How They Make You a Weapon (12/?)
written for this prompt :
Lovingly detailed dark!fic about the process by which Hydra turned Bucky into the Winter Soldier.
warnings: graphic violence, torture, brainwashing, second person POV
characters: The Winter Soldier/Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers, Arnim Zola
word-count: ~4,400 words this chapter
notes: a particular flashback scene in this chapter was inspired by Brubaker's Winter Soldier #11, one of my favorite issues.
chapter 11
Objective One: Kill Steven Rogers. Objective Two: Protect Helicarriers. The orders replay nonstop in your mind, as you jerk back to consciousness, struggling to feed your limbs the commands to sit up, to open your eyes, to finish the mission. Objective One: Kill Steven Rogers. Objective Two: Protect-
Rogers is hanging from the base of the control panel tower. He swings his body up and over, and you scramble for your dropped gun as he runs up the platform. You draw and shoot, hit him in the thigh-in the hamstring-enough to slow him down, if only for a few seconds. He falls, clutches at the wound, but gets right back up, leaps onto the tower base and starts to climb.
Pain throbs through your busted shoulder, the whole right arm won't respond to your attempts to move it, but your left is still functional and you land another shot that slices into Rogers' side. It makes him lose his grip, but he recovers instantly, climbs the rest of the way up the tower and jumps up onto the control panel ledge. Your teeth grind as you track his movement with your gun. Kill Rogers your mind bellows. It's the only mission left, the one you have to carry out. You can't fail, can't let him destroy everything Hydra has built.
His legs give out and he clutches onto the railing before stumbling towards the control panel. He reaches into one of his belt pouches, pulls out the server chip he stole back from you. Breathe, focus, aim and shoot-your bullet hits him in the back, just left of his spine, too low for the heart, but close. He falls to his knees, turns himself until he's leaning against the tower. Blood soaks through his uniform, staining the white stripes red, and you feel your mouth curve in satisfaction. Your mission is nearly complete.
A high-pitched whine sounds through the Helicarrier as its cannons charge. Project Insight will succeed.
But you still have one mission to complete. Rogers is weak, bleeding out on the railing above you. This is your best chance to finish him off.
The best route up is the tower. You'll have to scale it as he did, which won't be easy with your right arm down for the count, but you'll find a way. As you make your approach, Rogers drags himself to his feet and slumps against the control panel. He stretches his arm out and slots the server chip into place. There's a soft beep.
The carrier's underbelly rumbles, as the cannons shift position.
"Fire now," you hear him say, and when you look over your shoulder, out through the glass, you see another carrier's cannons aimed at you. "Do it!" he says, more loudly.
No, you think, desperation warring with rage in your mind. You have to stop him-undo whatever it is he did.
"Do it now!" he yells.
The carrier lurches as it's hit by a barrage of cannon-fire. Outside, one of the other Helicarriers erupts in flame. They're going to destroy each other. And it's far too late for you to stop them.
But you still have one mission you can complete.
Rogers stumbles above you as the control panel tower wavers-the support beams are buckling, starting to detach. Determined to finish him off, you raise your gun. You will complete your primary mission. Even if everything else fails. You will.
You line up the shot, aim for his head, right between the eyes. Something huge and heavy slams into you, knocking you down. The pain in your right arm is excruciating and you cry out. Part of the carrier frame-a long metal arc- has you trapped underneath it on your side, left arm stuck between you and the floor. The frame weighs down on your torso and broken arm and you can't move an inch.
Something else falls from above, lands with a thud a few feet away from you. Rogers. He's laying on his side and you don't know if he jumped or fell, but he's still moving.
You struggle impotently against the hulking metal frame as Rogers pushes himself to his feet and picks up his shield. He's come to finish you off.
Rogers staggers as he walks closer, clutching his shield. Maybe he'll bring it down on your head, and end you quickly. Maybe he'll show mercy.
The Helicarrier lurches rapidly downwards, losing altitude until it collides with something. You strain to see but can't turn your head far enough. The impact knocks Rogers to the floor as he makes his way towards you. He pushes himself back up onto his knees, shoves his arms under the metal beam and lifts, straining with the weight. It moves-first an inch, then another-just enough space for you to get free. So you turn, bringing your left arm up from underneath you. As soon as it's free, you use your metal hand to grab onto a beam of the ship's floor closest to you and drag yourself up and out from under the heavy weight.
Behind you, Rogers lets the frame fall with a loud thump. You're badly damaged, your legs only mildly fractured, but your right arm is even worse off than before; it hangs uselessly from your side, at least two breaks in the humerus and a dislocated shoulder. Lacking the strength to push yourself to your feet, you prop yourself up with your left arm and turn to face your enemy.
"You know me," Rogers says, climbing to his feet.
Rogers will try to confuse you. Dissuade you… "No I don't!" you yell, throwing a hard punch against his shield. The hellicarrier sinks again, and starts to fill with smoke as the horizon outside tilts hard.
"Bucky, you've known me your whole life."
