Warnings/Possible Triggers: Psychological trauma, drugs, needles, emotional/psychological abuse, psychotropic drugs, mentions of war, mentions of torture, flashbacks.


Cenotaph

The shrill demented choirs of wailing shells;

And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?

Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes

Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.

- Wilfred Owen

I. This, the ecstasy of delusion?

The walls in his cell are too close for comfort. They always have been. The white padding inside only ever bounces back when he punches it. Most days the orange jumpsuit hurts his eyes and makes his brain scream. His brain fucking screams.

He doesn't sleep, he passes out from exhaustion. The thing about sleep is that it is a choice, and he never has that choice. The mission never had that choice. There was no sleeping on missions, so there is no sleeping now. There has always been exhaustion though, and that is when he passes out; usually after three or four days of his brain satanically screaming at him like there are literal demons crawling out of hell and shrieking into his ears.

He's asked them to put him back on ice many times, but they always refuse. It would be preferable to be unconscious, but he hardly ever is. They won't let him. This is their punishment. Their punishment for him. After all the bad stuff he's done, after everything. He spent years avoiding the ice, but now he just knows it as relief.

Memories accumulate over time. The longer he is awake, the more memories flood into his screaming brain and sometimes, the overwhelming amount makes the scream in his brain come out of his mouth. He tries to stay silent, because he remembers being punished for screaming, but it's hard most days because he knows that if he screams too much, they'll come and put him under. They inject something into him and he is allowed the relief of unconsciousness. It is a god damn blessing.

The screaming isn't as loud when he talks to people, though there are only three people he is allowed to talk to and only one of them visits regularly; Steve Rogers, the man on the bridge, alias: Captain America, member of the Howling Commandos, James Buchanan Barnes' best friend.

'Bucky' is what Steve calls him. Steve is lucky he responds because he doesn't remember that name, or he didn't until Steve told him that the name belonged to him. His name was Soldat, or Asset.

For Steve, Bucky Barnes is living a lie. Steve asks him the same question: "How're you doing today, Buck?" And he answers: "I'm good, Steve."

But of course, the screaming never truly stops and the white noise only ever gets louder once Steve has left.

Some days, Steve smiles, but some days he frowns and cries and fiddles with his wrist watch like he wants to leave and never come back. Bucky can hardly blame him. But he thinks it would be lonely without Steve's visits.

"Are you leaving, Steve?" He asks on one such day.

Steve's been thumbing the face of his watch for the past twenty minutes. Bucky knows he doesn't want to be here anymore. Steve hates it here with him.

He jerks, dropping his hands as his eyebrows jump.

"N-no, Buck, no. I'm not leaving." He avers earnestly, his expression falling to one of guilt.

"You should go." He nods. "You should leave."

"No, I'm not going." He hears stubbornly from the other side of the unbreakable glass.

"You don't want to be here." He says turning away.

There's an empty space. And Bucky loses it.

"YOU DON'T WANT TO BE HERE!" He screams, charging up to the glass, slamming his fists down until he can feel the whirring of metal and the crunch of his own bone. It doesn't deter him though, the breaking of his knuckles. His eyes are glued to Steve and his expression of horror as he reaches for the red help button under the desk. Bucky isn't supposed to know it's there but he does.

Eight burly men in reinforced suits enter his room and grab him. He tries fighting back, but it's doing him no good. He feels it when the needle is jammed into the back of his neck. Fuck. He doesn't want to go out this time. He doesn't want the screaming to end. He just wants to scream at Steve. Scream and scream and scream until he can't scream or even speak anymore.

But he goes out.

And when he wakes, he's on the bed. He sits. Levering himself into an upright position. There's nothing holding him down but his body feels like a lead weight.

Steve is gone. There's no one on the other side of the glass, and he can not help the sigh that escapes his mouth.

"Figures," he spits, lowering his head back down onto the pillow and swinging his feet up again. "Just figures."

There's an unusual quiet in his mind that fascinates him. A quiet he's not known in a long time.

It's nice. Peaceful.

He's unsure how long it lasts, but he doesn't move until the dinner tray slides through the hatch in the door.

He blinks at it a few times before finally deciding he is hungry enough to eat the mashed pumpkin and cabbage they've served. If he doesn't eat it, he thinks they might knock him out again and feed him through a tube like they did that one other time. Like H.Y.D.R.A. did. Unpleasant experience. This is S.H.I.E.L.D., they're like H.Y.D.R.A. but they're not. He's not sure really, it confuses him. They don't wipe him here. But somehow, this still feels like some form of torture.

