86.

?

?

Bucky's eyes open slowly. He blinks away the hold of sleep, and for a second, forgets where he is. The ground underneath him is hard and cold, and he thinks maybe it was all just a terrible dream, and he's still with the Commandos somewhere in the forests of Europe. Even that, with all the hunger and danger and fighting, would be better than being held captive.

Still, once he opens his eyes and sees the fluorescent light overhead and the cell walls surrounding him, he knows this is his reality. He sits up and looks around. It's a small cell, with only a rickety bed and a toilet, but its familiar. Somehow, he also knows it's better than uncomfortable sensations and pain of the cryostasis chamber Hydra has been holding him in for most of his captivity. At least the cell is remotely warm.

The pool of dried blood on the floor in the corner confirms this is the exact cell he's called home for the last few weeks, ever since Hydra awoke him from cryostasis and informed him they were awaiting the arrival of the next part of their plan, which he now knows was his sister. He'd mouthed them off and refused to comply and so they'd beat him a few times in those past weeks, and he'd retreated to that corner to rest and bleed all over the floor. It's also the same cell they stuck him in when he was first brought to Hydra after falling from the ravine, before they'd put him in cryostasis when he was internally bleeding and bleeding everywhere else. They'd left him in here while they assessed his healing ability. Finally, they'd taken him to the medical room right before he'd thought he was doomed to die, his world enveloped by what he called the white of Heaven. He'd woken up again on an operating table, with a metal arm attached to his shoulder that he could feel and control and had immediately strangled the closest doctor.

Other than the hospital room, the cell and the cryostasis chamber, Bucky doesn't remember going much further. They've put him into the memory-wiping chair a few times now, the same one they'd tried on him the first time he'd been captured. They strap down his arms and the machine has thick pads that cover his temples, and it's the most painful experience of his life. It sends shocks through his brain and body, causing a searing headache as though his head were being split in two, and seems to burn excruciatingly.

He shudders at the thought of the chair. It hasn't worked, apparently, because he still has his memories. He can still recite his name and serial number and knows the people in the images they show him – the Commandos, his parents, Steve, and Isabel–

He pauses. It still takes another second for him to remember that he'd seen Isabel. At least, he thinks he did. The details of their encounter become clearer and clearer the more he fights through the fog of his mind, caused by the tranquilizer they'd shot him with. He looks around wildly, finally gaining some alertness that had been missing as his mind wandered through his thick thoughts.

He looks at the cell opposite and catches sight of her. She's sitting against the bars closest to him, twiddling her fingers nervously and looking at Bucky with a pinched frown, most likely wondering if he remembers her.

"Is?" Bucky asks, but his voice comes out gravelly. He clears his throat and tries again. "Isabel?"

"Bucky?" She replies quietly. She sighs then, barely audible. "You remember…" she mumbles, all relief.

"Did they hurt you?" Bucky grunts immediately.

He moves to the bars of his own cell and looks over at her. She doesn't look injured, just positively frightened, her eyes wide and continuously darting between Bucky and the door. Her hair is a mess, her face as white as a sheet underneath all the dirt, and her clothes are ruined. Bucky recognises the dress.

"No, not yet."

"What happened? W-what's going on?"

Isabel lets out a long puff of air as though she's trying not to cry, her eyes growing glassy. "They sedated you and took you away, then they threw us both in here."

"How long have I been out?" Bucky asks, holding a hand to his aching head. At the back of his head is the faintest lump, which stings when he presses on it. He brings his hand away with a speckle of dried blood, caked in his dark mop of hair.

"About a day? I'm not sure, it's hard to tell," Isabel replies, looking around at the bleak cellar-like room. The room is damp and musty, the walls made of cement. There are no windows, and only one door, the only light coming from the fluorescent lights above each cell.

"And how long have I been here? How long since I fell?" Bucky asks hesitantly.

Isabel flinches at the mention of the event. "You remember that?" She asks carefully. Bucky nods, sees the event run across his eyes once again. Isabel pauses, swallows loudly. "Over a year. About fifteen months."

Bucky gulps, looking down at his hands – one metal and one flesh. Fifteen months of his life spent within the depths of Hydra. Fifteen months with his new arm. Fifteen months of torture. Fifteen months wasted.

