Chapter 6: The Base
Author's Note: Disclaimer: If the Russian is screwed up, blame Google Translate. :3 xD
Warning: There are some lines here in Russian so you might want google translate open if you don't know the language. :3
Sensible warning: Over-the-edge angst, panic attacks, torture, Bucky's screwed-up mental state, and Pierce who deserves his own warning.
~ Rivana Rita
Consciousness fades out on the way back, and when he wakes, it's with a flare of raw, gutted panic. The programming is still kicked in, still weighing over his mind, still there, still active, but Bucky remembers.
He remembers Steve, Natasha, Loki – they were at the base, and Bucky –
He left them there.
Yelena betrayed them. Turned on them, and she...
He knew he wouldn't get away forever, and he still foolishly believed he'd make it far enough away, that with Loki's help they'd be able to out Hydra or stop this.
He'd let his guard down with Yelena. He thought he could trust her, because she was Natasha's sister, and she seemed so young and innocent. But it wouldn't be the first time someone who served Hydra pretended. Fooled him. That's what they do.
She shot her sister. Dropped her without hesitation – but she did hesitate. She was warring – he saw it on her face, but she broke and gave in the same way he did when she said those words. He can't stop it.
He's not Bucky right now.
He's the Winter Soldier.
The Asset.
(Trapped muzzled with no way out? First time for that.)
"Мне жаль."
His head lifts, eyes narrow. The apology is strange. Is it fake? What's her aim? Does she think he'll let his trust down again? She's taking him back to the place this all started, and he thought he'd –
His heart is pounding and his chest feels tight and his throat is tight enough it's hard to breathe. There's no way out.
His shoulder's still bleeding sluggishly. Yelena insisted he bandage it. He did but it's too deep. It hurts to move it.
He says nothing.
Yelena sinks onto the seat across from him. "Я не могу об этом говорить. Моя сестра не знает. В Красной комнате все изменилось после ее побега. Они переписали все, и они переписали меня."
His mind translates the Russian sluggishly – it's far from his first language, and he doesn't really catch some of the words.
The Red Room. It sounds... familiar? Might've heard it mentioned before. In relation to Natasha. Something about where she was trained, maybe. Is he supposed to talk? Say something? What does he say? "I don't understand."
She sighs. "That's good. It doesn't matter anyway. There's no way out." She stands, disappearing to the front again.
The Quinjet is touching down. She's flying it into a hangar somewhere.
He's been here before. Recognizes the base.
Should he run? He could overpower her, but what about everyone else on the way? And if he failed...
He's never run away before. The Asset hasn't dared resisting the Words in a long time. How long has it been? Decades, at least – it was part of the programming.
What will they do to him? They – they –
"Come on." She breezes past him again, lowering the ramp.
He follows blindly. Tries not to think. To anything.
He knows this place has been here a thousand times too many too long as they ripped him apart and pieced him back together and the – he's back here again.
(Bucky's only way out of here is if Steve and Loki somehow track him here. He knows that. He also doesn't know how long he'll have to wait – he never told them anything. He should have but he was too afraid to talk and now he's – he's – here again and he doesn't know when they'll ever find him when this will stop if it will stop.)
(He wants to go home.)
He's come back here before, willingly, and now that he remembers...
This isn't for good. It's not for anything, not meant for the good of anyone except the leaders of Hydra who will get the honor of ruling the world, like that's a thing to kill for.
(He understands that because in an hour max he'll be screaming his throat raw and begging whatever's listening to just let it stop – he would do anything to stop this, too, and he can and he's too afraid to try again. Except the last time he begged was almost seventy years ago and he's never done it since. His cries are always in vain and no one ever listens and he's made to be this to be hurt to be a weapon and Steve says he's not but he is and –)
Yelena's quiet throughout the walk in.
That's good – he doesn't have to talk.
They stop so he can take his weapons off.
(He thinks about hiding one of his knives. Trying to keep it somewhere on him to try to – to – something. Doesn't.)
His head is swimming and nausea builds in his gut, threatening to surface it's nonexistent contents. He's hungry – can't remember the last time he ate. The party? He did eat – was it this morning? Hardly. Steve kept telling him he should. He'd been too... nervous.
He knew this would happen. He still came because he thought he could help and now they're going to use him on Steve again.
And Loki. Tony. Nat. Clint – Sam. All – all of them.
He can't stop it.
(He'd rather die than hurt Steve again.)
He failed his mission.
He doesn't fail.
They're going to be angry.
Yelena's talking. The Asset hears her voice, but he can't make out her words. He can't make out anything – the world around him is a trembling blur.
The barred door clangs open.
His body goes rigid.
Peirce is here. His handler.
Yelena's saying something, waving hands for emphasis, face falling a little. She's not being goofy now. She looks as rigid as he is.
"Damage report" fades in from far away, and he can't process, can't get an answer out before a hand hits his face, eliciting a sharp spark of pain in his cheek.
"Uh, you can add that to the list," Yelena supplies.
His handler's patience is already on short fuse, which does not bode well for him. Apparently, that includes her. "Wait outside, Widow."
Yelena swivels around and leaves the room, none too slow.
"Bullet wound, right shoulder, shrapnel – left leg." Yelena disappears from view of the other side of the door. She paused to look back at him.
The Asset – Bucky his name is Bucky – can't tear his eyes from his handler. Can't look at her. No matter how nice she's been.
"What did you tell them?"
Blood is rushing in his head. He feels dizzy. Faint. Like he'll fall standing and the world around him is blurring. "I didn't tell them anything."
