"What'd you do, get hit by a semi?" The doc's face is creased and shadowed in the harsh lighting, his voice raspy. He reeks of cigarettes.
"Something like that." The man called the Winter Soldier stares at the wall. He doesn't want to trust this doctor, but he has little choice. He lists his assets. Three knives lining his belt, one more in his boot; a garrotte wound around the metal wrist. Himself and his training. He's not vulnerable, he can kill this man before he thinks of pulling anything. This is fact.
It's a back-alley clinic, in a seedy basement in the bad part of town. The air is cold and damp, and mold streaks the walls; but the tray beside the operating table is pristine. The tools gleam under the overhead light. He tries to suppress the shivering, but the adrenaline is wearing off, and shock is setting in.
He submits to the examination without a word. The doc cuts through the sleeves and collar of the uniform, weaving the scissors around the armor plates. He peels it off in pieces, and raises an eyebrow at the join of metal arm to shoulder. "Thought that was body armor. Guess not, eh?" The Winter Soldier says nothing. He paid the doctor for his silence. Time will tell if it was a worthwhile investment.
The smell of his own sweat and blood is thick in his nose, lingering beneath the muddy fetor of the river and the stench of battle-rage and fear. The doc holds his bum arm, his hands firm and impersonal. It's swollen; the elbow is uneven. Dislocated, the Winter Soldier thinks idly. The doc gives him an exasperated glare, then steps beyond the pool of light. He returns dragging a portable x-ray machine. He maneuvers it in silence, sucking on his teeth and arranging his patient's limbs and torso with a distance that wouldn't be out of place on a butcher hauling sides of beef. He sets the exposures without any protective gear, piling his apron and the extra lead pads over the metal arm instead. He lights up a cigarette as he processes the shots.
"Christ. Let's see, you've got torn ligaments in your knee, shoulder and elbow, which is dislocated; a Hume fracture to the ulna, three cracked ribs, myriad contusions roughly the size and shape of fists, more contusions of varied and unknown provenance, a mild concussion, Potomac water in the sinuses, and a bitch of a metal arm." He shoots him a jaundiced look from beneath wild eyebrows. "If S.H.I.E.L.D. agents crash the party I'm sending you the bill."
"They won't." This, too, is fact. No one's calling the shots. No one's left. They would have found him already. If there was one HYDRA agent left, they would have pinged the tracker in the arm and taken him in.
He's free. He doesn't know how to feel about that.
"Spectacular." The doc holds up a syringe. It's an old-fashioned one, glass and metal. It catches the light and gleams in his eyes. The Winter Soldier shudders; countless other needles sink into his flesh, dispensing pain and senselessness and oblivion.
"No." The metal arm bats it away; glass fractures against concrete, and the memories pop like bubbles. The man is watching the arm warily.
"O… kay," he says. "It's gonna hurt without it."
Pain is nothing new. "Do it."
"I'm gonna have to reattach those ligaments, kid. That means knives and blood."
"Whatever." He won't lose himself again. The leather straps on the table are worn and stained. The doc's done this before; it'll be quick. Screams won't unnerve him.
And the Winter Soldier will scream. He always screams. He takes a strap from his shredded uniform and bites down on it. It tastes of GSR and foul water.
"'Whatever'. Right. Hold onto your nuts, 'cause here we go."
He twists his hands; the elbow gives a sickening pop. The Winter Soldier grunts, then sighs into the flooding relief. It's minor; his elbow still throbs in time with the ache in his skull. The sharp, medicinal stink of Betadyne wafts over him as the doc disinfects the operating site.
The scalpel falls and blood rises.
The doctor works easily, unruffled despite his patient's cursing and shouting. The straps keep the Winter Soldier steady. He hates them, hates the man tormenting him, but there's nothing he can do. He is powerless. The pain surges; tears run down his temples and into his hair. It's almost comforting, almost familiar. The Winter Soldier squeezes his eyes shut against it, but still his face appears.
I'm not gonna fight you.
He sobs.
"One down," the doc says, knotting suture and packing gauze with the speed of experience. The cigarette butt dangles half-forgotten from his lips. "No offense, kid, but I've seen twelve year old girls take pain better than you."
He doesn't hear him. He hears gunfire and the ring of metal against metal.
You're my friend.
I'm with you to the end of the line.
Bucky? Is that you?
ooOoo
END
A/N: What am I supposed to do, with an ending like that? All I could think, watching WS go off into the bushes, was, "There's no way he's going to an ER with that arm." Cue fic.