talk to me
“I asked if he wanted milk, and he just…froze,” Natasha said, standing at the back of the couch Tony was lounging on.
“Sit down, you’re making me nervous,” Tony said.
“What were your exact words?” Bruce asked.
“I said, ‘Want some milk?’ and he kind of just…it was like I hit the wrong button on a machine.” She recoiled – she knew it was terrible to compare Bucky to a machine, but it slipped out.
“It probably triggered something,” Bruce explained, his hands gesturing in the air as he spoke. “Something related to his PTSD – he has too many, we just haven’t figured all of them out yet.”
“Face it, we might never will,” Tony interjected. It would have sounded rude and insensitive coming from anyone else. “Got triggered over milk? Jesus Christ.”
Maybe not.
“Shut up, Tony,” Steve glowered. More bruises were blossoming and littering about his face.
Tony had this look like he hadn’t even realized how offensive he was being. “Right. Sorry.”
“Is his nose going to keep bleeding each time he gets stressed like that?” Steve asked, looking in Bruce’s direction.
Bruce shifted uncomfortably. “I’m not a medical doctor, but it’s all because of his super-serum expiring. His system is still in shock, and fragile. We can only treat it symptomatically.”
“Can’t you do anything?” Tony asked Wanda. “Get into his head or whatever.”
Wanda shook her head dejectedly. “I haven’t mastered the full potential of my powers yet. I can very easily damage him far worse than he already is.”
Tony turned to Steve. “I know you hate to hear this, but we need to send him back to Wakanda.”
Natasha balled her fists so tightly, her nails biting into her palm. Put me back to sleep, put me back to sleep.
“Shuri said she did all she could. She removed the trigger words, but she can’t remove the trauma –“
“That’s not,” Tony sighed, “that’s not what I’m saying, Steve.”
A sharp edge creeped into Steve’s facial expression, and when he spoke, it leaked into his voice. “How much longer you suggest we put him under? How can we fix him if he’s not dealing with any of the crap Hydra put him through?”
Before Tony could respond, the door to Bucky’s room opened. Sam shut it softly behind him, the door barely making a click. “He’s asleep. The doctors gave him some painkillers and Xanax. Should be out for a while.” No one said anything. Sam sighed. “I go out for a run for one hour, and come back to this.”
Steve got up. “I should – I mean, can I see him? Stay until he wakes up?”
Sam looked like he was pretending to consider to spare Steve’s feelings, but Natasha saw the answer on his face before he even said them out loud. “I don’t think it’s time yet, Cap.”
“Sit down, Steve,” Natasha said.
Steve dropped slowly back down onto the couch next to Vision, his one hundred years looking like they had finally caught up with him. “He really hates me, huh?”
“No,” Natasha answered honestly. “I just need to speak to you.” She stared at him intently, eyes boring into him, and Steve stared back.
“Vision and I will, uh, get started on lunch,” Wanda said awkwardly. “Come on, Vis.”
“We will also put the kitchen back in order. Have no worries,” Vision said. He phased out, leaving Wanda alone and looking somewhat annoyed as she turned towards the kitchen alone.
“I’ll pay for the damages, Tony,” Steve started but Tony held his hand up.
“He didn’t mean it. I don’t hate your friend, Steve. He’s welcomed here. Don’t get me wrong.” Without another word, Tony got off the couch and headed for his tech lab.
Bruce stood up, looking just as awkward as Wanda had. “I’ll just…yeah.”
“Yeah,” Sam echoed him dryly and followed him out. “Let me know if he wakes up,” he called over his shoulder.
When everyone was gone, Steve said, “Are you ever sitting down or what?”
Natasha uncrossed her arms and bowed her head, leaning against the back of the chair. That was as far as she would get to sitting down at times like this.
“What did he tell you?” Steve demanded. “Did I do something to him?”
Natasha shook her head, still not meeting Steve’s eyes. “It was Pierce.”
“And?”
“The both of you look awfully alike, you know, when Pierce was in his prime.”
Realization swept over Steve’s face. He stewed in silence, the implication lying heavy in the air.
Steve swallowed. “Nat, did Pierce ever...”
Natasha nodded wordlessly.
“That was why he was so disgusted with me?”
Natasha nodded again.
“Jesus.”
Natasha weighed her words carefully before she spoke again. “Pierce would demand to be called by your name.”
