Chapter Text
Bucky frowned as he pulled himself off the couch, making his way towards the door. He hadn’t been expecting anyone to come to his apartment today, but that didn’t necessarily mean that whoever was out there was bad. There were times when his landlord might stop by or one of the neighbors. It wasn't very common, but had happened before, so he tried not to worry as he leaned forward to look out the peephole.
He relaxed as he saw a familiar figure outside, reaching to unlock the chain and open the door. “Hey, Sharon. Wasn’t expecting you to stop by today,” he greeted her.
Sharon smiled softly at him. She was dressed in workout clothes, her hair pulled back in a tight ponytail. He found himself doing a double-take every time he saw her. She looked so much like her aunt that it freaked him out sometimes. “I was in town and thought I would drop in for a bit if that’s alright,” she replied. “Unless you already have company?”
“No, no, it’s okay,” he replied quickly. “Come in.”
In this new life, this new… era, Bucky felt like he didn’t have many people he could trust. He was working on that, of course, but it was hard. He trusted Sam and his family. He was starting to trust most of Sam’s neighbors and many of his own neighbors. He trusted T’Challa and Shuri and Ayo and many of the other Wakandans he had come to know. He trusted Dr. Raynor, though he was talking to her less and less since he wasn’t forced to see her anymore. That somehow made it easier to talk to her. Knowing that every little thing he said wasn’t going to be shared with the government. Even more recently he had started learning to trust Torres, Sam’s friend, and Isaiah Bradley’s grandson, Eli. He was working on trying to trust the Avengers and the newer recruits that Sam had slowly started to bring in.
To put it briefly, he was getting better at trust. The Blip now ten months in the past, he was starting to put what Steve did behind him. He was moving on. Learning that he shouldn’t let the actions of others decide his own.
Still, Bucky struggled to trust Sharon. Sure, she had helped him back when the United Nations was after him. She stole what little he had back from the government, along with Steve’s shield and Sam’s wings. She helped him and Sam and Zemo in Madripoor and helped him and Sam again in New York, but she seemed different now. Just months earlier she had been p*ssed at him. He didn’t think she ever hated him, but he knew that she wasn’t happy with him either. Now, though, it was as if she was suddenly obsessed with him. Ever since she had been pardoned and re-incited into the CIA, she had been overly friendly. Always checking in on him, always visiting. It was unnerving, to say the least.
But Bucky put on an act for her because he knew that she had been through a lot and that he was probably overreacting. Now that Sharon had what she wanted, she had no quarrel with him. Sam had got her pardoned and the three of them had teamed up on a few occasions since then. She had plenty of opportunities to go behind his back and hadn’t. It wasn’t inherently obvious that she planned to betray him.
“The place is really starting to look nice,” Sharon commented as she stepped inside. Since the last time she visited him, he had added several pictures to the shelves on the walls. A few were from his past; a picture of him and Steve, his parents, his sisters, the Howlies; but most were more recent. He had several pictures from his trips to Louisiana that Sarah had developed and bought extra copies for him to bring home; pictures of him and Sam, of him and the boys, him laughing at one of Carlos’ jokes.
He also had a couple of small houseplants. Lavender, which was meant to be calming, Rosemary, which was meant to help with concentration and memory, and Aloe Vera, which was meant to improve sleep. He wasn’t completely convinced that it worked, but he thought that it would be worth a try and it gave him more of a reason to get up on the harder mornings and to come home when he was away.
“You think?” He asked after a moment, rubbing his thumb against the leaves of one of his lavender plants. Sam had said the same thing the last time he was there, but he worried that Sam would say that even if he was making the smallest amount of effort.
“I do,” Sharon replied. She walked forward and patted Bucky’s shoulder, smiling. “It’s come a long way since the first time I saw it. It’s nice.”
“Thanks, Sharon,” he said with a small smile. “Hey, I was just about to put a pizza in. Want to stay for dinner?”
“I would love to.”
It was late before Sharon left, leaving Bucky feeling exhausted as he collapsed onto his couch. For a minute he just laid there on his stomach, hugging a throw pillow that smelled like his lavender-scented Febreez. He smiled into it for a second, only frowning when he felt a prick in the back of his neck.
Grunting, Bucky took his hand and reached behind him. He froze when he felt something there; some sort of device that had been attached to his shirt. He yanked it off and brought it into sight, seeing that it was a disk with a tiny needle sticking out of the center.
Bucky tried not to panic, running a hand through his hair as he tried to register what was going on. Had Sharon put that on him? He couldn’t think of any other way it would have been there. It hadn’t been there when he put the shirt on that morning and he hadn’t left the house. So it had to be Sharon, right? But why? What was in the needle? Drugs? Poison?
He felt weird. It was as if he were panicking, but something wasn’t quite right. Normally, when he panicked, he could feel his heart pounding in his chest, but it instead seemed slower than usual. He didn’t know why, but he did know that it couldn’t be good, so he started fumbling with his phone and called the one person he thought might know what to do. How to help.
The phone rang once. Twice. It started to ring a third time but was cut off with a click. “Hey, Buck! How are ya?”
“Sam,” Bucky replied. He opened his mouth to say more, but his throat felt dry. Maybe a bit tight. He wasn’t sure, but he knew it felt wrong.
“Bucky?” Sam sounded worried now. His voice was calm and firm, but there was an edge to his tone that hadn’t been there before. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
“I think I’ve been drugged… poisoned or something. Something’s wrong,” he explained. He felt his eyelids starting to drop and blinked rapidly to keep them from closing. He knew that he could not fall asleep. Whatever had been injected into his system was making him tired. Someone wanted to knock him out because they knew that they couldn’t beat him in a fight. Not when he was fully conscious.
“Okay, okay,” Sam said hurriedly. Bucky heard himself being out on speaker. He could only guess that the man was working to get his wings ready. At least, he hoped that was what was happening. He was already drifting despite his best efforts to stay awake. He knew that he wouldn’t be able to hold himself together the full fifty minutes it would take Sam to get there, but he hoped that he would at least slow down the process of the kidnapping that was likely inevitable at this point. “Stay awake as long as you can. Keep talking to me. I have an ambulance on its way to your place but it’s gonna take it some time to get there.”
“Something’s really wrong, Sam,” Bucky whispered. He was faintly aware that he sounded pitiful, somewhat like a child, but his conscious thought was starting to leave him now as his breathing started to slow. “‘S doing somethin’ to my heart, I think.”
“Yeah?” Sam asked. Bucky could tell that he was trying to stay calm, but he knew that he was panicking as the boosters of his wingsuit started to fire up. “Does it feel too fast? Too slow?”
“Too slow,” Bucky murmured. His eyes slipped closed again and this time he couldn’t open them again. He felt that there was something he needed to tell Sam. Something important. He just couldn’t think of what it was or why it was important. What little thought he had left was focused on staying awake. Staying conscious.
Sam said something on the other end of the phone, but Bucky couldn’t make out his words. He became distracted when he heard his window breaking and sudden footsteps. He tried to lift himself off the couch. He tried to fight as he felt his hands being tied together behind his back. All in vain. His mind went blank to the sound of Sam calling his name through the phone.