.

. ** .

.

"What's wrong?" I asked when nothing had changed on the tablet for the past ten minutes and forty seconds.

Nothing except for a twitch with the thin straw that had been spewing out a clear plastic material. The pair of rubberized tweezers clung onto the middle of the metal eyes to keep it in position stayed steady.

I could hear her breathing change with each ticking second. Growing more and more erratic. Even with the pile of pillows on the side of my head.

"Valeriy?"

"I forgot how to move," she mumbled through clenched teeth. Likely not risking movements by using her jaw when talking. "I don't know which way to go to get into position. I just need a moment to figure this out."

I doubt she'd figure anything out with the panic she's diving into. How her tools stayed steady through it was rather impressive.

Too much movement could mean triggering the bomb. Neither of us knew how much leeway it had.

How she was trying to negotiate the space in the arm had to be disorientating. One image on each lens from two different angles.

One view from the back of the shoulder with the snake camera to what she was working on. The other a magnified view from the top of the shoulder with the camera on the glasses to keep an eye on how close her tools were to the trigger wires.

And I could watch it all unfold on the tablet in front of me while my head was stuck between two pillows sandwiched by her head and her lap. Her arms were anchored against my shoulders, so she'd move with any movements I made with breathing.

If this was anything like taking a sniper shot, then, "You need to clear your mind. You were fine for the first half of this. You know how to move."

"This isn't exactly like getting back on a bike after five fucking years," she snapped. "Sorry. Fuck. Now I feel like throwing up...."

'Not good.'

She was stuck with me on her lap, and I was pinned into place by her head on mine. That didn't account for how we were tangled together by the god damn arm of all things.

"How hard is it for you to hold still like that?" I asked after a moment's thought.

"Easy enough. Easier than trying to figure out which bloody way to fucking go."

"Can you keep in place with your eyes shut?"

"I guess...?"

"Let your eyes rest for a bit."

"...'Kay."

And now something to take her mind off her panic. "The fancy windows."

"Huh?"

"What gave you the idea?" I tried.

Her head shifted slightly, and the image from her glasses on the tablet swung about before it refocused. "The windows huh?" she repeated, having found room to move her jaw. "I used to sneak out of the boarding school dorms almost every other night. Dragged Amber with me whenever she'd let me. We were roommates back then....

"Needed a way to not get caught not in our room. We figured that we could mess with the windows. For some reason, Eve helped with the rendering."

"I couldn't stop you from being an idiot as a child. Why would I think I could stop you as teenager? I could only hope you'd grow up. Until then, had to make sure you weren't caught and expelled. Your parents would not be happy to get that piece of news."

"I'd be hung by my ears..." Valeriy laughed out.

Then the tools started moving on the screen. Moving as though they naturally knew what to do. Covering the metal eyes with the clear goop sprayed out of the thin straw.

"I don't think the school realized we switched out all the windows within a couple of months, and now it has a few ghost legends floating about. Perfect way of herding people where you want them."

"I still mess with the staff and students there.... Whenever I feel like some entertainment."

"Seriously got nothing better to do, Eve?"

"It's a school tradition at this point. Who am I to disappoint?"

"What did you two do when you snuck out?" I found myself asking.

'Hopefully not partying with boys and drinking.'

A foreign emotion clawing to the surface at the thought.

"Research? It's all we ever really did back then," Valeriy replied, sounding much like the geek she probably once was and not the lazy mask she now wore. "Snuck out to the la – "

"Headquarters."

"...or the estate to do more research. Stuff we probably shouldn't have in dorms. Like some of Amber's poisons and plants. She mostly worked with those back then and it still got pretty hectic. I even played Guinea pig to some of her anti venoms when we were impatient."

"Did you skip class?" The question blurted out before I knew it.

That foreign emotion shifting slightly into another equally unknown one. Something incomplete. Left unfinished.

"You sound like what I think parents should sound like," Valeiry chuckled, before sighing. "Mine pulled me out of class a bunch. For fancy parties and stuff. Faked illnesses left and right since usually only one faculty member knew who I really was.... Needed something to tell everyone else.... Amber called me out on the bullshit the first time I tried it. It's how I found out about her brains.

