There was a faint beeping sound in the room around you.

That must have been what woke you.

You're disoriented and have no idea where you are. Every muscle in your body felt like it had been pounded into the ground. It kinda felt like the morning after a good round in the ring with Thor.

You inhale a deep breath.

And open your eyes.

The med wing. That's where you were.

In a bed, with heart rate monitors attached to you.

Why...?

The park.

A cold voice.

A flash of brown eyes.

It all came crashing back to you so quickly it felt like a tidal wave crashing over you. You sucked in a quick breath, waiting for your lungs to seize up on you.

It seemed your body didn't have the energy for panic at the moment.

Across the room from you, you heard another sharp intake of breath. You whipped your head toward it and saw Bucky, curled up in a lounge chair that someone must have dragged in here. He must have been dozing when you startled him awake. He was blinking quickly and looking around, trying to orient himself.

You couldn't speak. You truly and totally had no words. What could someone possibly say right now? Hello?

You just stared at him as he acquainted himself to the room, before his eyes cut to yours. He jumped slightly when he registered that you were awake.

He stood, and slowly walked toward you, before settling himself on the edge of the bed. He stared at you for a very long time, before looking at his hands. You both sat in silence for what seemed like hours to your incredibly embarrassed mind, but was likely only thirty seconds.

"How are you feeling?" He rasped.

"Fine." You said quickly. You looked at your hands then, you couldn't look at him. "What time is it?"

"It's ten." Bucky responded.

You should probably have felt some sort of reaction to that. You'd been out for two hours at least. You just... didn't have the energy. You put your face in your hands.

"Hey." Bucky said softly, he grabbed a strand of your hair and tucked it behind your ears. "It's okay."

"It's not okay." You snapped, voice muffled by your hands. "I'm a fucking embarassment and you had to call Tony to get us because I'm a fucking mess."

"You are not a fucking mess." Bucky retorted.

You couldn't respond.

You peeled your hands from your face and looked at the wire running from the machine next to you to the clip on your finger.

"They just wanted to monitor your heart rate." Bucky mumbled.

You ripped the clip off your finger.

Bucky started to reach for your hands, but you pushed at his wrists. You didn't want him to touch you. You couldn't stand the feeling of your own skin on your body, how could you let him touch it?

You swing your legs over the edge of the bed and stand, on a beeline for the door.

"Wait, Y/N." Bucky calls.

"No." You grit out. Ripping open the door and stomping into the hall.

Tony and Steve are hurrying down the hall in your direction, likely Friday told them you had removed your heart monitor.

"Hey kid." Tony says as you stormed past them "How are you-"

"I'm fucking fine, Dad."

"We should have Helen monitor you-" Steve starts.

"You can have Friday spy on me from the fucking ceiling." You toss over your shoulder.

You need to get out. Get away. You can't stand them all looking at you like a broken doll. You don't deserve their concern, their pity. They're wasting their time. They have so much more important things to do than worry about you.

You thought you were getting better. You were sure of it, but all it took was his voice. You'd barely even looked at him. It was just his fucking voice and you lost it all over again.

You had made it to the stairwell at that point and started hauling up the stairs, three at the time. You didn't have the patience to wait for an elevator.

You couldn't even think of anything, you just focused on the burning in your thighs as you forced yourself to keep climbing and climbing and climbing.

When you finally reached the landing of your floor, you heard the door at the bottom fling open and hit the wall. Bucky's voice screaming your name from a few flights down.

You kept walking.

You marched down the hall to your room, straight into your closet. You stood on your tip toes and grabbed a duffel from the top of the closet and ripped it down.

Without really looking, you started snagging random clothes out of drawers and tossing them in. You slung the bag over your shoulder and stalked out of the closet towards the bathroom.

Bucky was just then rounding the corner into your room. You'd left the door hanging open when you'd ripped your way through. He balked at the duffel in your hands.

"Where the fuck do you think you're going?"

"Away." You responded flatly. You didn't have a thought in your head except get out get out get out. The shame of the whole situation burning you from the inside and triggering your flight response. You kept your trajectory the same, trying to brush past him to get in the bathroom.

"Uh-uh." Bucky said, snagging your bicep as you passed him. "No fucking way."

You spun, without thinking, and swung your other fist up toward his face. He caught your fist in his hand, the metal groaning as you used every ounce of strength to try to break his grip. You tried to hook your leg around his knees to topple him, he caught your foot between his legs and held you there. You were face to face now, not a half inch between you.

You were seething now, the anger and shame had bubbled up and you were panting into his face, glaring at him. You were trying to think of a way out of his hold. You shared several breaths that way before Bucky finally spoke.

"Don't push me out." He breathed.

There was a moment of suspension. A moment where time stood still and you just stared at him. You got lost in his blue eyes for a long moment. Time didn't exist. Air didn't exist. The world didn't exist. The only thing in the universe was the endless pool of his blue eyes.

Then the moment broke, and you sagged against him, all of the breath leaving your body in one big huff.

