Steve’s face, carried away by train and the distance between them, receded from Bucky’s vision so rapidly he was afraid to blink. The frozen wind tore at his hair and clothes, cutting into his skin as he fell. He was falling. Falling from Stevie and the train and the mission and from his best friend. His last thought, his last fervent thought was a surge of gratefulness. Bucky was so damn grateful that it was him and not Steve. Steve was Captain America, he was important, he was someone. Bucky was just a soldier, a nobody from Brooklyn. Riding on the coattails of that gratefulness was sadness and despair. He was going to die. He was going to leave his best friend behind.
“Steve!” The word was painful, breathless. A cry that was swallowed by the empty air just before he hit the ground.
XXX
It was cold. The icy chill dug into his bones, freezing down to the marrow. The blood in his veins and heart pumped sluggishly. Bucky blinked, vision blurry. Trees. Blink. Snow. Blink. He was being dragged through the snow covered ravine he had landed in, surrounded by wind stripped trees and rock formations. Jagged pieces of icy and sharp rocks cut his clothing and skin but the pain was distant. He couldn’t see who was dragging him, only dark figures. Maybe Steve had found him? No, not possible. Steve was on a mission. HYDRA then? Oh God, please no, not that. Not again.
Bucky felt misery and despair coat his heart like ice. His eyes fell to the side distantly. His left side. He looked and saw red. Blood. Coating his shoulder and trailing through the snow behind him like a macabre breadcrumb trail. The majority of his arm was gone. He should have felt pain. Bucky only felt cold.
“Steve.” It was a whisper, a breath that clung to his bottom lip silently.
XXX
Bucky’s eyes opened only to shut against a bright light. A light that surrounded him, suffocated him. Voices bubbled in the air around him. His eyes opened again and saw vague figures in lab coats. Only one of the lab coats was familiar.
“Sergeant Barnes.” The German accent and the blurry bespectacled face sent a shock of terror through Bucky that threatened to suffocate him. No. Nonono not again.
Bucky remembered Zola. They had gotten very close after Bucky and his men were captured. Bucky shut his eyes against the painful memories. Zola hovering over him. Zola with a needle in his hand. Zola gazing down at him like he was some sort of lab rat.
“The process is already started. You will be the new fist of HYDRA.” What right did Zola have to sound so…cheerful? Gleeful. This wasn’t right. Bucky knew that Steve wouldn’t have failed the mission. Zola should have been in a cell or dead, not looming over Bucky like the demons from Sunday school when Buck and Steve were kids.
When Bucky blinked his eyes open again, he thrashed against his bonds at the sight of more doctors approaching. Masks on their faces and power tools and medical equipment in their hands. His fighting didn’t make a different nor did his hoarse, wordless screams.
In a haze of pain, Bucky watched as they sawed off chunks of flesh and bone from his stump of a left arm. He felt every moment of it. He felt the blade slice through his skin and grind against his bones, catching at times before sliding through. It hurt more than falling into the ravine.
He howled and sobbed but nothing he did made a difference. His mind splintered at the pain and darkness encroached on his vision. His only hope of escape was Steve and the Howling Commandos. Bucky knew that his best friend would find him and save him.
More pain and the next howl was one word, a hopeful prayer of one syllable, “Steve!”
XXX
The cutting had stopped and Bucky was jarred back into consciousness. It didn’t feel as if he had been out long but time had to have passed. The room was still bright and the voices were still floating back and forth over his head. He was still laying on a bed, a medical gurney, but he no longer felt the restraints.
Zola was still there, whispering to his cohorts. Steve hadn’t come yet. He’ll be here, Bucky thought to himself, Steve will come.
‘Not if he can’t find you,’ an insidious little voice whispered.
‘No. Shut up! Steve would never leave Bucky behind. Never. End of the line, remember?!’
To distract himself from the despair in his own mind, Bucky looked around and then at his left shoulder. A metallic glint caught his eye and he gaped in horror. His arm. It was gone and in its place was…metal.
