The Dark Captain

Chapter 27

Steve's fists clenched. Bucky was gearing up to fight his best friend but tried to remain cool. The atmosphere was turning tense fast and all the animosity was coming from the blond man.

But he couldn't hold it in anymore and, throwing his bottle of soda against the wall so that the glass shattered, he asked, "What do you mean 'they practically kidnapped her?'"

Bucky didn't move from where he sat as he responded, "Tony had her admitted for Stockholm Syndrome. She didn't show signs." He watched Steve pacing, Bucky's nerves growing. "Steve?"

"What was he thinking?" Steve didn't know if he was talking to himself or Bucky, but he had to get it out or he would do something stupid. "I'm going to-"

Bucky got up to try and calm Steve down. "I get being mad, but you can't-"

But the younger man shoved his hands away, "I'm not mad, I'm pissed off! I'm fucking pissed off!"

Bucky took a step back. The amount of anger Steve was showing was disconcerting, to say the least. In fact, he had never shown this much fury before. The amount of swearing showed just how much HYDRA had changed him. Even Steve could see he wasn't the same man from six years ago. He tried to breathe, to calm down, but his anger kept growing as he thought of the hell Tony had put Arianna through.

Bucky said, "Okay, I know it was bad in there but-"

"Bad?" Steve snapped back. "Everything they did to you, they did to me too!"

Bucky hardened his face but softened his voice. "Then, tell me. I'll understand."

Steve took a breath, knowing the brunette was right and he had to tell his friend what happened to him. "Aside from the serum, everything was the same. They even bragged about it before wiping me." He sat hard, grabbing the brandy and taking a long swig. "Five years, Buck. Four years before Ari was taken by me, just a fraction of your seventy." Bucky tried to fight the tears, but he didn't say a word, letting Steve get his story out. "Seventy years of torture, condition, and kills in a fraction of the time. At least you never took everything from the person you love," He finished the bottle, Steve now fighting the need to break down, "like me."

Bucky gulped. "I killed his parents, Steve."

Steve stared at the last remnants in the bottle as they raced toward the bottom, unable to look at his friend as he made his confession. "And I took her life."

This confused Bucky as he knew Arianna was alive. "What do you mean, Steve?"

Steve started crying as the memory played. "She got mouthy one night. They made me kill her."

"What?" Horror played across Bucky's face.

But Steve hadn't heard or noticed Bucky's reaction. "I couldn't stop. I strangled her until," he took a shaky breath as he now stared at his hands, the same ones that had been wrapped around Arianna's throat, "I watched the life leave her." He felt her go stiff, followed by the sensation of him performing CPR. "It took ten minutes to get her back. It felt like a lifetime." He looked at Bucky with eyes only the two of them shared; guilt-filled orbs looked into each other. "And she doesn't remember any of it."

Bucky had been spared this fate, watching the person he loved die by his hand. Steve would suffer from that nightmare over and over. Despite their now shared past, Bucky didn't know how to help the blond man, not with this.