Captain America Bucky Barnes Winter Soldier Steve Rogers Fan Fic - The Constant

Chapter Seventeen: The Nurse & James Barnes - Vulnerability

The Nurse & James Barnes - Vulnerability

The next few weeks pass in a blur. Things change. Things get more intense. Things get more frightening.

Doctor Lehmann becomes Director Lehmann and moves into his own office. You learn more about Hydra. Zola is not actually in command of it although most things are run by him. First and foremost he is a scientist, not a 'pen-pusher'. There seems to be a group of men at the top, all rich and powerful and they not only run Hydra but finance it, bring new people in, divide it into sub sections. It seems to cover whole countries.

To you it sounds like they own the world.

The doctors are now using a stronger sedative on James. He is in more pain than before as you cannot use such high doses of morphine with this new one.

Although they have finalised the serum, it is causing problems.

It doesn't always act in the way it should. It causes bad headaches, migraines, and there are times when you have to physically restrain him from bashing his head against the wall. Several times you are forced to completely sedate him. The serum also seems to sometimes get confused, trying to repair areas that are not actually damaged. New teeth grow under healthy ones, the doctors have to resort to surgery to cut them out. New finger- and toe- nails grow under old ones, forcing there way through his skin. It is not something the doctors are overly worried about. After all, they are not the ones experiencing it.

The patient still suffers terrible nightmares. There is one in particular that leaves him screaming in fear, and twice when you have tried to wake him his strength has thrown you across the room. Even you have grown to be wary of him. You ask him about the recurring nightmare and he tells you it is Lehmann cutting off his limbs so he cannot escape. Even as he tells you this much you see the trembling of his hands, hear the fear of it in his voice.

Their tests are producing such better results. His muscle tone is improving, and they can see an end to the testing. He is so nearly there. You hear them say repeatedly that there is just one thing holding them back and you know what they mean: his mind. You don't like to think of that, of what they might do.

There has been construction on each floor of the building. There are new teams, strange machinery. All this for one person?

You have started to learn more about "Project: Winter Soldier" that involves something called cryogenic freezing. You see more of the plans. One chilled you right to the bone. It is a prototype chair, stationed in the main room. They call it the Master Chair, and in one of the diagrams it is fitted to machinery that looks more like a medieval torture device than a modern day scientific breakthrough.

There is also a project that only Lehmann and two others are involved with. These others are people with no sense of humour; they look at everyone coldly. Their work is kept separate from the other projects, and no one is allowed near that part of the tunnels. Not even any of the other doctors.

You, Stefan and Kristo are careful not to be seen talking together, but when you can you gather in secret and trade information. The picture that you are assembling is frightening.

And through it all, James is slowly falling apart.

You have talked to him about his life, his family. He has started to forget so many things. His voice grows quieter and quieter until in the end he hardly speaks at all. When you try to get him to speak he just shakes his head. He gets angry with you, uncomfortable in your presence and you don't know why.

He is shutting you out.

You are losing him.

It is rare for your patient to react to anything these days. They are so close to breaking him. When you heard Lehmann talking about killing more than one bird with one stone you did not know what he was referring to, but the next phase is about the erasure of James Barnes himself and that fills you with dread.