Chapter 6
Someone kicks her in the ribs. “Get up,” a voice hisses. “Now. Get up!”
Slowly, she rises from the floor, meeting the hard eyes of a guard. He holds a gun at his side, pointed right into her belly. She’s confused and glances around the cell. She doesn’t really remember them bringing her out of the cold. Thoughts scramble around her head as she tries to remember waking up but she doesn’t.
“We’ve woken the Soldier.” The harsh Russian syllables grate against her ears. She winces as he continues. “And he’s in a rage. We think it’s because you’re missing.” It would be the first time they hadn’t called on her to help wake him up. “And I don’t really give a fuck if he rips you to shreds as long as he calms down.”
A hand wraps around her upper arm and she’s forced out the cell door and down a corridor. She blinks hard against the light. He won’t remember her again. Or he would technically, but not in the traditional sense. A lick of jealousy lashes against her heart. He got to forget everything while they forced her to remember.
But then she hears him screaming in her mind, and thinks about the torture that’s been inflicted on both of them, and that he’s practically lost all sense of self, and she feels guilty. He remembers; flinches at touch, recoils at the sound of his own name, but he knows her somehow.
She’s forced through another door after a few minutes of walking down derelict corridors and faced with chaos.
His dark hair is long, his shirt missing, raised red lashes score his back. The metal arm whirs and clenches, mirroring the muscle of the flesh one. The room is in disarray, tables and machinery overturned, something spilt across the floor, trays of instruments scattered. Worst of all is the blood, there seems to be quite a lot.
A man steps up to her, presses his mouth to her ear as he whispers instructions to her, instructions she can’t disobey. The few scientists and guards and agents start to leave the room causing the Soldier to turn toward her.
He’s on her immediately, body protectively in front of hers as everyone files out of the room. When they’re gone he relaxes a little but not by much, murmuring into her hair so lowly she can’t make out what he’s saying.
Stepping away from him, she gives him an order to sit down, which he does immediately. She steps behind where he sits on a hard chair and assesses the damage done to his back. “Why?” she grunts, choosing Russian for the moment.
“I didn’t see you,” he says, voice just as hard. "You're supposed to be here. You're mine." The Soldier's voice is possessive and angry.
She doesn't know how he always manages to know that, that she would always be there to meet him on the other side of the cold.
“Mm.” She tangles her hand in his hair and tips his head back with a violent reprimanding tug. “Behave,” her voice is authoritative. A small whine escapes him at the harshness in her tone and the grip on his hair. “I’m sorry.” Her voice softens along with her hand. “You must listen to them.” Slowly she runs her fingers against his scalp.
His hand reaches back to circle her wrist. “Nie byłeś tutaj.” Instead of angry, now he sounds worried, desperate.
You were not here.
Instead of answering him she releases her hold on him and begins searching through the disarray for a medical kit, righting one of the fallen tables with little effort. “1968.” She whispers, bracing herself for his undoubtedly aggressive reaction.
“Stop.”
“Bucky.”
“Stop it.”
“James Barnes.”
“Stop it.”
“March 17th-,”
He slams her against the wall, “Shut up.” She hadn't even known he had moved, fingers clenching around her throat as he pins her against the concrete wall. As the years had gone on Bucky had gotten more and more irritable and violent when presented with his identity. It seemed to cause almost physical pain.
Metal fingers further tighten around her throat. “Do not.”
She's not afraid and undeterred. “Let me go.” Her voice scrapes in her throat before he releases her. For a moment they stare at each other before he grabs her shoulders and smashes his lips to hers, the kiss is unforgiving and hard. It's a thing of confusion and misplaced emotion. But that's what she's there for. The Soldier’s teeth clamp down on her bottom lip, drawing blood, as her hands go to his biceps, trying to calm him. Gently, her thumbs smooth circles there and he calms slightly. He grips her chin in his hand until she bruises before shoving her away. “Help me.” Desperation has returned to his tone. "Please."
“Sit down.”
He sits on the table that she had righted earlier before she goes about cleaning the violent stripes on his back. They’d heal soon enough but she still wraps them, and tends to his other injuries, self-inflicted and given to him as they tried to contain the Soldier’s rage.
Because the programming, if his emotions were strong enough, a memory powerful enough, could be overridden. And clearly coming out of the cold, out of cryo, with her missing had had enough of an emotional affect that it triggered a response.
“Mój,” He growls again, needing it to be true. “Jesteś mój.”
Mine. You are mine.
“Tak.” She agrees this time.
He’s silent for a while, letting her work over him. Every so often she whispers his name, with little to no reaction from him. It hurts her to think he might have lost himself completely. His once kind blue eyes are distant, his soul fortified behind his pale irises.
“Pocałuj mnie znowu.”
Kiss me again.
She shakes her head. “Nie.” The woman steps back from him and pouts her bottom lip for him to see her bloody bitten lip, before craning her neck to show the bruise forming there. “Ranisz mnie.”
You hurt me.
“I want you,” he replies in English. “I know you.” A grave tinge enters his voice, “Please.”
“No.”
He doesn’t give her a choice as he stands and backs her into a corner. When she stumbles he stops. “I won’t hurt you. Protect, remember?”
“Do you remember?”
“Tak.” The Soldier thinks he should protect her, that much he remembers. He remembers for a moment wrapping his pinky around hers and whispering, I promise. “Protect.”
