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

Chapter Forty-Five: Bucky Barnes & The Winter Soldier - Acts of Defiance

Bucky Barnes & The Winter Soldier - Acts of Defiance

For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the message was lost.
For want of a message the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a horseshoe nail.

January 1963

The technician had just found out his girlfriend had been unfaithful to him and he is angry, bitter, sulky. He is not a pleasant person. The girlfriend has had a narrow miss and thanks her lucky stars that she has gotten rid of him.

They are not allowed drinks in the main room but as an act of defiance he thinks sod it and takes in a cup of coffee. After all, he is working alone on this shift and he can always get rid of the cup before the others come in.

It really is not his day. He knocks the coffee over and it floods into the panel he is working at. Normally he would have gotten away with it - but...his girlfriend had put him on a diet. Told him he was getting fat, had been concerned about his health. Well, now she was no longer in the picture, he had gone back to putting sugar in his coffee - an extra spoonful, even. The way he looks at it, everyone needs luxuries in their life.

His girlfriend was right to be worried for his health, because the sugar is what will ultimately be the cause of his death.

As the coffee seeps into the control panel he jumps back, panicked, and grabs a cloth, swearing. It takes him twenty minutes to get rid of the tell tale signs of the spilt drink. All the while he is sweating in case someone else comes in and finds out. It is not his fault, he mutters, it is his girlfriend's – his ex-girlfriend's!

Outside the panel, everything looks normal and he breathes a sigh of relief. The lights are still working and it chugs away as usual. Inside however, is a different matter. If it had just been fluid then no problem; the spill may have affected a few small minor things. But sugar and circuity do not mix.

This will definitely be the death of him.

Later that morning, when others join him and the working day begins he has all but forgotten his previous blunder and is moaning at a fellow technician about his love life - or lack thereof. His fellow technician wishes he would shut up.

The doors open and the Winter Soldier is led in. The mission went well and he has rested. He is now ready to return to cryo-freeze. He sits in the chair waiting to be wiped. He knows it will hurt but he is used to pain; it is one of his constant companions although you would never tell from his outward demeanour. He just wishes they would get on with it. Freya comes to sit beside him. He knows her now, knows how much she loves him, and how they lied to him when he first came out of cryo. But he has been told it is important for him to be lied to about her. He is on that cusp of asking too many questions. He tries to smile and she tells him she will see him on the other side.

The chair tilts and the plates begin to cover his face. He inhales deeply, his hands clench the arm rests, and the whine from the machine begins.

The pain starts and he tenses, but although the pain is bad he somehow feels that it is different and he realises at the end of the session he still has most of his memories intact. He knows that he should tell them so they can rerun the wipe...but in an act of defiance, he decides not to.

His ears are bleeding and buzzing by the end of the session and his head hurts. Freya helps clean him up and stays with him until he is in his metal pod, ready for cryo-freeze. He wants to reach out, tell her he remembers her but he cannot. There are eyes everywhere and instead he keeps it to himself but he does squeeze her hand just before they shut the lid and she gives him one of the shy smiles he loves so much.