Barton says, "Rogers must be going nuts." That's what he says.
Bucky rests the barrel of his rifle against his metal shoulder. The pressure is like a hug from your mother. He shrugs. "He goes nuts when I change the thermostat settings to Celsius."
"Pull," says Barton. (Barton says, "Pull.")
A machine launches a clay pigeon into the sky. Barton tells his son when to tell the machine to do its job. It rains broken parts.
(It's like knowing the meaning of a word in language you don't speak.)
He lowers his bow. "Yeah, well, that's just obnoxious," says Barton. He tilts his head a few degrees. "What else do you do just to piss him off?"
Bucky acts like Buck. "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Like hell. Nat used to do it to me all the time. Annoying the bejesus out of me — I figured it was a Rusky thing."
(If Steve were here, he'd say that Bucky isn't Russian — he's American! — in a loud voice that wasn't yelling.)
Bucky looks at his rifle, and he thinks its weight brings him relief; it's a relief that he's allowed to have it still. Even if no one wants him to have it. Not the International Criminal Court and definitely not the United States government. The inside of his head gets poked by the thorns a lot when he thinks about it.
"He didn't like the Cyrillic keyboard or the motion-activated singing fish."
Barton's face is like a car after the winter salt residue is washed off. "You got a Big Mouth Billy Bass?"
Bucky nods.
"I don't know why he hasn't punched you in the mouth yet, Barnes. Pull."
Shards fall into the earth. Bucky could pick up all the pieces, but he knows they won't fit the same. The sum of the parts no longer equals the whole.
Barton says, "You're up." ("You're up," he says.)
Bucky takes Barton's place, raises his rifle, and looks through the scope.
"Pull," Barton says for him.
It's easier to break them; it's more fun.
Barton's son asks if Bucky will teach him to shoot — not a bow like his father, but a gun. His blood goes cold, and, in the cavities in his head where the tangle of thorns grows on bad days, there is an echo.
"Sorry, kid. That's your Aunt Nat's job."
"Hey," and her voice is like holding something fragile and precious. Like the baby on her hip. Or is it a toddler? (When does the change happen?) Barton's wife —
Laura, says the person within.
— holds a phone out to him. Bucky doesn't move.
"It's Captain Rogers," she says.
Bucky takes it. His throat closes. It's like pinching off a garden hose.
"Buck?"
He forces a noise out: confirmatory and desperate. Phones are stupid.
Steve talks about legal things. There's confidence in his voice designed to make Bucky feel safe. It doesn't work. Steve's word is not enough to convince the world that the Winter Soldier is not at fault for the crimes he committed. Steve will fight the powers that be, but he will ultimately lose. Then Bucky will have to run or be imprisoned.
("I'll go to war before I let anyone do that to you again. I swear to God, if they touch you, Bucky, I'll burn this place to the ground myself." A sweet sentiment, but it doesn't mean much coming from a man who is always at war anyway.)
"Bucky? Buck, are you still there?"
He sees the daughter playing with the dog in a field. It's like a warm mug to wrap your cold hands around. His throat unsticks.
"I'm here."
He lies in a ground-floor room with a bed in it. The thorns have been behaving for the past few weeks. He has been on the farm for three days. Buck is afraid of what he'll see when he sleeps in this place. He's afraid of what he'll see when he wakes up in this place. He's afraid that he'll scare and hurt the children the way he still scares and hurts Steve.
He has been on the farm for three days, and it's like swinging on a rope.
It's raining, and Barton's older kids —
Cooper and Lila, says the person within. Don't act like you don't know their names, asshole.
— are complaining loudly about it. They want to go outside and play. Their mother —
Laura, you jerk.
— won't let them go out. Bucky doesn't say that there's nothing out there for them, but he thinks it. He thinks it and leans deeper into the wooden chair.
The boy (Cooper!) grumbles before settling down in front of the television with a gaming controller beside his father. The girl (Lila!) sits dramatically at the table with Bucky, one empty chair between them. Bucky pretends the proximity doesn't bother him. He leans into the chair and winds the string between his fingers faster. She watches him for lifetimes; it's like sitting in a confessional with nothing to say — with everything to say. The heel of her hand is pushed dramatically into her cheek. She broadcasts boredom.
"What are you doing?" she says. (She says, "What are you doing?")
Bucky's fingers stop moving. He stops leaning back so hard. The daughter (Lila!) raises her eyebrows, waiting for an answer. (Cut the sass, kid.)
"Braiding rope."
"Why?"
Jesus, the person within mutters. Bucky refrains from repeating it.
