Part II  || Part III || Part IV || Part V || Part VI || Part VII|| Parta VIII || Part IX || Part X || Part XI 
continuation of imagine

Word Count: 13559

Warnings: none 

Author: Beast

Habit and impulse were so easy to fall
back on, thinking being a costly and dangerous liability. The Asset had learned
that early on, it having been forced into his program, carved into his skin
among the patchwork of scars so it became a part of him. This time, however,
this time it was different. This time when he
woke up on that familiar cold table, seeing white-coated techs hovering over
him and his wounds like vultures, he didn’t feel the programming trying to lull
him into docility. Oh no, this time a latent instinct, old and raw and
powerful, bubbled through the cracks in HYDRA’s conditioning and screamed in
his subconscious, spurring him to act.

Fight.

Find.

Protect.

A snarl worthy of a predator tore its way
out of his throat as he shoved the nearest tech away, the force of it throwing
him clear into the opposite wall. The rest of them scattered like insects,
shouting in varied languages as he pulled himself into a sitting position,
glaring at them from behind the mess of his hair. A half-dozen IVs were laced
into his veins, a likely but ultimately unsuccessful attempt to keep him
asleep. The stiffness along his shoulder told him they had likely closed the
sniper’s wound, and he quickly realized his dislocated joint had been pushed
back into place and immobilized with thick medical tape. They’d replaced his
blood-soaked shirt with a dark grey one, and as if to mock him, it bore the
SHIELD logo embossed in shiny blue thread over his heart.

“где.”
The soldier demanded, forcing himself to his feet, the drip-lines tugged free
of his arms. The HYDRA agents and techs skittered in panic, yowling like
panicked animals in a hunter’s trap. When he didn’t get a response did he bark
the word out again, this time in English. “Where.” If he wasn’t told,
he wouldn’t hesitate to tear the place to shreds to find out. Before any of the
cowardly technicians could answer, however, several HYDRA agents in full combat
gear poured into the room, armed to the teeth.

One moved too close, holding a syringe,
and the assassin lunged without hesitation. His metal arm felt sluggish and
heavy, having been in the middle of being repaired when he woke, but that
didn’t hinder his deadliness any as he swung with all the force he could muster
at the man’s jaw. A grim sort of smirk appeared on his features, feeling bone
crack and give under his fist, the soldier dropping into a crumpled heap at his
feet. He crushed the dropped syringe under his boot, the sound of the glass
shattering morbidly satisfying.

Something was shouted in a language he
couldn’t catch, but he didn’t give the soldiers the luxury of time to
coordinate themselves. A scalpel, lifted from the near table that held the
medical supplies, in his capable hands slit the throat of one of the agents
before he even realized what had happened, the bleeding man roughly kicked away
into another soldier. Another’s throat was caught in his metal fingers when he
went to prod him with a stunstick, the vertebra crunching loudly with a single
squeeze. The body was casually tossed aside, a mere afterthought. Chaos
erupted, which was exactly what the Asset had wanted, as he was able to easily
dispatch agent after agent, until in the confusion he was able to slip out into
the hall. He slammed the door shut behind him, bending the metal frame enough
that the soldiers inside weren’t getting out anytime soon.

Alarms began to blare, and he knew he
didn’t have much time. He needed to find where they were keeping Steve, needed
to find out if he was alive, needed to get him out. The
layout of the building was familiar, and he soon found himself tracing mental
maps that he couldn’t consciously remember. Identical doors in identical halls,
yet somehow he knew the way, ending up in a neglected corner of whatever
backwater HYDRA base this was. Detention level. He knew these
rooms all too well. Broken memories of conditioning, of training and discipline
flashed through his mind. It was enough to sour his stomach.

Only one of the rooms had light filtering
through the dingy door window, and he just knew that had to be where they were
keeping Steve. The door was thick steel, reinforced and heavy and bolted with
more locks than he cared to count. It could have been made of vibranium and it
wouldn’t have been enough to keep him out. The Asset tore through the locks he could,
picking the others he couldn’t, using every skill in his considerable arsenal
but his patience only lasted so long. Normally he could wait for days, one of a
sniper’s greatest attributes, but this was Steve and he needed inside now.

The sound of metal rending and groaning
filled the level, the soldier slamming his metallic fist into the door over and
over, bending and deforming the surface bit by bit. The servos and artificial
tendons in his arm screamed in protest but he scarcely cared, eventually making
a dent deep enough he could get his fingers inside the stop. He braced himself
and pulled with all his weight, the fatigued and aged metal shredding in his
hand. That just fed his ambition, and soon enough he was tearing through the
door with both hands, unfeeling to the shards that sliced through his flesh and
bone hand, and to the hot slickness of blood as it poured from his palm.

Desperation was beginning to claw at his
mind. He knew agents would find out where he was soon enough, and he couldn’t let
them take him away. Not before he knew if Steve was still alive. Standing back,
the assassin kicked the door with every ounce of strength he had. The metal
gave way with a great resounding shudder, the hinges failing and door swinging
open violently. He was inside before the door even had the chance to hit the
wall when it swung wide.

Relief isn’t anywhere near strong enough a
word to convey the emotion the soldier felt when he saw Steve, battered and
broken and still as he was, breathing and alive. At his side in an instant, the
assassin assessed the Captain’s condition and wounds within moments. The man
was unconscious, the worst of his wounds hidden under layers and layers of
pink-tinged gauze. Smaller injuries had been ignored, his skin was pallor and
in some distant part of his mind the soldier recognized this. Recognized a tiny
kid with a rattling cough and pale skin who always scared him half to death
with the fact that he might not make it through winter.

Medical supplies still covered the table
to the side of the cot he was placed on, and without a second thought or any
concern for being captured, the former Soviet started to pick through the
contents. He wrapped a quick bandage around the cuts to his hand to stem the
bleeding, not wanting to risk getting it on Steve when who knew what had been
pumped into his system. Clean gauze was soaked in disinfectant, the excess
wrung out before it was pressed to a shallow cut that burned an angry red
across the Captain’s cheek. The serum had already begun healing his body, the
wound already mostly closed, but for some reason he found himself fussing over
it regardless.

The soldier hadn’t patched anyone up save
himself for decades. He remembered, very dimly, bandaging someone with crimson
hair that glowed like a dying fire, but the memory was so hazy and distorted
that it might as well have been a dream. He was used to sewing himself up, to
prying bullets out of his body and mending jagged pieces of flesh back
together. As a result, delicateness was not something he was intimately
familiar with, yet it seemed his body remembered better than his brain, as he
cleaned the man’s wounds with an unfamiliar tender gentleness.

A crackle of memory fizzled in his mind,
of him sitting in a muddy, snow-filled trench, tearing a scarf free of his neck
and brandishing it as if to threaten some other person. He dimly recalled
blood, from a wound of some kind to the arm of someone dressed in blue, and
angrily muttering something about not signing up to be a mother as he wrapped his
scarf around the limb. He remembered laughter from people he didn’t know, or
couldn’t remember, and being called a jerk. The memory faded as quickly as it
appeared, and within a second of its passing it was all but forgotten in favor
of focusing on the task at hand.

“Well, seems like the dosage of
sedative we gave you was a bit off.” A calm voice suddenly broke the
silence, the assassin’s muscles seizing up in remembered fear as familiarity
crashed over him like a wave. He didn’t move for a long moment, bloody fingers
hovering over another cut to the Avenger’s chin, as if his stillness could be
taken as a sign of submission.

There was an amused hum from behind him,
one that faded into a dark, twisted sort of laugh. “At attention,
воин.” The order was issued sternly, and the soldier found himself turning
around to face the man, posture stiff with unease and the beginnings of fear.
The man, he knew him, the name Aiden provided by the bits of memory that
survived each successive wipe. A crooked grin spread across the General’s face
and it caused the Asset’s stomach to churn.

