Marvel Avengers Fan Fiction ❯ A Captain America Bucky Barnes Winter Soldier Steve Rogers Avengers Fan Fic - The Constant ❯ Chapter 22 - The Nurse & the Patient - Cryogenic Freeze ( Chapter 22 )

[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]

Chapter Twenty-Two: The Nurse & the Patient - Cryogenic Freeze

Director Lehmann has been busy reorganising things. He doesn't want you with idle time on your hands. Stefan has been given new responsibilities, few of them still tie in with yours. He is now working on the Cryogenic Freeze Team and also in conjunction with Doctor Jakobs on other smaller projects.

Stefan is a fast learner.

Lehmann has given you the responsibility of not only the wellbeing of their patient, but also his language education: you are teaching him all of the Russian and the basic French and German that you know. You point out that you are not a qualified teacher, but Lehmann doesn't seem to be worried. He is honest with you for once. When the project nears the end, when the patient will fully become the Winter Soldier, he will begin more intensive training. But, for now, it will not hurt for him to learn the basics.

The first personality was so shy the first night you shared his bed, but he also seemed pleased that you would always be there. You have not seen anything more of the second personality yet. It is surprising how quickly the human mind can learn to cope with new things. When you look back at how your life keeps changing, you wonder how you are coping with it at all. You barely think of your previous life, of your parents, and that makes you feel guilty.

All that matters to you is this man now, and you wonder what that makes you.

You and Stefan are now required to attend the cryogenic freeze meetings. At first you were not sure what cryogenic freezing even was, but Doctor Jakobs was allowed to give you an overview. He took you to see the rooms where the freezing would take place. You were stunned. You didn't know things like this were possible.

“No, nor did I at first,” Jakobs said when you told him.

He also gives you a basic idea of the whole Winter Soldier project. The patient will become a killer, an assassin. No-one will know where he comes from, who he works for. In between missions, he will be kept in cryogenic freeze, and thus will never age. He will become a ghost, a legend, a nightmare. You ask if there are going to be more soldiers on the project and Jakobs shakes his head. Zola's idea for the future was one person to change the world - one person in the right place at the right time can change the future with just a small action here and there. It is the first time anyone has painted you the whole picture and you find it daunting.

Dear God, what would James have thought if he had known.

The cryo-freezing is working, and all the equipment is up and running. Now it just needs to be tested on the patient. They have to make sure that the Winter Soldier's body and genetic make-up is compatible. They have discovered through tests that not everyone survives, not everyone's body can cope with it. There are drugs that have to be introduced to the patient, drugs that will affect him and will take him a while to get over but they are necessary for the freezing to work.

The cryo-suite consists of two separate rooms. The first room is about half the size of the main room, but seems to consist of just as many panels and work stations. This is where the process will be controlled from.

Then there is a hatchway in one of the walls, similar to the hatchway in a submarine. This takes you through to the second room. Standing in that room makes you shiver, and not just because it is so cold in there. The walls are made of some type of metal, wet to the touch and already rust is showing in the seams of the panelling. The floor is bare and slippery, the technician apologises and says it is one of the things they need to address.

But it is the two pods that have your attention. That is what they call them, but to you they look like metal coffins with a window in the lid so you can see the corpse. One of the pods they will use, the other one is a back up.

Stefan joins you and explains that the patient will be contained within one of the pods, and that is where he will be kept until he is woken for a mission.

“When it is time to wake him, we will bring him out of cryogenic freeze and then move him into the main room and the Master Chair. At that time he will be given an injection and woken. It will then take him a day to get over cryogenic and the drugs used. We also need to give the serum time to repair any damage done to his body by the freezing process and then at some point he will go for wiping and reprogramming with Lehmann.”

He realises he has spoken of something you know nothing about when you turn to look at him quickly, a frown on your face. He shakes his head. You know that when he can he will explain what he means by wiping and programming.

He then opens one of the pods and you look inside. It is dank, cold, dark and claustrophobic, and you feel as if it is sucking the air out of your lungs. Lining the bottom is a thin padded mattress. You suppose that it is to make it more comfortable. You move away. The thought of putting the patient in there is awful. It will feel as if you are burying him alive.

