[Bucky Barnes; R] Righteous Side Of Hell Chapter 10 Character/Series: Bucky Barnes; Marvel Cinematic Universe Rating: R Notes: Yes, I just totally used a Xena quote. Hush your mouth and don't judge me. Title: The Stranger In Your Eyes Author:yuuo Word Count: 6598 Summary:Once safely back in the jet, the Soldier took notice of two things, both vying for equal attention.
Please don't let that light that shines on her face go out. I couldn't stand the darkness that would follow. -Xena: Warrior Princess
Once safely back in the jet, the Soldier took notice of two things, both vying for equal attention: one, Steve was laying on the medical table, looking no less sedated than when they'd found him, and two, Bruce was Bruce again, and huddled up against the wall on the opposite side of the jet from Steve.
The mission was over, or at least the Soldier's part was. Like fluid sliding over rock, the Soldier disappeared back into the back of Bucky's mind, once again nothing but a scar to be called on if needed later.
Steve was Bucky's first priority; Bruce was needed to help Steve, but it was obvious he'd need a minute. The transition back to Bruce must be difficult, to put a normally level-headed man into a ball of trauma.
Bucky took off his face gear, setting it in his seat on his way to the medical table. "Steve?" He crouched, studying Steve for any sign of trauma. The only blood on him was what the Soldier had smeared on him by accident. But his eyes didn't look right. It might've just been the sedative, but something in Bucky didn't believe that.
"Bruce?" Bucky looked back across the jet.
Bruce shook his head like he was shivering. "Just a minute. I just- I just need a minute."
Bucky understood, but his worry over Steve was reaching frantic levels. "I'll do it, just tell me what to do." That probably wasn't going to do any good, Bruce looked mentally exhausted, and physically not much better.
Fifteen seconds passed with no answer and Bucky worried he'd have to figure out how to help Steve himself. Bruce finally took a deep breath, held it until he stopped shivering, then crawled forward, using the seats to pull himself up on to his feet. He grabbed his lab coat off his own chair and pulled it on. It looked warmer than not wearing a shirt at all.
"Let me see him," Bruce said, sitting down at the medical station.
Bucky backed out of the way. "I could've done it."
Bruce didn't answer; he still looked tired and worn out, but under control. "This is my job," he said. "The other guy wasn't supposed to get involved. But he did his job, it's my turn."
Bucky didn't argue. Part of him didn't want to at all, Bruce was right, he was the doctor. But Bucky could see the toll the other guy had taken on Bruce and he felt guilty that he couldn't see to Steve on his own.
But arguing with a stretched thin Bruce Banner might just cause the other guy to start spitting nails at him, so he sat quietly and watched as Bruce gave a basic once-over of Steve.
"His reactions are sluggish," Bruce said. "His vitals are a bit, too. They sedated him with something, but I don't know what." He looked at Bucky. "Quite honestly, with his metabolism, he'll probably be just fine by the time we get to the Tower. I'll hook him up, keep his vitals on monitor, but I really can't do more than that. We'll just let him rest."
A ball of fire settled in Bucky's stomach; something more than that was wrong. He tried to dismiss it as fear, but he knew Hydra too well. Everything he knew from them told him something more was wrong. He just couldn't figure out what.
It didn't matter right then if it was the sedative making everything in Steve move slowly or if there was something more, because Bruce was right. There was nothing else they could do at the moment. They didn't have the right equipment, and as Bruce said, if it was just sedative, Steve would be back to normal by the time they reached the Tower.
Bucky waved off Bruce for him to go lay down somewhere with an apology for making him get up, then settled down next to Steve to sit next to him for the trip. He reached up with his left hand, putting it on Steve's shoulder, but Steve pushed his hand away. Slow, but the rejection of the metal hand was clear. Bucky bit back frustrated tears and withdrew his hand. He tried reaching his flesh hand across him to take Steve's. That touch was considered acceptable in Steve's malfunctioning brain; Bucky shut his eyes tightly and rested his head against the medical table, holding Steve's hand like he might disappear otherwise.
