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It had become a part of their daily routine. They’d get up, get ready, and then Simon would get his check-up. On Dr. Grace’s orders, they’d never missed a day.

See, the problem with getting rescued from a decrepit submarine full of blood by an extremely loyal, extremely anxious scientist is that he’s going to want to run tests. A lot of them. So many fucking tests, at a certain point Simon had stopped bothering to ask what they were for. It was so weird, having somebody care about his well-being. It would be unsettling if not for the fact that Grace rambled the entire time, so he didn’t really have the mental space to think about it. Which was completely fine by him, for the record. He liked to listen to Grace talk, and he liked to not think about his problems. A win-win.

Until today.

It was routine procedure up until Grace went to check his heartbeat. Stethoscope in his ears, the end moving to press gently against Simon’s back. The cold made him flinch, like it did every day, but it wasn’t anything worth worrying about.

But Grace wasn’t talking.

His head was bowed in concentration as he read something off a tablet he’d brought over with him, presumably the results of some earlier test. He gently rested his other hand on Simon’s shoulder to steady him, and this time the touch made his heart rate skyrocket.

At first, he couldn’t really figure out why. Why the image he was seeing out of the corner of his eye made him feel suddenly and completely like he was going to throw up. He wanted to run, he wanted to start screaming. His body was telling him something was wrong.

And then the memory flashed itself to the forefront of his mind.

The Father, firm but gentle hands on Simon’s shoulders. Head bowed, mouth moving with a soft whisper.

Praying.

Tears pricked his eyes, and he tried so hard to remind himself that it wasn’t real. He wasn’t there anymore. He was okay, Grace was not The Father, Grace was nice and cared about him and —

And so had The Father. Hadn’t he? He’d cared for him, loved him and nurtured him like a son. Ushered him towards safety, towards salvation.

Put an axe in his hands and told him to swing.

“Hey, are you alright? Your heart rate just got really —” Grace’s head finally moved, looking up from the tablet to look at Simon and cutting himself off midsentence. “Oh. Woah, okay. Simon? What happened, what’s going on right now?”

He shook his head. All he wanted to do was run. To curl up in the corner, to not have to explain all of this and instead just be able to scream until he felt safe again.

“I… I have to go,” He said, standing suddenly from the exam table (which was just a lab table Grace had cleared off so he could sit on it, but that was semantics) and turning in the direction of the ladder which led down to the crew dormitory.

“Simon, are you okay?” Grace asked, following quickly behind him in a flurry of concern. “Did I do something?”

“No, no it’s not you,” Simon explained, even as his voice grew distant in his own ears.

Grace’s hands had left his shoulders already, but that didn’t matter now. His mind had already set the show in motion, he wasn’t going to be able to stop it until the curtain closed. He was seeing the Hail Mary in his eyes, he knew where he was. But his body didn’t. His mind didn’t.

He started down the ladder, single-mindedly thinking about sitting on the floor in the corner of the room like a child. That was his only goal at this point. A space where he could pretend that nobody could see him and where he could see everything that could possibly be around him.

He hoped to God that Grace wasn’t following him, but he knew that wasn’t very likely. Sure enough, he heard footsteps behind him, and he almost didn’t have the energy to tell him to go away.

Almost.

“I’m fine, Grace. Please,” He choked out, surely not sounding very convincing.

“Is there anything I can do?” He asked, watching in concern as Simon holed up in the corner. He shook his head quickly, opening his mouth to tell him that he was fine again before a new memory overtook him. 

More hands replaced The Father’s. 

One of the nights he was purified, brought before the Tree to promise his devotion again.

Hands, all over his body. Touching any bit of him they could reach, arms and sides and shoulders and back. Everyone was crying, everyone was crying and they were praying and he was saved, he was saved, he was falling to the ground in tears of pure joy. The hands followed him, wrapping him up until The Father could come to pull him into his arms. He was safe, he was at home, he was good. He was being good.

On the floor of the Hail Mary, his entire body was shaking. He could feel sweat starting to bead on his hairline, heat crawling up his back in a way that made him want to scrunch his shoulders. He felt his stomach turn, and he dug his fingernails into his palms, trying to calm himself down. To bring himself back to reality.

Grace reached his hand out again, moving toward Simon in comfort before Simon smacked it away. So many people were already touching him, heads bowed in prayer or supplication or something else. He wanted to rip off his skin just to get the feeling off of him.

“I need…” He started to speak, to ask for some kind of help, but there was nothing that anyone could do. There was nothing he could do to make it better. He wanted his mom and he wanted The Father and he wanted everybody to take their hands off of his body.

“Simon okay, question?” He heard Rocky’s voice as he entered the room, but it was muffled in his ears. He held up a hand, trying to wave him away, continuing his fruitless efforts to try and convince everybody he was fine. He wasn’t supposed to do this. He was supposed to be a light, a beacon of hope and positivity for the rest of the world, to encourage them to understand the truth of Eden. He was supposed to cry for the Tree, and nothing else.

Of course, Rocky also didn’t go anywhere. He just rolled up behind Grace, who was staring at Simon with a mix of confusion and despair.

“I don’t know what you need. What can I do?” He asked, despite the fact that Simon had already failed once at answering that question. He muttered something else to himself under his breath that Simon didn’t quite catch, and then took to pacing back and forth in front of him.

“Grace Simon both elevated heartbeat. Bad, question?”

“I’m fine, Rock. Just worried.”

“I’ll…” Simon tried to speak, even as his voice sounded distant in his ears, “... I’ll be alright.”

He was grabbing his legs now, gripping the fabric of his pants in his fists as he tried to wrench himself back into the present. The hands were growing less aggressive, less visceral, but the prayers they’d been uttering still bounced around in his head like a damning symphony.

“Simon leaking. Heart fast fast fast. Not alright, statement.”

“Mmm,” He just hummed in agreement to Rocky, squeezing his eyes shut as he tried to purge the sounds from his mind. Praying and crying, praying and screaming, praying praying praying and asking him to promise. Asking him to give himself up, give up his right to choose. It was good, it was necessary, and it was divine. His life belonged to the Tree, and it was selfish to think otherwise. And every time, he had agreed.

Every time.

Deep down, he knew that he hadn’t been given any other choice. But on the surface, all he could remember was how badly he had wanted to.