“Will he be awake when you put him in?” you ask. Stefan nods. You cannot help but shudder.

“Once he is in there, he will be frozen.”

You close your eyes. “Dear God,” you whisper.

“It's safe Freya. Once he is asleep he won't know anything about it.” But Stefan's assurances do not make you feel any happier.

You know that they have already begun to add the drugs to the patients food, and at first they made him feel dizzy, queasy, but that settled down after a few days. From now on, Stefan says, he will need to take drugs before and after each freeze. They believe it will take at least 24 hours for his body to get over each session and during that time he will be returned to his quarters to sleep and for you to attend to him. Then, after further preparation, he will be ready to be sent on mission. That is what they call it. The term sound so blasé - on mission. He will be sent to murder. To ruin lives. He will be sent to bring order to Hydra's new world.

*

You have had a quiet morning with your patient, and he is responding well to your lessons. You receive a message. They ask you to attend the cryogenic freeze chamber with the patient. The person who brings the message is a bit confused when you question them as to what is going to happen, and she leaves you with the idea that they are just going to trial out the pod to see if it will house the patient, see if it fits and is comfortable. That is all.

How can something like that be at all comfortable?  you wonder.

The woman looks at the nurse. Surely she received the brief that they sent out...? Her name was on it. If so, why is she asking so many questions? This will be their first attempt at freezing him and she must know that?  Stupid woman, she thinks. She doesn't even know why the nurse has to be there! Stefan insisted it would make the patient feel calmer. Surely, the woman thinks, we can do that, we have the drugs.

But hers is not to reason why and so she does what she is told.

You walk your patient down to the cryo suite. Every time you think of the pods you feel sick. You do not want to consign him to that metal coffin, to oblivion. You had asked Stefan if they thought he would dream when he was in there, but Stefan shook his head. “Not from the brain wave patterns we have seen from the others,” he says. You know he means the people they tested the pods out on, but you stopped him from telling you any more details.

You don't want to know how many people have already lost their life to this process.

“It is safe Freya, I promise you,” Stefan says trying to reassure you again. With him on the project you feel comforted. He tries to ensure you are always consulted, always kept informed.

You have explained to your patient that new tests are starting today and that they will need him to help with something that shouldn't take too long.

“Will you be there?” is all he asked.

“Yes, I won't leave you,” you promise.

First they check him out in the first room, hook him up to machines to test his heart rate and blood pressure. Then they administer a drug. You ask why and they say it is because his heart rate is up and they want him to be calmer. He is used to hypodermics and doesn't even blink when they administer it.

They then attach a small unit to his belt. They tell you it will continue to monitor him. It does make you wonder why they need to do this when all he will be doing is seeing if the pod is comfortable, is big enough. You wrongly assume that the unit needs to be tested.

With you following, they take him through to the next room. He hesitates at the doorway, and then again when they get him into the next room and he sees the pods. The technician goes over the opens one of the pods and doesn't see the patient take a step back but you do. You come up to his side and before you can say anything he looks at you.

“Don't make me get in there.” His eyes are wide and you see anxiety in them. What can you say?

“You'll be all right, I promise. Its just to try it out. You won't have to stay in there,” and you smile, your heart thudding inside your chest because you would hate to have to get in. You take his arm and reluctantly he walks with you over to the pod.

“We just need you to sit here and then swing into it,” the technician says without even looking at him. She pats the bed of the pod expecting the patient to meekly do what he has been told.

He looks at you and shakes his head.

In the wall is a huge window, and Stefan can see from the other room that there is a problem brewing. He comes to join you. He moves the technician out of the way and lies down in the pod so the patient can see what is expected of him.

The patient looks at you and you nod and smile. You hate yourself. What will it be like when they finally use the pod on him? How will you get him to get in then?

“Elevated heart rate,” one of the technicians shouts through. You can see the patient is breathing more heavily and his skin is sweaty. He looks around the room and then hesitantly looks at you. Then he walks over to the pod, and Stefan helps him lie down.