"I'm so sorry." You choked out. You were out of tears, but if you had some, you'd have shed them then. "I'm so sorry Bucky. I'm so sorry." Your knees gave out and you collapsed. Bucky quickly shifted his arms to soften your fall as your knees hit the hard floor of your room. "I'm so sorry." You said again.

Bucky lowered you to the floor slowly, before stepping away and sitting, his back against the wall across from you. You just stared at your hands.

"I'm so sorry I tried to hit you. I have no idea what came over me. I just had this impulse to flee, at any cost, and..." You looked up at him again, his face was calm and emotionless. "You hate me." You said, suddenly.

Bucky let out a humourless chuckle and rested his head against the wall behind him. "I could never hate you. Ever. I expected you to know that by now."

"I tried to hit you, Bucky!" You gasped. You looked at your hands again. How dare they?

"Only because I grabbed you when you were clearly in distress. I should have known better." He responded. He was leveling you with that even look again.

"I'm so sorry." You whispered again. Bucky pushed himself up off the floor, and squatted down to your level. He snagged both of your elbows and hauled you up. You just looked at him. You were dumbstruck at the moment, the whiplash of emotions in the last four hours causing your brain to go blank. He walked you backward until you felt your knees hit the couch near your bed. You let yourself collapse into the cushions.

He stepped away from you to the end of the sofa, and then sat. He turned his body so that he was looking at you. "Don't apologize to me." Bucky started softly. "You didn't do anything."

"Yes I did!" You yelped. "I just let him call you a brute, and a freak and all those things to your face! And then after you graciously brought my sorry ass back here, when you should have just left me to rot in that park, I tried to fucking hit you."

Bucky scooched a little closer to you on the couch. "You were just trying to protect yourself." He said simply. Like it was the most obvious thing in the world. "When he was spewing those horrible things, you were trying to keep him from getting more agitated. You were protecting yourself. When you swung on me just now, you were scared and you swung on instinct. It was to protect yourself. I'll never be mad at you for protecting yourself. Understand?" He inched a little closer. "I always want you to protect yourself. Even from me, when necessary. Got it?"

The very last of the tears you had stocked in your body filled up the rim of your eyes. You met his gaze. He nodded softly at you, reaching forward with one hand to wipe them away before they fell down your cheeks.

"I'm so sorry he said those things to you." You whispered, voice wavering as you tried to keep more tears from spilling out.

He chuckled softly, wiping the tears from the other side. "I've been called worse sweetheart."

"Well that doesn't make me feel better." You quip, repeating his words from earlier in the park.

He smiled at you then. It was like a life ring, or a rope tossed to you. You felt so far away from him now, but he was offering you a way in.

"You deserve to know what happened." You say softly. You're determined now. You had been prepared to grab the rope he offered in the park and had hesitated, but now you felt ready. It was time.

"Don't tell me unless you want to." Bucky whispers, his metal hand reaching to sweep the hair off your right shoulder so it rests behind your back.

"I want to." You breathe. "I just don't know where to start."

"The beginning." Bucky says. He leans back a bit, like he knows you're going to need space to breathe and think and piece this all together. He stays close though, so you could reach out and grab him if you need to. Just like always, not pushing, but not moving away from you either.

So you start.

You tell him about how you'd been friends with Elijah in highschool, and how you'd always admired him for being successful and going for what he wanted no matter what. You told him about how you never thought he'd see you as anything other than a friend because you were so plain, so ordinary, and he was always seeing women who seemed larger than life. Supermodels of women, who had all these ambitions and were going to top schools and lived wild lives.

You told him how you studied hard and got into Harvard for international relations and linguistics. You told him how you had been so excited to tell Elijah, but he'd been so wrapped up celebrating his acceptance to Yale that he barely even acknowledged your success.

You told him about how Elijah had shown up at your dorm and basically demanded that you date. He'd been armed with lots of flowery language and brought up memories of all the times in high school he'd wished he made a move but hadn't. He had thought that he would "ruin" you and how good you were. You'd been head over heels. No one had ever made a grand gesture like that for you. Of course you'd said yes.

You told him about the three years you dated, while you were both still in school. How it had been long distance and didn't speak much, but every time you were together it was like you were still best friends from highschool again. Nothing had changed.

You told him about the day you found out SHIELD had accepted your application. Your studies in global relations, and knowledge of multiple languages, was an asset for them. As was the fact that you had nearly no other family ties.

You told him about the day you told Elijah you were going to work for SHIELD. Elijah had been proud, but had warned you not to get too involved with the Avengers. He was concerned that you were too naive, and that some big hot shot stars would trample all over you. You told Bucky how you had felt deflated after that. He hadn't even taken you out to dinner to celebrate.

You told him about your first year at SHIELD. How you'd come home to tell him some exciting story about what happened at the office, only for him to shut you down, or complain about how the Avengers got all this praise for going to places they didn't belong and blowing things up.

