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He woke up. It was dark, overwhelmingly so. There was a constant throbbing somewhere, some part of him was screaming in pain but he couldn’t be bothered to pinpoint it. Air felt raw against his face. His throat was hoarse and dry, scratchy as if he had been screaming. Had he had been screaming? He honestly couldn’t remember. There was something rubbing against parts of his body (right wrist, his sluggish mind supplied moment later, and ankles). It felt like cheese graters against his skin. Each breath was like inhaling mustard gas (something twitched in the back of the mind at the thought, but he couldn’t find what). He was lying on ice, burning, freezing ice that seemed to blister his skin with just a brush of its cold fingers.
It smelled cold and acidic, burning through his nostrils.
The noises were overwhelming, talking, chattering so loudly. It echoed around his head, the vibrations of sound waves pounding like a hammer against his skull. Something was tapping, constantly tapping or clicking or thumping or something, oh god there were more than one of them, so much noise and it wouldn’t stop it was going to drive him mad (more mad, at least). There was the sound of nails scratching a chalkboard, the sound of rushing wind and the sound of harsh air expelling from a vacuum.
It took him a moment to recognize that last one as the sound of his own breathing.
Did that mean he was alive? He wasn’t sure. He couldn’t remember how he got there. Was he in Hell? If he was, he wondered why. Do people who go to Hell know why they’re there? Do they remember their past lives?
How did he die, then? There was something important- it burned behind his eyes, some image of something but he couldn’t find it.
Where the hell was he.
-“You are in a operating room.”-
He hadn’t remembered speaking out loud. He found out that he could open his eyes, and did so for a moment, before they, too, were burning with the ice-cold air and brightness of thousand suns. He closed them immediately after with a groan that pained his abused vocal chords.
“Wha-” he mumbled, coughing for a moment despite the knives it sent into his chest. “What happ’ned?”
-“You are in an operating room, Captain”- the voice repeats.
Captain.
Flashes of a mountain. No, not one, a whole range. An army of stones. A speeding train. An explosion, the tearing of metal, the shooting of bullets. Another explosion, and he raced up. He reached out his hand, just a little further, almost there.
A lunge. He pulled as hard as he could, his strength was able to save Him. An outstretched hand reached for him as the train disappeared. The wind was roaring in his ears like an ocean, his head felt light. He was floating. No, he was falling. Falling. Falling.
Crash into the ice it’s so cold it’s so cold coldcoldcoldcoldcoldanditburnsburnsburnsburnsburns.
-“He’s seizing!”-
He can feel it enter his eyes nose mouth and ears as he gasps for breathe. The current swirls around him, pulling him apart.
-“If we give him anymore sedative he could-“-
His arm gets snagged on something sharp and he has a single moment before the current p u l l s.
-“Give it to him, quickly!”-
Something bends, something snaps, and something tears and he opens his mouth to scream. He screams and he screams and he screams but it only invites more water into his lungs.
-“Shut him up!”-
His other arm grabs onto hold of something and he heaves his bashed and broken body onto something solid, something stable. He stays there, the water attempting to pull him back by his feet but he cannot move. He cannot breathe. He cannot feel anything but the blinding pain it’s hurt it’s so c o l d.
-“I have it!”-
-“Give it to me!”-
He keeps screaming and screaming until he’s pushed all the air, water, and dirt out of his lungs, until there’s no noise coming out and his world just fades away.
********
-“Captain.”-
Somebody was calling for him, but he didn’t want to listen. He was fine where he was, floating in the black nothingness, far away from reality.
-“Captain, you must wake.”
No he didn’t want to, it was nice there, in the dark. His brain was too groggy to let him remember much but he did remember that opening his eyes and facing reality would only bring pain.
Is that what you’re gonna do? Run away?
Something in him shifted at the hazy thought, his head was warm and fuzzy but he felt cold everywhere else as he gains capacity to notice his surroundings.
He finally gained enough strength to open his eyes.
He was faced with a pig-faced man with round glasses and a white lab coat.
He immediately felt intense hatred for the man. He recognized him.
He was Arnim Zola. Zola worked for Schmidt, and HYDRA, who Steve was fighting. Steve, Steve was his name. He had a name and a life and-
Bucky.
-“Good, you are awake,”- Zola squinted at him with those beady eyes and straightened his back. This was when Steve realized he was laying on a metal table in a cold, concrete room. There were no restraints, foolish of them, really. He sat up.
