(no subject)

[bottledblond]

"New York City isn't exactly known for it's large, indigenous wolf population."

Steve isn't really paying attention to Tony Stark's yammering over a file he'd probably glanced at and tossed aside. He's too busy trying to get the screen to work properly so that a flick of his thumb across the surface won't send him ten pages ahead in the document he's trying to read or close out the pictures he's attempting to enhance. He understands the whole concept of renewable resources and he understands that the environment can't really sustain felling trees willy nilly, but he misses being handed folders with actually paper to spread out on the table in front of him.

Nastasha, thankfully, takes pity on him and the images of men and women with their throats pulled out appear on the large screen on the wall behind her. Steve isn't particularly pleased to see these things up close but he needs to know what they're actually planning her.

"Trained attack dogs?" Sam offers, but Steve, squinting, shakes his head.

"Germans used dogs during the war," he half muses. "That sort of mauling isn't what dogs can do. It's too--"

"Clean," Natasha offers and Steve nods. "This isn't the first time SHIELD has come across something like this." The photos on the screen change, become older and grainier. Not as clear. Steve can hear Tony muttering about glasses but ignores him again. "Same MO. Same lethal precision. Same wounds. They recovered fibers at the scene. Same fibers we have this time around too."

Steve's eyebrow arches. "You're going to say wolf?"

Natasha is grim as she nods. "Almost."

Bruce finally chimes in too. "Not just wolf," he says, adjusting nothing at all on his face as he's actually handed over his glasses to Stark, who is comically wearing them and looking pleased with himself. "Wolf and human DNA. I checked the old fibers too. It's unreal."

"So we have sixty years of attacks that tend to occur in three night cycles every month with a few years off in between groups," Tony says, leaning back, still in Bruce's glasses. "Sounds like a werewolf to me."

Steve snorts. "Now I've heard of a lot of crazy things," hell, he is one of those things, "but let's not jump to extremes. Do you think you can use the fibers from last night's attack to get a reading on where we might be able to find out who is--"

"Or what," Tony interrupts. "And yes. Ahead of you as always. We're ready to go for tonight."

There's not much else that needs to be discussed and so Steve nods, leaves the tablet behind to get some rest, and just after nightfall, heads to his spot on a roof not too far away from the Hudson River in Hells Kitchen to wait for something to happen. He expects nothing will, or that one of the other Avengers will be closer to the action when Tony's sensors go off.

Comments

[endsinafight]

Steve says he's fine, but the look on his face is one of shock, disgust. Bucky knows he said something wrong, but he's not sure what it was. He backtracks in his mind, going over the words he'd spoken but not able to figure out why they'd cause that horrified reaction from the other man. His eyebrows furrow once more, but he nods slightly at what sounds to him like a command, even if it doesn't exactly feel like one.

He's not going to question it either way. He leans against the door frame. "I'll be here," he says. He's a little nervous about where Steve might be going. He doesn't want him to leave him alone now that they're there, in the large apartment. It's different from his holding cells at HYDRA only because one of the rooms contain a bed and a dresser and at HYDRA, he either had to stand or lie on the floor, but he wasn't allowed to sleep. Not unless he was in the tube.

[bottledblond]

Steve’s gone a lot longer than he’d meant to be, though that’s not because he found a moment to reach catharsis thanks to Sam’s inability to leave him alone for too long. Steve might have gravitated to that once not too long ago, but the other man had made it abundantly clear that their relationship had boundaries that Steve had crossed too often enough already, despite Sam inviting him to.

He feels even more drained when he returns to Bucky, though there’s a smile on his face and his body is less tense. He can fake it when he needs to, and this just so happens to be one of those times that he really, really needs to. He’s carrying a large tray with all sorts of things on it, things he’s never tried before but had followed the packaging pretty easily enough. Tony’s kitchen is an oddity of packaged and prepared foods and lots and lots of powders and liquids.

Given Bucky’s lack of memory of solid food, he’s made a few protein drinks and shakes to go with sandwiches and soups and pastas. Sam had helped with all of it, perhaps a little reluctantly, but they are still friends, best friends after Bucky, and he’s never left Steve high or dry.

He’s a little confused when he finds Bucky exactly where he left him, just standing, and tilts his head, pushing the tray onto the end of the bed.

“Hey. Hey, what is it?”

[endsinafight]

He hears Steve coming before he actually sees him again. He hears the elevator first and he tenses because it could be anyone coming up. The plates in his arm shift and recalibrate like his body is preparing for a fight, but they grow quiet once more when he recognizes the faint scent of Steve's cologne and the sound of his heartbeat. It's slightly faster than most people's, unless said people are exercising or they're afraid.

