Thudding footsteps sound quickly and Zemo leads a dark figure into the room.
Steve can't see who it is from his angle. He's hoping it's Thor, but when the newcomer makes a growling noise after entering the room— and he hears a scuffle, even his drugged up brain knows that it isn't their ally from Asgard.
The knife slices against Steve's throat and he cries out.
The figure stops fighting. Steve feels the blood run down into his uniform and grow cold.
"Make a move and I'll do that to a vein that can't heal like this can." Beck threatens.
Steve's eyes are clenched tight when he hears the voice call his name.
"Steve?"
He can't comprehend the sound of his name from a voice so familiar. The voice calls again, sounding desperate and on edge, "Steve? Are you okay?"
"Go on, let him see you." Zemo taunts.
Steve hears footfalls and suddenly he sees him.
A choked sob escapes Steve's lips and he must look awful because the visceral reaction from Bucky is apparent. He looks about to lunge at their captors and tear them to pieces when the knife presses deeper into Steve's neck, making him gasp. Bucky freezes and his eyes look at the cut, the machine, and then the others around the room. He clenches his metal fist, his voice like flint.
"What is going on here?"
"Like I was trying to explain upstairs, Mr. Barnes, if you'll just follow instructions then we can get started." Zemo says casually, walking over to Bruce and nudging him with his foot. Bruce groans but doesn't move.
"Mr. Barnes, if you would please." He gestures to the spot next to Bruce. Bucky doesn't move and Beck sighs in impatience. He runs the knife vertically down Steve's neck, cutting into the top of his uniform, glancing at his collarbone, drawing more blood. Bucky lurches forward and sits down where he's directed, out of Steve's eyesight.
"This might be a bit strong for your version of the serum, however we were not expecting your arrival so soon, so you'll have to make do." Zemo says jovially, hooking the IV into the crook of Bucky's flesh arm. After letting it sink in, he shackles Bucky's feet and hands. He pulls the fifth set of wires off the machine and attaches them.
"Should I—?" Beck asks Zemo, waving at Steve.
"Might as well begin, we can skip further ahead of need be."
Beck nods and disappears. It's minutes before he returns and he's rolling in a cart with another machine on it. He's standing next to Steve's IV. He feels his head get lighter.
Tony gasps. "Why do you have that? How did you get that."
His tone frightens Steve and the others look at him in confusion as well.
"Tony?" Clint queries, "what is it?"
"It's Bruce's from… back in the day."
The tone in his voice sends shivers down Steve's spine.
"Yes, Tony." Beck sighs. "You really should keep this stuff under a better lock and key."
"Why did you even keep that, Tony!" Natasha hisses.
"It's part of history!" Tony bites back, "and I'm not the psycho villain trying to use it on someone!"
"Use it?" Clint asks, "use it how? He can't— we can't turn into—" he glances at Bruce and the blood is draining from his face.
"No, you idiot." Beck hisses.
"You think we want more monsters like him?" Zemo growls. "No."
"I don't understand." Steve breathes. "I can't— Everything is… fuzzy?"
"Yes, we upped your dosage for this next segment, we need to make sure you follow through. Don't want Tony giving you any ideas."
It doesn't make sense to him. Follow through with what? What had Tony been saying before Beck came in? He can frame something?
Beck inserts a large needle into his other arm, and his blood begins to flow into the new machine. Another needle and he can feel something being pushed into his body. He feels equipment being attached to his fingers and wrists, around his neck and another attachment over his forehead.
"How can you treat another human being this way?" Natasha shouts, her voice thin.
"He's not a human being, he's a lab rat. No one mourns the experiments." Steve feels his throat constrict at the words and he knows they're said from someone mentally unstable, but they still burn in his chest. Some variation of that said to him more times than he can count.
Tony is shouting, his voice strained. Beck says something else but Steve is starting to feel dizzy from the uptake in drugs.
He can hear Tony and Natasha yelling at Beck but he can't understand what they're saying. He hears Beck and Zemo leave and the door lock shut.
"Bucky?" Steve asks, suddenly afraid for his friend, why? Why is he afraid for Bucky? He tries to shake his head to clear it, but it feels heavy.
"Steve, I'm here." Bucky responds groggily. The drugs are much stronger on him.
He sighs in relief, he's here, he finally found Bucky. Or did Bucky find him? He's not clear on the details.
"How— how're you he-here?" He stutters over a thick tongue.
"Tracking Hydra," he says back. "Heard your capture. Followed trail." Bucky's eyes flutter close for a bit, and Steve just tries to process it before he hears Tony sigh.
"So it wasn't Thor that led him here. That's not promising." Tony sighs, his head falling back against the concrete.
"Alright!" A voice crackles over the loudspeaker. "Let's begin! Due to your reactions, we're going to focus a bit more on the mentally taxing things before heading towards the 'big finale!' And don't be afraid to really feel it. This is an experiment after all, we want accurate results!" The disjointed voice of Beck is sickeningly cheery.
He hears Clint groan and he can't help but feel a similar sense of unease.
—-
To Steve's surprise it doesn't go straight back into his missions with the commandos, they are skipping around in time now.
He's in lab after lab. They're drawing blood samples, poking him, testing him, day after day, week after week, trying to recreate the serum, and he can't say no, or he loses his chance to go overseas.
His unease grows as he's standing waiting for the never ending line of audience members to die down.
He doesn't mind the kids and their sticky hands, or the veterans who shake his hand firmly, it's the women. They shove their kid in his hands and then wrap their arms around him, their fingers always searching and grabbing. His hands are occupied and he knows he can't shove them away. The single girls always try to get a kiss from Captain America and he tries to laugh it off.
