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. ** .

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"Aaaand... there. How's that? That do anything?" I asked, twisting two stripped wire ends together and pulling my tweezers out of Bucky's arm.

Those silver fingers made a fist. The movements slightly less twitchy than it was before. I could hear a gear whirring and skipping. Going to have to find that, eventually. It made the little tech geek left in me cringe. And with that spark of blue, I knew there were loose wires deeper in the arm.

"Better," Bucky replied, still testing out his finger movements.

At that, I dropped one set of tweezers on my chest and blindly tapped on the muscled side next to me. My hand grabbed at the air and waited when the clacking of ball bearings filled the room.

After a minute, Bucky handed me a can. A system we worked out over the last three days to use the epoxy spray to connect and waterproof the wires without me losing the damn wire trying to shake a stupid can.

"And that should be everything on the surface level," I announced, tossing the can back to him.

"There's not much of a difference."

"The more important things should be towards the center? Better protected there. I'm guessing that's where we'll see the biggest improvements."

With a sigh, I started digging deeper into the arm, moving things a little to peek behind them and searching anything to be pushed back into place or a wire that needed reconnecting. I knew a few people who'd take all this apart in a fit of rage just so they could reorganize the mess in here. I was very close to becoming one of those people.

"You're not running for the bathroom as much anymore," Bucky pointed out after a few more reconnected wires.

I huffed in response. It's why it took three days to get to deal with most of the surface damage. As good of a spot I was in a couple minutes ago, going deeper into the arm definitely unsettled my stomach. Again.

"You've helped a bunch though," I commented. "Kept me out of my head. You haven't flipped out either, for how much of a fuss you made before we started."

"This arm could crush you," he retorted almost instantly.

I laughed, shoving a gear into place. "Got my arm caught up in a security door or two, so nothing new. If that helps."

"No. It doesn't. It really doesn't."

"Ehh," I shrugged.

Broken bones and the like never bothered me much unless I was in this very situation. Stuck and probably surrounded. Otherwise being an Ayers meant I head the best treatment. Only took a couple of months to be all dandy to do the next thing that pops into my head. That was if I felt like being patient enough to be fully healed between bouts of utter stupidity.

Finding another broken wire, I couldn't help but think, 'Well, don't you look important?'

Being all orange and hanging out of another mysterious black box with a bunch of other wires running out of it, and it was old. Very old. Like a few other wires in here. The kind I haven't seen used outside of the ancient toys Gramps' made when he was my age. Maybe even younger.

'Should probably update some of these wires.... Someday.... Maybe....'

Finding the other half of it, I stripped a portion of the insulation on each end before pulling them together for twisting.

Bucky all but screamed.

His body seized up, recoiling away from me. His right arm cradled the left, almost hiding it. His shoulders hunched over, curling in on himself.

"Sorry. I'm sorry," I quickly spewed out, scrambling to sit up.

He shook his head, shrinking away to the other side of the bed and a shuddering breath filling his lungs. His lips parted but only a whimper escaped before he slammed it shut with an audible click of his teeth. His back braced against the headboard as he tried to get his breathing under control. All to force himself to calm down.

"I'm not going to lash out at you," he mumbled bitterly.

"Huh?"

"You're watching my every move."

"Not because I think you'd go all grrr, Bucky."

His brow twitched, signaling his doubt.

A heavy sigh escaped me. "That jolt fucked with your lung, didn't it? Has it done that before?"

"A few times...."

"Has it happened before your arm got all wonky?"

Maybe that wasn't the best question to ask with how his lips pulled into a frown and the muscle in his jaw jumped. An unpleasant memory.

'I should have known that'll bite us in the ass....'

The fact that his arm was so close to his lung. That the rather important organ was partially surrounded by metal. Probably to dissipate the force onto his skeletal structure.

Still, nothing about that box screamed, 'it's a trap.' I probably fucked up with which wire to connect, hopefully. I did not want to try and connect that wire to that box again.

"I'm sorry," I apologized. "I... I can't gran– I'm so sorry.... It'll happen again. I have no idea what that connection is.... Might have something to do with a brain signal thing? And – and there'll be other things. And I'll fuck up again. And – "

"I can handle it."

He could. He really could. He handled hell. Those scars on his shoulder said as much. I could only hope they sedated him when they burned the vibranium alloy into him and that those were third degree burns. That he couldn't feel it anymore. That the nerves were dead. I had a sinking feeling that it wasn't the case.

The fact those scars were still red was muddling with the date as to when he got the arm. Scars said new-ish. Ancient ass wiring said decades. Should probably check in with Amber about how scars healed.

"Valeriy?" His voice so soft. "I can handle it."

