( bucky's recouping on the bench gave him enough time to gather himself again, work up an unflinching determination for the step that has to come next. once upon a time, he'd been pieced back together often enough by battlefield medics and nurses that he's not self-conscious about that part, about his blood on someone else's hands, and the prospect of the pain that comes with it. so he nods curtly, and then leans forward enough to work the jacket off his shoulders. it's large enough that it slips off easily, puddling on the bench beside him — the fabric's torn through from the bullets, though, and he frowns at the sight.
and then he realises what actually comes next.
shit, he thinks. he's wearing a long-sleeved shirt, but the injury is high enough that he can't just roll it up for her to get at the bullet wound. so the man hesitates, while karen's standing there waiting for him, and his hand's at the neck of his shirt. and it's a bashfulness that doesn't seem to match the soldier's crisp businesslike demeanour of just a few moments ago.
he girds himself again, catches at the neck of his rumpled shirt, drags it over his head in one fell swoop. fabric crumpled in his hand. his movement reveals the shape of muscles rippling in his back, his shoulderblades, his chest, as he exhales again.
and there's all that black-and-gold metal. you can't even pretend it's a gauntlet or metal glove of some kind; she can see the spot where it's neatly welded to his shoulder, bound to the sinew and tendon somehow, an elegant construction of wakandan model. the plates slide elegantly when he moves, a delicate artistry in it.
there's two bullets in his side, the skin ripped open and still-bleeding. he stands up to give her better access, leans his metal hand against the kitchen table. his gaze is locked forward, staring straight ahead and not meeting her eye. there's a giant metal elephant in the room now, and the man seems to be biting down on it, not wanting to see whatever expression is crossing her face at the sight of him. horror. disgust. aversion.
( she's vigilant — she always has been. it's not just the pain splicing through him every time he moves which way, there's another hesitancy there, living within him, having taken refuge somewhere it didn't belong. she wants to comfort him, wants to tell him it's alright, whatever it is, but does she really have the right? she knows the answer. she doesn't know him, and so she couldn't possibly understand, therefore rendering anything that left her mouth the sister of pity, even if it wasn't her intention. she watches him ache to pull off that last layer and it's not the bullets that make him heavy, not the lulling demand of a body to rest.
he stands before her and he doesn't bother dropping the layer, just props himself there like a soldier following orders, and the first place her eyes fall is to the glint of tags dangling beneath his collar. feather-light, she's reaching forward to take that shirt from his grasp, setting it off to the side beside leather jacket. a breath in.
what she wants to say: nothing has changed. she can pick up on notes she remembers from various case files, photographs of him clipped to the top of reports, a side profile far more distinct as it stands before her now, gaze sweeping his features with a delicate read. she remembers knees curled beneath her on the floor, holding up the transparent image of that skull, a daunting hole like ink burned through the film. people had thought they'd known frank, knew what he stood for, what he'd done — her teeth grit, and there's a twin frustration, there. in the way he refuses to meet her gaze, the way shame dims him.
a breath out. she reaches for one of those cloths, douses it with some of the peroxide, and the first thing to touch him isn't the fabric, but her fingertips. tracing the round of his shoulder — shaky, as if he'd swat her away at a moments notice, as if he could possibly feel the touch mirrored on his opposite side; she doesn't linger where she doesn't belong.
she ducks down a little, splaying her palm at his abdomen, careful not to brush up against the ripened flesh, and she knows it's like ripping off a bandage — that cloth soaked in the alcohol palms over the wound, a practiced delicacy met with necessary contact. a few dabs, making sure to clean any residual dirt that'd found it's way.
as she prods, she looks up to him; to him. a man. a body. him. and while she speaks softly, it's not patronizing. )
( he's a cacophony of tension as she takes him in, his sinews a set of vibrating strings, just waiting for the other shoe to drop.
but then it doesn't come, and doesn't come. instead, it's karen's fingers against his right shoulder. she feels bucky tense beneath her touch, a stiffening of all his joints and levers, but once he realises that she's not reaching for the metal arm or gravitating towards it like the anomaly it is, he seems to breathe a little easier. still not meeting her eye, instead keeping his gaze riveted on the shelves across the room, the flourish of greenery in the kitchen, as he leans against the table and lets her work. the houseplants are thriving. he's never actually kept plants before.
he knows he's dissociating a little, leaving his body as he so often did whenever he retreated to a small and safe corner of his mind, but then that bright flare of pain at his abdomen is scouring, clarifying. like a hot bright sun burning hot inside him and this, this is familiar. he knows this part. his muscles tighten like twisting a set of screws and he breathes through the pain of the alcohol, as his expression turns even emptier and stonier.
bucky finds himself stupidly, sickeningly grateful for the fact that she's not pointing it out or demanding answers. it had been easy enough to not recognise him, out on the street. his hair's been cut short and he looks less haunted, less haggard than the face that hit the newsfeeds, but there's really no mistaking the arm anymore. not after the winter soldier had come out of the shadows, started gunning down cars in the middle of the freeway.
