The Pen is Mightier! (![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} penismightier) wrote in ![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} chaotic_library,@ 2015-07-18 12:03:00 |
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Character/Series: Bucky Barnes; Marvel Cinematic Universe
Rating: R
Notes: Thanks to my wife for the name of the metal Bucky's arm is made from. I don't believe that it's a known, non-fictional metal, it flexes and doesn't require open joint panels like a real metal prosthetic would. So a made up material it is. It's not like Marvel hasn't already done that.
Title: Puddle Of Grace- Chapter 2: Will You Be There, Holding My Hand?
Author:
yuuo Word Count: 7113
Summary: "Bucky? We're here."
you call me strong
you call me weak
but still your secrets i will keep
-Three Doors Down
"Bucky? We're here."
Bucky barely parsed hearing anything, more like a distant noise instead of something right in his ear. His name was repeated and he managed to flop his head over to look in the general direction of the voice. "Hm?"
Someone's arms wrapped around his shoulders, making the nerves in his left arm cry in protest and he tried to pull away, tried to yell obscenities at whoever was making him hurt.
"Easy, Bucky, it's me." Steve's voice.
"That's really got him in pain," another voice said, followed by a noncommittal third voice, both male.
"I gotcha," Steve said, managing to get Bucky out from his seat despite Bucky's weak attempts at stopping him.The agony caused by the nerve damage in his arm was like ripping the left half of his body to pieces.
Once he was out of his seat, Steve moved around to his right side to support him. The nerves on his left side screamed.
"That left side's almost deadweight," the noncommittal voice said.
Bucky peered at him, trying to make out features with his pain blurred vision. "Howard?"
The man took in a deep breath. "Close. Tony. I'm your mechanic. And we've got Bruce on the video to try to help us manage your pain. Which, it looks like, is high." He tapped the edge of an eye piece he was wearing, the tiny image of another man too small for Bucky to make out any details of on the outside of the eyepiece.
"Must be nerve pain," Bruce said. "And he's been suffering it for hours. It's no wonder he's acting this out of it. Super soldier or not, pain is going to cause shock after awhile. Get him in the car, get him back to your place."
Bucky assumed the 'you' in that sentence was Tony. "Close?" Please let it be close.
"Not far," Tony said. "About two miles. In my car, we'll make good time."
Bucky nodded. The end was in sight, he could make it awhile longer. The mental rest he'd gotten hadn't improved the pain, but it gave him a bit more strength to keep going, to let Steve help support him out of the jet, and to a car.
"Leave the jet, one of my people will take care of it," Tony said.
"I was hoping you'd have someone around to do that," Steve said, helping Bucky into the backseat of the car. "Does your arm respond at all, Bucky?"
Bucky tested his arm, just able to get his wrist and fingers to flex. "A little."
"Think you can buckle yourself?"
Bucky tried to throw a glare at Steve for that statement, making him sound like a little kid, but he didn't quite have it in him to do that, and he could accept that he was in enough pain that he might need help. "I can do it." Most of the work was with his right arm anyway, he only needed a loose grip on the buckle to secure the hook.
Steve shut the door for him.
"How long since the injury, Steve?" Bruce asked from the direction of the front seat, his image having switched to a proper display on the dash. Bucky wondered when they'd started on the road. He hadn't been aware of the car turning on.
"About eight hours ago. He's spent most of it passed out," Steve replied. Bucky saw him looking his direction.
"Then he's been in physiological shock for awhile, if I had to guess," Bruce said. "He was a sniper, right?"
"Best one in the Army," Steve said, and if he weren't in too much pain to give a damn, Bucky might've glowed with his own ego at that statement.
"Get him to use his training to try to settle his heart rate. I don't want his body overwhelmed by the shock. I don't know how long he can go without proper medical attention for it. His biology's unfamiliar to me."
"Bucky-"
"I heard," Bucky interrupted Steve before he could repeat what Bruce said. "I'm trying." He given up on that before Bruce suggested it, but Steve didn't need to know that.
The lightning running down his nerves and spasming through his mucles like echoing thunder was intensely distracting. It wasn't like tuning out outside stimulus like unsafe heat levels, or being half-buried in snow. The distraction was coming from inside, and that was harder. But he knew that shock could interrupt natural processes, so he focused every bit of mental strength he had on his heartbeat, keeping it pumping at a healthy rate, keeping enough blood moving for his body to not shut down.
