The D in Apartment 23

"Good morning Ms Fitzpatrick, it is 11:20 AM on Thursday 13th December. The weather outside is cold with snow showers and the temperature is at 32 degrees. I will inform Sergeant Barnes that you have awoken." A Irish female voice rang out causing Harry to look around quickly to find someone in the room with her but there was no one there.
"Um thank you?" She threw out the question biting her lip to stop herself from groaning out in pain as she shifted to sit up in the bed. She had just about managed to get herself in the upright position against the headboard, panting for breath, when Bucky rushed in.
"Hey hey hey, stop I'm here to help you get up." He told her striding over to the bed as she smiled up at him slowly.
"I'm okay honestly. Besides I best get ready for work, I have surgery at three." She told him as he raised his eyebrows watching her.
"No you haven't. Steve rang the hospital and explained you needed some time off due to personal issues and they said that was fine. So you are to stay here where I can take care of you and Dr Banner can drug you up so you're not in pain." He laughed as she eyed him suspiciously. "Oh come on there is worse places to be staying it; there's a movie room, a pool and a 'super cool lab where I can show her what I've been working on for when one of you get shot.' Tony told me to say that." He smiled down at her as she laughed.
"Can I at least leave the room then?" She asked as he nodded slowly. "Thanks Sergeant." She laughed as he blushed at the old name only FRIDAY calls him by now. Harry made her way over to her bag pulling out her toothbrush and a change of clothes before disappearing slowly into the bathroom, leaving Bucky to sit on her bed smiling. She'd been in there for about 20 minutes and Bucky was starting to worry, he knew her ribs were causing her severe pain and he bit his lip wondering if she was okay in there. "Um Bucky?" She asked, opening the door slightly to make sure he could hear her.
"Yeah doll, I'm here." He told her standing up and walking closer to the door.
"Can I ask a massive favour?" He could tell she was nervous, probably biting her lip, he let out a hum and heard her take a deep breath. "Can you come help me get into my top?" She asked so quietly as he strained to hear. Walking to the door he too took a deep breath readying himself to see her in her bra again. He walked in and saw her struggling to try and manoeuvre her body with little pain as possible.
"Come here." He smiled taking the top off her to notice it was a over the head style. "You need a button up hang on." He mumbled to her before disappearing and returning with a plaid shirt that she could slip on easily. He went round her back helping to ease her arms into it, walking back round her front to fasten the poppers as she watched him blushing.
"Thank you." She smiled slightly, the red tinge still there.
"You're welcome." He smiled looking at her properly. "It suits you." He laughed as she shook her head at him. "Come on lets get you some coffee." He smiled taking her hand in his and leading her out of the bathroom and bedroom and to the elevator. "You're cell kept ringing by the way, I still don't know how to use them so I passed it to Tony. It was Peter, so Tony spoke to him. Think he's gone picking him up." He told her slowly as a look of panic crossed her face. "Everything okay?" He asked holding the top of her arms to keep her steady.
"Yeah, everything is fine it's just..." She started the door dinging to indicate there floor. Bucky grabbed her hand gently pulling her out and to the kitchen where Steve, Wanda and Sam were sat playing snap.

"Morning Harry." Wanda looked up smiling at her before glaring at Sam who cheered beating them both to the snap. "That wasn't fair I was being polite!" Wanda protested as Sam shrugged causing Harry to chuckle.
"Hey." She smiled to them all as Bucky slipped his hand from hers to pull out a chair for her before turning to get her coffee.
"So we ran all DNA from the bat and unsuprisingly most of it belonged to you." Bruce spoke out once he'd got in the kitchen. "But we have found some DNA that isn't yours, so we're going to run it through the system and see what comes up." He informed everyone as Harry's eyes went wide.
"There's no need to do that, honestly it's fine." She smiled polietly over at the scientist as Bucky frowned.
"The DNA could belong to those who did this to you though? If we know who they are then we can find them for doing this Harry." Bucky looked at her as she bit her lip looking round at all the others.
"There's no need honestly, they got what they wanted." She tried to reason with him.
"What did they want?" He asked, realising he hadn't asked her that bit yet. Harry was stuck, it was like her brain was working against her screaming out the truth instead of anything else.
"Money right? You said last night that they took your purse." Wanda chipped in as Harry's glance shot to hers with a thank you look.
"Yeah that's right. They were probably addicts who needed their next fix." She shrugged with a soft smile. "I just want to get back to normal." She looked up at Bucky stroking his hand softly.
"If your sure." She could tell he wasn't happy, but he wouldn't fight her on this.
"Oh! I just remembered Natasha asked me to ask you when your awake will you go to her room she has a health question." Wanda interrupted them both as Bruce frowned slightly.
"She can always see me?" He asked.
"It's a lady health question. She didn't want to ask you and embarrass you." Wanda smiled as Bruce started to blush already at the mention of lady bits.
"She's supposed to be resting." Bucky told Wanda.
"It's fine, I'm only checking." She smiled standing up slowly and kissing Bucky on the cheek. "Thank you for caring so much." She whispered so only he could hear.