He fell asleep like that.
There was sunlight coming in through the cockpit window when Bucky was awoken by a tapping on his shoulder. He snapped his head up, wincing at the kink in his neck that answered that movement as stupid.
"We're almost to the Tower," Bruce said, crouched down by him. "I need to strap him in and we need to get ourselves strapped in for the landing."
Strap him in? Bucky looked at Steve, suddenly scared as hell when he saw that Steve looked no more alert than he had when they left. "Steve?"
Steve's eyes flitted down to look at Bucky. There was no verbal response, but there was a slight tightening of his hand in Bucky's. It'd have to do for the moment, but that sick feeling from earlier was taking over his whole body. Something was wrong. That sedative shouldn't still be this strong in his system.
Bucky let go of Steve's hand and patted it. "We're almost home." Steve made a noise of acknowledgement, something that might've been an 'okay', then focused on Bruce. Bucky got out of the way, letting Bruce get Steve strapped in while he took his own seat.
They were close to home. Close to the medical facilities that could help Steve.
Why hadn't that sedative already flushed through Steve's system?
Tony met them in the penthouse, a gurney with two nurses that Bucky recognized from when Natasha had been injured ready and waiting. "Here, lemme help," Tony said, taking a tired-looking Maria's place in helping Bucky support Steve to the gurney. "You okay to work, Bruce?"
"Ready and waiting," Bruce said. "I slept on the way home."
While they helped Steve get up on the gurney and lay down- and he looked grateful to not be upright anymore -Bucky looked at Maria. "You should go get sleep. We've got this."
Maria shook her head. "I can go a bit longer."
Bucky knew better than to argue.
The medical crew went down first; too many people for the elevator and the gurney if they all piled in right away. Bucky wrapped his arms around himself, feeling a lump of cold, sick fear fight in his gut with a hot rage against Hydra for what they'd done.
Whatever it was they'd done. They'd find out soon enough. Bruce was the best, if he couldn't figure it out-
Bucky threw that thought out before it could even form into an image.
Nobody voiced their concerns on their way down the elevator when it'd returned for them. Nobody wanted to say anything that might set Bucky off, and nobody wanted to make a reality out of the worst case scenario, like giving it voice would make it real.
By the time they got to the back wing of the medical center where only Avengers were treated, Steve had been taken through triage and the nurses had cleaned up the blood Bucky had gotten on him. The nurses were assisting him into a proper hospital bed in clean scrubs. Bucky was forcibly kept back from crowding into the room where Bruce and the nurses were working by Maria. Anybody else trying to stop him would've lost the fight, but Maria's hand in his kept him still. Just for a little while longer.
Machines to monitor vitals were hooked up, an IV put into the back of Steve's hand smoothly by one of the nurses. Bruce directed Bucky in while the nurse took a blood sample from the IV line. "I hate to do this to you, but I need to run a blood test on you. They had you for awhile, I'd be a bad doctor if I didn't check."
"I'm fine, though," Bucky said, slipping into the room despite his protests.
"You act fine," Bruce said. "But again, bad doctor. And bad friend." He motioned to the other hospital bed in the room; Bucky wasn't entirely sure why they'd have paired rooms in the more luxurious Avengers treatment rooms, but part of him suspected this one was set up for him and Steve.
Bucky obliged Bruce, hopping up onto the bed and shedding his coat and face gear. "Is he going to be okay?" he asked, not at all looking at Bruce or any needle-like equipment he had, but staring hard at Steve.
"I don't know," Bruce said. "I'm not going to lie to you, you know as well as I do that Hydra could've succeeded in something that we can't reverse. But it's just as possible that Steve will be just fine with a few days of saline flushes through the IV, and then he'll wonder at us why we didn't just let his body do it on its own."
That sounded like Steve. Bucky clung to that idea. He knew Bruce was right about Hydra, knew better than anyone, and it made him sick to let that thought take form in his mind. "What are you going to run on those tests?" Bucky asked, glancing at Bruce finally.
