The Body of Bucky Barnes: A Massage Therapist's Perspective

(CAVEAT: I have not been a massage therapist for very long. This is literally just me spitballin’–at the same time, this was a really good exercise for me! I like using the assessment part of my brain.)

It’s been tossed around in fandom that Bucky’s muscles have to be pretty f-ed up from having a cybernetic, metal arm grafted onto one side of his body. From the perspective of a massage therapist, that’s 100% accurate–but the issues don’t stop there. At the very least he’s got functional scoliosis and massive compensatory muscle strain, enough adhesions to make Jesus weep, and tons of somato-emotional holding points.

First, a couple notes: I’m including adhesions on the list because I don’t think the serum would prevent these from happening, at least not entirely. Adhesions happen when connective tissue–the single most prevalent tissue in the human body that wraps everything from muscles to bones to organs to nerves–becomes damaged. Connective tissue (CT) consists of water, cells, and most importantly protein fibers; just like the fibers of yarn, they can become tangled in surrounding structures. That’s really what they’re supposed to do, in order to anchor things and quite literally hold us together. Unfortunately, damage resulting from injury, surgery, infection, inflammation, overuse, or old age can cause the fibers to tangle in the wrong ways. Thus, adhesions form (scar tissue being the most common form). Now, I don’t think the serum would stop these from happening, as they’re literally part of the body attempting to repair itself. Perhaps Erskine’s version would, but I don’t see HYDRA giving much of a damn how their super-soldier healed so long as he could still function. Any adhesions that got bad enough to impede his movements, they could simply fix with surgery or the HYDRA equivalent of the Graston technique.

What’s the Graston technique, you wonder?



I’m so glad you asked! It’s the process of taking the above tools and scraping the connective tissue fibers into lying the way they’re supposed to, as well as breaking up adhesions. It is…okay, I’ve never had it done personally but I am given to understand that it is incredibly painful.

(Now think about the fact that Bucky associates that with physical therapy and people who say they’re going to treat his muscles.)

Second, obviously the arm itself is very heavy. In multiple comic book sources, Bucky Barnes is listed as being 5'9" (175cm) and 260lbs (118kg). Sebastian Stan is slightly taller at 5'11" (180 cm), but even then a 5'11" man with a medium frame is about 154-166lbs (70-74kg). From that we can extrapolate that the arm is at least 50lbs (23kg).

Whatever the exact measurements, the arm is heavy enough that I would bet normal bones and muscles couldn’t support it. Judging from where skin meets metal in the picture below, I’d say that the bones of Bucky’s entire shoulder girdle have had the metal arm grafted onto them. Note how the metal curves inward to follow the collarbone? Yeah, either it’s attached to the bone or the bone had been replaced. I wish we had a shot from the back so I could see the metal’s interactions with the shoulderblade but I’m going to take a wild guess and say that the metal extends at least to the spine of the scapula–that ridge of bone you can feel when you put a hand over your shoulder–and possibly further down onto the fossa.

I’ve also seen it banded about in fandom that the muscles would have been replaced as well–but one, there is a shitton of muscles attached to the arm, and I don’t think even a super-soldier could survive having them all replaced, and two, the whole point of serum-strong muscles is that they can be stronger than regular human muscles. (Also, if you’re using this post as reference for healing massage fics, there wouldn’t be much point in Steve rubbing synthetic muscles.)



From the brief image of a bone saw cutting off the arm, seen below, I would guess that part of the upper humerus (the bone of the upper arm) is still in place and that, too, has had metal grafted onto it. I know a lot of writers (myself included) have grabbed onto the idea of a metal ball-and-socket joint, but from a massage therapist POV, I find that less plausible (as plausible as a metal-armed brainwashed assassin can ever be). I find it far more plausible, from a ‘not-having-to-replace-ALL-the-muscles’ POV, that Zola and the other scientists anchored the metal arm on the stub of humerus that Bucky had left, pumped him full of serum, and expected his body to be able to carry that weight.



Obviously the muscles of the arm itself and some of the shoulder are gone and replaced by the metal arm: deltoid, biceps brachii, triceps, all of the forearm and hand. I would also guess, again without seeing the back, that all of the rotator cuff muscles and tendons are gone.

However, I think that for the most part, Bucky still has his actual muscles and his actual bones, with some metal grafted onto them.

Anyway. On to the analysis. Here are the physical issues that I think Bucky would have.

1. Functional scoliosis of the thoracic vertebrae, with accompanying compensatory patterns. Pick up something really heavy using only one arm–or really, don’t. Please.