More than one of the USO girls find their way into his hotel room. He's polite and kind to them and they're used to brutes, so they throw themselves at him, but he doesn't know what to do or say or how to reject them.
He wakes up to find hands resting on his bare chest, his shirt having been lifted up and big eyes and lips too close for comfort. He pushes himself up, half asleep and the girl giggles. He blearily tries to ask what's going on, but she just grabs at his chest and starts to kiss him.
He shoves her away as gently as he can and runs out of the room.
He stands gasping in the bathroom, his mind on the man from the bar trying to take advantage of him, the girl's hands grabbing him a way too familiar feeling.
He thinks that will be the end of it, but a few of the girls seem to think it's cute that he's shy. They seem to make a game out of it: touching him when he walks past them on stage, hands grazing him in the mess hall, he finds them in his bed when he walks in, or wakes up to them trying to remove his clothing. He keeps politely asking them to stop, and they taunt and tease him, thinking it a fun game.
He complains to the higher ups who laugh in his face and tell him "that's not a problem, enjoy it."
In Europe, and everywhere else they tour, it gets worse since he no longer has a locked door, just a tent. He keeps finding their undergarments in his bed, under his pillow, in his rucksack and boots, on his shield straps. He hates it. The girls now make it an almost nightly game to get him to their tent or slip into his. He almost can't sleep because he doesn't know what he'll wake up to. He starts sleeping in full uniform because it gives him a longer time to wake up before they can undress him.
After a while the more bitter USO girls start spreading rumors that Captain America doesn't like girls. As much as it makes him annoyed, he doesn't address the rumors because the advances stop.
He lets his guard down.
He's asleep when he feels hands tugging at his pants. He starts awake and sees his buckle already undone, he looks up and sees a higher up officer from the regiment kneeling on his bed over him, the man's hands touching and grabbing at Steve's bare hips as he is pulling his pants lower. He barely thinks before shoving the man full force. The man goes flying out of his tent slamming onto the hard packed earth and fleeing. Steve vomits over the side of his bed, shaking, choking, and gasping as the wild adrenaline and fear wears him to exhaustion, he can't fall asleep the rest of the night. The USO moves on, but at each new site, Steve finds somewhere new to sleep: the infirmary, a high up tree branch, out under the stars if it's warm enough, anywhere but where someone might find him alone.
Steve recoils from most touch at this point. And it isn't until he's hauling Bucky off the table in Azzano that he remembers what it feels like to physically trust another person.
He remembers Bucky's confusion about Steve asking if they can share a tent.
"Steve, you have your own tent, it's huge! You're famous, and you want to slum it with me?"
Steve laughs, trying to keep his tone light. "Buck, I have to make sure you don't get yourself in any more trouble. And we can share mine, you can have a much larger cot if you share with me." He tries to appear nonchalant but the machine is sharing his feelings with his teammates. The actual desperation in Steve is suffocating.
"Sure Steve, but hey I get your bed. Captain's always get better pillows."
"Whatever you want, Buck." The too-quick response causes Bucky to look at him again, a bit of confusion in his eyes, but Steve just laughs and leads him to their new tent.
It's two nights later when Steve is woken up by Bucky shouting.
"What the hell, man. This isn't your tent, get out of here!"
Steve's heart rate and adrenaline skyrocket and he watches as Bucky shoves someone out of their tent.
"What happened?" Steve asks, trying to sound half-asleep.
"Some idiot private, probably drunk off his head, came in here and sat on my bed, I woke up to him touching my face, and I yelled at him to get out." Steve searches Bucky's expression looking for anger at him but he just looks sleepy and annoyed.
"I'm sorry, Buck, I'm so sorry—" The humiliation is rising and he is terrified of having to explain why the man had come.
"What are you apologizing for?" Bucky asks, confused. "You didn't make that guy a lightweight. Honestly, if you can't hold your liquor then why drink it?" He laughs and lays back down and Steve hears him drop off to sleep, but he doesn't. The guilt and shame of using his friend as a barrier is drowning him.
Bucky makes a vicious guttural noise and Steve knows he hasn't explained this to him before. How was he supposed to do that, when that would mean going all the way back to the man at the bar, he couldn't do that…
The scene shifts.
Memory Steve is kneeling, blood covering the left half of his face, three bullet wounds in his chest and a knife sticking out of his right calf. They've broken both his arms and wrists, they hang limply at his sides. The concussion makes it hard to think or see clearly. Hydra had gotten the jump on him and Bucky.
Someone grabs his chin and fingers claw his teeth apart.
"Let's see how many inspirational speeches you can make without your tongue, Captain."
He hears Bucky shouting for them to let him go, but he can't think of anything but the searing pain as he feels his tongue being sliced, they've almost removed the whole tongue when the guard drops to the floor and Steve falls forward, unable to catch himself, tumbling to the ground, his mouth full of blood that he can't swallow or spit out. He starts to choke.
"Jim! Jim, get over here!"
The commandos are howling and taking out the last of the guards, but Jim kneels at his side.
"I don't think you can—"
"The serum can!" Bucky says desperately, "he just needs time!"
"Sargeant…"
"Jim, I swear, if he loses his tong—"
"Okay, clean out his mouth. You're going to have to hold it steady there the whole time."
He can't process what Jim means but suddenly his head is being held sideways and water is being poured into his mouth and over his face.
He sputters but feels fingers in between his teeth.
"Sorry Steve, gotta keep your mouth open. Don't choke and don't bite my fingers off okay?" Bucky says shakily, trying to keep a light-hearted tone.
Jim appears in front of him with a needle and a thread.
"Hold still, Steve. Just hold still."
He thrashes as Jim tries to tie the first stitch and it takes all five remaining commandos, with Dugan lying on top of him, holding him down, for Jim to stitch the ¾ of his tongue that was hanging loosely. After that they have to rebreather and set his arms and wrists as they healed wrong and too quickly. The mind flaying pain crystal clear once again.