He sits on the floor and eats his meal before hitting the small blue button and sending his empty tray back through. Out the corner of his eye he notices an object which has fallen from its place.

He picks up the photo that has fallen onto the floor from his shelf and returns it. His room is mostly barren but they let him keep a few things, books, a card game, some photos that Steve has gifted to him…

Will Steve come back? He wonders. He wants Steve to come back. Who will talk to him if Steve doesn't? No one. No one will talk to him. He is bad. He is a bad person and he killed a lot of good people. He's so bad. Steve doesn't want to talk to him. Steve never wanted to, he just visited because he was too nice, but now Bucky's given him a reason not to come back and that makes his chest hurt. He can never be Steve's Bucky and he may have inadvertently proved that to Steve. Steve only came out of some lingering sense of duty to his old friend, James Buchanan Barnes, but that man is gone and Bucky can never be that man. He thinks perhaps Steve knows this.

The lights go out unexpectedly. That means it is sleeping time. But he never sleeps.

He crawls into his bed and waits for the man to check he is in his bed. Bucky is not allowed to be out of bed once lights are out, but he cannot sleep so he just lies there and thinks about things. Steve, mostly, as Steve is the most exciting thing that ever happens to him in this place. He expects they will leave him here until he dies. He will wither away because that is what he deserves. A man once said to him that he deserved to be locked away forever, until maggots crawled out of his hollow bones. He believes that man. That man was right. He deserves much worse than that.

He remembers the sensation of electricity wiping his brain and the feeling of water being poured over his face until he could no longer breathe. It felt like drowning, but he never died. They just did it over and over and over again, until he could not judge how much time had passed or how long he'd been awake for. That is what he deserves.

He used to get whipped, he remembers that. He was whipped a lot, but the wounds healed in two or so days. Sometimes he wonders if it ever happened, because there are no wounds on his back, so how can he prove it was real? But he remembers the pain. He trusts the pain. Pain is the only thing he is sure about. If he knows only two things it's that a man can be killed with a bullet to his head, and pain can make him forget his own name.

He thinks about the electricity and the chair until his hands shake. He folds them under his arm pits and tries to stop them from trembling. He is unsuccessful and he pushes himself into a sitting position with his back against the wall.

There is quiet all around him, but his head is screaming again. Why must it scream again.

In the morning, the lights come up and they make him squint. He has not slept a wink, but it is what he expected. Sleep is for those who have choices, not him.

The breakfast tray comes in fifteen minutes later and he eats the toast and sends it back.

Two hours later, the redhead comes to see him. She stands behind the glass and eyes him with her piercing stare.

"I heard you yelled at Steve." She says, sitting down on the chair, crossing her legs.

He grimaces.

"Yes." He admits. He'd rather not talk about it, but he's not in charge. He's never in charge. He is Soldat. He follows orders, he doesn't give them.

"Why?" She asks.

He shrugs.

"Don't know." He replies.

She raises one impertinent eyebrow before she stands and makes her way for the door.

"You've been authorised a psychiatrist. He'll be coming to see you." She says on her way out.

He never gets to ask her if Steve is coming back.

The psychiatrist is an old man with white hair and a balding crown. His voice is needling and he makes the white noise louder inside Bucky's brain. It hurts to think when this man is around and he paces constantly, anxiety crawling it's way up his spine.

The psychiatrist doesn't like him either. He prescribes Bucky some pills, that is basically all he does. He says he'll be back but Bucky would rather this be the last he sees of this whiny-voiced man.

They put the pills on Bucky's tray and he takes them with his dinner.

He immediately regrets it.

They make him feel sick. Nauseous. He's pretty sure they notice. He knows there are people watching him. There are always people watching him, it is a familiar feeling.

He curls up on his bed and clutches his stomach. The walls around him change shape and colour, his whole room twists into something he can no longer recognise, he sees things he doesn't want to hear. He hears gunfire, the sound of shelling in the distance… He can feel the mud on his feet, the frost bite on his hands. The screaming that had once been only in his head now comes out of the mouths of the dying men all around him. He rushes to their sides, but each time, they die of their injuries before he can do anything of any real value. He clasps their hands tightly, promises them he'll tell their mothers, sisters, girlfriends, that he died honourably, died a hero. He promises them that God is waiting for them, that where they're going, they won't feel any pain. Some of them smile at him with real, genuine hope and it makes him feel like a pathetic liar. He doesn't know if there's a god up there or not, and if there is, why won't he save them from this hell?

