Fireworks: A Bucky Barnes Romance

Chapter 11

Epilogue, July 5

The government official who was currently debriefing Sarah didn't seem to like her answers.

On the other hand, she was enjoying herself.

She'd already gone over the whole experience from her perspective—give or take the last moment when Sandhurst's disc exploded—and was now answering questions. She was seated in a white reclining chair, much like a dental chair—while a doctor worked to remove the disc from her neck.

The doctor, nice-looking Asian woman with steady hands, was using a tool to carefully remove the outer two layers of her skin, the part that had (apparently) fused with the molecules of the disc. Another man was in charge of questions.

"Do I have the extra discs from Sandhurst?" she repeated. "No. Horrible things. Good Lord, you don't think I'd be hoarding something he called slave discs, do you? Did I destroy them?' She thought briefly of the detonator in Sam's hands, in her boys' hands, taking turns blowing them up. "No, I sure didn't, but I would have if I could."

The man eyed her. She had the feeling he was pretty good at reading people. But she wasn't lying, so he could go suck eggs.

"Sandhurst's disc?" Sarah kept her head tilted at an odd angle for the doctor, studying the upper corner of the peach ceiling above the man's head, while he asked more questions. She didn't care for his tie, it clashed.

"It exploded, right?" Sarah confirmed. "No, I didn't see it, I was up in the press room with Darcy. Did she do it on purpose? Ha. She was as shocked as I was! She'd been working it all out so fast, trying to duplicate his signal before anything could happen. The president could have died, you know?" Sarah was all wide-eyed innocence. "I'd say we're all darn lucky she's on our side. That woman is hell on wheels."

Sarah felt a sharp tug and then a sharp pinch just below her jaw. "Ow! Don't think that part got numbed."

Almost before she'd finished speaking, Bucky slammed the door open. He'd been in a room same as hers, next door.

"It's okay, Buck," Sarah said. "Just hit a sore spot."

The doctor held up the disc with forceps. "All done." She bandaged Sarah with a small white square of white gauze and tape. Bucky had a similar, but larger one on his arm.

The man tucked his clipboard under his arm. "We can continue in my office."

Bucky came to give Sarah a hand as she sat up. "She's done."

"Well, Mr. Barnes—"

His eyes cooled. "Did she finish her statement?"

"Yes, but I have some follow-up questions."

"That's what we all have phone for," he said. "Ms. Wilson needs to recuperate at home."

The man didn't look entirely happy, but he also looked a little nervous.

Now both Sarah and Bucky were enjoying themselves.

As they paused in the hall outside the patient rooms, they could hear Darcy where she was being interrogated, because the door was propped open.

Interrogated was probably the wrong word, Sarah decided, because Darcy was barely letting her agent, a sleek, coiffed older woman, get a word in edgewise.

"So, it was one thing to piggyback the signal, but reverse polarizing the frequency and then exactly matching the pulse intervals, was not easy! Man, I am proud of the work I did. All while I was disced, too!"

Sarah peeked into the room. Darcy was laying on her stomach, while another doctor removed the disc from the back of her neck. Her long hair was tied up in a bun.