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"Well, I've lost it all, I'm just a silhouette- a lifeless face that you'll soon forget."
-Youth by Daughter
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reyna's point of view
My mother used to talk a lot about being brave. I guess after she found out about what my father really did, she had to find bravery within herself to keep going. I didn't really listen at the time - I was just a kid - but whenever I'd get into bad situations before, her idea of bravery always burst back into my mind.
This was one of those times.
There is a certain silence you get in your head when you're underwater. A general stillness, as if life has paused for just a moment. Then the Hydra soldiers yank you out of the quiet peace and all your senses come screaming back at once, and you're coughing, sputtering, choking, trying to blink the water out of your eyes and suck in as much oxygen as you can before they dunk you under again. I'd barely opened my eyes, barely caught a fleeting glimpse of Bucky watching with a pained expression from across the room, before they dunked me under the water again.
I wasn't entirely sure what this water torture was supposed to do. Like, sure, it was miserable, and I couldn't breathe, and I hated to see the faraway, pained look in Bucky's eyes as he's forced to watch me suffer without being able to step in, but I simply didn't have the information Hydra was trying to pry out of me. My father may have been the leader of Hydra, but I didn't have secret documents or weapon blueprints or a secret stash of Nazi passwords like these scientists seem to think I did. And because I didn't possess what they were after, I had no way of ending my own suffering.
They brought me out of the water again. My chest ached from breathing so hard. I gulped down the biggest breath I could, and a heavy hand grabbed my hair and forced my head back under the water. Just like that, the world went silent again, and I could pretend that I was somewhere else. That I hadn't been violently whipped a few days ago. That this wasn't my ninth day here with no way out.
Everything was still. Slow. Silent.
All I could hear now were my thoughts, and the first thing that came to mind was a book I read a few years back. It was called Slaughterhouse Five, written by Kurt Vonnegut. The phrase so it goes is written 106 times in the short novel. It is a tired phrase, something a weary traveler may say if forced to keep going despite hardships. So it goes signifies that things always end, people always leave, and situations always change, but life doesn't stop for anyone. No matter what awful things happen to me today, the grass will still grow, the Earth will still rotate and the bird will still say poo-tee-weet. Essentially, so it goes means there's nothing you can do about it. It used to be one of my favorite quotes. But now it had a totally different meaning behind it.
The Hydra soldiers ripped me from the water again in the middle of my thoughts, giving me half a second of air before shoving me back under. The binds on my wrists sliced my skin open and added the sharp taste of blood to the water.
So it goes.
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winter soldier's point of view
I had never felt so sick to my stomach before.
Watching her being deprived of oxygen, yanked around like a rag doll...it was like watching myself. I could suddenly feel my lungs filling with water again, my wet hair once again clinging to my face as I desperately attempted to survive. Reyna screamed and kicked and fought the first few times. Now she was limp; alive, but probably considering death, and how much easier it would be than enduring whatever else is to come.
The hardest part was keeping a hard, steely gaze as I watched her suffer. The men around me could not know that my mind wasn't quite as jumbled anymore. That some of my memories - well, not memories, more like vague images - were returning. They could not know that I was starting to feel again. That would surely get me sent straight back to the chair.
There were images from a time period I did not recognize burning faintly in the back of my mind. Brown uniforms, a red dress. A familiar, sad smile that sent a resonant pang through my blackened heart. Blonde hair and a suit with a star. But not a red star, like the one on my arm - a white one, that somehow seemed purer and less corrupt than what mine stood for.
Nothing fit together. All I had were pieces of things that may have at one time held a great deal of significance, but now gave me a splitting headache and made me long for something that was no more.
The only thing that had ever broken through the barrier of my mind was the name Steve. The man on the bridge - the person behind the blonde hair and the sad smile - was the only thing that had ever kick started my memory. He only had to say my name once for a rush of memories and images to come flying to the front of my mind, breaking through years of torture and mental conditioning. It took ten words to activate the Winter Soldier, but only one to shut him down. Steve must've meant a lot to me for his name to hold that much power.
Steve....I really need to see Steve again.
But Reyna was still here, still hurting, still dying more each day. I refused to subject her to any more suffering, especially since I knew first hand what it all does to a person after a while.
I needed to get her out of here, take her somewhere where Hydra wouldn't be able to do to her what they did to me. There is no worse pain than not knowing yourself, and she did not need to understand that the way I did.
They dunked her under the cold water again, and I did something I'd never before had the right mindset to do: I turned my mind to a world outside of this compound. To an escape.
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reyna's point of view
At some point during the water torture, I passed out from a lack of oxygen. I didn't wake up until several hours later, when I was laying in my cell again, the sunset turning the stone walls of my cell deep purple.
My breathing was slow, and my heart beat was weak. It's been nine days of relentless torture, and maybe I was going crazy, but I swear I could feel myself dying.
I was still half conscious when the lock to my door was pulled back and someone entered my cell. I was too out of it to lift my head, but the back of my mind wished for it to be Bucky. It was.
He didn't say a word, simply appearing above me as I opened my eyes fully and tried to shake off the grogginess. His eyes darkened when he saw how much of a mess I was, my brain barely able to process where I was and what I was doing. The look on his face told me that he recognized just how close I was to giving up. A moment later, he slipped his arms under me, and lifted me up off of the ground.
"What are you doing?" I asked, my voice low and tired. I forced my muscles to hold on to his neck, unable to process how out of place our actions were. He looked down at me with his blue eyes, a look of grim determination taking over his features.
"I'm getting you out of here," he said gently.
Even in my fatigued state, my eyes widened in shock.
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"And if you're still breathing, you're the lucky one. Most of us are heaving through corrupted lungs."
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YOU ARE READING
Captured // A Winter Soldier Story
Fanfiction•• Reyna hasn't had the easiest life. Born to a father responsible for unspeakable crimes, she is forced to flee her home at the age of twelve, leaving her loving mother at the will of her father. Ten years later, Reyna, now a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, i...