-“You have been asleep for a long time. We were afraid you wouldn’t wake up.”-
Steve just glared at the man and starting looking for any obvious structural weakness or something he could exploit.
Blank, grey walls and one metal door. The ceiling was metal grating.
Zola tsked. –“Do not bother attempting to escape, Captain, I can assure you that you will not succeed. We have managed to create an aerosol form of the drug that we used to put you under before. You wouldn’t even be able to reach the door,”- the doctor looked completely unfazed by how much Steve obviously wanted to rip him apart.
“And what’s stopping me from breaking your neck?” he asked casually, his throat raw from disuse.
Zola just laughed- laughed- at the threat. “That would be rather rude, Captain. Is that how you treat men who save your life?” he answered in English.
A cold chill ran through his spine at the thought of Zola doing anything to him, much less for him, but he didn’t let his glare waver.
“I’m not in a very gracious mood.”
Zola sighed. “I suppose not.” He stood up from the stool he was sat upon. –“I hope you enjoy your stay, Captain,” he said before exiting through the door, shutting it with a definitive click of a lock. The light switched off and he was plunged into darkness.
Steve was alone in the room, but he had no doubt he was being watched.
********
He wasn’t sure how long it was later. He had been awake for at least forty-eight hour and could probably go for twelve-to-twenty-four hours more before collapsing from exhaustion. He had stopped counting after the numbers started hurting his head, somewhere around the thirty-six hour mark. It was still dark.
They hadn’t given him food or water, but he wasn’t about to ask.
All he had was the stool Zola had sat on, the metal cot they left for him to sleep in, and the flimsy pants they used to cover his modesty. They hadn’t even given him a drawstring in those, just an elastic band. Honestly, if worst came to worst he could take them off and use them as a garrote to attack whoever came into his cell, or he could use it for-
But that’s only if he got desperate.
Every twelve hours (on the mark, it was the only way he still kept track of time) Zola stood outside his door and asked if he wanted food.
Well, not quite.
There would be a knock to signal his presence, as if he had something else to do other than to lay on the floor (refusing what little they gave him) and listen to his surroundings.
He would knock twice, then a pause.
“If you wish for anything, Captain, all you have to do is ask. Food, water, a blanket, even more comfortable quarters, it is all here for you,” he would offer in accented English.
Steve wouldn’t respond, choosing to continue to lie on the floor.
He hoped the Commandos were looking for him. Bucky would have searched for him after he fell from the train. He wouldn’t find a body, would maybe (hopefully) find that suspicious. He momentarily wondered if HYDRA had left his arm in the wilderness, whether Bucky could use it as a clue, before quickly distracting himself from the thought. Instinctively his right hand went to rub his left forearm, but he managed to stop himself before he found the empty space where his limb had once been.
He had been avoiding thinking about it.
So he waited, either for Bucky and the Commandos, or for Steve to die from dehydration. Whichever came first, really.
He did collapse at one point, crumpled on the floor and passed out.
He awoke an indiscernible amount of time later, still hungry, still thirsty, and still tired, but alive. They had kept him from dying, but still let him starve. A part of him was impressed, but most of him was just tired.
Zola had stopped coming. Steve knew that it didn’t matter, there were eyes on him at all times and if he asked for something they would hear. The offer was still there; the only difference was that he had lost his only method of timekeeping.
This cycle continued, Steve not willing to ask for anything and them not willing for him to die. He was restless, agitated. He was tired of the same damn room and the same damn walls and the same damn knowing in his gut and the burning behind his eyes and the rawness of his throat. He knew he was getting weaker, emaciated. It was a miracle that he was still alive, and he couldn’t tell whether HYDRA’s insistence on his continued survival was a blessing or a curse.
He collapsed again.
This time he had not been moved when he had woken up. They had not taken him away, they had not given him anything.
He felt weak, disorientated. It was a break in the pattern and for the life of him he couldn’t figure out why.
They’re looking for me he would tell himself. Bucky and the Commandos are looking.
The lie was the only thing he had left.
He was tired and he was angry. At this point he was hoping that whatever Zola was planning to do with him would start soon, anything to break the pointless, hopeless monotony.
Steve thought about Zola’s threat of knocking him out with gas. He wondered whether he was bluffing or not.
He wondered if Zola had ever really come in the first place.
For the first time in days (weeks, months? It could have been years for all he knew) he stumbled to his feet with purpose. Through the dark shadows he avoided the stool and the cot and came to the wall next to the metal door.
He tapped on it, first, testing it.
