Chapter Text
He was screaming.
That hit him first, the raw, tortured, almost inhuman sound ripping its way out of his throat. Dimly, he wondered why he was screaming this time, which of his many nightmares he was trapped in.
Then he felt the pain. He must not have felt his body before, because he suddenly became aware of the shear agony searing through every inch of his nerves. Now, he could feel himself convulsing and thrashing as he was burned, incinerated, by pain.
There were restraints holding him down. He could feel them every time one of his limbs only managed a short jerk with a sharp stop. His head was completely immobilized, only his jaw opening to let him scream and whimper and no, no, no, no …
Nearby, someone was shouting. He tried to focus on that. Anything to distract him from the pain and the way he could no longer control his spasming, twitching, body. But he was being ripped apart, he was dying. His awareness of the outside world slipped through his fingers and was gone.
He could still hear himself screaming. Hysterically, he thought it might be the same scream as when he had fallen from the train. That he had started screaming when the railing broke and hadn’t stopped, just kept on screaming straight through death and out the other side. Maybe he was still falling, he thought, maybe any second now he’d hit-
Another bolt of pain rolled over him and his scream rose and broke into harsh gasps.
The shouting around him was getting louder, more insistent. There was a tugging near his legs, he stopped thrashing, gasps turning into sobs. He was trying to hold himself together, tried to hold onto … something. There was something …
No, no, no, no, please, no, no, no …
He thought he heard something over the shouting and his own distress. A siren, maybe, an explosion.
There was a tugging at his arm, and the next convulsion had him lashing out farther before he hit something. Briefly, another scream joined his own. He thrashed, and this time he noticed that his legs and head were free as well, only his left arm was still held down.
The pain was ebbing; he thought he could just make out blurry shapes just beyond his reach. The shouting was resolving itself into individual voices. He shivered, abruptly going from trying to break free to trying to curl up into a fetal position.
Another explosion, closer this time. Too close. He felt the shockwave slam into him, throwing him forward and down, only to be pulled up short as his arm caught on the last remaining restraint, wrenching it behind and above him. His breath stopped at the force of the throw and the sudden, snapping halt. He could feel the whine in his throat, but without any air to carry it out, he could only hang there, mouth working open and closed as he struggled to get his lungs to function.
He stayed there for an indeterminable amount of time, kneeling half-upright with his arm pinned up behind him. He managed one shallow breath. Then another. His pained gasps moved to whimpers as he started to regain the ability to draw air. His ears were ringing, but the shouting seemed to have stopped, along with the sirens.
His sense of time remained out of reach as he tried to pull himself together. He had to fight to keep from shivering as the aftershocks of the pain swept through him, and the new stabbing in his shoulder synced itself with his racing heartbeat.
Slowly, he became aware that his eyes were open. He blinked, blearily, trying to will them into focus.
Industrial lighting. Sophisticated equipment. Machines. Dead scientists.
No. Not all dead. He saw some movement from the corner of his eye. No, he couldn’t let them get him. He wouldn’t let them … he wouldn’t. He twisted around, ignoring the burning in his shoulder, to grab frantically toward the restraint around-
He squinted at the glare as the harsh lights reflected off of well-polished metal. What the hell was that thing?
Dear God. Was that … was that his arm? It looked like an arm, at least. A hand, fingers, and elbow. Except it was metal, some kind of gleaming silver that had no business being attached to his damn body.
Bucky heard a groan behind him. He forced his eyes away from the arm and onto the restraint. The release mechanism was fairly obvious. A quick pull with this free hand and the cuff clicked open, allowing the arm to wrench free.
His shoulder screamed in agony from the changed position, so he positioned it close to his bare chest as he staggered upright. A quick glance around showed that the room was littered with collapsed bodies of scientists and security, dead or unconscious. One of the men in lab coats, though, was slowly pulling himself towards a bank of machinery despite a bloody and twisted leg.
His injured arm didn’t prevent Bucky from crossing the room and delivering a swift kick to the back of the scientist’s head. His booted foot did the job. The man dropped to the floor and stopped moving.
Bucky took a minute to survey the room, satisfying himself that he was the only one conscious. He let himself give out a brief whimper at the ache in is body and the throbbing in his shoulder, taking a few deep breaths to center himself.
What did he know? He had been captured, again. He didn’t know who or where or why. There were scientists, enemy scientists. He was not going to let them have him.
First: a weapon. Some of the downed men were wearing black combat gear instead of white lab coats. A quick search of one of their bodies revealed a handgun that, while unfamiliar, seemed simple enough to use.
Second: Secure location. There were still sounds of explosions in the distance, which meant he needed to get out of here sooner rather than later.
If he was going anywhere, Bucky thought, he should at least grab a shirt or a coat. He didn’t want to think about what he had been doing shirtless and strapped down in the middle of a lab. That would be for later, after he was safe.
