A/N: So the downside to writing this story entirely from Winter's POV is that everyone else's reactions have to be implied rather than outright stated. I've had a lot of people request an insight into what's happening with Steve's emotional wellbeing in regards to all of this, so here's an attempt to convey that through Winter's eyes.
Also, this chapter graphically details the amputation of Bucky's arm, as a warning.
He sits in silence with the blanket draped over him. It is the closest he can come to the confining space of the cryo-tank, but it lacks the numbness provided by both the cold and the sleep. He tries to fall asleep as he sits, but he can't remember how and even if he did manage, the Soldier thinks there would be dreams.
The marks on his arm go from red to black and are starting to fade to purple when Sam clears his throat. "Do you want to talk, Bucky?"
"Нет." The worries of this morning are now subdued. He still does not know how to function without orders, and any dangerous, terrible thing is likely to happen if he continues to operate without them, but the feeling is muted. Perhaps he has felt too much and overloaded his senses, like a nerve firing so often it burns itself out. Perhaps his emotions were another hallucination, and disproving the false memories has crippled the feelings as well.
He would not mind that, he thinks. He cannot envision hurt caused by a lack of sensation.
Whatever has broken or repaired itself inside his mind, there is nothing to be gained from speaking and the English language appears to be slipping from his grasp again.
"All right." Sam stands up. "If you need to later, JARVIS will find me for you, all right?"
"Да."
Steve remains in the room but the Soldier does not look at him, eyes locked onto the broken wall. His mind is still fixated on "home," and he wonders what there would be to return to. Pierce is dead; he read that online, days ago. The Soldier is not sure of the reaction he should have to his handler's death. He is designed to protect handlers at all costs, an impulse imprinted within him whenever a new master was introduced. And he had been Pierce's, he thinks, for some time: if his memory strains he can see the man younger, with more red in his hair. But handlers age and in the blink of an eye, they become old and frail and dead. He is not programmed for sentiment.
Pierce is dead and HYDRA is exposed. But HYDRA is also clever. There will be hidden bases, splinter factions. Where he could find them is another question entirely, and while he is confident that he could track them down if he tried, he is less sure he would be able to follow their orders, despite the peace that comes from obeying. His last mission from HYDRA was to kill Steve. It is not unlikely that they would still want that objective carried out were he to return.
He is wondering what happened to Rumlow and the rest of the strike team when Steve speaks.
"You should put ice on that, Buck."
He follows Steve's gaze to his bruised wrist, shrugs. It doesn't trouble him. The injury is not debilitating and there is a familiarity in pain that is almost soothing.
"Come on," Steve says, hand extended to the Soldier. He is still pale and his smile is a fraction too wide.
The Soldier slides off the glove before he takes Steve's hand, the metal having been warmed enough under its covering that the temperature should not be uncomfortable on the man's skin. He allows Steve to lead him and notes that, with the glove removed, he can hardly feel Steve's hold. If his memory is correct—though the odds are it is not—he couldn't feel Steve's contact at all when he was becoming the Soldier in that bloodstained cell.
That should have been a clue.
Steve does not lead him to the kitchen, but rather an elevator. The Soldier slides the blanket from his shoulders as they descend, draping it over the bruised arm. It is an awkward motion due to the heft of the blanket and the way Steve is still holding the left hand, but he manages.
"I should have been there," Steve says.
You were there, the Soldier does not say, because it would be lying. But to him the memory is as genuine as anything else, and he sees no reason for Steve to be distressed over his absence when the Soldier never perceived it.
The elevator stops and opens into what the Soldier takes for a training room. There is a wall of mirrors, a boxing ring, weights, a punching bag, and all other manner of equipment. He does not see any weapons, but there are storage lockers within the room and anything could be stored inside them. There is also an ice machine and a bar, and that is what Steve leads him to.
He starts when the bag of ice is pressed to his forearm. The cold is numbing and painful all at once and it feels like waking up for the first time since he came to in the chair after the wipe that preceded the helicarrier mission.
"Too cold?" Steve asks.
"Нет. Идеально." He opens the bag and takes an ice cube out, pressing it directly to the skin. The Soldier exhales. There is a sound to his side and he turns, watching as Steve retrieves long cloth wraps from one of the lockers.
Steve winds a wrap tight around his wrist, working up to the knuckles. He is preparing to hit something. The events of the day and all prior life experience up to this point would indicate that the Soldier should brace himself for a blow, but as this is Steve, he is beginning to realize that is unlikely.
The Soldier watches, transferring the ice back to the bag when it begins to drip on the floor.
"You can sit down if you want." He is wrapping the other hand now.
The Soldier drops to his knees. The sound of impact reverberates through the room and Steve's shoulders draw back.
"I meant on something, you goof."
Later, he will ask JARVIS to define that word. For now, the Soldier relocates to a chair as Steve approaches the punching bag and begins to slam his fists into it. He watches. The Soldier is trained to analyze combat, to absorb any knowledge he can that will aid in annihilating an opponent in the most efficient way. A moment passes. The only sounds in the room are Steve's breathing and the impact of his hands against the bag.
"Talk to me, Buck," Steve pants. The Soldier cannot tell if it is an order or a plea.
