Chapter 14
It had been a week. Oliver grew hungrier and recovered faster from all the blood Bruce was taking to test. He spent a lot of nights on the roof. He saw Spiderman a few times. that was pretty cool. Oliver liked Spiderman. He always felt like more of a regular person than any other superhero. No crazy life before his hero arch. He seemed like he struggled. He seemed like he saw the shit of the world. In shades of grey, rather than just black and white. He seemed like he wanted to help it all anyway. Oliver respected that. He wondered if Spiderman felt the same when his new powers started appearing. Whether or not he thought he was dying. Oliver felt like he was dying.
He breathed out a sigh and his breath fogged in the early morning air. It got colder at night here, and the city looked so blue. The sun was starting to rise over the horizon. The orange and blue rose together, just to cancel out in the middle. Bruce had said the acceleration of his body was starting to even out, not speed up as fast anymore. That was good. He looked back into the city. He could see, or rather, half feel the individual buildings now, with the buzzing. He didn’t even have to be scared or in pain anymore. Oliver felt a swing through the streets and spotted Spiderman’s red suit against the blue of the morning. Did he sleep? Did he need to? Maybe eventually, after saving people enough he felt it was a waste, to sleep rather than to help.
He hadn’t been sleeping very much. Sleep had become really hard. Not falling to sleep but, the dreams. He’d have them and then couldn’t stop thinking about them. They had become very gory. Not even realistic to anything that had happened. It was just a lot of blood and the same people who had hurt him. The sun had risen. Oliver looked at his phone. He supposed he should eat, it was about that time anyway. He didn’t feel hungry. Actually, he wasn’t quite sure if he was hungry or not. He had felt weird since he woke up. Like he was dreaming, or on auto plot. Or just that nothing was quite right.
Nothing was quite right, if he was honest with himself. His body felt so different than it used to. With the scars and the powers. He was afraid of it. Afraid of what it could do and afraid of the memories it held etched in its own skin. His own skin. It was his body. He didn’t feel like he was in his body. Oliver wondered if Spider-Man was ever afraid. He took another deep breath in and held it, feeling the buzz start to grow harsher and his lungs beg a little bit. He let it go. His breath billowed out in front of him and he left it, to cool to the temperature of the city air.
Oliver knew he looked like a bit of a mess when he came down. He knew he was gross, he wasn’t showering or brushing his teeth as much as he was supposed to. He knew the bags under his eyes grew more and more purple with each night. He knew that the life in his eyes was dimmer than it used to be. But he was pretty sure he looked somewhat better than Bucky did that morning. He had a hundred-mile stare over the rim of his coffee.
“You good?” Oliver wasn’t sure if they were at the stage in friendship where he was honest.
“Lovely.” They were not. His gaze stayed hooked on a million miles away for a second more before breaking away to look at Oliver. “You good?”
“Fantastic.” He trudged over to the coffee pot and poured himself a cup, dumping a good chunk of brown sugar in it. They both sat there, a million miles away, sipping their coffee beside each other.
Suddenly, and very suddenly, Oliver felt Bucky's gaze shift, settling, instead, on him. “You have weird dreams?” He looked down into his coffee. He didn’t think they were at this part in their relationship yet
“Aren’t all dreams weird?” He scattered around the subject, trying his best to suppress the memory. Last night was really gory. Really-
His intestines were in his arms and he was holding them. He was holding them so he wouldn’t die but his blood was everywhere and she was laughing and-
“You know, it doesn’t help to try and ignore them.” He could tell, couldn’t he?
Oliver took another sip of the coffee. “I don’t want to think about it.”
Bucky leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. “Fair enough, but you don’t really have to. You just have to feel them.”
“ pretty hard to feel dreams without thinking about them.”
“You just gotta do something that gives the same feelings. It’ll distract your thoughts, but you’ll still feel the emotions. I always got through it with training.”
Oliver paused. Didn’t he want to show him the training area a while ago? Was this why? He knew he was fucked up and thought it would be like therapy? For some reason this felt offensive, but he was right anyway.
“Mind if I take you up on your offer to show me around the training room now then?” He wasn’t sure he felt like working out. Whatever, what else was he going to do?
Bucky seemed to light up at the request. Something in him changed from the exhausted and not quite there person he’d been when Oliver came in. “Of course, you got workout clothes?”
“I got clothes I can work out in?”
“Perfect. Meet 2 floors down when you're ready?” He didn’t wait for an answer before placing his coffee cup in the sink and rushing off to a bedroom in the hall.
It didn’t take long for Oliver to be ready and waiting in the training room. Apparently, Bucky took longer. Much longer. So much longer that Oliver just decided to start exploring himself. It was modern, all of the equipment looked pretty standard but, elevated, or whatever. He settled on a punching bag, squaring his shoulders and knees in front of it. He felt a little stupid but, its not like there was anyone there. He closed his eyes. He could feel it, in front of him, just from the leftover fear of his dreams. He could feel it buzzing. It felt dense, tightly packed together, but so did his knuckles. He swung, feeling his arm split the air in a curve before hitting the bag.
