The Winter Soldier listens and absorbs. What he picks up from his partner's tone of voice, the brief, still too long pauses? It isn't exactly instilling him with confidence.
"How do you know there's another protocol?" The Soldier's voice softens at the edges even as he stares at his partner like he's trying to bore right into his skull. "Maybe I can help you, if you let me.
Next order of business: if you can't immediately incapacitate a target, try to work your way into his/her good graces until you can. Whatever has contaminated the Captain's programming thankfully hasn't hit his: he's clear-headed, getting more so by the second as the ringing stops and his vision resolves. Parameters snap back into focus. Whatever pain he feels is shoved aside as a distraction, an indulgence that HYDRA won't allow and, therefore, he won't allow. The Winter Soldier's chin lifts as he swallows, jaw working, eyes closing for a second with what looks like a normal man's moment of weakness. The barest hint of blue peeks out as he stares at his partner. His face is ruined, inflamed and swelling and red...but even now he can see the signs that his advanced healing factor is kicking in, doing an even better job than his own. Bleach to the face would've taken him a day to recover from, at the minimum. At his estimate, it's probably been a few hours at most and the Captain's already got his eyes open.
For the first time in his memory, the Soldier experiences regret. If anyone should've gone off the reservation and gone rogue, it should've been him - he would've been easier to remove from rotation, would've been the easier loss for HYDRA to take. They could always make another like him. His partner, though. He's one of a kind, and right now he wishes he wasn't so...unique.
"We could do this together, just me and you," the Soldier adds. To the casual outsider, his voice is flat-lined, a borderline monotone as if he hadn't tried to kill a man who turned things around and introduced his face to the floor, the up-close and personal way. "You don't have to go at this alone."
For now he means it, because his mission requires it and because the naked truth is, he doesn't want to kill the other asset if there's another way. For one thing, the Captain's far more valuable than he is. And - and this is the private part, the one that he would immediately get strapped into the suppression chair for - he wants to keep working with him. Wants to clear rooms, wants to train with him back on base. The word "friend" doesn't exist in their world. If it did, it would've just been a liability. But examining where he failed today, the Winter Soldier comes to the slow, startling conclusion that this is a liability he would've wanted to risk.
He shifts from where he's propped up against his partner, drawing his legs up with a pained hiss, the thick heels of his boots dragging against the floor. He's strong, sure, but the Captain knows his limitations just like he does and naturally he made sure to tie his arms and his ankles together so he can't just snap free. Might be able to saw through if he can rub the rope against the chassis of his arm, but that would still take time. Best he can do is keep his partner talking as he tries to figure out another approach.
The Captain should know better. The Captain would know better than to believe the offer for help, would know it’s only a ploy, it’s practically SOP, to make someone dangerous that you don’t trust, trust you instead. But there’s something - someone? - inside him that hears those words, in that voice, and immediately gives in, takes a breath, relaxes. There’s something inside him that instantly feels better, more at ease, a knot in his gut that loosens, a spark that runs over and through him. His burning eyes flutter closed for a moment in what’s clearly a show of trust, of comfort around the other asset, of vulnerability he should never have been willing to express in the first place. It’s another clear sign of how far his programming has crumbled, even as the broken vestiges of the codes and failsafes and structure HYDRA put inside of him are still trying to hold, keeping whatever it is that he really wants to know at bay.
But while he can’t access the memories, the knowledge he wants, there are other things slipping through - sense-memories, instincts, things that run deeper than conscious thought, and are far harder to wipe away. They’re the first to return: the soft sound of the Soldier’s voice, the feel of his warm body next to his, the comfort he takes in knowing they’re together.
His vision is still too blurry to really assess the Soldier; he hears the asset shift beside him, more than sees it, but what little information he can get from his eyes, coupled with what he’s getting from his other senses, gives him a pretty clear picture. He knows he’s bound the Soldier tightly enough that he won’t be able to escape easily, can’t just snap the bonds. He knows he doesn’t want to leave his partner tied up, that something about that sits uneasily inside of him, and he’s already reaching clumsily for the other’s hands before he catches himself, pauses, fingertips just brushing the metal of the Soldier’s hand, inches from the knots at most.
“I want to do this together,” he says - again, words he would be backhanded, shot, sliced, burned, electrocuted for. Words that he would never have dared to say, should have known better than to say, known better than to even think while HYDRA still held his mind whole and molded in their hands. Now, his ruined eyes flick up, trying to find and hold the Soldier’s, though the gaze is still off, a little too far to the left and not as piercing as it should be, without that clear focus. But there’s still something genuine in it - genuine, and lost. “I think we’re stronger together. I think we belong together. I think my mission,” whatever it is, “needs you.”
His fingers inch closer to the knots binding the Soldier’s wrists, but even as they touch the rope, he doesn’t untie them. He’s still looking the Soldier in the face as best he can, still struggling with his own sense of duty, of reason, of protocol, all three of them screaming, clashing and disharmonious, inside his head loud enough to nearly drown out the sound of the howling wind outside. “I trust you,” he says quietly, eyes narrowing almost as if in confusion, as if he didn’t mean or didn’t expect to have said the words that just slipped from his lips.
Except he does mean them. “We’re partners,” he says… because they are. They’re partners, and… and something else, but he can’t find the word, can’t grasp it long enough to form it. “And partners trust each other.”
It’s a statement, almost as much as it might be a warning, as his fingers finally touch the knots, but then they still. Something in him says he shouldn’t unknot them; something in him balks at the idea that he tied them at all.
Trust. What the Captain says isn't his definition of the word trust. They're only together because HYDRA ordered it. It isn't up to them and that's fine, that's how it's supposed to be. This shouldn't be his partner's call to make all of a sudden.
The Winter Soldier doesn't say the first thing that crosses his mind.
Not if it gets in the way of lowering the other asset's defenses.
"So then we'll do this as partners."
The words feel both right and somehow like decay in his mouth, all at once, the familiar tainted by this bitter feeling that he's somehow being...compromised by going along with the other asset, even for the sake of his own mission. Unlike the Captain, he remembers it, remembers every contingency and remembers, clearly, what it means to carry out a mission to its logical end - HYDRA's will carried out and (preferably) both Assets turning themselves in for debriefing. That's how it's supposed to be. They're supposed to return, injured or not. Turn over their kit. On a good day, he can hear the sounds of the Captain screaming as they wipe him so he can be put back into cryo. Now he wonders if he'll ever hear that again, the certainty of it, that brief thrill where where he can read between the lines as the Captain's voice gives out and his gasps slip away even past the thin walls. It'd felt private, almost for his ears only. Now it sinks in that he might never hear those sounds again. If maybe this was their last mission. Maybe he'd done the unforgivable: maybe he's taken this partnership for granted.
"So what now?"
The Winter Soldier accesses some leftover muscle memory, some deep-cover persona he must have had when he was backing up the Captain. Maybe it wasn't completely scrubbed away. Maybe - and this is the better option, the one he approves of - maybe HYDRA knew this could happen. Maybe they had a contingency plan in his programming for a scenario like this. Where he couldn't just work his way out with his hands and whatever weapons were nearby. Where he had only his voice to work with. His voice and his body language and what he's picking up from his partner's instability, the man seems like he wants someone to...fraternize with. Be physically close to. Whatever it takes to build up that trust until he can get another shot at subduing the Captain.
He shifts pointedly against the other asset, bumping shoulders, his knees drawing up as he tries to dredge up those faint memories of what it was like being another man. He'd been a "James" once on an op. Had smiled, maybe even flirted - carrying out the parameters of some HYDRA tech who knew how to read his fellow man - and he could pass as something other than super-soldier, so long as he kept his arm covered. Now the Winter Soldier is trying to drag those memories back, trying to figure out what he can use to get his partner where he wants him. Physical contact was the first one. Knowing when to stare, when to look away (despite that being a risk), is another. The Soldier tilts his head down, almost as if he's pretending not to see the rope circled tight around his ankles, his tangled, matted hair falling into his face.
One more chance. The Winter Soldier knows he shouldn't even give his partner that much. That they're far past the point of trying to take him in alive and salvageable. But he finds himself hoping that the Captain will give him that opening, give him the chance to drag him back into the fold where they can fix him, where he can continue to run ops with him instead of facing that howling void again without knowing that the other Asset will be on the other side waiting for him.
So what now? It’s a valid question - a good question, a question anyone would ask. And normally, the Captain would have an immediate, effortless answer for him - missions always have parameters, after all, always a clear path to follow, even when there are contingencies branching out like the roots of a tree, racing away in a hundred different directions. Even then, the path is clear - follow the main objective, and if a problem arises, follow the next option to the next, and keep going until the mission is complete.
This mission is murkier - unclear. It’s a gut feeling - if the Captain knew what gut feelings were, could call them by name. He’s had them before - they’re actually part of what makes him valuable as a breathing, reasoning weapon, why they pull him out of cryo again and again - but the understanding of gut feelings and how they work and what they are has been burned from him, and it hasn’t yet returned. All he has is a certainty that this mission trumps all others, that this protocol is vital, and that he needs to drop everything else to pursue it.
So - that’s what now. That’s what they’ll do. The problem is, “We need information,” he says, fingers still poised above the knots holding the Soldier’s hands uncomfortably in place. It seems like the next logical step - you don’t act without intel, that’s just insane, but the problem is - he has the intel, and it’s locked away. The barriers are crumbling, but -
That’s it. “We need time,” he says next, burning eyes flicking to the shuttered windows, to the howling just beyond them. “I need time, to remember. We need to stay here, and you need to stop giving me injections.” It’s the reasonable move, after all - they’re not really working, but they're still slowing things down, barring the way, even though the barriers eventually give way. Stopping them would likely speed the process, let his synapses rebuild ruined pathways, let the burned-out bridges in his mind reroute. His lips twitch into something that’s barely an expression, barely a motion at all, but that the other asset might recognize as the Captain’s equivalent of a wry smile. “The weather seems to be accommodating for right now, at least.”
There’s still no telling how long the storm itself will last, but the longer it does, the more snow their lodge is buried under, and the longer they have before HYDRA comes looking for them. If they sit tight, and if they forego all contact protocols, if they sit and wait and let his mind keep recovering… the Captain is sure that what he needs will bob to the surface, will slough off the mud it’s under, and become clear.
His fingers flex a little, as the Solder’s shoulder bumps his own. Partners. That’s what they are, what they always have been, for the entire existence that he knows (can remember). They work well together, like two moving parts of a whole, like the trigger and the hammer of a gun, one complementing the other. The missions where they’re sent out together always feel the most complete, the most satisfying, and he wants to save that, to preserve it. He hopes, somewhere deep inside himself, that this new, desperate protocol won’t change that. If it does… if it does, he’ll deal with it then. He’ll have a choice to make.
But not right now. His fingers start to loosen the knots by touch, slowly but efficiently. He doesn’t simply remove the rope all at once, but he first gives the Soldier some slack, and then some more, ruined, still hard-to-focus eyes on the other asset’s face, watching for tells, watching for twitches, even as his fingertips feel for tremors in the other’s arms, signs that he’s going to fight back, to fight this. It’s only if he gets none of it that he’ll finally loosen the bonds, because if they’re in this for the long haul, together, then he can’t (he can, he doesn’t want to, he shouldn’t -) leave the Soldier tied and bound.
“We’re good - as partners,” he says, half a statement, half a question, seeking confirmation, agreement. “We always have been.” He can’t remember much, between the screaming and the hot-white-slicing pain of the chair, the beat-downs, the small army of guards it takes to subdue him and drag him into cryo, every time. He can’t remember past missions in detail, but he has enough - enough of those gut feelings, those sense memories - to be sure of what he’s saying. “We’re the best HYDRA has, together. I want to find out what else we can be.” And the answer, he’s so sure, is buried inside him, just beneath the surface, trying to claw its way free.
There's one thing they can agree on: the injections must stop. Clearly they aren't working. Not only that but now his partner knows they're coming, that they'll slow him down even as they do the job they're created for, and he'll be prepared to fight off any future attempts at mandatory medication.
It's times like this that the Winter Soldier catches himself almost...grateful that his own conditioning is simpler. Apparently less moving parts that can break in the field, away from the safety of a controlled environment. He doesn't need injections the way his partner does and his stint with the chair was only a few days ago, so he knows for a fact that it will hold for weeks, if not more, without needing to be revisited. Watching the way the Captain is struggling, how his eyes water behind a swollen, ruined face that his enhanced serum is trying to repair cell by cell, and he knows that what little stability the injections bring won't be worth the risk.
There's a difference between exercising patience on an op, waiting for a target. Doing it with a man he's trusted with his life over and over, and it's harder than he wants to admit.
The Winter Soldier's lips press together in a thin line that brings out the stress lines of his face, hollows his cheeks. His expression turns harsh as he tilts his head, trying to gauge how much of his partner's sight has returned.
"So long as it's together," he grunts, forcing himself to say the words, to act as if there is a life beyond HYDRA. It's harder than he thought it would be, considering his experience with deep cover, and he can feel his back teeth start to ache as he clenches and grinds them. "I don't want to be by myself again."
And that part, that part's true, it's the closest thing he has to deeply personal that he can manage with the conditioning, but it's necessary to feed out that vulnerability to his partner as if it's some olive branch for trying to incapacitate him. As he feels the rope around his wrist - his flesh wrist, not the metal one that's limp, the sensors fritzing on and off - loosen, he resists the immediate urge to break free and close his hand around the Captain's throat, squeeze the fight out of him and then call for backup from the nearest HYDRA cell. His eyes flicker down to the rope, loosening bit by bit, his wrist chaffed red because the Captain, despite his ruined eyes, the gunshot, has done the right thing and tied him up tight, before he glances back up at his face. He has to be looking for any of his usual tells that he's about to turn the tables. Knowing how high the stakes are, how important the Captain is to HYDRA (refusing to admit it's personal, too), the Winter Soldier does his damn best to make sure those tells don't show. For now he's docile, the second as always to his first.
It's only when the rope finally pools in his lap that he flexes his hand, trying to work some feeling in it. The metal one lies limp, the gleaming fingers twitching every now and then as the malfunctioning servos sputter.
"What do you think will happen after this?" the Winter Soldier plays ball and keeps things peaceful as he rotates his hand, curls each finger, his eyes burning judging holes in his partner's face. Once he heard someone describe the Captain as "handsome" - he wouldn't know, but he does know is he had short hair he approved of (less to grab), piercing blue eyes, and symmetrical features that consistently made targets want to like him. Now, with his face washed free of color from the pain, the cold, and the skin around his eyes a mask of angry red from the bleach, he doubts anyone would trust him the way they usually did.
Part of the Captain is… frightened isn’t the right word, but unsure, at the very least - he hasn’t been without his medication that he knows of, can’t remember a mission where it ran out, can’t remember a time before the daily injections he required between trips to the chair. He’s sure, in his gut, that stopping them will let what needs to break through come free, but even given that surety, there are hairline cracks, the last vestiges of his active and dormant programming, telling him that he shouldn’t stop, even when he thinks he should.
He ignores it - he’s made a decision, and he’s not going back on it now. To falter would show weakness, and HYDRA does not tolerate weakness. They built him to be strong, to be unstoppable, and even as he’s crumbling and unsure, he can’t give up the strength he still has, the conviction that this old, deep programming needs to come to light. It makes everything worth it - the excruciating pain in his shoulder, his ruined face, the way he’s tied up the Soldier, even if only temporarily. What little he can see of the expression on the other asset’s face makes him uncomfortable, in this deep, dark place, and he doesn’t like that feeling at all.
