Natasha pulls up her tank top slightly, fury boiling in her eyes. She motions to a puckered pink scar on her abdomen. "He shot straight through me to hit the nuclear engineer I was safeguarding in Odessa. He was the one responsible for my training in the Red Room. I watched him murder a twelve-year-old girl for nothing after she twisted her ankle dancing. He's Hydra's prize pet; he wouldn't have just woken up. Someone had to be there to do it."
"Does he seem like a threat? Look at him!" Steve exclaims, gesturing over to Bucky. In the same moment, his heart skips a beat as he realizes he's gesturing to empty air. The bowl of crackers is still sitting on the counter, abandoned.
Natasha sucks in a breath. "J.A.R.V.I.S., lock down every room with a weapon in it."
"All done, Miss Romanoff. Is there anything else I can do?"
"Not at the moment." Natasha cocks her head up at Steve, a look of both defiance and desperation glimmering in her eyes. "Why don't you go sing the Winter Soldier a lullaby, hm? He might listen to you better than he'll listen to me, but if you die, I'm gonna say I told you so."
Steve breathes out a laugh. "I'll try not to, then."
"Good." Natasha looks down at her feet in what Steve can only describe at the first time he's seen her show weakness. She's scared. "Cause if you die, Rogers, Thor and I will beat your ass, you hear me?"
She's breaking down from the inside out. Steve nods gently. "I hear you, Nat."
Her jaw trembles, but she doesn't comment on the nickname. Steve knows that Clint used to call her that, but she looks so lonely that he can't help thinking she needs a bit of comfort in times like these. She looks at him for a moment longer, hesitating, before finally retreating to the elevator. Steve watches her back until she steps in and the doors slide close silently.
"J.A.R.V.I.S., where's Bucky?"
The disembodied voice seems to hold an ounce of empathy as it responds. "Down the hall to your left, the last doorway on your right, Mister Rogers."
"Mister Rogers? You're bound and determined to make me feel old." Steve starts down the hallway slowly, debating with himself if he should get his shield first. He hasn't picked it up in eight months, hasn't even touched the uniform. He decides against it. "Despite what the calendar says, the time I spent in the freezer doesn't count, so I'm only 25."
"What would you have me call you?" J.A.R.V.I.S. responds cordially.
"Steve is fine."
"Very well."
Steve wets his lips and continues down the hall, eyeing the closed door that Bucky is supposedly behind. What is he supposed to say, when Bucky reacted to him so nervously before? Steve knows he must be confused because he's hearing different things from the two remaining Avengers.
He doesn't have to think about it for long because soon enough, he's standing in front of the door, hand raised to knock.
He does.
There's no answer.
He tilts his head closer to the door and relaxes the defensive stance he hadn't even realized he had dropped into. There's not even the rustle of fabric on the other side. Briefly, he wonders if J.A.R.V.I.S. made a mistake. Regardless, he twists the doorknob and opens the door gently, eyes flicking around the darkened space.
It's a storage room. He almost leaves, a quiet sigh of frustration escaping his lips before he spots a human-like figure in the corner of the room. They're sitting on a chair, legs draw up to their chest. As his eyes adjust to the dim lighting, Steve notices skin-tight fabric poking out around the ankle of a pair of sweatpants; it's definitely Bucky.
"What are you doing hiding here?" Steve jokes softly, trying to revert to how he used to cheer Bucky up when they were kids. "You tryna avoid me or something?"
Bucky's voice is raspy and tired when he responds. "My throat hurts."
"Yeah. That's one of the side effects." Steve treads inside the room and leaves the door open a crack. "You get used to it after a while, but I can get you a glass of water."
"Don't bother. I'll be gone before you wake up tomorrow morning."
"I don't plan to sleep here, so it's not bothering me."
Bucky's eyes are still turned toward the floor. He hasn't moved a muscle since Steve walked in and his face is still devoid of emotion, looking terrifyingly blank.
"It's okay to feel scared, you know."
No reply. Bucky blinks.
"Sorry if Natasha and I startled you. It wasn't on purpose. We're both just stressing, trying to figure out how to move forward."
Bucky works his jaw like a rusty puppet before finally speaking. "You don't need me getting in the way."
This is harder than Steve initially thought. Bucky sits rigid and unmoving, completely unlike anyone Steve remembered. He looked like Bucky with that sharp jawline and sculpted calves that Steve always admired, but now his brown hair hangs limply around his shoulders. Then, of course, there's the metal arm marked by a red star that reminds Steve too much of the white star that decorates his own shield, only drenched in blood. The two of them are like magnets, orbiting around the real questions lingering in the room and constantly repelling each other in the opposite direction.
