Work Text:
When they take him the first time, he expects death. They strip him down by layers -
"No, no, please, I don't know anything,"
"Son of a bitch! Get the fuck away from me, Nazi fucking bastard-"
- at his stomach with scalpels -
no, please, I don't know anything,
son of a bitch,
please
- pushing further, searching -
I don't know anything, I don't remember,
please,
my name is James Buchanan Barnes, Sgt, please,
I don't know anything
- until, at last. And they have to dig deep, deeper than the others, he knows, he saw them digging. But. Words fall away as always. As always.
He expects death.
The sharp snap of electricity cracks along his skin, white hot and violent. He screams.
The slow burn of twisted metal, smouldering and carving into his flesh, blood bubbling bright and burning as they tease down, down towards bone. He sobs.
The slick slide of water, heavy against the cloth, clogging his mouth and nose and eyes with dark and wet and weight, leaving him shaking and heaving and retching. His eyes go dark. He is silent.
He stays silent until they bring someone in with a voice like thunder, made for authority, and demand: Name, Rank, Serial Number.
He gives it to them, and he does not stop.
Acidic yellow hisses beneath his skin, his brain turning red-hot and his whole world coming alive with pain. Barnes, Sergeant, 32557038.
Again, electricity. They put it to his neck. Barnes, Sergeant, 32557038.
Break a finger. Break a toe. Barnes, Sergeant, 32557038.
They send him to sleep and he dreams of home (where He is safe and will always be safe, and His name has no place here, and he will not think of it) and he dreams of death. Barnes, Sergeant, 32557038.
They wake him, and he does not know what else they do. Barnes. Sergeant. 32557038.
He expects death, the first time. And he does not die. Not at all. Not in the slightest.