“They warned me that you were far
more… damaged than we would have liked.” Black spoke
with all the casualness as if they were merely speaking about the weather,
“It would have been easier just to put you down, but since we have Captain
America in addition to our Winter Soldier…” he trailed off, malevolent
smile spreading further across his face as he approached with a proud air to
his movements. Once he was close enough, the suited man regarded him with all
the affection one might have for a fine weapon, eyes appraising but cold and
calculating, seeking only value.

“Why, I think what’s left of SHIELD
would do just about anything to get their hands on him, and you as well. Oh,
the secrets they think you have… they’d do anything to wring them out of you,
воин, but I’m never going to let that happen, don’t you worry.” The acidic
sweetness to his voice made the soldier’s blood run as cold as the river that
haunted his nightmares. It was a tone all too familiar, yet for what felt like
lifetimes that tone had been the closest semblance to kindness he’d ever
experienced, and he’d latched onto it desperately. Now it made him sick.

Aiden brushed past him, leaning over the
cot to look at the Captain’s wounds. One of his hands reached out, and the
soldier let out a growl that faded into a whine at the glare he received. The
man’s hand remained raised with a hint of threatening intent, and the assassin
felt his muscles tense in the expectation of a blow. His programming might have
degraded greatly due to being so long out of cryostasis, but enough of the
framework was intact for him to not attack the man or outwardly resist his
commands. He could only watch as he withdrew his hand, walking back towards the
shattered door, his back to him.

“I see you have some… attachment
to the Captain.” The General’s tone held the slightest hint of bitterness,
something he knew was very dangerous, “That will not be tolerated.
However…” his voice went quiet, that knowing smirk once again firmly
planted on his features as he spun on his heel to face the soldier, “If
you cooperate and let us fix all that damage Captain Rogers and his SHIELD
allies have done to your mind, we might let him live. If you don’t have any
more of those outbursts, we might even let you see him.” It was a ruse, he
knew it for sure, but he had no choice but to nod in silent agreement. Arguing
would signal that HYDRA’s control had faltered dangerously, and he couldn’t
risk Steve’s safety. For the first time in his memory, he found himself putting
the well-being of another before his own.

“Good, good. In that case I expect
you to return to medical immediately and let the doctors finish up their work.
We need you in working order as soon as possible. I expect an update on your
condition in three hours.” With that, Aiden Black left the room. The
soldier’s hearing could pick up on the sound of footsteps running down the hall
to retrieve him, likely signaled by the General, and he only had a few seconds.
He couldn’t run, couldn’t try to fight or escape, as that would get Steve
killed and he couldn’t bring himself to even consider that possibility.

He’d have to play this game, even fall
back under HYDRA’s command if it meant keeping the other man alive. It was a sacrifice
he was willing to make. The soldiers crowded the room a half-second later,
surrounding him and shepherding him out and away from the room, away from
Steve. One of them fit the muzzle-mask over his face, and with its acquainted
confines the soldier felt a foreign sense of revulsion budding in his chest.
The familiarity of it all, and the horror that he found himself so easily
slipping back into the mannerisms and routine, made the new fear that he might
lose what little fragments of himself he’d managed to gain back seem very, very
real.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

The soft, rhythmic pattern of water drops
pulled Steve out of the fog of unconsciousness, cutting through the static that
seemed to fill his mind. He didn’t feel any pain, not yet, but he felt heavy
and weak and so very tired. Stagnant, stale air coated his throat, thick with a
sharp, sanitized scent that settled on his tongue with a faintly bitter,
familiar taste. The air itself felt dense, as if he was breathing through
cotton shoved down his throat; if he hadn’t known better, he would have thought
he was having an asthma attack. There was a rattling, ghastly wheeze every
handful of seconds in addition to the dripping that had woken him, and it took
a long, sobering moment before he realized that he was hearing his own
breathing.

Drip.

Drip.

His torso felt constricted, tight and
immobile under what felt like a cocoon of gauze and medical tape. As
uncomfortable as it was it assured him that his wounds had been tended to, but
by whom the Captain had no idea. An experimental twitch of his fingers assured
him that he wasn’t paralyzed and could move, however difficult it may have
been. Everything felt fuzzy, it was the only way to describe it, unable to feel
or hear anything clearly. Everything was blurred into a mess of muffled noises
and sweeping sensations, nothing distinct.

Drip.

A slight shift of his head told him just
how stiff and sore his neck was. How long was I out? The
thought struck him suddenly, followed immediately by the cold electricity of
fear. Where am I? His eyes were forced open, but shut
immediately due to the blinding light of the room. Steve groaned and squeezed
his eyes shut tighter, tilting his head trying to block out every bit of that
painful brightness. The movement made him aware that his head was propped up
slightly, a pillow tucked behind it. It reminded him of when he’d have
respiratory infections in winter and Bucky would give him all the pillows to
keep his head and shoulders lifted so he could breathe easier—

Bucky. Emily.

The panic that gripped him was
all-consuming, shredding through the muddled fog in his mind like iron claws.
“B-Buck… Em…” the words barely left his throat, voice hoarse and
rasping and lungs suddenly alight with crackling fire at the effort. The words
brought the taste of copper to his lips, blood he was sure, but he scarcely
cared. “B… Bucky! Emily!” His eyes shot open again, ignoring the pain
of the light and he looked frantically for any sign of the soldier. Everything
came crashing back in a tangle of bloody memories—the fight, the sniper, Bucky
collapsing in front of him, felled by the commander—and in horror he realized
they had been captured. His own pain was ignored as he tried to push himself
up, the room spinning as he did so, his own weakness now undeniably apparent.

A strong, cold hand gripped his shoulder,
pushing him back down onto the cot before he could even think of trying to
search. Moments later a figure moved into his vision, leaning over him with a
face obscured by a curtain of dark, unruly hair. He heard a hushed word of
Russian, tone soft, reassuring in its sound although he didn’t understand it.
The Captain’s vision was too blurry to see many details, but then again, he didn’t
need any details to recognize him.

A dozen words tried to spill out of him at
once—you’re alright, you’re here, I was so scared for you, Buck,
where’s Em — but nothing left him save a wheezy exhale as he smiled
in relief. He wanted to stand, to make sure Bucky was alright, to tend to any
wounds he had, but he was all too aware that he couldn’t do a damned thing in
this state. Bucky was here and in the end that was the most important thing.
Everything else could be confronted and dealt with later.

Without another thought Steve had raised
his left arm, hesitantly brushing a few stray strands of hair out of the way
before cupping his cheek. He wanted to make sure he was really there, that this
wasn’t some horrible HYDRA trick, that it wasn’t the blood loss and whatever
medicines he was full of making him see things. Bucky’s skin was cold, rough
against his fingers, but very much alive and very much real. He didn’t even try
to stop his smile from spreading a bit when he saw how the soldier leaned into
the touch a bit instead of shying away or swatting at his hand.

“… about time you woke up.”
Bucky’s voice was quiet and scratchy, just the barest hint of a Brooklyn accent
shining through as he moved away, turning to look at what Steve guessed was the
door. He let his hand fall back to his side, cringing a bit when he felt a tug
at the crook of his arm. IV line; must have been what the dripping
was. He tried to ask how long he’d been out but only managed to
cough, tacky blood rattling in his aching lungs. The soldier glanced down to
him at the sound, but quickly went back to his vigil.

“Three days” of course he’d have
been able to know what he was trying to say, they’d been able to finish each
other sentences in the past, “you were hurt bad, Steve, real bad. Still hurt
bad, but I won’t let them touch you.” His voice trailed off, words
carrying an edge as sharp as any blade, but also the barest hint of sadness. It
was the most Bucky had spoken to him since he found him sleeping seemingly
lifetimes ago, and in some distant part of the Captain his soul practically
sung. He sounded more like Bucky, more like the cocky jerk he’d grown up with
in Brooklyn than he ever had since he’d become the Winter Soldier. A second
later just what he had said sunk in, and his optimism wavered.