"On both of you, I'm running a full panel. Anything that blood can tell us, we're asking. I'm also putting in for JARVIS to examine your DNA again to make sure whatever you two were given isn't causing any problems with your mutations." Bruce peered at Bucky over his glasses. "Do you want an Ativan for this?"
Bucky shook his head, looking back at Steve. "Just do it. I'm distracted."
"Not that distracted," Bruce said. "JARVIS, put in a prescription for James Barnes for a thirty day supply, three times daily, of half a milligram of Ativan." Bucky tried to protest, but Bruce gave him a hard stare that shut him up. "It's not for the blood draw. You're making everyone nervous with your jacked up levels of anxiety. It's a lower dose than I gave you before, it'll just keep the jitters down."
Bucky couldn't deny having those jitters Bruce was talking about. He held out his arm. "Just get the draw done."
At Bruce's direction, he rolled up his sleeve, made a fist, and regretted telling Bruce to not give him the Ativan before the draw. But he kept his mouth shut, biting down on his lip and tightening his left hand into a fist when the needle slipped in, and almost looked to see what was taking so long when it dragged. But he remembered how much Bruce had drawn for the DNA check, he reminded himself of that and kept from looking or asking.
"Is Bucky getting admitted?" Tony asked Bruce just as Bruce finished the blood draw. Bucky had forgotten he was even there. "He's a mess."
Bruce studied Bucky. "Yes and no," he said. "I want him to stay where I can monitor him and his medication, and I'd rather he be here if his panels show anything unusual. I have a feeling it'd be a fight to get him to leave anyway."
"It would and you didn't have to say that like I wasn't right here," Bucky snapped. He tensed up, closing his eyes and clenching his teeth. "Sorry."
"We understand," Bruce said. "I want you to go back to your apartment and shower and change, then come back down here. You can stay here until we can dismiss Steve."
Bucky looked down at his hands. They had still had blood, although some had flaked off. "Yeah." He was sure there was blood all over, and his brand new coat needed cleaning. He wasn't sure how to clean something with that liquid armor. He grabbed his coat and looked it over.
"Give it here," Tony said, stepping into the room, avoiding Steve's side to stand at Bucky's. He held out his hand. "I'll have that cleaned. I threw this into testing phase, I'll take care of testing how well it cleans."
Deciding that it'd be easier to just give it to Tony and worry about cleaning the rest of his uniform- unchanged from before and nothing he hadn't cleaned a million times -at his apartment. He only kept hold of the coat long enough to free his knives that were snapped into their holsters, then got down off the bed. "I'll be back as soon as I can."
"Just take the time to actually scrub at that blood," Tony said, holding up the coat to look at it. "You did a number on yourself." He looked up at Bucky. "You're sure none of this is yours, right?"
"I'm sure," Bucky said. "Hydra agents make a mess when you kill them."
"No doubt."
Bucky brushed by Tony. "I'll be back." He paused outside where Maria and Sharon were still waiting. "You two should probably go get rest and clean up."
Sharon looked into the room, then took a breath and turned to Bucky. "Take care of him. Make sure someone contacts us if anything changes."
"I will," he said, then pulled her into a hug. "Just go get some rest."
Maria didn't answer Bucky's suggestion while Sharon pulled away and left, and Bucky was sure he heard the start of her crying. Maria stepped over to Bucky and wrapped her arms around his neck. "He'll be fine," she said in a hushed tone. "He's got you. He'll be fine."
Bucky closed his eyes and buried his face against her neck. He'd needed to hear those words, said with her conviction. He kissed her neck, then straightened. "I just got blood on you, go clean up and get some rest. You'll be notified if anything changes."
"Call Sharon's apartment if you can't find me at mine. I think I'll stay with her. That's the man she loves in there."
Bucky looked at the door Sharon had left through. "At least sit with her awhile, yeah." He kissed her on the forehead one more time before shooing her off to go clean up and rest.
