oh captain! my captain! | barnes

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3:00 am

The girl had an actual bedroom that night. Tony made up one of the several guest rooms in the tower, and put her in the last one on the same floor as the rest of them in case HYDRA came back. After all, they hadn't gotten rid of the transmitter yet. Scarlet Witch had been unheard of. She'd gone home to what was left of Sokovia, due to the little attack.

But Audrey sat up in her bed, against the backboard. She stared at the closed door, hoping no intruder would break in. A headache crept its way into her forehead, she had also noticed she began to smell. She stood and went to the room's bathroom. There were towels and toiletries out for the guests and she smiled.

She turned on the water as hot as she could stand and got in. She wiped the red dust away from her eyes, the dirt from her hands, the sweat from her back. She washed her hair and rinsed her body off. She wrapped a towel around her and turned off the hot water. She slid the glass door away and stood on the cold tiled floor. She wiped a part of the fog away from the mirror and saw herself for the first time she could remember. She was small and lean, under her eyes were dark from the lack of sleep and still tainted red from the dust.

She frowned.

She came out of the bathroom and was startled by Bucky sitting on her bed, waiting. She put her hand over her heart.

"Don't do that to me." She complained. She had no idea how frightened the man was, coming into her room without her in there. "What're you doing here, anyways?"

"Just checking on you, and I brought clothes. Natasha wanted you to have something clean." She was moderately shocked, Natasha had wanted her to be killed. But she accepted the clothes from being too tired to ask, and the fact she was naked other than the towel. She went back to the bathroom and closed the door.

"I've seen you naked before, you know. I wouldn't stare." He said. She put the bra on, thankful the assassin remembered underwear.

"Hey Bucky? How long were we, you know, us?" She asked and threw her old clothes in the laundry bin. She stood in the doorway.

"Few months." He said, looking at her.

"In the letter, I said I loved you, more than that. Did you feel the same at the time?"

"I've loved you from the day you came to camp." He stated. His words were so heavy, so full of emotion. He felt so vulnerable.

"I bet you say that to all your girls." She mumbled.

"I did say that to all of them. But the difference is when I said it to them, I didn't mean it. If I didn't love you then the team would have given you back to HYDRA." He stated. She sat against the backboard of the bed, he didn't move. She just nodded. "I'm going to get Bruce, I think he'll be able to help access what you remember." He disappeared and she breathed out the air she'd been holding in. He came back minutes later with a groggy biochemist.

"Why did you wake me up at three in the morning again?" He asked, cleaning off his glasses.

"I think you can help figure out how they're controlling her." Bucky said calmly.

"Okay, tell me what you remember about HYDRA and your imprisonment." Bruce said simply, sitting on the desk chair. Bucky sat next to her and reached for her hand, she folded her hands in her lap. She wasn't ready.

"I remember the first lab, on the first battle. I remember they wheeled me to another room. They transferred me to an underground base when the place burned down. They didn't touch me for a few months. I was locked up. It was only after the war that they did this all."