The Captain's Husband

13. Mistake

The steady pulse of the heart monitor is the only thing breaking the silence in the tower's medical facility. I'm lying in a hospital bed, staring at the ceiling, with Bucky's hands around one of mine. He's been watching me quietly and every few minutes he'll sigh, glance at the monitors over my head, and squeeze my fingers. I'm not a fan of this little routine of his. It worries me.

We've been waiting on Dr. Cho, Tony, and Bruce to come back with a diagnosis for about an hour at this point, which is fine, but I have a deadline to meet and a boyfriend to spoil rotten, so I'm slowly becoming more impatient with each passing beat of my heart.

Tony comes into the room with Bruce, clipboards in hand, and he closes the door behind him.

This doesn't look good.

"Everything checks out on the tests that we ran," Tony tells me. "But we did found something that requires more tests. Dr. Cho wants to keep you here in the lab on oxygen overnight so she can run the tests first thing in the morning."

After a few minutes of discussion, Tony sends us off to gather some of my things. I have an hour until I have to be back in the lab, and since Bucky went out for a run to burn off some steam, Natasha and Clint are watching me.

I'm sprawled out on my bed staring at the ceiling. And my babysitters, well, they're watching YouTube videos in the kitchen.

Or at least they were, because now Nat is curled up beside me with her ear pressed to my heart. Clint is sitting on the other side of her, absentmindedly stroking her hair as she listens to my chest.

Bucky must really be worried if both Natasha and Clint are here.

"What is it, Natasha?" I ask her after a few minutes of silence.

"I was told to watch you," she tells me. "So, I'm keeping you company until Bucky gets home."

"Why are you listening to my heart then?" I ask.

She sighs, "Tony wanted me to monitor you. If you have a heart problem that can't be easily fixed, he might have to reverse engineer the serum using yours or Bucky's DNA."

"What?" We hear.

I push myself up to see Bucky standing in the door of our bedroom, his eyes wide and his face pale.

Shit.

Nat attempts to explain further, but Bucky cuts her off.

I really fucked up this time.

"I think Steve and I should be left alone for a moment," Bucky tells her.

She nods and pulls Clint out of the room with her, saying, "Yeah, of course. We'll be in the other room."

Once they're out of our bedroom, Bucky comes over to the bed, sits on the edge, and puts his head in his hands.

When I hear him crying, I scramble to my feet.

Fuck.

Bucky, what's wrong?

I manage to get under his arms, and I lie across his lap so he can hold onto me and let me be of some support.

"Bucky, what is it, love?" I ask him as he latches onto me and buries his face in my shoulder.

He shakes his head.

"What's wrong?" I ask him softly.