Note:This work is heavily influenced by First Vengeance No. 4.
The whole thing was weird right from the get-go. From the moment Dugan, Barnes, and Jones saw the German tank taking down GIs and Jerrys without discrimination to the moment when Dugan realised that no one ever tried to take his bowler hat, the thing had been weird. The uniforms their captors wore were weird; the weapons the prisoners were being forced to build were weird; the food was weird; the fact that it was always cold was weird—not even when they were hauling the equipment around like cattle, sweating like they were in hell itself, did it feel warm in there.
The whole damn thing was weird, but Dugan didn't feel as if it was something he should be doing anything about. He guessed he had just seen too much in his life to really be bothered by machinery that was running on blue light that was piped in from God-knew-where. None of this phased Dugan at all. Maybe a little bit and only for a second. Before this mess with the war, he hadn't even bothered to figure out how run of the mill electricity worked.
As with most things in life, Dugan just rolled with it.
But Dugan knew that Barnes wasn't 'most things', and Dugan couldn't roll with that cough that Barnes had that wasn't going away. Jones couldn't roll with it either. While they were marching what felt like the entire crap-stained boot of Italy, Barnes kept telling them it was a cold and that he was fine. But after they finally got to here—wherever they were—from the battlefields of Azzano, Dugan noticed the sweat on Barnes's face for what it was: fever. Dugan noticed the chills shaking his sergeant day and night; it took Dugan a while to notice this one since it was always so damn cold in the place anyway. He listened to Barnes's cough get wetter and wetter each night and watched him move slower and clumsier while they worked during the day. It was just a little bit harder for Dugan and Jones to wake him up every time he went to sleep.
Out on the shop floor, Dugan watched guys drop like flies. All of them were coughing, too. One day they were there pushing carts of scrap, and the next morning there was one less cough ringing in the Pneumonia Chorus. Barnes was going to be that missing voice any day now, Dugan just knew it. And that thought—the thought that Barnes might be dead in the morning—that was the kind of weird that Dugan couldn't ignore.
Hell, he liked the guy. He was like the kid brother Dugan had never had. Not to mention that the guy had been watching Dugan's back and getting him out of trouble for the past two years. Sarge had taken latrine duty in Dugan's place more than once when they were in camp and Casablanca was showing (that Swedish broad sure was somethin'); he read his books out loud to the boys after enemy contact blew half the fireteam to smithereens just to make 'em all feel half-way normal again.
No doubt about it, Sergeant Barnes was the best damn sergeant in the entire 107th Infantry Division. He made sure everyone had extra socks when winter came—even the guys that weren't in his squad, Barnes took care of 'em like family. He was good people, plain and simple.
The thought of not having him around—it was just weird.
"C'mon, Sarge, up and at 'em," Jones said one day after their work had finally ended. They were lucky: the three of them were on day shift. The cage next door had to work all night in their place; it was even colder and more deadly in the dark with that blue glow the only light to see by.
Sawdust bread and tepid water had just been delivered. Dugan rationed it out while Jones got Barnes upright and slumped against the bars of their cage. The three of them sat close together on the opposite side of the circular cage from the door. If they were in a foxhole out in the field now, the three of them would be fitted like sardines in a can, snorts of laughter and body heat being shared. Now, Barnes hung limp between them, head down.
Dugan put Barnes's portion of bread in the sergeant's hand; it didn't look like he'd be taking it on his own. "Time to eat, Jimmy. Go on."
Barnes coughed on the bread instead of eating it.
"Maybe some water," Jones said.
Dugan wasn't personally worried about picking up whatever ill Barnes had. Better to die with his sergeant anyway.
"S'too hot," Barnes complained, "and m'cold."
"You're a shit patient, Jimmy," Dugan said. "Eat a little and drink. Maybe you'll feel better."
Barnes did as he was told but didn't get any better. They'd been stuffed in that cage for a few weeks and then the Limey and the French guy turned up. By then Barnes spent all of his time coughing, holding his chest, sleeping, or being dizzy. Guy just didn't have the air for talking anymore, for telling them and all the guys in cages next door stories he'd memorised from home. (One night, someone in another cage sang a shaky song that echoed around the chamber, and it was almost the same. Barnes's lips twitched when he heard it.)
Dugan was (scared Barnes would die any minute) grumpy from lack of sleep and proper food, so the brawl with the newcomers was inevitable. The only reason Dugan stopped punching the living daylights outta the Frenchman—it was all the French's fault; none of them would have been in Europe if France could have defended itself—was because Barnes had curled up on himself and started gasping for air.
The Limey had gone for Jones. Dugan saw the shiner around his eye when the two of them crowded around Barnes.
"Easy, man," Jones said. He hitched an arm around Barnes's stomach and turned so that the sergeant rested with his back to Jones's chest. "Breathe, Sarge, just relax. See? Nice and easy. Breathe."
Barnes alternated gasps with wet coughs that tried to curl him up again. Gradually, he calmed down enough to breathe normally again. Normal for Barnes was wheezy and wet-sounding. Dugan watched him shiver and sweat in Jones's arms.
Eyeing the Frenchman and the Limey, Dugan muttered, "It's awfully crowded in here now, huh, Sarge? They're takin' all the air."
"From the looks of him"—the Limey jerked his arrogant chin at Barnes—"there'll be more room soon enough."
Dugan had beat up the Frenchman before. It was the Limey's turn. The cages around them jeered and shouted as they threw punches.
"Stah"—cough—"St-"—cough—"stop. Du"—cough—"Duga"—cough, cough, cough, cough—"Dugan, stop"—cough—"it."
