Heart and Soul [Bucky Barnes]

5

"See the stone set in your eyes. See the thorn twist in your side. I wait for you. Sleight of hand and twist of fate, on a bed of nails she makes me wait. And I wait—without you."
— U2

Chapter Five

Claire stays with Bucky for as long as she can. She holds him in her arms as they reach the bottom, though she had become invisible by then. Still, in his final moments, she is with him.

But this isn't the end for James Buchanan Barnes. Somehow, he doesn't die after falling thousands of feet. His heart continues to beat inside his chest and even then, Claire stays.

HYDRA comes soon after. She doesn't think that the patrol meant to find Bucky's unconscious body, but they stumble upon him anyway. She watches helplessly as he gets captured yet again.

Claire cannot bring herself to leave Bucky's side. Even though she's watching behind the spiritual glass, the disasters that plague Bucky's life hit too close to home for her. Considering how painful it is to watch, she doesn't even attempt to know what he is going through. No matter what happens, and even if he can't see her, she refuses to let him go through it alone.

Even if it takes months, which it does.

"Where... am I?" Bucky mumbles.

He is strapped to a steel chair. After the fateful fall, his left arm was beyond repair, so the doctors removed it when he first arrived. After such a drastic incident, Claire is thankful that it's the only scar he'll carry.

"Sergeant James Barnes," the Austrian scientist begins, flipping through the paperwork. "I am sure you remember who I am."

Bucky shakes violently to free himself from the metal that holds him there. Despite being asleep for so long, Claire is shocked at how strong he is even without one of his arms.

"How did I get here?" he asks, the distaste radiating in his throat. "How long have I been out?"

"It has been nine months since we found you in the snow," the man replies, his accent hiding any emotion in his voice. "I would consider myself grateful if I were you. There's little chance you would have survived the fall without my influence."

Claire recalls the experiments that were done on Bucky when he last was in a HYDRA base. It shames her to feel thankful for whatever affect they had on him, but she has yet to learn of the fate he will suffer as a consequence.

"Claire," he mumbles under his breath as his eyes dart around the room in panic. The scientist presses a series of buttons on the machine beside them, and the chair Bucky is sitting in suddenly shifts so that he is laying in an upright position, but still completely bound.

"I'm here, Buck," she whispers, though it's unheard. "I'm not going anywhere."

"I hate to do this again, but the world isn't ready for you yet, soldier," the man claims. "We shall see each other very soon."

A cylinder of glass slides down over Bucky. His heart beats rapidly as the scientist smiles and presses the large, blue button that is on his control panel. In an instant, the air inside the tube becomes sealed in ice.

"NO!" Claire screams, her fists flying towards the glass to break it, but she goes right through it. "Bucky!"

"Sir, are you certain cryogenic stasis will work to preserve the subject? We have yet to test it on animals, let alone humans," a younger man says behind them, though Claire isn't listening.

"Allow this to be trial number one," the lead scientist replies, a satisfied smile resting on his lips as he stares at the foggy glass.

Claire doesn't know what to do. Her time on Earth is still days away, so she isn't exactly much help. It's not like she can leave Bucky like this. What if they wake him up when she's gone?