Chapter Text
My name is James Buchanan Barnes. Sergeant for the 107th Regiment. I'm from Brooklyn, New York. I’m in love with Steve Rogers. He calls me Buck. My name is James Buchanan Barnes. Sergeant for the 107th Regiment. I'm from Brooklyn, New York. I’m in love with Steve Rogers. He calls me Buck. My name is James Buchanan Barnes...
He doesn't know how many times he says it. But he knows that if he stops, if he takes it for granted even for a moment, he'll lose it. Any rational man would likely point out that openly admitting being in love with your male CO while held in an enemy base is downright stupid. But if there's one thing Bucky Barnes has never been rational about, it's Stevie. His Stevie. Even now, with the chill of metal pressing into his back and too-tight straps slicing into his wrists (wrist, he reminds himself, still not used to the phantom space where his left arm used to be) he can't help but wonder if Steve is okay. The days have already begun to blur into one, but Bucky can be fairly certain he has been in this new facility longer than the last time, if the ever-growing pit in his stomach and weakening grasp on himself are anything to go by. If these calculations are correct, if he truly has been here for far longer than the 107th ever were, then Steve isn’t coming to save him. And if Steve isn’t coming, then one of two things must be true.
The first, of course, is that Steve got himself killed in some misguided rescue mission. Bucky's mind has offered him a plethora of visions of how this could have happened: perhaps the commandos infiltrated a dummy base just to be decimated by explosives; or were ambushed by snipers deep in the mountains chasing a lead; or Steve embarked recklessly on a one-man effort that was doomed from the start. This last option seems most plausible to Bucky, who still saw the punk foaming at the mouth for a fight he couldn't win every time he looked at Steve. The idea that Steve could have died searching for him sends his heart teetering on a precipice, risking a deep plunge into inescapable grief and guilt at a moment's notice. But, buried in a pocket of his mind he avoids confronting at any cost; he almost longs for this to be true, for Steve to have tried to save him and failed, because the alternative – that Steve had neglected to rescue his Buck not through inability but unwillingness – would entail something far worse.
Bucky Barnes is not worth saving. He had accepted this at 12, when he had begged for food at a market and been cuffed around the ear by the stall owner for his pluck. He had accepted it at 14, when he first realised how he felt about Rogers after sermons upon sermons preaching the sin of the homosexual. He had accepted it at 18, when he was laid off from factory work without so much as a cent to his name. And he had accepted it at 23, when they sent him the draft and signed away his life to the jaws of the trenches. But while Bucky had accepted his dispensability long ago, Steve Rogers never had. No matter how many times the world had torn him up and cast him aside, Steve was there to piece him back together.
'We're meant for more than this life, Buck' he'd say, his eyes alight with that trademark sparkle that now charmed a thousand girls on the tour circuit every night, 'We're meant for greatness, you and me' and in those moments, just for a second, Bucky almost believed him.
But if Steve truly has left him, if he simply can't justify the risks of a rescue mission for just one pathetic, dispensable man, then there's nobody left who believes Bucky Barnes is worth saving. Perhaps this is for the best, Bucky thinks (see: lies) to himself. With no Barnes left in the picture, Steve can move on with his life. He'll settle down with Carter, have a proper family, forget every coy look and stolen kiss. It strikes him (or perhaps he forces himself to believe) that the only thing he can do for Steve now is let him go, curl up to die here and allow his memory to fall through the seams of the history books.
Bucky Barnes is not worth saving. So when the HYDRA scientists clamp a familiar contraption around his head, he doesn't struggle. He merely bites down on the rubber in his mouth and closes his eyes as Zola gives the command.
'Wipe Him'
It hurts less than losing Steve's faith.