Heal Me, Bucky x Reader, Chapter 1
hello to all! i'm starting a new Bucky x Reader series. Yes, I know I have WiPs. No, I will not stop starting new ones. Forgive me and please read and enjoy.
Summary: The Avengers are sent to a remote hidden lab for a priority recovery mission of something with rare and strange powers. What they find is a broken, terrified woman who can't possibly be the thing they came to secure. Bucky, immediately feeling a pull towards this fragile creature falls quickly and entire in love, with great consequences.
Series warnings: blood, violence, smut, shameless bending of the norse mythology.
Chapter Summary: The set-up.
Chapter warnings: blood.
Chapter wordcount: 1811
*******
Bucky Barnes was readjusting to normal life.
He chuckled mirthlessly every time someone said that he was readjusting though, because from his perspective it was more like learning to live all over again. He didn’t understand a lot of modern technology, except for weapons - and he didn’t really want to understand weapons. He didn’t get pop-culture and the music was very strange. He could find solace in books - at least those classics never went anywhere.
He tried, he really did - to fit in, to find himself, to earn forgiveness. But more often than not he slinked back into a fuzzy shadow that slid along the walls from room to room with no apparent purpose. He talked to Steve, Natasha sometimes - but ultimately stayed quiet.
He barely slept and only remembered to eat when someone made him. He had permanent dark circles under his eyes, but he lacked the energy to care.
He felt much better on days when they had missions. Even something trivial - kick someone’s ass, get their thing - would still get his blood pumping and afterwards remind him that modern junk food was delicious and he wanted a lot of it.
That day was just like that, but the mission wasn’t trivial at all.
Agent Coulson personally came to the Avengers Compound to brief the team on their mission.
Everyone sat in the living room, with Coulson waiting only for Tony to show up.
“Sorry gang, had a bit of a mishap in the lab. What’s the word, Agent?” Tony stormed in, finally, and plopped on the couch.
“The word, Mr. Stark, is quite disturbing.”
“We assumed as much, if you came yourself. Has something happened?” Natasha asked.
“There was a data recovery mission is Eastern Europe, nothing too complicated - a HYDRA scientist went rogue a few years ago and entrenched himself in some village,” Coulson started, unpacking a stack of thin folders from his case, “He wasn’t any trouble for a long time and we stopped surveillance. He, surprisingly, did not harm the locals. But then…”
“Let me guess - he started harming the locals?” Tony asked.
“Not exactly, Mr. Stark. He started abducting livestock.”
“Excuse me?” Said Clint.
“Yes, we thought it was rather strange. Chickens, goats, once a cow. We decided to put someone up to observing him again, and he seemed to have demonstrated some… disturbing behavior. So we sent a team in to retrieve data. And something went terribly wrong.”
“Agent, you’re more dramatic than usual, and much more suspenseful,” Steve chimed in, a worried look on his face.
“Yes, Captain, forgive me. The scientist was captured, but he escaped.”
“What?” Almost everyone shouted in unison.
“Yes.” Coulson nodded, shame evident, “He injured Agents Hill and Johnson and killed the pilot of the jet. After that he retreated back to his, well, lair, and we are… rather apprehensive to send anyone else in.”
“Anyone else but us, you mean,” Natasha said.
“Quite,” Coulson smiled at her weakly.
“What’s in the folders?” Tony asked, gesturing to the stack that Coulson still held.
“Oh yes, right - it’s the data that Agent Hill was able to acquire. Apparently it’s information about his, um, experiments. Something he was… creating down there.”
Bucky visibly shuddered at this, still silent, and Steve glanced over at him, sensing his friend’s discontent.
They took a folder each and studied the files. It was a lot of nonsense mostly, but one document was handwritten and stood out, a photocopy of it on the first page.
Blood Bonded. How tremendously fascinating! A remarkable, remarkable being! The power and temperament are not a good combo, but I will tame it. Such uses, such possibilities! Oh, blood is a most interesting thing.
Bucky stared at the page.
Remarkable being.
He held the folder up.
“What’s this about?” He asked Coulson.
“That’s what I need you to find out. We believe that the scientist possesses something, or someone, quite powerful... We want it alive and unharmed, and as soon as possible.”
“Then we better move out,” Steve said, his commanding attitude setting in immediately.
***
The flight was long and nerve-wrecking. Bucky didn’t like to fly, it usually brought on anxiety. This time he was able to control himself, only breathing heavier than normal.
“Ok, does everyone remember their task?” Steve said through the comms, “Nat and Clint, you find the being. Me and Bucky are going to locate the scientist. Wanda and Pietro - you get any valuable data or equipment from the lair.”
The team confirmed their understanding, just before the Quinjet landed.
They hiked through a cornfield for a bit, before reaching the village. It was old, and barely inhabited, crooked little houses, half-sunken into the ground - it’s unnerving landscape. The scientist occupied the house on the outskirts.
They went closer to the house.
“That’s strange,” Natasha said.
“What?” Steve asked.
“There’s no people here. Or livestock.”
