Chapter Text
It was silent at the dining table, save for the occasional scrape or clink of silverware on a plate, where Steve and Bucky sat across from each other, eating their respective dinners. Well, Steve was eating. Bucky was mainly just pushing the food around on his plate.
The rest of the team had gathered in the communal kitchen to withhold the sacred tradition of Taco Tuesday, a custom Steve still didn’t really understand the rules of. Are you only supposed to eat tacos on Tuesdays? What about other Mexican foods, like burritos or enchiladas or quesadillas? Why not Tamale Tuesday or Taquito Tuesday? Why’s it have to be tacos? I mean, I like tacos as much as the next guy, but why? According to his teammates, Steve had a problem with thinking too much.
Steve missed the shared meals and ridiculous conversations he had with his teammates, but everything had changed now that Bucky was living here with Steve in his apartment at the Avengers Tower.
It had been a few months since the whole fiasco in D.C., and while the team was busy taking out the last few remaining HYDRA bases and weeding out any stragglers left at SHIELD, Steve was busy reacclimating Bucky to life as a human being. Not an asset or a machine or a weapon.
In Steve’s opinion, Bucky was making some tremendous progress. The first few weeks of their new living arrangement had been rough, but now, Bucky was in a much better place. He was able to take care of himself without being ordered to, his demeanor was more at ease than rigid or flat out aggressive, and his nightmares were becoming less frequent. Bucky was even starting to make some of his own decisions. Given that Bucky was basically under house arrest, what they could do was still pretty limited, but Steve tried to give him options however he could. While things were still far from perfect, Steve could confidently say there were more good days than bad.
Unfortunately, Steve would have to label today as a bad day.
It started off poorly enough with Bucky screaming himself awake well before their morning alarm was supposed to go off. Steve had rushed into Bucky’s room to help in any way he could, but it was always difficult to get Bucky’s attention after a nightmare. It had taken Bucky several minutes to calm himself down, and by then, Steve figured they were awake for the day. Breakfast didn’t go any better, with Bucky suddenly standing and pushing himself away from the table before stumbling to the bathroom to throw up the meager portion of cream of wheat he’d managed to eat. Lunch went okay, but then they got into a screaming match about how Steve didn’t need to treat Bucky like he was a five year old. All Steve had done was ask if Bucky’d be okay by himself while Steve attended a team meeting, and he’d gotten his head ripped off.
Now it was dinner time, and Steve didn’t know how the day could get any worse. Well, yes he did. The day could get worse if Bucky fell into one of his Winter Soldier episodes and tried to hurt himself, hurt somebody else, and/or run away. That was the worst case scenario, and it hadn’t happened in weeks.
Sitting across from Bucky, Steve knew he’d made the right call in deciding that they should just eat dinner here at the apartment. They usually tried to attend a team dinner at least once a week. Bucky would never eat much at these dinners, but spending time with the team gave him opportunities to interact with people other than Steve. But after the day they were already having, something like that would be too much for Bucky. He was too keyed up, and he wouldn’t be able to keep any of the Mexican spices down anyway.
Steve watched Bucky stir his buttered pasta shells into his mashed potatoes. He hadn’t eaten anything yet. “You nervous about tomorrow?” Steve threw out casually before popping a bite of chicken alfredo into his mouth.
“What do you think?” Bucky bit back immediately.
Steve didn’t say anything, just raised his eyebrows a bit in surprise as he chewed his food. He wasn’t upset. Honestly, he was glad. Bucky’s sharp retort was better than the timid response he would’ve gotten months ago. It was just another example of how far Bucky had come. How similar he was to the Bucky Steve grew up knowing.
“Sorry,” Bucky grumbled as he looked away, embarrassed.
“It’s fine. I get it.” Steve did get it. He understood what Bucky was so nervous about. Why he was fighting Steve every step of the way today. That’s why he wanted to talk about it. “I just really think you need to eat something. I know lunch was fine, but you didn’t really keep your breakfast, and this is your last chance to eat anything before your… procedure tomorrow morning.”
Steve opted to use the word “procedure” over “surgery”, but based on the way Bucky still flinched, it hadn’t made much of a difference.
“Do you… want something else to eat? I could make you a-”
“No.”