Steve sighs, releasing some of the tension in his shoulders. He wanders over to the dusty desk pushed against the wall and takes a seat on the edge. Bucky's eyes stay trained on the floor but his cheek twitches, indicating he registered Steve's transition.
"I don't mean to treat you like a stranger," Steve starts. "Some of this is new to me too, I just didn't think this was how it was gonna go. You clearly don't remember me and I don't mean to push it. Goddamn, I feel stupid."
Nothing he said was a lie. Bucky is acting cold only because he really doesn't know anyone else. That's exactly how Steve would act if he had all his memories forcibly stripped away and was turned into a killing machine.
Just now, Steve notices the bruises on Bucky's knuckles and the scratches along his flesh hand. "You know, I used to be the one who would fight all the time. I'm not sure what gave you bruises like that, but there's gotta be bandages around here somewhere."
Bucky shrugs. "I was stuck in a capsule and wanted out."
"Glass, then?" Steve pushes himself off the table and starts hunting through the boxes stacked around the room. "Damn. Listen, even if you don't remember me, I still feel obligated to help you out."
A pause. "Thank you."
"It's no problem." Steve fishes around in a box with 'first aid' scribbled messily along the side until his fingers catch on the fabric of what he recognizes to be medical bandages. He draws out the roll, blowing off some dust before unraveling the end of it. In between trying to judge how long of a strip is needed, he throws occasional glances at Bucky, whose fingers start to wring in front of his knees.
He takes a step toward his friend, who acknowledges this motion with the slightest swivel of his head. "Here, you hold out your hand and I'll get all that fixed up."
Bucky offers his flesh hand slowly. It trembles in the damp air. Steve can see now that the skin around his knuckles is discolored in various shades of black and purple in the places that aren't split open entirely. The serum already got to work on the minor injuries, as there's already new pink flesh underneath. Regardless, Steve positions the bandage over the back of Bucky's hand and stretches the fabric over the knuckles and between his fingers to provide some stability. He ends up tearing multiple more pieces from the roll in order to cover all of the cuts, including the deep ones in Bucky's palm from the glass. Finally, when he's satisfied with the job he's done, he tosses the roll back in the cardboard box and rubs his thumbs across the bandages to make sure they're flat against the wounds, but not tight enough that it's painful. Bucky flinches at this and Steve draws his hands away quickly. "Shit, sorry. That probably hurt."
Bucky draws his flesh arm back into his chest. "No, you're fine. It doesn't really hurt anymore."
Steve hums in response, resuming his awkward position against the table. "Well, listen. I never thought I'd be the one offering you this, but... well, this tower is really empty. There's a lot of rooms and honestly, it just makes me sad to stay in here. I have a nice little country home about forty-five minutes from here. It's got a bunch of animals and it's kind of small, but I'd bet I could fashion a bedroom for you. What do you say?"
Bucky looks up at him, staring him in the eyes for the first time since he'd arrived. His expression is unreadable, but his lips part slightly as though he is in shock. Steve imagines a pencil sweeping across the paper of his sketchbook, graphite hinting at the stubble on Bucky's chin and capturing the glint in his eyes that he can't quite place. He lets his thoughts go unchecked for a moment too long and instead of a pencil, it's Steve's fingers tracing the outline of Bucky's face, trailing along his neck and carding through his chocolate-colored hair. His mind screams of a memory he tried to forget, a memory from before the war; Bucky carrying Steve through their neighborhood in the pouring rain bridal-style. One of Steve's hands gripped his own twisted ankle tightly, while his other arm clung to Bucky's neck. They were reaching the house and Steve, on a stupid moment of impulse, had leaned his head into the small space between his best friend's shoulder and neck, burrowing deeply and sighing in contentment. Bucky had stiffened, startled, but after a moment, he had tilted this head protectively on top of Steve's.
They never talked about that moment. When they had gotten inside the house, neither had said a word until Steve had ice wrapped in a hand towel pressed against his ankle and cursed aloud at the cold. He had been surprised that Bucky hadn't yelled at him for being reckless; he had been, and he knew it, but Bucky's silence somehow made a bigger impact than his raised voice ever could.
Steve blinks, back in the present. It could have been one second or one year that he was standing here, reminiscing about one of the first times he ever showed affection towards his best friend, but Bucky is still staring at him. His metal arm glints dully in the low light as a plate shifts, but Steve doesn't think that changes anything. He's always been an advocate for taking advantage of opportunities as they arise. Even if this man isn't the Bucky he remembers, it's a start. Nothing is going to change if he keeps moping around.
"I'll think about it."
Steve's mouth quirks up in a smile. "I'll take a maybe. Let me know."
Bucky's eyes get a little warmer, and he visibly relaxes as he realizes Steve isn't going to force him to go anywhere. He doesn't say anything, but the tension between them doesn't seem quite so suffocating anymore.