“Simon, you’re safe. I promise, you’re safe here. Nobody is going to hurt you,” Grace said, clearly putting effort into steadying his voice.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” He mumbled, manually forcing air in and out of his lungs. He had no clue who he was apologizing to.

“You’re okay, Simon. You’re okay. It’s okay,” Grace continued, kneeling down to be on his level, softening his voice in a way that reminded him distinctly of his childhood teachers. “It’s going to be okay.”

The cacophony was slowly starting to clear itself from his mind, and he felt himself becoming more and more present. He reached up to touch his cheeks, mortification racing through him when his fingertips came away wet. His entire body was still shaking, and he shook his head at Grace’s statement.

“They… they were praying. There were hands all over me, and all I could feel was fear; fuck, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to —” He let his head fall back against the wall behind him, willing the tears back into his eyes.

“Hey. You have nothing to apologize for, okay? I’m sorry that happened to you.”

Simon exhaled a slight laugh. “You don’t have anything to apologize for either.”

“I mean, it was my fault, wasn’t it?” Grace asked, his voice remorseful. Simon hated that he had to nod.

“Not really though. Just the way you were standing reminded me… reminded me of someone else.” He didn’t really want to explain, not in detail. The longer he spent on the Hail Mary, the more he came to realize that the way that he was raised wasn’t as loving as he’d thought it was. 

Yes, he’d renounced the religion. He still agreed with that, as much as a large part of his brain loved to scream at him for it. But he was finding it much much harder to renounce the people.

“You said they were praying,” Grace said. “Praying for you?”

Simon winced. “Praying over me.”

“Is there a difference?”

“Well they had to be touching me, for one.” As he said it, a hand crept up his shoulder again, and he rolled it to shake the feeling. “And it’s emotionally much more… intense. More ritualistic, I guess.”

“That’s…” Grace trailed off, exhaling deeply. “Wow. That’s… a lot. I’m so sorry, Simon.”

“It’s fine. It was a good thing, you know?” Simon supplemented, trying to brush off the sympathy. It made his skin feel itchy, guilt poking at his sides. He wasn’t supposed to make it sound like Eden had been bad.

“Was and is are two different words,” Grace said, and Simon chuckled again.

“Yeah, I guess they are.”

The room lapsed into silence for a moment, before Grace finally broke it.

“Simon?” He started.

“Yeah?”

“What can I do to help right now?”

He didn’t want to ask for anything. He still hadn’t really shaken the idea that every action must be equally reciprocated. But Grace clearly wanted to help, and Simon did actually have an answer.

“... Can I have a blanket?” He asked, his voice quiet. If he had something over his shoulders, nobody could touch them.

Grace nodded immediately, moving quickly across the room to grab the brightly colored quilt from Earth off of his bed. He held it out, before asking, “Can I? Or would that make things worse right now?”

He was taken aback for a moment. It wasn’t like they’d never touched before; they were the only two people around for light years. They’d hugged. Sometimes on long nights in the lab Grace would fall asleep with his head on his shoulder and Simon would have to carry him back to his bed. But this was different.

Simon had never been comforted by someone outside of Eden before. And he sure as hell had never been comforted by someone about Eden before.

Plus, he did have to consider that it was Grace’s hands on him that had brought him here in the first place. But that feeling was very different from what was going on right now. It had been more controlled, more formal. This was… relaxed. Or as relaxed as it could be, in the wake of everything that had just happened.

Also, it was really fucking hard to do that kind of shit with only one hand.

After a moment’s deliberation, he nodded, scooting slightly away from the wall so that Grace could drape the blanket around his shoulders. 

Fuck, he was so careful. His touch didn’t linger, it wasn’t firm. Nobody had ever been so gentle with him before. Treating him like a person instead of a pawn to be played.

“Grace?” He asked after scooting back against the wall.

“Yeah?” Grace replied, still crouched in front of him on the floor.

“Will you sit with me?” His voice trembled a bit when he asked it, the anxiety of repercussions racing back through his veins. But Grace just smiled softly.

“Of course I will.”

As Grace joined him up against the wall, he heard the sound of xenonite on the floor and realized that Rocky hadn’t left the room. He’d been so quiet he hadn’t really thought he was still there.

“Rocky? Are you here?” Simon asked. Rocky rolled back into view, seeming more hesitant than Simon had ever seen him before.

“Simon okay now, question?” He asked, and Simon made something in between a smile and a grimace.

“‘Okay’ is a strong word. But I’m still here.”

“... Rocky Simon hug, question?”

Simon smiled for real this time, and nodded. “That would be really nice.”

Rocky joined the two of them up against the wall, and Simon let himself lean up against the xenonite ball as Rocky moved within it to be as close to him as possible. He was warm, and it helped to soothe the last of the residual shaking in Simon’s limbs. He could feel Grace moving to be closer to him as well, though he was still leaving a safe distance between them.

“Grace. You can join the hug too, I promise I won’t freak out again,” He joked. It was more so Grace didn’t feel like he was being left out, but Simon was surprised at how good it felt when he curled up against him. He wrapped one arm around his middle, resting his head on Simon’s right shoulder after a moment of hesitation.

Simon reached out to grab Grace’s left hand with his remaining right one, letting their fingers tangle together on instinct. He felt tears welling up in his eyes again, but it was for a different reason than before. He wasn’t feeling fear. He didn’t want to run. He felt… safe. 

He wasn’t sure how long it had been since he felt truly safe.

“Thank you guys,” He said, his voice barely audible in the still air of the dormitory. Rocky hummed a response, and Grace squeezed his hand gently.

Nobody spoke for a long while after that, but it didn’t matter. It wasn’t awkward. He was surrounded by people who cared about him. He wasn’t sure the last time he could say that, either.

“You should be getting ready,” Steve said accusatorily, arms crossed as he took in the sight of Bucky sitting on the couch.

“Relax, I was about to get up,” He defended, and after a look that made it very clear Steve didn’t believe that for a second, he left the room. Bucky rolled his eyes, though he did start to get up from the couch with a wince.

“Woah man, you alright? Get hit or something?” Clint Barton strolled into the room, taking note of the way his friend was moving like he’d recently been shot. Clint knew a thing or two about that feeling, people liked to shoot him with guns. And arrows sometimes, when he pissed Kate Bishop off (which was often).