In a flash, he was pulling his hand back and making a fist, throwing it forward with all the strength he could muster.
The wall cracked, crumpling against the force of his hit. He could hear the sound of his own skin tearing and his knuckles breaking as well. He hit again, and again until there was a sizable hole.
He stepped over the rubble and looking down the hallway it had opened up to. One end was a dead end, but the other had a door. He shot off.
He couldn’t remember coming into the facility, but he just chose the most likely path out. As he ran he vaguely noted the lack of alarms, security, and personnel.
He burst through another door but got stopped right in his tracks.
“Captain,” Zola said, looking from the file he was reading. There were other scientists and doctors around him. Steve had at least six soldiers pointing their assault rifles at him. In his weakened state, there was no way he would be able to take them all. He had no doubts more armed soldiers were just awaiting the order to apprehend him should he cause trouble.
“Take a seat,” Zola gestured to the examination table in the middle of the room with a leering smile.
“I’ll stand, thanks,” the words hurt in his throat but the brief flash of annoyance that appeared on the Doctors face was worth it.
Zola sighed. “I had hoped we could do this the easy way,” he lamented, handing the file the taller man standing next to him.
-“Bring him here,”¬- he ordered, and before Steve knew it rough hands were grabbing his shoulders.
He twisted, throwing them off, but was tackled by another guard, then another, and his head hit the cold, concrete floor.
That moment of disorientation was all they needed to lift him only the table. He struggled against their grip, panicking as he felt metal cuffs lock into place over his chest, his right wrist, and his legs.
Zola leaned over him, eyes filled with clinical fascination. “Your blood has been invaluable, Captain. I’m sorry I can’t say the same for you. At least, for now.”
Steve had a sinking feeling he knew what this would become.
After the initial transformation of Project Rebirth doctors had run tests on Steve’s endurance, heightened senses, healing rate, and strength. He imagined Zola’s experiments would be far less pleasant.
“Did you know, Captain, that the part of the serum that gave you enhanced healing and strength is completely separate from the part that cured your physical ailments?” Zola asked.
Steve didn’t bother to give an answer, unsure of where this was going.
“I suppose you would have little use for the knowledge, being a soldier,” chuckled as if he had made some private joke. “Well, I supposed we should get started then.”
He motioned to someone Steve couldn’t see, who handed him a syringe filled with clear liquid.
“Are you ready?” he asked as if Steve could answer, as if Steve knew what he was planning.
Zola inserted the needle and pushed the liquid into his veins.
Ave Imperator, morituri te salutant.
Steve screamed.
********
Burning burning fire in his veins his lungs his heart. His bones are twisting and cracking. His skin is falling off, piece by piece. He is breaking down. His body is a supernova burning everything in its path. A black hole, sucking in and indefinitely collapsing. No light can escape the prison of torture he is locked in. The only thing he can hear is someone screaming. Someone’s screaming but he doesn’t know who.
Maybe it’s him, but he doesn’t have a mouth, does he? His body has crumbled into ash, hasn’t it? He no longer exists, he is just the abstract of pain.
-“He is waking up.”-
He was never asleep, he was just stuck in this perpetual cycle of self-destruction, a million bombs going off just under his skin.
-“He shouldn’t be awake this soon!”-
The screaming had stopped. Maybe it was never there, he cannot tell. It is not important.
-“His metabolism-“-
Something’s grinding against metal and he feels a throbbing behind his eyes, which isn’t right because he has no eyes.
-“Continue the procedure.”-
-“But he-“-
-“Continue the procedure. I won’t say it a third time.”-
His eyelids felt like cinderblocks as he lifted them. Who was he? Where was he? He couldn’t answer the questions and that made him panic because he felt like he should.
His vision stopped blurring and he focused on the grinding noise, on the sharp pain in his left arm. His eyes slowly moved to it.
There was blood, so much blood, and there was a hand holding a saw and they were using it on his arm and it hurt like hell oh God.
He did not scream because it was beyond that, this was beyond screaming and crying. He did not know if someone could die from pain alone but if they could, if he could, then he hoped it would come quickly, anything to make it just stop.
The sawing stopped but the pain was still there and then something was digging into his newly revealed flesh and his back arched against whatever contraption is holding him down, ice-cold metal digging into his skin, and it was too much. It was too much and there were tears flowing from his burnt-out eyes and there were hysterical sobbing noises coming from his mouth as he struggled to breathe or think of feel anything beyond the needles and the scalpels and the wires they were attaching to his abused nerves.
