Unravel

he first time Liz opened her eyes, she was overwhelmed by several things all at once. The blinding white light, the mass of people surrounding her, trying to keep the bleeding at bay and ultimately the incredible pain she felt at every shake of the gurney, accompanied by the distant sound of people talking. But it didn't seem real. Everything was too hazy, too distant, the pain too dull and more like an echo than anything else. She didn't care that she was drifting off again.

The second time she opened her eyes, the only thing she saw was outlines, of what exactly - she couldn't make out. She didn't know where she was, the sheets felt rough and unfamiliar, and the abundance of light made it more difficult for her to make out any other details next to the painful throbbing of her head.

But one shape felt more alive. It was familiar and filled with concern. She tried to focus on it but the drugs and exhaustion pulled her under again, leaving her subconsciousness to wonder about it.

The third time she opened her eyes, it seemed more strenuous than the first two times and they fell shut immediately after opening. Liz tried to convince herself that this was due to the fact that then she was actually supposed to wake up. How long she had been out cold for, she didn't know. There were only two things she was sure of at that moment, however.
One, she was on a hell of a lot of drugs. It hurt to move but instead of the sharp pain she remembered from being shot in the leg, it was more resemblant of a dull throbbing. She was also way too content right then.
But number two stuck out more: someone seemed to be holding her hand.

She could feel soft fingertips gently holding it and the sharp edge of nails on her skin from time to time, as if the person was scared of grabbing ahold of her hand tighter and needed to avoid further damage. As a thumb stroked over the back of her hand, she let go of a tiny sigh and gave in to her body. It wanted to be awake. People were concerned and wanted to talk to her, reassure themselves she was fine. Just then she realized who she had seen before.

"Clint was here." She mumbled, almost unintelligibly. Everything was so heavy. But the grip on her hand tightening let her know that he had heard just fine.

"He's the only one who can walk around somewhat freely without immediately raising suspicions and getting the police called on him," came his reply, his hand wandering towards her face and stroking her cheek. Liz leaned into it and let the corner of her lip twitch upwards before slowly opening her eyes and adjusting to the sight before her. How could one person be so damn beautiful?

"But you're here."

"Yeah."

"Thank you."

Looking closer now, she saw that it was still dark in the room but seemed to be getting lighter outside. The only sounds around her were both of their breathing and the steady beep of the heart monitor she was hooked up to.

Turning her head back, she focused on Bucky again.

"How are you here?" she asked. "You shouldn't-"

"I know," he interjected softly. "No one knows I'm here. They cut the feed and Steve still has some leeway with certain people. His uniform still pays off after all those years. We're good. I brought you a bag with your things," he said, gesturing into the darkness.

"Thank you," she sighed and leaned into his hand again, just to feel him move a strand of hair from her face. This was too good to be true. She was forgetting something. Or repressing it.

Sighing, she pinched her eyes shut and forced herself to think of the incident that forced her into this hospital bed, just to hear the beeping of the heart monitor speed up. This wasn't real.

"Hey," Bucky interjected as he realized the rising panic in her, moving her head so she would look at him instead.

"Bucky?"

"Yeah?", he answered, confused.

"Tell me what happened, I'm not-, I think I'm hallucinating."

"You know who shot you?" Bucky asked carefully. Liz nodded hesitantly.

"I'm..it was Ewan," she whispered hoarsely, immediately making her feel like throwing up and moving on to panicked rambling. This wasn't real. "Bucky, I don-. This doesn't make sense, he wouldn't. Bucky, he wouldn't, he just wouldn't."

Trying to get her out of her frantic rambling he reached for her hand but he found it difficult to hold back his own anger. They had all been surprised but he needed any information she could give him now.

"Shhh. Do you know why he did it?" he asked, carefully choosing his words as to not further upset Liz. Watching Liz hold back tears and shaking her head, he sighed and sank back into the chair he had pulled up to her bed. "They're looking for him. But they don't know what to think. He was cleared by the FBI during their investigation for any leaks and they're going to want information from you."

Liz swallowed hard and tentatively started speaking again, her voice strained but quiet. "If… If he's- I just can't believe he would be part of Hydra. I keep thinking I should have known, or at least noticed that something was off."

Bucky rubbed his hands over his face and leaned back in the chair. "I know this is difficult, but he was closest to you. Liz, you trusted him with information, he knew everything about you, how you would react, what you would do."

"But this goes both ways," Liz argued. "Something's off. They could have targeted my apartment in the beginning but they didn't."

"Maybe that's what they want you to think," Bucky proposed, and with that he could watch Liz deflate. Her shoulders sank, she let her head drop back onto the pillow and as she closed her eyes in distress, he was unsure of what to do.

It was still early enough for noone to notice him. But if they noticed that she had woken up, the FBI would be here first thing in the morning. So he gently grabbed her hand once more, leaned forward to kiss her forehead and left. She needed rest and he had to find someone.