“No, my shoulder just hurts. And my neck. And my knees, for some reason, which is stupid because —”

“Who’s your physical therapist?” Clint asked, crossing in front of him to plop down by where he just was on the couch. Bucky looked at him, confused.

“What are you talking about?”

“Do you not see a physical therapist? If you’re dealing with chronic pain, you probably should; I finally had to after the tenth or so time I got kicked out of a third story window. Or off a roof…”

“I’m not dealing with ‘chronic pain.’ My body just hurts all the time.”

“Chronically, one might say.”

“Alright, fuck you.”

“I’m just trying to help!” He defended with a laugh, as Bucky turned and started to leave the room. He called after him, “I’ll send Steve my guy’s number!”

Bucky turned around at that, raising an eyebrow. “Why would you send it to Steve?”

Clint looked at him like he was stupid. “We’ve known each other for a while now, Buck —”

“Don’t call me that.”

“And I cannot think of one single time that you’ve done anything to help yourself of your own volition. Guaranteed Steve loves you enough that he’ll make you go, though.”

“I’m a grown adult. You can send it to me.”

Clint was silent for a minute before saying, “I’ll send it to both of you.”

Bucky rolled his eyes and turned to leave again. “And I say again: fuck you, Clint.”

“Always good talking to you, Bucky!”

“Yeah yeah, whatever,” He called behind him, though he couldn’t hide the small amused smile on his face. Thankfully, his back was to Clint as he turned the corner and headed down the hall to get ready.

----------------

The date had been lovely. A beautiful dinner, a walk in the park, a perfect evening. 

And it would’ve stayed that way if Clint Barton hadn’t decided to continue sticking his nose in other people’s business.

“Why did Barton send me a link to a doctor’s office?” Steve asked, tossing his phone face up on the bed so Bucky could look at it before turning back to the closet to grab his pajamas. Bucky just groaned out loud at the question.

“Because he thinks he knows better than me.”

“About what?” Steve turned back to him, an unmistakable look of concern on his face. “Is something wrong?”

“No, nothing’s wrong. I’m fine,” He said, in the cadence of somebody who was very much not fine. Steve crossed his arms, and internally Bucky made a mental note to shoot Clint with a gun the next time he saw him.

“Wow, very convincing, good job Buck,” Steve said, and Bucky just rolled his eyes before moving to take his shirt off so he could put his pajamas on as well. Of course, the motion made the tendons connecting his neck and shoulder feel like pulled taffy, and he couldn’t hide his involuntary wince.

“Goddamnit,” He said, knowing there was no way he was getting out of this conversation now. “I used to be way better at not doing that.”

“Not doing what, taking your shirt off?” Steve asked, and Bucky stifled a laugh.

“You know what I meant, asshole.”

“I do,” He said, and his voice softened slightly as he crossed the room to be closer to Bucky. “Mo mhuirnín. How long has it been hurting you?”

Bucky sighed, resigning himself to the topic as he plopped down onto their bed. Steve sat down next to him immediately, a gentle hand on his right shoulder as he not-so-discreetly looked for signs of injury on the left.

And obviously there were signs of injury. Decades of scar tissue from being broken and rebuilt over and over and over again were going to leave a permanent mark. The skin around the socket where his metal arm attached to his body was warped, but it wasn’t the first time Steve had seen that. However, it was the first time that he’d seen Bucky in this much visible pain from it.

“It’s usually not that bad,” He said, as if he could read Steve’s thoughts. “Obviously it always hurts a little — my whole body always hurts a little — but it really hasn’t been super bad in a while. I think I might’ve strained something on our last mission.”

“Forgive me if I worry about how much pain you define as ‘a little,’” Steve said, turning his gaze back to Bucky’s face as he shook his head.

“I’m fine, Stevie. Seriously.” He turned to meet his eyes, and hoped to god that he’d drop the issue. “Clint’s just making assumptions.”

But of course, this was Steve Rogers. The man had never dropped an issue in his life. “If you’re in pain, even only a little bit of pain, all the time, I feel like that warrants concern.”

Bucky tried very hard not to let himself get frustrated. He always got frustrated in situations like this, where he felt like people weren’t listening to him. Where he felt like they were trying to decide things for him. And when he got frustrated, his communication skills went out the window.

“I said I’m fine. If I was concerned, I would’ve said something.” His tone was sharper than he wanted it to be, but he wasn’t yelling. He hated yelling at Steve.

It’d taken a long time post-Hydra for them to get to this point. For him to be able to understand that people cared for him in a way that was soft, that kindness wasn’t a threat. And unfortunately, he was still working on the idea that vulnerability wasn’t weakness.

If he admitted he was in pain, that he needed help, he was opening himself up to exploitation. Somebody could use that against him, to hurt him, and it was a doctor and he hated doctors and they were going to hurt him again and he wasn’t sure if he could handle —

“Buck? You there?” The sound of Steve’s voice and the feeling of him grabbing his hands jerked him back into reality, and he was surprised to find that he felt completely off-balance.

“Yeah.” His gaze was fixed on the ground, and he was trying desperately to sort through everything that was running through his mind.

“You were doing the staring thing again.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“Were you having a flashback?” Steve asked, starting to move his hands away in case physical contact was the trigger. But Bucky just tightened his grip on them, keeping him near.

“No. Just… thinking.”

“Want to catch me up?” His tone was attempting to be lighthearted, but Bucky could tell that his slight concern was moving into something closer to genuine worry.

So much for having a relaxing evening.

“I don’t like when you guys try to go behind my back and convince me to do things,” He started. That was the easiest bar to cross. “I know it’s just because you care, but it makes me feel unsafe. I want to trust you and I need to know that I can.”

“Buck, I’m sorry. I never meant to —”

“I know, I know you didn’t. I just wanted to put that out there.”

Steve nodded, clearly letting him continue talking before he said his piece, which Bucky greatly appreciated. If he was going to have to actually sit down and talk about what he was feeling, he had to do it all at once. Ripping the bandage off. Otherwise he’d just flounder and talk himself in circles and say a lot without actually saying anything at all just to see if he could trick his brain into thinking he did, and that wasn’t productive for anybody.

“I don’t like doctors. Which sounds stupid and childish, I know, but I feel like you can understand why I wouldn’t be the biggest fan of the idea of going to another office where people are going to be poking and prodding at me.”

