Chapter 12: Death and Birth
October 1945, Siberia
His head was tilted back, something hard was in his throat. Men in masks and gloves surrounded him.
Someone spoke Russian. He understood the words. He's coming around.
A snake slithered down his throat, into his belly, shifting and churning.
No, not a snake.
Food. They were force-feeding him. He struggled, even as a part of his brain screamed to give in, let it happen, that it so desperately needed food, but no, no, no! Not like this. He strained, bucked, flailed. Chains rattled, but they held firm. A fist in his hair and a palm beneath his jaw kept his head in position.
A bulb flashed, searing agony through his retinas and blinding him with bright dots for several seconds. The tube slid out, and the hands released him. The figures backed away, and he folded forward as far as the chains would let him, chest heaving, eyes watering, an angry scream bubbling in his throat.
"If you throw it up, we'll gather up every last drop of it and shove it back down." Karpov's voice came from behind him, close.
It sent a shiver down his spine. He struggled against the residual gagging caused by the tube and focused on keeping the food down, else he'd be swallowing his own vomit.
Like Steve in Coney Island.
God, that was funny. He smiled, chuckled, then laughed. He laughed and laughed until his stomach burned and he couldn't breathe, until he was sobbing, pressed forward against the chains, wailing. And then he screamed until he had nothing left.
"Up his drugs until he's a walking zombie," Karpov said, then walked out.
-0- -0- -0-
He woke from sleep with the disorientation of someone who jumped through time without awareness of its passing, without so much as the remembrance of a dream. Where was he? He blinked, and shapes in the dim room coalesced.
A man with a rifle on a chair against the wall. Dum Dum, is'at you?
No, not Dum Dum. Not real. Nothing was real. He wasn't real.
He stared at shadow-Dum-Dum, the specter of nothingness in this void of darkness.
Where was he?
Mary had a little lamb, little lamb, little lamb. Mary had a little lamb whose fleece was white as snow.
Snow. White. Cold. Death.
He was a ghost, dead and buried beneath the snow, with parts of him in the belly of a beaked demon.
A door opened, producing a glowing rectangle that brought light to the darkness. A man. Tall. Wide shoulders. A beige uniform.
Men with guns. Keys jangling.
"Catchpole method." The man said.
Catchpole. What an odd word. Catchpole. Catchpole. Catchpole. It didn't even sound like a word.
"Hello, soldier." The beige man walked up to him. "Your new arm is waiting for you."
The demon ate my other one.
The man tilted his head. "Do you hear me, soldier?"
Catchpole. Catchpole. Catchpole. Really funny word.
A chain dropped from somewhere. Something pushed against his neck. A man held a pole toward him. Another chain dropped, another pole. He watched curiously as chains dropped away from his neck, like strands of hair, and were transformed into black poles connecting him to a another man.
Four men, total. One in front. One on his right. One at his stumpy arm. One behind. Catchpoles. Catchpoles. Catchpoles.
Another man took away the chains on his legs, then his arm, which hung loose at his side. He tried to lift it, but it just dangled. Numb. It wasn't real. He forgot for a second. Nothing was real.
"Podnimite yego na nogi" The beige man said. Something about feet.
Did he always speak Russian?
The beige man stared at him. "I'd almost believe you were acting if not for your pupils. I'm sure the doctor will be interested to know the cocktail seems to be working this time."
The man lifted him. His legs flopped like a ragdoll. He couldn't feel them. They dragged him from the room, his calves sliding along the floor making a pretty trail of red.
His knees were big. Angry. Screaming crimson. Little mice were biting him all over his legs. He couldn't see them, but he could feel their teeth digging into his flesh, carving out bits and pieces all over.
They took him to a room with three men in blue outfits, masks, and hats. A table was in the center. He was being lifted, dropped on his back. A strap came over his chest. Something sharp pinched his right hand.
The men spoke more words in Russian. Something about drugs. Too many drugs. Bad for his heart. Heart go bye bye. Bye bye, Bucky. Bye, bye Buckaroo.
When did he learn Russian?
Did he fall asleep? Everything was different. There were two suns shining brightly in his face. Why were there two suns? Three men and two suns. One short. The other was the Duke of Limbs. The third wore glasses.
There was a sound. Buzz-buzz-buzzing like a bee. Or a wasp. An angry, loud wasp. It was stinging him on his left.
He glanced down. It was metal. Carving into his stubby thing. A saw.
