The 107th had traipsed through the night with their wrists chained together. Soldiers linked together, each a link in the line of the grim and hopeless. Bucky kept his head down as they walked, but he assessed the Hydra soldiers shepherding them. They didn't speak. Their masks dehumanized them. Their movements seemed robotic. Their guns were at the ready, always aimed at one of Bucky's men. The private stumbling along in front of Bucky hand't stopped whimpering the whole night. Bucky could hardly blame him. He'd seen his friend, another private under Bucky's command, be disintegrated by the white blue weaponized energy. He'd wished the private would quiet, though. It was distracting as he tried to decipher how these new weapons differed from their own. Had they stolen one of Howard Stark's designs?

The private's foot hooked on to a root, and he lunged forward with a cry. He lay, covered in dirt, sobbing. One of the Hydra shepherds shouted at him. When he didn't stand, the Hydra soldier hit him with the butt of his rifle. Bucky ran forward, putting himself between the two just in time to receive the full force of the second battering from the rifle. The cold metal caught him on the temple, and blood trickled over his cheek. Black spots popped in his vision. The Hydra soldier shouted at Bucky, who helped his private back to his feet.

"Alright, there, Jamison?" The private nodded. "Yeah? Ok. Just keep going forward. We'll be alright."

The last half hour of their walk, they were all blindfolded with rough cuts of cloth that wouldn't be removed until they were being shoved into their prisons.

The cage door slammed and Bucky immediately threw himself at the bars. His perfectly coifed hair had fallen loose in strands framing his eyes. "Hey! Dirty pustule!" Bucky cocked a grin when the pock-faced guard faced him once more. But his fury was stronger than his mild amusement, and his grin slipped into a glare. "Come join me in here and I'll show you true justice."

"You want justice?" asked the guard. He pulled out a gun, cocked it, and pulled the trigger in one fluid motion. Jamison, who was standing beside Bucky, slumped against the bars grasping his stomach. Glimmering black blood flooded over his fingers and dribbled over his lips. He stared up at Bucky with genuine fear and confusion before falling to the floor.

Bucky attacked the bars with new vigor. Words blended with screaming. "I will tear you limb from limb! Gouge out your eyeballs and make you sip them through a straw! Your own mother won't be able to recognize your remains!"

The guard shoved open the door and heaved Bucky face first into the bars, pinning his arm behind his back. Bucky hooked his foot behind the guard's ankle and pulled. The guard fell and Bucky launched at him with flailing fists.

The two of them were only briefly locked in a whirl of arms and feet before the pock-faced guard managed to escaped and pin Bucky down by straddling his torso. Bucky didn't have time to breathe or react before the guard's fist came barreling down on his jaw, and again, and again. Exhaustion and pain flooded his veins, blurred his vision, and stole his breath. The more he strained against the guard, the more like rubber he felt until he couldn't take it any more. The guard's fist slammed once more into the side of Bucky's now swollen face and snapped his skull back against the concrete floor.

. . .

"Welcome back to the land of the living, number 23557. You almost didn't make it. But I assure you, you are in capable hands."

Bucky's bleary gaze focused on a small man with bug-eyed glasses covering his face. His focus fogged and Bucky tried to lift a hand to rub his eyes, but discovered his wrists were tethered down. He tested his legs and found the same to be true for them.

"Don't fret. The binds are there only for your protection." The bug-eyed man checked the charts then cradled them in his arms and tutted. "It seems you are not ready for the experimentation. Pity. But one more bout of treatment and you should be fine." He nodded to an assistant who unsheathed a needle, filled it with clear liquid, and plunged it into his arm. Before being dragged back into a drugged sleep, Bucky could hear the small man say, "He will not be like the others. He must be back to full health or else the experimentation will kill him."

. . .

Bucky knocked on the door and watched the light snow drift on the breeze as he waited.

"Come in," shouted a muffled voice. "It's unlocked."

"Bucky smiled and pushed his way in through the front door. "You know, you might not want to announce that. I could be anybody."

"As if a Nazi spy would be knocking on my door," answered Steve, still muffled.

"You never know." Bucky looked around the small living room, bookshelves dotted with photographs of Mr. and Mrs. Rogers and little baby Steve. There was even one that included ten-year-old Bucky from the last round of family portraits. Mrs. Rogers had always treated him as though he were her own. "Where are you?"

"I'm almost ready." Steve came hurrying from his bedroom tucking his sketchbook into his satchel. When he looked up, Bucky saw a cut puffing up Steve's lower lip.

Bucky sighed. "What happened this time?"

Steve shook his head and shrugged on his coat. "Nothing."

"That cut says otherwise."

Steve did up the buttons on his coat and loosely wrapped a scarf around his neck. "I handled it, alright?"

Bucky nodded and raised his eyebrows. "So what'd the other guy look like? Did you give him a nice shiner and a limp?"

Steve rolled his eyes. "We're gonna be late for our drawing class."

"We have plenty of time.." Bucky grinned at a sudden thought, "Unless you were hoping to catch a glimpse of that cute photography dame we met yesterday."