It was very subtle, but Natasha saw how Steve froze, his spine going rigid. She noticed there were bruises on Steve’s white knuckles, but it wasn’t Bucky that he had hit.
She carried on, pretending not to notice. “He only just told me all this today. I guess it kind of just, spilled out.” He had completely torn himself apart; some things were bound to fall out. “Pierce knew about the both of you.”
“Nat…” Natasha hated it. She hated the sympathy in Steve’s voice. The guilt. “It was just once. During the war. It was pretty common for men to help each other out…”
Natasha batted his explanation away. “Come on, Rogers. I’m not mad. I get it.” And she genuinely did. She was just still taken aback, that was all. “Let’s not make it weird.”
There was a pause, before Steve pressed on, “What else did he say?”
Natasha shrugged. “Nothing you don’t already know. The abuse. The torture. Same old stuff.”
Steve’s jaw was clenched so hard it looked like it might break. He was too enraged at Hydra to say anything more.
After another stretch of silence, Steve asked, “How bad was it for you?”
Natasha glanced up at him from her blank stare at the carpet. “What was?”
“Coming in from the cold. Joining SHIELD.” He looked apologetic. “The PTSD.”
Natasha shrugged. “It was bad. But everything bad for me, is worse for him.” She didn’t plan on going farther than that, but decided that Steve deserved to know and not be left in the dark. “Let’s just say I was their hopes and dreams, and James was their most valuable asset and nothing more than a toy.
“I was raised to kill. Most parents would read their kids bedtime stories at night, right? The Red Room made us spar – all us little girls in tiny pigtails – until the other couldn’t get up anymore. Violence was routine for me, like eating and brushing my teeth. And I killed with no further thought about justice, about guilt – nothing. It was like slaughtering animals for food.
“James was different. He was always standing up for the little guys; you of all people know that. He fought for his country. Then Hydra just… Everything he did, he did because he thought it was right. The skewed his thought process, his morals. He did them somewhat blindly – his brain was too fried to question why. When he finally broke out of the brainwashing, it’s like waking from a nightmare and into an even worse one where every horror was real. You can’t believe you did those things, but you remember doing those things. And you remember how determined you were to successfully eliminate each target. How you wanted them to die.
“Me? I didn’t snap out of it and got whiplash. I just turned over. Realized how wrong I was, drowned in guilt, nightmares, believing I deserved to die. But I never had to deal with some buried memory resurfacing out of nowhere when someone so much as says the wrong thing. Or having to worry about being turned again. I am still my own person. The Red Room has always allowed me to be my own person – they just shaped who I was, and whoever I was, I was allowed to keep so long as I did everything I was told.”
Natasha hated to toot her own horn, self-deprecating as she was, but she saw how much Steve admired her over her sappy little story. She hated it.
Steve broke the silence again after a while.
“I might take him back to Brooklyn. See if he could find something to ground him—“
“Steve.”
“What?”
Natasha finally sat on the couch opposite him, her elbows on her knees. “You need to let him go,” she said evenly.
Steve seemed taken aback. “He’s my friend,” he enunciated each word.
“Bucky Barnes was your friend. That’s not who he is anymore.” Steve looked so hurt Natasha wanted to kick herself.
“Look, I know that,” Steve defended himself. “But maybe it could help.”
“You’re just going to stress him out.”
“So what are you going to do? Tip-toe around him on eggshells? He needs to remember who he was.”
“Steve.”
“You don’t get to decide what’s right for him every time,” Steve remarked, his tone snarky. “I know him too. I’ve known him his whole life—“
“You think you’ve known him his whole life, and yours, but the truth is Steve you spent more time sleeping in the ice than you did being his friend! He was the Winter Soldier far longer than he ever was Bucky Barnes. You think you know him best and you do, but that man is gone.”
Steve was sitting so still, like the slightest spasm of a muscle was going to make him explode.
Natasha sighed. “I’m sorry.”
“No. You’re right,” he replied curtly. He still didn’t move.
Natasha looked at the wall behind Steve’s head, and back towards him. He was staring past the floor, looking like he was going to kill someone. Natasha went back to staring at the wall.
After what felt like hours, he took a deep breath and when he spoke again, his voice was softer but his posture was still strung tight. “You’re right. I, uh. I’m going to punch a few bags. Let me know when he wakes up and if I can see him.”
Steve’s footsteps clicked away stiffly.