I shook my head. "I can open the box. Break it down. Understand it before I do anything. It'll... it'll just take some time...."

"I can handle it. There's no reason for you to feel guilty."

I yanked off my glove, rubbing my eyes. "I'm sure you can handle it, Bucky, but that doesn't mean you have to be zapped through my idiotic guesswork. There's no bloody reason to drag you through more pain."

"...Everything's been guesswork?"

It's rather amazing how one could actually see his thoughts on his face.

"Your arm's not the easiest thing. It's an amalgamation of group work," I stated. "Then add a bunch of peeps updating and repairing it. There's so much going on in there."

'Not to mention that some asshat smeared some chemical that ate through a shit ton of wires – Oh shit... they were probably worried that there was a chance that Captain Rogers would pull him out of whatever the fuck brainwashing they did....

'Have his arm malfunction and when they try to open up his arm, why not blow everybody to shit? Yayyy. He better not fucking ask about this. 'Cause I don't want to tell him that Hydra tried using his arm to blow up his best friend.'

"You can tell more than one person built this?" Bucky asked, pulling me out of my thoughts.

"Huh? Yup. Everyone leaves a... signature? Like how they twist the wires or solder. Things like that. Counted about seven so far? It's messy. All the repairs make it muddled. Some were probably completely replaced over the years? Makes getting an exact number practically impossible."

Whatever I said, it had him wearing his thinking face again. Teeth chewed at his bottom lip. Blue eyes seemingly read invisible words painted in the air.

"...Doesn't add up..." he whispered under his breath. The swollen bottom lip gave him a pouty look when he stopped chewing on it.

"What doesn't add up?" I asked.

"This. You."

"...Huh?"

"You sound unsure of everything, but your movements rarely hesitate.... You know this stuff better than you pretend, don't you?"

I huffed a laugh, shaking my head. "Sorry, not pretending. There are very few things I'm sure about. Bombs okay, I can deal with those. Fixing things? Barely. I've just been colour matching the wires?

"I know plenty of other people who are better suited for this. Gramps can take one glance at your arm and understand practically everything about it. Probably.... Looks like that to us normal folks."

"And yet, he'd have blown up with everyone else on that short list you have in your head. Maybe, except for one. They may be better at fixing things, but you had the best chance of surviving the explosives. Even I didn't think the eyes needed to be shifted over thinking they might be a safety switch."

"Should just assume everyone's a fucking sadistic bastard and a sneaky little bitch. Covers the ass better."

Just like whoever added the bomb to the arm.... It looked far too new compared to the arm and the scars. A recent addition. Or an update.

With a few waves of my hand, Bucky let me pull and push his arm into back into place. Whatever angle I needed to get into the arm and search for the damage done on purpose.

"Why would you learn to disarm bombs?" he asked out of the blue. Confusion so clear in his voice. His brows were probably knitted together. "Where would the need come from?"

"It's useful now?" I shrugged. "It used to be all fun and games? Took an interest in bombs from movies and T.V. shows. It got competitive between us after I got bored of trying to beat my best times with the old setups. Gramps an – uhh, he'd build a bunch to trip me up, and I try not to get a stink bomb to the face. I learned real fast thanks to that. I swear I took more baths in tomato juice than water back then."

At the rumbling growl next to my head, I quickly backed out of the arm barely in time to stop the tweezers from tearing out wires due to Bucky turning to face me.

When I pushed my glasses onto the top of my head, he had a glare levelled my way. Still just as intimidating as the first time. His body seemingly expanding to suck all the air from the room.

"This isn't some game," he snapped, practically seething through his clenched teeth. "I wouldn't count that as experience with actual explosives. They didn't put stink bombs in the arm, Valeriy. You could have died! Do you even realize that?!"

"But we're not dead? Nor is my father. It was supposed to be a fucking box of doughnuts. That's the last time I was alone with my father. Probably the last time he was ever alone. He has security with him at all times since. And that bomb? That was meant to go kaboom. Not like the ones in your arm."

"The ones in the arm are meant to kill."

"Yeah, but it doesn't blow up when you so much as twitch, does it? At least, you were patient enough not to demand I have bomb out by the time you count to three."

"Count of three?" he repeated. "What were you? A kid?"

"Ten? I was basically desensitized to bombs by then, thanks to those 'games.' Been at them since I had the motor skills to grasp scissors. Probably would have been blown up if I hadn't. I did not handle the counting well."

When I tried going back to his arm again, he lifted it out of my reach. Still wearing his thinking face.

"Seriously, Bucky? Fine. Eve, get something worked out for his arm to be fixed by someone el – "

"How are you even the useless daughter?"

"...Huh...?"

"You can do all this as a kid. You can't be useless."

