Pain
A/N a short after the Ant Man Post Credit Scene. Do not read farther unless you want to be spoiled.
This is to summarize the very brief exchange between Steve and Bucky. Not the conversation between him and Falcon. Someone on Pinterest posted a GIF where Bucky speaks (barely) (heart aching!). Updated for recent comments made by Sebs about how they 'found' Bucky.
He couldn't move his arm.
Stringy hair hung down in his face as he sat awkwardly next to the commercial machine press that clenched his left arm so he couldn't escape. The room was filled with dirty apparatus parts and crates of rusting steel. The odor of his body mixed with the scent of oil and diesel rankled his nose but he didn't care because he was afraid. Terrified.
It hurt. He hurt. His heart… hurt.
Something was missing. Something was terribly wrong.
Where was he? How did he get here? The foggy memory surfaced of a man, with wings? Men didn't have wings, did they? The swirling darkness and now here. Did Hydra get him again? He couldn't remember! James' stomach turned with the idea and he suppressed a dry heave of terror. A mouthful of cotton kept him from speaking, as if he had any thing to say or anyone to say it to.
Boots echoed down the hallway, but they didn't sound like soldiers' feet, or even Hydra. They walked more like a titan full of pride and domination. These boots he heard moved with confidence and conviction.
Feeling someone watching him he raised his eyes, hesitantly.
He saw Steve. Unbidden, blue eyes plaintive, he mouthed soundlessly from cracked lips, "Help. Me."
Mutually tortured expressions meshed in time as the gears of feelings long buried began to synchronize again like matching cogs. Two hearts began to beat again as one in brotherhood. Bucky appeared petrified and confused in the depths of his gaze, stubble covering his chin, hollowing his cheeks. But he was here. Finally, Cap could help him remember.
The sight of him almost made Roger's knees buckle. His best friend, dirty, disheveled, abused, thrown away like some piece of trash was a crumpled heap. A wailing apology climbed up his chest into his throat, wanting to beg forgiveness from James for letting him fall from the train so long ago. Clamping down on his voice, he remained silent. A battle axe of guilt cleaved his soul in two. Guts twisted as if a serrated knife had been thrust into his abdomen and turned cruelly. He could almost feel the sticky blood pouring from him as his heart pounded like a rolling tide in his chest. It destroyed Rogers to find Bucky like this; like a prisoner, an animal caged to be used like a tool, just like Hydra did.
Their gaze lingered longer. Cap could see the fear and flashes of the man Bucky used to be, the boy he knew the man he loved like a brother. Tears pooled in Cap's eyes, but he breathed in deeply to clear them.
Finally, the aching hurt too much. Rogers looked away.