It wasn't really working anymore. He'd already been pushed past his limits.
He felt the car stop. Felt it turn off. Felt his seatbelt unhook and the strap slide across his chest to its resting position. He pushed open his door with his right shoulder, but he was going to need help to do more than that.
Help was given right away, Steve taking Bucky's right arm over his shoulders, and slowly walking them towards the front door of a house that looked smaller than what Bucky would've expected for a vacation home for a Stark.
Which still didn't make it small.
A woman greeted them at the door, holding it open for them. She had blonde hair, but other than that, Bucky was so focused on getting into the house with minimal help that he didn't really register, nor care, what she looked like.
"Pepper, can you get a bowl or something of lukewarm water and a washcloth?" Bruce asked from the eye piece; the call had transferred back once the car had stopped. Tony was leading them to some stairs. Oh god, stairs. He had to go down those, didn't he? Damnit.
"Of course," Pepper said, closing and locking the door behind them and disappearing elsewhere in the house. Bucky assumed the kitchen.
When Bucky stopped at the top of the stairs, staring down them, Steve hesitated. "Think you can make it down?" he asked.
Bucky nodded. "Just don't ask me to run." He wasn't admitting to anyone yet that he was half-blind in one eye still, the negative nerve feedback in the computers in his arm sending pain all up his shoulder and face on that side. He could feel the muscles in his left cheek spasming from the misfiring nerves.
The stairs were curved, as if curling around an internal support of the building to a secret down below, but was probably just a fancy way of getting to Tony's workshop that JARVIS said he liked to stretch his legs in. Either way it went, the wide curve made it easier to see the stairs in front of him, made it easier to get his left side to respond properly to get down them.
"Bring him over here," Tony said after he'd typed in a password on the touchfilm on the glass by the door and the door had opened.
Bucky squinted his left eye shut, or tried past its twitching, trying to take in the details of the part of the room he was being led into.
The room almost looked like a round garage/display room for cars, only there were no cars, just counters and pieces of technology half finished and computers. The far end was dark.
The nerves in his brain joined the ones in his arm, screaming a silent noise in his brain when he caught sight of a chair that looked like that chair that he was being led to. He yelled, trying to pull back out of Steve's grip, away from that chair, anything to not go back there.
Steve's grip held firm, and without use of his left arm to fight back, Bucky was going to lose. He only had one side with any purchase to pull away with. "Easy, Bucky, easy!" Steve said, too frantic to be terribly calming, but it was sharp and Bucky could hear it through the panic, even if it wasn't quite doing any good just yet. "It's not that chair, I promise, you will never go back to that chair. I'm here, that can't happen again."
Bucky still struggled to back away from that chair, but with the spasming muscles and painful nerve response on his left side, he ended up slipping, his left leg kicking out from under him, dragging him and Steve down to the ground. Steve never let go of Bucky's right side, holding him firm. "Easy, Bucky. Shh, it's okay. It's not going to hurt you. Look at it." Once Steve's words had finally started to sink in enough to make Bucky's brain try to work, he looked at the chair. "See? No device on the head, just a head rest. It's just a good design to get at your arm, that's all."
Bucky stared at the chair with clearer eyes as the panic abated. It looked similar to that chair, but Steve was right, there was not the mindwipe device attached, just a regular chair with arm rests, like what might be at a dentist's office, or in a salon.
He didn't like the salon chairs either, wouldn't sit in them, Steve had to cut his hair for him, but this was to make pain stop. This wasn't something mundane that he could get around to accommodate his neuroses.
There were a couple computers, but his arm was computerized, if Tony had hope of repairing it, he'd need them. And they didn't look like the same design as what Hydra used.
It was different. Just different enough, and promised an end to the agonizing nerve pain which was starting to take the forefront of his brain now that his fear had subsided a bit, and he just wanted the pain to stop. He could handle it, at least as long as it took to stop the pain and fix his arm.
Steve helped him back to his feet, which just caused another lightning strike up Bucky's shoulder. "Come on, it's okay. I wouldn't have recommended Tony if I thought you'd be in danger."
"I'm fine," Bucky growled through clenched teeth.
