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“You can go. I’ll be fine, Steve.” Bucky has to push Steve in the direction of their front door, trying to get him to leave. Steve doesn’t want to leave because Bucky accidentally had a sip of Steve’s coffee this morning, and he’s seen what milk does to Bucky. But Bucky doesn’t see why such a small amount of it should matter.
“Are you sure?” Steve frowns at him. He would hate to leave Bucky alone when he has a reaction.
“It’s just a bit of milk. I’ll live.” Bucky rolls his eyes, trying to push Steve out the door.
“Exactly. It’s milk.” Steve says triumphantly at Bucky admitting it.
“It was one sip from a coffee with a little milk in it. Do you have any idea how little lactose is in that?” Bucky has been doing some heavy denial all morning. It’s such a kick to the gut when he feels good and happy, and accidentally ruins his day with milk. He doesn’t want to cancel his plans of comfortably laying on the couch and read.
“How much?” Steve says as if he expects an answer. He has his arms crossed over his chest, the glint in his eyes telling Bucky he knows he’ll win this discussion.
“I don’t know. Don’t ask me.”
“How much do you need to have a reaction?” Steve throws him a look like I’ve got you now.
“Fine. Whatever. I’ll be in pain.” Bucky throws his hands up. “But I’ll be in pain whether you’re here or not.”
“That still doesn’t explain why you walk like a hundred-year-old.” Okay, so Bucky may or may not have walked around with a kink in his back to curl around the tight pain in his stomach all morning, but he’s just sore.
“I am a hundred-year-old. And I’m sore from a few days ago.” Fight sequences look so simple and cool in movies, in reality they’re exhausting, leaving Bucky sore for days every time, without fail.
“Still?” Steve has a better serum; he never gets sore. Bucky pretends not to be jealous.
“Yes.” Bucky hides any trace of pain from his face, putting on a soft smile and relaxing the muscles in his forehead. Steve looks at him for a moment, searching his face.
“Okay.” He gives in. “Call me if you get worse.” He points a finger at Bucky’s chest.
“Promise.” Bucky puts on his best smile, wanting Steve to go enjoy his time with Nat. They don’t see their friends outside of work that often, and Bucky doesn’t want to be the reason they cancelled. Besides, they’ll still be at the compound. Steve will be less then five minutes away, two if he runs.
“Can I at least get a kiss goodbye?”
“No, I’m sick.” Bucky gasps, holding his hand over his heart, looking at Steve as if he asked for something ludicrous.
Steve steals a kiss anyway, moving quicker than Bucky can move away. “I don’t care.”
---
Bucky lays down on the couch after he’s pushed Steve out the door. The pain in his stomach is gets worse and he curls around it. The TV is on in the background, but Bucky doesn’t catch a word they say. Every sound comes through a layer of cotton, muffled and echoing inside his head.
He feels like he has a low-grade fever. A fever from lactose is a new development, but Bucky doesn’t think anything of it. He’s probably just woozy and dizzy from the pain and sore from the battle a few days ago.
He decides to try to take a nap, hoping he’ll wake up feeling better. The TV remote is too far away, and the pain won’t let him move so he leaves it on. Finding a comfortable position proves to be harder than he hoped.
He can usually get comfortable if he lays on his stomach with a pillow underneath him, pressing into the painful area, but now the pillow just makes it worse. He needs a heating pad or Steve’s hands, but both are out of reach.
Moving around, he tries to get comfortable. Every time he settles in a position the pain grows worse and he can’t lay still. The pain is more intense and stabbing than his usual bloated cramping.
Moving hurts, being still hurts, breathing hurts, it’s almost unbearable, but Bucky has been through worse. It’s much better than having his brain electrocuted until he can’t even remember his own name, or having a limb replaced with metal while he’s awake, or laying at the bottom of the alps, bleeding and freezing to death.
He doesn’t handle pain well anymore. He used to be able to ignore it, deciding that whatever part of him that hurt wasn’t his. He just shut off the part of his brain that felt it. His brain can’t do that anymore. At the moment it feels like a downside of recovery. Even though he knows it’s not normal to turn off parts of your brain.
Painkillers. He needs painkillers. They can turn off that part of his brain for him.
Getting up is a struggle. Tightening his stomach muscles hurts too much, so he has to use arm strength to get up. The fever makes him weak, and his arm shakes and the metal arm whirrs unhappily as he pushes himself into a seated position.
Standing up is harder. He can’t just pull himself up with his arms. Steeling himself for the pain, he stands up, tightening his stomach. A groan escapes at the pain, and his arms instinctively wrap around it.
He moves slowly in the direction of the bathroom, every step hurting, sending shocks of pain in every direction. He keeps close to the wall as he moves, scared he’ll fall over from the weakness.