"Madame Hydra told me what they did to you in that time, and what they want with us," Isabel whispers. "I'm so scared, Bucky."

"Hey, it's okay," Bucky comforts her as best as he can. "We'll get out."

"No, Bucky. I don't think we will," Isabel tells him. "No one knows we're here."

The door to the room opens with a sudden clang, making the siblings spring away from the bars further into their cells.

"That's right," Madame Hydra says, strolling casually down the aisle between the cells. "No one knows you're here. No one knows that you survived the fall," she says, pointing at Bucky. "And no one has any idea where you disappeared to," she tells Isabel, smirking at her.

In her hands is a newspaper, relatively unread considering how the pages have little wrinkles and dogears, the ink not smudged or faded. Madame Hydra drops the paper into Bucky's cell at his feet.

"I was going to show you this a while ago, but I forgot," she says with a nonchalant shrug.

Bucky hesitantly picks up the newspaper. The date says March thirtieth, nineteen-forty-five. Bucky knows it must be well past that date by now, since Isabel said it's been fifteen months and he fell from the train in early February. That makes it about May of nineteen-forty-six.

The headline reads, in bold capitals, CAPTAIN AMERICA DEAD. Bucky's breathe catches in his lungs, but he reads on silently. ROGERS DISAPPEARS. Famed super-soldier and defender of the Allied cause Captain Steven Rogers, better known as Captain America, has been pronounced killed in action today after being missing for over a month. The Captain crashed an enemy plane into the icefields off of Greenland in order to save the world from destruction. It is reported that the plane's steering columns, navigation, and fuel source had been destroyed, meaning the plane had to be crash landed. Understanding from reports from the Captain's fellow Howling Commandos provide information that Miss Isabel Barnes, famed love interest of the Captain, was speaking to him through a radio whilst he was crashing the plane and was with him in his final moments. The audio of the crash has not been released. Since the crash, Howard Stark has deployed ships in search of the crashed plane but has been unable to recover the wreckage. After such a time and due to the conditions of that geographical location, it is a shame to pronounce Captain Rogers killed in action. A ceremony was held to honour the Captain on March fourth in London, with Barnes famously speaking on his behalf. She also mentioned the legacy of her fallen brother, Sergeant James Barnes, who died only two weeks before the Captain. Both American heroes will be sorely missed.

Bucky looks up carefully from the newspaper, after reading it twice to ensure his eyes didn't deceive him, meeting Isabel's eyes. "Is this true?" He whispers.

He doesn't really have to ask. Isabel knows what the newspaper says. She saw the image of Steve on the front. Isabel's eyes well with tears, and a pained wail escapes her mouth and echoes through the hallway. She tucks her legs up into her chest and cries into her folded arms, turning away from both Bucky and Madame Hydra.

"Poor darl," Madame Hydra says, watching Isabel's crying figure with a sort of pity. "She's had so much time alone to think about it. Just tragic. Your friend put the Valkyrie down in the Arctic icefields to stop the deploying of our bombs over every major city in the world."

"The Valkyrie?"

"Yes, the plane we had you all building. That was a very costly investment for Hydra gone to waste. It rather messed up our plans as well, but plans can be rearranged. After your 'death' and the Captain's fall, the Commandos continued to raid Hydra factories. They've halted their invasion as of a year ago, assuming Hydra to be damaged beyond repair. How wrong they are. And how ironic that the both of you will be the ones to help us rebuild Hydra from the ground up."

Madame Hydra turns to Isabel then, banging on the cell door. Isabel jumps and looks up, her cheeks streaked with tears.

"Your friend, Agent Carter; she's going to be leading Shield, yes? Do you think she would be very upset to learn that Hydra has already managed to infiltrate Shield? Hydra shall utilise the company's infancy for their own rebuilding. They'll be intertwined, with no way to tell where Hydra ends and Shield begins."

"You can't do that," Isabel argues. "You'll never get away with it."

"Oh, yes we will," Madame Hydra argues back. "Both of you sit tight. I'll be back soon to fetch you and we can begin. We have grand plans to enact and not a whole lot of time to work with."

With that, Madame Hydra exits the jail cells, slamming the door behind her and throwing them both into silence again.

"Is it true? Is it really true?" Bucky asks quietly.