He thought he was beyond screaming at that point, but he was wrong. He screamed and screamed and felt like he was tearing his vocal chords apart but that was nothing compared to whatever the hell they were doing to his arm.
He felt cold shivers shoot through his back, the notches of his twisted spine digging uncomfortably into the unmovable metal (since when was spine twisted?) and it felt like there was no air coming into his lungs.
-“Something’s wrong!”-
-“He’s not breathing, get me an atropine injection!”-
He continued to struggle for breath until he couldn’t stay awake anymore.
He awoke to the sound of metal grinding together and a dull ache in his left arm, at least, dull compared to the pain he was experiencing before.
He opened his eyes and struggled against the clasps holding him down. It took him a moment to realize his left arm wasn’t trapped, but his left arm-
Was metal. He had a metal arm that moved just like his real arm would but it wasn’t real and it kept pinching at his skin and something was grinding together in a way that did not sound good and when he moved his elbow something shifted that was not supposed to.
It was a monstrosity.
Damnatio ad bestias.
There was a doctor in scrubs next to him who he could see was the one who was working on the arm. Something in the back of his mind flared with anger and he grabbed the man by the throat. That man had attached this thing to him. Bile was rising in the back of his throat and a burning fear and panic had settled into the gut because he had no idea where the hell he was or what the hell he was doing or who the hell he was or what the fuck was going on.
He crushed the man’s windpipe with hardly any effort and threw his corpse aside. Immediately he felt a pinprick of a needle in his right arm and his body went slack.
-“We need to begin the conditioning.”-
-“How are we supposed to control him?”-
-“Order comes through pain, Doctor.”-
********
-“Your name is Stepan.”-
Lies.
-“Your name is Abram.”-
Lies.
-“Your name is Nikolai.”-
They had given him so many names, it was meaningless.
-“You have no name.”-
Names meant nothing to him.
********
-“Do not move,”- the man ordered.
-“Why?”-
Someone grabbed his arms and pulled him out of the room. The electricity burned.
-“Do not move,”- the man ordered.
He didn’t. A shot was fired and a bullet tore through his leg. He fell to the ground, using his hands to brace his fall.
Someone grabbed his arms and pulled him out of the room. It burned.
-“Do not move,”- the man ordered.
He burned.
-“Do not move,”- the man ordered.
A bullet. A knife. The room filled with water. The floor burned his feet. The cold froze the barest of breath wheezing out of his lungs.
In the end, he always burned.
-“Do not move.”-
********
-“Who are you?”-
“I can’t-“
-“Who are you?”-
-“I don’t know.”-
“Who are you?”
No answer.
-“Who are you?”-
-“Asset, the. Alias: The Winter Soldier.”-
He was no one. He was a force of nature locked in a flesh and metal prison. He was a weapon to be fired as his handler wished.
His handler looked pleased at the answer. The Asset was given a mouth guard, which he accepted, and he leaned back.
The Asset attempted to calm his breathing, he knew his lungs often malfunctioned due to his weakened state (but HYDRA made those malfunctions obsolete for missions because nothing can interfere on a mission) and he couldn’t anger his handler.
The electricity burned through his skull and the Asset screamed.
********
He stood outside the door to a penthouse in Beijing, his fingers twitching as he listened inside and waited for the target to be alone.
The Asset could not be seen.
The moment the target’s partner shut the bathroom door he slipped inside, having already disabled the security. The target had her back turned to him, staring out the large window that looked over the city. It practically took the up the whole wall.
Carefully and silently, always silently (ghosts don’t make noise, ghosts just haunt the darkest places of the world), he slid behind her.
He reached up and covered her mouth with his gloved right hand, and slit her throat with the knife held in his left one. Blood poured out of the wound as she choked, and he laid her gently onto the soft carpet. Before he realized what he was doing, he closed her wide, unseeing eyes. She looked almost peaceful, as if she had been sleeping with a necklace of blood as jewelry. The carpet was staining red. Her dress was flattering, low cut, and long. It was almost the same color she just bled out.
He would say she was beautiful, if someone asked. If he had an opinion (weapons don’t have opinions, they don’t think. They get pointed and fired and he was the most deadly weapon of all).
He looked out at the city and some part in him ached (and at the same it didn’t, couldn’t, because there was no such thing as an ache caused by anything other than pain) at seeing the lights and the buildings and the moving cars.
The toilet flushed and he refocused, running out of the room. It was as if he was never there.
