Chapter 3: More Introductions and Torture

(Note: I have tried to be faithful to Captain America: The First Avenger as best as I could. Any events that happen with Maddie are kind of on the outside of the movie plot (just parallel), but there are some liberties I had to take in the story. This is, technically, and Alternate Universe.)

I fell asleep in the cell, despite the inner turmoil rumbling inside of me. I didn't know how long I had been out before a loud banging woke me up. For a moment I panicked again, totally expecting to be back in my room in Maple City, and away from the madness that had happened. Once I remembered where I was, however, I calmed down a little bit, but still felt bitter dread welling up inside me.

I sat in the middle of the round cell surrounded by thick metal bars. The loud banging I had heard had been a door slamming open, and was soon followed by the stomping of feet, a lot of them. I looked at the other identical cells around me, noticing that they were empty, but were soon going to be full of the factory "workers."

The workers were the prisoners of war Hydra had captured in various battles. I had seen some of them when Conrad had carried me into the factory. They were all marched down the hall into separate cells, with about a dozen or so men to each cell. No one else was placed into my cell, I would remain alone amongst the prisoners.

Once all the prisoners had been secured in their cells, the guards left as silently as they had come in. The other prisoners mumbled amongst each other as two other guards patrolled the room above us. I looked up and watched the sentries as everyone around me was getting settled for the night. I shivered in my cell and watched the closest prisoners to me, observing them and making mental notes.

"Hey," I blinked and shook my head, pulling myself from the minor space out I was having. The man who had spoken to me stood with his hands clutching at the thick bars of his cell, and I saw that it was the many with the bowler hat. Some reason, seeing him filled me with warm relief.

"Hello," I replied tiredly.

"Why is there a girl here?" A young African-American man stepped closer to the bars, looking down at me.

"A girl?" Murmurs rippled through the cell and soon a dozen pairs of eyes were bearing down on me. I took a small scoot backwards, smiling awkwardly as my face flushed with heat.

"Knock it off, you knuckle heads!" Dugan, the man in the bowler hat, yelled, silencing everyone at once. He then kneeled so that he was on face level with me. "What's your name?"

"Maddie," I replied softly.

"Dugan, nice to meet you. You're American." He tilted his head at me, and I nodded in confirmation. "Shouldn't you be back home stirring up some breakfast for your family?"

I ignored the blatantly sexist part of the question. I reminded myself that I was in a different time, and where Dugan came from, women were primarily at home keeping house.

"Funny story," I started. "I remember falling asleep at home, in the States, and then woke up in some clearing here in Austria." I shook my head and looked to the floor beside me in mild frustration.

"Bet it was the damned 'Clearing of the Gods' these Krauts have been muttering about since we got here." Dugan hissed, and I made a face at his use of a slur. I kept quiet and looked back at the group that suddenly understood why I was there.

"Yeah, that's what they called it." I mumbled.

"If you supposedly came out of it, then the nut-job running the place must think you're important." Dugan hit the bars of his cell, and the resounding clang of the noise made me flinch.

"We should try and get her out of here." The African American man said, then quickly added to me, "I'm Gabe."

"We all need to get out of here." Dugan said sullenly, and the people around him murmured in agreement.

"What unit are you all from?" I asked, changing the subject, though I already knew the answer to my question.

"There's a few different units here, but we're from the 107th. We were captured a couple of days ago." Gabe explained.

A couple of days. These men had been here and worked to the bone longer than I had been, and I had no idea what was planned for me. I knew that at some point I would be called on again to answer inane questions about where I came from and what I knew. I hoped Conrad would be there, since he was the only nice Hydra soldier I had encountered so far. It seemed strange for him to be part of the sinister organization. He didn't fit the mold of Hydra, or even Nazi Germany when I thought about it more.

"What were you all working on, in the factory?" I asked next.

"Some sort of weapon manufacturing." Dugan replied. "With little bright blue boxes, one for every gun, cannon, and tank of this dumb army."

"They are not Nazis." A man with a British accent suddenly called out. I looked up at him, shocked that I hadn't seen him there before. He had probably been in the middle of the circle and then made his way to the bars. He leaned casually against them and continued.

"These men do not associate with the Reich at all." I could tell he was dodging the name, as if he were trying to protect me from it or hide it in case I was a spy.

"That's because they're Hydra." I said, hoping to ease any thoughts about if I was a spy. I couldn't even imagine being a spy.

