Chapter Text
When Steve gets home, Bucky’s in the shower again. The water’s running and the door is shut.
It doesn’t occur to him for another hour and a half that maybe Bucky is still in the shower, hasn’t got out since the morning.
He breaks the door down and the cold air slaps him hard in the face, the hot water long since run out. Bucky is hunched over in the shower, shuddering, running pruned-up, shriveled fingers through his hair.
Steve wraps him in several towels and pulls the whole bundle into his arms. “Bucky, what were you doing?”
Bucky’s still shaking like he’s going to fall apart. “You said,” he starts, but stops as he seizes up and his teeth chatter. “You said to follow the directions on the bottle…”
Steve snatches up the shampoo bottle and scans the directions on the back. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Repeat. Oh, god.
“Bucky,” Steve says slowly, “how many times did you repeat this?”
Bucky looks up at him with big, frightened eyes. “Is two hundred and seven not enough? You interrupted, but that’s okay. I can keep going.”
~
Steve sips his coffee, drumming his fingers on the table impatiently. He never quite lost his taste for Americanos after the war, though they tend to taste much better nowadays.
Sam finally joins him three minutes later, setting his laptop on the table next to his enormous, frothy, sugary drink. Steve raises his eyebrows at him as he props it open and pulls up their regular voice chat program.
“Nat?” he asks, confused.
Her voice crackles over the laptop speakers. “I’m here.”
“I thought you were overseas on something sensitive.”
“I am. Sam texted me that it was a national emergency, which is what he always texts me when you’re sad.”
“Admit it,” Sam interjects, “that’s hilarious.”
Steve ignores him. “What does he text you when it is a national emergency?”
“He doesn’t; Stark does. Out with it, what’s going on? Problems with the Winter Soldier?”
“Bucky,” Steve corrects automatically. He’s not going to say more, but then the events of yesterday pour out of him in a flood, along with all of his protectiveness and fear and concern. “I’m trying to be more careful with the way I phrase things,” he finishes, “but I just feel like he needs somebody to be there when I can’t.”
“Look, man,” Sam sighs, “I’d love to help you out, you know I would. But I’ve got other patients that already depend on me, and the kind of shit he went through‘s way above my pay grade anyway. Not to mention, the last time we met he tried to throw me through a window, so forgive me for assuming Barnes and I aren’t on the best terms.”
Natasha gives a thoughtful-sounding hum. “You said he hasn’t been violent in a while, though. Get him a therapy animal.”
Steve pulls a face, knowing she can’t see him. “I don’t know, Nat. He’s met your cat and they didn’t really get along.”
“Mewcifur doesn’t get along with anyone,” she replies. She sounds proud. “Just try it.”
~ ~ ~
As hard as it is to believe, Bucky is doing much better than he was.
~
“Buck,” Steve calls from the kitchen, “what do you want to eat?”
No response. He wasn’t really expecting one; Bucky hasn’t said one word in the half hour since he walked through the front door, surveyed the room, and curled up in a ball on the couch. Steve had covered him with a blanket, not sure what else to do. Bucky clutched it tightly to himself, not breaking his wide-eyed, distant stare.
Steve pokes his head around the corner. Bucky still hasn’t moved. “Bucky? C’mere, come take a look in the fridge with me.”
Bucky stands immediately, the blanket falling unheeded to the floor. He marches into the kitchen, still blank-faced, and stares into the refrigerator.
Steve wants to kick himself. Of course Bucky would respond to commands, whether he wants to or not. He can’t take advantage of that, can’t use him the way HYDRA did. “I have macaroni, I could heat that up with some cheese. Would you like that?”
Bucky keeps staring straight ahead, expressionless.
“It’s not a trick question, Buck.”
The tiniest wrinkle appears in Bucky’s forehead. “The asset does not ‘like that.’”
“Okay, no mac and cheese. Is there anything that you do want to eat?”
“The asset is to consume minimum eight thousand calories of nutritive protein mixture per twenty-four hour period.”
Steve winces. “Let’s try something else, okay?”