Isabel looks up at him sadly and nods. "Yeah, Buck. It's true." She takes a shaky breath. "After you fell, Steve was beside himself… Not only grieving, but with anger. All he wanted was revenge, and he wasn't going to stop hunting all of Hydra until he avenged you, though I doubted it would have filled the void."

"How did it happen?" Bucky asks. "The plane crash?"

Isabel takes a deep breath. "We were raiding what we thought was the last Hydra factory, but apparently it's not. Steve boarded the Valkyrie which was going to drop bombs on every major city in the world. He took down the Red Skull and tried to stop the plane, but it was stuck on autopilot and all of the controls were fried, nothing was reading properly. Steve couldn't get it to turn anyway other than up and down. It was headed straight for New York, but it was running out of fuel and it was going to fall right onto the city. He made the decision to put the plane in the water to save everyone's lives. I was talking to him over the radio as it happened. He…" She breaks off, tears running down her cheeks. "He promised he'd watch me from Heaven, that he'd be there. He was so scared, Bucky. I tried to distract him. We talked about dancing, anything other than what was really happening. I didn't want his last moments to be spent worrying about me or being sad. I told him I loved him, and the last thing he told me was that he loved me, too."

"I'm sorry, Belle," Bucky says, his own eyes slick with tears.

"It's not your fault. It was Steve's choice and I… I've learned to accept it. It's been a long time."

"I'm sorry I left you," Bucky whispers.

"You didn't leave, Buck. Not voluntarily. You got taken away, ripped away from us. It wasn't your fault. It was an accident," Isabel reassures.

"I feel so weak now. I've been telling them for nearly a year that Steve was going to come and save me and he's not even alive. They've known this whole time and they didn't tell me. Maybe if they had I would've stopped fighting."

"You have to fight, Bucky. I've spent the last year thinking you were dead, I'm not about to let you go easily." Isabel pauses. If she's going to get Bucky to fight, she's going to need to play on his protective instincts, in a different way to what Hydra will. Hydra will make him cooperate to spare her from harm, but she'll make him fight to get them out and save them both. "Bucky, please. We need to get out of here. I-I can't get out of here on my own. I need you to help me fight, to get me out. I need you to save me. I need you to wade in and pull me out like you always did for me and Steve. I know you've been through so much and you're tired, but I need you to be strong. No matter what happens."

Bucky looks up, his face set in a determined frown, his eyes blazing with fury. "I'll get you out, Belle. We'll get home."

Bucky is so frantic after a few hours, feeling claustrophobic with his arm. He scratches at the skin where the metal arm attaches to his skin with finger nails that haven't been trimmed in months, and the skin scratches and peels and bleeds under his hands. He claws and claws at the metal but no matter what he can't get it off, can't detach it.

No matter how much Isabel pleads for him to stop, Bucky won't. By the looks of his wounds and the scarring, it's something he's been doing for a long while.

"Buck, please. Don't scratch it, you'll only make it worse."

"I have to get it off."

"You can't! It's attached, Bucky. Please, don't hurt yourself."

Bucky eventually calms down, stopping his violent tugging at the arm.

"The scars…" Isabel mumbles. "What are they from? The arm?"

Bucky looks down at himself, at the scars along his stomach as well that are now healed, thin red lines running up and down his body. It's like they cut him open from head to toe and played around inside. "From the arm, where they attached it to the nerves. M-my body remembers it like it's still happening."

"They did it while you were awake?" Isabel whispers.

"Always," Bucky whispers back. His body will remember it long after the skin smoothens out. He'll always remember the scars, he thinks. It's the first downfall he's found of being enhanced. His body has a muscle memory, and it remembers every touch and remembers how to do things even when his mind forgets. Hydra know it, too, and Bucky is sure they're going to exploit it. "I–"

Madame Hydra returns to the room, cutting off whatever Bucky was going to reply. He sits up instantly, hands leaving his shoulder. Isabel doesn't move from her spot on the floor, glaring up at the female Hydra goon. Into the silence, Isabel's stomach rumbles with hunger, but she feels too sick with worry and fear to eat much anyway, and she doubts they'll be fed. It'll be a part of their torture, to starve them of food and water. Bucky is silent after his vow to save them both, his mind whirring with escape plans and strategies.