"How do you know that?" Dugan asked cautiously.

I hesitated to answer, which probably didn't help my attempt to not look like a spy. "I can't really explain how I know, but I can assure you that I don't even want to know about it." I huffed and a few of the men smiled.

For some reason the image of the strange man in the blue cloak surfaced in my mind again. I got an uncanny feeling that this man didn't want me revealing where and when I was really from, maybe because those around me couldn't handle the knowledge of it. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Dugan scrutinizing me with his icy blue eyes, but he didn't say anything or ask me more questions about it.

We lapsed into silence after that. Eventually, I let myself fall asleep on the hard ground, still exhausted and in pain from the morning. I dreamed about the Red Skull, without his Hugo Weaving mask, chasing me down a hallway with maniacal laughter. I turned around a corner and smacked into a hard surface. At first I thought it had been Captain America's shield, but once I blinked the confusion away I saw that it was a wall of sparkling blue mist. I pushed on the wall, but it would budge, and Red Skull's laughter was getting louder behind me. I panicked, but then saw the outline of someone within the blue mist. Whoever it was stood with their hand extended, as if they were reaching out to help pull me through. My panic suddenly calmed, and a warm feeling wrapped around me. With Red Skull's laughter practically behind me, I walked through the blue mist.

I gasped and awoke back in the cell, staring at the bars above me. Early morning light was filtering in through windows somewhere in the room above, and soft snores cascaded around me. I sat up and looked around, noticing some prisoners that were awake among the mass of sleeping men. They stared off into space, hardly giving me any notice.

I gingerly got to my feet and stretched out the kinks and knots I had from laying on the cold, hard ground. I felt sore all over, but at least the pain and swelling in my feet had lessened a little. They still hurt, but not as much as they had the day before after climbing up through the forest.

Somewhere in the room, a door scraped and banged open, startling many of the prisoners awake.

"Time already?" Dugan yawned. He looked up at me, I gave him a confused shrug.

"No, you may sleep some more." A familiar voice called out as footsteps neared my cell. Conrad appeared, smiling softly at me from outside my cage. In his hands he held a pair of boots and an army jacket.

Another guard came and unlocked the door to my cell, and Conrad stepped in to hand me the boots and jacket. I was still wearing the pajamas I had woken up in, which probably looked strange to everyone around me. Thankfully, no one had made any comments about it, and I had been so out of it to feel truly awkward. I hastily put them on, the jacket sleeves went well over my hands, and fell just above my knees. I relished in the warmth, realizing now how cold I was, and had been, in the cell. I took my time with the boots, easing my pained feet in and tying the laces methodically.

"This isn't going to be good." I mumbled, looking at Conrad and hoping he would say I was wrong.

Instead, he said nothing, but looked to the floor. His silence told me everything: I was headed into a rough interrogation. Fear sliced through me as I straightened up and looked to Dugan and Gabe for some reassurance.

"Be strong, you're American." Dugan puffed out his chest a little and I managed to give him a shaky smile.

Conrad led me out of my cell and through the dungeon-like room once I was ready. We walked slowly to accommodate my bad limp from the pain in my feet. We made our way through the factory, which was mostly empty at the early hour in the morning. I didn't try to memorize halls or exits, because I figured I would never make it out if I tried to escape on my own.

Weak morning light filtered through dirty windows, but soon darkened storm clouds made their way over them. When Conrad finally showed me into a room with a metal chair and bed in the center, it had started to rain. Conrad led me to the chair and I sat down. I expected him to stand behind me, but he walked back to the hall, hesitating in the doorway. He looked back at me, like he wanted to say something, but knew that he couldn't. Instead, we gave each other knowing looks before he sighed and walked out of the room and down the hall. I sat alone in the room for several minutes before Arnim Zola appeared, carrying a clipboard.

"Good morning, Frau Maddie." He said as he closed the door behind him.

I said nothing in reply. I just watched him as he set the clipboard down on the metal bed beside me, and then stood in front of me. My heart hammered in my chest as he commanded me to stand up and then did a visual observation. He muttered to himself as he turned me around, looked closely at my hands once more, and peered into my eyes, getting his grubby face close to mine.

After the examination, Doctor Zola ordered me to sit down again, and I gladly did. I didn't like the strange examination, and I couldn't ignore the fact that I still felt extremely tired. That, and I was sore. I felt that I was totally not prepared for whatever Zola or Schmidt had planned for me.