"I like to keep my hands busy."
"Because you get nervous?"
"Something like that." The thorns touch him just to remind him that they're there.
She watches his mismatched hands work the jute cord. Buck works the knots and loops more deliberately because her gaze makes him very aware of himself.
"Where did you learn to do that?" she asks. Her hand is no longer digging into her cheek. (She asks, "Where did you learn to do that?")
I don't remember, says the person within.
"I don't remember," says Buck. His hands work faster and then make a mistake. He slows down, leaning over the tangle to correct it.
"Can you teach me?" she asks.
He stills and leans back against the chair. She is watching him with pure youth in her eyes; it shines.
"OK," he says.
She retrieves a bundle of acrylic brown yarn and sits in the chair directly beside him. Buck teaches Lila a single rope braid. It's OK. It's like eating broccoli covered in melted cheese.
Another time, he is sharpening his knives outside by the woodpile. Lucky is lounging at his feet, sunning himself. The dog really does have a gastrointestinal problem. Lila pops out of nowhere — her Auntie Nat must be teaching her — and smiles blinding white.
"Did I surprise you?" she says.
Bucky loosens his grip on his knife. He holds it away from the whetstone.
"Nope," he says. (He says, "Nope.")
"Whatcha doin'?"
"Maintenance."
"Can you teach me?"
Cooper with the guns, Lila sharpening knives, the person within says. Nathaniel is gonna ask me how to use a garrote as soon as he can talk.
"No," he says, and the tangle of thorns deflates. "Maybe when you're older."
There are guns firing in his head. He can feel the recoil. It's been five days since he came to the farm. He has to get out of here.
In the morning, 0435, he stands in the kitchen, mystified. Today is Friday. Upstairs, there is movement; the rest of them are waking up. The older children have school. Barton left at 0315. He has a meeting with Steve and all the others in New York. Or is it DC? Bucky doesn't know, and no one wants him to pay any attention to what's going on with all those governments anyway.
Bucky approaches the pantry and stares at its contents. Why aren't foods called what they are? He tries to read the ingredients on the plastic sack which contains bread, but he doesn't think letters in that order are supposed to produce real words, let alone words of things that are meant to be eaten.
He eyes everything else on the shelves and in the cabinets. The tangle of thorns shivers and lashes out regretfully at the sides of his skull. Bucky stands frozen.
The children move around him, talking loudly for such an early hour. Laura talks back to them, moving around Bucky as if he isn't doing anything strange. Cooper and Lila eat the bread made with things that aren't real. They spread something over the bread that Bucky is relieved to see is real. It's actual, honest-to-God butter.
He doesn't move until Laura has left (Nathaniel crying and snotty in her arms) to take the older ones to school. The first thing he grabs is flour.
When Laura returns (Nathaniel no longer crying but still snotty), she stares at him.
"What are you doing?" she says.
Bucky looks up from the counter. "Waiting for the dough to prove."
"You're making bread?"
It's not a question which is looking for a yes or a no answer. It's a question looking for an explanation.
He says, "Your bread has weird ingredients."
"How long do you have to wait?" she says and nods to the bowl covered with a dishtowel.
"A while."
Laura approaches him, wielding Nathaniel like a weapon. "Take him for me, will you? I'm exhausted."
He accepts the baby, but he doesn't want to. He puts Nathaniel on his right side, supports the child's back with his right arm. It's like being handed a bomb. It's like holding ice — it's going to change and slip through your fingers, impossible to hold.
He's frozen, and he hears the pipes shiver in the walls. Laura is taking a shower. The baby is getting snot on both of their shirts. It inspires Bucky's muscles. By the time she comes downstairs again, the baby isn't snotty and there's bread baking in the oven. Buck doesn't know why, but he likes the weight of Nathaniel on his hip. It's like a rock tied to the string of a balloon. He's never felt more in control than when he holds the baby.
"I see you two are bonding," Laura says.
Bucky doesn't know what to say. He supposes it's true.
"He's such a good baby," says Laura. "Anyone who comes here . . . Nate makes eyes at them until they hold him."
He's been wearing me down for a long time, says the person within.
Bucky glances from the baby to its mother. He smiles small and tense. He makes a gesture for Laura to take the baby.
"Oh, no," she says. "You keep him. He's earned this."
"OK," says Bucky.
They sit side by side at the table, Nathaniel in Buck's lap trying to eat a plastic toy. The air smells like bread.
"You doing OK?" Laura asks. "This can't be easy."
Bucky shrugs. His throat won't open for speech.
