A/N: I goofed on the rank of the guy who beats the shit out of Bucky. It's actually COLONEL Lohmer, not Captain. I corrected it in Chapter 22, and I'm using the correct title here.
Also: WARNING. This is going to get intense. Graphic descriptions of torture and violence. Those with delicate sensibilities may want to look away. You have been warned.
Bucky honestly doesn't remember all that much.. at least not after they take him away.
He's clear on everything up to his capture.
He remembers being shoved into a cell with the others, his chest already feeling tight and his head already spinning, and just knowing he's done for. He's lived with Steve long enough to know pneumonia symptoms, and around here, that's a death-sentence.
He keeps the coughing as quiet as he can, tries not to sway when he walks, and does his best to look healthy. He knows Dugan has noticed even before things really go to hell. Apparently the others have too, though among them, only Jones really knows him well enough to give a shit then.
When things finally come to a head, he's too dizzy and dazed to notice Dernier's cart coming toward him until he's run straight into it, scattering shells all over the floor, and dropping him to his knees with the impact, coughing so hard he half expects a lung to come up too. It's too late to try to go unnoticed, as Lohmer, the officer on duty, is crossing the floor in a rage; so he switches tactics and hopes for mercy instead. Just flat out tells them that he's sick and asks if they have a doctor he could see.
The colonel who's come over to berate him is kind enough to beat the living shit out of him with a shell casing in answer, and leaves him lying there with broken ribs and a fractured arm: a battered heap on the floor. The bastard leaves it to the other prisoners to pick Bucky up, moaning and coughing, and drag him back to the cell, just to get him off of the floor.
Bucky is sure then, without a shadow of a doubt, that he is going to die here.
He's never been religious, no matter what his mama tried to instill in him as a kid, but he prays for all he's worth that night, half-conscious on the floor of a Nazi prison cell.
I know I'm a worthless piece'a shit. I got a bad streak a mile wide. I'm not askin' you to save me. But look after Steve for me. Kid's got nobody else, an' he needs somebody. Just send him somebody, cause I know I'm not goin' home.
Please…
It doesn't really surprise him when the only answer he gets is a guard somewhere down the line of cells, swearing in German as he makes his rounds, trailing off into angry muttering.
Bucky hadn't expected much.
The others crowd around where he lays, curled around his damaged ribs on a half-rotted old pallette, when they're finally allowed to return for the night. Dugan is beside himself, swearing and fuming as he paces the tiny space like a caged lion. Big hands shake the bars once or twice, before the pacing resumes.
Jones has a little medical training, and looks Bucky over with a critical eye while Fallsworth and Dernier wait in silence, eyes flicking from Dugan to Bucky and back. Jones doesn't like what he sees.
Broken ribs, fractured arm. Multiple contusions, possible concussion. Bucky'd figured that much already, though he'd chalked the dizziness up to his pneumonia. He's just too far gone with pain and fever at that point to bother saying anything. He lays there miserably, trying not to move, trying not to pass out.
He vaguely remembers hearing something about Lohmer, and how unlikely it is he'll let Bucky off the hook after beating him half the death already. Something about shells and gunpowder. He loses the thread of conversation, drifting unsteadily in and out. He doesn't remember the others leaving, but he vaguely recalls waking up to a hell of a lot of noise and commotion coming from the factory floor, and realizing that something big must've happened.
The badly hidden grins on the other prisoner's faces tell him everything before Dugan even opens his mouth.
He doesn't realized it at the time, but this is the moment when the disorganized handful of men become an uneasy team. Brothers in arms.
It won't occur to him until 80 years later that he was the reason why.