Madame Hydra's boots click on the cool concrete floor as she walks back toward them, waltzing down the aisle between their cells. She stops in front of Isabel, turning her back on Bucky and looks at Isabel expectantly.

"Have you come to begin your delusional plans?" Isabel asks quietly, frowning up at the dark-haired woman.

"Indeed, I have. I'd suggest you show a bit more enthusiasm."

Isabel doesn't respond, glaring through the bars of the cell.

"As I already told you," Madame Hydra begins, looming intimidatingly over Isabel, "We saved your brother's life. And now, he owes us his own life in the payment of his services to Hydra. He will fight for us, do the dirty and dangerous things no one else will do. Even in the midst of summer and the dead of winter he will continue to fight. He will help to consummate Hydra as a world power once again."

"I won't," Bucky argues, but Madame Hydra ignores him, seemingly only interested in speaking with Isabel.

"We feel he needs some motivation to behave, to be the loyal soldier we envision. The Sergeant's fire will certainly come in handy directed at a different target."

"How am I supposed to be the motivation?" Isabel asks, feeling her temper flare. "What are you going to do? Torture me? Try to persuade him to behave with my life? I'm just bait, now, hey?"

"Only if our first option is unsuccessful," Madame Hydra informs her. "You're going to tell him what we want him to do. You'll be the messenger, if you like. You'll be his organiser, his manager, his… handler. And if you don't comply with this, we'll make you pay for it."

Madame Hydra speaks of Bucky as though he weren't even there, as though he weren't even a person who'd know what they were talking about. As if he weren't a person at all but rather a tool, a weapon. It makes Isabel's stomach flip uncomfortably.

Isabel frowns, looks past the woman to Bucky who looks frightened in his own cell, watching the exchange. He may have promised to stay strong for her, but how can he if she'll be the one being tortured rather than him? Bucky's always been resilient when it comes to himself; it takes a lot to break him down. But his temper runs short when it comes to protecting his family.

Isabel doesn't know how this will go and it terrifies her, but she decides to play along, for a while, to see what exactly is expected of them.

"What am I supposed to tell him?"

Madame Hydra makes a motion with her hand and the dreaded memory-wiping chair is wheeled into the room by a guard, the metal glistening under the artificial light.

"First, you'll tell him that when we put him in the chair, he isn't to fight it. He is to let himself relax and allow the machine to work. He has to let it take his memories."

"How do you know the issue doesn't lie with your chair?" Isabel inquires, a little too smug.

Madame Hydra's glare intensifies, piercing into Isabel's soul. "We've tested it extensively. It's not the chair," she assures, her voice sickly sweet. "Tell him to allow the chair to work. Demand it of him."

Bucky, who'd been staring silently at the chair with a sickened expression, looks up with eyes wide. "No, please! Don't do this!" Isabel looks away, seeing the fear in Bucky's eyes at being put into the chair. But then he seems to go off on a different tangent of thought. "Don't make her do this. Don't make Isabel do this to me, it isn't fair to her."

"You shut your foul mouth, Asset," Madame Hydra explodes, whirling on Bucky in his cage and making him flinch away from her involuntarily. "You have no place speaking unless spoken to."

"Go fuck yourself," Bucky snaps back, near-growling at her. "I'm a damn human being, I have rights and a life. You have no control over me."

"We own you," Madame Hydra taunts. "You owe us your life."

"I never asked for you to save me," Bucky sneers.

"And by the graciousness of the Lord, we did!" Madame Hydra chants, looking up to the ceiling and raising her open palms. "We saved you when no one else was on your side. And here you are, with a life given back to you. Praise…"

Bucky frowns but says nothing else; he knows it's a losing argument.

Madame Hydra turns back to Isabel. "Tell him what he has to do, or I'll make you regret it," she orders, her face devoid of any emotion.

"No, don't you dare, Isabel," Bucky commands sternly. "I'd rather die than work for them. I-I give you my blessing to let me go, to let them kill me. They can torture me or kill me, but don't do what they ask. They may think they own me, but they don't, and they don't own you, either. That isn't the way the world works; no one is a slave to anyone else. They can't tell either of us to do anything."

