Chapter 2: Odds of Survival
There's never enough food and he's always thirsty, but never enough to just keel over and die already. The factory floor is loud and they're manufacturing metal parts for something big. They work from the time the bars are rattled in the morning, until the Hydra soldiers round them up and herd them back into their cells at night, with only a short break to have just enough provisions to stay alive.
Every night Dum Dum is the last in the cell and turns to the guard. "One day, Fritz, I'm gonna have a stick of my own," he says with a grin that curls his mustache. The guard thinks he's safe behind bars. But they're all bitter and angry and not yet defeated, even though every day that goes by without rescue makes it harder to keep up hope.
"Why do you even bother telling him that?" Bucky asks Dum Dum. He leans against the bars; the metal digs into his spine. He rubs his arms; it's cold here, too. They might be somewhere in the mountains. He wasn't paying too much attention during the forced march.
"If I can't convince them that we're gonna get our asses out of here, how am I going to convince myself?" Dum Dum asks. He sits next to Bucky and fishes out a scrap of sharp, hard metal. He digs it into the concrete floor and etches one line. It's the most recent in a series of such gashes. He's counting days. Days that he's kept grinning and taunting Fritz. Days the Allies haven't come for them.
"You really think the Allies are coming for us, Dum Dum?" Bucky asks. He used to be hopeful. Now he's just cynical. He's seen so much death in such a short period of time. "If we want out, we're going to have to do it on our own."
"You proposing an escape attempt?" Gabe asks, scooting over. He leans forward, voice low. "We don't exactly know our way around the facility enough to manage that."
Now everyone is looking at Bucky: his fellow comrades from the 107th, and the other Allies Hydra rounded up in Azzano and along the way. "I was just… just saying. No one knows we're even here, and if they do, they'll have seen what happened at our position in Italy. The only way we're getting out is if we win the war. Or if we break out on our own. And I'm not volunteering to lead that charge," he says with a grim chuckle.
Dum Dum claps his shoulder. "C'mon Sarge, thought you Brooklyn boys had more guts than that."
"I like my guts inside of me, if it's all the same to you." Bucky smiles and closes his eyes and tries to sleep, and hopes that Dum Dum will put the idea out of his head. They're not really serious about escaping, they can't be; it's just something else to keep them hopeful in this neverending purgatory.
He wakes to the clang of metal on metal and a pounding headache from the lack of water and food. He's stiff from sleeping upright and sitting on the concrete. He drags himself over to his position, barely aware of the Hydra guards watching him. They're always watching. He doesn't even feel their eyes on him anymore. He just wants to get through the day, a day he measures by the thrumming of machinery and the amount of times he nearly keels over from exhaustion.
"Just going to stand there staring at me?" Bucky asks the Hydra officer who approaches and stands next to him. Colonel Lohmer, the other Hydra soldiers call him. Bucky and his mates call him Asshole. He's reasonably sure Lohmer doesn't speak English; all he hears around him all day is German, and the only word he really gets out of any of it is "Hydra". Because they couldn't keep it simple and all be Nazis.
"Herr Barnes," Lohmer says with a cold grin that makes Bucky's skin crawl. He keeps his eyes focused on the manufacturing machine in front of him. Push the sheet of metal in; pull the lever; push the sheet out and down the belt. Repeat ad infinitum and ad nauseum. "Perhaps you do not realize we are on a schedule?"
"I'll work faster if you get outta my face." Bucky shouldn't taunt the enemy but he's tired. They want him to work, they should let him work. Though now, knowing that the man speaks English makes him feel even sicker to his stomach.
"Or perhaps you think by working more slowly you can plot your escape attempt."
"I'm not getting out of here and we both know it," Bucky mutters. Dum Dum may be able to hope. Gabe may be able to hope. Bucky has always been smart, and knows how to calculate the odds. Steve has better odds of winning a boxing match than Bucky does of getting out of here.
"Yes, I do," Lohmer says.
Bucky reaches for another sheet of metal and then the machine is coming at his face and fireworks go off in his brain as Lohmer slams him into the machine. Bucky tastes blood-metallic and salty-and he staggers backward, blinking as he tries to get his footing. The room is too loud, spinning too fast, and as much as he tries to get his guard up, he's too dizzy and too weak to do much more than a sad attempt at a block when Lohmer comes at him again.
"You'll kill him!" Dum Dum yells, rushing over from his post, only to be caught by a nameless, faceless Hydra soldier who holds him back while Lohmer takes a hard swing at Bucky. He catches him in the jaw and Bucky can't keep his balance. He falls to the floor. He sees the cavernous ceilings. He tastes the blood, rolls over onto his stomach and tries to push himself up, but Lohmer is there kicking him in the gut.
"So I shall. That is what happens when your work is unacceptable. But this is Hydra, Herr American," Lohmer says. He grabs Bucky by the back of his collar; his shirt tears and chokes him. The Colonel wheels around and slams Bucky up against a piece of machinery. The impact knocks the air out of him. He struggles to get a breath in through the pain blossoming in his torso like wildfire. He crumples to the ground, blood dripping from his mouth and nose. "Cut off one head, two more shall spring up. And nobody will miss the weak head."
Lohmer gives Bucky one more kick to the ribs. Bucky chokes and gasps and he sees stars. His shaking hands scrabble at the cold floor and he tries to push himself up, but Lohmer drops his foot into his spine, slamming him back to the floor. Bucky hears the whine of one of the Hydra weapons charging and he can't see but he knows Lohmer's going to dissolve his head right then and there and he needs to be okay with this, because he was never going to survive Europe in the first place.
The nothingness never comes. He keeps feeling the pain and the panicky discomfort of being unable to get a full breath. "Colonel Lohmer, perhaps this one has not entirely served his purpose, yes?" a soft voice asks. The pressure lifts from his back. Lohmer's boots are now next to his head. Not exactly comforting. "I have run short of my own… equipment," the voice says. "If you would be so kind, you may have him sent to isolation, yes?"
Lohmer grunts. Bucky isn't sure if he should sob with relief or scream in anger. Two Hydra soldiers haul him up under his shoulders, one on each side, and drag him toward the darkness. The odds of survival were never in his favor, but somehow, he keeps surviving. The longer he lives, the more he wonders if it's worth it.