Bucky tried to flex the fingers of his left and was disconcerted to find that he could. Looking forward, down his torso, he watched both of his arms lift. Horrified fascination overtook him. What the hell did Zola do to him? He flexed his fingers and curled them into fists.
A doctor stepped forward to watch the arm’s movement, pen ready to take notes. He didn’t even look Bucky in the eye. He looked at his arm like it was a specimen, a science project.
Rage glittered in Bucky’s mind and before he knew what was happening, the metal arm had whipped out and latched on to the doctor’s neck. Bucky roared in fury and rage.
He went to fling the blue-tinged doctor away but before he could another man in a lab coat lunged forward, stabbing Bucky with a needle. Bucky felt his limbs immediately slacken and his thoughts collapsed. No. Please. Stop.
His eyes were already closed but he could hear Zola command, “Put him on ice.”
Bucky couldn’t push the word past his lips, the sedative robbing him of that ability but still, he prayed, not to God, but to the one man that could save him. Steve.
Steve.
XXX
He was cold again. Dear God, why did it have to be cold? Bucky had always hated the cold. Growing up his mom hadn’t been able to afford to run the heat all the time so more often than not Bucky had had to swaddle himself in sweaters and blankets. It was worse later on when he had gotten an apartment with Steve. The rooms in their place had always been colder than it was outside. Blankets didn’t help so many times they’d lain on the bed together to share body heat.
Steve. Steve with his weak lungs and poor immune system. Bucky’s bigger fear was that Steve would be too cold and would get sick. Stupid punk had been too stubborn to ask Bucky for warmth. Steve’s lips had been turning blue when Bucky had finally yanked (gently, always gently) Steve closer to help him warm up.
Steve….
Steve?
Steve!
Bucky’s throat, though hoarse from his earlier yells, was somehow able to force a fierce scream of, “Steve!”
Bucky gasped and sucked air on previously frozen lungs. His body was weak and shaking like he’d skipped 5 or 10 meals. Rough hands pulled and yanked him from the chamber that he’d been shoved into. They were dragging him. Bucky was so weak his feet wouldn’t cooperate, he couldn’t even walk. Where was he? The lights were too bright and were often obscured by brief flashes of darkness. Was he blinking or were HYDRA’s lights that terrible?
Bucky was so out of it, so blurred around the edges and disoriented. Where were they taking him? Were they finally going to kill him? But why would they have waited? Why would they have attached a hunk of metal to his arm? Bucky’s mind was in circles and they just kept getting tangled.
The arms that had been dragging him slowed and then he was thrust into a high-backed chair. One of the hands grasped his chin with bruising force and slammed his head against the rest while another secured a strap across his forehead and chin. Straps were fixed over his chest, gut, thighs, and calves. His forearms and wrists were likewise tied down. Bucky was distressed to find he couldn’t move an inch in any direction. He couldn’t even turn his head. He was clothed in a pair of shorts that barely passed as boxers and nothing else. He felt exposed and cold.
The shadowy forms of his captors faded. Moments passed and then quick footsteps made themselves known. Bucky’s chest rose and fell, breathing labored. Nerves and anxiety and fear made his muscles rigid under his skin.
“Sergeant Barnes.”
Bucky blinked. The voice was female. A light cadence with German undertones. The speaker came to stand in front of him. She was tall. Not as tall as Steve or Bucky but still she was taller than most women. Dull brown hair was pulled back into a tight knot and her clothing was professional and severe. In her hands was a clipboard that she kept hugged to her chest.
The chin strap surprisingly didn’t keep Bucky from being able to speak, “Who are you? Why am I here? Where am I?”
The woman sat down in a chair that Bucky hadn’t noticed before and crossed her legs, “You will not be asking questions during our times together but for now I will answer since it is prudent, you will call me Mistress. You do not need to know more than that.”
Bucky gave a fierce scowl. This woman rubbed Bucky the wrong way. He could normally read people easily. He could tell if they were honest, if they were prideful or lazy, he could tell if they had a mean streak a mile long. Steve had always been stubborn but honorable and honest. This woman didn’t give anything away. Her features were schooled and her body language was empty of emotion. Bucky couldn’t get a read on her and it made him nervous.
