Chapter Text
The rough hands of the guards shoved him hard into the cell and the loud bang of the door echoed in his ears as it closed behind him. Drained and woozy, Bucky slumped down, wincing and seeing stars the instant his head hit the cell wall. His brain didn't even register as more blood seeped from the wounds, down his mud crusted hair and neck. The throbbing pain in his head coupled with the swelling on the right side of his face made it impossible to keep his eyes open any longer.
In this moment Bucky wanted nothing more than to be able to fall asleep. So much so, that he was tempted to provoke one of the kraut guards outside the cell to knock him out again with butt of their rifle just so he could sink into another dreamless slumber. The only thing stopping him was that he wasn't quite certain he’d ever wake up after another blow to the head.
He just craved the peace…
Bucky didn't want to be stuck, replaying the same images that remained plastered behind his eyes.
To see the angry, wrathful faces in the city of ruin.
To smell the thick, suffocating smoke as civilian bodies burned.
To hear the choking gasp as knife slit through throat and the piercing crack of the gunshots.
To feel the weight of the dead crushing him and the clumped blood and brain matter as it splattered across his face.
Bucky tried to piece together how he even ended up there in the cell. From waking on the back of the carriage, stumbling through a forest, a gun at his head, the back of a car… These images flashed and blurred together in his muddled brain. He didn't know how much time he’d lost and not knowing what day it was really bugged him, despite its irrelevance to his current situation.
The reality was beginning to set in. He was a prisoner of war now, as long as they decided not to drag him from his cell and blow his brains out, that is. The bloody date should be the last thing on his mind now.
The heavy slam of the lock twisting in the hatch of the door jolted Bucky upright. The sudden movement left him hissing as stabbing pains flared across various parts of his body. Heart pounding at the muffled sounds outside the door, Bucky tried to piece together his surroundings as the heavy fog that still clouded his thoughts left him disoriented. He must have drifted off to sleep somehow after all.
Two German guards stormed into the cell grabbing both his arms and dragging him to his feet. A wave of dizziness washed over him as he attempted to focus on the unfamiliar surroundings. He had to get a grip of himself, now was not the time to show any weakness. His limbs felt utterly numb and unsteady as they pulled him down a corridor but Bucky blamed it on being sat in the biting cold for god knows how long. The guards marched him with ease into what his addled mind could only assume was the interrogation room of the Dulag luft.
Before him a slender and surprisingly young looking officer with slicked blond hair and glasses rose from behind a desk and beckoned him to sit.
“Good afternoon Major Egan, I am your interrogator, Lieutenant Haussman.”
So he'd assumed correct. Bucky sank into the chair and eyed the man as he walked toward a cupboard in the corner of the room. The Lieutenant pulled out a bottle of whisky and offered him a glass. He was struck by a sudden urge to laugh but quickly suppressed it, signalling a quick yes before the offer was rescinded. While Bucky didn’t like the idea of taking any sweet talking favours from a Kraut, a glass of whisky wouldn't hurt. In fact it might just help loosen the stiffness in his limbs, even a little. He raised his glass to toast,
“Here's mud in your eye.”
It was something Curt used to say back in Thorpe Abbotts when one of the boys would bring over another round of drinks. He quickly shoved the thought out of his head.
“I don't know that one,” the Lieutenant replied. “Here's mud in your eye.”
Bucky knocked back his drink in one, savouring the burn that tingled in his throat. He watched as Lieutenant Haussman’s eyes moved slowly, tracing over every detail of him, lingering on his face at last.
Bucky could only imagine the state he was in. A sight for sore eyes that's for sure. He felt the layers of caked dirt and mud that had dried across every inch of his skin. The whisky was great but he could really use a wet rag to clean himself up with too, though he refused to ask for the favour. If he'd learned anything since the war started it was that everything always came at a price.
The Lieutenant continued to appraise him in silence. If it was his intention to make Bucky feel uncomfortable, it was working. His skin began to prickle and itch as if an army of ants were crawling just beneath the surface. Every moment under his scrutinising gaze felt heavier, his pulse quickening with the nagging discomfort of being watched too closely. Bucky’s jaw clenched as the feeling of anger simmered, the initial discomfort giving way to a swelling frustration. The growing tension made it harder to keep his composure.
