I Thought You Were Different: Part 6

Intertwined

The sound of a ticking clock had never been so painful before, but as you stood next to Bucky on your right and Steve on your left, the two lying on a gurney in the compound's infirmary, you could barely focus on your thoughts over the banging in your head.

"Can someone kill that damn clock please?" you snapped, taking your seat. "I need to be able to focus on not knowing what the hell I'm doing."

"I've got you, hon," Sam jumped up from his seat on the other side of Bucky. He crossed the room as quick as he could to destroy the clock in question so that he could get back to his spot. "There. Killed it."

"Thanks," you muttered under your breath before holding it completely as Bruce and Helen approached with the first syringes ready to use. It was agreed that Steve and Bucky would take the solution at the same time, in the hopes that when you had to intervene it would somehow be easier on you to manage.

Bruce took the IV line and prepared to administer Tony's experimental last-chance effort, connecting the syringe and giving you a quick nod that the time had come. It felt like you had blinked and the past several weeks were gone, and you couldn't believe that this moment was a reality. "Here we go," he said quietly, watching Helen as they synchronized their work.

You took Steve's hand and then Bucky's and focused all of your energy on the two. You still had no guarantee that what you were trying to do was even the right thing, or really if you could make the connection work at all, but you had no other choice. You felt the surge of energy building in your chest and down your arms, finally into your hands with a fire that stung so fiercely that you nearly had to let them go. You closed your eyes as if it would keep these moments private in a room filled with terrified onlookers, but then the connection took hold, and you felt no one else in the room but the three of you.

Bruce caught the exact second it happened and turned to the group with a look of both regret and terror.

"Okay, no turning back now."

~~~

You didn't have to ask where Bucky was; you could hear him taking out his frustrations in the gym from two floors below. Steve had been missing for almost twelve hours and there was no sign of where he could be; no clues left behind, and the surveillance at the time of the explosion had been confiscated by whoever had masterminded it. You stood outside for a short time watching him, punching and kicking with incredible force that matched the anger building inside, but when he stopped and crumpled to the floor, you moved in next to him.

"Buck, it's okay," you whispered, holding him in your arms with his head resting on your shoulder, "we're going to find him. But hey, it's Steve. He might just walk through the door before we have a chance. God forbid he should allow someone to save him for a change, right?"

"How can you be so calm about this?"

"I'm not calm. I'm enraged. I'm terrified," you replied, closing your eyes in thought. "But I'm also very desperate, Buck. Those things when combined with desperation can only bring more problems than solutions, so I'm trying to keep in check. I'm just barely hanging on here."

You felt him nod against you and mumble something in Russian that you couldn't make out, even despite the lessons that he had given you at his own insistence. If he ever slipped into the soldier, he wanted someone on the team who he trusted implicitly to try to get into his mind, and he trusted you to be the one to do it.

"Hey, Frosty, you maybe should stop going all soldier on us, okay? You're scaring the other children."

"I'm sorry, (Y/N), it just happens when I'm...um..."