“Holy cow,” Bucky said and laughed at himself for saying it as he watched Tony make a 3-D hologram model of his right arm and mirror it. He was distracted for now from the painful betrayal that had been eating at his heart and the discomfort at seeing Steve again, at standing in his apartment. Tony’s tech was fascinating, it was fun to see. He was enthralled in watching Tony work and for the first time in such a long time, he was lost enough inside his wonder to be happy, for at least a minute.
“Practically done already,” Tony said and Bucky smiled a little.
“So do you do this a lot?” Bucky asked. “Make prosthetics?” Tony shrugged as he worked, examining now Bucky’s left socket. Tony nodded over to his suit.
“That’s a prosthetic,” Tony said casually and Bucky looked over at the suit, then back at Tony. He resisted the urge to then look down at the blank space where his left arm would be. Prosthesis? His armor? That was a joke, surely. “Well, I mean, it’s the best way I can accurately describe it.”
“Uhuh,” Bucky said. Tony wasn’t missing an arm. In fact, Tony wasn’t missing anything. His shiny, pretty battle armor didn’t replace a lost limb so it wasn’t what Bucky would call a prosthetic. Bucky frowned. He didn’t want to act sore over something so petty, but Tony’s flippant use of the word seemed to strike him and he wasn’t sure he liked it. Luckily, however, Tony changed the subject pretty quickly.
“So tell me about your other arm,” Tony said. “What did it do?”
“Well,” Bucky said as Tony looked into his socket. “It was an arm.” He shrugged. “That’s it. I mean, I guess it wasn’t your ordinary arm or your ordinary replacement, but it felt like it, most of the time, when I wasn’t thinking about it.”
“Waterproof?” Tony asked and Bucky scoffed.
“Of course,” he said.
“And it was light-weight,” Tony continued.
“Well, you know that, yeah, it was,” Bucky said. “Like I said, it was my arm. It was a part of me.” Then why did you keep taking it off, Bucky questioned himself in his head and frowned. Now that he had gone a month or so without it, he couldn’t quite remember why he’d ever wanted it off in the first place.
“You weren’t singing the same song when it broke that first time,” Tony replied and Bucky stared at the ground thoughtfully.
“I’m allowed to change my mind,” he retorted finally.
“So you’re still going to go get it back?” Tony asked and Bucky nodded slowly.
“Yeah,” he said. It had begun to dawn on Bucky in slow moments rising to his mind that Hydra was taking possession of him again. They were owning him again, even if they had to do it in pieces and chunks. That was his arm they were claiming, it belonged to him, it was a part of him. There, standing in front of Tony and thinking deeply, was the first time that Bucky had admitted that to himself in so many words. And suddenly, he had a fierce desire to get that same arm back, no matter what it took.
Then, Tony was finished and packing up his materials and he was saying something to Steve, but Bucky was so deep in his own thoughts that he hadn’t noticed.
“I’ll have a prototype in at least by next week,” Tony said to Bucky, stepping again into his suit and Bucky nodded slowly.
“Something temporary,” he said.
“Yeah, ‘course,” Tony replied and the metal mask snapped closed over his face. “See you then.” The metal over Tony’s hand pulled back and he opened Steve’s door and stepped out. “Bye Steve,” he said and Steve waved. Bucky nodded to him and then he was gone.
Bucky had been able to ignore Steve pretty well up until then, but now they were left alone.
“I thought you hated that arm,” Steve said quietly and Bucky shook his head. That had never been true, not exactly. He’d felt a level of disgust about his scars and the socket. He’d felt distinctly inhuman about the metal sometimes. Every so often, he would see in flashes, his left hand pulling gun triggers or strangling necks or breaking bones and he felt a fresh surge of repulsion, but he was coming to realize that it wasn’t repulsion about his arm. It never had been, ever. It was a repulsion and disgust about himself. His arm was just an arm, after all. It was just a tool. Like he was just a tool, like he had agency now, choice now. He could choose to do good things. He didn’t have to see that hand in the service of evil anymore, just like he didn’t have to see himself.
So maybe it was a level of forgiving himself, when he began to accept that he wanted his arm back. It was forgiveness, and it was also a very powerful strike at Hydra. Controlling James Buchanan Barnes was not an option for them anymore and he would have his agency back. All of it. Every single detachable vibranium piece.
Unfortunately, I wasn't able to post on fanfiction.net early like I was able to post here, so to make up for it there, everyone gets an extra chapter. This is the chapter for the 28th and the next one was what I had scheduled for the 29th. :) Enjoy. -BB