I feel completely hollow and empty, my resignation to this world placing a heavy burden on my shoulders. I can't bring myself to eat and sleep, only sustain myself, keep Peter alive, and order S-20 to do whatever the guards force me into saying.
All night I stay with Peter, trying to get him to remember before deciding that we both just need rest. Mornings I spend tied up and held on my knees, only used to bark orders that they know hurt my soul.
How long has it even been? Four months? Five? I can't even keep track in this underground hell hole we are being kept in. I haven't seen the sun or breathed fresh air in forever.
And god, oh god, all those promises I used to make with Peter. I failed him. This is on me. I failed him.
I failed him.
Seeing Peter as a mindless robot, unable to think or probably even breathe without a direct order is killing me. And I hate that I can't even wish to remove all of Peter's memories of Hydra because that's all he has ever known. Other than those two and a half weeks he had, what else does he remember?
He only got to be human for such little time.
Only got to be Peter for a little more than two weeks.
"Please," I murmured, drawing the attention of the guards as I sat in my corner as the doctors started strapping a stiff Peter to their examination table. "Please. I say this every day, but please. Let me take his place. He doesn't deserve this. I'll do anything. I won't complain. I'll be your Winter Soldier again. Please. Let him go."
I spoke quietly, my voice strained and filled with the sadness of just knowing that no one was listening to me anyway.
"Okay," a voice called out, startling me from my depressed state. I shot my head upward to see Dr. Miller with his hand up, motioning for the other sadistic doctors to stop preparing Peter for their cruel and unanesthetized surgery. "I'll grant you this wish, James Buchanan Barnes. Direct Peter and yourself over to the training room."
Shocked with this sudden change in fate, I became excited as I called out for Peter to follow me as I walked behind the guards and to the training room. I don't even care that I was submitting myself over to be Hydra's plaything. Anything was better than watching Peter suffer.
I was too excited to see the evil glint in Dr. Miller's eye.
"Here you are James Buchanan Barnes," the doctor said, stopping in the center of the room. "I will listen to what you said, but the thing is, there is no need for two soldiers with your abilities in Hydra. One is merely enough. We thought you were starting to become unfit for the role, that is why we had you train S-20 in the first place. After you left, we designed S-20 to be the best possible soldier. But if you say you are more than willing to take his place, in your free mind and will, to let him go, then we just need to see who is the best. After all, we only need one and we will only take the best one."
I was hardly processing his words but something was nagging me in the gut.
Only one.
Only need one.
The best one.
Realization dawned on me a second too late as I realized what was actually happening.
Oh shit.
"Fight S-20, James Buchanan Barnes, and let us see who the most fit soldier is. The survivor gets to stay in Hydra."
Fight each other?
"The other will be free in death."
Yeah.
Shit.
YOU ARE READING
Not Anymore
FanfictionS-20 has only ever known one thing, Hydra, until one man came into his life and showed him that there was so much more. That man was his first friend. His older brother. But after one night, the two were ripped apart and S-20 cannot even remember hi...