They tied Steve's arms to his sides and patched up the bullet and knife wounds. Bucky rides next to him in the wagon, his fingers holding Steve's tongue, applying pressure so that it heals straight. They drive as slowly as they can manage. The truck jostles and the pain makes him accidentally bite down on Bucky's fingers. They bleed profusely, but Bucky just switches hands and even in the haze of a concussion Steve vows to not let it happen again.
More missions, more pain, and more scenes of Steve being treated like a lab rat flash past. It seems there's a never ending supply of painful things that happened to him. He can feel the toll of it being taken on his teammates. Their heart rates erratic and breathing thinning out. Already this is the longest session, he's been in the chair for over 13 hours.
"Okay!" Chirps Beck's voice over the loudspeaker. "I think we're almost to the breaking point! And hey, what better way to watch the final emotional episodes than with the two stars." The voice clicks off and the memories resurface.
The snow in the memory swirls around and Steve's stomach drops.
"Steve?"
Bucky, in his memory, calls out and his attention is diverted.
The train flies around the corner and the blast throws Steve over. His shield falling out of his hands.
It's in slow motion as he watches Bucky get blasted back and through the hole in the side.
He's reaching straining and Bucky is reaching for him too. He can see the fear in his friends eyes and he shifts further, he's going to grab his hand and haul him up. He leans forward, the tips of his gloves brushing Bucky's, when the train rounds a corner and the force tears the metal free.
Bucky falls, screaming and a wave of mind numbing, vision-blacking despair rolls through Steve's body.
He almost jumps out, he almost jumps after him, but Gabe is hauling him to his feet forcing him up the ladder. He can't see, feel, or breathe.
They're searching the ravine. They're searching for his body or pieces of his body.
The commandos are dressed warmly and with thick coats and gloves but he's barefoot and bare handed because he wants to be able to feel anything below the snow. He doesn't want gloves or boots masking his nerves.
They search for hours, combing every inch in a 10 mile radius from where he fell. His fingers are frostbitten, but he doesn't care. It will probably heal. And what does it matter if it doesn't?
Falsworth mentions that Bucky might have landed in and been carried away by the river. The commandos look at Steve, waiting for his instruction. They're freezing and probably need to go warm up.
"You guys get back to camp, warm up. I'll meet you there."
He steps to the river and grits his teeth. It doesn't matter how much he hates being immersed in water, he's going to do this. He ignores his commandos' shouts of protest as he walks slowly into the ice river. It drags him and he's waist deep, already shivering.
"Okay boys, get in the river, we're going searching with Cap." He hears Dugan command.
"Dugan. You don't get to make that order. I order you to go back to camp." The commandos stare at him and he glares back at them. He sees Gabe sigh and begin peeling off his layers.
Jim, Dernier, and Falsworth follow. Dugan trudges straight into the water, boots and all, and starts making his way to Steve.
"Stop, STOP!" He commands. "Get back, you'll die in these temperatures!"
"Then we'll die by your side." Dugan says, bracing himself against a large rock.
"I can survive this, you guys need to get out of here!" Steve is shouting angrily at the others as they begin to make their way into the river.
"We don't know that. And we're not leaving you behind. So if you go, we go." Dugan's fingers are already blue, and Morita looks faint, but Steve can see that they'll die before they leave him.
Steve chokes and grasps at the side of his head, pulling at his hair wildly.
"I have to look, I can't leave him here!"
"You did look Cap. He knows. He knows. You have to come back, you don't want us dying too, do you? Bucky would be furious if you put the rest of the commandos at risk, right?"
Steve makes a strangled noise and he barely feels Dugan hauling him to shore. They walk back and clamber into the trucks, shivering the whole way back. He's a mindless machine as they sit him in the back of the truck, and wrap him in blankets. His nose, toes, and fingers are black. But the pain of them warming up with the serum is overwhelmed by the crushing endless void that churns in Steve's mind. Bucky is gone. The only person who knew who he really was is dead, and it was Steve's fault. Steve might as well have pushed him off the train. His fault, his fault, his fault. How could he face the Barnes'? How could he tell them how he'd killed their only precious son? His best friend? They'd hate him. Well that was fine, he hated himself. The overwhelming self-loathing rolled over him then. The responses from the voices around him remind him that even his deep self-loathing is public now.
Bucky is rasping, his breathing ragged, Steve can hear his chains rattling and he can't tell who is crying more.
—
They feel the absolutely numb recklessness that propels Steve through the last Hydra base in the alps.
Then the plane is in a free fall. Steve tries experimentally to let go of the controls, but the autopilot is stuck. If he isn't right here, holding these controls down, it's going to fly straight over New York and wipe out the Eastern seaboard.
So he has to stay. He has to crash the plane.
"This is Captain Rogers, can anyone hear me?"
He speaks with Peggy. He hears her crying and he cries too but doesn't let it seep into his voice.
He wants to say so much: that she's the only girl who didn't make him feel like an object or an army blockhead. That he wishes he'd kissed her earlier, but all he hears is himself promising to meet her at some London Club.
"I'd hate to step on your—"
The front of the plane slams into the ice shelf and he is thrown forward into the controls, his head slamming against the crunched metal and he blacks out.
He wakes up, surrounded by crumpled metal, water is filling the cockpit and he hears Natasha's chest already heaving.
"Stop." He cries out. "Please, I'll do anything." But Beck ignores him and the memory continues.
The memory of himself slowly stumbles and crawls back towards the metal walkway where he'd just been fighting Schmidt. He lays down where the water hasn't reached yet and he gasps.
"Stop—" he croaks from the chair.
