We Were Soldiers

65. A Thousand Years of Hell

Bucky's eyes crept open, slowly, reluctantly. Light danced above him, flashes of blinding white in the darkness. Took him a moment to realise the flashes were from a malfunctioning light, its bulb flickering as it tried to draw enough power to stay alive.

He knew how it felt.

Everything hurt. His fever had subsided; now he was cold. So cold. His body tried to curl reflexively into a ball of warmth—the restraints around his wrists and ankles stopped him.

He heard a sound. Turned his aching head, squinted through gritty eyes. The man in the white lab coat was there, filling hypodermic syringes with something from a bottle. When he saw the amber liquid, Bucky flinched.

For days—he'd lost count of how many—the doctor had been injecting him with the liquid. Small doses, to allow the subject's body to adapt to the larger amounts eventually required. He only knew that from listening to the man's mumbles as he jotted notes in his journal of pain. The man never spoke to Bucky directly; at least, never as a person. Always a subject. Subject 36. You will feel a slight pinch. The words could have come from a family physician—this man made them a mockery. Said nothing about the intense, bond-bending, muscle-wrenching burning which followed the pinch.

Small doses.

The man approached, pulling the cap from the needle, reaching out a hand to tap against the vein in Bucky's arm.

"You will feel a slight pinch," he said.

Bucky closed his eyes, and prepared for the fires of Hell.

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It was a new day. He could tell because it was light outside. Couldn't tell how many nights he'd slept through, though. Sometime after being injected, at some point when he thought he was going to die from the pain, he'd lost consciousness.

"The subject will undoubtedly be feeling better, much improved on how he was when he was first brought here," the man mumbled as, somewhere out of sight, he scribbled notes in his journals.

Bucky held his breath. Did a mental check of his body. The doctor was right. He did feel better. He could breathe easily. He didn't feel so cold anymore. Wasn't quite as exhausted.

"The latest changes to the compound seem to have triggered an intense immune response in the subject," the man continued. His mumbling was so quiet that Bucky had to strain to hear it. "Pneumonia is almost entirely gone. An interesting side-effect. However, I hadn't anticipated the subject's immune system recovering so quickly. This may make phase two more difficult. If I had my way, I would continue to slowly increase the dosage until reaching the required level of saturation. I doubt Herr Schmidt will be so patient."

"What are you doing to me?" Bucky asked. Whatever it was, it couldn't be good. He'd heard of German doctors experimenting on prisoners to create new biological weapons to unleash on their enemies. It made his stomach churn angrily, to think that what was being done to him now might one day be used on his friends. Maybe even on civilian populations.

The angry churn quickly turned to a hungry growl. His question went unnoticed by the doctor; the growl didn't.

"Ahh, how terribly remiss of me!" the little man said. He appeared in Bucky's view, a pudgy face peering down at him through bug-like eyes. "I will have the guards fetch you food, and you will eat. You must keep up your strength!"

Bucky clamped his lips closed, focused his gaze on the dirty stone ceiling above. If he didn't eat, he would die. Then this doctor and his twisted master wouldn't be able to use him in the creation of whatever new weapons they were concocting.

"It does not matter," the doctor said, as if reading his thoughts. A humourless smile pulled up one corner of his lips. "We have ways of making our subjects comply."

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A spoonful of cold broth was held up. Bucky opened his mouth and clamped his lips down on the spoon when it was fed to him by one of the helmeted guards. He resisted the urge to spit it right back in the man's face. Failure to comply resulted in punishment too great for him to bear.

The metal of the table was cold against his back, but it was good to be vertical for a change. The first time the guards had lifted the table upright, he'd cried out in shock, afraid they were going to overturn him completely. But his restraints were tightened, and one added around his forehead, to keep his neck and head still. In this position, he could be fed. In this position, he had a view of the room, and the prisoner they'd brought in as an incentive.

