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ysabetwordsmithThis story belongs to the series Love Is For Children which includes "Love Is for Children," "Hairpins," "Blended," "Am I Not," "Eggshells," "Dolls and Guys,""Saudades," "Querencia," "Turnabout Is Fair Play," "Touching Moments," "Splash," "Coming Around," "Birthday Girl," "No Winter Lasts Forever," "Hide and Seek," "Kernel Error," "Happy Hour," "Green Eggs and Hulk,""kintsukuroi," "Little and Broken, but Still Good," "Byzantine Perplexities," "Up the Water Spout," "The Life of the Dead," "If They Could Just Stay Little," "Anahata," "When the Wheels Come Off," "Against His Own Shield," "Coming in from the Cold: Saturday: Building Towers," "Coming in from the Cold: Sunday: Shaking Foundations," "Coming in from the Cold: Monday: Memorial Day," "What Little Boys Are Made Of," and "Rotten Fruit."
Fandom: The Avengers
Characters: Phil Coulson, Clint Barton, Bruce Banner, Bucky Barnes, JARVIS, Maria Hill, Daveed, Agent Smith, Agent Jones, Agent Sitwell, Dr. Samson, Rhodey
Medium: Fiction
Warnings: Angst, survivor guilt, SHIELD, mental health care, facing the past, sexual harassment, uncomfortable body stuff, emotional overload, disability issues.
Summary: Several of the Avengers visit SHIELD for a variety of professional and personal reasons. It helps to have friends at your side while facing challenges.
Notes: Courage. Team as family. Competence. Friendship. Slow build. Emotional first aid. Nostalgia. New hobbies. Healing touch.
Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.
"Coming in from the Cold: Tuesday: Facing Fears" Part 4
"You can mix and match Depression glass," Tony said suddenly. "Pepper likes the pink and the pale green; she calls it her watermelon set. She has mostly solids and a few bicolors. Some of them are family heirlooms from her grandmother, but I bought her the compact. All the transparent pastels look pretty good together, though. I think you've seen my lifesaver decanter on the bar in my penthouse, too."
"That's right," Phil said with a nod. "I know one collector who likes the opaque colors, such as the jade and the milk glass, and another who goes for jewel tones like the ruby and the cobalt."
"Monax," Steve said, snapping his fingers. "That was one of the colors I liked. It looked white, but if you tilted it into the sun, it would come up rainbows inside, like pearl or opal."
"We have a monax creamer in the American Sweetheart pattern from the Macbeth-Evans company," said JARVIS. "I will have all the Depression glassware pulled from storage and delivered to your apartment, where you may sort through it at leisure."
Steve squirmed around on his chair to take his Starkphone out of his pocket. "Show me?" he said. "Oh, that is pretty."
"Didn't Mrs. Birch have one like that?" Bucky said as he looked over Steve's shoulder. Bucky picked off the unwanted, too-sweet cherries from his cake and dropped them on Steve's plate.
"Yeah, maybe not exactly, but close I think," said Steve, picking up one of Bucky's abandoned cherries. They were both smiling.
Phil smiled too. It would do them both good to start a new hobby, something based in happy memories, something they can share, he thought. Collecting things is fun, and dishes are practical too.
"Tony, are you still dabbling around with the shatterproof stuff?" Bruce asked. "I know you were trying to tint it at one point."
"Yeah, off and on," Tony said. "I can do white, or white-ish anyway, that's what I'm putting out as a ceramic substitute for the casserole dishes in the kitchen. Frost works too, on the clear stuff. But when I try to add real colors, it comes out all funky. I'm not happy with it yet."
"You could just do mold patterns like the old pressed glass," Bucky said. "That can't be much harder than making a plain mold."
"Some of the glassware I'm turning out does have simple patterns on it," Tony said. "You know, ripples and stuff like that. I suppose I could do a grapevine or something on the casserole dishes; we have some breakable ones in that style."
"What about adding the color later, like a glaze or something?" Betty said.
"I don't know, maybe?" Tony said. He twirled his pineapple slice on a fingertip before nibbling delicately at it. "I suppose I could look it up. I've been trying to add the color directly to the molten material. What made you think of doing it later?"
"I took a ceramics class for art credit in college," Betty said. "The science is completely different for self-color and top-color in any kind of kiln work. The glassworking students had all different things they were doing -- oh, you should have seen some of the dichroic work, it reminded me of this old funeral vase my grandfather won at a carnival."
"I like carnival glass," Clint said quietly. "Some people at my old circus still had a few pieces."
"Really? What kinds?" Steve asked.
"The Bearded Lady had the most, I think. She had half a set of amethyst teacups," Clint said. "She was always nice to us. I used to sneak into her place after the show, and she'd make tea and feed me cookies."
Phil stayed quiet, waiting to see if Clint would continue. He rarely spoke of his circus days. Phil thought it might do him some good to have company in those memories, but Clint was still skittish about it, even after all this time.
"That sounds pretty," Steve said. "Any other pieces stick in your mind?"
"Ah, you'll laugh, but our Strong Man had the silliest little bowl on a stem, sort of pale blue with an opal sheen. He kept candy in it -- guy had a sweet tooth about like yours," Clint said. "Sometimes he let me borrow his dumbbells, the little ones, to build up my muscle."
So that's why you like free weights so much, Phil mused. He'd never heard that particular tidbit before.
"Dum Dum used to work as a Strong Man," Steve said with a fond smile. "He could bend bars, if they weren't too thick. He rescued a lot of fellas from the Nazis that way. Not to mention the time he beat up a couple dozen of Nazis, and nobody wanted to believe it was just one fella who cleaned their clocks. Then after this happened --" Steve waved a hand at his enhanced body. "-- Dum Dum helped me learn how to handle my strength."
Clint nodded. "I think that's why the Strong Man I knew liked to collect delicate things. Because he could. People thought he would break everything, but he never did. He was the gentlest person I knew, growing up. He could hold that fussy candy dish without so much as spilling a mint."
"I believe that style of bowl is called a compote," Phil said. "I don't collect glassware, but I know plenty of people who do."
"I think the prettiest piece was -- well, there were these sisters, twins, they had a perfume bottle that used to be their mother's. It was mostly sort of a yellow color, but it would glow bright green under a black light. Only they could make it glow without the light, too. It was part of their gig. They were Very Special People," Clint said. Mutants, probably. "I used to bunk with them, sometimes, when I got old enough that the other girls would bug me. The twins kept me safe. But then Barney --" Clint broke off, his face crumpling.
"Twins, you say?" Tony chirped. "Let me tell you about a pair of twins I met in Rio. They were playgirls -- Misses April -- and that was a very memorable year if I do say so myself. Anyway, thanks to the Misses April and a bottle of truly splendid tequila, I made the acquaintance of their camera man and posed for my first swimsuit issue. Only it turns out their favorite shooting beach was actually private property, and the owners walked in on us while ..." The story spooled onward, vivid and ridiculous.
Eventually Clint revived enough to start collecting empty dishes. "Who's washing up tonight?" he asked.
"Just put 'em in the dishwasher," Bucky said as he sealed the last bit of pot roast into a storage tub. "I'm in the mood for a movie."
"I'm all over that," Tony agreed.
Phil ran a damp cloth over the tabletop. "JARVIS, what are we up to on the live-action list?" They had been watching selections from the Oscar-winning films of the years that Steve and Bucky had missed, to help them catch up on cultural history.
"1957," said JARVIS. "Best Picture: Around the World in 80 Days. Best Actor: Yul Brynner in The King and I --"
"Oh, I loved that book!" Steve exclaimed. "Can we watch Around the World in 80 Days?"
