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She/her 21 y/o

[wormnextdoor]

i love queerplatonic relationships where one of them is aroace and the other isn't. i love when the allo character has a crush that fades over time. i love when they don't care what they are to each other as long as they're together. i love when romance is an option that they don't choose. i love when both aros and allos feel fulfilled without romance or sex.

[ladym0vn]

Hurt and useless

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x fem!reader

Summary: Turns out becoming an Avenger isn’t all roses and you start doubting yourself.

Tags: hurt/comfort, angst, avenger!reader, avenger!bucky

Warnings: blood, self doubt, use of syringe, happy ending, no smut. Sorry for any mistakes! English is not my first language.

Word count: 1.5k

The first few months at the compound weren't easy for you: you thought that having already collaborated with the Avengers several times thanks to the missions Nick Fury had assigned you as a reconnaissance officer would make your integration easier.

That wasn't the case.

It was your "extraordinary field skills," Fury said, that decided your presence on the team was useful, and you initially believed it, you truly did, but after almost three months, you began to think that the S.H.I.E.L.D. director might be wrong every now and then.

You were no stranger to pressure, absolutely, not after working for years as a secret agent on a task force specifically created by S.H.I.E.L.D. to prevent global attacks, not after risking your life countless times for your teammates and the future of the world.

And yet now you find yourself in your room, or "wing," more precisely, given its size, sitting on the bathroom floor trying to stitch up a—I'd venture a nasty—wound on your right thigh that you sustained on your last mission.

It wasn't the first time you'd been injured in the past few weeks; the missions you were assigned hadn't been a walk in the park, but this time it was different; this time it was supposed to be easy.

Indeed, it was supposed to be.

A simple solo nighttime reconnaissance in an abandoned building—or what was supposed to be—quickly turned out to be a trap the task force hadn't foreseen.

You managed to get out alive, true, but not without a few scratches and that deep wound that wouldn't stop bleeding.

You pulled out the first aid kit from the bathroom drawer and opened it with shaking, bloody hands.

Your pants were soaked to the thighs, and a red stain was already forming on the parquet floor—in addition to the trail of blood you'd left on your way to your room.

You grabbed a towel hanging nearby and patted the wound even more as your vision began to blur.

You're sitting in a conference room at the complex, with the entire Avengers in front of you looking you up and down, as if intent on learning your every secret and weakness. You'd never seen them all together, and especially not this close (despite taking part in the same missions, you never crossed paths with them: you were always assigned to a different area).

Nick Fury introduced you as a new addition to the group and a new roommate in the complex.

Despite some skeptical looks, at the end of the meeting they all came to congratulate you, throwing out a few jokes here and there to ease the initial tension.

"Finally, a new girl in this group," Natasha laughed.

"Congratulations, I can't wait to see you in action," Steve shook your hand.

"If you need help, don't hesitate to ask," Dr. Banner smiled.

Well, maybe in this situation you should have called him...

In the kit, you found a syringe of some kind of painkiller and immediately injected it into your calf, hoping it would ease the dizziness as well as the pain.

You didn't wait for it to take effect, and after tearing off your already worn pants, you began disinfecting.

"Maybe I should have waited..." you whispered to yourself, seeing the pain and the dizziness getting worse.

There was no time to brood; waiting would only make things worse.

What had seemed like smiles of encouragement for the first few days became more like smiles of compassion over time.

The missions you took part in were increasingly risky, and with every little mistake, you felt wrong, inappropriate. Why on earth did Fury think I could even compete with superheroes?

After what seemed like an eternity, you moved on to the worst part: stitching up the cut.

You grabbed your needle and thread and quickly realized that the real problem would be threading the eye of the needle.

Your hands were shaking, your breathing had begun to become labored, and the white spots in your eyes showed no signs of disappearing—how long does it take for the painkiller to take effect?

You were so focused on trying to accomplish something truly impossible that you didn't notice the approaching footsteps until the bathroom door gave a slight, betraying creak as it opened.