The first time Bucky had refused to eat, the doctor had the guards beat him. But he didn't care; pain was a useful tool for dulling hunger. And the doctor wised up to that pretty quick. The next time Bucky refused, they brought in one of the older, grubbier prisoners. Sat the man down opposite Bucky. Broke each finger on his right hand one by one, until Bucky could bear the snaps of bone and screams of pain no longer, and swore he would eat whatever they gave him.

Sometimes he thought of disobeying again, but he feared what they might do next. What if they broke more than fingers? What if they broke arms, or legs? What if they resorted to execution, just to get their subject to swallow a little cold stew and chew a morsel of stale bread? What if next time, they hurt Gabe, or Dugan?

He could live with his own pain, but not with the suffering of others. So he ate. He chewed. He swallowed. And in his head, he dreamt up ways to pay the doctor back for every needle, every bruise, and every broken finger.

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It wasn't a bathroom. It was a metal bucket in the corner of the grim laboratory. Bucky stood over it, conscious of the guards hovering behind him, hands on their weapons. They were alert; too alert. Expected him to try something. Looked at him and saw defiance in his eyes.

He would wait. At some point, they would consider him beaten. Let their guard down. At some point, the two armed guards would become one. Maybe that one wouldn't hover so close. Maybe he wouldn't stand with his hand ready on his weapon. Maybe, in a few more days, he could take the chance.

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"Subject 36," the doctor said. Bucky couldn't see him; he was over at his workbench. But he heard the scrape of metal on glass as the man mounted the microscope slide. He'd gotten very good at discerning what his tormentor was doing, just by the sounds that he made.

"My name is James Buchanan Barnes. Rank—"

"Ah-ah!" the doctor warned, with a vexed hiss. "I didn't ask for your party-piece. I am detecting trace elements of an unusual compound in your blood. Have you received any medical treatment recently which might account for this?"

"—Sergeant. Service number—"

The doctor's sigh interrupted his recital.

"I am not asking you to give up your country's secrets, Subject 36." The scrape of the chair legs on bare stone were like chalkboard-fingernails down his spine. The doctor's face hovered above him. "I don't care for troop placements or attack plans. All I would like is a little medical history. Is that too much to ask for?"

Bucky fixed him with the best defiant glare he could muster.

"My name is James Buchanan Barnes. Rank: Sergeant. Service number—"

"Well, no matter. The compound in your blood does not seem to be interfering with the experiment. I was simply curious."

The face disappeared, and Bucky felt the thrill of victory shiver through him.

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James Buchanan Barnes. Bucky. My name is Bucky.

He thought the information to the unseen ceiling overhead. It was late; the doctor was gone, and apart from the play of moonlight through the tiny, dirt-clad windows, the room was in darkness. Two guards stood watch on their side of the door, but Bucky was completely and utterly alone, the silence punctuated only by the drip of the sink's leaky faucet.

In his lucid moments, he repeated his mantra over and over to himself. Told himself who he was. What his rank was. His service number. He brought forth the names of his family, called up their faces in his mind. Said their names in silence so he wouldn't forget. Subject 36 had no friends and family; he was a lab rat. But Bucky Barnes was loved. They might call him Subject 36, but they couldn't make him be that non-person.

Mom. Dad. Mary-Ann. Charlie. Janet. Grandma Barnes. Steve.

The names were his lifeline to himself. In the long hours when he was alone, he let his family and friends live inside him. It helped to keep the loneliness at bay. Helped to keep him sane. Gave him strength to endure another day of agonising experimentation or torturous loneliness.

It wasn't much, but it was the only way he had of fighting back. A way of resisting. Of saying, no, I won't be what you want me to be.

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His ears were full of his own screams as a fire burned beneath his skin and his writhing body threatened to snap bones. The ache was hot, stabbing, causing his limbs to contort in spasm. The fire of pain raged through his head, dulling his senses so that he didn't see or hear the laboratory anymore. Instead, a prison of agony shrouded him.

