AN: I meant to mention this in the notes for the previous chapter, but I forgot: If you search "Cary Grant knitting" on Youtube, the first video to come up is a five and a half minute scene from a 1943 movie that demonstrates the whole "wartime knitting" thing I've been mentioning in these author's notes. Also it's just a hilarious sequence and Cary Grant's intense knitting face at about three minutes in is exactly how I picture the Winter Soldier looking when he knits.
By the morning, the Soldier has created a little over six feet of scarf.
He did not sleep. Now that he is able to recognize the signs of exhaustion, he is able to determine when he risks collapsing from fatigue, and last night he did not risk it. The Soldier has read that the body can go up to three days without sleep before it suffers too badly, and while it is not ideal, it isn't as if he has any missions to compromise by functioning at less than full capacity. And he prefers a task that occupies his hands and mind over lying in a bed, thoughts racing while he hopes that unconsciousness may follow.
He does not do much thinking while his hands have the needles. Just breathing, creating, and occasionally remembering.
There is no pattern to the memories: the first was connected to the yarn, but those that follow drift in from nowhere, circling in his head until they spin a thin but coherent thread and he realizes the images he's seeing are memories. He remembers what he thinks is called a schoolyard, remembers pulling another boy off of Steve and having his front teeth knocked out, but don't worry about it, Stevie, they were loose anyway.
He remembers his mother—he had called her Mama—remembers that the scent of peppermint was always about her and remembers how solid her arms felt when she hugged him, even when he'd grown enough that she had to reach up to do so.
He remembers pulling another woman, a mission, close to him and driving a blade into her stomach. He remembers firing a gun and watching a face collapse in on itself when the bullet struck, brain matter spraying out of the skull. He remembers a dossier with a family inside, remembers staring at the photographs of the children and raising his head with what must have been a question in his eyes, because someone had brushed his hair back and told him he was helping to save the world.
Some of the memories have no obvious source, and others are so strange he sets them aside as hallucinations. At one point he recalls a tree inside the Barnes's apartment in Brooklyn, brightly colored boxes beneath it, a smell of pine, cloves, and citrus in the air. It is a memory without logic and it cannot be real.
When it is daylight and the others are awake, he finds Stark and Steve in the kitchen and hands the scarf to the former.
"They're your colors," he says when Stark stares at him. "For you."
"Did you sleep at all?" Steve asks.
The Soldier can hear the concern in his voice, so he keeps his eyes on Stark. The look in Steve's eyes when he speaks with concern stings. "Нет. Is it good?"
Stark is staring at the garment now. "Note to self: HYDRA's secret weapon doubles as a knitting machine. That could be…potentially exploitable, somehow? You're sure you don't want to keep it? I mean, it's the first thing you lovingly, freaky-efficiently handcrafted. Don't want the sentimental value?"
The only things the Soldier has ever felt especially attached to are his handlers, his rifle, and Steve. He is not made to be attached to clothing: his is far too frequently bloodied, scraped, or scorched for that.
His reaction must show in his face, because Stark shrugs. "Okay, point. But you might get cold."
"I am used to cold," the Soldier says, settling into the chair beside Steve. The air goes tense and he decides that was the wrong thing to say, so he adds, "And I can make others." He wouldn't mind wearing a scarf, provided the ends are properly secured so no potential assailant can strangle him with it.
"Where'd you learn to bind off?" Steve asks.
"JARVIS." The computer hadn't been able to physically demonstrate the process of finishing a knitted edge, but there were no shortage of illustrated and video guides online. His hands tense against the counter, relax. He requires another distraction to ensure that the chaos of the day prior does not repeat.
Steve has that covered, and slides a small object against his hand. "You hungry?"
The Soldier lifts the item. It is a white paper package with brown and orange printing. VALOMILK is emblazoned across the front. "What is it?"
"You don't remember." Usually, Steve's face goes downcast at that realization, but now his smile seems to widen. "It's chocolate and marshmallow. Real popular when we were growing up, but you can hardly find 'em anywhere nowadays. When I was out—working—I was around one of the places that still sells 'em. I was gonna give it to you yesterday, but well. Yesterday—You loved these things."
The Soldier continues to stare at the package. VALOMILK. It brings nothing to mind.
"I thought you said giving the Terminator sugar was a bad plan." Stark has the scarf draped over his shoulders now.
"These are different. I know the effects of these." Steve takes the package from him, slides it open. There are two small, cylindrical pieces of chocolate within, and one is offered to him. He takes it in the metal hand, because chocolate melts and that hand has no body heat.