"Sargent," coughs one, blood splattering out of his mouth and all over the front of Bucky's uniform. This kid is no older than eighteen. "Sargent, please, I… I can't feel my legs."

Bucky doesn't look down. He knows this kid doesn't have those limbs anymore. If he looks down, he knows he'll be sick, he knows what he'll find.

"You're okay, you're okay Billy," he grasps the hand in his tighter. "We're gonna get you fixed up real good, I promise. You're gonna be right as rain, I promise."

"My Ma," says the kid. "Tell her…"

The blood comes up again and dribbles down the side of his mouth, it falls into the mud and makes a pool.

"What, Billy?" He asks, tears pricking in his eyes.

Billy doesn't say anything. Bucky just feels the hand in his lose all life.

"Billy?" He pulls back. He knows what he's gonna find and he's already sobbing. "B-Billy?"

Billy's blue eyes are wide open, but they don't hold any life any more. There's nothing left of the eighteen year old, the kid with his whole life ahead of him. He's a half blown apart corpse now, his guts splayed all through the mud where the shell went off.

Bucky sits up in his bed screaming.

It's the middle of the night, but fucking hell he can't! He can't be quiet! There are people dying there are people dying there are people dying and he can't stop it!

The lights come on in his room and eight men come in.

The screams just get louder.

They grab him, the needle is procured.

No, no more drugs! No more pills! He doesn't want this! He doesn't want this! HE DOESN'T WANT THIS!

He knocks the needle out of the man's hand. He writhes and he screams.

"STEVE! STEVE HELP ME PLEASE!" He's screaming and crying and trying to fight his way out. If these men were unequipped from these metal suits, he'd be able to take them easily. But that's not in his luck. "STEVE!" He continues to shout, lashing out with his foot and striking one of the men in his faceplate. "HELP ME PLEASE, STEVE!" He's wailing and his broken vocal chords hurt and he's coughing and screaming and sobbing and shrieking and bawling.

He feels it the second the needle goes in. He collapses moments later.

The room fades into nothing…

He wakes in the early hours of the morning. The lights aren't up yet. There's quiet.

His brain hurts, but the screaming is a quiet yell for now.

He's on the bed again. They always leave him on the bed, never on the floor.

He curls into himself and sobs.

Steve didn't come. Steve isn't here. Why did he think he could trust Steve? He can't trust anyone; he can't trust, he dangerous. They don't come for him. No one comes for him.

"I'm scared…" he says to the darkness. The darkness doesn't reply. It is as quiet as it always has been. "Steve…" he cries.

He knows he is more Bucky than Soldat these days, but he wishes he could've simply stayed as the Soldier. He wouldn't have to think or feel or remember. He could just do. That was his purpose.

When the lights come up and breakfast comes through, he knows some thing's up.

There's porridge on his tray, but they serve porridge on Thursdays and it is only Wednesday.

He gives it a whiff and dips a finger in experimentally. He licks his forefinger and immediately realises they've laced his food with the psychiatric drugs his doc prescribed. He pushes the tray away, sending it back through the hole in the wall.

It comes back, two seconds later.

He sends it through.

It comes back.

He leaves it.

Breakfast is still there when lunch comes through. They've laced the pumpkin soup too. These people realise he can go without food for weeks, right?

Steve doesn't visit him that day. Bucky withers a little inside, guilt resurfacing.

Dinner appears, pushing lunch out the way. He tests it out. It tastes drug free.

He sends lunch and breakfast back through and neither of them return.

He eats dinner. Pasta with pesto. It's yummy. Once consumed, it too goes back through the hole in the wall.

Lights go out.

Silence fills the space, but the screaming inside his brain only feels louder when there is quiet all around him.

The next day, both Redhead and Dr. Whiny-Voice-Ugly-Face visit him.

"You're not eating, I hear." Says the psychiatrist.

He shrugs.

"Not hungry." He says.

They both know what's going on here. But neither directly mentions it. The façade stays in place another day.

"When can I see Steve?" He asks.

"When you eat your meals and take your meds," says the doc. "Then perhaps your friend will visit you."

He doesn't have much more luck with the redhead.

"Steve?" She says after he's prompted the question. "You yelled at him."

Yes, he knows. Is he not allowed to apologise in person?

"I don't know when he plans to visit you next."

