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If it weren't for the blood, the cold, sparkling white of the snow might seem like some kind of frozen afterlife. That would be better. It would be better if he were dead.
Bucky is only just waking up, and already he is calculating distance and velocity. No one will be looking for him. Help is not coming. If he'd only told Steve—Steve—Steve thinks he just watched Bucky die. Bucky has to find help. His own life would be an acceptable loss, were it not accompanied by Steve's grief.
Bucky tries dragging himself through the snow, and it isn't so bad. He's gone numb from the cold, and he doesn't really feel anything. It's almost like floating, and if it weren't for the blood—and where is it all coming from, anyway? Nothing hurts, so there shouldn't be blood.
Bucky looks down, and sees red ruin where his left arm should be. The panic does not last long—he blacks out too quickly.
—
The next time Bucky comes to, there are soldiers standing over him. He is not naive enough to think this is a rescue.
—
The human body's threshold for pain is finite. Bucky's is higher than most, he has learned—in Zola's lab and in med tents where the anesthetic never quite seemed to be working. He spends the next while mostly unconscious. He isn't much of a flight risk, but they strap him down anyway.
There is a limit to how much mental anguish someone can take, too, and when Bucky wakes up one day (in agony, always in agony) and the man whose face he sees in many of his nightmares standing over him—when Zola says, "Sergeant Barnes," in a smug, oily voice—Bucky retreats somewhere else.
("Sergeant James Barnes," Steve says, running his hands down the front of Bucky's uniform jacket. "Jesus." It is the first time he has seen Bucky wear it.
Bucky smiles, proud the way he always is when he gets Steve to take the Lord's name in vain, and much too pleased at the way that the sight of him has Steve undone.
"Feel free to keep laughing, Buck," Steve says, ignoring him. "So long as you help me get you outta these clothes." He fumbles for Bucky's belt, and then his buttons, like he doesn't know where to put his hands first.
"I thought you liked the clothes," Bucky says, grinning, and Steve looks up at him with bright eyes and says, "Now that's an idea," starts undoing his own buttons instead, and Bucky's not laughing, not anymore).
—
What drags Bucky back to harsh, ugly reality, and away from Steve's flushed cheeks and hungry kisses, is one phrase, "The procedure has already begun."
He cannot move a muscle, but Bucky feels everything.
—
Either the paralytic wears off, or the new arm isn't affected. The first thing Bucky does is grab one of the fuckers who's been cutting him up by the throat.
The man flails, but it's a futile struggle. Bucky is stunned by his own monstrous power. He hears guns cocking, but he does not care—he cannot look away from his new limb.
They've made him into a thing from one of those creature-features Steve has always liked so much.
The scientist goes limp, and Bucky drops him, a moment or two too late.
He wonders, panicked and a little ridiculous, with a room full of heavy weaponry pointed at him, whether Steve will still love him, now that he is a monster. Bucky thinks of taking Steve to see Frankenstein—they were just kids, Steve barely thirteen, and already they were holding hands when the lights went down. Steve kept talking about it after, kept saying he felt bad for Frankenstein ("Frankenstein's monster, Buck. Frankenstein's the doctor," and Bucky grins because he knows, and because it is much too fun to get Steve going like that.
"He's misunderstood. People treat him like a monster. Of course he turns out like one.")
Yeah, Steve would still love him—and his little sisters would cry, but come around—if Bucky weren't gonna die here, fighting to his last breath, if he could go back home, things would turn out sort of alright. That brings him an odd sense of peace. It's gonna be okay. Dying is gonna be okay. He can do this, and he can take some of these bastards down with him.
—
He does—he does take quite a few bastards down with him, but that doesn't help much when he has finally been subdued and they're shoving him into something that looks like a vertical coffin.
The door seals and the temperature starts dropping. Bucky's cold, so cold it burns—and he has frozen already, but this time is worse. This time he knows that they will not let him die.
The last thing Bucky sees before it all goes dark is his own reflection, made alien by the glitter of frost, and the cold shine of his metal arm.
—
He comes to strapped to a chair, with Zola standing over him. There's a second—just a second—where Bucky reminds himself that he has had this nightmare before; a second where he thinks that any moment now, he's going to wake up to see Steve crouched over him with that furrow in his brow. Then, Bucky remembers.
It's shattering, and he tries not to let that show.
"Sorry to keep you waiting. We weren't ready for you before, Sergeant Barnes," Zola says, "and the particular set of challenges that you would pose."
That's the glib tone Bucky's heard in all his nightmares since Steve pulled him off that table, and he tries not to let that show.
"We are much better prepared now," Zola says.