Bucky made one more stop in the room after Maria had left, one, to look at Steve for any signs of improvement and saw none, and two to grab his face gear he'd left on the empty bed. Only half in uniform, Bucky headed for his own apartment, his and Steve's.
A shower made him feel weary and tired, erasing the blood from the long night, erasing the signs of the Soldier still on him, finally releasing Bucky to be no one else. It made him feel like a bruise, even though he knew that was all psychological.
He desperately wanted to run back down to the hospital room, but now that he knew Steve was in Bruce's tender care where something could be done to help him, that thought from before, that deep set feeling that he knew what was wrong came back, demanded attention, and Bucky knew the best way to let it solidify was to do something mindless to keep his brain from being distracted from that thought.
So he worked on cleaning what was left of his uniform, scrubbing and spot treating and throwing the pants and shirt into the wash.
He made a point of cleaning his weapons, too.
That thought still hadn't quite found its way into anything but a rising bad feeling when he had finished cleaning everything, so he dressed, cargos, boots, t-shirt, just like usual. He paused outside his door, looking down towards Steve's bedroom door, as if he were expecting Steve to emerge and say "okay, let's go" to wherever they might be going.
He was really fucking tired.
He made a stop at the pharmacy before going back to the room, picking up that prescription he still wasn't sure was actually necessary. But Bruce was the doctor, the best in the country, the only one Tony trusted with the Avengers, the only one Bucky trusted at all, so if Bruce said the pills would take the edge off his nerves, then he'd take them as ordered.
The nurses were behind the computers at the nurses' station when Bucky got back, and Bruce was in the hospital room, sitting on a stool, studying Steve. He turned, the seat spinning him 'round. "You look like you're feeling better."
Bucky grunted. "Marginally." He held up the baggie with his medicine. "I picked this up, you pill pusher."
Bruce smiled. "You also sound like you're doing better." He motioned to the tray swung to the side on Bucky's bed. On it sat a mug that had lines going latitude up the glass, measuring CCs. "That's already got ice water in it, you can take a pill any time you need it. Just don't go crazy, I don't want to run the pharmacy out of that medicine."
Bucky set his medicine on the tray, then hopped up on his bed, only vaguely noting that it was clean again from the blood his uniform had gotten on it. He looked at Steve. "How long until we know anything?"
That didn't elicit an immediate answer, Bruce turning the stool to look at Steve. "It usually takes pathology a day to get test results, but I ordered them to put everything else aside to focus on his and your blood. I also have JARVIS checking the DNA. That'll take twenty four hours. Tony has him devoting all spare processing power to it." He looked at Bucky. "I hate to tell you this, but we probably won't know anything until tomorrow."
That wasn't soon enough. That was nowhere near soon enough. But maybe it'd give him time to figure out what it was the Soldier was telling him they knew about Steve's condition. It wasn't quite there. Maybe knowing the results of the blood tests tomorrow would tease it out.
"Do you want me to go rescue your notebook with your impossible problem notes?" Bruce said. "I should've warned you to bring something to do."
After a brief exchange in which Bucky fussed that something might happen while Bruce was gone and was rebutted with the capabilities of the nurses and the fact that Bruce would be coming right back down, Bucky consented. He needed something to do if he was stuck there a full day.
Bucky kept a better eye on Steve than the nurses or Bruce did; easy enough when he was in the same room at all times, quietly working away in his notebook, which was rapidly filling up. He'd need a new one soon. He wondered how close to needing a new sketchbook Steve was. Maybe he'd get him one or two when things went back to normal. Assuming they went back to normal at all. There was still the fact that they had information that might collapse the government of Israel and there'd be no 'normal' after that.
He put that thought out of his mind and focused on his work.
Every few minutes or so, Bucky would look up from his notebook and look at Steve, watching for signs that the sedative or whatever the hell it was was finally leaving his system and he was recovering. Eventually the every few minutes faded to every half hour, then only once or twice an hour at random intervals. He was getting tired, it was getting hard to do anything but stare blankly at his notebook. The notes in it stopped making sense.
