HYDRA
The air was bitingly cold. That was the first thing Bucky realized as he came to, slowly, in a place that felt all wrong. He worked to figure it out, to understand why he couldn’t quite feel his body or sort the lights and shapes floating around him into categories that made sense, but his mind felt muddy somehow, working too slowly to piece together anything coherent. All he could register was the cold, hovering in the air around him, biting into his elbow and funneling its way into his arm.
“Commencing procedure on test subject number 42. Initial sedative is being administered without complication.”
His arm. The sensation of cold creeping through his veins worked to drag Bucky back to the present, into his own body. He could feel his arms lying at his sides, his legs sticking straight out beneath him. He tried to move, tried to pull away from the icy sensation at his elbow, but something stopped him. He was bound, he realized, strapped on his back to a surgical table under the glow of a harsh fluorescent light that hovered hazily somewhere just outside his focus. He thrashed against the restraints; he didn’t know what was happening, but he was alert enough to know that he didn’t want it to be.
“Subject is experiencing minor distress. Increasing dosage of sedative to minimize potential complications with the procedure.”
“You must relax,” Bucky heard a voice floating above him, echoing from somewhere that felt both close and very far away. “The procedure has already started. Struggling will only make it worse.”
“No, I don’t -” Bucky tried to talk, but even to his own ears it didn’t sound like words. The effort reignited a burning in his lungs, and his body struggled to cough through it.
“You see? You are in no shape to fight,” the voice said. As it spoke, its owner bent over Bucky, replacing the sharp light with soft features. Bucky could just barely make out a round face, adorned with glasses and what looked like a bowtie. “We are simply trying to help you.”
“Are you… a doctor?” Bucky managed, trying to piece things together.
The man smiled. “Something like that.”
“Preparing to administer the first injection.”
“Ah, it appears we are ready,” the doctor said, almost gleefully. “I hope to see you on the other side.”
Bucky’s brain struggled to comprehend the various stimuli through a haze of chemical fog. Somewhere, a mechanical voice was talking about procedures and injections, words that sent fear shivering down Bucky’s spine even before he could fully grasp their meaning. By the time he managed to string them together in his mind, it was already too late.
“Commencing administration of the first injection.”
Bucky’s dawning awareness of his surroundings was shattered as the ice turned to fire in his veins. Someone was screaming, and it took Bucky an inordinate amount of time to realize it was him. For just a moment, he could see the sound of his own scream, superimposed on the backs of his eyelids in sickening technicolor. Then everything faded to black.
Bucky drew in a deep breath, the air feeling cold and sterile in his mouth. It burned his throat, but he realized dimly that, for the first time in probably weeks, he could fill his lungs without a fight. Any relief he felt at that development was short-lived; not having to struggle for breath left his mind far clearer than it had been previously, and he was now more aware than ever of the peril he was in.
“Subject is regaining consciousness. First round of serum injections appears to have been carried out successfully.”
Bucky tried to sit up, to get away from that voice and its scrutiny by any means necessary, but was stopped by a restraint wrapped around his chest, pinning him to the table. The movement only succeeded in setting the room spinning again, evidence that whatever they’d been pumping him full of was still in full effect.
“I thought we had this discussion.” It was the man from before, his voice softer than the analytical one that crackled in periodically over some sort of speaker system, seemingly to give updates on his condition. Bucky wrenched his head to the side to get a good look at him. He was small and balding, most of his features hidden by a glare of light on the lenses of his glasses. Bucky’s eyes, still drifting in a manner he couldn’t quite control, zeroed in on the red smudge of the man’s bowtie, a stark contrast to the white of his lab coat.
“We are trying to help you, but you must remain still and allow us to work.” Something about those chilling words being said in such an incongruously soft voice made Bucky’s skin crawl. He felt his hands clench into shaking fists in spite of his knowledge of the futility of his situation. Even if he weren’t still strapped to a table, the burn of whatever they’d given him still lingered in his body, leaving his muscles twitching with what felt like exhaustion and ensuring he wouldn’t be able to pose much of a threat. He settled for working up a mouthful of blood-tinged spit and aiming it at his captor.
The doctor simply tutted disapprovingly. “Such manners,” he said, shaking his head. “What is your name, soldier?”
