Chapter 94
Avengers Tower
October 2011
“Barnes!”
He looked up from the coffee maker.
“Hey. How’s the arm doing?” Stark asked, pointing at Bucky’s metal arm.
He looked down at it. “Still functioning, but not like before.”
“Well, we’re about to move on Hydra and I wouldn’t feel right sending you in with a malfunctioning appendage-” Stark melodramatically placed a hand over his heart and the arc reactor in his chest- “so come on.”
Hope flared, painful and bright. “You have a replacement?”
“Oh yeah,” Stark said with a manic grin.
Bucky followed. His memories were coming back, slowly but surely, and he saw much of Howard in this man. Howard’s good qualities: curiosity, ingenuity, genius. And some of his flaws, too– pride, for one, and the arrogance. But so far Bucky thought he preferred Stark the younger.
They passed Darcy’s office. Bucky waved to her, and she grinned back, then went right back to arguing with whoever was on the other end of the phone. She’d been helping him adjust to the twenty-first century, along with Loki, and he thought he might have another friend than Natasha and Steve.
It was kind of terrifying.
He almost didn’t want to remember all the things he’d done for Hydra in his years as a brainwashed machine. Those memories weren’t coming back easily, and he half-hoped they wouldn’t. Bucky didn’t want anyone to find out. He wanted to leave it in the past, where it belonged, so he didn’t have to risk these people walking away from him again. Natasha never would. That, he could have faith in. But he was starting to want to keep these people around too.
“Welcome to the playground,” Stark said, throwing his arms wide as he stepped into his lab.
Bucky glanced at him. “I’ve been here before.”
“Pfft. Semantics.” Stark waved at Jane, who was bustling around her section of this floor like a whirlwind, and dragged Bucky over to the back corner. A table rested there, and on it was a long box.
Bucky realized he was compulsively rubbing his right fingers over the metal plates on his left hand and forced himself to stop.
“I tried to keep it as close to your description as possible,” Stark said.
Bucky nodded and reached out. When he laid his hand on the lid, the catches released with twin clicks, and he took a deep breath before lifting the top off the box.
The arm lay inside. Flesh-colored, limp, and eerily natural.
Stark pulled it out and held it up to Bucky’s body. “I had JARVIS scan you and fabricate this according to your measurements, so if it doesn’t fit I’m losing my edge. If the skin tone’s not quite right, it’ll automatically modulate over the course of the next few days to match your skin tone closer. The surgery will happen today, preferably; if your adjustment period goes well, you should be able to go along with the rest of us after Hydra.”
Bucky ran his fingers over the prosthesis. His real fingers. It felt like cool skin. Stark had even added fake hairs along its surface. The hand was wrinkled in the right places, with irregular fingernails that looked so real he almost thought Tony had grown them in a lab.
“Did you grow this in a lab?” he asked.
Tony grinned. Oh, yeah, that was Howard all right. He couldn’t resist talking about the things he’d done. Himself in general. “Nope. The exterior is synflesh, but a newer, tougheir variety I created. With Bruce’s help, technically. It won’t tear easily; it’s tougher than normal skin and it can tolerate extremely high and low temperatures. Won’t grow; the nails and hair and wrinkles are there for aesthetic purposes. You should be able to blend in after this. Other than your face, that is. And it’ll be at least as strong as the one you have now, but significantly more sensitive and with better motor control and neural integration. Those Hydra scientists were good, but they weren’t me.”
“Thank God for that. I doubt the world could handle more than one Tony Stark,” Bruce commented drily. Bucky hadn’t even noticed him come over. He nodded to the doctor. He liked Bruce. His presence was calming, and he’d helped Bucky understand how his brain was working to recover his memories.
“We can go forward with the surgery whenever you’re ready,” Bruce said. “There’s no hurry, James. It doesn't have to be-”
“Today,” Bucky interrupted. “Please.”
Bruce glanced at Stark. “Tony, I told you not to pressure him.”
“I didn’t!” Stark protested. “You’re the one who said we can do it whenever.”
Bruce sighed. “James, are you sure?”
Bucky looked down at his metal fingers. They flexed shut, then opened again, moving more slowly and stiffly than before. He was damaged goods. It was a miracle his arm had lasted through the fight on the helicarrier. Metal plates, the red star–all meant to mark him, inspire terror, let the world know who he belonged to.
He could inspire terror in his enemies without a metal arm. And he didn’t belong to anyone except himself now.
It was time for this arm to go.
“I’m sure,” he said.
Stark was already turning away. “I’ll go prep the surgery.”