“You usually like-”
“ No. I’m not hungry. I don’t want to eat. There’s nothing you could cook that’s gonna make me wanna eat. Just leave it alone.” Bucky’s voice was firm, leaving no room to argue.
Steve was disappointed, but he tried not to let it show. He wasn’t disappointed in Bucky, just by the situation. Their super soldier metabolisms were not something to be messed around with, but he also knew to pick his battles. This was not something worth getting into. Not with tomorrow’s surgery looming on the horizon.
“Okay, I hear you. That’s a no on the dinner, but you can’t eat anything for the rest of the night. No midnight snacks or anything like that, got it?”
Bucky rolled his eyes. “I know. I’m not some kid that needs to be babysat, remember?”
“That’s not what I’m saying… I never said that.” Steve was being brought back to their earlier argument.
“It’s not always what you say. It’s what you do, your suggestions, the expressions on your face.”
“Okay, okay,” Steve held his hands up, trying to defuse the situation. “I’m not gonna argue with you about this again. I think we’re both just a little… stressed right now, and fighting isn’t gonna fix anything. Let’s just put it aside for today, and after tomorrow, if you still feel the same way about it, we can lock horns to your heart’s content. Sound good?”
“Whatever.” Bucky crossed his arms, the spitting image of a petulant child that needed babysitting.
There was one more really important thing Steve wanted to remind Bucky about regarding his surgery. He had to go about it carefully, or risk getting back in it with Bucky. “Last thing, and I know that you know this, it just helps me to say everything out loud so that I don’t forget anything: the doc- uh… they said you’d still be able to drink water all the way up until just a few hours before your procedure.”
Bucky shook his head. “No, I’m not eating or drinking anything else tonight. I’m not taking any chances.”
Steve nodded. “That’s fine. It’s up to you. I doubt you’ll get dehydrated or anything. They’ll probably give you some fluids through your IV at some point anyway.”
Bucky looked green at the prospect, at the idea of anyone doing anything to him that he couldn’t control.
“It’s nothing to worry about. The fluids they give you are basically just water, salt, and sugar. Stuff like that.” Steve knew it was a bit more complicated than that, but throwing out the official medical terms was the last thing Bucky needed right now.
“Can’t they just wait until I wake up? I can just drink something myself.”
“I doubt you’ll want to be drinking anything right away when you wake up.”
“What makes you say that?”
Steve thought about the best way to answer Bucky’s question. He didn’t want to scare him. “Sometimes… people feel a little nauseous coming off of anesthesia.”
Bucky scoffed. “I wouldn’t know,” he grumbled bitterly.
Bucky rarely offered anything up about his time at HYDRA. Once in a blue moon he’d nonchalantly throw out some new little tidbit of information as if it wasn’t the worst thing Steve had ever heard. This little quip was enough to send a chill through Steve.
Of course Bucky wouldn’t know. Every surgery, maintenance session, or mind wipe he’d been subjected to had been void of anesthesia or pain relief. It hit Steve just how much they were asking of Bucky in undergoing this. They were asking him to trust them, the people he’d only really known for a few months, even after everything that had happened to him over the course of seventy years.
“I know, and I’m sorry. That’s why I’m telling you though. I just want you to know what to expect.”
When Bucky didn’t say anything back, Steve returned to his meal. The dining table once again lapsed into silence, and Steve was about to say something to pull Bucky back from the edge of what he suspected to be a dissociative episode, when Bucky surprised him by speaking first.
“What if the knockout stuff… doesn’t work on me?”
The broken look on Bucky’s face had Steve nearly choking on his food as he hurried to swallow so he could reassure Bucky. “It’s going to work. I promise. You’ll be asleep the entire time. You won’t feel a thing.”
“You say that, but-” Bucky trailed off.
“When I needed surgery, they were able to put me out for it.” Steve carefully left out the fact that the surgery he’d needed had been for removing the bullets Bucky himself had shot into Steve when they’d fought on the Helicarrier. “I didn’t have any trouble with it. They knew all about the super soldier serum and how to use the right medicine for it. You’re gonna have the best possible team in the world helping you tomorrow, and I know they’ll take good care of you, just like they did with me.”
“You keep saying ‘they.’ Just who are these people anyway?”
“Well, you already know two of them. You’ve seen Tony and Bruce around the tower. They’re the ones who’re gonna be handling the prosthesis and replacement prosthesis parts of the procedure.”
