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“Doll, please, open your eyes.” The desperation in Bucky’s voice as he pleads with you breaks your heart, but it’s better than the alternative if you comply with his wishes.
You twitch your head as much as the leather restraint across your forehead will allow, your eyes squeezed tightly shut. Through gritted teeth, you grunt, “Not gonna happen, Sarge.”
The pain coursing through you is horrible, but knowing what it would do to Bucky if you gave in is enough to make it bearable—somewhat. Unlike his body, yours is more equipped to handle the damage caused by the laser beams you can shoot from your eyes. While it has taken maybe an hour to get to this point—where your eyelids and surrounding skin are charred, bubbly, and blackened like a flamed-broiled marshmallow—you would have cut through Bucky’s flesh in seconds. Which is why you are fighting so hard to protect him from your open eyes.
“Turn it off,” a frustrated voice growls behind you. “We'll have to try something else.”
The searing sensation in your eyes disappears and you shift against the numerous restraints holding you into the metal chair. It feels so violating to have these HYDRA scientists hooking you up to their machinery, digging through your brain, and activating your beams as they see fit. You wonder if this is how Bucky used to feel back when he was the Winter Soldier.
As the scientists fiddle with the equipment behind you, you hear a tender voice call out to you. “Are you okay?”
“Right as rain,” you mumble. “How you doing, Buck?” The last thing you saw before you began forcing yourself to keep your eyes closed was Bucky being strapped into his own chair directly across from you.
“Horrible. Watching you barbeque yourself just to spare me…Doll, you can’t keep doing this. You won’t survive it much longer.”
You gave him a wry chuckle. “I’ve been accidentally burning myself with these things my entire life. I can take it.”
“For how long?” You don’t answer. “Please, look at me. I need to see you’re okay behind all of this.”
As much as you want nothing more in this world than to stare into Bucky’s loving gaze one last time, it’s not worth the potential cost. “I can’t. They could turn them back on at any second and…I can’t risk it.”
“I’m not worth all the pain they’re putting you through. I don’t deserve this kind of sacrifice—not after everything I’ve done.”
Smiling in his direction, you whisper, “When will you stop blaming yourself for what they made you into and see the man you truly are? The man I love.”
It sounds like Bucky is about to say something else but, before he can, an angry voice from behind you barks out, “I’m tired of this game. Increase the power.”
Bucky screams, “No!”
Suddenly, the pain behind your eyes increases exponentially and the pressure within your head becomes unbareable. An inhuman screech is ripped from your lips. Something in your vocal cords snaps under the strain. You smell the faint whiff of burning hair mixed in with your cooking flesh and wonder if the last of your eyelashes have finally been seared off. Your bare toes scrap against the cold concrete as they involuntarily curl as all the muscles in your body contract. Every other part of your body is restrained by the straps holding you down, but you begin violently shaking as the tension within you becomes too great.
The small part of your mind that’s still coherent wonders if your eyes roll back into your head if you’ll fry your brain and end this torture. Maybe it is worth it to try.
You have no idea how long they keep your beams on this time—all your remaining focus and energy is on keeping your eyes closed. Bucky is screaming, crying, begging, but his voice sounds echoey and far away so you can’t make out his words. You aren’t sure what HYDRA will do to him once you’re gone, but you pray he fights them with everything he has.
Finally, the machine behind you is flipped off and your body sags against your restraints. Without them, you know you’d topple to the floor, no longer possessing the energy to hold yourself up. Everything hurts now, not just your eyes. But you’re still alive which means you aren’t done fighting.
You hear footsteps approaching and you recognize the voice of the man in charge as he curses, kicking one of the legs of your chair. “This is ridiculous. How many of you fucking idiots does it take to make her kill the Soldier? Just pry her eyes open, clamp them in place, and turn the machine back on.”
You grin weakly, feeling blood dripping down your chin where you had bit your tongue. With your ruined voice, you croak, “You can try, but the second any of you put a finger near my eyes, I’m burning it off.”
The man beside you yanks on the restraint across your forehead, tightening it to the point you feel bones crack. You let out a soft whimper as the man growls, “Fine. We’ll turn it up to full power and leave it on. Let her burn completely through her eyelids. Then we’ll get the results we want.” You hear him turn and march away.
For the first time, your resolve wavers as a small sob bubbles up in your chest. Your body may be resistant to your beams and can repair wounds sustained from them, but it takes time. If these scientists can make you burn through your eyelids—and based on how everything is starting to look a little brighter through your closed lids, it seems like a very real possibility—then there is nothing you can do to stop them from hitting and killing Bucky.
You hear the scientists murmuring and fiddling with equipment somewhere far behind you, but you still don’t dare open your eyes in case someone is still at the machine and flips it on the moment you look at Bucky. Yet it won’t matter for much longer if they carry out their plan.
“Doll…” The word is whispered so low you can barely hear it.
“Buck…,” It’s hard to whisper with your ruined voice, the sound more of a croak than a real word. But you hope he can understand you with his super-soldier hearing. “I’m sorry. I-I can’t stop this.”
“I know. You’ve done so good so far.” Even in a whisper, the love in his voice feels like a comforting embrace. “But I have a plan. You just gotta trust me.”