"But we attended all the classes when we weren't too ill or injured to. We had a few mishaps... or two... maybe a lot. But neither of us really had our minds at school...? Did the bare minimum work... and slept through most of class.... School kind of bored us out of our minds...?"

Irritation filled me. Some part of me longed for it. School. The thought of it, it felt... unfinished. But I had to make sure they were able to go. To finish.

'Who... who's they...?'

Within five seconds of the thought, the tweezers twisted free of the goop, and she drowned the whole thing with more. It wasn't long before she pulled the tools and camera out.

Valeriy flicked the pillow off my head and grinned down at me, half shooing me to sit up. "While we wait for that to do its thing, I'm going to check out the other thing too. Cover our bases, yeah?" And dove right into anchoring the snake camera onto the edge of a plate on the forearm.

"This looks lacking..." I noted. No wires sticking out of it. A little black box perched on a frame.

"Good, less work for me," she grinned, pulling the camera out of the arm and flinging her gloves into the farthest corner of the room. "We got about a fifteen minute break before I can do anything else." She rolled onto her side, curling up into a ball with her eyes closed. "And Bucky? Thanks for getting me out of my head. I needed it."

I hummed a response, half hooked on an episode of Mythbusters about homemade jetpacks. Currently, they were showing clips of the inventions of the past for personal flight. One of them an expensive hover platform intended for military use.

One oddly familiar to me. Reminded me of blood and flames. I wouldn't be surprised if I tested some version of this. Would save Hydra a dead goon. I would heal from a crash.

Suddenly the show cut and the footage changed.

"Why am I staring at the gnome of a bioengineered virus cocktail?" a voice I heard recently popped up through the speakers. Heard it eight days ago.

I only managed to catch a glimpse of a young woman on the screen since Valeriy yanked down the blanket and practically sat on me. A young woman of mixed Asian descent, in pajamas and a Glasgow smile had filled the screen.

"Amber! What are you doing up at seven in the morning?" Valeriy asked. Nervous laughter weaving between her words.

"Still see his feet on the feed."

"...Damnit. Not a word of this. He's not supposed to be here. Eve, make sure you scrub the footage. Completely."

She shifted off me, readjusting the comforter until I pulled it off my head and just made sure to cover the arm... along with most of my left side.

"...Isn't he... isn't he supposed to be dead?" The Asian shrugged a second after. "Oh well, at least you're not alone. You do stupid things when you're alone."

This time Valeriy shrugged from beside me. "So, what up about this virus thingy?"

"From what I can tell, one wakes the latent one. Latent one probably...? 'Eats' all sorts of biological stuff. Not one for a long life span though. Send me a sample of them. Looks fun to play with. Might give me a safer way to dispose of the bio waste, or at least nothing."

"...Sure... thing...?"

"Be careful not to mix the two. Going back to sleep now. Night."

"Night," Valeriy chirped while the screen went dark. "So... now we know what those two random things the sniffer picked up are.... Holy shit! Bucky! No no no. Stop!! No! God fucking damn it! I said stop!!!" she screamed, holding onto my arm. Struggling to pull it away from me. Completely failing until the order registered in my head.

"Please get it out," I begged. "I can't.... I.... I don't want that in me. Valeriy – "

"Of course I'm getting that out! Like hell am I leaving that in. Clawing your arm off isn't the way to go about it.... So far it's been stable. Your body's been through the shit. They made sure it wouldn't malfunction."

"And what if you set it off?"

"I won't," Valeriy stated with such confidence. Not a hint of doubt swimming in those gray eyes. "We'll get it all out in one sitting, 'kay?"

Her fingers squeezed down on mine in reassurance.

"...What are the chances that your friend's wrong?"

"About the virus thing? Rare?"

"So there's a chance...?"

"Amber... she's a genius with these things, so she's usually right. Has her worried enough to break protocol and contact me the way she did. But it's nothing to worry about. The viruses will stay asleep."

It's unsettling how carefree Valeriy seemed about it, waving a dismissive hand before being distracted by something on the tablet. Like this was some sort of child's game.

"Eve, how many stupid fucking redundancies do you think they have in there?"

"Why don't you think about it? You're the idiot who comes up with some of the most... well, what would you do to keep a weapon out of the hands of everybody else?"

"Be nice, Eve. Bucky's not a weapon."

"But I am," I scoffed.

