What Dreams May Come
CRACK!  CRACK!

"Speak, human!  Tell us where the others are!"

"Go... go back to... hell..."

CRACK!  CRACK!

He felt something give in his chest, tasted blood, and realized it was the last of his ribs.  God, it hurt.  His back had already been flayed open by their whips, a network of open slashes decorated it in a crisscross pattern.  They'd broken all his fingers, broken his arms (and then hung  him by them).  His face was a swollen mass of bruises and open cuts, and he was pretty sure he'd spit out a tooth or two.  There wasn't a part of him that didn't hurt.  He didn't know that a person could take this much pain and still be awake...

"You will tell us where they are!"

"...When... when does... the torture... start?  Because I... I gotta say... this ain't doing it... for me..."

The sound of a whirring blade cut through the pain and pounding in his skull.

"You will not talk?"

He spat a gob of blood and spit in his torturer's face, the sticky droplets running down the alien's bulbous green face.  It earned him another painful punch to his body, his broken ribs screaming torture across his entire chest.

"Do it."

White hot pain lanced through his wrist, tearing pain like nothing he had ever felt before.  His arm dropped from it's restraints, limp from the broken bones and dripping blood.  But how...? He was hung up by his wrists...   why... why couldn't he feel his fingers...?   Oh.  Oh God.  The pain settled back in as all his weight was now tugging by his left wrist, threatening to pull his shoulder from its socket...

Another white hot lance of pain.  The smell of something cooking... no... of something burning...  burning pork?  No... burning flesh and more pain.  How could he still be feeling all this pain?  The charred smell wafted up from the stump where his wrist and hand had been, blacked flesh flaking and crackling as it cooled.

"Let him rest a little.  Then we try again.  But first..."

A rough, clawed hand clamped down on the stump and squeezed...

Steve woke up screaming, thrashing in his bedsheets.  Panic fled quickly, responses honed from two years living in a warzone taking over as he instantly accessed where he was.  His bedroom at Avengers Mansion.  He remembered now.  He'd decided to crash here rather than head back to the empty apartment.  It just wasn't home when Anya wasn't there.

He stared down at his right hand, covered with its synthetic coating of flesh.  He flexed the fingers, cybernetic relays transmitting feedback and other data straight to his brain.  Most of the time... he could almost forget it wasn't real.  He could smile, put back on the role of the smart-alex, forget that he had been a soldier instead of a super-hero, forget what he had done and what had been done to him.

Most of the time.  What a lie that was.

He stared at the clock.  2:43 in the AM. 

Faux-flesh covered fingers sought and found his cellphone.  Odds were Anya would be up in the lab anyway. 

He dialed his wife.