Steve said his procedure had happened in Brooklyn. The very neighbourhood they grew up in, even. The people in charge weren't going to fly Stark back to the States for the procedure though, not least because most of the people in charge weren't being told about this. It was also too important to have Stark where he was, a metaphorical half-league back from where the weapons were needed. Besides, when Colonel Philips had told Stark to pack everything up, he'd packed up the lab where Steve had undergone the procedure.
The materials from that lab had been melted down and re-purposed. It no longer existed except as a few memories and a set of blueprints.
Bucky's procedure would be happening in one of the bunkers used by the Strategic Scientific Reserve. Yes, he'd decided to go with the option that would send him back out into the killing fields he hated so much. It was a shot at getting his own arm back, rather than having to have a prosthetic that would be stared at, however great that prosthetic might be. Besides, he did need to keep an eye on Steve. The punk had been getting into all sorts of scrapes without Bucky there to watch his back – the rest of the Howling Commandos did a good job picking up the slack, but Bucky's speciality had been watching Steve's back, and none of the other guys did it quite the same way. Probably because they'd never hauled his skinny ass out of a back alley.
The lab and the machines had been built all over again, and there was a line-up of ten power-generators that had been taken from enemy camps that had been successfully put out of commission. It was cheaper than requisitioning from supplies. The camps were going to be attacked anyway, might as well benefit from it.
They'd certainly been stealing enough weapons from Hydra with every base they'd attacked that no-one in the company so much as blinked at the standing request from Colonel Philips to steal any damn thing they could get their hands on. The only conditional was that they wait until after the enemy was dead or chased off before they started raiding enemy supplies, which was common sense, really.
Another difference between this set-up and the one in Brooklyn, this time there would be no observation booth. Just the people involved in the project and had a job to do. In fact, no one who didn't need to be there, didn't know exactly what was going on in that bunker at that moment. This meant that Colonel Philips was dealing with intelligence reports in his office in another bunker, while Steve and Agent Carter were out on their a date. The punk was finally learning how to dance, and how to talk to women. The way they were going, it looked like the punk's first girl was also going to be his only one, unless something terminal happened. Which sadly wasn't out of the picture, since the war was still going strong.
"If this does to me what it did to Steve, I'm gonna need new clothes," Bucky quipped thoughtfully to Evangeline as he watched Stark and his bevy of busybodies doing their final systems checks, a faint smirk pulling at his lips.
"Levels are stable and one-hundred percent," Stark called over. "We're as ready as we can get for this."
"That's your cue," Evangeline told Bucky with a smile.
Bucky had talked to Steve about his own procedure, so he knew that meant he had to strip off everything but his pants and climb onto the bed/table/sarcophagus thing.
"Can I back out?" Evangeline asked, her voice wistful and her bright green eyes focused on Bucky's chest. "I don't really know if I want to mess with something so pretty."
Bucky couldn't help but laugh at that. Apparently being strictly relegated to the planning part of the war for more than half a year hadn't hurt him too much. Not more than having already lost an arm, at any rate.
"Well, I'll pray that the serum leaves your looks alone, gives you back your arm, and makes you all super strong and fast without being obvious about it," Evangeline teased, then moved away from him and got down to business. The serum vials were installed into the apparatus, the pads for the micro-injections placed, and then the great green metal pod closed was around him.
Stark called out the levels, a nurse kept an eye on vital signs, and Bucky screamed in pain at seventy percent, just as Steve had done.
"Bucky!?" Evangeline called frantically. She hadn't been there for the first procedure. She worried for him.
Bucky bit off his scream.
"I'm okay, Doll!" he called, a little desperately, clearly in pain despite the words. "I got this!"
Evangeline needed to hear it even if it was a lie though.
"Eighty," Stark called, somewhat calmly. He'd been through this once before, he had some idea of how it went. "Ninety. One-hundred percent."
