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It's been months since the team found you and took you home and you're proud to say that you've grown accustomed to all the people around you. You still prefer to be on your own or with Bucky but you're no longer hiding out in your room and come out at night when no one is awake. Bucky has been there for you since the beginning and you view him like an older brother and best friend, there's nobody you trust more than him. When the nights become longer with nightmares keeping you awake, you can always be sure to have someone to turn to.
Today had been more eventful, Tony had invited you downstairs into his lab where he kept all the prototypes of new and old suits and showed you around. The initial fear of destroying something with your powers dissolved quickly when he let you try on the glove of his newest suit. It's been a good day for you and you said your good nights to the team before you disappeared in your room again. You fell asleep surprisingly quick and slept soundly through the night when at some point you woke up to something uncomfortably tight being clasped around your neck.
You shot up and fear caused your body to shut down when you recognized the logo on the black stealth suits. Using your powers wasn't an option, electricity running through you from the shock collar they put on you whenever you tried to break out of your restraints. You managed to kick one of the two men's gut and scrambled to your feet while the other one went after you. The first one managed to grab your ankle, tripping you and your forehead connected painfully with the concrete floor making you lose your orientation.
You feel electric handcuffs closing around your wrists and you're being hoisted up on someone's shoulder and carried outside. The only thing you can think of is Bucky and how you hope he heard the commotion coming from your room and that he'd somehow still save you so in your half dead state you begged for him to hear you.
"Bucky!" Your voice echoed through the empty hall but your plea for help remained unanswered.
—
"What do you mean, she's been taken?" Bucky asked, anger sheer radiating off of him as he backed Tony against the wall.
"I don't know how they got past the security system! They somehow deactivated FRIDAY and the intruder alert and took her in the middle of the night." Tony tried to explain, the metal arm way too close to his face for his liking.
"You keep calling yourself genius. Come up with a way to find her and bring her back then!" Bucky said in a low tone. "You don't wanna find out what happens if you don't."
Everyone watched Bucky exit the room and they all flinched when his door slammed shut. Those hinges were done for.
"I'll go check on him." Nat spoke up after the long solemn silence.
"You sure? You might want a bulletproof vest and a tranquilizer before you go in there." Tony advised and received a bunch of glares for his ill timed joke.
Natasha cautiously walked up to Bucky's door and knocked softly but upon seeing the door detached from the hinges, she moved the door to the side and entered. Bucky was pacing up and down his room, frustratedly pulling at his own hair before he slumped down on his bed and rubbed his hand over his face.
"I know what you're thinking and it's not your fault." Natasha started.
"I heard her scream. I thought it was part of the nightmare I had but it was her." Bucky muttered. "I promised her to keep her save and look where that got her."
"You didn't know-"
"I could've saved her." Bucky cut her off. "Can you imagine how scared she is right now? She'll think I abandoned her and now she's back with these monsters and-"
"Goddamn it Barnes, will you shut up! Yes, she's gone but bathing in self pity and blaming yourself won't bring her back any faster, so get your ass up and trace her steps or watch the security tapes but make yourself useful!"
Since Bucky's door was off its hinges already, Natasha just walked out and left Bucky sulking in his room. He knew she was right, he had to do everything in his power to bring her back and sitting around and doing nothing would only waste precious time, time you really didn't have.
—
You don't know how many weeks have passed since Hydra took you back and you started giving up hope that the team would ever find you. They've gone back to experimenting on you, injecting you with some probably lethal chemicals but they've twisted and modified your body to a point where the most poisonous things had most likely no effect on you. You sat with your back to the wall of the, sadly, very familiar cell and played with the zipper of your hoody, the one you stole from Bucky that one time he was on a mission and you stayed in his room for comfort.
You were exhausted, your arms and legs felt like stones and paper at the same time, too heavy to move and ready to just crumble together and your head still hurt from when you basically knocked yourself out, trying to save yourself. Sleep wasn't going to take you but the exhaustion caused you to slowly slide to the side until you laid passed out on the cold stone ground. You missed how the alarms blared and lights blinked red, how a certain someone destroyed the lock on your cell and freed you from your electric restraints before he carried you outside and into a jet that was headed to the compound.
—
Your eyes flutter open and you shoot up into a sitting position, eyes frantically scanning the room for men in lab coats and torture instruments. But they only landed on elegant furniture and a panoramic window giving view over New York's skyline at night in the distance. You were at home, question is how did you get here. Letting your hands glide over the covers, you realized someone had freed you of the torn and bloodied clothes you wore at the facility and relished in the feeling of soft cotton on your skin. Just from the feeling of safety you have in this room, you know it's Bucky's, who just opened the door and a small smile appeared when he saw that you were awake.
"You should be sleeping." He crossed his arms with a small grin.
"Can't." You answer sadly.
He came over and sat down next to you before wrapping you in a side hug, stroking your hair and letting you know without words that you're safe and that he won't let anything happen to you again. Upon being asked what they did to you, you tell him everything. From the durability tests, to the experiments to the cold nights you spent alone in a cold, dark cell. Bucky knew better than to give you some alone time so he stayed with you until you try to catch some sleep but you knew that if you closed your eyes, you'd be back at the facility so you just curled into his side and kept your eyes wide open.
Bucky noticed. "Try and catch some sleep. I'll be here and I won't let anything happen to you."
His reassurance was enough and you finally closed your eyes and it took only a couple of minutes for sleep to take you and you slept soundly through the night, Bucky protecting you at all times.