His expression flickers darkly. That's not the answer he wanted. "How did they find our base?"
He doesn't know. He wasn't there when it happened – he was tracking Thor to the hilicarrier which he blew up and nearly killed Steve."Loki tracked the Tesseract."
Steve –
He would fight his way out. He always did, but Bucky isn't him. He doesn't have that strength. Not anymore.
"What do they know about us?"
His lips part and he tries to talk, but nothing comes out. Too much. Not enough. Not enough to find him. He has to answer but he doesn't want to this is wrong he shouldn't be here he's not supposed to be helping Hydra what did they do to him how can he have become this what is he doing he can't stop this can't get out there's no way out he tried he knows that he –
(He already knows where this is going has been here before knows there's no way out not for him.)
He doesn't know what they know. Just that he didn't tell Steve half of what he should have. They only know Hydra exists and nothing more, because he was too afraid to talk.
Just like he is now.
The Asset tries to answer (that's what he's supposed to do they'll reset him again if he doesn't comply), but nothing comes out. His throat feels tight. He can't breathe, can't move can't anything and that's when it hits him.
Loki said he spelled them. He spelled them all.
Which, he realizes with growing panic, is a guaranteed promise of pain for him.
No one will believe him.
"The Asgardian spelled everyone," he says, "So we couldn't talk about it."
(That's good. That he can't give Hydra any confirmation. They won't know what to expect. They'll have no way of expecting anything this way. No more ambushes. All this so they could get their Asset back? Loki could have died. Steve. Natasha already took a shot for him.)
"This spell won't let you say anything?" Pierce sounds dubious.
Definitely doesn't believe him.
And that's going to be –
He knows how it's going to end, what they're about to do.
Pierce looks at a couple of the other agents and one of them is moving toward him.
The panic is strangling him so much he can hardly breathe. He's not thinking when he moves, tackling the agent moving toward him and wrestling his gun away. It's easy enough except that he's completely outnumbered, and all the agents are constantly braced for him to try attacking.
He should've stopped moving when he saw the gun because they've been through this before, and the one on the other end always pulls the trigger.
Pain flares in his gut, and he gasps sharply. His vision blurs over and he falls. Doesn't really remember what happened after.
The Asset only sees flashes after.
He remembers the pain in his head. Burning and searing and ceaseless. His face is wet and everything is wet and he remembers struggling. He has a brief flash of being – somewhere – the light too bright (familiar he's been there before when he lifted his new hand and saw the shimmering metal and – and Zola –) and he's being cut into and he screams his throat raw.
The room is dark when he wakes.
They didn't... cyro-freeze him again?
His head is burning. His jaw aches and trying to move is too much.
He feels – feels wrong –
He's in a cell, but he's still restrained. His right arm aches from jerking against the restraints.
And – they –
They muzzled him. They've done this before.
He can't talk. Or eat. Or drink. Or move his jaw at all. Not until they take it off.
Probably for talking this time. Talking when he wasn't supposed to.
His wishes he hadn't woken at all.
The blood in his veins still feels like fire and he aches in places he didn't know he had.
They're going to take Steve again. They're going to take all of it, and he can't let that happen again. He has to get out of here. He can't – can't wait.
But he knows he can't try again, either. Can't – he knows he'll never make it and this is what happens every time he tries. And he knows they're going to do much worse if he does anything else again. This is probably already not – where it's gonna end.
But if he doesn't, then –
His name is Bucky. He remembers that – though his mind and memories are too jarred and blurred to properly focus on anything right now. He's not a weapon. He's not – he knows that. Remembers that. He chose to fight them in the war, and then they took him and tried to –
He's collected two bullet wounds already, trying to fight Hydra this time. He's had worse. There was a time he nearly fought his way out.
He's been imprisoned so long. Always imprisoned. Either in these cells or cages or in cryofreeze or in his own mind.
It'll take a few days for his bullet wounds to heal. If they feed him.
If.
He tried to escape twice. They might not.
Considering that they're making him wear a muzzle again – he remembers it's happened before – they probably won't. And he has no idea for how long. He can't move his mouth. Can't really move his jaw properly at all. Can't breathe through his mouth either.
His head is pounding. Burning. He wants to cry.
Crying is going to make it worse. He's made that mistake before. Won't again.
Breathing is agonizing. Every inhale, exhale, twitch pulls at the stitching in his stomach. They bothered stitching it – that's rare. They usually don't. He can heal on his own. They don't make much deal out of it.
(Bucky tried escaping before – he was close. He fought them as hard as he could but he could never get out and he remembers when Steve was shot in the war – it was always hard. The serum made him unaffected by anesthesia. It did the same thing to Bucky.)
(If he moves wrong they'll shoot him and let him bleed out to near death and restrain him and cut the bullet out while he's fully conscious and then fry his brain out again, anyway.)
(He's lost count of how many times this happened.)
(It's not a thing he'll try to do unless he wants to get beat up. And he's not Steve.)
(His last attempt ended with maybe three bullet holes and being beaten enough he could hardly move. And at least four fractures in his hand where someone stepped on it. His hand was numb for days.)
(Loki gave him back his memories. He also gave him back a whole lot of things Bucky really, really wishes he didn't have to relive.)
He needs Steve. Can't wait until they find him again.
(He's too afraid to try.)
He should've told Steve. Everything. All of it.
He needs to get out, but –
He can't.
He already knows he can't. There's not - anything he can do. If he tries again, he'll fail.
That's going to be hard.
He'll probably fail – of course he will he always does has ever time he tried – but he remembers. He can't let them –
Turn him back into their killing weapon.
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