Having 50 extra pounds on one side would do horrible, horrible things to your body. For one thing it would automatically create a curve in your spine. In Bucky’s case, that’d be a sharp curve to the left in the thoracic (ribcage) vertebrae. Obviously he isn’t walking around with his left shoulder sharply dropped; that’s where compensatory structures come into play. “Functional scoliotic cases are frequently accompanied by other signs of faulty and relaxed posture, such as rounded shoulders, prominent abdomen, and flat feet.” (Massage and Bodywork Magazine, Dalton, 2003, pg 69.) Or, if you need a visual explanation:





A bit of brilliant non-acting acting on the part of Sebastian Stan. That is exactly how someone dealing with sharp lateral curvature of the spine would stand in order to offset that weight. Try picking up an object in one arm and then swinging it around to the front. It’s a lot easier to hold, isn’t it? That’s because the weight is closer to your midline instead of wayyy out to the side.

Unfortunately that creates a whole host of compensatory problems. Slumped shoulders equals tight pectorals, tight front of the the neck, decreased functionality of the lungs, stretched and strained erector spinae group (those muscles that run up and down on either side of the spine, from pelvis to neck), strained rhomboids between the shoulderblades, and strained back of the neck muscles.

2. Adhesions, adhesions, adhesions. As I mentioned above, adhesions form following injury, surgery, infection, inflammation, overuse, or old age. Obviously Bucky’s experienced many of the above in his time with HYDRA, especially the first two.

Let’s talk ribs. Between each rib is a pair of muscles called the intercostals. When ribs get cracked or broken or just overused (as in excessive coughing–I have actually coughed so much and so hard during one terrible cold that I cracked a rib), the intercostal muscles go rigid in order to stabilize the bone. Then, unless they get a hot pack or some massage, they stay that way. I’m guessing that HYDRA’s brainwashing regimen involved beatings. Anywhere they hit him could potentially form adhesions, but ribs are especially prone to them and especially difficult to get out. I worked on an ex-Navy SEAL recently who’d taken a lot of falls and beatings over his period of service; his ribs were a mess.

Restricted ribs can make it difficult to breathe. Combine that with the compressed lungs listed above due to postural distortion and I doubt that Bucky Barnes has taken a full, healthy breath in years. The effects of that cannot be overstated: being unable to take a full breath keeps the body in a state of fight-or-flight, stress, and fear. I’m guessing that suited HYDRA just fine.

Other places in Bucky’s body that I would expect to find adhesions: around his left shoulder and neck due to multiple surgeries, in his rhomboids due to overuse from trying to stabilize the weight of the shoulder and his postural dysfunction, and along his iliotibial band in his thighs. All of which would only have been treated by HYDRA, painfully, if the adhesions impeded his function.

Ways that adhesions can be treated in non-painful ways: heat, gentle pressure, pin-and-stretch strokes where you press the fingers of one hand into the center of the adhesion then use the other fingertips to push outward from that location, and light myofascial release techniques like skin-rolling, where you take a pinch of skin and kind of move up and down the skin, like a wave moving over an ocean.

It’s a little burny but can be very therapeutic. Much less painful than Graston.

3. Somato-emotional holding points. It was thought for a very long time that the hippocampus was the site where all long-term memory is stored. However, in the past five years its been discovered that long-term memory storage actually happens in the motor cortical units, which were previously thought to be the simple nuts-and-bolts fibers in the brain that control our somatic muscle response (read: voluntary, or user-controlled, as opposed to involuntary actions like stomach churning or peristalsis of the intestines). The hippocampus is more like a relay station that communicates with the motor cortical units.

This confirms something that massage therapists have known for years: the body remembers, even when the mind does not. The very fibers that control our muscles also store our long-term memories: think for a second about the implications of that! I’ve seen the results myself. On more than one occasion, I’ve been massaging a client’s muscles when they’ve suddenly remembered something associated with that part of the body. I’m not talking about simply remembering these things through a glass darkly, either, I’m talking about: the client started giggling uncontrollably because she remembered going down a slide as a child and hurting that muscle in her neck. That memory was associated with that part of the body that I was touching. Often the memories stored this way are major traumas to the body, even if the emotion that bubbles up isn’t one associated with fear or pain. For my client, she remembered having fun as a kid. Yes, she was hurt in the process and her body stored that memory in a big knot on the side of her neck; but overall the emotion released was one of childish glee.

Now consider the fact that Bucky’s big flashback to his arm being forcibly replaced without his consent happens when his arm is being worked on by techs.

I’ll bet that Bucky has memories stored throughout his body, places that HYDRA didn’t dare touch because they wanted their weapon to function, but Bucky couldn’t get to because they fried the hippocampus of his brain.