(he remembers everything.) )
Most of the time, yeah.
( his jaw almost hurts with how much he's working to not look at her. but then he finally moves, just a few inches' turn in order to glance at her out of the corner of his eye. her blonde hair drifting into her eyes; the quick, careful, practiced movements of her hands. she's done this before. maybe not as steady as a trained nurse, but there's an unflinching competence to the way she cleans the wounds. he wonders who it was. where and why and how she'd needed to pick up the skills of impromptu ad hoc medical treatment in the middle of the night.
you remind me of someone. )
How about you? You do this often?
( as if it's something normal, like running into her at a carnival or a woodworking class or something. you come here often? )
( she'd known the answer before he offers it. no one takes two bullets — now that it's evident just how many had burrowed within him — and expresses a vehement disinterest in going to the hospital. for most, it's that first instinctive reaction. he'd been more startled by her shadow veering that corner and another barrel pointed at him that wasn't russian than the bodies he'd left heavy on the concrete, so it's looking like it might've been yet another meeting between friends, only it's a fairly lose term where 'catching up' meant he had something they wanted. she knows the breadcrumbs well; personally. people did desperate things when it came to money, power, and perhaps most notably, the truth.
the corner of her lips tip upward, and really at this point they've both committed to checkmate. her asking him any questions would just open the floor for him to dig right back, and while she likes to think of herself as an open book, sometimes it's nice to meet someone as the uncut version of themselves — not what you've heard, not the name they've made for themselves either pretty or sharp.
a sole hum is let up in reply; considering. she doesn't make any further comment because she doesn't really feel she needs to — if he wanted to tell her what'd landed him there in the first place, he would. otherwise her hands are busy and she's got two bullet wounds to dedicate herself to, folding the cloth in on itself before she's dabbing at the second site. she can smell the pungent, metallic notes of blood and while she's managed to clean a majority of it from his skin, it's claimed the thick denim of his jeans and those shirts are worse for wear. he'd gotten lucky, an inch further to the left and it could've easily punctured a lung, hit something far more vital, but he doesn't seem too concerned with the severity of it all.
tit for tat, he's tossing the question back to her court, and when she looks up beneath her lashes she catches that side-long glance of his, holding it a moment with palm pressed to the site she's currently tending. )
Every now and then.
( there's a bit of misplaced humor given the circumstance, but her nonchalance says it all, attention once more stolen to her efforts. her primary concern is to stop the bleeding, and fortunately the bullets weren't too deep, keeping pressure to one while she reaches with her free hand for the tweezers. head nods in a gesture to the whiskey at the edge of the table — he doesn't have to take it, but the offer's there and recommended, given she wastes no time to divvy out the bullet glimmering back at her. )
This city has a way of keeping things interesting.
( her warm hands press against him, working quickly. he can't even remember the last time someone's touched his bare skin. not like this. the hard, clinical contact of the scientists swarming over him in HYDRA— that doesn't count.
his right hand reaches out, catches the whiskey, takes a startlingly deep swig straight from the bottle. she doesn't know about his metabolism yet, but it'll need to be that much to even make a dent in him. and when the tweezers dig in and latch around the first bullet and yank it out, he doesn't make a noise, not a hiss of breath or a gasp of pain even when the blood spills over in its wake; he's eerily silent, because years' worth of brutal training has drummed that particular reaction out of him. he might make frustrated noises or startled yelps during combat, but pain was always to be weathered and bitten down in silence. to not show that weakness. )
The city does do that. I've wondered for a while why—
( the second bullet, the second twist of the tweezers like a knife being twisted in his side, and his words strangle. his left hand digs in deeper to the kitchen table, almost enough to splinter the wood, while his back arches towards it. this woman's hands are on his body and he knows it's the cool, dispassionate touch of a medic, but just for a moment, he hates how unaccustomed to this he's become. the way it makes his stomach turn over even when it's a complete stranger. it's this vulnerability, of being stripped down and in the dark and his blood on her hands while she's digging inside him. where was he? oh, right. )
Why there's such a concentration here. Crime. Vigilantes. Superpowers. West coast's practically deserted in comparison.