When he came to, hours had passed. It was dark outside. Panting, shivering, burning, he felt the slick of sweat across his skin as his limbs were wrangled back into place, his restraints fastened more tightly. Dimly, he recalled the doctor ordering the guards to loosen them; the man was afraid Bucky's bones would break if his body wasn't allowed to writhe and twist to the pulse of the pain.

"Congratulations, Subject 36," the doctor said, his face smiling down at Bucky as if looking upon a favoured child. "You are the first subject to survive stage two. I cannot wait to see what new revelations stage three brings!"

Bucky was too busy gasping air into aching lungs to respond, but when he saw the smile on the doctor's face, he shivered in a way that had nothing to do with the cold of the laboratory.

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Pain was a constant companion during stage three. A deep, pervasive ache. Familiar. Like the time he'd had growing pains as a kid. Bones become denser. Tendons and ligaments stretching. Muscles cramping. Only, it wasn't just in his legs; it was everywhere. In his toes, his hands, his arms, along his spine, even inside his head. There wasn't an inch of him that didn't hurt inside and out.

Delirious with pain, he rolled his head to the side, saw light play across the clear bag of amber liquid hanging from the frame above him. Some tiny part of his mind that was still cognisant knew that whatever the liquid was, it was killing him. Slowly, surely, dripping poison into his veins. Lashed down, unable to lift an arm, he could only lie there and accept the poison.

Tears burned his eyes. What had he done to deserve this? Why was he being punished? Why couldn't they get it over with quickly? Why didn't they just let him die?

Figures from his past tried to comfort him.

"At least for us it was quick," said Lt. Danzig, stepping forward from the crowd of murky, shadowy forms that hovered in the corner of his vision. "Stay strong. Don't let them see you cry."

"Hang in there, Sarge," Tipper squeaked, reaching out to give him a comforting pat on the shoulder with his skinny hand. "They can't keep this up much longer, right?"

"I hope somebody's been feeding the chickens," Davies scowled, his face floating above the cold metal table.

"It's not so bad, being dead," Wells assured him with a small smile."No hunger. No pain. Just peace. I think you'll like it. And hey, we can finally have that awkward conversation you've been looking forward to!"

"I found Drew," Hawkins told him."He was waiting for me, along with Grandpa and Molly—she was my dog when I was a kid. Didn't expect that, but here she is. Didn't you say you had a dog when you were a kid, Sarge?"

"You know what I say," Steve grinned. "Each time you get knocked down is just an opportunity to see how fast you can get back up again."

Bucky nodded, blinking away the tears. His friends were right. He had to stay strong. Had to show that them no matter how much they bent him, he wouldn't be broken. And if they killed him… well, death was nothing to fear. People he loved would be waiting for him, just like Father Rice always said.

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Painfully sore eyes opened to darkness. There was no light. It hurt too much. Even the soft glow of the oil lamp had caused hot lightning to sear across his vision, stabbing their electric fingers into his head. Eventually, his screams had grated on the doctor's nerves so much that the man had taken the lamp and gone to write his notes elsewhere.

The soft caress of whispers tickled his mind. A voice, familiar, nasally, seemed to be pleading.

"…if only we had a vita-ray generator, the work could go much faster!"

Bucky turned his head. Squinted at the light spilling in through the crack of the laboratory door. Two figures outlined there, their shadows dark as their cruel hearts. The short figure; the doctor, cringed before the taller shadow-man.

"There is not enough power out here to fuel a vita-ray generator, even if we had one."

"Perhaps we could adapt the Tes—"

"No!" Bucky flinched at the harsh rejection; the doctor's shadow flinched, too, like a dog expecting to be beaten. "We cannot afford to take it offline. Its energy is being used to power production of the Valkyrie, as well as the weapons our troops are using. Now, with our enemies making our way through Italy, we must contend with multiple fronts. The Führer may no longer be our greatest concern." The shadow's head moved, and Bucky knew instinctively that the taller man was looking through to door, to their 'Subject.' "Continue the experiment, Doctor Zola. Perhaps this one will be the key we have been searching for."

Zola?

