Secretive - Bucky Barnes

37 || Zola's Serum

[Nova]
»The base they brought us to has been gigantic. I knew we have been close, with their cars only an hour or so, but we never possibly could have stormed it on our own. With the sun having risen to a point the sky turned poisoned green, I caught glimpses of the station, of hundreds of soldiers, more than ten tanks and millions of munitions, some weapons I never have seen in my entire life before. I didn't know what they were able to do, but with rumours of Schmidt having a whole new series of deadly ways to kill, I could well belief their truth. 

»We were shipped into the base and held prisoners for two weeks. With barely water, barely bread, our energy has been kept the lowest to prevent any disturbances. They had roundly shaped prisons, iron bars from the ceiling to the ground. As soldiers we didn't really care, but today, I think it would be for one or the other,« he fakes a cough at this point, and I think I can hear the word Stark in between the noises, »a little embarrassing to – well, have to go to the toilet with everyone around you and cameras filming your every angle. A couple of us died, of thirst or hunger or any other physical lack. Others were killed for having become entirely mad, executed in front of our eyes just for the fun of the stuff of Schmidt and Zola. 

»I tried on plans, tried hard. I thought about an escape, thought about it more strongly with every heart that stopped beating, with every new prisoner replacing an old one in the fabrics that died of exhaustion, but there was none. It drove me angry, it frustrated me to the deepest not to be able to help any of them. In the end, the responsibility still lay with me, did it not? I still have been their Sargeant, and not able to help them.«

I think he is not aware of the tears rolling down his cheeks, but I definitely am. With each one a stab in my heart, I cannot ignore them simply. I know this is beyond professional, but a few words will not change the result, will they? »James« I mouth, and suddenly, his gaze comes back focussing on me from some point a lot behind in time and space.

Now it is that he wakes, and he wipes his tears away quickly. »Sorry.«

»Don't be.« I respond, trying to make my voice as soft as silk, fixing on him, locking him into the maze of my stare. »You could've done nothing more. You did enough, that's what I can promise you. You didn't give up on them. You stubbornly stayed, stubbornly angry and solid. You gave them perspective. You gave them someone to look up to, someone that wasn't to beat as easily, someone that showed them it is possible to resist and stand all the tortures and executions without losing your mind.«

Glance lowering onto his nervously twitching fingers, I can see the thrust in between his breaths that comes from crying on the way his chest moves, an irregular, unsteady rhythm. »I should have tried harder.«

»There has been nothing more that you could possibly have done, don't you hear me? Don't you think me reasonable?« He nods slowly, still not looking at me. »There you go. Believe me when I tell you you did the best you could. Start being satisfied with your maximum, because there is nothing more to give than a hundred percent, and you already gave a hundred-and-twenty.«

»You weren't there. How would you know?«

I know he does not mean it in a reproachful way. As strong and confident as James is at one side, as weak and emotional and empathetic he is on the other. It is something I love so much about him.

»Because I know the man in my front. I know you better than I know myself, James. I know the back of your heart. I can read in between your lines, see the theories, the thousands of theories you went through in your mind day after day after day after day. I can hear the advices at your comrades, can hear your words to them to make them believe they stood a chance. I can feel the tears running down your own cheeks at night when no one is looking, the only time you'd let yourself go, let your guard down when you know there is no one watching you. Because you can't let them see you've already lost hope. You had to be their tower of strength. I can feel your heart break as my own, your heart growing smaller and smaller, agonizingly and devilishly and your desperate tries to swell it, to not go numb in between all these deaths and mad men and humiliation. There is no one I know I admire more than James Buchanan Barnes, and I know a lot of people. You've been someone before they exchanged your arm, and you still are that man.«