Chapter 2
Weeks pass and Bucky doesn’t see the girl again. He searches for her as best he can. When they’re prodding him down desolate corridors, or throwing him to the ground fists already raised against him, or gripping his hair and maneuvering him how they wanted, he looks for her. She’s never there. Sometimes he’ll see a wisp of her hair, or the shade of her eyes peaking around a corner, only for her to disappear.
But it only takes the guards a few days to realize what Bucky’s doing. Their prisoner isn’t as focused on them anymore. His eyes aren’t always trained on their faces, but rather they dart around elsewhere seeking something or someone. The pain they inflict doesn’t seem to be getting the same reaction either.
And so it gets worse.
They’ve just come from the chair, his brain still feels like mush and he’s desperately trying to remember what that skinny, blond kid’s name is and why he feels like he might show up yet and save them all, when he hears it. The blond kid, Steve he reminds himself, vanishes like a curl of smoke in the air.
A bloodcurdling scream echoes down the hall, only increasing in intensity the more time passes. They continue down the hall, Bucky’s heart jumping irregularly, as the cry becomes louder the closer they get. One guard grabs him by the back of the neck and shoves him into a door. Just behind it is where the scream is coming from. “Hear that? You did that. You made us do that to her. Poor little bird. She whimpers so pathetically after. You should hear it.” He pauses, as if after mulling it over. “In fact, I think you will.”
Bucky always feels sick after their torture. Especially after that crackling chair, that horrible electric current. And it’s no different now, sweat coats his skin, his stomach roils, and the room seems to be spinning.
The flickering bulb above their heads burns his eyes. He wants to ask for them to turn the light out, let him lie down, let the sickness pass. But Bucky knows there isn’t a possibility of that. His wildest dream at the moment is to be allowed to lie on the cold floor of the corridor. Really he doesn’t need the light out-
The girl is whimpering behind the door, the only person to have shown him kindness, who seemed to be stuck here out of pure chance just like him. He snaps to attention.
The guard’s grip on his arm tightens when Bucky doesn’t immediately respond to the horror the way the man wants him to. Another scream rips though the air, strangled and pleading. “Leave her alone,” he whispers, swaying in the guard’s iron grip. Then louder and standing up straighter he says, “Leave her be. You have me. What else do you need?”
The men surrounding him all glance at each other, smirking.
“Boss was right,” one of them murmurs, looking impressed and surprised.
The ringleader of their little group suddenly grips Bucky’s hair hard, yanking his head back as the girl behind the door lets out a pitiful moan. Terror grips his heart as he listens to her wail taper off. “Knew you’d be protective. Playing hero, Malen'kiy soldat?” He scoffs and shakes his head. “No, just protective. Just a fucking character flaw. Completely willing to sacrifice for a pretty girl you hardly know.” A surprisingly gentle finger traces his cheek before he’s shoved backward through the door. He sprawls on the floor, scrambling to his feet as fast as he can. Bucky tries to push down the sickness that had surged in him at the soft touch of the man who now looms in his peripheral vision.
She’s on a table, arms strapped down. In exchange of her blood, they’re pumping a liquid Bucky is all too familiar with into her veins. For just a moment her eyes meet his, fear and confusion and hate swimming there, before she passes out. There are other tools littered around her, something that looks horribly like blood crusted on them. He knows it’s blood. He’s been in her place.
“When you think about this moment. Remember that you caused this. Had you let us beat her that day you met, had you said nothing, we wouldn’t have kept her. Remember that you condemned her to this. To her fate being bound with yours.”
Bucky swallows hard and starts to step forward but he’s grabbed from behind before he can get very far. There are strands of hair stuck to her flushed face, he just wants to push them away. For some reason it seems really important. Tears burn at his eyes as he glances away, unable to look at the young woman’s hair any longer.
“You would have killed her.”
Laughter sounds around the small operating theater. “Of course! But think Malen'kiy soldat, wouldn’t that have been better for your malen'kaya ptitsa?”
~
Her name runs around the inside of his skull constantly, incessantly. The image of her suffering, her pain burned into his thoughts.
Another thought enters his mind, an unwelcome one, that they might’ve eliminated her and that’s why he hasn’t seen her since he witnessed her torture. Or maybe she had been a very clever spy, an even better actor. She had said she was Polish but that could have been a lie. Even if she wasn’t, it still stood that the Soviets were supposed to be on their side too and yet they had kidnapped him. And yet, they experiment on him, and torture him, and ask him questions he doesn’t have the answers to, and beat him, and fuck him-
Someone is coming upon his cell and he quickly scrabbles as far back into the dark shadows as he can. He thought that they’d leave him alone for the rest of the day, after what he had gone through that morning, horrible tearing and clawing and whispering and struggling. But when the steps stop echoing and the door is thrown open, no one enters. Instead there’s the sound of a struggle, a faint cry.
It’s her.
The woman is thrown inside with him. The door is slammed shut. They’re alone. For the second time they’re being left alone together. Her eyes rove around the room in panic, thinking that they’ve shoved her into some new form of torment. Then her eyes land on the blue of his.
She stares at him with startled eyes from where she lies face down on the ground and then relief seems to overcome her. Tension drains away from her. “Hello,” she tries, pushing herself up from the floor, nonchalantly, as though they haven’t seen the worst humanity has to offer in the same people. It nearly breaks his heart that she remembered a greeting in his language. Bucky had only said the word once to her.
“Hello,” he murmurs back, his soul aching for another person. Someone who would not hurt him, beat him, threaten him. She probably craves the same.
Slowly, stiffly, she maneuvers herself into a sitting position along the wall, a few feet away from him. He doesn’t say anything as she curls into a ball and buries her face into her knees. But he can hear her murmuring, telling him something he can’t even begin to understand. “I’m sorry,” he offers instead when she looks up. “And I’m sorry for what they do to you.”
Her brow furrows then and she looks like she’s trying to remember something. “Keep,” she whispers to him. “Keep.” She reaches into the collar of her shirt and pulls out his tags. “Bucky.” The name is awkward and heavy on her tongue. She wants to know if he wants them back.
She’s looking at him expectantly so he nods and gives a painful half-smile. “Keep them.” For if he ever needed reminding...
Already, things are starting to slip. He recites things, the important things. His mother’s name and his sisters’ and Steve’s. His home address. His identification number. His own damn name. His rank and unit and birthday.
HYDRA can’t find those tags. Because although he’s worried he’ll forget himself there’s also the possibility they could gain much from having them. He reminds himself that there’s a shiny silver P embossed on his tags, and not the dangerous H, but he still worries. Things could become much worse for him.
He shakes his head and looks to the girl. An idea comes into his mind then. They needed to communicate. Clearly there were plans for them but that didn’t mean they had to play right into them. And besides he wants to talk to someone, push away the loneliness and hopelessness, even if it’s difficult and awkward.
Bucky decides he doesn't care if she's a spy. She's kind and lonely and terrified, just like him.
“Hello.” He says again, only to get a confused look from the girl, wondering if had had the greeting right after all. Bucky shakes his head and points to himself, “Hello.” And then he points at her.
She frowns and carefully whispers, “Cześć?” It comes out as a question, unsure if she’s understanding him correctly. It's been a fair few years since someone had wanted her to speak her native tongue and she's a little wary of it now.
Bucky repeats it, carefully, a few times until it becomes easy on his tongue. She smiles. She gets it.
And that’s how it starts. That’s how their loyalty starts. That’s how their friendship begins.