I don't blame you. I never did.

Part 12 - The Truth.

We'd been sat down here with everyone for about half an hour. I started to feel a little guilty for leaving Alfie alone for so long and not giving him as much attention.

"Um Tony?" I speak up. "Yeah? Everything okay?" He asks me. I notice a few people look at me so I shift a little in my seat. "Yeah, I was just wondering if Alfie was allowed to wander the compound a bit and be down here with us? It's fine if not obviously. I just feel bad that I've not given him a lot of love recently and-" I trail off before Tony interrupts me. "Y/n, y/n" Tony says. I look up at him "yes, you can let Alfie wander round whenever you want. He can come down here with you as well if course he can." I smile at him. "Thank you Tony! I'm going to go get him I'll be back in a minute" my smile grows as I get up and dart out of the room.

I run up the stairs and get to the floor my room is on. I start to feel a little dizzy but I choose to ignore it thinking nothing of it. I walk into my room and shout for Alfie to come with. My head starts spinning and I realise there's no way in hell I'll be able to walk down stairs. Shit. I think to myself. I've no idea what's happening and I start to panic. "Alfie, go get Bucky" I tell Alfie before I pass out on the floor.

Buckys pov

I was waiting in the living room with everyone else waiting for y/n to come back with Alfie. She was talking longer than I thought she would be. But I just let it be thinking she was probably cuddling Alfie or something. She was cute like that.

Just then Alfie came darting into the living room and dived onto my knee. He started biting my shirt and pulling on it indicating for me to get up. "What's wrong buddy?" I ask him. He looks at me and let's out a little 'meow' before pulling my shirt again.

I stand up and he gets off my knee and starts running to the door, "shit! Y/n!" I shout before running out the door up to y/n's room after Alfie.

I get there and burst through her bedroom door. I see her lying face first on the floor, unconscious. "Y/n!" I shout as I walk over to her. "BRUCE!" I shout from y/n's room. Soon after I heard avengers flooding the stairs.

I grab her shoulder and roll her over so she's lying on her back. I sit across her so I was straddling her hips. I put two fingers up to her neck trying to find a pulse. "Come on y/n." I mutter to her. The avengers are now gathered in y/n's room waiting for Bruce to get here.

Nat rushes to her side and holder her hand."What happened to her?" Bruce asks as he walks into the room kneeling beside her. "I've no idea she seemed perfectly fine down stairs" I tell him. "So you've no idea what could have caused this?" He asks.

Nat and I share a look between us. "You don't think-" I start before trailing off. "Show him" Nat demands. "What?" I question not sure if it's the best I idea. "She won't be happy if we show him" I tell her. "Jesus Christ Bucky, just show him!" She practically shouts at me.

"Alright," i sigh. I lift up her hoodie and T-shirt to reveal the dark bruising around her ribs and on her side. Plus all the scars across her body. "Jesus, why the hell hasn't she got this checked out?" Bruce asks taking in her badly bruised body.

"She didn't want Bucky to find out. I asked her if she wanted me to take her down to medical to get it checked, and she said that it would heal like all the rest did" Nat informs him. The rest? I think to myself. What the hell happened at that hydra base?

"Okay, Bucky can you carry her to the medical bay and I will look at her there" Bruce asks me. I nod in response as I get off y/n and move to her side where Bruce was, I scoop her up and carry her bridal stole down to the medical bay.

~~~

Nat, Wanda, Tony and I have all been sat outside of the medical bay for about an hour. Impatiently waiting for Bruce to finish up. He said he needed to don't some tests and figure out what he could do.

We waited for another half an hour until Bruce finally walked out of the room. We all immediately stood up anxiously waiting on the news. "How is she?" Tony asks the question we all want to know the answer to.

"She's okay, she had some internal bleeding from the bruising on her ribs. She also has a few broken ribs. Although she also has some bones in various places that have been broken and healed wrong. That's not a major problem at the moment as long as it's not causing her any discomfort." Bruce pauses for a second before continuing. "We had to preform emergency surgery on her to fix the internal bleeding. But she is okay. She should be awake within the hour. You can go and sit with her if you like." Bruce finally finishes.

"Thank you" I say as we all walk into y/n's medical room. We all go and sit by her bed. She's sleeping so peacefully, I wish she would have told me sooner. I would have made her get it checked. I didn't even let her finish talking to me before I stormed off. Maybe if I stayed she would have told me she didn't feel well or that it hurt and I could have helped.

"I'm sorry I didn't make her go down to medical, I didn't want to push her and make it worse" Nat speaks up. "It's okay, it's not your fault, I just wish she felt comfortable enough to tell us." I say as Nat puts a comforting hand on my shoulder.

Just then Sam walks into the room holding Alfie in his arms. "Sorry, he just wouldn't stop wandering around y/n's room and then the compound meowing, or crying, I couldn't really tell" he says. We all stifle a little laugh. "Yeah he does that, he's very protective of her. Just put him on her chest, he needs to know she's okay, he can sense when something is wrong with her. That's why hydra gave him to her. So they knew of any changes in her. And make sure she was still alive so they knew if they needed to replace her." I tell them as Sam places Alfie on y/n's chest. He immediately nudges on her face and curls into a ball under her chin.

"Replace her?" Wand asks me. Crap I forgot they didn't know. "What the hell happened with you two barnes?" Tony asks also picking up on the replacement comment.

I sigh realising I really can't get out of this for much longer. "She was given to me as a toy, a stress reliever per say. I don't even know how the fuck she managed to look at me without wanting to tear my throat out." I start silently hoping they won't ask for more, of course, they did anyway. "What do you mean?" Wanda asks. I sigh again as I run my hand through my hair before continuing. "I beat the crap out of her. Everyday. Because I had a bad mission, because I was stressed, or angry, because she spoke. I beat the crap out of her because she was there!" I finally just say it how it is.

I receive mixed looks of the others in the room, looks of confusion and sympathy. "So why doesn't she hate you? Is it because she knew you were controlled?" Nat asks me. "No. They didn't order me to do any of that, I was just using her as a punching bag. Eventually she got through to me, she was persistent to say the least, she didn't give up on me. She saw the good in me. Somehow she brought that part of me out. She was able to turn me back into me if they turned me into the winter soldier." I pause for a second before continuing. "We got to know each other. I was there when her family died. I've watched her In pain. I caused that pain every time except once. She tried to escape and me being the winter soldier was pissed at her so I beat her and then so did they." I finally finish. I think the others realise I'm done talking about it for now because they all just nod in acceptance.

After around half an hour everyone else left y/n's medical room, I stayed with her not letting go of her hand. I rested my head on the bed next to her and slowly started to drift of to sleep by her side.