Sawing through his flesh. Biting and stinging and oh-God-it-hurt!
But it couldn't because it wasn't real. Nothing was real, but oh-God-it-hurt! It hurt. It hurt. It hurt. Something tight pressed on his chest, and his forehead, and he couldn't move, and still the wasp-saw-thing stung him over and over again, and he screamed and screamed until he couldn't scream anymore.
He opened his eyes without ever realizing he'd closed them. His left shoulder was on fire, like a hot poker was buried in the socket. The three men, doctors in blue. No masks. The one with glasses. Amsel. Dr. Amsel.
There was something different on his left side. He could feel it. Weird.
He lifted his arms. No, not arms. Arm. He only had one. One flesh. But he could feel the other one. Sort of. He raised it…silver. What the hell? What was he looking at? What had they done to him?
Why wasn't he restrained?
Amsel held a file folder, turned to him, moved closer.
Amsel. Hydra.
The metal arm moved when he told it to. He made a fist, twisted the shining monstrosity. Amsel leaned close, reaching out to touch it, to study its movement, curious, the good scientist, always curious, studying, measuring, taking notes.
Experimenting. On him.
The hunk of metal responded to a thought he barely formed, and it obeyed, wrapping fingers around Amsel's neck. Squeezing.
The other doctor raised a needle, brought it down into his flesh. Cold blossomed in his chest. The room spun, and he felt light. A round face, glasses. A bow tie.
Zola.
"He's remarkably resistant. When the machine is ready, put him on ice. Collect him first, in case he does not survive. We need a post procedure sample."
Something vibrated on his groin, and his body responded. Then he was being lifted, carried. His left shoulder screamed with the jostling. The fog in his brain cleared as the collar snapped around his neck. He was carried, then dragged, the tops of his feet sliding on the hard floor, until his body clattered onto a metal grate.
He lifted his head. A thin mat. A bucket. He was back in the cell.
The cage door slammed shut. Four armed guards remained on the other side of the bars. Bucky crawled his way to the mat and rolled onto his right side.
His shoulder. God, his shoulder. It hurt like a son a bitch, radiating into his upper back and chest and making it impossible for him to find a comfortable position. He probed at it with the fingers of his flesh hand until they touched the moist ridge just past his shoulder where skin met metal. His stomach revolted, and he vomited bile over the edge of the mat, onto the grate.
His shoulder was a mess of pain, heat, and an itch so intense it threatened to drive him insane. He needed the thing off. Off! Off! OFF!
He pressed fingers into the tender flesh, screamed from the blaze of pain, and clawed, clawed at the monstrosity fused to his body. The collar hummed, and a jolt warned him, but not strong enough. Pain was a thing he was used to. The hunk of metal jutting from him was something foreign. It didn't belong.
"Get it off of me!" He clawed, scratched, screaming with the agony he was causing himself, until the collar hit him hard enough to make a difference, hard enough to send him into convulsions and then unconsciousness.
The next time he woke, he was strapped to a metal table, unable to move except to tilt his head. They trussed him up good. He was in a straight jacket with thick metal chains securing him to the table. He could feel the metal arm, but it wouldn't move, not even the fingers. He squirmed with his right arm, shimmied beneath the chains, but they held.
"You'll have to stay here a while, soldier." Zola leaned over, one eyebrow raised. Looming. Smug.
Bucky swallowed, heart pounding, chest heaving beneath the constricted jacket as he pressed himself into the table, away from Zola. Away from that face. That leer. Those eyes.
Zola grinned. "We can't have you undoing all the hard work we put into your new arm. A couple of days should have you sufficiently healed, then we'll put you in storage for a little while."
The hours passed into days, broken into segments of syringes filled with bright colors—blue, purple, pink—and needle pricks in his neck. The blue one burned like fire in his veins. The purple made him sleepy. The pink made everything…strange. Colors that had tastes. His mother's voice. The clap of a bat against a baseball. The roar of a crowd that smelled like mustard.
He was jostled out of a blissfully deep sleep, dreaming of careening on a zipline over a snowy mountain range, when he opened his eyes to a blurry gray world. Walls and floors spun disorientingly around him as dream merged with reality and he realized he was being carried toward an upright metal box. He barely got his feet beneath him when they shoved him into it.
No. Not again.