Soldier. Bucky didn’t think he’d been called that in a long time; certainly not since he’d been captured. It was always prisoner, or American, or a whole variety of foreign words Bucky had only imagined were derogatory. Never soldier . He held onto the novelty of that comment for a moment, deigning not to answer the question.
“Very well,” the doctor said, sighing in mock disappointment. “It likely will not matter soon, if our previous subjects have provided us any indication.”
“Awaiting confirmation to commence second serum injection . ”
“Proceed.”
This time, Bucky held on longer, long enough to feel his blood boiling, his insides trying to crawl their way out. He held on long enough to regret it.
“Barnes,” Bucky gasped as soon as he could catch his breath. This was torture, it had to be.
“Sergeant.” Name, rank, and number, that was allowed. Moreover, that was all they’d asked for. Maybe giving it to them would be enough to make them stop.
“32557038.” No matter what they did, he wouldn’t give them anything else. He wouldn’t. He wouldn’t.
“Ah, Sergeant Barnes.” Bucky was seeing double, but could still make out the despairingly familiar visage of the man with the red bowtie hovering above him. “How wonderful to formally meet you.”
“What do you want?” It spilled out before Bucky could control it.
The man gave him a disapproving look. “What, you have information for us? Kind of you, but that is not what I want.” He leaned closer to Bucky as though to ensure that he made himself heard. “I simply want a soldier.”
That hardly made sense. He was already a soldier, wasn’t he? Bucky wasn’t sure if the doctor had misspoken, or if the fog between his ears was preventing him from comprehending the words. Not that it mattered; there was that mechanical voice again, drowning out any semblance of coherent thought and leaving panic in its wake.
“Ready to begin the next stage of the process.”
Bucky summoned all his strength and threw himself against the restraints, not knowing what he’d even do if he managed to break them. The thought was hardly on his mind; all he could think was that anything had to be better than this.
“You are a fighter, aren’t you?” The doctor sounded amused. “Perhaps you should save this energy for after we have completed our work, hm? We can make great use of a soldier such as yourself, one so clearly willing to fight.”
Bucky growled, hardly registering the doctor’s words. His world seemed to have narrowed to him and the restraints holding him down, and he felt something rabid and animal overtaking him as he fought with everything he had to escape. But it was no use - he was trapped.
“Administering sedative to calm the subject before the next injection.”
Still trying to pull free, Bucky felt his limbs involuntarily slacken. The world fuzzed out of focus, leaving him drifting somewhere outside of his body as the next injection was administered. Bucky only wished he could drift far enough not to feel it.
Things happened slowly, out of order. There were more voices, more faces, melding together with shadowy images, marching soldiers and explosions kicking up dirt. Bucky wasn’t sure what was real anymore, nor was he sure that he cared.
“Barnes… Sergeant… 32557038… ” he kept slurring, though he wasn’t sure anyone was listening.
“Tests” and “procedures” bled into each other, somehow no more real or imaginary than the ghostly war images playing at the corners of the room. Somewhere along the line, Bucky dimly caught on to a shift in the atmosphere; where previously there had only been the doctor and his infuriating amusement, there were not more people, their faces blurry and indistinct, murmuring excitedly as Bucky writhed on the table. Through the burning agony of the injections and the fuzz of static in his brain, he could only catch snippets of conversation, the words disembodied and seeming to float around the room.
“Fascinating…”
“Vitals are still stable…”
“Have yet to reach this stage of the procedure…”
“We are going to do great things, Sergeant Barnes.”
“Huh?” The sound of his own name dragged Bucky out of the fog and closer to what he thought must be reality, though at this point he couldn’t be sure.
“Ah, you are awake.” It was the doctor - of course it was. Bucky felt an unfamiliar current of rage run through him; he didn’t think he’d ever wanted to hurt someone so badly in his life. “You are proving to be a very fascinating subject. Our procedure has never gone so well. When we are finished, you will be able to do great things for us. It is… your destiny, I suppose.”
“No,” Bucky groaned. He didn’t want it. He hadn’t wanted any of this - the war, the experiments, anything - but no matter how he protested, it just kept coming, grabbing hold of him and twisting until he became something he hardly even recognized.
“Listen to yourself,” the man said. “We are giving you a gift. We are helping you become who you truly are, don’t you see?”
