I don't know where this came from, but I'm not apologizing.
...
Hydra is order. Order only comes through pain.
The words were so deeply ingrained in his subconscious that he couldn't have said when was the first time he heard them. He knew there was some wisdom in it though, however sick and twisted Hydra had made it.
He remembered the Chair. The Chair hurt him, destroyed his mind beyond anything he could understand. The Chair pulsed his brain with so much power that he could only follow orders afterwards. Nothing else made sense – he didn't try to make sense of anything. He only did as he was told, because he was nothing more than a blank slate that was molded for his handlers' needs.
He didn't tell Steve any of these thoughts. Steve, who had tried to be so understanding thus far, but who only wanted his Bucky back. He didn't feel like that Bucky anymore. He didn't really feel like anyone.
He had nightmares every night – sometimes multiple times per night, if he got to sleep after the first one. He remembered vague flashes the next day that would spring up out of nowhere, like those little toy boxes that kids used to play with that a clown would pop out of after turning the handle on the side. They would leave him breathless and tormented, and he knew that Steve noticed, but he wasn't going to admit to him what he'd done. Steve knew that he'd killed people, but he didn't know about the details. The details he would keep to himself.
He just wanted to stop these feelings of guilt. He knew he deserved it, for what he'd done, but he still didn't like it. That was the point of punishment though, wasn't it? He was supposed to hate it.
But sometimes, when the flashes of memory had him curled in a ball in the shower, with the near boiling water beating down on him, struggling to get air in his lungs, to breathe as black spots danced in his vision…he just wanted to forget it all. He would think of the Chair – not fondly, but somehow longingly. The Chair that would erase all of this, that would bring him order to his mind – order through pain.
After finally coming back to himself, he would feel the guilt sweep over him anew, this time for wishing for Hydra's inflicted pain. Because he knew that with that chair – that would mean that he had lost, that he was with Hydra again, and he wouldn't know who Steve – his best friend – was anymore. And he would never want Steve to be in upset or in trouble. He'd already done him enough damage.
So, in those times that he wished for that pain that would bring order to his head, he reminded himself of what else that pain had accomplished. He forced himself to remember all those names of the people whose lives he'd ended – he forced himself to remember every one. Because he wasn't going to let Hydra win.