Death Where is Your Sting? - B. Barnes

Chapter 25

The Soldier's metal hand wrapped around Raven's throat. "Please. Please don't -" He threw her across the room, body slamming into the concrete wall. He strode to her, kicked her stomach, knelt and grabbed her throat with his metal hand. Slammed her head into the floor, and squeezed until -

Bucky bolted upright, gasping. And then his head was pounding at the sudden movement. "Ugh."

"Here. Have some pain killers."

Bucky turned to find Joaquin in the chair beside him. "Torres..." Bucky took the water and bottle of pills from the coffee table beside him, watching Torres's fingers fly across his keyboard. "Where's Sam?"

"Phone call."

"And where are we?"

"Hotel. Boise."

Despite knowing his metabolism would burn through them far too fast to matter, Bucky tossed some pills in his mouth and swallowed, staring at the cup, dreading the answer to his next question. "And Ray?"

The sound of Torres's typing stopped. Bucky glanced up at him. The kid's head hung low as he dragged the back of his hand across his forehead. "We're looking."

The door opened. "Well your info was outdated, Sharon." Sam was in his Captain America suit, closing the door behind him. "No. We already scoped that out. Yeah, alright. How about some new intel next time? Hm. Bye."

"You called Carter?"

"Well hello to you too, Buck. And no, she called me. Torres?"

"Nothing yet."

"That's not what I was asking. Did you eat?"

Torres shot his eyes to Sam then averted them quickly.

"That's a no." He snatched Torres's computer and shut it, pointing to one of the two bedrooms in the suite. Torres started to argue but Sam interrupted. "I told you to eat before I left. Now go. Call room service. Get some food, man. And a couple burgers for Buck."

Torres left the room quickly with a huff.

Sam sighed, sitting on the coffee table diagonal to Bucky. "He hasn't stopped since you and Ray disappeared. Won't take a break. He's worried sick, barely slept."

Torres came back out. "It's ordered. It'll take about 30 minutes." He held his hand out, looking between Sam and the computer expectantly.

"Good. That's enough time for a power nap." Torres opened his mouth to argue but Sam cut him off. "Go on. Out."

Joaquin looked to Bucky for support. Surely Sergeant Barnes wouldn't want him to stop looking. But Bucky gave a quick nod of agreement. Torres snatched his hat off the table and left, slamming the door behind him as he entered the bedroom.

"I've never seen him so...cranky. He's normally so chipper." Bucky observed.

"He took this hard. He lost people in the service but this...I don't know what it is. Maybe because she feels like family?" Sam shook his head. "I told him how she backed off when she saw him. You saw that too, right?"

Bucky nodded. "It's guilt. He thinks it's his fault. I told him to talk to her when she hesitated. He didn't see the shift in her at the time, now he's connected the dots. He thinks if he'd talked to her, she'd be here."

"It's not his fault, man."

"No, I know that. I couldn't get through to her either. I promised -"

"You did."

Bucky threw Sam a look of disbelief, skeptical of his worlds. "I didn't."

"Did she kill you?"

"No. But you were -"