"Where am I?"
Bucky jerked, blinking wide eyed from the dozing state he'd dropped into. He looked over at the source of the voice, saw Steve awake and confused.
"Bruce, he's awake!" Bucky yelled out into the hall, practically flying off his bed and over next to Steve's. "You're in the Tower. I told you I'd get us out."
That look of confusion deepened and before Bucky could question it, Bruce stepped in. "We wondered if you'd sleep all night," he told Steve, grabbing his stool and wheeling over. Bucky scooted over a bit, hands gripping the safety bars on the bed.
Steve stared at Bruce as if he'd never seen him before. "Who are you?"
The second those words were out, Bucky got a sinking feeling in his gut and he interrupted whatever Bruce was in the process of saying. "Do you know who you are?" he asked Steve.
Bruce looked up at him. "You're recognizing something."
Bucky held up a hand and asked again. "Do you know who you are?"
The look Steve gave Bucky at the question was as blank as when he'd answered Bruce. "Steve Rogers. Captain America."
"Do you know what that means?"
Steve didn't answer, brows furrowing in thought. Finally, he shook his head. "Do you?"
Bucky closed his eyes, his fists clenching the safety bars in rage until both of his hands had snapped out pieces where they'd been. An old feeling he'd detoxed from in the streets came haunting back like an unwelcome visitor. This was the thought that had nagged at him all evening.
He opened his eyes when he heard Bruce's stool wheeling away. "Uh, Bucky? Clue in the doctor? Without breaking things?"
Calm. Steve needed him to be calm, Bruce needed him to be calm, he needed himself to be calm. "Call up the Winter Soldier Project files."
Bruce's eyebrows raised. "I'll be right back with a computer. Keep him talking."
While Bruce went to get a laptop, Bucky dropped the broken parts of the safety rail onto his bed's tray, then turned back to Steve. "You don't know what it means that you're Steve Rogers?"
Steve shook his head. "I know you're Bucky, but you don't look right."
"Things happened," Bucky said, dismissing the statement. "I want you to think. How does it feel, not knowing what it means that you're Steve Rogers?"
Bruce was back by the time Steve answered with a dismayed "empty."
Angry tears pricked at Bucky's eyes, his fists clenching and unclenching at his sides. Bruce had to once again ask him to not break things; Bucky wasn't sure if it was a warning to not provoke the other guy, or a simple request to calm down and help, rather than shaking uselessly in rage. "I know what they did."
"I had a feeling," Bruce said, setting his laptop on the tray of Steve's bed and opening it to show the files already pulled up. "It wasn't anything in the first three phases, was it? I don't see any signs of mutation. I don't have the tests done to confirm, but I'd think we'd be seeing different results."
"Probably," Bucky said. He scrolled through the files, so focused on finding the pages he needed to help Steve that he didn't even register anything else to cause an episode. "Here." He turned the monitor to Bruce a bit. "See that one there? It was used right before the chair. It'd been used regularly until before that last wipe before I left Hydra."
Bruce put on his glasses. "It says it causes long-term memory loss, as well as short-term." He looked at Steve. "That would explain his slow memories, but he seems to know who you are."
"He wasn't pumped full of it coupled with specific electroshock therapy for decades either," Bucky said. "It's only partly responsible for the memory loss. It removes a sense of self. It makes it so that the memories it doesn't kill mean nothing. He knows he's Steve Rogers, but Steve Rogers is a foreign concept."
Bruce looked at Steve. "That's what you told him?"
Steve pushed himself up, trying to look around the monitor to see what they were reading. "That's a drug that's doing that?"
"I'll take that as a yes," Bruce said. "The file doesn't say how long it takes to wear off. Just that they kept upping your dose."
"Yeah." Bucky rubbed his hands over his face. "I think they gave me a small dose when they got me cornered yesterday. It wore off within a minute of waking up. I don't remember it ever wearing off that quickly, but it did and we're lucky for it."