"I heard The King and I is pretty hot," said Bucky.
"I like travel adventures," Clint said. "If other folks want to watch The King and I, that's fine, but then I'm heading out, because romance -- meh."
"That's okay, I'd rather have your company than the movie," said Bucky. "Any objections to 80 Days?" Everyone shook their heads. "JARVIS, put it on the screen, please."
"Ready at your convenience," JARVIS replied.
Soon they all moved into the common room. Tony, Bruce, Bucky, and Steve piled onto the couch. Clint and Natasha took the loveseat. That left Phil and Betty in chairs. JARVIS dimmed the lights -- even the fish tank in the back of the room went into starlight mode -- and then the viewscreen activated.
The opening of the movie reprised an earlier film, A Trip to the Moon. "It's still hard to believe that we actually went there," Steve murmured.
"Yeah, I never get tired of watching that," Bucky said. Bruce and Tony were nodding along. Phil silently agreed. The lunar landing had been an epic accomplishment.
When Phileas Fogg made his outrageous bet, Clint started snickering. "That is so you, Tony!" said Clint.
Even Natasha was smirking. "If Tony is Fogg, then Happy must be Passepartout," she said.
"I'd never get anywhere without him," Tony agreed.
Then Police Inspector Fix appeared in hot pursuit. "I sympathize with that poor fellow," Phil said. He'd spent a lot of time chasing people, including some of the ones in this very room.
"It's less fun when you're the one being hunted," Betty said quietly. Phil dropped the topic, painfully aware that she as well as Bruce had unpleasant memories of her father's stalking habits.
Passepartout dove into a comic bullfight in Spain. Tony, Bucky, and Clint howled with laughter. Tony elbowed Bruce, but Bruce wasn't laughing, and he pulled away from the motion. "Hey, you okay in there?" Tony asked.
"We saw a bullfight once. It was ... bad," Bruce said, ducking his head.
"You don't have to watch," Tony said, but by then it was over. Bruce snuggled back against Tony.
Fogg and Passepartout made it to India. "Lovely country," Natasha said. "I wish I could have seen more of it."
Then the plot turned darker as young widow Princess Aouda was forced toward the funeral pyre of her late husband. Bruce's full-body flinch put Phil on alert. "I, I need to step out for a minute," Bruce said. JARVIS was quicker, freezing the screen before Bruce made it all the way off the couch.
"We can just skip this scene. It's creeping me out too," Bucky said. Steve nodded vigorous agreement.
"Okay," Bruce said, burrowing under Bucky's arm. Bucky hugged him.
"After a daring rescue by Phileas Fogg and Passepartout, Princess Aouda joins their adventure, and they set forth for Hong Kong," JARVIS narrated. Then he reactivated the movie at a later scene. Soon enough, Bruce settled down and enjoyed it again.
Clint and Betty loved the Wild West part the best. By the time the heroes made it to Liverpool, Bruce was already chuckling over the date, even before Passepartout found the newspaper. Betty and Natasha both grinned when Aouda entered the Reform Club, the first woman to do so. "And the glass ceiling goes smash," Betty said happily.
"I like seeing things like that," Steve agreed. "It makes me feel good to know that the world is making progress. It's not perfect, but we're sure trying." Bucky nodded. Both of them were sensitive to such milestones. Betty openly approved of Steve's feminist leanings, although Natasha was more reserved.
When the movie ended, the cartoon credits made Steve and Bucky stir in their places. "I thought this was live-action?" Bucky said.
"While the film proper is live-action, it is also well known for the seven-minute animated title sequence at the end, done by award-winning designer Saul Bass," JARVIS explained.
"I think it's swell," Steve said.
After the movie, JARVIS turned up the lights again. Phil moved to the empty spot on the loveseat next to Natasha, who settled herself against him with their sides just touching. Steve brought out his charcoals and started working with them.
Tony left the couch in order to give him more room, moving to his favorite chair. There he took out a large Starkpad and started working on schematics of Bucky's arm again. Bucky shifted, his back popping. Bruce scooted over to let him stretch.
Steve did a set of art exercises. First he took charcoal rubbings of various things. Then he tried to duplicate the textures by hand. The coffee table was a jumble of charcoal and graphite pencils, sticks of pressed charcoal, irregular vines, plus assorted erasers and blending tools. As the pencils wore down, Steve took out his pocketknife and whittled them sharp again. Then he frowned at the results.
"We have electric pencil sharpeners for a reason, Rip Van Winkle," said Tony.
"I know, but I don't like them," Steve said. "They make all the points come out the same, and sometimes they break the lead." He nudged Bucky and made a questioning noise.
"Yeah, yeah, give 'em here, runt," said Bucky. He set about sharpening the pencils that Steve pushed over to him. They murmured together, some intimate vocabulary about round points and chisel tips. Bucky's right and left hands worked so smoothly together that it was hard to tell one of them was artificial.
"See, look," Steve said when Bucky had finished off the pencils with superior skill. "This way I can do more things with them. You can't do that with an electric sharpener."
Phil leaned over to look, followed by Tony and Natasha. Some of the pencils had long leads, others shorter. Several were indeed cut to a flat edge. "These resemble a calligraphy nib," Natasha observed, one lacquered fingernail almost touching the nearest example.
"That's where I got the idea," Steve said. "I can never get it quite right myself, but Bucky can."
Tony sighed. "It's a hand job."
"What?" Bucky said, startled into a laugh.
"Some things can be done well by machines," Tony explained. "For others, though, the best tool for the job is a human hand." He reached out to cup Bucky's hands in his, the flesh and the metal alike. "I could build a mechanical hand, but I've never been able to program one with the finesse of a flesh hand. That's why DUM-E still has the shape he does. Even JARVIS can't quite duplicate the natural motion of human fingers. When you carve something like that, it's all you, it's a tiny little sculpture." He rolled one pencil delicately under his fingertip. "There's always something ... just out of my reach."
"I'm still impressed by your reach," Bucky said, sliding a hand up Tony's arm to touch his chest.
"So, what can you do with the chisel tips that you can't do with round points?" Phil asked, curious about the difference.
"Watch this," Steve said. He swept the pencil across the page in a delicate swooping motion. As it twirled between his fingers, the line widened and then narrowed again. After several strokes, Steve held up the page.
"It's a stream!" Natasha exclaimed. Phil smiled, equally intrigued.
"Water marks," Steve said, nodding. "This kind of point is good for doing smoke, too, and ribbons -- anything that needs variation in line width. It's a lot easier to do with pen and ink, but I love charcoal, so I learned this trick."
"Do you do studio work too?" Betty asked as she came over to join them.
"Some, but not much; I don't have a model willing to pose for me," Steve said. He added stones along the line of the creek.
"You could just ask," Betty said.
"No, I don't want to do that to Natasha. She gets enough of people looking at her like an object," Steve said as he penciled in weeds between the rocks.
Natasha stared at him. Phil knew that she wasn't used to people thinking of her any other way, despite his efforts. It still came as a surprise to her.
"I meant me. I used to model in college," Betty said.
"Really? You'd do that for me?" Steve asked, looking up from his picture.
"Sure. Take your pick of clothed, leotard, or nude. We can find some great props around the tower if you want any of those," Betty said.
"She's really something," Bruce said softly. "I got to see a few of the pictures."
"I have a bolt of salt-splash silk, dyed in sunset colors," Tony said.
"You have a bolt of silk just lying around somewhere," Steve repeated, raising his eyebrows.
