Chapter 3: The End Is the Beginning
He's not sure how long he drifts in and out of consciousness. All he knows is no one is yelling at him, no bars are clanging, no machines are roaring. It's… quiet. Bucky doesn't remember the last time he heard quiet. Even Brooklyn was never this quiet; the streets were always busy with the sounds of cars, the clatter of shoes on pavement, and the muted conversations of people. The last thing he remembers is watching the gray floor streak by as two guys dragged him off the workfloor. He still hurts; Lohmer didn't exactly hold back.
Finally he managed to keep his eyes open for longer than a few seconds and manages to hear more than just the silence. He can't sit up, but he's not sure he wants to, anyway. His stomach twists and heaves if he tries to move. He's flat on his back and there's some padding underneath, and the ceiling overhead is lower than back on the workfloor or in the cells.
He can hear the scratching of a pencil from nearby, and not too far away another man is whimpering and retching. Bucky swallows the sour lump in his own throat. Was this how Steve felt most of the time? Bruised, battered, wondering if he could have done more, fought harder…
The other guy screams, shattering the quiet and Bucky can't help but try to look. But he's held down by buckles and straps and suddenly not being able to move or see what's happening scares him shitless. The guy won't stop screaming, begging for someone to stop, stop, stop, and then the words dissolve into unintelligible sobs and choking noises. He bites on his lip, hard, to keep from calling out. Whatever is making that guy make those noises? Bucky doesn't want to get that thing's attention.
He remembers being absolutely still in the trees and hillsides, holding his breath and scanning with his sniper rifle. He does that now, trying to maintain calm, and trying not to envision what's happening to the other guy. Stop calculating the odds, Buck. You know that even your best guess will be wrong, the way your luck's going.
So he closes his eyes and tries to remember Brooklyn and Coney Island and the Cyclone, and boxing with Steve and going easy on him even when Steve insisted that Bucky give him all he's got. The sobs fade to whimpers, then ragged gasps.
Then the silence again.
Someone swears in German and it's soft and almost sad. Disappointed. A murmured order and then Bucky hears footfalls and the clatter of wheels and metal and his heart pounds because somehow he knows that the voice is coming for him.
This is the end he's been waiting for ever since setting foot on that boat a year ago.
"And how are we feeling today, Sergeant Barnes?" the deceptively mild-mannered voice asks him, and Bucky dares to crack open an eye. The man hovering over him has a round face and snub nose and he squints down at Bucky through thick, round glasses. Bucky doesn't answer. He flexes his arms and the straps bite into him. Even if he did free himself, what would he do? "I see." The little man scratches something in a file. Then he smiles and Bucky cringes in spite of himself. "It would appear you've arrived just in time. My last subject… well. You heard that."
"Is that what's going to happen to me?" Bucky asks. He doesn't want to talk to this man, to give him the satisfaction. But the screams are still echoing in his ears and he'd be bullshitting himself if he wasn't afraid. At least on the work floor, getting his ass kicked by Lohmer, he knew what to expect.
"I don't know what's going to happen to you, Sergeant Barnes," the little man says with a grin. "That's why we call it an experiment." He sets down his file and then he's shining a bright light in Bucky's eyes, measuring his arms and legs, and all Bucky can do is lay there, staring at the dingy ceiling and hoping it will all be over with. There's more pencil scratching, and then the little man pushes Bucky's sleeve up. Out of the corner of his eye Bucky sees the light glinting off a long needle and his stomach turns. "Just a pinch," he says.
The needle stabs into his arm and Bucky feels dizzy, even lying down. He's never liked needles. He doesn't know how long the needle is in his arm, or how much blood the little man collects before tying a ragged bandage around his arm.
After that the hours blend together into a horrible monotony. Some mornings he finds himself cuffed to a bed by one wrist; others strapped to a stretcher; still others on a cement floor in a locked latrine, covered in vomit. He doesn't know what the doctor is doing to him. He can see the man making notes and staring at vials of his blood. Then he'll look up over the curved edge of his spectacles and smile and Bucky knows that whatever is good for that guy is bad for him.
One day… night? Day. Who knows. Two bulky Hydra soldiers haul him out of bed and strap him down. The doctor appears overhead and checks his pupils with that damned flashlight. Bucky murmurs his name and tag number over and over again. If he can hear himself, he can remember who he is. That's all he's gotta do, remember who he is. If he's going to die it won't be retching and sobbing with no clue who he is.