"Dum Dum, you're upsetting him," Jones said over the sounds of Dugan boxing the English bastard.
The fighting stopped though. The night was long. They spent it glaring at one another to the soundtrack of Barnes's failing lungs. The tension didn't stick around in the following days. When Barnes had the air, he asked the new bastards questions about themselves. They were surprisingly patient and waited for him to ask the question through all the coughing instead of trying to finish the question for him. Like Dugan had said, Barnes was good people—makin' nice with new foreigners even on his deathbed (well, death pallet). Dugan noticed the Frenchman take less water one day; everything extra automatically went to Barnes.
They weren't friends though. Dugan knew they were still Americans versus Europeans.
Then the asshole Lohmer beat Barnes within an inch of his life out on the shop floor. Dugan had (screamed) watched in horror as that asshole—that fucking asshole—bent a missile casing by smashing it over Barnes's body. The other guards—what was up with those uniforms they wore anyway?—had to hold Dugan back.
Kanng—right over Barnes's head.
Kanng—over his chest.
Kanng, kanng—the whole thing deformed into the curve of his back.
Jones and Dugan fought off the guards; they both got in a few good punches. And if the Frenchman and the Limey threw in a few punches, Dugan definitely didn't notice. With Barnes strung between them, Dugan and Jones made for the safety of their cage.
He was dead. Dugan was sure Barnes was dead. They laid him down on his wooden pallet and stared. They listened. It was there: the scratchy, wheezy breath.
"Jesus, kid," Dugan said. He put a hand on Barnes's forehead; it was cold and hot at the same time, covered in sweat and blood. "Ya don't know when to quit, do ya?"
Jones said there were likely to be a few broken ribs, some soft tissue damage. Blunt force trauma. Whatever that shit meant; Dugan was from the land of shiners, stingers, and walk-it-offs.
When Jones said this, Dugan understood perfectly: Barnes wouldn't last another shift.
The thought of Barnes not being there (made Dugan's throat tight) was just weird.
Barnes came around a few hours later. The Euro bastards they shared their cell with were back by then, so they got to see the whole thing. Dugan didn't want them to be there. He didn't want these strangers to see his sergeant like this. Weak. Confused. (Whimpering in pain when the coughing pushed his broken ribs around.) Trying his damnedest not to whimper in pain.
Sergeant Barnes wasn't like that. He was from the land of shiners, too. He walked off anything that could be walked off—Dugan had been there when Barnes had walked off a bullet fragment in his calf for two miles. The guy's boot was nearly full with blood when he finally unlaced the thing and let the medic get at him. His reason for not getting the wound taken care of sooner: all the rest of the guys needed to be led back to camp; it was just a fragment and it wasn't a big deal.
Dugan felt his (chest tighten) anger levels rise at the memory. Barnes hadn't even gotten his Purple Heart for that yet.
"S'alright, Jimmy," Dugan said that night—they'd decided to (have a vigil) take watch—while he sat beside Barnes. "We know it hurts bad. S'alright."
"Doh"—cough, wince—"don't th"—cough, cough, wince—"think I'm gonna m-"—cough, cough, cough, wince, wince, wince, wince—"gonna make it."
"Shuddup, ya idiot," Dugan said (thickly). He pushed the bloodied hair off Barnes's forehead. His sergeant shivered.
"D'you"—cough, cough—"think ya cou"—cough, wince, involuntary (whimper) groan—"could d-do somethin'"—cough, wince, cough, wince, cough—"fer-fer me?"
"Whatcha need, Sarge?"
Cough, cough, groan, "I g-got this fr-fr-"—cough, wince, groan, gasp, pause—"got a friend b-back h-h-home." Cough, cough, cough, cough, cough.
Dugan clenched his jaw. "Yer not talkin' about that Rogers kid again, are ya?"
Smile, laugh. Groan. "When ya g-get outta here, c-could you"—cough, wince, cough, cough, groan—"ya find him, an-and tell 'em"—cough—"somethin' scarier th-than"—cough, wince—"pneumonia k-killed me?"
"Pneumonia ain't gonna kill ya, Jimmy," Dugan lied.
"Ju-just in case." Cough.
(Dugan's insides shook within his chest.) Just thinking about doing that was too goddamn weird. It was a good thing Barnes passed out just then, because there was no way Dugan was going to agree to that. No way. Barnes was going to be dead any minute, Dugan knew it. (Why was it so hard to think that? Why did his chest get tight and his throat get thick?)
They—Dugan, Jones, the Frenchman, and the Limey—were gonna do something about this. They had a plan. They weren't friends, dammit, but this had to be done and it was going to take all of them. It was for the good of all the prisoners. It would show them how to fight back. Even here, all of them could still fight the enemy. (This wasn't personal; it wasn't about how Lohmer had pushed Barnes to the edge of his life so fast. It wasn't because Dugan couldn't stand the thought of Barnes being dead, couldn't stand that he could have done something about it and didn't.) It would only take a little sleight of hand and some pyrotechnics to get a little justice. If that meant putting aside Dugan's petty differences with lazy Frenchmen and lackadaisical Limeys, he'd damn well do it. Dugan wasn't about to let HYDRA—whoever the hell they were supposed to be—get away with treating (Barnes) anyone like a slave. Not anymore.
(Barnes was good people, and if anything happened to him on Dugan's watch, he'd never forgive himself.)
Note: This fic was originally posted 2016-12-28 and removed 2017-08-27. This is a re-post with minor edits.