“… w-who?” the Avenger just
barely croaked it out, a sense of dread sitting heavy in his heart. He knew who
had captured them, knew where they were, but maybe he could deny it all away.
After all, Bucky was here with him, right? They would have separated them
for sure…

“HYDRA.” The name was spat out,
deadly venom saturating his voice. Steve’s blood ran cold in his veins, the
room falling silent with only the constant drip drip of the isotonic IV
bag keeping time between them with its ceaseless rhythm. That little bit of
hope that he had been clinging to wavered, knowing just how bad a situation
they were in, but it didn’t go out. Emily and Sam were still out there, and he
knew they wouldn’t give up on him. They’d find them, somehow; Emily was clever and
resourceful, she’d pick up the trail and find them, and Sam was loyal and
wouldn’t stop until he was found.

His lungs hurt too much to try and
continue the conversation, and as his eyes adjusted he tried to make sense of
his surroundings. The measly cot he was lying on was pushed against a stone
wall that just seemed to exude a wet chill, meaning they were likely somewhere
underground. Light buzzed blearily from a thin fluorescent fixture in the
ceiling, a pitchy and irritating hum occasionally creeping over the drip
drop of the IV. The walls were dingy and ill-kempt, but a glance to
the door surprised him. Door was a loose term as it looked like it had been
holding back a tiger, shattered glass and broken old steel littering the floor,
but the door itself was made of new shiny metal. Judging from the debris, the
damaged door he was currently looking at was a replacement and the first one
made up the scraps on the floor. It took a few seconds before Steve realized it
wasn’t from Bucky attempting to break out, but from him breaking
in.

That realization made his chest tighten,
breath hitching slightly as he tried to breathe around the lump that built in
his throat. His last hazy moments of consciousness in that alleyway, of Bucky
crouched in front of him teary-eyed with gentling hands pressed to his wounds,
he’d thought he had dreamed them. Thought that in his pained delirium he’d
imagined hearing the soldier’s meek voice saying “I’m not
leaving you behind”. Thought that maybe he’d mistaken seeing
Bucky breaking through for those precious few minutes, and it looks like he
just might have. He’d clearly torn his way out of wherever HYDRA had tried to
lock him up, but instead of making an escape, he found him and broke in
and stayed right by his side.

“Y-you… stayed with m-me…”
Steve’s voice was hardly above a raspy whisper, vision distorting as tears
welled up. He wasn’t sure if it was the pain or medicine or just a moment of
vulnerability that brought them out, but he didn’t make any attempts to hide
them. Bucky protected me. He’d fought to keep HYDRA away
from him instead of saving himself. Even if Buck didn’t
remember much of his past he had still fought to keep him safe like all those
years ago. The Avenger breathed heavily, choking on his own words as he tried
to say too many things at once. He knew this man wasn’t the Bucky he knew so
well from his past, but he was bits and pieces of him and he wasn’t going to
stop helping him even if the suave jerk he had spent his life with never really
came back.

“Quit that” Bucky’s voice was
gruff, but the fingers that hesitantly ruffled his hair a moment later were
gentle and familiar. “You’re gonna tear that lung again if you keep
talking. Get some more sleep, I’ll be here when you wake up.” It wasn’t a command
from the Winter Soldier, it was spoken too softly for that, instead it sounded
more like back in their apartment in the old days, when Bucky would try to
wrangle him to bed when he was sick and not cooperating. He couldn’t count how
many times Buck had just picked up all coughing hundred and ten pounds of him
and put him to bed under every moth-eaten blanket they owned, no matter how
much Steve protested. He never admitted it to him, but after his mom had died,
Bucky’s sometimes over-protective mollycoddling had meant the world to him.
“Buck… Where’s Emily?” suddenly Steve blinked, narrowing his eyebrows.
“Where’s she?”

Winter Soldier let out a quiet sigh,
turning his eyesight away.

“Buck…” Steve felt like his heart
stopped within second. “I have to know.”
“She’s probably dead” Bucky shrughed slightly, without a shadow of emotions on
his face. “I haven’t heard from her since many days.”

Bucky continued to run his fingers through
Steve’s hair, something he’d done countless times when the artist had been sick
and confined to Buck’s bed. The radiator in Steve’s old room had always had
piss-poor timing when it came to breaking, so whenever he had shown the
slightest sign of illness Buck had surrendered his much-warmer room and they
both slept curled up on that ratty old bed to try and keep warm. He wasn’t sure
if Bucky remembered any of that or if he was just acting on instinct or
something else, but just like it had back then in their apartment, it put the
Captain to sleep in only a few minutes.

With him lulled back into sleep so
quickly, he hadn’t had the time to notice that Bucky was dressed back into his
combat gear, or see the troubled, guilty expression that he wore. Bucky hadn’t
wanted him to see either.

The passing of days no longer
registered, the only timestamps he recalled being changes in the Captain’s
condition. Some days he was awake when he was bidden time to spend in the cell,
most times he was unconscious or in a restorative sleep as the serum tried to
patch his body back together. The tainted, imperfect serum that flowed in his
own veins was doing much the same, skin and bones mending beneath his clothing.
It burned with a throbbing sort of heat and sometimes hours passed as he
passively observed the healing, watching his own flesh knitting back together
until only scars remained.

His body was healthier, the
Asset noticed dimly, his new handlers eager to get him back to working
conditions as soon as possible. The constant IV drips, the strange injections,
the foodstuffs he was prodded to eat, they’d all filled him out so he didn’t
look quite so emaciated. He halfheartedly guessed that the serum had busied
itself rebuilding his muscles with the amble nutrients he was getting as much
as it was healing his wounds.

With his shoulder healing up,
the white-coated techs had taken to repairing the extensive damage to his
prosthetic. It now moved fluidly, easily, the burn that gnashed its teeth into
his artificial nerves now abated and calmed. The plates had been smoothed and
repaired, the blood and grime cleaned away, although the red star he had tried
to scratch off with his own fingernails and anything within reach those first
few weeks remained marred and damaged. The techs didn’t try to reapply it; now
that he was no longer tied to the Red Room and the Soviets, they had no need to
flaunt their emblem.

He knew it was only a matter
of time before they’d try to deploy him, to test his programing, but he knew it
was mostly due to their eagerness to try and patch the damage that had been
caused by the exposing of SHIELD as HYDRA. Pierce was dead, but the saying
still held true; cut off one head, two more will take its place. Aiden Black
was not the new leader, but he had fallen in as his new handler, and that bit
of his programming was still sound enough to prevent him from refusing orders
from the man.

Today, however, he’d been
granted time with the Captain after preforming well in training. He knew that
Black wanted to wipe him, to rebuild the programming and perhaps even try the
same with the healing Captain, but he knew that the man couldn’t. This facility
lacked the proper equipment to carry out that procedure safely, or to rewrite
and build the programming back into his mind. It was likely why they were even
letting him see the other man. It was a way to keep him under control, giving
him time with him like a dog being trained and rewarded with scraps. He ought
to have been offended but honestly he didn’t care; any time with Steve was
worth whatever hell they put him through.

His earlier thoughts were all
pushed aside as soon as he entered the room they were keeping Steve in. The
soldiers always left them alone, Black convinced in his control over the Asset,
and he preferred it this way. He knew he was always under surveillance, but the
illusion of peace he had with the Captain was enough. Despite his few hours of
reprieve here he never allowed his guard to lower, never spoke out of turn or
gave any indication that the programming had slipped. He couldn’t allow that
knowledge to fall into Black’s hands. He could find some way to wipe him clean
and order him to kill the man he’d fought so hard to defend. The thought alone
made his breathing falter.

“… Bucky?” blinking,
his focus was pulled back to the present, to the Captain laid out on the cot.
The Asset straightened himself, shoved down all his disjointed thoughts, padded
over to the bedside to look down at him. He might have the perfected serum but
he had been wounded horrifically; he was still all but bedridden with the
injuries he’d sustained. He was half convinced the only reason he survived at
all was because the Captain was just too damn stubborn to die. Dim memories of
back alley fights, bright blond hair matted with blood and halfhearted smiles
mired by bruising and dirt flitted across his mind for a brief moment.

