A/N: You can all blame Axelle of the Archive of Our Own website for any feels caused by the scene in this chapter with the picture books and sign language. She suggested it and it was just too fitting not to use.
It is in the lab that Stark begins to give the Soldier orders.
The orders are not the sort he remembers receiving from HYDRA. They would send him on assassinations mainly and sometimes abductions. On occasion he thinks he recalls being made to beat information from prisoners. But the orders he can bring to mind all revolve around either death or espionage.
Stark's orders are of an entirely different sort. "Sit down" and "hand me that thing" and "stick out your hand." There are many orders, but they are all of that variety. None require the Soldier to leave the room, let alone pick up a weapon and terminate a target. A test, perhaps, to make sure the Soldier will obey. But Stark speaks to JARVIS in the same manner.
He speaks to Dum-E in mostly threats. In the time since entering the lab, Stark has threatened to turn the robot into a hat rack, to melt him into scrap, and to make him wear a conical hat that is seated on a workbench in the room and that reads DUNCE in large letters. The Soldier doesn't know the word. The threats come each time the robot latches onto the Soldier's arm, and they put a sensation in his stomach that is not hunger and is not pleasant. He doesn't want this robot decommissioned and he can't grasp why the promise of punishment does not deter Dum-E.
Unless Stark is a handler who doesn't follow through on threats. The Soldier cannot recall names and barely remembers their faces, but there were some handlers who shouted admonishments often but always kept their distance. There's no caution in Stark's approach, but it is the nearest memory the Soldier can apply. Between the unfulfilled warnings and the orders inconsistent with the Soldier's function, he wonders if Stark is a bad handler.
But he thinks he prefers being utilized to hand over tools more than being made to kill. And Stark tends to mutter "thank you" once the Soldier has completed an objective.
"Any idea why they slapped a star on it?" Stark asks him after shooing the robot away again.
To his knowledge, no one ever explained the star's purpose. When his memory strains he can recall staring at his hand as a doctor describes its functioning, but he doesn't believe that to be a real memory as it ends with metal fingers around the doctor's throat. He doesn't fight back against handlers. "It may have been—" The Soldier pauses, unsure of the English word and unable to sign it.
"You know it in Russian?" Stark asks. "JARVIS can translate."
"Отвлечение."
A DISTRACTION, SIR.
"Thank you. Distraction. Because it isn't HYDRA's mark," the Soldier clarifies. "It doesn't come back to them."
"Ah. Makes sense. That, or somebody got really bored and had stencils and Krylon. Here, lemme see your hand." He has put together what resembles a glove but with only the finger portions, and slides it onto the Soldier. "Not the most aesthetically pleasing, but it's a just a mock-up. It won't transmit sensation yet, but you should be able to—"
He directs the hand to a tablet and the Soldier is able to operate the screen.
"Voila. Your praise is encouraged, but I am well aware of my genius."
"Thank you, Howard."
He cannot decipher the look that Stark gives him and he isn't sure what he's done to cause it.
After Stark declares that enough engineering for one day and the Soldier is made to consume another bowl of soup—a different kind this time, because of a long explanation about sources of nutrients that he half-understands—he is left to his own devices. The Soldier returns to the book from before and finds himself stuck again on the first sentence.
"JARVIS?" he asks the empty bedroom, because Sam had said the computer system was everywhere.
YES, SERGEANT BARNES?
He starts but only just, as he was half-expecting the voice. "What does picturesque mean?"
PICTURESQUE. ADJECTIVE. HAVING PLEASING OR INTERESTING QUALITIES; STRIKINGLY EFFECTIVE IN APPEARANCE. DO YOU NEED CLARIFICATION?
"No." He thinks about it, deciding he understands. "Thank you."
YOU'RE WELCOME.
The Soldier finishes the sentence and begins the second. "JARVIS?"
YES, SERGEANT BARNES?
"What is pre…What is pre-ci-pi-tous?"
PRECIPITOUS. ADJECTIVE. EXTREMELY OR IMPASSABLY STEEP.
"Thank you."
An hour later he is midway through the second page. 'I am a lone wolf,' it reads, 'a solitary man, wandering through a world in which I have no part.' The pause this time is not due to a lack of understanding, but an abundance of it. His head is beginning to ache and he decides to return to the illustrated books from the day prior.
The feelings book is opened to the "Disappointed" page when the Soldier drops it in Sam's lap. He interlocks the metal fingers with the flesh in front of his chest, his arms moving in a stirring motion.
SERGEANT BARNES IS SIGNING "AMERICA," JARVIS translates, before either Sam or Stark can ask.
Sam glances from the Soldier to the book, then back. "You're disappointed in America?"
"Did he just discover reality TV?" Stark asks. "JARVIS, tell me you blocked him from TLC—look, kiddo, I know things seem bleak now, but I promise there's quality programming out there. I can make a list—"
"Нет." He taps the lines of text reading I'm disappointed we can't play before making the America sign again.
"You miss Steve," Sam says.
"Да." He was less alone with Steve, if no less erratic.
"You want to see him?"
The Soldier pauses. He flips the pages back until he reaches the relevant emotion.
"You want to see him, but you're scared to," Sam says, looking up from the book. "What are you afraid of?"
The Soldier places his metal hand to his own throat and mimes choking.
"Are you afraid you'll hurt Steve or that you won't know what to say?" Sam asks, and the answer is both—as well as a memory of Steve's arm wrapped around him on the helicarrier, suffocating him—so the Soldier simply nods again.
"We can mediate," Stark says. "Trust me, I can keep you from putting runs in Cap's tights even if you go berserker."
The Soldier thinks he would doubt that if he knew what berserker meant.
"Bucky, the last time you saw Steve, you weren't expecting to see him. If you see him now, we can help you prepare for that. And you wouldn't have to say anything if that would be too hard. If you want to see him, if you feel up to it, I can give him a call, all right? But only if you're comfortable with it."
He doubts he will ever be comfortable with the thought of seeing Steve. Imagining it makes his chest tighten and feels not unlike drowning. But the panic doesn't stop the wanting, so he nods. "Да."
The look Sam gives him is long and he feels stripped bare by it. But then Sam nods. "Okay, I'll let him know."
A/N: I love how in the flashback sequence of the movie, the first thing Bucky does with his metal arm is choke the HYDRA guy with it. You go, Bucky.
The first book Winter's reading is The Sleeper Awakes by H.G. Wells, which is available in full online if you're curious. It's also super-relevant to Bucky's current situation, or would be, if his grasp of English were high enough at the moment to comprehend all of it.
Speaking of books and online, if you want to see the exact pages of Janan Cain's The Way I Feel that are referenced in this chapter, there's more than one read aloud of the book on Youtube.
The sign for "America" is made by interlocking the fingers of both hands as if to make a log cabin and then stirring your arms, like a melting pot. I just find that to be the coolest thing.
Translations for the Russian are as follows:
Отвлечение = Distraction
Нет = No
Да = Yes