Finding Jade - A Bucky Barnes Story

Chapter 8. Fear Itself

The pain is incredible. His arm and shoulder are white hot with it, tendrils of it radiate over his back and into his brain. The damn lights are so bright, burning a hole in his eyelids. Someone lifts an eyelid, shining an even brighter light into it and he struggles to close it against the assault. There are voices, in a language he doesn't understand but he doesn't like. It feels foreign, wrong, evil. The lights go out, the voices go away and he is finally left alone to deal with the pain. He opens his eyes and he's in a grimy concrete box of a room, lit by the glow spilling in the doorway from the corridor. Why isn't he dead? Struggling to remember his last memory before waking up he remembers the cold that should have frozen him. Nothing else, no memory of how he got here. He tries to move and the pain makes him scream but no one comes to check on him.

"This must be hell," he says, whether it is just in his mind or out loud he doesn't know.

"No, Sergeant Barnes," says a disembodied voice that he knows he's heard before, "this is your new life with HYDRA."

The voice fills him with fear and he struggles to get up but he is restrained. He manages to break the strap holding his head and in the moment he raises it before guards come into the room to restrain him again he sees it, an arm, a silver monstrosity.

"What the hell is this?" he yells. "Take it off! Take it off!"

Someone comes with a syringe and injects it into his neck. He feels sleepy again and he stops straining against the restraints. Then his eyes close and all is dark again.

Jade sat upright, feeling her neck then rubbing her arm. She turned to Bucky but he was asleep, on his side facing her. Slipping out of the bed she went to the bathroom and turned on the light at the same time as closing the door. Relieving herself first she then washed her hands and looked at the mirror screaming as she saw the Winter Soldier looking back at her. Bucky burst through the door and she looked back seeing only herself and Bucky holding her.

"Baby, what's wrong?" he asked, "Why did you scream?"

"Oh Bucky," she cried, burying her face in his chest. "I'm scared. I'm so, so scared."

He held her, picked her up in his arms and took her back to the bed. In between sobs she told him of the dream, reliving one of his memories, then seeing the Winter Soldier in the mirror instead of herself. Eventually her sobs subsided and she fell into a shallow sleep. He didn't dare leave her, for fear of her reliving the next one of his memories which he knew would be the memory wipe and the brainwashing. That's what happened after they gave him the arm. The bigger fear was what happened next, the killing. Knowing what it had done to him he worried about what it would do to Jade. He cursed her decision to hold onto those memories of his. For now, all he could do was hold her, comfort her, and stay with her.

Oh, fear is a liar with a smooth and velvet tongue
Fear is a tyrant
He's always telling me to run
Ain't No Grave by Molly Skaggs & Bethel Music

Mission planning started after breakfast in the common room. In the past they would have called out to Friday and the AI would have listed their objectives, team members and responsibilities, blueprints of the facility they were descending on, plus any other relevant information in a 3D display that everyone could see. Since the attack of the Others two years before there had been no networks or internet that would allow the AI to function. When they assembled at the Bunker after New York went dark someone went scrounging and came back with the white board and markers which Steve was now writing on.

Objectives: detain and arrest Elder Abraham for suspected child abduction, child abuse and child sexual abuse. Detain and arrest John Langford for suspected child abduction, aiding and abetting a child abuse ring, aiding and abetting a child abuse ring. Ascertain if local law enforcement capable of carrying out their duties.