It was almost instantaneous how Valeriy's eyes flicked up, boring straight into mine, before the rest of her head followed to face me.

I could read the anger bubbling beneath the surface. The twitch of her lip. The white that painted her knuckles from how tight she gripped the tablet.

"Oi, you need to stop that train of thought. Who says you have to be what they made you, huh? Last I heard, you don't even want to hurt people. But if you really want to be a weapon, I'm sure Eve could figure out something to point you at. I won't get in your way."

"I never wanted to kill anybody!" I snapped. "I never asked to be turned into this! I never asked for this arm. Torn apart over and over again! Until I can't even remember my own fucking name! Saying I'm not a weapon doesn't change the fact that is exactly what I am!"

"Never said it's simple, but it's a start, Bucky," Valeriy responded without missing a beat. Without so much as a flinch. "One step at a time. One day at a time. Nothing's going to change unless we try. Got to start somewhere."

With that said, she turned away and riffled through the various equipment on the bed. Tools flew in random arcs. Some landed on the bed. Some ended up on the floor. But each one that flew held less anger in their movements.

"Do you really think I can... can change...?" I questioned, pulling the blanket tighter around myself.

"Haven't you already?" she stated back with a grin over her shoulder. "You're quite different from the guy I asked if he was hungry. For one, you no longer grunt and huff sounds at me. And I haven't see much of the 'Winter Soldier' from phone cam footage in the news. Mostly just the badass arm? Though looked like it moved a lot better at the freeway than it does at the moment."

"It was fully functional until a couple days after the Helicarrier...."

"Do anything crazy when it malfunctioned?"

"I was hiding."

"Huh. Interesting.... Urgh... Bucky, have you seen the glasses? I can't find them," she asked with a large pout.

"On your head."

Valeriy laughed, scratching her head and flicking the glasses to fall into place. "Mind if I take a quick scan of your body?"

I shook my head and started removing the blanket only to have her stop me.

"That won't make much of a difference," she laughed, slipping them on, and the lens turned black at a click of a button. "It's a density thing I can adjust." Her fingers turned a dial on the side of the frames.

"You think they put something inside me," I noted, clutching onto the comforter.

"Good thing they didn't? Don't think I can handle trying to get that out," Valeriy responded, bending over until she was half mumbling into my leg and adjusting another dial on the frames.

"Is there something wrong with my shin...?" I asked as she rolled my leg from side to side.

"Your bone structure is insane. It's far denser than mine, and the way it's organized, you can shrug off being run over by a car... probably? Or at least your skeleton might? Here, if you want to check it yourself. Dials to adjust stuff. Or tell Eve to."

Valeriy held out the glasses to me with a grin, turning her attention back onto the tablet next to her.

Curiosity got the better of me. That was until I brought the glasses up to my face. They were much too similar to the goggles that covered my eyes.

"I...." I couldn't.

With a twist in my gut, I lowered the glasses to my lap.

Valeriy dropped the tablet on my lap with a grin.

"Eve, link the feed again." She moved my hands and glasses until the black tablet screen had the bones of my feet. "Just point the cameras on the glasses at whatever you want to check out."

It's amazing how advanced x-rays were now. I could see the bones in my toes move in time with how I wiggled them. The clothing was barely visible, but the flesh was. It even showed the pipes in the walls of the room. Turning a dial, I could zoom in and see the water flowing through the pipes.

"What are those packages in the walls?" I asked.

They were evenly spaced out. One in each wall. Though the exterior walls were solid. Couldn't see through it. Or make out anything in them.

She leaned over and with a glance at the tablet, she shrugged. "Explosives? Doesn't look enough to get to the neighboring houses. Demolition setup."

"...You knew this house was rigged to blow, didn't you?"

"Yup."

"How are you so relaxed about this? How do you even sleep?"

She shrugged. "Been sleeping with at least one bomb strapped to my arm since I was nineteen? Besides, the explosives are super stable. It's not going to accidently go off. It's not going to go off even if we set this place on fire."

"Do not set my houses on fire, Valeriy. Why didn't I set you up in a steel crate?"

Sometimes, I want to shake some sense into this woman. But she'd probably come out the other side with a concussion. So I just shifted the camera image to my leg, zooming in to the point of seeing the holes in my bones.