With a bad shoulder, a bad arm really, he couldn’t get enough leverage to pull a shirt off of the bodies. He did, however, manage to liberate a black jacket and shrug his good arm into it.
Good, he thought, now he could get-
There was shouting from outside the room, abruptly cut off. Bucky cursed before pulling himself behind a large piece of machinery that took up half of one of the walls away from the door. He had to disconnect a few bundles of wires, ripping them away to make room, but he was fully hidden from view just in time to hear a metal door slam open and clang against a concrete wall.
He froze.
No sound of footsteps, but the background noise might be enough to disguise them. No way to know how many had just entered the room.
Bucky wasn’t going to wait for them to find him. He readied the gun in his functional hand, before crouching low in his hiding place. From there, he darted a quick glance around the edge of the machine before pulling back.
One new person in the room. Dressed in black. On the other side of the room. Hadn’t seen him.
He looked again, this time taking in that the intruder was female, with bright red hair over her black outfit. She was ignoring him in favor of some form of typewriter set up at one of the other pieces of equipment.
“Found where they were holding him.”
Bucky flinched back into hiding, cursing under his breath. She must have backup somewhere out of his line of sight. Where else in the room …
“No, I’m cloning their system as we speak. I’ll find someone to interrogate later. If you’re good, I’ll even let you do it.”
He let out a soft sigh. A radio. She must have some kind of radio. If it was just her, he could take her out easy and move on to getting the hell out of here.
“No sign of Barnes, but don’t let your guard down. Falcon, how’s the perimeter?”
Shit. Fuck. Bucky leaned back further into his hiding spot. They were looking for him. They were looking for him, and if he took her out while she was on her radio, they’d know exactly where to find him.
“Relax, that’s plenty of time. Won’t even singe my hair on the way out.”
And whoever she worked with was planning on blowing the place behind them. Damn. Bucky hadn’t seen any other exits from the room, so to get out he’d have to go right past the redhead. He’d have to wait until she was gone, and then try to get out before an explosion killed him while also making sure her perimeter watch didn’t spot him.
He checked his gun again, clenched in his only good hand. No telling how much ammo he had. No idea when he’d be able to get to friendly territory. No backup, no intel, no damn idea where he even was.
The scientists were probably Hydra, but maybe just regular Nazis. Or, the redhead was a Nazi and the lab coats were Hydra. Or, it was backwards. She was using English, but he didn’t know any Allied group that would use a dame on the front lines like this.
“Falcon, grab him before he does something stupid.” She let out a sigh. “Fine, something even more stupid, then. I’ve got the drive. Acquiring leverage and heading out.”
Bucky heard a sharp slap followed by a low moan.
“You alive?” Another moan. “Будьте полезны или я оставляю вам умереть.”
That … that wasn’t English. Or French, or German, or Italian, or … Polish, maybe. He’d heard some of that. But, no, not quite. What …
Russian. Shit. They were supposed to be allies, damn it, why the hell were they after him?
The moans broke off into a pained gasp, then a clatter near the door. Bucky spared a quick glance out to see the redhead dragging a stumbling scientist up the stairs toward the door. She was off the radio, now. He could take her down. Except she presumably knew the layout of the base and how to get out. Without a map, he’d be lucky to get out of here before it blew up.
He waited until they had made it through the door before running to another black clad body and grabbing a second gun, storing it in the crook of his metal arm before hurrying up the stairs.
A peak out the door showed the redhead turning down a hallway to the left. Bucky waited thirty seconds before creeping down to the junction after her. She was cursing viciously, now, as the scientist she was supporting staggered and fell.
“Change of plans.” She said to the hallway. “My cargo isn’t as mobile as I thought. Heading back towards the hanger.”
Damn. Her radio was portable. And, worse, it looked like she was heading back towards him. Bucky doubled back, finding a half-closed doorway to duck into. He was lucky that she was distracted by dragging along her hostage, because he managed to shadow her without notice through two more hallways until she passed through double doors that were well labeled as “Hanger”.
He waited for three minutes, counting off the seconds in his head, before ducking through the doors, gun first. There was no movement on the other side, just a cavernous room containing a collection of vehicles ranging from armored trucks to what was probably some kind of aircraft. A dust cloud visible through the large door to the outside meant that the redhead was already gone.
Bucky took a deep breath, adjusting his grip on his gun. He needed to get out of here before the base detonated, but he also had to make sure that whoever the redhead had watching the perimeter didn’t manage to spot him.
Or, he thought, as he scanned over the collection of vehicles before him, make sure they didn’t manage to catch him.
The motorcycle, at least, seemed mostly familiar, even if steering with one arm was causing him to grit his teeth with effort.
Bucky ignored the main road out, heading instead at full speed into the surrounding forest. He wasn’t shot at, at least, so he figured that maybe, for once, luck was on his side and the perimeter watch had other things to worry about.
Behind him, the base exploded in a series of violent bursts of flame and debris.
He didn’t look back.