He's still lying. Still trying to confuse you. You lash out again, slam him with a backhand from your left, knocking him down. Another explosion rocks the airship.
Rogers turns right back towards you-stands slowly, raising his shield, showing it to you like he's presenting it. But still, he doesn't attack and you can't understand why.
"Your name is James Buchanan Barnes"
"Shut up!" you yell, slamming the shield with your fist. He falls and so do you, exhausted and weak with injury, your breathing labored from inhaling the hellicarrier's burning fuel. You push yourself back to your feet, and look out through the cracked glass wall of the carrier's side. Outside, the world is on fire.
"I'm not gonna fight you," he says and drops his shield through a hole in the carrier floor. It falls down through the smoke into the river below. "You're my friend."
But you know that's a lie, because you don't have friends. You don't have anyone. Hydra has you. Hydra owns you. Rogers will try to confuse you. You won't let him, you can't. The carriers have been compromised-Hydra's plans are collapsing all around you in three giant fireballs, but Rogers is still your mission-the only one you can still complete.
You run at him, grab him, slam him onto the floor, pinning him underneath you. He doesn't resist. "You're my mission," you say as you pull back your fist. You punch him again and again, feel his jaw bone crack, see the skin on his cheek split open even wider and still he does nothing to stop you. He's given up. His passivity infuriates you and you repeat yourself-"You're my mission,"-each word punctuated by your fist. You bring your arm back one more time, hesitating when you see the large swelling under his eye, though you don't know why. You don't stop, you don't hesitate. You're given orders and you carry them out.
But you can't.
He catches your gaze and there's something terrible in his eyes-sorrow and compassion. "Then finish it," he says, words slurred with swelling. "'Cause I'm with you to the end of the line."
The words send a shockwave through your whole body, paralyzing you. Time slows. A memory spills out into your field of vision, overlaying reality: his face-what used to be his face-smaller and younger. Those very same words echo in your head in your own voice. Your hand is on his shoulder and you're telling him to trust you, to believe in you. He's lost everyone else, but he hasn't lost you, he never will. Because it's your job to take care of him.
Something clenches your chest so hard you can't breathe. Steve. His name is Steve.
The control panel tower slams into the bottom of the carrier, taking half the floor with it. Instinctively, you grab hold of a support beam above with your left hand, but Rogers-Steve-falls down amidst the burning wreckage into the water below.
You watch him tumble through the air, through smoke and fire, and you remember looking up at him as you fell-snow, and ice and him reaching for you. The fingers in your right hand flex out, but he's already gone. His bloodied body breaks the surface of the murky blue-grey river and disappears into the depths.
And then you remember-it's your job to protect him. He is your mission. He's always been your mission.
You spread wide the fingers of your left hand and drop straight down into the water below. The river feels like bedrock as you crash into it, narrowly avoiding the giant hunks of smoking metal and rubber all around you. The water is ice underneath the boiling heat from the shrapnel, and you dive through it, deeper and deeper, until you find what you're looking for: a slim trail of air bubbles. You follow them down until you see him-see him sinking. Your metal fingers wrap around his harness just as the air bubbles stop.
It's difficult to drag him up to the surface with your right arm nearly useless, but you come for air as quickly and safely as you can, staying out of sight. You wrap your left arm around his chest and use the waning strength in your legs to get the two of you to the nearest shore away from the fire. It's secluded-far away enough from the wreckage to not draw attention, but close enough that rescue crews will find him in a matter of hours. Maybe less.
He's heavier once you bring him ashore. You drag him up onto the riverbank, let him drop as soon as he's clear of the water and look at him. His uniform is blood-soaked, his face is a mess of swelling and bruises and cuts that you gave him, and he'll need stitches, but there's no doubt in your mind that he'll survive. He's strong. So much stronger than you ever were. Steve's the strongest guy you know. He always has been.
For a few moments he doesn't move, and you're left wondering if you've fulfilled your mission, or Hydra's. But then his chest expands, his head turns and he coughs weakly, water spilling out of his bloodied lips.
Thank God, you think, though you can't remember who God is.
The pressure around your heart loosens and you feel something warm and unfamiliar. Something more than relief. Something almost like joy. For one more moment, you watch him breathe, study the lines of his face. His name is Steve, and you know him. You've known him your whole life. He was your best friend and you were his and it was always your job to protect him.
Hydra will be looking for you. They'll be looking for him, you think, as you glance towards the fiery horizon on the other side of the water. The Triskelion is burning, and the hellicarriers lie in flaming heaps on land and sea. But your proximity monitor stays silent, and your earpiece went dead long before you jumped into the water. Hydra's not gone, they're never gone, but for now, they're keeping their distance.
S.H.I.E.L.D.,on the other hand, is still all around you-two of their helicopters are crossing the river, headed right for you, and there are three small coast guard boats speeding through the smoke. They're looking for him. For Steve. He has people that care about him-the winged man and others. Steve always has people who care about him, though you're certain nobody cared about him as much as you once did. They'll find him, and they'll get him to a hospital-help him recover. From what you did to him.
