Do You Trust Me? // Bucky Barnes

33

Ava

It had been two days. Two days holed up in the little house Sam had brought her to. Two days of no contact with Bucky. No telephone calls or visitations. No word. And she was breaking.

Ava stayed in bed. She didn't move for hours. She didn't speak. Sam sat with her at times. Just on the edge of the mattress, staring at the wall and unable to say anything that would bring her comfort, and always so gentle with her. Torres called. Ava didn't take the calls. Peter called. Ava listened to him, but she didn't speak. Sam brought her food. She didn't eat.

She didn't sleep.

And two days had passed.

"That's it." Sam grunted as he shoved into the room and yanked the covers from where Ava lay, still in the clothes she had worn to visit Bucky. "Get up, Hall."

Ava didn't budge.

"Fine. You know I didn't want to do it this way."

Suddenly the mattress was no longer beneath her and Ava cried out as she was thrown over the new Captain America's shoulder, the sudden intrusion of being thrown upside down churning her stomach.

"What? Put me down!" She pounded her fists against his back as he marched down the hall and kicked into the bathroom. "Sam!"

"He'd be so fucking mad at you right now, Ava." Sam huffed as he leant forwards, the freezing spray of water stuttering to life and catching at her ankles as he chastised her. "Moping around. Refusing to take care of yourself. He's gonna be so fucking mad at you."

"I - I'm not - he..." She stopped hitting his back long enough for his words to sink in, and then she was under freezing water, her breath catching in shocked gasps and her eyes screwing shut as she was dumped unceremoniously on her ass. "Oh my God!"

"Yeah," Sam scolded. His arms folded across his chest as he stepped back, soaked head to toe, and grabbed a towel. "You are, and he would be. Now I'm gonna leave so you can get yourself together. I need to go to the store, but if you get back into that goddamn bed before I'm back I will be pissed, Hall. Get dressed, have some coffee, and stop killing yourself over it. He knows what he's doing."

"He's in jail, Sam. A literal prison cell. Because of me."

"No. He was in a literal prison cell because he chose to stay behind. And he had his reasons. Get showered, get dressed, and for Christ's sake, run a comb through your hair." With his words hanging between them, Sam stalked from the bathroom, closing the door between them and leaving Ava alone, and she did as she was told.

She peeled the drenched clothing from her body, twisted the temperature to scalding heat, and washed away days of aching. She stood beneath the stream until it turned to ice once more, and when she was done, she returned to her room just long enough to slip into a t-shirt she'd stolen from Bucky's dresser before leaving the Rogers home and a pair of grey shorts. She didn't lay back down. She didn't sit. She simply walked down the hall to the living room and paced the floor, waiting for Sam to get back from the store. Waiting to apologise.

***

The rapping on the door was gentle and unsteady, and Ava raced to the front of the house, ripping the door open with an apology already rolling from her tongue.

"Sam, you're right, I'm so sor-" Silence. Silence formed in her throat and ended her words before she could think to the next syllable.

He smiled shyly, his hands on either side of the doorframe as he leant forwards, and watched her carefully. His eyes roamed slowly, dancing over her and cataloguing every detail of her, and her hand came up to her throat as she felt the sting of tears building in the corners of her eyes.