He reacted too late. Too weak. The door sealed shut. The men outside hovered over controls. One pulled a lever. Air hissed. A blast of cold came from below. He could break the glass. He reached up with the metal hand, and….
Ice. Pain. Then peace.
September 1946, Siberia
Cold. So very, very, very cold.
Pain.
Hot-icy pain.
Lungs that wouldn't work. Suffocation. Panic.
The crinkle of something in his ears.
His skin was hot. Burning. A knife twisted agonizingly in his left shoulder.
A fire. He was in front of a fire. The smell of burnt marshmallows.
He was breathing. In and out, air of fire with lungs that stretched like an old rubber band.
Help.
Something was very wrong.
Help me.
He was dying. He felt like he was dying.
A sound rumbled through his skull, behind his ears. A groan that stretched to something high-pitched and desperate.
The sound jostled his brain, and he realized he couldn't see. His eyes….were they open? He couldn't see. He couldn' see.
Where was he? What was happening. Where was he? What…?
A voice. An accent. German.
German.
The war. Germans.
Why couldn't he see? Was he blind? God, he was blind! Oh, God…What did they do to him?
A metal fist. They put something on him. Did something to him.
Fuck, his shoulder hurt.
A coffin. They killed him.
Was he dead?
There were words in German. Then Russian. His brain supplied translations for some of them. Body temperature….blood pressure.
Then a German accent, words in English, a voice that woke the primal parts of his brain— parts that screamed of danger, danger, danger. "Put him in the chair."
Zola.
The darkness gave way to a blurry swirl of white, blue, and gray.
Something hard and hot as coal wrapped around his arms and legs. A strange gurgling sound erupted from his throat in response, a plea that didn't quite take shape, a cry that had no strength.
He flinched from another hot touch, fingers and palms, burning, seering, agony. He was wet. Ice cold drops along his neck, shoulders, and back.
As his vision cleared, so did some of the fog in his brain. He sucked in a deep, deep breath, the expansion of his lungs painful, and let it out in one rush of air. The figures around him took shape, their faces familiar.
Zola.
The others he knew, but their names weren't coming to him immediately.
He looked down at himself. He was naked, except for a pair of gray undershorts. Metal clamps held his legs against two beams of steel bolted into a floor. The legs of a chair. Three clamps around his right arm–on his wrist, forearm, and bicep.
His left…there it was. A metal fist. The clamps on the foreign limb were thicker and wider than the others.
The arm. It was real. They did something to him. God, what was he now? Part machine? Not a human. A lab experiment.
What was happening? What were they doing? His heart picked up pace, the hectic rhythm of his pulse roaring in his ears.
Zola stood in front of him, his head tilted, an anticipatory smirk lifting the edge of his mouth. "Soldier, what is your name?"
The protocol. He remembered. Name, Rank, and Serial Number. They were burned into his memory. He rattled them off weakly, or tried to. He wasn't sure whether the sounds gurgling from his throat were actual words.
Zola turned and raised a hand. "Begin. Level one, Dr. Fennhoff."
A hum rose around him. The doctors in blue swung pieces of metal against his head–one on each side–clamps that gripped his skull on either side. Then, the doctors stepped away.
The sensation that hit him forced the air from his lungs. A vibration in his skull. A ringing in his ears. The feeling of a thousand insect legs crawling through his brain, painful at first, then tolerable. Unpleasant, like an itch he couldn't scratch.
When it ended, Zola glanced at the wall behind Bucky and waved at another doctor–Amsel, Bucky's brain supplied at last. "Ten minutes." Zola's gaze locked on him again. "Your name, soldier?"
He gave his name, rank, and serial number again. Repeated it. Over and over, as Zola raised a hand and said, "Level three."
This time, it was pain, intense enough to bring him fully awake, gritting his teeth, clenching his muscles. He closed his eyes, forced himself to breathe through it. In and out. In and out. Ride it out. It was bad, but doable. He'd had worse. Much worse. As it continued, he adjusted, got used to it. Okay. Okay. This was okay. Not great. But okay.
When it ended, he went limp, breathing heavy. Again, Zola asked his name. Again, knowing it wasn't the answer the man wanted, he rattled off his name, rank, and serial number.
"Level five."
His body arched, and he screamed.
-0- -0- -0-
"What is your name, soldier?"
My name? What…? Throbbing, like a drum in his head, pulsing agony.
"Your name, soldier?"
My name? My name…. Bile in his throat. What's my name?
Buckaroo?
