Traceur

•16•

A/N: that last chapter was actually like 500 words longer than usual...(¬_¬)

WARNING: slightly graphic description of wounds from torture. Idk if I can finish the part where I'm describing wounds due to anxiety (because writing about this shit is triggering)

...
Levi's POV.
They left me.

Yup.

They actually did it.

They escaped without me.

We somehow came to an agreement that, if I distract the guards from finding them when the van stops (which, ideally, would give them enough time to get to safe place), they'll rescue me from HYDRA, ASAP. As in, 'as-soon-as-we-finish-getting-this-virus-out-of-SHIELD'.

So far, the plan is going well. Well, I actually haven't had time to execute the plan, but the guard is still knocked out, so that's something.

The van pulls to a stop, and my heart starts beating a little faster.

"Let's do this."

...

This shouldn't have happened, I rue, curled on the ground in my cell, literally trying to hold myself together.

The punishment for letting them go- even helping them- was huge. I didn't even think this through.

Why did I ever agree to this?

Long lacerations scar my back, blood dribbling from the gleaming meat. Several stitched-up stab wounds fill the skin on my abdomen, and my arms and legs have burns from anguishing hours of having a burning metal rod shoved into my flesh.

The stench in the small cage is awful, but Winter doesn't care. Of course he doesn't; he doesn't even remember me, much less why he should care about victims, even if he is one himself. He doesn't even know that.

So I lie on my side, blood pooling around me, hoping that maybe I'll just pass out.

Or die.

Dying sounds good, too.

I think they've abandoned me. They don't trust me. They...they want this to happen. They knew that I would be tortured. They want me to suffer.

I killed people. I kill people. I should be killed.

I tilt my head just a little bit, just to see Winter. Or, Bucky, as Steve called him. I remember the times I dragged Steve to his section of the museum, where they basically idolized him. I did draw a mustache- several mustaches, actually- and got permanently banned from the museum. It was fun...and I remember Bucky's place in it. He was Steve's best friend. 'Was'...he obviously isn't any more.

"Kill me," I choke out, my voice garbling because of my own blood. I don't phrase it as a question; that would make me weak. I make it a command.

"Kill...me."

He barely glances over at me, keeping his gaze focused...somewhere. Probably on the iron door.

"No."

"Yes. Do it."

"No," he huffs, turning to me. "I can't kill you. Trust me, I know the pain. But I can't kill you. HYDRA wants you to survive."

"But I don't," I grunt out, teeth clenched. "Don't I have a personal option?"

Bucky raises his brow. "What are you talk'n about?"

I sigh. "You know...choices. Like, whether or not to kill people-"

He glares at me. "If I could have these 'choices', I would never kill."

And that's when I realize: he isn't Winter. This is Bucky talking. He isn't in Winter Soldier mode anymore. He's just...himself.

"Do you even know your own name?" I ask, and he scoffs at me.

"We don't have names. We have titles."

"I know, but you used to have a name."

He ponders that for a few seconds, before rehearsing a monotonous, "I have no name, nor life before HYDRA."

"That's not true."

"It's the truth I live by." His voice cracks, and he clears his throat. I eye him from my position from the ground, and his shoulders sag in defeat.

"If...if the life that was taken from me....if I think about it too much, I might just fall apart. Did I have a best friend? A girl? Parents? Siblings?"

"James Buchanan Barnes," I recite, and he eyes me oddly. I give him my best effort of a shrug.

"You have a bio  at the history museum downtown. The man on the bridge? He used to be your best buddy. If it was an accepted norm back then, I'm pretty sure you would've been boyfriends."

His nose scrunches. "What do you mean, 'back then'?"

I lick my lips before answering.

"You were captured...over seventy years ago."

His eyes widen, and he exhales a breath of air. "God, that long?"

I smirk. I believe his old personality might be catching up. How else would he know what to say?

"Yeah. That long. You're an elderly man. But, in the body of twenty-year-old."

He arches an eyebrow. "So...how do you know my name? And my past?"

I snort.

"As I said, bio at a history museum. Your friend is Captain America, and the fact that everyone thinks you laid your life down to stop HYDRA gives you a mention of honor in the museum. You were the oldest, and had several younger sisters. Two parents, and you took care of Steve Rogers, your best friend, when he lost both of his. I also know the more personal things from my relationship with Rogers himself."

"You and Rogers are together?" He asks, and I stare at him in shock and a tinge of horror.

"Oh, hell no! He's...well...kind of like a...fatherly figure," I mumble, remembering our argument.

"Wait, you think you can just tell me to go to my room, and I'll actually do it?" I ask, stressing the words where I got confused at. Steve stares at me in astonishment.

"Well, yeah!"

I snort.

"I don't think you got the memo of this century. Women aren't men's to order around, and I certainly won't listen to you just because you have different genitals."

"That's not what I was trying to-"

"And you think you can order me around?" I ask, angry. Tony somehow has gotten his hands on a bag of popcorn, and is leaning against the receptionist desk, watching the fight play out. "What gives you the right? You're not my dad!"

"You're not my dad!"

YOU'RE NOT MY DAD.

Four words. Ones that I yelled in the heat of the moment. Ones that are so untrue...ones that I wish I could take back.

Oh...my...fucking god...

What have I done?

And although I know it's probably not the right time to reflect on the darker times of our father-daughter relationship, especially with the fact that I might never see him again, or that I might get wiped soon...

I grieve for the fatherly figure I had. I regret my words. And now, with the high chance of never seeing him again- or, not seeing him as Levi again- I mourn that I pushed away one of the only people to ever truly care for me.

Why was I so stupid?