Chapter Text
December 1944
He fell. Actually more importantly before that he got blasted out the side of the already opened train, shredded like a tin can from the enhanced weaponry on the Hydra metal man. The impact his body made as he scrambled to grab a hold of something the more he moved out. His fingers finally locked onto a bar, the welding on one end completely non-existent leaving him two anchor points but the middle was well on its way to becoming free. The train sped along, wintry air biting at his exposed face and desperate hands. Hearing a loud clang that could only be the shield he’d been too stupid to pick up, his best friend’s helmet-less face came into view. “Bucky! Hang on!”
Steve, bless his stupid punk ass soul, tried to climb out and reach him and Bucky…well Bucky tried his damnedest to meet him. Because frankly he didn’t want to die. He knew, a part of him knew that this was the end. The impact, the chill, the fact that the welding creaked in protest when he shifted closer. Mere inches from taking Steve’s hand the bar gave out. The scream that left him wasn’t even registering in his brain as him, nor the fact that Steve was getting further and further away looking on in disbelief…in pain. Thing was that pain was nothing compared to what he felt when he hit the jagged rocks of the icy ravine. If only he could tell Steve that the pain he was going through watching Bucky fall was a kindness compared to the rocks, he’d imagine the blonde would give him a chastising look. He could see it. He could see Steve now, small and drawing his pictures that just amazed him someone could create while he sat on the couch cushions they’d pulled out for him to sleep on.
He could hear a bigger Steve say, “Buck…stop.” And of course Bucky would be persistent. Insisting that Steve needed to smile because his pain was minimal and temporary. He’d been spared the pain of what Bucky went through. He'd be fine. He’d move on, marry that gal Carter have babies and maybe even be a famous artist like those old guys and their art in museums.
For a minute in the memories and delusions, he wondered if this was all a dream and he was really back at camp with the other Howlies. They had a plan, Zola needed to be caught. They had a train to catch. A train. The cold. Steve. Bucky’s right cheek twitched. Everything hurt, but dully as if he were floating in the ache. Did he hit his head? Did he get too drunk dancing after a long shift and pass out in some alley or on the stairs leading up to his apartment? No. The cold. That couldn’t be ignored no matter how much his brain tried to make him think otherwise. Tried to fool him, no one, not even James Buchanan Barnes could pull the wool of his eyes with that damn icy wind and snow whipping over his prone form. Fluttering his lids open, the world was a blur that tilted and tinged slightly red. Of course if he’d been an outsider he would have seen the blood trickling from above down into the corner and into his eyeball.
The first thing he wanted to do was try and get up, but nothing worked. Nausea seated within his gut and burned the back of his throat, his saliva thickening at the sensation. The sound of crunching footfalls had him rolling his head to the left and in doing so he not only saw the hazy gun wielding man but his lack of a left arm. Bucky’s eyes rolled in their sockets just as hands fisted in his blue jacket and pulled. A seemingly never ending streak of crimson trailing in the pure white snow, unknown guttural voices reminding him of the Hydra facility in Austria after they were captured. Hydra. He fell back into unconsciousness before he could attempt to fight with a useless sack of skin and bones or shout profanities. In the darkness his breath shook, a hand gentle, friendly, and concerned touching his bicep having him turn to once again see a smaller Steve. The Steve that didn’t get experimented on and fill out into Captain America.
“You okay Buck? Here I thought I was the one with asthma.” Bucky knew it was meant to cheer him up but all he could manage was a half-smile that didn’t meet his blue-grey eyes. The blonde’s face grew sad realizing his joke didn’t work as well as he had hoped. “Are you going to say it again?”
“Say what?” Bucky questioned, dread that Steve knew how he got through his own experiments Arnim Zola put him through. Experiments that burned and made him scream, a different kind of scream than the one that echoed down…down…down into the ravine. The train. The cold. Steve. The images flashed through his brain and his head turned as if that would simply transport him there to remember.
Steve’s touch squeezed causing Bucky to cry out at the pain on his left bicep. He looked down to see it torn and bleeding, pieces of fabric, skin and sinew, and a hint of bone to really drive the seriousness of the injury home. Panicked he met Steve’s blue eyes, flecks of green hidden within. How was he so calm touching the wound? Why wasn’t he worried or saying they needed to get to a doctor? Steve answered as if nothing was wrong, that nothing had changed. “Barnes, James Buchanan. Sergeant,” his voice slowly morphed into his own until Steve was gone and Bucky was back on the metal table, strapped down staring up at the ceiling in defiance. “32557038.”
“No!” Steve’s final shout snapped him awake just as the bone saw whirred to life, making the first contact on his mangled limb.
Bucky found that this scream rivaled the fall.