Location: Avengers Tower
"Are you sure you're ready for this?" Tony asked anxiously, "You're not going to kick my ass the second I start strapping you down? We're going to have to pin your arms and legs for this."
Bucky was in the operating room standing next to the procedure table. His hand was shaking and he was trying hard not to hyperventilate. It was clean, yes, but still looked a hell of a lot like his nightmare. He kept telling himself it was going to be different, they were helping. He wouldn't be awake, he wouldn't hear the bone saws or feel the screws taking hold. He wouldn't smell his flesh cooking...
Even as he tried to get control, he was psyching himself out. It was becoming more difficult to distinguish this operating room from Hydra's.
Tony saw his eye twitch and, with a subtle signal to Thor he moved to the far side of the table to stand by his remote suits. Thor had come in with Bucky to help in case he triggered- exactly like he was doing now.
"James, this is to help you, not harm you," he stepped up behind him. Bucky tensed, became hyper-aware. They'd lured him here and he was stupid enough to follow. They were going to make him the Winter Soldier again- he had to get out!
Bucky swung at Thor suddenly, but the Asgardian moved to his left and before Bucky could pivot he felt an arm around his shoulders, pinning his one good arm down. At the same time something stung his neck and-
"Told you so!" Tony called out to Steve in the observation room. Thor caught Bucky as he sagged and pulled the needle from his neck. Steve was too hopeful- Bucky wouldn't have made it. He would have gone berserk at best as he was being strapped down. Thor and three of Tony's remote suits were armed with powerful tranquilizers, ready to step in.
Once Bucky was secured to the table and his metal arm was extended fully away from his body, Stark knocked on the main door to the O.R. and the surgeon entered. Thor nodded to the nervous man and left to watch with Steve.
"Ready Doctor Johansson?" this was the same surgeon who led the team in removing the shrapnel from Tony's heart, he was more than competent and worked wonders, even with such unusual procedures as this.
The doctor nodded and began hooking wires to Bucky to monitor various things- heart rate, blood oxygen level, blood pressure, brain activity and more. He had been promised assistants, but the Suits were hardly what he had in mind, even though Tony had modified them for medical work. Still, one stood between the doc and the trays of surgical equipment while another began hooking IVs into Bucky's human arm with all the delicacy of a nurse.
Tony came forward with the third suit, his assistant, "JARVIS, project an x-ray of the arm, highlighting human tissue in yellow and mechanics in blue. Nix the plating, unless it hooks into him directly." A framework appeared over the arm and Doctor Johansson whistled.
"How much for one of these for the hospital?" he examined the projection closely, "the bone was cleaned up, at least. I was worried it would have been a hack job. It's not pretty, but it's a lot better than I was expecting." he turned his attention to the shoulder joint, "We will need to remove these screws in the upper joint as quickly as possible."
Tony looked at it from a technical standpoint, "To get at them you'll need the base plate off. It hooks into the upper metal plates here," he pointed something out, "so I can't get to those while that's still on."
"We'll have to remove most of the flesh on the arm," the doctor nodded and pointed at the base plate. It flashed and the framework became more detailed and slightly enlarged over the area, "His skin has fused to the metal, you sure he can handle the schedule you've set?"
"I told you," Tony sighed, they'd been having this conversation all morning, "he's got the same mojo Captain America has, it will take more than these surgeries to do any permanent damage. Plus, it was all put on while he was conscious, and there wasn't even topical anesthesia. If he survived that, he can handle the removal. Besides," he added, "I'm paying you extra to not worry."
"I always worry about my patients," Doctor Johansson looked at the monitors, "I'll be keeping an eye on those, if it looks like it's putting too much strain on his system, I'll stop immediately."
"Deal," Tony went back to examining the mechanics and highlighted a rather terrifying array of wires that snaked out of the stump to wind into the metal arm. This was why he had to be in the room during the procedure- the mechanics were too complex for a surgeon to figure out alone, "These are the neural interfaces. From the scan I ran on him yesterday, I'm confident they will release from the outer arm fairly easily. If I have time, I'll make a replacement, but for now we just leave them be, got it?" the doctor nodded.
"Anything mechanical I will defer to you before touching. Now, first things first, we need to clean the area before we begin to remove the plate. It looks like we will have to make a cut here-" he marked a spot near Bucky's shoulder, "and disconnect the skin from the muscle directly. Can this table lift?"
Tony hit a button on the side and the straps tightened. Slowly, the table tipped vertical and turned. A section of the table folded in, fully exposing the back of Bucky's metal shoulder. "This will give us 360 degree access, no worries there."
"Okay, I want one of these for the hospital too."
"The suits aren't available, but I'll have JARVIS fabricate a half-dozen of these as your tip."
Steve's cell phone rang and he left the observation room to answer it. The number came up as blocked. Half the people he knew were SHIELD agents, spies, or simply non-existent as far as the government was concerned, unknown numbers were more common than calls from people on his contacts list. "Hello?"
