Okay, so I had wanted a magical character to be the root of Bucky's issue. And since he was mentioned in Capt. 2, I thought I'd use Dr. Strange. But I don't know him at all, and I don't feel comfortable using him as a character, even if I were to call it my version of him. And I skimmed all the marvel characters that can use magic, but the ones I know are definitely not applicable. [I don't see Loki, Enchantress, Daimon, or Scarlet Witch coming to aid. XD] So I thought I'd somehow squeeze it into something scientific, but that just seems...like a stretch. So. Bear with me. As I figure out how to fix this little issue. XD

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"...I don't understand." Steve admitted after a moment.

"Yeah...it's a little over your head, Captain Crunch." Tony said with his usual biting humor.

...

Steve and Sam had ended up back on the jet while the skeleton crew operating it made a makeshift medical team of themselves. This hadn't exactly been planned, so it was slap-dash at best. They'd bound Bucky's wounds and given him enough sedatives to keep down a small elephant, necessary, given who and what he was. [Though truth be told, they weren't exactly sure what that 'what' entailed].

Despite the urgency-and Steve's expectations-when the jet landed an hour and a half later, it wasn't at a hospital. The ostentatious and familiar display of their host's name gave away where they were, and who Fury's jet-lining contact had been.

"Captain Crunch, hey, you're looking pretty good for pushing ninety." Tony Stark had drawled as the jet bay opened.

Steve hadn't had the humor or the time, and his initial surprise when he'd seen where they were to land had passed. "Tony." he acknowledged. "My friend needs a hospital, now, he-"

Tony cut him off as if he hadn't spoken, while he pointedly waved a hand towards the jet where Bucky was being taken away. "So Fury calls me up out of the blue. Apparently good ole Captain Stars and Stripes is on this crazy mission to hunt down his former best friend turned psychopathic hitman, and he needs a jet asap. Being the humanitarian I am, I send him one."

"Tony-" Steve interjected warningly as he watched Bucky being wheeled away. "Where-"

"-And then, he informs me that said psychopath is need of medical attention and to have a medical staff on hand to perform emergency surgery. Which I do."

At that, a little tension leaves Steve, "Thank y-"

"But you know what? I was supposed to be on a date with Pepper. And now I'm here. With a psychopathic hitman and Captain Crunch. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

"Uh...not exactly."

Tony nodded like that was to be expected. "You owe me. Big."

Steve nodded slowly. "Okay...yeah. I owe you. Thank you, Tony."

Tony blinked and then shrugged. "Not that big a deal. Anyway, why are you out here? Shouldn't you be practicing your bedside manner?" he gestured behind him.

Steve wasn't sure whether to be exasperated or amused. "I'll follow you?"

Tony lifted a brow as he turned and headed off, and although Steve was clearly expected to follow and that was the rational thing to do, Tony added with a cluck of his tongue. "You'll follow me? Some captain you are."

Sam had joined him at some point, apparently, because he piped up then. "So that's Tony Stark...is he always like that?"

Steve considered that as they walked. "...That was pretty tame, actually...but...yeah. He's uh...he's something else."

...

That 'something else' was as good as his word. Bucky was in an operating room almost immediately, the bullet had been successfully retrieved, and things seemed set for a clean surgery.

"So that's the 'Winter Soldier'. Kind of looks like the Hobo Soldier. But. Y'know." Tony mused.

Steve shot him an irritated glance, while Sam, who seemed thoroughly amused by Tony, hid a smirk.

"That's not funny...jokes aside...he's...he needs help."

"No, I can definitely see that." Tony said plainly.

"I mean it, Tony." Steve growled, which only seemed to increase Tony's desire to agitate him.

"Yeah, I meant it too, I can really see." he pointed two fingers at his eyes and then gestured outward to mimic sight. Steve looked tempted to violence when a hand on his shoulder stopped him.

"He's trying to cheer you up. Don't let it get to you." The voice was a little soft-spoken, and a welcome one at that.

"Bruce." Steve watched as Bruce took beside Tony. "Good to see you...what are you doing here?"

"He works for me." Tony supplied.

"With him." Bruce corrected. "Sometimes...he's assisting me with...my research."

Steve knew what he meant and he inclined his head. "How's that-" A scream cut him off.

Inside the window-ed room that served as the operating room, the Winter Soldier seemed to have woken up and he was far from a happy camper. He had already jerked his arm free of one of the restraints, and it seemed that the sedatives were no longer effective. One of the small tables had been overturned, and a doctor lay unconscious.

"No!" Steve started to dart inside when one of the doctors slammed a large needle into Bucky's back and drained it quickly. Bucky twisted and tried to make a grab for the doctor with his left arm, but his right arm and legs were still restrained and the effort proved futile. He almost immediately seemed to grow more sluggish and he strained weakly at his bonds a moment before his gaze fell on the window and the man who lay beyond it. At the sight of Steve, Bucky went still and stared a moment as his expression twisted as if struggling to remember something, but then he went slack and fell back on the bed.