But the pit of unhappiness shrinks, when the asset finally speaks. When he confirms that they’ll do this together, that he doesn’t want to be alone. The lines of the Captain’s broad frame relax, as much as they can with the pain, and he nods, leg splaying out just a little, bumping the Soldier’s thigh with his own in this subtle, small gesture that none of their handlers have ever caught. “You won’t,” he says, and his conviction swells as he says it, beats back the unease just a little further. “I won’t let that happen.”
It’s not like the Captain to make empty threats; it’s unclear how he might carry this one out, when he is but a tool, a thing for HYDRA to point and punish and choose to use or lock away, but he means it, nonetheless. He won’t let them be separated, if he has to lie through his teeth when their handlers find them. He’ll deal with that when it happens, when he has the intel slowly shaking loose inside of him, when he can make an informed plan of action.
For now, they’ll wait.
“I don’t know,” he says, aware of the other asset’s gaze on his face, but steadfastly refusing to let anything but surety show on it. “If there’s a mission, we’ll complete it.” If it’s a mission, it will have parameters and an objective and an endpoint and a followup plan, just like all the others. Once he can grasp that information, he’ll feel infinitely better. “If it’s not, we’ll complete this mission, and I’ll handle the consequences.”
It’s clear he means by whatever means necessary, whether it’s lying or telling the truth. It’s clear that he means to handle those consequences himself, to ensure that no harm comes to his partner, nothing worse than the usual end-of-mission protocol. “We’ll stay together,” he promises. “We’re too valuable for them to split apart. I know how to make sure of that.”
For now, though, “Being knocked unconscious isn’t rest,” he points out. “And you had watch last night. Get some rest. You probably have a concussion. I can keep watch.” Even with eyes that aren't yet clear and sharp, his other senses are good enough to do as he proposes. And in a few hours, at most, his face and eyes will have healed enough that, while he still won't look as "handsome" as usual, he'll be fully operational - at least, in that respect. His arm still aches sharply, deep in the ruined joint, and he will endure it forever if he has to, but he doesn't like the idea of the injured arm slowing them down, if what he digs up from inside of himself doesn't include returning to HYDRA.
He'll deal with it then, though. Just like everything else.
That's what the Winter Soldier will tell himself, more than once. He's regained enough shreds of trust that he's fairly sure his partner won't walk off, grab one of the perfectly good steak knives on the kitchen counter, and slice open an artery while he's still bound. SOP says that's the best approach. But it doesn't happen, the Captain insists on a conversation, on indulging on these sentiments as if they aren't massive defects. Right now he's not sure what he means by "stay together". His immediate conditioned response is to assume that he's indeed a prisoner, no matter how the Captain dresses it up. If he were to take the other asset on in a fair fight? Truth is, he isn't sure he could win. The other man is the original, the one with the stronger serum burning in his system. Considering that, and what he can remember of those combat sessions they had against each other back on base, and he isn't sure he could win if it was just their naked fists.
"Fine," he says. At this point he'll probably be awake if he relaxes, if he dozes off. Concussions to them are inconveniences at most - his head pounds with a pressure from all sides and there's a few moments where he wonders if he'll throw up what little rations must still be in his gut.
At some point he supposes he doses off. When he opens his eyes, he'll see the Captain leaning over him a few times, eyes still red-rimmed but aimed his way with more focus, as if checking to make sure his healing factor is chugging along and that the concussion isn't suddenly a "complication".
When he wakes up again, he'll realize that the ropes around his wrists, ankles and legs are loosened enough that he can easily shake himself loose.
The knives on the counter are gone.
Getting up, the Winter Soldier winces, sore, but functional, and tries to make the best of this as he levers himself up. The ropes pool to the ground. His directive is the same. The Captain must either be incapacitated or killed when the opportunity presents itself. Doesn't matter what he said, or what he even told his partner. It has to happen and if he believed in a higher power than HYDRA, he'd be crossing his fingers and hoping he can aim for incapacitate instead of liquidate. First thing he does is assume that if he looks for weapons, opening and closing shelves and drawers, that the Captain will hear. It limits him to just a visual inspection and he can see that the Captain has used his own recovering eye sight to sanitize the room. Anything remotely lethal is missing. Whatever is bolted in place would require that he's already got the Captain tired and barely struggling.
The Winter Soldier huffs out a barely audible sigh. Long haul it is.
He finds his partner by the back entrance, already standing up straight with hardly any pained hunch to his frame and it looks like he swapped out the bandage around his torso's bullet wound. Damn. So much for hoping that any blood poisoning from the infection might've slowed him down. The Winter Soldier makes a mask of his face as he leans against the door frame, his malfunctioning arm hanging down by his side as it whirs uselessly, fingers twitching and spasming minutely every now and then.
"Storm still strong?" The Soldier doesn't circle things back to last night, to the whole part where he tried to cripple the closest thing he has to a friend. Instead he focuses on the now, on what he can control and assess, and hope, desperately, that his partner will give him an opening. With how the other Asset's shoulders square, and his red rimmed eyes rove, he isn't sure about his chances just yet. "The SHIELD agents might have risked it for all we know."
If he can't get to the Captain physically, he can at least try to seed in doubt psychologically. Try to plant something, make him second-guess (although he can't say for sure if SHIELD maybe did want them bad enough). The Winter Soldier remains propped against the door frame with his eyes burning holes in his partner. Maybe they're working together for now. But he can't shut off that instinct to look for hints of weakness, of aberration, in the other asset, and so he doesn't bother looking away as if he'll be embarrassed if caught.
The Winter Soldier sleeps, and the Captain feels something akin to relief. Not because the other is unconscious, but because he’s… being taken care of, getting what he needs to rest and recuperate. Neither of them is at peak operating capacity, the Captain least of all, and they both know it. He’s going to have to lean on the other asset for some things, given his own injury, and that’s exactly how it should be. They’re trained to work as a pair, complementary, giving over tasks to one or other other when one of them isn’t suited to it. This is how it should be… and yet the Captain finds himself rejecting that idea, the concept that he has to ask the other asset for help, that he can’t manage on his own. He’s a super soldier, HYDRA’s very best, and even down an arm, with his shoulder throbbing and stinging and still sluggishly bleeding, when he changes the dressing and has to grit his teeth and almost bites through his own tongue from the pain, he can manage on his own. It’s a foreign concept, worming its way in through the years of programming, but it’s strong and it’s persistent and it’s why he’s cleaned up and set the bleach-stained couch to rights and checked and double-checked their supplies. He goes out into the storm for a few buckets of snow, brings them inside where at least the temperature is above freezing and they’ll melt for fresh water. He cleans his shield and his uniform as best he can, and he cleans the Winter Soldier’s rifles and knives for the moment when he can give them back. There’s no point in letting good equipment go bad because of blood or rust or dirt.
But he doesn’t leave the weapons - or anything else that can be used as a weapon - in the same room as the other asset. He’s not stupid, and he knows the Winter Soldier’s orders, now, if he thinks the Captain is unsalvageable.
He’s not - he’s fine, he’s salvageable, he’s good - but he doesn’t want to leave room for uncertainty. Not in that respect, when he’s still not sure of what’s trying to grow and bloom inside his own head.
He hears the other asset wake and move, even over the sound of the storm; by now, his vision has returned almost to normal, even if his face is still a little blotchy, and some of his hair is a little discolored, damaged where the liquid splashed into it. He’s standing tall, not giving away any sign of pain, but his face looks worn and drawn, even under the new, pink skin around his eyes. He glances over, as the Soldier approaches, as he speaks, and the Captain’s smile is a grim, barely-there twitch of his lips, just like always. “It’s the same,” he says, indicating the storm - the snow is piling up against the side of the building, and the wind has barely let up, if at all. The sky is still an unbroken ceiling of darkness, and if there’s an end, he hasn’t been able to spot it approaching.
He considers what the Soldier suggests - that SHIELD is still looking for them, and… it seems reasonable enough. They are valuable assets, of course. He watches the Soldier watching him, and he tilts his head - a question between them. “Do you think we should move?”
His dry, steady tone of voice communicates clearly that he thinks any answer other than no would be a mistake. The storm is too strong, the terrain is too unfamiliar, and their would-be captors are an unknown that gnaws at his gut. This entire thing has been a mess, and clearly their intel was incorrect. That means SHIELD is now largely an unknown factor, and he doesn’t like that - just like the programming inside his head, an unknown factor all its own.
They have the advantage here, what little of it they have. They can fortify, they can learn this place quickly and determine all its strengths and weaknesses, they can mount a defense that SHIELD won’t expect. He’d rather go down in a hail of bullets than freeze to death in a snowdrift on a mountaintop. And he doesn’t want that end for the Soldier, either. It’s weak, it’s not what they were built for.
And something about that idea, that notion specifically, curls so cold and frightening in his gut that even his animal fear of the chair and his handlers and every punishment HYDRA has ever inflicted on him pales in comparison. He will never die in the ice and snow, and he will never let the Winter Soldier die that way, either.
“What’s the status of your arm?” he asks, instead, as though he isn’t the one who’d disabled it during their fight. As though he isn’t the one who feels like every thought he has is like stepping on thin ice, never sure where his foot is going to break through and take him, screaming, beneath the surface. He can feel the very last vestiges of his last injection wearing away, and it’s making him antsy, uncomfortable. He’s still fighting for control of his mind, his mission, and grasping at his training and his partner as those last familiar failsafes. He knows he wanted to stop the injections. He just knows that doesn’t make the idea of it any more appealing.
Moving would be a poor idea in this weather. Maybe it would've been worth the risk if the Captain was more injured, enough to keep him pliable and easier to control what he does until HYDRA backup arrives. But he's already healed the worst of the bleach damage; what remains is just cosmetic, and so it isn't worth the risk going out there. The Winter Soldier shakes his head, his lips pressed into a thin line as he files away the option of going back into the unforgiving cold and the snow under "unlikely". At least until he can try again with the other asset and establish a line of communication with the nearest HYDRA cell.
"Poor," the Winter Soldier opts for being truthful. After failing to incapacitate his partner, he'll need to work on buying enough of that trust back so he can get another opening. If it means being upfront about his weaknesses, then so be it. "It'll lower my effectiveness once we leave if it's left non-functional."
He can operate without it if needed. There had been plenty of exercises with it detached, both against the Captain and against select trainees fast-tracked to rise in the ranks. Some of them had found that no matter their skill level, their background - they couldn't last even a minute when he was one-handed and they thought he wouldn't kill because of their background, their contacts, the fact they were too prideful to surrender. The Captain, though. He'd always lasted. Always knew to go for his weak spot, use the missing limb to his advantage in any exercises, and he knew how to disable him using pain, location, and bone breaks on the flesh side. There had always been an immediacy about his approach. The Winter Soldier remembers respecting that, even if most of the actual details were only faint impressions of pain and smell and sound. Glancing at his partner, the Soldier studies him and he has to assume that part hasn't change. The injections may not have worked...but his sense of tactics, of taking advantage of a perceived weakness? Those are still fresh and he can't assume those will degrade too.
The Winter Soldier touches his damaged arm. It's non-functional from the elbow joint down to the wrist, where most of the damage was done. His face feels tender, as if he'd run headfirst into a tinder block, and there's no doubt some swelling from the Captain smashing his face into the floor as hard as he did. There's a vague memory that he hadn't settled for hitting him just the once. He'd done in multiple times, to be thorough. To be exact. Good to know that some instincts haven't degraded like his mental conditioning has.
It's a small comfort.
"You need to decide what to do about my arm," the Winter Soldier plunks that into his partner's lap. While he has his SOP to carry out, for now the Captain still has higher rank...and he must know that if he really wants the two of them to walk out of here, he can't have his partner crippled. It's weighing the odds, the pros and cons. How far he's willing to go to drag someone with him in this. "Either it needs to be repaired or you can leave me here."
The snow will die down, eventually. Probably can make his way out, contact the nearest cell. Take his chances dodging the SSR. Not ideal scenarios. But there's a choice, and now it's laid out in front of Rogers to choose how much he wants to risk for this unspoken, impossible mission of his. Things won't be the same between them. They can't be; not when the Winter Soldier has that new order brimming to the surface, feeling like it's somehow pulling at his nerve endings and his very bones and skin. Not when the Captain is acting like he'll go AWOL. Not when he speaks as if this invisible mission of his supersedes HYDRA itself.
The Captain looks at the Soldier for a long moment, at the way he touches the arm, at the damage he himself inflicted. He can remember, vividly, the feel of the metal giving under his grip, the sound it made, the way he felt dealing out the damage. It didn’t feel good. It felt like a mission he didn’t want to complete, a mission that made him sick to his stomach, despite the fact that he knew it had to be done. And when the Winter Soldier points out, bluntly, that he’s going to have to make a decision - he’s right.
So the Captain makes the call, because that’s what he does. He has been honed and trained to evaluate every single situation, take in all the information, and make the right call. “I’ll repair it,” he says, just as bluntly, just as confidently and with no room for argument. He isn’t a tech, of course, doesn’t possess the specialized skills for significant repairs. But he’s well versed in the arm’s workings and on the most basic ways to repair it, the best workarounds and solutions for the field, because he’s got to be. HYDRA had planned for every contingency (or, at least, so they thought): for the Captain’s time in the chair to wear off, and for the Soldier’s arm to become damaged. Of course, HYDRA always planned to ensure their super soldiers were accompanied by handlers, and that’s no longer true, but that never meant they didn’t give their most valuable assets the tools and skills they needed to keep each other going.
It’s… good, knowing he can do something about the arm. Of course, he’s the one who damaged it in the first place, but he can still undo it. He can make the Solider functional again, give him what he needs to survive, and even though the Captain knows it’s a gamble against his own survival, he doesn’t hesitate to make that call.
“I’ll repair your arm,” he repeats, not because he doesn’t think it was understood, but because now he’s using it as a jumping-off point, now it’s the basis of their new plan. “And then we’re going to lay out all the intel we have on the SSR, and what we heard there. I want to know more about Rogers and Barnes.” And this time, he won’t let the Soldier shy away from the names, from what he might know. They’re going to go digging, and it might not be pleasant, but it’s going to yield results. He’s sure of it.
In fact… he considers for only a moment before he decides that they can do both at once, really. He can repair the arm and they can talk at the same time. He glances out the windows, at the grey skies and the blowing snow, and makes a third call: “We can afford a fire,” he decides, because the lodge has a nice big fireplace and plenty that will burn and any smoke will be blown away quickly, lost in the gale still raging outside. He’s cold and stiff, his shoulder aching fiercely, and the Soldier can’t be feeling much better, with a damaged arm. They could both do to warm up, and there’s no reason to stay in these less-than-optimal conditions, with the storm blowing enough to dissipate any sign of their presence. “Help me gather kindling.” They sure make a pair, each with a damaged arm, but between the two of them, they can start a fire easily enough, and sit down by it so the Captain can pull out the repair kit he keeps in his belt and get to work on the Soldier’s arm. And then they can talk about Rogers and Barnes.