( poor lang, holding down the fort.
his thoughts are drifting again. he bows his head, now looking down towards the kitchen table. his next words are less accusing, more weary: )
( there'd been a time when she'd wondered the same thing. and what'd started as a normal job at some high-end company after a college deferment turned into her becoming just another statistic in that concentration. there were two types of people, here in this city, the ones that kept their eyes open and the ones that didn't — but she'd never changed. hues glaring back at the dark, blinking back at every harrowing visitor. she tries to think of her life before that city had touched her; before matt, before frank. before fisk and bullseye. there was nothing left for her, there. just an endless grief that waited at the border of state lines, a guilt that'd created a well within her. )
Like attracts like.
( it's a simple statement for a network that's far from it. but he knew that, didn't he? after all, they were here talking about it in murmurs like it was common tongue, so in a way, they'd recognized each other.
still, there's a delay in her response, and once she's managed that second bullet out of him she's setting it atop the dirtied cloth alongside the other. by now, her own digits are stained with the blood she's attempted to keep in, keeping a single-handed pressure against the wound she'd most recently fussed within as she's reaching for that nylon thread, the small package of a sterile needle. the plastic is torn open with her teeth, and after a beat, she realizes she's going to need both of her hands to tend to him properly. )
Hold this. Right here.
( an unwavering tone, calm and hushed, as if she's placing a bandage at the knee of a child who'd just skinned it, thumbing away their sniffling tears. it's only when he obliges that his words come back to her, threading that needle and giving a precursory glance up. )
Not at first. ( even now, she's not so sure it's a fitting phrase. you recognized me. it assumes some layer of knowing, a familiarity, like they've been here before. she doesn't pretend to know him merely because she'd heard of a james barnes, a winter soldier — nor can she assume the man that'd been defined within those tabloids was the one that stood before her now. she doesn't know that the stitches might be a futile effort, doesn't know that they'll heal over by morning, that that hearty swig from the bottle was only a sample of what he'd need to dull it all. )
Even now... I know what the news has said. The stories they've told, everyone spinning their own versions of it. ( it only takes a few cross-stitches, and each time she waits for any shift of his ribs around a terse breath, lacing him back together again. ) Usually, there's some truth there. ( emphasis on the 'some.' )
Turns out you never know just how much unless you go looking for it yourself. ( a knot's tied in the nylon, leaning in to give the excess a snap with her teeth. )
( bucky obeys silently, hands going where she needs them to: clutching the cloth, applying pressure, holding the equipment so she can work. he's used to taking orders, used to being patched up on WWII battlefields and clandestine HYDRA missions alike. the only ever difference was the scale and the scope of it. blood and bone was blood and bone, and bodies had to cobbled back together somehow.
his gaze is still distant, faraway, retreating from himself while karen works. the bite of the needle into his flesh, that surreal little tug of the thread as she laces his skin back together. he doesn't really seem to notice it. he's been through much worse.
he does crane his head, though, glancing back over his shoulder to squint thoughtfully at her while she keeps talking. )
So this is, what, you going digging? You gonna want an exclusive afterwards?
( he's half-joking — a bitter, mordant kind of humour — but there's also a thread of curiosity and faint suspicion humming beneath it all. because maybe it explains some things. why a woman might take in a strange man and then, more importantly, still be fine with him in her presence even after learning who he really is. that metal arm like an identifying badge stamped on his flesh, and which he can't get rid of.
honestly, as far as payment for rescuing him goes, an interview wouldn't even be too terrible. )
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
( bucky's recouping on the bench gave him enough time to gather himself again, work up an unflinching determination for the step that has to come next. once upon a time, he'd been pieced back together often enough by battlefield medics and nurses that he's not self-conscious about that part, about his blood on someone else's hands, and the prospect of the pain that comes with it. so he nods curtly, and then leans forward enough to work the jacket off his shoulders. it's large enough that it slips off easily, puddling on the bench beside him — the fabric's torn through from the bullets, though, and he frowns at the sight.
and then he realises what actually comes next.
shit, he thinks. he's wearing a long-sleeved shirt, but the injury is high enough that he can't just roll it up for her to get at the bullet wound. so the man hesitates, while karen's standing there waiting for him, and his hand's at the neck of his shirt. and it's a bashfulness that doesn't seem to match the soldier's crisp businesslike demeanour of just a few moments ago.
he girds himself again, catches at the neck of his rumpled shirt, drags it over his head in one fell swoop. fabric crumpled in his hand. his movement reveals the shape of muscles rippling in his back, his shoulderblades, his chest, as he exhales again.
and there's all that black-and-gold metal. you can't even pretend it's a gauntlet or metal glove of some kind; she can see the spot where it's neatly welded to his shoulder, bound to the sinew and tendon somehow, an elegant construction of wakandan model. the plates slide elegantly when he moves, a delicate artistry in it.