Before Bucky could say anything else, noises behind him and above his head made him flinch slightly. Someone was doing something and Bucky couldn’t see what was happening. Was this the part where they tortured and interrogated him? They weren’t going to get shit from him! He would die first. But torture wasn’t the name of game yet.
Two men appeared with scissors and razors. Though Bucky yelled in protest, the men started cutting and shaving his hair away. Brown locks fell to the ground in thick clumps while Bucky seethed in the chair, strapped down and unable to do anything. He felt like punching everyone.
Once Bucky’s head was completely cleaned, the men started attaching sticky things with wires to the no exposed skin. Bucky recognized them as having a medical purpose but beyond that, he didn’t know. The wires seemed to trail to attach to a monitor thing. It was small and clunky. Bucky could just see pictures and lights coming from the monitor. Advanced HYDRA technology no doubt.
The Mistress spoke, dragging Bucky’s attention back to her, “Using the electrodes attached to your skin, I am going to be mapping out sections of your brain function by asking you some questions. You will respond honestly. Let’s begin.”
Bucky blinked at her. Mapping his brain? What the hell did that mean?
Bucky had no way of knowing that this was HYDRA’s and Zola’s newest program. It was a multi-step program designed to make HYDRA’s greatest weapon. Step 1: Map out the subject’s brain activity to find the primary aspects of the subject’s identity.
The Mistress asked Bucky many questions. Where was he from? What was his mother’s name? His favorite food? Did he have a girlfriend? Who was his best friend? What did he do for a living? What was his name?
At first, Bucky refused to answer. That was when things got painful. The men punched him, repeatedly. They jabbed him with small tools that electrocuted him, leaving mall burns on his skin. He shouted and hissed in pain.
“You will respond or you will be hurt.” The Mistress ordered in a cool monotone voice.
So Bucky responded. They could tell that he was lying though and hurt him some more. Knives and razor blades. He fell silent and refused to answer stubbornly.
For hours, they tortured him. Blades cut deep. Electric tools left stinging burn marks. When he still didn’t answer, they got medieval. They removed the electrodes, cranked the chair back until Bucky was laying down. His head was at a downward angle and he couldn’t move.
They brought bucket after bucket of water into the room. Bucky knew what was coming but he couldn’t stop a shiver of fear.
They poured the water into his nose and mouth, not letting him breathe. When the water ran out, Bucky gasped and coughed. He still refused to answer. They did it again. Every time Bucky felt like he was drowning like he was dying. He screamed and swore and raged at them but it didn’t make a difference.
Hours passed. The fight had left Bucky, he was shaking and pale. The Mistress signaled for the men to stop and looked down at Bucky with a cold eye.
“What is your name?”
Bucky coughed and spit water from his mouth and smirked weakly, “Go to hell.”
The Mistress left and the pain continued.
Bucky wasn’t fed. He wasn’t allowed to sleep. He didn’t know how long it went on. At one point, he was removed from the chair and stood on his feet with his front facing the wall. His hands were secured above his head and they took a whip to his back. Lash after lash until Bucky felt hot liquid coat his back. Then they tossed water on him. He screamed. Saltwater. Definitely saltwater.
At some point, the pain overwhelmed him and his voice cracked on a pained wail of, “Steve!”
Why hadn’t Steve come? Steve was supposed to save him! Steve. Stevie!
One of his tormentors came forward and grasped Bucky’s neck in a cruel grip.
His voice was rough, German accent clipped, “Steve? Steve Rogers? Nobody told you, did they? Steve Rogers, Captain America is dead. He crashed a plane into the arctic after he beat Red Skull. Your hero, your buddy, your pal? He’s dead and gone.”
Whips. Screws. Knives. Saltwater. None of it compared to the pain those words inflicted on Bucky. His mind protested, his heart shrieked with fear and denial. Steve wasn’t dead. He couldn’t be.
Could he?
Bucky knew that Steve would always come for him and yet he hadn’t. Why? The only thing that could keep them apart was… No. No! NO!
This time it was a whisper and it shattered Bucky into pieces, “Stevie.”
