#I'm not gonna torture myself by a half-assed 'doctors' treatment

[dianetastesmetal]

My brain had decided to do the funny thing, when it reminds me of the possibility of a very painful and agonizing treatment for my back pain

NO NO NO, SHUT THE FUCK UP, BRAIN, WE'RE NOT GOING TO THE CHIROPRACTOR

[thewinterdrafts]

Part 02 - Incision | Frostbite Series | The Winter Soldier

Pairing: The Winter Soldier x Original Female Character (1st Person)

Word count: 2,383

Summary: Elena begins the grueling task assigned to her, forced to work under impossible conditions. Every wound she treats only deepens the horror of what’s been done to the Soldier—what’s still being done. But exhaustion makes people careless, and in a single moment, something happens that should be impossible.

Disclaimer: This series is extremely dark, touching on graphic violence, psychological torment, and human suffering in all its forms. If you choose to read, proceed with caution.

Warnings: strictly 18+, Graphic medical procedures & surgical descriptions, Torture & inhumane treatment, Psychological distress & breakdown

A/N: i got so lost in this story that i literally had to step out and touch grass to realize i'm not physically in there. with that being said, happy reading!!

❄️ Frostbite Chapters: Part 01 - Severance Part 02 - Incision - you are currently here Part 03 - Containment

📍Masterlist

I wash my hands until my skin burns.

The water is ice-cold, but I don’t care. I scrub harder, my nails digging into my palms, my breath shallow and uneven. My reflection stares back at me in the small, fogged-up mirror above the sink. I don’t have the luxury of breaking down now, even though I am still sick to my stomach. 

The room behind me is as close to being sterile as it can get in a place like this. It smells of antiseptic and metal, with the constant presence of rot in the air. It looks like something straight out of a time capsule from the 40's, or like the setting of the first Saw movie. There’s an underlying scent of blood, lingering even after the floors have been wiped clean. Or attempted, at least.

I square my shoulders, forcing myself to breathe and push down the knot of horror coiling in my gut.

I am a doctor. I fix things. This is no different. However, even though I am skilled, I still only have two hands. And for what I'm looking at, that's not gonna be nearly enough.

"I need a sterile workspace. Proper surgical tools. A fully stocked medical kit, not whatever half-assed excuse for supplies you’ve been using. I also need a nurse."

One of the men scoffs, arms crossed over his chest. "You think this is a fancy hospital, Professor?"

"You think I can fix this with a prayer?" I snap, gesturing toward the Soldier’s ravaged body. "If you want him operational, I need supplies. I need hands."

The room is silent for a beat. They dragged me here, expecting me to do my job. They better fucking deliver then. 

Upon realizing that I will not back down, one of the higher-ranking men—judging by the insignia on his uniform—nods toward another. "Get her what she needs. And assign her someone."

There’s a pause before a hesitant voice fills the room.

"I—I’ll do it."

I blink, turning toward the source.

She’s young—too fucking young. Barely eighteen, if that. Dark curls spill from beneath her poorly fitted medical cap, her uniform is slightly too big for her slight frame. Her wide, nervous eyes dart between the guards and me, but her jaw is set with determination. I quickly realize that she must be a prisoner here, like me.

"You?" The guard beside her snorts. "You barely know how to hold a scalpel."

She swallows, knuckles white where they grip the edge of the doorframe. "I know enough."

I scan her face carefully, noting the shadows beneath her eyes. She’s afraid but resilient, which reminds me too much of myself when I was her age.

The guard looks like he’s about to argue, but the superior holds up a hand. "Fine. Take her." His lips curl. "But if she slows you down, she’s dead weight."

The girl’s breath hitches, but she doesn’t back down. She holds my gaze like I was some sort of savior, and this ignites a sense of protectiveness in my chest. 

I step forward, voice firm. "She won’t be."

The man only smirks. "Then get to work, Professor."

I turn to my new assistant, who silently sneaked next to me in the meantime. Her hands are shaking, but when I meet her eyes, she straightens.

"What’s your name?" I ask quietly. I don't want the guards to hear anything.

Soft as a whisper, she says, "Yulia."

I nod. "Alright, Yulia. The Soldier is dying."