Laura nods. "I remember when Clint first brought Nat in. I've talked to her a lot, Barnes. It's possible to get to an OK place. We're here; we all care about you a lot." She puts a hand on his metal arm. He doesn't feel it, but he sees it. "A lot of them have been where you're at. It doesn't last forever if you don't let it."
Bucky doesn't speak. He can't.
The oven timer scares a sound out of his throat: "Thanks."
Laura takes Nathaniel into her lap. Bucky removes the bread from the oven, butters the top so it stays soft.
"And, Barnes?"
He looks to her attentively.
There's a smile on her face like feathers. "Why don't you lie down for a few hours? I've got to take Nate to the doctor and run some errands, and the kids won't be back until three."
It's like ice water in the desert.
He lies on the bed in his assigned ground-floor room. Cooper and Lila won't be back until 1500. Bucky decides he can risk sleeping — can risk a nightmare, terror. Until he falls asleep, he thinks about how strong Laura Barton is.
Lila asks him where he learned to make bread. He tells her "from my mother."
The next morning, he teaches Cooper and Lila how to make braided bread. While the bread proves and bakes, they play with Lucky outside. They take turns throwing a bald tennis ball for him. Lucky brings the ball back to Bucky the most; his metal arm throws the ball farthest. They melt cheese on the top of the bread. It's good, and it's OK.
Later, they play a video game on a console that has controllers which still have wires. The game is called Mario Kart 64, and Bucky loses spectacularly every time. He doesn't mind, but Cooper and Lila are cheating little shits.
When Barton returns to the farm, he brings with him Wilson and Steve. Steve smiles at Buck with the force of a thousand suns. He hugs Buck, and it almost doesn't hurt. Steve puts a hand on the side of Buck's face and sees everything.
"Hanging in there?"
Bucky tries to answer in the affirmative but his throat is acting up again. Instead, he tries to jerk his lips into a smile. That doesn't work either. It feels like a groundball rolling between his legs (E5) and two runs crossing the plate.
"Sam and I have to talk to you," Steve says.
Three runs crossing the plate.
They go outside by the woodpile so Barton can reunite with his family in peace.
Steve says, "We have to tell them who you are, Buck."
He still can't make a sound. He looks at Wilson, hoping the man can articulate for him.
"Look," says Wilson, "if they understood the context, they would understand why none of this is your fault."
Bucky hadn't known that the world didn't know he was the Winter Soldier. But now that he knows that they don't know, the information feels sacred.
"People are already guessing that it's you, Buck," says Steve. He looks apologetic: "They say it's the only reason I'd be going up to bat for a Soviet assassin."
And they're right, the person within wants him to say.
"They have to know who you are to fully grasp what's been done to you," says Steve. "I'm so sorry, Buck, but we have to tell them. It's our best shot at getting them to back off and see that you're one of the people who got hurt because of all this."
"The first person the Winter Soldier killed was James Barnes," Bucky says, echoing someone else's words. He can't remember who.
Steve looks like he's in pain. "So how can James Barnes be responsible for these crimes?"
All anyone on the television talks about the next day is the reveal of the Winter Soldier's identity. He finds a channel not broadcasting the news and watches a program called America's Next Top Model. It's stupid, but the photographs are interesting to look at. He watches it for six hours and tries to breathe evenly.
At night, he watches situational comedies. The ghostly laughter makes the tangle of thorns shiver and grow, nervous and uncomfortable. Bucky starts to play a game on one of Barton's consoles that have controllers with no wires. He finds he likes one game called Arkham City. It's like being in a dream without having to be asleep when he plays.
(It's like living adjacent to reality.)
Barton comes downstairs and finds Bucky playing for three consecutive days. His eyes are like watching a mouse stuck in a maze.
"Still playing that?" Barton says the fourth time.
"All these fuckin' Riddler trophies," Bucky grumbles.
The next time Barton finds him doing this, Bucky's playing a different game in the same series called Arkham Origins.
"Not as good as City," Bucky says before Barton can ask. "And all these fuckin' extortion files . . ."
Barton makes him talk to Wilson on the phone, but phones are still stupid and his throat still pinches itself closed. It's a wasted conversation. Steve talks to him, too. It makes Bucky feel like he's picked up a backpack full of bricks that he can't put down.
Bucky is left alone with the baby. He hasn't been back to the ground-floor room for a week. He lies on the couch for long hours. His body refuses to move even while the person within screams at him to get up. The thorns are a little ball in his head. It's small and rolls whenever his head shifts. Each of the Bartons capable of intelligent speech (and Lucky) has attempted to move him and entice him with food. None of them have made any headway.