The Asset didn’t reply with
words, merely humming in response as he sat down in the empty chair next to the
cot. Some distant part of him was glad to see that Steve was awake and aware,
as the last few visits he’d been groggy and barely able to speak, mumbling in a
drug and pain-induced haze about things the Soldier didn’t remember. It was
stressful, but he would rather spend his time here, questioned over things he
didn’t understand or know, than be primed and molded to fall back into HYDRA’s
command.

“… you’re in gear.”
Steve’s voice was quiet, but he could still hear the apprehension and
resignation in his tone. It bothered the Asset greatly. Black had hinted at
possibly sending him out on some sort of simple assignment so he’d dressed himself
in his heavy Kevlar vest and armor, hiding his healing wounds and returning
build. The less Steve knew about how long he’d been trapped here the better.
The last thing he needed was him hatching some idiotic scheme to escape that
would get him killed.

“… d’you get your
orders?” the words came out of his mouth slurred and soft, his mind
obviously still a bit hazed from whatever drugs they had to have pumped him
full of to keep him manageable. It set the Soldier’s teeth on edge, the thought
of them doing something like that to Steve, but he couldn’t protest or else run
the risk of being separated fully. The statement did, however, fire some
distant, disjointed memory. He could almost smell the musty air of some damp
alleyway, blood in the mouth of his friend as he spoke and looked at him in a
strange mix of admiration and sadness. It made his heart ache in a way he
wasn’t familiar with, even without any further context to bolster it.

“… yeah, Steve.” His
voice was still rough with disuse, awkward and stiff and lacking in the emotion
Steve held when he talked. The last time he’d been here the other man had
panicked, remembering their capture, tried to fight his way free of the web of
IV line that held him. At least this way, with him lost in his own sleepy
awareness, he was easy to convince all was well although every lie he told
tasted bitter on his tongue.

“Be careful, Buck.”
Steve mumbled a bit when the Asset stood and began to pick at his wound
wrappings, drawing his eyes from his work to meet his. They were hazy from pain
and sleep, greyed and sick looking in a way that made the Soldier’s stomach
knot up. He swallowed thickly and focused on checking all of Steve’s wounds,
not trusting any of the HYDRA medics or their work. Most of his wounds had
closed, the deepest pink with new-grown scar tissue and the lesser wounds
already silvered and faded into his skin.

“I will.” The
response was automatic, not looking away from his task now. He was replacing
the packing in Steve’s side, where the sniper round had ripped his chest cavity
open. Even the serum was having trouble with the wound, and if it hadn’t been
for that (and his damn fool stubbornness) he surely would have bled out right
there in the street.

Steve made a noise halfway
between a whimper and groan when he started to pull the bloodied, coagulated
mess of packing out of the wound, obviously feeling it even through the fog of
painkillers. He squirmed enough to make his task difficult, but at the same
time it lifted his spirits somewhat. His strength was coming back, slowly, but
it was a good sign. His body was starting to heal enough for his system to
begin filtering the medicines in his body more efficiently; a hazy memory
bubbled up of Steve complaining about Morita’s morphine shot not taking the
edge off a bullet wound he’d gotten in the calf. This had to be a good sign. It
just had to be.

The wound still looked
horrific, and he knew he couldn’t chance an escape with Steve in this state.
The ragged tear was having trouble healing over due to just how much tissue loss
and damage he’d sustained, despite the serum flowing in his veins. Even with
Steve still moving around he was able to place more sterile packing into the
wound and wrap it tight with gauze and medical tape, after treating it with a
potent antibacterial wash that he made sure to carry on his person at all
times. That hadn’t been fun. Steve had gasped hoarsely and it’d hurt him to
hear, but it needed to be done. He still didn’t trust these HYDRA doctors to
treat the wounds correctly, even though he had little formal medical training
himself. It didn’t matter in his mind; his body and muscle memory knew Steve
and how to treat him better than anyone else and like hell he was going to just
sit passively by and let someone who didn’t know the first thing about Steve
Rogers try to patch his wounds.

With his work finished and
Black no doubt waiting on him, the Soldier knew he had to cut his visit short.
The man had mentioned something about a cleanup mission, to take care of some
SHIELD holdouts that had grouped up near where he and Steve had been picked up.
It would be a quick and clean mission. They’d likely pair him with the
surviving members of the Strike unit to keep him under observation, but he
could easily use their fear of him to make them keep their distance. He had a
feeling these ‘SHIELD holdouts’ might be whoever Steve had alerted the night
they were captured. If that was the case this mission was going to go very
poorly.

“I’m leaving, don’t get
into any trouble while I’m gone.” The Soldier mumbled a bit, not wanting
to leave but knowing he couldn’t stay. He gently smoothed down Steve’s unruly
hair with his right hand, always the right, something he
felt like he’d done countless times a hundred lifetimes ago. When he was around
the other man it felt like he went on autopilot, doing things he had no clear
conscious memory of ever knowing how to do, yet with the ease and familiarity
as if he’d been doing them all his life. He knew how to calm him down, how he
liked his pillows just so, how he had an awful habit of kicking the blankets
off in his sleep, things he had no business knowing yet he did.

“No promises, Buck.”
Steve breathed out heavily, eyes already half-lidded with drowsy exhaustion but
with a crooked grin on his face. The Soldier felt a near overwhelming urge to
roll his eyes and swat his shoulder but he held back, knowing he was still
badly wounded and not wanting any sign of playfulness to be seen by the
cameras. He merely brushed a few dirty blond strands of hair out of Steve’s
face instead, hiding the action by pretending to hold his palm there to check
his temperature. It was a poor ruse, with his fingers lingering a moment too
long, body too loose with the feeling of safety, but he didn’t think it would
be caught.

This mission had him nervous.
It sat low in his stomach like a weight of molten lead, burning and heavy and
disorienting. It felt familiar in some distant way; he remembered feeling it
before, while sitting in the snow at the edge of some high cliff, the snow kept
off him with a shield held above his head by the man he was leaning heavily
against for warmth. The memory was pushed down as he closed the door behind
him, lock clicking softly at his back before he allowed himself to be pushed by
the decayed programming to report to the command center. The sooner he
completed his assignment the sooner he could return to Steve’s side, and that
was the only thought that kept his body in motion.

“Have you heard anything
back from Jarvis, Stark? We’ve got to narrow down our search parameters.”

The past few weeks had been
complete and utter hell. Without SHIELD, running a rescue mission for one
Steven Grant Rogers and one possibly-hostile Winter Soldier had been, to put it
mildly, completely fucking exhausting. But, this was hardly enough to make
Emily Vandom crack. She’d done more with less resources and less time, and this
time she had friends to help her. She poured herself another mug of coffee,
glancing over to Stark tapping away at one of his fancy tablets and to Wilson
and his makeshift workstation on the floor with his wingpack.

After last time when they got
separated, Emily didn’t know what to do and how to help Bucky and Steve, so she
did the last thing that remained – she had to contact with Sam Wilson, who was
(as she knew) a closest friend of Steve.

Sam, although she had known
him not too long, had slotted himself into the ragtag group as easily as
clockwork, as if he’d been crafted to be a part of their unit. For the first
week he’d housed both herself and Barton, who’d come as soon as Emily had
filled him in on the situation. It was reassuring having her partner in crime
back at her side. Stark, for all his crassness and bluster, had dropped
everything when she informed him of Steve’s capture. As difficult as he was to
work with some days, he really could be an invaluable ally as long as he kept
himself occupied.

“Jarvis is going as fast
as he can but there’s a lot of data to go through,” Tony’s voice was heavy
with lost sleep, as if the dark patches under his eyes and the hot coffee mug
held tight in his hand weren’t enough of a giveaway, “HYDRA’s hiding
themselves pretty well, or what’s left of it anyway. They’re probably
disguising their shipments and covering their tracks more than usual. I doubt
they’d take them out of the city yet, it’d draw too much attention, but, it is
HYDRA so who knows.”