"Yeah, well, it was supposed to be for Pepper but she said it wouldn't look good on her, what do I know," Tony said. The toe of his right shoe went flick, flick, flick where he had that leg crossed over his left knee.
Betty nodded. "Warm colors can be tricky for redheads. It should look fine on me. Try blues and greens for Pepper," she said.
"Yeah, chestnuts are in the redhead group," Clint said. "You tack 'em up in earth tones. The cool tones look good on almost any horse. Our liberty act used peacock feathers. That's one reason my costume was purple, so I'd look good alongside their tack during my bareback archery routine. Betty's right, you want blues and greens for Pepper."
"Blues and greens," Tony echoed, typing on his Starkpad.
"I, um, I'd like ..." Bruce began, then trailed off. Steve made quiet encouraging sounds. "Will you let me see the studio pictures?"
"Of course," Steve said. "She's your best girl; I shouldn't be drawing anything you don't get to see. I mean, Betty makes her own choices, but ..." He gave a helpless shrug, unable to articulate the delicate point of etiquette any better.
"It's fine, Steve," said Betty. "Just let me know when you want me to model for you." Then she yawned. "For now, I'm heading to bed though." She kissed Bruce goodnight and then left.
Clint stood up and stretched. Then he wandered off to his own quarters.
Steve looked at Phil and Natasha cuddled together on the loveseat. One of Natasha's feet kicked in a slow, lazy pattern. "You may draw me if you wish," she said.
"Thanks," Steve said. "Would you mind taking your shoes off?"
"Why?" She stilled in place.
"It'll be easier to draw you dabbling in the stream, if I can see your feet," Steve explained.
"All right," Natasha said. She pushed her shoes off and then stretched her toes.
"Perfect," Steve said. The charcoal scraped softly against the paper as he sketched in the lines of her body. Then he used the chisel tip again to define the curling riot of her hair. "You'd look lovely in sepia tone. I should try that sometime. But Phil's better in black and white."
"We probably have sepia whatever on the studio floor, if you didn't get any of your own," Tony said.
"There are colored pencils in sepia tones, and a selection of brown inks with contemporary composition," JARVIS said. "We do not have the original sepia made from cuttlefish."
"Modern stuff's supposed to be better, yeah?" Steve said. He added Phil beside Natasha, serene in gray tones. "I saw something about that in a catalog. I may give it a try some time. I'm still figuring out which media I like the best, now that I can afford to experiment with all different things."
In the picture, Natasha sat on a boulder, kicking her bare feet in the water. Phil lounged beside her. Both of them seemed relaxed and happy. They wore their usual clothes, though, as if they had paused after a mission to cool off in a convenient creek. The textures of the stones, the water, and the plants all looked different and interesting. It wasn't quite realistic in style, more a matter of conveying the mood of a rustic outing. Steve had a knack for capturing emotion.
The real Phil loved that picture. He wanted, not the fact of the location, but the sense of ease and openness it evoked. Then he looked at the languid curve of Natasha's body on the loveseat, and realized something precious. Steve hadn't changed anything but the setting. Their poses and expressions were just the same.
Phil smiled, and snuggled a bit deeper into the loveseat. Steve chuckled as he pushed the pad away, picture complete. Bucky shifted position. His right hand came up to rub his left shoulder, tracing the seam where hidden metal met flesh.
"Bucky, are you okay?" Bruce asked. "You seem fidgety tonight."
"Arm's bothering me a bit," Bucky admitted.
"Want me to check it for you?" Bruce said.
"Nah, it'll wear off in a few hours, always does. It's not really the kind of thing you could fix," Bucky said.
"Phantom pain?" Bruce guessed.
Bucky startled. "How did you know?"
"You've come to trust me with your body. You trust Tony with your hardware. If you thought it was something we could help with, you would have said so," Bruce said. "That leaves something outside either range. Phantom pain seems the most likely."
"It's not exactly pain ..." Bucky said slowly.
"I'm listening," Bruce said. "Tell me more."
Bucky's left hand flexed, opening and then closing again. "It's more like, I don't know, heat lightning? Flickers of sensation, here and there, a tickle or a warm spot," he said. Then he tapped the prosthetic arm. "But not here, because I don't have that kind of feeling anymore, just pain and pressure. It's as if I get impressions from my real arm, except that doesn't make any sense, because it's gone. Only the feeling is left." He shrugged, one shoulder at a time. "Sometimes it creeps up and makes my back ache, too."
"Let me take a look. Maybe I can help," Bruce coaxed.
"Okay," Bucky said. He shucked off his shirt. The vents whiffled as warmer air spilled into the room. Where the hard rim of the prosthesis met skin, there lay a band of thick scar tissue with narrower lines radiating outward from it, legacy of the not-too-careful surgery that grafted it in place.
Bruce pressed gentle fingertips along the front and back of Bucky's shoulder, following the groove on both sides. Phil could see the chest muscles twitching in response. Bruce stroked his palms over the junction between flesh and metal, silently acknowledging them as two different parts of the same body. Bucky sighed and relaxed a little more.
Then Bruce moved down the length of Bucky's arm to the hand, where he tested the motion of the fingers. He always handled it with compassion, never shying away from it or treating it as inert equipment the way some of the SHIELD staff had. Bruce had his eyes half-closed in thought. All his attention poured into his fingertips.
"What are you possibly getting out of that?" Bucky asked, watching the doctor work.
"How the extra weight affects your back. How your muscles feel in the shoulder. How your hand moves under my touch. How your self-image meshes with the prosthetic equipment," Bruce said. "You have a neural map of your whole body inside your brain. Most of what you feel isn't here --" He brushed a hand up Bucky's arm. "-- it's here." Bruce touched a spot just above Bucky's ear.
"How does that help?" Bucky asked. "It's not like you can rub it away, the way you do when Clint messes up his shoulders."
"Well, the nerves that run through your body also create copies of that map in certain places, such as your feet," Bruce said. "So if I rub the right spot there, I may be able to reach that mental image of your arm and convince it to quit bothering you. Massage can help with PTSD and phantom pain. Will you let me try?"
"Sure," Bucky said. He kicked off his shoes and socks, then put his feet in Bruce's lap. That left his upper body braced against Steve for support. Steve shifted in place until he could hold Bucky more securely. Bucky gave a happy wriggle and snuggled into him.
Bruce smoothed his hands over both feet, encouraging Bucky to relax. It didn't take long for Bucky to melt into Steve's cradling grasp. Bruce murmured a description of the map pattern. Bucky didn't seem ticklish in response to the soft touch of Bruce's fingers.
"Okay, you're relaxed enough now. I'm searching for tender spots, so this may hurt a little," Bruce warned. "Try not to kick me in the face."
"M'fine." Bucky's voice had gone blurry and slow.
Bruce shifted his grip so that he could apply more pressure with his thumbs, working his way down Bucky's left foot. "Tell me what you feel."
"Hands're warm."
"Besides that," Bruce said with a chuckle.
"Little toe feels different. Not sure how," Bucky said.
"Part of that connects with your brain and neck," Bruce explained. "If I move down a bit, that's your arm and hand, along the outside of your foot."
"Yeah, that's a tender spot," Bucky said.
Bruce patted his pockets with his free hand until he came up with a felt-tip pen. "Good thing your feet aren't ticklish, I want to mark this." Bucky held still while Bruce traced the outline. "Going toward the center, that's your shoulder ..."
"Worse," Bucky said. "Maybe overdid it a bit today. Out of shape."