That means that every time someone touches him, every time a muscle is stimulated in a way he doesn’t expect, there’s a distinct chance that a memory is going to surface. A somato-emotional release that he has no way of predicting.

WHAT DO??

Assuming that we’re talking about Bucky being massaged by a layman instead of a professional (although I would strongly recommend that, whensoever Bucky could tolerate having a stranger touch him):

1. Light Swedish massage and myofascial release. According to many different studies, massage is very helpful in treating PTSD. Part of the disorder is the inability to turn off the sympathetic nervous system–the 'fight-or-flight’ response–and switch to the parasympathetic nervous system–the 'rest-and-relax’ response.The goal here would be relax the body with light pressure and gentle strokes, instead of digging into any hard knots. Basically you want to avoid anything that could possibly cause pain.

2. Essential oils. These have also proven effective at helping to calm the mind and body both. Bear in mind, I’m not, repeat, not talking about synthetic fragrances that you might find in a department store. These have all sorts of chemicals in them that try to recreate the smell of essential oils at a lower price. The oils most likely to help Bucky would be: lavendar (anti-anxiety), clary sage (anti-depressant), sandalwood, vanilla, and ylang ylang (all treat both anxiety and depression), or a mix of all of the above. (Mixing essential oils is its own art, dealing with base, middle, and top notes.) Probably the easiest way for a layman to use essential oils would be a couple of drops in a hot bath or a couple of drops in grapeseed oil to rub on the skin.

3. Once Bucky’s parasympathetic nervous system was functioning again, evinced by regular sleep patterns and smoother digestion, he might be ready to work on deeper issues. The first thing I’d want to work on would be those ribs, followed by all muscles in the neck. Any deeper work would need to be very much Bucky-led: constantly checking in to make sure that he wasn’t experiencing any negative emotions associated with the areas being worked on. If he could tolerate deeper massage work, it might actually help him regain his memory, as those motor cortical units get stimulated in the brain and in turn trigger the memories associated with that area of the body.

SO. That’s what I got! If anybody else has something to add, feel free to message me!

Captain America not!fic: Sam Wilson is the Perfect Boyfriend and Bucky Barnes has Murdereyes

So I was thinking more about this and that developed into this whole thing that I spent the day unraveling. (Cut for shades of domestic violence and inadvisable sexual behavior.)

Bucky has been brought in from the cold and deprogrammed, mostly. Maybe 90% deprogrammed. The remaining 10% is liable to lunge for Steve’s throat without any warning–and even the 90% is primarily comprised of PTSD and raw nerves.

It’s a good thing that Steve’s got that healing factor, is the point.

Steve, he bears it up pretty well. Probably a lot better than he should. It makes Bucky want to be a better friend–or at least one that doesn’t punch Steve or attempt to strangle him at least twice a week–and this is why he hates Sam Wilson. Perfect fucking Sam Wilson, who apparently helped Steve take on a rogue spy organization on the basis of two conversations and a cup of coffee, who keeps dropping by with albums and homemade cupcakes and therapy books. Bucky hates Sam Wilson, even if the cupcakes are really fucking good and the books are actually very helpful.

He’s trying to be a good friend to Steve, though, so he limits himself to settling in the furthest corner of whatever room Sam and Steve are in and giving Sam what Stark has dubbed “the Murdereyes.” The effect is somewhat muted by the cupcake in his hand that rapidly disappears.

Steve seems more bothered by the Murdereyes than Sam; he clearly wants the two of them to get along. That’s a bridge too far, though: Bucky doesn’t remember much, but he knows that he was here first, dammit, and that counts for something, he doesn’t care that Sam Wilson farts rainbows. (Steve is all he has.) Sam visits usually result in Bucky stomping off to his room, slamming the door, in order to lie in bed feeling sorry for himself and maybe having a panic attack halfway through the book he takes with him. He’s pretty sure no one hears him. (He’s getting better. That’s what they say. He doesn’t want to give Steve any reason to doubt that.)

This goes on for a while, though eventually Sam’s kindness wears down even the Murdereyes and he winds up teaching Bucky how to make cupcakes. (Bucky asks. Steve likes the cupcakes, and Bucky broke Steve’s nose last night. He thinks maybe he doesn’t have very many more chances to get this right.) Bucky doesn’t like that Sam has taken that place next to Steve but his therapist has been nudging him to ask for help when he needs it, and Sam is good at being friends with people. It’s not really his fault that one of those people happens to be Steve.