Tony must have repeated that a
hundred times in a hundred different ways, and she knew that the tension was
getting to them all, but it didn’t make her any less anxious. They’d moved into
Steve’s apartment and the empty next door apartment after contacting Sharon,
who provided her keys to the locks which had yet to be changed. She was doing
what she could to aid in the search, but with her new job in the FBI and Emily
still in hot political water, she didn’t want to add any fuel to that fire with
her presence. If word got lose in the government that Captain America had been
captured while housing the Winter Soldier, well, the repercussions were
something none of them wanted to deal with.

“I’m going up to check
the perimeter with Clint. Let me know if you find anything, and while Jarvis
works maybe you could give Sam a hand.” Sitting idle and waiting just
wasn’t in her nature. Sam was working on his damaged wingpack, which Tony had
started to repair but had to drop to prep Jarvis for the scan of the city’s
information apparatus. They’d need Sam’s help once the AI located whatever
HYDRA hellhole Steve and the Winter Soldier had been taken to. Even though
Steve seemed to trust him, there was still a wary part of her that couldn’t
dismiss the possibility that maybe the Winter Soldier had lead Steve into a
trap, that he’d been a Trojan horse or some form of bait to lure him into
HYDRA’s clutches. It was a grim and farfetched possibility, but one that was
all too real.

The cool air outside once she
reached the roof was a welcome source of sobriety, washing away her muddled
thoughts and letting her release her own tensions with a soft exhale. The last
week had damn near run her ragged. To have something like this happen so soon
after the fall of SHIELD, before she’d had a chance to really recover, was just
not something she had ever expected to happen. She’d thought she would have had
a bit more time before she’d have to pay her debt back to Steve for saving her
life.

“Lower levels secure,
how’re things up here?” she sat down heavily near the archer, just in case
he had his hearing aids turned down. He was perched on the corner of the
building, goggled eyes on the building entrance and the surrounding streets.
His bow was held in loose fingers, eyes never stopping their scan of the
streets when he replied.

“Well, there’s been an
awful lot of owls around but no, haven’t seen any HYDRA agents or anything
unusual.” Clint replied, voice a bit hoarse from not having spoken in
several hours. Emily roughly shoved her half-empty coffee mug into his side,
nudging him until he sighed loudly and took it with his free hand.

“You’ve been on watch for
hours, take a few minutes.” She knew he was as tense and eager to find the
Captain, but with nothing to do but stand watch it had to be bothering him a
good deal. “Stark has Jarvis checking shipping records and anything else
we can think of to try and narrow down a few spots. We don’t think they’re out
of the city. Sam’s getting his wings ready and if we have some locales by the
end of the night we can move out as early as the morning.”

“Good.” Clint
mumbled through a mouthful of coffee, having nearly chugged the whole cup while
Emily had been talking. “I’ve got Soviet cooties now but thanks for the
coffee, ‘Tasha.” With an exasperated sigh Emily punched his side, which
made him jump and the coffee mug to slip out of his hand and down to the street
below with a muffled shattering of ceramic. “Aw, mug no.”

Emily laughed, a true laugh,
the kind that ended with her snorting into her sleeve. Maybe it was the tension
of the night but it felt good to just laugh, and she heard Clint huff out a
laugh as well. The last few days have weighed on her so much that it was nice
to let off a little of the steam. She turned to make a witty comment but Clint
frantically signed “quiet” at her, eyes
locked down where the mug had fallen. She was up and looking over the ledge of
the building in an instant, keeping low so she wouldn’t be seen.

She heard him notch an arrow
and draw, his breathing evening out the way it did when he aimed. She spotted
in the street below within a few seconds; a shadow out of place, a brief flash
of reflected light off of metal. Emily didn’t hesitate to stop the archer, hand
over his as he prepared to let the arrow fly, hissing out a breath between her
teeth as she struggled to choose what to do. Downing him was likely the wisest
option, but, if he was here, there was a chance Steve was too.

“Don’t,” she knew
that Clint wouldn’t, but speaking her thoughts couldn’t hurt any, “This
isn’t right. If he was going to try and pick us off he would have while we were
distracted. Something’s going on.” Clint kept his bow at half-pull, and
she didn’t blame him; she was cautious and untrusting herself, but as she
watched the Winter Soldier looked right at them yet didn’t duck behind cover.
He just looked right at them.

“He could have agents all
around the building we can’t just sit here,” he whispered harshly, pulling
the bow to full-draw when the Soldier advanced until he was standing just a
couple yards from the building. He was masked but lacked the goggles, dressed
full in HYDRA gear with a rifle slung at his back, but hands empty.

“This isn’t right, Clint.”
As if on cue, the Winter Soldier raised his hands, empty palms towards them.
A show of submission. Emily bit her lip, not knowing what was going
on in the man’s head but knowing that this wasn’t one of HYDRA’s normal
tactics. Either this was the man that had grown up with Steve or a twisted
HYDRA trap, or something in-between. “… I’m going down there. Cover
me.”

“Emily you can’t
be…” she didn’t give him the chance to try and talk her out of it,
jumping onto the fire escape two floors down. It rattled so loud in the
otherwise silent alleyway that she was sure HYDRA agents would be all over her,
but seconds ticked by and there wasn’t any movement, not even from the assassin
in the street below. She was far from unarmed, with a pistol in her pockets, but
she would never underestimate the Winter Soldier.

Being on the ground, mere feet
away from the man that had shot her just a few months ago, is… tense, to say
the least. Her shoulder aches. He looks different now in a way she can’t really
place; he’s thinner than he was in her memories, eyes dark with lost sleep and
weary in a way she never thought was possible from so menacing a man. He looked
ragged and downtrodden and every bit as awful as Steve had described. Beneath
the layers of caution and defensiveness, she admitted she felt a twinge of,
pity was too strong a word but something like it, for her former mentor.

“What do you want,
James.” The words came out more bitter than she had intended, but then
again maybe it was better to put up that façade. The man standing before her
wasn’t the same anymore, but hell, she changed also…

“Vitani.” His voice
was muffled under the muzzle-mask but that didn’t diminish their effect. Vitani.
Emily hadn’t heard her old nickname in what felt like lifetimes. It told her
that he remembered at least fragments of their past, much like her. “… I
need your help.” That definitely wasn’t what she expected to hear him say
next.

“My help?” Emily
repeated the statement softly, “… Steve. How can I help?” she watched
his eyes light up the dimmest bit. James slowly lowered his right hand, pulling
something small and flat from his pocket. An arrow cut the tense air between
them, embedding itself into the pavement a few inches from the man’s foot; a
clear, grim warning not to test his luck. It gave the Soldier pause before he
completed his action, a small, scuffed moleskin sketchbook clutched in his
hand.

“They have him.”
James’s voice was rough and so tired, the book gently placed in her hands with
his fingers lingering on her own for the briefest moment, “They think I’m
on their leash still, Emily. Steve is hurt, I can’t get him out on my
own.” His tone was almost pleading and it painfully twisted something up
inside of her, “They sent me here to kill you all with the Strike team,
you’re not safe here any longer.” Even without it being said, she knew
that he had killed his own team to prevent them from hurting them.

“Where did they take him?
Where are you based?” she got no clear answer, the Soldier merely tilting
his head towards the thin sketchpad in her hands. When she opened the cover she
realized there was a roughly drawn map, made of taken streets and turns that he
must have taken to reach the building. It could lead them right to them.

“Emily, listen to
me” his voice was suddenly soft, shot through with remorse, “they’re
trying to get me under control again. If they manage to, I need you to put me
down. Steve won’t be able to, and you’re the only person I can trust to do it
right. They might not even need to do it, I might try and hurt him if I’m not
in my right mind. Please, I need you to promise.” Without even seeing his
reaction she knew her façade fell for the briefest of moments, blindsided by
the request. She’d expected him to be hostile, to be defiant at the least, but not
this.