Good. The Winter Soldier would prefer it if the Captain just turned himself over and came quietly, but fixing his damaged arm is something he'll take without complaint. Another possible weapon against his partner, a higher chance that he might be able to take in the other asset without incapacitating him permanently. He nods, as satisfied as he can feel with this small victory.
It's something.
The Winter Soldier falls into place as the Captain makes for the door. The arm repair will come next, when he's back inside, when he can't ambush the other asset out in the snow. He doesn't try to jump the Captain as they venture outside, the biting cold against lancing across their exposed skin and he takes point again, part of out muscle memory, part because he's aware that even his partner, with that new, alien mission buzzing around in his mind like a corruption, wants him where he can see him. He's lost the white mask that usually muzzles his lower face, his lips numbing as he ducks his head and presses out into the snow. Visibility is low, a swirling mass of white smearing against shapes of buildings, of a garage and bowing bushes and trees. It's not as bad as the first night. He presses on, spreading out with the Captain to search near the forest's edge. Some of the kindling is too wet and will need to be tried. Others have recently fallen, the Winter Soldier holding as much as he can with one working arm until the Captain calls it for the day.
They return back inside, snow drifting across the foyer's floor before the door's tugged shut and locked. It's enough for a fire for a few hours, at least, and the Winter Soldier finds himself tasked with getting it started as his partner spreads out the repair kit: small, compact, but with everything needed to get his arm in working order.
The Winter Soldier sits down by the fire, close enough to get some of the heat warming his body. Far enough, though, that he can't possibly kick the sparking logs at the Captain. The time for that was yesterday. If he wants another crack at his partner, it'll be later, when he's good and ready and sure that this time he won't hesitate. Until then, he cooperates.
He's dragged over one of the end tables closer to the sofa, pulling it closer so he can grip his left arm by its chrome wrist and set it down on top with a dull clang. The arm's heavy when he isn't controlling it: a normal man would've had trouble lifting it. His fingers remain curled in mechanical rigor mortis as he glances over at the Captain. His face by now looks almost as good as new, unfortunately. The other asset's skin is reddened from snow exposure but his eyes are more alert and focused and whatever advantage he might've had from the corneal damage is gone.
"You said you wanted to talk," the Winter Soldier does everything he can to show that he's cooperating. Behaving. Displaying the obedience that he normally wouldn't have to fake. His gut wants to keep following his Captain even though his mind knows better. Knows that HYDRA must come first even before the man. His chin lifts as he glances at the fire, his face cast half in amber as he looks into the sparks and tries to steel himself for what will be...unpleasant. Very unpleasant.
For all that they have an (uneasy) truce, they’re both on edge. The Captain’s body language is tense, but every move is still controlled, deliberate, powerful. His mind is in turmoil, but he refuses to let his guard down, even as the Winter Soldier passes by every chance he gets to possibly take control of the situation. In the Captain’s mind, he wants it to be a measure of trust - but in his gut, he knows it’s not. They both know the Soldier’s chances of winning a fight against him, with the two of them in the states they’re in. Neither is at his best, but the Captain has always had the advantage, and he’s regained most of it; the Winter Soldier has lost the majority of his, with the arm nonfunctional. So it’s an uneasy truce, and it feels uncomfortable and foreign and like a wound the Captain keeps worrying open instead of letting it close. It’s a metaphorical thorn in his side much worse than the real bullet in his shoulder.
Once the fire is crackling, and the Winter Soldier has his arm laid out on the table, the Captain lowers himself gracefully, soundlessly to the sofa despite his bone-weariness - fatigue is not tolerated, and neither is showing it - and puts his bare hands to the chilled metal, assessing with his fingers as well as his eyes before he even picks up the first tool.
“Yes,” he confirms, his eyes on his work without lifting at the sound of the Soldier’s voice. He picks up the first instrument and begins working, testing the seams of each meal plate to find where they’re most badly bent, and where access to the arm’s inner workings will be easiest to gain. “I want to talk about what you know. What you remember. About Rogers and Barnes.”
He pauses, just for a few breaths. He knows - they both know - that the chair is more effective on the Soldier. It always has been; it’s why the Captain needs the injections, needs his partner, needs his handlers when missions go on too long. It’s why there are so many failsafes in place, except all of them have failed spectacularly, to this point. Well - almost all of them. The Soldier might have ostensibly failed, but he’s down, not out. They both know it.
“Start with the base,” he suggests. “With what you heard. How they reacted to you.” Even if the Solider won’t gain recall of a past mission, at least he’ll be able to fulfill that order. The Captain even offers up his own tidbit, as if laying out an olive branch. “When they called me Rogers… they really believed I was him. Whoever he was. They weren’t trying to make me believe it. They believed it.” He knows, based on all of his observations - pupil size, breathing rates, vocal tones and eye movements - that what he’s saying is true. “I’m not sure even their intelligence is bad enough to try to convince me I’m one of my past covers.” The SSR is weak, but not stupid. Which means, they don’t think Rogers was his cover. They think it was his. His everything. His life.
They're close, again, the two of them in a way that should feel comfortable, better now that it's just them in the field without the handlers watching their every move. Before he thought it was just battle assessment. Now he knows that they were looking for weaknesses in the mental suppression, any moment HYDRA isn't the first thought in their minds. Now he looks back on what he remembers - what he can even remember, because most are fragments - and he'll realize that the eyes had usually been on the Captain. Him, he'd been more or less safe. Reliable. Now he knows why.
He studies his partner. The Captain takes his time looking at the damage to the cybernetics, almost as thorough as his own team of techs, inspecting each plate.
"The base," the Winter Soldier says, that small hint of distaste again in his voice, flat to everyone else but the man who knows him most. "They started with asking the usual. Name; age; rank. They had a list of names they were asking: people we sanctioned over the years, I think."
A few struck a primal cord. Recognition, even if he couldn't point out a face from a lineup. Maybe the kill had stood out, been more difficult and engaging. Maybe it had been something more deep cover and maybe he'd had to fraternize to get closer to the target. Others were just blanks, the memory suppression keeping it away from him in case he was tortured. His lips purse as he thinks back, tries to ignore how almost pleasant the sedative felt - no howling nothing like cryo, no fear or nausea or wondering if he'll see the Captain again or if this is it. He just was. It's an unacceptable weakness he'll report back to his new handlers once this is over...assuming he makes it back to at all. There's still time for the Captain to change his mind and finish what he really should've started.
The Winter Soldier goes on, his monotone more pronounced than usual, almost as if he's retreating behind it and raising a shield. "They were handling me with kid gloves. Incorrect dosage. Thought I heard them call me Barnes, but I'd have to verify back with command if that's my name or an old alias."
Does it matter? They botched the mission, maybe not as badly as their handlers did, but they're making it worse by discussing this. By thinking of themselves outside of HYDRA.
"I don't remember Rogers or Barnes," and maybe the Winter Soldier betrays himself with a little shrug, his eyes darting to the fire sparks popping off the wood as they crack and resettle. The golden glow cast in the room pulls at him, seems to tug at some old memory he can't identify the when. Something about this position seems familiar, right down to the gentle hands on his arm, although it had been cleaning a wound of dirt, wrapping gauze on skin that wasn't there... "They said I served with you. That we used to fight for America." His mouth twitches. "Easy for them to say without proof. I'd want confirmation before I believe the SSR. They got lucky, but they're desperate. They don't have soldiers like us in the field and I suspect they'd want us instead of making their own."
“Maybe they had us,” the Captain suggests, because while he can sort of
maybe reconcile the idea that maybe he had a name and a life once, he’s
still unable to really, truly, get a grasp on free will just yet. So he
takes what he knows - what he’s heard and what he can feel, deep in his gut
- and fits it into his strange, cobbled-together picture of the world,
based on chairs and drugs and handlers and nothing but endless missions,
and comes up with that. And, on the heels of it, “Maybe they lost us to
HYDRA,” he muses, brain ticking over the possibilities as a picture starts
to maybe slot into place, all the while keeping his eyes on the Soldier’s
arm, his hands moving as the tools test and repair each interlocking
section before moving on to the next. He knows he’s hard to control - even
without whatever’s going on in his head, trying to break free, he knows.
His handlers have told him, time and again, it’s been coded into his very
being, how hard he is to control, and how hard HYDRA has worked to bring
him to this point. Maybe the SSR never could. Maybe, in letting him have a
name, more freedom, something, he became too hard to control, and they lost
him. HYDRA had picked up the pieces, and perfected them, and -
He feels the tiniest pang of longing for the order HYDRA has always brought
to his life. The last little bit of his programming is holding on tooth and
nail, making him miss the simplicity of the chair, the drugs. They’re
frightening and abhorrent, yes. But they also bring peace and order and
they keep him working with the Soldier.
He must have been working with the Soldier for even longer than he’s known,
if they used to fight for America together. He knows, beyond anything else,
that he doesn’t want to lose that.
He moves on down the Soldier’s arm, bypassing the crumpled outer plates for
now - he’ll have to fix those later, but the intricate inner workings must
come first, and piece by piece, the Soldier's motility returns. Regardless
of what might have happened with the SSR in the past, “Of course they want
us,” he agrees. Why make something when you can steal it and bend it to
your will? The Captain has no doubt now that’s what HYDRA must have done,
and they did it well. He also has no doubt that if the SSR figures
it out, they could potentially do the same.
He isn’t sure, all of a sudden, how he feels about the fact that he might
have changed hands, switched sides, countless times before - all depending
on who held the switch. Who held the better drugs, the best chair.
“We’re just pawns,” he finally says, almost coming to a realization. He
knew this already - of course they’re pawns, they’re tools that can be
moved around the board to serve whatever purpose is needed. He’d never
questioned that, and it’s true now, but the question of allegiance had
never come to the fore. Now it’s here, staring him in the face. “We could
have switched sides before.”
Finally, he glances up at the Soldier. He wants to know what his partner
feels about that.
The theory seems to bring the Winter Soldier up short.
The thing is, he never considered life before HYDRA. Why would he? All he needed to continue operations was a team of handlers, the reassurance that HYDRA was 1) still on target for its goal and 2) the Captain was still on the field. Everything else was...irrelevant. The expression on his face turns into more of a frown than that neutral, mask-like state it usually takes when he's on board with how things are panning out. His good hand tightens into a fist before he forces it to relax.
"It's...possible," and from the sound of it, not one the Winter Soldier wants to agree with. His own mental conditioning demands full loyalty to HYDRA: he'd been easier to break than the Captain and that means that those loyalties are burned in deeper, a cancer inside his body and mind keeping him operating instead of breaking down with the reality of what's been done to the both of them. "But they weren't strong enough to keep us. That should say enough."
A pause, then, as his eyes, blue and cold, travel down to inspect the other asset's work.
"I don't think it should make a difference," the Winter Soldier says, thin-lipped, not realizing he's displaying those small, tell-tale signs he's on edge. Only the Captain could pick them out, used to the slightest deviations from his status quo. "HYDRA wants to correct the world, steer it on the best course. The SSR doesn't seem like they want to play ball."
Which is enough for the Soldier, with his simplified mental conditioning. It should be that simple.
Glancing back up at his partner's face shows it isn't that simple.
He stares back at the Captain's face, studies how the firelight flickers and paints fresh lines in it. He can't pinpoint the other man's exact age. There's a timeless quality there helped along with a good dose of cryo. Before this, he couldn't have even said if they started the super soldier program at the same time. It wouldn't have mattered, really. It shouldn't have mattered. Suddenly it seems to. Now he wonders if they'd served together. If they were from the same batch. All thoughts that will swirl around, confused, banging up against walls that hadn't anticipated those questions. His lips purse.
The Winter Soldier's the first to break eye contact, giving himself a moment of glancing at the table, then at the windows covered by thick, dusty curtains, to wait for his trusted programming to kick in and correct whatever doubts he might have. Whatever "instabilities" might be trying to worm in, invasive, unwanted. He tells himself it's unwanted, almost convinces himself those thoughts are his.
The ghost of a frown, the slight downturn of lips on the Soldier's face… it strikes at something deep in the Captain. It's… familiar. It's comforting. He can't say why, but it is, even when the expression isn't necessarily a pleasant one.
He can't argue with the Soldier's assessment of the situation. Even if the SSR had them, they don't anymore, and that implies weakness. They should shy away from weakness, stand beside the strongest - and HYDRA is the strongest. But there's something in the Captain that catches at that, that keeps getting hung up on the SSR and their thankless plight. They are desperate and scattered and humane - not nearly as ruthless as HYDRA - and that is why they will lose.
Or, something inside him whispers, at the edges of his mind, is that why they will win?
When their eye contact breaks, the Captain sits back and lets the Soldier assess his repairs so far; whereas someone else might have made a gesture, a little go ahead, he just pulls back his hands and knows the other will understand what he means. The Soldier is most definitely on edge, uncomfortable, and something in the Captain hates making him this way… and yet he can't stop pushing for it, too. Can't stop pushing for that discomfort, for him to think, rather than accept.
"The SSR wants something different," he concedes, after a moment. That much is true. "They steer, but - they don't correct." Even as he says it, something flickers behind his eyes. Something about the words, those words exactly. He and the Soldier have both been through countless corrections. Most, he can't remember, except for the way they make him react, like Pavlov's dog, snapping to the appropriate response, be it fear - never show fear - or force, at the right prompting. HYDRA corrects. Their world requires many corrections, because there is no room for imperfection. Imperfection is weak. Cogs that think too much for themselves are weak.
But imperfections don't have to be flaws. Differences can make something stronger. That thought worms its way up through the Captain's gut unwarranted, and he leans in close again, to catch the Soldier's eye. "What if there were no more corrections," he says, and even now, as HYDRA's control is slipping, his voice is quiet, almost a whisper, as though the room is bugged and they'll hear him. Punish him. Correct him. "What if we were…"
He doesn't know the word he wants to use. Equals? Trusted? People?
He picks up the next tool, unconsciously biting at one corner of his lip, a tic that should never appear on an asset's face. It feels like pushing a bruise, thinking about it too much. It hurts, but he can't stop. He has to see how far he can go. "What if HYDRA's way isn't the only way. Why are we beholden to them?"
The Winter Soldier's looking tense again despite the fact that he isn't bleeding, he doesn't have broken bones and he isn't convulsing in the Chair. Even so, his face looks drawn, his jaw tightening, and he leans forward now, almost as if he'd like nothing more than to take whatever subversive thought has infected his partner and beat its skull in. If only it was that easy. But something in him wants to pause, to listen. To drag his feet instead of reaching out and forcing the Captain's head into the fire, like he would've with any other compromised asset.
"Because HYDRA will correct the world," he replies, and his voice is small, tight, even as his eyes burn blue at the Captain. How could he question this? It's the order of things. HYDRA has the will to do what no one else has the stomach or drive for - isn't that much obvious? "Those corrections allow us to help others."
He stares back at the Captain, unwilling to show how unnerved he is (is that the word?) at this new, alien conviction of his. The Captain almost doesn't look human to him. The skin around his eyes is sill seared red from the bleach and he blinks too much. But something about him looks too symmetrical, the blue in his eyes suddenly overly saturated. Piercing. It almost feels like he can see right to his core and the primary objective of deal with a rogue Asset that's spread through the Winter Soldier like the plague.