He paused for long enough that Steve knew he was fine with him speaking. “Do you know what a physical therapist actually is?”

“... No.”

“It’s not really a doctor in the way that you’re thinking ‘doctor.’ I mean, I haven’t ever had to see one —”

“Stop bragging.”

“But they’re a lot more laid back. Mostly just walking you through exercises, assessing more internal damages to your muscles and stuff that you can’t actually see. There’s not going to be any needles or weird machines or anything.”

The combination of those two things together sent Bucky back for a second, and he took a beat to stare at the wall over Steve’s shoulder before actually focusing back on him. If Steve noticed, he didn’t say anything, which was good because if he brought it up every single time Bucky zoned out like that then they’d never quit talking about it. It happened at least once a day, anymore. Something would trigger a memory and he’d have to let it wash over him for a second before he could manage to make himself move on. 

Just one of the many wonderful repercussions of healing.

“I don’t like doctors, and I don’t like people knowing that I have a physical weakness.”

“Respectfully: you’re missing an arm, Bucky.”

“And my current one, despite the fact that I hate that it exists, is way stronger than the previous. So: not a weakness.”

“I know that it’s not a weakness. But it’s also not a crime to admit that it’s hurting you, and that maybe it’s gotten to a point beyond your control. You’re a human being, you’re allowed to admit when you’re in pain.”

Immediately, the programming he spent all his waking moments fighting against roared back up for a second to remind him that “the asset does not —”

He cut off the end of his sentence, catching the words as they left his lips and honestly very annoyed that his brain worked without his permission. Steve’s expression changed immediately, and it made Bucky’s heart wrench. He hated the look on his face when he accidentally did that.

It had happened so much in the beginning. Referring to himself in the first person was a habit that he had to build from the ground up. The asset was a machine, a weapon, and was to be referred to as such. And then time went on, and he healed more, and he understood that he was a human person with thoughts and feelings and the freedom to make his own decisions. It was slow-going, but referring to himself as himself, as Bucky, got easier and easier.

But that didn’t mean it was easy. That didn’t mean the programming just went away.

And part of him was so frustrated because in his mind, it had been so long since he’d been there. Three years was nothing compared to the seven decades he’d spent in captivity, but they’d felt like an eternity as he tried to wade through everything that had happened to him. Surely he should be rid of all of this by now, surely he should be fixed. Right?

“I’m sorry,” He mumbled, letting his gaze go to the edge of the bed where he had been worrying the corner of one of their blankets beneath his fingertips.

“Do you want to finish the sentence?” Steve asked, his voice so gentle. So much gentler than Bucky thought he deserved. So much gentler than Bucky ever thought he would get. “Would it help to get it out, I mean?”

Bucky considered it. And his mouth worked before his brain did.

“The asset does not feel pain,” He practically spat, the words emotionless and trained from decades and decades of repetition. Steve just nodded.

“Okay.” Steve took in a deep breath, and Bucky remained motionless staring at the blanket until he felt Steve put a hand on his thigh. Another deep breath, and this time he copied. He knew what to do with that. “Do you want to dispute that, or do you want me to?” 

Bucky knew that he could. This was something they’d developed early on, a recommendation from some therapist or another, he could never remember. He’d seen so many at this point. At first it was just him and Steve, but at this point it had been picked up by most of the team. Whoever was around when he did it would ask, and either he would remind himself that he was human or they would.

It took him a long time to be able to do it. His mind would scream at him whenever he would, and it was so loud. So loud. It was still loud, but he’d gotten better at quieting it recently, at reminding himself that he could be more than the soldier he was designed to be. For some reason, tonight was different though. Maybe it was the vulnerability making his skin crawl, or the prospect of having to admit to himself and everyone else that he needed help. But tonight, he just needed to hear somebody else say it.

“Can you?” He asked, and even the act of making a request gave him some mental pushback.

God, their evening really had devolved.

“Of course, Buck. You’re a human being; you’re not an asset, you’re not a weapon. You’re allowed to acknowledge and admit that you are experiencing pain, and that doesn’t mean that you’re weak or you’re failing.”

Steve’s hand was still gently resting on his thigh, and Bucky let the words hit his ears and tried so hard to believe them. To remind himself that he was free, and he didn’t have to go back. He could feel a headache brewing behind his eyes, and he was once again overwhelmed with frustration that he couldn’t just live like a normal person. He couldn’t just have a relaxing evening with his boyfriend where they have one cursory conversation about something a friend brought up and then move on. Every conversation leads to a breakdown, every thought leads to further unraveling, every single moment spent in his own brain leads him closer and closer to complete mental collapse. 

Everywhere he looked there was a reminder. He could never forget about it. He couldn’t just make a coffee or cut his hair or watch a TV show; he didn’t have permission. He’d never been allowed to do those things without permission before.

He didn’t even respond to what Steve had said. He just let himself fall into him, feeling so much of everything that he couldn’t even figure out how to express it. It had been a second since it had been this bad. He hadn’t referred to himself in the third person in months.

Steve rubbed his back gently, letting Bucky bury his head in his chest. After a few long moments, Bucky spoke again.

“I’m sorry.”

“You already said that, Buck. And you have absolutely nothing to apologize for.”

Bucky shook his head reflexively. He was breaking so many rules right now, Steve had no fucking idea. But he wasn’t apologizing to himself for breaking them, he was apologizing to Steve for making it his problem. “I don’t want to be like this.”

“Like what?” Steve asked, clearly trying to coax more out of him. And Bucky didn’t like that; he’d picked it up from their therapist.

“Can’t handle anything. Feels like everything is a fight anymore. In… my head.” The word “my” came out with resistance, and his brain was yelling at him that this was too much information. Nobody else needed this. Shut it down, put it away, it’s unhelpful and irrelevant and he was not performing the way that he was supposed to.

“Do I have to be the one to remind you that you are trying to unpack seventy years of brainwashing? You are fighting. It’s going to be a fight, because you’re fighting against the shit that they told you was true about yourself. But hey, look at me for a second, muirnín.” Bucky didn’t move from his arms, but he did tilt his head to look up at Steve. “None of what they said was true is. You are a human being. You are a good and kind person and they had no right to try and take that away from you. You’re so so strong, but right now I want you to know that you don’t have to be.”

