In the morning, they bring a tablet to him and ask the Soldier to select clothing from the Internet to be delivered to the tower. He navigates the web pages right-handed, both because that hand is more precise and because the touch screen only registers his left hand half the time. Stark says he can improve the Soldier's hand so that won't be the case in the future. He also says the Soldier should consider clothing that isn't dark leather and that winters tend to look nice in blues and purples.
The Soldier starts a new page of the notebook specifically to record things Stark has said so he can research what they mean. The first two entries are "winter colors" and "leather daddy." The second item makes Sam shake his head and ask Stark about parental Internet controls.
Barnes's jacket in the Smithsonian was blue. Was that because it was a concealing color and Barnes had been a sniper, or because he liked blue? What is there to like about colors? Staring at them, the Soldier thinks he might like blue and green, but he can see no purpose to preferring a specific color for any non-tactical reason.
He also cannot see the purpose for most of the civilian clothing on the website.
"What is the point of 'skinny jeans'?" he asks.
"That's a damn good question," Sam says.
When they bring him back into the kitchen, they ask if he wants to try something new, and of course the answer is no because what's the point in consuming something that may not be as good if he has the option of something he knows he enjoys? He wonders after if that was the right answer. He wonders when they're going to lose patience and start telling him what the right answers are.
He can't remember how long HYDRA's patience could last.
There is a library within the tower, and that is the next place they guide the Soldier. "You said you wanted to expand your vocabulary," Sam explains as they usher him in the door. He remembers there are books that consist of all words and their definitions, and he imagines that is what they mean to give him, but the volumes Stark is offering him appear to be сборник новелл. Narratives, the type that aren't factual accounts.
They're all in English, and some of the names light up a space in his mind where once there might have been memories. Wells, Shelley, Verne. Did Barnes read? Between Stark and Sam, one of them is always interacting with a phone. Steve is somewhere within this building and they must be reporting to him, following his orders. These books, he imagines, are Steve's command, as if the stories can restore the man wiped away.
He doubts that is feasible, but then, to his knowledge he's never read anything that wasn't a dossier or a Wikipedia article, so it isn't as if he has any expertise in this field.
Opening one book, he is stalled on the first sentence when his mind stumbles over the word "picturesque."
"You turn pages right-handed," Stark says, bringing the Soldier's mind away from the text and back into the room.
He does, because the fingers of the left hand tend to fumble with objects as thin and light as sheets of paper and he doesn't want to tear Stark's belongings. "Is that wrong?"
"Hey, far be it from me to tell a man what to do with his left hand." Stark has the same expression as he did yesterday when he was scanning the limb. "But if I can rig it to have consistent capacitive touch—and I can do that in my sleep, by the way—then there's no reason why I couldn't improve the neural feedback in your fingers."
The Soldier stares at his hand. He can see the use in such an upgrade, but he remembers scraping this hand across asphalt to slow his body while sliding down the highway and also catching Steve's shield as it came hurtling toward him. He tries to picture such actions with the hand sending the damage signal to his mind. "Permanently?"
"It wouldn't have to be. It could be like the glove."
Stark leads him to a laboratory almost immediately thereafter. Before he does, Sam insists they discuss Stark's computer system, which he says is throughout the building but especially in the lab, and which he also says can speak. The computer is named JARVIS, and Sam is firm in stressing that is a friend, not a threat, and an artificial intelligence, not a person watching their movements.
The Soldier, who vaguely recalls a person within a computer, fails to see a meaningful distinction, but it matters to Sam, so he nods.
"It shouldn't be too different from a texting glove," Stark is saying as the Soldier follows after him. The man says many things and by the Soldier's estimate, he comprehends about forty percent of them. "But there the conductive thread makes a circuit between the screen and the skin and your hand has a different capacitance, but then if the fingertips of the glove have synthetic flesh, it should—"
A set of doors swish open to allow them access and a voice intones, GOOD MORNING, SERGEANT BARNES. He looks around, not for a body but for something to face as he responds, but he is distracted by the site of the lab itself. It is full of tools and items that are unfamiliar and yet they bring something, someone nameless to mind. He feels—"disappointed" was the word from the book that best describes the sensation—that there should be a flying Cadillac in this room.
What sense does that make?
To his left there is clicking and whirring and a pneumatic claw clamps down onto his arm. A robot of some kind. It is not painful and his mind has already come up with fifty ways to dismantle the creature with minimal damage to himself, but he is so accustomed to being touched without anyone asking and there has been so little of that in the past few days that he simple stands, staring.
"Hey!" Stark is swiping at the machine. "Hands off of Inspector Gadget! Or, uh, actually you're more of a Dr. Claw, aren't you? Whatever. No manhandling the stray assassins, got it? I don't care how shiny they are."
The robot makes a sound and taps at the star on the Soldier's shoulder.
"No, I am not painting one of those on you. No flames either. No racing stripes, no hydraulic piercings. I so did not resurrect you so you could have a mid-life crisis. Now let go of the cyborg."
Rather than let go, the robot begins exploring the Soldier's arm in a manner not unlike Stark's own examination of it, albeit far less deft. Stark sighs.
"Bucky, this is Dum-E. Dum-E, Bucky. Yes, he's one of mine, but in my defense, I was a teenager during that design process. Also I was drunk."
"Hello," the Soldier says. He's never spoken to another machine before.
"Now off," Stark orders. "You have five seconds to grasp the concept of personal space or I will decommission you. Imagine your life as a hat rack. Only with less sentience and all your wiring stripped out because it'd be worth more that way. And newsflash: no one in this building even wears hats."
The robot lets go and the Soldier isn't sure what it does after that, because he's preoccupied with remembering. The threats to that machine: Stark's more creative, but it brings to mind handlers, HYDRA agents. He thinks if he was too slow in coming around out of cryo, or if he didn't grasp an objective quickly enough, they would bring up decommissioning. Or the chair.
A handler is a handler.
The only question that remains is how long it will take these handlers to treat him like the other machines.
A/N: Sorry for the delay on this chapter! The holiday weekend threw off my writing schedule.
"Winters look good in blues and purples" is in reference to the "Color Me Beautiful" seasons: that is, a fashion method that assigns a season to you based on your coloring/complexion and tells you what colors look best for that season. Tony would call him a Winter just because of his name, but coincidentally enough, Sebastian Stan actually is a Winter, judging from the season charts I've seen.
I have a headcanon not particularly supported by anything that Bucky Barnes was a science fiction fan. I also imagine the Soldier would currently find a lot of science fiction cathartic as it deals with themes of what is humanity and feeling displaced in society.
Translations for the Russian are as follows:
сборник новелл = novels