So. That was the name of the monster responsible for all of Bucky's pain. He stored the knowledge away. It was good to know the name of the man whose head Bucky would one day put a bullet through.

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He fell into dreams intermingled with memories, unable to quite separate the two.

Meeting Steve for the first time. They'd been eight—or was it nine? The details were blurry. That was how Bucky felt. Blurry. As if his thoughts and his body had become fuzzy around the edges, smudged and smeared by pain, so that he wasn't quite the same Bucky he'd been a month ago. The Alamo. Remember the Alamo. They'd fought the Alamo in Bucky's back yard, from a cardboard box fort. Nine. Yes, he was sure they'd been nine when they met.

Mom bringing Janet home from the hospital. She'd been so small, so vulnerable… she was still small, but growing fast. By now she was probably bringing boys home, as Mary-Ann had when she was sixteen. Carrying a torch for Steve hadn't stopped her from going dancing with other guys while she waited for Bucky's best friend to grow up and make a move. He just hoped there were no guys making a move on Janet; not until Bucky had had chance to put a little fear and respect into them.

Fifteen. His first kiss. Meredith Fisher. He hadn't known what he was doing, but she didn't seem to mind. Practice makes perfect, or so they said. Meredith hadn't lasted more than a few months. She didn't like that he spent so much time hanging around with Steve and his friends. Wanted him to spend more time with her. But Steve and the others, they'd been a big part of Bucky's life for much longer than Meredith had. If he was gonna have a girlfriend, he needed her to understand that friendship was important to him. That she could be a part of his life, but not the whole of it.

Sitting in the sterile waiting room of the TB ward where Sarah Rogers had once worked. Waiting for Steve to say goodbye. Not know what to do, how to react, when Steve finally stepped through the door, his face ashen and his eyes red from crying. Enveloping his friend in a hug when Steve fixed his gaze on the bleached-white tiles. "At least she's not suffering anymore."

He was dying in this stalag. He knew it. This was his life flashing before his eyes. Only, he was dying slowly, so the moments of his life came slowly, too. His mind brought back everything it felt he needed to see, and he lived a thousand lifetimes on that cold steel table.

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"Please let me die!" he begged as whatever was in Zola's injections poured through his veins like molten iron, igniting wildfires of heat and pain within his muscles and beneath his skin. "Please!"

His pleas fell on deaf ears. Zola had brought in a gramophone, and played loud opera so that he couldn't hear Bucky's cries. Slowly he was tortured to the shrill of a mezzo-soprano wailing in German.

He couldn't take much more, and he didn't care how weak begging made him seem. For days or weeks or years he'd lived in constant agony with no relief. They'd stopped feeding him, because every time they forced food into him, he just vomited it up. He couldn't see himself, but he imagined he looked like a corpse. He felt like a corpse. Had his hair fallen out? Had his fingernails dropped off? Were his teeth rotting in his mouth? It felt like it. It felt like everything was being stripped away, piece by piece, exposing his insides to the harsh climate of the outside world.

Zola did not respond. After a while, he left the room, leaving Bucky to die in the company of the wailing voice.

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He wobbled on his feet. Below him, on the stone floor, the bucket seemed to swim, like he was watching it through a puddle of water swirling round and around. His mind was equally foggy, shrouded in darkness and misery. How long had it been since he'd stood over this bucket contemplating escape? How long since he'd last had hope?

There was no escape. He realised that, now. Even if by some miracle he was able to get away from this place, it would never truly leave him. They'd injected so much into him that he wasn't himself anymore. He was some weak, begging, dying thing; in fact, he was already dead. His body just hadn't caught up yet.

He zipped up his pants and turned, almost falling over in the process. The single guard reached out, hand clasping Bucky's arm to stop him falling backwards into the foul-smelling bucket. As the helmeted guard righted him, his eyes fell on the pistol at his hip.

No escape.

He was already dead.

Rumour has it they make chemical and biological weapons in the back room.

If he let this continue, they'd take this weapon and use it on others.