Bucky doesn't answer any of her other questions regarding HYDRA activities. He doesn't remember all that much anyway. He's told her everything he knows. They just think he must know more. They always think he knows more. They're wrong. He just wants to see Steve.

The week ends and Steve doesn't appear.

A feeling, or perhaps better described, a non-feeling appears in his chest. It spreads like a cancer until all his limbs feel heavy. He hasn't slept in seventy hours. He collapses on his bed.

He feels fortunate that he doesn't dream. He'd rather never dream, not if dreams are like taking meds. It scares him. They don't know how much it scares him. They've injected him with meds twice now. Both times he felt unable to control the situation around him. He felt like he was relieving the worst parts of his life.

He buries his face in the pillow. He's so scared. They'll come back, he knows they will. They'll drug him again and he doesn't want that. The drugs bring back memories he'd rather not have.

All is quiet until morning.

He eats the food. Toast. But the morning goes from quiet to hellish in less than half an hour.

They hold him against the wall and he can feel the injection go straight into the nape of his neck. He yells. The needle they use is fucking huge. It hurts. There's more than just the drugs his doctor prescribed in that thing, there's a sedative too. He's sure of it, because the injection makes him lose all control of his muscles. It's not powerful enough to knock him unconscious, but it is strong enough that he cannot fight them. It's a curse, really. Because he still lives through the agony of the resurfacing of his memories.

He's falling this time. He falls straight into a chair. Where the hell is this?

There's something in his mouth, he wants to spit it out but he doesn't. He thinks there's a reason not to. His hands are bound by metal cuffs on the chair. Something closes around his head. He remembers this.

Pure panic and terror overwhelms him. His brain is screaming at him, it's telling him to fight back. He struggles in the chair. He twists and writhes desperately. The fire is scorching behind his eyeballs, killing every cell in his brain. He's screaming. He can't help but scream. It hurts so much.

He remembers why they fed him through a tube— the contents of his stomach rise and he chokes on the vomit that comes out. He coughs it up, but his breakfast spews over the side of the chair.

He can feel cold hands on him, medical hands. He starts to shiver all over, like someone left him in minus twenty degrees celsius weather without clothes. He knows, with weirdly distant knowledge, that he's having a seizure. The way his body is spasming.

But the chair does that. It melts his brain until it short circuits and resets. He remembers. Of course he remembers now, when he's about to lose his memory. Figures.

The medication wears off eventually. He is surprised to find himself, not in his room, but in the medical bay.

He's strapped to the table.

His heart flies into his throat. He screams. He's halfway to having a panic attack when someone knocks him out with a very powerful aesthetic.

He wakes up in his room this time. Redhead is there with him, watching him through the glass. She watches with a certain detachment, like she can't get emotionally close to him or something bad will happen.

He swings his feet off the bed and sits up, approaching the glass with more hesitance than usual.

"How are you doing?" She asks. He detects a hint of sympathy in her tone.

He rubs the nape of his neck and shakes his shaggy mane of hair.

"Feel like I got hit by a bus," he admits. "And by a train, at the same time."

"I'm sorry." She apologises.

He gives her an incredulous stare.

"Why?" He asks.

She looks away with guilt, her bob of flame hair shielding her eyes.

"It pains me to admit this to you but, it was our fault you had a seizure. I'm sorry."

A bitter laugh escapes him. This time, she's the one giving an incredulous stare. Honestly, he hadn't realised that had happened. He thought it was the meds.

"Your apology is accepted." He says simply. He's had a lot worse done to him, but he knows she knows this.

She gives himself stiff, jerky nod and hesitates just long enough in her departure for him to say,

"When is Steve coming back?"

She doesn't answer him for a moment and his stomach sinks into his gut.

"I don't know." She replies quietly. Then, she's gone, out the door.

The following week passes quietly. They don't make him take any drugs and they don't burst into his room once. Peace settles in, though the white noise remains a constant haze and it gets heavy sometimes. He eats, reads, passes out at least twice. Overall, it's a nice week, with the exception of the notable absence of a certain Steve Rogers.

However, he knows the good times are over when his psychiatrist shows up the following Monday.

He doesn't say a word. Doesn't reply to any question he is asked, he simply sits and watches the man, plotting one-hundred-and-one-ways to kill him with just the objects in his room.

When he leaves, Bucky is, for lack of a better word, overjoyed. But he knows what's coming. He wants out and fuck them all, he's getting out.


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