[meme] open post / picture prompt catch-all

[lefthandfree]

1. Post picture(s) or starter
2. Receive tags

Comments

[assembles]

[ It had never been beyond Bucky to call Steve out when he thought he was being ridiculous, or overbearing, or a martyr. He'd always talked to Steve straight, told him how it was, and that's something that Steve hadn't quite realized he was missing until he gets it now. He thrives alongside someone who challenges him when that's what's needed.

Because it's true, that Steve hasn't been entirely forthcoming with Bucky either, tiptoeing in hopes that he doesn't prod at a tender spot; that he doesn't touch upon some subject which is still off-limits.

It has to go both ways. He can't behave like Bucky is more wounded or traumatized than he is, whether or not that's the truth.

Steve lets Bucky say his piece, hands finding their way back into his pockets as he nods his understanding. He hadn't meant to imply that Bucky was scared of anything, even if he has every reason to feel that way. Of course, the subject comes back around to the triggers still implanted in Bucky's head, and Steve sighs. ]

We can figure that out. I could contact Natasha, once things have calmed down a little. If anyone would know something about it, it would be her.

[ Anyone on their "side," that is, though Steve can't say that sides exist anymore after the fight at the airport and Siberia. He isn't desperate enough to start tracking down Hydra agents for information, but it's a possibility floating around in the back of his mind. ]

[lefthandfree]

[Though he’d sobered from the initial shift in discussion, the present shift only grounds the reality back into his mind even further. What Hydra has done to him isn’t a simple thing at all, and resolving it won’t be simple either. The truth is jarring for him as when he thinks back on what he had endured, the various conditioning tests initial and otherwise that he’d been subjected to, it all seemed so straightforward at the time, each moment leading into the next without much thought given to why he was put under the same tests over and over again. They were simply trying to break him, he’d thought. Now the notion seems so foolish.

At the suggestion, he finds himself nodding idly, not necessarily agreeing with the idea that Natasha should be involved so much as knowing that this isn’t something that either of them will be able to figure out on their own, regardless of how much Bucky would prefer to contain the situation. The circumstance is humiliating, any way he looks at it, though that doesn’t stop the need for it to be addressed. The commands are what has alienated him from the world in the first place, after all, what made the Winter Soldier so effective and deadly.

He lets Steve’s words linger in the air for a moment before he responds, not wishing to dismiss Steve’s idea so much as extending the solution in another direction as well.] T’Challa’s been looking into it too. With what he could decipher of the Red Book. I don’t doubt there’s something else out there though. That’s got it all written somewhere.

Can’t grow more heads if you’ve got poor documentation, right? [A short laugh follows, amusement mixed with unmistakeable dryness.] But worst comes to worst, I just hide away for the rest of my life. Early retirement. Or something.

[Or freezing himself again. He’s not telling Steve that one until it’s time though. Bucky doesn’t need any more reasons to second guess the decision.]

[assembles]

[ It's a relief to not immediately get push-back from Bucky on this issue. As much as Bucky would rather not have to rely on anyone for help with this, there's no other option when it requires someone knowing how to go into his head and untie all the knots that Hydra had made there. It's going to be a long and painstaking process, Steve imagines, and it's way outside of his league. That's what kills him, that there's so little he can do to help with this, beyond the moral support.

Natasha would never judge. She wouldn't see it as something humiliating, but instead as a problem to be solved efficiently. The healing could come after the unseemly parts were cut away. Either way, Steve has no doubt that she would do whatever she could to help, if he asked.

Steve isn't going to take any issue with more possible solutions, and he nods at the mention of T'Challa. With all of the technology that Wakanda is boasting, it's possible they have access to something that could help. ]

We just need a clue on where to start looking. [ Steve can't help but turning his head to make eye contact then. He knows how fuzzy Bucky's memory is, but if he can start to recall some of the places where he was held, it would give them some good leads. ] We're gonna figure this out, Buck. [ He won't even entertain that last suggestion, that Bucky hide away for the rest of his life.

After everything he's been through? He deserves so much better than that. ]