Stranger Who Knows All My Secrets [A Marvel FanFic]

Chapter 17: Freckles

There were only minor complications with Elena's surgery not that they sounded very minor to Bucky but the surgeon filled him in on the details when they rolled her very unconscious body back into the room what felt like a lifetime later. The rupture of her appendix had caused very bad inflammation and of course, an infection which led to an extensive clean-up before they could actually remove the damaged organ. There was nothing major; as long as Elena stayed off her feet and took some antibiotics, she would be perfectly fine. The surgeon definitely didn't want her getting on a plane without proper recovery time first and because of that, they spent an extra week in Puerto Rico. 

Rhodey had no problem with the unexpected change of plans and he admitted that he was pretty leery about putting Elena on a commercial flight so soon, preferring instead for them to get picked up by Sam and Natasha in a Quinjet on their way back from Europe. After two more morphine-filled days in the hospital, Elena was finally discharged and Bucky thought it best to skip the cheap motel room. Instead, he used Elena's phone with the help of one of the hospital janitors to rent a studio apartment in Humacao through an app called Airbnb while the nurse helped her change into clean clothes. 

Honestly, Elena was so drugged up she barely remembered anything after falling asleep, not waking up in the recovery room, talking to Natasha, Barton, or her therapist on the phone, or leaving the hospital for that matter. She only half remembered the car ride and certainly didn't remember climbing into the queen-sized bed to sleep for hours on end after Bucky carried her up the flight of stairs to the apartment and thank goodness she didn't because, despite Bucky's instance to the host that he and Elena weren't together-together, the old woman had the place done up in a very romantic manner. 

Oh yeah, there were two wine glasses placed on the coffee table along with a cheap bottle of complimentary red, unlit candles, a list of places for things like couples' massages, and a plethora of fancy restaurants. There were even rose petals thrown over the white quilt at the foot of the bed which he swept off into the trash bin he grabbed from the bathroom while Elena lay unconscious on her back like a starfish that had been washed up on the beach. It was admittedly a cute little apartment, freakishly romantic if he was being honest, and way bigger than his own studio apartment back in Brooklyn. 

It sat on the second floor of a white-colored, concrete home with a perfect unobstructed view of the beach from the balcony. The walls inside were all wood though, as were the ceiling and floor but there were several round seagrass decor items on the wall behind the bed which had an ornately carved wooden headboard. The coffee table was small but stood in the space between the foot of the bed and the light green pull-out couch while a dining table for two sat just in front of the opened wooden folding doors to the balcony where a hammock had been strung up next to a comfy looking lounge chair and a little bistro table. 

The kitchen was a closet thought but there was enough space for him to work with to make them food and the bathroom had a walk-in shower which Elena would undoubtedly need. Perhaps the most interesting feature of the apartment was the decor items, everything from palm fronds in vases, driftwood on shelves, seashells in jars, and the ratan window shades. Bucky was fascinated by the mask on the wall above the couch, it was a colorful and many-horned and toothy thing, unlike anything he'd seen before; it kind of looked like a dragon. He stared at it for way too long before he kicked off his boots and stood on the bed next to Elena so he could fluff out the mosquito net she had messed up when she laid down because none of the windows had screens unfortunately. 

Annoyingly, the place didn't have air conditioning either but it was the only place that was available for the days they needed, and at the very least there was a ceiling fan in the kitchen and two smaller high-powered portable fans in a closet. Bucky didn't bother with pulling out the sofa bed because his body ached from four days with virtually no sleep, two of which were spent hiking through the rainforest while the other two had been spent in a hospital chair. For once, the floor didn't appeal to him and though the closed-up couch was just a little too small, he didn't care, he just wanted to lay down. It was surprising how cool the apartment actually was, the breeze from the ocean sweeping through the windows and open balcony doors.