With Him | Bucky x Reader | Enemies with Benefits

-44-

Bucky's POV:

Fuck I had missed her.

She was wrapped in my jacket and curled up under a blanket beside me as I raked my fingers through her (slightly knotted) hair. 

She was always talkative, always filling the silence, so the lack of her voice said something to me. These days, I found that the silence between us felt light and comfortable and I wondered if she didn't feel the need to continue a conversation together and if it meant that she was okay with it just being her and me with our thoughts and feelings.

Her breathing started to slow as she drifted into a deeper sleep and I stepped away as the others approached the jet, I was pretty sure Y/n would kill me if I told them about us without consulting her first, and I didn't feel like dying today.

"Thank God you found her," Nat said, quickly walking over to her and checking her temperature and pulse. "She feels freezing though."

"I know." I replied solemnly, "They had taken her clothes so I've started to warm her up."

"Good." She replied, bending down to get on her level and check her face. "She's pretty beaten up. Did she talk?"

"Yeah, but not much. The back of her head is bleeding too so I think we should get Tony and Bruce to check her over."

Steve walked over from the freezer, handing an ice pack to me. "Hold it against the injury. No longer than ten minutes."

I also picked up some damp paper towels and walked back over to her. I lifted her head up and rested it on my thigh, smiling internally when she nuzzled into me before I placed the ice pack on the back of her head and started to clean the blood off her face.

"You two really did a 180, huh?" Sam whispered, sitting at her feet and readjusting the blanket so her toes wouldn't get cold. "I'm pretty sure you would have tried to kill her a couple of months ago and now there's...this."

"She's a good friend and a good teammate," And I think I've got a bit of a soft spot for her I added silently in my head. "I would have to be stupid not to help someone like that out."

She flinched in my lap as the tissue brazed a deep cut on her temple. It made me so fucking mad that they had done all this to her, that they had been hurting her all week and she had had no way of contacting us. It pissed me off.

I knew they would have been trying to get information but seeing the wounds and injuries that littered her body almost had me seeing red. It was a miracle that I hadn't killed the guy in that room with her, but the only thing that had been on my mind was getting her back to safety.

"Shhh," I whispered, moving her hair out of her face and being careful to use less pressure as I continued to clean her up. "You're okay, I'm just trying to help you out, Y/n/n."

She seemed to calm in my lap again and went back to getting rid of the dirt and blood.

"How did you know that wasn't her?" Sam asked, "The shapeshifter girl. She had the rest of us fooled.

"You weren't stuck on a boat with Y/n for a month." I reminded him, "I know all her irritating habits. The other girl was too polite."

"She told me to lock myself in a cupboard and never come out..." He reminded me.

"Y/n would have told you to get her some ice cream first and she would have added a few more curses in." I countered, receiving a begrudging nod of agreement from Sam.

It was all lie. I had noticed because of all the other things. All of Y/n's little habits that usually bothered me but that I was now eternally grateful for them because they lead us to find her.

I don't know what the fuck I would have done if we hadn't found her, or worse, if we had come a couple of hours later and she had die- 

Nope. I didn't want to think about it.

Once I had decided that her face was clean enough, I removed the ice pack (the ten minutes were over) then I picked up a second paper towel and started to clean the back of her head and neck. If I was in her position then I wouldn't want to wake up caked in blood.

My breath stalled again when I realized the extent of the wound but I managed to calm myself before I broke something.

Y/n was here and she was safe. That was all that mattered.

(778 Words)