But there's nothing he can do as the scene continues. The memory of him reaches for his holster. He pulls out the small pistol and points it at the glass. He fires it, checking to see if it still works. The bullet shatters the glass and disappears into the water.
His whole face is bruised and bloody, his body aches from whiplash and the impact. He's pretty sure his ribs are cracked and possibly parts of his spine.
But what really makes him put the muzzle of the gun under his chin is the rising ice water.
The irony of surviving the plane crash, to now have to drown is too much. He knows what drowning feels like.
He squeezes his eyes shut and presses the muzzle harder, making the skin tug.
He's crying and he sees his finger start to squeeze the trigger.
"Bucky." The broken and freezing form of himself says quietly. "Bucky didn't have an easy way out. You think you deserve one? A painless death, when you let him fall off that train?" A strangled sound from the room distracts him momentarily.
He watches himself throw the gun away. It clangs somewhere and drops into the rising water. "No. If he drowned in a river, then that's what you deserve. No easy way out." He watches himself clench his jaw, and lay still as the water rises. It's around his waist. The angle of the sinking plane keeps his head out of the water for now.
"Steve!" Bucky is shouting, he's shouting in a voice so anguished that it makes Steve's heart rate wildly erratic, he can hear Tony and the others speaking to him in urgent voices but he's just watching himself. His face grows whiter and slacker as the water reaches his chest. He watches as tears turn to little icicles as they drip down into his hair.
Agonizing pain as the water covers his nose and mouth. His chest suddenly stops lifting up and down, the cold freezing his lungs. He feels the water enter his airways. Unlike the time in the tank he doesn't try to fight this. There's no Bucky to rescue him this time. The thought chokes him and he drowns faster. He remembers the burning that lasted for hours as the serum fought to keep him conscious. His teammates groan and scream and languish as they feel the pain of his final moments— his cells bursting and his whole body stuttering into a frozen sleep. And then nothing.
—-
He comes too as Beck leans over him and is poking him with something.
"There he is," he sighs in annoyance, "can't have you drifting off, need conscious brain waves to be able to see—" he continues mumbling.
"Steve." He turns to Tony, whose eyes are bloodshot, skin is translucent, and his hands are trembling. "Steve. You gotta fight it."
Beck laughs, "oh please, have you not been watching anything? He's too weak, a few more memories and he'll be putty in the palm of our hands."
Bucky hisses and Steve watches as Beck stiffens.
"The Winter Soldier has gotten protective of his mission has he?" Zemo taunts from the doorway, "well, let's just watch how that turns out."
"Up until now," Beck says, as if explaining it to children, "you've watched how weak your captain has been and how the world has affected him, now to get our final readings, it will show how you have each contributed to that brokenness." His smile is nasty as he disappears and Steve barely has time to try to process what that could mean as he is being dragged into another memory.
—-
He wakes up in 2012 and fights off aliens 2 weeks later. Tony makes a jab about him being a lab rat, and the only thing special about him came out of a bottle, he wants to throw something, but he can't, can't show weakness. He fights aliens and snaps them in half instead.
He hears Tony sigh heavily and try to say something. But he can't hear it.
He's in the tower, he's tired and exhausted from shaking hands all day. It's his birthday and all he did was exchange pleasantries with obnoxious government officials. He's ready to change out of his uniform, shower, and sleep.
Instead he's greeted by three women wearing almost nothing, lounging on his bed. He freezes and Tony's words to him in the common room suddenly make sense.
"Hey, there's our 23 year old virgin, let's see if we can change that in the near future." Tony had winked at him as if that was some funny normal joke men had in the 21st century. Steve had scowled and stalked off to his room, where he now stood, frozen.
"Ah, Tony what the hell." He hears Natasha snarl.
"How was I supposed to know!" He hears a desperation of sadness in Tony's voice he doesn't recognize.
But he sits idly as he watches himself stutter at the mostly naked women.
"Ladies, I think you're in the w-wrong room."
They giggle and slide off the bed, circling him and resting their hands on his chest, arms, and hips. They begin to tug at the straps on his uniform. The revulsion at their touch rises.
"Nope," the blonde says seductively, "we're your birthday present!" They begin to tug him to the bed, and one is almost done with his belt buckle when he yanks himself hands easily out of their grasp.
"Please— please leave." He says, his voice hard. He steps backwards into the bathroom, locking himself in. The man from the bar, the women, and the USO girls feature prominently in his nightmares as he sleeps on the bathroom floor that night.
It shifts.
Steve's anger and sadness at finding his mother's gravestone changed.
The anguish at visiting each of the commando's graves.
Natasha slides into view and Steve laughs as she tries to sneak attack him. She doesn't know he can hear her heartbeat from 3 floors below. What he does not expect is the electrical shock from her new Widow Bites.
She's never used them on him before outside of sparring practice, and he crashes to his knees. It's not so much the pain, it's honestly not too bad, but it's the vivid jolt of being shocked over and over again before being drowned. He winces and she claps gleefully, unaware of his reaction, happy that they can take a super soldier down.
He laughs it off breathily, but he never lets her that close to him again without knowing her intentions.
"Natasha, you didn't even ask?" Clint huffs.
She doesn't respond, just sits there looking as if she'd been sucker punched in the gut.
Clint makes an offhand comment about the ridiculous amount of food that Steve eats and how that must annoy Tony since he foots the bill. Clint laughs at his own joke but Steve sits stunned. Sickened at himself for not even considering the cost of just how much more food he eats than the others. He remembers hunger from the depression, his ma would be ashamed at how ungrateful he was being. The serum can handle it, he decides.
