PART 2 - Battle Scars
(THE AVENGERS)
A/N: Whew, it's been a little while since I updated. I've got several chapters written for Part 2, and I'll be writing more as I have time, so there shouldn't be TOO bad of a lag for the time being as we pick back up. Enjoy. (And I apologize now for what I'm about to do your emotional well-being.)
1945 - Location Unknown
Bucky comes around slowly, vaguely aware that everything hurts. His head feels like it's full of lead and his limbs feel jointed wrong. He blinks, but his eyes won't focus and his stomach heaves with weary resignation. It has clearly been doing so for quite a while, with or without his conscious participation. There's nothing left to bring up, but his body keeps trying valiantly nonetheless. It's almost inspirational, how determined it is.
There is drying sick matted against one side of his face, and he can smell it in the air as awareness slowly coalesces over him. The acrid, pungent scent lingers like a fog. It almost masks the smell of blood that is, presumably, also coming from him. It also helps explain why he's dumped halfway onto his side; seems someone was trying to keep his airway clear while he threw up anything and everything left in him.
That thought brings with it an awful realization that sets a shivering chill through what little of him isn't already overloaded with pain. Whoever took him from the bottom of that canyon floor really wants him alive. Otherwise why not just let him choke to death on his own vomit? ...Or just leave him where he lay in the first place?
Taking a critically wounded man prisoner is all but unheard of in war… It's a lot of work for a negligible reward. Most of the time, badly wounded prisoners die; they just aren't worth the expense of their care. Merciful enemies finish the doomed men off quickly, and leave the body for the deceased's allies to find. The less merciful leave them to bleed out where they lay. ….No one collects them like drift-wood and carries them home. Considering what happened the last time Bucky was captured… A sharp spike of fear harpoons him, and he can't quite decide if this is better or worse than being left to die of exposure out there…
The truck he's been dumped into lurches sharply over a stretch of uneven road, and he slides across the floor to slam sidelong against a wall. His vague awareness of pain suddenly turns sharp and blisteringly immediate. He chokes on a wheezing gasp and a loud, miserable groan slips out before he can stop it.
There is activity around him the instant he makes a sound. Rough hands haul him back from the wall, and someone none-too-gently grabs his chin and yanks it up to look him over. What they're looking for, he couldn't say. Maybe they find it. Maybe they don't. The hand shoves his face away a moment later. No one is talking to him.
Someone barks what sounds like an irritated order over his head, in a language he can't understand, and then there's the unmistakeable pin-prick of a needle breaking skin. A cold shudder accompanies the sensation even as the rest of the world swims out of focus again.
He slips back into the dark.
A/N:
As a formatting reference - Part 2 will take a sliiiiightly different approach than Part 1 did. I'll be splicing bits of Bucky's story in now and then with Steve's as we go along. Steve's story will still take precedence, but Bucky will be making appearance every so often, at least for a while.