So, the winter soldier is killing me and I'm obsessed with the metal arm and stories centred around it heLP.
Disclaimer:if I owned anything at all, sebstan would most definitely be grinning at me like a cute lil dork rn.
He is not used to the metal arm.
Sometimes he thinks he never will be.
Don't get him wrong, he is used to the weight of the metal dragging at his shoulder, he is accustomed to the extra breath he has to take before he moves it (compensation for the drag at his chest and shoulder), he is perfectly used to having to rest his weight on his right leg whilst standing still, and to let the arm rest by locking its mechanisms for a while, so as not to strain his chest from its weight.
He even got used to the constant whirring of machinery after a while.
He's still aware of it all, but it's more an awareness that his real arm is gone, that he will never get it back.
They burned it, after they cut it off.
And even that, he is used to, his missing arm.
But what he can't get used to is the loss of feeling.
He can move the metal arm, he can pick things up and crush them and break bones and wield knives.
He can crush metal, and tear doors from their frames, and twist necks from shoulders.
He can curl fingers into fists, and grip guns and sharpen knives.
He can even pick up cars and throw things that weigh more than him, and haul his own weight around without even thinking.
But he can't feel it. The arm doesn't have any sensation to it.
There is nothing worse than seeing a part of you move, but feeling nothing.
He misses the wind on his skin, he misses the rain falling on this arm and the chill from droplets rolling down his wrist, he longs for the heat of summer turning his skin a golden brown, healthy in its colour.
He misses bumping his arm on the door frame sleepily, something he remembers being teased about by someone, though he doesn't know who. He misses burning his fingers on too hot bacon, or feeling an ice cube melt in his palm.
He misses the feeling of someone's fingertips sliding over his skin, the feel of another human's warmth against him, bare shoulders pressing together under cotton.
He misses the feel of his own skin sliding against cloth. Against another person.
He can't feel heat, or cold, or pain, or pleasure.
And it's killing him.