The next time the Mistress came in, Bucky was dry, bandaged, and strapped into the chair with the electrodes returned to their places.
She asked, “What is your name?”
Bucky’s response was bared to the bone and raw like his nerve endings, “James Buchanan Barnes.”
He answered every question honestly and The Mistress nodded when they were finished, “We will be moving on to step 2.”
Bucky didn’t care. Bucky didn’t want to think anymore. He wanted to curl up in a ball and never wake up. Steve was gone. Steve was dead.
They took Bucky to a new place so that he could rest. It was a small stone cell with a bucket in the corner and nothing more. He curled up in his undershorts and cried quietly into the stone wall as the door slammed shut and locked.
His whisper was broken like a child’s toy, “Steve.”
XXX
“We have mapped out the areas of the brain that must be eliminated. We will ask three questions that are rooted in every aspect of who you are. These questions will lead us to the parts of your brain that are no longer needed and will be eliminated. This will take time and several sessions to complete. Let’s begin.”
The Mistress was still cool and calm. Bucky was still strapped to the chair. Only this time, along with the electrodes, another machine was used.
When Bucky felt movement behind him, he went rigid, body expecting pain and was confused when no pain arrived.
Though Bucky couldn’t see it, two men behind him were winding cranks and pushing buttons. The machine was smooth and metal with electric cords trailing in multiple places, confusing and frightening to the eye. It was wheeled forward to the man strapped down and with a jarring noise, the machine spun, slowly. Metal plates attached to metal limbs were lowered to surround Bucky’s face. His left eye and half his forehead were covered while his right cheekbone was covered on the other side.
Bucky grunted in surprise when the objects covered and hugged his skull. What the hell was this? Two men appeared and started attaching electrodes to the exposed area of his head.
“Open.” One of the men ordered and when Bucky did so, a piece of rubber was jammed between his teeth. Bucky was confused, he thought he would have to answer more questions.
The Mistress addressed his confusion while jotting down some notes on her paper, “Verbal responses will not be required for this step. The neural pathways associated with the questions will be displayed on the machine for us to see. Those pathways will be closed off one by one until they are no longer active.”
Bucky had no idea what she was saying? They were going to close off areas of his brain? Could they even do that? The trapped male felt fear trickled down his spine like acid, unease making his muscles tense. What were they going to do to him now?
The Mistress came to stand in front of the monitor that Bucky was attached to with electrode wires. Next to it was a small circuit board attached to the machine that framed Bucky’s face. The Mistress flipped a switch and the machine came to life. Lights flickered on, a motor whirred and spun, and Bucky jumped slightly against his bonds.
The Mistress spoke, “Where are you from?”
Bucky’s internal response was instant, Brooklyn. The Mistress pressed a button as the monitor lit up, reflecting Bucky’s brain, and the machine’s lights flared. Pain flooded Bucky’s head like a tidal wave. He howled against the mouth guard and jolted violently against the bonds. The pain only lasted a moment but it felt longer. It left Bucky gasping for air and his eyes wheeled about. ‘What was that?’ he wanted to shout but wasn’t able to.
The Mistress asked again, “Where are you from?”
Brooklyn. The thought barely made itself known before she hit the button again. The pain flared once more and Bucky screamed.
“Where are you from?”
Images of his home, of Brooklyn, jumped at the question. An ice cream car.
Pain that brought tears to Bucky’s eyes.
“Where are you from?”
The docks that Bucky worked at to try and keep up with the bills.
More pain.
“Where are you from?”
The school building that Bucky tromped to every day.
Pain.
“Where are you from?”
His home where his mom baked cookies before the war while his little sister ran about.
Pain!
Every time the Mistress asked, Bucky tried to keep his mind blank but it was impossible. Brooklyn was his home. The pain was hellish each time but the aftermath was worse as Bucky learned. Slowly, he realized that with every jolt of pain, his grasp on Brooklyn lessened. The images and memories that were dredged forth were blasted into pieces. Each time, Bucky lost a piece of his home and slowly, he started to forget his home altogether. Brooklyn trickled from his mind like water through his cupped hands.
