeated their relationship, but especially now it never seemed so foreboding.
“I found the tickets, and the gift...thank you.” They were going to see the Nutcracker. He'd bought tickets weeks in advance for it.
She looks over his face. “So…can I rightfully assume that this,” she waves her hand over his face, “…is not in fact from boxing?”
She continues, “And can I also assume that you’re not going to tell me how this happened?”
A beat. He shakes his head no in the silence. He gets a sigh in return. It sounds resigned, as if she already made up her mind before coming.
He wants to lean into her and bury himself in her arms. Her familiar scent of spring mixes with the room’s antiseptic and bleached smell.
He feels her hand running through his hair. “Are you ever going to tell me what’a going on?”
He wants to. God he wants nothing as bad as to tell her.
“Shuri, it’s—it’s not as simple as that. I—I can’t. I’m sorry.”
“Ok. I wasn’t expecting you to actually do it.” A sad sort of smile plays at her lips when she talks.
His heart picks up. “Shuri?” His voice comes out strangled and pleading.
“I’m moving out. I just—Bucky I can’t keep doing this. You know, at some point I thought you were cheating on me with that blonde from SHIELD. “ she chokes it out. There are tears at the corners of her eyes.
I don’t think you are…anymore,” she clarifies after seeing the look of horror on his face. “But you’re absent. Physically and mentally. Even when we’re together we’re not together. I can feel you slipping away and I just—obviously I’m not what you need—“
“How can you say that. We were happy. We are happy…aren’t we?” He doesn’t realize that he’s crying too up until the salty tears start irritating his scratches.
“I need you every day Shuri. Like you don’t even know, please. Please don’t leave me.”
“Sshh. Don’t cry I’m still here. And you’re irritating your wounds just—“ she moves closer to him and wraps herself around him, holds him tight one last time.
“Go to sleep Buck.” He does.
Hours later, Shuri is long gone from his side. In her place the tickets. He heads back to his not their apartment.
He’s never felt more alone.