I don’t miss the way the Soldier’s eyes meets mine, and for the first time, they linger. The average person would describe it as emotionless, downright unreadable—but not me. I've seen way too many of these looks from cancer patients, trauma survivors and soldiers who barely made it back from the battlefield. He's in so much pain, his eyes are begging. Pleading.

To let him die. 

The sheer pain on his face startles me so much, my breath catches in the middle of my throat. After all he's been through, death would be the highest form of mercy he could receive from the gods, and for the first time in my life, I wish I could give it to him. I wish I could take it all away.

"I know. I'm sorry," I whisper to him, not even sure he can understand me. He holds eye contact for a couple of seconds before he is back to being a... being.

I take a bit more time to analyze him under all the blood. His face is sharp—strong jaw, high cheekbones, the kind of symmetry that would make him striking if he weren’t marred by exhaustion and suffering. If he weren’t... this. There’s something bitter in the thought that makes my stomach churn. He would be beautiful if not for the violence carved into his existence.

I scoff at myself. I shouldn’t think like this. Shouldn’t look at a man responsible for so much bloodshed and feel pity. But how much of it was his choice? How much of the destruction tied to his name is his, and how much belongs to the people who turned him into this? My hands hover inches from his skin, hesitation burning through me.

He is dangerous. Lethal. But he is also trapped. And if I pretend I don’t see that, I’m no better than the people who put him here.

Yulia's studying gaze between me and the Soldier yanks me back to reality. The last thing I need for her is to be more afraid than she already is. I inhale deeply and force myself to see, to analyze, to calculate.

I start with the obvious.

The stab wound in his side—deep. Way too deep. If the blade had gone a few inches lower, it would have punctured his liver. The bleeding has slowed, but the wound itself is a torn mess that was never treated properly. Someone pulled the knife out without thinking and sealing the arteries. He’s been leaking blood internally ever since. I need to close it. Now.

His left leg is swollen, stiff, and discolored. Fractured tibia. A break this bad should have been treated fucking days ago. The bone has started to heal, but the alignment is wrong. If I don’t reset it properly, he’ll never walk without pain again.

His flesh shoulder is completely dislocated. A deep bruise spreads from his collarbone down to his ribs in a sickening shade of purple and green. They must’ve ripped it out of place and left it. Just left it for him to endure.

I press my lips together and breathe through my nose. Elena, for fuck's sake, you need to keep going.

His ribs are cracked—no, broken. The bruising pattern suggests repeated trauma. Someone must have kicked him or stomped on him with a steel boot to the ribs, over and over again. If there’s a punctured lung, I’ll need to act fast.

His metal arm—I hesitate.

This is why I was taken here. There’s something wrong with it. Not just damage, but something deeper. The plating along the shoulder joint is misaligned, as if someone forced it back into place without realigning the nerve ports. The metal twitches slightly, the hydraulics struggling to engage. I know right away that it will take me weeks to reconnect each nerve.

Don't even get me started on his face.

The bruising along his cheekbone is old, faded into a sickly yellow, but the cut on his brow is fresh. The split lip is fresh. The blood staining the corner of his mouth is fresh.

I don’t want to think about how that happened. I physically can’t, or else I will be sick. Instead, I swallow hard, steel myself and take a step back to look at the whole picture.

He should be dead. With injuries like this, with the kind of neglect he’s endured, his body should have shut down. Organ failure, sepsis, internal hemorrhaging. He should be in shock, actively dying.

But he isn’t, which terrifies me more than it gives me hope.

I turn to Yulia, my voice steady but firm. "We start with the stab wound. Then the shoulder. Then the leg."

She nods, wide-eyed, fingers still trembling.

I reach for the syringe, my grip steady despite the hurricane raging inside me. The vial of anesthetic catches the dim, flickering light as I prepare the dose. It’s the only mercy I can offer him and it does make me feel a bit better.

I position the needle to his skin, but before I can even spot his vein, a hand clamps down over my wrist.

"It doesn’t need that."

I snap my head up, meeting the officer’s lazy stare.

"What?" I grit out, shaking off his hold.

"It doesn’t feel pain like we do." He nods toward the restrained man on the table. "Don’t waste resources."

Cold slithers down my spine.

It.

Not he. Not him. It.

I turn back to the officer with a voice of steel. "Anesthesia is non-negotiable."

The man shrugs, looking utterly indifferent. "Waste of time."