"I don't think you're out of shape, as much as still recovering from everything you went through. You were drowning in foreign chemicals when we first picked you up," Bruce said. "Now that you're somewhere safe, with good food and a decent bed, your body can go back and shore up things it let slide earlier for sake of survival. That's going to take some adjustment, and you may get odd effects occasionally." He shifted his thumb minutely.
Bucky yelped and yanked his foot away. He scrambled backwards across the couch. Steve lunged forward, trying to put himself between Bucky and Bruce. Bucky wound up balanced precariously on the far arm of the couch. Bruce spread his hands. It all turned into a mad tangle.
"All right, everyone, settle down and let's work out what happened," Phil said. The sudden motion had brought him to his feet. He laid a soothing hand on Steve's shoulder.
Steve gave a truculent growl.
"It's okay," Bucky said to Steve. "Bruce warned me. I just didn't expect it to hurt that much."
"Frankly neither did I," Bruce said with a frown. "I'm sorry about that."
"Bet you hit the cut line," Tony said without looking up from his Starkpad. "Mine's a bitch too, big as a goddamn dime right in the ball of my foot."
Phil hadn't known that, and from the way Bruce's eyebrows went up, neither had the doctor. "That would do it," Bruce murmured.
"What you did, I felt it," Bucky said. He was rubbing the juncture again. "It was like licking a battery, only with my whole arm."
"That sucks, but it's a good sign," Tony said. "It means that your brain hasn't given up on you having a left arm. Get some decent tech on you, and you should be fine."
"Thanks, Tony," said Bucky. Then he turned back to Bruce. "Sorry I jumped so much. What now?"
"After that, I have to rule that you're too sensitive for direct pressure on the reflex points," Bruce said. "If you want to keep going, I can try switching to broad shallow strokes. But first we should think about moving this to a private room, or at least giving other folks a chance to clear out."
"I'd rather not move. If I stop now, I'm not sure I'd have the guts to let you start again," Bucky admitted.
"I'm not leaving him," Steve said through his teeth.
Neither Tony nor Natasha made a move. "I'm good," Tony said.
Phil certainly wasn't about to walk away from such a volatile situation. He gave Steve's shoulder a reassuring squeeze.
Steve sighed. "Sorry. I'm being rude," he said.
"I'm fine, runt. Bruce didn't hurt me on purpose," said Bucky. He slid back across Steve's lap to the middle of the couch. Then he returned his feet to Bruce's care.
Steve shook himself a little, settling into his corner of the couch. Phil reclaimed his spot on the loveseat. Natasha was alert instead of relaxed, but not agitated.
"Take a minute to calm down," Bruce said to Bucky. "Slow your breathing. Unwind your muscles."
"Do you think this will still work when you can't push on the right spots?" Bucky asked.
"Just the heat of my hands should help soothe the jangled nerves," Bruce said. He cupped Bucky's left foot in careful fingers, not rubbing yet, just holding. "We'll see what else happens. With a little luck, this might smooth things out enough so that you're not getting those localized flashes of sensation, even if the phantom effect doesn't go away altogether."
"Mmm. Sounds good," Bucky said. He let himself lean back against Steve. With another sigh, Steve rearranged himself into a Bucky-cradle again.
Bruce flexed his hands around Bucky's foot, slow and soothing. Bucky gave a soft hum of approval. Bruce nodded in satisfaction.
Phil let himself relax, content that the situation wasn't likely to explode again. Natasha cuddled against him, more demonstrative than usual. Phil let his arm drift down from the back of the loveseat to her shoulders. She did not shake him off.
"Think it's helping," Bucky said in a hazy voice. "Can feel it a little, now and then. I miss ... feeling different things like that."
"That's natural. It's part of the mourning process," Bruce said. "You lost an important part of your body. Even a functional prosthesis can't make up for everything."
Steve looked utterly stricken, but he remained silent. Bucky couldn't see the look on his face. Phil could. He hoped that Steve would be all right. The past attitudes about handicaps could be pretty gruesome.
Bucky tilted his left hand, staring at it. "Arm works okay, but it's not the same. Just some thing they stuck on me. Miss my own."
The faint sound of Tony's fingers on his Starkpad changed. Phil noticed that Tony was watching Bucky, and had just changed whatever he was doing. Phil wondered what Tony had gone to look up or write down.
"Of course you miss it," Bruce said to Bucky. His hands continued their tender, relentless work. "You never really had a chance to grieve the loss, did you?"
"I don't remember much of what happened," Bucky said. His chin wobbled, voice tightening as he tried not to cry. "It's a jumble. I was falling, and then ... I don't know."
"That's okay," Phil said. "We know your memory comes and goes. Work with whatever of it you have right now."
* * *
Notes:
The Macbeth-Evans company made a variety of Depression glass including this monax creamer in the American Sweetheart pattern. It's hard to see on monax, so here's a closeup of the rose pink, line art, and part of a catalog page.
Watermelon is the pink and pale green Depression glass, either in separate pieces or unified like this pink glass with green foot. See also this pink dish whose lid has a green handle, and this pink dresser compact.
There are many rarities, such as Tony's Pairpoint Lifesaver decanter which says "When Sinking, Take Hold."
Dichroic glass is made by fusing layers of glass and metal. Watch a video of it.
Carnival glass has a distinctive metallic sheen. Here is a glossary about carnival glass. See the punchbowl and cups and the compote dish.
The story about a little dude beating the shit out of a whole mob of Nazis is true. I just changed the hero. ;)
Vaseline glass is a yellow-green material made by tinting glass with uranium dioxide. Here is the perfume bottle.
"Very Special People" is the carnie term for performers that the other side of the haybales refers to as "sideshow freaks." I have a few books that explore circus culture from the inside, and it could be very different than what people thought. Given the mishmash of canon about Clint's past, I extrapolated that his circus combined positive and negative elements. He had to have gotten his heroic impulses from somewhere, and he sure as hell didn't get them from his family.
The 1957 Oscars included Around the World in 80 Days, based on the novel; and The King and I, also based on the book Anna and the King of Siam.
This diagram illustrates horse tack colors.
Charcoal drawing involves a lot of texture, such as rubbings. Whittling is how my grandparents sharpened pencils, and I learned to do it too; you can see a whittled pencil in this post and here are some points. Browse lessons on creating textures.
Sepia is a historic color, a dark reddish-brown originally made from cuttlefish ink. It is still used in contemporary art, but with different formulations. Today you can find sepia tones in colored pencils, pen inks, and other products.
Phantom limb syndrome is a pervasive tactile illusion which can manifest as pain, itching, or other sensations. About 80% of amputees experience some degree of this, although for many of them it fades after a few weeks or months. Reflexology is one treatment that can help phantom sensations, because it capitalizes on the connectivity of the nervous system. One approach is to work on an area where the whole body maps itself into a small area; Bucky's arm is gone, but the arm location on his feet is still there. Other options include working the stump, or the air where the limb used to be. Different ones work for different bodyworkers and clients. And yes, the effect of feeling a cut line is very real; like phantom sensations, it usually fades as the injury heals, but Tony's chest was chopped to hamburger and some of that is never going to act normal again.
Foot reflexology can be used to treat back, arm, and shoulder pain.
Bodywork can also release hidden emotions. Experienced bodyworkers learn to watch out for the waterworks, because it can get very intense.
The Emotional Freedom Technique uses meridian tapping along certain lines and points. Learn how to do it.
Massage therapy is often used to treat PTSD and related conditions. Different parts of the body may correlate to different feelings or memories.
(Some of these links are horrifying.)
