Okay
She isn’t breathing.
And he’s slowly bleeding to death. Bucky’s hand shakes as he presses two fingers to her neck, trying to find a pulse. It’s faint but there and he nearly cries. She still isn't breathing.
He strokes some of her hair back before trying to remember what he knows about CPR. But he’s shaking so bad he doesn’t know if he’ll be able to do it properly. He can’t lose Y/N, he can’t sit here while her heart slowly stops beating. So, he positions his hands over her chest and hopes like hell that this isn’t the end.
His blood stains both of them. It coats the inside of his mouth, tears threaten to fall. There's so much blood and he feels like he might pass out from the blood loss and pain. But he keeps going. He won't lose her.
This can’t be the end. This can’t be the end. This can’t be the end.
~
“…Drove up to the emergency entrance. He passed out and was lying on the wheel, making the horn just go on and on and on. People came out to help. We thought they were playing a prank until we saw the blood. God, there was so much blood. I’ve never seen that much blood. I don’t know how either of them are still alive. It was all mostly from him though.”
Y/N blinks slowly, tries to remember where she is. It all floods back to her suddenly. The forest and Rumlow and the knife and the blood. She should be dead. If she wasn’t... then maybe Brock had thought she was and went back to Bucky…
Sam is standing in the doorway of her hospital room talking to a nurse. “Sam,” she cries, struggling to sit up. “Sam! Where’s-,” But her voice is barely a squeak and he doesn’t hear her, which only makes her want to cry.
Talking makes her throat burn with pain and they seem not to hear her. Tears fall over her cheeks because she feels so powerless and fear is consuming her. She’s so afraid that he might not have made it. Y/N’s chest hurts, but so does her hands and her side and her face.
Nothing, however, aches as bad as her heart, her soul. Bucky might be dead. She should be dead. But if she made it to a hospital then maybe-
“Sam!” She calls again, and this time he hears her as does the nurse.
And that turns out to be a mistake, as for the next ten minutes she isn’t allowed to speak. She’s fussed over and asked questions that no one waits for an answer to. She’s poked and prodded and examined before she looks at Sam with tear filled eyes. “Please,” she mouths to him. It’s killing her and the longer they refuse to answer her questions the more she thinks something terrible has happened.
She’s choking out terrible sobs as she’s talked over. All she wants is the truth. All she’s ever wanted is the truth.
The medical team soon leaves however, having decided on some treatment without really having consulting her all that much, a whirlwind of white lab coats and drab faces. They warn her sternly not to talk. Largely, she ignores them.
“Bucky?” She asks Sam as soon as they’re blissfully gone, her voice cracking. Sam opens his mouth to reprimand her but before he can she lets out a horrific sob. “Tell me Sam. Is he dead?”
Sam sits down on the edge of her bed. “He’s going to be okay. You’ve been out for a few days. Things were unsure for a little bit. He, uh, Y/N, he had internal bleeding. It was really bad.” She must look panicked because he quickly says, “But he pulled through. He’s going to be fine. They had to do surgery but it all went fine. He’s just really worried about you.” Sam half rolls his eyes. “Leave it to Barnes to have nearly bled to death and be worried about you.
“He’s awake?” She whispers.
“Yeah. I’ll see if we can get you down to see him. He’s been…so afraid. We didn’t know if you’d be okay or not. Apparently you weren’t breathing for quite a while and they were worried about possible brain damage.”
She motions for Sam to help her sit up. He does, putting one hand behind her back as his other hand grips one of hers. “Is he alone? Tell me someone is with him, Sam.” Her voice hardly sounds like her own.
He shakes his head and rubs her back soothingly, “No, Steve is there. Y/N…everybody is wondering what happened. Barnes is insisting you tell the story together.” There’s a pause as Sam shakes his head. “Y/N….Rumlow is dead.”
“Dead?” Her voice squeaks.
A nod.
“Good.” Her voice is hard, or as hard as it can be when she can barely speak. “Good.”
The corner of Sam’s mouth twitches. She thinks he might want to smile. “Okay. Well I’m gonna go see about getting you down to Barnes.” She nods and Sam gives her a light hug, “I’m glad you’re okay.”
A small smile twists her lips. “Thanks Sam.”
It only takes him a few minutes for him to find a nurse who comes into her room with a wheelchair. The medical staff is, apparently, very disapproving of moving her around so soon. She doesn’t much care. They help her into the chair, plastic tubes trailing from her hands and her nose, Sam pushes the stand along that holds the medicines and oxygen. She’s anxious the whole way to his room, her leg bouncing, her fingers tapping nervously.
It seems to take an excruciatingly long time. She’s nervous. The last time she had seen him he had been near dead and a part of her thinks this is all some huge prank. That they’ll get there and it’ll be a morgue. They’ll ask her to identify his body and tell the story herself.
They suddenly arrive in front of a door right as she starts to truly drown in her own panic. Sam knocks and pushes it open. Bucky’s face is turned away from her as he looks at Steve who is sitting next to his bed. Steve smiles and points toward the door. “We’ll let you guys be,” Sam says as Steve gets up and moves toward the door as Sam pushes Y/N next to the bed. Before Steve goes he leans down and kisses Y/N on the forehead.