Isabel pauses, eyes flicking rapidly between the two other people in the room with her; Bucky's terrified but determined expression and pleading eyes, Madame Hydra's stoic face and twitching jaw muscle as she waits.

"I won't do it," Isabel says sternly, respecting Bucky's wishes though it makes her stomach tumble uncomfortably.

Madame Hydra holds in a sigh, looking slightly more frustrated. "I'm giving you one more chance, fraulein…"

"No," Isabel decides with finality, though her voice shakes slightly. "I-I'd rather die, too."

Madame Hydra sighs loudly, frowning down at Isabel who's still sitting against the wall of her cell, knees tucked up to her chest. She takes a few steps away so that she can look easily at Bucky and Isabel without having her back to either of them.

"That isn't happening, not today," Madame Hydra sneers, an evil grin on her features. "I think what we have in store for you both is a fate worse than death. Not complying with our instructions will only make it worse. You should've done it when we asked you. Don't say we weren't kind to you or that we didn't give you a chance."

Madame Hydra pulls a small gun from her pocket, points it through the bars, and shoots at Isabel before Bucky or Isabel can process what's happening. A zap of blue light bursts out the gun and hits Isabel right in the chest over her heart. For one split moment she thinks it's the Tesseract energy, that Madame Hydra's going to disintegrate her there and then, but when the blasts hits her, she knows she's wrong. It's electricity, strong, and it shocks through her entire system. Her heart gives a painful jolt in her chest and her entire body shakes with the voltage, twitching violently. She can't see anything but a bright white light. Her brain fizzles in her head.

"No!" Bucky screams, clambering up to the bars and trying desperately to get to his sister, but with no success. "Stop! Stop, don't hurt her!"

"Giving in so soon, Sergeant?" Madame Hydra asks, turning to face him curiously.

She flicks a switch on the gun and the electricity stops. Isabel takes a deep breath, her body still slightly shaking and twitching.

"N-no," Isabel stutters from where she's lying on the side on the ground, her body slowly coming around from the shock. "B-Buck, don't."

Bucky swallows, looking at his sister with worry. "Don't do this," he pleads with Madame Hydra. "Please–"

He's cut off by another scream from Isabel as she's hit with a second electric volt, and then a third and a fourth, Madame Hydra letting out a barrage of electricity on her vulnerable body. Bucky flinches at the sound of her screams, one he hoped he'd never hear again after Isabel was put in the chair when they were captured by Hydra all those years ago. He covers his ears against the screams and falls when his legs go weak, but no matter how well he covers his ears, he can't get her echoing screams out of his head.

He sits like that against the bars, eyes screwed shut and palms slapped across his ears, crying silently. His own sobs are drowned out by Isabel's screams and by the sound of her own sobbing between volts, her desperate pleas for the sick Hydra worker to stop.

It could be minutes, it could be hours, but eventually the screaming stops long enough that Bucky chances removing his hands from his ears and looking up. Isabel is lying in her cell, and by the looks of it she's unconscious. She's so pale and sick-looking Bucky would think she were dead had it not been for the light rise and fall of her chest and the slight twitch of her shoulders and fingers.

Madame Hydra smirks proudly at her handiwork and then turns to face Bucky. He looks at her properly, at her sneering features and the scar on her cheek that Steve caused.

"Have you changed your mind yet, Sergeant Barnes?" Madame Hydra asks quietly, her voice oddly calm for what she's just done.

Bucky's eyes flick back to Isabel. She'd been so defiant, so convinced that Bucky not give in to Hydra, that he couldn't bear to defy her wishes now. Now after everything. "No. My answer is still the same."

"So be it," Madame Hydra says, almost solemnly. "I'll be back tomorrow, same time. Let's hope she's awake by then."

Isabel does wake up, groggily and in pain, clutching her chest and stomach. They're covered in small burns where the taser's energy entered her system like a lightning bolt. She rubs her eyes but stays strong, doesn't cry or scream or whine. She just sits there in her cell, unbreakable and defiant. But even she knows that everyone has a breaking point, and it's only a matter of time before Madame Hydra finds hers.

There must be cameras in the room leading to a control room, because every time Isabel and Bucky try to talk, a guard comes in and jolts Isabel with electricity again, making her writhe around on the floor in pain.

Pretty quickly, the two of them stop talking.