Steve coughs once more, and for a moment you consider staying by his side. If you stay, then when he wakes he'll give you answers. He'll tell you more about Bucky, about who you used to be. Part of you wants to know more than anything, but-
You broke his skin, shattered his jaw. He's barely breathing because of you. And if he wakes up and you forget again-if you forget that you're Bucky and remember that he's your target then you might not stop, and it you don't stop-
And if you stay, Hydra will come for you. They always come for you. And if they find you, they'll find him.
Cradling your badly healing arm, you turn your back on him and walk away.
***
The sun is red and low in the sky as you near the outskirts of the park. Sticking to empty streets and side alleys, you weave your way through the city. The extraction point is abandoned. So is the next one, and the next. There's an empty Hydra jeep turned on its side just off the highway underpass. It's still smoldering. There's blood on the street-splatters in patterns that indicate at least three targets, but no sign of the bodies, or the shooters. You lost your earpiece somewhere during the swim, but your arm has a built in homing beacon-the proximity monitors would tell you if a checkpoint was close. But there's nothing. Not a single blip to tell you where to go.
Your mind is muddled and it's difficult to keep your thoughts from tripping over each other. Memories, disjointed and unmoored, float through your brain. A small, poorly lit apartment, couch cushions and thin soup; desert sand soaked with blood; a Ferris Wheel and cotton candy; a trench and gunfire; a round shield and Steve's smile-the one constant in what used to be your life. They spill into you unevenly-a trickle, then a deluge and you don't know what any of them mean or how to even begin piecing them back together.
But Hydra's commands ring clearly through the chaos of your thoughts-protocol for a disconnect scenario -for a failed mission. Your instructions are to head to the closest base, so you navigate back to the last one you remember: the vault.
The ache in your broken arm and shoulder grows steadily worse.You stop in an alley, and clamp your knife sheath between your teeth. Using a fire escape ladder for leverage, you pop your shoulder back into place. Your muffled scream sets two rats scurrying out from underneath a torn garbage bag.
Gingerly you test your range of motion. The fractured humerus has already started to heal but the break was sloppy and it won't mend evenly unless somebody resets the bone first. Hydra will fix it. They'll shoot you full of colored ampules and put the arm in a splint and bed you in ice and when you wake up you won't even remember being hurt. You won't remember failing.
You won't remember him.
The thought makes your heart stutter, and you hesitate by the end of the alleyway, consider not returning to Hydra. For just a few fleeting seconds, you contemplate what kind of life you'd have without them, without orders, without Pierce controlling your every move. "Bucky," Steve called you, and it was your name once-you don't remember when or how, or who you were. But you're pretty sure it was better.
Steve cared for you, he reached for you, he wouldn't fight you, let you beat him to a pulp, even though he was your mission. Because he was your mission, you correct yourself. It was your mission to kill him and you failed. He survived, and when Hydra finds out they'll send someone else to finish the job. But he has people that care about him, people that will protect him, and he's strong.
If you don't go back to Hydra they'll look for you, and they'll find you. You look down at your metal arm, know there's a tracking device somewhere inside, though you have no idea where. They'll find you. And when they do, they'll fix you, or they'll decommission you. And after what you did to him-to Steve-you think that might be for the best.
***
The bank is closed for the night by the time you get there, but the exterior access door to the basement opens easily once you break its lock.
The stairwell is as empty as the hallway-no guards, no soldiers, no men in white or blue. The door to the vault itself is open. There's a dead man lying on the floor, just by the entrance. His gun is still in his hand. You step over him and survey the rest of the room. The computer terminals are riddled with bullet holes. The monitors are off, except for one that flickers between black and pale green. A man in white lies sprawled across your chair. You push him off, watch the blood from his head wound smear across the arm rest.
Hydra will come for you. They know where you are, they always do.
You sit in your chair and wait.
***
The pain in your arm dulls and then spikes again when a loud crackling sound makes you jerk. A wire sparks on the far side of the room. The computer monitor the wire's connected to flickers, but the attached CPU is a charred mess. You sink back into the chair again and stare up at the halo-remember its heavy steel grip closing around your temples, the cold pressure and fiery lightning burn of your brain being emptied.
Without the electrical charges keeping your neurons in check, your brain starts to re-knit its old synapses. Your healing makes you a good long term investment for Hydra, since your body always recovers, no matter how badly it's damaged. But the grey matter in your head is just another body part, and it tries to heal itself like the rest of you, sends blood into singed vessels, forcing them back to life.
You steal a bottle of whiskey from your old man's liquor cabinet. It's nearly full and he'll be pissed as Hell when he finds out, but after what happened at the schoolyard today, you and Steve have the right to celebrate. You hide out behind the butcher shop, and it takes the two of you nearly three hours to finish it off. It leaves your head full of cotton and Steve falls asleep, leaning on you. You carry him back to his place, or try to, but trip and fall.