His neutral expression shifts into something a little brighter when he actually sees Steve approaching him and he turns his head to watch him head into the bedroom and set the tray down. It's filled with glasses of thick liquids in different colors -- pink and white and brownish, and one that's green. There are plates of other things that smell good and a bowl of something hot and steaming and he shifts his gaze back to Steve at the question.

"I waited," he says uncertainly, not sure why Steve's looking at him like that.

[bottledblond]

“You don’t need to wait...” Steve has seen Bucky shapeshift, he’d watched a roguish looking bipedal wolf become his old friend, and while Steve isn’t ready to chalk it all up supernaturalism or monster horror, he’s not sure if Bucky is able to enter rooms without invitations. Sure, he’s getting the vampire and werewolf myths confused, but he’d never been one for pop culture and he had been in the ice during Universal’s mobster hayday. “Come on in, pal. This is your room now, until we figure out how to get you somewhere safer.”

Steve stands aside in case Bucky feels uncomfortable by him, hands held in front of him, crossed and at ease, eyes questioning and sharp in case he detects any stress.

“You probably could use some new clothes too,” he muses. “Bruce might have some things your size...” Banner is the only one actually occupying the Tower at the moment, and all of Tony’s clothing would just be too tight.

[endsinafight]

He doesn't need an invitation to enter a room or any other dwelling place, but he's learned not to make assumptions about what he is and isn't allowed to do. He remembers Steve, but he can't remember what the rules are with him, either. If he'd entered the room without explicit permission, he knows the kind of punishment he'd receive from his handlers at HYDRA.

Bucky's gaze darts to Steve's face, taking in his relaxed posture and the information that this is now his room, even if he's thrown because there's a bed in it. He doesn't remember ever having a bed before. He steps into the room cautiously and glances around, taking note of the large window and the closet opposite of it. The walls are a neutral color, but bright and not dull the way his containment cell is.

"It's nice," he says quietly, turning his gaze back to Steve again and lowering his eyes to the floor. "Thank you."

[bottledblond]

Actually, it is pretty nice, isn’t it? Steve has been surrounded by decadence since he’d burst out into Times Square and maybe that’s lost some charm for him. Having grown up in a two room tenement, sharing a bathroom with four other families, just about everything he’s experienced once out if basic training has been nice. Anything Tony Stark touches us beyond that still, because despite the plain and austere way Tony decorates, luxury is never lacking.

Steve grins. “Long way from the Brooklyn we grew up in,” he says, which might sound like small talk, but is honestly the first time he’s been able to be himself since his plane partially broke up and sank beneath the ocean surface. “So what are you hungry for? I can’t really speak to any of the smoothies but this chicken soup is really good. You can’t even tell it came out of a can.”

At least Steve is patient and kind. He doesn’t and won’t assume that Bucky will ever remember him, the way that they had been, or their childhood. That doesn’t mean he’ll stop supporting or loving him, though.

[endsinafight]

Long way from the Brooklyn we grew up in.

The statement gives him pause, stirs distant imagery of a metal fire escape and the smell of cigarette smoke, of a small body pressed up against his side and a feeling of contentment in his chest. It vanishes almost as quickly as it was there and he blinks a couple of times, glancing at the tray of food and drink that Steve had brought in. The green liquid reminds him of the sludge they always used in his tube and though it's familiar, he doesn't want it now.

He eyes the bowl of what he somehow knows is soup even if he can't remember having it before. It's the soup that he hesitantly picks up, mostly because of Steve's words. The bowl is hot in his hands but he lifts it to his mouth and takes a drink of the broth. Then he glances at Steve as it dawns on him he might've wanted the soup and he holds the bowl toward him to share.

[bottledblond]

“All yours, pal,” Steve says, though he does finally come closer to Bucky. He can smell him, sweat and metal all over his skin, and something a little bit animalistic too, though as he’s never had a pet, he can’t know for certain that the extra scent is dog or wolflike. “There’s a spoon there if it’s too hot.” He ends up sitting on the thick cream colored carpet, shoulder against the bedshirt.

There’s something childlike to the way Bucky is being, which actually reminds Steve of the first night they’d spent after he’d freed Bucky from that camp in Italy all those years ago. He very clearly sees the freshly washed, still somewhat dead eyed man sitting with him on his cot, staring almost through him until Steve couldn’t hold back a ridiculous question: ‘Do I look that bad now...?’

