Honesty ♧ Bucky Barnes

Ever So Slightly Unbalanced

Firstly, news. 

I recently received an unconditional offer from University to study a Bsc in Chemistry, which I've accepted, so IM GOING TO UNI BABY YEAH IM GONNA GET A CHEM DEGREE im one step closer to being a mad scientist

Secondly, I hope you all liked the last Chapter. This one is coming out way sooner than I thought it would but I have 2 weeks off work so my motivation is at a high  

ALSO if anyone reading this also read much ado about vulcan there is an easter egg near the end of the chapter for you :) 

FOUR DAYS LATER

Erin was warm. Slightly too warm, but not enough to make her uncomfortable. Through her closed eyelids she could see the red-orange glow of what she knew to be sunlight hitting her face. As she surfaced towards consciousness, she began to hear a steady beeping sound near her, quiet and high pitched. There was also a pressure on her left hand. It was that more than anything that made her open her eyes. 

She blinked twice, hard. The light streaming in was too bright and it burnt her sensitive retinas. Before she had a chance to even make a noise, the pressure on her hand increased to such a level that it was almost painful. She looked down, confused, and saw Bucky sat beside the clean, crisp bed she was led on, holding onto her hand with such a grip that his knuckles were beginning to turn white.

"Erin? Can you hear me?"

She wrinkled her eyebrows and blinked again, trying to get used to her surroundings. It was clean, too clean. Almost clinical. 

"Where am I?" Her voice was a lot croakier than she had anticipated, and her hand unclasped from Bucky's and raised to her throat in surprise. She felt a small tug from her forearm and looked at it in confusion. There was a cannula attached to a vein in her arm, from which a long plastic tube was connected to a bag of what looked like water, hanging from a hook next to her bed. 

"What the f-"

"You're in hospital, Erin. You've been out for four days."

Four days? It had really been four days since Bucky had rescued her from HYDRA, since he'd tried to kill her? Since-

Since she had shot a man in cold blood.

Erin tried to sit up, ignoring the pain in her shoulder and the uncomfortable feeling of the IV saline drip in her arm. She felt odd, unbalanced somehow. Bucky got up immediately and moved with her, helping her get into a comfortable position. 

"Pine?"

"Dead." Bucky responded. She didn't miss the note of satisfaction in his deep voice. After all this time, everything that she had been through, it was over. Pine was dead. She expected Bucky to look happy, relieved. He didn't.

"What's wrong?"

He broke off eye contact with her for the first time since she had woken up, his bright blue eyes moving from her face to his fingernails. 

"Bucky," Her voice had turned serious now, "What's happened. Is everyone alright? Are you alright?"

He let out a humourless laugh and looked back at her. 

"You always worry about everyone else, Erin. That's your problem. You always consider other people before you consider yourself." His voice was low. 

"You're scaring me. What's wrong?" Erin's feeling of warmth and contentment had left her, covering her instead in a cold sweat. He brought his eyes back up to hers and this time they were filled with an expression she hadn't seen for a while. It was the same expression that had been on his face the night that he had remembered. The night that she had brought back the memories of what had happened to her in Poland the first time.