When you wake up the next morning there's a fishbone stuck in Steve's hair and it's the funniest damn thing you've ever seen. He punches you in the shoulder and yells at you, then clutches at his head. You pick the fishbone out of his hair and tell him he stinks worse than any dead fish. He throws up on your shoes.
Steve's face broke beneath your fist. You bloodied his eye, split his skin and you would've killed him. You were supposed to kill him. And he would've let you.
That clutching sensation fills your heart again and it cramps up, burns tight as more memories spill into your consciousness. The cat behind the grocer's, that horrible sound Steve made when he couldn't get enough air, your Ma's perfume, the sound of German Panzers rolling across a field, the gurgle of a sliced throat, Красная Комната, cinnamon hair. Your mind feels over-full, ready to burst, and the memories keep coming-so many, so vivid, so awful and so beautiful they can't possibly be yours. And then you remember the train-remember falling, remember waking in a room with men in white and men in blue and there's metal where your hand should be and a deep cold-burning rage in your gut that doesn't ever go away. They tell you who to kill and you do as they say.You snap necks, you shoot between the eyes, you gut men like fish, you set bombs, you make it look like an accident.
You do as they say because it's all you know. Until one day, when you start to remember.
They send you after a senator. You find him sleeping on his pool chair, hold his head under the water until he stops moving and push him in. You stay and watch his corpse float for a few minutes to be sure. His radio's on. The announcer talks about a Ferris Wheel bigger than the one at Coney Island.
Instead of returning to your extraction point, you go to the nearest bus station and go to Dallas, then Chicago, then New York. You make your way to the Brooklyn Bridge, walk along the water but can't find the Ferris Wheel. You wake up in a dim room filled with other men who look just as lost as you. They give you a bed to sleep in, and a blanket to hide your arm because it makes the others nervous.
You're there for three days or maybe a week or a month and then the cops come. They say they need to ask you some questions, take you outside and knock you out cold.
They bring you back to Hydra, sit you at a table, chain you to a chair and stick wires to your head. They ask you questions you can't answer: 'Why didn't you return to the extraction point? Where were you going? Why New York?'
Dr. Zola comes in and watches you. The others leave and he studies the markings on the paper coming out of the little machine on the table. He places a folder in front of you and opens it. There are photographs inside. He shows them to you one by one, asks you if you recognize any of them-men and women in uniforms, most of them brown and green, one of them blue. You don't. Not until he shows you the last photo of a skinny young man in a loose white t-shirt.
The needle on the machine jumps up and leaves a sharp spike on the paper.
"Is this who you were looking for?" the doctor asks.
"He liked the Ferris Wheel," you answer.
Zola licks his lips, and turns off the machine. He pulls the electrodes gently off of your skin and leaves the room.
When he comes back he has a different folder, with newspaper clippings. There's a picture of an airplane, and the headlines read: 'Captain America Plunges to Icy Death!,' 'America Mourns the Death of Steve Rogers,' 'Rogers Crashes Nazi Plane - Saves New York!'
You look at the clippings then back up at the doctor.
"Your friend is dead," he says. "You have been searching for a ghost."
"I died too," you tell him.
"So you did. And perhaps that is why you think you can find him." His lips curve slightly. "But you know what happens to ghosts when they find what they're looking for, do you not?" He takes off his glasses and cleans them with a handkerchief before placing them back on his nose. "They cease to exist."
The room from the past melts into the curved glass of the Helicarrier. You were dead and so was Steve, and you were supposed to kill him. You tried to kill him. And he would've let you.
The back of your throat burns as you cough up bile. A wave of nausea hits you and then another. The room tilts and your head pounds. Hydra always finds you, but not this time. This time they're not coming for you. Because you failed them.
The halo doesn't budge; it stays where it is, cold and silent. You look over at the computers, trying to remember which one the men used to lower the metal vice, and you're pretty sure it was the one closest to your left. You stand and walk to it, look at the busted screen and try to remember the keys they pushed. The keyboard is still intact. You press a button, then another, but nothing happens.
You pull on the halo, force it lower down to where your head is when you sit. Back in the chair, you pull its halves closer together, until they're touching your skin, but there's no spark, no cleansing burn.
There's another crackle from the computer in the far back, followed by a soft beep. You push the halo apart, turn your head and see words appear on the cracked monitor. You can make out enough of the unbroken letters to figure out the words. Reset the breaker.
The words stay on the screen, cursor blinking. Then the words repeat themselves, Reset the breaker. The cursor blinks three more times and more words appear: I can help you.
You scan the room, and find the breaker box on the far wall by the door. One breaker is tripped and you flip it off then on. Several machines in the room beep and whir as they turn off and on again, fans spinning to life. As you head back across the room, new words appear on the cracked display: Have a seat. Close your eyes. I'll fix you while you sleep.
The halo moves at your approach, both halves open wide and crackle with energy. You take another step towards the chair and think of ice, the silence of it. New words appear on the monitor, drawing your attention: And when I wake you up again, you'll be as good as new. Better.
Terror worms its way up your spine and you freeze where you stand. The words on the monitor shift into a face with two empty circles for eyes.