He bites. The chocolate is not overly sweet, not like the glass of water he'd dumped sugar into last week. Marshmallow is not something he can recall but it is soft and smooth, almost liquid—
There is a sensation at his lips, viscous and sliding. The marshmallow center of the chocolate is leaking out and down his face and the Soldier swipes his tongue to try and prevent it, but only succeeds in spreading it more. The marshmallow is still running and he considers shoving the entire thing into his mouth, but he's not sure his mouth can hold it. The Soldier stiffens, right hand cupped under his chin to contain the mess, and he makes a muffled sound of confusion.
"It's okay," Steve says, still grinning. "It's meant to do that, that's the best part." He bites into the second piece of chocolate and the marshmallow is dripping down his own skin in thick white strands.
It brings to mind cyanide poisoning and the Soldier cannot understand how this is the best part of anything, but Steve is grinning and the taste is not unpleasant. To his side, the Soldier can hear Stark mutter "You're gonna be scraping ooze out of his finger joints for a week," causing him to envision the technicians who repaired his arm pulling marshmallow from it, and he cannot hold in a laugh.
He's never heard his own laughter before. It had been muffled to near silence the last time he laughed, over Bucky Barnes and the girl with the comic book, and he cannot recall doing so at any point before that. It is a strange sound, all the more so for coming through a mouthful of cream, almost a rasp but not quite so harsh. He tries to stifle the sound but then Steve is giggling and the noise is infectious, and his hands and face are covered in marshmallow but he is allowed to laugh and he can't bring himself to care.
"I've been in active war zones," Stark says, "and this is the most repulsive thing I've ever seen."
"When it runs down your chin," says Steve in a voice the Soldier imagines he used to sell war bonds, "you know it's a VALOMILK."
Stark mumbles something about going to gouge out his eyes and leaves. The Soldier's hands are pressed to his face, struggling to chew while the rasp of a laugh keeps slipping out of him, khuh-hee, khuh-hee.
"Like it?" Steve asks. "Ma banned us from eating these inside, they made such a mess." He is sucking marshmallow from his fingers and the Soldier imitates the motion, but there is so much of it and it has spread everywhere.
He lets the fingers slide from his mouth, helpless with laughter, when Steve takes a dishtowel from the sink and begins wiping at the Soldier's hands. When he licks his lips he can feel a film of marshmallow over them, and can only imagine the state of the rest of his face. "It's good."
"Glad to hear it."
"Better than the last time I had chocolate," the Soldier decides. The piece that had been placed in his mouth after a mission had been cloying. Heavy. It had created a sensation in his mouth and throat that he hadn't recognized at the time but now knows to be thirst. This is better.
Steve goes quiet again and the Soldier's laugh halts. "I'm sorry."
"Nothing to be sorry for, Buck."
"You're angry." He can't grasp why Steve won't say when he is. His handlers never hesitated to tell the Soldier exactly what he had done wrong, always stressed that he was never to do it again. But Steve acts as though he isn't. It is not the only illogical thing the Soldier has witnessed from him, but it is one of the most confusing.
"Not at you."
"HYDRA?"
A nod.
The Soldier licks his lips again. He cannot see the purpose in anger at HYDRA. The scientists who removed his arm and took his memories are likely all dead, seventy years later. Alexander Pierce had ordered the Soldier to kill Steve, and Pierce is gone as well. "Why?"
Steve stares at him.
He tilts his head to his arm, remembering the punching bag. "The ones who did this are dead." There is no point in anger at corpses, he thinks. He feels nothing toward them and he was the one with his arm cut away.
"They weren't the only ones to abuse you." Steve mutters. The towel is wiping at the Soldier's face now, and he leans into the touch as he would with HYDRA.
The Soldier remembers their touches, brushes against his hair or the occasional hand on his shoulder. He can hear their praises from when he had succeeded, and the taste of chocolate is still heavy in his mouth. "I don't think—" He cuts himself off. Talking back is not tolerated.
"Yeah?" Steve prompts.
"They didn't abuse me," he says, and while he cannot read the look in Steve's eyes, the way he goes pale lets the Soldier know he ought to have stayed silent.
There is a pause before Steve sets the towel down and takes the Soldier's cold hand into his own. "C'mon," he says, guiding him up. "Let's go talk to Sam."
AN: VALOMILKS are a real candy that used to be quite widespread and these days are mostly found at the Cracker Barrel and nowhere else. They're unique in that the marshmallow in them never fully solidifies. And yes, "When it runs down your chin you know it's a VALOMILK" really is their slogan.