/

"Ms. Moore?"

The woman took a step into her room before coming to a halt again, her partner following suit. Hadn't it been for their stern expression, the clothes they wore would have given their intentions away the moment Liz had laid her eyes on them. The woman's black hair was tightly pulled back into a ponytail, her thick eyebrows making her expression more stern. The man on the other hand seemed almost emotionless and pale.

"Yes?" Liz tried to sit up, but sank back down onto the pillow the moment she tried, clenching her teeth.

"My name is Special Agent Flores, this is Special Agent Brooks," she motioned to her partner. "We have a few questions."

"I bet you have," Liz mumbled, intelligible only to herself. Sighing, she pushed her hair back and motioned towards the chairs standing near her. "Alright."

"How are you feeling?" Flores spoke up, seating herself delicately in the chair, an absent smile on her face.

A frown found its way to Liz' face. How was she supposed to feel? She had been shot by someone she had considered to be her best friend, didn't know who to trust and the people she did trust were practically criminals according to the law. What did the woman think her answer would be? "You'll have to excuse me that I can't exactly say I'm feeling fantastic, especially now that you're here."

"That's perfectly fine," Flores replied, tight-lipped. Redirecting her focus to the file in her hand, she took one look at it before she delved right into what they had come here for. "According to your doctor you don't seem to suffer from temporary memory loss, which is quite common after a lack of oxygen. Can you remember who shot you?"

Struggling to get each vowel over her lips, Liz started, "Ewan Donovan. My- my partner."

"Do you know why?" she followed up.

If she only knew. Liz swallowed hard and shook her head, "I don't know."

"Is it true that you have been the victim of a framing incident? Do you believe Agent Donovan was involved?"

"Yes, but I don't know. I don't think so," Liz pinched her eyes shut, tears already gathering in her eyes.

"Did he show any strange behaviour that might have been an indicator for this incident?"

Had he? Had she been too busy with her own vendetta and subsequent baby-sitting predicament to notice anything? To her he had seemed normal, just- Ewan. Apparently she had been wrong.

"No, I don't know…"

"Ms. Moore, we need you to be precise," Brooks interjected, leaning forward in his seat. "If you have any idea or even just a hunch of what might be going on, we need to know. The FBI is currently looking for Donovan but we don't know his motives. You could have been his only victim, of an unplanned or planned crime, but there might be more. If it is more, you could still be in danger and we would need to stack up on security here. The doctor said they found a rather fresh bullet shot wound on your leg, too. Has this something to do with anything happening right now?"

Brooks seemed nice enough but how in the world was she going to tell two FBI agents that the FBI had been infiltrated by Hydra, that she had found and been living with a criminal on the run? How could she know that these two were actually two FBI agents, and nothing else? What would happen, if she told them what was actually going on? That she knew where to find the people organizations all over the world were looking for? There would be a manhunt. For Ewan. Steve. And Bucky.

Trying to calm her breathing, Liz took a deep breath but shuddered with her exhale. This wasn't going how she would have liked it to. The longer the two of them stared at her, the drier her mouth got, the harder her heart beat, the shakier her hands got. She didn't know. She just simply didn't know. And no matter what she told them, they wouldn't be able to do anything. This was hopeless.

"I-I don't know!" Liz yelled, and then, as if this had been the first crack due to pressure growing too big, the dam broke. Choking back one last sob before letting go, her whole body began to shudder, "I don't know! I don't know! I don't know! I just- I don't know-"

"Shit," Flores muttered and sprang for the door, when a nurse already entered, having already heard Liz' sobs and yelling.

"Ms. Moore, I need you to calm down!" the nurse spoke frantically, jumping from Liz to another monitor. Throwing an emotionless glance towards Flores and Brooks, the nurse added, "I think it would be better, if you left."

"I think so, too," Flores agreed, looking over Liz and the state she was in, sobbing and still occasionally slipping in 'I don't know's when her breathing allowed it.

The nurse ignored Flores and Brooks as they were leaving and instead grabbed ahold of Liz' IV, administering a clear liquid. Within a minute, Liz slumped back onto her pillow again, the stabbing pain in her stomach ceasing, and leaving her a mess with quiet tears running down her cheeks. "Now, that's better," the nurse cooed, looked over Liz for one more second and left.

Fatigue taking over, she pinched her eyes closed once more and turned her head to the side with another sniff. Liz tried to calm down by focusing on the interior of her room. Her tired eyes fell on machinery she had no idea what to call, the IV stand, a chair with brown worn upholstery.

But then her eyes fell on the bag she hadn't noticed before, filled with clothes, maybe a toothbrush. But when she noticed the corner of a cardboard box sticking out of the bag, she heaved a sigh. Cereal.