When he gets to the bathroom, he leans on the sink, closing his eyes at the bright light. His face is wet from sweat, and he’s overheating in his layers. Suddenly feeling like he’s suffocating, he pulls off his hoodie, ignoring how he stumbles and almost falls while doing so.
He grabs a hold of the sink, gasping as the pain gets worse. With shaky hand he turns on the tap, splashing cold water on his face. He’s desperate for anything to make him feel better.
Nausea almost knocks him over with its force as it suddenly appears out of nowhere. That’s what he gets for ignoring the warning signs, or maybe it just came on that quick.
He braces himself over the sink as it builds. He should move over to the toilet, but even the thought of moving sends his stomach up his throat.
He gags hard, every muscle straining with the force of it. The pain is unbearable, but he has no choice but to bear it as he brings up undigested food. It splashes disgustingly into the sink, adding to his nausea.
The heaves are so intense and close together, he can barely breathe between them. This has to be the worst reaction he’s ever had to lactose.
Heave after heave rock through him, forcing the contents of his stomach out. Bucky just gives in to it. He needs it to stop, it hurts too bad, but he can’t stop it.
There is no relief when it stops. The pain in his stomach has moved to the bottom right side, leaving him gasping and groaning. He lets himself collapse to the floor, curling up on the bathmat.
He needs Steve, but Steve isn’t here, and Bucky’s phone is in the living room. There’s no way he’ll be able to walk.
“Should I call Mr. Rogers?” Jarvis’ voice comes from the walls, making Bucky jump.
“Yes.” Bucky gasps out, mentally thanking Tony for giving Jarvis such good timing. There’s silence for a moment before Steve’s voice fills the room.
“Hey. Are you okay?” Steve sounds concerned, he always does when Bucky calls him, as if Bucky can’t call unless something’s wrong. Granted, he never does, but that’s beside the point.
“I threw up.” Bucky tries to sound normal; he doesn’t want Steve to worry too much over his stupid lactose intolerance.
“I’m on my way.” The line goes dead, and Bucky curls even tighter into himself.
In the two minutes it takes Steve to run home, Bucky throws up on the floor. He can’t move because of the pain, and he can’t stop the nausea, but he’s in so much pain he doesn’t care about how disgusting it is.
The front door clicks open, followed by Steve shouting his name. Bucky doesn’t have the energy to say anything as he hears Steve walk around the appartement looking for him.
“Oh, Buck.” Steve’s voice comes from the doorway. He leans down beside Bucky and rubs his shoulder. “That bad, huh?”
“I feel thoroughly disgusting.” It’s an understatement. His clothes are soaked with sweat and he’s lying on the floor, in his own puke.
“Are you sure it’s just the milk?” Steve asks carefully while stroking Bucky’s hair back, ignoring the stickiness in it. Bucky just shrugs, he’s so tired.
“I’m gonna take your temp, okay?” Steve scoots himself over to the cabinets, rooting around until he finds the thermometer and scoots back to Bucky. “Open up.”
Bucky complies, letting Steve put the thermometer under his tongue. Having something in his mouth makes him gag again, but nothing comes up.
“100,7. Not too bad, but you have a fever.”
Bucky groans again. That explains a lot. He’s having the worlds’ worst reaction to lactose because he also has a stomach bug.
“At least let me help you to bed, the bathroom floor’s too cold to sleep on, and I need to clean both you and the floor.” Steve is moving before he’s even done talking, sliding his arms under Bucky’s body, and lifting him up.
Bucky cries out in pain. It feels like his stomach is ripped in half when he’s moved. Steve sets him down on the floor again, surprised at Bucky’s outburst. The pain persists, and Bucky keeps moaning and groaning.
“Where does it hurt?” Steve pulls up Bucky’s damp shirt and watches him point to the bottom right of his stomach.
“How bad is it out of ten?”
“Five.”
“Is that scar from an appendectomy?” Steve points to an old scar right where Bucky’s stomach hurts. Bucky has no clue what an appendectomy is, but it wasn’t that.
“Was stabbed.”
“Jarvis. Get Helen Cho up here, quickly.” For the first time, Steve sounds nervous.
“What?”
“I think it’s your appendix.”
“What?” Bucky repeats. There are too many words he’s never heard before.
“If you have appendicitis, they’ll have to remove it.”
Bucky shakes his head, choking up. He can’t do surgery. White lab coats standing around him flash across his mind. He can hear his own screams, pleading to just die when they were working on his arm. It hurt like nothing else, can’t even be describes in words.
“Hey, hey. Breathe. It’s okay. I’ll be with you the whole time.”
“I can’t.” Pure horror runs through him. Mixing with the pain, it’s all too much and he can’t breathe.
“They’ll make you better.” Steve splays a hand over Bucky’s chest, reminding him to breathe. The normally grounding touch feels suffocating in his panic.