You told him about how he proposed, two days before you got promoted to working directly with the team. About how you'd been so excited because you were getting everything you wanted. You were going to have a family and your dream job. It was finally coming together for you, and you were going to do everything in your power to make it work.

You told him about the first fight you'd had with Elijah. Well, it wasn't the first fight, but it was the first of a new kind of fight that you were going to have endlessly with him. It was about a week after he had proposed and you finally told him that you'd be working directly with the Avengers now. He'd lost it. You told Bucky how he had thrown the vase of flowers he had gotten on the day he proposed against the wall near your head. How he'd put a hole in the drywall of your bedroom. He had been screaming at you to stay away from "those arrogant assholes" who would "use their fame and glory" to try to get in your pants.

You told Bucky how you'd justified his behavior to yourself. You'd told yourself he was just scared that you'd be working in higher risk environments and wasn't handling his fear well. How you'd learned to start keeping things from him about your job. You only supplied information to Elijah when asked, and tried to only speak about coworkers that didn't have recognizable names around him.

You told Bucky about the years of hell you'd lived through while trying to plan a wedding. Tip toeing around your fiance when it came to your job, and trying to be a good agent to the team. You told him how Elijah kept asking you to move the wedding date. He kept saying it wasn't a good time at work.

You told him about how you'd eventually lied to Elijah and told him you'd been transferred away from the Avengers, just so he would stop asking about them and starting fights between you. He'd broken so many picture frames and vases and dishes in your house you felt like you had to make monthly trips to the store to replace things.

"And then, I got the call that we were going to Budapest." You choked out, your throat raw from how long you'd been speaking.

Bucky shifted a bit in his seat. You'd been building up to this, and he could tell this is where things had changed in a drastic way.

"And I had told him about two years prior that I wasn't working with any of you anymore, but he was listening to me through a door." You laughed humorlessly. "I'm a SHIELD trained agent and I didn't even check to see if he was listening before I took that call. I was so stupid." You sighed. This is where it was going to start to get hard. As if Bucky could tell, he reached out a hand and snagged yours, squeezing it once.

I'm here. It said. I'm not going anywhere.

"As soon as I ended the call he burst in our room and just screamed at me." You continued. "Told me I was a lying bitch and that I wasn't worth the dirt under his feet. He screamed at me that he had been so good to me, so patient with me. He told me how it hurt him to watch me be used by these people who didn't give a shit about me." Your throat was closing up as you spoke. You cleared it before continuing. "He basically told me not to bother coming back from "wherever the hell they were shipping me" as I was nothing but a lying and cheating whore for the Avengers." 

"So that's why when we picked you up in the jet you were so quiet." Bucky muttered. The first he had spoken since you had started.

"Yeah." You muttered. "But that first day, Bucky." You choked up again, "That first day with you made me realize I didn't want to spend the whole month sulking, instead of enjoying time with my friend. So I decided to enjoy a month where he had no idea where I was, and deal with it when I got back."

Bucky smiled softly at you. It was a painful smile. One that was full of understanding from someone who had also wanted time where he wasn't looking over his shoulder and waiting for the other shoe to drop. It pinched your heart. "I had so much fun Bucky." You whispered.

"Me too." He whispered back. Squeezing your hand again.

You leaned back, pulling your hand from his. You couldn't hold his hand as you told him this next part. You didn't want him touching you when he found out the truth.

"And then I got back." You squeaked.

You took a few deep breaths.

"And he was furious. He was throwing things at me and screaming. He unloaded all this shit on me that I had never known. That he had been sleeping with basically every woman in Manhattan. He had another apartment in the city that I didn't know about. He would hole up with women when I was away on missions." Bucky was tense across from you. His fists balled in his lap, his jaw grinding.

"And then..." You sucked in another steadying breath. "And then I guess he got bored hitting furniture and picture frames because then he started in on me." You huffed out what was supposed to be a self deprecating laugh, but it just sounded like a shuddering gasp. "He just pushed me around, smacking me across the face. He shoved me down onto the floor where our glass coffee table had shattered."

You closed your eyes and took another breath, letting the images of that day wash over your consciousness. It was in the past now, he couldn't hurt you now. You had to get this out.

"I guess when he saw my blood he snapped out of it? I don't really know. Suddenly he was weeping, and I was holding him and telling him it was okay. My adrenaline was pounding. I don't really remember feeling anything."

"So that's where you were?" Bucky rasped out, he sounded like he was trying not to choke. "For five months? Alone?" He looked at you then. "In that apartment?"

"Yes." You squeaked out.

Bucky heaved a huge sigh, and looked down at his hands. "The thing is, I'm furious that you were suffering alone in that apartment. But I have no room to talk." His blue eyes met yours again. "I hid from Steve, even after I remembered him, because I didn't want him to see me after I knew everything I'd done. I ran from him when he tried to come save me."

He stood then. "It's agonizing for me to think about you there" He turned and looked at you. "But I understand."

He took a step toward the couch, dropped to his knees