"Herr Schmidt would like me to perform some experiments on you." Zola finally said, and I flinched. "I do not that that will be helpful at all." He added quickly.

"What?" I looked up at him incredulously. The idea of experiments was frightening but thinking of what else could happen to me filled me with dread.

"No, you see I have already experimented on many subjects, and I feel that your worth will come from the knowledge you supposedly have about this world." My heart sank at the prospect of Zola demanding answers from me.

Johann Schmidt had obviously gone over what had happened yesterday with the good doctor and given him instructions on how best to get answers from me. I inwardly cringed at my arrogance from the day before, and how much I had managed to blab about before being sent away. I silently scolded myself for being an idiot and talking too much before I spoke again.

"I'm not going to tell you anything. You're kidding yourself if you think I will." I narrowed my eyes at him and Zola chuckled.

"Well, you see, I have thought of some ways to make you talk." My mind raced through several torture methods Zola could use on me as he clapped his hands.

At the signal, the door to the room swung open, and Conrad was back with Barnard, but not just them walked in. The dragged in a man behind them whose eyes were closed and mumbled softly to himself. I watched with wide eyes as the two soldiers dragged the man to the metal bed and laid him on it once Zola moved the clipboard, he had placed on it.

"I cannot torture you physically, I have been barred from doing so at the moment. Instead, I shall do so mentally." Zola announced as I got a closer look at the poor soul that had been dragged into the room.

I knew instantly who the man was and couldn't stop myself from gasping softly. He had short brown hair and green eyes, which were open now and staring blankly at the ceiling. He had on a loose cream-colored shirt and brown pants, and dirtied boots on his feet. He continued mumbling to himself: numbers, places, it all sounded out of place. I stared at him with wide eyes, and I knew that Zola was writing down my reaction on his stupid clip board.

The man on the table was James Buchanan Barnes, or Bucky as his friends called him. I didn't openly say his name; I didn't want to give Zola any satisfaction at getting an answer to his unspoken question. I stared at Bucky intently as fear and anxiety raged on within me. What had Zola meant by torturing me mentally? And what exactly did that have to do with Bucky?

Barnard left the room and came back with a complicated looking machine. It was frightening with its dials and knobs, and with the labels written out in German. Barnard fumbled with the machine as he hooked it up and then stood beside Conrad, silently at attention.

"Shall we start off with where you are from?" Zola asked, standing in between the table and the ominous machine.

"Maple City, United States." That was a somewhat safe question to answer. "I said that yesterday."

"What were you doing in this Maple City?" He moved on.

"Studying to be a teacher." I answered.

A bitter feeling was growing inside of me as I answered his questions. It was the same feeling I always got whenever I ran into my old problematic roommates on campus, or at church. It was a feeling that made me ask myself how they could live normally after everything that happened, but I still lived in a world of total darkness and doubt. I hated it because the whole feeling was dark and messy. I felt angry, but at the same time I just hated myself and everything I did. Right then, answering Zola's questions and fretting over what was going to happen with Bucky was making me hate myself more and more.

"And how did you end up in Austria?" Zola continued and I hesitated. This was a question I didn't really have an answer to.

Suddenly, Bucky's dazed and fluttering eyes snapped open, and he turned his head and stared straight at me. Our eyes locked, and I jumped in my chair slightly as we stared at each other.

In that moment something like electricity zapped between us, and a connection was made. He seemed fixated on me as he continued to stare into my eyes. I couldn't look away, and noted how tired and defeated he looked, and I realized that I probably looked the same way. We were both tired, and at the moment totally lost in the battle we were waging. It was like at that moment, Bucky understood why he and I were in that room. It was strange too, because the more I looked at him, the more I could see an orange haze floating around him.

There was a crackle of energy, and Bucky gripped the table he was on and gave a sudden, strangled cry that broke the sudden connection. I yelped, as if I had felt the same energy, and leaned back into my chair. I turned to Dr. Zola to see what exactly had happened.

The Doctor held a strange wand-like device against Bucky's leg, and from the sound and look of it, the wand was sending electrical shock through him. He writhed on the table and cried out in immense pain and agony. I watched him, terrified and confused.

"Stop it!" I yelled over Bucky's screams.

"Answer the question!" Zola demanded, and I remembered that he had asked how I had ended up in Austria.

