This is going to be in the Hour of Our Death series at some point, or is in that continuity, anyway, but I just can’t figure out where or when. It came to me kind of entire a little while ago, and I wrote it, and I’ve been sitting on it, and I just– it wants out, so I’m posting it here, at least temporarily. (For anyone not reading that series, Full of Grace has as one of its major plot points that Bucky’s trying to avoid disappearing into a basement after his inevitable recapture by making a series of videos that go viral on the Internet, so– there’s none of his POV in the story, except the videos, which he mostly narrates.)
It’s A Funny Story, 2400ish words, tw for descriptions of gore and depersonalization: The Winter Soldier tells the viewer all about cryostasis.
“I got a story,” the Soldier said without preamble, sitting back from the camera. He was shirtless, illuminated by silvery natural light from an offscreen window to his left. “I got a story I gotta tell. I don’t got names or dates or nothin’, I just, I gotta tell it. I was thinkin’ about this and I just– I don’t know if there’s a point, lemme tell it and I’ll figure it out.”
He sat back in the rickety wooden chair he was in, which creaked in protest at his weight, and crossed his arms across his chest, metal over flesh. “So here’s the thing with– I was readin’ documentation on this, I know now I’m the only one ever to survive cryo, and I know people been, like, debating it. Like, it could help real people or something, and I gotta tell you, no. Just– no. It’s– no.” He sat forward. “In the docs it talks about some stuff that sounds all medical and sterile and boring and whatever.” He gestured with the metal hand, a flyaway gesture. His hair was loose and fell in his face, and he shook it back absently, a practiced gesture. “Subject experienced tissue damage, organ function compromised, acclimatization period blah blah. Skin sensitivity, I remember that phrase. So like– the only reason I survived thawing was that I got amped tissue regeneration. I got a healing factor. And it’s like– it’s a doozy. Okay? I know they tried to duplicate it, it gave all the subjects like–” He closed his eyes, shook his head quickly, “fast-acting face cancer or some shit. Don’t fuck with it.” He grimaced. “It’s not– actually a picnic. Is the thing. Anyway.”
He sat back a little, shoving his hair back more with his skin hand. “I could try to tell you how fuckin’ nasty it was, but I’m gonna tell you a story instead. So imagine– I don’t know what year it was. I don’t know how long I’d been in cryo. I know it was some kind of party. Whoever had me in his department, he was having some kind of shindig, showing off for other people, right? So you know how sometimes nowadays– well, everybody’s got a freezer. And you see it on sitcoms and memes and things.” He glanced up. “You see like, Mom asks the kids to take the chicken out of the freezer to defrost it so she can make dinner when she gets home, right?” His eyes were very blue in the indirect light, a cloudy hazeled blue, and he cocked an eyebrow. “And the punchline is, the kid forgets to take the chicken out and then the mom is super mad.”
He gestured. “Whoever was in charge of getting me out of cryo didn’t leave enough time.
It’s A Funny Story
Published
Tumblr Exodus 