Bucky shook his head hard in a vain attempt to block out the words but only succeeded in bringing on vertigo so strong he felt almost nauseous - another succinct reminder that he wasn’t going anywhere.
“Do you want to know how this procedure works?” the man asked. He was watching Bucky struggle wearing a look akin to fascination, like Bucky was a bug he’d squashed that was taking a little too long to die. He didn’t wait for an answer before continuing. “It does not introduce to you anything that you do not already possess. It simply takes what is already inside you and magnifies it. Look at yourself - you are still alive, still fighting. Does it not feel right? Like some part of you was always meant to fight?”
Bucky’s mind was suddenly overrun with images of schoolyard fights and back-alley brawls, of black eyes and purple knuckles. Of stacked barrels toppling under the bullets from his gun. Of fields painted red. Of bodies in the grass.
“No, that’s not…” Bucky knew he sounded unsure and hated himself for it. Of course the doctor picked up on it, a wide smile blooming across his face as he caught sight of the uncertainty Bucky wasn’t quite able to hide.
“I think you know better than to protest,” the doctor said, leaning in closer until Bucky could feel his breath against his face. Even the ghost of that sensation was enough to make his skin burn. “You must know that, as a soldier, you are really something special. How many successful missions have you participated in, hm? How many of them succeeded simply because you were not afraid to do what needed to be done?”
As though the doctor’s imagery had conjured them, the hallucinations were ramping up with a vengeance. Bucky was seeing his surroundings through the scope of a rifle, watching shadows stumble and fall under the focus of his gaze. Reality fuzzed over almost completely, and Bucky felt for a moment that he was really out in the field, manning a weapon that didn’t feel like his, pushing through a mission with an objective he hadn’t chosen. It was enough to make him sick, and he tipped his head to the side to heave up nothing.
Hovering in limbo between two awful possible realities, vivid war scenes intermingling with the doctor’s smug, triumphant smile, Bucky felt something inside him break. He stopped trying to pull free and instead let himself drift - not far enough, he could never float far enough to save himself - but enough to let the doctor do his work.
Bucky came back to himself in a dreamlike New York.
It was so real, blurry but so close to becoming clear. He could just make out the familiar city skyline in the distance, not quite there but almost discernible through the morning fog. He was… out on the fire escape, he realized slowly, watching the sunrise turn the sky from dark to wispy pink and purple and blue. Bucky felt a blissful smile split his face. He was home. At any moment Steve would be coming out to get him, to let him back into the apartment and tease him for being so forgetful, for locking himself out there all night.
Bucky waited, watching the skyline float in and out of focus through the fog. But something was wrong. It was cold, so cold, and he was alone. That wasn’t how this was supposed to go. Where was Steve? Surely he wouldn’t leave Bucky out here alone?
Bucky tried to open his mouth, to call out, but words wouldn’t come. All he heard was a distant groan, like wind blowing somewhere far away.
Come on, Steve… Bucky willed with all his heart to manifest him, to somehow make him real. He was so close, he had to be, Bucky could practically feel it. But it was getting colder, and even though the sun was rising the light was somehow getting dimmer, and it was getting harder and harder to feel out for him.
The sound of a distant alarm pierced through the dreamy fog, melding together with the sounds of people shouting and doors slamming shut. Bucky could have sworn he picked up on gunfire in the mix, but it was just as soon drowned out by the white noise in his head. The hazy images of New York splintered and broke apart, leaving Bucky hovering somewhere dark and unfamiliar.
Right. Steve wasn’t here. Or rather, Bucky wasn’t there. He realized in that moment that he must be dying.
Heavy footsteps, a long shadow. Either it was a doctor coming back to finish him off or it was another hallucination coming to lead him away. Bucky found that he hardly cared which.
Someone was talking to him, and the voice was low and soft and somehow so familiar that Bucky felt himself being pulled towards it, away from the smothering cover of darkness that had overtaken his visions of home. Willing himself back into his own body, he blinked hard and forced his eyes to focus on… a bright blue helmet? The stars and stripes?
Oh, come on, not this guy . Just his luck that the last face he’d ever see would belong to Captain fucking America. He must be dreaming after all.
But no, that wasn’t right either. Bucky blinked again, warmth flowing through him as things started to fall into place on the man’s face. Blue eyes, pulled tight in a worried frown. Unkempt blond hair, a crooked nose. Home.
“...Steve?”