"If they kept upping your dose before putting you in the chair, your body probably has built up a tolerance to it and they gave too small a dose to register." Bruce took off his glasses, setting them next to the computer, reading the files. "That doesn't explain why the sedative took so long metaboli-" He cut himself off, straightening and looking at Steve. "I have an idea. But I can't confirm it without the pathology results and getting a look at his T3/T4 and TSH numbers."
Bucky looked at him. "Explain for the non-doctors?"
"Those are the numbers associated with thyroid function. If those numbers are low, then his metabolism won't be running nearly as fast as possible. I'd expect this long recovery time from someone with low numbers than someone whose metabolism is supposed to be running at six times higher than average." Bruce tapped his chin, then started flipping through the files. "I don't see any sign of anything like that in here. This might be something new."
Bucky looked at Steve, who looked confused and lost and frustrated. Bucky held out his left hand to take Steve's. Steve didn't take the offer, looking at the hand. "What happened to your hand?"
"I lost my arm in the war," Bucky said, not technically a lie. "Things have happened, Steve, we'll help you remember. But I'm still Steve Rogers's best friend. That's you." He kept his hand out, shoving aside the anger and fear. Whether Steve recovered or not was going to depend a lot on Bucky's actions and what emotions he let himself show. He was just starting and he was already wanting to apologize every other second to Steve for putting him through this and worse. "It won't hurt you, I promise."
"I didn't think it would," Steve said, wrapping his fingers around Bucky's metal fingers. "It just didn't seem right."
"Things have happened," Bucky repeated. "I'll help you." He looked at Bruce. "There is a detox period. Mine lasted a month, and it was hell, but it shouldn't be as bad with Steve. The memory loss lingers, but it goes away with time. Time and a lot of patience."
Bruce studied him. "Which you know from experience." He closed the files. "We'll see what all is going on, but if he's experiencing symptoms that unique, I'm going to go with the assumption that you're right about that chemical getting used. We'll have to wait on my idea about the metabolism, and check that nobody's DNA is losing its stable mutations." He looked at Bucky sternly. "Even if I didn't know you'd stay here anyway, you're not discharged either. You said they hit you with something, I'm going to be a paranoid doctor and keep you until your blood work clears."
Bucky shrugged, glancing at Steve. "I'm not leaving him anyway." That seemed to make Steve relax, and Bucky was glad that he'd been largely playing the good patient and letting the doctor and the 'expert' or whatever he thought Bucky was go over things before talking to him.
"So what's wrong with me?" Steve asked in a tone that was trying to be matter of fact, but there was fear lacing it. Knowing something was wrong wasn't something most people took without at least some worry, and Bruce and Bucky probably weren't say anything to ease that fear. At least Bucky's assurance was keeping his body language relatively relaxed.
Bruce closed the laptop, looking at Bucky. "I'll take this one." Bucky moved to use his flesh hand to enclose Steve's hand already held by his metal hand. Just to remind him that whatever Bruce said, he wasn't going to be alone. "There was a very old experiment that a group named Hydra did, and one of the chemicals in it caused memory loss and, as Bucky put it, a loss of a sense of self and long term memory. It doesn't erase everything without mechanical help and numerous higher doses, and after a chance to detox, it'll be through your system and working on regaining memory will begin."
"You'll fit back in your skin after you're done with detox," Bucky assured him.
Steve looked up at him. "What's involved with that?"
Bucky took a deep breath, looking at Bruce for permission to frighten the hell out of Steve. Bruce shrugged and swept his hand to him. "I don't know. He does."
Shit. Yeah, he had to explain and hope he didn't make Steve more upset than necessary. "I got a lot of the shakes, beat my head on a wall a lot. I lived in the streets, took a month for me, but I got a lot more of that stuff than you. I hallucinated some, got paranoid about a lot of things, but there were legitimate fears, too." Steve didn't look relaxed and his grip in Bucky's hands tightened. Bucky took the chance of shooting in the dark to calm him down. "It shouldn't be that bad on you, though. You might feel like you have a fever and an upset stomach and some bad dreams, then it'll come down to just helping you remember things you've forgotten."