Tony had wisely stayed back out of the way, and stepped to the side to let Steve get Bucky to the chair. Bucky shook off Steve's assistance in sitting down. There were no straps; Bucky almost wanted to cry with relief.
"So, I see something got left out when you told JARVIS what was going on," Tony said, finally moving towards Bucky, standing on the side of the chair where Bucky's arm would be once he was fully settled.
"What'd he leave out?" Pepper asked from across the room, that bowl of water and the washcloth in her hands.
Tony walked away and grabbed a rolling office stool and sat on it, wheeling himself back to Bucky. "Take off the shirt and tactical vest. I need to see the port. And for the love of god, disarm, please. I see four sharp and pointies and four very well-made guns that can put holes in things." Tony glanced back at Pepper. "Apparently, the chair frightened him right off his feet."
Bruce's image transferred again, this time to a full standing image that moved around to Bucky's other side. Pepper followed him and set the bowl down on a tray that held a large glass of water and a bottle of pills that could've been any damn thing. "Should we need to know what this panic attack was about?" he asked.
Their words were different from Hydra's, they were speaking about him as a person. He wasn't happy having his dirty laundry aired, but as long as the bit about Howard wasn't thrown out just yet - Steve had better eventually, but for now, Bucky's arm and almost his entire left side hurt enough that he was willing to let it slide -he could live with it.
He decided to let Steve explain; he'd heard the basics of what Steve had passed to JARVIS, but that was it before he'd passed out.
He focused on squirming out of his gear and shirt one armed. Steve had to help get Bucky out of it. Most of those straps and holsters required two hands and Bucky's left arm was not only useless, but the shrapnel was hard to not jostle when taking the clothing off. Steve was also the one to remember to disarm him. Bucky made a noise of protest when Steve started pulling his guns from his holsters.
"You don't need them, they'll be right here."
Bucky stared at him with as much annoyance as humanly possible in his situation.
"Stop pouting at me, you'll get them back later."
Obviously the annoyance had not been as successful as he'd hoped.
Fine.
Bucky finished disarming himself, handing over his SIG-Sauer after some awkward struggling to get it out of his let hip holster.
"Hydra did more than experiment on him," Steve said once the gear was removed, holding just the discarded turtleneck and tactical vest, the weapons being deposited on a nearby workbench. "They brainwashed him, and there was a chair with a device at the head that they'd strap him into. Zap his brain."
That was one way to put it. It didn't exactly describe the pain, but it worked well enough.
Tony made an angry noise as the computers on that side beeped, and Bucky looked over to see Tony pulling over his own tray with tools that Bucky recognized, but dust if he knew what they were called. The last time he'd done any engineering, computers weren't around yet, and these tools were mostly built for working with computers. "Human experimentation. Good thing I never liked Hydra to begin with." He pointed one of his tools at Steve. "I'm not happy that my old man was involved in experimenting on you, either, but at least it means you're here for me to whine about it."
"I know," Steve said. "Believe me, I'm not happy about this, either. The only good that came out of it is that I got my best friend back."
But your best friend is a psychotic mess, is the part you aren't saying.
The noise in his head faded back to a constant mantra of 'please make it stop hurting'. He pushed himself up into the chair properly, and grabbed his left wrist to place his arm on the armrest for Tony to get to it.
"JARVIS said that he has similar physiology to you," Bruce said from Bucky's other side, looking up at Steve. "I take it that means medication is going to be as touchy?"
Steve nodded. "'Fraid so."
"What'd they do for you in the hospital for pain?"
Steve shrugged helplessly. "They tried a few things- morphine, never ending Percocet drip. Nothing they did really helped. The Percocet took the edge off just enough to let me sleep sometimes, but only because the drip never let up. Mostly, nothing really helped."
Bruce studied Bucky, and Bucky could do nothing more than return the look with a chemical-hazed expression, endorphins running through his veins but not doing their job very well. He awaited the good doctor's orders. "Well, we'll try keeping him on Percocet like they had with you. I decided on pills, they were easier for me to transport here than bags of liquid injections, and I didn't want to make Pepper play phlebotomist when she has no training. He shouldn't be so out of it that he can't handle pills."
Pills. Good. No needles. God, no needles. The chair was bad enough, although at least it was a thousand times more comfortable than the one Hydra used. "It's nerve pain," he said, voice strained to go much higher than something just past a whisper. "Medicine doesn't touch nerve pain anyway."