A constant nagging hunger is felt as Steve restricts himself to eating no more than Clint or Tony does at any meal. The hunger pains get worse as his body demands more calories than it receives. Some days Tony forgets to eat and Steve notices. He refuses to eat those days as well. He begins leaving money in random places in Tony's lab whenever he sees food arrive for them in the kitchen.
He hears a choking, sickened gasp and his head feels light from hunger.
"Clint, I swear—"
Clint just groans and the memory shifts.
He's being beaten in the elevator and Rumlow uses the shock batons over and over. He crashes through the window and lands with a painful resounding thud on the ground.
He and Bucky are fighting in the middle of the street.
Next, it's Bucky staring at him on the metal crosswalk on the third and final helicarrier. Three bullet wounds, and one knife to the shoulder later, he's dropping his shield into the water below and refusing to fight.
He hears Bucky's agonized cries as the memory of him uses his metal fist to pummel Steve's face over and over.
Shooting pain from a broken cheekbone and orbital socket, lips that split, broken nose, and too many other wounds to count, just pain. But not as deep as the sinking realization that Bucky still doesn't recognize him. His friend raises his fists and he says the only words that come to mind.
He feels the floor cave and he's falling. The crushing, bone shattering, weight of him slamming into the river is joined by the ironic dread that he is once again drowning in water. The Potomac wraps around him, pulling him down, sinking deep, and he is unable to do anything except float into despair at having lost his best friend a second time.
A guttural roar is the only thing that keeps him from sinking into the memory fully.
"Steve, Steve listen, I remember, I remember!"
Remember what? He's not sure what the voice is talking about.
—
The memories stop and Steve feels himself being moved.
He hears angry shouting but is too exhausted to register anything.
His shoulders begin to hurt after a while and he realizes he's back in his hanging restraints.
He can finally start to process things again when Beck appears in front of him.
"And how are we feeling today?" He asks in mocking sincerity.
Steve does nothing but glare. The drugs are starting to wear out of his system, but he's still a bit behind.
"Well, we got what we needed from you, but it seems like a good idea to—" Zemo steps into the room and Beck looks at him.
"What?" Beck asks, annoyed.
"I do not agree. We should end it now. If it works on him then it will work on the other as well."
"We can't know that. They're different. Different versions, hell made by different people. And breaking that one down mentally might be to our benefit. Maybe get the trigger words to work again."
Bucky's head shoots up and the rampant fear in his eyes makes Steve's mind sharp. Something about trigger words. What are trigger words? And why would Bucky be afraid of them? But he knows by the fear and dread in his friend's eyes that he can't let that happen. He feels the adrenaline burning the drugs out of his system faster.
He waits until Beck turns back to him and takes a step closer. He uses every ounce of his strength to wrench the magnets around his hands as far as they can go. He wraps his arms around Beck's chest and lets the magnets pull him back up.
Beck screams for him to let him go but he just squeezes harder. He feels Beck's collarbone give with a snap and he's screaming louder.
"Let us go." Steve rasps.
"Why should I do that?" Zemo responds coolly. He doesn't move or even seem flustered by the fact that his teammate is being held hostage.
Steve's voice is razor sharp, "I'll kill him."
Zemo laughs. "Go ahead. You'll do my dirty work for me."
The reaction surprises them, but no more than Beck.
"Excuse me? What the hell! Zemo, you two timing bast—"
Steve squeezes him harder to get him to stop talking, and Beck groans and goes silent. The magnets are working against him and Steve knows he can't hold this position for much longer.
"I can crush him. Then whatever you were planning on doing you can't do."
Zemo considers this. "Well it would make it more difficult. But I could probably manage it on my own."
Steve groans and grips tighter, fighting the magnets with every fiber of his drug-addled strength.
He sees Bucky looking at him, he's shaking his head and Steve wants to scream in frustration. Killing Beck won't solve their problem.
He lets go, his arms snapping back across and Beck hitting the floor with a thud.
Zemo laughs again, "that was a valiant attempt, Captain. I almost believed you would kill him. But it's really not your style."
Beck looks murderous, but just holds his injured side and stalks past Zemo.
Zemo smiles at them and then shuts the door as he leaves.
"Barnes." Tony whispers sharply.
Bucky looks over, the fear still written across his face.
"You need to fight it. It's technology that we worked on. It's retro framing tech. Whatever the first memory is, you have to change it. You have to. If you get past the first memory you'll be too overwhelmed." His words were getting rushed, Steve could tell he knew he might have limited time. "I didn't realize it during the other sessions and I didn't tell Steve soon enough. He didn't have a chance, this isn't a serum difference thing. You just have to change the memory. Change it to what you want!" The desperation in his voice was palpable and Steve could see Bucky nodding along, but with the drugs in his system, he couldn't be sure how much he was retaining.
"Can you wiggle that needle out?" Natasha asks quietly, realizing this too.
Bucky looks at the needle sticking out of his arm. He shakes his head no.
"What about the IV line?" Clint whispers, "is it long enough to reach with your foot?"
Bucky looks at the length and stretches his foot to the side. "Yeah, I think I can?" He says with a questioning tone. His voice is a bit slurred.
"Can you pinch it off?" Clint's eyes dance up to the door expecting them to return any second.
"I think I can?" Bucky repeats.
"Do it." Clint commands. "Get those drugs to stop flowing into your system."
A few seconds goes by until Bucky is able to rotate his boot in such a way to apply the right pressure to fully cut off the flow. He sits there as the minutes tick past.
"What did you do to him?" Tony asks Steve, jutting his finger towards the door.
"I think a broken collarbone, maybe a cracked rib or two, bruising probably. Nothing too bad."
Tony huffs, "I'm not asking because I care about the little psycho, I'm asking because I want to gauge how much time it will take for him to get settled and put terminator here in the chair of doom." He glances at Bucky. "You feeling any different?"