You run.
chapter 13
Lovingly detailed dark!fic about the process by which Hydra turned Bucky into the Winter Soldier.
warnings: graphic violence, torture, brainwashing, second person POV
characters: The Winter Soldier/Bucky Barnes, Steve Rogers, Arnim Zola
word-count: ~4,400 words this chapter
notes: a particular flashback scene in this chapter was inspired by Brubaker's Winter Soldier #11, one of my favorite issues.
chapter 11
Objective One: Kill Steven Rogers. Objective Two: Protect Helicarriers. The orders replay nonstop in your mind, as you jerk back to consciousness, struggling to feed your limbs the commands to sit up, to open your eyes, to finish the mission. Objective One: Kill Steven Rogers. Objective Two: Protect-
Rogers is hanging from the base of the control panel tower. He swings his body up and over, and you scramble for your dropped gun as he runs up the platform. You draw and shoot, hit him in the thigh-in the hamstring-enough to slow him down, if only for a few seconds. He falls, clutches at the wound, but gets right back up, leaps onto the tower base and starts to climb.
Pain throbs through your busted shoulder, the whole right arm won't respond to your attempts to move it, but your left is still functional and you land another shot that slices into Rogers' side. It makes him lose his grip, but he recovers instantly, climbs the rest of the way up the tower and jumps up onto the control panel ledge. Your teeth grind as you track his movement with your gun. Kill Rogers your mind bellows. It's the only mission left, the one you have to carry out. You can't fail, can't let him destroy everything Hydra has built.
His legs give out and he clutches onto the railing before stumbling towards the control panel. He reaches into one of his belt pouches, pulls out the server chip he stole back from you. Breathe, focus, aim and shoot-your bullet hits him in the back, just left of his spine, too low for the heart, but close. He falls to his knees, turns himself until he's leaning against the tower. Blood soaks through his uniform, staining the white stripes red, and you feel your mouth curve in satisfaction. Your mission is nearly complete.
A high-pitched whine sounds through the Helicarrier as its cannons charge. Project Insight will succeed.
But you still have one mission to complete. Rogers is weak, bleeding out on the railing above you. This is your best chance to finish him off.
The best route up is the tower. You'll have to scale it as he did, which won't be easy with your right arm down for the count, but you'll find a way. As you make your approach, Rogers drags himself to his feet and slumps against the control panel. He stretches his arm out and slots the server chip into place. There's a soft beep.
The carrier's underbelly rumbles, as the cannons shift position.
"Fire now," you hear him say, and when you look over your shoulder, out through the glass, you see another carrier's cannons aimed at you. "Do it!" he says, more loudly.
No, you think, desperation warring with rage in your mind. You have to stop him-undo whatever it is he did.
"Do it now!" he yells.
The carrier lurches as it's hit by a barrage of cannon-fire. Outside, one of the other Helicarriers erupts in flame. They're going to destroy each other. And it's far too late for you to stop them.
But you still have one mission you can complete.
Rogers stumbles above you as the control panel tower wavers-the support beams are buckling, starting to detach. Determined to finish him off, you raise your gun. You will complete your primary mission. Even if everything else fails. You will.
You line up the shot, aim for his head, right between the eyes. Something huge and heavy slams into you, knocking you down. The pain in your right arm is excruciating and you cry out. Part of the carrier frame-a long metal arc- has you trapped underneath it on your side, left arm stuck between you and the floor. The frame weighs down on your torso and broken arm and you can't move an inch.
Something else falls from above, lands with a thud a few feet away from you. Rogers. He's laying on his side and you don't know if he jumped or fell, but he's still moving.
You struggle impotently against the hulking metal frame as Rogers pushes himself to his feet and picks up his shield. He's come to finish you off.
Rogers staggers as he walks closer, clutching his shield. Maybe he'll bring it down on your head, and end you quickly. Maybe he'll show mercy.
The Helicarrier lurches rapidly downwards, losing altitude until it collides with something. You strain to see but can't turn your head far enough. The impact knocks Rogers to the floor as he makes his way towards you. He pushes himself back up onto his knees, shoves his arms under the metal beam and lifts, straining with the weight. It moves-first an inch, then another-just enough space for you to get free. So you turn, bringing your left arm up from underneath you. As soon as it's free, you use your metal hand to grab onto a beam of the ship's floor closest to you and drag yourself up and out from under the heavy weight.
Behind you, Rogers lets the frame fall with a loud thump. You're badly damaged, your legs only mildly fractured, but your right arm is even worse off than before; it hangs uselessly from your side, at least two breaks in the humerus and a dislocated shoulder. Lacking the strength to push yourself to your feet, you prop yourself up with your left arm and turn to face your enemy.
"You know me," Rogers says, climbing to his feet.
Rogers will try to confuse you. Dissuade you… "No I don't!" you yell, throwing a hard punch against his shield. The hellicarrier sinks again, and starts to fill with smoke as the horizon outside tilts hard.
"Bucky, you've known me your whole life."