Touch is a crucial part of human communication. Many disabled people have skin-hunger because nobody wants to touch them. Injury and subsequent pain may impair sexual or nonsexual intimacy. If you know someone who is sick, injured, living with disability, etc. then one of the best things you can do for them is just touching them in ways they like to be touched.
See a static and interactive reflexology map for the feet.
[To be concluded in Part 5 ...]
Fandom: The Avengers
Characters: Phil Coulson, Clint Barton, Bruce Banner, Bucky Barnes, JARVIS, Maria Hill, Daveed, Agent Smith, Agent Jones, Agent Sitwell, Dr. Samson, Rhodey
Medium: Fiction
Warnings: Angst, survivor guilt, SHIELD, mental health care, facing the past, sexual harassment, uncomfortable body stuff, emotional overload, disability issues.
Summary: Several of the Avengers visit SHIELD for a variety of professional and personal reasons. It helps to have friends at your side while facing challenges.
Notes: Courage. Team as family. Competence. Friendship. Slow build. Emotional first aid. Nostalgia. New hobbies. Healing touch.
Read Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.
"Coming in from the Cold: Tuesday: Facing Fears" Part 4
"You can mix and match Depression glass," Tony said suddenly. "Pepper likes the pink and the pale green; she calls it her watermelon set. She has mostly solids and a few bicolors. Some of them are family heirlooms from her grandmother, but I bought her the compact. All the transparent pastels look pretty good together, though. I think you've seen my lifesaver decanter on the bar in my penthouse, too."
"That's right," Phil said with a nod. "I know one collector who likes the opaque colors, such as the jade and the milk glass, and another who goes for jewel tones like the ruby and the cobalt."
"Monax," Steve said, snapping his fingers. "That was one of the colors I liked. It looked white, but if you tilted it into the sun, it would come up rainbows inside, like pearl or opal."
"We have a monax creamer in the American Sweetheart pattern from the Macbeth-Evans company," said JARVIS. "I will have all the Depression glassware pulled from storage and delivered to your apartment, where you may sort through it at leisure."
Steve squirmed around on his chair to take his Starkphone out of his pocket. "Show me?" he said. "Oh, that is pretty."
"Didn't Mrs. Birch have one like that?" Bucky said as he looked over Steve's shoulder. Bucky picked off the unwanted, too-sweet cherries from his cake and dropped them on Steve's plate.
"Yeah, maybe not exactly, but close I think," said Steve, picking up one of Bucky's abandoned cherries. They were both smiling.
Phil smiled too. It would do them both good to start a new hobby, something based in happy memories, something they can share, he thought. Collecting things is fun, and dishes are practical too.
"Tony, are you still dabbling around with the shatterproof stuff?" Bruce asked. "I know you were trying to tint it at one point."
"Yeah, off and on," Tony said. "I can do white, or white-ish anyway, that's what I'm putting out as a ceramic substitute for the casserole dishes in the kitchen. Frost works too, on the clear stuff. But when I try to add real colors, it comes out all funky. I'm not happy with it yet."
"You could just do mold patterns like the old pressed glass," Bucky said. "That can't be much harder than making a plain mold."
"Some of the glassware I'm turning out does have simple patterns on it," Tony said. "You know, ripples and stuff like that. I suppose I could do a grapevine or something on the casserole dishes; we have some breakable ones in that style."
"What about adding the color later, like a glaze or something?" Betty said.
"I don't know, maybe?" Tony said. He twirled his pineapple slice on a fingertip before nibbling delicately at it. "I suppose I could look it up. I've been trying to add the color directly to the molten material. What made you think of doing it later?"
"I took a ceramics class for art credit in college," Betty said. "The science is completely different for self-color and top-color in any kind of kiln work. The glassworking students had all different things they were doing -- oh, you should have seen some of the dichroic work, it reminded me of this old funeral vase my grandfather won at a carnival."
"I like carnival glass," Clint said quietly. "Some people at my old circus still had a few pieces."
"Really? What kinds?" Steve asked.
"The Bearded Lady had the most, I think. She had half a set of amethyst teacups," Clint said. "She was always nice to us. I used to sneak into her place after the show, and she'd make tea and feed me cookies."
Phil stayed quiet, waiting to see if Clint would continue. He rarely spoke of his circus days. Phil thought it might do him some good to have company in those memories, but Clint was still skittish about it, even after all this time.
"That sounds pretty," Steve said. "Any other pieces stick in your mind?"
"Ah, you'll laugh, but our Strong Man had the silliest little bowl on a stem, sort of pale blue with an opal sheen. He kept candy in it -- guy had a sweet tooth about like yours," Clint said. "Sometimes he let me borrow his dumbbells, the little ones, to build up my muscle."
So that's why you like free weights so much, Phil mused. He'd never heard that particular tidbit before.
"Dum Dum used to work as a Strong Man," Steve said with a fond smile. "He could bend bars, if they weren't too thick. He rescued a lot of fellas from the Nazis that way. Not to mention the time he beat up a couple dozen of Nazis, and nobody wanted to believe it was just one fella who cleaned their clocks. Then after this happened --" Steve waved a hand at his enhanced body. "-- Dum Dum helped me learn how to handle my strength."
Clint nodded. "I think that's why the Strong Man I knew liked to collect delicate things. Because he could. People thought he would break everything, but he never did. He was the gentlest person I knew, growing up. He could hold that fussy candy dish without so much as spilling a mint."
"I believe that style of bowl is called a compote," Phil said. "I don't collect glassware, but I know plenty of people who do."
"I think the prettiest piece was -- well, there were these sisters, twins, they had a perfume bottle that used to be their mother's. It was mostly sort of a yellow color, but it would glow bright green under a black light. Only they could make it glow without the light, too. It was part of their gig. They were Very Special People," Clint said. Mutants, probably. "I used to bunk with them, sometimes, when I got old enough that the other girls would bug me. The twins kept me safe. But then Barney --" Clint broke off, his face crumpling.
"Twins, you say?" Tony chirped. "Let me tell you about a pair of twins I met in Rio. They were playgirls -- Misses April -- and that was a very memorable year if I do say so myself. Anyway, thanks to the Misses April and a bottle of truly splendid tequila, I made the acquaintance of their camera man and posed for my first swimsuit issue. Only it turns out their favorite shooting beach was actually private property, and the owners walked in on us while ..." The story spooled onward, vivid and ridiculous.
Eventually Clint revived enough to start collecting empty dishes. "Who's washing up tonight?" he asked.
"Just put 'em in the dishwasher," Bucky said as he sealed the last bit of pot roast into a storage tub. "I'm in the mood for a movie."
"I'm all over that," Tony agreed.
Phil ran a damp cloth over the tabletop. "JARVIS, what are we up to on the live-action list?" They had been watching selections from the Oscar-winning films of the years that Steve and Bucky had missed, to help them catch up on cultural history.
"1957," said JARVIS. "Best Picture: Around the World in 80 Days. Best Actor: Yul Brynner in The King and I --"
"Oh, I loved that book!" Steve exclaimed. "Can we watch Around the World in 80 Days?"
"I heard The King and I is pretty hot," said Bucky.
"I like travel adventures," Clint said. "If other folks want to watch The King and I, that's fine, but then I'm heading out, because romance -- meh."
"That's okay, I'd rather have your company than the movie," said Bucky. "Any objections to 80 Days?" Everyone shook their heads. "JARVIS, put it on the screen, please."
"Ready at your convenience," JARVIS replied.