Bruce smiled in the way a doctor reassuring a patient might. "That's not completely true. Some opiates work. Anti-convulsants, too. But since we'll hopefully have this done quickly, I'm sticking with the tried and true Percocet. You wanna take your first pill before Tony gets started over there?"
Bucky stared at the bottle on the tray next to Bruce and Pepper, who was staying quiet, probably ready to play nurse but otherwise deferring to the experts. He wasn't sure if he wanted to bother trying or not. Nothing had ever worked in the past, and it didn't really work on Steve either, so why would it work on him now?
At his extended silence, Steve spoke up. "Bucky, just try it," he said. "If it works, you'll feel better and this'll go easier. If it doesn't, no harm done."
In Bucky's pain and panic-fogged brain, that made sense enough, and he held up his right hand for a pill wordlessly. He waited until he felt Pepper place a mid-sized round pill on his palm. He looked at the blue pill with the number thirty on it. "What's the thirty mean?"
"Thirty milligrams," Bruce said. "That's not the highest dose I've ever seen, but it's rarely given over ten, due to the acetaminophen content. This is pure oxycodone, it's just the opiate. So I was able to go a bit higher. I don't promise it'll work, and I don't promise it won't work too well and knock you out for awhile. Steve's going to be here the whole time, he won't let us do anything to you while you sleep if that's what happens."
The idea of passing out while these three strangers worked on him didn't please him much. He glanced at Steve, who nodded. "Bruce is right, I'm not leaving, I won't let anything happen to you. Take the medicine. If it works on you, you can count your blessings."
With a sigh, Bucky popped the pill in his mouth. Pepper handed him the glass of water. He accepted it and took a swig, downing the pill, then handed the glass back.
Pepper set the water aside. "Bruce said we should give it about sixty seconds, see if it takes affect." She looked at Bruce's image.
Bruce nodded. "If not, we can call it a wash, but if it does anything, we can keep up with dosing until this is done."
Tony spoke up after a long sixty seconds had passed. "Okay. Time to get to work."
Bucky had to shove aside how much Tony sounded like Howard. He hoped the Percocet would knock him out enough so that his brain would stop playing Howard's screams in that burning car as the last time he'd heard that voice. Maybe the medicine could make him remember working in the Howling Commandos for awhile.
Tony gingerly tugged on the piece of shrapnel caught in Bucky's arm. Bucky winced, not even bothering to steady his breath or prevent the whine that went with it. "So how'd this happen?" Tony asked. "What'd you do, try to catch a grenade?
"Yes," Steve said, giving Bucky an aggravated look.
Bucky glared at him. "Your back was turned."
"Children," Tony scolded in a mild tone of voice. "Okay, so we've got a piece of grenade jammed between the metal plates of your arm. You with it enough to explain how this thing works in general so JARVIS and I can run diagnostics properly?
Bucky didn't want to tell him. But part of him was still a Soldier, both an Army soldier and the Winter Soldier. He understood very well that when intel was needed, you gave it to the best of your ability, or the mission- or someone's life -was compromised. In this case, it was his own health that was compromised, which made having to speak up more palatable.
"The casing is made from biomechitum, it's a rare metal alloy that allows the metal to move in organic ways." He was forced to stop, close his eyes, and try to will his brain to cooperate past the noise in it. "The plates can shift according to computer commands to absorb impacts in a way that organic material would."
"Which is how this piece got lodged," Tony interrupted. "The plates shifted at the wrong time."
Bucky nodded once. "Yeah. My flesh arm is still under there, or part of it. The shrapnel is embedded just below it. The entirety of the arm is controlled by computers. The computers hook up to the nerves in my arm directly through wires." Another pause. Easy. They can help, but intel first. "The weight of the arm is primarily held up by my own shoulder, but there are nerve connections all way up into where the port goes under the skin, not just at the stump end of the flesh arm."
"That explains why the nerves are responding negatively all the way up his face and into his side," Bruce said. "If those are hooked into his shoulders, those nerves are all interconnected. Combined with the muscle weakness elsewhere caused by pain fatigue..."
