....this is just your friendly reminder that when Bucky fell from the train, and when he broke and bled out in those cold and snowy wastes - seemingly to die, but of course thanks to what Zola had done to him, even then - even suffering such extreme and massive and for all intents and purposes fatal trauma, still, he did not - when he was lying there in the snow, no doubt in all kinds of horrible shock and numb and freezing fast, in any case....and one would pray it that at the very least maybe he wasn't in utterly excruciating pain from the loss of his arm and bleeding out in the snow, like if there was any thin and meagre shred of "mercy" to be had then at least let it be that much....but who even knows? Even for the state of utter traumatized shell-shock he had to be suffering, in those moments-!....
And yet what I do think does merit pointing out or reminding, here, and maybe it's not something people necessarily stop to consider overmuch - what an even greater level of horror, betrayal and violation it is, what a kind of torture itself, in a way....it's the simple fact that, as Bucky lay crumpled in the snow for goodness only knows how long, freezing and bleeding out....clearly, of course, as we glimpsed in his fractured and blurred but nonetheless *completely* and vividly, horrifically real memories - disjointed, but absolute - he was at some indeterminate point found....seemingly and to all outward appearance by Russian soldiers....and, at that time, from 1941-1945, the Russians and the Allies very much had a pact of cooperation and a unified front presented, of course, against a far greater and much more dire threat. That is to say, of course....as we glimpse them in Bucky's flashback here....those are absolutely and without question the uniforms of Russian soldiers. Therefore, what this in its turn means, and what really further chills the blood, too, as one stops to consider it....
....when they came across Bucky, chilled and bleeding and broken in the snow - when they picked him up and carried him - and when they even went so far as to place a rough blanket upon his legs, and that, too, we see in these mere moments of his flashback, that it very much looks like they've gone and covered him up - at least to the waist, anyway - with a blanket....which is something people would do seemingly only for someone they cared about and were trying to help....and this too, in turn, combined with the fact that to all outward appearance these were Russian soldiers who came upon him, and who lifted him and took him out of there - and since the Russians were on the side of the Allies at this time....what this means, you realize, is that....
....BUCKY WOULD HAVE THOUGHT THAT THEY WERE THERE TO HELP HIM. In that state of horrific bodily trauma, shell-shock and terror and hypothermia and blood loss and goodness only knows what else, he would have seen their uniforms and naturally instantly pegged them as Russian soldiers, and therefore that they were there to help him and that they'd get him safely away from there....and hopefully soon enough even help get him back to Allied forces again, and thus, of course, back to the Howling Commandos....and to Steve.
All this he would naturally have been thinking, then, when first he saw the Russian soldiers tending to him in even the most rudimentary fashion - picking him up and carrying him, and even going so far as to lay a blanket across his legs. In every way it would have naturally seemed to him, especially in such a state, that they were his allies, there to help....that they naturally, of course, meant him no ill. That they were far more friend, of course, rather than any kind of foe. How he must have been so desperate, in all his shock and fear and confusion and pain, to believe that....how he would have clung to the seeming certainty of it, what his eyes and senses must have been telling him in those moments....that these were Russian soldiers, on his side....and so that he might actually be somehow saved, and might yet maybe, just maybe, be alright.
How long was it before he realized the utterly terrible and completely devastating truth, one wonders....how soon, indeed, before he understood that - whether these were actually Russian soldiers, and thus just ones who weren't at all friends to him or to the Allies, for whatever reason - or maybe they were Hydra agents masquerading as Russian forces, and doing so damn well and convincingly, too - they obviously weren't even remotely friends to him....and they meant him absolutely no good whatsoever.
What worse trauma and horror and utter hopelessness that must have felt like, for him, in those moments when the terrible truth came crashing down on him....that the facade of this seeming kindness or care or this supposed act of help, them carrying him away from that place, covering him with a blanket, it was all naught but lies....because these people didn't mean him at all well....in truth, they meant only to hurt him even worse, and to do God only know what worse to him now that they had him.
There seems an particular kind of cruelty in it, in a way, the fact that these soldiers would come across him and tote him away from there and seem to all outward appearance like they were allies - and they'd even covered him up with a blanket, which in itself is something you would naturally do for someone you're only trying to help....yet, of course, these people who came across him, and took him away, quite clearly were never anything of the kind....never any true allies to him, never really intending to help. To give him that wild, desperate last hope, however frantic and last-gasp fleeting, only for that to soon enough be so utterly and horribly dashed....what utter devastation in its way, aye, even only that....compounding the horror that was, for him, soon enough to come.
