Bucky woke up in a cell, with cold tiles at his back. He twitched, and it felt like the rips and tears that Reed and that monster had inflicted were beginning to heal. He had some sort of cloth over his mouth, blocking his airways. He reached to rip the fabric, and surprisingly, both his arms came. They felt relatively normal, and he tore through the thin layer of what felt like coffee paper with ease.
Bucky got a glance at his left hand when he placed the fabric on the floor, flooding his starved lungs with delicious oxygen. His mind blanked as he saw the metallic, robotic horror that replaced his limb.
From the tips of his fingers to his shoulder blade, his arm had been replaced by some kind of machinery. It looked very advanced, and the metal was flexible and sensitive - it rivalled the sensitivity of his regular arm - but it was not his arm.
What have they done to me?
Bucky was so consumed with hyperventilating and panicking that he barely noticed the metallic taps that signified the robot walking towards his cell. Yeah, Bucky was being kept in a cell at the town's mediocre prison. God, he hated it here. He'd been in on two occasions - once because he'd stopped a fight in town, and a second time for defending Steve from a gang. Bucky generally didn't like policemen; he felt they didn't do a good enough job protecting.
"James." It was a statement, not a question, from the same robotic voice that haunted Bucky's head. "You're James."
Bucky swung around and gazed into the fiery red eyes that the robot was peering down at him with. The tall, almost gigantic, being had bent over, hands - were they hands? - clasped behind his back.
"I have some questions for you." The robot remained standing, eyes fixed intently on Bucky, who averted his gaze.
"What... what did you do to me?" Bucky managed, his voice shaky and raw from the screaming.
"What did I do for you," The robot corrected. "My name is Ultron, and you, James Buchanan Barnes, are my test subject."
Bucky gulped, shivering partly from the cold and partly from terror. "Why?"
"This body, the one I have been given, is not designed to last. I think he made me that way on purpose. And it's why I need you." The robot gestured to the way his arms were beginning to scratch. The surface of his fingers had cuts and marks to rival a chopping board.
"I need to design something more alive, an android, if you will. But my design is faulty, and you are going to help me perfect it. I already started with your arm."
Bucky unconsciously crossed his arms, sitting and leaning away from Ultron.
"God knows the others got out. I told Reed to be more careful with them, and did he listen? Thank god I'll be taking over before long. That boy couldn't rule for more than a month." Ultron was rambling to himself, gesturing to an empty cell across the hall.
"There were others?" Bucky asked. "What happened?"
"You probably knew them. Steve, Tony, Bruce, Pietro... God, what kind of name is that? Just call the kid Peter." Bucky realised that if he manipulated Ultron, he would give away information. "They unscrewed the bolts in the window and climbed out. I told Reed to search them, and did he listen?"
"Sounds like an asshole," Bucky coughed into his elbow. Ultron's gaze travelled up and down his body, and Bucky hoped that he was considering letting him out. If he could convince Ultron into thinking he would be a good replacement for Reed, he could be let out, and then he could escape.
"It's a shame I can't train you. You seem observant, and in case you're planning something, I nailed a second load of bars to the other side of the window and welded the nails in place. You've shown to be cunning, which is more than Reed has going for him. But you're going to be equally important; you will be my sword."
"What do you mean?" Bucky was now genuinely curious. "And how long have I been out?"
"As for the easiest question, you've been unconscious for roughly four days," Ultron began, bringing a knife from behind his back. "And as for the second, you will learn, and become my assassin. I cannot have anyone opposing my upcoming rule, and now I know that my design works, I will begin a full-scale work with my generation cradle. I've been working on it for a few days. In a few weeks, you will be skilled and obedient enough to have basic freedom. Until then, become familiar with this."
Ultron handed the blade through the bars, and Bucky took a firm hold of it by the handle. It was the perfect fit to his robotic hand, and he had no doubt that he would be able to cause damage. He didn't want to, though.
You have to play along. Wait until he trusts you and sends you off to kill someone, then make a break for it.
Bucky liked that plan. He sat for hours and hours on end that night, unable to sleep, just tossing and catching the knife, until he could do it with either hand, behind his back, and with his eyes closed.
Some deep instinct told Bucky that he'd need to do a lot more than train himself on how to toss the knife. Even deeper, and even more scary, another voice said he'd have to slit throats with it. The rest of Bucky's mind squashed and blocked out that part of his mind, for now.
Bucky wouldn't willingly kill anyone; he promised himself that, at least. He had to keep some code of honor. He'd think of one tomorrow, right along with a plan to escape and return to his friends. If he didn't, his sanity would slip, and he wasn't sure if it would come back.
He had to escape. It was all he had left.