"I tried," Bucky insists firmly but quietly. Clearly he didn't try his hardest, or he wouldn't have hurt himself to begin with, but he didn't deliberately try to give himself an infection either.
"I guess." Bucky lowers his head a bit and swallows. "I thought you'd be like the others." Hydra's technicians and handlers, he means. His eyes narrow by a fraction. "They would have just left me if they thought I wouldn't make it."
He doesn't know for sure. Maybe they'd try to retrieve him, to cover their tracks, or extract what they can out of his corpse and work on a better v2.0 soldier. Or on the off chance that he does make it, give him that false sense of being valued, being wanted, being part of the organisation. But he's pretty sure that once he's a liability they would have cut him loose. They don't have the same complications or hangups that he does in his head about being saved or the intermittent bouts of kindness he'd been shown.
"You don't have to, anyway." Patch him up, he means. It'll heal one way or another. Just that this one won't turn into a nasty scar like all the others. "You didn't have to do any of this." Drag him around the world, buy him nice things, nudge him into not giving up on himself. Feed him, bathe him, clothe him. Wyoming. They've progressed far beyond just keeping a wary eye on each other.
"I hope I've been okay to you. Or, good enough. Or whatever."
no subject
"I guess." Bucky lowers his head a bit and swallows. "I thought you'd be like the others." Hydra's technicians and handlers, he means. His eyes narrow by a fraction. "They would have just left me if they thought I wouldn't make it."
He doesn't know for sure. Maybe they'd try to retrieve him, to cover their tracks, or extract what they can out of his corpse and work on a better v2.0 soldier. Or on the off chance that he does make it, give him that false sense of being valued, being wanted, being part of the organisation. But he's pretty sure that once he's a liability they would have cut him loose. They don't have the same complications or hangups that he does in his head about being saved or the intermittent bouts of kindness he'd been shown.
"You don't have to, anyway." Patch him up, he means. It'll heal one way or another. Just that this one won't turn into a nasty scar like all the others. "You didn't have to do any of this." Drag him around the world, buy him nice things, nudge him into not giving up on himself. Feed him, bathe him, clothe him. Wyoming. They've progressed far beyond just keeping a wary eye on each other.
"I hope I've been okay to you. Or, good enough. Or whatever."