–September 1944–
STEVE'S LEGS RAN QUICKLY across the squelchy ground, bursting through the door. He sprints down the hallway. The walls were dark, lined with cells, close together, each packed with people in army uniform. He couldn't tell which unit each of these prisoners was from; their clothes were too dirty, too worn and ratty to tell; it was just a sea of dull blue and green. And red. Steve knew the red wasn't the clothes, but he wouldn't question it. At the end of the hall, patrolling around was a sea of black, and in a split second, Steve could tell these were the enemy. These people, these monsters, were Hydra. Only Hydra wore the colour of death; no other would wear death into war.
Steve quickly unlocks the cells, his eyes darting back and forth at all the people exiting the cells as soon as possible, looking at each distraught face for mere seconds, looking for a particular face in the crowd of ever-growing people around him. As he continues to scan the crowd, his face starts to fall, becoming distraught, but hiding the underlying fear, the underlying worry, behind a mask of hope and professionalism, trying to make the other soldiers, those who had been kept prisoner for who knows how long, to show them that they are now acceptable, that whatever horrors they had gone through are now over and they don't need to worry.
A tall man walks over to him; he has a bushy ginger beard. Steve automatically recognises him as being part of Bucky's unit. He looks him up and down quickly, motioning him to pass, but he doesn't move; he stands there. "Are there any others?" Steve asks carefully, silently praying that there are others. Inside, he is hopeful; on the outside, he remains near-emotionless, not wanting to break his brutal shell.
The man, Falsworth, replies softly. "They did take a number of the men to the isolation ward. I'm afraid we haven't seen them since." He informs Steve, almost sounding sorry for what he said.
Steve looks away from him, his eyes darting around the dark before refocusing on Falsworth. For a moment, he doesn't say anything, just handing the prisoners grenades and pistols, arming each of them quickly and effortlessly. "The tree line's northwest, about 80 yards from the gate. From there, follow the creek bed." He turns around slightly, ready to go deeper into the hydra base to find the others. He glances back at them, a more petite man, Jones, looking at him right in the eyes. "I'll meet you in the clearing with anybody I find inside."
Jones steps forward, placing a firm hand on Steve's arm, almost as if trying to hold him back. "Wait…" He says, his voice unsure, scared, but not for him. "You sure you know what you are doing?"
Steve gives a weak smile. "Sure. I've knocked out Adolph Hitler over 200 times." He replies, chuckling slightly, trying to reassure Jones.
Jones looks at him, his eyes thin, questioning him silently. He doesn't say anything, hesitantly lowering his hand and releasing Steve's arm from his grip. He nods slightly, stepping back and leading the other prisoners away from the base. Steve doesn't say a word, and as soon as the prisoners leave his line of sight, Steve hurriedly runs more profoundly into the base, not looking back, his mind operating on autopilot, only wanting to try and find Bucky. The name ran through his head over and over and over again like a broken record.
He runs like a cheetah, quickly finding himself in a more sterile room. The room itself was still damp, dark cells lining the walls. There were eight cells, each dark and dirty and had dark fluids covering the ground, unkempt. On the tops of the cells, they had a plaque with names on it and in a heartbeat, Steve found himself reading them and examining the person inside if there was one.
Subject 1: Fritz, Floyd Finlay. Steve glances down at the man; his head lays against the wall of the cell, damp and covered in blood. His hands are curled inwards, the muscles tight and clenched. His skin was ghostly pale like it was made of paper. His body was so thin that Steve could see his collar bone sticking out slightly from underneath his near-destroyed army fatigues. Steve leaned forward, getting a good look at the condition he was in and noticed that the man wasn't breathing. His chest was still, his eyes open but unlooking, unseeing, his body unfeeling.