He's still lying. Still trying to confuse you. You lash out again, slam him with a backhand from your left, knocking him down. Another explosion rocks the airship.
Rogers turns right back towards you-stands slowly, raising his shield, showing it to you like he's presenting it. But still, he doesn't attack and you can't understand why.
"Your name is James Buchanan Barnes"
"Shut up!" you yell, slamming the shield with your fist. He falls and so do you, exhausted and weak with injury, your breathing labored from inhaling the hellicarrier's burning fuel. You push yourself back to your feet, and look out through the cracked glass wall of the carrier's side. Outside, the world is on fire.
"I'm not gonna fight you," he says and drops his shield through a hole in the carrier floor. It falls down through the smoke into the river below. "You're my friend."
But you know that's a lie, because you don't have friends. You don't have anyone. Hydra has you. Hydra owns you. Rogers will try to confuse you. You won't let him, you can't. The carriers have been compromised-Hydra's plans are collapsing all around you in three giant fireballs, but Rogers is still your mission-the only one you can still complete.
You run at him, grab him, slam him onto the floor, pinning him underneath you. He doesn't resist. "You're my mission," you say as you pull back your fist. You punch him again and again, feel his jaw bone crack, see the skin on his cheek split open even wider and still he does nothing to stop you. He's given up. His passivity infuriates you and you repeat yourself-"You're my mission,"-each word punctuated by your fist. You bring your arm back one more time, hesitating when you see the large swelling under his eye, though you don't know why. You don't stop, you don't hesitate. You're given orders and you carry them out.
But you can't.
He catches your gaze and there's something terrible in his eyes-sorrow and compassion. "Then finish it," he says, words slurred with swelling. "'Cause I'm with you to the end of the line."
The words send a shockwave through your whole body, paralyzing you. Time slows. A memory spills out into your field of vision, overlaying reality: his face-what used to be his face-smaller and younger. Those very same words echo in your head in your own voice. Your hand is on his shoulder and you're telling him to trust you, to believe in you. He's lost everyone else, but he hasn't lost you, he never will. Because it's your job to take care of him.
Something clenches your chest so hard you can't breathe. Steve. His name is Steve.
The control panel tower slams into the bottom of the carrier, taking half the floor with it. Instinctively, you grab hold of a support beam above with your left hand, but Rogers-Steve-falls down amidst the burning wreckage into the water below.
You watch him tumble through the air, through smoke and fire, and you remember looking up at him as you fell-snow, and ice and him reaching for you. The fingers in your right hand flex out, but he's already gone. His bloodied body breaks the surface of the murky blue-grey river and disappears into the depths.
And then you remember-it's your job to protect him. He is your mission. He's always been your mission.
You spread wide the fingers of your left hand and drop straight down into the water below. The river feels like bedrock as you crash into it, narrowly avoiding the giant hunks of smoking metal and rubber all around you. The water is ice underneath the boiling heat from the shrapnel, and you dive through it, deeper and deeper, until you find what you're looking for: a slim trail of air bubbles. You follow them down until you see him-see him sinking. Your metal fingers wrap around his harness just as the air bubbles stop.
It's difficult to drag him up to the surface with your right arm nearly useless, but you come for air as quickly and safely as you can, staying out of sight. You wrap your left arm around his chest and use the waning strength in your legs to get the two of you to the nearest shore away from the fire. It's secluded-far away enough from the wreckage to not draw attention, but close enough that rescue crews will find him in a matter of hours. Maybe less.
He's heavier once you bring him ashore. You drag him up onto the riverbank, let him drop as soon as he's clear of the water and look at him. His uniform is blood-soaked, his face is a mess of swelling and bruises and cuts that you gave him, and he'll need stitches, but there's no doubt in your mind that he'll survive. He's strong. So much stronger than you ever were. Steve's the strongest guy you know. He always has been.
For a few moments he doesn't move, and you're left wondering if you've fulfilled your mission, or Hydra's. But then his chest expands, his head turns and he coughs weakly, water spilling out of his bloodied lips.
Thank God, you think, though you can't remember who God is.
The pressure around your heart loosens and you feel something warm and unfamiliar. Something more than relief. Something almost like joy. For one more moment, you watch him breathe, study the lines of his face. His name is Steve, and you know him. You've known him your whole life. He was your best friend and you were his and it was always your job to protect him.
Hydra will be looking for you. They'll be looking for him, you think, as you glance towards the fiery horizon on the other side of the water. The Triskelion is burning, and the hellicarriers lie in flaming heaps on land and sea. But your proximity monitor stays silent, and your earpiece went dead long before you jumped into the water. Hydra's not gone, they're never gone, but for now, they're keeping their distance.
S.H.I.E.L.D.,on the other hand, is still all around you-two of their helicopters are crossing the river, headed right for you, and there are three small coast guard boats speeding through the smoke. They're looking for him. For Steve. He has people that care about him-the winged man and others. Steve always has people who care about him, though you're certain nobody cared about him as much as you once did. They'll find him, and they'll get him to a hospital-help him recover. From what you did to him.
