No one comes in or out of Barnes' cell for over a week. He has a bucket of scummy water in the corner that they gave him when he first got dropped here, but nothing else. They leave him to stew in his own guilt until he's ready to scream, just for something else to focus on. He starts counting the cracks in the wall, feeling like he's hanging by a thread. And that thread is dangerously close to snapping...
He sleeps as little as possible, nightmares jolting him awake, until finally something in him just… breaks. He can't do this anymore. Can't function. Can't stand himself anymore.
In a fog, he slowly curls up in a ball on the cold, rough ground, as small as he can make himself, and stays there, eyes vacant in the semi-darkness. He lies there, just breathing, unnoticed tears cutting trails through the smudges of dirt now and again. He doesn't move.
When Bucky's been lying on the floor, unmoving, for days, listlessly staring at the wall beneath his bunk and muttering to himself under his breath, the guards finally return for him.
He drags limp between them as they haul him back to the chair, unable to muster the energy to fight them.
What's the point?
They'll get what they want no matter what he does. Rescue isn't coming. It's over.
Steve is dead. He's never going home - was never going to go home. Struggling won't change that.
I'm sorry Ma. I'm sorry Becca. Rae. Cathy. I love you guys. I ain't commin' back. … I'm so sorry.
Bucky doesn't even hear himself scream as the electricity snaps through him like a whip, erasing him as it goes.