[AU] these are not the parts and poems of the body only, but of the soul

[from_the_outside]

They've all entered a kind of tense détente after the ill-advised dinner party. Tony throws himself into work, Sharon and Pepper mostly avoid each other, and Steve, Vision, and Nat continue with oversight duties.

And the thing is... Tony's working it out. 

Not a removal, exactly, but he's getting close, he'd told them, to at least blocking the commands. It's not perfect and it's not a permanent solution, but it's a step in the right direction. It's also a step in the direction of Tony needing to test the words on Bucky himself, and so Sharon and Steve are on extra high alert, keeping an eye out for any indication that Bucky's retreating into himself again. Sharon's mostly moved into the room they share in Steve's apartment for that very reason, though she still isn't wholly comfortable with being in Steve's space all the time.

He's away today, working with Sam and Rhodey on a veteran's outreach program, so it's Sharon who walks with Bucky through the halls of the compound towards Tony's rooms. "It's you and Vision with Tony today," she tells him, and glances across the distance they're careful to maintain when not alone behind closed doors.

"How are you feeling about everything?"

Comments

[nerves_of_ice]

"Of course," Vision says, courteously, and goes still with intent focus as he studies the display and all of the data readouts and files with the full force of his unique analytic capability.

Bucky stays still as well, barely breathing, waiting in silence while Vision works.

"I have not located anything amiss," Vision reports, finally. "All appears to be operating as expected, with no anomalies in the data recorded."

[marvel_npc]

Tony blows out a breath and scrubs a hand over his face. It's good news – it's great news – but it means they're careening toward the thing he's been dreading ever since they started this project.

"Okay," he says, again, and stares at Barnes, no idea how haunted and haggard the look in his own eyes is. "Look. You know what's next. How we've got to... test it. But we can take a break. Give it some space. Come back to it whenever you're – later."

[nerves_of_ice]

Bucky studies him carefully. Tony Stark looks like a man who's stared into the pit of hell and seen himself looking back.

It's a look he's more than familiar with.

"Vision?" he asks, glancing over at him. "Would you give us a second, please?"

[marvel_npc]

Vision looks between them. Bucky is not restrained, and Tony is not in his suit. Were there to be an altercation, the fight would be one-sided, in Bucky's favor.

He doesn't think there will be, of course, but it is currently his responsibility to ensure the Sergeant's safety around Tony. "I must remind you," he says, politely, "that under the current guidelines, I cannot recommend that course of action."

Tony flinches, minutely. Vision can only imagine how this must feel to him, as well as to Bucky.

[nerves_of_ice]

"I know," he says, very quietly, without looking at Tony. "And I know I'm asking you to break them. I'll take responsibility with Agent Carter. But I'll understand if you feel you can't."

[marvel_npc]

Vision lifts a hand to his chest and inclines his head, very nearly like an old-time butler acknowledging a request.

"I will remain just outside the lab," he says, and gives them both a compassionate glance before walking through the various shelves of equipment and tables and straight through the wall to the hallway outside, leaving the two men alone together for the first time since all this began.

[nerves_of_ice]

He blows out a breath, looking at the wall Vision's just passed through. "That's still a neat trick."

Bucky turns back to Tony and meets the other man's eyes with a steady gaze.

"I don't know what to tell you." Very, very softly. "If it helps, even if the block fails and the words still work, it won't - it won't be the same as before."

[marvel_npc]

He can't have this conversation standing over here while the guy's sitting in a chair with his head covered in diodes. Tony jerks out a rolling office chair and brings it over, then sits down, leaning forward to put his elbows on his thigh before he frowns, listening.

"What's that mean?" he asks. "Not the same as before? How?"

[nerves_of_ice]

"I won't fight it," he murmurs. "I won't scream. It won't be a struggle like it was. It won't add to your nightmares, if you're having them."

He keeps his tone matter of fact, almost gentle.

"It'll be more... routine, I guess. If it doesn't work, no harm done, not even from the test itself. If it does - if the controls activate, Vision can go get Wanda, like before, and it'll be over fast."

[marvel_npc]

"No – " Tony stares at him. "No harm done? Are you kidding me? Yeah, there'll be harm done! Every goddamn time those controls are used, that's harm. To you. Right? Maybe not physical, maybe it'd be over fast, but it would still – Christ."

He puts his face into his hands and groans before looking up, his expression all the more wild for how lined his face is with exhaustion and stress. "Look. Don't try to make this easier for me. It shouldn't be easy for me. I should be feeling Irish Catholic levels of guilt. I deserve the nightmares, okay? But you don't deserve to have that bullshit happen to you ever again."

[nerves_of_ice]

Bucky shrugs. "If your program works, I won't. That'd be worth almost anything."

He hesitates for a second, then says, "I'm not saying what you did to me wasn't fucked up. But given how I screwed up your life... I understand how you got to the point where you thought you had to."

