Kreischberg
His breath came heavily as he tried to quietly pull at the thick cuffs that had him tied to the table in isolation. This was the perfect time... if he could get out of these damned things, he had the best vantage point to go free the others. It was lunacy... all this, his troop was starving along with him, wasted away until they got brought here. For some sort of torture, he didn't know what or why, just that this guy was fucking crumb bums. They wouldn't expect somebody to get out of their isolation ward, especially with how that German-Swedish, whatever, clearly the lead scientists thought it wasn't possible when he left Bucky alone more times than not.
He shook his wrists again, trying to get a little leeway. If he could just slip his wrists enough.... but twenty minutes later all he got for it were bruised wrists. Bucky let out an even breath, eyes darting around determinedly for something he could use. Something... something! There had to be something in this dump. Some way to get out of it, he wasn't going to die here dammit! He didn't join the war just to die in some Nazi torture division!
"I'm not dyin' here," he told himself.
Bucky gave a last, frustrated jerk, to the binds when he paused, hearing the clatter of footsteps down a corridor. German hit his ears, and Lord did he wish he could speak the language at least a little. His eyes darted to each of them, to what was in their hands as they all came into the room in low voices. He felt like seeing it gave him some sort of control, like he could use this to his advantage.
Bucky just couldn't focus on the fact that he was at their complete mercy. That he could do nothing, and had no control over any of it. Instead he put on a determined scowl and watched as three men set up some sort of vials and pulled out syringes. His stomach took a leap off the bridge as he wondered why the hell they had all this crap...
He swallowed thickly, fear creeping into his bravado. Bucky's eyes raced and he kept quietly pulling at the bonds. Maybe with enough strength they could loosen... it was during this that he saw his opportunity. Maybe it was pointless, maybe it was the fear, but when one of the men carelessly got too close to his wrists he reached out and grabbed ahold of the syringe held loosely in his hand.
The man shouted something in German and Bucky did his best with his makeshift weapon. But he ought to have known that with his wrists tied down, he couldn't do much but stab the one guy. A soldier came in and knocked him over the head.
...
He woke up to the sound of whimpering. More German muttering and his eyes flew open as he came to. It was to his pure horror that the guy, the man he'd gotten with the syringe, was laid up on a table, having some sort of fit. James swallowed, eyes jumping around to see the equipment all set up, and all less than a foot around the table he was strapped to.
Bucky took in a deep breath again and then tried to pull against the binds one more time. His shoulders pressed painfully into the table as he tried to pull all his strength against them but it didn’t yield.
"My, my," A differently accented voice came to him as he watched the man. "You really are the persistent one." The lead scientist, the one who had him brought here with the glasses suddenly stepped into his view. "I suppose I know now that he was not strong enough."
The man moved around and he scowled. So what, Bucky wasn't too surprised to find out he had as much compassion for his own men as he did the Allied prisoners. All the worst luck for him. His eyes kept jumping to the man, who after another ten minutes had let out a rattling scream. It sunk in his bones and made Bucky shiver. That stuff had been meant for him.
"What do ya want?" He snapped, trying to stall as he saw the man fiddle less.
"What does every man strive for? Success, of course!" The scientist said with a flourish to his voice. The man on the other table suddenly screamed something in German and the other two clustered around him. One held his arm down, the other wrote notes on a pad. It interested the scientist with the glasses who stopped what he was doing near James and went to his fellow. He twisted his head around, eyes scanning over everything, desperate to find a way out of this in the nick of time....
But he didn't and with low 'tsks' the scientist came back. He couldn’t see between the scientists… but he’d seen enough in his short time in war to know what a man’s last breathes sounded like...
"Well. Another failure, another too weak, or it may be the serum. Fortunately, we have tweaked it since, again. " The bastard sighed and looked down over James suddenly. He reached out and James jerked his head away. The scientist only chuckled contritely and reached into James' shirt. He tugged out the dog tags hanging around his neck and scanned them. "James Barnes, is it? Well, shall we see if all your shows of strength can help you more than your fellow soldiers, Sergeant Barnes?"
"Getta away from me!" He roared, to which he received an amused chuckle.
"Oh but we have barely begun!"
His breathing grew louder and louder, as the man dropped his dog tags back to his chest. As his captor picked up one of the syringes with a serious set to the eyes behind the glasses, Buck could hear the dog tags too loud, clanging like a final bell against themselves before they rattled a last time against the chain and went silent against his chest. None of his desperate tries to free himself changed how close the gloved hand was getting to him. Bucky let out an enraged shout as the needle dug quickly under his skin.