This continued for days until it didn’t. When the Mistress asked, “Where are you from?” the monitor did not light up. Bucky…he didn’t know. Where was he from? Where? He couldn’t remember and that hurt as much as the machine.
The Mistress nodded and gestured to her helpers, “Put him on ice, his mind must calibrate and rest.”
Bucky couldn’t move his limbs. They dragged him from the chair and into another room. A large coffin-like cylinder awaited. They shoved him inside, restrained his limbs, hooked in a few wires and then stepped away. The door was shut and for a moment Bucky looked out the small circular window. Darkness met his eyes. He put his metal hand out, touching the window’s edge.
His mind felt like a worn out blanket, thin and stressed. He allowed his mind to drift for the moment and Steve’s face swam to the surface of his mind. Steve.
“Stevie.” He whispered.
Steve was gone Bucky realized. His gut twisted. Then it got cold, painfully cold, and then nothing.
XXX
The next time Bucky was pulled out and strapped to the Chair, a new question was asked.
“What is your name?”
Bucky knew it was coming, he tongued the rubber mouth guard nervously and just waited. James Buchanan Barnes.
The pain was immediate and intense. It was not something you became accustomed to Bucky realized. He would never build a resistance to the pain because each time it was fresh, each time was the first time and it always hurt. This session seemed to be especially grueling and it left Bucky in tears, sobbing and gripping the armrests so hard the fingers on his right hand ached.
Slowly, over the course of many months, he lost James Buchanan Barnes. It fell from his hands and he couldn’t grab it back. So, he latched on to Sergeant Barnes instead. The name he was given in the military. The title he earned.
“What is your name?”
Sergeant Barnes! He screamed in his head with defiance and then screamed even louder as the machine sent knives through his brain, cutting at his neural pathways until his memories dripped like blood.
At the end of every day, they tossed him into the cell where he slept curled in on himself. His head was kept shaved, nicked in places by the cruel clippers. Sometimes he was taken into another room and was hosed down before being given a new pair of shorts. Wherever they were keeping him was in a cold place. There was no heat anywhere. Though he was sometimes wet and always cold with only the shorts, Bucky never got sick. He couldn’t explain it to himself. He never sickened but he always felt cold.
They fed him coarse bread and salted jerky. Sometimes there was a few rubbery carrots or an over soft apple if his jailers felt particularly gracious. Bucky took what he could get. In the first few months, he thought that he could starve himself to death and deprive HYDRA of whatever their plans entailed.
They didn’t like that all.
The forced feeding session with a tube shoved down his nose and throat left Bucky coughing blood. He wouldn’t be trying to starve himself again.
The sleeping cell, the shower room, and the Chair. Bucky’s life revolved around those things. The only person that ever spoke to him was the Mistress. His jailers never said a word. They simply hit him until he did want they wanted. Their job was to keep Bucky alive. The Mistress’ job was to erase him.
“What is your name?”
Sergeant Barnes! The pain actually knocked Bucky out for a few minutes. When he awoke, he was in his sleeping cell and curled in the corner.
He spent the next few hours thinking about nothing. When he exhausted that, he thought about Steve. Thoughts of Steve was like a soldier’s picture for Bucky. A small image that he kept close to his heart and he would occasionally pull it out to look at it. He would remember.
He would remember the time he and Steve went to the carnival. They’d only had a few bucks but they managed to get a few hot dogs to eat.
He would remember the look on Steve’s face when Bucky gave him new drawing pencils for his birthday. It had taken months to save up for those pencils and the expression of joy on Steve’s had made it worth it.
He would remember Steve.
“What is your name?”
His name? He wasn’t sure…
Steve’s grinning face appeared out of nowhere and his voice was clear as day, “Bucky!”
NO. NO.
They couldn’t have that! Bucky was given to him by Steve. Before that, he was…something else. Steve called him Bucky, only Steve was allowed to. HYDRA didn’t get to take that from him.
The pain came anyway, targeting the word 'Bucky' and everything it meant to him.
It took six months for the man in the chair to lose his name.