The Murdereyes turns into Bucky following Sam around everywhere, either openly or covertly. He needs to learn how to be a good friend again. Steve has been looking tired, worn down, so Bucky tries to spend a little more time with Sam, who doesn’t have a healing factor and that means Bucky has to be twice as careful with the 10%. It’s exhausting and his secret panic attacks swell in size and number but he’s being a good friend. Or, well, he’s getting better at it.

Things appear to even out enough that Sam and Steve even decide to leave Bucky on his own one night. Bucky knows it’s a test, that he’s supposed to be okay on his own. He would be, he totally would, but he wants to see Sam be Steve’s friend when they don’t know that Bucky’s around. So he follows them, watching as Sam leads Steve with one hand on the small of his back into a nice restaurant and they sit drinking wine and eating and laughing. Steve looks more relaxed than he has since Bucky came to live with him and Bucky’s stomach twists.

Then they’re leaving the restaurant for a long walk down to the park, Bucky trailing carefully behind. This is one arena in which he still feels a smug superiority to Sam: he has no idea that Bucky is here, that Bucky’s right at Steve’s back.

That Bucky is right there when Sam leans in and gently, carefully kisses Steve.

Bucky’s brain shorts out the way it used to when someone asked him how he felt about something. He watches, blank and numb, as Steve leans and kisses back, the sweet little smile on his lips visible even where they’re pressed against Sam’s. Only when they part does he jerk back to life, slipping away and sprinting flat out for home.

Once there Bucky paces his bedroom, his mind racing. Sam’s queer! Steve is…Steve’s…he kissed back. Steve is queer? Why didn’t he–? Bucky’s pretty sure that Steve never, back then, that he hadn’t been–or maybe he had and he’d just never told Bucky about it.

The thought makes Bucky scowl and kick over the stack of clean clothes that Steve carefully placed on the chest at the foot of Bucky’s bed. That’s a low-down, mean thing to do, hiding a thing like that. Bucky might be a lousy friend now, but he knows that once they’d been closer than brothers. How could Steve have hidden that from him? Had he been sneaking around with someone the whole time that he and Bucky had been living together? Had he kissed some other person, let them know that part of him, while Bucky was none the wiser?

Dammit, they were supposed to be best friends, and Steve had never even asked Bucky if he wanted to be queer together! Well, Bucky was going to change that: he was gonna get Steve to be queer with him or die trying.

He’s supposed to ask for help when he doesn’t know what to do, but he can’t ask Steve or Sam for obvious reasons. Sam can no longer be trusted. Bucky tries asking Dr. Banner how two men have sex during a checkup; Dr. Banner leaves half-convinced that Bucky was hitting on him. Bucky reluctantly asks Stark while getting a new synthetic skin for his arm; Stark stares, mumbles “too many—too many things to say, can’t pick,” followed by “you could just sign up for grindr,” then “oh god no, no, that’s a terrible idea.”

So of course Bucky joins grindr.

It actually goes a lot better than you’d expect. There’s a certain simplicity to the encounters he has: they’re a bit like missions in which Bucky tracks little dots on his phone through the city, except instead of murder the objective is orgasms. The mechanics are tricky at first but HYDRA did something to his brain that heightened his muscle memory and pretty soon Bucky is sucking cock like a champ. Not as good as Sam fucking Wilson, if the sounds that Steve makes while Bucky lurks outside Sam’s bedroom window are any indication. But Bucky is nothing if not dedicated. He’s going to be the best goddamned secret queer in the goddamned world, he thinks viciously as he joins four dots in an open-air orgy. He studies every angle, compiles the techniques of each guy sucking and fucking his body, sucks and fucks when it’s his turn and catalogues success in the amount of semen stuck in his hair at the end of the night.

The longer Steve spends out at night (at Sam’s, with Sam), the longer Bucky spends out, too. If the way they touch him, these anonymous men who barely speak to him, reminds Bucky of anything, he doesn’t let himself think about it for long.

Eventually, of course, Bucky comes back from therapy one morning to find Steve and Sam at the kitchen table wearing identical expressions of concern. The phone bill, Steve explains. Overage charges. He’d gone to Sam for help understanding it all and Sam, well, perfect Sam fucking Wilson had understood all too well.

Things go downhill fast, with Sam trying to gently talk about risk-taking behavior and Steve asking with this wounded expression why Bucky would go around having empty sex?

“What,” Bucky snaps, “like you two don’t?”

Sam immediately looks cautious, but Steve flushes and says, “That’s different.”

“Why?”

“Because we’re in love!”

And Bucky, Bucky shuts his mouth and feels something in him split right down the middle. Because that’s what he’d wanted, wasn’t it? He hadn’t realized it until just now, hadn’t even known the words, but he’d wanted for Steve to be in love with him. Steve is Bucky’s entire world and if that’s not in love then Bucky doesn’t know what is.

