affliction

forty-three

very short but I'm tired and I just wanted to give you all a gist of what's about to happen lol don't kill me thnx

Beth's POV

Last night was the first night of me sleeping without Bucky since we started and I didn't even try to fall asleep. It was just going to be a waste of time, anyways. I only ever slept a couple hours anyways and then I'd wake up to a nightmare, so it was pointless.

I miss him. I miss him a lot. It's been, what, 12 hours since I last saw him? That's the longest I've gone without him in months.

It's not so much me missing him that I'm worried about, it's really the fact that I know he's worried sick about me. There's no way he slept, I bet he didn't even try.

I'm awoken from my thoughts when a body comes into view and something is thrown in my direction. I look down at the objects and see a tank top and shorts. "Put those on. Be quick. We have to go to the lab."

I don't answer. I don't move from my spot on the floor. I just keep staring off into oblivion. The man sighs, "Please just put them on. I was instructed to kick your ass and drag you down if you said no. Please don't make my life harder."

I finally move my eyes up to make eye contact with him. I can't tell if he's being facetious or if he feels actually bad for me, but either way I don't really care. I still don't make a noise, I just slowly stand from my spot on the floor. The man spins around so his back is to me, giving me privacy to change.

Once I've successfully peeled off my suit, I slip on the tank too and shorts and walk to the cell door. I knock on the bar to alert him that I'm ready. He spins around quickly and moves his hand to his belt loop. He's got a ring of keys attached to a stretchy string dangling from it. He pulls it away from his waist, pulling out a specific key, then unlocks the cell door. He grabs me gently by my forearm and starts leading me down a hallway. We walk for maybe a minute before reaching big double doors, he immediately pushes them open. My father and 4 other men are standing around waiting and they all turn in my direction once I enter.

My father smirks. "There she is! Come on, Rose. Have a seat."

I don't even really get the choice because the guard who brought me in here is now dragging me towards the chair in the center of the room. Once we reach it, he gives me one last shove towards it, spinning me around and pushing me to sit.

I continue to stare at the floor and my father starts speaking to me. "No sorry comments? I'm appalled. What's wrong, cat got your tongue?"

I finally move my eyes up to his. "Nope, no cat.. just my homicidal maniac of a father."

He smirks and turns towards the man beside him who's in a trench coat. The man nods subtly and pressed a button and suddenly, my wrists and ankles are restrained against the chair.

I look down at my arms and legs. "What the fuck is this?"

He decides to play the angle I was just working and gives me the silent treatment. He slowly paced around the chair, looking above and beside it. I'm not exactly sure what he was looking at since I didn't inspect the chair beforehand. If I had known I was going to be strapped to it against my will, I would have.

After staring around it for a while he finally turns to me. "Now, Rose. I assume you know a good amount about the winter soldier program?"

I give him a fake smile. "I know you fried my boyfriends brain and made him into a killing machine against his will.. I think that just about covers it. Yes?"

He hums. "You are correct. We turned him from roadkill into an asset to the team. That is, of course, until Steve Rogers decided to help him gain back his memories." He stops pacing directly in front of me. "Here's the thing, he was our greatest asset. None of the others turned out even half as good as him." He moves his eyesight from mine and starts aimlessly walking around again. "Now here's what I'm thinking.. I turn you into the next winter soldier and hope that you're better than Sergeant Barnes. Even if you're not, I assume he would give up his life to save yours, and we'd have him back."

My blood runs cold. Me? A winter soldier? "You're fucking insane if you think I'm going to let you do that."

He stops in front of me once again. "And how are you going to stop me, Rose?"

I-.. fuck. I don't fucking know. I'm kind of stuck right now.

When I don't answer he smirks again and stands up straight. "That's what I thought." He looks towards the man at the control panels for the machine. "Michael, go ahead and start." He turns towards me again and gives me a cynical smile. "I think I'm going to go for a lunch break." He turns around and stalks towards the door. "Goodbye, Rose. Can't wait for you to be my daughter again."

Internally, I start to panic. I'm about to be injected with the same shit Steve and Buck were. All I know about it is that it makes you faster and stronger, I'm not sure of the actual bodily repercussions and that frightens me. Plus, they did it to them like, what, 80 years ago or something? Who knows what's in it now and what it can cause.

A button is pressed and a whirring sound occurs. I refuse to show any type of fear for this, they don't get to make me fear them.

The man in the lap coat walks up to me with a piece of black rubber. "Open so I can put this in your mouth."

I scoff. "Jeez, at least buy me dinner first."

Not a single person in here laughed. Hm. Tough crowd. Eventually he just shoves it in my mouth and walks back over to the panel. Once he pressed another button, more metal restraints pop out of nowhere and hold me down.

Damn. I'm fucked.

He presses another button and something starts lowering towards my face. He looks around and speaks loudly. "Cleansing ritual, staring in 3.. 2.. 1.."

Suddenly, the black pieces of metal turned out to not just be black pieces of metal because within less than 5 seconds, I'm in excruciating pain and I black out from it.

Damnit.