Steve coughs once more, and for a moment you consider staying by his side. If you stay, then when he wakes he'll give you answers. He'll tell you more about Bucky, about who you used to be. Part of you wants to know more than anything, but-
You broke his skin, shattered his jaw. He's barely breathing because of you. And if he wakes up and you forget again-if you forget that you're Bucky and remember that he's your target then you might not stop, and it you don't stop-
And if you stay, Hydra will come for you. They always come for you. And if they find you, they'll find him.
Cradling your badly healing arm, you turn your back on him and walk away.
***
The sun is red and low in the sky as you near the outskirts of the park. Sticking to empty streets and side alleys, you weave your way through the city. The extraction point is abandoned. So is the next one, and the next. There's an empty Hydra jeep turned on its side just off the highway underpass. It's still smoldering. There's blood on the street-splatters in patterns that indicate at least three targets, but no sign of the bodies, or the shooters. You lost your earpiece somewhere during the swim, but your arm has a built in homing beacon-the proximity monitors would tell you if a checkpoint was close. But there's nothing. Not a single blip to tell you where to go.
Your mind is muddled and it's difficult to keep your thoughts from tripping over each other. Memories, disjointed and unmoored, float through your brain. A small, poorly lit apartment, couch cushions and thin soup; desert sand soaked with blood; a Ferris Wheel and cotton candy; a trench and gunfire; a round shield and Steve's smile-the one constant in what used to be your life. They spill into you unevenly-a trickle, then a deluge and you don't know what any of them mean or how to even begin piecing them back together.
But Hydra's commands ring clearly through the chaos of your thoughts-protocol for a disconnect scenario -for a failed mission. Your instructions are to head to the closest base, so you navigate back to the last one you remember: the vault.
The ache in your broken arm and shoulder grows steadily worse.You stop in an alley, and clamp your knife sheath between your teeth. Using a fire escape ladder for leverage, you pop your shoulder back into place. Your muffled scream sets two rats scurrying out from underneath a torn garbage bag.
Gingerly you test your range of motion. The fractured humerus has already started to heal but the break was sloppy and it won't mend evenly unless somebody resets the bone first. Hydra will fix it. They'll shoot you full of colored ampules and put the arm in a splint and bed you in ice and when you wake up you won't even remember being hurt. You won't remember failing.
You won't remember him.
The thought makes your heart stutter, and you hesitate by the end of the alleyway, consider not returning to Hydra. For just a few fleeting seconds, you contemplate what kind of life you'd have without them, without orders, without Pierce controlling your every move. "Bucky," Steve called you, and it was your name once-you don't remember when or how, or who you were. But you're pretty sure it was better.
Steve cared for you, he reached for you, he wouldn't fight you, let you beat him to a pulp, even though he was your mission. Because he was your mission, you correct yourself. It was your mission to kill him and you failed. He survived, and when Hydra finds out they'll send someone else to finish the job. But he has people that care about him, people that will protect him, and he's strong.
If you don't go back to Hydra they'll look for you, and they'll find you. You look down at your metal arm, know there's a tracking device somewhere inside, though you have no idea where. They'll find you. And when they do, they'll fix you, or they'll decommission you. And after what you did to him-to Steve-you think that might be for the best.
***
The bank is closed for the night by the time you get there, but the exterior access door to the basement opens easily once you break its lock.
The stairwell is as empty as the hallway-no guards, no soldiers, no men in white or blue. The door to the vault itself is open. There's a dead man lying on the floor, just by the entrance. His gun is still in his hand. You step over him and survey the rest of the room. The computer terminals are riddled with bullet holes. The monitors are off, except for one that flickers between black and pale green. A man in white lies sprawled across your chair. You push him off, watch the blood from his head wound smear across the arm rest.
Hydra will come for you. They know where you are, they always do.
You sit in your chair and wait.
***
The pain in your arm dulls and then spikes again when a loud crackling sound makes you jerk. A wire sparks on the far side of the room. The computer monitor the wire's connected to flickers, but the attached CPU is a charred mess. You sink back into the chair again and stare up at the halo-remember its heavy steel grip closing around your temples, the cold pressure and fiery lightning burn of your brain being emptied.
Without the electrical charges keeping your neurons in check, your brain starts to re-knit its old synapses. Your healing makes you a good long term investment for Hydra, since your body always recovers, no matter how badly it's damaged. But the grey matter in your head is just another body part, and it tries to heal itself like the rest of you, sends blood into singed vessels, forcing them back to life.
You steal a bottle of whiskey from your old man's liquor cabinet. It's nearly full and he'll be pissed as Hell when he finds out, but after what happened at the schoolyard today, you and Steve have the right to celebrate. You hide out behind the butcher shop, and it takes the two of you nearly three hours to finish it off. It leaves your head full of cotton and Steve falls asleep, leaning on you. You carry him back to his place, or try to, but trip and fall.
When you wake up the next morning there's a fishbone stuck in Steve's hair and it's the funniest damn thing you've ever seen. He punches you in the shoulder and yells at you, then clutches at his head. You pick the fishbone out of his hair and tell him he stinks worse than any dead fish. He throws up on your shoes.