"Doing anything less would be selfish. We're helping people in the long run," he says. He'll insist on it. For all the brainwashing, all the torture through traditional pain, chemicals, and the Chair, and that's the most effective line that HYDRA has used. That they're looking at the great picture. Sacrificing themselves for future generations. They might not enjoy the fruits of a peaceful, orderly world, but billions will. Small price to pay. They can rest once that's carried out. Put like that, the Winter Soldier can only struggle to follow his partner's thought process. Is he saying that they should....that they should come first?
"I know we're helping people," the Captain says quietly, quickly, his voice insistent - almost irritated - as he sets the next tool to the Soldier's arm. It's true - helping people is important, it's vital, it's the only mission. It's not about being selfish, he thinks furiously, but, "What if this isn't the best way? What if they don't want it? What if we don't want it?"
His brow furrows, and his foot actually starts tapping a little impatiently, before he seems to catch himself and falls back into stillness. When he continues speaking, it's with his eyes on the delicate work repairing the Soldier's arm, his voice soft but clear, piercing the soft roar of the winter storm.
"If we can't see the long run, then we don't know," he says. "We only have what we're told, and our handlers are fallible. They can be wrong." They both know that, learned that firsthand hours ago. Their handlers aren't perfect. Their handlers are dead. And with them is the Captain's conviction in them, slowly - maybe not-so-slowly - being eaten away by underlying programming that scares as much as it excites him.
He looks up at the other Asset now, hands pulling away, face twisted into something that's almost entreating. "What if we're wrong, to stay? We can't - I can't - "
He makes a noise of dissatisfaction, skin crawling and heart racing and he sets the tools down with far more care than the way he pushes himself up a moment later, not willing to harm the Soldier with this excess energy running through him, but feeling the need to suddenly be on his feet, to be doing something, but the storm is still raging outside and his partner is still an unnerving wall of blank conviction here inside with him. "I don't know what to do," he says, and there's the tiniest bit of fear, of frustration, in his tone - so tiny that only the other Asset would recognize it at all, but to him, it must be like a blaring siren, flashing lights. "I don't know what's right. I think this protocol," the one that's trying to break free - that is breaking free - "is doing this to me. I don't even know if I like it."
The Asset hunkers down, imagining his programming closing in around him like armor. It should hold.
He isn't sure how old he is, just how long he's been in operation. At least years judging by the change in handler faces and the car shapes and he assumes that can be easily stretched out into decades with cryofreeze. HYDRA's goal is too great for the individual. For this we. The skin around his eyes tightens as he squints, just a hair, and he might as well be openly glaring at the Captain for all their shared history together.
"It shouldn't be up to you - or me - to like it. And even if those were in our mission parameters, I don't understand why you seem to - to accept this. There's no we."
The Asset's voice comes out low and raspy, just like it always does; the voice of a man who doesn't do much talking because there's no need. Because he'd already screamed out any undesirable tendencies in the suppression chair, it's arc humming away like a drone. Now he almost catches himself wishing it was here. At the very least it could've remove the edge of this other side of the Captain he's seeing. He leans forward, even though his arm is still shot, even though there's still plenty of work to do and he knows he should keep his partner's trust. Giving in too easily, nodding along to everything he says? That would send up more red flags in front of the other asset. With the bleach attempt still fresh in their minds, he has to minimize anything that would let the other man suspect he was different. That he was faking it until real help came.
Limit the red flags. He needs to react how he normally would, which is digging in his heels. Believe in HYDRA. HYDRA is everything. One day, maybe in his extended lifetime, he might even see HYDRA share its gifts with the world.
Strangely, it...hurts to think the Captain might not be there to see it too.
"Someone should inspect this new protocol," he says. "Determine if it's from HYDRA or the SSR."
Not that he expects the SSR to have had enough time to do it right. But he'd been unconscious for how long and he doesn't know how long the Captain was alone with them. It's a valid concern. The Captain, after all, had been operating perfectly until their capture. No sense leaving that leaf un-turned.
His stares at his partner, eyes seeming to dully seek his face. Outside of combat, the Winter Soldier tends to have a glassy, drugged-out look, like he can't quite focus on the world: deceptive, though, because behind those flattened eyes, he's always observing. Picking out allies and escape routes and cover. It beats wallowing in the pain, reminding himself he came out of cryo alive. There's a hint of a spark in there, of awareness. No handler has seen it. The Captain, though. They're cut from similar cloth. He won't speak down to him, pretend he's a drooling idiot. Even when his eyes drifted to the floor and his mouth fell slack, he'd caught the Captain staring right at him, speaking right at him. Maybe he doesn't want to lose that.
...Maybe he hangs onto the idea of a second chance for his partner.
"Think about it. It's a waste to liquidate you if the SSR is responsible," the Asset adds quietly. HYDRA, of course, would want to know how the SSR managed. Surely they'd keep the Captain alive during processing. Maybe he'd have enough time to talk to the new handlers, drive in the point that the Winter Soldier and the Captain are worth the endless late nights of R&D.
"And if it's HYDRA?" the Captain says, so low and quiet it'd be impossible
for anyone but the other asset to hear. "If this protocol is something
HYDRA wants me to have - or used to want me to have?"
He can't begin to guess at HYDRA's true intentions. He knows what he's been
told, and he knows what he's been forced to believe, because he remembers
the chair, too - he remembers how it burns and it hurts until it's wiped
away everything, but he also remembers that there is something
before the calm that comes when the electric buzzing finally, finally shuts
off and he's left with only the sound of his breath rattling between his
teeth, clenched on the black rubber mouthguard between them. He knows there
is something there that the chair wipes away each time, even if it's still
squarely out of reach.
But what if it's this? What if it's this thing that's trying to uncoil
inside him, this conviction that all the procedures are wrong, that the
path might be right but the steps they're taking down it are sideways,
backwards, faltering when they could be something else. He looks at the
Soldier, and he sees in him something far more precious than any conviction
the chair could give him. He sees in the Soldier the things he wants, far
more than the purpose the chair tries to implant. He watches the other
asset's profile in the flickering firelight, and it comes on him suddenly,
absolutely, like being pulled under freezing water and opening your mouth
to get nothing but cold fluid, instead of precious air. "I don't want to
let anyone take this away from me," he says, voice still hoarse and quiet,
eyes bright - almost feverish - as he sinks down again in front of the
Soldier, eyes boring into his. "And I don't want to let anyone take
you away from me."
It's ridiculous. It's laughable, that he wants to... to own the
Soldier - is that right? He isn't sure, but he doesn't have any other way
to describe what it is he's feeling. He wants to take the Soldier by the
hand and disappear into the night, run away from HYDRA and the SSR and
anyone, anything, that would seek to choose their path for them. He wants
to find a new path, but his thoughts still mirror the Soldier's along one
key line: he doesn't want to do it alone. And the Soldier is the only one
he wants with him.
The Captain shakes his head, breaking eye contact as he makes a frustrated
sound and stands up abruptly, fists clenching. "You don't feel the same
way," he says gruffly, like he's deciding before the other asset can even
confirm or deny it. But he knows. He knows. "You still want to turn me in
for repairs and maintenance. Reconditioning."
It's not really an accusation, but it's not really not, either. He
blows out a breath and moves to sit back down like he'd said nothing at
all, picking up the next tool, attention back on the Soldier's damaged arm
like he's ending the conversation. But all the same, it hangs there, what
he'd said, in the heavy, pregnant space between them as he gets back to
work, frustration and tension in every line of him, agitation replacing
what once was trying to be calm.
"If it's HYDRA, then it must be right. Then maybe I must not be cleared for this, but it must be right."
The Winter Soldier frowns again as he processes this and maybe, just maybe, that would've been enough. But he watches his partner, sees the tightening of his jaw, and he knows, somehow, that this isn't over with. The the Captain has more to say, he will share it and because he shares his innermost thoughts, he makes this harder and harder by the second. His eyes, blue and so pale they're almost devoid of color, are locked on the micro-expressions of the other asset's face, still reddened from the bleach but for all intents and purposes, already healed. Truth is, he hasn't thought about what HYDRA used to want. What matters it the current orders, the current handlers. The current Command. For the first time in his operation, it suddenly occurs to him that they have a backlog of old, outdated orders and there's a human error there - maybe, just maybe, the handlers, the techs, have failed in their duties. Maybe they didn't clear the backlog. Maybe they didn't make sure they were properly wiped.
It's enough to make even the Winter Soldier pause. Re-evaluate.
What if this isn't a defect in the Captain? What if this is a tech problem? What if it could be fixed once those faulty, lazy techs are replaced?
His focus snaps back to the Captain as he kneels in front of him, as if he's surrendering. The Winter Soldier visibly goes stiff at the sight and the discomfort radiates out of him as in a cloud even as his worn, exhausted face schools into an expressionless mask.
Even when he gets back up, his words ring, wriggling in deep like shrapnel lodged in soft tissue. The Winter Soldier's lips part. No words come. He doesn't have them. HYDRA hasn't allowed his mind, his perspective, to broaden wide enough to be able to counter this. Something behind his eyes pales and flattens, glazes over as if waiting for someone to tell him what to do. There's no handler hissing orders in his ear. There's just the crackle-pop of the fire, the dim pulsing glow that washes against his outstretched arm and the Captain's strong jaw. Of course what he says is true. He doesn't feel that same way about him. He can't. How could he? His conditioning is still stable and he can still focus on the mission, on HYDRA's long-term goals. So why does this strange, ugly feeling curdle in his stomach and leave a bad taste in his mouth? Why does he wish that his partner didn't say any of that?
He's disappointingly silent at first, just like the Captain expected. No affirmations that no, he does feel the same way, that no, they really are together until the end of the line. His eyes drop to watch the the little steel pick slipping between the exposed titanium plates and he lingers on it more than he needs to.
"I'd want you to do the same for me. Reconditioning is the only way to ensure we operate together." The Winter Soldier frames this in a way he can understand. That he can accept. His chapped lips purse. The unused smile lines at the corners of his eyes are visible thanks to the shadows cast by the fireplace. "I'm failing to understand why this's so hard for you to accept, Captain."
There's an almost childish earnestness now, as if things really are that black and white. The poison of HYDRA's mental programming has always run stronger in the Winter Soldier than the Captain. Now it's even more evident. And now the Captain might even be able to see it for what it is - a leash, a collar, chains around the both of them and while his are weakening until he might even flex and snap the brittle metal, the Winter Soldier's still tied down, prostrated on his hands and knees like a worshiper who's spent so long looking at the floor that he doesn't dare look up if the chains go slack. Not after all this time, all these years.
Reconditioning is the only way to ensure we operate together. The
Captain frowns at the words, unhappy and agitated, even as his hands work
steadily on the arm, repairing the damage as best he can, piece by delicate
piece. "Is it?" he asks, and it's not argumentative, like most of the other
things out of his mouth. It's unsure - pleading, almost, because he knows
what he feels in his gut - a bone-deep need to stay together, to
stand by the Winter Soldier, to keep them together. No matter what.
But he also feels that same bone-deep disgust for the chair, for the
handlers, for the drugs they pump through him and the way they make him
forget… things. Things he hasn't even remembered yet - things just beneath
the surface, dark shapes in the water that dissolve as soon as he reaches
for them.
So it's a conundrum, really - a no-win scenario, because he either stays
with the Soldier, goes in for reconditioning like the well-trained asset he
is and forgets… this, whatever this is forming inside him. Or he runs, fast
and hard, with every weapon and skill at his disposal, and he loses the
Soldier, leaves him behind or, maybe worse, captures him and holds him
captive until one of them is forced to kill the other.
He cannot lose the Soldier. They cannot be separated. But the Captain
cannot go back.
His eyes lift from what he's doing as his hands keep working steadily, blue
eyes searching for their match in the other asset's face. "I want to
operate together," he says, and at least some of the old surety is back,
the inflection in his voice now nothing but absolute, rock-solid
conviction. "I want to stay together. It's important." Whether it's
programming or something else - what else could it be? - it's what he
wants, in every atom of his being. It's what he needs to stay alive. To
continue functioning. To be… himself? Who is he?
The Winter Soldier will pause now to consider his next course of action. His partner seems suddenly reasonable; willing to listen, to compromise. In his mind, torn and shredded and rebuilt by the conditioning, "compromise" can only mean submitting to HYDRA. The words that spill from the Captain's mouth should be promising. But he wonders, suddenly, if this is too easy. Why his partner, who had asserted his unquestionable dominance between assets, who had spared his life despite their training, is suddenly asking for his professional opinion.
He stares back, unwilling to lose this moment of clarity that he hopes to grab onto. The Captain is unstable. But maybe he can be prodded in the right direction; stalled; delayed. Brought back to HYDRA in one piece instead of in a bodybag. He hopes this is one of those openings.
"I don't..." the Winter Soldier trails off, his voice, normally hoarse and ragged at the edges, suddenly closing off. This should be easy, after all. Tell the Captain to immediately turn himself in. Do exactly what his conditioning says is SOP if he can't (won't?) just kill his partner. HYDRA, after all, could probably put him on ice, dredge his blood for the strange, one-of-a-kind serum runs in his veins.
Instead he swallows, frowning, and his eyes pierce back, the dark pupils ringed by a cold, almost colorless slate-blue.
"Be there for me."
He pauses again as if realizing that has too much wriggle room. That it's too...open.
The Winter Soldier's metal fingers spasm open-shut-open on the table underneath his partner's repairs, signaling that he's rerouted another connection successfully.
"We should operate under the assumption that the SSR agents will find us. We need to take them out, collect evidence. I can't do this alone." Not when the SSR apparently came more prepared than HYDRA, with restraints and sedatives and names that seemingly have driven a wedge in that comfortable, sometimes wordless, partnership between assets. "We can operate together that way. At least until HYDRA gives me the same clearance they gave you."
And maybe that will quietly bug him, simmering away under the surface, wondering why he wasn't deemed fit enough. Why the Captain can suddenly ask questions, why the man can look at a larger picture than he just can't see.
Be there for me. "Of course I will," the Captain breathes in reply - it's involuntary, the sounds past his lips before he even registers he's making them. Despite that, they feel almost choked out of him - like his throat is closing, his chest is tightening, at the mere thought that he would do anything else. The idea of abandoning the Winter Solider opens a hole in him so big that he can't see the bottom - any maybe it's just as well that the Soldier goes on, keeps speaking, because in the absence of anything else to pay attention to, the Captain might get lost in that yawning emptiness, and never find the bottom.
But his attention snaps right back to the other asset, as soon as he begins to speak again. He focuses on the words, just the same as he forces himself to focus again on the delicate tools in his hands, the circuitry and servos and plates of the Soldier's arm beneath his fingertips. He can agree with what the Soldier says - all of it, this time. The SSR is after them. And, given the situation, they might find them first. And more evidence is exactly what they need, to solve this. He knows too little, right now, and while part of him screams that he knows enough, that he needs to run, that he needs to go with his gut, it's hard to listen to that part of himself, no matter how loud it is, when the Winter Soldier is entreating him like this, here and now.
He's quiet a moment longer, finding the last of the damage, completing the last connection, satisfied with the low, quiet hum that only super soldiers can hear - and then, only when the plating is open like this - that signifies the arm is, if not in perfect condition, exactly, at least in sufficient working order. He pulls the tools back and finally glances back up to meet the Winter Soldier's eyes, his own eyes somehow hard and desperate at the same time. "All right," he says, laying the tools down carefully, methodically, without even looking at what he's doing, eyes still locked on the Soldier's. "We operate together. Like we're supposed to."