Subject 2: Gray, Paul David. Steve could see that he was spread out on the floor, face down; his legs were broken, looking like they had an extra joint in their tabula, the bone jutting out. He could hear slightly gasping and gurgling sounds coming from his mouth, and from the blood pooling by his head, he could tell that he was likely choking on it. Steve glances at the lock on the cell door and tries to open it when he realises that the sound would alert the enemy that he was here, which would cause more harm than good. He looks down at Paul apologetically, bringing out the pistol he had kept. He had promised himself he would never use it. He points it at Paul's head and quickly fires it.
Subject 3: Johnson, Yawa Samantha. He walks over to the next cell, ignoring the sound of Paul's body going limp on the ground. He slowly bends down, looking inside. He sees a tiny African soldier sitting in the corner, gripping their clothes for dear life. Her breaths are short and fast, panicked. Her eyes dart around the cell before focusing on Steve, confused. She mumbles slightly. "Amerikani bi a ne ho yɛ fĩ. Wo ɔbonsam a woayɛ honam (Akan/Twi: You dirty American. You devil incarnate)." She says under her breath, looking at him. Steve stands up, making an internal promise to come back to her; he doesn't say it out loud; he doesn't want to give her false hope, and he also doesn't know if she would even understand what he says.
Subject 4: McConnell, Billie. Small eyes looked at him. The eyes were cold, vicious. Steve tried to take a step closer to the cell, only for the man to run at the door to the cell, ramming his body against the bars, his arm sticking out, trying to scratch at Steve with his blood-filled hands. His body, unlike the others, didn't tremble in fear. Instead, he only continued to try and attack or try and break free from the cell. His movements seemed fluid, almost as though he was trained, and seeing as he was a prisoner of war, he most definitely was trained. But what caught Steve off the most wasn't that he was trying to harm him; it was that he wasn't thin; he wasn't skin and bone like the other prisoners he had seen anywhere else on the base. Slightly scared, Steve walks over to the next cell and looks at its name, pushing Billie out of his mind.
Subject 5: Foster, Hugo Michael. A small figure stood by the bars, leaning against them. Looking into their eyes, Steve could tell that Hugo had given up; the man's eyes were distant and unfocused, red at the corners from where he had initially been crying. Steve goes to touch the bars, trying to reassure them, when their eyes suddenly focus on him. "Just leave me." He mumbles, his voice broken and small, too scared to even show that he was. "Save yourself before they get to you, too." Steve looks at him, confused, but backs away all the same; he knows he needs to wait anyway; he knows he needs to make the base safe before trying to free anyone.
Subject 6: Graves, Ray. The person lay sleeping on the ground, curled up in the foetal position, their legs spasming now and then as they muttered under their breath. At one glance, Steve could tell that the sleep was not peaceful or fulfilling, filled with terror nightmares. But, seeing the state of the others, he got the impression that the mediocre amount of sleep he was getting was likely to be more peaceful than whatever tests or experiments, or god forbid, torture, that these men had had to go through while being locked up in here.
Subject 7: Barnes, James Buchanan. Steve's heart stopped in his chest, his breath hitching. He clutches his shield tighter as he looks inside. After seeing the other cells, he fears what he will see—scared of seeing Bucky in the same state as all the others. He looks in, expecting to see Bucky sitting in a state, readying himself with the fact that his long-lost friend may very well be as dead or as close to death as everyone else he has come across. Or that, if he is in there, he is not the man he had made friends with all those years ago. He glances inside quickly; when he sees nothing, he looks inside correctly. His eyes hadn't doubted him; the cell was empty. That made him more worried, more scared than the idea of him being dead.
Subject 8: Chatelain, Garance. The person inside the cell was already dead. That much was clear. Their body was lying against the bars, their mouth open, their eyes closed, and their chest still. He glances down at their body; his hand is limp, clutching a small piece of plastic that had been chewed until jagged at the edges. He glances over at his arms, seeing an extended cut along the forearm of his left arm, the blood around it still oozing out of the limb, dripping like a broken tap onto the ground. Not being able to bear it, Steve turned his head away, his mind running at a mile a minute. Just what on earth had been happening to these people?