"The memory loss lasts?" Steve didn't sound happy about that.
"Not forever," Bucky said. "I know I'm probably scaring you, but you really shouldn't have anything to worry about. You haven't had the doses I had when Hydra was using it on me, and they supplemented it with electric shocks to specific sections of my brain."
Steve looked down at Bucky's hand. "Hydra. That's what happened to your arm, isn't it? I think I remember that."
"Yeah," Bucky said. "See, the memories are there. We just gotta get the drug out of your system and then have me babble at you about things until you remember them."
"Did I do that to you?"
"Annoyingly, yes. Sometimes, anyway." He looked at Bruce. "So tomorrow until we hear about the blood work?"
Bruce nodded, tucking his glasses into his chest pocket. "That's right. If I get them sooner, you'll know. I also want to do a CT scan to look for damage, but my radiologist is home for the night. We'll do that tomorrow." He eyed the broken safety rail on Steve's bed. "Try not to break more of those, please."
Bucky looked down at it, then ducked his head slightly, feeling guilty. "I won't," he said. "Equipment is safe." His brain kicked in with an idea that went right to words, having come up before in other situations. "Hey, can you get Steve's sketchbooks? He should still know how to draw, I never lost any skills after that stuff, it might give him something to do to relax."
"All of the sketchbooks?" Bruce said, giving him an incredulous look. "None of those are full?"
Bucky grinned. "I had a good idea. A lot of those old drawings are memories. Steve never liked photos, he liked drawing what happened later. Had the memory for it. There's stuff we can look at, try to knock some rocks loose in the meantime. Just don't forget his pack of pencils so he can draw when he gets tired of me going through the proverbial photo album."
"Will do," Bruce said, then grabbed the laptop and left the room, leaving Steve and Bucky alone.
Bucky looked at Steve. "How're you feeling?"
"A but fuzzy," Steve answered. "My mouth is cotton."
Bucky let go of Steve with one hand to reach across the room to get his water off his tray. Since his arm wasn't actually that long, he was forced to let go of Steve's hand entirely and walk across the room to grab his glass. He brought it over and handed it to Steve. "Here, have a drink. It's just water."
Steve took the mug and drank enough that Bucky wasn't sure he was getting any back. Oh well. The nurses could refill it.
"Feel better?"
Steve set the glass down on his tray. "Yeah." He looked at Bucky. "You're scared."
Bucky shook his head in fond disbelief. "And your ability to read me has stuck around. Good to know." He tapped his left index finger on the bed tray. "Just a second. I'm gonna get you your own water." Steve didn't protest when Bucky grabbed his glass and half leaned out of the room to talk to the nurse on duty. "Can we get some water in here for him? I want my glass back. And refilled. He drank all my water."
The nurse, an elderly woman named Marybelle, smiled. "Sure. I'll be there in a second."
Bucky thanked her, handed off his glass when she had gotten to their room, then walked over to his bed long enough to brace himself against while he unlaced his boots and set them aside. "Cross your legs," he told Steve. "Gimme room to sit on your bed."
Steve didn't argue, just sat back and crossed his legs under him. Bucky joined him, sitting down on the foot of the bed, facing Steve. "You don't have to be scared," Bucky said.
"But you are," Steve pointed out. "If I don't have to be, why are you?" He sounded as firm as he did whenever Bucky needed him to help him hold onto his own sanity and get talked down from an episode.
Bucky looked down at his hands in his lap. "Because I spent decades feeling like that. And you have more memories than I did. I had nothing, just Hydra. I got used to it, but I had no... no real sense of who I was supposed to be but Hydra's weapon who was doing good by dirtying his hands on Hydra's behalf." He looked up at Steve. "Then we met back up in DC and I started remembering. And that was terrifying. Having memories creeping back when you still don't feel like a person, it's scary. And it's nothing I wanted anyone I loved to have to go through."