“Good to have you back.”
The door shuts behind them. For a few minutes they just look at each other. Her panic starts to subside and when Y/N reaches over and takes his hand, careful of the tubes running from both of them, it only solidifies the truth. They’re here, they’re alive, they made it. “You’re okay?” He asks.
She shakes her head and brings his hand to her mouth. “Yeah. What about you?”
“I’m fine, doll.” He runs his thumb over the back of her hand. “You sound pretty rough.”
“You’re looking pretty rough,” she murmurs, not taking her eyes off of him.
Bucky face is bruised and he also has oxygen supply nubs in his nose to match hers. His hair is lanky and needs a wash. A pink tongue darts out to lick lips that are cracked. “You should see the other guy,” he tries to joke.
Fear steals into her heart. “What happened?”
“You don’t remember?”
He looks flustered and so she quickly says, “No, I do. I do. I don’t…Sam said he’s dead.” Her voice is so hoarse and rough that she can barely hear herself. But Bucky does. He hears every word.
Bucky looks away and doesn’t say anything so she stands, legs shaky and weak beneath her. “Hey,” he says, “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Getting in bed with you. I’m tired.” Bucky doesn’t hesitate to move over. Once they’re settled together she whispers to the ceiling, “You saved my life.”
“You saved mine first. He would have kept going if you hadn’t pulled that stupid stunt. He would have killed me. He would have killed us both.” He pauses for a moment and turns his head to look at her. “You ran because you knew he’d stop and follow you.”
She turns her head to look back at him, meet his eyes. “Keeping me was more important than killing you. It always has been.” Her eyes travel over the planes of his face before she meets his eyes again. “I remembered. I was thinking of you getting away and looking at the stars and my memories started to flood back. I think it was my life flashing before my eyes.” Her gaze hardens, “You were supposed to get to safety.”
Bucky tilts his head forward until their foreheads are pressed together. “If you remember anything about me, you’ll know that that was never a possibility. I was coming after you no matter what happened, or what state I was in.”
“I know. I still hoped.” She lifts one hand to his cheek, growling in frustration when the tubes in her hand tug at her skin painfully. “I wanted to give you a chance, a choice.” Another pause stretches between them as they examine each other. “I’m so sorry I put you through all of this. It’s all my fault. If I had just told you from the start that he was-,”
He shakes his head as she slides her thumb over his bottom lip. “None of it is your fault. We’d do anything to keep each other safe. And we did, baby.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the-the-,” she pauses and swallows and finally looks away from his eyes. “-the rape.”
The press of tears at the back of her eyes becomes too much again and spill over. “Sweetheart…” he says softly. “Baby, that wasn’t your fault.”
“I coulda said something and I didn’t. I let it happen.”
Bucky pulls her close ignoring the painful tug in his stitches. “No,” he says gently. “It will never be your fault.”
“I just want this to be over, Buck.”
He pats her hair gently, “It is, baby. We’re almost there.”
“They’re gonna ask questions again,” she murmurs into the crook of his neck. Its then, at the prospect of being asked intrusive questions, that she realizes the trauma they’ve just been through. “Are you sure you’re okay, baby?”
A shaky breath pushes past his lips, “Yeah.” And then, “You remember everything? From before?”
She stares at him, the person she’s loved nearly her whole life, and knows he’s not okay. She lets him deflect anyways. “I’m not sure how I can know if I’ve remembered everything. But I remembered quite a lot.” Her hand strays from his jaw to his neck. “I remember you.” Y/N lets her hand slide over the bandages wrapped around his neck and collarbones, knife slashes just beneath the surface.
“You should see yours,” he murmurs, sensing her rising distress the longer her gaze lingers on the bandages. “You’re bruised all the way around, baby.” Bucky takes her hands between his own. “He knew what he was doing when he ripped that branch out of your hands.” His fingers tremble around hers. “Knew he could take something important away from you. You never shared your art with him. Couldn’t wait to show everyone else…but never him.”
Y/N nods. “I remember,” she reminds him. “But Buck…you hand a-a knife sticking out of you. I was hardly concerned about my hands in that moment. Something else was at stake.” Tucking her face carefully against his neck, she gives him a light kiss. “Next story is going to be called: When to tell the truth.”
It's such a Y/N thing to say. A small wisp of a chuckle leaves him before he groans in pain. Before Y/N can get upset again he kisses her hair and whispers, “And do you know, in that moment, all I could think about is how upset you would be if he damaged your hands?”
Upon hearing his admission she goes completely still. And then she lets out a terrible little sob. “I love you, you idiot.”
Silence stretches after that as they both cry, clinging to each other desperately and trying not to disturb each other’s injuries.
Eventually Y/N falls asleep but Bucky won’t let himself. Every little noise makes him jump because he half expects Rumlow to come charging through the door. Even though he’d seen his lifeless body. Done it himself.
Every time he closes his eyes he can hear her screaming, feel her pulse slowing. He sees Rumlow with a knife in his hand and even worse his hand around Y/N's throat.
It doesn’t feel quite finished. So, he clutches Y/N tight, determined to keep her by his side and protected from the world.
Nothing and no one will be separating them again.