I shrugged. "There's no way in hell I can compete with the likes of Gramps and now Amber. Yeah, sure, I could have been the go to bomb person, but that doesn't earn the corporation anything... and thus, I'm useless. So when I was given a choice to stay hidden and be forgotten, I took it.

"It's more important to me to enjoy what I'm doing. Have fun. I don't care about being the best, and it gets old real fast being told to give up since I'll never amount to anything. With the choice I made, I have the freedom to dabble in whatever I feel like. Gramps gets credited for a lot of the stuff I work on. Like the windows. Helped that my parents forgot that I'm not utterly dumb."

"How can they even forget that?" Bucky blurted out.

"They forget a lot of things all the time. I don't think they remember they have kids half the time. Father blacked out the whole bomb thing from his memories. Probably forgot about the raid. And the sniper.... And the hunting 'accident.' And whatever the fuck else I have to prevent since I took over their security. It's not even funny how many people are pissed off at them for one bloody reason or another. Though a good chunk is related to the R&D and Security Departments... of our own people...."

"Your friend...."

"Yeah, people don't like Amber messing with stuff they believe shouldn't be modified or they think she'll bring about some environmental or pandemic issue?"

"Not that. You're in charge of her security... aren't you?"

"...Yeah?"

"How are you even stuck in a house with me? Why were you even alone that night? She knew something was going to happen," Bucky pieced together, waving a hand towards the camera in the corner. "You shouldn't have been alone."

"...Because I'm not in charge of my own security? The asshat who is I can't even get fired for this crap 'cause he's like me. One of the few people in the corporation who got the job due to parents meddling and not actually earning it.... He's a kid of one of our big clients.... Eve's barely even officially involved with keeping me safe. She's using loopholes trying to cover the huge gaps the asshat leaves. I only clued into something being wrong when my security peeps decided to get fucking food poisoning as a team."

The confusion on his face was rather cute. The fact that he was still trying to understand the nonsensicalness to this part of my life was almost amusing. Amber ignored it pretty quick. Devon disliked the parts he did know about. And I knew there was no point. Just a waste of time.

"And your brother?" he tried. "Where is he in all this?"

"Well protected. Like I could trust anyone else with his safety."

"And you're stuck with someone useless? Why wouldn't you give both your children the best protection?"

I shrugged. "I have no shit as to what goes through their heads. All I know is I, as Valeriy Ayers, don't earn the corporation enough to warrant such 'extravagant spendings' or some shit like that. I'm no golden goose. Not like Gramps and Amber. Me doing the security shit might? Especially if I took on more clients like when I was younger. But that's all under a different name. So no credit to me."

"If your parents knew what you do, you'd be better protected. You'd protect yourself."

"I don't think you want Val to be the one in charge of her own protection, Mr. Barnes. She'd use herself as bait more than the rest of us are now to root out those who would try something."

It's far too easy to see on his face the moment that he agreed with Eve.

I shook my head, attempting to laugh it all off. "This gives me distance and keeps me safe-ish while letting me protect those I care for. If anyone figured out there's a shadow head to our Security Department, they'd be chasing a ghost. Not me.

"I'm not willing to pay the price for that kind of protection. Gramps and Amber are basically stuck in one place. Never alone. Practically always working. I rather have some sort of normalcy on my off hours. To be able to have the freedom to wander around. To do my own thing when I feel like it. They have none of that."

"But you'd be safe from the mess you are in now," Bucky argued, looking very much like he meant crossing paths with him.

I shook my head, knowing well that if I had picked to be recognized for what I do, I'd make myself a target of revenge and a wealth of information about our systems. That I still wouldn't earn the corporation enough to be protected at the level I needed for the amount of information in my head that could cripple us. That I'd never be good enough for my parents even if I gave it my all. They had no room for second best. So why put that on myself?

"At least, I can trust you," I stated simply.

Bucky huffed, glaring at some distant spot. "How can you trust me when I'll probably end up killing you?"

"We are talking about you, right? The guy who keeps saving me from random ass shit? Though mainly from the oven and stairs. Give yourself a little credit, Bucky."

He didn't respond. But his glare softened to a slight pout as the seconds passed. He wanted to believe it, and I wish he could see it. He's not the monster they turned him into. There's far more to him.

Besides if he had an ambitious agenda, he would have done something. Like one of my roommates in freshman year, when she figured out who I was. Or a couple of my security guards who weren't vetted properly. Thought it a good way to make a quick buck or two.

Shaking off the conversation, I asked, "Now can I get back to your arm? Or you rather we figure a way with someone else?"

"Gloves," he responded, tossing them back my way.

Had seriously hoped he forgot them.

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. ** .

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Author's Note:

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