The Kind You Save (Winter Soldier x Reader)

People Skills

Tony's P.O.V.

"Now what?" Steve asked as we arrived back to the tower.

"Well, we try to calm down tin man. He'll probably be pretty helpful," I responded trying to keep him from hyperventilating or something.

We returned to the tower, Steve catching his breath after his sprint down traffic. Once we got back up to the lab Bucky looked in pretty bad shape and the place was still in shambles.

"What happened?" Steve asked me as we walked over to the glass room.

"Well, either the formulas were complete shit and I have no idea what I'm doing. Or someone tampered with it. I'm pretty sure it's the latter."

The brainwashed assassin was exhausted. He sat on the ground, his back leaning against the glass wall. He was silent except for his heavy breathing accompanied by dripping sweat, the formula was still in his system.

"Who would do that? I can't think of anyone in this building that would want to hurt him," Steve said as he glanced at the broken man in the glass room.

"Well, let's find out," I said as Jarvis gathered the video footage from earlier.

There was nothing from right before the procedure so we rewinded back to when we found (y/n) on the floor.

"Go back further..." Steve requested, his face turning more... serious.

We rewinded back further and stopped as we watched as (y/n) entered the lab. She walked in and looked lost, like she didn't know what she was doing there. She then stood frozen for a moment, as if she were listening to something. As she looked around for a moment, she spotted the vials in the back of the room, walking towards them. We couldn't see exactly what she had done, but there wasn't a doubt in my mind that she had tampered with the formula.

"(Y/n)?! She did this! Bucky trusted her, we all trusted her. Sh-" Steve was interrupted by the footage on the screen.

We watched as she reached her hand over to the files on her right, opening the one that rested on top. Just as she did this her hands shot up to her head, covering her ears. She gripped her head firmly and her expression tightened, it was obvious that something was hurting her.

"What the fuck?" I whispered to myself.

"Language," Steve responded.

I shot him a glare accompanied by a small smile. I guess some ideas don't change.

We then grew silent as something very strange began to unravel. Something strange and something dangerous. We saw her yell, before her expression completely changed. She looked terrified, as she reached her throat, struggling to breathe. She then began to be lifted off the ground as a figure appeared out of thin air, a familiar figure.

"Loki?" Steve asked, panicked.

We continued to watch as he threw (y/n) to the solid ground, her head hitting the tile, hard. She lay there limp as Loki walked over to her head placing a hand on her head, smirking before he disappeared again.

"That son of a bitch," I said watching Steve's expression, waiting for another old timey response. But for once, he looked like he agreed with me.

"He's using (y/n) for something, he's controlling her. What does he want with her? What does she have that he wants?" Steve asked as we watched the footage where Bucky ran into the room to (y/n).

Ending the footage, we brought up the security camera's feed of the lab. We both watched Bucky, his eyes were drained and he looked exhausted. He hasn't looked this bad since we found him, living as a homeless man.

"Is this about Bucky? What does (y/n) have to do with him?" Steve asked, stopping the footage.

"Are you serious? Bucky-" I stopped, looking at the Winter Soldier, grabbing Steve into a different room where Bucky couldn't overhear our conversation.

"The whole reason Bucky is even here is because of (y/n). If she hadn't helped us Bucky would still be sprinting down the street in the opposite direction. Bucky can't go on without her, as cliche as this is... They complete each other," I said, cringing at the statement.

Steve stood there for a moment, thinking over what was said. It was true, as much as Bucky didn't want to admit it, they spent most of their time together and he usually went to (y/n) first for help or advice. It was almost sweet.

"You're right," Steve said, a smirk forming on his lips. "Heh, that's just like Buck."

"Wow, never heard you say that to me before. But I'm usually right so get used to it, spangles," I said as we walked back into the hall in front of the lab.

"So what do we do about Bucky?" Steve asked, crossing his arms across his chest.

"Well, I only put a small amount of the new formula in as a test. Which he failed by the way, miserably. So it should be out of his system in about an hour. Oh, and I wouldn't mention what happened with... you know who... to him just yet. The stress isn't good for him right now."

Steve said nothing, only noded. I knew the old man didn't approve of lying, but it was to help his buddy so he just has to go along with it. After about an hour and a half Bucky had finally returned to his "normal" self, well how he was before the episode at least.

"Wh-what happened?" He asked, wiping the sweat off his face with a small hand towel.

"You had an 'episode'... A violent one... " Steve said, eyeing Bucky's movements.

Bucky stood frozen, lifting his hand up to his face. He felt the blood dripping from his nose, his expression looked terrified. He really didn't remember what had just happened.

"Did I... Did anyone get hurt... " He said, not looking at either of us in the eye.

"Well you threw us around a bit, but nothing we couldn't handle." I said, picking up some files from the lab floor.

"What about (y/n)? Did she see me... like I am... a killer?" He asked, looking around the broken room.

"You're not a killer Buck, what Hydra did to you... you had no choice in."

"So she did... " He said, disregarding Steve's statement.

We didn't say anything, just stood in silence for a few minutes. I finally decided to break the silence by saying we should move back upstairs, to which everyone agreed. We needed a change of scenery from the destroyed lab.

"You should get some rest Buck, we'll do some more work on the formula," Steve said, trying to cover his lie.

God, a child could see that he was lying.

Bucky gave him a strange look before brushing it off.

"Right, I'm going to talk to (y/n) first. Where is she?" He asked, looking at me dead in the eye.

"Actually, she's pretty busy at the moment. You should probably leave her be for now... " I said, little did Bucky know of my impassible lying skills.

"You're lying," he responded, his eyebrows knit.

Well, damn.

"Buck, you need rest. That formula took most of your energy, and you'll need to be recharged for tomorrow. Trust me," Steve said, placing his hand on Bucky's shoulder.

I was pretty impressed, I thought (y/n) was exaggerating about how Steve had incredible "people skills" as she called it. But now I could see that he really had a knack for it because how little fought before he finally agreed.

"We need to find her quick," Steve whispered urgently, just as Bucky left the room.

"I already have Jarvis looking into it. We need to look into Hydra's previous hideouts to see any patterns for where they might be held out now," I said, enhancing a map on one of my largest screens.

Come on (y/n)... hang in there.