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The artificial light was somewhat dimmed and brought something cozy into the otherwise cold-looking room.
The heavy silence was interrupted by regular beeping sounds.
Beeping sounds that gave Bucky a lot of safety, because they meant that Daria was in a stable condition.
She has been in the hospital bed for three days now and reminded one of the end of the fairy tale 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs', where Snow White lay in the glass coffin and only a kiss of true love could free her from the spell.
The only difference was that this was real life and not a fairy tale.
There was no spell on her.
She was not a princess.
And no kiss in this world would free her from this sleep.
Daria had hit her head so hard on an iron bar when the Taskmaster had thrown her through the air, that she had a brain hemorrhage.
For hours Bucky had sat in the hospital waiting room with Natalia and Ramona, waiting for a doctor to come through the white door to tell them that the surgery had gone well and that she was on the road to recovery.
But even though the surgery had gone well, her general condition was still critical.
No one could say if Daria, when she would wake up, would be the same again. Whether she would be able to speak, to eat and drink on her own or whether she would just vegetate - a healthy mind unable to move her young body.
In addition to the brain hemorrhage, Daria also had two broken ribs, a deep cut on her right ribcage, and her gunshot wound, which was thought to be healed, had additionally reopened.
Bucky had not left Daria's room once in the last three days.
Only when he had to go to the toilet or jumped into the shower for five minutes and changed his clothes, he left the side of her bed.
It was his fault that she would lie in front of him like this now.
Surrounded by cables, tubes and monitors.
Helpless.
Innocent.
The very first night, Bucky had taken one of the upholstered wing chairs that stood in the hallway and placed it next to her bed. From these beige wing chairs he did everything.
He slept there, held her hand, ate the hospital food sitting cross-legged, and did his work from his laptop.
The freed Widows, meanwhile, were in Natalia's care receiving medical attention.
All Widows had a choice.
They could stay on the huge estate and live and work there, or they could regain their strength and then leave the estate and live a completely independent life.
