Hard to Love (Bucky Barnes fanfic)

Chapter 67

A/N: I quit my toxic af job today. Bout to wine and dine myself while reading y'alls comments lol

The next day I woke up earlier than usual. The muscles in my body even more sore than yesterday making it near impossible to move. In my attempts to silently slip out of bed as to not wake up Bucky, my pained groans roused him. Still rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he helped me to stand

"You sure you can make it on your own?" He asks as I shuffle over to our bag to change out of my pajamas

Coming back up from a squat with some spare clothes and a discomforted hiss, I nod. "Yeah. Just gotta keep moving. I'll loosen up sooner or later."

Waving away Buckys attempts to aid me in getting dressed, I slowly but surely make me way down the hall, to the elevators, and down to Bruces' lab. Not totally surprised that he was there already, scanning over some data sheets. The door clicking shut behind me grabs his attention

The testing wasn't exactly what I thought it'd be. Unlike with Shuri, Bruce only asked for a few blood samples. And while he was filling the small vials, we had our talk. Leaving me feeling better than I did before

After that, he explained the results from whatever was in the bullet that weakened me. Well, weakened me more than an average bullet would

You know what I'm trying to say, shush

In layman terms, it was a nullifying agent in the substance. Decreases energy, weakens the victim, yada yada. But since I had more power than they thought, it didn't take full affect. So that's one more thing the Avengers get to look out for

Last thing they need is for Steve to get hit and basically revert back to the pre-serum version of himself in the middle of a fight

Bruce walked with me down the hall to the medical unit since that's where all the scanners were once done dumbing down the whole bullet goo thing for me. Dr. Cho greeting us both and accompanied us to operate the machines. I just had to lay back and relax for all of them

MRI scan to look at my organs and structures inside my body. That one took the longest and I started getting a headache from the loud humming inside the tube. CT scan to check my bones, blood vessels and soft tissues, making sure nothing was fractured or clogged. Fun stuff

"Are you on any form of birth control?" Dr. Cho asks as she took my vitals

I glance over at Bruce, mildly uncomfortable with talking about that with him in the room. He also looked slightly uneasy with the topic and promptly stepped out of the room

"Uh- yeah, I've an IUD, why?" I try to glance at her as she checked my ears

"You're body went through a lot of trauma and stress, which can affect your implant depending on the brand." She states coolly, raising a tiny light in front of my eyes for me to follow

I furrow my brows at her implication. "So.. what? Does it not work now or something?" I follow the small dot of light as she instructs

"It does, but if you haven't been getting your period regularly then you can more than likely expect to after all this." She puts away the small tool and slips on her stethoscope. "One of the side effects of an IUD is that it produces a certain amount of hormones based on the persons weight, the more you gain after implantation, the less effective it'll be." She pauses to listen to my lungs

Is she saying I gained weight or something? I mean, I guess I've been snacking a bit too much on fries at work..

"The same goes for with stress. More you put on your body, less it'll work. And you just went through a lot." She finishes, taking a step back to write something on her clipboard