They sit in their separate cells, knees clutched up to their chests and just stare at each other, attempting to communicate with only their eyes. Bucky can see it on Isabel's features – the fear, the pain, the hunger and also the determination. The same expression reflects back toward Isabel from Bucky, only Bucky looks infinitely more frightened for his sister. But they won't give up. They won't give in. They'll die before they'll turn.

The person in the control box that's watching them turns the lights up above them any time either of them starts to doze off. They get infinitely brighter, to the point that it's painful to their eyes and they have to cover their faces against it. But it works. It always jolts them awake and it keeps them awake. It's like trying to fall asleep whilst staring straight into the sun.

After days of being awake and being battered and shocked and starved, the sleep deprivation and starvation starts to kick in. Pretty quickly, Isabel starts to hallucinate. It starts with voices, which Bucky can tell she's hearing because she looks around the cells searching for the source and she calls out to people that aren't there. She realises quickly each time that she's hallucinating, and she turns back, covering her ears. The voices are coming from her own mind, though, and covering her ears does nothing to help.

Eventually, she starts to see figures. She has a conversation with Dugan who isn't there. She says no to a cigarette from Jones. She calls out to Steve, staring ahead of her and reaching out for him. She cries when she realises he isn't there, that he's really dead at the bottom of the ocean somewhere. Then she cries and speaks to Winifred, tells her mother she wants to go home.

Bucky watches her, watches every hallucination and conversation, brows furrowed. There's nothing he can do but watch. If he speaks to her, someone will come and shock her. He doesn't want that.

He's got the serum. It'll take much longer before he starts to hallucinate, and longer for him to starve. Isabel will go first. He'll have to watch her slip away, starve without food and perish without water. The lack of water will take her first, of course, because it's been days since they've been given any. Her lips are cracked and bleeding, her skin dry and pale, her head foggy. She can barely think. Even as she talks to the Steve that isn't there, her thoughts are muddled, and her words are slurred, making no sense.

It's enough that Bucky is about to give in. He doesn't want to see his sister die, can't stand to see her fall like that. If they were to die, he would want them to go together.

If they give in and do what Hydra ask, there's a chance he can get them out. If they aren't locked up in their cages, if they have food and water and strength, maybe they can escape.

But all of Bucky's expectations for a happy ending in escaping or a devastating end to their torture disappear when four men enter the rooms and open the door to Isabel's cell, stepping inside and closing it behind them. They loom over her and Isabel shrinks away, knowing what's coming. Another round of torture, worse than the last, to get her to crack.

The first punch comes down, hard and heavy and out of nowhere, colliding with the side of her head. It knocks her to the side, her head ringing. Once she's on the floor, eyes squeezed shut against the pain and the way the world spins, the onslaught begins.

The men, all four of them, lay into her with fists and boots and elbows. They stand over her, slamming their fists into her shoulders and arms as she covers her head. She curls into a ball in a desperate attempt to protect her stomach and vital organs, but they just kick her in the ribs, in the back, in the kidneys, in the legs.

She hears a few snaps, most likely a rib, but the one of them slams their boot down on her hand and she hears the dreaded crunching of bones. The hand burns with pain, but her attention is quickly taken by the other pounding on her body.

Her throat is raw from screaming for hours, screaming and crying and choking out in pain.

She passes out at some point, going limp. She sends a silent thank you to whoever's listening as the blackness takes over.

Bucky sits in his cell, covering his ears once again and screaming as the men beat his sister into oblivion, but there's nothing he can do. He'd tried for hours to wrench the door to his cell open and help her, but it was all pointless.

They're both exhausted, having been denied any food or drink, and he's got no energy to even move. He lets himself collapse to the ground again and cries, the sounds of the wild beating going on only a few metres away loud in his mind.

It goes on for hours, even after Isabel passes out and lies vulnerable in the middle of the cell. Bucky doesn't look, only prays that none of the men take advantage of her.

He prays to God to save her, but no one seems to be listening. No one is ever listening.

Finally, finally, the men stop as Madame Hydra walks into the room and barks an order at them. She stays a little while longer, staring at Isabel's broken and bloodied body on the floor and Bucky's sobbing, curled up figure in the corner of his cell, before she leaves again, slamming the door behind them.