"We're lucky we got him in here at all," Tony finished. "You said this shrapnel is below the flesh?" At Bucky's nod, Tony tapped the shrapnel, causing Bucky suck in a sharp breath and clench his right fist. "Good. Means we don't have to worry about tearing in there to clean out a flesh wound." He eyed Bucky. "And I'm going to guess from the constant pain responses when I move that thing that it's partly cut some nerve wires. It's gonna hurt when I pull it out."
Bucky grit his teeth. "It'll pass."
"Better than leaving it in," Tony said. "That Percocet working yet?"
Bucky shook his head. Beside him, Bruce sighed. "Well, it was worth a shot. I'll have Pepper give him another one after the shrapnel's yanked, just to see."
"You're the doctor, Bruce," Pepper said. "Just say when."
More medicine. More experimentation, more being studied, more being worked on and suddenly that chair didn't feel different enough. He felt his right hand begin to shake as the chaos in his head began to drown out the pain again.
"Bucky." Steve's voice. Bucky managed to lift his head slightly to look at him. "It's okay. I'm not going to let anyone hurt you." He looked at Tony. "You got another one of those stools?"
Tony motioned behind him with a tool that amounted to a very big pair of pliers. "Help yourself."
Steve kicked a stool over to sit in front of him, well out of the way of the medical team and the engineer. Right where Bucky would be able to see him at all times. Easy to focus attention on. "Hey. You know nobody here's gonna hurt you. Not like that."
Bucky wished that Percocet would kick in and make him too flighty to be fighting off anxiety on top of pain.
He felt the shrapnel shift slightly in his artificial nerves and he glanced over. Tony had a firm grip on it with the pliers. "You want something to bite down on?"
Bucky shook his head.
"Okay, on three." Bucky turned his head back to look at Steve while Tony counted- "One, two, three!"
Nerves shrieked like a death knell all up and down his arm, up into his flesh, into the weight-bearing shoulder, along every connected nerve all the way up into his neck and his brain. His left eye went completely blind and he thought he was screaming; maybe he was, or maybe that was just the noise in his brain from the pain itself.
"Okay, no spraying sparks," Tony said from somewhere fifty miles to Bucky's left. "JARVIS, get me a schematic, I want to see how many wires need replacing and what computers are going to have to be repaired."
"Yes, sir," JARVIS said.
Bucky leaned his head back against the head rest, sweat beaded on his forehead and his breath coming in shallow little gasps. Pain kinda hurt, he decided, which was the best his brain could come up with.
Pepper gently wiped away the sweat with the wet washcloth, and with how overheated his face felt from the the whole entire ordeal, it felt pleasantly cool. Bruce then made Pepper hand over another Percocet. "Is it working?" she asked once Bucky had swallowed the pill.
"Dunno," Bucky said, trying to breathe deeply. "Feeling kinda vague, but still feel the pain."
"Then it's doing it's job," Bruce said. "Some medicines don't make the pain go away, as much as just make you too tired to care."
"Still care." He looked above his head, looking for a machine he already knew wasn't there.
"It's not there," Steve said, and Bucky didn't even have to ask how Steve knew what he was doing. They'd been best friends and partners for so many years that even with the damage from Hydra, they could read each other. Mostly. Usually.
Pepper put one hand just above his head, her palm resting on his sweat soaked hair. That had to feel disgusting. "See? No machine. Still feeling out of it?"
He took her kindness for what it was. It helped Steve's presence make more of an impact against memories of Hydra's treatment. Nobody in Hydra was half that worried about his comfort.
"Yeah."
"Good. That means the medicine's working."
"Or trying to," Bruce added. "With your physiology, that might be the best we can hope for."
Bucky made a grunting noise that was supposed to be a thank you, but between the low grade but ongoing not so happy nerve responses and the medicine, he was losing focus.
Speaking of focus, he wanted to see what Tony was doing to his arm. He knew Tony wouldn't harm him, but Bucky's paranoia wasn't killed by the medicine. He flopped his head over to watch Tony manipulate a holographic image of the arm.
The spot where the shrapnel had embedded didn't look nearly as bad as it felt. At Tony's command, the outer layer of biomechitum disappeared, leaving a flesh stump and computers and wires that hooked into the flesh at all points.
