He could hear the struggling from inside the room before he had even opened the door. The restraints that were pinning the soldier down were the strongest that S.H.I.E.L.D. had to offer, and even then the soldier was bound to get out of them if he was left long enough. If they hadn't taken his arm already, he wouldn't still be in the building. He would be long gone, with only the broken restraints and warm sheet on the thin bed to prove that he had even been there.
His hand closed around the handle of the door and he pushed it open silently, seeing the panic crossing the thrashing soldier's face. He had seen him turn to look at the empty space that should have been filled with the bionic arm that he had been fitted with for so long. The soldier started to struggle more, and then he couldn't help himself. He had to speak to the soldier.
"Don't."
Steve's voice was barely above a whisper. The struggling lessened, but didn't stop completely. As Steve stepped into the room and shut the door behind himself, he could feel the soldier's eyes raking over him. However, as he sat the soldier turned away. Steve took the opportunity to run his eyes over him, stopping when he reached the empty space that should have been where his left arm was.
Without his bionic arm, Bucky Barnes looked every bit a soldier that had been injured in war. That is, if Bucky Barnes was still in there. Steve wasn't sure who the man was that had woken up in the room, strapped down to the bed. Was he Bucky Barnes, Steve's best friend, the man he had grown up with, looked up to, and had mourned the loss of? Was he James Buchanan Barnes, the Sergeant that Steve had wanted to go to war with? Or was he the Winter Soldier, the man that had tried to kill him, still disorientated from the amount of sedatives it had taken to be able to hold him like this? It could have been any of those three men wearing the face of his best friend.
Steve still had nightmares about that day. Every so often he would wake up in a cold sweat, panting while his memory burned with the image of Bucky falling and Steve being unable to reach him. He missed every time that he reached out for Bucky, no matter how many times he lived it. He was never there to catch Bucky like Bucky was there to catch him. Bucky had always had Steve's back, from the time that they were young. If a bigger child picked on Steve in the orphanage, Bucky was there to put them in their place. If someone was beating him up in an alley, then Bucky was there to hit the man so hard that he wouldn't even look in Steve's direction again. Bucky had always been there, protecting him, and Steve had let him down. He had let him fall off the train. He had left him to the river and to the Russians. Steve had given his best friend up the second that he disappeared into the mountains, and hadn't even bothered to look for the body. If he would have looked, he would have found him.
But he hadn't. Steve had gone to mourn, unable to drown his sorrows with the whiskey that had always been Bucky's favourite, while his best friend had been tortured in the worst ways that Steve could imagine. The arm had looked painful. The scars that spread around where it fit to him were still red and raised, as if they were constantly sore. If he thought about it hard enough, Steve could hear the screams that had probably escaped Bucky as he was fitted with it. If there was one thing different about the serum that Bucky had, it was that he didn't heal like Steve did. There were scars covering him, some more prominent than others. Steve didn't want to think about what Bucky had been through. He couldn't think about what Bucky had been through.
Steve wasn't quick enough. He felt Bucky look at him, but Steve's attention was on where Bucky's arm should have been. The look was too quick, and Steve sighed, rubbing his forehead. There was no doubt in his mind that Bucky blamed him for it, and for it all. He had the right to. Steve knew that, and he wouldn't blame him for one second if Bucky lashed out at him. He deserved it. He deserved everything that Bucky was going to say, and every punch that might reach him. Captain America had failed. Steve had failed. He saw from the corner of his eye that Bucky had made to raise his hand, only to be met with the tug of restraints. The groan that came from him made Steve want to move closer. Bucky wanted to hit him, and Steve wanted to let him. He needed to let Bucky hit him, even if it wasn't Bucky that was occupying the mind at the moment.
Bucky fell still. Steve tensed. He didn't know what was running through his mind, but he didn't like the way that it had made Bucky's breath fall short. His eyebrows furrowed and his hand clenched into a fist, and Steve had to fight the urge to reach out and tap him. Whatever it was that was going on inside his head, it was making him blink rapidly. As Steve went to speak, the blue eyes of his best friend found his own and locked with them, making the words catch in Steve's throat.
It was the first time that those eyes had found him since he had entered the room. Bucky's eyes reflected so much sadness that it made Steve's chest tight. There was hurt inside them, wrapped around horrors that no man should ever have to see or be a part of. They were the eyes of someone who had fallen short of who they could have been. They were the eyes of a man who was terrified that they would wake and everything would be different. They were the eyes of a broken, beaten, shell of the owner that they had once had.
Bucky's eyes didn't tear away from Steve's, and Steve's didn't leave his. Steve was so focused on staring into the eyes of Bucky, trying to figure out which version of him had woken, that he didn't see Bucky open his mouth.
The words that followed were almost foreign to Steve. He hadn't heard them in so long that it took the air right out of him. His eyes began to fill up, breathing out a sigh of relief. It might not have been all of Bucky that had woken, but that didn't matter. The words let Steve know that he was still in there somewhere, and he was coming around. He was waking up, and he was there to stay.
"Hey, punk."