Ex cathedra, ex oblivione.
********
-“Her name is Natalia Romanova. You are to train her.”-
But she’s just a girl a voice that couldn’t be his own (he didn’t have one) whispered in the back of his mind. She’s just a girl, a human girl. He couldn’t forge her with fire and steel how his creators did him. He wasn’t going to rip her apart and sew the jagged pieces together. He couldn’t break her the same way, burn out her soul the same way.
But if he couldn’t succeed they would find someone –something– else to replace him.
Natalia was fast, small, and strong. She was best a manipulating people, making them believe her lies until they are their own. But it was not enough.
-“Again!”- he barked in Russian (had he ever learned Russian? He could not remember, but that wasn’t new. He couldn’t remember anything he Knew).
She waited a breath to reset her position before running and sliding between his legs. He twisted out to kick as she rolled to her feet but she dodged.
She came at him from the side, causing him to have to twist his body so it faced left (something in his repulsive metal arm would always give when he turned like that and a gear would drag against the bone trapped inside. It hurt like hell, even a second of it made him want to curl up in a fetal position, orders be damned, but he didn’t really ever want anything and showing pain wasn’t allowed so-), easily blocking her jabs.
Natalia made a swipe for his legs, aiming for the back of the right knee with her heel, but he jumped and his body twisted as if he was going to throw a shield (where did that thought come from? He had never-) and grabbed her arm. Her muscles flexed under the cold, unfeeling grip as he brought her down to the mat with him. She attempted to use his momentum and her heavier stature to push him off, but he was unrelenting in his hold and shoved her onto the ground. He switched arm so that he was holding her with the flesh one, but even with the weaker limb pushing her down she could not escape (his strength outmatched his size, and his healing outmatched his health. It was like he was Frankenstein’s monster and nothing made sense but he was patched together and forced to live anyway, forced to endure the torches and the angry mobs). He brought his metal arm up and pushed it against her throat, lightly, delicately (as delicate as he can manage, at least) but with enough pressure to prove his point.
He stood back up and unwound his coiled muscles. He didn’t offer to help her up and she didn’t ask.
-“Again,”- he barked in Russian.
Natalia waited a breath and reset her position.
********
-“Nastavnik”- the girl breathed with concern before she caught him as he wavered. She supported his weak body and guided him over to his cot.
He blinked a few times, attempting to get his vision to focus. Red hair, small body (though she was barely taller than him, but he’d never judge her power by her size. He was living proof that looks could be deceiving), furrowed brows, and a dancer’s grace when she moved.
“Natalia?” he rasped. His abused vocal chords protested at the spoken word.
-“Yes, it’s Natalia,” she reassured him. Her expression was blank (far too blank for a girl so young) but her eyes were filled with worry.
-“I-,”- he let out a hacking cough that rattled his ribs. She did not move to help him, and he did not reach for her (something in him ached to, but that was buried so far down he could not even recognize it).
-“You were gone for a long time, on a mission,”- she told him, resigned to their usual routine when he returned from the Chair.
A mission, yes, he could vaguely remember. Something about a politician and a party (he could still feel the man’s neck snap in his hands. The blank, unseeing look that was left on his face. There was no blood, so why did he feel like he was covered in it?)
He nodded to show that he could remember. He shivered from the cold air seeping through his nearly translucent skin (cold, he was always cold. The ice had taken residence in his veins and never had the courtesy to leave, haunting him as if the cold was the ghost, not him) and the aftershocks from the Chair.
Natalia slightly pursed her lips as if she wanted to say something. It was an infinitely small movement, but he was better trained than even her at reading people.
“It is unfair,” she said quietly in English, a near perfect generic accent. “What they do to you.”
He shook his head, giving a sound that could have been a snort if not for underlying tones of resignation and hopelessness. –“Here, there is no such thing,”- he replied in Russian.
She looked as if she wanted to protest but he stood onto his feet and lifted the flimsy blanket on his bed.
-“I am tired, Natalia,”- he said as if it was a fleeting thought and not a perpetual state of being.
She recognized the dismissal for what it was.
She turned off the light as she exited the room and moved her own directly across the hall. He laid there, in the dark, and failed to sleep. Failed to stop his constant shivering under the blanket.
When sleep did find him, he did not dream.
********
-“You were ordered to train the girl, not form attachment. You can’t coddle her,”- the disdain was easily visible in his voice.