This is the man who has ripped Bucky apart over and over, now, and Bucky knows he means to do it again. He won't be afraid, damn it. Bucky thinks of the way Steve stared down the long, dangerous winters. He never showed an ounce of fear—not even when he was on the precipice. Bucky was the one who was always afraid, those icy nights when Steve was coughing up his lungs and sweating with the fever that was threatening to take him away.
But he can be brave, this time. This time he will be brave.
(And he hear Steve's voice, loving and scolding. "You're the bravest man I know, Buck," when they've finished their long march, and they are in Steve's tent, and Bucky is shaking.
Steve kisses his knuckles. "You hear me? The bravest man I know."
And how can he be brave when he spent every moment terrified?)
"I have a few questions, before we begin," Zola says. "A control, of sorts."
"Sergeant James Barnes, number 32557038," Bucky begins, before he can even start asking.
"What is your name?"
"Sergeant James Barnes, number 32557038. Sergeant James Barnes, number 32557038. Sergeant James Barnes, number 32557038." It is easy to repeat. He has done it before.
Zola jots something down. "Where are you?"
"Sergeant James Barnes, number 32557038. Sergeant James Barnes, number 32557038. Sergeant James Barnes, number 32557038."
"Whom do you serve?"
"Sergeant James Barnes, number 32557038. Sergeant James Barnes number 32557038. Sergeant James Barnes, number 32557038."
"I was hoping you might vary your answers this time," Zola says. "If all goes well, you soon shall.
Bucky does not let the words get to him—just keeps repeating, repeating over and over.
He does not let let get to him when a rubber bite block is shoved into his mouth—his mantra comes out muffled, but it still comes out—and he does not let it get to him when some sort is metal contraption comes down over his head.
When the machine is switched on, nothing comes out of his mouth besides a wordless, primal scream.
—
The human body's threshold for pain is finite. Bucky's is higher than most, he has learned—many times over now. When the machine is switched on, he is sure he has to be dying. No one could survive being ripped apart from the inside out like that.
When the electric current stops, at first there is nothing—grey static blankness.
Things come back in waves, after that.
"What is your name?" The Doctor asks him, the words half-lost to the high-pitched whining tone that rings in his ears.
"Bucky," he blurts out, reeling from the agony. That isn't it—that isn't the whole thing, but he cannot remember. The Doctor must have had a name, too, but Bucky cannot remember that, either. The Doctor jots something down.
"Where are you?"
"I—I don't know." Bucky's heart thuds so hard that it feels like it might crack his chest. He cannot breathe. Shit—shit, he's panicking. He won't get through this if he panics.
"Whom do you serve?"
Bucky has vague flashes of uniforms, of marching through the woods—the weight of a rifle in his hands. But the only thing that really comes to mind, comes through the fog of fear, is one word—a name—Steve. It calms him in an instant. This time, Bucky holds his tongue. His mind is much clearer now—he knows what he has to protect. The eerie blankness is fading fast, and all the empty spaces are being filled up, with warm kisses, golden hair, and the taste of clean skin. He tells the Doctor nothing, ignores him as he jots down notes.
—
He's still too dazed from the pain to fight them when they march him into a cell, lets them lock him up, pliant as anything. His memories—they're trying to take his memories, and that hurts more than even the machine. All Bucky's got in this place are his memories. All he's got to keep him warm in the cold of his cage is Steve's bright smile, etched into the backs of his eyelids; Steve's outraged shout and sharp elbows whenever Bucky couldn't help himself—just had to pick Steve up; Steve's sense of justice, his endless fight.
Steve—he has to get back to Steve. Steve is sick and all alone and if Bucky forgets him, how will he get through the winter? And shit, that's not right—Steve is strong now, stronger than anyone. He came through enemy fire to rescue Bucky from hell and he held Bucky in his arms, against his broad, warm chest the long nights when he could not stop shaking.
He is not coming this time. This time he does not know.
Steve is not coming, and all Bucky can do is remember him.
Steve is the one thing Bucky will not allow himself to forget. It's a stupid, tiny notion—desperate, really—and Bucky wants to laugh in the dark; but the part of his brain naive enough to bother grasping at straws (and hasn't that part of him always been Steve's?) decides that maybe, just maybe, if he practices some of the memories enough—lives them over and over, they will not be taken away.
He picks the first one at not-so-random. There is no shortage of precious, golden things that he and Steve have held between them (and God he wonders what the first shocks took), but he can count on one hand the number of times that they've danced. Steve always got shy, even in the bars around the neighborhood where anyone with sense worried more about raids. But oh, the times when Bucky won Steve over with sweet talk and his crooked smiles (Steve's cool, calloused hands, and Steve's bony chest against his, the two of them swaying together...).