“Now, we're going to put this down,” he says, pointing to the lid “but there is a window and you can still see us.” The patient is looking at you. “I won't move, I'll stay here so you can see me all the time,” you promise.

After all it is only for a few minutes.

Stefan nods at the technician and they bring the heavy metal lid down, and you hate the sound of it when it clicks into place. You step forward and look through the panel in the lid. His eyes are wide, panicked. He lifts a hand up and places it on the glass, you put yours on the top.

Suddenly there are some sounds you don't recognise coming from the ducts around the room and you look at the piping and then you hear him bang the glass.

You look back down. Something has panicked him.

“Let him out,” you say, and Stefan frowns at you.

“We can't.”

“What?!” And as you say that the patient bangs again on the glass. The pod makes a horrendous hissing noise and cold air gushes out from the side. “Stefan! Let him out, get him out now!”

You put your hand back on the glass to where the patient has put his hand. He is now pushing against the glass. He is moving, trying to get out, but then you see his body go taut and his head goes back and you can't see him for white mist.

“Stefan!”

“He's all right Freya, he's all right.” You can hear voices from the other room reading out measurements.

“But, what are you doing? She said you were just showing him the pod...” you say and he shakes his head, stunned.

“No, its a full test, we're freezing him.” Even as he says it, Stefan realises that no one told you, no one told the patient.

“He's going to be in there for two hours but he's safe Freya, he will be all right.”

“But you can't, I promised, I said...” and you look at Stefan and he sees the horror on your face.

“I promise you Freya he will be all right,” Stefan touches your arm. If anyone else had said that you would not believe them, but you trust Stefan.

You look into the pod. The mist is clearing. You can finally see him. His eyes are closed, his hand has fallen to his chest and his skin is deathly white.

“No,” you whisper.

Those two hours are two of the longest for you. They cannot let you remain in the room with the pod as the temperature once he is frozen is lowered even further. It is too cold for any one to survive in.

You sit instead staring through the window. You said you wouldn't leave him and you have.

He trusted you.

*

When the door is opened and the pod cleared he is unconscious, which is the state he should be in.

This, Stefan explains, is normal. He will remain that way until they administer the drug in the Main Room. His vital signs are stable and they are pleased with the data.

“He's okay, I promised you he would be,” Stefan smiles. His own heart is thumping, but he doesn't tell her that.

They move the patient to the Main Room and to the chair which is in the horizontal position. They allow you to remain whilst they wake him up, but you are to sit on the other side of the room, away from him. It is difficult to see what is happening as there are so many people around him, so many people attaching different things to his chest, his head.

What they do not expect to happen is for him to go completely mad.

The drug is given. The chair swings up and around. No one has bothered with restraints, and he is awake before they know he is. He opens his eyes and they are black pools of hated, of madness, and the first thing he does is grab the nearest doctor, his metal hand surrounding the doctor's throat and squeezing so hard that his neck is broken within seconds.

“Jesus Christ, take him down!” One of the other doctors screams at the guard, but the guard is not quick enough; the patient is out of the chair. He grabs the guard's gun and uses it to club him viciously, and the guard is the next to die.

The patient is breaking everything in sight. Tables are turned over, chairs thrown, and all the while he is cursing them, the words spoken so fast, so angry you cannot understand what he is saying. Guards try to take him down but he is much too strong and they end up being hurled into the machinery, into the walls.

You are frozen in place for the first few seconds. You can't attract his attention. You have no name to call him by but then, turning, he sees you and his eyes go darker. His murderous focus is now on you and he turns fully to come after you. You can't move. Your legs won't obey you. His eyes don't leave yours and he is snarling. You hear a noise. Marinov and two guards run into the room. You see Marinov sum up the situation; he and the two guards are holding the special hypo rifles that were bought in after the patient had gone crazy the last time. He brings the rifle up, aiming at the patient, and shoots. The guards with him do the same.

The patient staggers, stops and wavers. He tries to take another step but the next two darts hit him. They are fast-acting, and he goes down. You run to where he is and he sees you just before his eyes close.

“You promised. You weren't there, you left me.” he spits at you. He says it in English, and no one else hears him in the confusion.

