"So you're really ninety-seven?" Coulson's scientist asked Bucky, looking at him appreciatively as he gathered up the sea of beer bottles strewn across the living room surfaces. A pace behind her, her partner's expression darkened. He evidently didn't like the way she was looking at him.
"Believe it or not, yeah. I'm about a year older than Steve, so I'm the oldest person here." He paused. "I guess that makes me the oldest SHIELD agent too. That's sort of weird to think about."
"You don't look it at all. That serum is really something else." She approached him, looking like she was examining a fascinating specimen. Her partner glared harder.
He should probably put the poor guy out of his misery. Bucky looked him in the eye. "You don't have to glare at me like that, Agent. I have no interest in making a move on your partner." The engineer huffed. The scientist looked between the two men, clearly surprised by the exchange. Bucky rolled his eyes and lifted the hem of his shirt to show a clear bite mark on his hipbone. "I'm quite happily claimed already."
The engineer relaxed, chuckling. "I guess you are."
The scientist peered at it. "My goodness that's quite the bite. That looks large for coming from a woman."
Bucky dropped his shirt and returned to gathering bottles into a trash bag. "Never said I was dating a woman." He reached for a bottle and gasped as a sudden pain shot through his arm. His left arm. The fuck?
"What? What is it?"
"I swear I-I-I didn't do anything. We're cool."
Bucky shook himself. "Momentary random inexplicable pain. It's gone now. That was weird."
"You sure you're okay?"
"After the amount of experimental shit that's been done to me, I'm not convinced okay exists. But whatever just happened, it's over now. Anyway, you're on the director's A-team. What's he like to work for?" Bucky changed the subject.
"He's a good guy. Fair. Takes care of his own." The scientist told him enthusiastically, joining him in helping clean up. "Almost fatherly, except, you know, spies and danger and things."
"Keeps a lot of secrets. But yeah. He, um, he actually cares about us, even if we know he'll have to-to put SHIELD ahead of any one, um, any one agent when it comes down to it." The engineer stammered. Yes; that was right. This would be the guy Trip had pointed out last night. Fitz. "So, um, what was it like, um, in the war?"
"What was it like serving with the great Captain America, you mean?" Bucky shook his head. "He'll never really be Captain America to me. He'll always be that scrawny little punk from Brooklyn who got in a fight every time he left the house and never won a single one of them." He caught them gaping at him and grinned. "He's a dork. An idealist. A hopeless romantic. More bravery than brains. King of the stupid reckless ideas. Got shot at by one of the founders of SHIELD because he didn't realize she had a crush on him and she caught him being forcibly kissed by another woman who he also didn't realize was making a move on him until she had him by the tie and was forcibly kissing him. Has repeatedly disobeyed orders to save me."
"Your best friend." The scientist stated, no question in it.
"Yup." Bucky surveyed the room and spotted a bottle on top of a framed painting. "How the hell did someone get that up there?" He stood on tiptoe and stretched for it. "I'm not even sure I can-Aha!" He managed to knock it just enough that it fell and he caught it, tossing it into the trash bag that Fitz was holding.
As he retracted his arm, the pain hit again, and this time it wasn't momentary. It was searing, white hot, felt like his arm was being torn off again, or torn apart. He doubled over, clutching at it even though he knew rationally that that was pointless when it was metal.
"What's wrong? You didn't even do anything. Oh god. Here, sit down. Leo, get help!" The scientist sounded terrified as she tried to help him to the couch.
Steve burst in before Fitz could make it out the door. "Bucky! What's wrong? What happened?"
"I don't know!" The scientist answered for him, "I think he's having a heart attack, his left arm hurts but he doesn't have a left arm so it must be referred pain, and he's 97, so..."
"I have already sent Doctor Banner to the med suite." JARVIS told them. "I am not convinced of that, but we will need equipment to be sure. There is a limit to my analyses at a distance."
Steve knelt and picked Bucky up like he weighed nothing. His boyfriend's breathing was rapid and shallow, face pale with pain, but he burrowed into Steve's chest with surprising strength, clinging to him as he fought the pain and the memories it triggered. "You're gonna be okay. We're going to fix this, whatever it is. Just stay with me."
Bruce was ready with the EKG leads when Steve all but ran in, Fitz-Simmons scurrying in his wake. "Get his shirt open. Bucky, it would help if you allowed Steve to put you down...I'll take that as a no. Well, can you loosen your grip a little? Ok, there we go, just stay like that. Hold still, try and take deep breaths. We're going to sort you out. Simmons, start getting monitoring equipment on him. I started pulling things out, they're on the counter."
"His heart is fine." JARVIS announced.
"Thank you. Okay. Sudden onset, severe phantom limb pain. That's...fun." Bruce removed the leads.
"Short." Fitz blurted out. The others looked at him. "His arm. Something is... It's..."
"You think the wiring in it might be shorting out somewhere!" Simmons filled in. "That would make sense. I think."
"I have summoned Mr Stark."
"Good thinking, thank you all of you." Bruce glanced at the pulse oximeter on Bucky's finger. Not dire, but reflective of the fact that he was failing at not hyperventilating. "Bucky, I'm sorry but we're going to have to sedate you. Phantom limb pain doesn't respond to painkillers, so the best we can do is make you care less about its presence while we find the source. I'm going to try my best to hit a balance of far enough under for the pain to be manageable but still able to communicate with us while we work on your arm."
"I'll be here every second. I promise." Steve caressed his hair, not sure that Bucky even heard them. He nodded to Bruce. "Just do it."
"JARVIS, every kind of scan on that arm you can." Tony strode in, already having been updated on his way upstairs. "I want a reconstruction that we can pick apart."
"Already on it. Calculating reconstruction now." A hologram complete with the inner workings appeared near the table that with the help of the drugs they had managed to get Bucky onto, flickering rapidly between variations as JARVIS tested the soundness of models. After a few minutes it settled into a repeating cycle. "I do not have the data to narrow down the possibilities further."
"Right. That's still something. I guess we're going to have to start opening it up then so you can repeat the scans with less interference." Tony started pulling tools out of his pockets.
"Or...can you detect electrical activity inside it?" Simmons asked, "Because maybe if you did scans while we did neurological testing, you could use the electrical activity to trace circuits and narrow it down that way."
"Yes. That is an excellent idea." JARVIS sounded impressed.
Tony stopped. "Brilliant. I see why SHIELD hired you."
"Bucky?" Bruce asked, "You with us?"
"Yeah." He was groggy, but there. They'd obviously drugged him without him noticing.
"Good. Do you have sensation in your left arm normally?"
"Yeah. I can feel stuff. Not pain though. 'Til now."
"Excellent. I want you to close your eyes and try to go limp, but no dozing off, okay? We're going to touch your arm and move it around and I need you to describe what you feel. If we're touching it, where and with how many fingers, if we're moving it, how, and if anything we do makes the pain worse. Can you do that for us?"
"Mmhmm."