Captain America Bucky Barnes Winter Soldier Steve Rogers Fan Fic - The Constant

Chapter Two: The Beginning

The Beginning

Part One - Bucky Barnes

The cold bites through to his bones and his body hurts all over. He is confused for a moment. He is lying in snow and if he looks up he can just see the sky through the trees. The wind is howling through them and it is getting dark. There are broken branches spread around him.

He must have fallen.

As soon as he thinks that, he sees a picture of Steve in his mind, reaching out his hand, a distraught look on his face. Then he is falling, his body hits the rock face but keeps going, falling again, a pain so bad in his left arm that it causes him to lose consciousness and then he wakes up in this place.

"Not your fault Steve," he murmurs and he passes out.

The next time he comes around, it is the pain that has woken him. The sky is lighter and there is a small covering of snow over him that he tries to brush off his face. He is so cold and he tries to get up but nothing moves, instead he can feel bones grating against each other. Pain lances through his body and he cries out. Jesus, that hurts. He senses one leg bent under him and his left hand is aching so bad he thinks he must have broken it, he holds it up to look but there is nothing there and as he tries to move all he can see is a ragged mess where his arm used to be.

"No..." he stutters, thinking he is not seeing right. He blinks to try and clear his eyesight and he becomes aware of the searing cold. He is now aware of it in every part of his body. He shivers violently.

He coughs and groans from the pain it causes, a trickle of blood runs from his nose, his chest hurts and he tries to stop the next cough as he can't breathe properly.

He is trying to think.

He must have been here for hours, no, longer than that, so why isn't he dead? Why hasn't hypothermia settled in, claiming his body, cooling it down ready to claim him as its victim? He has forgotten Zola's serum - no not forgotten: he does not know what it does, does not know its purpose.

It is in his blood stream, it is in his muscles, coursing around keeping the nerve endings alive, keeping the hypothermia at bay, keeping him alive so he can feel every broken bone, every bit of damage done. But the serum is untested, unstable, there is not enough of it to start even trying to repair the damage done, for now it will just barely keep him alive.

But just for now.

He tries again to sit up but his head swims. He needs to get up, needs to move or he will die. Blood trickles down the back of his neck from a head wound and he passes out again.

Next time what awakens him is something pulling at what remains of his left arm. He opens his eyes and the pulling stops. A huge wolf is watching him. It bends its massive head to lick at his blood in the snow. He sees the creatures muscles ripple through the beautiful grey coat and then it comes forward again and tugs at the mess where once his left hand and arm had been. The jolt to his heart gives him a false strength and he surges back against a tree. The wolf jumps back, licking its snout, it has had a taste of his blood now and is hungry. He groans as pain lances through his whole body and he bites his tongue hard causing blood to run out of his mouth.

His mind is sluggish, he can't hold his thoughts. Where is he, what the hell happened?

The last he can remember is picking up Steve's shield, lifting it and shooting at something and that is all, total blank. And now? Now he is in a forest and it is so quiet, no bird song nothing but his own ragged breathing.

The yellow eyes of the wolf follow his every move, its breath misting out in front of it, and it starts to move forward again, baring its teeth warning him not to try and stop it.