[marvel_npc]

"Yeah, well," he mutters, and looks down for a long moment past his laced fingers before glancing up to meet the other man's eyes.

"Okay. We'll try it. Make sure Vision can get Wanda if he needs to - but the program will work. I'm sure it'll work. I'm like ninety-nine percent sure it'll work."

[nerves_of_ice]

"I'm ready if you are," he says, simply.

[marvel_npc]

"Ready enough," Tony says, a little grimly, and gets up, sending the chair rolling gently backwards as he heads back to his set up. "Vision," he calls. "C'mon back in. All good."

"Excellent," Vision says, drifting back through the wall. He glances at Bucky with a faintly encouraging smile. "Are we taking the next steps, then?"

Tony glances back at Bucky for a long moment, then nods. "Yeah. So be ready. We might need Wanda to come do her thing again."

He blows out a breath and nods to himself, then looks at Bucky. "Ready?"

[nerves_of_ice]

Ready to comply, he thinks to himself, a little grimly, and nods to Tony and Vision.

"Ready," he confirms, and leans his head back against the rest once more. This time he keeps his eyes open, watching the ceiling above him.

[marvel_npc]

His heart's beating so loudly in his ears he can hardly hear himself; he shoots a hunted glance at Vision, who nods, his expression compassionate.

If this doesn't work – if he does it again, even by accident, Steve's going to kill him. Agent Carter is definitely going to kill him. He might even deserve it.

But he can't keep the guy waiting. Tony swallows down his nausea and opens his mouth, hoping he'll at least wait until the end to be sick to his stomach. "Zilanie," he says, his face pale as salt.

[nerves_of_ice]

He can feel it as the compulsion starts to take effect, as the cascade starts - and as it shifts, somehow, in a way that's hard to describe. It feels like the pressure of a gathering storm, something thickening the air around him and making it hard to breathe, but not smothering, not drowning.

Bucky draws a slow, deep breath, shakes his head a little, and remains quiet.

[marvel_npc]

It takes every ounce of willpower not to rush through them, to make sure he's pronouncing them right and to give the controls time to try and work.

The first five go smoothly, but he pauses after each, waiting for the shake of the head, the proof that his program is working, that nothing is happening, that the words can't get a grip on him. Dévjitʹ. Dabrasirdéčnyj," he says, wishing he could burn the damn words out of his own brain.

"Vozvraščénije na ródinu. Adín."

[nerves_of_ice]

It's not working. With every word he can feel the pressure mounting, an ache growing in his temples and at the back of his neck, but somehow the block stays solid across whatever traps have been laid in his own mind, standing between the commands and his very self.

He shakes his head over and over again, affirming to Tony, to Vision, and most of all to himself that he's free to do so, even as his breath grows ragged and uneven with fierce, desperate hope.

[marvel_npc]

His chest is heaving, rapidly lifting up and down, but his voice stays steady. Gruzavój vagón," he says, and silence falls over the lab, except for his own ragged breaths and those of Bucky Barnes.

Tony can't bring himself to ask, can't say anything else – what if it didn't work, and the Soldier looks to him for orders? It's Vision, who, after a moment of listening to the silence, says, very gently: "Bucky?"

And Bucky Barnes looks up at Tony, his gaze clear and unclouded, not a hint of the Winter Soldier's blankness anywhere to be seen.

[nerves_of_ice]

For a second or two he's afraid he's going to start sobbing with relief. Bucky swallows, hard, trying to clear his throat of its sudden tight feeling.

"It didn't work," he whispers. "They didn't work. I'm still me."

[marvel_npc]

Tony drops to a crouch, his hands on the surface of his desk, and has to breathe slow and even to keep from throwing up. Finally, he pulls himself up.

"Okay," he says. His voice isn't anywhere near normal, but he can't give a shit just now. "Then let's finish up and go home. How did it feel?"

[nerves_of_ice]

"Pressure," he says. "Like something pushing against a door, or a dam, or something like that. It kept getting heavier, until the end, then stopped."

He frowns a little, considering. "Not like a switch shutting off. Like water draining away. But it's almost gone now."

[marvel_npc]

Tony frowns. "Well, it's not great, but I'll take it," he says. "FRIDAY?"

"Running analysis now, boss," the AI says, and is quiet for a few moments before she says: "Pre-experiment levels stabilized. Analyzing."

The graph she throws up now shows the increasing curve of pressure as the words were spoken and the swift decline of that same mental pressure once they were complete. Tony studies it, gesturing at Vision. "Get those things off him," he tells Vision, referring to the diodes. "We don't need them anymore."

[nerves_of_ice]

"Seems pretty great to me," Bucky counters, holding himself still as Vision removes each diode from his skin.

"It's the first time in a long, long time that I haven't been someone else's -- someone else's."

Even though it's still there, even though he knows that with enough pressure anything can break, it's more freedom than he's known in over half a century.