She couldn’t form the words
but nodded, setting her jaw and straightening her back. The look of relief that
filled his eyes was almost as heartbreaking as the whole damn situation. He
started to turn but she stopped him, slipping a small object into his palm,
curling his calloused fingers around it with her own hands. It was her necklace
she used to wear everyday, in a shape of swan with outstretched wings. Seconds
ticked by before he broke eye contact with her, looking down to his hand that
she still held and then to the arrow by his boot.

“… thank you, моя любовь.”
She almost missed it, that softly mumbled bit of Russian that solidified in her
mind that this was really James talking, and not the Winter Soldier.  She never thought she would ever hear that
from him again. Emily gave his hand a gentle squeeze before she backed away,
the Soldier doing the same, storing the thin metal object she had given him
into one of his pockets.

“Be careful, James.”
Emily spoke softly, “… дорогой..” She watched him stiffen at the
word, scanning her eyes for a long moment before he turned his head, breath
exhaled loudly through the mask. She allowed her gaze to return to the roof,
where Clint was still perched watchfully, another arrow at the ready. When she
turned back to the Winter Soldier he was gone, just like the ghost he was. Her
grip on the sketchbook tightened as resolve settled in.
As it stood, HYDRA was holding two men from her, and they would soon come to
regret that action.

His mind had always been too
loud. Too loud, too busy, too full of things he had no context for. He could
see them in bright flashes of vivid experience; the smell of a Brooklyn alley
after a midnight rain, the feel of a stray cat’s fur under his palm as it
arched into his touch, the sound of a train’s wheels far too close, he could
remember small bits in crisp clarity but the whole picture was broken. He held
the shattered pieces of a great mosaic with no blueprint, no frame of
reference; the grand work it once was lost, leaving him with only a hundred
million broken fragments and no way to tell how they fit together.

At least, it had been that way
for the decades under HYDRA’s command. He’d been out of cryo so long, his mind
let go to mend without the wipes and supplied with small threads to stitch the
patchwork of memories together, that now he was slowly piecing that mosaic of
his former life back together. His memories were less flashes of disjointed
fragments and now short contingencies; instead of just an isolated sound of
pencils scratching at paper he now had a tentative picture of a skinny boy
hunched dutifully over a thin sketchpad as he drew, or how a Russian lullaby
now reminded him of a dozen young faces in a dim military compound.

With the tentative return of
his memories came the emotions attached to them. He remembered the fluttery
lightness in his stomach when he laughed loud and long around a campfire with
Steve and soldiers just on this edge of familiarity, or how the fear had felt
like tendrils of ice snaking up his spine when he heard a door slam shut over
the rattling of train wheels. He remembered what fondness felt like, how it had
bloomed with a fragile warmth behind his ribs for the first time in decades
when he heard the first few unsure English words leave Emily’s mouth, how she’d
smiled like the sun after she held her first conversation in it with him. He
remembered how it felt to have the emotions, but what he lacked entirely was
how it felt to receive them, to give them
freely and openly.

The strings that HYDRA had cut
and mangled were slowly reconnecting, threading through the holes in the
decaying programming and forming stronger bonds with each day. He hid it, he
hid it deep and he hid it well. If Black knew he would be isolated, probably
even forcibly wiped with what little equipment the base had even if it had a
high chance of killing him. He knew how Black operated, his worth was only
measured by his effectiveness in the field, and he knew as soon as that was
permanently diminished he was obsolete. Just another loose end to be cleaned
up, a broken machine to be discarded, a toothless wolf to be tied down and
shot.

A week had passed since his
meeting with Emily, since he’d given her every bit of information he could to
help them find Steve. He could feel the programming responding to his HYDRA
handlers, feel himself falling easier and easier into old ways and habits,
found it harder to recall the broken shards of his memories. It scared him, it
honestly scared him. What if tomorrow he woke up and all of the progress he had
made was undone? What if tomorrow he looked at Steve and didn’t see him, and
saw only a target or mission or body to be disposed of? If he lost Steve, if he
lost him and Emily, then he knew there’d be no saving him from HYDRA; they were
the only ones who stood even the slightest chance of picking up his shattered
pieces. This act of putting faith and trust in others was so foreign to him it
was almost terrifying but he knew he couldn’t do this on his own.

The soft sound of exhaled
breath brought him back to reality, eyes cutting down to where Steve was
resting his head on his thigh. The wound to his right side had healed enough
for him to move around somewhat, although his definition of moving was rather
singular. Steve had rolled onto his left side, using the Soldier’s lap as a
pillow, the thin white blanket he was wrapped in streaked with rust red from
the most recent change of bandages. The Asset had deemed him well enough to
chance providing him with a shirt, bright SHIELD logo across the chest of it,
the sight of which made him feel sick. Steve was curled up somewhat, back
mostly to the Asset, trying to shrink into himself but twisting himself up in
the blanket and his own limbs in the process. Wide open to
attack. The thought stung in his mind, eyes narrowing a fraction
behind the thick protective goggles, and was dispelled quickly. Steve Rogers
was not a target, threat or mark to him, but his programming deemed otherwise.

Even with the serum Steve’s
wounds were taking too long to heal for the Asset to be comfortable. The
horrific gunshot to his side had only just closed up, a stark red swath of raw
muscle stretched taunt over mending bones. The wound to his collarbone had
healed much quicker, now a silvery patch of scarred skin that was fading with
every passing day. His breathing had evened out to a wheezy constant, no longer
sputtering and fluid-filled. It was a small comfort to the Asset.

The HYDRA doctors kept him
sedated heavily most days now, preventing him from attempting to fight back or
flee. The Asset knew the drugs well enough, as they had been used on him in the
past when he woke up from cryo. It had kept him docile and pliant and it made
him sick to see Steve reduced to the same state. He was burning through the
dosage much quicker than he ever had, sometimes snapping to awareness with a
feral sort of desperation to escape. Black made an awful point to make him be
the one to administer the syrette, make him stand and watch as Steve collapsed
and wheezed and tried to fight the drug, always to fail. Black couldn’t wipe
him, but he was trying his damnedest to break him through other means.

He’d been given less and less
time with the Captain, forced into training exercise after training exercise,
with little rest in between. The goggles hid how cloudy from exhaustion his
eyes had gotten, how dark the patches under them had become, rendering him less
and less able to fight back against orders. He wanted to gnash his teeth and
lash out at every turn but he didn’t have near the strength to keep doing so.
He was so tired. He was never going to stop fighting but the programming was
much stronger in his depleted state, the feeling of it guiding his movements
almost second nature after decades under its control.

Stress sat heavy on the
Soldier’s shoulders, weighing him down and filling him with dread. His right
hand was gently carding through Steve’s hair, curling through golden strands
that had grown during their captivity. He had orders from Black himself, an
ultimate test for his programming, and he could feel it straining in his mind,
the cogs and gears of HYDRA’s control creaking and screeching in protest
against his unwillingness to comply. He’d known this order was coming since his
capture, known since they let Steve recover, known since they let him visit him
as a reward.

The possibility of it had
eaten at his mind since his first agreement to comply with Black’s wishes, but
now that the command had been given the reality of it all had crashed down on
him. It was punishment, he knew it, punishment for not killing Emily and the
small group she had gathered, for killing his own team to protect them. Black
wanted him to know that he wasn’t to make decisions and couldn’t think for
himself, and Black’s sick sense of humor had been summed up in his simple
order. He wanted balance; since he couldn’t kill Emily and her group, he had to
take another’s life.

He held a knife in his metal
hand.

“Kill the Captain,
Soldier.”

Even hours later the words
still rang in his ears, a roar that threatened to drown out his own thoughts.
He couldn’t reject a direct command from a handler such as Black, yet he’d
managed to hold out this long, kept his blade from marring the unblemished skin
of the blond’s neck. He could feel the press of it bearing down on his mind, burning
behind his temples and tugging at his limbs, but he fought it. He gritted his
teeth under the muzzle-mask and hissed out his breath, trying to will himself
to throw the knife away from them but his arm wouldn’t respond. He couldn’t
disarm himself but he found he could keep himself from moving to attack; he was
at a grim stalemate with the programming.

“Slit his throat,
Soldier. I want you to watch him die.”