Jimmy?
"Hey, Bucky…" a voice. Blue eyes.
He blinked at the round face with the round glasses. He knew that face. Someone had pulled him off a table. Called his name. Saved him from this man.
"Steve?"
"Hmmm." The man with the round glasses looked unhappy. He turned his head and sighed, "Level six should do it."
-0- -0- -0-
He came to surrounded by men swinging batons. A jab in his ribs, a jolt of electricity in his body. The crack of something against the side of his skull.
He hit the ground, kicking, flailing, the room swimming, the taste of blood in his mouth.
"Get the collar on him!" A frantic, panicked yell.
Who was that? Where the hell—?
Another jolt of electricity that sent everything black for a moment. Then more blows. He curled in a ball, tried to protect his head. There were too many of them. Whoever they were. They were trying to kill him.
He kicked again, reached out. Grabbed a baton, ripped it out of the hand, sent it back into the man's face. A splatter of blood. A needle in his neck.
Dizzy. Another jolt of electricity that ripped conscious thought away from him. He woke groggy to the stench of bile and urine. Something thick and heavy was around his neck. His arms ached. They were over his head, twisting his angry left shoulder. His wrists were shackled. His toes on a hard metal surface.
A harsh light shone in his face. He blinked. A monotone voice speaking Russian words blared from overhead, so loud the speakers crackled with distortion.
He understood the words. 'Hail Hydra. Obedience brings peace.'
Hydra? Who the hell was Hydra? The name sounded vaguely familiar and settled like something hard and rotten in his stomach.
October 1946, Siberia
"Who are you?" The voice was ice in his veins, a throbbing behind his skull.
He was restrained in a massive metal chair, his head filled with cotton, his mouth dry.
Name. Rank. Serial Number.
Name…. Name? What was his name? Did he have a rank? A serial number?
Panic threw his heart into a somersault. My name…. What's my name?
Why couldn't he remember?
The man with the round glasses. He knew him. Bad man. Very bad man.
"Sergeant Barnes…." That's what the man had called him, in that sickeningly sweet voice.
James Barnes. "James Buchanan Barnes. Sergeant. 32557038."
The round-faced man frowned and straightened. "I am due back. Delay will breed suspicion. Continue the protocol. Inform me of his progress through the usual channels."
November 1949, Siberia
Zhelaniye. Longing.
His mother's blue eyes. His father's teasing voice. The smell of banana bread. Snowball fights with Steve, warming up inside with hot cocoa. Yelling at his sisters through the bathroom door. Fighting over the last biscuit at Thanksgiving. Opening presents on Christmas. Dancing. Coney Island. Hot dogs.
Going home. Seeing his family again. Hanging out with Steve. An end to this goddamned war. Waking up to realize this was all a bad dream.
Longing. Desire. Need.
An ache in his chest so profound it consumed him.
"Think of home, and you will be there." A deep voice with a Russian accent.
Kindness laced with lies. Making promises Bucky knew would never be kept. Offering escape. Relief.
It was dark. A scream pounded through his skull. His throat was on fire.
"What is it you long for?" The voice asked, profoundly gentle. "Home? Your family? You can see them again, just think about them. They are there, waiting for you."
His safe place. Home. A dream born from desire, a separation of mind and body.
The pain ended, and the smell of banana bread filled his nose. He tasted it. Sweet. Vanilla, walnuts, and cinnamon.
January 1950, Siberia
He was flat on his back with metal clamps over his forehead, around his neck, arms, chest, legs. unable to move, staring up at the masked faces. The sound of a drill vibrated through him. Trembling. Helpless. The drill rose above his skull, then lowered and disappeared from view. A sharp pain on his bare skull.
His heart pounded, breath hitched. An iciness traveled down his spine, into his gut. They were going to take everything from him, and there was nothing he could do to stop them.
February 1950, Siberia
He was restrained in the chair. Metal clamped around his head. His hair was little more than stubble over his skull, and the cold metal dug into his skin. The machine hummed to life. Current ripped into his skull and snaked through his body. Its bite was so intense he couldn't scream, couldn't breathe.
Then it stopped, and in that moment of relief, a word—loud and firm—rang in his ears.
"Zhelaniye." Longing.
His pants and right leg were warm and wet. The smell of urine filled his nostrils.
The current hit him again, slightly less intense, but unrelenting in its agony. His body went rigid, seizing against the onslaught.
