His Soulmate | Bucky Barnes ✔

Chapter Twenty Nine

~Third Person's POV~

"How long has it been?" Tony asked, resting on his forearms against the island in the kitchen.

Across the room Steve sighed, and pulled a hand over his tired face. "Three days."

"Is she speaking to anyone yet?"

Bruce climbed onto the chair next to Tony, nursing his mug of tea as he listened to the two Avengers discussing his newest friend.

"Buck says she barely speaks to him."

"Peter said that too." Tony mused, brows furrowed deep in thought.

Bruce looked up, his question needing to be answered. "Do you think something happened at the flat? Something apart from being where her mum died?"

Steve slid onto the chair opposite the two scientists and remembered what Bucky had told him the morning after he'd collected Amelie from her flat. "He said she was sat by the blood stains."

"Sounds like a panic attack from the description." Tony cut in, his voice quiet as he stared at his coffee.

Steve nodded quickly. "He mentioned something about a piece of paper that Amelie shoved in her pocket. But he's not seen it since."

The room fell quiet as the three men tried to devise a way to pick Amelie back up. The evening she'd come back to the tower, Bucky had taken her straight to her bedroom. He'd rung the bar to say she wasn't well, then stayed with her for the evening. She spent the following day in bed, not responding to anybody, her posture stiff as she lay facing the wall. Bucky made her food three times a day, and she'd mumble a thank you, but only half the plate would be eaten.

Peter had tried his luck talking to her, but was met with a similar response. And over the course of the next three days, the remaining inhabitants of the tower felt Amelies low mood hanging thick in the air. Their conversations revolved around trying to get her to speak to them, or communicate with them in any way.

"Where's Barnes now?"

"Gym." Steve clasped his mug a little tighter in his hand. Bucky had retreated to how he was months previously. He mumbled quiet greetings to the room, then disappeared with no mention of where he was going. With Amelie pushing everyone away, whether she intended to or not, Bucky was slipping back into his scared, vulnerable state.

"It's Christmas Eve." Tony muttered, his lips nudging the rim of his mug. "I think one of us should speak to her."

Steve shrugged, "she struggled talking to Bucky and Peter. I doubt she'd talk to us."

Bruce edged his way out of the kitchen, and made his way to the lifts. He knew a little about what it was like to see the body of your dead mother in such a state, and to be removed from the people you called family. His childhood was miles away from the mainly positive one Amelie had experienced, but it was highly possible he might just be able to get through to her.

The lift doors slid open on her floor, and Bruce took a few moments to gather his thoughts before stepping towards the door at the edge of the room. The only door closed - Bruce assumed it would be the one Amelie had chosen to hide herself behind.

He knocked twice, and heard a quiet noise behind the door, signalling she was there. He waited a second, to ensure she was listening, before he started talking.

"My mum was murdered too." He closed his eyes as he relived the memory, but he urged himself to go on. "In front of me. I watched as he hit her again and again and again."

He shook his head, hearing Hulk's warnings begin to break through his thoughts. "Due to a... culmination of things, finishing with what I saw, the Hulk was born. No one saw Hulk till later, but he was there. For a long time he was the only person I could talk to."