there's two bullets in his side, the skin ripped open and still-bleeding. he stands up to give her better access, leans his metal hand against the kitchen table. his gaze is locked forward, staring straight ahead and not meeting her eye. there's a giant metal elephant in the room now, and the man seems to be biting down on it, not wanting to see whatever expression is crossing her face at the sight of him. horror. disgust. aversion.
or maybe even worse: recognition. )
no subject
he stands before her and he doesn't bother dropping the layer, just props himself there like a soldier following orders, and the first place her eyes fall is to the glint of tags dangling beneath his collar. feather-light, she's reaching forward to take that shirt from his grasp, setting it off to the side beside leather jacket. a breath in.
what she wants to say: nothing has changed. she can pick up on notes she remembers from various case files, photographs of him clipped to the top of reports, a side profile far more distinct as it stands before her now, gaze sweeping his features with a delicate read. she remembers knees curled beneath her on the floor, holding up the transparent image of that skull, a daunting hole like ink burned through the film. people had thought they'd known frank, knew what he stood for, what he'd done — her teeth grit, and there's a twin frustration, there. in the way he refuses to meet her gaze, the way shame dims him.
a breath out. she reaches for one of those cloths, douses it with some of the peroxide, and the first thing to touch him isn't the fabric, but her fingertips. tracing the round of his shoulder — shaky, as if he'd swat her away at a moments notice, as if he could possibly feel the touch mirrored on his opposite side; she doesn't linger where she doesn't belong.
she ducks down a little, splaying her palm at his abdomen, careful not to brush up against the ripened flesh, and she knows it's like ripping off a bandage — that cloth soaked in the alcohol palms over the wound, a practiced delicacy met with necessary contact. a few dabs, making sure to clean any residual dirt that'd found it's way.
as she prods, she looks up to him; to him. a man. a body. him. and while she speaks softly, it's not patronizing. )
You usually get yourself into this much trouble?
no subject
but then it doesn't come, and doesn't come. instead, it's karen's fingers against his right shoulder. she feels bucky tense beneath her touch, a stiffening of all his joints and levers, but once he realises that she's not reaching for the metal arm or gravitating towards it like the anomaly it is, he seems to breathe a little easier. still not meeting her eye, instead keeping his gaze riveted on the shelves across the room, the flourish of greenery in the kitchen, as he leans against the table and lets her work. the houseplants are thriving. he's never actually kept plants before.
he knows he's dissociating a little, leaving his body as he so often did whenever he retreated to a small and safe corner of his mind, but then that bright flare of pain at his abdomen is scouring, clarifying. like a hot bright sun burning hot inside him and this, this is familiar. he knows this part. his muscles tighten like twisting a set of screws and he breathes through the pain of the alcohol, as his expression turns even emptier and stonier.
bucky finds himself stupidly, sickeningly grateful for the fact that she's not pointing it out or demanding answers. it had been easy enough to not recognise him, out on the street. his hair's been cut short and he looks less haunted, less haggard than the face that hit the newsfeeds, but there's really no mistaking the arm anymore. not after the winter soldier had come out of the shadows, started gunning down cars in the middle of the freeway.
(he remembers everything.) )
Most of the time, yeah.
( his jaw almost hurts with how much he's working to not look at her. but then he finally moves, just a few inches' turn in order to glance at her out of the corner of his eye. her blonde hair drifting into her eyes; the quick, careful, practiced movements of her hands. she's done this before. maybe not as steady as a trained nurse, but there's an unflinching competence to the way she cleans the wounds. he wonders who it was. where and why and how she'd needed to pick up the skills of impromptu ad hoc medical treatment in the middle of the night.
you remind me of someone. )
How about you? You do this often?
( as if it's something normal, like running into her at a carnival or a woodworking class or something. you come here often? )
no subject
the corner of her lips tip upward, and really at this point they've both committed to checkmate. her asking him any questions would just open the floor for him to dig right back, and while she likes to think of herself as an open book, sometimes it's nice to meet someone as the uncut version of themselves — not what you've heard, not the name they've made for themselves either pretty or sharp.
a sole hum is let up in reply; considering. she doesn't make any further comment because she doesn't really feel she needs to — if he wanted to tell her what'd landed him there in the first place, he would. otherwise her hands are busy and she's got two bullet wounds to dedicate herself to, folding the cloth in on itself before she's dabbing at the second site. she can smell the pungent, metallic notes of blood and while she's managed to clean a majority of it from his skin, it's claimed the thick denim of his jeans and those shirts are worse for wear. he'd gotten lucky, an inch further to the left and it could've easily punctured a lung, hit something far more vital, but he doesn't seem too concerned with the severity of it all.
tit for tat, he's tossing the question back to her court, and when she looks up beneath her lashes she catches that side-long glance of his, holding it a moment with palm pressed to the site she's currently tending. )
Every now and then.
