The Nazi Cause
Fury brushed into the room flanked by both Romanoff and Barton.
The gang was all here except for Thor. Though Bucky had no idea if a de-brief was even something a god wasted their time with.
While the two agents slipped into chairs on the same side as Tony, Fury moved to the head of the table and glowered down at all of them.
The man didn’t bother asking what they’d been discussing when he came in. He didn’t need to. Not when he didn’t even bother to pretend that he hadn’t been listening in to the conversation taking place in the conference room. Fury merely turned his one good eye to pin Bucky in his seat.
“Your file says you were captured along with two hundred other souls in Azzano. Later to be liberated by one Captain Steve Rogers from a HYDRA facility located in Austria.” Fury recounted succinctly. “There was a two-month period between Azzano and the Captain’s one-man rescue mission. You want to tell us what happened in that time, Sergeant?”
Bucky glowered at the man. He stuffed his hands under the table where no one could see them shake. “Ain’t sure what use knowing that will be. Sir.”
Tony snorted. No one commented on it.
Fury rose a brow, eye beginning to turn hard. “You trying to tell me you got injected with serum somewhereelse?”
“I’m not saying I got injected with any serum.”
“Buck,” Steve turned in his seat to give his friend a worried look.
“Clearly, Sergeant, we’ve already established you are enhanced.” Fury said, ignoring Steve completely.
“Funny. I don’t remember you bein’ in the room when we were having that private conversation.”
“And as Captain Rogers has already deduced, the most likely place for you to have been enhanced without noticing was while captured.”
“Well it sounds like you’ve got it all figured out already, pal. What’dya need me for?”
Fury put his palms against the table and leant forward. “What happened in that Austrian labour camp, Sergeant?”
Bucky narrowed his eyes at the poor attempt at intimidation. “Labour. Of the forced kind.”
“Bucky,” Steve’s hand came down heavy on Bucky’s shoulder. It stayed there firm and steady even when Bucky flinched back. Though he didn’t move his hand away, Steve looked pained by his friend’s reaction. “I pulled you off a table in a lab. You weren’t working.”
Bucky turned his eyes away. He looked down, picking at his thumb nail with hands that still trembled. “Yeah? Well I was for most of the time I was there.”
“Bucky-,”
“I don’t wanna talk about it, Stevie.”
“You don’t gotta-,” Steve broke off to swallow heavy before trying again, “Look, you don’t gotta give us the details, alright? Just tell us in broad terms.”
Bucky stared at his best friend. At the betrayal. Here Steve was picking the side of some agency over his own pal. His best friend. His brother in all but blood. “You can go right to hell Rogers. And all of you can join ‘im.” Bucky snapped, upper lip curling back against his teeth.
“Sergeant Barnes!” Fury snapped, sounding three ways to pissed. His voice was echoed seconds later by Steve’s own response.
“Bucky,” Steve exclaimed, hand coming away from Bucky’s shoulder to join the other mid-air in the universal sign of ‘no-harm’. He sounded simply shocked, like he was the one being betrayed. “Come on, Buck.”
God damn, but Steve knew how Bucky felt about those months. He knew that Bucky didn’t like talking about any of it.
“What the hell do you want me to say anyway, huh? We were bein’ worked to collapse and when you couldn’t work no more, they came and they dragged you off. All those boys that got dragged off, well, they never came back but we could hear ‘em screamin’ late at night while we were stuffed like sardines in those cages. We were over two hundred strong going in, when Steve got us out there was only a hundred and sixty-three left.” Bucky’s voice is four shades of pissed off anger. He can’t believe he’s here spilling his guts about all of this seventy year in the goddamn future.
