static | BUCKY BARNES

4

Bucky and the raven-haired girl sit across from each other on the bed, both with their legs folded under them. Tony and Steve let them have some time alone, considering the girl didn't seem afraid of Bucky when he sat next to her.

The two don't talk much at first, both of them taking the other in. She watches Bucky with confusion and hesitation, and Bucky watches her with curiosity. How come she doesn't look like a murderer? And why are all of her limbs metal, and why are her eyes like that? It's like she has some sort of robot eyes.

Disgust rises up in Bucky's throat and he finds it hard to swallow. What did they do to her, exactly? He suddenly has the urge to read the files Steve was talking about, even though he knows he won't like what they say one bit. Whatever they did to her was worse than what they did to him.

Yet, she got away from it virtually unscathed, apart from her metal limbs of course. She has no bruises or scrapes or mental wounds beyond the memory loss from the perfected method HYDRA put together.

Bucky looks closer and notices a small scar under her left eye and one above her eyebrow. They're hardly noticeable, and Bucky scolds himself for actually believing she wouldn't have any.

The girl breaks their silence with a stronger voice than before when the other two men were in the room.

"Who are you?"

His eyes find their way from her legs sticking out from her cotton shorts to her questioning eyes. He clears his throat.

"My name's Bucky."

Her brow pulls forward. "You're like me?" He nods. "And you, you remember your name?" He nods again. The girl frowns. "Then why can't I?"

Bucky licks his lips in thought. He tries to figure out how to word his answer so he doesn't frighten the girl too bad. She has been through hell after all, even if she doesn't know that.

"The people that did this—" he lifts his arm— "to us, they wiped our memories. They had a different method of erasing mine that wasn't as effective as the one they used with you."

She stares down at her hands. Distaste for the metal is as clear as day on her face as she turns her hands over in her lap. The mechanical rings in her eyes focus. Bucky wonders if she is aware of her unnatural eyes.

"I don't understand," she says quietly. "Why would they do this to us? And who are they?"

Bucky sighs. HYDRA believes that by destroying society and taking away humanity's freedom they could achieve world peace. But freedom isn't something that should be taken away; the people have a right to freedom, and those who can will fight to keep it. The deranged organization brainwashed many people and used them as soldiers to carry out their dirty work over the years. There have been decades and centuries of puppets on strings being trained as assassins with only one mission: kill.

With one quick look at Static, you would never guess the horrors the girl went through. Bucky isn't sure he if even knows half of it. He has been free for a few years now, and in that time, who knows what advances in torture and brainwashing HYDRA played with.

Bucky runs his finger over the cool metal of his hand absentmindedly. "There's this group called HYDRA. They did this to us."

Static rubs the back of her bare neck. She watches Bucky closely, her mechanically modified eyes trailing over his flesh hand.