Even Tony had tensed at first, concerned for the safety of those inside, but he relaxed quickly and was back to himself when he spoke next. "Does he do that creepy-eye-sex thing with you a lot? Because it's creepy."

Steve said not a word as he stared at Tony darkly, and Bruce just sighed.

...

Special care was taken to keep Bucky under a motley assortment of sedatives. He seemed to build up a tolerance to them quickly, and mixing them wasn't likely to do him the same ill harm it would do a normal person. Tony and Bruce both seemed intrigued with the idea of studying Bucky a bit, to Steve's further irritation, but it was kept to a minimum in light of his current condition. When the surgery was completed, fluid samples were taken, as well as his vitals, and lastly a brain scan. That was the part that had 'gone over Steve's head'.

"Look at those readings...it's...wow."

"They must have lit him up like a Christmas tree." Tony said thoughtfully.

Steve had glared at that comment, and the previous comments which had been more fast-paced and contained science-related words that barely registered as English to him-prompted him to say-

"...I don't understand."

Sam's expression suggested that it was a shared sentiment.

"Yeah...it's a little over your head, Captain Crunch."

Bruce endeavoured to explain, and was more sympathetic than Tony in the matter. "Ah..let's see...imagine the brain like a series of highways. It's constantly moving and flowing. Damage to the brain causes disruptions to this flow, like a car accident backing up traffic. Eventually the accident is cleaned up and traffic resumes."

"Bo-riiing." Tony drawled, but for some reason-when Bruce shot him a look, he pouted faintly and quieted.

Steve might have marveled at that, but he was more concerned with Bucky and decoding his brain. From Bruce and Tony's reactions, he'd garnered that it wasn't in good shape.

"Some are small accidents. Things like banging your head, sleep deprivation, not eating right, can affect your brain function. Others are larger, like concussions. Those 'accidents', take longer to clean up and that's where you can get things like amnesia. There are no detours in the brain, it's a fluid highway, if it's blocked...that's that. I believe that was James' initial circumstance...when he..." Bruce trailed off as Steve's teeth clenched.

"When I failed him." Steve said lowly.

Even Tony didn't have a quip to make from that. They all knew the story, it was plastered on the Smithsonian for pity's sake. Bucky plummeted to his certain death in an icy wasteland and was left, all under the watch of his best friend and captain. Most people saw the hero, but some could see the man, and realize how much that incident weighed on him.

But it was far more than they knew. To Steve, it was one of, if not the greatest, regret that he had. When he'd finally had the chance to save Bucky, when Bucky had agreed to follow his lead, when Bucky had trusted him, offered his life to him, when he had the chance to protect Bucky...he'd failed. Miserably. And Bucky had spent the past seventy years in an existence that would Hellish to anyone. But to Bucky in particular...Steve knew it was...far worse. Worse than Hell. Bucky was a great man. And Steve had let him down.

"...His file indicated that he had amnesia initially...it was what allowed them to do as they liked. But the accidents began to clear themselves, he began to rebel and regain himself whenever he was out too long and they took to freezing him to keep him stable. But in the interim, they also wiped him clean every time. Shock therapy."

"I know all this." Steve said with his fists clenched. It had been painful to read, and no less so now to hear.

Bruce shot him a sympathetic look and continued. "The treatments reinforced the accidents, made them...more detrimental. And also inhibited his ability to clean those accidents. His mind would make the attempt but it would be like ramming a car into it repeatedly to clear it. What you described to me of his behavior, how his brain appears now...my own opinion...I would say that his mind is trying to heal but has been so thoroughly damaged that it can't repair itself. It's just...attacking itself, over and over. He probably suffers from migraines, hallucinatory experiences, he probably can't judge memory from reality, and what memories he might be regaining would be...hard for him to process."

"You got all this from looking at that picture, huh?" Steve finally said, and the words were forced from his throat which felt thick.

"Well...not exactly. There's...his physical condition to consider." Bruce admitted.

"What do you mean?"

"The broken nose, the bruises, the mangled knuckles, the sleep deprivation, he's malnourished and dehydrated, and one of his legs was infected. But that last one might be more superhuman ignorance than anything else." Tony spoke up again.

"...He's been fighting...he's been on the run, that's normal though, right?"

"He's a super soldier, why would that be normal?" Tony queried.

Bruce filled in the rest seeing Steve's confused expression. "...The level of stress his body was under...his glucose levels...I would hazard a guess that he sleeps a few hours...every few days. As for eating and drinking, he's barely eating enough to survive. If he weren't...special...he would probably be dead by now. For more reasons than the obvious." Namely all the attempts on him and his inhuman stunts.

