Red

Day 1

Bucky didn't want to consider the possibility of what might have happened. If Steve hadn't realized the doctor was no doctor, if the maid hadn't come into the hotel and found the real doctor's body, if Sam hadn't caught Zemo. It was better to be glad the man was currently locked where Bucky had been held only hours earlier.
    Seven hours.
    He had counted seven hours. Seven hours to be taken from his cell and locked into the Avenger's quintet. Seven hours to be flown from Berlin to the states. Seven hours to be driven from where they had landed to the psych facility.
    He knew it was seven hours because he had counted. But he didn't count in hours, not even in minutes. He just counted in seconds. One, two, three. And so the seconds went on, passing by painfully slowly.
    It had been seven hours since anyone spoke to him.

    Four guards surrounded him as they entered the building. IT was a compound surrounded by a tall iron fence painted white, the fence was electric. Even from thirty feet away, he could hear the sound. He doubted anyone else herd.
    He felt the cameras monitoring the compound more than saw them. He was able to count one, two, three, four, five, six. There were six cameras that he could. He guessed there were about as man that he couldn't see.
    The main building was as white as the fence. It looked nice and had many large windows. Multiple exits. He could break any one of those windows easily, even with the dampener attached to his cybernetic. Going through the iron bars that covered each window would be harder. He figured, if he needed, he could tear them out near the screws, the weakest point.
    There was a metal detector at the front door. They were probably strategically place at all the doors exiting the buildings.
    When they entered the building, he noticed the camera above the front door.
    A cheerful looking woman around fifty to fifty five entered the main room. She was in a doctor's white lab coat and had a metal name plate pinned above the left breast that read Lily Evans, MD.
    "Good afternoon, Mr Barnes." She said, her eyes wandered to the guards surrounding him. How much did she know? Her smile stretched thin. "If you please follow me."
    He, and his entourage, followed her out of the entry room into a kinda of reception area or nurses station. Doctor Evans pulled a clipboard off the desk, she braced against her chest as if it were a shield. She probably didn't even realize she was doing it.
    "Normally, I give my patiences a tour but I have a note that you don't need one." She said. Smart. However had left those instructions knew that if he knew the floor plan, the easier it would before him to escape. "I'll take you directly to your room."
    Even if he didn't get a tour, laws still required there to be signs pointing to every exiting door. It made things easy for him. But even with out those signs, there were still numerous ways he could leave. He counted them as he was led up to the third floor.
    His room was 308. It was small, ten feet by ten feet. There was enough room for a bed, a small dresser, and a side table. A tv had been mounted on one wall. There were two doors and three windows. Six exits if he counted the window in the small bathroom which was where one of doors led.
    "We keep a pretty tight schedule here. I'll have a nurse come later to explain the rules and take you to the cafeteria."
    He stepped into his room. The guards did not. The door was shut and locked from the outside.
    He could tell by the shadows through the frosted glass on the door that they were still out their. He counted five bodies. The four guards and the doctor. They were speaking but he couldn't tell what they were saying. His room had been soundproofed.
    Upon a further investigation he found that an electric shield had been set up at each of the windows. If he did chose to exit by one of those, then it would hurt a lot.
    Seven hours. How much security could be added to the family in those few hours?
    He paced the length of the room, his original estimate of ten feet by ten feet had been right. He check for an air duct or heating bent and found neither but the room was warm.
    The windows faced north. Through them he could see a vast mountain range still caped with snow despite it being May. He didn't know whether that meant far north or high elevation. He knew he was in the United States but he didn't know where.
    There was a spare change of clothes on the bed, carefully folded. He understood this was his new uniform.

    In addition to the change of clothes, there was also a synthetic skin that fit over his cybernetic. It made it appear normal but it further restricted his movement. He hated how he could barley move his hand. Maybe that was the point, to make it nothing more than dead weight.     He had stashed his combat gear in Romania. It couldn't help him now but it would be nice to have a gun or even a knife.
    There was no clock in his room but he counted the seconds. They added to fifteen minutes with forty-seven seconds remaining before the promised nurse arrive. The nurse unlocked the door and held it open.
    Bucky hesitated for a second, was he allowed to walk out. "Hurry up, dinner has already started." The man said, sounding a little moody. He didn't have any of the doctor's cheerful disposition. His name tag read Colin Rooke.
    After another second of hesitation, Bucky stepped out. There were no guards.
    "You share the cafeteria with all the residents for Level 3 so long as you keep in control. You lose control and your liberties are taken away. There are regular announcements for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. There will be a fifteen minute announcement before each meal, at the start of each meal, and when meal hour is over. No food fights. I'm sick of cleaning them up."
    Bucky only nodded. He didn't plan on starting any fights, food or otherwise. His only goals was how to leave.
    "You have twenty minutes left for diner." Colin said. The nurse took a tray filled with food from a small stainless steel car and handed into to Bucky.
    Everyone else was wearing the same loose pants and long sleeve shirt he was. He counted thirteen other people eating in a room that could easily seat fifty. Only a few were sitting on their own. He countered three groups of four. Two of the groups seemed to be arguing with each other over a sports team.
    Only one person noticed him enter. She was sitting with a nurse. Form where he stood, it seemed like the nurse had been coaxing her to eat.
    Bucky felt all the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. His mind told him to fight or run. The woman only stared at him. So Bucky did the stupid thing. He walked over and sat across from the woman and the nurse.
    The woman had chosen a strategical position. She could see everyone who came and left the cafeteria. Bucky couldn't, not where he was sitting. It left him feeling tense and worried.
    The nurse was actually Dr Evans. "Good afternoon, Mr Barnes." She said gently. "Did Colin explain all the rules."
    "About meal times?"
    "In general."
    "No." Bucky said. He looked at his food. He didn't recognize half of it but it matched what remained on the woman's plate. She hadn't stopped staring at him since he came in or since he sat down.
    The woman had dark red hair that had been arranged into a thousand miniature braids. Her hair stopped at her waist and probably was longer if it hadn't also been pulled up into a ponytail. Her skin reminded him of ivory. Most of her features seemed soft and gentle. Even the tattoo above her shirt collar seemed gentle, a necklace of roses threaded into a chain that circled her throat was elegant and sweet. Everything about was soft. All except her eyes. They were as blue and deep as the ocean and twice as dangerous. She seemed gentle, almost innocent, but he knew she was lethal.
    "You'll learn them quickly. Most of them you don't need to know right now. Enjoy your meal."
    The woman muttered something under her breath and left the cafeteria. Bucky watched her go until Dr Evans sighed.
    Bucky almost asked if it was his fault.
    "That's Eden. You'll see her a lot."
    He thought he knew Eden, and he was pretty sure her name wasn't Eden.

An Author's Note. The inspiration for part one came from a story I read on FanFiction.Net. Many of the elements are my own making but the idea behind them is not.