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The coronavirus pandemic is stressful, just in general, and Bucky can definitely feel the strain some days. He and Steve are isolated in the Tower for the duration, away from the other Avengers just in case, because they are the ones who go outside most often.
Almost every day actually. There is always something that needs to be done. People are isolated and in quarantine, and old folks need groceries delivered, and poor income families need supplies, and immunocompromised people need help… and someone has to do it, and there is too much work for the city to handle, so he and Steve help out the best they can.
It’s exhausting sometimes, but it’s at least something. It's easy to feel helpless right now, with the cases in the States jumping up again, but at least this they can do. And it’s not bad most of the time…
Except for the masks. Bucky hates the masks. He’d spend 70 years of his life being basically muzzled by Hydra and he would have been content to never wear a mask again. But he does. Because that is what the CDC had ordered, and the evidence shows that wearing masks significantly lowers the rate of transmission, so every time he goes out, he wears a mask.
He tries to make the best of it. He hates the feel of it on his face – it makes him nauseous sometimes – and he’s glad to take them off once he gets home, but they are softer than the masks that Hydra had made him wear, which is a relief at least, and he never wears black ones.
He actually has a growing collection of colourful masks, because he finds the process of being able to choose the one he wants to wear helpful. He has colourful ones with fish on them, cute ones with cartoon characters for when he is likely to deal with children, bright ones with polka dot patterns, calm nature themed ones and a whole set of Avenger themed ones that Tony had sent to him.
He’s wearing the Captain America one he has today, because today is a Bad Mask Day, and the sight of Steve’s shield on reflective surfaces is at least slightly comforting. The mask still feels restrictive and suffocating though, even though he knows he can breathe just fine in it, and he’s glad that he’s almost done his errands for the day and that he can go home soon.
He’s just leaving the grocery store, a plastic bag holding prescription medications in his hand, when he hears it. The protesters. There’s a group of them standing in the parking lot, waving signs and shouting angerly. His mood takes an instant dive, and he growls softly under his breath at the sight of them. They’re angry because of the store’s mask requirement, and Bucky is angry just seeing them.
“We will not be silenced!” A woman screams, waving her sign that reads, Masks = Suppression of Free Speech. Bucky grits his teeth while other protesters shout about the ‘COVID hoax’, and their ‘First amendment rights’. Protests like these really boil his blood, but he tries to keep his head down and just march past. All he needs to do is deliver the medicine, and then he can go home and take off his mask and wash the feel of it off his face and rant to Steve about the protesters and—
“I will not be muzzled!” A man screams, his fist raised at an exiting group of shoppers. “I am a human being! Not a dog!”
His breath catches, and Bucky sees red.
“You think this is a muzzle?”
Somehow, in the haze of his fury, he manages to stay six feet away from the protesters, but that’s about it. “You think you know what a muzzle is!?” He can hardly see with how angry he is, but he can feel them staring at him. “You see this?” he snarls, raising his metal arm and shaking it at the group, most of them having fallen silent by now. “You know what this is? You know where I got this? I got it by being Hydra’s attack dog for seventy years!”
They recognise the arm, he can see it in their eyes, and he bares his teeth at them from behind his mask. “You want to see a muzzle?” he spits at them. “Look me up! Hydra muzzled me for seventy years.” He gestures sharply at his face, his eyes hard. “You think this is a muzzle?! You think you know what a muzzle is!?”
The man in front of him raises his hands defensively, looking slightly indignant. “Hey man, if you want to wear a mask that’s fine,” he says. “But it’s my right not to wear one if I want—”
“Shut up,” Bucky hisses at him, practically shaking in fury. “You think I want to wear a mask? You think I like wearing something like this?” The plastic handles of the bag he’d been carrying are digging into his right hand now, but he can hardly feel it at this point. “I’m wearing this because I’m a decent human being,” he snaps, breathing heavily. “I’m wearing this to protect other people, and if you could see anything more than your twisted view of freedom, then you would be wearing one to.”
He throws a glare at the group, his gaze smoldering. “Your freedoms are not being threatened by being asked to wear a mask,” he spits acidly. “When you’ve worn a muzzle for a literal lifetime, then you can come complain to me.”
He stomps away from them after that, fuming and silently cursing both them and himself. He knows yelling at them is mostly pointless. He knows he’s not going to change their minds, and they probably feel even more validated now that someone had reacted to them, but the whole thing pisses him off so much.
His hands shake as he gets into the car – a combination of fury, adrenalin and remembered fear – and he breathes through it, the mask on his face more claustrophobic than ever. He resists the urge to claw it off and manages to drop off the medicine, moving through his final errand with a single-minded determinedness. The drive back to the Tower is the same, the knuckles of his right hand white against the steering wheel as he stares ahead of himself.
Steve is there in their rooms when he gets back, but he doesn’t stop to talk to him, ignoring him completely as he marches purposely over to the kitchen. He needs to wash his hands and get his mask off right now because if he has to wear it for one second longer—
He gets it off and takes in several deep breaths, closing his eyes as he works on calming down and shuffling through his coping mechanisms. Today had been a bad day, today had sucked, but he can deal with it. His mask is off now and he doesn’t have to wear it anymore.
Once his breathing and heartbeat are in control, he goes off to strip out of his uniform and shower, the routine helping to calm him further and the warm water helping to wash away the stress of the day and the feel of the mask on his face. By the time he exits again, dressed in looser, comfortable clothing, he feels mostly settled and grounded, although thoroughly exhausted.
Steve is in the kitchen when he comes out. He’s obviously picked up on some of Bucky’s tension because he’s started an early supper for them, sliding a bowl of soup towards him and handing him a glass of water as he comes in. “Bad day?” he asks quietly.
Bucky sighs and sits down, reveling in the warm soup in front of him. He cups his hands around the bowl for a moment before taking a bite. “Yeah.”
Steve nods and gets himself his own bowl of soup. “I saw,” he says mildly. “Did you know you’re trending on Twitter now?”
Bucky nearly inhales his spoon. “What?” he chokes, and Steve grins mischievously at him, pulling out his phone to show him.
Someone had filmed his rant at the protesters, and posted it online.
Thought my day had been made when I saw Bucky Barnes at my grocery store, the caption reads. Then he made it even better. The video is obviously originally supposed to have been a simple ‘sighting’ of him by an excited fan, so it begins slightly before he starts yelling, and therefore manages to catch the whole thing. Ordinarily, he might feel a little weirded out at having random people recognise him and post about it online… but in this case… the video is really popular. It had only been a few hours at most, since the incident had happened, but already thousands of people have seen and reacted to it.
“Gotta admit,” Steve says, as Bucky scrolls through the feed, feeling almost overwhelmed at the many positive responses to his actions. “It’s a great image. Bucky Barnes calling out protesters while wearing a Captain America mask.”
Bucky laughs shakily, scrolling past a post calling him ‘iconic’. “Did you see the hashtag?” he asks dazedly, unable to keep from staring at it. #MasksforBuckyBarnes it reads, and it’s trending.
“I did,” Steve says proudly, before flicking his eyes over him, his gaze going gentle. “You gonna be okay?”
Bucky breathes in slowly and nods. “Yeah,” he says quietly, his eyes on the multitude of posted pictures of masked people bearing his hashtag. He might hate masks, and he might not have been intending to shout down a group of protesters today…
But, if people happen to wear a few more masks now… then it might be a little bit worth it.