It was the final statement that really broke him, that let the hurt radiate through his body in a way that his mind rarely allowed. He was still too emotionally overwhelmed to cry, but he felt himself shake slightly in Steve’s arms as the words overcame him.

He was good and he was kind and he was strong.

And he needed help.

“I’ll go. To the doctor that Clint suggested.”

He felt Steve pause for a second before he nodded. “I’d almost forgotten that that was what we were talking about, to be honest,” he said, his voice cautiously lighthearted. Bucky couldn’t quite bring himself to laugh, but he did feel an amused smile grace his lips for a second before Steve spoke again. “But I think that’s a good idea. I think it’ll help a lot, in the long run. And if you hate it you can always just leave. Nobody is keeping you anywhere you don’t want to be.”

“I can just leave,” He repeated, mostly as a reminder to himself. The concept was still so foreign to most of his brain.

“Anytime you want,” Steve said, and Bucky nodded against him. Everything in his mind was still so loud, it still hurt so much. But at least he knew that he wasn’t going at it alone.

“Do you want to get changed and we can lay down? We can talk about it more or just relax, it’s up to you,” Steve offered, and Bucky nodded again. They disentangled from each other so that they could put on their pajamas — a task that they’d both been in the middle of before his swiss-cheese ass brain had decided to ruin everything — and get ready for bed before returning to each other’s arms.

Steve moved to play with Bucky’s hair, his arms wrapped tightly around him as though he could make it go away with just an embrace. He was trying to protect him, always trying to protect him, and it made Bucky’s heart ache. He felt like he’d never truly feel like he was worth all of it. All of the emotional devastation he wrought, the destruction that seemed to follow him like a shadow. Not always visible, but always with him. Omnipresent.

“I’m sorry,” He mumbled again, the third time he’d apologized that night. He didn’t know why he felt compelled to keep doing it.

Nobody understood, that was the problem. They could learn, and they could listen, but they would never truly understand. There was no way to convey it with words, no explanation that would suffice to describe the experience of feeling like your brain was full of landmines. Like you were possessed but by yourself, like you didn’t feel in control of your own thoughts ninety-nine percent of the time. In his darkest nights he wished to go back, if only because there he didn’t have to think. He didn’t have to feel the repercussions of everything that they did to him, he just had to feel pain and then blankness and then cold. Orders and pain and blankness and cold. Over and over. It was horrible, it was disgusting, it went against everything that Bucky Barnes as a person stood for.

But it was simple.

Nobody could understand brainwashing if they hadn’t been brainwashed. There was no way around it.

Still, Steve Rogers was going to try. To the end of the line, he was going to try.

“Buck. Please stop apologizing, love. You have nothing to be sorry for.”

Bucky wished that was true. But he didn’t say as much. He didn’t even really think that he wanted to talk about it anymore, but words kept leaving his mouth because he felt he owed his boyfriend some sort of explanation. It’s just that there wasn’t one, and there never would be.

The pounding in his head compelled him to shut his eyes, and the spike of anxiety that came with the prospect of nighttime overcame him for a moment. Because night meant sleep, and sleep meant nightmares. Sleep meant nightmares or laying awake with his own thoughts for hours trying to stop his own racing mind. Either way, it was a bad time of day for him.

But Steve was here. He was warm and he was in Steve’s arms.

It wasn’t always enough. But blissfully, that night, it was.

As per usual, he was ambushed the second that he pulled his car up to the docks.

Sam’s nephews sprinted across the deck to him, and he groaned lightheartedly as they immediately latched themselves to his arm.

“So, when does the whole ‘metal arm’ thing stop being interesting to you two?” He quipped, and both boys laughed.

“As soon as it stops looking cool,” AJ remarked, trailing Bucky as he made his way over to where the Wilsons and some of their neighbors had already started to gather. He smelled something incredible cooking, and he looked around for Sarah before he heard her call out to him.

“Bucky! You drinking?” He turned left to see her holding out a bottle of beer from the cooler in offering. He just laughed.

“Unfortunately, still doesn’t really do anything to me.” As the words left his mouth, Cass ran up and tackled him from behind, and he stumbled forward a bit with a grin. “If these two don’t let up though, I might need to!”

“Come on, guys. You’re never this happy to see me!” Sam emerged from the house holding a tray of something, dodging people as he set it down on a nearby table.

“We see you all the time, Uncle Sam,” Cass argued.

“Plus, Uncle Bucky’s got a metal arm,” AJ said, hands on his hips as if that was a completely airtight argument. Sam just raised his eyebrows.

“Technically, it’s vibranium,” He countered. AJ shrugged.

“That’s even cooler. And still a metal. We’re literally learning the elements right now.”

“Alright, I get it,” Sam said, his tone lighthearted as he crossed the deck to grab AJ and lift him into the air. “Somebody thinks he’s smarter than me!”

“It’s not his fault if he’s right, Sam!” Bucky teased from the side before turning back to Sarah. “You know, I think I might actually take you up on that beer.”

“And I absolutely wouldn’t blame you for that,” She laughed, passing him one as they both watched Sam attempt to fight his nephews.

-------------------------

It didn’t take long for the party to get into full swing. Sarah Wilson’s cookouts had become somewhat notorious in the neighborhood, and Bucky was grateful to have been invited to every single one. While he hadn’t been able to come every time just because of how far away he lived, he was there often enough that people knew him — besides the fact that technically, everybody knew of him — and he was happy to say that he was at least amicable acquaintances with most of them. He never claimed to be the best at socializing in the modern day, but he was clearly doing something right if all of these people continued to want him around.

The sunset over the water was always a sight to behold, no matter how many times he’d seen it. The first cookout after they’d fixed the boat, he remembered finding Sam staring out at the endless sea, and he found himself doing the same as he wandered in the direction of the ocean.

It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy talking to everybody. Sometimes he just needed a minute alone, to realign. He sipped what he was pretty sure was his third beer and steadied himself for a moment with the sound of the gentle waves, the chatter of everybody behind him fading to the most pleasant background noise. But when he turned around to go back to the group, something felt different.

Maybe it was the way that the fading sunlight lit everything up, or the purity of the love found here, or the fact that this was the closest thing to family he had felt in years. Hell, maybe it was the alcohol finally managing to make a dent against his superhuman metabolism. Either way, as he watched the group from afar, the moment felt heavier. He was overcome with a flood of emotion, and he was shocked to find his eyes watering.