"Man, your hands are fucking steady. The image is barely even moving. I usually have to get Eve to grab a freeze frame or slow mo the footage," Valeriy commented, looking up from her phone and crossed one of her legs into the cameras' range, zooming out the tablet image.

She wasn't kidding about my bones being dense. They looked almost solid compared to hers. Even my muscles were denser than hers. Less transparent.

'They've changed so much of me.'

I had to wonder if there was anything left of me that remained.

"Valeriy?" I called out, waving a hand in front of her blank stare.

"Huh? Oh, yeah. Uhh.... There's not much else I can check without going inside.... Eve, has the thingy finished doing its thing yet?"

"Yes, the epoxy polymer has cured."

"Perfect. The forearm one is basically harmless," she grinned, tapping a finger at one of the metal plate on the arm, and I got the hint to flip them up so she could look inside. "So what do you remember with how they removed the plates?"

I thought about it for a moment and asked, "The bomb won't go off?"

Valeriy shrugged. "No idea. The goop's not going to budge the slightest. Does what the rod's supposed to do. I don't see any other external triggers. As long as you're in the house, it can't be set off remotely. They're multipart reactions, so malfunctions are unlikely.... I've covered all the grounds I can think of...?"

"What's your estimation of the blast radius?"

"...Probably take down a house in every direction if this were a normal house? But this isn't? So... it might not fuck with the neighbors?"

"Go wait outside."

That distance might be safe enough for her. I couldn't leave the house. Hydra would find me. And with how she's stared at the door over the last few days, she couldn't leave either. Jekyll would find her. But maybe if I were in the opposite corner of the backdoor, she'd be safe enough.

"Why?" That bright eyed look of curiosity she sent my way made me wary of her self-preservation instincts.

"You shouldn't risk your life for this."

She laughed. "Not the dumbest thing I've done, Bucky. Not the most dangerous either." She shrugged again. "I guess now it's just a leap of faith in my skills and your memory."

From what I'd gathered, neither were reliable.

"I seriously just pry the plates off...? Doesn't sound right for something this sophisticated.... Urgh, might as well test the trip wire."

"Wait! – "

I panicked, clamping down the plates when Valeriy slipped her pinky between them. I quickly grabbed onto her hand to keep it from moving before popping the plate up again.

"...Ow...?"

"Sorry."

"You realize that was too late, right?"

"What?" I demanded, looking down.

It's true. It's too late.

The wire was caught by her nail and not the joint as I had assumed. It's been moved more than if the plates were busted from a fight. This was utterly reckless of her.

When I let her hand go, she pulled the wire more and nodded. Satisfied.

"Do you even grasp how dangerous that was?! You could have died!" I growled.

Valeriy gave another annoying carefree shrug. "We didn't, and Eve probably would have said something if she spotted a flaw in my work. It's not just my dumb brain working here, Bucky. But I still can't wrap my head around just prying the plates off."

I sighed heavily. Trying to calm my racing heart. "Like this."

Now that the threat of blowing up was gone, I could show her. Pulling a plate up a tad before pushing it down, and it popped off.

I never liked having them removed. There was a loss of sensation. A hole in the arm. It was unnerving.

"And to put it back." I merely reversed the action, clicking it into place with a jolt of sensations.

"...Huh.... Okay. I can do that. You know what? I'm going to just cut all the trip wires now."

"Is that safe?"

"I'm going to have to do it eventually to get the bomb out. Which is like... step number one? Here, I'll test one and see if it does what I hope it does."

Valeriy pressed her ear to the red star again and sliced a wire with a black bladed scalpel.

"Yup. The pulley thing wheels it right in from what I can hear."

'I give up.'

This girl's insane. With a sigh, I popped up all the plates for her.

Two minutes in, Valeriy vaulted straight into the bathroom. The door slammed shut. Music blasted from inside, hiding other sounds.

"She held up longer than I thought. How are you holding up, Mr. Barnes?"

I merely nodded, blankly staring at the people on the television. Mentally and emotionally exhausted. Between the explosive, viruses, Hydra's bullshit and Valeriy's recklessness, it's been a rollercoaster.

"...The Glasgow smile...."

"Amber?"

"What happened there?"

"The consequences of Val not doing a proper job when they were in Dublin. It's lucky we even managed to get her back alive."

.

. ** .

.

Author's Note:

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