The Equivalents

35. The Winter Soldier.

A/N: anything spoken in parentheses is translated from Russian. Yeah, sadly that means... I think you get it...

Zemo knew it wouldn't be hard coming up with ways to bring back the Winter Soldier. All he had to do was get the machine, wipe him, and fill his head with whatever he wanted.
The only problem was that Bucky was more resistant now. And he was much more strong willed. Last time the Soviets tried to wipe him, it was easy. He already lost most of his memories. All they had to do was remove the rest (except his muscle memory. He needed that to fight) and then program him to do whatever they wanted. Now, he was definitely going to be more difficult. Much more difficult. Zemo knew it too, but he wasn't going to let a little strong will get in the way of him having his own private soldier. All he needed was the words.

(Yes, I know this is a thing from the movies and not the comics, but I felt like it would fit perfectly for this and I don't know if comics Bucky had any other keywords then Sputnik. Or maybe I do and just forgot lol. 🤷‍♀️)

Zemo had restrained Bucky to the machine, Bucky putting up a fight the entire time. Without his arm though, he wasn't able to overpower Zemo. He definitely would've whipped his butt if he had it, but he sadly didn't.

Zemo grabbed a mouth piece and practically forced it into Bucky's mouth. He knew the drill, he just didn't want to comply. Everything was fine, until the machine turned on and wrapped around his head. He started screaming while Zemo read off the words.

"(Longing)." Zemo stated.

"AHHHHHH!!!"

"(Rusted)." Zemo continued.

Bucky kept screaming.

"(Furnace)." Zemo said. "(Daybreak)."

Bucky tried to fight it. He wouldn't let Zemo do this to him. He wouldn't be anyone's slave ever again. He wouldn't hurt anyone else. He wouldn't let anyone else hurt him either. He couldn't do this again. He couldn't spend another 70 years being tortured, manipulated, and forced to kill people while everytime he tried to escape they put his brain in a blender. But it was awfully hard.

"(Seventeen)." Zemo continued. Persistent in making sure this worked. No matter how many times he had to repeat this. He was certain he'd break Bucky.

"STOOOOOOP!!!" Bucky screamed. It was a little mumbled because of the mouth piece. But he didn't spit out the mouth piece. If he had to go through this again, he was at least keeping his perfect teeth in tact.

"(Benign)." Zemo ignored his screams and kept reading off the words.

"(NOOOOO!!!)" Bucky didn't even realize he started screaming in Russian. The realization scared the living daylights out of him. He quickly corrected himself. "NO!"

"(Nine)." Zemo continued. "(Homecoming)."

Bucky clenched his jaw. Fighting Zemo was one thing, fighting a machine was even harder. It was one of the most excruciating pains he had ever felt. And he literally had his arm blown off in an explosion.

"(One.)" Zemo just kept talking. His Russian pronunciation was astounding. Be had clearly been practicing this for a long time. He wanted to do this to Bucky for years. Or at least he prepared in the event he would need to try.

Bucky didn't stop fighting. No matter how badly it hurt, no matter how easy it would be to just give in, he wouldn't stop fighting it.

"(Freight car)." Zemo said, finishing up the list of words.

Bucky was relieved when the machine finally shut off. He knew as soon as Zemo saw it hadn't worked the first time, that he would just try again and again until it did. But it was nice to have a slight moment of relief.

"(Soldier, ready to comply)?" Zemo asked.

Bucky was out of breath and exhausted, but he wouldn't pass up the chance to infuriate Zemo.

"Never." He panted out.

"Then we try again." Zemo said.

Bucky knew it. He knew Zemo wouldn't give up after one failure. The only thing that would save Bucky would be to see whose patience lasted longer. Would Bucky hold out until Zemo eventually gave up, or would Bucky give in while Zemo reigned triumphantly? He felt like he would soon be finding out. Whether or not he liked it, he knew that Zemo was going to do this again and again. How many times? Hopefully not too many. But even if Bucky was able to withstand it, what would Zemo do to him if Zemo failed? Would he kill him? Bucky didn't like any of the options he was presented with. He just wished Steve was coming to help him.