When the current stopped, another word took its place. "Rzhavyy." Rusted
He felt wetness on his cheeks, salt on his tongue. The current resumed, reduced enough that it allowed the scream to escape his throat.
It stopped again, just long enough for another word. "Semnadtsat." Seventeen.
"Please…" He barely got the word out when the current assaulted him again.
When it stopped, another word. "Rassvet." Daybreak.
No, he begged silently, knowing the electricity was coming again and that there was no escape.
It hit. His chest arched. The metal restraints dug into his right arm and his legs. Then it stopped, and he collapsed against the back of the chair.
"Pech." Furnace.
He retreated in his mind, away from the pain, the helplessness. The current tore through him, slightly reduced but still brutal and overpowering. He screamed again.
When it stopped, he heard, "Devyat." Nine.
His thoughts were thick, hazy. Who were they? Why were they doing this?
Again, the current. Then another word brought blessed relief. "Dobroserdechnyy." Benign.
Where was he? What was happ-?
The current hit again, and he gritted his teeth. It wasn't so bad. He could get through it.
It released him, and he sucked in a deep breath.
"Vozvrashcheniye na rodinu." Homecoming.
The current resumed, tolerable, and he breathed through it. Then it stopped.
"Odin." One.
When the current returned, it was blessedly weak—a mere tingle through his head and a small ringing in his ears.
It ended with the words that brought total relief. "Tovarnyy vagon." Freight Car.
He looked through blurry eyes at the figures around him. Dim lights shone overhead. Men carried guns, pointed at the floor. A figure approached, bringing the rim of a glass to his mouth. Cool water touched his tight, dry lips. He gulped it greedily, then it was pulled away.
"Soldat, are you ready to comply?"
He blinked up at the figure. "Who are you?" His voice was weak, barely a croak.
"Hydra. Heil Hydra. Say it," the figure commanded.
"Hydra?" His head throbbed. He couldn't make sense of the words. What did they want from him?
The figure turned and raised a hand. "Opyat' taki." Again.
The pain became the only thing he knew. Even when it ended, the echo of it remained. Something in his mind retreated, burying deep away from the neverending agony, curling in on itself in a desperate attempt to survive.
"Soldat, are you ready to comply? Heil, Hydra. Say it, and you may rest."
He was a soldier. Orders. They were giving him orders. His tongue was cotton, his throat fire, but he croaked out the words they wanted. "Heil Hydra."
1951, Korea
He was on the table, restrained. His arm sparked. Lightning in his brain, down his spine. He twitched with each pulse. He heard only the voices, Russian. His vision shorted in and out.
"He failed" the voice said in Russian.
"He killed everyone they sent after him," another countered.
"Except for one. The Americans have a new supersoldier."
"Who suffered as much damage as the Asset. Our sources say the damage may be too severe for the American to overcome."
"They must be desperate, resorting to wasting the serum on inferior stock."
"Not so inferior. He took the arm off ours."
"The old arm was too clunky, too heavy. The bone was badly damaged when he tore it off in his resistance to assassin conditioning. The reattachment point was weak. This time, we will remove more tissue, embed it deeper, reinforce it. Then we will intensify his combat training. We will forge him into a weapon like no other."
November 22, 1963, Dallas, TX
This place was full of color and sound. Bright clothes. Cars of blue, green, and yellow. Hats and scarves like wildflowers amidst a sea of bodies. Fabric waving red and white stripes in the air. A square of blue with white stars.
Red, white, and blue. The base of his skull itched. He ignored it as he rested solid on his stomach, his eyes pressed to the scope. His target would be seated in the back of a dark, topless vehicle next to a woman wearing pink.
The limousine came within sight. Two flags at the front flapped in the wind, one red, white, and blue. A symbol.
It stirred something deep in his brain. The flag was wrong. Familiar, but different. He held his scope on the blue and white. The stars. There were too many stars.
"Ispolnyat, Soldat," his handler commanded, voice firm and soft from the shadows of the room.
The crowd cheered, clapped. That, too, stirred something.
The roar of excited voices. A field with a diamond. Popcorn. A booming voice. "He's out!"
"Soldat, ispolnyat!" Comply!
Mission priority. Eliminate target. Return to point. He shifted the scope, aimed, held his breath, and squeezed the trigger. Target eliminated.
Another shot rang out, but he was already gone.
Author's Note:
As always, I appreciate your thoughts and reviews!