Five
"Please! I have a child!"
Bang.
"You want it harder, slut?"
Bang.
"In Berlin! With the Crowns! Oh, God, please make it qui-"
Bang.
"He's got a gun!"
Bang.
Focus.
"Steve!"
Twitch.
"I got beat up in that alley-"
Slap. Focus.
"You don't have to do it alone-"
Focus.
"-'cos I'm with you. 'Till the end of the line, pal."
FOCUS!
"C'mon, Steve." Steve looked around. "Open your eyes, Rogers!"
"Grant! You have to let him wake on his own."
"Fuck you, Captain!"
"Grant, we have to let him adjust slowly!"
Hands grab Steve shoulders and he takes a deep breath as he opens his eyes. He was in a white room with two copies of himself staring at him. The one with long hair let loose, forces Steve to stand and shoves him towards a glass box. And he opens his eyes again to a different room, a lab of some sort. A man with curly hair and lab coat rushes towards his side.
"Grant?" He looks worried. Steve tries to reassure him.
"No, sir. Where...how?" He sits up- or tries to. He looks at his arms and they're gone. They're gone. He stares at the half bicep of his right arm and the left arm with no hand. He starts to hyperventilate. He can't see his left leg. His right is barely there- it doesn't go past his knee. He closes his eyes as he hears the doctor call his name.
"Steve?!"
'Steven, you need to open your eyes.'
Steve opens his eyes and sees metal piled on a table. He takes a deep breath and wiggles around until he finally gives up on sitting. The doctor purses his lips at Steve's resigned sigh. Steve looks up at him. "What happened to me?"
Bruce pulls a chair up to Steve's- and it is Steve when he wakes up, of course- and takes a deep breath. "Well, Captain Rogers, where should I begin...?"
Two days earlier
Bruce had just stood up after leaning over a table for the first time in-he checks his watch- 14 hours. He sighs as he cracks his back.
"Is it later yet?" Natasha asks from behind him. Bruce jumps and turns around to face her.
"Um, can we grab the pizza first?" Clint pipes up from the living room of Bruce's floor.
"No," Natasha moves so she can sit near Steve's unconscious form. "I nee to know now. How long has it been, Bruce?"
"Don't do it, man! Fight the power!" Clint slides into the med room they're in.
"Mmm, beginning of May. The 6th I believe. At least that was when Pepper had called me. It could have been earlier but you would have to ask Pepper." Bruce smiles at Natasha and walks towards Steve to see if he could remove his metal limbs. They seemed to be causing some type of infection because of the greenish coloring on Steve's skin surrounding them. While Natasha and Clint bicker about why she hasn't been told about Steve returning, Bruce is able to remove the lower right leg and-
"Holy shit." Bruce drops the metal limb onto the table as he tries to not hurl. Hydra- it had to be- must have figured out that his limbs somehow grow back or that it healed to quickly to not produce pain because the whole supposedly empty limb was filled with bone, muscle, and skin that's been cut off of the leg.
Natasha and Clint walk over and see what's bothering Bruce. Clint throws up while Natasha has a frozen look of horror on her face.
"What have they done to him?" Natasha asks the open air around them as Bruce starts removing the other prosthetics.
Common Room, Stark Tower; July 4
He flips a page in the book he's reading when the door to the elevator dings open and he hears his name being yelled.
"Buckyyyyyyyy!"
He sighs and closes his book. "Damien, is there a reason why you scream my name at ass o'clock in the morning?"
Damien flops on the couch next to Bucky. "Because your cock is so irresistible that I need it every hour."
"Dammit, Damien!" Bucky slaps him with his book.
"Ow! Hahahaha, you...you could call me-" Damien looks directly at Bucky's face as he snaps his fingers in front of his face. "-Damn-ien."
Bucky stands. "Get the fuck outta here, Damien. Whad'd'ya want?" He goes to the communal kitchen.
"Well," Damien kicks his feet onto the coffee table. "I'm bored so I thinks to myself, 'Damn, Damien. You are bored as fuck and your bed looks pretty empty. Why don't you go out to get someone to warm your bed?' And so I say to my thinks, 'Damn, Thinks, I should. But I don't want to go alone. Clint is sexting Tasha, Bruce and Tony are making science babies and Thor's off world so that leaves Bucky.' And so here I am..." Damien sees Bucky come back into the room carrying a mug of coffee and a plate of pop tarts. "Begging you to go with me."
Bucky sighs. "Where will we even be going? No clubs are open at 9 am, Dame." He sets his plate down and starts eating.
"Good thing we aren't going to any clubs."
Bucky's pretty sure that look was the same look Damien got when he threw the grenades into the boat of ex-Red Room agents. Oh no.
Times Square, New York
"Bucky! Bucky! Buuuuuckyyyyyy!" Damien skips over to where Bucky is filling a tan teddy bear with stuffing.
"What do you want, asshat?" Bucky asks. He gets a disproving look from one of the moms there. Oh well.
"Does this rainbow bear show my gayness?" He holds said rainbow bear in Bucky's face.
Bucky knocks it away with his hand. "If I say yes will you leave me alone to try and not make me look like an idiot for actually coming here with you?"
"Yup!" Damien rocks on his heels.
Bucky sighs. "Then yes, Damien, your gayness is absolutely exploding from that little bear."
Damien snaps his fingers. "Fuck yeah it is. Now all I need is Adam Lambert and my life is complete."
Bucky take his now stuffed bear. "Isn't he going to the party Stark is throwing tonight?"
Damien gasps as he hands his bear to the lady sitting at the stuffing machine. "I need to get eyeliner. And a necklace. Oh my god. Oh my God! I'm dying." He takes his little heart and rubs it on his head. When the woman asks him to run it on his butt he turns to Bucky. "Can I rub it on your ass? It's a bit more firmer than mine."
"Oh my god. Damien no."
"Damien yes."
"Dude! You have your own ass." Bucky hugs his bear closer to him.
Damien frowns and rubs it on his own butt. "Buzz kill."
Bucky scoffs and looks around the clothes section. He eyes zero in on a small 1940's uniform similar to the one he had so long ago. He picks it up and just stares, lost in memory.
'I had him on the ropes.' Steve smiles at him while blood leaked out of his mouth and onto that ridiculous blue get up the government made him wear.
'I'm sure you did, pal.' Bucky says back. When they finally were back at the tents, Bucky and Steve had just managed to slip in their tent when Steve attacked Bucky with kisses. Bucky laughs.
'Miss me that much, huh, punk?' Bucky ran his hand through Steve's hair as Steve nuzzled his head into Bucky's neck.
'I just love you, ya jerk.'
"Bucky?"
Bucky snaps back to the present and sees Damien staring at him. He smirks. "D'ya find a rockstar get-up for your gay bear?"
Damien smiles widely. "Not yet. Just you wait, bitch." He takes off to go hunt down some leather pants and Bucky starts putting the little outfit on his bear.
"There you go, Stevie. Gettin' you all dolled up again."