“What is your name?”
He blinked. He didn’t know. He couldn’t remember. Why? Why?! Why couldn’t he remember?! He had a name, didn’t he?? But he couldn’t remember it.
The monitor and the man’s brain stayed dark. The Mistress nodded.
The man became more distressed. What was his name? Where did it go? Did he lose it?
“Put him on ice.” She ordered.
No. He didn’t lose it. They took it, they stole it from him. When the machine spun away and the electrodes came off, the man went wild. His metal arm tore free of the restraints and then freed his other arm. The Mistress ran away, screaming that they restrain him. Sedate him! Nonlethals only.
The man with no name killed three of his captors before they finally took him down. He was pressed into the floor with a dozen men holding him down while they sedated him. His mind was broken and he couldn’t remember. He remembered one thing.
“Steve.” The man roared in pain and panic. It was a prayer. It was a plea. It was the only thing he had left.
XXX
The next time he awoke, the man was already strapped to the chair. His eyes were slightly sunken and his skin was pale. The Mistress approached and he noticed that she walked slower than normal. He stared at her absently. New lines bracketed her mouth and the previously brown hair was peppered with white. He did not care. They took from him. What were they going to take from him now?
She didn’t speak at first. She shuffled through her papers and removed a picture. She held it up and asked, “Who is this man?”
Bucky’s eye went wide and he nearly bit through the mouth guard.
It was Steve. Tall, healthy, blonde and covered in red, white, and blue. The pain was small compared to the agony in the man’s heart because he knew what was coming. They were going to take Steve from him now too. As his nose dripped with blood and his eyes glared out at the world he vowed that he wouldn’t lose Steve, not without a fight. He would die first.
XXX
“Who is this man?”
Steven Grant Rogers, the man crowed in defiance in his mind. They had been asking the same question with the same picture for several months. Each time it got harder. He eventually lost Grant Rogers and simply said, Steve. Steve. His Stevie.
One year past and he forgot the name Steve but that wasn’t all. He was losing the memories associated with Steve. Steve riding a motorcycle. Gone. Steve beating the Howling Commandos in a push-up contest. Gone. Steve storming HYDRA to rescue the man with no name. Gone. The memories were stolen by the handful and the man was in anguish.
Soon the memories of Captain America were gone leaving the man with memories of a small sickly Steve. Steve curled close to the man’s body for warmth. Steve wheezing in his ear. Steve with blood on his sharp knuckles. Steve drawing with a heavy blanket around his shoulders to ward off the cold. Steve drinking tea. Steve scraping his hair back from his forehead. Steve with his blue eyes. Steve with his soft skin. Steve with his weak heart. Steve. Steve. STEVE!
Steve’s name was a mantra, a prayer, a benediction, a hope, and then it started to fade. Slowly over more than a year. Maybe two years. He was put on ice more than once. Every time he came out the Mistress was older. His jailers changed. The technology was slightly shinier. But he didn’t change. He lost more memories but his body remained the same. And it was always, always cold.
The Mistress held the picture up and asked, “Who is this man.”
The man in the Chair stared at the photo. He felt as if he should know the man but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it.
When the man lost Steve, he lost everything.
The Mistress’ voice was triumphant, “Step 2 is complete. Step 3 will now commence. You are the Winter Soldier. You are no one. You are from nowhere. You have no home. You have no friends. You are what HYDRA wishes you to be. You belong to HYDRA. Your purpose is to be the fist of HYDRA.”
The man…the Winter Soldier blinked slowly. He nodded.
“Repeat what I said.” The Mistress ordered.
In a voice, dull and cracked from disuse, the Soldier replied, “I am the Winter Soldier, I am no one, I am from nowhere, I have no home, I have no friends. I am what HYDRA wishes me to be. I belong to HYDRA. My purpose is to be the fist of HYDRA.”
“Heil HYDRA.” The Mistress stated.
“Heil HYDRA.” The Soldier repeated obediently. He couldn’t help but look at the abandoned photo on the table. The blonde man with blue eyes. Who was he?
Guess it didn’t really matter.