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"Why is he glaring at me? He's been glaring at me since you picked me up."

Barnes' voice was rough from disuse and he eyed Sam uneasily. The Falcon was indeed glaring viciously at the assassin.

Clint looked between the two for a moment before patting the infamous assassin on the arm comfortingly. "Yeah, you cock-blocked him. He's pretty mad."

Barnes' looked so confused it was almost adorable.

___________

It didn't take much for them to clear Barnes from his charges. He'd been essentially mind-controlled after all. Tony's lawyers went pretty heavy on their 'longest prisoner of war in history' angle. It wasn't long before he was being brought back to the Compound a mostly free man. He just had to go through some sessions with Tony's BARF invention to get rid of the trigger words and then he was in the clear.

When he asked Clint and Natasha why Tony Stark of all people was helping him, they shrugged and answered 'It's what he does.'

__________

The first words Barnes said to Tony were an apology.

The first words he heard back from Tony was forgiveness.

"How about a clean slate?" Tony asked with a quirk to his lips. "No need to let HYDRA wreck perfectly good friendship material."

Barnes had hesitantly smiled back.

__________

No one would really give Bucky a straight answer about Steve and why he hadn't been with them when they found him, but they weren't keeping him from his friend. So he was allowed to visit Steve in his room.

Bucky didn't understand why he was contained to the one room unless escorted but they all seemed awfully wary of Steve while they were perfectly fine with him.

Natasha spoke to him during quiet nights about the Red Room and how she felt she would never escape it. He bonded with Clint over alcohol and mind-control.

He fell into a snippy banter with Sam who never let that 'cock-block' thing go.

Tony even showed him around his lab (so different from the sterile environments in HYDRA, this place was thrumming with life).

Bucky's first meeting with Steve only made him more confused. The other super soldier nearly tackled him in a hug and then started demanding to know if Stark had hurt him, if he was alright, where his arm was.

"Was it Stark?! I swear Bucky I'll make him pay if he hurt you-"

Bucky held up his hand. "Whoa whoa Steve," he rushed to say. "What the fuck are you going on about? Why would Tony hurt me? I'm fine, I went willingly into custody. And I asked them to take my arm off. It's HYDRA's and I want nothing of HYDRA's."

Steve frowned in confusion. "But... Stark. His parents..."

Bucky flinched. "Yeah... I still don't know how he forgave me. But he's pretty insistent that it wasn't my fault."

"...What?" Steve looked utterly lost. "But..."

Not sure what to make of Steve's confusion and feeling off-balance from the reminder of the Stark's, Bucky hurriedly retreated.

__________

Despite his tentative questions, people still seemed reluctant to tell him much about Steve.

That is, until he talked to Pietro.

Pietro was nice. He was working at the Compound as some kind of community service every weekend. The rest of the time he was at some school for mutants.