“Uh-huh, and who else?”
“Her name’s Helen Cho. She’s actually the… physician who worked on me. Her and her team are the best of the best.”
Bucky processed this information for a minute. “And you’re sure they aren’t… that none of them were with…”
“Absolutely not,” Steve stated with certainty. “You and I both know Tony and Bruce are friends, and if Cho and her team had been HYDRA, I’m pretty sure they would’ve killed me when they had the chance.”
Bucky didn’t look assured by that. HYDRA was patient. Everything they did was deliberate. They were very particular in picking the right moment to strike, even if that meant passing up an otherwise perfect opportunity.
“Cho and her team have also gone through all the official screenings and background checks since everything went down too. Sorry. I should’ve led with that.”
At that new piece of information, Bucky looked about as appeased as he was going to get in this situation.
“So, her and her team are gonna be the ones working with anything organic. Nerves and muscles and things like that. From what I’ve heard though, I think Tony and Bruce are going to be doing most of the work. Cho and her team are mainly just there for the anesthesia and to make sure there aren’t any structural issues when they get the new prosthesis on.” Steve was walking a fine line. He didn’t want to leave Bucky in the dark about anything, but he also didn’t want to bother him with some of the messier details. Hopefully, what he’d said would be enough for Bucky.
“Everything’s gonna be fine, okay?”
Bucky shrugged. “If you say so.”
That wasn’t exactly the kind of answer Steve was hoping for. He was trying to think of what else he could say to ease Bucky’s mind, when Bucky abruptly got up from the table. At first Steve worried this was going to be a repeat of breakfast, but then he remembered Bucky never touched his dinner.
“I think I’m just gonna… try and sleep,” Bucky sounded resigned as he began walking down the hall to his room.
“Yeah, good idea,” Steve called after his retreating form. “I know this morning was early. Good night.”
Bucky didn’t say anything back.
“Good talk,” Steve muttered under his breath after he heard Bucky’s door click shut. That conversation… could’ve gone a lot worse, but it hadn’t exactly gone well. Not for the first time, Steve wished there was some magical way he could know exactly what he was supposed to say when Bucky needed him most. This late in the game, there probably wasn’t a right thing to say. Steve just needed to be there for Bucky tomorrow.
Steve doubted Bucky was actually trying to sleep. It was only around 6:30 after all. He had probably just wanted to be alone. To be on the safe side, Steve went about cleaning up the kitchen as quietly as he could. He dropped his own plate off at the kitchen sink and scraped the uneaten food off Bucky’s into the trash.
As he watched the sink fill up with hot water and bubbles, he thought more about Bucky’s surgery tomorrow. The goal was to completely remove the HYDRA prosthesis, and replace it with one Tony had designed.
This new one would be so much better for a multitude of reasons. For starters, the lightweight materials it was made from would put far less strain on Bucky’s body than his current prosthesis. This new arm would be much easier on the bones and muscles in Bucky’s shoulder and back. Once everything was attached properly, it would have better reflexes, giving Bucky a faster reaction time too. Tony was even hopeful that Bucky would have more feeling in this arm. Not feelings of pain of course, but an ability to distinguish things like temperature or texture. This arm would also be removable, for Bucky’s comfort. If it was ever damaged or needed any kind of maintenance, Bucky could take it off and give it to Tony without having to be a part of the repairs. He’d also be able to take it off while he slept, but Steve doubted Bucky would ever go for that. He wouldn’t feel safe without it.
Perhaps most obvious of all, this new arm wouldn’t be featuring a big, red, glaring Soviet star on it. Tony’d joked that they should replace it with a little American flag or the insignia of Steve’s shield, but those options had been met with a firm no from Bucky. Steve remembered Bucky’s exact words. Look, it doesn’t need to be pretty. It just needs to work.
They’d eventually settled on a design that was mainly black with some gray highlights, similar to Rhodey’s War Machine. When Steve had suggested they could go more for the red, white, and blue like the Iron Patriot, Bucky had shot that idea down too. He didn’t say much about it, but Steve got the feeling that Bucky felt like he needed to earn a design like that.
Steve didn’t think Bucky needed to earn anything. In fact, now that Steve had found Bucky, his new mission in life was making sure Bucky spent the rest of his life in comfort after everything that had happened. Hopefully, getting this new arm could be the start of providing that.