Of All and Every Part Of Him

"Buck, you okay in there?" Rogers asked.

"No," came his best mate's firm answer via the comlink. "But I still have to do this on my own."

"Seriously, no you don't!" two voices, one Steve's and another, a woman's, replying this time, both of them glancing up at the haunting facade of a building that held a lot of bad memories.

"Yes, I do," Bucky reiterated, pausing a moment to stare at a very familiar cell.

Memories flashed back and forth, fast and slow. Fights, beatings, protecting those who couldn't protect themselves from the very monsters they had created. Among the longest-standing, first trained, given orders to escort out scientists who delighted in seeing him tortured. His mission. His orders. All because they told him to.

"Buck?"

"Damnit, Rogers!" he all bar hissed. "Let me do this!"

Steve exchanged glances with the only other person he knew who understood what was really in there. "This is going to break him," he said.

Shaali shook her head. "Or maybe it'll make him even stronger," she told him. "We have to trust he's ready."

"I do," Steve said without hesitation. "But wanting to come back here after finally being free of all of it. I'm just…"

"Worried?" Shaali finished for him. "It's his final hurdle. Mine too…" her words trailed off. It wasn't about her or her own experience with Hydra's Winter Soldier program for now.

Cap nodded. "I get that but he shouldn't be in there alone."

The truth was, Bucky didn't want anyone to witness exactly what this place did to him. How it made him feel. They'd already seen glimpses of it. The waking up from nightmare memories in a cold sweat. The just about strangling the unique woman he'd now grown very close to when she'd tried to comfort him in his sleep. The moments during the day when he'd been found just staring out a window or obsessively jotting down something in one of his many notebooks.

Those reactions were really nothing to what he was feeling now, the hulking form of a long-ago abandoned cold, metal cryostasis pod now lurking before him in all its nightmarish glory. He just stood there, staring at it, the shiver passing up and down his spine. The helplessness he had felt when they’d no sooner woken him up and then dragged him off to quickly wipe any memories that had begun to return by then. He'd been too weak to fight back. Too lost. Too fragile.

The confusion all bar overpowering until they'd sat him in that chair…

Bucky glanced in the direction he remembered being taken, footsteps leading him along a path he'd never wanted to ever be forced to follow again. He rounded a corner, saw the partly closed initial entry to the heavily bolted security one just beyond. Covering the distance and soon pulling open the cage-like outer door, he found himself just once again staring at the only other obstacle now between him and a room full of constant torture…

Of the mind. Of the heart. Of all and every part of him!

Ignoring the passkey he had been given, Bucky slipped black and gold metal fingers around what he could of the edge of the inner door and simply ripped it off its hinges. What lay beyond hit him in a way he hadn't been expecting, the once Winter Soldier brought to his knees by flashbacks of pain and words repeated over and over he tried so hard to ignore. The cry of anguish left him, something heard over a comlink Barnes had at least promised those closest to him he'd leave on.

"Bucky?!" Shaali asked.

"Buck?!" Steve voiced, both of them already moving towards the opening several steps in front of them.

Clutching the side of his head with fingers of flesh, the black and gold hand of metal down by his side slowly clenched into a fist. Bucky gritted his teeth through the phantom pain and looked straight at the object that’d taken away 70 years of his life. Eyes narrowing as he stood back up, the growl of pure rage was almost primal, heard as he stalked over and hit the front of the chair so hard it rattled the wires and other machines still loosely attached to it. His arm drawn back and driven forth with such anger, over and over, Bucky punched, the cries of torment leaving him with each hit.

His surroundings were lost. All thought was gone. For now, time meant nothing to him.

When the back of the chair finally splintered and fell off, he reached up and yanked the headpiece halo out, deeply satisfied with the sound of it being torn apart and reduced to nothing but scrap in his hands. He moved on to the sides of the chair, clawing, ripping, tearing it to pieces, yanking wires from walls and connected contraptions alike! Bucky threw what he could against the nearest wall, the sound of metal on metal reverberating around the room. He knocked over whatever was loose enough to fall, kicking it over and over with a combat booted foot.

He desperately needed this! It was clear he had to see it through!

And that is why the two people now standing at the doorway left him to it, watching silently, ready to help in any way James Buchanan 'Bucky' Barnes may have needed when the time was right.

At some point during his second attack on the chair itself, Bucky's shoulders slumped and he slowly sank back down to his knees, the rage turning into a deep sense of sadness. The tears fell, Bucky truly letting it all out for the first time in his life. Steve and Shaali came up to flank him, saying nothing as they placed a hand each on his shoulders.

Only when he reached back to clasp Shaali's hand, a way of acknowledging their presence did either of them contemplate interrupting him in any way. "It's going to be okay, Buck," Steve said, squeezing his shoulder reassuringly.

After a few more minutes of silence, Bucky said, "It is now," the affirmation clear in his tone. He turned his head as he felt his girl kiss him on the cheek, seeing the glint of anticipation in her eyes now that she knew he was alright. "Go for it," he said, getting up and motioning for Steve to move out of the room.

Glancing back to make sure they were at a safe distance, Shaali smiled almost sadistically, her veins already lighting up with the power she was known for. Already fully charged, knowing her chance to reap her own revenge would come, the air around her began to crackle, electrical energy leaving her from all sides and joining with what she was already enhancing in the air. Bucky and Steve shielded their eyes a little as the energy made contact with everything within her intended reach, shorting out what was still able to conduct the sheer amount of electricity she was feeding it to the point the machines she'd once helped power to make the memory wiping process more efficient began to spark and explode, small fires popping up all over the room.

Skin still crawling with lines of electricity, she turned, walking towards the exit and into arms already outstretched to take hold of her. Bucky held her tight, Shaali reciprocating the same relief his demeanor was literally emanating.

"Better?" Steve's question soon directed at them both.

"Almost," Bucky said.

Outside, another person was now present, watching closely as the trio approached him. Bucky caught his gaze, words said through gritted teeth dripping with all the malice he felt towards this place,

"Burn. It. To. The. Ground!"

Pyro stepped forward, flicked open his lighter and smirked. "With pleasure, mate," he said, already in control of the fires Shaali had set alight inside.

With a deep sense of satisfaction filling their every core at the sights and sounds of the burning destruction soon lighting up the night sky, the trio turned, fell into step beside each other and walked away. 

Never once looking back.