Clocks//Stucky✔

Twelve

Steve wasn't there. 

The rational part of Bucky decided that Steve could have been really tired and crashed at the tower, but Steve wouldn't do that to Bucky. The irrational side of Bucky was screaming, crying, and creating a jumbled mess of his thoughts as anxiety coursed through his veins.

Either way, Bucky knew he had to go to the tower to check. 

That's how Bucky found himself sprinting to Avengers Tower at full speed, everything else forgotten. 

When Bucky finally reached the tower, he burst inside. The main floor was a mostly plain room, just a reception desk, door, and the elevator. But Bucky didn't know the password. He felt helpless until he remembered Jarvis. 

"Um... Jarvis?" Bucky spoke, his voice quivering. 

"Sergent Barnes, what brings you back?" The AI responded. 

"Is Steve here? It's been hours and he never came home." 

"Captain Rogers left almost five hours ago after he came back to retrieve his jacket," Jarvis explained. 

Bucky felt numb. He couldn't breathe and the walls felt as if they were closing in on him.

"Sergent Barnes, I would suggest you calm down. Your panic attack will only get worse. I can try and wake Tony and he can help you." Jarvis insisted. 

But Bucky could barely hear anything over the screaming of his thoughts. 

The ding of the elevator startled Bucky, looking up he saw a lightly sober Tony who was staring intently at Bucky. "What's going on?" Tony sounded distressed. 

"S-Steve is missing. He- he never came back after he went to get his jacket that he left here." Bucky was trying so hard to fight back his fears and the waterfall of tears about to burst. His brain was putting Bucky through scenario after scenario of horrible things that could have happened to Steve.

"Oh god- come with me. We need to find him." Tony was clearly still drunk, but all the emotions hanging thick in the air seemed to be sobering him up. Bucky followed the man on wobbly legs that threatened to give out at any moment.

The two made the anxious trip up the elevator, both freaking out in their own ways. 

"I have transmitters on all the Avengers just in case something like this happens." Tony raced to a monitor that displayed a map with blinking dots on them, all labeled with different letters. The dots marked with BW, TGOT, HE, IM, and BB were all in the tower. The dot labeled CA was blinking right outside Steve's apartment. 

"Oh no. Oh god no. James, we gotta go."  Something was very wrong, and both men could feel it. Steve was in danger, and it was clear. 

Tony quickly grabbed something from one of the desks in the room and tore off towards the stairs Bucky didn't notice before. He followed Tony, the metal plates in his arms settling, poised to fight anything that dare hurt Steve. 

The two raced out of the building and towards Steve's apartment right where the dot was. And sure enough, there was a chip laying on the ground. Bucky looked around the area and there, on the wall behind the chip;

"Hail Hydra"

☆

By the time the sun was rising, Steve's apartment was a disaster. 

Bucky had lost his mind, throwing things around and screaming and crying all while Tony sat on the couch in the middle of this all, sobbing until both of them passed out, Bucky on the floor, Tony on the couch. That was until someone came by.

"Jesus Christ..." Natasha stressed. When she woke up, Jarvis was quick to inform her of the situation. "Hey, wake up guys." Natasha shook Tony awake, then Bucky. 

Bucky was scared away at the feeling of hands on him. He had a vivid nightmare, but he couldn't get out. He couldn't move. He didn't want to think of the dream. He was scarred by the mental image of holding a gun to Steve's head and pulling the trigger. 

"Come on, we need to get back to the tower, this place is making you two extremely emotional. We need to focus on getting Steve back." Natasha pulled Bucky off the ground and Tony off the couch, shoving them up and out the door.

Bucky was grateful for Natasha. They needed her rational thinking to get Steve back from Hydra. Bucky couldn't wait to slaughter every single one of the people who had a hand in this. 

No, he thought. You're letting the Winter Soldier take over. We can deal with Hyrda after we get Steve back.

He couldn't get ahead of himself, that could kill Bucky, or even worse, Steve. So he ran with Natasha and Tony back to the tower. 

"I'm relieved you are all back. Banner, Thor, and Barton are all awake, and I've alerted Captain Roger's friend, Sam Wilson. He is on his way as we speak. Please, the conference room." Jarvis alerted them as soon as they walked through the doors. 

"Thanks," Natasha spoke quickly before going to the elevator and going to the conference floor. 

The ride seemed to be years long. The air was suffocating Bucky, pressing up against this throat and making his vision waver.

"You two look like shit," Clint observed, worry lacing his voice.

"So- so Steve is missing?" Bruce asked tentatively.

"He was," Bucky had to pause to get air into his lungs and fight back tears. "He was captured by Hydra."

There were a few moments of stunned silence at the aspect that Captain America had been taken away by Hyrda.

"We think they got him last night. He had left his coat here and went back and got it, then left the tower but never came back to his apartment where Bucky was." Tony was getting choked up. "We looked at his transmitter and it said he was in an alley outside his apartment building, but it was just the chip and Hail Hydra written on the wall behind him.

"We have to get him back." Bucky couldn't handle it any longer. His rational side was giving out, his brain was no longer telling him to be strong for Steve.

A fresh flow of tears and pained noises left Bucky, blocking out the embarrassment or anything else he felt in that moment.

But then he felt arms wrapped around him. "Hey, it's okay. It's going to be okay, James." Natasha pulled away after that, leaving her hands on Bucky's arms. "We are going to get Steve back alive. And when we are trying to get him back, he'll be doing everything possible to get back to you. I know damn well that Steve isn't going to back down without a fight." Natasha paused.

"Especially involving you. I saw how he searched for you. Staying up all night looking for even the smallest hint you were anywhere at all. I felt the desperation in his voice when he pleaded for us to help find you. He would stop at nothing to get you back. So don't think for one second that Steve might be dead or that we can't save him. Because if we can't do anything, he'll damn well save himself." Natasha backed away from Bucky a little, removing her hands.

"So wipe your tears, because we've got a plan to formulate."