Steve took that information like a punch to the gut. "Why would he do that?"

"...The reports mentioned briefly that he was fed supplement shakes in the brief periods they let him out of freezing. Eating, drinking, or sleeping wasn't necessary to sustain him, really. I'm sure he knows that he has to, but it's not instinctive to him like it is for us. And with the state his mind is in, he probably can't comprehend hunger or exhaustion well enough to force himself to do those things often."

"How can he not know he's supposed to eat? He remembers other things. He can fight, he speaks Russian-I know that, he's a specialist with weapons and bombs-"

"-Bingo." Tony cut him off. "Those are things they've reinforced him with over seventy-years. Muscle memories, different parts of the brain, other skill sets. Aggressive behaviors that they could force him to draw on. He's like a little kid who got taught to ride a bike before he could walk. He skipped the basics and just...goes for it."

Steve wasn't entirely sure he grasped everything, but he got the gist. "You mentioned his injuries..."

Bruce and Tony exchanged a glance before Bruce explained. "As I mentioned, given the state of his mind...headaches and mental instability are pretty much to be expected but...the state of his actual hand...the knuckles are mangled. Scars on scars. As if he'd punched a wall over and over, so many times that the skin hasn't healed properly. It's just marred flesh. I would say some of his facial wounds, like his nose are also self-inflicted...there was trauma to his skull that suggested that he treated his head much like his fist."

Steve was horrified. "But...why?" He had been asking that too much, but it wasn't like he'd had a choice. Sam was content for his part to simply listen.

"Coping." Tony supplied. "He doesn't understand and he can't cope with what's happening. He's broken. So how does he try to fix it? With something familiar, something he can focus on, something to distract him from the real pain. Which is more pain."

Steve's eyes felt watery then and he steeled himself. This was what Bucky had been going through for two months? What he had nearly gone through before, except that every time he started, he'd be shocked and frozen back into submission? A wave of hatred welled within him. And that wasn't his style, but he couldn't help it. Bucky had been...violated, mutilated, and torn apart...and the need to make some one pay for that nearly choked him.

"Can you fix it? His brain? 'Clear the accidents'?"

Bruce and Tony exchanged another glance. "Well...that's-"

"He means no. We can't."

"Tony." Bruce's voice was stern, but Tony didn't back down this time.

"You want me to sugar-coat it? Maybe, maybe somehow, if he could stop killing himself slowly, he might live long enough to possibly overcome some of the damage but..."

"It's that bad?" Steve asked, and he dreaded the answer.

"No." Bruce said firmly, and then amended. "But...it is bad. To try to fix it with surgery would have the opposite effect. We could stop the worst symptoms, but then his mind would never repair, he'd be...stuck."

"So...what are you saying?" Steve wanted to hear it spoken clearly. "He can't be fixed? What does that even mean? Just give up on him? Keep him locked up? Hope that maybe he pulls through a little."

"Basically, yeah-"

"Tony." Bruce's eyes flashed green slightly, just for a second, and Tony held up his hands in surrender. The man turned his gaze back to Steve. "There are medications he can take...to ease the symptoms. That would help overall as well. But if he's going to be fixed, it will be mostly dependent on him. And you." Steve didn't have to ask for clarification this time as Bruce continued. "He needs an anchor. Not pain. A real tether, a goal. The only connection he has to the man he used to be. He needs you."

Tony rolled his eyes and made a 'gag' motion to Sam, who was not amused this time and kept his attentions on Steve.

"Every time he sees me, he tries to kill me. You really think I'm what he needs?"

Bruce hesitated and then spoke. "This is far from my area of expertise, and most of my knowledge about your mutual history is second-hand but...I would say that if any force could inspire him to heal, and to fight...it would be you. You're really...all he's got."

"Yeah, I could hang out with other people. But it wouldn't be the same. Because none of them would be you."

It had happened a lifetime ago, but those words rang in Steve's mind clearly. Was he really Bucky's best chance? When it was his fault Bucky was in this mess in the first place? If Bucky were in his right mind...what would he think?

"Be honest. What do you think his chances are?"

"Slim to none." Tony supplied.

"...I couldn't say for sure... But I do believe that he has one." Bruce said softly.

Steve considered that, and reached his decision.

"Lemme see Bucky."

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So I was totally in the serious feels of Bucky and Steve. And then Tony shows up and it all goes to Hell. He was totally trying to corrupt the characters and make this a comedy fic. Grr. Bucky's in trouble. Steve's all conflicted. Sam didn't really have much to say...and Tony had too much. XD Yay Banner! Well. Next time. Bucky will actually speak in complete sentences to Steve. Maybe. Sort of. Reviews are like verbal hugs for me! Enjoy!~Witchy~