Bring Me Home // Bucky Barnes

Chapter XLIX - Wounded

Nat stood in the kitchen in full Black Widow gear. The leather of her suit was slick and glistened slightly as she moved around the space. Her face was void of any emotion and her hair was pulled back into a low braid. There was a fight to be had.

"Where is everyone?" Lizzie frowned as she watched Natasha open the small compartment hidden under the kitchen island and remove multiple knives and a small handgun, affixing them to their appropriate holsters and pockets.

"Steve and Bucky snuck out of here about ten minutes ago." Nat spoke with a disinterested tone, focusing on locating the small red button she could never find in the mess of the men they lived with. "Everyone else is getting ready for a mission." She paused when she saw the worry in Elizabeth's eyes, the small puckering of her forehead as she bit the corner of her lip and moved quickly to uncover the button hidden behind Clint's protein powder. "Thanks. Anyway, everyone else is prepping, but it's just a small mission. Want to join us or are you staying here?" She waited for the tiles to shift on the wall to reveal the electrified spider bites tucked away for easy access.

A weight lifted from Elizabeth's shoulders as Nat smiled warmly at her. It had never occurred to her that she would be given a choice in these matters. Not since she became the Time-Bomb.

"You know what, I think I'll hang back this time." She smiled as she spoke. "It will be nice to be back on the medical side of things for once these days."

Natasha nodded as she placed her foot against a chair, slipping another knife into a small pocket by her ankle.

"In that case," she mused, "bets?"

Lizzie laughed loudly. Interrupted by the streak of silver that rushed through the room and up the stairs, she felt the smile drop from her face and her chest ached.

Natasha watched as Lizzie's smile faded and her eyes clouded with a smokey blue that seemed to fuzz the edges of the whites of her eyes. She was in pain.

"I think Clint could take a hit," Nat continued as if Lizzie wasn't worrying about Pietro and gave her a small nudge with her hip as she straightened up. The blue faded away and the smile crept back over Lizzie's face as she watched Nat swan over the the elevator with a grin on her lips. "He's alarmingly cocky at the moment." She shrugged as she justified herself.

Lizzie shook her head laughing as she made her way up the stairs to take a shower.

"Thor!" She shouted over her shoulder. "He's not been on mission for months. Out of practice!"

"Loser gets the team's post-mission take out?" Nat's laughter carried in the open space as the doors closed behind her and Lizzie continued to her room.

*

Lizzie tied her hair into a messy knot on the top of her head and grabbed her lab coat from the hook on the back of her office door with a smile on her face. She skipped over to her desk and threw herself onto the office chair sighing contentedly at the comforting familiarity of the room.

"Dr Halsted?"

Looking up her eyes met the questioning gaze of one of the new interns at Stark Medical. He was small and meek and he looked like he was about to combust any second now as he shifted his weight between his feet. In his hands was a chart that she had no doubt would be hers to look at in one minute or less.

"Liam, right?" Elizabeth smiled and gestured for him to come in as she fired up her laptop. It had been too long since she'd been here. "What can I do for you?"

"We have a child in room 19 and well," he paused, unsure of how to continue.

"No one is used to children?" She chuckled as she took the chart he held out to her and read a few of the notes that had been made. Her eyebrows pulled down into a deep frown as she got to her feet. "Room 19?"