Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
Being trapped in Hydra's hell-hole was unpleasant, to say at least. Steve couldn't tell the time – there was no clock anywhere and the room didn't have windows. Still, he knew that a few hours had passed since he had woken up.
Rumlow and his companions had started with their experiments soon after Rumlow had told him that they would. For their first experiment they had taken off a layer of his skin on his arm. They had set up a timer to see how long it would take for his skin to regenerate.
37 minutes had passed until the skin had fully healed and the Hydra agents had been impressed by the fact that there was no trace of a wound on his arm anymore.
Steve kind of wished that it would have taken longer or that they wouldn't have liked it. If they hadn't, maybe they would have realized that the serum wasn't that good or helpful or whatever and maybe they would have even let him go.
He knew he was just being naive though.
Their first experiment wasn't the worst thing he had experienced. He could list about fifty kinds of pain that he knew were worse than this. Being burned severely and the pain of being starving were way worse in his opinion.
They didn't stop there, of course.
They gave him a few minutes to calm down or whatever before they started with their second test. And when he saw what it was, Steve knew that they weren't just doing this because they wanted information on the serum to create their own army of super soldiers (at least that's what he thought they needed the tests for), they found it amusing, maybe even satisfying to see him down. Rumlow had made sure to tell him that it was funny how Steve, Shield's best agent (his words), would be begging them for mercy.
Steve didn't even know how they knew about the serum, but he wasn't exactly in the position to even ask about that right now.
Water scared Steve. It didn't always, but now it surely did. If it wasn't for this goddamn mission a few years ago, he wouldn't be too worried about this experiment.
“We'll test how long you can hold your breath now. That way, we also find out more about your lungs and how they are functioning,” one of the doctors said.
He could hold his breath for about an hour and a half, as it turned out. And because it was so funny and fascinating at the same time, they pushed his head underwater again without really giving him time to recover.
“Only 58 minutes this time. Disappointing, but we will find a way to change that for our formula,” an assistant told the doctor while he was taking notes.
Steve closed his eyes and drew in a few deep breaths. He fucking hated water. Especially icy water like this.
Hours passed and at some point, the experiments stopped. The doctors and assistants were going to sleep. They left him on the uncomfortable cold table, his hair still wet from the icy water. They had put a thin white sheet over him.
The room was empty and he thought about fleeing for a second, before he realized that they had guards.
He could hear them talking outside, although he knew they were talking quietly and he wasn't supposed to hear them.
He was left alone for a long time. He couldn't sleep, even closing his eyes felt wrong. He hated how vulnerable he was, not able to even move properly. The restraints were heavy around his neck, ankles and wrists. He constantly thought that someone was going to enter the room and start some crazy experiment on him while he was sleeping, so he didn't sleep. He tried at some point, his eyelids heavy, but he ended up staying awake until the morning.
He wasn't given food or water and he wasn't going to ask his captors. He would not be begging for anything. He couldn't let them have this win.
He just wondered if someone was searching for him. Maybe the police? Or maybe Shield? He wondered if Fury would even care that he was gone. Steve kind of liked the guy and he liked working for him, but he doubted that he meant enough for Fury to go looking for him when he could just hire a new high class agent. He hadn't exactly cared to go looking for Bucky when he had disappeared on a mission. And Bucky had been an important agent for Shield.
Steve knew his enhanced body could take a lot, but even he would break under Hydra's torture at some point, so it really would be good if he could get out of here soon.
He didn't even realize that he was already starting to take mental notes on everyone on this team of agents. He did his best to remember their names, what position they had and how they felt around the team.
This way, he could find out who of them was most likely to help him if he would just manage to convince them. He needed to know who the boss was, who didn't feel comfortable with the experiments at all and who had the most information about this operation.
He made sure not to let them know that he was secretly sorting them into “categories” in his brain. Although he wasn't sure they would even care. They thought he would never be able to get out anyway.