"Hey, Cap."
Steve breathed a sigh of relief, "Coulson, I'm glad you called. Have your Agents made it back yet? How is Tripp? Did you lose anyone?"
"Everyone's alright," Coulson sounded cheerful, "a few took shots, like Tripp, but Agent Simmons got everyone patched up beautifully. Agent Tripp is still in recovery, but he'll be just fine. I've got a beta team on-site cleaning out Astana, then we'll take care of wiping it off the map."
"That's great, I was really worried. Tell them all I owe them, big. Anything you guys need."
"I appreciate that. Did you get him, or does the hunt continue?"
Steve smiled, "We got him. His only condition was that we keep working this 'Project: Echo' angle- he says the girl is alive, but he can't remember which base he sent her to. He'll be out of commission for a while, but we'll get to the bottom of this."
"I'll put a few agents to work scanning all the files to one of Maria Hill's satellite servers. She can grant JARVIS access to run keyword searches. If we find anything, I'll call again."
"Alright, thank you- for the team and for all the help."
"So long as it ends in tears for Hydra, I'm happy to help out. I've got to get going, we've had something come up in the Caribbean that requires my attention."
"You guys good?"
"Yeah, don't worry. Unless the world ends. If that looks like it'll happen, I'll give you a shout."
"OK," Steve laughed, "talk to you later."
"With me." Natasha intercepted him as soon as he got the phone into his pocket and turned back to the operating room. She looped an arm through his and dragged him backwards towards the elevator.
"What the hell, Nat?"
"You need to get out of here while they do their thing, or you'll drive yourself nuts. They'll call with updates, we're going to run errands."
"Natasha, no," he tried to pull out of her iron grip with no luck. Steve was suddenly very unsure- he and Bucky were the only super-soldiers, right? "I've got to get started on Project Echo."
"Oh yeah," she rolled her eyes and hit the elevator call button, "Hydra top secret project, your ability to finally use google will really help JARVIS out. Now stop wining, you're not getting out of this one."
Natasha kept him out all day. When they returned Steve was weighed down with bags upon bags of new clothes to fill Bucky and Sam's closets, as well as take-out they'd brought back for everyone. Steve had pretty much just been her pack mule all day.
He set the bags and food down in the lounge area and ducked into the observation room while she went upstairs to find Clint, Thor and Sam.
"I wouldn't-" Banner tried to warn him, but he wasn't quick enough.
Steve's stomach twisted and he came very close to throwing up. Bucky's shoulder was exposed- in every way. The metal plate was gone and the area was covered in a thick, clear ointment, but he could see very clearly they'd taken all the skin off. Muscle was exposed and drying blood dripped down his side. His back was to Steve at the moment and the table was vertical, but that was somehow worse.
Tony was under Bucky's metal arm, making a face and using a power drill to remove a bloody screw from his armpit as long as Steve's smallest finger, and nearly as thick. Two others sat in a small glass dish. A fluid-stained towel covered the metal plate sitting on a tray near the window. A corner of it poked out and Steve could see the fused, warped flesh.
"That's the last screw," Banner explained, "then they will get to removing the rest of the arm. It'll probably take a few more hours, then they're basically doing a shoulder replacement surgery and calling it a night. Of course, by then it'll be more like tomorrow morning..." Tony got the rest of the screw out, shivered, then looked up and waved at Banner to say something. Banner leaned forward and turned the intercom back on, "I couldn't stand the sound," he explained.
"Rogers, you OK if we just keep him under until the new base is installed? It might be safer for us and more comfortable for him."
Steve nodded and gave him a thumbs-up, "Good call. Should I get the healing stone from the apartment? It could help."
Doctor Johansson looked confused, but Tony shook his head, "Not yet, wait until we're done for the night. I don't want to risk it waking him up while we're still working. One good wrench in this state and he might lose the shoulder entirely."
Steve ran a hand through his hair, then turned to Banner, "Food is in the lounge, if you have an appetite. Let me drop some stuff of upstairs and I'll take a shift. Thanks for keeping an eye out."
"It's not my field, but I still think it's pretty cool." Banner was amicable, "Take your time, I'll be sticking around until the metal comes off. I might go grab a plate though," he sniffed, "Chinese? Excellent."
Steve walked out to the lounge with him and took Sam and Bucky's clothing upstairs. Sam looked like he'd won the lottery when he saw everything Natasha had picked out. He'd spent way too long living on jeans and old t-shirts as they hunted down Bucky. Now he had a real wardrobe fit for someone living in the most exclusive apartments in New York City.
Steve tossed the rest of the bags in his laundry room and showered, then headed back down to take up his watch for the rest of the night. Banner ate as he studied Tony and Doctor Johansson's handling of Bucky's surgery. Steve couldn't even begin to fathom how Banner could still have an appetite, he anticipated the picture of Tony pulling a screw out of Bucky's armpit being etched into his brain for the rest of his life...