I don’t respond, I just press the needle to his arm before the guard could take the syringe away. The moment it punctures the Soldier's skin, I wait, watching for a flinch, a sign, anything. For what seems like eternity, I see nothing. Then his fingers twitch again as his throat works around a slow swallow. 

That’s all I need to know. He feels this, he’s just been trained not to show it.

The back of my throat burns as I press the plunger, injecting more of the sedative. Please, sleep. Just as I plead mentally, his body slackens and his breathing deepens, the tension in his limbs fading as the drug takes hold.

Yulia exhales a shaky breath beside me. I look at her, and as if she could read my thoughts, she pulls up the rubber glove on her hands while I pick up the scalpel.

I murmur a short prayer under my breath. I don't know if it's more for me, or him. And then, I begin.

The overhead lights are too bright, too artificial, washing the room in a sterile glow that feels almost mocking. My hands ache, fingers stiff from hours of careful, meticulous work. My back is screaming, my eyelids feel like they weigh a ton. But I don’t stop, I can’t stop. Not yet.

Yulia isn’t much better. She’s trembling beside me, sweat clinging to her hairline, her breath shallow and uneven as she hands me the next suture. She hasn’t spoken in hours. Neither of us has.

The table beneath us is slick with blood; the Soldier's blood. It pools in the crevices of his restraints, dark and glistening. My gloves are stained nearly black, my forearms streaked with it, the scent thick in the air.

I press my lips together and refocus, suppressing the nausea curling in my gut. The damage I’ve seen… God.

His right shoulder, nearly torn apart from repeated stress and neglect, had to be painstakingly repaired—each muscle fiber, each tendon, each shredded nerve carefully restructured, piece by piece. His ribs—fractured in multiple places, likely never given time to heal—had to be set, his sternum realigned. The internal bleeding had to be drained, the damaged vessels cauterized.

And then there was his spine. Fuck.

A brutal cocktail of fractures and nerve damage, the result of untold trauma, had left his lower back an absolute mess. An absolute fucking mess. I spent nearly three hours stabilizing his lumbar vertebrae alone, each movement precise, each incision deliberate. If I hadn’t, he’d have lost full motor function eventually—not that HYDRA would have cared. They would’ve simply fixed him up in whatever way was convenient—or thrown him away if he was no longer useful.

But now, after ten relentless hours, we’re finally near the end. The worst of the damage has been handled. He’s stable.

I exhale through my nose, pressing the final suture into place. One last stitch, and then—

Flinch. A barely-there movement.

I freeze.

So does Yulia.

Our eyes snap to the Soldier’s face—absolutely nothing, still lifeless. Maybe it was a muscle spasm—I think to myself—a side effect of prolonged stress on his nervous system.

Maybe—flinch.

Stronger this time. His brow furrows, barely perceptible, but I spot it immediately. A muscle in his jaw jumps, his fingers, the ones still restrained at his sides, twitch.

Something thick and ice-cold settles in my stomach. This isn’t normal. This isn’t right.

I glance at the monitor, trying to search for an explanation. His heart rate is elevated, but not alarmingly so. His breathing is steady. His pupils are dilated—wait. Dilated?

My pulse pounds in my throat. A slow, horrible realization starts creeping in. 

There's no fucking way.

I turn to Yulia, voice dangerously low. "What sedative was I given?"

She blinks at me, confused. "I—I don’t know. They just handed it to me and said it was for deep sedation."

A rush of heat floods through me—anger, panic, horror, sickness all at once.

No. 

No. 

I rip my gloves off as I grab the empty vial I had discarded hours ago. The label is vague, the chemical compound not what I was expecting. I inhale sharply as I read the small letters, my chest tightening like a vice.

This isn’t an anesthetic; this is a fucking neural inhibitor. A drug designed to numb the brain, not to block pain—just to prevent a reaction.

I feel like I’m going to be sick.

Oh my fucking God.

I look at the Soldier again in sheer, blood-freezing horror.

I cut into him. I sutured him, burned and stitched and drilled into him—and he was awake the whole time.

He felt everything.

Everything.

A shuddering breath leaves me. My throat is closing up as I grip the edge of the table so hard my knuckles turn white. Yulia whispers something under her breath in Russian, her face pale as she steps back from the table. She realizes it, too.

My legs give out beneath me, and I collapse onto the cold, bloody tile.

I cried six hours straight that night for him.