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

Chapter Seventy-Eight:The Winter Soldier & Bucky Barnes - The Apartment

The Winter Soldier & Bucky Barnes – The Apartment

The van pulls up outside of the old bank in Washington.

It is night time, quiet, with no-one around to disturb them. They open up the back loading bay door and drive inside. There are three men, not counting the unconscious Soldier. They know the fail-safe command lasts for about six hours so they still have time. They close the bay doors behind them and move the Soldier out and into a loading bay lift, then accompany him down the four floors into the bowls of the earth itself. When he awakens he will recognise where he is.

Did he really think he could escape them?

The inner-city vault has been brought back online but with far fewer staff. For now, there are the five of them, two guards, two technicians and of course the new Winter Soldier's handler - Brock Rumlow. He is not a pretty sight. The left side of his face is badly burnt, still bleeding and oozing from the injuries. The burns run down his left arm and the left side of his chest. His voice is rough where the heat scorched his larynx. The doctors had told him he was lucky to be alive.

He took his survival as divine intervention, he was meant to live, he was meant for greater things. The heat from the fire had also caused brain damage; impaired his reasoning abilities. Anyone else would say the damage to his brain has sent him mad. Given him delusions of grandeur.

They would be right.

He knew about the secret stash of serum held as back-up for emergencies. It does not exist any more; it has all been injected into his body. Even now he believes he can feel the serum repairing his wounds; or, at least, that is what he believes it is doing. It is not. The serum has degraded over time. If he lives he will be a monster. If he dies, he will be lucky.

"Bring him over here," he tells two of the men. The two guards keep their rifles trained on the unconscious man; they have both seen the Winter Soldier in action. They can also feel the tension in the air from Rumlow; can feel the testosterone, see the sweat rolling of his body. They try not to look at the burnt skin, try to block the foetid odour of it. He dismisses the three men who captured the Soldier. After all, they have other duties to perform. Before they leave they hand him over the tracking unit that gave them the location of the Winter Soldier. Rumlow puts it on the side for now.

"Wake him up," Rumlow says to one of the technicians.

The man nods, scurries forward and with a hypo gun injects a drug to waken the Soldier. They have placed him on a chair and his metal arm has been powered down. He looks like shit. Rumlow crouches down in front him, takes a handful of his hair, and pulls his head back.

"Come on sleeping beauty. You've had your nap, now it's time for work," he says and he sees the Soldier's eyes flutter as he regains consciousness.

Rumlow slaps him hard and is finally rewarded when the Winter Soldier looks up at him, looks around the room, sums up the two guards, the technicians, and his own peril. But Rumlow can also see a difference in his gaze: the person they have is Bucky Barnes. There is hardly any sign of the Soldier in him.

Rumlow is an extremely angry man. He is just about keeping his temper from exploding. The guards feel as if they have to walk on eggshells around him, and the technicians are terrified of him. They have heard his ravings about how he is going to be the new leader of Hydra, he will lead them back to greatness. He is also to be made into a new and improved Winter Soldier only he will not have the Soldier's weaknesses, just his strengths. He won't be like any other human, and they believe him when he says that. You only have to look into his blood-flecked eyes to see he is no longer that.

"How did you find me?" Bucky asks, wanting to double check that it was the tracking device that betrayed his whereabouts; he is answered when Rumlow picks up the scanner and waggles it in the air.