"Do you, James Buchanan Barnes, plead guilty to the charges of three counts of attempted murder, ten counts of assault on an officer of the law, seventeen counts of possession of illegal weapons, one count of possession of an unregistered firearm, twenty six counts of destruction of public property, and three counts of identity theft?"
The soldier sat in the courtroom, his hands and feet cuffed together. He was alone on the bench – the defense had rested long ago, but the prosecution had continued. Reporters clicked their cameras and he could hear them murmuring on their phones, relaying the damning evidence in real time. Knowing the speed of modern-day information, it would be everywhere is less than an hour.
The soldier was finished – he was finished. "You shaped this century," Pierce had told him, and now that he was dead, all that the man formerly known as James "Bucky" Barnes was going to be was the shape on a mattress in a jail cell.
They'd take his arm. Use him for an experiment. Put plastic in his mouth and lie him down between two electrodes to see how much the body of one of the worlds' deadliest assassins could take.
His chest felt tight. He knew the judge was still listing off charges, countless crimes that he'd committed.
He opened his mouth, took a breath. "It wasn't me. It was the Soldier. I knew him. He was my best friend. I'm alive because of Steve Rogers."
Nobody even looked his way. Why wasn't anyone listening? He used to have power, and his word used to be the law. There was a dull thumping sound and it only increased in speed, getting louder every second.
His own heart was betraying him. It felt like a heart attack, something that had been described to him when he first joined the corps. There was a metal vice around his chest and he reached up, desperate to pull it away so he could get some air. Everything was becoming blurry, but still no one turned.
"Move out of the way!" A woman's voice cut through the panic. Hands touched the side of his head, the gentlest touch he'd ever felt from a fellow assassin – or from anyone. "You're not dying, Bucky. This is a panic attack."
"Nata-" He choked out. She couldn't be here. He remembered her being explicitly banned from the proceedings.
"We're getting you help." The familiar red, white, and blue appeared on his other side and they helped him out of his seat, turning their backs on the judge.
He knew mustn't smell the best; like metal and old blood, sweat and gun oil. The fingernails on his right hand were black with dirt. He felt more than heard Natasha laugh on his left side.
"Let's get you clean then, soldat."
Three hours later, he was. She'd worked every tangle out of his hair with precision and left him alone with some clean clothes.
It would get better, he told himself as he lay back on a chair that wasn't armed with electrodes.
And it did.