The lab is a mess: two work stations ruined, one dead doctor, one dead guard, two more unconscious, paper strewn over the floor, dents in the walls. The patient is taken, unconscious, to his old room and secured to the bed. Lehmann will arrange for this room to be fortified for future use.

“What the bloody hell went wrong?” Lehmann asks, but no one is able to tell him. Everything was all right until they bought him around, and then he just went berserk.

“Was it the second personality?” he asks and they shake their heads.

“No, it was...I don't know...worse, pure and utter madness.” one of the Doctors tells him and shudders. “He just went berserk.”

*

They bring him back to you five hours later. He is calm, and it is very much the first personality who is awake. They lock you both in for the night. He hasn't spoken to you, won't look at you. You sit down next to him at the table and put your hand over his. He tries to move his but instead you take it in yours and raise it to your lips and kiss it.

“I am so, so sorry. I didn't know they were going to do that to you.” There are tears in your eyes. He looks at the floor. “Please talk to me,” you beg and he finally looks at you, his eyes wide, betrayed, so alone.

“You said you wouldn't leave me, but you did,” he says.

“I didn't leave. I was there all the time I promise.”

“You weren't in the dark, I was alone.”

“In the dark?” you don't understand.

He looks away from you again. “It hurt. When all the white mist came, it hurt. I couldn't move. I couldn't see you any more. I could feel my body freezing up, I could hear the crackle of my skin...” he says and you stroke his cheek.

“They told me they were just showing us the pods. I didn't know they would seal you in one. Please believe me.”

He looks at you for a long time and then he leans in towards you and you take him in your arms, stroking his hair and kissing the top of his head.

“They don't tell me everything. They don't trust me. I am so sorry but please believe me, I will never lie to you.” You hold him as close as you can and you feel his arms encircle you and you know he has forgiven you.

“Promise me you will always be there when I wake up,” he says simply. And you do.

You encourage him to eat something with you, and you can see how tired he is. He is also cold; shivering makes his hands tremble.

You suggest a warm shower before he goes to bed and get the water running for him. He undresses and gets under the warm water. You are about to leave the bathroom when he says something to you. The words are softly spoken and you cannot hear them clearly so you move nearer until you are stood just outside of the water raining down.

“I didn't hear you,” you smile leaning in. He looks at you and your heart misses a beat.

Before you can turn he reaches out and grabs your wrist pulling you into the water and down onto your knees. He bends down so he is looking at you, hatred in his eyes.

“I said, now you've apologised to him, you can apologise to me,” his voice is low, guttural, dangerous.

His other hand grabs your plait and twists it and he brings you in close to him, close to his groin, and you reach up to try and get him to release you, your hands trying to get a hold on his arms.

“Apologise!” He says twisting your hair more. It feels as if handfuls of it is going to be torn out. He could scalp you with one twist.

“I'm sorry. I'm sorry,” you cry out.

The water is soaking through your clothes, your knees hurt as they press down on the bumpy surface of the shower tray, your scalp aches from where he is holding and twisting your hair so tight and you can smell his maleness.

“Good, good.” He bends your head back so you are looking up at him.

“Now show me how sorry you really are,” he smiles his death-head smile, and his other hand holds you under your chin forcing your mouth to his now hard cock.

*

Later when he is asleep you lie awake. Is this your life from now on? Not knowing from one day to the next if you are to provide comfort or sex? Not knowing which personality is in charge? As you replay today in your mind something niggles, something the first personality said, and you try and repeat the conversation in your mind.

“I didn't, I was there all the time I promise.”

“You weren't in the dark. I was alone.”

What did he mean 'you weren't in the dark'? Stefan has already told you that the patient wouldn't dream. Did he mean he was awake? You know you will need to talk to Stefan tomorrow to see what he thinks. If the patient was awake all the time he was in cryo freeze then it may account for his madness when he was released. But, also, it would mean that it would have been terrifying for him. You don't think you could have coped with it if it had been you...but what else could he have done?

There would have been nothing else he could have done but give in to the madness. Wouldn't you do the same if you had his strength?