What he doesn't say - but what is intensely clear - is that he means as allies. No more attacking each other in their sleep. No more ropes, no more bleach. Everything about him doesn't say, Can I trust you? so much as, perhaps, Will you trust me?
Because the thing that makes them unstoppable is the uncannily smooth, clockwork way they just fit together. Without that, the SSR will win. And the Soldier must know that, too. "We both need rest." Real rest, he means. And neither will get it, if they're waiting for the other to strike. They need to trust each other, like they did before.
That faint hum gives him a small measure of...something. Pleasure? That might be too alien of a concept for the Winter Soldier, but when he hears the hum of his arm vibrating along the wrist to the shoulder socket, where it's connected to bone and nerve, he feels something beyond just the physical sensation. This is promising. This is good that he has an increased use of his armor. It is good, he thinks, that the Captain has repaired it of his own free will. Maybe he can work with that. Maybe ...
Unaware that he's doing the very un-HYDRA sin of "grasping at straws" - that he shouldn't even be indulging in it - the Winter Soldier instead studies his partner, eyes slightly narrowed. The silence is punctuated by the crackle and pop of the fireplace. The jerky hum of his cybernetic fingers as they jerk open and shut as he tests the range of motion available to him. Some of the joints click. Soft but he can hear it. But it's better than before, better than being the amputee he was before HYDRA must have took him in, and he decides it's fine. After all, the alternative was no functioning prosthesis. Or the Captain strangling him while he was unconscious. Easier choices. Neater. The tools click down against the table. The Winter Soldier watches his partner (former partner)? - set down the tools, one by one, as if they're made of glass. An unconscious, soft sigh escapes out of him, betrayed only by his shoulders slipping down from where they'd hunched up. As if he'd been preparing to charge the other super soldier head on. As if he's still surprised by the Captain's newfound softness.
"...Fine."
There's something unspoken here. Something beyond the voiceless comfort that they've received the same intel, the same HYDRA-approved flash training burning into their retinas.
For once in his life, the Winter Soldier can't say for certain if he trusts his old partner. There are invisible orders now. Either the Captain is defective or...or maybe the Winter Soldier is the defective one. He's failed somehow, somewhere. Whatever the case is, he isn't in the know now. He's not on the same page. It happens. But it'd always happened to lesser HYDRA assets: rank and file soldiers, agents, spies. Not him. His mouth flattens into a thin, almost bloodless line that ages him. Did he go wrong somewhere? Did he fail to make the cut?
...Why didn't he get the chance to prove that he was still the soldier HYDRA wanted him to be?
Why does it sound like the Captain will go on without him?
"Okay. I'll rest." There's an open hesitation even as he pulls his repaired arm back to him, cradling it against his chest as if the Captain broke it for no reason. As if he hadn't been, say, defending himself from bleach being poured down his eyes and throat. "Are you going to lock my door? Do you have restraints?"
The Captain should. If he has a shred of HYDRA still alive in him, he would lock him up. Stuff him in a closet and barricade it. It's what they've both done on missions with...uncooperative assets. It would be expected. Maybe a part of him might even appreciate conforming to to the expected standards that he can see aren't set in stone anymore. The Winter Soldier hasn't figured out if he'd be irritated that the Captain couldn't give him that much. Mostly he's staring at the other soldier, still holding his partially-repaired arm hugged close to him with his good hand as if that could stop anyone from taking it away. Now he shifts backward. Shoulders square. But it's defensive, expectant. Almost submissive; as submissive as a genetically engineered asset can get these days.
Following HYDRA's script seems to fill the void. A stop-gap, really: a brief moment to focus on procedure instead of the Captain's inconsistencies.
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"How do you know there's another protocol?" The Soldier's voice softens at the edges even as he stares at his partner like he's trying to bore right into his skull. "Maybe I can help you, if you let me.
Next order of business: if you can't immediately incapacitate a target, try to work your way into his/her good graces until you can. Whatever has contaminated the Captain's programming thankfully hasn't hit his: he's clear-headed, getting more so by the second as the ringing stops and his vision resolves. Parameters snap back into focus. Whatever pain he feels is shoved aside as a distraction, an indulgence that HYDRA won't allow and, therefore, he won't allow. The Winter Soldier's chin lifts as he swallows, jaw working, eyes closing for a second with what looks like a normal man's moment of weakness. The barest hint of blue peeks out as he stares at his partner. His face is ruined, inflamed and swelling and red...but even now he can see the signs that his advanced healing factor is kicking in, doing an even better job than his own. Bleach to the face would've taken him a day to recover from, at the minimum. At his estimate, it's probably been a few hours at most and the Captain's already got his eyes open.
For the first time in his memory, the Soldier experiences regret. If anyone should've gone off the reservation and gone rogue, it should've been him - he would've been easier to remove from rotation, would've been the easier loss for HYDRA to take. They could always make another like him. His partner, though. He's one of a kind, and right now he wishes he wasn't so...unique.
"We could do this together, just me and you," the Soldier adds. To the casual outsider, his voice is flat-lined, a borderline monotone as if he hadn't tried to kill a man who turned things around and introduced his face to the floor, the up-close and personal way. "You don't have to go at this alone."
For now he means it, because his mission requires it and because the naked truth is, he doesn't want to kill the other asset if there's another way. For one thing, the Captain's far more valuable than he is. And - and this is the private part, the one that he would immediately get strapped into the suppression chair for - he wants to keep working with him. Wants to clear rooms, wants to train with him back on base. The word "friend" doesn't exist in their world. If it did, it would've just been a liability. But examining where he failed today, the Winter Soldier comes to the slow, startling conclusion that this is a liability he would've wanted to risk.
He shifts from where he's propped up against his partner, drawing his legs up with a pained hiss, the thick heels of his boots dragging against the floor. He's strong, sure, but the Captain knows his limitations just like he does and naturally he made sure to tie his arms and his ankles together so he can't just snap free. Might be able to saw through if he can rub the rope against the chassis of his arm, but that would still take time. Best he can do is keep his partner talking as he tries to figure out another approach.
no subject
But while he can’t access the memories, the knowledge he wants, there are other things slipping through - sense-memories, instincts, things that run deeper than conscious thought, and are far harder to wipe away. They’re the first to return: the soft sound of the Soldier’s voice, the feel of his warm body next to his, the comfort he takes in knowing they’re together.
His vision is still too blurry to really assess the Soldier; he hears the asset shift beside him, more than sees it, but what little information he can get from his eyes, coupled with what he’s getting from his other senses, gives him a pretty clear picture. He knows he’s bound the Soldier tightly enough that he won’t be able to escape easily, can’t just snap the bonds. He knows he doesn’t want to leave his partner tied up, that something about that sits uneasily inside of him, and he’s already reaching clumsily for the other’s hands before he catches himself, pauses, fingertips just brushing the metal of the Soldier’s hand, inches from the knots at most.
“I want to do this together,” he says - again, words he would be backhanded, shot, sliced, burned, electrocuted for. Words that he would never have dared to say, should have known better than to say, known better than to even think while HYDRA still held his mind whole and molded in their hands. Now, his ruined eyes flick up, trying to find and hold the Soldier’s, though the gaze is still off, a little too far to the left and not as piercing as it should be, without that clear focus. But there’s still something genuine in it - genuine, and lost. “I think we’re stronger together. I think we belong together. I think my mission,” whatever it is, “needs you.”
His fingers inch closer to the knots binding the Soldier’s wrists, but even as they touch the rope, he doesn’t untie them. He’s still looking the Soldier in the face as best he can, still struggling with his own sense of duty, of reason, of protocol, all three of them screaming, clashing and disharmonious, inside his head loud enough to nearly drown out the sound of the howling wind outside. “I trust you,” he says quietly, eyes narrowing almost as if in confusion, as if he didn’t mean or didn’t expect to have said the words that just slipped from his lips.
Except he does mean them. “We’re partners,” he says… because they are. They’re partners, and… and something else, but he can’t find the word, can’t grasp it long enough to form it. “And partners trust each other.”
It’s a statement, almost as much as it might be a warning, as his fingers finally touch the knots, but then they still. Something in him says he shouldn’t unknot them; something in him balks at the idea that he tied them at all.
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The Winter Soldier doesn't say the first thing that crosses his mind.
Not if it gets in the way of lowering the other asset's defenses.
"So then we'll do this as partners."
The words feel both right and somehow like decay in his mouth, all at once, the familiar tainted by this bitter feeling that he's somehow being...compromised by going along with the other asset, even for the sake of his own mission. Unlike the Captain, he remembers it, remembers every contingency and remembers, clearly, what it means to carry out a mission to its logical end - HYDRA's will carried out and (preferably) both Assets turning themselves in for debriefing. That's how it's supposed to be. They're supposed to return, injured or not. Turn over their kit. On a good day, he can hear the sounds of the Captain screaming as they wipe him so he can be put back into cryo. Now he wonders if he'll ever hear that again, the certainty of it, that brief thrill where where he can read between the lines as the Captain's voice gives out and his gasps slip away even past the thin walls. It'd felt private, almost for his ears only. Now it sinks in that he might never hear those sounds again. If maybe this was their last mission. Maybe he'd done the unforgivable: maybe he's taken this partnership for granted.
"So what now?"
The Winter Soldier accesses some leftover muscle memory, some deep-cover persona he must have had when he was backing up the Captain. Maybe it wasn't completely scrubbed away. Maybe - and this is the better option, the one he approves of - maybe HYDRA knew this could happen. Maybe they had a contingency plan in his programming for a scenario like this. Where he couldn't just work his way out with his hands and whatever weapons were nearby. Where he had only his voice to work with. His voice and his body language and what he's picking up from his partner's instability, the man seems like he wants someone to...fraternize with. Be physically close to. Whatever it takes to build up that trust until he can get another shot at subduing the Captain.
He shifts pointedly against the other asset, bumping shoulders, his knees drawing up as he tries to dredge up those faint memories of what it was like being another man. He'd been a "James" once on an op. Had smiled, maybe even flirted - carrying out the parameters of some HYDRA tech who knew how to read his fellow man - and he could pass as something other than super-soldier, so long as he kept his arm covered. Now the Winter Soldier is trying to drag those memories back, trying to figure out what he can use to get his partner where he wants him. Physical contact was the first one. Knowing when to stare, when to look away (despite that being a risk), is another. The Soldier tilts his head down, almost as if he's pretending not to see the rope circled tight around his ankles, his tangled, matted hair falling into his face.
One more chance. The Winter Soldier knows he shouldn't even give his partner that much. That they're far past the point of trying to take him in alive and salvageable. But he finds himself hoping that the Captain will give him that opening, give him the chance to drag him back into the fold where they can fix him, where he can continue to run ops with him instead of facing that howling void again without knowing that the other Asset will be on the other side waiting for him.
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This mission is murkier - unclear. It’s a gut feeling - if the Captain knew what gut feelings were, could call them by name. He’s had them before - they’re actually part of what makes him valuable as a breathing, reasoning weapon, why they pull him out of cryo again and again - but the understanding of gut feelings and how they work and what they are has been burned from him, and it hasn’t yet returned. All he has is a certainty that this mission trumps all others, that this protocol is vital, and that he needs to drop everything else to pursue it.
So - that’s what now. That’s what they’ll do. The problem is, “We need information,” he says, fingers still poised above the knots holding the Soldier’s hands uncomfortably in place. It seems like the next logical step - you don’t act without intel, that’s just insane, but the problem is - he has the intel, and it’s locked away. The barriers are crumbling, but -
That’s it. “We need time,” he says next, burning eyes flicking to the shuttered windows, to the howling just beyond them. “I need time, to remember. We need to stay here, and you need to stop giving me injections.” It’s the reasonable move, after all - they’re not really working, but they're still slowing things down, barring the way, even though the barriers eventually give way. Stopping them would likely speed the process, let his synapses rebuild ruined pathways, let the burned-out bridges in his mind reroute. His lips twitch into something that’s barely an expression, barely a motion at all, but that the other asset might recognize as the Captain’s equivalent of a wry smile. “The weather seems to be accommodating for right now, at least.”
There’s still no telling how long the storm itself will last, but the longer it does, the more snow their lodge is buried under, and the longer they have before HYDRA comes looking for them. If they sit tight, and if they forego all contact protocols, if they sit and wait and let his mind keep recovering… the Captain is sure that what he needs will bob to the surface, will slough off the mud it’s under, and become clear.
His fingers flex a little, as the Solder’s shoulder bumps his own. Partners. That’s what they are, what they always have been, for the entire existence that he knows (can remember). They work well together, like two moving parts of a whole, like the trigger and the hammer of a gun, one complementing the other. The missions where they’re sent out together always feel the most complete, the most satisfying, and he wants to save that, to preserve it. He hopes, somewhere deep inside himself, that this new, desperate protocol won’t change that. If it does… if it does, he’ll deal with it then. He’ll have a choice to make.
But not right now. His fingers start to loosen the knots by touch, slowly but efficiently. He doesn’t simply remove the rope all at once, but he first gives the Soldier some slack, and then some more, ruined, still hard-to-focus eyes on the other asset’s face, watching for tells, watching for twitches, even as his fingertips feel for tremors in the other’s arms, signs that he’s going to fight back, to fight this. It’s only if he gets none of it that he’ll finally loosen the bonds, because if they’re in this for the long haul, together, then he can’t (he can, he doesn’t want to, he shouldn’t -) leave the Soldier tied and bound.
“We’re good - as partners,” he says, half a statement, half a question, seeking confirmation, agreement. “We always have been.” He can’t remember much, between the screaming and the hot-white-slicing pain of the chair, the beat-downs, the small army of guards it takes to subdue him and drag him into cryo, every time. He can’t remember past missions in detail, but he has enough - enough of those gut feelings, those sense memories - to be sure of what he’s saying. “We’re the best HYDRA has, together. I want to find out what else we can be.” And the answer, he’s so sure, is buried inside him, just beneath the surface, trying to claw its way free.
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It's times like this that the Winter Soldier catches himself almost...grateful that his own conditioning is simpler. Apparently less moving parts that can break in the field, away from the safety of a controlled environment. He doesn't need injections the way his partner does and his stint with the chair was only a few days ago, so he knows for a fact that it will hold for weeks, if not more, without needing to be revisited. Watching the way the Captain is struggling, how his eyes water behind a swollen, ruined face that his enhanced serum is trying to repair cell by cell, and he knows that what little stability the injections bring won't be worth the risk.
There's a difference between exercising patience on an op, waiting for a target. Doing it with a man he's trusted with his life over and over, and it's harder than he wants to admit.
The Winter Soldier's lips press together in a thin line that brings out the stress lines of his face, hollows his cheeks. His expression turns harsh as he tilts his head, trying to gauge how much of his partner's sight has returned.
"So long as it's together," he grunts, forcing himself to say the words, to act as if there is a life beyond HYDRA. It's harder than he thought it would be, considering his experience with deep cover, and he can feel his back teeth start to ache as he clenches and grinds them. "I don't want to be by myself again."
