Battlefield ★ Bucky Barnes

XXIX. You Give My Life A Purpose

The room was dark; the only light was that of the full moon illuminating brightly through the windows. Bucky sighed quietly and pushed himself off of the king-sized bed, careful not to wake Connie as he did so.

For the past three days, since the kiss, the two of them had been sharing a bed with one another. It had been Connie's idea at first, as she had claimed she missed sharing a bed and a room with him. She didn't want to make him uncomfortable, of course, but Bucky happily agreed to do it. He knew he missed the feeling of holding her in his arms at night, yet his reasons stretched far beyond just that. He wondered if she could help take away his nightmares the way she had taken away everything else, but it appeared as if there would always be something inside Bucky that served as a reminder of what had happened to him. He wondered if it was the same for Connie as well.

Bucky made his way downstairs and into the large kitchen, switching the light on as he did. He grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and sat down at the island, bringing the cold plastic to his lips. He became lost in thought as he recalled the events of his nightmare—the nightmare that had removed him from his slumber. He could remember everything so perfectly and he hated it. He hated even more that Connie had been at the very center of the nightmare for reasons that were anything but good.

Bucky was in his lonely cell as he normally was while out of cryostasis. He wasn't sure what they had planned for him, but he was terrified to find out. Whatever Hydra did to him only ever inflicted pain, and it was a pain he found he could not handle no matter how many years he spent with the horrible organization.

Several moments of silence had passed before one of the Hydra workers appeared behind the metal bars of Bucky's containment room. The man smirked deviously down at the soldier and unlocked the cage, pulling the barred door open and heading into the small room to retrieve the soldier.

"Poluchite ad vverkh (Get the hell up)," the man commanded in Russian. He delivered a swift kick to the soldier's side, earning an angered look from him. The man only laughed at the expression and kicked him towards the containment room entrance. He knew Bucky wouldn't make a move to harm him or he would be punished, and punishment was something the soldier hated and feared more than anything.

Bucky pulled himself up from the ground, and the moment he did, the man grabbed him by the arm and practically dragged him towards the facility armory.

"U nas yest' chto-to osobennoye zhdet vas v aptechke, soldat (We've got something special waiting for you in the armory, soldier)," the man informed him with a grin on his face. "Spetsial'nyy kto-to reshil zaplatit' vam vizit (A special someone has decided to pay you a visit)."

Bucky wanted to ask who this someone was, but he knew better than to even react.

Sooner or later, the man had pulled Bucky into the armory, where more Hydra workers than usual were gathered around. Normally during one of his training sessions, there would be only three to five trainers and Hydra workers present, but now there were close to twenty, and the reason behind it all became clear when Bucky fixed his gaze on the woman in the middle of the room.

Connie sat in the middle of the room; she sat in a metal chair where her arms and legs were bound by metallic braces she could not break out of, no matter how desperately she tried. Sweat covered the entirety of her body, and her clothes were dirty and ripped, which showed signs of a struggle. Her brown hair was a greasy mess tousled on top of her head, her brown eyes were wide with fear and filled with tears, and she was gagged with a cloth of some sort, preventing her from calling out for help.

In a single instant, Bucky's mind had been stripped of the Winter Soldier. He had transitioned back into the man he used to be before being captured and it was because of her. He feared for what was about to happen, and he feared for what they planned on making him do.