But Steve isn’t in love with him at all. Suddenly all the practice that Bucky had put himself through, endured, seems sick and stupid and pathetic.

It must show in his face because Sam says, “shit” and Steve starts to get up, his own expression stricken. Bucky runs for it, going out a window.

He’s not dumb enough to run again, so instead he goes to Stark Tower and hides as best he can. It’s a big tower.

Blah blah blah AND THEN THEY TRACK HIM DOWN AND SAM TALKS TO BUCKY ABOUT ASEXUALITY AND STEVE GIVES BUCKY SMILING KISSES AND THERE ARE CUDDLES AND LOVE.

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Guys, guys, what if Bucky, post-CATWS, goes on this cold, methodical elimination tour of HYDRA. He’s totally focused on the mission; he knows that he’s Bucky Barnes but he’s not especially interested in knowing more. That’s not who he is. He kills people. That’s what he does.

When Steve and Sam start following him, he’s annoyed at first but eventually acknowledges that they could be useful to his mission and deigns to work with them. Steve is immediately all :DDD in ways that make Bucky uncomfortable.

He only gets MORE uncomfortable when Steve starts wearing nothing but little motel towels out of the shower and finds excuses to take his shirt off at random. (In the background, Sam discreetly books them two motel rooms while typing OMFG FML to Natasha.) He starts giving Bucky pants feelings again and Bucky-bot does not compute, does not know what to do

and AND AND



EXCEPT PUT IN STEVE’S MUSCLY CALF, COVERED WITH HIS STAR-SPANGLED MAN TIGHTS, AND BUCKY STANDING IN THE BACKGROUND STARING WITH, LIKE, A ROCKET LAUNCHER DANGLING FROM ONE HAND.

“M-Mr. Rogers, you’re trying to seduce me.”

"Son, don't tase me."

I want fic in which Sam Wilson gets stop-and-frisked while hanging with Steve incognito in NY and Steve LOSES HIS MIND at the cops. Followed by a viral video of Steve getting tasered and shouting about racial profiling, Constitutional rights, and freedom in between zaps.

The Black Sails/Harry Potter AU no one asked for

In honor of my girlfriend discovering that Toby Stephens is the son of Dame Maggie Smith, I want James Flint, prefect of Ravenclaw. He started going by Flint because he didn’t want people to know that his mum teaches at the school; McGonagall would be more offended if it didn’t help her avoid accusations of favoritism.

As prefect, Flint is the worst. The absolute worst. No one gets away with anything. That is, until a curly-haired 11-year-old named Sol–”John!” the lad interrupts brightly, “John Silver!”–starts his first year and, in one afternoon, manages to reroute one of the moving staircases out a window, convince Peeves to be his best friend forever, and start a small fire in the Potions dungeon.

Flint would recommend him for expulsion were it not for the way the lad goes uncharacteristically silent whenever anyone mentions going home for the holidays, or the fact that Flint caught Domnhall O’Malley casting a silence spell on the Ravenclaw dormitory just before curfew. “‘E just keeps us up if we don’t,” Domnhall protests grumpily. “What wit’ the screamin’ at night and all.”

Which is how James Flint finds himself standing on Platform 9 and ¾, holding a limp John Silver in his arms. The boy had managed to hold back his tears until they were half the way to London; then his nerve had broken and he’d begged to go back to Hogwarts, sobbed and clutched and pleaded himself insensible and exhausted. Now his swollen eyes and still-wet nose are pressed against James’ neck, as if he can hide there from the world to which they’ve returned.

Flint waits until all the other families have reunited and moved off, braced against the possibility that someone might actually step forward to try and take John from him—try being the operative word, because by Merlin’s beard, he’ll land himself in Azkhaban if they want to have a go.

Eventually, Mum appears. They’ve agreed, with the formality to which their important family discussions are accustomed, to limit their familiarity in front of the students or their families. She takes the floo system separate from the train and collects him after everyone else has already departed.

Now she walks up and gives the sleeping boy in Flint’s arms a pointed, if not entirely surprised, look.

“John’s coming home with us,” James announces with all the calm certainty of a sixteen-year-old boy willing to bluff his way through this if he musts.

Mum’s mouth twitches slightly, but she betrays no other reaction. Stepping aside she says, “Well, come along, then.”

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All of Hozier’s songs are about how he’s a revenant fueled only by the power of a woman. Meanwhile all of Florence’s songs are about being a powerful witch. What I’m saying is, I’m pretty sure Florence Welch summoned Hozier from a peat bog. In this essay I will