"Okay, looks like we have several wires we're going to repair. Solder on patches for the missing sections. Some we can just put back together. Looks like these two computers here might have to have their casings rebuilt. We'll check their innards, first. Make sure we don't have anything to repair in there." He looked at Bucky. "With your permission, I'm going to hook up some diagnostics cables once the wires are repaired and look for junk programming that Hydra might've installed. This thing was made in '45, right?"
Bucky managed a nod.
Tony looked back at the half-butchered hologram. "Pretty impressive technology for '45. Impressive by my standards, actually. JARVIS, what do you think?"
"The technology is unfamiliar to me, sir, but it does not seem beyond our capabilities."
"Love to hear that," Tony said, dismissing the image and turning back to the real thing. "How're you feeling? Bruce, think Pepper should give him another pill? Steady supply took the edge off for Cap."
"Let's see how long what he's had works first," Bruce said from Bucky's other side. "If it starts to wear off and he consents, we'll try another."
"What's this junk programming you asked Bucky about?" Steve asked, for which Bucky felt grateful. That had passed by his attention with Tony's question about when the arm was built.
"It doesn't look like Hydra's replaced anything except maybe something in basic repairs," Tony said. "JARVIS, replicate me some wiring matching this copper alloy, wouldja?" He wheeled out of Bucky's sight, somewhere off behind the chair. "But the computers would need regular software updates to keep up with maintenance without hardware updates. Updates upon updates upon updates eventually-" he wheeled himself back over with several lengths of wire. "-build up gunk that can cause the arm to not function properly. As long as I'm in here, it'd make sense for me to clear that out, maybe replace it entirely with something JARVIS can whip up while I'm dirtying my hands. We can also check for control keys or malware."
"Bucky?"
Bucky slowly turned his head to look at Steve. "Hm?"
"You okay with Tony playing around with your arm once it's repaired? Nobody's going to make you be experimented on if you don't want them to."
Bucky sneered at him, or at least attempted to. "Thanks for putting it that way, you little punk."
Steve gave him one of those patient looks that told Bucky he could hurl all sorts of abuse at him, or even ignore him, and Steve was going to just keep waiting for an answer.
Fine, he wanted one, he'd get one. "Clean it. I don't want anything of Hydra left in there."
"Can't say that I blame you," Tony said, and Bucky felt more painful feedback in his arm, though this was not as bad as when the shrapnel had been lodged in, as Tony went to work. Bucky heard the sounds of a soldering gun and felt the painful tingle of wires being messed with. "You got lucky," Tony said. "None of the breaks are into the nerves themselves. All I have to mess with is the wiring."
Bucky didn't answer beyond a noise that tried to be more, keeping his attention on Steve. Steve was something that was a stable point in his life, kept him grounded in the present and not living in the past. And being in a chair like that with his arm being worked on really made it hard to not go skydiving back into the past.
The pain came and went, a semi-regular ebb and flow, and Bucky's mental strength to do anything was dwindling. Much longer and he might pass out again. He didn't like that idea.
Pepper regularly pressed the washcloth to his heated face, wiping away sweat and cooling his skin, making quiet, soothing noises. Even though he was pretty sure she wasn't in the medical profession, she had good bedside manner, he had to give her that.
It took about a half hour all told, and Bucky felt more and more detached as the pain continued. It was a bad walk down memory lane. But Pepper was good at keeping up with the physical symptoms that didn't need medication, and Steve kept talking to him, kept him from passing back out again.
Eventually, the only pain left was leftover soreness in the muscles that had been affected by the misfiring nerves, and he just felt exhausted. He took in a deep breath, held it, then released it slowly.
"Feeling better?" Steve asked, sounding like his mouth was dry from talking Bucky through the whole procedure.
"'m fine," Bucky said, then frowned, noticing something odd in the absence of the nerve pain. He felt nothing at all from his arm. He flopped his head over to see what was wrong, saw small cables hooked into a few of the computers still exposed from the mechanical surgery. The cables further hooked into a computer that Tony was staring intently at, tapping and scrolling and studying. "What're you doing?" he demanded with as much strength as he could muster.
Tony looked at him. "Removing that gunk programming," he said as if it should be completely obvious. Then a lightbulb went off over his head. "Oh! You can't feel the arm anymore, can you? Don't worry, response will come back in a few minutes. Once I have this out, I'll put in something better to replace it. You're fine. Keep listening to Cap."
