Not All Wounds Heal

Bucky

"Ma'am."

Bucky's voice was softer than you had expected, after the stories that Tony had told you about him; in fact, he was nothing like you had expected, and it became clear very quickly that you had been given most of your information on Bucky Barnes from the worst source possible. Bucky's movements towards you were slow and careful, aware that anything could be misconstrued as aggressive. His eyes were gentle and sad, and nowhere near the coldness that you had expected to see; you wondered if anything that you had come to know was true as each point was readily disproven. Tony had told you that he would find a way to work through the fact that you were about to help this person, and you had tried to believe him, but now that you were meeting him in on your own, you wondered if he would ever allow himself to see the real Bucky Barnes that was hidden behind the Winter Soldier for so long.

"Hi," you answered quietly, waving him away politely when he extended a hand in greeting. "Sorry, I think it best to not make any contact just yet. I need to be sure that I'm ready for any feedback that I might get from you."

"Of course, sorry."

"No apologies necessary, Mr. Barnes."

"Please, my name is Bucky. I think we're gonna be way past formalities here in a few minutes, right? Once you crack into my head?"

"That's one way to put it, I suppose," you smiled back, but your posture conveyed the fears you were carrying in what you were about to do. You pushed your hands into your pockets to try to dry away the sweatiness of your palms, but it was a wasted effort and did nothing to help. If anything, you looked more nervous now than before.

"If you don't want to do this, it's okay. I understand."

"Steve asked me to."

"Well, sometimes Steve wants things to happen for the wrong reasons, and he tends to ignore the risks when he's blinded by what he wants," he answered hesitantly, making a concerted effort to look anywhere other than at you. "You saw that first-hand in Leipzig...and I saw you. From what I could tell, Tony would be pretty upset if anything happened to you because of me. He must care about you a lot."

You took a deep breath at the mention of Tony's name, the inhalation stinging your chest against the tightness of your muscles around it; you hadn't realized that you were carrying that guilt so readily, but there it was, crushing you from the inside out. Why couldn't you shake the feeling that you were doing something wrong when your intentions were only good? You were here to help this person, and even though you didn't know much about him beyond the stories of the Soldier, you could see in his eyes that there was a good person still yearning to be free of those tales. Even if Tony couldn't see that just yet, you wanted him to; if for nothing else than to free yourself from this perceived weight of betraying him to do it.

"Yeah, he seems to," you nodded in agreement, followed by a brief flash of a smile, "but we're not here to talk about him. Let's get started, shall we?"

"Right," he sighed heavily, "okay...so where do you want me to be? Should I lie down?"

"Wherever you feel comfortable, Mr. Barn...Bucky."

Steve had been standing at the far side of the room as you spoke to his friend, waiting with crossed arms and held breath, but now that he saw that you were about to be underway, he joined you quickly to stand at your side. "Thank you for this," he whispered nervously, the shake in his voice clearer than he had meant for it to be.

All you afforded him was a quick nod, moving a few steps away to stand next to Bucky's head, looking down at him one last time before you would connect and essentially become one mind with a man you had only just formally met. "Okay, Bucky, listen carefully. I've never done this before, and I don't want to go into this without full honesty, alright?"