Bucky was fine.
Okay, Bucky was decidedly not fine, but he had recovered enough of his own confidence to be able to comfortably call out Stark or any of the other Avengers when they were blatantly wrong about something.
Like now.
“Hey Stark, I was wondering- why’s Steve got no scars when Barnes is covered in them? I thought their serums were similar?” Clint had obviously been debating this topic mentally for a while, as it’d broken out during team bonding.
Steve stiffened, and tapped a hand against Bucky's elbow, before frog marching himself out of the room. Bucky half turned, intent on following, but was drawn back into the conversation by Tony’s lackadaisical response.
“Dunno. I’m a mechie, not bio, Robin Hood.”
“Well, I still want to know.” Hawkeye- Clint, Bucky reminded himself, Clint shoved a handful of Doritos into his mouth. Garbling through them, he continued. “I know Steve-o spent some time in deep freeze, which, whoo boy I’m not even going to try to get started on- but… he was in World War Fricken Two, with all the associated standard medical treatments. No way he got out looking brand spankin’ new.”
“From a purely medical standpoint, Captain Rogers’ healing capabilities is, well, nearly unprecedented.” Now the Hulk- goddammit, Bruce, had decided to throw his two cents into the discussion as well. “In fact, when doing my research, one question continuously proposed by my colleagues was precisely how far that healing factor went, regardless of any time limit.” Bruce started to look a little grim, to Bucky's content. What kind of assholes sit and talk about the point of failure of an enhanced being? HYDRA? “I didn’t continue it after my...incident… but, well, rumours reached me that after his discovery in the Valkyrie, it had once again become a popular subject of debate in the labs.”
“Subject of debate? What were you running, a lab for the skin trade?” Bucky snarled, then rounded on Clint. “Besides, Steve’s fucking covered in scars.”
“Uhh… are we talking about the same guy?” Iron-no, Tony Stark- began next. “Aside from the whole skin trade comment at my Brucie- which, by the way, we will be addressing later, Steve’s like, pristine. Have you seen him recently, or have your eyes finally caught up with your age, Murderbot?”
“Yeah, no. I think I’d know, Stark, considering I’m the one who lives on his floor with him. He’s scarred.”
“Uhhh, no, Natasha, back me up. Steve’s got no scars. Is it because he usually gets medical treatment quickly when he gets hurt but you didn’t? Not to, like, bring up bad memories of your asset-days but beauty wasn’t really a priority for your handlers. Aesthetic, maybe, but not beauty.” Tony threw back.
Natasha looked around with purposely huge eyes, sighed, and shook her head. “Bad idea Tony, Clint, bad idea. Stop digging your grave, you’re deep enough already. Djeymes, he’s just obtuse, he’s not being rude on purpose. Just ignore him.”
“Obtuse? Obtuse? The only one who’s obfuscating the truth is Barnes. Steve. Is. Pristine. Dermatologists hate him! If he ever ended up with a permanent scar, time to call Dr. Green Machine ‘cause the serums probably wearing off!”
