#correctionimswiss

“Jane Barnes,” she croaks. “Sergeant. 32557038.”

That’s all she’s ever said to him, unless agonized, wordless cries of pain count as conversation. Still, he continues to ask his odd questions. He never seeks information about the Allied forces or plans. Rate your pain on a scale of one to ten, he says instead. Tell me how many fingers I am holding up. Describe the sensation you are feeling. Is it a burn? A tingle?

Jane Barnes, she tells him. Sergeant. 32557038.

Her failure to answer doesn’t seem to trouble him so much today. He simply smiles again and holds up yet another syringe. This one is filled with something new, a yellow, oily-looking liquid.

She closes her eyes and turns her head away. She can’t stop him from injecting that into her, but that doesn’t mean she has to watch him do it.

When the pinch comes, though, it isn’t in her arm like all the others. This time, the doctor slides the needle into her neck.

She doesn’t have time to wonder why. Her skin is instantly on fire and her heart is racing and her blood is boiling in her veins and she screams, a rough, hoarse sound that doesn’t quite drown out the doctor’s words.

“Silence, Sergent Barnes,” he says, placing a pudgy hand over her mouth. His round, bespectacled face wavers above her. “I have questions for you, remember? Tell me – does this hurt more or less than the experiment you assisted me with yesterday?”

The only answer she gives is a choked gurgle. Her tongue feels swollen, blocking her throat, and she can’t breathe and she can’t move and something hot is running from her ear and she’s falling, falling, falling into nothingness. This is it, she thinks as the world grows dim around her. This is the end. Please let this be the end.

Her vision goes black, and she swears she can feel her heart stutter to a halt.

But it’s not the end. The world swims back into focus, and she can breathe again, and the doctor is still standing above her, taking notes on a clipboard. When he feels her gaze on him, he looks up and smiles a wide, satisfied smile.

“Well done, Sergeant Barnes,” he says. “Your cooperation in this matter has been invaluable.”

Bucky looks away. “Jane Barnes,” she mumbles, falling back on the familiar refrain. “Sergeant. 32557038.” She repeats it over and over, only barely aware that the words are nearly slurred beyond recognition. She doesn’t notice when the doctor leaves, nor does she hear when he returns and begins to hurriedly stuff his notes into a briefcase.

She’s similarly deaf to the footsteps echoing in the corridor, and it isn’t until warm pair of hands begin pulling the restraints off her that she realizes someone has been saying her name.

“Bucky,” a familiar voice says. “My God…”

It’s Steve’s voice, and she manages a weak smile and says his name.

“I though you were dead,” he says, hauling her upright and pulling one of her arms over his shoulder.

Now that she can see his face, she realizes that something is wrong. He’s pink-cheeked and broad-shouldered, much too tall, and the familiar curve to his spine is gone.

“I thought you were smaller,” she says, looking him up and down in confusion. She’s hallucinating, she must be, but he feels real, real and reassuringly solid.