Bucky had snapped out of that near catatonia and started to laugh then, laugh that Steve could think he looked anything other than gorgeous, or that Bucky cared about the body he had.

The blond doesn’t really think there’s going to be that sort of immediate break through now, though. He lightly pats the floor beside him anyway.

Bucky is not the same man he had been but he’s still Bucky.

[endsinafight]

Bucky watches him as he approaches and he doesn't back away the way he had on the roof. This time it had almost been an expected movement. He doesn't touch Bucky, and he watches Steve as he sits down on the floor, a hint of confusion in his eyes as he wonders why he'd chosen the floor to sit on and not the bed. But when Steve pats the floor beside him, Bucky knows what he wants, and he takes the spoon off the tray before slowly easing himself down until they're sitting side by side.

It shouldn't feel natural, to be sitting like this with someone else, like he's an equal. But it had been Steve's choice, and it does feel natural. Like this is something they've done before.

Maybe it is and his brain is too messed up to remember.

He dips the spoon into the soup, stirring it without really thinking about it and glancing at Steve from the corner of his eye. Their shoulders are pressed close together but still not quite touching, legs stretched out in front of them. Steve is larger than Bucky, which is odd to him since nearly everyone from HYDRA is smaller than he is. He remembers one of them -- Rollins, he thinks is his name -- calling him a big dumb animal earlier this week, and how that had made the others laugh.

He wonders if any of Steve's friends call him a big dumb animal.

[bottledblond]

Steve is fine with a little silence. He and Bucky haven’t ever needed to find things to say to one another and Steve doesn’t feel the need to fill the quiet with anything more than spoon to bowl. He’s tired and still in his uniform, but there have been missions where he’s not taken it off for days. A few hours won’t kill him. He doesn’t want to broach the subject of a shower for Bucky either because it’s slowly becoming obvious to him that Bucky doesn’t quite have a grasp on autonomy here.

He isn’t going to dwell on that right now.

As Bucky finishes his meal, however, it becomes harder to keep quiet. Steve’s mind is drifting back to better days and reality will just destroy him if he lets the former take hold.

Besides, he needs information. They don’t have all the time in the world.

“What happened to your arm?” He’ll follow these questions up with strength quotient and healing factor. Eventually, he’ll get to the whole shapeshifting thing, but baby steps.

[endsinafight]

The soup tastes incredible, and he wishes he had more of it, but he doesn't ask. It's a treat to have been able to eat something like he's a person and not a machine, and he's not going to take the chance of being unable to do it again sometime by being greedy now.

It doesn't occur to him to try and make conversation. Even if Steve's not a handler -- and he's pretty sure he isn't because the sight of him doesn't cause fear to flood his veins -- conversation isn't something he has much experience with. They might talk to him but he's not allowed to talk unless asked a direct question.

But direct questions he can handle.

"It was injured in an accident. They cut it off and replaced it with a mechanical prosthetic," he answers dutifully.

[bottledblond]

“Does it hurt?” Because though it looks to be vibranium, light like his shield and flexible, that doesn’t mean it’s not painful. It’s something Tony can probably help with, or Bruce— those two are pretty much the opposite ends of a singular coin and as long as Bruce is here, he’ll temper Tony and make sure Bucky is cared for properly. That’s something for later. Something he’ll discuss eventually.

It’s baby steps with Bucky. Steve can handle that.

Whatever the answer given, the blond will nod and move on. He had the other questions, the important ones to get to. Bucky isn’t completely human. He’s not completely Bucky. He could be dangerous.

Steve has a lot of people here to protect.

“Can you control the uh... thing you do? All the time?”

[endsinafight]

His eyebrows furrow a little at that because it's worded so differently from how the scientists question him after a mission. Truthfully the arm is anything but light. It's a heavy, solid weight that had to be wired into his central nervous system and fused into his spine. "It's tolerable," he says after a moment.

He doesn't know how to explain that his pain tolerance is so high that the pain from the arm barely registers anymore at all.

"I'm not sure what you're asking."

[bottledblond]

Though Steve isn’t always a face value sort of guy, ‘tolerable’ is a better answer than ‘yes, very much so.’ It’s something to look into, but not now. Not yet. Bucky’s freedom needs to be fully secured before HYDRA (or STRIKE) come knocking.

He manages a small sigh as if feeling ridiculous for having to say any of this, but Steve is curious by nature and honestly needs to know how much of Bucky is the... what did Tony call him? A werewolf? The others don’t know how right Stark had been, though the glowing eyes didn’t do much to keep the fact that something is very wrong with Bucky (other than the whole HYDRA operative issue) from them.

