Death Where is Your Sting? - B. Barnes

Chapter 19

Something was wrong. Ray could feel it in her bones.

After her nightmare and remembering her death - what should've been my death - Ray had refused to sleep for two days. Every time she closed her eyes, she felt his metal hand around her throat, the shot burn through her chest. Bucky had tried his best to help, he really had, but he was - He couldn't understand.

Then suddenly, while she was trying to teach Bucky to cook, she was chilled, shaking, and her stomach was flipping. Ray had fled to the bathroom just before her stomach emptied itself. Bucky had come running, of course, and she'd told him she was just upset about the dream, sick over what she had seen and felt. Bucky had helped her to bed, taking the opportunity to convince her to rest, and warmed her up some soup. She'd eaten some, hoping to settle her stomach, and it did seem to help. Bucky had told her to sleep, and he'd stayed till she had fallen asleep, hiding her still-shaking hands beneath the blankets.

The next day, she'd almost passed out when trying to get out of bed. Again, she chalked it up to her lack of food and sleep, still reeling from the dream. When she'd thrown up again after lunch, she'd sworn it was food poisoning. She'd decided to stop eating until the vomiting stopped but she didn't tell Bucky.

But it didn't stop, and then things got worse.

~<>~

"Come on, Ray, hit me."

"I don't want to hit you."

"What, you think I can't take it?"

"Oh please. I'm not stupid. I'm just...I'm tired. Why do we have to spar?"

"You have to train. It's important."

"For when the Power Broker comes back for me?"

Bucky straightened from his fighting stance. "You know it's not out of the question. Sam and Torres are working on finding him - or her - and we're staying here to keep you safe. But yes, we both know you could be in danger, especially since someone knows who you are."

"Fine." She picked up the practice knife and flipped it in her hands, catching it and pointing it at him before giving him a pointed look and saying, "But I don't like it."

He chuckled. "Just hit me, Reaper."

Anger flared in her eyes at the name. He did that on purpose. She charged at him, and he ducked around her, jabbing her kidney with his metal arm. She used her forward momentum to flip off the wall and kick his stomach. It did little to knock him off balance but she backflipped to the other side of the couch, putting a barrier between them. She aimed her knife, throwing it at him. He caught it easily but he narrowly missed the throwing knife she'd thrown at him immediately after.

"Hey! Where'd you get the real knife?"

"You told me to hit you. You didn't say with what," she said with a smirk.

Now Bucky was miffed. He rounded the couch, throwing punches at Ray, which she was barely dodging, but her reflexes were in her favor. She was smaller, more agile, quicker and lighter on her feet. She used it to her advantage.

Ray ducked under a punch, pushed off the coffee table, and slid between Bucky's legs, snagging his ankle as she passed. Bucky crumbled to one knee, and Ray leapt to her feet - but her left leg gave out, sending her sprawling back to the floor. She tried to regain her footing, but her muscles were spasming, unresponsive to her mental directions to move.

Bucky regained his footing and strode over to her. "Ray?"

She didn't want him to know what had happened, so she spun onto her back. "Help me up?" She reached up her hand as a request. Bucky extended his hand down, and Ray pulled him to the ground, laying the weight of her upper body onto her arm laid across his neck, knife pressed to his jugular with her other hand. "I win!"