Chapter 5
You had spent the past time piecing up the information and figuring out why the hell you had ended up in such a coincidental.... coincidental....
All right, there was no other word for it.
Coincidental bullshit.
From what Cap had told you, he had been on a mission when he fell to his death on a train going very fast. From what HYDRA had told you, he had fallen, gotten picked up by HYDRA, and had been given a prosthetic arm and a full mind wipe by a Mister Arnim Zola whom you wanted to kill right now.
From what Cap had also told you, he had been a skirt-chaser in his Brooklyn days. That wasn't the man you were seeing now- the man with long hair and a gruff voice. The man Cap had been talking about was smooth, charming, and fun. Not.... not....
Not this broken HYDRA toy with dead eyes and an emotionless face.
You weep at what's going to happen to you, if they're going to make you into one of him, too, witless, soulless machines who just live for the purpose for serving HYDRA. You weep at how he had been Cap's only and best friend before he fell off the train, and for his troubles got a metal arm and brainwashing. You weep at how HYDRA makes people so different from what they were, how they could have made him from a smooth talking gentleman into a mindless soldier who follows orders without a second glance and has anger management issues. You weep at how they could have been so damn cruel to him, experimenting on him and taking away his will. You weep silently, sobs wracking your body and tears flowing down your cheeks that are soaked up by the pillow. You didn't want any of this. You didn't want it.
Ignorance is bliss, Thomas Gray had said. You didn't disagree. You had always been plagued by thoughts, and they came back a million times stronger, saying how that was going to happen to you, how you were going to be cryopreserved and woken up in 2050. You felt fear.
The door slammed open and a figure marched in. James Buchanan Barnes, 107th infantry regime. The door closes after him, by one of the guards.
He doesn't seem surprised to find you there. In fact, he seems used to it. He just sits down and strips himself, until all he's wearing is a loose shirt and combat pants.
You frantically crawl beneath the pillow (there are no covers) and wipe away your tears. You can't show this side of you to him.
As soon as you finish wiping away the tears and fixing yourself up, you snatch the pillow off your head and pick the computer up again, closing the tab and turning on another random one. You close it, and realize the Winter Soldier's looking at you.
"What?"
It comes out harsher than you meant it to be, and you wince a little. "Sorry. But you do know it's creepy to stare at people while they're bored and wearing nothing but their pyjamas?"
He just goes back to doing god knows what. You peek at what he's doing and realize there's a nasty slash on his forearm, the non-metal arm, that is.
"Doesn't that hurt?" You had learned first-aid with Nat, and it was getting a teeny bit rusty anyway, so you take his forearm gently with a "May I?" and set it on your lap.
He's holding a alcohol pad, a small bottle of medicine, a cotton swab and a band-aid. You sigh before taking hold of his muscular arm and dab at it gently with the alcohol pad. It stings when you do it to your cuts and you almost always yelp, but he doesn't even flinch. After the alcohol pad, you reach towards the cotton swab, but it's not there. You look around but see that he's holding it towards you, one end already coated with the medicine. You mumble your thanks and roll it over the wound. He flinches a little then, but relaxes again as you take the swab away. You glance at the band-aid- plain, with the colour of a Caucasian male's (*cough* Bucky Barnes *cough*) skin. You tut. He just glances at you in surprise, and you take the band-aid and search for the pen you saw earlier rolling around. Someone must have dropped it but decided it was too cheap and insignificant to pick back up, and you hold the pen over the small band-aid before just settling on a "(Y/N) :)". You peel off the wrapping and stick it carefully, making sure to align the cut with the soft part.
"There." You grinned. "Much nicer to look at, don't you think?"
For a long time, you thought he didn't like it- he just stared at the black figures you had chalked on there.
Then a small smile spread across his features. It was much better than the serious expression- he looked younger, more handsome, more carefree. He looked human.
You leaned over and pinched his cheek. He turned more towards you, so that he was directly facing you instead of vaguely in your direction.
"You look better with a smile." You reminded him.
His metallic hand came up and touched yours, and the brush of metal was cold.
You thought, What the hell?
He whispered, "Thank you."
You said, "Why do you never speak above a whisper?"
There was a clanging sound, and you turned to see your lunches.
He knelt to take the food and his shirt shifted, revealing more of the metal arm. It stretched up to his collarbone, possibly further.
"How..." You were at a loss for words. "How far does that thing go?"
He just glanced back at you and readjusted his shirt, tossing you the egg sandwich and settling down on his bed with his- believe it or not- burrito.
"What frigging country is this?" You laughed. "They gave you a frigging burrito? Oh my god, that is hilarious." You erupted into a fit of giggles. There was nothing funny, but you found the fact that he had a burrito increasingly funny. "Oh god, they gave me an egg sandwich, and they gave you a burrito."
He just stared at your giggling form. Soon, the giggling ceased and you were just sitting stiffly upright. "That is so not fair, though. Do you know how horrible it is to be allergic to things? I'm allergic to chickpeas, and that stuff makes up hummus. Which means I can't enjoy my egg sandwich without almost swelling up my tongue to the size of a whole chicken." You flopped down on your bed and unwrapped the sandwich, glancing sullenly at him. "I bet you're not allergic to anything, being super soldier and all."
Preparing yourself for the scraping match, you unwrapped it. But stopped when you felt a slight weight on the edge of your bed.
"What?" Looking up at the raggedly handsome face of James Bucky Barnes.
Wordlessly, he took the sandwich from you. You just sighed- let him do what he wants, he must have a legitimate reason for it.
He handed you his burrito.
Laughing, you mumbled a "Thank you". Barely.
The guards had to yell at you to shut up.