You turn over. Your body aches from your punishment. Lying beside you is the first personality; he is curled up facing you. There is enough light from under the door to see his face, relaxed, long lashes lying on his cheekbones, the mouth you know so well. James Barnes, but not James - and your heart aches. You always find when you wake he is by you, always touching you, sometimes holding your hand or just resting his hand on your hip.

You prefer that to waking and finding the second looking at you.

*

The next day Stefan seeks you out before you go to find him. He has disturbing news. They have checked the readings from the patient whilst he was unconscious. They already know about the problem you have discovered. On some level, his consciousness was still awake.

“We think it may be the split personality causing the problem. He was, for all intents and purposes, unconscious...yet the readings say there was brain activity.”

“God, Stefan! Do you realise how frightening that must have been for him?” You say, but then you realise by the look on his face he does.

“I'm sorry Freya. I thought I had a handle on this...but I didn't. I believed them when they said he would be all right. Nothing like this had happened in the...experimentation side.”

You take a deep breath. It is not his fault. “So what will you do?” you ask.

Stefan shrugs. “It's not up to me, its up to the boffins. I just do what I'm told. They were talking about wiping him before he goes into cryo-freeze rather than after...” he holds his hands up. “I know you don't know about that part of it, but you will I promise. I'm planning to get one of the doctors to speak to you, I've told them you need to know. After all, you are still his nurse.”

You know he doesn't have the time at the moment to explain it all to you but that he will do so. You sometimes feel he must be pulled in so many different directions.

Stefan then brings his hand up under your chin and tilts your face to the light. “What happened?” he is talking about the slight bruising on your face. You know him too well to lie.

“My punishment for what happened. For not being there with him in the dark,” you say quietly.

*

They tell him to climb into the metal coffin but he doesn't. He looks at the nurse. She smiles, but he can see the worry in her eyes. The man Stefan shows him what they want him to do. He doesn't want to, but he climbs into the pod. The metal is cold. There is a padded lining in the bottom, but even that is cold. He swallows and lies down. Before he knows what is happening they bring the lid down and he is trapped. All he can smell is metal. The parts that touch him are burning his skin. He looks through the glass panel and puts his hand up. He can see the nurse, she places her hand over his but then his panic starts to take over.

“Please get me out,” he says, but she cannot hear him. Strange noises make his head hurt. The noises are loud as they bounce around the metal coffin and he bangs on the glass.

“Let me out!” He can see the panic on the nurse's face now. She has turned to Stefan but he is shaking his head, and then before anything else can be done there is a loud hissing and the space around him fills with a white freezing mist and he feels himself being choked. Cold air goes down his throat, into his lungs, sweeps around his body and he feels a crackling of his skin, a hardening, and he cannot move.

And then there is the blackness.

He opens his eyes.

He cannot see anything. He is standing in the blackness and he feels an anger build in him. He feels himself split, become two entities. He crouches on the floor, away from the anger of the other one.

“What did you let them do?” The other hisses. “You stupid fool.”

The first personality curls around himself, distressed, sobbing. “I didn't, she told me it would be all right, she told me...”

The second personality looks around. There is darkness everywhere and it is so cold he shivers. He clenches his hands. There is nothing he can do but he tries. He runs forward, then around, as fast as he can, but the cold and dark are everywhere it is never-ending. His breath is mist in front of him and he spins around.

“Let me out!” He screams at the top of his voice, again and again until he is hoarse, but there is no reply. He turns and there is the first personality crouched, huddled on the floor. He walks over to him and the first looks up at him.

“You stupid, utter fool, how could you believe them?!” But he is talking to himself. He believed it when Lehmann had promised she would always be there and now, now they were alone in the dark. When they finally let him out someone will pay for this, they will pay dearly.

And the nurse...she will pay as well.

He crouches down next to the first and looks at him, but all he sees is weakness and imperfection. He needs to get rid of this side of himself...yet he knows he would never survive without it. He feels his own panic start. The noises and confusion in his head grow louder and he puts his head back and screams again, but this time they are not words. His madness deepens a little bit more and when they finally let him out he barely knows anything but the need to destroy, to kill them.

To obliterate everything.