So did Hydra. They made him a machine, for no one’s benefit but heir own. You’re the new face of Hydra, you’ll make the world better and all the other lies.
There’s a light knock on the door before Dr. Cho enters the apartment and appears in the doorway of the bathroom. Bucky goes blind with panic, paired with the pain it’s a wonder how he hasn’t passed out already. But his stupid brain won’t let him escape that easily.
“Hello Bucky. I hear you’re in some pain.” Dr. Cho says in a calm voice. Bucky just hyperventilates, moaning at how it pulls at the pain in his stomach. He is too numb to cry.
“How’s he doing?” She asks Steve. Bucky is clearly in no position to speak.
“He says his pain is at five, which is any other persons twelve. It’s here.” Steve shows her where Bucky pointed earlier.
“I think you’re right about the appendix.” She pulls something out of her pocket, and Bucky’s heart skips multiple beats. “Now, Bucky, I want to give you something to help you calm down. You won’t feel too drowsy, but it will relieve some of the panic so we can help you, but I won’t give it to you if you don’t want me to.”
Bucky shakes his head. No way he’s letting anyone put a needle into him. He’s been drugged and poisoned countless times by the people tasked to ‘take care’ of him.
“There’s no other way to treat this, Buck.” Steve says in a low comforting voice. “The pain won’t go away on its own. I know it’s scary, but I’m here with you and I won’t let anyone hurt you. I trust Helen.”
The realization that Bucky has to do this settles in. He can barely think with panic fogging his brain, but he knows he can’t stand in this pain for much longer.
“Do you trust me?” Steve asks him. He pushes Bucky’s hair off his forehead, the other tracing circles on Bucky’s arm. “They won’t hurt you.”
Bucky gives a slight nod, and Steve nods at Helen who comes closer.
“Just keep your eyes on me. It’s okay Bucky.” Bucky feels like he’s vibrating out of his own skin, every part of him clammy with sweat and his throat hurts from hyperventilating for so long.
There’s a small pinch as the needle enters his arm, and then everything goes fuzzy. As his body relaxes and slows down, white spots appear in his vision.
“It’s normal to feel a little dizzy for a moment. Your body is just tired and adjusting to the quick change.” Helen says as if she read his mind.
She’s right. It only lasts for a moment before the world comes back into focus and his vision clears up. It’s a strange feeling; he knows he should panic at the situation, but he’s so calm he feels like he’s floating.
“We normally diagnose appendicitis with an ultrasound first, but I’m worried his appendix has already burst because of the amount of pain he’s in. I want to take him straight to surgery.”
There’s no panic at her words. No racing heart, sweaty palm, shaking, hyperventilating, nothing.
“Buck, come on, let’s get you to the med bay.” Bucky lets Steve lift him up. The pain rips across his side, but he doesn’t make a sound. He’s reached a point where he just wants it to stop. He doesn’t even care about his medical trauma if they can help him, or maybe that’s just the sedatives.
---
Bucky wakes up in his own bed. He’s disoriented for a moment, feeling like he shouldn’t be there. The dull ache in his stomach brings him back to reality. It doesn’t hurt so much as feeling like his body is hyper focused on that area, feeling every nerve ending that used to be connected to the missing organ.
“Hey.” Steve’s voice is soft at Bucky’s side. He reaches out for Bucky’s hand, holding it in his own. “You’re okay now.”
“Was it-?” Bucky’s voice cuts out. His throat feels like sandpaper, like he hasn’t had water in years.
“Here.” Steve helps Bucky take a sip of water. “It was your appendix.” Bucky looks at him with a questioning look, that word means nothing to him. “It’s part of your intestines. It can get infected and burst- which is exactly what happened to you by the way- and the only way to treat it is to remove it.”
Bucky takes another small sip of water from the cup Steve’s holding, feeling it cooling down the inflammation in his throat. None of the words Steve is saying mean anything to him. He feels like he’s sleeping, but with his eyes open.
Steve seems to realize this as he scans Bucky’s face for any reaction. He chuckles, putting the cup back on the bedside table. “You should be happy Helen allowed you to recover at home. You probably don’t even remember waking up before.” A grimace forms on Steve’s face as he relives a memory Bucky doesn’t have. “Let’s just say being in a hospital setting won’t help you recover from surgery.”
Bucky should care that he can’t remember, he knows how he should feel about it, but he’s just numb, he can’t even feel his heart beating. Steve takes a hold of Bucky’s hand again, bringing it up to his mouth and softly kissing it.
“I’ll explain when you’re more awake.” Steve’s warm breath tickles the skin on Bucky’s hand. “Just promise me one thing,” Steve looks at him with pleading eyes. Now that he knows Bucky will be okay, he allows himself to feel the fear that should’ve paralyzed him earlier. “Don’t scare me like that again.”