It was all so beautiful.

And it was his.

Wasn’t it?

Peace was hard to find for somebody with his background. Very rarely did he find himself looking around at the life he had built and believing that it belonged to him. Something like this… it felt too good to be true. Like an illusion, a fading dream conjured up by his brain in an attempt to maintain some sort of sanity. Everything good that he’d ever had had been ripped away from him in time.

So why would this be any different?

He looked away from the crowd and back out towards the water, blinking away a wave of tears that seemed to come out of nowhere. The omnipresent anxiety living in his bones flared for just a second to whisper that they could find him. That this was temporary, that he could always be forced to go back. It was inevitable, it was what he was designed for, it was who he was meant to be. He’d had his reprieve. It was time to go back in.

But they couldn’t make him anymore. They couldn’t make him anymore. He’d lived for so long without the will to choose his actions that sometimes he forgot he had it now. Even if somehow Hydra survived and came back for him, they wouldn’t get past the skills that they gave him. If they were going to drag him back, he wouldn’t be going without a fight.

Nobody could make him do anything that he didn’t want to do, anymore.

He had to keep reminding himself of that. Free will was still a foreign concept to a large part of his brain.

He allowed the sounds of the party and the waves to overwhelm him for a moment, blotting out all other thoughts in his mind. And for some reason, the simple beauty in that sent another wave of tears through his system, one that he quickly wiped with the back of his hand before looking back in the direction of the group.

This was his life.

This was the life that he had built for himself. Where he felt happy and supported and loved by the people he chose to surround himself with.

It was the life that he’d built, and he got to keep it. Nobody was coming to take it away. Not again. Not this time.

A contended smile settled onto his face, and he was shaken somewhat out of his reverie by the sight of Sam striding over to him.

“Trying to avoid my family, are we?” He teased, and Bucky just laughed.

“Never. Just got a bit overwhelmed for a second.”

“You alright?” He asked, and Bucky was surprised to find that the idea of talking about what he was feeling didn’t make him want to jump headfirst into the ocean. He looked over at Sam and nodded.

“Yeah. This… it’s just all so beautiful. I have a hard time believing it’s real, to be honest.”

“Buck…” Sam looked at him for a long moment before wrapping an arm around his shoulders. “You deserve to be happy. You do know that, right?”

Bucky stared at the ground for a lot longer than he planned to, at that comment. Because there was still that nagging little part of him, the part that hadn’t truly processed that he had been brainwashed, the part that was dead set on making him hate himself forever, that still didn’t really think he did. After everything he’d done, after all of the pain that he’d caused, how could there exist a world where he’d get to experience a sunset?

“I’m working on it. Knowing that, I mean,” Was the answer that he settled on. Because he was. He was taking steps to let himself experience joy and warmth.

Even small things had started to become acts of defiance. Every time he put on a comfortable sweatshirt, every time he allowed himself to just sit and watch a stupid movie, every time he leaned down to pet his cat, he was working on letting himself be happy. Reminding himself that the world was something that he could still enjoy. Obviously there was still so, so much pain, and it could be easy to let that be the only thing that he focused on. But there was also beauty worth finding, even if sometimes it came with anxiety.

“It just feels like somebody is going to take it from me,” He spit out before he could stop himself. “Having good things in my life feels like a threat.”

He said it with a weak laugh, attempting to be lighthearted, but Sam just nodded with a deep-rooted understanding in his eyes.

“It’s hard to let yourself experience comfort when you’ve been in survival mode for so long. Also: you’ve got PTSD, man. None of this is surprising.”

“Yeah well, my therapist sucks, so it’s not like she was going to sit down and explain to me the symptoms.”

“Google is free.”

“And? I’m from the 40s.”

“And you’ve been in the 2000s for long enough. Figure it out, old man.”

Bucky laughed for real this time. “Damn, low blow. Here I was thinking that we were bonding.”

“If we’re just now bonding, then what the fuck was all that time we spent fixing my family’s boat?”

“I don’t know, labor exploitation? Having a guy around who can grab things without getting burned had to have been super helpful.”

Sam threw his arms up in mock frustration, though he was having a very hard time hiding his amusement. “Dude, the one time that we needed that skill, you literally forgot about the metal arm and used a wrench anyway.”

“Fuck off,” Bucky joked, because he didn’t really have anything to say in rebuttal. It wasn’t his fault that he was right-handed.

They fell into an amicable silence after that, both of them turning to look out at the nearly-set sun over the water. After a while, Sam spoke again.

“It really is beautiful, isn’t it? I feel like I’ll never get tired of this view.”

“I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to it.”

“The sunset, or free will?” Sam asked, and Bucky couldn’t help the laugh that tumbled from his mouth. He glanced over at Sam and saw that he was smiling a bit to himself, and it almost felt like a milestone, the fact that other people could joke about it with him. It got exhausting sometimes, being all brooding and mysterious.

“Both, asshole,” He replied, and Sam laughed outright at that. After another beat of silence, he put his hand on Bucky’s shoulder.

“You’ll get there, Buck. And you don’t have to do it alone.”

He faltered, unsure how to respond to that before just turning and wrapping Sam in a hug. “Thank you.”

Sam returned the hug, and for a second Bucky was overwhelmed by how grateful he was for the people in his life.

His life.

His.

Nobody else’s.

“Anytime, man. Seriously,” Sam said as they broke apart, and Bucky nodded. They glanced back out towards the water, before looking towards the party.

“Alright. I think I’ve been antisocial long enough,” Bucky said. “Your nephews’ friends don’t believe that I can lift all five of them with just the one arm.”

“Jesus, can they cool it with the obsession with your arm?” Sam shook his head as they started back across the dock.

“Just admit it: you’re jealous that they think I’m cooler than you.”

Sam looked at him, appalled. “Excuse you, I can literally fly. Also, I’m Captain America! That’s cool as hell!”

“Keep telling yourself that, man.”

The amicable chatter of the party enveloped them again as they returned to the group, and Bucky mostly fell back into a rhythm. The sun didn’t take long to set after his and Sam’s conversation, but it was summertime in Louisiana. The air would stay warm.

“And how does that make you feel? When you picture yourself in that situation?”