He gave his handler no answer, just stared ahead with his arms clasped behind his back. His handler loomed over him, using his height as an intimidation tactic. It worked, because the Asset could already imagine the punishment he was going to receive, but he made no show of it on his face.
The hard slap was unexpected, but not surprising.
-“You have one more chance. If you fail, you will not like the consequences.”-
The handler walked out and his men dragged the Asset to the floor, aiming their unforgiving kicks and hits for his visible ribs and his gut.
One of them stepped on his wrist, crushing the bones under his heavy boot. The Asset’s neck twisted and his back arched. His mouth was open in a silent scream.
None of them helped when he blacked out from the pain and lack of air in his lungs.
He was not surprised when he woke up on the cold floor alone, his breath wheezing and his heartbeat irregular (it always was). His wrist was almost fully healed, so he could not have been there for more than a day. They must’ve kept him sedated as they made sure he didn’t die of asphyxiation.
He pushed his protesting body upright, ignoring the rush of vertigo that made his vision blur and his legs week. He walked to his quarters and ignored the open door across the hall (a silent invitation from Natalia for whenever he returned).
He shut his own door and walked solemnly to his bed. He would follow his orders, for it was more than his life and health on the line (though they were not truly his own), it was Natalia’s.
********
-“Where is she?”- the man demanded once again, twirling his taser threateningly.
The Asset said nothing, and once again the man dug the metal prongs into his concave gut and let the electricity scorch his skin.
The smell of burning flesh had already filled the room, but the Asset paid it no mind.
He doubled over with pain, panting heavily and unsteadily when the taser was removed.
-“Where is she,”- it stopped being phrased like a question and turned into a demand, not that it was ever really a question in the first place.
The Asset stretched his bloodied mouth (he nearly bit his tongue off in an attempt not to scream) into something akin to a carnivorous grin. –“I could do this all day,”- he answered and spat blood into the man’s face.
In a flash the man’s face turned from annoyance and frustration to red fury and he pulled a knife out of a sheath on his hip. Within moments it was dug between the scarred skin and the metal plating of his left arm.
The Asset gave a hoarse shout, the burning pain whited out his vision momentarily.
The man pushed, separating the two further and the Asset was continuously crying out, near sobbing. His chest was throbbing and his heart was racing and it fucking hurt.
But Natalia had escaped, all by herself, and that was worth it all.
-“We’re not going to get anything from him,”- one of the observers said. The knife was removed and the Asset sagged forward, stretching the chains holding him his against the wall.
-“What do we do then?”-
-“Wipe him, he’s useless to us in this state.”-
A man came over to undo the shackles and the Asset spat blood onto his face too.
Despite the punishment he received for his defiance, there was a smug part of him that felt it was worth it.
********
The Asset did not flinch at the targets desperate gunshot. It was wide, the mans hand was shaking too much for it to be anything else. He continued to stalk forward and raised his right arm, along with the m1911 grasped in his hand. The target was frantically attempting to reload his gun, but the Asset was already holding his pistol against the targets chin. He looked down, wide-eyed as he faced his death. The Asset pulled the trigger and the targets blood splattered onto his face as his corpse fell to the floor.
–“Target terminated,”- the Asset spoke into the comm implanted into his hearing aid.
-“Proceed to the designated extraction point,”- his handler responded.
The Asset gave his confirmation before turning off his mic. There was blood and brain matter on his arm, his uniform, and on his face (red, like lipstick, like hair, like a memory he didn’t- couldn’t- have.)
He arrived at the extraction point at the time set by his handler. There was a black, unmarked vehicle waiting for him. He entered through the back doors without a seconds hesitation. Inside were the guards sent to escort him to debriefing (electricity burns, through his skin and his veins. This was the only time they allow him to scream). Except, this time that’s not where he was led.
They took his weapons (standard procedure) and immediately stripped him of his suit (only standard procedure before-). Something about the way the technicians glanced (stared, gawked) at his small frame when they thought he wasn’t paying attention made him uncomfortable (except not, he never felt anything). He was not self-conscious, that luxury was burned out of him long ago, but their stares still made him feel (not feel, never feel) that he should be. They hosed him down with freezing water (he did not feel the cold, he was always cold) but he could not prevent his traitorous body from shivering. He watched dispassionately as the water washed his missions blood down the drain in the floor. The spray of water stopped and he was led out of the room by guards, dripping water behind him like a trail of breadcrumbs (inaccurate and childish comparison). He tried to drown out the men’s conversation as they walked.