"What—" He pauses. Where the next word should be is a gap in his vocabulary, so he skips it. "—I say?"
"Your arm." His voice is firm in that instant despite his labored breath. "Tell me about your arm."
He knows without asking that Steve means the amputation rather than the metal limb. He does not know the words to ask why Steve wants to hear it. The schematics of the arm are listed in his file and Steve must have seen amputations in the war. "This…therapy?"
"Yes." He is still beating at the bag. There is a look on his face, a grimace that cannot be all physical exertion. "Yes, it is. Talk to me."
"English bad." He doesn't understand why his language skills regress this way. A side effect of the recalibration? A product of stress?
"Please, Bucky. I—ah—I need to hear it. I have to. Least I can do."
The Soldier doubts the bag's integrity will hold with the way Steve is hitting it. "They tie me down. Arm half gone. They had saw and blood all over." He can see the red gushing, pulsing in time with his heart, and then they'd pulled the skin back, digging in at his veins with clamps, pulling them away from the musculature like worms tugged out of soil. "They tie off veins." It is somewhat easier to talk in terms of the anatomical. It is the language of damage, and the Soldier speaks that well.
He wonders if Steve can hear him over the resounding smacks of wrapped knuckles against canvas. Over the sounds coming from Steve. They aren't only noises of exertion; there is something else. The sounds are low and guttural and somehow…desperate? The Soldier thinks they are desperate. How he knows that word when he cannot form a coherent sentence is beyond him.
"Cut muscle," he continues. "Tendons…pull them away." He remembers how the ligaments clung to the bone, the yanking, remembers nerves like blue and pink yarn inside him. "I was sick." Someone had pulled his head to the side, forced water into his mouth to clear it. "There was saw on bone and I…I feel it go—" He moves his hand to indicate the motion, as if Steve is looking at him. "Feel it all up shoulder. I was sick, loud. They put guard in mouth. Noise bother them."
The chain that was supporting the bag snaps and the entire thing goes flying across the room. The filling is spilling out onto the floor as Steve is panting through clenched teeth, doubled over. He is moving before the Soldier can speak, disappearing into a supply closet, another bag over his shoulder when he returns.
"Go on, Buck."
This is not therapy, the Soldier thinks. This is the forcing of order through pain. It makes sense and he does not protest.
"They reach under skin, pull out muscle. Want put in—"
"Where was I?"
The Soldier must have misheard. Steve is barely intelligible, grunting and panting. He tilts his head. "Not there. You said—"
"But you saw me." A punch lands wrong and he growls, hits again. "It wasn't real, but you did. Where was I? What did I say?"
"You were—" He closes his eyes, trying to will the memory into clarity. "You hold right hand. Say, 'Don't look, almost over. It's all right. Be good?'" He cannot recall if Steve had said the last words or if it had been one of the doctors.
The second punching bag breaks much faster than the first. By the time they are on the fourth, the Soldier can see stains of blood on the wrap over Steve's knuckles, and cannot see any of the control the pain should provide. He tries to think of what a best friend would say. He thinks a best friend would speak in this situation.
His feet are wet.
The Soldier looks down. He had not properly sealed the bag of ice after opening it and it is dripping, forming a puddle in the space between his feet. His socks are damp, and as he moves them away from the water, he remembers. At least, he thinks he does. The Soldier takes the socks off, stands up.
Steve does not seem to sense the Soldier's presence beside him until the metal hand grazes his shoulder. His eyes are wide, almost wild, his face both red and somehow still pale. He struggles to catch his breath. "Bucky?"
The Soldier holds up the sock. "You make these."
Steve just stares at him.
"Not these." Not this particular pair. But there was a thing Steve could do with yarn and plastic. He doesn't know the name. "You make…socks. Scarves. Yes?" The memory may be false.
The man's face is so blank that the Soldier decides he was wrong. But then he speaks. "Uh, yeah, I know how to knit."
The memory is real. The Soldier's mouth twitches. "Teach me."
"You want to learn to knit?"
"Yes." It is not a lie, because while he doesn't care if he learns, he thinks Steve would be distracted by imparting the information, and unable to cause damage to himself. Order may come from pain, but he doesn't want Steve to experience suffering, and he can see no way for harm to come from socks.
A/N: Well, speaking as someone who's had a knitting needle stabbed an inch or so into her leg (ask me about my superhuman clumsiness) you're not entirely right, Winter.
Captain America really is able to knit in comics, though I don't think it's been referenced in any books since the 1940s. My favorite instance of his knitting is in a very early comic in which he's in disguise as an old woman (an old woman punching Nazis in the face), which is so amazing I don't even care that the art depicts him as holding the needles in an entirely incorrect fashion.
During WWI, it became a thing to teach hospitalized soldiers how to knit, which carried over into the next World War. It was an occupational therapy and also gave the soldiers something to do while they were bedridden. Loads of people, male or female, young or old, knit during WWII. There are some truly amazing propaganda posters about the importance of knitting things for soldiers. My favorite is "Remember Pearl Harbor – Purl Harder."
Translations for the Russian are as follows:
Нет = No
Да = Yes
Идеально = Perfect