There was the time they danced in the kitchen. Shit, if Bucky ever forgets that—there'll be nothing left of him. He focuses on the senses. It's easiest to remember things like that. They'd had enough money that month—food wasn't so hard to come by. The whole apartment smelled savory and warm. It was a Saturday and they had time and they had set to making something of Mrs. Rogers' together—pot roast, it was pot roast, with carrots and onions and little potatoes that Mrs. Holub down the hall had given them, pressing the little bundle into Bucky's hands, insisting that she'd bought too many, even though with five children there was no such thing.
Cooking together, chopping veggies and stirring the pot—moving in and out of each other's space in the tiny kitchen—had felt like a dance. Happy and affectionate from the morning's kisses, Bucky had put on the record. It was—it was Glenn Miller, or Artie Shaw, and Bucky had thought to himself, later, that he would never forget the song as long as he lived. He cannot place it now, and that sends him hurtling off into a fresh wave of panic.
Bucky brings himself back, remembering Steve's hand cupping his jaw.
("What's a fella gotta do to get a dance around here," Bucky asks, and Steve laughs, reaches out to caress Bucky's face.
"Make me dinner, at least," Steve says, grinning.
"Well, I'm good to go, in that case," Bucky says, "'cause we both know who's doin' all the work here, and it sure as shit isn't you."
"I oughta wash your mouth out with soap," Steve says. He leans in for a kiss, and it is sweet; it lingers.
When Bucky pulls him close, he doesn't pull away.
"Dance with me," Bucky tells him. It comes out too soft and it means too much, and isn't that the way it always is, with them?
Steve touches him again. "My ma should have warned me about boys with crooked smiles."
"So you'll dance?" Bucky says. The music is playing. He offers his hand.
Steve accepts. "Yeah, I'll dance, ya great big oaf."
The world narrows to a point, to this moment. Bucky feels the callouses on Steve's fingers and the cold tiles under his feet; and when Steve steps in close, Bucky feels every place that their bodies are touching.
Bucky lets his hand rest on the small of Steve's back. Steve's thumb traces the curve of Bucky's hip through the thin cotton of his undershirt. They sway together, and Bucky could never, ever want anything more than this).
—
They don't leave him alone for long. The Doctor comes back with five guards, and under his watchful gaze, they restrain Bucky's arms with some elaborate contraption. He supposes that's what it must take to keep the arm at bay. Bucky is still too tired to fight.
"Order requires pain," the Doctor says. "The new fist of HYDRA must learn."
A rope is wrapped around his neck. the Doctor tightens it himself. Bucky is not naive enough to think that they will kill him. He is right. The rope is tight, but if he stands on his toes, he can breathe. His arms are wrenched behind his back.
—
They keep him in the stress position for what feels like it might be days. Pain is an understatement—breathing hurts, every fiber of his being hurts. Bucky's standard for pain has been adjusted as of late, though he does not remember every reason why, but this still fits the bill. It is agony, and his body does not buckle—nothing makes it buckle, lately.
The metal arm is the only part of him that isn't burning. He stares down at the limb and tries to recall when it was any other way. He does not remember, but that is not important.
What's important is Steve, and Bucky will not let them steal Steve from his head. He shifts his focus back. He thinks about his fella—that, that is the one thing Bucky's gotta remember. As long as he's got Steve, he will never be the weapon HYDRA wants.
—
("Ya big lug, you've known how to throw a punch since you were four," Steve says, holding a cool rag to his bruised knuckles. "I was doin' just fine, till you came charging in, and busted yourself up, you know."
"Gotta protect that mug of yours," Bucky says. "Seeing as I'm the one who's gotta look at it." He grabs for Steve with his good hand, shooting for a kiss, but Steve darts away.
"That your idea of sweet talk, Buck?"
Bucky tries to frown at him, but smiles instead. "Ain't you gonna kiss me better?"
Steve shakes his head, grinning. It's the best damn thing that Bucky's ever seen. "I dunno, Buck. I kiss you, you might turn into a prince. I kinda like you as a frog," he says, but he brings Bucky's messed-up knuckles to his lips, before kissing Bucky on the mouth).
—
When they come back for him, Bucky fights. He fights with everything.
—
It takes eight of them and a tranquilizer gun to get Bucky back into the chair. He breaks someone's neck, crumples a those with the metal hand that they gave him. It hurt—last time the chair hurt so much, and it took things away. It took his memories away, and he cannot let them. He cannot let them take Steve.
They pinch his nose shut when he won't let them stuff the bite block into his mouth. The Doctor who hurts him looks smug in the background when he has to relent to gulp down air—it seems that his body just won't let him die.