It was a trick question. It was a stupid fucking question. Because obviously the answer was “bad,” but there was so much more to it than that.

Bad, but he doesn’t deserve to be allowed to feel that way.

Bad, but it wasn’t really, was it?

Bad, but at this point he really just needs to get over it and move on.

Bad, but if he admits that then they’ll punish him.

He doesn’t say any of this. He settles on, “I mean, bad. Obviously.”

“Very descriptive of you. Could you give me a little bit more to work with?” She said, looking at him like she could read the internal storm going on in his mind. She couldn’t, he knew she couldn’t. Nobody knew what to do with him, nobody knew how to help; there weren’t a lot of doctors who were trained in undoing the lasting side effects of brainwashing. But he didn’t know how to fix himself, so here he was.

Plus he didn’t want to get arrested. So there was that too.

“I mean, I recognize it as a bad thing that happened, it’s a bad memory. The things that the Winter Soldier — that I — did, were really bad.”

“Yes, but I don’t want to talk about the things that you did. I want to talk about the things that were done to you.”

He did not want to talk about that.

“I don’t know if I want to talk about that.”

“Well, tough shit Bucky, you’re here for an hour.”

“Have I told you yet that you’re a terrible therapist?”

“Many times. Anyway, let’s get a bit more specific: how does it feel to picture yourself in the chair? The one that Hydra used to wipe your memories?”

He found it funny that she felt the need to clarify. As if there would be any other chair in his life that would be significant enough that he’d need to talk about it in therapy.

Oh god no, not an armchair! His greatest fear! He was basically cowering in the corner. He would be —

“Bucky? Are you listening to me?” She asked again, and he rolled his eyes.

“Yes. I’m thinking.”

“Hopefully all of that thinking is being used to find me an honest answer and not another way to very conspicuously dodge my questions. You’re not going to work towards any lasting healing by lying to me and avoiding ever thinking about it.”

“It’s really optimistic that you think that I never think about it.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

“I think about it all the time. Every day. Even when I’m actively trying not to, it still sits in the back of my mind, there’s literally no way to avoid it.”

“Which I think is completely understandable, given the scale of what they did to you.”

“And what I did.”

“Sure, yes, what you did. But you need to remember that you didn’t have a choice. It’s less something that you did and more something that you were forced to do.”

“Just because I was brainwashed doesn’t mean that I didn’t do it. Just because I wasn’t in control of myself doesn’t mean that it wasn’t my hands that killed all of those people.”

Fuck, this was making him emotional now. He hated when these appointments made him emotional. He never knew what to do with that; he wasn’t great at having emotions, as a rule. Outside of Wakanda, of course. Something about Wakanda just made everything feel safer. He had half a mind to move there permanently, if he didn’t have other shit he needed to resolve in the rest of the world.

“Can you at least let yourself acknowledge that it wasn’t your fault? That you didn’t have a choice?”

“That feels unfair. That feels like I’m letting myself off too easy.”

“Is there a threshold of suffering you need to reach to feel like you’re worthy of grace, Bucky?”

It honestly would’ve been less of a shock if she’d just punched him in the face.

“Is there a threshold of suffering you need to reach to feel like you’re worthy of grace?”

The question bounced around in his mind, and he wanted to scream that yes, obviously yes there was. The threshold was the amount of suffering that he had inflicted, the threshold was the amount of suffering that he had been expected to endure.

Of course, that was never going to be reached. The bar was always being raised. He would complete a mission successfully, he’d be a perfect soldier, and he would be rewarded with more pain. More missions and more pain. There was never going to be a time when he had suffered enough, because they had made it so he could never view himself as anything more than the pawn they made him into. A puppet with nobody pulling the strings.

“I… I mean…” He started to answer, but he was floundering. He didn’t know what the hell he was supposed to say in response to a question like that. “Obviously I inflicted a lot of suffering, so I feel like —”

“No. I’m sorry to cut you off, but I can’t sit here and allow you to continue with this rhetoric. I need you to acknowledge that you didn’t have a choice in the matter.”

“Obviously I didn’t have a choice. I know that.”

“But do you? Have you really metabolized the emotional implications of that?”

“Don’t condescend to me, obviously I know that I didn’t have a choice. I understand the emotional implications, I’ve been living with them since I escaped Hydra.”

“I know that you understand them. But understanding something and actually letting yourself feel the weight of it are two completely different things.” She leaned a bit farther forward, and he felt like she was about to say something that he was not going to want to hear. “They took the choice from you, Bucky.”

He was right. He did not want to hear that.

He was shocked to feel tears stinging his nose, and it took his brain a second to catch up to his nervous system well enough to process why he was on the verge of crying. Because if they took the choice from him…

“I should’ve had a choice.”

The words tumbled out of his mouth before he could even fully process them, and his therapist sat back in her chair again in approval. But he barely even noticed. Suddenly, the only thing he could picture was his body on the operating table.

“I should’ve had a choice.”

He all but whispered it to himself the second time, and he felt like his heart was going to beat out of his chest.

Obviously he understood that the things that he’d done had been against his will. And he knew that what had happened to him was bad, objectively. But he’d never really considered before the angle that he should have been given an alternative at all. They took that from him, the ability to decide if he wanted to. Instead, he was just expected to follow orders and be okay with it. Even if those orders meant the end of his own life.

“What do you feel, when you picture yourself in that chair, Bucky?” She asked again, voice softer this time. He just shook his head.

“I don’t think…” He trailed off before looking back up at her, eyes glassy. “I need a minute to process, please.”

“That’s fine. Do you want me to step out for a second?”

“No, it’s okay. I’m fine. I just…” God, he really had never been good at having emotions. Especially after seventy years of not being allowed to. He looked at the ground again, taking a few steadying breaths before looking back to her. “I should’ve had a choice, right?”

“Of course you should’ve had a choice. You are a human being, you deserve to have the freedom to make your own decisions, and it’s awful that they took that from you.”

“I… for some reason, I never thought about the fact that they did. I conceptually understood that what I did was against my will, but I never… there was never any other option. I always just agonized over the things I should’ve done differently while I was in there, not…”

“The fact that you never should’ve been put in that situation in the first place?”

“Yeah. That.”

“... Do you want to tell me what you’re feeling right now? Can you put a name to it?”