Another flash of light on a long silver needle. Bucky clenches his jaw and balls his hands into fists. He holds his breath and the pinch of the needle in his neck does not elicit a scream from him. But then there is pressure and the feeling of fire flowing through his veins, and that makes him scream. His back arches and his ribs coil around his lungs and he's scrabbling at the gurney beneath him, trying to claw his way out. He can't get away from the burning inside of him, or hear over the roar in his ears, or see through the blinding black and white waves.
When he finally comes back to himself, or something like it, he's still strapped down. He trembles all over and cold sweat trickles down his face. But his vision is clear, and though his heart is pounding, he's alive. He almost cries with relief. Sergeant James Barnes, 32557038. 107th. He repeats this over and over to ground himself. That is who he is. Number 32557038, Sergeant James Barnes. Bucky. He smiles.
"And how are we today, Sergeant?" The little man, who Bucky has overheard being called Zola, asks. He tilts Bucky's head to the side and Bucky clenches his jaw tightly as his skin crawls at the touch. Then Zola's taking his pulse and checking his pupils and listening to his racing heart and Bucky just wants to sink through the floor. Zola smiles and Bucky knows it's never a good thing when that happens.
Two Hydra soldiers undo the straps holding him down. They help him sit up-being relatively gentle, at Zola's urging. The room tilts and spins and he's dizzy from whatever the mad scientist injected him with, as well as little to no food or water for God knows how long. His clothes hang on him, dirty and frayed. One of the soldiers nudges him in the small of the back and Bucky stumbles off the stretcher. He sees the floor coming at him and then someone catches his arm and hauls him to his feet. Being upright feels strange and his legs are wobbly. God, this must be how Steve feels. The thought of Steve helps steel his nerves for whatever's coming. Bucky's here so Steve doesn't have to be. Steve would never have survived this long. Bucky still wonders how he keeps going and why he doesn't just… die already. Why he opens his eyes every morning… or evening… or whenever.
He flops into a chair and Zola's friends begin fastening him down again. He puts up a token resistance but they're efficient; they've done this before, to countless other prisoners too tired or sick to be of any use on the floor. As one guy tightens a strap around his forehead, effectively immobilizing him from head to toe, Bucky wonders how many others came before him, how many got this far. How many will get this far, or farther, after he's gone.
He can't get a good look around him; lots of bulky shadows. Clicking and buzzing electrical noises. Zola attaches something with wires to his head. Bucky won't look at him. He clutches the arms of the chair and repeats his name and number over and over to ground himself. More wires and sensors. James Buchanan Barnes. Bucky Barnes. 32557038…
Zola jams a needle in his neck and he grinds his teeth, hard. Suddenly his blood is flowing faster, his heart beating harder, his breath coming quicker. He blinks too fast and the world around him is a rush. He wants to climb out of his own skin. The lights are too bright, the sound too loud. He tries to remember who he is. Tries to remember Bucky, Sergeant Barnes and some numbers. Too much, too much, too much.
Then it's over. He shakes, sweating and teeth chattering as he slumps in the restraints. Zola's smiling. That's never good.
He closes his eyes. Bucky. Bucky. Bucky.
He's got no sense of time or place anymore. He just focuses on remembering who he is amid the injections and sensors and flashes of light and image and sound. Zola keeps smiling. Keeps taking notes. Keeps taking blood. But also starts making sure he's getting proper food and water and even lets him get cleaned up here and there. Bucky's not sure what's real anymore and the kindness makes him wary. He's heard the stories of the Nazis, and while Hydra's not Nazis, they're still the enemy and when an enemy starts treating you well… well then, that's when you need to worry.
Every day is his last, and that's why they feed him: prisoners get a last meal request. Every day is the end, until the next day starts and he has to wonder when it will all be over. Zola seems pleased and that's never good, until the day when Zola looks displeased. Worried. And even then Bucky can't be glad; he thought he would be, but it makes him feel sick. Or maybe that's whatever Zola pumped into him earlier. Either way he stares at the ceiling, mumbling his name and number over and over. Just remember who you are, Buck, that's all you gotta do. Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes, 3255708…
And then someone is tearing the straps off of him and helping him off the stretcher, and that someone is Steve? Steve should be in Brooklyn, Steve is…
"I thought you were smaller," Bucky says, blinking hard to clear his vision. "What happened?"
"I joined the army," Steve says, as if that should answer everything, and in that moment, Bucky can't be sure if he's dead, or if he beat the odds yet again.