Piece By Piece

Part 18

I hung from the ceiling by my wrists where the skin under the cuff was pulled, raw and red and bloody, however, my wrists were by far the least damaged part of my body. My eyes are both swollen and oozing, along with the various splits in the skin in my face. My tongue sat in my mouth, pressing gently in the gaps where my teeth used to be. He had only pulled out 2, but the pain was unbearable, nonetheless. My ribs flared against my skin in hunger, and displayed a beautiful piece of black, purple, and blue art. The colourful patches littered my chest and ribs, which bled into the layers upon layers of the whip's destruction it left on my skin.

For all the bruises I had received, none of them hurt more than the damage caused by the hot poker, which had completely obliterated a trail of skin around my waist, which screamed at me in my useless state.

The smaller bones in my hands and feet were broken and cracked, curtesy of a metal rod of his, which he also proved very useful in beating the rest of the body as well. My whole body screamed, begging me for death. It never came. Fists, burns, slashes, that all came, but I never got the pleasure of dying.

-Six weeks later-
After my failed mission, my superiors threw me into overdrive, beating me, working me, injecting me, brainwashing me, day after day after day. My body and my brain were equally exhausted, and my body begged for just a bite of hot food. My eyes were swollen constantly from a lack of sleep, and my wounds begged for some pain medication. I numbly walked barefoot down the stone hallway with aching feet to the lab, where I was scheduled for another round of injections.

Some were painful, some weren't. Sometimes it was a deep ache, like a vaccine, and sometimes they set my blood on fire from the inside out. The steel doors opened, revealing the familiar dentist chair, and the same stainless steel table next to it. I laid down wordlessly, without needing to be told and waited for them to strap me to the table by my wrists, ankles, and forehead. The same nameless German doctor came in wearing his same white lab coat with the Hydra symbol patched into the chest. My eyes followed him closely, expressionless.

He didn't get to know how much I dreaded this. He didn't get to know how scared I was. I kept my lips in a straight like and my eyebrows settled flat. As he set his kit on the table, my blood pounded in my ears, and adrenaline shot through my veins. As he pulled out the first needle, the floor and the walls shook. He paused and waited for the shaking to stop, and then stepped closer to my side. I looked at the large needle.

It wasn't the ones your family doctor administered, no, the capsule was nearly five inches long, with a one inch diameter. The gauge was large as well, and the sight of it made my eyes burn. The doctor tapped the glass cylinder a few times before squirting the air out, but as he proceeded to move towards my neck, another quake came, this time rattling the table where his medical kit was resting on. Attack? Are we under attack? As the quaking trailed off, the doctor once again brought the needle to my neck, letting the top hover above my pulsing artery.

I watched the muscles in his hand twitch and I prepared myself for the pain, but the doctor was interrupted a third time when the steel doors blasted open, and two men stormed in. The doctor cowered behind the chair and shouted reports into his earpiece as the men raised their guns.

The one looked familiar, I recognized his longer brown hair, but I had no memory of him. He strode towards me and I jerked away, but remained unable to defend myself as I was strapped in the chair. His arm- a metal one, raised another needle towards me, and my heart began to race in my chest. This needle was much smaller, but I had no idea what was in it. He pushed the needle into my neck, in the same place the doctor was going to, but there was no burning sensation.

I raised my y/e/c eyes to meet his deep blue ones, and stared him down until I saw nothing at all.

-Bucky's POV-

The moment I laid eyes on the scene before me, my heart stopped in my chest. Y/n laid there, bruised, bloody and barefoot on a silver dentist chair, with a massive needle aimed for her throat. He face looked dead, and it would be believable based on the raw damage on her skin. Pushing myself to move my legs, I ran to her and pulled the tranquilizer out my chest pocket, and raised it to her neck. I felt like I was trying to rescue a terrified animal as she stared me down.

It was an unfeeling stare, one that made my heart clench in longing for the girl who laughed at stupid tv shows, and the girl who cried over her brother, now she didn't even know who her brother was. I pushed the needle into her neck and plunged the medication into her bloodstream. Her soulless eyes stared into mine until they closed unwillingly. Once I was sure she was asleep I took my knife and slashed the restraints, releasing her from their grasp. I pulled her into my arms and, gently as possible, cradled her poor, broken body to my chest. Her face contorted in pain in her sleep and guilt ripped away at my chest. I did this. I shook my head. I couldn't afford to feel bad for myself in this situation, not when she is on the brink of death. Steve fought our way to the hole in the wall, curtesy of Tony, and we ran to the jet. I did my best to hold her still, and tried not to jostle her too much, but it was hard as we trudged through snow and dirt. When we reached the Quinjet, the rest of the team who were acting as decoys met us, our timing in sync. I carried her to inside and laid her down as gently as I could, before reading around to grab the medkit. Bruce ran up from the pilot's seat where he had waited and rushed to begin helping her as well. He hooked her up to an IV drip first, to hopefully hydrate her, and then began cleaning her open wounds.

The process was slow and tedious, and we could only do so much on the jet. She twitched and groaned in pain as Bruce worked on her. I had barely any medical training and I didn't want to fuck anything up, so I mostly just sat and watched. I held her hand while her face twisted in pain as he stitched up the gashes on the various parts of her body. When the front looked okay, we moved to the back.

I knew that he had whipped her, I saw it in the video, but I didn't realize how bad it was. Her back looked as if it had been a scratching post for a damn lion, it was so carved up. There were layers upon layers of damage here, some old, some new, and I had no idea where Bruce was going to start.

Where the skin wasn't torn apart it was black and blue, and when the skin wasn't black and blue it was curved by broken bones underneath, like her hands and feet. I didn't know what to do, so I sat then and put bandages where Bruce directed. I felt useless. Useless and guilty.