The little window in the pod would have been a beacon if it had been above ground. No black-out curtains would have been sufficient to keep it hidden. There were no windows in the bunker though, so it was only those present having to squint.
Just as before, Stark's machines started to spark under the strain, and ten long seconds after hitting full-power, it was over. The pod was opened, and every person present stared.
Evangeline snapped out of it first and rushed to Bucky's side, Stark not far behind – he knew that Bucky would be a bit legless, and the first step down from the pod would be the trickiest to co-ordinate.
"Bucky?" she checked, even as she shamelessly ran a hand up his torso and pulled a hand over her shoulder.
Stark got the other one, and they helped him down.
"It worked," Bucky breathed, stunned and short on breath.
"It did," Evangeline confirmed with a grin.
"I know it did before with Rogers, but this... I still can't believe it, but it actually worked," Stark re-confirmed in wonder. He'd thought he'd been shocked enough when Steve stepped out of the pod eleven inches taller and with bulging muscles sticking out everywhere.
Bucky didn't look like that.
He was chorded, wiry, lean and smooth. Muscled and toned, yes, but not bulging. He was a little taller, just a couple of inches, enough that he'd be the taller of himself and Steve again, even if only a little bit. Even with the changes though, his general physique and proportions appeared to be roughly the same as they had been before the procedure. The big deal was, of course, that he had two arms again.
"Come on, I want you on a chair for a quick physical," Evangeline instructed as she steered both men towards a standard wooden upright. "I need to know everything is working properly. How do you feel?"
"Kinda like I just took a sip of your Firewhiskey," Bucky admitted, and sat a little heavily in the chair Evangeline forced him down into. "A bit groggy, little tired, but the energised kind of tired that comes from a really good long run, you know? Not aching at all," he recited when he saw her pull out her stethoscope and start warming it. "Which is weird, considering the way it hurt while I was in there."
"Breathe deeply for me," Evangeline requested as she placed the buds of the stethoscope into her ears and the plate to Bucky's chest. "In for the count of three, hold for three, out for three -"
"Three times?" Bucky suggested with a smile, but obediently started taking deep breaths.
Evangeline moved her stethoscope to a different position and calmly requested "Again."
The stethoscope was pulled from her ears and left to rest against her chest. She checked his pupils next, then his ears, and finally reflexes – and particularly the reflexes and sensations of the arm that had grown back while he was in the pod.
"Good," she finally approved. "Great. Better than that, even," she declared, and a smile claimed her features.
"How bad am I gonna need those new clothes?" Bucky asked with a slightly dopey smile of his own.
"That depends on how much you can let down the hems of your trousers," Evangeline countered cheekily.
From behind her, Stark chuckled.
"Just letting hems down won't be enough. I'll get you sorted out, Barnes," he promised easily, smirk and moustache twitching together. "It looks like it's only a couple of inches all over, and you've gone from six-two to six-nine. Shouldn't be too hard. Any requests for changes to your uniform while I'm at it?"
"An officer's insignia," Evangeline suggested, quick as a whip. "His Prisoner of War Medal is long overdue, to say nothing of his Purple Heart, and while we're on the subject: the Silver Star, the Bronze Star Medal, and the Medal of Honour too, please? If America were still part of the Commonwealth, I would recommend the Victoria Cross as well. I think he's earned that sort of recognition at the very least, don't you, Mr Stark?"
"Sure," Stark agreed, only a little stunned by the short tirade the lovely lady doctor had just given voice to, "but you're talking to the wrong man for all that stuff. I'm just a civilian weapons contractor."
"The gear I have for missions is fine, Stark," Bucky said, and shook his head. "So long as it fits."
"Call me Howard," the other man offered. "I'll, ah, I'll get everybody else out, let you two have your moment."
"So... I know this doll-faced bloke," Evangeline started with a coy smile. "He's real sweet to me, but I haven't been able to convince him to take me dancing yet, and I've been trying for months."