And that part, that part's true, it's the closest thing he has to deeply personal that he can manage with the conditioning, but it's necessary to feed out that vulnerability to his partner as if it's some olive branch for trying to incapacitate him. As he feels the rope around his wrist - his flesh wrist, not the metal one that's limp, the sensors fritzing on and off - loosen, he resists the immediate urge to break free and close his hand around the Captain's throat, squeeze the fight out of him and then call for backup from the nearest HYDRA cell. His eyes flicker down to the rope, loosening bit by bit, his wrist chaffed red because the Captain, despite his ruined eyes, the gunshot, has done the right thing and tied him up tight, before he glances back up at his face. He has to be looking for any of his usual tells that he's about to turn the tables. Knowing how high the stakes are, how important the Captain is to HYDRA (refusing to admit it's personal, too), the Winter Soldier does his damn best to make sure those tells don't show. For now he's docile, the second as always to his first.
It's only when the rope finally pools in his lap that he flexes his hand, trying to work some feeling in it. The metal one lies limp, the gleaming fingers twitching every now and then as the malfunctioning servos sputter.
"What do you think will happen after this?" the Winter Soldier plays ball and keeps things peaceful as he rotates his hand, curls each finger, his eyes burning judging holes in his partner's face. Once he heard someone describe the Captain as "handsome" - he wouldn't know, but he does know is he had short hair he approved of (less to grab), piercing blue eyes, and symmetrical features that consistently made targets want to like him. Now, with his face washed free of color from the pain, the cold, and the skin around his eyes a mask of angry red from the bleach, he doubts anyone would trust him the way they usually did.
maybe timeskip a little to the next day or so?
He ignores it - he’s made a decision, and he’s not going back on it now. To falter would show weakness, and HYDRA does not tolerate weakness. They built him to be strong, to be unstoppable, and even as he’s crumbling and unsure, he can’t give up the strength he still has, the conviction that this old, deep programming needs to come to light. It makes everything worth it - the excruciating pain in his shoulder, his ruined face, the way he’s tied up the Soldier, even if only temporarily. What little he can see of the expression on the other asset’s face makes him uncomfortable, in this deep, dark place, and he doesn’t like that feeling at all.
But the pit of unhappiness shrinks, when the asset finally speaks. When he confirms that they’ll do this together, that he doesn’t want to be alone. The lines of the Captain’s broad frame relax, as much as they can with the pain, and he nods, leg splaying out just a little, bumping the Soldier’s thigh with his own in this subtle, small gesture that none of their handlers have ever caught. “You won’t,” he says, and his conviction swells as he says it, beats back the unease just a little further. “I won’t let that happen.”
It’s not like the Captain to make empty threats; it’s unclear how he might carry this one out, when he is but a tool, a thing for HYDRA to point and punish and choose to use or lock away, but he means it, nonetheless. He won’t let them be separated, if he has to lie through his teeth when their handlers find them. He’ll deal with that when it happens, when he has the intel slowly shaking loose inside of him, when he can make an informed plan of action.
For now, they’ll wait.
“I don’t know,” he says, aware of the other asset’s gaze on his face, but steadfastly refusing to let anything but surety show on it. “If there’s a mission, we’ll complete it.” If it’s a mission, it will have parameters and an objective and an endpoint and a followup plan, just like all the others. Once he can grasp that information, he’ll feel infinitely better. “If it’s not, we’ll complete this mission, and I’ll handle the consequences.”
It’s clear he means by whatever means necessary, whether it’s lying or telling the truth. It’s clear that he means to handle those consequences himself, to ensure that no harm comes to his partner, nothing worse than the usual end-of-mission protocol. “We’ll stay together,” he promises. “We’re too valuable for them to split apart. I know how to make sure of that.”
For now, though, “Being knocked unconscious isn’t rest,” he points out. “And you had watch last night. Get some rest. You probably have a concussion. I can keep watch.” Even with eyes that aren't yet clear and sharp, his other senses are good enough to do as he proposes. And in a few hours, at most, his face and eyes will have healed enough that, while he still won't look as "handsome" as usual, he'll be fully operational - at least, in that respect. His arm still aches sharply, deep in the ruined joint, and he will endure it forever if he has to, but he doesn't like the idea of the injured arm slowing them down, if what he digs up from inside of himself doesn't include returning to HYDRA.
He'll deal with it then, though. Just like everything else.
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That's what the Winter Soldier will tell himself, more than once. He's regained enough shreds of trust that he's fairly sure his partner won't walk off, grab one of the perfectly good steak knives on the kitchen counter, and slice open an artery while he's still bound. SOP says that's the best approach. But it doesn't happen, the Captain insists on a conversation, on indulging on these sentiments as if they aren't massive defects. Right now he's not sure what he means by "stay together". His immediate conditioned response is to assume that he's indeed a prisoner, no matter how the Captain dresses it up. If he were to take the other asset on in a fair fight? Truth is, he isn't sure he could win. The other man is the original, the one with the stronger serum burning in his system. Considering that, and what he can remember of those combat sessions they had against each other back on base, and he isn't sure he could win if it was just their naked fists.
"Fine," he says. At this point he'll probably be awake if he relaxes, if he dozes off. Concussions to them are inconveniences at most - his head pounds with a pressure from all sides and there's a few moments where he wonders if he'll throw up what little rations must still be in his gut.
At some point he supposes he doses off. When he opens his eyes, he'll see the Captain leaning over him a few times, eyes still red-rimmed but aimed his way with more focus, as if checking to make sure his healing factor is chugging along and that the concussion isn't suddenly a "complication".
When he wakes up again, he'll realize that the ropes around his wrists, ankles and legs are loosened enough that he can easily shake himself loose.
The knives on the counter are gone.
Getting up, the Winter Soldier winces, sore, but functional, and tries to make the best of this as he levers himself up. The ropes pool to the ground. His directive is the same. The Captain must either be incapacitated or killed when the opportunity presents itself. Doesn't matter what he said, or what he even told his partner. It has to happen and if he believed in a higher power than HYDRA, he'd be crossing his fingers and hoping he can aim for incapacitate instead of liquidate. First thing he does is assume that if he looks for weapons, opening and closing shelves and drawers, that the Captain will hear. It limits him to just a visual inspection and he can see that the Captain has used his own recovering eye sight to sanitize the room. Anything remotely lethal is missing. Whatever is bolted in place would require that he's already got the Captain tired and barely struggling.
The Winter Soldier huffs out a barely audible sigh. Long haul it is.
He finds his partner by the back entrance, already standing up straight with hardly any pained hunch to his frame and it looks like he swapped out the bandage around his torso's bullet wound. Damn. So much for hoping that any blood poisoning from the infection might've slowed him down. The Winter Soldier makes a mask of his face as he leans against the door frame, his malfunctioning arm hanging down by his side as it whirs uselessly, fingers twitching and spasming minutely every now and then.
"Storm still strong?" The Soldier doesn't circle things back to last night, to the whole part where he tried to cripple the closest thing he has to a friend. Instead he focuses on the now, on what he can control and assess, and hope, desperately, that his partner will give him an opening. With how the other Asset's shoulders square, and his red rimmed eyes rove, he isn't sure about his chances just yet. "The SHIELD agents might have risked it for all we know."
If he can't get to the Captain physically, he can at least try to seed in doubt psychologically. Try to plant something, make him second-guess (although he can't say for sure if SHIELD maybe did want them bad enough). The Winter Soldier remains propped against the door frame with his eyes burning holes in his partner. Maybe they're working together for now. But he can't shut off that instinct to look for hints of weakness, of aberration, in the other asset, and so he doesn't bother looking away as if he'll be embarrassed if caught.
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But he doesn’t leave the weapons - or anything else that can be used as a weapon - in the same room as the other asset. He’s not stupid, and he knows the Winter Soldier’s orders, now, if he thinks the Captain is unsalvageable.
He’s not - he’s fine, he’s salvageable, he’s good - but he doesn’t want to leave room for uncertainty. Not in that respect, when he’s still not sure of what’s trying to grow and bloom inside his own head.
He hears the other asset wake and move, even over the sound of the storm; by now, his vision has returned almost to normal, even if his face is still a little blotchy, and some of his hair is a little discolored, damaged where the liquid splashed into it. He’s standing tall, not giving away any sign of pain, but his face looks worn and drawn, even under the new, pink skin around his eyes. He glances over, as the Soldier approaches, as he speaks, and the Captain’s smile is a grim, barely-there twitch of his lips, just like always. “It’s the same,” he says, indicating the storm - the snow is piling up against the side of the building, and the wind has barely let up, if at all. The sky is still an unbroken ceiling of darkness, and if there’s an end, he hasn’t been able to spot it approaching.
He considers what the Soldier suggests - that SHIELD is still looking for them, and… it seems reasonable enough. They are valuable assets, of course. He watches the Soldier watching him, and he tilts his head - a question between them. “Do you think we should move?”
His dry, steady tone of voice communicates clearly that he thinks any answer other than no would be a mistake. The storm is too strong, the terrain is too unfamiliar, and their would-be captors are an unknown that gnaws at his gut. This entire thing has been a mess, and clearly their intel was incorrect. That means SHIELD is now largely an unknown factor, and he doesn’t like that - just like the programming inside his head, an unknown factor all its own.
They have the advantage here, what little of it they have. They can fortify, they can learn this place quickly and determine all its strengths and weaknesses, they can mount a defense that SHIELD won’t expect. He’d rather go down in a hail of bullets than freeze to death in a snowdrift on a mountaintop. And he doesn’t want that end for the Soldier, either. It’s weak, it’s not what they were built for.
And something about that idea, that notion specifically, curls so cold and frightening in his gut that even his animal fear of the chair and his handlers and every punishment HYDRA has ever inflicted on him pales in comparison. He will never die in the ice and snow, and he will never let the Winter Soldier die that way, either.
“What’s the status of your arm?” he asks, instead, as though he isn’t the one who’d disabled it during their fight. As though he isn’t the one who feels like every thought he has is like stepping on thin ice, never sure where his foot is going to break through and take him, screaming, beneath the surface. He can feel the very last vestiges of his last injection wearing away, and it’s making him antsy, uncomfortable. He’s still fighting for control of his mind, his mission, and grasping at his training and his partner as those last familiar failsafes. He knows he wanted to stop the injections. He just knows that doesn’t make the idea of it any more appealing.
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"Poor," the Winter Soldier opts for being truthful. After failing to incapacitate his partner, he'll need to work on buying enough of that trust back so he can get another opening. If it means being upfront about his weaknesses, then so be it. "It'll lower my effectiveness once we leave if it's left non-functional."
He can operate without it if needed. There had been plenty of exercises with it detached, both against the Captain and against select trainees fast-tracked to rise in the ranks. Some of them had found that no matter their skill level, their background - they couldn't last even a minute when he was one-handed and they thought he wouldn't kill because of their background, their contacts, the fact they were too prideful to surrender. The Captain, though. He'd always lasted. Always knew to go for his weak spot, use the missing limb to his advantage in any exercises, and he knew how to disable him using pain, location, and bone breaks on the flesh side. There had always been an immediacy about his approach. The Winter Soldier remembers respecting that, even if most of the actual details were only faint impressions of pain and smell and sound. Glancing at his partner, the Soldier studies him and he has to assume that part hasn't change. The injections may not have worked...but his sense of tactics, of taking advantage of a perceived weakness? Those are still fresh and he can't assume those will degrade too.
The Winter Soldier touches his damaged arm. It's non-functional from the elbow joint down to the wrist, where most of the damage was done. His face feels tender, as if he'd run headfirst into a tinder block, and there's no doubt some swelling from the Captain smashing his face into the floor as hard as he did. There's a vague memory that he hadn't settled for hitting him just the once. He'd done in multiple times, to be thorough. To be exact. Good to know that some instincts haven't degraded like his mental conditioning has.
It's a small comfort.
"You need to decide what to do about my arm," the Winter Soldier plunks that into his partner's lap. While he has his SOP to carry out, for now the Captain still has higher rank...and he must know that if he really wants the two of them to walk out of here, he can't have his partner crippled. It's weighing the odds, the pros and cons. How far he's willing to go to drag someone with him in this. "Either it needs to be repaired or you can leave me here."
The snow will die down, eventually. Probably can make his way out, contact the nearest cell. Take his chances dodging the SSR. Not ideal scenarios. But there's a choice, and now it's laid out in front of Rogers to choose how much he wants to risk for this unspoken, impossible mission of his. Things won't be the same between them. They can't be; not when the Winter Soldier has that new order brimming to the surface, feeling like it's somehow pulling at his nerve endings and his very bones and skin. Not when the Captain is acting like he'll go AWOL. Not when he speaks as if this invisible mission of his supersedes HYDRA itself.
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So the Captain makes the call, because that’s what he does. He has been honed and trained to evaluate every single situation, take in all the information, and make the right call. “I’ll repair it,” he says, just as bluntly, just as confidently and with no room for argument. He isn’t a tech, of course, doesn’t possess the specialized skills for significant repairs. But he’s well versed in the arm’s workings and on the most basic ways to repair it, the best workarounds and solutions for the field, because he’s got to be. HYDRA had planned for every contingency (or, at least, so they thought): for the Captain’s time in the chair to wear off, and for the Soldier’s arm to become damaged. Of course, HYDRA always planned to ensure their super soldiers were accompanied by handlers, and that’s no longer true, but that never meant they didn’t give their most valuable assets the tools and skills they needed to keep each other going.
It’s… good, knowing he can do something about the arm. Of course, he’s the one who damaged it in the first place, but he can still undo it. He can make the Solider functional again, give him what he needs to survive, and even though the Captain knows it’s a gamble against his own survival, he doesn’t hesitate to make that call.
“I’ll repair your arm,” he repeats, not because he doesn’t think it was understood, but because now he’s using it as a jumping-off point, now it’s the basis of their new plan. “And then we’re going to lay out all the intel we have on the SSR, and what we heard there. I want to know more about Rogers and Barnes.” And this time, he won’t let the Soldier shy away from the names, from what he might know. They’re going to go digging, and it might not be pleasant, but it’s going to yield results. He’s sure of it.
In fact… he considers for only a moment before he decides that they can do both at once, really. He can repair the arm and they can talk at the same time. He glances out the windows, at the grey skies and the blowing snow, and makes a third call: “We can afford a fire,” he decides, because the lodge has a nice big fireplace and plenty that will burn and any smoke will be blown away quickly, lost in the gale still raging outside. He’s cold and stiff, his shoulder aching fiercely, and the Soldier can’t be feeling much better, with a damaged arm. They could both do to warm up, and there’s no reason to stay in these less-than-optimal conditions, with the storm blowing enough to dissipate any sign of their presence. “Help me gather kindling.” They sure make a pair, each with a damaged arm, but between the two of them, they can start a fire easily enough, and sit down by it so the Captain can pull out the repair kit he keeps in his belt and get to work on the Soldier’s arm. And then they can talk about Rogers and Barnes.
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It's something.
The Winter Soldier falls into place as the Captain makes for the door. The arm repair will come next, when he's back inside, when he can't ambush the other asset out in the snow. He doesn't try to jump the Captain as they venture outside, the biting cold against lancing across their exposed skin and he takes point again, part of out muscle memory, part because he's aware that even his partner, with that new, alien mission buzzing around in his mind like a corruption, wants him where he can see him. He's lost the white mask that usually muzzles his lower face, his lips numbing as he ducks his head and presses out into the snow. Visibility is low, a swirling mass of white smearing against shapes of buildings, of a garage and bowing bushes and trees. It's not as bad as the first night. He presses on, spreading out with the Captain to search near the forest's edge. Some of the kindling is too wet and will need to be tried. Others have recently fallen, the Winter Soldier holding as much as he can with one working arm until the Captain calls it for the day.