Soon they all moved into the common room. Tony, Bruce, Bucky, and Steve piled onto the couch. Clint and Natasha took the loveseat. That left Phil and Betty in chairs. JARVIS dimmed the lights -- even the fish tank in the back of the room went into starlight mode -- and then the viewscreen activated.
The opening of the movie reprised an earlier film, A Trip to the Moon. "It's still hard to believe that we actually went there," Steve murmured.
"Yeah, I never get tired of watching that," Bucky said. Bruce and Tony were nodding along. Phil silently agreed. The lunar landing had been an epic accomplishment.
When Phileas Fogg made his outrageous bet, Clint started snickering. "That is so you, Tony!" said Clint.
Even Natasha was smirking. "If Tony is Fogg, then Happy must be Passepartout," she said.
"I'd never get anywhere without him," Tony agreed.
Then Police Inspector Fix appeared in hot pursuit. "I sympathize with that poor fellow," Phil said. He'd spent a lot of time chasing people, including some of the ones in this very room.
"It's less fun when you're the one being hunted," Betty said quietly. Phil dropped the topic, painfully aware that she as well as Bruce had unpleasant memories of her father's stalking habits.
Passepartout dove into a comic bullfight in Spain. Tony, Bucky, and Clint howled with laughter. Tony elbowed Bruce, but Bruce wasn't laughing, and he pulled away from the motion. "Hey, you okay in there?" Tony asked.
"We saw a bullfight once. It was ... bad," Bruce said, ducking his head.
"You don't have to watch," Tony said, but by then it was over. Bruce snuggled back against Tony.
Fogg and Passepartout made it to India. "Lovely country," Natasha said. "I wish I could have seen more of it."
Then the plot turned darker as young widow Princess Aouda was forced toward the funeral pyre of her late husband. Bruce's full-body flinch put Phil on alert. "I, I need to step out for a minute," Bruce said. JARVIS was quicker, freezing the screen before Bruce made it all the way off the couch.
"We can just skip this scene. It's creeping me out too," Bucky said. Steve nodded vigorous agreement.
"Okay," Bruce said, burrowing under Bucky's arm. Bucky hugged him.
"After a daring rescue by Phileas Fogg and Passepartout, Princess Aouda joins their adventure, and they set forth for Hong Kong," JARVIS narrated. Then he reactivated the movie at a later scene. Soon enough, Bruce settled down and enjoyed it again.
Clint and Betty loved the Wild West part the best. By the time the heroes made it to Liverpool, Bruce was already chuckling over the date, even before Passepartout found the newspaper. Betty and Natasha both grinned when Aouda entered the Reform Club, the first woman to do so. "And the glass ceiling goes smash," Betty said happily.
"I like seeing things like that," Steve agreed. "It makes me feel good to know that the world is making progress. It's not perfect, but we're sure trying." Bucky nodded. Both of them were sensitive to such milestones. Betty openly approved of Steve's feminist leanings, although Natasha was more reserved.
When the movie ended, the cartoon credits made Steve and Bucky stir in their places. "I thought this was live-action?" Bucky said.
"While the film proper is live-action, it is also well known for the seven-minute animated title sequence at the end, done by award-winning designer Saul Bass," JARVIS explained.
"I think it's swell," Steve said.
After the movie, JARVIS turned up the lights again. Phil moved to the empty spot on the loveseat next to Natasha, who settled herself against him with their sides just touching. Steve brought out his charcoals and started working with them.
Tony left the couch in order to give him more room, moving to his favorite chair. There he took out a large Starkpad and started working on schematics of Bucky's arm again. Bucky shifted, his back popping. Bruce scooted over to let him stretch.
Steve did a set of art exercises. First he took charcoal rubbings of various things. Then he tried to duplicate the textures by hand. The coffee table was a jumble of charcoal and graphite pencils, sticks of pressed charcoal, irregular vines, plus assorted erasers and blending tools. As the pencils wore down, Steve took out his pocketknife and whittled them sharp again. Then he frowned at the results.
"We have electric pencil sharpeners for a reason, Rip Van Winkle," said Tony.
"I know, but I don't like them," Steve said. "They make all the points come out the same, and sometimes they break the lead." He nudged Bucky and made a questioning noise.
"Yeah, yeah, give 'em here, runt," said Bucky. He set about sharpening the pencils that Steve pushed over to him. They murmured together, some intimate vocabulary about round points and chisel tips. Bucky's right and left hands worked so smoothly together that it was hard to tell one of them was artificial.
"See, look," Steve said when Bucky had finished off the pencils with superior skill. "This way I can do more things with them. You can't do that with an electric sharpener."
Phil leaned over to look, followed by Tony and Natasha. Some of the pencils had long leads, others shorter. Several were indeed cut to a flat edge. "These resemble a calligraphy nib," Natasha observed, one lacquered fingernail almost touching the nearest example.
"That's where I got the idea," Steve said. "I can never get it quite right myself, but Bucky can."
Tony sighed. "It's a hand job."
"What?" Bucky said, startled into a laugh.
"Some things can be done well by machines," Tony explained. "For others, though, the best tool for the job is a human hand." He reached out to cup Bucky's hands in his, the flesh and the metal alike. "I could build a mechanical hand, but I've never been able to program one with the finesse of a flesh hand. That's why DUM-E still has the shape he does. Even JARVIS can't quite duplicate the natural motion of human fingers. When you carve something like that, it's all you, it's a tiny little sculpture." He rolled one pencil delicately under his fingertip. "There's always something ... just out of my reach."
"I'm still impressed by your reach," Bucky said, sliding a hand up Tony's arm to touch his chest.
"So, what can you do with the chisel tips that you can't do with round points?" Phil asked, curious about the difference.
"Watch this," Steve said. He swept the pencil across the page in a delicate swooping motion. As it twirled between his fingers, the line widened and then narrowed again. After several strokes, Steve held up the page.
"It's a stream!" Natasha exclaimed. Phil smiled, equally intrigued.
"Water marks," Steve said, nodding. "This kind of point is good for doing smoke, too, and ribbons -- anything that needs variation in line width. It's a lot easier to do with pen and ink, but I love charcoal, so I learned this trick."
"Do you do studio work too?" Betty asked as she came over to join them.
"Some, but not much; I don't have a model willing to pose for me," Steve said. He added stones along the line of the creek.
"You could just ask," Betty said.
"No, I don't want to do that to Natasha. She gets enough of people looking at her like an object," Steve said as he penciled in weeds between the rocks.
Natasha stared at him. Phil knew that she wasn't used to people thinking of her any other way, despite his efforts. It still came as a surprise to her.
"I meant me. I used to model in college," Betty said.
"Really? You'd do that for me?" Steve asked, looking up from his picture.
"Sure. Take your pick of clothed, leotard, or nude. We can find some great props around the tower if you want any of those," Betty said.
"She's really something," Bruce said softly. "I got to see a few of the pictures."
"I have a bolt of salt-splash silk, dyed in sunset colors," Tony said.
"You have a bolt of silk just lying around somewhere," Steve repeated, raising his eyebrows.
"Yeah, well, it was supposed to be for Pepper but she said it wouldn't look good on her, what do I know," Tony said. The toe of his right shoe went flick, flick, flick where he had that leg crossed over his left knee.
Betty nodded. "Warm colors can be tricky for redheads. It should look fine on me. Try blues and greens for Pepper," she said.
"Yeah, chestnuts are in the redhead group," Clint said. "You tack 'em up in earth tones. The cool tones look good on almost any horse. Our liberty act used peacock feathers. That's one reason my costume was purple, so I'd look good alongside their tack during my bareback archery routine. Betty's right, you want blues and greens for Pepper."