Bucky bites down on the fingers shoving the block in until he tastes blood and feels bone. It takes a blow to the temple to make him release the screaming man's hand. The bright bloom of pain is nothing, nothing to what Bucky feels when the machine switches on.
—
There is no point in trying to stifle his screams. It would never work.
When he has stopped convulsing, the Doctor asks him his name. He is horrified to find he cannot answer. It is on the tip of his tongue.
The Doctor smiles.
—
They throw him in a cell. His restraints are heavy. He does not think he has been inside this cell before. He does not remember. He does not remember anything.
He knows that isn't right, and he thinks about it, very hard. His heart is beating very fast. The blond man—he remembers the blond man—his blond man—Steve, he remembers Steve.
He does not know his own name, but he remembers Steve, so it will be alright. Everything will be alright as long as he remembers Steve.
He focuses on senses. It is easier to remember things that way. The tile floor was cool under his feet, the day they danced in the kitchen. The vinyl in the record player was something low and sweet—he does not remember the song, but that's okay.
Steve smelled like salt-sweat and soap and clean skin. His lips were soft and his face was smooth, shaved earlier that morning when they stood elbow to elbow in a tiny bathroom.
"Kissing you feels like sandpaper," Steve had griped when they were laying in bed, and he had pinned Steve down and kissed him and kissed him until Steve wriggled out and went straight for the ticklish spot under his ribs with his long, clever fingers, tickling until he cried uncle.
Then, they shaved, and then they danced. Steve's hands in his were bony and cool. The callouses on his fingers were from holding pencils.
The Doctor comes with armed guards. He leans in too close, and he asks, "Is the new fist of HYDRA ready to assume his destiny?"
But he is not the new fist of anything; he is a man, and somewhere, somebody loves him.
He spits in the Doctor's face.
The Doctor takes a step back, and frowns. He jots something down on a clipboard. "Very well." He turns to his guards. "Prep the asset." He has a communicator. The Doctor says, "Prep the machine."
He does not know anything, but he knows the machine, and he is afraid.
—
He fights when they take him to the machine, but he can't fight anymore when he's strapped in, and when they put the bite block in his mouth he accepts it. He has no other choice.
The machine hurts like live wires being shoved into his veins through his brain and it hurts like having the world ripped away and it hurts and it hurts until there is nothing.
—
- Do you know who you are?
- No.
- Do you know where you are?
- No.
- Do you know who you belong to?
- No.
—
The Doctor smiles. He has round glasses. He writes something down on a clipboard. "You are the new fist of HYDRA," he says.
There is no reason to believe that what he is saying is not true.
"You will be used to bring order to a chaotic world," the Doctor says.
It feels good, to have a purpose.
"Order," the Doctor says, comes from pain."
Two guards take him to a cell. He has never been to the cell before. They tie his arms behind his back, with a board between them. They make him crouch on the balls of his feet. They make him keep crouching.
It hurts. He does not remember anything.
It is not right. There is something that he is supposed to remember—someone, someone he is supposed to remember.
It's hard to focus on anything except the pain; he does. The cement floor under his feet is cold. The floor he has to remember was cold, too. His hands were not tied behind his back, then, and there was no pain—only long, calloused fingers intertwined with his own, and a boy with laughing eyes and a sharp tongue.
Steve—he feels the memory, warmth in his heart and soft lips against his—and he is nobody's weapon. He danced in the kitchen, pressed close with the boy that he loves with all his heart, even in this darkest place.
He is not the fist of HYDRA, and the world does not need to be brought to order. He tests his bonds, and they are strong, but he is stronger. His left arm is metal. He breaks the board.
—
They unstrap him from the machine when he is done screaming. They ask him questions, but he does not know any of the answers.
"You are the fist of HYDRA," says a man with round glasses. "You will be an invaluable asset in our mission to bring order to all of this chaos."
He nods. It must be true. He has a purpose. The man with the glasses writes something down on his clipboard.
They bring him to a dark cell. "Order comes from pain," they say.
He is afraid. They tell him to keep still. He does. The whip comes down on his back. They tell him to count. He does.
It hurts. They tell him not to scream. Order comes from pain. He counts. He keeps counting.
—
"The training can begin," says the man with the round glasses.
—
They put a gun in his hands.
—
("Bucky?" the man on the bridge says, his eyes wide and blue like the summer sky, full of sentiment and recognition and everything the asset isn't allowed. The asset knows nothing, except for the mission, but he knows the planes of that face, open and trusting, frowning and smiling for him. The asset does not remember anything, but he remembers dancing barefoot on a tile floor, of that he is sure).