They return back inside, snow drifting across the foyer's floor before the door's tugged shut and locked. It's enough for a fire for a few hours, at least, and the Winter Soldier finds himself tasked with getting it started as his partner spreads out the repair kit: small, compact, but with everything needed to get his arm in working order.
The Winter Soldier sits down by the fire, close enough to get some of the heat warming his body. Far enough, though, that he can't possibly kick the sparking logs at the Captain. The time for that was yesterday. If he wants another crack at his partner, it'll be later, when he's good and ready and sure that this time he won't hesitate. Until then, he cooperates.
He's dragged over one of the end tables closer to the sofa, pulling it closer so he can grip his left arm by its chrome wrist and set it down on top with a dull clang. The arm's heavy when he isn't controlling it: a normal man would've had trouble lifting it. His fingers remain curled in mechanical rigor mortis as he glances over at the Captain. His face by now looks almost as good as new, unfortunately. The other asset's skin is reddened from snow exposure but his eyes are more alert and focused and whatever advantage he might've had from the corneal damage is gone.
"You said you wanted to talk," the Winter Soldier does everything he can to show that he's cooperating. Behaving. Displaying the obedience that he normally wouldn't have to fake. His gut wants to keep following his Captain even though his mind knows better. Knows that HYDRA must come first even before the man. His chin lifts as he glances at the fire, his face cast half in amber as he looks into the sparks and tries to steel himself for what will be...unpleasant. Very unpleasant.
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Once the fire is crackling, and the Winter Soldier has his arm laid out on the table, the Captain lowers himself gracefully, soundlessly to the sofa despite his bone-weariness - fatigue is not tolerated, and neither is showing it - and puts his bare hands to the chilled metal, assessing with his fingers as well as his eyes before he even picks up the first tool.
“Yes,” he confirms, his eyes on his work without lifting at the sound of the Soldier’s voice. He picks up the first instrument and begins working, testing the seams of each meal plate to find where they’re most badly bent, and where access to the arm’s inner workings will be easiest to gain. “I want to talk about what you know. What you remember. About Rogers and Barnes.”
He pauses, just for a few breaths. He knows - they both know - that the chair is more effective on the Soldier. It always has been; it’s why the Captain needs the injections, needs his partner, needs his handlers when missions go on too long. It’s why there are so many failsafes in place, except all of them have failed spectacularly, to this point. Well - almost all of them. The Soldier might have ostensibly failed, but he’s down, not out. They both know it.
“Start with the base,” he suggests. “With what you heard. How they reacted to you.” Even if the Solider won’t gain recall of a past mission, at least he’ll be able to fulfill that order. The Captain even offers up his own tidbit, as if laying out an olive branch. “When they called me Rogers… they really believed I was him. Whoever he was. They weren’t trying to make me believe it. They believed it.” He knows, based on all of his observations - pupil size, breathing rates, vocal tones and eye movements - that what he’s saying is true. “I’m not sure even their intelligence is bad enough to try to convince me I’m one of my past covers.” The SSR is weak, but not stupid. Which means, they don’t think Rogers was his cover. They think it was his. His everything. His life.
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He studies his partner. The Captain takes his time looking at the damage to the cybernetics, almost as thorough as his own team of techs, inspecting each plate.
"The base," the Winter Soldier says, that small hint of distaste again in his voice, flat to everyone else but the man who knows him most. "They started with asking the usual. Name; age; rank. They had a list of names they were asking: people we sanctioned over the years, I think."
A few struck a primal cord. Recognition, even if he couldn't point out a face from a lineup. Maybe the kill had stood out, been more difficult and engaging. Maybe it had been something more deep cover and maybe he'd had to fraternize to get closer to the target. Others were just blanks, the memory suppression keeping it away from him in case he was tortured. His lips purse as he thinks back, tries to ignore how almost pleasant the sedative felt - no howling nothing like cryo, no fear or nausea or wondering if he'll see the Captain again or if this is it. He just was. It's an unacceptable weakness he'll report back to his new handlers once this is over...assuming he makes it back to at all. There's still time for the Captain to change his mind and finish what he really should've started.
The Winter Soldier goes on, his monotone more pronounced than usual, almost as if he's retreating behind it and raising a shield. "They were handling me with kid gloves. Incorrect dosage. Thought I heard them call me Barnes, but I'd have to verify back with command if that's my name or an old alias."
Does it matter? They botched the mission, maybe not as badly as their handlers did, but they're making it worse by discussing this. By thinking of themselves outside of HYDRA.
"I don't remember Rogers or Barnes," and maybe the Winter Soldier betrays himself with a little shrug, his eyes darting to the fire sparks popping off the wood as they crack and resettle. The golden glow cast in the room pulls at him, seems to tug at some old memory he can't identify the when. Something about this position seems familiar, right down to the gentle hands on his arm, although it had been cleaning a wound of dirt, wrapping gauze on skin that wasn't there... "They said I served with you. That we used to fight for America." His mouth twitches. "Easy for them to say without proof. I'd want confirmation before I believe the SSR. They got lucky, but they're desperate. They don't have soldiers like us in the field and I suspect they'd want us instead of making their own."
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“Maybe they had us,” the Captain suggests, because while he can sort of maybe reconcile the idea that maybe he had a name and a life once, he’s still unable to really, truly, get a grasp on free will just yet. So he takes what he knows - what he’s heard and what he can feel, deep in his gut - and fits it into his strange, cobbled-together picture of the world, based on chairs and drugs and handlers and nothing but endless missions, and comes up with that. And, on the heels of it, “Maybe they lost us to HYDRA,” he muses, brain ticking over the possibilities as a picture starts to maybe slot into place, all the while keeping his eyes on the Soldier’s arm, his hands moving as the tools test and repair each interlocking section before moving on to the next. He knows he’s hard to control - even without whatever’s going on in his head, trying to break free, he knows. His handlers have told him, time and again, it’s been coded into his very being, how hard he is to control, and how hard HYDRA has worked to bring him to this point. Maybe the SSR never could. Maybe, in letting him have a name, more freedom, something, he became too hard to control, and they lost him. HYDRA had picked up the pieces, and perfected them, and -
He feels the tiniest pang of longing for the order HYDRA has always brought to his life. The last little bit of his programming is holding on tooth and nail, making him miss the simplicity of the chair, the drugs. They’re frightening and abhorrent, yes. But they also bring peace and order and they keep him working with the Soldier.
He must have been working with the Soldier for even longer than he’s known, if they used to fight for America together. He knows, beyond anything else, that he doesn’t want to lose that.
He moves on down the Soldier’s arm, bypassing the crumpled outer plates for now - he’ll have to fix those later, but the intricate inner workings must come first, and piece by piece, the Soldier's motility returns. Regardless of what might have happened with the SSR in the past, “Of course they want us,” he agrees. Why make something when you can steal it and bend it to your will? The Captain has no doubt now that’s what HYDRA must have done, and they did it well. He also has no doubt that if the SSR figures it out, they could potentially do the same.
He isn’t sure, all of a sudden, how he feels about the fact that he might have changed hands, switched sides, countless times before - all depending on who held the switch. Who held the better drugs, the best chair.
“We’re just pawns,” he finally says, almost coming to a realization. He knew this already - of course they’re pawns, they’re tools that can be moved around the board to serve whatever purpose is needed. He’d never questioned that, and it’s true now, but the question of allegiance had never come to the fore. Now it’s here, staring him in the face. “We could have switched sides before.”
Finally, he glances up at the Soldier. He wants to know what his partner feels about that.
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The thing is, he never considered life before HYDRA. Why would he? All he needed to continue operations was a team of handlers, the reassurance that HYDRA was 1) still on target for its goal and 2) the Captain was still on the field. Everything else was...irrelevant. The expression on his face turns into more of a frown than that neutral, mask-like state it usually takes when he's on board with how things are panning out. His good hand tightens into a fist before he forces it to relax.
"It's...possible," and from the sound of it, not one the Winter Soldier wants to agree with. His own mental conditioning demands full loyalty to HYDRA: he'd been easier to break than the Captain and that means that those loyalties are burned in deeper, a cancer inside his body and mind keeping him operating instead of breaking down with the reality of what's been done to the both of them. "But they weren't strong enough to keep us. That should say enough."
A pause, then, as his eyes, blue and cold, travel down to inspect the other asset's work.
"I don't think it should make a difference," the Winter Soldier says, thin-lipped, not realizing he's displaying those small, tell-tale signs he's on edge. Only the Captain could pick them out, used to the slightest deviations from his status quo. "HYDRA wants to correct the world, steer it on the best course. The SSR doesn't seem like they want to play ball."
Which is enough for the Soldier, with his simplified mental conditioning. It should be that simple.
Glancing back up at his partner's face shows it isn't that simple.
He stares back at the Captain's face, studies how the firelight flickers and paints fresh lines in it. He can't pinpoint the other man's exact age. There's a timeless quality there helped along with a good dose of cryo. Before this, he couldn't have even said if they started the super soldier program at the same time. It wouldn't have mattered, really. It shouldn't have mattered. Suddenly it seems to. Now he wonders if they'd served together. If they were from the same batch. All thoughts that will swirl around, confused, banging up against walls that hadn't anticipated those questions. His lips purse.
The Winter Soldier's the first to break eye contact, giving himself a moment of glancing at the table, then at the windows covered by thick, dusty curtains, to wait for his trusted programming to kick in and correct whatever doubts he might have. Whatever "instabilities" might be trying to worm in, invasive, unwanted. He tells himself it's unwanted, almost convinces himself those thoughts are his.
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He can't argue with the Soldier's assessment of the situation. Even if the SSR had them, they don't anymore, and that implies weakness. They should shy away from weakness, stand beside the strongest - and HYDRA is the strongest. But there's something in the Captain that catches at that, that keeps getting hung up on the SSR and their thankless plight. They are desperate and scattered and humane - not nearly as ruthless as HYDRA - and that is why they will lose.
Or, something inside him whispers, at the edges of his mind, is that why they will win?
When their eye contact breaks, the Captain sits back and lets the Soldier assess his repairs so far; whereas someone else might have made a gesture, a little go ahead, he just pulls back his hands and knows the other will understand what he means. The Soldier is most definitely on edge, uncomfortable, and something in the Captain hates making him this way… and yet he can't stop pushing for it, too. Can't stop pushing for that discomfort, for him to think, rather than accept.
"The SSR wants something different," he concedes, after a moment. That much is true. "They steer, but - they don't correct." Even as he says it, something flickers behind his eyes. Something about the words, those words exactly. He and the Soldier have both been through countless corrections. Most, he can't remember, except for the way they make him react, like Pavlov's dog, snapping to the appropriate response, be it fear - never show fear - or force, at the right prompting. HYDRA corrects. Their world requires many corrections, because there is no room for imperfection. Imperfection is weak. Cogs that think too much for themselves are weak.
But imperfections don't have to be flaws. Differences can make something stronger. That thought worms its way up through the Captain's gut unwarranted, and he leans in close again, to catch the Soldier's eye. "What if there were no more corrections," he says, and even now, as HYDRA's control is slipping, his voice is quiet, almost a whisper, as though the room is bugged and they'll hear him. Punish him. Correct him. "What if we were…"
He doesn't know the word he wants to use. Equals? Trusted? People?
He picks up the next tool, unconsciously biting at one corner of his lip, a tic that should never appear on an asset's face. It feels like pushing a bruise, thinking about it too much. It hurts, but he can't stop. He has to see how far he can go. "What if HYDRA's way isn't the only way. Why are we beholden to them?"
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A fundamental weakness.
The Winter Soldier's looking tense again despite the fact that he isn't bleeding, he doesn't have broken bones and he isn't convulsing in the Chair. Even so, his face looks drawn, his jaw tightening, and he leans forward now, almost as if he'd like nothing more than to take whatever subversive thought has infected his partner and beat its skull in. If only it was that easy. But something in him wants to pause, to listen. To drag his feet instead of reaching out and forcing the Captain's head into the fire, like he would've with any other compromised asset.
"Because HYDRA will correct the world," he replies, and his voice is small, tight, even as his eyes burn blue at the Captain. How could he question this? It's the order of things. HYDRA has the will to do what no one else has the stomach or drive for - isn't that much obvious? "Those corrections allow us to help others."
He stares back at the Captain, unwilling to show how unnerved he is (is that the word?) at this new, alien conviction of his. The Captain almost doesn't look human to him. The skin around his eyes is sill seared red from the bleach and he blinks too much. But something about him looks too symmetrical, the blue in his eyes suddenly overly saturated. Piercing. It almost feels like he can see right to his core and the primary objective of deal with a rogue Asset that's spread through the Winter Soldier like the plague.
"Doing anything less would be selfish. We're helping people in the long run," he says. He'll insist on it. For all the brainwashing, all the torture through traditional pain, chemicals, and the Chair, and that's the most effective line that HYDRA has used. That they're looking at the great picture. Sacrificing themselves for future generations. They might not enjoy the fruits of a peaceful, orderly world, but billions will. Small price to pay. They can rest once that's carried out. Put like that, the Winter Soldier can only struggle to follow his partner's thought process. Is he saying that they should....that they should come first?
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His brow furrows, and his foot actually starts tapping a little impatiently, before he seems to catch himself and falls back into stillness. When he continues speaking, it's with his eyes on the delicate work repairing the Soldier's arm, his voice soft but clear, piercing the soft roar of the winter storm.
"If we can't see the long run, then we don't know," he says. "We only have what we're told, and our handlers are fallible. They can be wrong." They both know that, learned that firsthand hours ago. Their handlers aren't perfect. Their handlers are dead. And with them is the Captain's conviction in them, slowly - maybe not-so-slowly - being eaten away by underlying programming that scares as much as it excites him.
He looks up at the other Asset now, hands pulling away, face twisted into something that's almost entreating. "What if we're wrong, to stay? We can't - I can't - "
He makes a noise of dissatisfaction, skin crawling and heart racing and he sets the tools down with far more care than the way he pushes himself up a moment later, not willing to harm the Soldier with this excess energy running through him, but feeling the need to suddenly be on his feet, to be doing something, but the storm is still raging outside and his partner is still an unnerving wall of blank conviction here inside with him. "I don't know what to do," he says, and there's the tiniest bit of fear, of frustration, in his tone - so tiny that only the other Asset would recognize it at all, but to him, it must be like a blaring siren, flashing lights. "I don't know what's right. I think this protocol," the one that's trying to break free - that is breaking free - "is doing this to me. I don't even know if I like it."
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He isn't sure how old he is, just how long he's been in operation. At least years judging by the change in handler faces and the car shapes and he assumes that can be easily stretched out into decades with cryofreeze. HYDRA's goal is too great for the individual. For this we. The skin around his eyes tightens as he squints, just a hair, and he might as well be openly glaring at the Captain for all their shared history together.
"It shouldn't be up to you - or me - to like it. And even if those were in our mission parameters, I don't understand why you seem to - to accept this. There's no we."