-“God, he’s so fucking creepy. It’s like we’re not even here.”-
-“Whats it matter? He’s Lukin’s favorite pet, the only time he focuses on someone is when he’s gonna hunt them.”-
-“I heard Price say if you told him the right command, he’ll get on his knees and suck your dick.”-
-“Bullshit. Price is full of it. What would be the point of that?”-
-“I don’t know, those technicians are fucking weird. Have you seen what they do to him in there?”-
-“It’s not like he knows what’s happening. He’s one of Zola’s playthings, do you think there’s anything left up there?”-
No one got the chance to respond because they had reached their destination: a non-descript door that looked the same as every other one in the endless hallway. A guard opened the door and the Asset entered. He knew exactly where he was. A preemptive shiver ran down his crooked spine and his faulty lungs hitched a breath.
-“Soldier,”- The handler –Lukin –crooned. He spread his arms in welcome. More technicians swarmed the metal pod standing behind the handler.
-“Mission report?”- the handler demanded when the Asset was stood directly in front of him.
-“Target terminated. No interference, no damage. No malfunctions present,”- the Asset recited. Lukin smiled proudly and reached out a hand to ruffle the Assets hair. The Asset never understood this ritual that occurred after a successful mission, but It warmed him nonetheless. Despite himself, the Asset began to lean into the touch. There was a single moment before Lukin noticed. He immediately pulled away his hand with a reprimanding look. The Asset almost whimpered at the loss of contact, but the noise was lost before it could reach his vocal chords when the handler slapped him across the face with enough force to knock down a normal man (the Asset wasn’t a man).
It stung, but the physical pain wasn’t as bad as the shame he felt. He looked at the floor, knowing he was lucky to not have been punished for his actions. He had been told many times how much his handler hated to have to punish him, hated when he had to correct the Assets mistakes.
Cogitationis poenam nemo patitur.
-“Sir?”- a technician called to the handler. –“The cryotube is ready.”-
The handler nodded and stepped aside so the Asset could enter the pod. He faced the small window when they shut the door.
Water, cold freezing water, began to fill the metal coffin. This was how it went, first they drowned him, then they froze him. By the time the water had reached his waist, his body was shivering uncontrollably. It reached his neck and he began to panic. He took a last, desperate gasp for air before the water engulfed him completely. He banged his arms against the door with what little strength he could muster, but it was useless. He looked through the window and was met with the Lukin’s face. He gave the most desperate, pleading look he could, unable to keep the panic from his eyes. He tried to beg as much as he could without being able to talk to the handler. Please, he begged, please. Lukin shook his head with an apologetic expression. The Asset was trapped.
His mouth opened of it’s own accord, gasping for air. The water that rushed into his lungs made him scream, which did nothing but invite more water in. He screamed silently and thrashed because it was so fucking cold it burned. The more effort he spent, the more his consciousness faded as his strength ran out. Hee could feel ice form around him as he floated limply. He could feel the water in his lungs harden (it got, impossibly, colder) as everything stopped.
The frozen ghost trapped in his frozen coffin.
********
“Isn’t he a little bit… small?” the assistant that came with the man asked. The Assets handler looked annoyed at his interruption.
“I assure you, his stature only aids him on his missions,” Lukin told the assistant. “His track record speaks for itself.”
The Asset continued to stand facing forward, unmoving as the men examined him.
“And there’s no one in there,” the previously silent man questioned. “He’s not self-aware?”
“He only follows orders. If you know how to… punish him for his mistakes correctly, you will have nothing to worry about.”
“So he is self-aware.”
“He is like a child, his consciousness is limited to what’s immediately around him. All you have to is limit what he is exposed to.”
The man nodded and the handler led him and his assistant out of the room, leaving the Asset with the technicians.
It burned.
Corpus vile.
********
The next time he came out of cryofreeze there was a new handler.
The Asset was given his mission. He completed it successfully.
The handler congratulated him. The Asset was confused.
The Asset was put back on ice.
********
The Asset came out of cryofreeze.
“One last time,” the handler said.
“One last time.”
He knew there had been many ‘last times’ before.
He knew there would be many more.
He knew that it was a lie.
But lies had become the only truths he knew.
Lies had become the only consistency he could depend on.
The Asset was given his mission.
Shoot the diplomat. Burn down the senator’s house. Stage the billionaire’s car accident. Kill the scientist in the desert.
He completed it successfully.
The Asset was put back on ice
********
This mission, there was no finesse. There was no striking from the shadows. Stand in the middle of the street and blow up the targets car. Confirm kill.
