five drabbles in search of a point
Actual drabbles! Words were counted!
From here
Alex is a student of history. Don’t tear down the fence until you know why it was put up in the first place, Chesterton said. Alex’s ambitions outstrip mere fences, but history is what bootstraps him up within HYDRA because not everyone is capable of learning from mistakes.
History is what gets him a present from Karpov, who doesn’t think his own proteges worthy of the most exquisite weapon in HYDRA’s arsenal. The Soviets thought it theirs for decades, which was by design, but Karpov is getting old and impatient and the gift is a coronation in all but name.
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It’s not until the weapon is delivered that Alex can properly appreciate the magnitude of it, the profound show of faith it displays. Karpov knows Alex will recognize the Winter Soldier for who he is as much as what. The first American Supreme HYDRA will go forth into the battle against chaos armed with the same weapon as the first American super-soldier. Alex knows that Captain America’s truest danger to HYDRA came from the fact that Bucky Barnes walked behind him. Rogers learned from and leaned on Barnes, who’d been lethal before HYDRA could improve on what war had created.
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The tools they use to control the Soldier don’t erase his memories, just sever the connection between knowledge and context. The Soldier has Barnes’s precision and instincts and control, finely tuned from decades of use, but no understanding of how they were acquired. The conditioning means he can lead men in the field but won’t question Alex - most of the time. The divorce of context and skill sometimes means that the Soldier has an army sergeant’s marksmanship without an army sergeant’s obedience. Alex is first angry and then delighted the first time the Soldier asks Why? before a mission.
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Rogers is and is not what history has made of him and the difference puts everything Alex has worked toward in danger. The chance to have Rogers as an ally is too great to dismiss out of hand, which was why Alex never let Rumlow terminate him on a routine mission. Alex is acutely aware of what moral authority can achieve - his own has been the greatest asset in his toolbox aside from the Soldier. Adding Steve Rogers’s would’ve allowed HYDRA to move almost unimpeded toward a bloodless victory. Rogers’s refusal is an intolerable risk, hence the Soldier’s deployment.
+++
The Soldier listens to reason, always has. He might lack a sergeant’s obedience to an officer, but he also lacks a sergeant’s cynicism and will believe a story well told. Alex has never lacked the capacity to spin tales and the Soldier has always nodded agreement at the end of them. They’ve not bothered to take steps to keep the Soldier away from anything that might trigger Barnes’s memories and it’s never bitten them in the ass before Rogers, but Alex isn’t fool enough to think this is anything but what it is. The chair is brute force, but effective.
Also posted at DW.
From here
Alex is a student of history. Don’t tear down the fence until you know why it was put up in the first place, Chesterton said. Alex’s ambitions outstrip mere fences, but history is what bootstraps him up within HYDRA because not everyone is capable of learning from mistakes.
History is what gets him a present from Karpov, who doesn’t think his own proteges worthy of the most exquisite weapon in HYDRA’s arsenal. The Soviets thought it theirs for decades, which was by design, but Karpov is getting old and impatient and the gift is a coronation in all but name.
+++
It’s not until the weapon is delivered that Alex can properly appreciate the magnitude of it, the profound show of faith it displays. Karpov knows Alex will recognize the Winter Soldier for who he is as much as what. The first American Supreme HYDRA will go forth into the battle against chaos armed with the same weapon as the first American super-soldier. Alex knows that Captain America’s truest danger to HYDRA came from the fact that Bucky Barnes walked behind him. Rogers learned from and leaned on Barnes, who’d been lethal before HYDRA could improve on what war had created.
+++
The tools they use to control the Soldier don’t erase his memories, just sever the connection between knowledge and context. The Soldier has Barnes’s precision and instincts and control, finely tuned from decades of use, but no understanding of how they were acquired. The conditioning means he can lead men in the field but won’t question Alex - most of the time. The divorce of context and skill sometimes means that the Soldier has an army sergeant’s marksmanship without an army sergeant’s obedience. Alex is first angry and then delighted the first time the Soldier asks Why? before a mission.
+++
Rogers is and is not what history has made of him and the difference puts everything Alex has worked toward in danger. The chance to have Rogers as an ally is too great to dismiss out of hand, which was why Alex never let Rumlow terminate him on a routine mission. Alex is acutely aware of what moral authority can achieve - his own has been the greatest asset in his toolbox aside from the Soldier. Adding Steve Rogers’s would’ve allowed HYDRA to move almost unimpeded toward a bloodless victory. Rogers’s refusal is an intolerable risk, hence the Soldier’s deployment.
+++
The Soldier listens to reason, always has. He might lack a sergeant’s obedience to an officer, but he also lacks a sergeant’s cynicism and will believe a story well told. Alex has never lacked the capacity to spin tales and the Soldier has always nodded agreement at the end of them. They’ve not bothered to take steps to keep the Soldier away from anything that might trigger Barnes’s memories and it’s never bitten them in the ass before Rogers, but Alex isn’t fool enough to think this is anything but what it is. The chair is brute force, but effective.
Also posted at DW.