A strangled sort of noise
choked in the Asset’s throat, swallowed down thickly as he struggled to keep
from showing his distress outwardly. He didn’t even realize his hands were
shaking until Steve made a confused sound, tilting his head to look up at him
with one medicine-fogged eye in silent question. It just made the Soldier’s
hands tremble more. He’d done everything he could to try and protect the few
people he knew with certainty and it was being warped into Steve’s own death;
everything he’d done was going to kill the man he’d tried so hard to protect.

“… Bucky?”

The Asset’s whole body
shuddered at the other’s voice, shaking so much he could hardly sit. He pulled
his hand away and watched the other’s face, thankful for the first time in
decades for the mask that covered his expression. Steve couldn’t see the pained
look on his face, see how panicked and wild his eyes were through the goggles.
Black’s agents had locked him in here and he could see the shadows of them
through the small square window on the door; he knew that they would keep him
in here until he completed his mission. He’d lasted this long, he just had to
keep telling himself he just had to hang on a little longer.

He had to look away. He
couldn’t look at Steve without the programming screaming to lunge, to hold him
down and slash the blade across his open throat. The inner mechanisms of his
metal arm whirled and purred, plates calibrating and lying flat and repeating,
unfeeling fingers tight around the handle of the knife that he could hear
cracks forming on the resin grip. He felt like some sort of predator, a
monster; Steve had done nothing but try to protect and aid him and when he
needed him to return the favor here he was, holding the knife that would kill
him.

Muffled voices from the HYDRA
agents outside, combined with their restlessly shifting shadows through the
window, set off alarms in the Asset’s mind. Something was going on. It was
likely Black coming to inspect his progress and the thought of it was enough to
worsen his shaking. He was being pulled in a dozen different directions;
Black’s words tugged at him to attack, his own mind screamed at him to get
Steve out of this hellhole and protect him, while the programming whispered
encouragements to complete his mission and be rewarded with the quiet sleep of
cryo.

The weight in his lap vanished
and he didn’t dare look to see; he could hear Steve straining to sit up, breath
wheezing out of his still-healing lungs from the effort. The programming
lurched at the opportunity like a starving animal presented with a meal, teeth
bared and desperate for blood. It’d be so easy to just turn and plunge the
knife into his back; the blade was long enough to reach his heart through his
ribs if he aimed right, he’d bleed out if it didn’t outright kill him..

“Buck.”

His grip on the knife
tightened, servos in his arm whirring into readiness. If he completed his
mission Black would put him in cryo, would stop all the noise of the broken
memories in his head and let him rest; he was so tired, he’d
run and fought for so long that even the horrors of his captivity seemed like a
sweet relief from the pain of remembering. The fragments of his memories had
always just been background noise before, but now with time and healing they
were loud, intrusive, overwhelming and smothering. He couldn’t handle it on his
own.

“Buck, something’s going
on, we need to get out of here…”

He was so far lost in his own
mind, moving without knowing, drowning inside his own thoughts and broken
memories. There was only so long one could fight before it all collapsed, until
one gives in under the pressure. With his memories a jumbled heap, struggling
to stitch together, the pain of it all was overpowering. He felt trapped inside
a cage like a wild animal, desperate to get out and escape from all the noise.

The soft touch of warm fingers
on his right arm triggered an immediate response, twisting and clamping his
hand onto a still-healing shoulder, knife edge pressed to soft skin. He was
instantly still, muscles wound tight like a spring, blade biting into his
throat just enough to draw a single trickle of blood. Steve,
this is Steve, stop. He was horrified,
wanting nothing more than to bolt out the door before he could do something to
hurt him more, but he couldn’t move. He could only
watch as Steve swallowed, eyes staring into his featureless goggles, confused
and frightened but, God, still so bright.

“Bucky, put it down… please…”

A sound that could have been a
whimper escaped him, stomach turning in disgusted horror at himself. Yet
he still couldn’t move the weapon away. He couldn’t just ignore his
mission but he could try and fight it, try to delay it, give Steve enough time
to try and get away but unless he got a new command he had to complete it. It
was the worst part of the programming.

“You don’t have to listen
to them anymore, Bucky..”

Steve sounded more lucid than
he had in weeks, even with his eyes still fogged from medication and pain. He
knew Steve, he’d made the connection between him and the boy with the
sparrow-thin bones and bloodied knuckles from his memories, but seventy years
of forced obedience and programming and control were impossible to just shrug
off. Steve must have sensed it, but then again even the broken fragments of his
memories told him that he had always been able to read him like a book.

He didn’t show an ounce of
fear as he slowly raised his hand, hovering it over his metal wrist, never
breaking eye contact. He reasoned he wanted him to make sure he saw what he was
doing. He remained tense and stiff, ready to slash the blade the inch it’d take
to kill the man, but he waited. Steve seemed to take it as permission, lightly
laying his hand over his own metal one, trying to gently push it away from his
throat. He resisted at first, artificial muscles clicking and flexing before he
slowly relaxed, letting his arm be guided away and down.

“You’re okay, Bucky,”
he started, keeping his voice low and even, not even blinking at the impossibly
loud sound of the knife clattering to the floor as it slipped from the Asset’s
grip, “you’re my friend, you don’t have to make it on your own.”

Thank you Buck, but I can make
it on my own.

The thing is, you don’t have
to.

Something about those string
of words sparked something, a bright image flashing in his mind. He remembered
Steve, so much smaller with red-ringed eyes. He remembered his hand gripping
his shoulder tightly; he realized dimly that he was doing much the same now, a
twisted sort of parody of a gesture that no doubt had once been based in
comfort. Steve lifted his free hand, the other still cradling the metal wrist
that a moment ago had been poised to slit his throat, reaching slowly towards
his face. The memory was so vivid he didn’t even react until he felt his
goggles being gently tugged away, dropping discarded into his lap.

The Asset tried to suck in a
breath through the muzzle mask but his lungs hitched as his whole body began to
shake, arms dropping into his lap, limp. He had no idea what was happening. The
programming had faltered, leaving him unable to complete the mission; the
conflict between his programming and the memories was just too much. Panic filled
every bit of him, heart hammering against his ribs and stomach threatening to
retch. He’d never felt like this in any of the memories he had and it terrified
him. He couldn’t get enough air and he felt entirely out of control of his own
body, his breathing loud and ragged and desperate under the mask.

He felt Steve’s hand on his
left shoulder, thumb just barely tracing the ragged seam where metal met flesh,
his eyes focused on his own as he spoke although he didn’t hear a word he said.
Normally he flinched or reacted violently to contact but he didn’t this time,
merely shrinking into himself in an attempt to hide from the storm that was his
mind. It was oddly assuring, the feeling of his firm grip on his shoulder,
although it didn’t immediately register that he was touching his left arm. He
couldn’t touch him with his left arm, he couldn’t, he couldn’t.
He was dimly aware of a loud noise outside the room, an electric sort of noise
that sent the panic coiling in his belly shooting straight up his spine. He
needed to get away. Electricity meant pain, meant the wipe that would steal
Emily and Steve and his fragile memories away again.

His legs felt boneless when he
tried to jump up but he didn’t make it any farther than that, Steve’s grip on
his shoulder turning strong as steel, pulling him back down. The Asset dimly
heard him yelling at him; he heard Bucky and he heard its
okay but everything in between was lost in the blur that was the
panic swirling in his mind. The electric noise was right outside, it was too
close. Too close.

“S-Steve, I…”

The door was blown off its
hinges with a bolt of blue, slamming into the wall, and all thoughts screeched
to a halt and screamed attack.

Steve flinched violently when
the door exploded to his right, shards of hot metal bouncing off his side. The
air was full of the acrid stench of charred metal and sharp electricity, a
scent he knew like the back of his hand. Stark. Thank God, Emily had gotten
help and somehow found them. They just might get out of this mess after all. He
had his visor flipped open and grinned when he saw him, motioning to the two of
them broadly. He didn’t have enough time to warn him about Bucky, to warn him
about the sound the repulsors made, to warn him about anything.