Now the baby is propped up against Bucky's stomach where he lies on his side on the couch. Nathaniel holds a blue train that has a face; he blows a spit bubble. It pops, and Bucky's face is rained on. Nathaniel drives the toy train up and down Bucky's left arm. He puts the train on his shoulder and lets gravity pull it down. Bucky's face is rained on.
It's like the space left behind when you lose a tooth.
Stop, says the person within. (The person within says, Stop.)
Bucky closes his eyes and shifts the plates of his arm. The train jumps on its way down. Nathaniel makes a sound like strawberries and puts the train back on Bucky's shoulder. He shifts the plates. Sounds like tulips from a child. He shifts the plates of his arm and he shifts and he shifts.
When he moves on to a new gaming console, he finds that there is another game in the Arkham series. This one is called Arkham Knight. Bucky hates it because the car parts are dumb, and then he hates it because it's not like dreaming without being asleep — it's like a waking nightmare. Barton finds him high up in a tree, four kilometers from the farm, 18 hours later and says, "Should have seen that coming."
Barton perches beside him on a branch. He says, "Steve's gonna come out as soon as he can. He has a plan."
(Somewhere, eggs are cracking. Guilt.)
"Ready to go back?"
"OK."
Bucky doesn't collect all of the Riddler trophies.
The gaming consoles are gone that night. He stares at their undusty outlines on the shelves of the entertainment center. Even Mario Kart 64 is gone. Bucky flips through channels until he finds something that is mostly black and white. It's a documentary about a person called Lou Gehrig, the luckiest man. When the program ends, Bucky feels his backpack full of bricks shift. It's heavier, makes his spine bend. But when the program ends, Buck thinks that he could be the luckiest man, too. It doesn't make him feel any better though.
The next evening, he braids rope with Lila and Cooper. They watch a movie called The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. The movie's OK, but Buck frowns at the shirt he's wearing; it's Steve's.
Steve is staring at him. The stare makes Bucky's eyes feel heavy; he can't look at Steve anywhere higher than his shins. There is a backpack full of bricks on his back, and the straps are tearing from the weight. Steve sits beside him, puts his hand on Buck's shoulder.
This is the first time Bucky had been in the ground-floor room with the bed in a long time, relatively speaking.
"You have to tell me what the right thing to do here is, Buck."
Breathing is like someone squeezing your lungs. It's like someone folding a garden hose, pinching it closed.
"Bucky, I just got you back and now you're disappearing right before my eyes."
It's so heavy. So many eggs have been dropped. He's tired, and he's hurting. The person within wants it all to stop.
"I hate seeing you like this, Buck." The pressure of Steve's hand increases. "Please talk to me."
The last stitch is pulled. His backpack falls from him. Bucky wants to weep. Voice rises up in him, and it's like holding in laughter.
"I'd deserve it," he says. He says, "I'd deserve it. But I can't risk it — Steve, I know I've done wrong, but I can't risk being a prisoner again. I can't lose everything again. I can't—"
The air doesn't contain enough oxygen. He is lighter than the atmosphere, floating up and up. Steve grabs him and holds him, keeps him from floating too far away. Steve has a firm, non-threatening, one-handed grip on the back of Bucky's neck. The other reinforces Bucky's ribs against the expanding guilt in his chest. Steve keeps him from floating away and popping.
Bucky's bones disintegrate; he becomes a jerking, convulsing heap safe inside Steve's rigid cage of arms. Steve lets Bucky dissolve and reform, not budging a centimeter.
After eons, Steve says, "You haven't done anything wrong. None of this is your fault."
Bucky nods, neck still in the other's grip.
"I'll arrange a flight out of the country for us—"
Bucky says, "No."
"There's no argument. I'm coming with you—"
"I meant no, we're not leaving."
"Buck."
He leans out of Steve's cage of arms, ribs no longer threatening to spring open. The one hand falls from his neck to his shoulder, a tether. Steve isn't ready to let him go. He never will be. Buck doesn't mind.
Buck says, "None of it is my fault," and it sounds like a question.
"None of it," says Steve. (Steve says, "None of it.")
Absolute certainty.
"OK. How do I convince the rest of the world of that?"
A maelstrom of emotions war on Steve's face. Steve reaches for him again, and Bucky lets him. One of Steve's hands presses the back of Buck's head, and it's like safety. The tangle of thorns shrinks away from the touch. It shrinks.
Bucky asks, "How do I survive the trial?"
"You won't lose anything, Buck," Steve says. "We won't lose."
It's like tossing a penny into a fountain.