His attitude was so much like Howard's that Bucky had to grind his teeth together to keep from remembering more than he was ready for. It also made him want to hit Tony, because god knew he'd wanted to hit Howard a time or two, too.
Steve, hero of the day, kept his gaze steady on Bucky, kept him from drifting off into the wonderful and exciting land of a past that nobody in their right mind wanted. He asked Tony questions that they both knew Bucky wanted to ask but was in no condition to ask himself. "You said something about malware or a control key. What would Hydra put one of those in for?"
Bucky didn't see if Tony looked away from the computer. "Well, malware might be accidental, though I don't see them making that accident with our friend's arm. If activated, it'd ... well, you've probably seen or heard about what malware does to regular computers. It hijacks programs, makes them stop working right. I'm not counting on find anything like that. A control key, on the other hand..." Tony trailed off a second, and Bucky found himself looking over at him, trying to see the computer screen from his angle. "Which I just found. Basically, it'd be a way for someone with a big red button to deactivate and take control of the arm." He looked at Bucky. "Who would've been holding that button?"
"Pierce," Bucky said without a bit of hesitation. He hadn't known about that safeguard in his arm, but he knew exactly who would've held that control.
"Mm." Tony turned back to his computer. "Well, we don't want to find out that there's a back up big red button out there. JARVIS, let's flush this thing down to whatever hole Hydra's hiding in. Find me the passcode."
"Yes, sir."
"How's the pain now?" Bruce asked.
Bucky closed his eyes, taking note of every ache and pain and tired bruised feeling up his left chest, shoulder, neck and face. "Just need some rest." Everything was tired from hurting.
"Which you'll be getting plenty of," Bruce said. "If you heal like Cap, you'll probably be only down a day, but I'll make sure Steve keeps you off your feet if he has to sit on you to do it. I'll be on call any time I'm needed. I can be flown out of New York in an emergency"
"About that flying thing," Tony spoke up from the other side. "Spangles, Jimmy, you two planning on going back to Kiev? Please say no."
"We're going back," Steve said before Bucky could say something nasty about the nickname. He hated the name 'Jimmy'. "There's a Hydra base that needs to be taken care of."
And naturally, Steve failed to speak up on the matter for him. Thanks, jackass.
"Expecting any more Hydra operatives to fight off?" Tony didn't sound terribly pleased by Steve's answer, though hardly surprised.
"We didn't run into Hydra," Steve said. "The base is abandoned, we're just in to strip it bare so it can't be reused. We ran into some of those Russian separatists that are making pests of themselves right now."
Tony made a noise that didn't really respond to anything. "There, control key deactivated. You'll get your arm back in about thirty seconds once the new software's uploaded." He wheeled back away from the computer and into Bucky's peripheral vision. "Pepper's given me permission to make a new suit now that I've got my head on straight."
"Mostly because I know that it's going to be needed some day. Bad people are still going to do bad things and you're Avengers, you can't get away from it," Pepper said, as if this had already been discussed before Steve and Bucky had even gotten to the States. "I'd rather there be more ways for us all to stay safe than the alternative."
Tony picked up the thought train. "You're going to stay with us until I get one built, have a chance to rest, then I'm going with you."
Steve looked at Bucky, who wasn't pleased at the idea of having to work with someone besides Steve, then back at Tony. "We appreciate it but-"
"I know," Tony interrupted. "But two things. One, I just repaired that arm, I don't want you two coming back with it all messed up again. I value tech too much for that. For another, if you die, I may have to just cry and nobody wants to see that. Me crying is just a sobby, snot-filled, red-eyed mess. I'm not a pretty crier. So let me come with."
Steve looked at Pepper. Pepper gave him the sort of smile that a woman in charge and used to being listened to would give someone gearing up to argue with her. "I'm not a pretty crier either, Steve."
When Steve looked at Bruce for help, Bruce shook his head. "You don't want me involved. I'm going to be in New York and be ready in case I need to set up the medical center as Avengers triage."
Well, at least they weren't going to have to talk the Hulk out of going with them. Bucky wanted to blow that place to hell, but they had to search it first.
"And okay," Tony said, "I admit I want to come datamine the place. I got better equipment for that then you two probably do. I want to help chase Hydra down their snake hole, where they're hiding the body. I'm not taking your job, but I can help."
