The Price of Freedom

10

As the three were being escorted in a van, Steve said in a shaky voice, "It was them. They looked right at me like they didn't even know me."

"How's that even possible?" Sam wondered. "It was like 70 years ago."

"Zola. Bucky's whole unit was captured in '43, Zola experimented on them. Whatever he did helped him survive the fall. I thought Chava long dead."

"None of that's your fault, Steve," Natasha told him.

"Even when I had nothing, I had Bucky and Chava."

Sam noticed Natasha was bleeding from her shoulder and looked at the guards and said, "We need to get a doctor here. We don't put pressure on that wound she's gonna bleed out here in the truck." Suddenly, one of the guards pulled out an electric rod and neutralized the other guard and knocked him out. The guard was revealed to be Hill as she took off her helmet.

"Ah. That thing was squeezing my brain," Hill said. Sam looked at her in confusion. Hill said to Steve, "Who's this guy?"

Rumlow's crew stopped their vehicles and got out.

"Three holes. Start digging," Rumlow ordered. They went towards the van holding Steve, Sam and Natasha and as they opened the door, they found it empty with one of the guards left unconscious and massive burnt hole on the car floor.

---

Hill had taken the three to a secret facility. A man ran towards them.

Hill, referring to Natasha's wound, said, "GSW. She's lost at least a pint."

"Maybe two," Sam added.

"Let me take her," the doctor said.

"She'll want to see him first," Hill replied, taking them to Fury who was alive and lying in bed. The three looked at him in shock.

"About damn time," Fury said.

Later, as Natasha's wound was being treated, Fury continued. "Lacerated spinal column, cracked sternum, shattered collarbone, perforated liver, one hell of a headache."

"Don't forget your collapsed lung," the doctor added.

"Oh, let's not forget that. Otherwise, I'm good."

"They cut you open, your heart stopped," Natasha said.

"Tetrodotoxin B. Slows the pulse to one beat a minute. Banner developed it for stress. Didn't work so great for him, but we found a use for it."

"Why all the secrecy?" Steve asked. "Why not just tell us?"

"Any attempt on the director's life had to look successful," Hill replied.

"Can't kill you if you're already dead," Fury reasoned. "Besides, I wasn't sure who to trust."

---

Inside a bank vault, the HYDRA agents fixed Bucky's metal arm and as they did so, he had a brief flashback to his old life as he was recovered by Zola and the HYDRA agents.

"Sergeant Barnes..." Dr. Zola called and Bucky had a flashback to falling off the train at the edge of the mountain with Steve trying to save him.

"Bucky, no!" Steve cried.

Bucky flashed to after he was picked up by HYDRA agents.

"The procedure has already started," Dr. Zola said as he and the HYDRA agent amputated his left arm and replaced it with the metal arm. "You are to be one of the new faces of HYDRA." He said to his men, "Put him on ice." Bucky was being frozen after which he came back to the present and knocked over the HYDRA agent fixing his arm.