“I do. You know I do.”
“Then when I tell you to open your eyes and turn on your beams, whether they’re making you or not.”
You sob, “But Bucky—”
“Trust me!” he hisses.
“Okay…okay, I’ll do it.”
He lets out a sigh of relief. “Thank you, Doll. Whatever happens, I love you. And this isn’t your fault.”
A single tear escapes your ruined eyes and rolls down your scared cheek. “I love you too. But we both know, it is.”
Bucky doesn’t respond. However, you can hear a soft scraping and shuffling from his vicinity. Maybe he found a way to escape. Or maybe…he couldn’t be asking you to kill him. After all the pain and suffering you’d put yourself through to keep him alive, he wouldn’t have you take him out now just to end both of your pain…would he?
But you promised to trust him and you do, so when you hear him mutter, “All the way down and to the right. Now!”, you follow his instructions.
Shifting your gaze behind closed lids as far to the right and downward as they’ll go, you open your eyes and blast without a second's hesitation.
Your beams strike Bucky in the center of his left forearm, just a few inches above his wrist. Even though it is his metal arm, you are horrified. You thought he had found a way to get you to blast open his cuffs or melt his chair, and in a way, even killing him instantly would be better than this. His vibranium arm is advanced enough that it still allows him to feel sensations such as texture, pressure, and—what concerns you in this situation—temperature and even pain. Instead of ending his life with one blast, you are now forcing him to endure the same agony you have been going through.
As the metal begins to glow under the intense heat of your beams, you want to screw your eyes shut once more. But Bucky told you to do this and you promised to trust him. Even though he is grunting and panting because of the pain, he isn’t telling you to stop so you keep your beams focused on his arm.
Eventually, the red-hot glow expands and soon reaches his wrist. In moments, the metal restraint liquifies and Bucky wrenches his arm free. Without having to be told, you slam your eyes shut once more.
You can hear the sounds of fighting all around you: guns firing until their clips run empty, flesh sizzling against metal followed by screams of agony, bodies being flung around the room and crashing to the floor.
But then everything goes silent.
For a minute, nothing happens. You are just about to call out when a pair of lips press lightly against yours. Jumping slightly, you quickly recognize the kiss. You try to lean into it but the strap across your forehead holds you firmly in place.
Parting from your lips and pressing his forehead against yours, Bucky whispers, “It’s okay. You can open your eyes now. It’s just you and me.”
Slowly, you peel your eyes open. The world is cloudy and out of focus with huge black spots obstructing your vision. And yet, there was no mistaking the person kneeling in front of you.
Weakly, you smile. “Hi.”
“Hi,” he murmurs back.
“H-how bad?”
Bucky’s brow furrows as he runs his thumb gently around the edge of your eye socket, the now cooled metal somewhat soothing against your damaged skin. “It’s really bad, but I’m hoping it’s worse than it looks. Once you get checked out—”
“Not me,” you whisper. “How badly did I hurt you?”
You can hear the smile in his voice even though you can’t make it out. “I’ve had a lot worse. And it’s because of you that it was as minimal as it was. You should’ve just vaporized my head from the very start.”
“Nah. I knew we’d find a way out eventually.”
“Liar,” he teases. Then, with a more serious tone, he asks, “How’s your vision? You’re blinking an awful lot and that can’t be comfortable.”
You try to think of how to describe what you are seeing. “I can see some shapes, colors, movements…that’s about it. No details. But even that’s a miracle at this point. I’ve never burned myself this badly before.”
“Will they…will they heal?”
You try to shrug but you are still strapped to the chair. “They should. They always have before. Healing the burns is tied into my powers.” You swallow and flinch at the sharp stab of pain cutting down your throat. “My voice, however, might be another story.”
Bucky gently runs his fingers down the side of your neck. “I’m sure SHIELD has some specialists who can help you. But first, we’ve got to get back to them. So let’s get you out of that chair.”
He began unlocking each of your restraints and you can’t stop a moan from escaping. Your skin had been rubbed raw where the metal dug into your skin, and your muscles ache from how tensely they had been clenched in pain. Bucky must have noticed this, because as he undoes each strap, he massages the area, loosening up the muscles enough to ease some of the tension. But every inch of you still throbs in pain.
As Bucky unlatches the last restraint, he asks, “Do you think you can walk?”
“I’m not sure. Everything hurts. But maybe once I get going—” You try to rise from the seat but barely make any progress before collapsing back down. You look up at Bucky sheepishly. “I guess that’s a no.”
Carefully, he lifts you into his arms and carries you towards the exit. You can’t see where you’re going and the slight bobbing of your vision as he walks is giving you a headache.
Leaning your head against his chest, you let your damaged eyes drift softly closed. Then you mutter, “I think I need to sleep for a bit. Helps my recovery time.”
You feel Bucky’s lips brush against your temple. “Rest, Doll. I’ll take it from here.”
Nodding softly, you begin slipping into a deep slumber. You are still in a lot of pain, but you don’t regret a single moment of what happened. You’d do it all again if at the end you could be safe in Bucky’s arms once more.