You whirled around, and a confused Bucky Barnes was staring down at you.

Of all the looks in those first few weeks, Bucky Barnes's was the one that weighed the most.

If you had to find a word to describe him, you'd say "suspicious" would have been the perfect one: every time you met his gaze, he was already looking at you, and he never looked away, even when he'd been caught red-handed.

Sam said it was normal, he's like that with everyone, he didn't do it on purpose, but with all the mission gone wrong you began to think so.

Maybe he already knew how it would end.

Maybe he also thought you weren't worthy of being called an Avenger.

And maybe he was right.

"What are you doing here?" you asked with a questioning, defensive look.

"There's a trail of blood that runs down the entire corridor and ends here," he replied obviously.

You rolled your eyes; obviously his concern is the cleanliness of the corridor, you mentally added the word "perfectionist" next to "suspicious."

You didn't have time to answer before he was kneeling beside you, ready to examine the wound.

You watched him with a confused look as he delicately removed the needle and thread from your shaking hand and tied them in a matter of seconds.

You nodded at the look he gave you for approval and began stitching up the wound delicately, so delicately that you couldn't tell if the slight pain with each stroke was due to the painkiller starting to take effect or his unexpected medical skills.

Several minutes passed before you found the strength to ask, "Why are you doing this?"

"Did you prefer to do it alone?" he asked, trying to smile given the situation.

"No, but... Why? You never spoke to me..." You were lost in your thoughts due to a dizziness that made you close your eyes for a few seconds.

Bucky stopped stitching up the wound to hold your head, which was no longer able to stay up on its own, and you looked into his eyes, noticing for the first time a dark blue tinge right around the pupil.

"I must have injected too much painkiller," you thought.

"Can you hear me?" Bucky called out to you several times, his voice worried.

“Do you remember my name?”

He gave you a confused look, and you quickly added, “I thought you didn’t know…”

“What…?”

“You’ve never spoken to me in all these months. I know I’m a burden to the team, but at least don’t stare at me like a psychopath,” you whispered, inches from his face, his hands still on your cheeks.

“You think you’re a burden?” Was his response.

Before you could reply, your vision began to blur again, and this time you slipped into darkness with Bucky’s hands still on your face.

The ticking of the clock was the first thing you heard as soon as you regained consciousness, that ticking that belongs to the alarm clock on your bedside table and that has never bothered you like it does now. “I must be really knocked out,” you thought.

You tried to open your eyes, but the light coming from the windows almost made them water.

Just then, you heard movement in front of you and quick footsteps approaching your bed.

As you began to focus, you realized those footsteps were Bucky's, and seeing him covered in blood—yours—you realized he must have been with you the whole time.

“Good morning,” he said with a half-smile. “How are you feeling?”

You immediately regretted trying to move your bandaged leg as a pang of pain spread throughout your body.

A glass of water was thrust in front of your nose, and you took it consciously, downing it in one gulp.

“Do you really think you're a burden?” Bucky suddenly asked.

“How…?”

“You said that yesterday before you passed out. Was it the truth?”

You chuckled before replying, “Oh come on, every mission I mess up or get in the way, or end up injured in the infirmary. I’m not an Avenger, I’m not like you, and I never will be.” Your voice cracked at the last part.

You felt the weight of the mattress subside as Bucky sat down next to you.

“You just arrived. It’s normal to have problems on high-risk missions, they have that name for a reason. If you weren’t up to it, Fury wouldn’t have chosen you.”

“So why does everyone look at me with pity in their eyes?”

“Because for all of us, there was a first time here, a first dinner together, a first time at one of those stupid Stark parties, a first time on a mission, and a first time injured.” He looked down at her bandaged leg. “We know what it’s like to have your life turned upside down, and we know that this burden falls on everyone who comes here, including you. You don’t have to carry it all inside, not alone.”

You smiled slightly at those words, feeling the weight that was oppressing you melt away slightly.