the tables have turned | steve/bucky

chapter thirteen

Bucky's Story

 

I slowly lifted my eyelids to the sound of monitors beeping.

"Good. You're awake," someone said. I gradually raised my head from the pillow to look at them, but fell back in defeat. I was too weak.

I continued to listen to the person—clearly a man telling from his voice—maneuver around the room. For a moment I thought I heard him moving around some metal instruments.

"Steve?" I groaned. "Steve, is that you?" I prayed to god it was him. Because if it wasn't, there were only a handful of other people it could've been... and any agent from Hydra was on that list.

"No," the man replied, coming up next to my bed and fiddling with my machines. "And he won't be here for a while, hopefully."

Hopefully? No friend of Steve's would ever say that. I lifted my head up again to take a good look at the mysterious man. When I finally got him in sight at the foot of my bed, he had his back turned toward me. All I could see was his jet black hair and gray suit.

All of the sudden, the door opened.

Tony Stark halted at the doorframe when he caught sight of the man at the end of my bed. The atmosphere drastically changed. There was a hostile shift in mood.

"Who the hell are you?" Tony barked at the man, who was now reaching into his jacket for something. I watched in horror as the man whipped out a pistol and pointed it at Tony's head.

I promptly shot my arm out and pointed toward the sky and did something, causing the machines in the room to go haywire. All the lights and technology on the floor shut down all at once, and the entire place was swallowed into blackness.

Two shots were fired in the dark and something hit the floor with a loud thump.

Before I could react, I found myself being ferociously grabbed by my ankles. I was yanked from my hospital bed. The back of my head smacked against the floor.

Everything went black.

A solid smack across my face jolted me awake.

Tony Stark lowered his hand, smirking. "Third time's a charm," he mumbled. He went back to picking on my metal arm, which I assumed he had been doing previously. Dazed, I squeezed my eyes shut. The throbbing in my head was unbearable. My eyes shot open again.

Where was I?

I quickly examined the room I was in. It was full of fancy machines and shiny contraptions. I was seated in a large chair—one like Hydra had for me—and Tony was beside me, using a thin needle to dig into my arm. He was working quite diligently.

"What are you doing?" I croaked.

Tony didn't look at me. "I'm examining your prosthetic arm," he said. "It's absolutely a work of art! I'm utterly shocked at its capabilities. Tell me, how did you manage to make all the power go out earlier? I didn't know your arm could do that."

"I didn't know either," I grumbled.

I thought back to the brief events that took place when I awoke from my elongated slumber. There was a strange man in my room, and Tony walked in... and then the gunshots...

My head throbbed erratically. I couldn't bear to think of it, or anything, for that matter. For a while we sat in silence. The only noise was that of Tony poking around in my metal arm. Finally I had enough of the suspense.

"What happened earlier?" I asked, slightly sitting up.

"Do you want the whole truth?"

I considered. "Mmmm... yeah."

"Well," Tony began, and then he was off.

"It all started when Steve brought you here. Though, I knew about your flee from Hydra well before then. I knew that S.H.I.E.L.D.'s new facility was too secretive and small to keep you in, so I assumed they'd bring you here as a last resort. That's why I had the hospital wing built. Of course, everything fell into place. Little ol' Steve is too predictable. Well, anyway, when you got here, I realized that you must've known that you were sick well before your whole 'escape'—" he made quotation marks with his fingers—"because you were very out of shape. You might've had everyone fooled, but not me. Look, you know what 's gonna happen and I know what's gonna happen.

But before any of that shit, I was gonna make you talk. My plan was to kidnap you and smuggle you to my private jet, and we were going to fly out to a secluded island in the Pacific where I was going to force you to tell me who exactly killed my parents..." Tony laughed at the wicked scheme. "But when I arrived here, someone already beat me to you. You already know what happens after that."

It took me a while to make sense everything he was saying; how it all added up and connected. Tony was smart. I had to give him credit for that. He knew exactly why I was here when everyone else was clueless. I was just hoping he wouldn't spill the beans.

"So what ever happened to the guy in my room?" I quietly asked, looking off into the distance. Tony briefly stopped messing with my arm.

"Oh," he mumbled. "He escaped... but, on a brighter note, I did manage to wrestle him for his gun and shoot him a couple of times."

"Well that makes me feel a lot better," I sarcastically replied, leaning back against the chair tiredly. Tony was just about to fire back with a humorous response when the doors exploded open and Steve came charging in.