31 – A Mutual Understanding

I've never liked hospitals. I never will.

So you can imagine my disgust when I open my eyes to find myself hooked up to all kinds of IVs and fluids, in a hospital gown, in a hospital bed. There's even nubs in my nose to help me breathe. The monitors irritate me. My right wrist is wrapped up, a little too snug for my taste. It hurts to breathe fully, I realize, when I try to inhale a deep breath. The bullet. A bullet was in there. Did it hit a lung?

I'm alone, but I realize that I wasn't before. An empty chair is at my bedside. My mind goes to one person. James.

Grunting, through the pain, I get myself out of the bed, unhooking the IV and other strings from me. My brain sends me into a dizzy fit, and I find myself using the rails of the hospital bed for support.

"Tori? What the hell are you doing?" Tessa is in my face, and when her hands touch me, I flinch from the pain. "Get back in the bed."

"You're okay."

"Yeah, I'm fine. You're not. Back in the bed, now."

"I need to see him," I croak.

"Tori—"

"Tess. Let me go."

"I just got him away from your bedside. He's sleeping. Don't wake him."

"I need to see him."

"You can later. You just woke up." She gently pushes me back towards the bed. "So help me I will sedate you."

"I'll punch you."

"No, you won't."

I frown at her. "He needs to see that I'm okay."

"And he will, just not right now."

"There a problem here?"

Enter Steve Rogers. Seeing his swollen face makes me avoid eye contact with him. I did that. I gave him those bruises and swelling. He seems like he's back to normal. No trace of HYDRA control in him, that I can see anyway. If he was under HYDRA's spell, he wouldn't be walking freely here.

"Look, I've got others to look at, I can't babysit you," Tessa scolds me.

"Then let me," Steve offers. "I won't let her run."

"You sure, Cap?"

"I'm sure. And I told you before, it's Steve."

Tessa puts a hair behind her ear. I look at her questioningly as she hurries out of the room, her doctor coat flapping behind her. Steve and I watch each other silently, and I decide it's better to plop myself back into bed than fight him.

"How do you feel?" he asks casually.

"Shitty." I smile weakly. "You?"

"Like I just woke up from some freak dream."

"How much do you remember?"

"Flickers." He rubs the back of his neck. "I'm sorry, Victoria."

"It's fine." I move my wrapped wrist tenderly. "You weren't in control. I know what that feels like." I look at the empty chair. "You can sit. Nobody's here."

"He was." Steve sits. "Never slept. Barely ate. Barely got up to move around."

"But I was only out a few hours."

Steve looks at me solemnly. "You were out for days."

"Days?"

He nods. "Nearly lost you to blood loss. They pumped fluids in you. They weren't sure if you were gonna make it, you lost a lot of blood by the time you got back here. It drove him insane. He didn't care about being checked out, he wanted to make sure you were first, and that you were gonna make it out okay. I've seen Bucky at his worst before, Victoria, but this...It was a whole new level."

I can see it. James, sitting for hours on end, blankly staring at my unconscious form in the bed. Refusing any food pushed his way. Barely talking to anyone who came into the room. Barely sleeping. If he talks, he snaps at someone in irritable Russian. The thought has me quietly chuckle to myself. My angry Russian.

"Thank you, for not letting him fight me," Steve continues.

"You remember that bit?"

"Yeah, I do. I don't think it would've ended well if he had. It was like looking on the other side of the glass, being the one under someone's control." He scratches his neck again. "When he'd been the Winter Soldier, I tried to get through to him. It hadn't worked right away."

"But it did in the end."

"It did in the end," he agrees. "But I don't think that method would've worked there."

"Why?"

"HYDRA put some technology on us that...I don't know how to explain it."

"Is that why you keep scratching there?" I ask.

"Yeah. It got imbedded in our skin and wouldn't come off. Think of it as trying to get a tick off you. That level of strength. What they had in it, it had to be some kind of serum or something, something that allowed them to take control like that."

"At least it's not the way James and I were brainwashed," I say quietly. Natasha, Sharon, and Steve all lucked out. No electricity to their brains for them. "How're Sharon and Tasha?"

"Disoriented, but managing. We'll be okay."

"Good." I tenderly touch my ribs. Yup, those are sore too. "James is right, I'm a bullet magnet."

"Well, hopefully after this you keep away from bullets for a while."

"You and me both." I rub my ear, licking my lips. "Hey, Steve, can I ask you something?"

"No, Bucky and I aren't gay."

I tilt my head. "What? No. That wasn't what I was gonna ask at all."

Steve blushes. "Sorry. You'd be surprised how many times I've heard that be asked."

"Okay then." I shake my head. "Did you know...Did you know how...how do I want to put this...emotionally compromised James was?"

Steve's brows puckered. "How do you mean?"

I look away. "When I was Hell's Angel, I wanted him dead. The first time I had the chance to, I had him where I wanted him. He didn't fight back. He...he told me to do it. To kill him. At first, I thought it was a tactic to unnerve me to not do it. But looking back on it...Did you know he was feeling that way, Steve?"

I watch Steve's face. He doesn't look like he knew about James' emotional instability. But aren't they best friends? How could he not know? Unless James didn't tell him?

"You didn't know," I state plainly.

"Look, Tori, my friendship with Bucky...it's not what it used to be. We've both gone through a lot, and all of that has changed us. I want our friendship back in the forties, but it's just not what it used to be. Even now, he can't trust himself sometimes around me. Like he's afraid he'll snap back to the programming and do something."

"But you guys..." I sigh, rubbing my forehead.

"I may not have known that, but, I do know this: you kept him distracted."

"Distracted?"

"In a good way. You kept him preoccupied."

You...saved me. Pulled me back from the ledge without realizing it. "He said you helped him, for a while, even if you didn't know it."

"Yeah, well, I guess my help ran out, and you picked up my slack."

"Don't blame yourself for not knowing. He didn't say."

"But I should've asked."

"What matters is that he's here now," I say firmly. "We shouldn't focus on what we could've done for him."

"He needs to hear that, all the time." Steve offers me a smile. "Maybe he'll actually believe you."

"Now, why would he believe me over Captain America?" I tease.

"Because you understand him more than I ever can. You have an effect on him, Tori. You do."

"I guess I've been too preoccupied with surviving to really notice." I shrug.

My instinct to find James settles when talking with Steve. The hours just melt away. Steve Rogers is a nice guy, as nice as he looks. But through the soul I can see the haunting, the scars that his life has given him. I've seen that look in James' eyes. Thinking back on it, Adam had that look once or twice. Around the time S.H.I.E.L.D. fell. I notice the look the most when we bring up the day he lost James, and the time he found out James was the Winter Soldier. I can't imagine it, fighting your brainwashed best friend.

This world is so twisted.

We get on a lighter note, digging into James' past, and Steve's pre-Captain America days.

"I believe him saving your ass, you being a skinny dude, not so much," I say. The talking has worn me out. I'm snuggled back in bed, which Tessa will really appreciate. She won't have to stress and yell at me for leaving my room.

"You can ask him about it sometime."

"Oh, you know I'm going to." I smirk. "Does he still do it? Pull your ass out of trouble?"

"I won't admit it if he does."

"So basically yes." I snort.

"I'll tell him you want to see him when I find him." Steve rises out of the chair.

"Thanks, Steve."

He leaves, and when he does, my eyes cave from sleep deprivation.

**Some very rare StevexVictoria time for ya!**