"Yeah," the hoarse reply comes, "I can feel it lessening."
"Good. Did you understand what I said about changing the memory? You can't let whatever they choose— and I have a good idea what it's going to be— rattle you. You have to fight it. And when you change it they're going to come back in here, expecting a drugged up you, and you're going to show them that they messed with the wrong Winter Soldier, you got it?"
Bucky looks at Steve, who isn't looking at him but just hanging, looking at the floor, like he's seen a thousand ghosts, and the raging anger at what his friend just went through is returning and becoming clearer as the drugs fade.
"Yeah, I got it."
—-
It is going on 15 minutes of their captors being absent when Natasha tries to broach the subject.
"Steve?"
"Yeah?" He replies tiredly, his head hanging down and his eyes on the ground.
"I think—- well… I just think I should say sorry. Of course I had no idea and— there's a lot of things I didn't know and—"
"Stop." Steve bites out, his jaw tight. "Please. There will be plenty of time for you to force me to face my humiliation later— when we're out of here. Not right now."
"I just—"
"We should be talking about something that's actually important, like our escape plan.."
"Not important? Stev—"
"Natasha? I'm not doing this right now." The tone in his voice refuses any argument and she drops silent.
Steve can feel her glaring at him but he ignores her by trying to adjust his shoulder joints in a way that won't ache so badly. With the drugs fully out of his system the pain is more pronounced. He closes his eyes.
A pit of anger and shame at what they'd all just seen, roars in his mind. Some of his worst moments weren't his anymore, now he had an audience to those failures and humiliations.
"Barnes, how we doin?" Tony speaks, cutting off Steve's despairing thoughts.
"I think— I think I'm good. My head feels totally clear. My muscles seem a bit slow but I think in a couple more minutes I should be set." The tone of his voice is deep. Steve knows that tone, Bucky's furious and trying to remain calm. Another wave of shame and guilt rolls over him, it's his fault Bucky is here experiencing this in the first place.
"Wait, if the drugs are out soon, why don't we just have him bust us out? Why wait till they come back?" Clint asks.
Tony eyes Steve's restraints and Steve sighs. He'd only guessed but now he was sure.
"Because of me." They turn to look at him, "these cuffs are wired, any tampering and they get set off, am I right?" He looks at Tony and Tony groans.
"Yeah, just about. When we developed these at Stark Industries it was supposed to be for highly dangerous terrorists—"
"Tony, I swear to—"
"Yeah Clint, I get it." Tony hisses back. "I gotta do a bit more thorough background checks of my employees." His face clouds and Steve takes a deep breath.
"You guys should go, okay? You can make it out of here. Bucky can get you all out of your shackles and carry Bruce, right Bucky?" He doesn't look at Bucky and he doesn't wait for an answer. "You guys go, and then you can come back for me. I'll be fine."
"No." Steve's head whips up at the vehement answer. Bucky is glaring at him. "You think I'm going to leave you? After everything I jus—?"
"Buck, you gotta get them out of here. I'll be fine."
"We're not leaving you, Cap." Tony retorts, "not on your life. Literally."
"There's a better chance of you guys escaping if—"
"Stop being an idiot." Natasha cuts him off. "It will be better to have Beck or Zemo as a hostage anyways, then we can use them to lead us out of here. In fact we're going to need both, so let's hope they've patched up their little family dispute."
Steve's ears picked up footfalls coming, slightly relieved that his enhanced hearing was all the way back, picking up more than just his general area.
"They're coming back." He says quietly.
"Good." Tony replies, "Barnes, Remember the plan."
"I do." Comes the steely reply.
—
Bucky's head drops down to simulate how he'd been on the drugs and Steve watches as his friend releases the muscles and tension he'd been holding since they'd mentioned trigger words..
Beck walks in and heads straight to Steve. He is holding something in his hand but at the angle he is at Steve can't see what it is. Beck strikes his hand out and jabs at Steve's stomach.
Arcs of burning pain flash through him, rolling through his muscles over and over as he twitches and groans. He can hear shouting from his teammates but there is no way for him to respond, his jaw is clenched tight and his throat muscles coursing in burning electricity. The shocks come again and again until he feels his ears and nose bleeding and his muscles spamming violently of their own accord.
"Hope you learn your lesson." Beck sneers, tossing the modified taser to the ground and stepping back. Steve doesn't have the breath to respond. His eyes watch idly as the blood drips from his chin to the ground.
Beck returns to Bucky and releases his shackles. Hauling him up, and pushing him towards the chair. Bucky stumbles and acts drugged, which if the situation weren't so dire Steve might laugh at. Beck clasps the restraint over Bucky's arms and then attaches the head wires to him. He shaves the same spots that he did on Steve and he watches as small chunks of dark thick hair fall to the ground.
Steve breathes a sigh of relief when they don't hook him up to a new drug line, assuming there is still plenty on his system.
"Now, don't hold back Barnes, feel free to really relish in your memories." Bucky doesn't respond, but Steve has to work from keeping a growl escaping his lips.
Beck walks out of the room and Bucky's eyes catch his. A bit of that old ire they'd look at each other with when a mission was going sideways is present and Steve rolls his eyes in response. Bucky goes still and Steve's vision becomes clouded.
Flurries of snow race past as they creep on the top of the train.
Of course they would start here.
He hears Bucky's breathing change.
"Fight it Buck." He whispers so low only another super soldier would be able to hear it.
A slight nod of acknowledgment.
To his surprise, Bucky doesn't change anything till the end.
Memory Bucky still picks up Steve's shield, protecting him from the blast, and he's hanging from the creaking metal side of the train when he sees Steve's face above him.
