Earlier:
Two trains of thought fight for dominance as the twisted metal bar grinds loose and the inevitable happens - his fingertips missing Steve's by a breath:
Blind terror winds around the realization that this is it. He's going to die. He'd always known he wasn't going home, had no illusions of surviving the war…
He just hadn't expected it to be like this.
At least, though, he did his job while he was here. Steve's up there, alive, and that's because of Bucky Barnes. If he's got to go, at least he can go knowing he got that one thing right.
It doesn't stop him from screaming. Oh no. Nothing could have stopped that. But even as he pinwheels through the air - as he watches Steve rapidly shrink and disappear above him- he thinks, Ok. I guess that's it, then.
It isn't a straight drop. He braces himself the best he can as he impacts, hard, on his side against a jagged point of rock. He can feel it slicing his arm to ribbons, from wrist to elbow, as he slides swiftly along the ridge. His coat shreds like paper, and he just feels the chain around his neck hooking in time to slam his uninjured hand between it and his throat. Yanking up short still bruises him something awful, but the chain gives before he does, and then he's bouncing wildly off into freefall again, clutching dazedly at the bloody remains of his left arm.
He's already starting to regret the instinctive move that saved his life back there. Should've just let it happen. Let the rock finish him off. A quick clean break, and this would've all been over.
Instead he's back to tumbling head over ass, agony searing up the left side of his body, and no idea how much longer this ordeal will go on.
He's not surprised that his instincts saved him. Bucky's always been a survivor. But, sometimes… sometimes he really wishes he wasn't.
He's always expected to die out here. Ever since he shipped out, he's been bracing for it. For all that Steve talked about going home when it was over, Bucky never really thought he'd make it back. It's just... when he'd imagined dying, he'd always pictured it being sudden, over in a heartbeat. A quick release. He'd always thought somebody'd pick him off out of nowhere, drop him in his tracks - and that'd be that. No suffering, no lingering… just turn off the lights and go home.
He certainly hadn't expected to meet his end ricocheting endlessly off the walls of a ravine.
… Life's a bitch sometimes.
Bucky plummets for ...he doesn't know how long, before he slams sidelong into a sheer rock formation, hearing bones fracture on impact, and skids gracelessly down onto the canyon floor.
He won't find out for a long time that the rocks that he hit actually sheltered him from view on one side of the ravine, left him exposed on the other. His team won't find him, coming in from the north as they are; they can search all they like.
He lies there, dizzy and sick, in a shattered heap for a long few minutes, feeling the blood trickling from his nose, his forehead, the remains of his tattered arm, the lacerations all up and down his back; feeling the life slowly ebbing out of him; before mercifully everything begins to fade. Nothingness -blessed quiet nothingness- finally takes him over.
It doesn't last.
He comes to with a sickening jolt, dimly aware that he's moving. Something has a hold of the back of his coat, and it's dragging him carelessly through the snow. His eyes refuse to focus and everything aches viciously, searing him through and through with a formless agony. He's not sure where he is, but he's definitely not dead. ...He's a little strangely disappointed to realize that.
He also abruptly realizes, with cold, muddled horror, that most of his arm is gone. Not simply battered or torn. It's gone.
What's left leaves a vivid scarlet trail in the snow behind him as his… rescuer? tugs him along.
Is he being rescued? He can't think clearly enough to put pieces together. Dimly, he tilts his head up, faint hope sprouting.
Steve? he thinks dizzily, trying to make his vision cooperate.
It's not Steve.
Blurrily, he can make out a thick-set man in a Russian uniform, hauling him unceremoniously over the ground, toward what looks like it might be a truck. Some deeply ingrained instinct tells him this is not a rescue. It's a capture.
He can't stay conscious, try though he might, but one last thought bubbles to the surface before he falls under again:
Goddammit. Can't even die in peace...
(End of plot interlude)
A/N: Yes, I'm terrible. You're welcome.