They were almost to the house, which was as small and dilapidated as the rest of them.
“Do you hear anything?” Clint asked, looking around.
The wind shivered in the trees.
“No,” Steve said.
“Not a thing,” Wanda agreed.
“Yeah. That’s strange, right?”
There were no birds. No insects chattering in the grass. Just the wind, and on it’s own it sounded too much out of place.
The door was locked, but nothing a supersoldier couldn’t kick down. The house, consisting of two rooms, was shabby and empty, but for some old half-rotten chairs. They scoured the floors until they found a trap-door, and descended into the basement.
Just as Bucky expected, the lights were dim and the walls green, reminding him in a rush of all the worst moments of his life. He gripped his knife at his hip and pressed his teeth together until his jaw hurt. He followed Steve, hoping that what they would find would not be too horrible.
At the middle of the corridor the team parted, Bucky and Steve following the main path. The door that loomed before them was iron, and beyond it they could not hear a thing. It was unlocked.
They walked in slowly, carefully, without a sound. It was the laboratory.
Bucky shuddered at the sight of three tall glass cages along the far wall. The first one had a bed and a bedside table in it. The second had a single wooden chair. The third one was empty.
“Buck, you all right?” Steve asked, guessing Bucky’s feelings.
“Yeah,” He choked out, stepping carefully around the desk.
Every surface in the room was littered with papers, notes, notebooks. Along the left wall they saw bookshelves, but there were no books on them. Only bottles, vials and beakers with dark liquids.
As Bucky came closer to the cages, he saw that the empty one had one of it’s walls shattered. He didn’t notice it from the door, but there was glass everywhere around it and bloody handprints on the floor.
“Steve,” He said softly, feelings anxiety creep up his neck.
Steve came over to him and looked at the scene.
“I don’t like this,” Bucky said. He wanted to turn away from those bloody handprints and run, run until he forgot he saw the cages, and the handprints, and the dark liquid in the vessels on the wall. He was just about to say something, when he and Steve both jumped at Natasha’s distressed voice in the comms.
“Steve, Bucky, come here quick. Door on the left.”
What could possible make the Black Widow’s voice quiver so much?
They ran out of the lab and to where Natasha directed. Even if she didn’t give them any directions - they would still know where to go.
They could hear muffled, strained cries and scurrying, and just as they reached the door Bucky and Steve both instinctively fell back at a pained shout.
“Let me die!”
Steve almost tore the door off its hinges and flew inside. Bucky followed him, not at all interested in finding out who begged Natasha for death.
It was another laboratory, with a large, square desk in the middle of it and shelves with vials, all mostly empty or broken, on them. The far wall had a bed near it, with leather straps and metal contraptions, the sheer sight of which made Bucky nauseous.
But the most nauseating thing in the room was not the bed.
It was the corpse in the middle of the desk.
It was a tall, sallow man. His face was contorted into a mask of horror. His face and white lab coat were covered in blood that gushed out of his nose, or so Bucky thought. It was impossible to tell how someone could bleed so much from the nose, but apparently it killed the man. The scientist.
“Shhh, it’s ok,” He heard Natasha coo.
Did Natasha just coo at someone?
Bucky hurried to where Steve already stood, dumbfounded. Clint sat against a wall near Natasha, a defeated look on his face. Natasha was crouched in front of the bookcased wall, trying to calm something down. Bucky looked over her shoulder.
It was a young woman.
Her long hair was matted and sticky with dark liquid and she was terribly pale. He hands and arms were bloody and she was hugging herself tightly, shards of broken glass stuck in her palms piercing her skin at the shoulders. She didn’t look mad, but utterly devastated. Tears slowly fell down her face, and she tried to press herself into the wall, far away from them.
Bucky felt his heart stutter and break.
“It’s ok,” Natasha whispered.
The woman suddenly grinned, looking them over. Her eyes lingered on Steve and Bucky.
“Nothing is ok,” she said. Her voice was smooth, but weak. “Do you see that dead body over there?”
Natasha frowned and nodded.
“Wanna guess what happened to him?” The woman asked.
“You killed him,” Said Wanda from the door.
The woman looked at her.
“Yes.”
“He made you do it,” Wanda said, anger evident in her voice. Pietro took her hand.
“He didn’t force my hand,” The woman said, clutching her shoulders. Bucky saw fresh blood trickle down her arm. “He wasn’t the first and he won’t be the last.”
“Let us help you. We came here for you. What’s your name?”
The woman laughed. The stream of tears never stopped.
“You came here for a weapon, dear Avengers,” Steve and Bucky looked at each other. “I am badly hurt. I lost a lot of blood. Leave. And let me die.”
She hung her head and turned away from them, hair falling on her face. Natasha hesitated, but touched her shoulder. The woman was unconscious.
“We need to carry her to the Quinjet immediately,” She said, standing up.
Bucky jumped forward and wrapped the woman in his jacket. He scooped her up and followed Steve, who only raised an eyebrow, out of the building.
Guys, YOU HAVE TO READ THIS ♥️