"Bucky, grab my hand!" And he does try, he reaches and can almost grab it when he hears a wrenching and the metal tears. He feels like he's in free fall for a moment until a hand is clenching his wrist, tugging his shoulder from the socket as he's yanked and pulled back into the train.
Steve huffs and sits back, "that was a close one. Don't you ever do anything so stupid again!" Steve punches his shoulder without force and Bucky can tell that Steve is too relieved to actually be angry.
"I've been protecting you since we were kids, it's a hard habit to break you know."
"Jerk."
"Punk." They smile and go off in search of Zola.
The memory cuts off and Steve just stares at Bucky with wide eyes.
Bucky is there grinning at him and Steve feels a choking laugh stutter out of him.
The door slams open. Beck storms in and slaps Barnes across the face. Bucky doesn't respond at all and it chills Steve to see him be able to take abuse so easily.
Beck turns to Tony and kicks him in the stomach, making him double over and groan.
"You idiot! I get this close and you want to play therapy? My tech is not to be squandered on you ever again!" He lashes out again and Steve hears Tony's rib crack.
"Leave him alone." He says, voice commanding and angry. He hopes Zemo will come in soon so they can get their plan in motion.
"And you!" Beck sneers, turning towards him. "You think that him changing that memory means anything? It doesn't. You let your best friend fall from a train and be tortured for 70 years, this fake memory means nothing."
Bucky waits no longer. He flexes and rips through the restraints, shrieking metal filling the room, he jumps up and picks Beck up by the front of his shirt, dragging him to the concrete wall. He slams him up against it and lets him drop.
Beck shouts in pain and reaches for his pocket. Bucky grabs his wrist, cracking the bone and rips the knife out of the pocket. Beck is clutching his wrist and huffing, red in the face.
"You will never— never hurt anyone again." Bucky says, his tone sending a message clearer than the words.
Footsteps have both Steve and Bucky looking towards the door. Zemo enters, gun in hand, pointing at Steve.
"Let the little scientist go, and get back in your chair."
Bucky looks at Steve.
"Sicily?" Steve suggests. Bucky's eyes widened in surprise.
"I hated that." Bucky groans.
"You hated that?" Steve asks with a snort.
"Okay, yeah it wasn't great for you either. Only as a last resort."
Steve nods in ascent, taking in the confused faces around him. Bucky whips towards Zemo and throws the knife with such force that it knocks the gun from Zemo's hand and pins his palm into the concrete. Bucky leaps forward and kicks Zemo's head, slamming it against the concrete where he crumples to the ground.
"Don't kill him." Steve remarks.
"Oh with the headache he's going to wake up with, he'll only wish he were dead." He moves to Tony and crushes the shackles there, releasing him, then moves to Natasha and then Clint.
"Guess we will leave Zemo here, and take Beck." Natasha states.
Tony examines Bruce and is taking the IV out when Bucky turns back to Beck who is cowering in the corner.
"Release Steve from these handcuffs now."
"I don't know how, only Zemo does." He whimpers.
"I know a liar when I see one." Bucky hisses. "You helped Stark develop these, you think he wouldn't remember? Get off your ass and unlock them now or you'll find yourself losing fingers one by one." The glare Bucky fixes Beck with makes Steve bark out a short laugh and everyone turns to him with shocked faces.
"Sorry, sorry— it's just, I've seen that glare before, and I got beat to a pulp on the helicarrier after it, so unless you think you can take the same beating I can, I'd suggest doing as he says." Steve's eyebrow raises makes Beck jump into action. It's slow and awkward with his injured collarbone and hand but Bucky follows him out the door and they must be in the control room because soon enough Steve is dumped on the ground, the magnets releasing and the metal orbs splitting in half, releasing his hands.
He stands up and rotates his shoulders. He walks over to Tony and helps him get Bruce up. Steve takes his weight even as Tony protests that he can help.
"You focus on getting us out of here, you know Beck and his tech, so I'll do the heavy lifting." Tony nods thoughtfully and they head out the door.
They meet Bucky in the hallway, with a gun held to Beck's neck.
"Lead us out of here." Natasha snaps, pretending her hands aren't shaking from dehydration and hunger.
"What about Zemo?" Beck whispers.
"Oh he'll be out for a while." Clint adds, casually putting his arm under Natasha's shoulders, taking some of her weight.
"Get moving, Igor." Tony quips. Bucky presses the muzzle to the base of his skull and he squeaks forward.
They hit a squad of guards, but at Beck's command they let them pass.
"Even if those guards take out most of us, you'd be dead before they hit the ground." Bucky seethes quietly in Beck's ear, but Steve hears. "So don't go getting any ideas of trying to get them to take us out. I'd kill you first and not even blink."
Steve grimaces but says nothing as they step onto the elevator.
"Where's Tony?" Natasha hisses, Steve's eyes search the group and alarm runs through him at their missing teammate. Before he can rush out, Tony comes sliding around the corner, bullets whizzing into the wall behind him. He slams into Clint as he jumps into the elevator and Natasha is hitting the "close door" button before the guards appear.
"What the hell, Tony!" Steve shouts. "Where were you?"
"Scientific curiosity." Tony monotones, panting. He pulls something out from under his shirt, a thick folder filled with papers.
"Hope you didn't need this." Tony huffs, waving it in Beck's face. Beck's face hardens and Tony smiles at that. "Oh, and in case you forgot I was a genius—" he pauses and holds a hand to his ear. Almost instantly several blasts are heard and shake the elevator. "You know, you shouldn't leave a box of grenades near rooms with scientific equipment and super soldier blood."
Steve's eyes widen. The fact that they'd been drawing his blood and he hadn't even remembered to destroy it fills him with guilt.
"Sorry Tony, I should have thought of that."
"No big deal Cap, we got you covered, and all that useful data? Up in flames."