"Blues and greens," Tony echoed, typing on his Starkpad.
"I, um, I'd like ..." Bruce began, then trailed off. Steve made quiet encouraging sounds. "Will you let me see the studio pictures?"
"Of course," Steve said. "She's your best girl; I shouldn't be drawing anything you don't get to see. I mean, Betty makes her own choices, but ..." He gave a helpless shrug, unable to articulate the delicate point of etiquette any better.
"It's fine, Steve," said Betty. "Just let me know when you want me to model for you." Then she yawned. "For now, I'm heading to bed though." She kissed Bruce goodnight and then left.
Clint stood up and stretched. Then he wandered off to his own quarters.
Steve looked at Phil and Natasha cuddled together on the loveseat. One of Natasha's feet kicked in a slow, lazy pattern. "You may draw me if you wish," she said.
"Thanks," Steve said. "Would you mind taking your shoes off?"
"Why?" She stilled in place.
"It'll be easier to draw you dabbling in the stream, if I can see your feet," Steve explained.
"All right," Natasha said. She pushed her shoes off and then stretched her toes.
"Perfect," Steve said. The charcoal scraped softly against the paper as he sketched in the lines of her body. Then he used the chisel tip again to define the curling riot of her hair. "You'd look lovely in sepia tone. I should try that sometime. But Phil's better in black and white."
"We probably have sepia whatever on the studio floor, if you didn't get any of your own," Tony said.
"There are colored pencils in sepia tones, and a selection of brown inks with contemporary composition," JARVIS said. "We do not have the original sepia made from cuttlefish."
"Modern stuff's supposed to be better, yeah?" Steve said. He added Phil beside Natasha, serene in gray tones. "I saw something about that in a catalog. I may give it a try some time. I'm still figuring out which media I like the best, now that I can afford to experiment with all different things."
In the picture, Natasha sat on a boulder, kicking her bare feet in the water. Phil lounged beside her. Both of them seemed relaxed and happy. They wore their usual clothes, though, as if they had paused after a mission to cool off in a convenient creek. The textures of the stones, the water, and the plants all looked different and interesting. It wasn't quite realistic in style, more a matter of conveying the mood of a rustic outing. Steve had a knack for capturing emotion.
The real Phil loved that picture. He wanted, not the fact of the location, but the sense of ease and openness it evoked. Then he looked at the languid curve of Natasha's body on the loveseat, and realized something precious. Steve hadn't changed anything but the setting. Their poses and expressions were just the same.
Phil smiled, and snuggled a bit deeper into the loveseat. Steve chuckled as he pushed the pad away, picture complete. Bucky shifted position. His right hand came up to rub his left shoulder, tracing the seam where hidden metal met flesh.
"Bucky, are you okay?" Bruce asked. "You seem fidgety tonight."
"Arm's bothering me a bit," Bucky admitted.
"Want me to check it for you?" Bruce said.
"Nah, it'll wear off in a few hours, always does. It's not really the kind of thing you could fix," Bucky said.
"Phantom pain?" Bruce guessed.
Bucky startled. "How did you know?"
"You've come to trust me with your body. You trust Tony with your hardware. If you thought it was something we could help with, you would have said so," Bruce said. "That leaves something outside either range. Phantom pain seems the most likely."
"It's not exactly pain ..." Bucky said slowly.
"I'm listening," Bruce said. "Tell me more."
Bucky's left hand flexed, opening and then closing again. "It's more like, I don't know, heat lightning? Flickers of sensation, here and there, a tickle or a warm spot," he said. Then he tapped the prosthetic arm. "But not here, because I don't have that kind of feeling anymore, just pain and pressure. It's as if I get impressions from my real arm, except that doesn't make any sense, because it's gone. Only the feeling is left." He shrugged, one shoulder at a time. "Sometimes it creeps up and makes my back ache, too."
"Let me take a look. Maybe I can help," Bruce coaxed.
"Okay," Bucky said. He shucked off his shirt. The vents whiffled as warmer air spilled into the room. Where the hard rim of the prosthesis met skin, there lay a band of thick scar tissue with narrower lines radiating outward from it, legacy of the not-too-careful surgery that grafted it in place.
Bruce pressed gentle fingertips along the front and back of Bucky's shoulder, following the groove on both sides. Phil could see the chest muscles twitching in response. Bruce stroked his palms over the junction between flesh and metal, silently acknowledging them as two different parts of the same body. Bucky sighed and relaxed a little more.
Then Bruce moved down the length of Bucky's arm to the hand, where he tested the motion of the fingers. He always handled it with compassion, never shying away from it or treating it as inert equipment the way some of the SHIELD staff had. Bruce had his eyes half-closed in thought. All his attention poured into his fingertips.
"What are you possibly getting out of that?" Bucky asked, watching the doctor work.
"How the extra weight affects your back. How your muscles feel in the shoulder. How your hand moves under my touch. How your self-image meshes with the prosthetic equipment," Bruce said. "You have a neural map of your whole body inside your brain. Most of what you feel isn't here --" He brushed a hand up Bucky's arm. "-- it's here." Bruce touched a spot just above Bucky's ear.
"How does that help?" Bucky asked. "It's not like you can rub it away, the way you do when Clint messes up his shoulders."
"Well, the nerves that run through your body also create copies of that map in certain places, such as your feet," Bruce said. "So if I rub the right spot there, I may be able to reach that mental image of your arm and convince it to quit bothering you. Massage can help with PTSD and phantom pain. Will you let me try?"
"Sure," Bucky said. He kicked off his shoes and socks, then put his feet in Bruce's lap. That left his upper body braced against Steve for support. Steve shifted in place until he could hold Bucky more securely. Bucky gave a happy wriggle and snuggled into him.
Bruce smoothed his hands over both feet, encouraging Bucky to relax. It didn't take long for Bucky to melt into Steve's cradling grasp. Bruce murmured a description of the map pattern. Bucky didn't seem ticklish in response to the soft touch of Bruce's fingers.
"Okay, you're relaxed enough now. I'm searching for tender spots, so this may hurt a little," Bruce warned. "Try not to kick me in the face."
"M'fine." Bucky's voice had gone blurry and slow.
Bruce shifted his grip so that he could apply more pressure with his thumbs, working his way down Bucky's left foot. "Tell me what you feel."
"Hands're warm."
"Besides that," Bruce said with a chuckle.
"Little toe feels different. Not sure how," Bucky said.
"Part of that connects with your brain and neck," Bruce explained. "If I move down a bit, that's your arm and hand, along the outside of your foot."
"Yeah, that's a tender spot," Bucky said.
Bruce patted his pockets with his free hand until he came up with a felt-tip pen. "Good thing your feet aren't ticklish, I want to mark this." Bucky held still while Bruce traced the outline. "Going toward the center, that's your shoulder ..."
"Worse," Bucky said. "Maybe overdid it a bit today. Out of shape."
"I don't think you're out of shape, as much as still recovering from everything you went through. You were drowning in foreign chemicals when we first picked you up," Bruce said. "Now that you're somewhere safe, with good food and a decent bed, your body can go back and shore up things it let slide earlier for sake of survival. That's going to take some adjustment, and you may get odd effects occasionally." He shifted his thumb minutely.
Bucky yelped and yanked his foot away. He scrambled backwards across the couch. Steve lunged forward, trying to put himself between Bucky and Bruce. Bucky wound up balanced precariously on the far arm of the couch. Bruce spread his hands. It all turned into a mad tangle.