“Then one day comes, when we were workin’ our hands bloody ‘n’ raw for the fucking Nazi cause, some kid on the line just drops. And shit, if this kid didn’t lie on his damn enlistment form; guy couldn’t ‘a been older’n sixteen.” Bucky’s gaze is locked firmly on the wall. He refuses to meet any of their eyes as he tells a story he’s never told a living soul. “Dugan’s closest and so he starts tryin’ to pull this kid back to his feet. But the guards are comin’ and I knew from the set of Dum Dum’s jaw that no way no how he was gonna let them drag this kid off to die screamin’. Dugan wasn’t much of a brawler, but he could throw a helluva haymaker. So first guard that gets to them? Dugan drives the fucker’s nose up into his brain. It was stupid, the guard had a partner that wasted no time introducing Dugan’s face to the business end of his rifle’s hilt. And there were plenty more of ‘em on their way, right, so it was all useless anyhow. ‘Cept now they’d take the kid and Dugan.” Bucky’s hands ache he has them fisted so tight. His knuckles itch something fierce with the need to break them against the face of Krauts long since dead and buried.
“Our Captain was killed out in Azzano. I was the highest-ranking officer left of the 107th. And they were my damned men. So, I snapped the neck of the last guard; and then I went and jumped the backup that arrived. And me? I’m a born ‘n’ bred brawler; ain’t never started a fight in my life that I wasn’t prepared to finish. So I kept putting them down until I couldn’t no more – until they’d forgotten all about Dum Dum and the kid. When they came, they took me instead.” When Bucky’s voice shakes this time, it has little to do with anger.
“Buck,” Steve says, regret and sadness in his voice. But he had his chance to choose whose side he was on here. And it was damn certainly not Bucky’s.
“I wake up and I’m on that goddamn table. They’ve got straps holding me down. One right over my forehead; makin’ it so I can’t see worth a damn what they’re doin’ to me. ‘Bout the only thing I can see is that slimy smile of Zola’s. And it’s a helluva thing because not one of ‘em seems interested in tellin’ me what it is they’re doin’ to me. To them, I’m nothin’ but a body on a slab. They’ve got all these tests they wanna do, and I don’t know a thing about any of ‘em except how much they hurt. Day ‘n’ night they do this shit until I don’t even know what day it is or how much times passed. All I know is I’m screamin’ my throat bloody day in day out, and that slug Zola just stands there. And he’s still fuckingsmiling.” Bucky’s voice fails him. He feels worn out and tired but still so angry at it all.
Angry at himself.
He’s seventy years in the future and the thought of that smile still makes him want to cringe back.
“I’m screamin’ myself hoarse and he’s still fuckin’ smiling.” Bucky shakes his head as if the physical action could somehow dispel the memory of it. He forces himself to keep going; to move the story along and leave remembered screams in a faraway corner of his mind to never think on again.
“Next thing I know, Steve’s there standin’ over me. We get outta there and we blow the place. We blow it, and then we do the same to every single goddamn HYDRA base we could find. I’m too fuckin’ busy trackin’ and killin’ HYDRA scum to think much about any of the shit they did on that table.” He turns, pins his eyes on the Director. “We do our goddamned duty. And when we think we’ve done all we can, gone ‘n’ given everything we could give, we wake up in the future only to be told we need to do our duty again because you idiots couldn’t use the two licks of sense God gave ya to realise that something like the Tesseract should ‘a been leftthe hellalone.” His words are coming sharper, meaner.
No one stops him.
“So, we fight, and we save New York. Then two days later you drag us down here so I can talk about shit that happened seventy odd years ago; like any of it makes a fuckin’ difference. Like you really thought I’d know what a group of Nazi scientists decided to dose me with while I was a POW. Like I’d tell you even if I somehow did.”
Bucky’s on his feet. He doesn’t remember quite when that happened. The chair he was sitting on is laying flat on its back, wheels spinning uselessly in the air. Bucky’s chest is heaving with his anger. His fists trembling at his side; but whether that’s from rage or terror, he doesn’t know.
“I think we’re done here.” Bucky turns smartly on his heel and storms out.
No one tries to stop him.
For once, no one tries to follow him either.