"A weapon?" This was obviously not in the memories Steve had. Bucky wasn't even sure what time periods Steve might have more memories in than not, or how many. Steve's body reacted differently to medicines than Bucky's did sometimes, although Bucky was dead certain about what caused the memory loss. But he still could be retaining more or less than Bucky had with the first few doses. Working with Steve had the potential to be an exercise in frustration.
He turned that aside to focus on Steve's question. "Yeah. The Winter Soldier. They ... they did a lot of bad things to me. And I did a lot of bad things for them. That's why we go after them now that they don't have their favorite sheep skin to hide behind. You and me, we go out and take their bases down. That's what we were doing when they sedated you and put this stuff in you."
"How long have we been fighting these guys?" Steve asked. "I think I remember doing this a long time ago. It doesn't make sense to me, but I remember it."
"A long damn time," Bucky said. "Back in the forties. We both spent a lot of time frozen for about seven decades or so. We're both back and together again, but Hydra's still our personal pains in the ass."
"You said something back in their lab," Steve said. Bucky was amazed he remembered that much, especially with the way his memory had been fucked with. "What was it?"
"I said a couple things," Bucky admitted. "And you probably need to hear both of them again, if you're going to trust me before this stuff gets out of your system."
"I trust you already. I know I can."
"But do you feel it?"
Steve hesitated, then looked down. "No. Not as much as I think I should. Not yet, but you said that'd pass."
"It will," Bucky said.
Steve looked up at him without moving his head. "But you said something. What was it?"
Bucky took a deep breath. "The weapon, the Winter Soldier, he was a monster. Had no morals, just shot who he was told to. I'm still him." Steve sat back a bit, as if re-evaluating his opinion of Bucky. "But I'm also me," Bucky said quickly. "And the monster may be there, but he loves you as much as I do. You don't have to be afraid of him. That's what I told you."
Steve sat forward again, staring at Bucky like he was making a decision, and his eye contact was enough to make Bucky feel uncomfortable. "I wish it'd make sense, but I believe that."
Bucky felt all his muscles turn to jelly and he released a held breath. "Good. I'd never let you know before how in there he still was. I didn't want you to know."
"Why not?" Steve asked. "You said it wasn't the end of the line yet. I heard that, I remember that, just before the big green thing and those two women showed up. I think I know them, too, but I can't remember their names."
Bucky snorted. "Well, Sharon's gonna love that you've forgotten her name. You're dating her."
Steve stared dead at him for a moment. "I am?"
"You are," Bucky said. "She's the blond. The other woman is Maria Hill, and she's my girlfriend. You and I picked a couple of winners. The green guy was the Hulk. He's someone that Bruce accidentally shoved into his head when he was messing around with radiation. We called him in to help get us out of the lab. Our two princesses and angry dragon came to our rescue."
"And we went after Hydra on our own before?"
Bucky could help but smile. "We did, and we were good at it. But we knew this was a bigger job than what we'd done before. We needed our family to help. There are other Avengers, but they're not really around as much as the five of us." He turned his head when he heard foot steps outside the door. Two sets; first was Marybelle finally showing up with water for them, followed quickly by Bruce, three sketchbooks under one arm and a package of pencils in his other hand.
Bruce handed over the books and pencils. "I didn't realize you were going to share a bed," he said, a teasing smile on his face. "Here, just as requested."
Bucky took the books and pencils and set them on the bed between him and Steve. "It's easier to go through these this way. I'll sleep in my own bed." He glanced at Bruce. "I've got it from here." He thanked Marybelle for the water as he put his glass out of Steve's thieving reach.
"Just call if you need something," Bruce said. "And don't forget your Ativan if you need it."
"I won't," Bucky promised, then flipped through the sketchbooks, looking for what he felt should be the first memories to reintroduce to Steve.