Synesthesia
1 - Where Bucky ends up having synesthesia and can taste words.
Bucky doesn’t remember much between pulling the man who called himself Steve Rogers out of the Potomac and waking up in the antiseptic-soaked, white-washed room. It seemed a dream to him. Blurs of people, cities, lights swirling by in a mess of color. Metal held in his hands, one hot and one cold as steel. A phantom touch, a blood-soaked stare. A struck bell, a desperate shout that still tolls through his tortured head, that screams his name over and over again until he has to talk to himself to keep it at bay.
At least the muttering kept the curious onlookers away from him. That was a benefit he didn’t expect. No one likes the barely-washed crazy man living in a dumpster.
But there was no dumpster anymore. He sat, inert, on the white sheet covering the foam mattress and contemplated his left hand. A soft knock on the door barely registered in his head, but he said “Come in” anyway. In hindsight, that might not have been a good choice, once he got a good look at who knocked.
The man who called himself Steve Rogers, whom he knew now was actually Steve Rogers, slid the door shut behind him and stood in the entryway at parade rest. His eyes rested everywhere and nowhere near Bucky’s bed. “Hi, Bucky.”
He hasn’t had visitors since coming here. If he had, he would have been ready for the sudden feeling of wrongness overwhelming him. Something was wrong. Something was off. He swallowed, and the sensation intensified. He glared at Rogers. “What do you want?”
The fleeting expression of hurt and confusion that ghosted over Roger’s face lasted only a second or so. “I want to talk to you.”
Bucky growled as the sensation grew stronger still. It was like something was at the back of his throat, tickling and twinging his taste buds. A familiar taste, but unfamilar at the same time. “Go away.” He had to make this stop. That bell was ringing in his head again - Bucky! - and he didn’t want it there. The voice and the taste was pissing him off. “I don’t want to talk.”
“Buck -”
“I said go away!” Bucky threw the closest available projectile at Rogers’ head. As a weapon, a foam pillow was as useless as a piece of paper, unless you held it right. It’s enough to get the man that was making Bucky taste buttered popcorn every time he opened his mouth to leave.
Blessed silence. Thank God.
But the bell tolls on. At least that he could tune out. He started to contemplate his left hand again as he talked out his newest problem with himself and the walls around him.
He knew where he was now, because an orderly who tasted like berries told him. The pretty nurse who came in at noon for his daily blood draws never spoke to him, and he didn’t try to guess what she tasted like. He asked to see a computer, but they told him no in words that reminded him of borscht and paper and lemons. He couldn’t figure out if what was going on with him was a kill order gone sideways or a stroke, but his doctors told him he’d be fine, that it would go away after a while.
It didn’t.
It wasn’t unpleasant anymore, now that he knew that words were causing the sensations. He could recognize some of the tastes, and he would tell his head-shrinker about them every day. He wanted Rogers to come back so he could explain himself. Every time he thought about Rogers, though, that bell would toll. But when Natalia - Natasha Romanov, now - walked into the room, he stopped playing chess with himself and dumped the pieces on the floor. He gestured at them. “Wanna play?”
Natalia nodded once, but kept her mouth closed.
They set up the board and started to play.