Shattered Thoughts : Book One(Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier)

Chapter 7

   It had been about a week since Steve had left Bucky at Willow's house. Bucky had enjoyed spending time with Willow, she didn't treat him like he was made of glass. Bucky appreciated Steve's help and his friendship, but his friend treated Bucky like he was going to break. Willow was bossy but also very friendly. She probably saw him as another animal she needed to rehabilitate and release.

  The first day with Willow, when he had released the crow, had been Bucky's best day so far. He'd quickly gone downhill after that. Memories were coming back to him, and it felt like they were slicing into his brain. He spent most days curled up in a ball on the floor of his room, clutching his head, trying to block out the screaming pain. God it hurt so much, Hydra had installed programming in his brain not only to make recovering memories difficult, but also extremely painful. 

  Sometimes it was a like a thousand bees were buzzing inside Bucky's head, other times it was like someone was trying to drill holes in his brain with an ice pick. True, he'd braved the pain and remembered some good things, he remembered times he and Steve had spent together. But more often that not, the memories were horrible; hours spent being tortured, having his mind erased again and again. The faces of the people he had killed, begging for mercy. Hydra had taken Bucky Barnes apart, over and over again, and then put him back together, they'd turned him into a monster. Sometimes all he saw when he slept was himself killing people, and then he'd stopped sleeping all together. 

  The days past in a hellish haze, Bucky was exhausted, but terrified to sleep. He didn't leave his room to eat or bathe, he just sat with his back against the wall, staring blankly at the opposite wall. Sometimes he would claw at his shoulder where the flesh met metal, as though trying to rip his metal arm off. Whenever he did this, Willow would hold his hands down until he stopped, then she'd stitch up the cuts he'd opened. 

 Bucky tried to forget some of the things he'd seen, tried to think only on the happy memories he'd retrieved. But he couldn't un-see the people he'd murdered, some of them had families. Some had begged him to spare them, and he had killed them in front of their children. 

 So Bucky sunk into depression, trying to fight through the screaming pain lancing through his mind.