The Asset's voice comes out low and raspy, just like it always does; the voice of a man who doesn't do much talking because there's no need. Because he'd already screamed out any undesirable tendencies in the suppression chair, it's arc humming away like a drone. Now he almost catches himself wishing it was here. At the very least it could've remove the edge of this other side of the Captain he's seeing. He leans forward, even though his arm is still shot, even though there's still plenty of work to do and he knows he should keep his partner's trust. Giving in too easily, nodding along to everything he says? That would send up more red flags in front of the other asset. With the bleach attempt still fresh in their minds, he has to minimize anything that would let the other man suspect he was different. That he was faking it until real help came.
Limit the red flags. He needs to react how he normally would, which is digging in his heels. Believe in HYDRA. HYDRA is everything. One day, maybe in his extended lifetime, he might even see HYDRA share its gifts with the world.
Strangely, it...hurts to think the Captain might not be there to see it too.
"Someone should inspect this new protocol," he says. "Determine if it's from HYDRA or the SSR."
Not that he expects the SSR to have had enough time to do it right. But he'd been unconscious for how long and he doesn't know how long the Captain was alone with them. It's a valid concern. The Captain, after all, had been operating perfectly until their capture. No sense leaving that leaf un-turned.
His stares at his partner, eyes seeming to dully seek his face. Outside of combat, the Winter Soldier tends to have a glassy, drugged-out look, like he can't quite focus on the world: deceptive, though, because behind those flattened eyes, he's always observing. Picking out allies and escape routes and cover. It beats wallowing in the pain, reminding himself he came out of cryo alive. There's a hint of a spark in there, of awareness. No handler has seen it. The Captain, though. They're cut from similar cloth. He won't speak down to him, pretend he's a drooling idiot. Even when his eyes drifted to the floor and his mouth fell slack, he'd caught the Captain staring right at him, speaking right at him. Maybe he doesn't want to lose that.
...Maybe he hangs onto the idea of a second chance for his partner.
"Think about it. It's a waste to liquidate you if the SSR is responsible," the Asset adds quietly. HYDRA, of course, would want to know how the SSR managed. Surely they'd keep the Captain alive during processing. Maybe he'd have enough time to talk to the new handlers, drive in the point that the Winter Soldier and the Captain are worth the endless late nights of R&D.
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"And if it's HYDRA?" the Captain says, so low and quiet it'd be impossible for anyone but the other asset to hear. "If this protocol is something HYDRA wants me to have - or used to want me to have?"
He can't begin to guess at HYDRA's true intentions. He knows what he's been told, and he knows what he's been forced to believe, because he remembers the chair, too - he remembers how it burns and it hurts until it's wiped away everything, but he also remembers that there is something before the calm that comes when the electric buzzing finally, finally shuts off and he's left with only the sound of his breath rattling between his teeth, clenched on the black rubber mouthguard between them. He knows there is something there that the chair wipes away each time, even if it's still squarely out of reach.
But what if it's this? What if it's this thing that's trying to uncoil inside him, this conviction that all the procedures are wrong, that the path might be right but the steps they're taking down it are sideways, backwards, faltering when they could be something else. He looks at the Soldier, and he sees in him something far more precious than any conviction the chair could give him. He sees in the Soldier the things he wants, far more than the purpose the chair tries to implant. He watches the other asset's profile in the flickering firelight, and it comes on him suddenly, absolutely, like being pulled under freezing water and opening your mouth to get nothing but cold fluid, instead of precious air. "I don't want to let anyone take this away from me," he says, voice still hoarse and quiet, eyes bright - almost feverish - as he sinks down again in front of the Soldier, eyes boring into his. "And I don't want to let anyone take you away from me."
It's ridiculous. It's laughable, that he wants to... to own the Soldier - is that right? He isn't sure, but he doesn't have any other way to describe what it is he's feeling. He wants to take the Soldier by the hand and disappear into the night, run away from HYDRA and the SSR and anyone, anything, that would seek to choose their path for them. He wants to find a new path, but his thoughts still mirror the Soldier's along one key line: he doesn't want to do it alone. And the Soldier is the only one he wants with him.
The Captain shakes his head, breaking eye contact as he makes a frustrated sound and stands up abruptly, fists clenching. "You don't feel the same way," he says gruffly, like he's deciding before the other asset can even confirm or deny it. But he knows. He knows. "You still want to turn me in for repairs and maintenance. Reconditioning."
It's not really an accusation, but it's not really not, either. He blows out a breath and moves to sit back down like he'd said nothing at all, picking up the next tool, attention back on the Soldier's damaged arm like he's ending the conversation. But all the same, it hangs there, what he'd said, in the heavy, pregnant space between them as he gets back to work, frustration and tension in every line of him, agitation replacing what once was trying to be calm.
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Well, then the answer is easier to digest.
"If it's HYDRA, then it must be right. Then maybe I must not be cleared for this, but it must be right."
The Winter Soldier frowns again as he processes this and maybe, just maybe, that would've been enough. But he watches his partner, sees the tightening of his jaw, and he knows, somehow, that this isn't over with. The the Captain has more to say, he will share it and because he shares his innermost thoughts, he makes this harder and harder by the second. His eyes, blue and so pale they're almost devoid of color, are locked on the micro-expressions of the other asset's face, still reddened from the bleach but for all intents and purposes, already healed. Truth is, he hasn't thought about what HYDRA used to want. What matters it the current orders, the current handlers. The current Command. For the first time in his operation, it suddenly occurs to him that they have a backlog of old, outdated orders and there's a human error there - maybe, just maybe, the handlers, the techs, have failed in their duties. Maybe they didn't clear the backlog. Maybe they didn't make sure they were properly wiped.
It's enough to make even the Winter Soldier pause. Re-evaluate.
What if this isn't a defect in the Captain? What if this is a tech problem? What if it could be fixed once those faulty, lazy techs are replaced?
His focus snaps back to the Captain as he kneels in front of him, as if he's surrendering. The Winter Soldier visibly goes stiff at the sight and the discomfort radiates out of him as in a cloud even as his worn, exhausted face schools into an expressionless mask.
Even when he gets back up, his words ring, wriggling in deep like shrapnel lodged in soft tissue. The Winter Soldier's lips part. No words come. He doesn't have them. HYDRA hasn't allowed his mind, his perspective, to broaden wide enough to be able to counter this. Something behind his eyes pales and flattens, glazes over as if waiting for someone to tell him what to do. There's no handler hissing orders in his ear. There's just the crackle-pop of the fire, the dim pulsing glow that washes against his outstretched arm and the Captain's strong jaw. Of course what he says is true. He doesn't feel that same way about him. He can't. How could he? His conditioning is still stable and he can still focus on the mission, on HYDRA's long-term goals. So why does this strange, ugly feeling curdle in his stomach and leave a bad taste in his mouth? Why does he wish that his partner didn't say any of that?
He's disappointingly silent at first, just like the Captain expected. No affirmations that no, he does feel the same way, that no, they really are together until the end of the line. His eyes drop to watch the the little steel pick slipping between the exposed titanium plates and he lingers on it more than he needs to.
"I'd want you to do the same for me. Reconditioning is the only way to ensure we operate together." The Winter Soldier frames this in a way he can understand. That he can accept. His chapped lips purse. The unused smile lines at the corners of his eyes are visible thanks to the shadows cast by the fireplace. "I'm failing to understand why this's so hard for you to accept, Captain."
There's an almost childish earnestness now, as if things really are that black and white. The poison of HYDRA's mental programming has always run stronger in the Winter Soldier than the Captain. Now it's even more evident. And now the Captain might even be able to see it for what it is - a leash, a collar, chains around the both of them and while his are weakening until he might even flex and snap the brittle metal, the Winter Soldier's still tied down, prostrated on his hands and knees like a worshiper who's spent so long looking at the floor that he doesn't dare look up if the chains go slack. Not after all this time, all these years.
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Reconditioning is the only way to ensure we operate together. The Captain frowns at the words, unhappy and agitated, even as his hands work steadily on the arm, repairing the damage as best he can, piece by delicate piece. "Is it?" he asks, and it's not argumentative, like most of the other things out of his mouth. It's unsure - pleading, almost, because he knows what he feels in his gut - a bone-deep need to stay together, to stand by the Winter Soldier, to keep them together. No matter what.
But he also feels that same bone-deep disgust for the chair, for the handlers, for the drugs they pump through him and the way they make him forget… things. Things he hasn't even remembered yet - things just beneath the surface, dark shapes in the water that dissolve as soon as he reaches for them.
So it's a conundrum, really - a no-win scenario, because he either stays with the Soldier, goes in for reconditioning like the well-trained asset he is and forgets… this, whatever this is forming inside him. Or he runs, fast and hard, with every weapon and skill at his disposal, and he loses the Soldier, leaves him behind or, maybe worse, captures him and holds him captive until one of them is forced to kill the other.
He cannot lose the Soldier. They cannot be separated. But the Captain cannot go back.
His eyes lift from what he's doing as his hands keep working steadily, blue eyes searching for their match in the other asset's face. "I want to operate together," he says, and at least some of the old surety is back, the inflection in his voice now nothing but absolute, rock-solid conviction. "I want to stay together. It's important." Whether it's programming or something else - what else could it be? - it's what he wants, in every atom of his being. It's what he needs to stay alive. To continue functioning. To be… himself? Who is he?
"What would you want me to do for you?"
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He stares back, unwilling to lose this moment of clarity that he hopes to grab onto. The Captain is unstable. But maybe he can be prodded in the right direction; stalled; delayed. Brought back to HYDRA in one piece instead of in a bodybag. He hopes this is one of those openings.
"I don't..." the Winter Soldier trails off, his voice, normally hoarse and ragged at the edges, suddenly closing off. This should be easy, after all. Tell the Captain to immediately turn himself in. Do exactly what his conditioning says is SOP if he can't (won't?) just kill his partner. HYDRA, after all, could probably put him on ice, dredge his blood for the strange, one-of-a-kind serum runs in his veins.
Instead he swallows, frowning, and his eyes pierce back, the dark pupils ringed by a cold, almost colorless slate-blue.
"Be there for me."
He pauses again as if realizing that has too much wriggle room. That it's too...open.
The Winter Soldier's metal fingers spasm open-shut-open on the table underneath his partner's repairs, signaling that he's rerouted another connection successfully.
"We should operate under the assumption that the SSR agents will find us. We need to take them out, collect evidence. I can't do this alone." Not when the SSR apparently came more prepared than HYDRA, with restraints and sedatives and names that seemingly have driven a wedge in that comfortable, sometimes wordless, partnership between assets. "We can operate together that way. At least until HYDRA gives me the same clearance they gave you."
And maybe that will quietly bug him, simmering away under the surface, wondering why he wasn't deemed fit enough. Why the Captain can suddenly ask questions, why the man can look at a larger picture than he just can't see.
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But his attention snaps right back to the other asset, as soon as he begins to speak again. He focuses on the words, just the same as he forces himself to focus again on the delicate tools in his hands, the circuitry and servos and plates of the Soldier's arm beneath his fingertips. He can agree with what the Soldier says - all of it, this time. The SSR is after them. And, given the situation, they might find them first. And more evidence is exactly what they need, to solve this. He knows too little, right now, and while part of him screams that he knows enough, that he needs to run, that he needs to go with his gut, it's hard to listen to that part of himself, no matter how loud it is, when the Winter Soldier is entreating him like this, here and now.
He's quiet a moment longer, finding the last of the damage, completing the last connection, satisfied with the low, quiet hum that only super soldiers can hear - and then, only when the plating is open like this - that signifies the arm is, if not in perfect condition, exactly, at least in sufficient working order. He pulls the tools back and finally glances back up to meet the Winter Soldier's eyes, his own eyes somehow hard and desperate at the same time. "All right," he says, laying the tools down carefully, methodically, without even looking at what he's doing, eyes still locked on the Soldier's. "We operate together. Like we're supposed to."
What he doesn't say - but what is intensely clear - is that he means as allies. No more attacking each other in their sleep. No more ropes, no more bleach. Everything about him doesn't say, Can I trust you? so much as, perhaps, Will you trust me?
Because the thing that makes them unstoppable is the uncannily smooth, clockwork way they just fit together. Without that, the SSR will win. And the Soldier must know that, too. "We both need rest." Real rest, he means. And neither will get it, if they're waiting for the other to strike. They need to trust each other, like they did before.
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Unaware that he's doing the very un-HYDRA sin of "grasping at straws" - that he shouldn't even be indulging in it - the Winter Soldier instead studies his partner, eyes slightly narrowed. The silence is punctuated by the crackle and pop of the fireplace. The jerky hum of his cybernetic fingers as they jerk open and shut as he tests the range of motion available to him. Some of the joints click. Soft but he can hear it. But it's better than before, better than being the amputee he was before HYDRA must have took him in, and he decides it's fine. After all, the alternative was no functioning prosthesis. Or the Captain strangling him while he was unconscious. Easier choices. Neater. The tools click down against the table. The Winter Soldier watches his partner (former partner)? - set down the tools, one by one, as if they're made of glass. An unconscious, soft sigh escapes out of him, betrayed only by his shoulders slipping down from where they'd hunched up. As if he'd been preparing to charge the other super soldier head on. As if he's still surprised by the Captain's newfound softness.
"...Fine."
There's something unspoken here. Something beyond the voiceless comfort that they've received the same intel, the same HYDRA-approved flash training burning into their retinas.
For once in his life, the Winter Soldier can't say for certain if he trusts his old partner. There are invisible orders now. Either the Captain is defective or...or maybe the Winter Soldier is the defective one. He's failed somehow, somewhere. Whatever the case is, he isn't in the know now. He's not on the same page. It happens. But it'd always happened to lesser HYDRA assets: rank and file soldiers, agents, spies. Not him. His mouth flattens into a thin, almost bloodless line that ages him. Did he go wrong somewhere? Did he fail to make the cut?
...Why didn't he get the chance to prove that he was still the soldier HYDRA wanted him to be?
Why does it sound like the Captain will go on without him?
"Okay. I'll rest." There's an open hesitation even as he pulls his repaired arm back to him, cradling it against his chest as if the Captain broke it for no reason. As if he hadn't been, say, defending himself from bleach being poured down his eyes and throat. "Are you going to lock my door? Do you have restraints?"
The Captain should. If he has a shred of HYDRA still alive in him, he would lock him up. Stuff him in a closet and barricade it. It's what they've both done on missions with...uncooperative assets. It would be expected. Maybe a part of him might even appreciate conforming to to the expected standards that he can see aren't set in stone anymore. The Winter Soldier hasn't figured out if he'd be irritated that the Captain couldn't give him that much. Mostly he's staring at the other soldier, still holding his partially-repaired arm hugged close to him with his good hand as if that could stop anyone from taking it away. Now he shifts backward. Shoulders square. But it's defensive, expectant. Almost submissive; as submissive as a genetically engineered asset can get these days.
Following HYDRA's script seems to fill the void. A stop-gap, really: a brief moment to focus on procedure instead of the Captain's inconsistencies.
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had some slight godmoding, lemme know if I should change anything
THE LATEST TAG holy crap /o\
maybe I matched you in late tags - had trouble with Bucky's writing voice
No worries at alllll
apologies, shorter post
Not at all!
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I figure we can skip ahead over the next tag or two if needed?
light timeskip
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let me know if finding a body doesn't work for you and I can change that!
all cool! I'm game if Bucky keeps side-eyeing Steve.
o7 I figure they can get to the infirmary shortly
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Lemme know if any of this isn't okay!
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