He lifts an arm and props his elbow on the bed. His fingers dangle close to Bucky’s head, but the position also distances the rest of his body away. This isn’t strategic. He’s just trying to be comfortable during a difficult question.

“The fur. The teeth and your... eyes. Do you control that?”

[endsinafight]

He tries to prepare himself to face the punishment for not understanding, but instead of a harsh slap to the face, he watches as Steve shifts his position so he can see him better. The fingers near his head don't escape his notice, but he doesn't move away from them as Steve explains what he'd been talking about.

Oh.

"Yes," he answers. "But sometimes my behavior becomes erratic when I'm out for too long." It's why they had to put him in the chair so often; if he was out of cryo for too long, he'd end up lashing out at the scientists. At the handlers. At the STRIKE team. At whoever happened to be too close to him at the time.

[bottledblond]

Bucky doesn’t need to say the last part for Steve to begin to make guesses. Rumlow has seemed to be eluding to it as well. Bucky, one of their weapons, should have had fail safes in place to keep him from acting out, or going against orders, but instead, all they had were guns and sedatives. That means that they can’t control the thing that they had made, or that their brainwashing doesn’t stick for too long.

The mind does tend to heal itself after all. And if Bucky is out of... whatever contains him... for too long, he very likely would attack the people holding him.

It all leads back to what his best friend told him not too long ago when he said he’s dangerous.

Steve’s face grows serious.

“Buck, this is important— Can you control yourself or will you possibly hurt me?”

[endsinafight]

It's an important question. Maybe the most important question that Steve could ask, and it's one he knows he has to answer. He's always been required to answer with the utmost honesty because his erratic behavior could cause harm to a handler. He reminds himself that Steve isn't a handler. He's more important.

"I don't want to hurt you," he admits. "But you should put me in containment just in case." He doesn't want to go in another containment cell, but it's better than the injections that could stop him, that make his blood boil like liquid fire.

But complete honesty is part of his programming.

"But there are other methods that are effective if you have to stop me. An injection that contains wolfsbane and mistletoe will render me non-functional for approximately two to eight hours depending on the dosage until they work their way out of my bloodstream."

[bottledblond]

“Maybe we should stay away from the medical stuff if we can,” Steve says, smile perfectly lopsided. “You used to hate getting shots.” And it had been bad enough to pretend to jab that syringe into Bucky.

He can’t help but think that it might be a good idea to take Bucky to Banner’s containment unit, though. He isn’t sure he could properly stop him from hurting someone else if it meant hurting Bucky first. Steve’s loyalties, once earned, are unshakable.

“Tell you what, pal. We’ll get you some more of that soup and then you can take a shower and get changed and we’ll go see if Doctor Banner can take out any of his things from the containment unit, all right?” Maybe they should move more quickly, Steve doesn’t know how long they have before Bucky goes, for lack of a better word, feral. He still wants to treat him as human as possible. “Shower is through there. I’m going to see about clothes.”

Leaving Bucky is hard, harder this time than the last, so if he doesn’t do it now, he might not try again. Steve leaves the tray behind and hurries out of the room. He’ll find Tony and Bruce together, arguing over something or other that just goes over his head. “Gonna take you up on that offer for the containment unit, Tony,” he says, breaking into their conversation. “He might not be fully stable.”

“So you left him alone...? You know you can just call right?”

Steve frowns. “He’s all right. Oh, I need clothes too. For him. Doc, hate to ask but—“

“But Tony thinks he’s a teenager I know,” Bruce says, kindly. Tony just scoffs.

[endsinafight]

His expression brightens a little at the mention of more soup, even if he doesn't want to think about the shower right now. He hates the ice cold hose downs he has to get after a mission, before they either lock him in a cell for the night or put him back into the tube. He'll focus on the fact that he's being rewarded for something even if he's not sure what he'd done to earn it. Maybe Steve's just nice.

He nods in agreement, but hesitates at the mention of the shower even as he rises to his feet reluctantly, setting the bowl on the tray and watches as Steve heads out of the room.

Bucky makes his way cautiously into the bathroom, pleasantly surprised to realize it's an actual shower and not just a room with a drain and a hose. It's nice. The towels are fluffy as he runs his fingers over the one he pulls from the closet, not sure why it even occurs to him to look there.

There's soap in the shower, too, and shampoo. He steps in and stares at the handle for a moment before turning it on, cringing when the water comes out ice cold. But his eyes widen as it quickly warms up to something a lot more comfortable and a faint noise escapes him as he moves to step up right under the spray of the shower. He lathers himself up and washes his skin and his hair, rinsing all the suds off and repeating the process once more. He'll be in trouble for using the warmer water, but he'll accept the punishment gladly because the hot water feels so good.