He’s had her before, many times, to calm him, and so she says, “Okay,” eyes trained on his jumpy fingers. The Soldier grabs her and sets her on the table he had just been occupying. She’s wearing a tattered dress and so all he has to do is pull down her underwear.
His hands cup her neck gently as he presses a surprisingly soft kiss to her lips. She buries her face against his neck, legs pulling him closer to her. She knows they'll be watching them and feels a twitch of shame.
“Do you want-,” The Soldier asks, preparing to go to his knees without order.
“No,” she says breathlessly. “Just you.”
Instead of doing exactly as she asks he kisses her, slowly, to contrast his behavior earlier. “I’ll behave now.”
“Good.”
He grinds his hips into hers. “For you. So you don’t get punished.”
“Do you know my name?” She asks quietly, lips pressing alone his neck, as he hooks his hands around her thighs.
“No.” He pauses. “But I know you. I know you.”
She whispers her name to him and he whispers it back reverently. “You’ll do well on the mission won’t you?” She asks of him, because it's her job.
“Yes,” he whispers, connecting his mouth to hers. “I will.” She breathes a sigh of relief. If he ever fails a mission, which is hardly ever, she’s punished most severely for it. He pulls back and unzips his pants, just enough to pull his cock out, and presses himself to her entrance.
It’s still for half a second before he slams into her. She lies back against the table, his hands make an iron grip on her hips. The pace he sets is brutal and unforgiving, his hips snapping sharply against hers. Neither of them make noise but her cheeks heat in embarrassment. Someone is watching, evaluating, and this will come up. She'll likely be punished even though it effectively calmed the beast.
But she wants it and the Soldier wants it and they both crave the closeness of it and the bond it creates between them. And that will be the problem. They aren't supposed to feel and yet...
His pace slows slightly as he removes his hands from her hips to pull her up. Carefully, he cradles her back with large hands, pressing her chest to his.
She bites his shoulder hard, pleasure coursing through her when his thrusts slow and the heavy drag of him against her walls becomes too much, she stifles a scream, drawing blood and tasting the sharpness of it on her tongue. He comes before she does, spilling himself inside her.
All it takes after that is the flick of his thumb over her clit before her body clenches around him. The Soldier cradles her to his chest, keeping them connect for a moment longer. “I’ll do well. They won’t hurt you.”
It’s exactly what she hears every time they beat her. The Soldier promised and they still hurt her because they could. She lets him pull out of her before she pulls her panties back on, his come still dripping from her. It didn't matter, they had taken care of that problem long ago.
After the mission of course, she’s reprimanded with corporal punishment, because the Soldier is showing signs of emotion again. He’s supposed to be emotionless and although she can’t help the bond they have, in fact one fostered between them by the agents, they still blame her. Every. Single. Time.
They put the Soldier away, letting him witness the abuse beforehand. They let him scream and rail against them, watch Bucky Barnes flicker to life in his eyes, with remorseless mirth in theirs. And then the wipe him away again, silence his soul once more.
And then they put her away too.
And they do it all again the next time.
~
Bucky wakes in a cold sweat. Her face is so clear in his mind, her eyes especially. She can’t be imagined can she?
But she is. And he’s sadistic for wanting to have had someone there with him, experiencing the same pain.
It feels real. It feels like it happened. The emotions are palpable. His chest hurts, and so does his throat. When his bedroom door opens and Steve pokes his head in Bucky knows he was screaming.
“Bucky-,”
“Leave it, Steve,” he says gruffly, turning on his side and away from the door. “Just leave it. Leave me alone.”
Steve sighs, “You were shouting for her again.”
“Well they were taking her from me again.” He’s aware he sounds like a child but can’t be bothered to care. Not real, not real, not real. “No. It was just a dream.”
For a moment it’s silent and then Steve sighs again and closes the door with a snap. He lies down next to Bucky in bed, who is grateful for the company even if he doesn’t say it. “Bucky, we’ve been looking into her existence. We’ve been trying to find some record of her.”
“Who’s we?”
“Me and Natasha, and Tony when he’s in the mood.”
A little bit of hope enters him, “And?”
“Nothing yet. But it’s only been a few weeks and Hydra goes deep.” Steve says as Bucky attempts to move closer without Steve noticing. There have been few people he’s been close to, physically and otherwise, and the heat radiating from his friend’s body is addictive. Natasha stays with him sometimes, the assassin sleeping in a small curled ball a respectable distance away in his bed.
Steve notices Bucky moving closer, but he doesn’t say anything. He knows it’s hard for Bucky to feel warm, even despite his unnaturally warm room and many blankets. “You won’t find anything if she’s not real.”
“Why do you suddenly think she isn’t real? You were adamant about it. You came to life when you talked about her.”
“Well when it’s being shoved down my throat every day that I’m crazy and delusional, maybe I've started to believe it.” Bucky shrugs as though it doesn’t matter, shifting restlessly in bed. He doesn’t really have anything left to say other than for Steve to let him know if they find anything.
And then he carefully lies his head against Steve’s shoulder, his forehead pressed against the side of it.
Steve still doesn’t say anything as he wishes he could take Bucky’s pain away.
“If she was real,” he whispers to Steve, “She’s probably dead or worse.”
And Steve doesn’t need to guess what Bucky means by ‘or worse’. Or worse implied she might still be with Hydra.
If that's the case Steve doesn't know what they're going to do.