Steve's face broke beneath your fist. You bloodied his eye, split his skin and you would've killed him. You were supposed to kill him. And he would've let you.
That clutching sensation fills your heart again and it cramps up, burns tight as more memories spill into your consciousness. The cat behind the grocer's, that horrible sound Steve made when he couldn't get enough air, your Ma's perfume, the sound of German Panzers rolling across a field, the gurgle of a sliced throat, Красная Комната, cinnamon hair. Your mind feels over-full, ready to burst, and the memories keep coming-so many, so vivid, so awful and so beautiful they can't possibly be yours. And then you remember the train-remember falling, remember waking in a room with men in white and men in blue and there's metal where your hand should be and a deep cold-burning rage in your gut that doesn't ever go away. They tell you who to kill and you do as they say.You snap necks, you shoot between the eyes, you gut men like fish, you set bombs, you make it look like an accident.
You do as they say because it's all you know. Until one day, when you start to remember.
They send you after a senator. You find him sleeping on his pool chair, hold his head under the water until he stops moving and push him in. You stay and watch his corpse float for a few minutes to be sure. His radio's on. The announcer talks about a Ferris Wheel bigger than the one at Coney Island.
Instead of returning to your extraction point, you go to the nearest bus station and go to Dallas, then Chicago, then New York. You make your way to the Brooklyn Bridge, walk along the water but can't find the Ferris Wheel. You wake up in a dim room filled with other men who look just as lost as you. They give you a bed to sleep in, and a blanket to hide your arm because it makes the others nervous.
You're there for three days or maybe a week or a month and then the cops come. They say they need to ask you some questions, take you outside and knock you out cold.
They bring you back to Hydra, sit you at a table, chain you to a chair and stick wires to your head. They ask you questions you can't answer: 'Why didn't you return to the extraction point? Where were you going? Why New York?'
Dr. Zola comes in and watches you. The others leave and he studies the markings on the paper coming out of the little machine on the table. He places a folder in front of you and opens it. There are photographs inside. He shows them to you one by one, asks you if you recognize any of them-men and women in uniforms, most of them brown and green, one of them blue. You don't. Not until he shows you the last photo of a skinny young man in a loose white t-shirt.
The needle on the machine jumps up and leaves a sharp spike on the paper.
"Is this who you were looking for?" the doctor asks.
"He liked the Ferris Wheel," you answer.
Zola licks his lips, and turns off the machine. He pulls the electrodes gently off of your skin and leaves the room.
When he comes back he has a different folder, with newspaper clippings. There's a picture of an airplane, and the headlines read: 'Captain America Plunges to Icy Death!,' 'America Mourns the Death of Steve Rogers,' 'Rogers Crashes Nazi Plane - Saves New York!'
You look at the clippings then back up at the doctor.
"Your friend is dead," he says. "You have been searching for a ghost."
"I died too," you tell him.
"So you did. And perhaps that is why you think you can find him." His lips curve slightly. "But you know what happens to ghosts when they find what they're looking for, do you not?" He takes off his glasses and cleans them with a handkerchief before placing them back on his nose. "They cease to exist."
The room from the past melts into the curved glass of the Helicarrier. You were dead and so was Steve, and you were supposed to kill him. You tried to kill him. And he would've let you.
The back of your throat burns as you cough up bile. A wave of nausea hits you and then another. The room tilts and your head pounds. Hydra always finds you, but not this time. This time they're not coming for you. Because you failed them.
The halo doesn't budge; it stays where it is, cold and silent. You look over at the computers, trying to remember which one the men used to lower the metal vice, and you're pretty sure it was the one closest to your left. You stand and walk to it, look at the busted screen and try to remember the keys they pushed. The keyboard is still intact. You press a button, then another, but nothing happens.
You pull on the halo, force it lower down to where your head is when you sit. Back in the chair, you pull its halves closer together, until they're touching your skin, but there's no spark, no cleansing burn.
There's another crackle from the computer in the far back, followed by a soft beep. You push the halo apart, turn your head and see words appear on the cracked monitor. You can make out enough of the unbroken letters to figure out the words. Reset the breaker.
The words stay on the screen, cursor blinking. Then the words repeat themselves, Reset the breaker. The cursor blinks three more times and more words appear: I can help you.
You scan the room, and find the breaker box on the far wall by the door. One breaker is tripped and you flip it off then on. Several machines in the room beep and whir as they turn off and on again, fans spinning to life. As you head back across the room, new words appear on the cracked display: Have a seat. Close your eyes. I'll fix you while you sleep.
The halo moves at your approach, both halves open wide and crackle with energy. You take another step towards the chair and think of ice, the silence of it. New words appear on the monitor, drawing your attention: And when I wake you up again, you'll be as good as new. Better.
Terror worms its way up your spine and you freeze where you stand. The words on the monitor shift into a face with two empty circles for eyes.
You run.
chapter 13