Pain shot quickly up through his bones before fading away as he started to shake his hand, hissing at the bag. Goddamit, he thought punching bags were supposed to be somewhat soft.
“You know, when Tony tried punching that bag, he broke a finger, so you’re better than him at least.” Bucky stood in smart black workout clothes holding a gym bag and looking at him smugly. He put down his bag. “That bag was mostly for Steve 'cause Tony got tired of buying 100 more a month.” He walked over to a red coloured punching bag, it looked much more beat up. “This is for you, regular people.”
You? Not us? Oliver nodded awkwardly, he didn’t really know what to do now.
Bucky walked back to the other bag. “Also, your form is pretty good but, if you're looking for more power, remember that the torso is the source of the power and the arm is just an extension. Your twist gives you strength.” He hit the advanced bag, demonstrating the twist. The bag swung. He turned expectantly back at Oliver. He squared up to the red bag. “Put your dominant foot forward a bit more, keeps you better balanced.” He adjusted, closed his eyes, and twisted. It felt different this time. It felt like the strength was going through his arm rather than starting there. It was more transferable. With a smack and a sting in his fist, the bag swung, further than he thought it would. He hit the bag again and again, adjusting every time Bucky made a suggestion. Soon he was sweating and sat down on the floor, out of breath.
“That was great!” Bucky smiled. It was so genuine.
“So, are you like, super strong like Steve is then?” The smile faltered.
“What do you mean? Yes I mean but like, you know who I am right?” He sounded scared. He didn’t want to explain. He was buzzing.
“Should I?” Oliver said in a half-joking tone, trying to ease Bucky’s tension. Silence filled the space, filling in the air between them thick and heavy.
“I’m- I was, the winter soldier.” He said it softly, like the silence was a thick syrup, muffling his voice. He said it like Oliver should know who that is. He didn’t. Well, it rang some sort of bell but not loud enough to call attention to a solid memory. Just vague waves of news channels he heard his parents watch.
“Oh.” Bucky was on edge, waiting to react, waiting for a reaction. “Who is that?” He clearly didn’t have a planned reaction to that.
Instead, he blinked a lot, he opened his mouth, he closed his mouth, he thought for a second he opened his mouth again. “I. In the past, I did a lot of really really awful things. I hurt a lot of people for an organization. I. I didn’t know what I was doing.” he was getting quieter and quieter. “I killed people for them.” The syrup of silence seemed to drown out his voice entirely. He opened his mouth again and closed it again. He couldn’t look Oliver in the eye.
“Oh.” He didn’t really understand how that related to him using the same punching bag as a superhuman but, it was definitely new information. He looked guilty, really guilty. “So is Mr. Stark one to harbour fugitives or did you serve your time or-?” This was awkward. Really awkward. He wished he knew more about it, and knew how to react. It's hard to believe that this guy killed people.
Bucky looked at him with genuine shock. “You really don’t know about the whole thing? Like, it was hugely a public trial and everything and you just, don’t know?”
Oliver shrugged. “I was never one for foreign politics.” It all felt very strange all of a sudden. They were both just sitting on the floor of this very expensive gym and this guy had killed people. He was in a different country with strange new people and nothing to remind him of what was and this guy had killed people. Oliver wondered what it had felt like. What any of it had felt like. He said he wasn’t in control. Was he aware? Did he still feel people’s blood on his hands and their cries in his ears? Does he remember what it looked like? What it sounded like? What it felt like? Oliver wondered if it felt good. That power. That fear. He took a deep breath and refocused his eyes. What the fuck? Why would he think that? Did he want to kill people? What the fuck was wrong with him?
Bucky was looking at him. “Are you afraid?”
Not of you. Oliver changed his position, splaying his legs out, and leaning back on his arms. “Why would I be? You haven’t killed anyone since have you?”
He blinked in that same way again. “No, but-”
“And you wish that none of it had ever happened?”
“Well yes, but-”
“And you had next to no control over who, when or why you killed?”
“Yes, but just-. I still killed people.”
“Do you want me to be afraid of you?”
He waited a breath before responding. “I’m just— not used to a reaction like this. It feels ill-informed.”
“Well, have I gotten the basics of the facts?”
“Yeah, it just feels weird that you’re just, okay with it all.”
“I wouldn’t say I’m okay with it all. I’m sure many people, including you, have been pretty fucked up by it all but, you seem to feel pretty guilty and nice, so, things have obviously changed.” He still seemed tense. “Look, I—” He sighed, trying to figure out how to emotionally connect with the guilt of an unwilling murderer. “You said you weren't in control right? I’d probably blame a person with a gun at their head being told to shoot about the same. It changes the way you look at someone but, when it comes down to it, people do crazy things for fear.” Bucky didn’t look like the same person that had been teaching him how to punch a minute ago. He looked afraid. He looked deeply afraid. Oliver hated the organization that made him feel like that. Not because he really cared particularly about Bucky but, no one could burden the kind of power that made people feel a fear like that. Too many people gave themselves that power. Too many people caused that kind of fear knowing what it felt like. Sometimes Oliver thought the only way for them to realise was to be reminded of it.