"All right, everyone, settle down and let's work out what happened," Phil said. The sudden motion had brought him to his feet. He laid a soothing hand on Steve's shoulder.
Steve gave a truculent growl.
"It's okay," Bucky said to Steve. "Bruce warned me. I just didn't expect it to hurt that much."
"Frankly neither did I," Bruce said with a frown. "I'm sorry about that."
"Bet you hit the cut line," Tony said without looking up from his Starkpad. "Mine's a bitch too, big as a goddamn dime right in the ball of my foot."
Phil hadn't known that, and from the way Bruce's eyebrows went up, neither had the doctor. "That would do it," Bruce murmured.
"What you did, I felt it," Bucky said. He was rubbing the juncture again. "It was like licking a battery, only with my whole arm."
"That sucks, but it's a good sign," Tony said. "It means that your brain hasn't given up on you having a left arm. Get some decent tech on you, and you should be fine."
"Thanks, Tony," said Bucky. Then he turned back to Bruce. "Sorry I jumped so much. What now?"
"After that, I have to rule that you're too sensitive for direct pressure on the reflex points," Bruce said. "If you want to keep going, I can try switching to broad shallow strokes. But first we should think about moving this to a private room, or at least giving other folks a chance to clear out."
"I'd rather not move. If I stop now, I'm not sure I'd have the guts to let you start again," Bucky admitted.
"I'm not leaving him," Steve said through his teeth.
Neither Tony nor Natasha made a move. "I'm good," Tony said.
Phil certainly wasn't about to walk away from such a volatile situation. He gave Steve's shoulder a reassuring squeeze.
Steve sighed. "Sorry. I'm being rude," he said.
"I'm fine, runt. Bruce didn't hurt me on purpose," said Bucky. He slid back across Steve's lap to the middle of the couch. Then he returned his feet to Bruce's care.
Steve shook himself a little, settling into his corner of the couch. Phil reclaimed his spot on the loveseat. Natasha was alert instead of relaxed, but not agitated.
"Take a minute to calm down," Bruce said to Bucky. "Slow your breathing. Unwind your muscles."
"Do you think this will still work when you can't push on the right spots?" Bucky asked.
"Just the heat of my hands should help soothe the jangled nerves," Bruce said. He cupped Bucky's left foot in careful fingers, not rubbing yet, just holding. "We'll see what else happens. With a little luck, this might smooth things out enough so that you're not getting those localized flashes of sensation, even if the phantom effect doesn't go away altogether."
"Mmm. Sounds good," Bucky said. He let himself lean back against Steve. With another sigh, Steve rearranged himself into a Bucky-cradle again.
Bruce flexed his hands around Bucky's foot, slow and soothing. Bucky gave a soft hum of approval. Bruce nodded in satisfaction.
Phil let himself relax, content that the situation wasn't likely to explode again. Natasha cuddled against him, more demonstrative than usual. Phil let his arm drift down from the back of the loveseat to her shoulders. She did not shake him off.
"Think it's helping," Bucky said in a hazy voice. "Can feel it a little, now and then. I miss ... feeling different things like that."
"That's natural. It's part of the mourning process," Bruce said. "You lost an important part of your body. Even a functional prosthesis can't make up for everything."
Steve looked utterly stricken, but he remained silent. Bucky couldn't see the look on his face. Phil could. He hoped that Steve would be all right. The past attitudes about handicaps could be pretty gruesome.
Bucky tilted his left hand, staring at it. "Arm works okay, but it's not the same. Just some thing they stuck on me. Miss my own."
The faint sound of Tony's fingers on his Starkpad changed. Phil noticed that Tony was watching Bucky, and had just changed whatever he was doing. Phil wondered what Tony had gone to look up or write down.
"Of course you miss it," Bruce said to Bucky. His hands continued their tender, relentless work. "You never really had a chance to grieve the loss, did you?"
"I don't remember much of what happened," Bucky said. His chin wobbled, voice tightening as he tried not to cry. "It's a jumble. I was falling, and then ... I don't know."
"That's okay," Phil said. "We know your memory comes and goes. Work with whatever of it you have right now."
* * *
Notes:
The Macbeth-Evans company made a variety of Depression glass including this monax creamer in the American Sweetheart pattern. It's hard to see on monax, so here's a closeup of the rose pink, line art, and part of a catalog page.
Watermelon is the pink and pale green Depression glass, either in separate pieces or unified like this pink glass with green foot. See also this pink dish whose lid has a green handle, and this pink dresser compact.
There are many rarities, such as Tony's Pairpoint Lifesaver decanter which says "When Sinking, Take Hold."
Dichroic glass is made by fusing layers of glass and metal. Watch a video of it.
Carnival glass has a distinctive metallic sheen. Here is a glossary about carnival glass. See the punchbowl and cups and the compote dish.
The story about a little dude beating the shit out of a whole mob of Nazis is true. I just changed the hero. ;)
Vaseline glass is a yellow-green material made by tinting glass with uranium dioxide. Here is the perfume bottle.
"Very Special People" is the carnie term for performers that the other side of the haybales refers to as "sideshow freaks." I have a few books that explore circus culture from the inside, and it could be very different than what people thought. Given the mishmash of canon about Clint's past, I extrapolated that his circus combined positive and negative elements. He had to have gotten his heroic impulses from somewhere, and he sure as hell didn't get them from his family.
The 1957 Oscars included Around the World in 80 Days, based on the novel; and The King and I, also based on the book Anna and the King of Siam.
This diagram illustrates horse tack colors.
Charcoal drawing involves a lot of texture, such as rubbings. Whittling is how my grandparents sharpened pencils, and I learned to do it too; you can see a whittled pencil in this post and here are some points. Browse lessons on creating textures.
Sepia is a historic color, a dark reddish-brown originally made from cuttlefish ink. It is still used in contemporary art, but with different formulations. Today you can find sepia tones in colored pencils, pen inks, and other products.
Phantom limb syndrome is a pervasive tactile illusion which can manifest as pain, itching, or other sensations. About 80% of amputees experience some degree of this, although for many of them it fades after a few weeks or months. Reflexology is one treatment that can help phantom sensations, because it capitalizes on the connectivity of the nervous system. One approach is to work on an area where the whole body maps itself into a small area; Bucky's arm is gone, but the arm location on his feet is still there. Other options include working the stump, or the air where the limb used to be. Different ones work for different bodyworkers and clients. And yes, the effect of feeling a cut line is very real; like phantom sensations, it usually fades as the injury heals, but Tony's chest was chopped to hamburger and some of that is never going to act normal again.
Foot reflexology can be used to treat back, arm, and shoulder pain.
Bodywork can also release hidden emotions. Experienced bodyworkers learn to watch out for the waterworks, because it can get very intense.
The Emotional Freedom Technique uses meridian tapping along certain lines and points. Learn how to do it.
Massage therapy is often used to treat PTSD and related conditions. Different parts of the body may correlate to different feelings or memories.
(Some of these links are horrifying.)
Touch is a crucial part of human communication. Many disabled people have skin-hunger because nobody wants to touch them. Injury and subsequent pain may impair sexual or nonsexual intimacy. If you know someone who is sick, injured, living with disability, etc. then one of the best things you can do for them is just touching them in ways they like to be touched.
See a static and interactive reflexology map for the feet.
[To be concluded in Part 5 ...]
(no subject)
Date: 2016-11-05 06:14 am (UTC)This— all this interaction— is GOOD.
• Phil shifted his touch ^ wrap an arm behind Steve's shoulders.
^ to