Bucky wasn't going to deny that they didn't have the same level of equipment that Tony had. He decided to leave it up to Steve. Bucky wanted nothing more to do with Tony until Steve had told him about Howard; Bucky felt like they'd taken advantage of him enough as it was.
He doubted that the next words out of Steve's mouth came from a place of wanting to take further advantage of his friend, but more out of a place of knowing his friend well enough that any other answer was going to get ignored. "All right. Bucky should rest awhile anyway." Steve looked at Bucky. "Don't act like you're not exhausted from how long that shrapnel was jammed in there."
Bucky stretched and rotated his mechanical arm, hearing the soothing whine of the servos, much quieter with Tony's new programming. He winced at the way it pulled on the muscles it was attached to. "I won't." He felt like a bruise. He wanted to lay down or just sit back in a chair that did not look like that one and relax. The massive anxiety attack just trying to get him into the chair in the first place was tiring on its own.
Yeah, a few hours of rest sounded nice.
"Great!" Tony clapped his hands together. "You two are staying with us while I build. Bruce, thank you for your help, we will wake you at all hours of the day if we need you again."
Bruce shrugged in an easy-going sort of manner, like he was used to going along with the far more outgoing Tony's plans. "I'm fine with that, just as long as I don't get dragged to Kiev. We'd like Kiev to still be there when we leave, I think."
"Excellent point," Tony said. Then he looked between Steve and Bucky. "I hate to say this, but this isn't exactly the posh primary home I used to live in that terrorists decided to blow up. It doesn't have an abundance of guest rooms. In fact, I only have one guest room.. I hope you two don't have any strong feelings against that that'd put one of you on the couch?"
Pepper looked over at Steve. "We have a den we can set up as a spare bedroom if needed."
"No, we can share a room," Steve said. "Spending a few days in a single room isn't going to kill us."
Tony nodded once, and Bucky could tell just from how similar his expressions were to Howard's that he had something he was about to say that was going to be both stupid and considerate. "Okay, just so you know, there's only one bed. It's a king, you could fit a third super soldier between you, but there's not any domestic disputes we should worry about, or do I not get to make that joke?"
Yup, stupid and considerate at the same time. Just like Howard.
Steve sighed in a theatrical manner, lifting his head and staring at the ceiling. "No, nothing like that. Bucky gets away with that joke, you do not. And yes, it's a joke."
Tony held up his hands in surrender. "Wasn't going to care one way or another, Spangles, as long as everyone's adult, consenting, and happy. But okay, warning received. I don't get to make that joke. To you, anyway. We'll see if Bucky lets me get away with it once he's not too tired to do more than stare at me."
Bucky blinked a couple times, then realized that Tony was right, he'd done nothing in reaction but stare in a tired manner at him. "You fixed my arm. You get to live."
"Close enough," Tony said. "Okay. Cap, get our sleepy friend upstairs. Pepper, I'll let you lead them to their room."
"I thought I'd let them find it themselves," Pepper said in a tone much too sweet to be anything but sarcasm.
While Pepper emptied the glass into the bowl and managed to pick up the pill bottle, the bowl and the glass all at once, Steve stepped over to Bucky, handing him his shirt and tactical vest. Bucky pulled on his shirt, but just held the vest. It felt a lot lighter than it should've. "Where're my guns?"
"I got 'em," Steve said. He pointed over to a work bench. "I put them down there."
Oh, yeah. That's right. Oh wonderful pain and panic, what a wonderful memory killer they were.
"You can leave them there for now," Tony said. "Just extra stuff to carry upstairs, and I have a feeling that Cap's not going to let you do more than necessary right now."
"Good call," Steve said. He held out his hand to help Bucky up. " We're in good hands here. And you need rest."
Bucky didn't protest, letting Steve pull him to his feet. He took a second to steady himself on his feet, before giving Tony a look that tried to be venomous. Bucky had a feeling it failed, but hey, A for effort. "Never call me 'Jimmy' again."
Tony's eyebrows raised. "I hear hatred for that name."
"Hatred normally reserved for vengeful gods."
"Right. Bucky it is, then. Go rest."
Feeling satisfied that the issue had been properly addressed, he let Steve put a hand on his flesh shoulder to keep him balanced while they followed Pepper up the stairs.