“Shut the fucking hell up, you assholes. Steve. Is. Scarred. Haven’t you got any tact? I can see them, clear as day. They’re literally all over his body. When I realized that the Rebirth scientists noted that all Steve’s scars seemed to disappear, I nearly shat myself. Every single centimeter of his skin is marked, and I’m not sure they’ll ever go away. If you were enhanced like us, you’d be able to see them. Just because your scars are obvious to everyone, doesn’t mean that Steve’s are. No, they’re just out on display to every enhanced. Did you know this little mutant child introduced himself once when Stevie and I were undercover because she wanted to know why our skin was so ‘zebra-y’. She’d taken one look at us and nearly outed us immediately as operatives because she could see every little tiny scar that we thought was too faded for a baseline to see! They were! But every single time we meet any one with sensory enhancements- they can smell how inhuman we smell, they can see our scars, they can hear our heartbeats and blood and how different- wrong- they are compared to a regular human. Sometimes they can literally just sense that we are ‘off’ and not normal! Every single time! On meet and greets, every so often we run into an inhuman, mutate or mutant who can’t even bare to be in the same room as us, because they can sense that we’re weapons. It sucks! But at least with me, I’m used to people reacting that way, and they expect to meet the Winter Soldier. But with Stevie, everyone expects to meet some kind of folksy hero, kind and pretty who’d defend them but would never hurt an innocent fly. Thing is, they expect heroes to be invulnerable, and Steve’s just… not. He’s taken one too many hits to be so, many to help soften the blow of shrapnel into a baseline team member. Then, all y’all think he’ll just magically fucking heal, like just because the injuries are gone quickly means it doesn’t even hurt! Steve’s used to hiding and reducing injuries, and this mentality is not helping! And the worse thing- our unageing asses will bear the scars for decades and decades to come. At the rate we’re picking them up, we’ll never be totally free of them. Not even if we quit right now and swam in a pool of Aloe fucking Vera everyday!” Bucky- he had begun to get accustomed to referring to himself as Bucky, felt the red hot anger began to build. Weren’t other avengers meant to understand irregular warfare? Weren’t they meant to sympathize to the constant stress of always waiting for the next fight but never knowing when it’d be?
“Hey, hey, calm down Barnes,” It was Tony, and he’d seemed to have acquired the necessary survival instincts to tell when nicknames were dangerous to use. “We didn’t mean anything about it, okay? We’re just confused. Ya know, we’re just a coupla mortals with shitty eyesight and apparently senses. We don’t know what you mean that he still has scars. To us, he doesn’t, we can’t see or feel them. It’s why the Army was so interested in you two.”
Bucky stiffened, and glared at Stark. The army was still a sore point; after all, Ross hadn’t only been after Banner, but all Enhanced- Steve and Bucky included. “Well, maybe people should learn to keep their noses in their own damn business.”
“Okay, Barnes, Stark, and especially you Barton- don’t act like you didn’t start this with your invasive ass question.” Sam gently smacked Clint’s hand as he reached for the button to call the elevator back to the common floor. “Barnes- explain in three sentences or less the general idea about why you reacted so angrily, then Clint or Tony, whichever one wants to, get to explain their side. If anyone has any argument about this, you’re free to check into a motel. Warning, only ones letting you in this late will be pay by the hour, so.”
Bucky's glare, if possible, increased in intensity. “That’s stupid.”
“Nope, it’s healthy communications skills which we going to fucking learn before we resort to grunting and pointing to get through missions, capishe?”
“Fine.” Bucky took a breath, and then began. “Don’t refer to-“
“Barnes! I statements- use I instead of automatically making it all about them, okay?”
“How is it not?” Bucky grumbled, but began anew. “I- well, Steve and I are touchy about scars and discussions of ageing and death. We don’t age- Thor confirmed it for Steve the last time he was here. In addition, scars are also an issue as we heal very quickly, but have more nerve endings, so it hurts worse even when healing. Also, our scars hang around and we haven’t yet found ourselves to be missing a scar we remember getting.”
“Thank you for your contribution, Bucky. Clint, you want to do it?” Sam said, raising an eyebrow at Clint and Tony.
“Uh, sure?” Clint responded. “Look man, we weren’t tryin ta make ya uncomfortable, it’s just that, well, you guys always get hurt and then heal nearly as quickly, an’ it kinda seemed like no matter what, you guys would be fine at the end of it. Steve’s injuries just seemed to disappear and we know you’re enhanced, but like… yours… don’t. You scar like ya, but heal as quick as Steve. You both were enhanced with the same type of serum, though, so we just kinda assumed sommat was up with it.”
Bucky grimaced. “That was four sentences.”
“So was yours, Buck-o” Sam rebuked. “But now you can explain about it if you wish, or you can say it’s not their business and go check on Steve.”
“You’re not my mother, flappy bird.”
“And now you’re running out of quips, Jesus save us all.”
“I’m Jewish. At least, I think I was. I remember my bar mitzvah?”
“...uh… ask Steve, he probably knows… you have a talent for depressing topics, haven’t you?”
