President Barnes sat on the edge of the bed, taking Bucky's hand again. "Thanks." She stroked her fingers over his hand. "He's eighteen, now. They took him from a friend's party. His Secret Serviceman lost him in the crowd and he was gone in the space of ten minutes."

She looked up at Steve. "I don't want that to happen again, Captain. He's my only child and they took him just like that. They did this to him..." She looked down at him. "They thought, if they tortured him and sent me back his fingers that I would give them what they wanted."

"They're not gone, either. Intel told us that there were ten or so of them, but we only caught four. So you'll need to be on guard for them trying to grab him again."

She brought Bucky's hand up to her lips and kissed his fingers - they were scarred, the knuckles on several swollen like they had been broken and probably had.

Bucky started to stir at that. He blinked and opened his eyes, watching his mother on the bed. He hadn't slept deeply at all, either in too much pain to drift off fully or too aware of what was going on around him, bracing himself for one of them to come in again and beat him either as some way of trying to get compliance (and he had always obeyed their demands) or just because it was fun to them.

"They sent me pictures regularly. I was helpless to get him back, all we could do was wait and find some way to find him. It took eight months. That was eight months too long for me. I don't want him or I to go through that again. Understand, Captain? Whatever you have to do to keep him safe, do it."

Bucky was too tired to talk and just watched, fingers twitching against his mom's hand. He couldn't see who she was talking to, and "Captain" meant nothing but the person she was talking to, apparently his new guard, was military.