( there's a bit of misplaced humor given the circumstance, but her nonchalance says it all, attention once more stolen to her efforts. her primary concern is to stop the bleeding, and fortunately the bullets weren't too deep, keeping pressure to one while she reaches with her free hand for the tweezers. head nods in a gesture to the whiskey at the edge of the table — he doesn't have to take it, but the offer's there and recommended, given she wastes no time to divvy out the bullet glimmering back at her. )
This city has a way of keeping things interesting.
no subject
his right hand reaches out, catches the whiskey, takes a startlingly deep swig straight from the bottle. she doesn't know about his metabolism yet, but it'll need to be that much to even make a dent in him. and when the tweezers dig in and latch around the first bullet and yank it out, he doesn't make a noise, not a hiss of breath or a gasp of pain even when the blood spills over in its wake; he's eerily silent, because years' worth of brutal training has drummed that particular reaction out of him. he might make frustrated noises or startled yelps during combat, but pain was always to be weathered and bitten down in silence. to not show that weakness. )
The city does do that. I've wondered for a while why—
( the second bullet, the second twist of the tweezers like a knife being twisted in his side, and his words strangle. his left hand digs in deeper to the kitchen table, almost enough to splinter the wood, while his back arches towards it. this woman's hands are on his body and he knows it's the cool, dispassionate touch of a medic, but just for a moment, he hates how unaccustomed to this he's become. the way it makes his stomach turn over even when it's a complete stranger. it's this vulnerability, of being stripped down and in the dark and his blood on her hands while she's digging inside him. where was he? oh, right. )
Why there's such a concentration here. Crime. Vigilantes. Superpowers. West coast's practically deserted in comparison.
( poor lang, holding down the fort.
his thoughts are drifting again. he bows his head, now looking down towards the kitchen table. his next words are less accusing, more weary: )
You recognised me.
no subject
Like attracts like.
( it's a simple statement for a network that's far from it. but he knew that, didn't he? after all, they were here talking about it in murmurs like it was common tongue, so in a way, they'd recognized each other.
still, there's a delay in her response, and once she's managed that second bullet out of him she's setting it atop the dirtied cloth alongside the other. by now, her own digits are stained with the blood she's attempted to keep in, keeping a single-handed pressure against the wound she'd most recently fussed within as she's reaching for that nylon thread, the small package of a sterile needle. the plastic is torn open with her teeth, and after a beat, she realizes she's going to need both of her hands to tend to him properly. )
Hold this. Right here.
( an unwavering tone, calm and hushed, as if she's placing a bandage at the knee of a child who'd just skinned it, thumbing away their sniffling tears. it's only when he obliges that his words come back to her, threading that needle and giving a precursory glance up. )
Not at first. ( even now, she's not so sure it's a fitting phrase. you recognized me. it assumes some layer of knowing, a familiarity, like they've been here before. she doesn't pretend to know him merely because she'd heard of a james barnes, a winter soldier — nor can she assume the man that'd been defined within those tabloids was the one that stood before her now. she doesn't know that the stitches might be a futile effort, doesn't know that they'll heal over by morning, that that hearty swig from the bottle was only a sample of what he'd need to dull it all. )
Even now... I know what the news has said. The stories they've told, everyone spinning their own versions of it. ( it only takes a few cross-stitches, and each time she waits for any shift of his ribs around a terse breath, lacing him back together again. ) Usually, there's some truth there. ( emphasis on the 'some.' )
Turns out you never know just how much unless you go looking for it yourself. ( a knot's tied in the nylon, leaning in to give the excess a snap with her teeth. )
no subject
his gaze is still distant, faraway, retreating from himself while karen works. the bite of the needle into his flesh, that surreal little tug of the thread as she laces his skin back together. he doesn't really seem to notice it. he's been through much worse.
he does crane his head, though, glancing back over his shoulder to squint thoughtfully at her while she keeps talking. )
So this is, what, you going digging? You gonna want an exclusive afterwards?
( he's half-joking — a bitter, mordant kind of humour — but there's also a thread of curiosity and faint suspicion humming beneath it all. because maybe it explains some things. why a woman might take in a strange man and then, more importantly, still be fine with him in her presence even after learning who he really is. that metal arm like an identifying badge stamped on his flesh, and which he can't get rid of.
honestly, as far as payment for rescuing him goes, an interview wouldn't even be too terrible. )