Imagine If You Assembled The Avengers: Volume 2

Triggered (Barnes x reader)

Angst

Bucky was your friend. He was your best friend and he would never hurt you. The thought alone made you laugh in its sheer and utter ridiculousness. The two of you cuddled on the couch together during scary movie nights, made the worst messes in the kitchen when it was your night to cook, and answered his call when the nightmares were just a bit too much to take. He had been your champion against dates gone wrong, meeting them at the tower's main door as they dropped you off after terrible nights, his metal arm and clenched fist in clear view just to drive his point home. In return, you had told off more than one random woman as you walked the busy streets of Manhattan during days out, tearing down their shameless advances and stares that lasted a little too long, despite his clear discomfort with it.

You protected each other; it's just what you did without question. You comforted each other when it was all just too much. You would never hurt him and he would die before hurting you.

So when the first strike of his hand smashed into your cheek, throwing you against the wall with a force that shook pictures that hung from it, it felt as if it were a nightmare that you couldn't escape. You were waiting for the moment that you would wake and hear his voice soothing you back to reality, but that moment wasn't coming. The voice that you heard now wasn't the quiet and reassuring Bucky who would hold you to him until your crying stopped; this voice was one that wanted you to cry louder, taunting you with each swing of his arm.

There was no one to save you from this; you were alone in the tower that night, the team gone on a mission that allowed you and Bucky to have a rare night off. The first strike shook your brain so violently that you couldn't even remember what movie you were watching when the attack on your home began, but you could clearly remember each word that was read as the volume boomed throughout the room around you. With each word, Bucky screamed for you to run from him, knowing what he was about to do, but before all were said, his warnings stopped and he was now looking at you as if he had never known you.

He was the Soldier; you had never witnessed the change with your own eyes before, but you knew plain as day who he was now. No matter what you said to him, and no matter how you tried to reach his mind, your Bucky was gone.

The second strike of his cold fist took the vision from your right eye, and the sound of your nose breaking cracked through your skull. It didn't even hurt, really, because you were so focused on what was happening to Bucky that you didn't allow the pain in; it would only distract you. You didn't remember the third or fourth hit or where they landed, but it was the fifth that finally took you down. Your last view was the look in his eyes, cold and dark and unreachable; you weren't sure if his name had escaped your lips before you dropped at his feet, but you had to believe that you saw just a second of terror in those same eyes before everything went black. If you were going to die at his hand, you had to have the belief that he wasn't completely lost in what could be your final memory of him.

~~~

No way in hell he's getting anywhere near her again, Steve. No.

Tony's voice was almost enough to pull you from the warm slumber that the pain medications were giving you, but the attempt at opening your eyes was pointless from the swelling within and around them. You wanted to argue on Bucky's behalf, hearing Tony's tone, but it just wasn't going to happen right now under the relentless pull of your narcotic induced haze. You wanted to tell him that Bucky was helpless and under their control and that he would never to this on his own volition. You knew that wherever Bucky was right now, he was torturing himself enough to not need Tony to add to self-inflicted pain.