Bucky Barnes: A Smile

Chapter 3

Song of Chapter: Airplanes by Haley Williams

Leo awoke from the sound of the heart rate monitor beeping beside her. She looked around and found Rhodey asleep on the chair beside her. She saw that Rhodey had metal things cuffed around his legs down to his feet.

She tried to sit up. "Rhodey...?", she said in a raspy voice.

Rhodes's head shot up. "Leo. Thank god you're awake. Wait, don't sit up you need to rest."

"No- wait. I need to- Tony-", Leo said as she tried to sit up again but Rhodey pushed her gently back down.

"Leo, please. You need to rest.", Rhodey insisted and tried to distract her. "Did you see your hair?"

She shook her head. Rhodey handed her a mirror. She looked at herself and her eyes widened. Her brown hair was now golden-red. Her hair color was pure gold with highlights of red. Her not so curly hair was now very curly.

Her eyes flew to Rhodey who was smiling widely. She stared at him for a moment wondering how the it happened.

"You didn't know?", Rhodey said jokingly.

"What? No. Of course, I knew. It just took me a moment to remember", she let out a shaky laugh and put her hand on her forehead.

Rhodey chuckled at her alibi and leaned back on his chair. "So, uh... Three weeks?", He said nodding to her stomach. "Tony told me about it."

"Yeah. I'm surprised yet thankful the baby survived.", Leo said removing her hand from her forehead and placing it on her stomach.

Moments later, she started to wonder. Her eyebrows furrowed. "Speaking of which, how did my baby survived?"

Rhodey's smiled vanished and became more serious. "Leo, I think Tony should be the one to tell you what happened."

"But-" She was cut off when Tony came in the room with a woman with black hair. She looked like Chinese.

The woman smiled at her. "Hi, my name is Helen Cho."

"Leo.", She said and Helen nodded.

She felt a hand slide into hers and saw Tony holding it with affection. To Leo, Tony never hid his true attitude to her and Pepper. If he cared, he cared.

"How're you feeling?", Tony smiled slightly.

"I'm fine actually. I don't really feel anything"

"Well I have to check on you every once in a while to see if the baby's doing fine.", Helen said.

Leo stared at her hand in Tony's. She tightened her grip on him. "Can you give us a moment, please?"

Tony nodded to Rhodey and Helen helped him walk out of the room. Tony sat down on the chair still holding Leo's hand.

"What's wrong?", Tony asked.

"What happened to me?", Leo's dull voice said.

Tony sighed. He might as well tell her. "When you were inside the tower, Pepper and I were talking about you. The Rhodey appeared and said that you started shaking like an earthquake and you were releasing some golden stuff that I don't know. Even FRIDAY didn't know what was happening-"

"I can't risk him.", She now looked at Tony with tears starting to fill her eyes. "I can't risk him, Tony."

"What are you talking about?", Tony leaned forward, confused.