He wraps the towel around himself when he's through, hair dripping wet as he returns to the bedroom, kneeling down on the floor and waiting for Steve to come back.

[bottledblond]

Steve doesn’t return alone, which makes the whole scene of Bucky in a towel, sopping wet and kneeling on the floor by the foot of the bed something a little akin to a porno. Tony even mutters as much, though Bruce gives him a cutting look that actually makes the older man shut his mouth. Steve would be impressed, but he’s too focused on Bucky.

There are clothes tucked under his arms, soft clothes, clothes that Bruce eluded to going to bed in though Steve finds them to be generic and maybe a little overly stretchy, like the work out clothes Bucky used to wear to box at the gym. They’re heathered grey and look too big for Banner but should fit Bucky just fine. He’s got a big bowl of soup in one hand in case Bucky is hungry still (of course he is), and the promise of more by way of a pot simmering on the stove in the kitchen.

“Bucky, this is Tony. I don’t know if you remember Howard Stark, but this is his son. And this is Doctor Banner. They’re both here to help you. How about you get dressed and have some more dinner?”

[endsinafight]

He hadn't anticipated anyone else being there, but he should have. His shoulders tighten a little but he blanches involuntarily at the sight, immediately dropping his gaze to the floor, heart beating harder in his chest. He knows what it means when there's more than one handler during a punishment. It means it's going to be bad. Really bad.

His body trembles and he closes his eyes, trying to prepare himself for the inevitable pain. When it doesn't come immediately, he realizes they're waiting for him to confess first. Because that's what they do, to make sure he knows why he's being punished.

"I used hot water and not cold," he says, not daring to look up.

Bruce shoots a confused look at Steve and then at Tony.

[bottledblond]

“Oh..Kay, Bucky, that’s fine,” Steve says with concern as he puts down the soup and tries to figure out how to comfort the man. “We’re not HYDRA. It’s not going to be like that. I’m Steve, you remember me, right?”

“We have to talk if your boyfriend is going to have flashbacks,” Tony says, insensitive like his brand has always been. Steve almost hates him for it. He doesn’t understand what genuine hardship is, he never has, and he doesn’t have the right sort of compassion to deal with someone obviously going through PTSD.

Steve thinks he should have gotten Sam instead as he crouches down to offer Bucky the clothing he’s got.

“Never gonna hurt you, you know that. I couldn’t.”

[endsinafight]

He holds his breath when he's addressed as Bucky and not Asset or worse yet, Soldier. No one calls him Bucky. He hasn't been Bucky in a long, long time. He blinks a couple of times when the familiar figure is suddenly crouched in front of him and it takes him a few more seconds to remember that he's not at the HYDRA base now. He's somewhere else. And Steve -- Steve is there, promising not to hurt him.

Steve.

His shoulders drop once more, relaxing from their tense posture as he looks back at him. "I got mixed up," he admits quietly.

Bruce looks from Bucky to Steve, troubled expression on his face. "Let's give 'em a minute," he murmurs to Tony, moving toward the door slowly.

[bottledblond]

“You can just say you want to get popcorn,” Tony says in response but he lets Bruce take his elbow and yank him out of the room. He’s not as terrible a person as he comes off, but he likes playing the jerk. It usually keeps people away. Banner has never seemed to get the memo, though his own personal issues keep him out of Tony’s life for months at a time.

They’re out in the hallway, not getting the popcorn Tony teased about, as Steve stupidly forgets himself and brushes his knuckles back across Bucky’s chin towards his ear and then lays his hand on the back of his neck.

He hasn’t done that in a long time, but his muscles remember the intimate touch and he can’t help himself. “It’s okay to be confused. I’m here to help you out.”

[endsinafight]

A quiet noise escapes him when Steve's knuckles brush over his skin and his hand lands at the back of his neck, and a shiver makes its way through him. His eyes are glassy when he meets Steve's gaze. The touch doesn't hurt, though there's little doubt that it could, if Steve decides to squeeze his hand around his throat. But it doesn't happen.

"Are you really here?" He knows he shouldn't, but he reaches up with his flesh hand and rests it at the back of Steve's neck in an echo of movement. Trying to make sure this is happening, that he's not imagining. That this is really Steve and not someone pretending to be Steve to make him more compliant to their orders. But he hasn't issued any orders. He gave him soup and let him shower and didn't punish him for using warm water.

"Is this real?"