“You helped write my file, flyboy. You tell me.”
Sam twitched, and gave an almost comically obvious shiver. “Don’t need to remind me, Bucky bear. But, can you respond please? I’m trying to get y’all to learn decent interpersonal communication skills. Please, won’t you help me?” Sam finished with false doe eyes, jokingly begging for Bucky to continue the session.
“I’m not falling for those eyes.” Bucky rolled his eyes, but soon relented and began to speak. “Long story short, HYDRA wanted an unstoppable soldier, who wouldn’t falter at all on mission. The SSR wanted a soldier that could be out doing multiple missions in a row without returning to base, with or without backup. Both got what they wanted by focusing on their necessities. Bad thing for me was, unstoppable just meant injuries wouldn’t affect me overmuch while on mission. High pain tolerance, lower calorie needs, high resistance to drugs and disease. Slower and more inefficient healing than Steve, though. For Steve, drugs and diseases don’t affect him and he doesn’t really need much first aid usually aside from cleaning wounds and stitching up really bad ones, but his calorie needs are higher and he sometimes needs reminding that he can relax, instead of being expected to just keep going. Gives me a fucking nightmare when I have to convince him to take a day off.” Sam’s joking about with Bucky, despite their commonly antagonistic relationship, had smoothed over Bucky proverbial feathers, and he spoke with a softness mostly devoid of the veiled aggression of his original statement.
“Dude…” Clint’s face had been paling as Bucky spoke, and despite his professional job, he seemed a bit put off by Bucky's impersonal recitation of the experiments run on him. “I didn’t know, I didn’t… I wasn’t involved with your rescue or anything else, I guess I just thought that they’d try to imitate Erskines’ as much as possible. It’s seemed like the best idea… dude I’m so fucking sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. You didn’t do it.” Abruptly, Bucky turned and walked out of the room mechanically, as if every limb was once more under HYDRA’s puppet-like control.
Bucky stood unmoving in the elevator, his mind filled with static and turmoil. He jolted, bracing himself as the elevator began to move despite no buttons having been pressed.
A human like voice rang out above him, and the asset - Bucky, Bucky, Bucky, his brain chanted- pressed his body against the shiny aluminium of the elevator wall.
“Sergeant Barnes, Sergeant Barnes- you in Avengers’ Tower. It’s 2019. You are headed to yours and Captain Rogers’ floor. It is 2019 and you live with Steve Rogers, Sam Wilson, Clint Barton, Natasha Romanov, Bruce Banner, Virginia Potts and Mr. Tony Stark. It is 2019. You are safe. I am Jarvis. You are Sergeant Barnes-“
“‘M fine, Jarv. Thanks buddy.” Bucky waves a hand absentmindedly at the feeling, before relapsing back into silence.
With a soft Ding! The elevator doors slid open, and Bucky hurried by three corners, two open concept rooms, and a kitchen before finally reaching the bedroom, and softly pushing open the door.
Stevie was curled in a ball beneath the blankets, still in his day clothes. Bucky lifted up the blankets, sliding next to Steve and pulling him in for a hug. Steve didn’t uncurl on his own, but laid placidly and accepted Bucky's interference as he forced him to lay flat, Steve half across Bucky’s chest. Noticing dark red circles carved into the flesh beneath Steve’s fingernails, Bucky also grabbed Steve’s hands and clasped them in his own. Despite the quick fading of the small lacerations, Bucky did not release his hands, choosing instead to mutter reassuringly as he rubbed them.
“Buck?” Steve’s voice was tense and quiet, and Bucky internally cursed the dinner topic. Why couldn’t people sense uncomfortable topics? Why?
“Hey, Stevie, don’t worry. It’s just me, m’kay? Let’s just go to sleep, okay?” Bucky shifted Steve once more, sliding down the bed to better hug Steve even as they slept.
“Okay Bucky…” Steve's voice trailed off as dug his face into the blankets, and rolled over to sleep.
Bucky shut his eyes. They’d be alright. They'd talk about it in the morning, but right now Steve needed sleep more than anything.