Steve steps back from the cells, standing up, rubbing small tears out of his eyes, trying to hide the pain he feels for these people. He breathes heavily, rubbing his hands together, trying to collect himself. His hands are sweaty, his eyes duller than when he first came inside the base to rescue the prisoners. He no longer felt as hopeful, yet he kept the joyous expression on his face if – when he corrects himself – he finds someone, that his sorrow-filled expression won't bring down their hopes of being rescued, of getting better.
He turns around slightly and sees a figure strapped down to a metal examination table, their clothes ripped at the seams. Slowly, Steve made his way over, praying silently as he did so. At first, he couldn't even recognise who the person was due to the filth that was on him, but as he got closer and stood above him, he examined his features. He had burn marks on his cheekbone and forehead, his breathing was laboured, and Steve could very clearly tell that this man had been electrocuted, and by the looks of it, more than once.
"Barnes, James Buchanan. Sergeant. 32557038." The man said, his voice was hoarse and tired, small, but at the same time, Steve could also tell that this man, his best friend, wasn't broken down like the others. Or at least, he had hoped that his assumption was correct.
He leaned down, quickly freeing Bucky and helping him stand up, putting one arm over his shoulder and helping him keep his balance. "Think you can walk?" Steve asks politely.
Bucky doesn't reply immediately; he looks forward, scrunching his eyebrows. "Where is she?" He asks, his voice almost panicked. "Is she okay? Do you have her?" His voice becomes more panicked.
Steve doesn't know who he is talking about, but he has a sneaky suspicion of who it could be. He glances over at the cells and then back over at Bucky. "I'll get her." He reassures him, slowly walking towards the exit, being careful to go slowly in case Bucky is too weak to go as quickly as he used to. He walks towards the door before leaving the base, their skin cut by the cold and brisk air. Bucky shivers at the sudden temperature change, rubbing his hands together and holding them tightly to conserve heat.
Steve turns around to go back in and get the girl, to get Yawa when he hears the sounds of gunshots and screaming. He stops and comforts Bucky when he flinches at the sound, almost crying. He looks back at the entrance before running inside, not caring for the gunshots, holding his shield up to protect them, the bullets bouncing off metal with a ping as he runs through the base, quickly making his way back to the cells. He looks around the room soon, his heart beating out of his chest in anticipation. He walks over to her cell and bends back down.
When he looked back inside the cell, he couldn't see anything. He looked in closer, but the cell was empty. The floor was stained in blood and other fluids, with some pieces of dried, hard bread floating slightly on top. In the corner where the girl had been, there were pieces of dark skin, some dried and some fresh, sticking to the cell walls and some lying in bits on the ground. The rough edges told him that it had been scratched out rather than cut, almost as if it was in a desperate motion to attempt to do something. From what he remembered from her, he knew it was the metal limb. He knew that's what she had been trying to remove; it was obvious that she had failed.
His heart falls, and he glances at the entrance, where Bucky is waiting for him to come back with Yawa in tow behind him, where he hopes that the small girl will be saved. Steve looks back at the cell, at the signs of a scuffle having happened. He holds his shield tighter so he doesn't drop it, not wanting to make a sound that could cause the enemies to come, which could cause Bucky to be in even more danger. He thinks to himself, trying to figure out what happened in those seconds between getting Bucky out of the base and coming back in here.
After a few moments, he turns away with a heavy heart, walking back out of the base and towards where Bucky and the others are waiting for them so they can return to their base, where they will be safer. He walks out, glancing over at Bucky, his face troubled, feeling broken for his friend, as it was apparent that Yawa was one of the few people who cared for Bucky, or maybe it was that Yawa was just as weak and small as he uses to be and that Bucky was protecting her like a sister. He looked at him right in the eyes, unable to say anything, too guilty.
Bucky didn't say anything, either. He didn't have to ask; he already knew.