At last, the man across from him broke the silence, “So where shall we begin?”
“How about I was in a town. Someone shot four of the guys with me,” he replied, bitter and sharp.
Lieutenant Haussmann's voice dripped with fake concern as he asked him Where, When, How did this happen?
Bucky wanted nothing more than to jump across the desk and throttle the greasy haired fucker until his eyes popped out through his glasses. The forced gentleness in his tone, the hollow sympathy in his eyes, only tightened the knot of rage curling in his stomach.
Then he asked Who… and Bucky felt like he had been slapped. He struggled to get the words out as he explained that he didn't know the names and ranks of the men, as he had only just met them. But that did nothing to shake off the guilt that clung to him. He didn't even know their names. Now they lay buried, rotting in an unmarked grave deep in a German forest. Their families and friends would never know how they met their horrifying end while those images would remain in his head forever. Bucky knew he would never forget that night. Part of him didn't want to. He felt he owed it to them to remember.
He lost any focus on the rest of the conversation as thoughts of that night invaded him once again, replying automatically to each further question with his name, rank and serial number. His thoughts wandered as he tried to make out some of the writing on the many letters that littered the Lieutenants’ desk. It was a struggle, since his right eye was completely swollen shut, but he managed to make out the date written at the top of one of the pages. 10th October 1943. Despite his earlier need to know this, he felt no satisfaction in the revelation. It made no difference to him now.
“...Buck Cleven? He was your friend wasn't he?”
Bucky couldn't help it as his head snapped up to meet his interrogator's condescending smirk. His breath hitched in his chest as he tried again to compose himself. He didn't even bother replying with his name, rank and serial number this time. Instead he just glared silently at the man in front of him, annoyed that he’d given him the reaction he clearly wanted.
His best friend's name - the name that he’d given him the very day they’d met - in the mouth of a German SO was enough to piss him off so badly that he really did think he was going to throttle the bastard. Haussmann could count himself lucky that the man he'd decided to name was the very same person that had managed to talk Bucky down from a fight more times than he could count. He could picture Buck in front of him now, shaking his head, lips curled into a smile,
“Don’t you do it Egan. Don’t you dare do it.”
“Buck you know I can take that fancy fuck out in one punch.”
“I never said you couldn’t, but you don’t want to fight in front of meatball now, surely. Come on, let’s go back in and get another drink.”
“Now why'd you have to go and use Meatball? Whatever, but you better be buying this time Buck.”
Bucky was a long way from an alley in Thorpe Abbotts now. Buck was too. The thought of his friend dredged up the raw, unrelenting grief that had clawed at him the minute he heard the news of the Bremen mission over the phone. It remained a dull constant ache in the days after, no matter how hard he tried to push it back and drown it out. The guilt of not being there and the state of not-knowing ate away at him, leaving a gnawing emptiness in his core.
Bucky still clung to hope though. He had to. He was sure that Buck was still alive. He would know if he wasn’t. He was sure.
“Major Egan, I must make things quite clear.”
Lieutenant Haussmann leant forward, bringing Bucky back down from his thoughts.
“Since we don’t have you in any record as a crew member on any of the planes from the Münster attack, the Gestapo would say that makes you a spy. While this may or may not be true, your refusal to answer any of my questions means I will be forced to pass your case onto the Gestapo. I can promise you now that their methods of interrogation are… a lot different to mine.”
Bucky met his gaze for a moment, before slowly reciting, “John Egan, Major, O-399510.”
Haussman stared back for a moment before sighing deeply, like a parent disappointed with a child.
“Very well then. That is a shame. I think we are finished here now.”
The lieutenant rose from his seat, sorting through the papers across his desk as he shouted to the guards behind the door,
“Wir sind fertig. Bring ihn zurück in die Zelle.”
He didn’t offer Bucky another glance as the kraut soldiers waded into the office and pulled him out the chair, dragged him roughly down the corridors and shoved him back into the cell.
He slumped down against the wall once again, overcome with exhaustion and a piercing headache. He couldn’t help but think of how badly he could do with another glass of that whisky. He wasn't niave though. He knew that the next time he was pulled out of his cell there wouldn’t be any such thing like that waiting for him again.