Relief courses through him as he watches Beck's shoulders sag in defeat.
The elevator ride is short and soon they're exiting a bunker into the bright sun. They blink their eyes and take in their surroundings. They barricade the door so they won't be surprised by any guards coming up behind them.
"Where are we?" Clint asks. They look at Beck who just stares at them. An abandoned factory stands to their right and more warehouses surround them. Steve lowers the still unconscious Bruce onto the ground, leaning against an old cracked door.
"Oh for—" Tony steps forward and Beck flinches. Tony just rolls his eyes and searches his pockets. He pulls out a cell phone and dials a number.
"Beck?" A voice asks, Steve can't tell who it is over the cell reception.
"Hey, Hill," Tony huffs, oh Maria Hill, she works at SI. "Can you track this phone? And oh, can you officially fire Quentin Beck and call the police to my location?"
Hill responds and Tony nods. Letting the system triangulate their location.
He throws the phone to Clint, who snatches it out of the air. "Probably have some old grandma who is worried about you, huh?" Tony says knowingly.
Clint nods and takes off with the phone to call his wife.
Natasha leans against the hot metal of the building. "Hill say where we are?"
"Yeah, Detroit."
Bucky dumps Beck at his feet, and steps firmly on Beck's femur, enough pressure to make him groan.
"You try anything? And you'll experience a broken femur. You ever had one of those? Not pleasant." Beck doesn't respond and Natasha smiles.
"You really live up to your reputation."
Bucky looks at her with a questioning expression, "what reputation?"
"Well I've already met you in Winter Soldier mode, but now I'm seeing you as Bucky, and I gotta say, Steve was right, you are overprotective and a bit sassy."
Bucky snorts. "Steve's a liar."
Natasha laughs. "Oh please, Steve can't lie to save his life!" She laughs again and Steve watches as Bucky eyes her, his eyebrows puckered in confusion, he slowly looks at Steve and starts to speak when Steve decides to change the subject.
"How long did Hill say they'd take to get here?"
"Probably another 10 minutes. They're sending a Quinjet. Detroit police could be here anytime."
"I'm going to do a perimeter check."
"Steve, we are fine."
"Better safe than sorry." He takes off and makes it halfway around the building before he sits back on his heels trying to not let everything overwhelm him.
Those hunger pains from the memory are real, his arms ache, and his muscles still spasm from the electric shocks. Worse still is the emotional toll from rewatching all those memories. He leans forward on his hands and heaves. Only bile comes out, since he hasn't eaten or drank anything in almost 48 hours. The acid brings tears to his eyes and he sits there shaking as the adrenaline wears out.
He leans back and sits heavily on his heels. He shifts in discomfort at the cold dried blood in his uniform. He reaches a hand up to his hair and feels the bald spots, he swallows roughly and stands up, if he hides here any longer they'll get worried and he doesn't want to deal with the looks he's already seeing in their eyes now that the danger has passed.
He strides around the building and watches as the Quinjet settles in a cracked and overgrown parking lot.
The Detroit police arrive soon after and start setting the perimeter. The FBI arrives shortly to clear out the bunker and take Beck and Zemo into custody.
"Tony, you're sure all data on— on me is gone?" Steve whispers as he watches the FBI disappear into the building.
"Yeah, I'm pretty sure it was consolidated into the main rooms I sent grenades into. Beck's notoriously paranoid and he wouldn't share that info with too many. But I have a few plants in the FBI who will keep me updated in the event something does turn up."
Steve grasps his shoulder. "Thanks, I really appreciate it." He watches Tony's eyes widen in surprise.
He walks over to Bucky who is standing in the shadow of the Quinjet, avoiding the sight lines of law enforcement.
"I'd understand if you didn't want to come with us—" Steve's voice cracks and he drops off. Bucky looks at him uncertainly. "I'm sure you don't want much to do with me. I get it, I—"
Bucky huffs, rolling his eyes. "I'm coming if I'm allowed."
"You are?" The shock writes itself across his face and Bucky laughs, a laugh he hasn't heard in decades.
"Yeah, punk, I am."
"I tried finding you, we looked everywhere—"
"I didn't want to be found." Bucky cuts him off. "I wasn't safe to be found, I still may not be all the way safe."
"What—"
"A story for another time, okay?"
"Okay," Steve smiles at the mention of another time. The subtle mention of him possibly sticking around releases some of the last few days' horrible tension.
"And Steve?"
"Yeah, Buck?"
"You're not off the hook either."
His stomach drops and the tension returns.
"Whadd'ya mean?"
"We're going to talk about some of those things. There's things I don't remember, there's things I don't understand. You kept things from me." The look Bucky is giving him is accusatory and Steve winces, "I deserve an explanation."
Steve's stomach churns, Bucky plays the one card Steve can't refuse. He does deserve an explanation.
"I will. Just… not today okay?"
Bucky nods his agreement and they load up in the Quinjet, Clint smiling something fierce when he returns. Bruce is loaded onto the med chair and examined. The consensus is that he should be fine once the heavy drugs wear out of his system. Water and food packets are passed around and silence falls as they replenish their weary bodies.
Steve can feel their eyes glancing at him more often than not, and he knows that this has opened a lot of doors he can never shut again. He'll have to walk through them and deal with whatever they hold. But for right now, his teammates are okay, he's safe, fed, and somehow his best friend from a lifetime ago is sitting beside him.
He can handle what comes next.
—
*A/N - That's it for this fic! But I will be posting the companion fic called Memory Serves in the next few days. That will go into the emotional toll and fallout of these scenes they witnessed, Steve having to explain and work through these things and also Steve's relationship with the other Avengers as they work through the trauma to unite as a family. Hope you enjoyed! I'd love to hear your thoughts!