Do You Trust Me? // Bucky Barnes

31

Bucky

His blood was boiling. Racing through his veins with the heat of anger and betrayal was the knowledge that if he were there - if she'd have just listened to him and let him be there for her - then none of this would have happened. The only thing he could be grateful for was the fact that when he had woken early this morning, torn from his sleep by new images that would plague his waking hours for as long as he wasn't with her, he had decided he was not going to seek permission to be there for her and he'd packed his shit to go to her. Steve had argued, of course, but Talia had given him a small box to pass to Ava. She'd instructed him not to look inside and to just 'do as he was damn well told for once'  before pushing him out of the door and towards the bike.

"You were supposed to stay home," Sam chastised as Bucky grunted. The bike was a sputtering, stumbling excuse for a machine and Bucky was glad he'd be rid of it and on his Harley at the next stop. Then he could get to her. Because he needed to get to her and he needed to get there quickly. 

His heart thudded in his chest, the pain of torn images from his nightmare still twisting in his mind as he pictured her, his Ava, beaten and bruised, clinging to consciousness. He pictured it with clarity. He pictured the way her body would twist in agony and how she would cry for someone to help her, and he felt himself breaking at the thought of it. He felt the acidic burn of bile clawing its way up his throat and he threw the bike into the next turn, skidding to a stop on a small off-road littered with tiny houses and empty yards. He stumbled off and crouched down, the emptiness of his stomach clenching in protest as he heaved.

"Buck?" Sam's voice was clear and dripping with concern in the tiny earpiece Steve had reluctantly handed over this morning and Bucky wanted to smash the thing to smithereens. He wanted to destroy it like this would destroy him. "Buck, man, talk to me."

"And you were supposed to keep her safe," Bucky choked as he wiped his mouth with his sleeve and Sam sighed. "Look where the hell that got us, Sam."

The silence that stretched between them, as Bucky took a second to breathe through the pain and nausea, felt like a lifetime. He knew it wasn't Sam's fault. He knew Sam was probably blaming himself too, and yet he couldn't bring himself to take back the words that he'd spat so venomously at his friend. He couldn't take them back until he knew she was okay.

"Okay," Sam sighed again. This time Bucky felt the weight of guilt as if it had been breathed down the line and wrapped itself around his own shoulders too. "What's the plan?"

"The plan is what it should have been from the start, Sam." Bucky kicked the bike back to life and shook his head as if to clear the thoughts of what could be going wrong in this moment. "I'm gonna go and get her. I'm gonna make sure she's safe. And you? You're gonna be there to make sure she gets out, no matter what. Understand?"

He heard the way Sam cleared his throat and Bucky felt it like a punch in the gut. He wasn't the only one hurting now.

"Of course. And Buck?"

"No." Bucky cleared his own throat as he slipped through the traffic building on the streets and spotted the garage he needed just in sight. "Apologise when she's safe, Sam." 

***

Ava

"Put her in the back and move quickly."

They'd been driving for an hour before Sharon had instructed the men to pull under an abandoned bridge where two armoured vehicles sat waiting. The man who had been leering at Ava for the duration of the ride, often reaching out to stroke the skin of her thigh and forcing her to curl in on herself as much as she could to avoid his unwanted touches, smirked as he shoved her out of the car.