t/w: allusions to past trauma (Hydra)
hear me out...Bucky Barnes is a man of luxury.
I'm not saying that he's stuck-up, or posh, or necessarily snobby. He's simply acquired a taste for the finer things in life. The things that make life slightly easier. Nicer.
During his imprisonment with Hydra, Bucky was stripped bare from all of life's simplicities. He'd sleep on concrete or be captured in ice for months, sometimes years, at a time. Showering was a rare luxury - mostly to get the blood stains from out of his hair and teeth. They treat bathing like one does the upkeep of a car: clinical and necessary. Soap was scentless. It would scratch at his skin when he'd scrub, his fingernails pressing on the surface as if to elicit some sensation to remind himself that he can still feel. Food was little more than nutrients - the fuel for the engine. Gasoline disguised as bland potatoes and rock-hard meat. Water that had a tinge of discolourment, as if to remind him that he didn't deserve purity. Bucky couldn't dress himself. Couldn't cut his hair. They decided when to shave. When to change. When to sleep. When to eat. When to bathe. When to talk.
After Hydra, Bucky was merely surviving. Food was simple. He would rush each meal as if it would be taken from him. The flavours wouldn't be savoured; he'd force himself to swallow. Rest was disturbed and broken. Fragments of his past bleeding into his present. The mattress broken and unnatural: the floor sometimes a familiar reprieve, like how an addict returns to their poison. The water in the shower usually ran ice cold and it would shatter his body with memories of before. The soap was hardly nicer than at Hydra. Cutting his hair felt illegal. He hadn't been able to before, so what makes him think he has the right to now. It would be like shedding a skin and pretending he wasn't who he was.
Bucky hadn't grown up in a lavish lifestyle before this. Even before Hydra, his family lived simply. It was during the aftershocks of the Great Depression, a country inching towards another war. Money was scarce. Steve was often sick so whatever spare funds Bucky had would usually be spent on doctors or medicine, or on caring for his family. He had one pair of leather shoes that had holes in the soles. One good suit and one good belt. One nice coat that would make its appearance in the fall and winter. His mother was a good cook: she'd find ways to make delicious hearty meals out of God's basic ingredients. Bucky could remember the treats that came at Christmas: chocolate and sugar and oranges. Exotic flavours that felt like sin to indulge in.
Wakanda was when things began to shift. The lifestyle he led there was aimed to heal not only the body, but the mind. He cared for goats and would eat their produce: milk and cheese, on warm baked bread. But he also tried the native dishes. Let his tastes explore. The food wasn't Bucky's favourite thing about Wakanda. It was the gadgets. Ever since he was little, Bucky had been in awe with technology. In another life, he would've loved to have gone to college. Perhaps studied engineering or technology and have been on the frontline of advancements in computers and artificial intelligence. It bewitched him. He was enthralled by Shuri's inventions. Marvelled at the genius of the city.
Once he had garnered back some control over his life, Bucky had started to step from the beaten path he'd learnt to follow. He cut his hair. Shaved. Spent more time in the convenience store, looking at self-care products. Shampoo and conditioners. Soaps that smelt like sandalwood and lemongrass and clementine and lavender. Cologne that lingered on his skin. Face wash. Face cream. Moisturiser. Face masks. It grew and grew like algae. One new thing led to another. The backs of packages feeding his addiction: pairs nicely with our accompanying, award-winning body scrub! Bucky's shower regime had expanded from thirty second under ice to nearly an hour beneath warm rain-like downpour. The bath towels went from scratchy cotton to Egyptian. The pillow cases from poly-blend to silk.
He ate well. Large meals. Meals with flavour and excitement. Cookbooks lined his shelf and he ravaged through them. Pies and casseroles and soups and strudels and pastas. Stir fry and ramen and sushi. The desserts were like ecstasy. Chocolate cake and dark fruit forest gateau and apple pie and peach cobbler and ice cream. Bowls of fruit which had once been nothing more than a figment of a young Bucky Barnes: passion fruit and dragon fruit and honey dew and water melon and orange and kiwi and pineapple. Beer. Wine. Expensive and succulent. Whiskey that had spent years priming into something that melted on his tongue like snow. Even the occasional cigar: the tainted air rich as it lapped at his lungs.
Bucky's house was filled with technology. Televisions with surround sound and light bulbs that changed colour with the screen. Alexa's giving him reminders every other hour. Air fryers, coffee machines, soda streams. Massagers. Computers. iPads. Headphones that made the rest of the all too noisy world melt away. Alarm clocks that mimicked the sunrise. Electronically powered blinds: a remote helpfully slotted on his bedside table.
It was a silent reward he granted himself for the trauma he lived through. A blessing hidden beneath mountains of pain. Bucky Barnes didn't mean to live a life of luxury. But after living one of suffering and isolation and nothing, it was hard not to develop a taste for the wonderful things in life.