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

Chapter Fifty-Nine: The Constant & The Winter Soldier - A New Life

The Constant & The Winter Soldier - A New Life

The Winter Soldier

He is used to pain, used to suffering - but this? This is indescribable. His entire body is on fire. There is fire in his veins, and he can feel his bones moving shifting, stretching. Through it all, he cannot even scream.

Cannot even beg them to let him die.

He is aware of noise around him, of people with panic in their voices. Some he recognises, but there is only one he is searching for: the woman. The woman who comforts him, who is always there for him - but now he cannot hear her.

There are the times they lock him out, send him into the dark where he can still feel the pain but he is totally alone with fragments of what could be memories. He does not know any more. A clinical psychologist would tell them he is mad, that he has fallen over the edge into insanity.

He sees people and doesn't know who they are. And places. Things that have happened but they are all jumbled, with no context. A tall blond haired man standing side by side with a man he knows is called Lehmann, they are both shaking their heads at him, as if he has done something so terribly wrong, as if to say he deserves the pain he is going through; the woman he craves kissing a soldier; a ship with loading crates that need moving, one of the crates tumbling to the ground with oranges spilling out; Christmas in the snow...but he is waiting to kill someone and yet when he enters the house the man in the bedroom is his father. Dad, help me, please help me. So many scenes play out distorted, have no meaning until his sanity feels as if it is tearing itself apart because that is what it is doing. The serum is tearing his body apart and his brain is tearing his mind apart.

There is no sanity left.

Just a voice.

His. Alone.

He calls out; Steve! Freya! Help me! Please...help me! But he doesn't even know who Steve and Freya are, they are just names in the middle of all the pain.

And no matter how many times he begs them - no one ever comes to help.

He is truly alone.

*

Dreams and nightmares merge into one another.

He reaches down, extending his hand to a young boy lying on the ground. His heart is beating wildly as he stares at the boy's beautiful blue eyes, long lashes, and the feel of the soft skin of his hand as he helps pull him up from the ground. He introduces himself. I'm Bucky Barnes. The young boy is smiling and as Bucky helps him up he begins to change, growing taller, and broader, and stronger until the man stood in front of him is Steve Rogers. Bucky feels such an overwhelming love for this man. Now they are standing together, holding hands, and Steve is looking at him but the day is growing cold, snow is beginning to fall, catching on Steve's eyelashes, and Steve is asking him a question.

"I'm dead, Buck. You weren't there to help me. You weren't there to save me. Why? Why did you let me die?"

And now Bucky starts to fall backwards. Steve releases his hand and Bucky falls away. He can see Steve still standing, hand outstretched, getting smaller and smaller until he lands hard on his back.

He is lying in the snow and a soldier stands over him. The soldier crouches down and as he does Bucky blinks. The soldier's arms and legs are coated with grey fur and he watches in horror as the soldier turns into a huge grey wolf whose snout runs red with Bucky's blood. Bucky is aware of the pain again and he looks down his body; the wolf is tearing at his naked torso, tearing inside his chest which lies split open, his ribs bent up and backwards. The pain is horrific but what is worse is he can see his own heart beating...