The girls made their way to Natasha's room slowly, Wanda knew Harry was hiding something and she also knew that one of the suspcious guys would ask FRIDAY where they had actually gone. She hadn't known Harry long but she already considered her a friend and friends help each other out. "Thank you for that." Harry smiled over at her just as they reached the agents door.
"That's okay. You know you can tell us though, we wont tell the boys." She laughed as Natasha opened the door. "We're here about your lady problem." Wanda told Natasha with a wink, who opened the door wider for them too enter. They sat on the bed, the door securely closed meaning no prying eyes or ears could overhear them.
"So what's going on?" Natasha asked as she brushed her red hair.
"The guys were going to run the DNA they found on the bat. For some reason Harry doesn't want them too so I rescued her." Wanda filled her in quickly as Harry smiled nervously.
"Why not?" Natasha looked at her through the mirror with a frown as Harry chewed her lip nervously.
"They asked about Bucky." She whispered quietly, as Natasha span around quickly.
"What do you mean? What like?" She walked over quickly kneeling down in front of the doctor.
"Where he was, where something was that he'd left at my apartment. I told them I didn't know who they were talking about, they had a picture of us talking. I told them he left nothing at my apartment and then they did this." She motioned to the bruises.
"What did they look like? Did they have anything that distinguished them?" Wanda asked her carefully.
"They were wearing masks and they sounded like they had an accent. Like Russian I think." She told them shrugging. "They turned my apartment over and found nothing and just left." Harry told them truthfully.
"Why haven't you told Bucky this?" Wanda asked.
"Because he said he didn't let people in because they get hurt because of him. I don't want him to think this is his fault." She bit her lip more looking down from embarrassment.
"Look he's going to think that anyway because he wasn't there to protect you, and, I think it's going to be worse if you lie to him; he trusts you and lying is a sure way to lose that." Wanda tried to reason with her. Harry was about to respond when their was a knock on the door. "Come in." Wanda shouted after Natasha nodded.
"Team meeting in the kitchen, now." Sam spoke firmly, something were wrong, everyone could tell with the tone.
"I'll wait here." Harry smiled up at them.
"You too Doc." Sam spoke out, Natasha helping her off the bed slowly.

They made it too the meeting room to see all the others sat around the table looking in the same direction. Bucky quickly got up to pull the chair out of Harry, even if he was confused as too why she was there he was still a gentleman for her. Wanda and Natasha took their usual seats as they waited for Maria Hill to fill them in. "Our systems have been hacked. A group have penetrated the security wall to access our data." She started, "nothing has been taken or copied or altered. They wanted to send us a message." She looked round the group, her eyes lingering on the new person who she'd seen briefly before, pressing play on the remote two masked men appeared on the system in the middle of the table. They didn't even need to speak and Harry felt the shiver run through her body as she recognised them, grabbing Bucky's hand under the table quickly.
"Avengers, Earth's Mightiest Heroes and friends. Some of you may already have met us. Well one of you have. We're here to make a deal with you. We want the Winter Soldier and his secrets, in return we wont make him kill you when we do get him." They smiled, their accents thick but muffled by the Captain America and Iron Man masks. "We tried the intimidation method but that got us no where." They flashed a picture of the trashed apartment that belonged to Harry as she looked down towards her lap, the memory hitting her; she felt eyes fall on to her as she refused to look up. "Of course, we're not going to ask the Winter Soldier to come do DIY for us, we have every intention on using him for the sole purpose of fear, extraction and extermination, but, you don't have to fall into the latter if you cooperate. Asset if you want your sweet little do gooder of a girlfriend to be safe then go to the shipping yard, container 542." The offered a sinister smile before the video cut off.
"You got hurt because of me." Bucky whispered looking at Harry slowly as she bit her lip, she could feel his hurt. "That's why you didn't want to run the DNA isn't it? You didn't want me to find out?" He asked louder this time as she finally looked up at him.
"I didn't get hurt because of you, I got hurt because they are sick and twisted and bad people. I knew you would think it was your fault and I didn't want that." She whispered, forgetting everyone was in the room. "Besides they wore protective clothing so that DNA wouldn't have been there's. Most likely Steve's and my best friends." She looked at him slowly. "I'm sorry Bucky." She whispered.
"Are they HYRDA?" Steve asked as Maria shook her head.
"We believe their a small terrorist organisation, who heard of the Winter Soldier project and researched it. We're tracing the virtual footprint and identifying them as we speak, but, they've never appeared on our database." Maria informed them. "Fury wants you all to be vigilant, he wants Bruce and Tony to help with IT." They nodded slowly. "We'll keep you posted, as for now; James and Steve you are to stay here. If they are watching then you two are top priority targets. We've assigned agents to protect Miss Fitzpatrick for when she returns to her day-to-day life." She bit her lip as she thought about them following her around and how she needs a better weapon of choice.
"Thanks Maria." Natasha smiled at her as she nodded, leaving the room quickly just as her phone rang.

"Can you guys give us a minute?" Bucky asked them all as they nodded with an unsure look before piling out of the room. "We should stay away from each other." He looked over at her once they'd left. "You got hurt because of me, they openly threatened you again in their video. It's for the best if I stay away from you." He started as her eyes widened. She knew this would happen, that he'd just walk out of her life.
"I didn't get hurt because of you. You staying away from me isn't going to stop them coming back for you or me. Please don't do this Bucky. I know we haven't known each other long, I know that this is messed up, but, I like you Bucky; really like you and the thought of you not in my life anymore because of some jackasses really fucking hurts." She whispered as she pleaded with him, her waterline threatening to spill from her ice blue eyes.
"I want what's best for you. I really like you too, I want you safe and happy." He whispered stroking her cheek softly as she leaned into his touch.
"You're what's best for me. Look teach me how to fight, I'm a quick learner and that way I can look after myself better." She whispered as he looked at her with unsure eyes.
"Okay, when you're stronger and healed I'll teach you." He whispered leaning forward to kiss her lips softly as she smiled slowly.

Notes