oh captain! my captain! | barnes

unaware

1:35 pm

When Audrey and the agent got to HYDRA's base, Dr West greeted her. He kicked her leg to wake the girl up.

"Bucky!" She gasped, not fully aware.

"Soldier 0324, you've been a bad assassin. You've failed in a mission, you've ran away, you've taken out your trackers. You've gone against your only home. Now you must face your consequence."

"What consequence?" She begged, she was weak.

Doctor West looked at Agent Q, then to the two guards.

"Take her to the other room." He said, and walked out as the men lifted her out of the chair and dragged her to the wiping room.

They strapped her in, and gave her a mouth guard to quiet her.

She began a cold sweat. She didn't want to forget. She didn't want to lose the memories. She only remembered a handful of them, but how could she start from scratch again?

Agent Q slammed a button and the machine closed around her. Her eyes went wide.

The pain set in, the hurt set in, it stung and she screamed and wept for the memories.

It was a white-blinding pain and she begged for death to take her into its cold embrace.

Then the world went dark. Her mind went dark. The memories vanished. She awoke and was taken to a glass tank.

They locked her into it.

Water began to flood around her ankles, it was soon to her knees. What was happening?

The voice of Dr West came on a speaker, far too loud. She tried to cover her ears but the noise found a way.

"Oh Captain, My Captain, our fearful trip is done."

"No!" She screamed, understanding their intentions. The water reached her thighs.

Memories were a sloppy patchwork. A man, an army, an operation table, that poem...

"The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought is won." He paused as the water reached her hospital gown.

"The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting."

"Please!" She begged, salty tears fell freely. She'd lost her strength. She'd misplaced the lesson of pain is weakness and weakness is death.

"While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring," It reached her chest. "But oh heart! heart! heart! Oh the bleeding drops of red..."

Her shoulders; she began to paddle quickly and awkwardly. She'd never learned to swim.

"Where on the deck my Captain lies," She gasped for final breaths. "Fallen cold and dead."

A trigger poem.

Minutes later, when the glass of the tank was broken, she rushed to the concrete floor. She was unconscious and barely alive.

Agent Q rested a folded piece of paper on her chest, written on it in black ink stated a now-meaningless name:

James Buchanan Barnes.