He hated when she phrased things like that. It made him feel like he was a child. Still, he replied, “I feel like I should be more angry. But… I really just feel sad. I feel really sad for him.”

“For who?”

“For younger me. The version of me that they found out in the snow and chopped up. I just wish —”

“Hold on, pause. You do understand that that was you, right?”

“Obviously. I just… I feel like I have a hard time acknowledging that, you know? Bridging the gap between me during and me now. I can feel unabashedly bad for me when I was young, because I hadn’t actually caused anybody any harm yet, but whenever I think about the things that happened to me, I have a hard time being able to emotionally acknowledge that they happened to me. They make me sad, obviously, but it’s sad in an abstract way.”

“Which is absolutely a coping mechanism; our brains do that when we’re dealing with traumatic events. Distancing yourself from the emotional weight of the experience can be a helpful way to survive something, at the time. But at some point, you have to bring it all back together.”

“And I can’t really figure out how to do that last part.”

“It seemed like you were sufficiently emotional a couple of minutes ago.”

“Yeah, that… that’s the first time that’s happened to me. In a while.”

“Can I just say something honest real quick?”

“As if you ever do anything else.”

“The things that were done to you were bad. I know that in all of the conversations surrounding your time as the Winter Soldier, everybody just wants to talk about the things that you did — and that everybody includes yourself, by the way — but I feel like you need to allow yourself to feel the weight of the fact that the things that happened to you were objectively horrible. And it’s okay to be upset about that. It doesn’t invalidate anybody else’s experiences or emotions for you to allow yourself to be upset about what was done to you.”

He had honestly no idea what to say to that. There were really only a handful of people in his life that made him feel like the things that he’d gone through were actually things that he’d gone through, and over half of them were dead now. So to have somebody say it so plainly…

He really didn’t expect it, this time. He thought he had things under control. He was a man, he was a soldier, he was —

He was sobbing on the couch.

The tears hit him completely out of nowhere, to the point where even his therapist looked a bit taken aback. It was the first time he’d cried in front of her ever. Honestly, probably the first time he’d shown genuine emotion in front of her ever. And it made him feel awful, it made him feel horribly exposed and cold and —

“What are you feeling right now, Bucky?” She asked, and for possibly the first time, he actually knew the answer.

“Vulnerable.”

Every part of him was raw nerve, and he wanted nothing more than to crawl beneath something and hide. To not have to face this in the cold light of day, under the cruel glare of grey and fluorescent lights. To not have to face the fact that he was broken, that maybe it really was that bad and this wasn’t just going to go away if he ignored it for long enough. It was a serious issue that he had no clue how to fix, how to help himself recover from, how to move on without damaging himself even further. This was never supposed to have gotten this complicated, he was never supposed to have made it this far away. They would’ve wiped him by this point, he would never have been able to dwell on feelings like this before. Hell, he would’ve never even been able to have feelings like this before.

“You asked what I feel when I picture myself in their chair?” He asked, shocked that he was even able to talk through his tears.

“Yes, I did.”

“Grief. That’s what I fucking feel. It’s grief,” He spit the words out before he could convince himself to take them back, to remind himself that he had no right to feel like that when he’d caused hundreds of people infinitely worse of the same emotion. For the first time in his life, he felt completely unmoored from the present, but not in a way that dragged him back down into guilt. The scenes playing in his mind weren’t scenes of his victims. They were scenes of himself.

The operating table, the experiments, the cryochamber, the chair. Fear and electricity and pain and cold and pain, over and over and over until he was needed again.

“But I knew him.”

It was the first time in decades that he’d tried to talk back again. That he’d tried to make sense of the fact that he was still a person, still somebody who had feelings and memories and thoughts and dreams and fears. And they’d hurt him for it.

They had always hurt him for it.

“And what are you grieving, when you picture what happened to you?”

“I… there’s nothing I can do. There’s nothing I can do to go back and stop them. There’s nothing I can do to stop this from having happened. There’s nothing…”

This was who he was now. Yes, he could heal, and the emotional impacts could be lessened, but he could never rewrite history. He could never truly erase the past. The Winter Soldier would live in his bones forever, even if it wasn’t actually in his head anymore.

There was nothing that he could do to save himself.

“I wish…”

What did he wish? That none of it had ever happened? Obviously, he’d been wishing that for years. What was different about today?

“There’s a version of myself that was better. There’s a version of myself that none of this ever happened to. I wish I could see what his life is like.”

“That is not uncommon, amongst people who have experienced life-altering traumas like this. But fixating on who you could’ve been if it hadn’t happened isn’t a productive avenue of healing. Like you said, you can’t change the past.”

There was something else nagging at him, something he couldn’t quite put his finger on. A weird anxiety coursed through his body the longer that he talked about it, an anxiety different from the kind that typically came with any of his previous attempts to be emotionally vulnerable. An anxiety that only cropped up when he tried to touch on details, when he tried to actually paint a picture of the things that they had done to him.

The anxiety that came with being punished.

There was nobody left to punish him, though, he had to remind himself. He was not there anymore, he did not have to spend every waking day waiting for the other shoe to drop. For either the world to end or his life to end, whichever happened first. He told himself this over and over, and still he couldn’t really make himself believe it. Believe that he wasn’t going to be dragged back to that chair tomorrow, that this temporary reprieve wasn’t all some beautiful and horribly strange dream. Because they would find him eventually. His work was never done, they would find him again and he would have to go right back to the way things were before. In twenty years this would all seem like something he imagined in a fit of desperation, just like that night in Austria when Steve rescued him. He was only allowed happiness for so long.

“Is it over?” He asked her, not recognizing his voice when it left his mouth. His tone was desperate in a way he’d never heard it before. “It’s over, isn’t it? It’s really over? I’m actually free?”

Her expression softened, and she nodded. “Yes. It’s over. You’re free.”

“I don’t have to go back. Right? They can’t make me, not again. I don’t have to go back.”

“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, anymore.”

The words hit his ears, but he found himself unable to believe them. Memories of the first time he was promised freedom raced through his mind, and he longed for the certainty in Okoye’s voice. But he knew that no matter how many times somebody told him, this was something he was going to have to internalize for himself. He wasn't sure if he'd ever truly be able to believe that the life he'd built for himself was something he was allowed to have.

It was really over.

He was free.