Failure.
Follow the target and terminate by any means possible.
Success.
Target terminated. Assailant avoided. Report to handler.
“Do you want some milk?”
The Asset did not respond. He did not ‘want’ anything.
He was given his next target: Captain America, SHIELD agent, war hero. Enhanced.
Someone saw the Asset, a civilian. The Asset did not move because he had not been ordered to.
The handler took the handgun off the table (the Asset had placed it there in case of emergency deactivation) and shot the woman.
The Asset did not move.
********
“Steve?”
********
“Who the hell is Steve?”
********
Aegri somnia.
He was not supposed to speak, not allowed to speak. Not to his target. Not to anyone. Only when he needed to give orders to the team he was assigned.
Not to the target. Not to the handler.
No one.
But he did.
“Mission report.”
He heard, but he did not understand. The man’s words were repeating in his head like a broken record.
“Steve?”
Who the hell was Steve?
There was no recollection; just an empty hole in his mind, but that void was the first thing he had felt in—
The handler hit him across the face. The Asset finally registered his surroundings.
“Mission report.”
There was no report to give, mission failed. Target escaped. Who the hell was Steve?
“The man on the bridge,” he spoke without realizing. The handler narrowed his eyes.
“I knew him,” but he did not- could not. The Asset did not feel emotion, the Asset did not want, and the Asset could not know that man as well as the absence in his mind would suggest.
“You met him on an assignment earlier this week.”
The Asset knew this, but that is not what he was talking about.
Somewhere deep in his bones, from his rattling lungs to his flat feet, that man had triggered something inside him that he didn’t understand. It made him scared, the feeling (he did not feel, he was not allowed to feel, feeling hurt just make it stop-).
“But I knew him,” he repeated. The hole in his mind was a gaping whirlpool that sucked all his thoughts up. There was no room for anything else.
The handler was speaking. The handler was speaking and it made him feel sick not to pay close attention to his every word. He was doing something wrong and that meant punishment but he could not bring himself to be able to focus on anything but the scene running through his mind.
“Steve?”
“One last time,” the handler said. The Asset did not take comfort in the lie as he usually would (comfort was not a luxury the Asset could ever be given). The lie chilled his spine and made his skin crawl.
“Wipe him, and start over.”
No. He did not want to forget this, this felt important in a way nothing was, nothing had ever been. He could not remember but he knew, all he knew was how to destroy and murder but for some reason he knew that man.
He accepted the mouth guard on pure instinct, chest already breathing heavily and he was pushed back.
The machinery over his head made him claustrophobic but he said nothing. The electricity burned.
He did not know anything.
Datum perficiemus munus.
********
There was a single photo in the Captain’s (the Mission’s) museum exhibit that showed him with a childhood companion.
James Barnes and friend Steven Rogers at age 9 and 10 (1928) it was labeled.
It was a candid of two boys laughing, one taller with dark hair and an open expression. The other one was much smaller and thinner, not having any of the baby fat Barnes had seemed to have held onto. Despite his appearance, the small one was the oldest of the pair. His expression was much more guarded, he held himself as if he was on steeling himself against something. As if he couldn’t quite believe that the other boy was really there. You could see the poverty and illness in the boy’s appearance, his twisted gait and his ragged clothing. Barnes was almost the same, except he seemed to have taken better care of his appearance, seemed to have been healthier.
If the Asset had ever been a child, ever been a person, he supposed that is what he would have looked like.
Fui quod es, eris quod sum.
But he had never been. He could never have been.
He could not imagine himself that young and innocent, that naïve. He could not imagine being anything but a weapon.
A weapon didn’t have an imagination.
********
The memories came rushing back. They didn’t make sense. One moment he was wading knee deep in guts, mud, shit, and mud and the next he was dangling his legs off of a fire escape in Brooklyn.
If BarnesBuckytheMission were here, he would say it wasn’t his fault. He knew this but it still hurt, how much blood he spilled as if it had been his own.
Actus me invito factus non est meus actus.
Steve Rogers and the Asset were all mixed up in his head, it was an impossible mess that he even couldn’t begin to untangle. Every time he pulled on one thread the whole thing would unravel and bring more bright, white hot painful memories.
If he had learned anything, it was thought memories lied.
He decided to hunt down the people who would be able to give him real answers.
Whether he could ever be Steve Rogers again was still uncertain, but whoever he was now was sure he could avenge the man he once was.