“Tony, turn off your
Repulsors!” he shouted but by the time the words left his lips Bucky had
already sprung, producing a knife from somewhere on his person and lunging at
Tony like a bird of prey, blade like a talon aiming straight for the suit’s Arc
Reactor. Tony didn’t even have enough time to flip down his visor before Bucky
barreled into him, sending them both to the floor. Steve tried to jump up to
pry Bucky off but the drugs were still in his system, making his limbs feel a
hundred pounds heavier and the room spin with any sudden movement. It felt like
when his blood sugar used to dip before the serum.

The screech of metal against
metal was nearly ear-splitting, the knife glancing off an armored gauntlet when
Tony threw his arms up to deflect the strike. Bucky jammed the blade into one
of the seams, Tony actually letting out a yelp before he jerked his arm back,
the knife catching and snapping from the torque. The useless hilt was
discarded, fingers curling into a fist and slamming into the Arc Reactor, cracking
the protective covering. Steve’s heart skipped and he screamed at Bucky to stop
but he watched as he raised his fist again, aiming to break the Reactor which
would trap Tony in the powerless suit.

A brilliant flash of blue
filled the room and Bucky was thrown off, the sleeve of his uniform
disintegrating and exposing the metal underneath. The Repulsor blast had been
drastically dialed back, only enough power behind it to knock him away, but it
still nearly blew him into the far wall. He landed on his feet like some sort
of cat and skidded back, tattered sleeve smoking and the plating of his arm
mired with superficial electricity burns. His breathing was far too fast and he
was still shaking, hardly able to stand on his own two feet.

“Bucky, calm down!”
Steve pulled himself free of the IV drips, using the wall to steady himself as
he moved closer to Tony; he was hedging his bets on the fact that Bucky
hopefully wouldn’t attack with him so close to his target. “Tony is a
friend, he’s not going to hurt you!” he could only watch helplessly as
Bucky tensed himself up again, coiling in on himself like a snake about to
strike. “Bucky, don’t! I promise he’s not going to hurt you!” he
placed himself between the two, holding his hands up submissively. Tony quickly
did the same, powering down his Repulsors completely.

Bucky remained crouched and
ready to lunge, another much larger blade in his right hand. His eyes darted
between Steve and behind him to Tony as if he was trying to judge his distance;
it made Steve’s stomach drop. He edged forward slowly, closing the distance
hesitantly even though he heard Tony’s concerned hiss of Steve
be careful behind him.

“Buck, its okay, I
promise. Its fine, Tony’s not going to hurt you or me.” he assured,
reaching out and slowly taking hold of his hand with the knife. Bucky didn’t
let go, keeping his eyes locked on Tony over Steve’s shoulder as if daring him
to try and take another step closer even though he was now shaking so badly he
could barely keep his stance. His eyes were still unfocused and wild, nothing
like they were the last few times he’d visited him in his cell.

“Cap, I think he’s having
a panic attack” Tony said suddenly, visor flipping up, “try and get
him calmed down so we can get you both out of here. Emily is coming down the
hallway, I’m going to make sure our path out is clear but we need to leave
before more HYDRA agents show up.” Steve nodded back at him before turning
his attention back to Bucky, hand still on the hilt of the knife to try and
keep him from lunging around him at Tony.

“Buck, Bucky, I need you
to look at me” Steve spoke sternly, Bucky’s gaze snapping back to him in
an instant, “please try and calm down. You’re breathing too hard, just,
try and focus on slowing it down.” He’d talked Tony through his panic
attacks in the last few months when something triggered them but Tony had never
had a penchant to try and kill him during them.

The knife came loose from his
grip a moment later, Steve quickly tossing it out of reach onto the abandoned
cot. Bucky was shuddering so much he looked like he was about to shake apart,
breath heaving in and out. He wanted to get the mask off of him but he didn’t
think it was a good idea with him still so flighty. He could easily end up
hurting him or himself.

“James, теперь ты в
безопасности.”

He felt Bucky jolt to look
over at the remains of the door where Emily was now standing silently, the
shield strapped to one arm. Steve would have spun around himself but he didn’t
dare make any sudden moves with Bucky in his state, knowing he was teetering on
the edge of attacking him or attacking anyone who so much as came within three
feet of him with a weapon.

“E-Emily.” Bucky’s
voice was painfully weak, hardly audible over his breathing. Steve heard her
walk over, she deliberately making enough noise so not to startle him, reaching
out to lay her hand on his arm gently. It seemed to ease his shaking a bit,
having two grounding points, but they didn’t have the time to get him
completely calmed down. They still had to get out of this nightmarish place and
get to safety.

“You’re going to be
fine.” She reassured him soothingly, her voice softer than he’d ever heard
it before, “we’re going to take you and Steve somewhere safe.” Bucky
seemed to calm a bit at her words, tentatively nodding in agreement as his
tremors subsided. He still looked pale and nervous but he didn’t seem to be on
the verge of passing out anymore. “Steve, Stark has the hallway clear but
we need to go now. More agents are inbound and we don’t have the head of the
base pinned down. Do you think he’s good for extraction?” Steve turned to
look at the Soldier at her words, and he mirrored the action.

“Do you think you can
make it out of the building, Buck? We need to go.” Steve asked and was
relieved when he saw the slight nod he got in response.

“Good. Clint and Bruce
are outside in a Quinjet. Let’s get you both home.” Emily whispered with a
little smile in the corner of her lips.

FOUR YEARS LATER

 

“Mommy!? Mommy, mommy,
mommy!!!” a squeaky voice has spreaded its echo around a cottage.

Little girl ran through upper floor, heading towards stairs leading at the
ground floor. She ran into the living room, looking around, but there was no
one, so she ran further.
Girl spotted the black chow-chow, who was laying at the dog bedding near the
main door.

“Hey! Xena! Have you seen Ma?”
girl, laughing loudly, went to the dog and pet dog’s head playfully.
The animal only barked lazly, so girl shook her head and decided to ran to the
garden.

But at the door a pair of
strong hands had caught her and she had been picked up. She was laughing and
squeaking.
“Uncle! Put me down, put me down!!!” she giggled, looking up into pair of
familiar, huge blue eyes.
Steve smirked and made an offended face.
“Nah, I don’t think so, I like to have you close, besides, now I hope I’ll have
better deal with your mother if it comes to a dessert!” Captain tickled little
belly of the girl, causing a bunch of giggles and squeaks.
“Uncle! Unfair!” little girl nuzzled to his neck. “Well, I’ll help ya with a dessert
if you’ll help me to look for my Ma! I can’t find her.”
Steve laughed briefly and gave a slight nod, then stepped outside t the garden,
holding girl in his arms.

Emily was sitting at the wide
swing with Bucky, they were catching sunrays of the late summer, cuddling and
talking.
When little girl noticed her parents, she squeaked once again, tugging Steve’s
sleve.
“Mommy! Daddy!” she yelled loudly and as soon as her little feet touched the
ground, she ran towards them, jumping at Bucky’s lap.
“Mommy! I was looking for you everywhere!!! I draw something for you!!” little
girl held a dawing in her hand and she passed it over to Emily.
Redhead woman took a piece of the paper in her hand and whistled shortly.
“James, look, I bet our girl’s gonna be an artist in the future!” she giggled.
Bucky took the drawing in his metal palm and took a look on that, letting Steve
to watch it also.
“I bet she’ll” Bucky took girl into his arms and hugged her tight, smiling
proudly. “My beautiful Marika.”
“I’m sorry to interrupt, but what’s with that dessert you had promissed me?”
Steve poked Emily’s shoulder and woman rolled her eyes.
“Captain is hungry as always. I told James before, they should’ve been calling
you Captain Hunger instead of America” Emily summed up, smiling sweetly.

All four talked for a while,
then headed back to the house.
They were living in peace, filling their lives with love and hope.
Hope for better world.

Whatever they had missed, they possessed together the
precious, the incommunicable past.

                                                      The End