"I don't know! I woke up here!" I closed my eyes tightly and covered my ears with my hands to dampen Bucky's cries. It muted them ever so slightly but did nothing to stop from the strangled sounds ringing in my head.

Zola took the wand away and picked up his clipboard, scribbling something down before putting back and standing in front of me. He stared at me under his thick glasses, and I stared back at him. I was breathing heavily to combat the anxiety that threatened to send me into an asthma attack. My eyes flicked back to Bucky, who was motionless on the table, his eyes closed.

"Who is the man lying on the table?"

The questions went on like that for what felt like eternity. When I didn't answer a question, whether because I refused or the answer didn't satisfy Zola's curiosity, the doctor would electrocute Bucky. At various times I would silently cry or stand up angrily demanding him to stop. Other times, I paced the small room under the watchful eyes of Barnard and Conrad. They stood by the door, constantly reminding me that I couldn't leave. I could tell that Conrad was troubled by what was happening, but Barnard's face was stone the entire time.

I lied with some of the questions to try and give poor Bucky some sort of a break from the pain I was causing him. After a few fake answers, Zola seemed to catch on though. Both my anger and his were reaching a boiling point. I started screaming at him at one point, and without another word he left the room in a huff.

He was gone for a long time, and I was happy about it. I stood in the farthest corner I could, my eyes glued on Bucky's frozen form. I could see his chest rising and falling ever so slightly as he breathed, but it looked ragged. I felt ragged as I breathed heavily, still seething with anger. When the sound of footsteps started getting closer, Conrad walked over to me, and led me back to the chair in the room.

Dr. Zola came back, followed by Johann Schmidt. The bitterness inside me deepened as I glowered at the man and folded my arms across my chest. I slumped a little in the chair, acting indifferent despite how twitchy and jumpy I was.

"I hear that the interrogation has hit a snag," Schmidt said casually, casting a glance at Bucky before turning to nod at Barnard and Conrad. They nodded back in confirmation.

"Nope, no snag. Go away please." I muttered through gritted teeth, still glaring at him.

"Ah, your sense of humor continues!" Schmidt reached out and patted my head. I pulled away, looking at him like he was crazy. "I love humor." He added as he took the strange wand device from Zola and touched it to Bucky's arm.

Immediately Bucky cried out and arched on the table. He yelled out and reached for something, anyone, to help him. He hadn't done that before and it struck me like a physical blow. I couldn't take it anymore. I couldn't watch another minute of Bucky slowly being killed because I didn't answer a question. I jumped from my chair, balled up my left fist, and punched Johann Schmidt as hard as I could in the chest.

The punch sent the man staggering backwards, though probably more out of shock than pain. I knocked the electrical wand out of his hand and then pushed him with both hands' farther way from Bucky. Doctor Zola moved to grab me, but I faced him and pushed him away as well. Barnard tried to attack me next, pulling back his fist to send a punch my way.

My mind was entirely blank during this whole altercation. My only focus had been on stopping the pain and torture for Bucky. I managed to barely dodge around Barnard's fist and kicked at his shins, pushing him back in stuttering steps.

Everyone in the room stared at me in mute astonishment. I looked around with wide, crazy eyes; I had never been so agile and quick in my life. It was like a switch inside me had suddenly flipped and I was an amateur fighter. It freaked me out to no end, and I felt like I didn't even know my own body.

A hand reached out and grabbed my wrist, wrenching me from my shock. I looked down and saw Bucky staring up at me once more, his hand tightly holding onto me. He breathed heavily and muttered something I couldn't hear clearly. The strange energetic connection happened again, and muted colors seemed to dance around us. Blue? Orange? It was all so hazy. I opened my mouth to say something, but Barnard suddenly tackled me to the ground. He held me down on the cold, hard floor as I struggled to get back up.

"She has spirit, I must say that." Schmidt said as he rubbed the spot of his chest where I had punched him. I highly doubted it hurt, but I hoped it did. "I think we are done with today. Take her back to her cell." Barnard pulled me roughly to my feet and began pushing me out of the room.

"Don't you dare hurt him anymore!" I yelled out at Schmidt and Zola, trying to push past Barnard and Conrad. I looked desperately back to Bucky, who stared after me in a daze.

Then, we were in the hall, and Barnard had a vice grip on my arm, pulling me back to the dungeon of circular cells.