"Dame? Must you talk about her like that?"

Bucky laughed and ushered Steve outside. "Come on then, Romeo."

The walk was quick, despite the December chill. The whole time, Steve spoke excitedly about the evolution of motion pictures. "I'm telling you, Buck, they're on to something great! Can you imagine being transported to another time just by watching a story unfold on a screen? It's brilliant! And they're already making great technological advancements. I wonder what they'll think of in another decade or two."

Bucky laughed. "Maybe you should consider doing something with film for a career. You could be the one to revolutionize the industry."

Steve shook his head. "Nah. I'm more than content to sit back and watch."

They climbed the steps and stomped the snow from their shoes on the door mat. After a few hallways, they turned the corner to their classroom and Steve ran into a small redheaded woman with a bag slung over her shoulder. Bucky hung back and watched them exchange apologies and claim blame. Steve fumbled with his words, and his cold-pinked cheeks turned half a shade pinker. The woman was that photography dame. She was hardly taller than Steve and kept her hair in a bob. Watching them stand there exchanging awkward glances and mumbling was quickly growing old. If Steve didn't know how to flirt with her, it was Bucky's responsibility to show him. Besides, she looked almost in physical pain to be stuck in this failed conversation with him.

Bucky tugged his jacket straight and smoothed his already smooth coif before standing at Steve's side. "Hey again! Funny how we keep running into each other."

She smiled pleasantly. "Fancy that."

"You know, we were severely lacking in models yesterday. You sure you don't want to join us?" He flashed her his boyish grin. "Maybe after class we could go dancing?"

Her cheeks tinged pink. "That's kind of you, but I don't dance."

He nodded. "Alright. Maybe hot chocolate's more your style. I make a fantastic hot chocolate."

"Maybe some other time. I have to go." She glanced at Steve. "Goodbye." Her shoulder brushed against Bucky's arm as she walked away.

He watched her leaved with eyebrows raised. "Huh." He licked his lower lip and clapped Steve on the shoulder. "I think she likes you better."

. . .

A persistent beeping stabbed Bucky's brain, sending steady waves of nausea pulsing through his body, concentrating in the center of his stomach. His eyes grated against the inside of his lids like sandpaper. The muscles in his extremities ached with the numbness of inactivity. Curling his fingers felt like flexing them for the first time. They moved in juttering, creaking twitches, stiff and slow. Bucky groaned and let his head drop to the side. A flash of light sparked a white fire over his eyelids and he hissed inwardly and grimaced.

"It seems our patient's fever has broken. Now that he is cured of his pneumonia, the real work can start."

Bucky forced his eyes open to look at his surroundings. The same small man who stuck him with a needle before was scribbling notes on a clipboard. He clicked the pen and watched Bucky through his bottle-glasses.

"Ah! Perfect timing. The specimen is awake. Prep him." His white lab coat fluttered as he spun towards the silver table.

Cold hands poked and prodded and rubbed, tugging at Bucky's sleeves and unbuttoning the collar of his undershirt. All attempts to pull away were prohibited by the leather buckles still around his wrists and ankles. While one hand rubbed a freezing cotton swab laden with alcohol over his neck, another plunged a syringe into a bottle and drew a dose of more clear liquid. They pushed out any air bubbles and stuck it into the cleaned section of his neck. More hands stuck metal circles and wires to his temples. No one spoke. The only sounds in the room were Bucky's rapid breathing and a scraping and ting of metal on metal. The small man traded his clip board for a large syringe loaded with cobalt blue liquid. He stood beside Bucky, a look of pure excitement filling his round face.

"I rarely do these things myself—not after the first forty failed. But you…you seem different. I am very curious to see what happens to you."

Bucky only glared and pulled against the restraints.

"If you struggle, it will only hurt more."

And it did.

Whatever had been pumped into his veins seemed to be mercurial fire and battery acid, immediately boiling his blood. His back arched with the overwhelming pain, and for a moment nothing existed beyond the fire. Then everything subsided.

Sweat pearled and dripped in rivulets over his face and down his neck, pooling along his collar bone. His breaths came in unsteady gasps, still ragged. The doctors blurred and refocused in the overexposed lighting. His limbs seemed to vibrate, and he still couldn't move them.

"That was just the first dose. You'll have the other in a month…if you survive that long." The mad doctor pried open Bucky's eyelid, shining a small flashlight as his iris. "Quick response of the pupils, but they slide from focus." He checked the other eye just to be certain. His fingers then prodded along the left side of Bucky's neck. After a few moments, the doctor stuck his fingers inside Bucky's mouth and pulled at his lip to better assess the teeth. As the doctor tried to shove open Bucky's jaw, Bucky bit down hard.

The mad doctor screamed and tried to pull away, but Bucky wouldn't let go. One of the assistants ran up and landed a hard jab to the cheekbone, and Bucky let go. The doctor examined his hand. "You have much to learn, number 23557."

"My name…is James…Buchanan…Barnes."