"Guy needs to be convinced to take a classy lady like you dancing?" Bucky played along, a smirk of his own creeping up his face. She hadn't called him that since the day she'd brought him back to base camp after she'd found him. He didn't blush this time though. "Must be an idiot."
Evangeline shook her head in denial.
"He's a lot smarter than I think anybody gives him credit for," she protested. "Him included. He's stubborn though. Keeps on saying how it wouldn't be fair to me, for him to take me dancing while he's only got one arm," she complained lightly.
"If you're not using two hands when you're dancing, then you're not doing it right," Bucky said in solemn agreement – just not with Evangeline. "I'll bet this guy of yours just wanted everything to be perfect when you two finally stepped out together."
"I could be waiting forever for him to come to his senses and realise I don't care if he's got all his limbs or not," Evangeline pointed out.
"Well, I know this lady doctor who just figured out a way it was possible for some folks to get back limbs they lost," Bucky suggested. "Maybe going through that will help him feel like he's worthy of you. You're pretty amazing, you know."
Evangeline shook her head.
"He'll have the girls falling over themselves to be the one on his arm," she said. "He'll forget all about me."
"Anyone who could forget about you really is an idiot," Bucky swore earnestly.
"What about you?" Evangeline diverted. "Got a sweetheart waiting for you?"
"I dunno," Bucky admitted freely. "I mean, I've got a lady I'm sweet on, that lady doctor I mentioned in fact, but I don't know if she feels the same way about me as I've come to feel about her."
"Any girl who can catch your eye is a lucky one," Evangeline offered softly. "Even if it's just for one dance."
"But I don't want it to be just for one dance," Bucky countered earnestly, "and I'm worried that she'll think that's all I'm willing to give her, because she knows that's what I've given other girls in the past. She's not like all those other girls though."
"What sets this girl apart from all the others?" Evangeline queried in response to the prompting.
"What doesn't? She's funny, and sweet, and so amazingly smart. She's a doctor, you know? Did I say that already? I'd say she's the best doctor this side of the Atlantic, and probably on the other side too. She's a great cook, but she doesn't turn her nose up at my efforts when I have a go... And she's beautiful. She doesn't do herself up like the dames back home, or even Agent Carter and the other dames that hang around the guys in uniforms, but she's got them all beat," Bucky praised.
"Brains and beauty, huh?" Evangeline teased.
"And heart," Bucky added to the list. "She saved my life once. Didn't have to. Didn't know me from Adam at the time, but she saved me, took care of me, helped me get back to the people who'd thought I was dead when I probably should have just stayed lying in bed recovering. She's probably the best thing that's ever happened to me. No, she definitely is."
"Then you should let her know that," Evangeline suggested, her cheeks a little warmer and pinker than usual.
"I should," Bucky agreed. "I will. I know just the place to take her to as well. Steve's talked a bit about the Stork Club. Agent Carter picked it for their first date, and they've gone back there a couple of times, so it's gotta be nice. On the other hand, maybe I'll get lucky and be sent to London for Christmas. I could take her somewhere a bit more ritzy."
"Then what are you waiting for?" Evangeline prompted.
"Now? Some clothes that fit," Bucky teased. "This is the perfect woman we're talking about here. I can't look anything less than my very best for a date with her."
"I could argue that you look really damn good right now," Evangeline pointed out. It wasn't the sort of comment that was really proper in this era, and in general she'd adjusted well to the nineteen-forties standards. She didn't go for pin-curls or lipstick, granted, and she wasn't wearing seamed stockings or drawing a line up the back of her legs to pretend she was. Apart from that she'd settled in well enough, even on the clothes front, because she liked to keep things simple, and some things just didn't change, no matter the decade. Occasionally though, a little bit of how things were done and talked about in the new millennium, the one she'd left behind, slipped through.
Bucky grinned that cheeky, boyish, ever-so-slightly smug grin of his, though without any shirt to hide it, it was possible to see the red creeping up his neck.
Evangeline blushed hotly as she realised what had just escaped her mouth.
