Austrian Alps
He reached out, stretched his arm out, and tried to still his shaking hand out of pure desperation. The wind whipped wildly, and he could barely hear the voice shouting his name. He could only focus on how Steve inched closer and closer.
But he felt the metal wobble dangerously, and as he reached out for the next part of the bar, the wind knocked his grip off and his arm faltered, gripping nothing. He swung dangerously, and Bucky got a good view of the drop below, of the bottomless mountains covered in white.
Bucky grasped for the bar again, his stomach leapt with fear as when he’d nudged body closer to Steve. Why did he grab that stupid shield, thinking he could stand the blow from that thing as easily as Steve did all the time. The metal wobbled again and he clenched his jaw. His friend fearlessly stretched out away from his own perch and Bucky looked over it once, clearly missing in length.
The wind made it wobble more and more and more and Bucky edged closer to Steve, as close as he could. His body jumped, his mind blanking in fear as the metal pulled with a roaring creak from the side of the speeding train. He gasped in as it held and he saw Steve throw his arm out. He tried to still his legs swinging in the air, to no avail, and threw his arm out to Steve… it could reach, he just had to get ahold of Steve and he’d pull him in. It just needed to hold a second longer…. he stretched and stretched, leaning farthing on the metal bar….
Another lurch, and he could feel his whole body dropping, he threw himself forward in a desperate attempt to somehow get to Steve…. Then it was over. He saw his friend getting farther and farther, his body being enveloped by rushing air, it pressed at all sides and he could hear nothing else, not even his own screams.
The panic took hold as he reached out for anything as he fell, fell to this wild, crushing feeling he knew was death….
“Arrgh!” He roared, letting out the pain and confusion as he threw his fist into one of the men working on his side. The man's white coat flew outward as he went flying back into a wall, and slid down it. It brought no clarity, only another raspy voice.
’Sergeant Barnes.’
‘The procedure has already started.’
‘You are to be the new fist of hydra…’
‘Put him on ice.’
The words drew him in, ice… no, the cold. The aching chill.
The cold, the cold would creep through him, he wouldn’t be able to move… he could feel it all in his head, and that falling feeling, the doomed feeling, the sluggish pain of the cutting through the drugs, the heat around the place his arm should be… the digging of the metal and the instruments… the grip of the man’s neck beneath his fingers and Zola’s chuckle. The aching pain of the machine… the taste of burning rubber in his mouth….
He let out another loud shout and continued to pant heavily at the crushing feeling in his head. He turned and hit the man who had just finished stitching the knife wound and grabbed him by the throat. It took him a minute to register the action, and then threw him around in front of him. Clarity left again. He shook his head, trying to get rid of the painful flashes and the overwhelming memories that blurred with the room around him.