Touch Me I'm Going to Scream // [Stucky]

Chapter 23 Part 1

Coming to is not a pleasant experience but it doesn't last long. Steve hears voices and sees a play of light and shadow through his eyelids. His hand spasms around someone else's fingers. He hears his name, and his consciousness goes back under.

*

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. I tell you; he squeezed my hand."

"It's only been two days, it could take—"

"Don't patronize me, Stark."

*

He can't open his eyes, they're too heavy.

He's not sure if he owns a body. What does a body even look like, what form does he have?

His mind is untethered.

*

"Natasha, can we—"

"Whatever you have to say, you can say it in front of me. I won't break. Don't worry, I have the wheelchair if I faint."

"Was he always this bitchy or was it Bucky's metal arm? What? What's that snort for, birdy?"

"You on a first-name basis with the Winter Soldier?"

"He's not the Winter Soldier."

"Oh yeah? Let's ask Steve's opinion. Oh wait, we can't, he got his ass kicked by the Winter Soldier."

"You don't know the full story."

"Man, I don't care about the story. My friend is in a coma—I just woke up from a coma. I think I'm in my right to bitch a little."

"Okay... Point taken."

"What did you want to tell me, Tony?"

"We have a lead."

*

He hears the sound the flesh and bone arm makes when he breaks it and suddenly it's all that he hears, the only thing that exists. His arm breaking and him screaming in pain. It's deafening. His heart clenches. He doesn't stop.

That pain... it's the only thing that makes Bucky's eyes lose their dullness, their indifference.

Bucky's hurt eyes are staring at him from above, one fist frozen in the air. He's unsure. He's feeling doubt. He won't let the fist fall.

Steve is falling—away from Bucky. His back hits the river and it's like hitting concrete but he can only see Bucky. He was scared.

God, he is so scared.

*

Everything seems empty and quiet here but right now Tony doesn't trust even his own technology when it comes to HYDRA. The suit hasn't detected any heat signatures for now but there's been a fight here, he can tell even before they encounter the bloody imprints and the dead bodies. Tony can also tell that they're not alone. It's something he's learned to identify in the last few years. It's some kind of sixth sense and if he had to explain it, he would say that it feels like a current, like something static. If you stay still for a moment, with your eyes open and listening closely... you will know you're not alone—even if you don't hear anything or see something moving, you will still know.

It's a gift that sometimes abandons him, usually on the worst occasions, but right now he knows. This is why Tony's not wearing his helmet while he, along with the others, combs a HYDRA facility.

"I just know he's here," Tony whispers. "I can feel it in my bones."

"I too believe he's here; Heimdall's vision has never let me down," Thor says from his left. He doesn't look as on edge as Tony and Clint and Natasha, most certainly because he's arrived too late to the party.