My name is James Buchanan Barnes.

Some tiny sliver of strength returned to him. It didn't matter if he died; he was already dead. All that mattered was stopping these monsters from continuing their work on him. Putting an end to the pain. He couldn't face another day of this. It was too much.

He acted on impulse, leaning forward, reaching out, grabbing the pistol in its holster. At the same time, he dropped his shoulder and launched forward, catching the guard in his stomach and knocking him to the ground.

"Stop him!" he heard Zola cry.

Bucky fumbled for the safety. Felt tears of frustration burn his eyes when it didn't immediately disengage. Tried again and found success. Lifted the pistol, jammed the cold metal of the muzzle against his temple, and—

—was tackled from the side as his finger yanked the trigger. The gun flew from his hand. Bucky was thrown to the floor. The bullet whistled through air before knocking a chip out of the wall. The second guard, his weight pressed above Bucky to keep him immobile on the ground, kicked the gun away and wrestled his prisoner back onto the metal table. Bucky flailed and lashed out with what was left of his strength, throwing punches and kicks which fell off the guard like water flowing down a duck's back. After a moment of recovery, the first guard moved to help. His gloved hands were harsh as they forced Bucky's arm back to the table and lashed it down with one of the restraints.

His tears flowed freely, blurring and burning. Stupid, stupid, stupid, he told himself. Too slow. He'd been too slow. For one brief, heart-stopping moment, he'd glimpsed freedom. But freedom had been cruelly snatched away, and now there was nothing in sight but tomorrow's pain.

Zola's face appeared, scowling down at him. "It seems I underestimated you, Subject 36. I will not do so again." His gaze danced up to the guards hovering nearby. "This must not be allowed to happen again. From now on he stays on the bed. Permanently. If he escapes, or manages to take his life before I am done with this experiment, I will see to it that Herr Schmidt knows where to place the blame."

Bucky couldn't see the guards' faces; his eyes were blurred with tears of anger, and they still wore helmets and goggles which made them look identical. But the threat scared them. He could tell, somehow. They were terrified of Schmidt.

Zola's face disappeared. The gramophone was switched on, and Bucky's tears burnt hotter. He knew what the music meant. The opera singer was a wailing banshee, and her song heralded pain.

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"My name is James Buchanan Barnes," he whispered to the darkness. Life in the backroom was an unending series of nights, each one somehow darker than the last. There is no hope, the memory of Dernier's voice told him. And he finally believed it.

"My name is James Buchanan Barnes," he repeated, eyes fixed unseeing on the ceiling above. "Can you hear me? My name is James Buchanan Barnes!"

In the silence that followed, he thought he could hear the clanging and ringing of work continuing on the factory floor. Maybe he was just imagining it. Maybe it was easier to pretend to hear the sounds, than it was to dwell in his lonely silence.

"I know you know who I am," he continued. "I know, because I was baptised, and that means you have to know me. Why won't you answer? Why are you doing this? Why are you letting it happen? Is this punishment? Do you hate me that much? First you took all my friends, and now you're torturing me. Why? What purpose does it serve?"

He heard one of the guards shift slightly where he stood by the door. It made them uncomfortable when he talked aloud. They thought he was crazy. Maybe he finally was.

"MY NAME IS JAMES. BUCHANAN. BARNES!" he yelled at the ceiling, his voice a dry, painful croak as it screamed out of his throat.

There was no response. Wells had been right. He wasn't listening anymore. He'd never been listening at all.

Author's note: Thought I'd provide a quick update, as I haven't done one in a while. By the end of today, I'll have finished chapter 86 and moved on to chapter 87. Things are moving slowly, but that's actually a good thing. I'd initially been worried that after the fun and antics of the 107th, I'd have nothing to write about with the Commandos, and that I'd struggle to make them as interesting. But I'm actually enjoying exploring the early days of their team and developing their backgrounds and such, and I have a lot of ideas in the works for their missions. Thanks to everyone for your questions, comments and feedback!