Chapter Text
The Asset had one mission. Kill Senator Smith.
He felt no guilt; he was a machine not a man. Everything he did, he did without question, orders were followed to the letter and targets dispatched immediately.
The Asset had nothing against the Senator, he had no idea who he was or what he had even done, but he had orders that called for his death. It was not personal, it was just business.
When he was given the mission parameters his orders were to make it as public and bloody as possible so as to dissuade other politicians from following through Smiths Visa plans for Russia – which would make it more difficult to smuggle people in and out since all that was currently required was the signature of a crooked Russian official (there were plenty he knew from experience).
So he was to train until the opening of the new ‘Captain American and The Howling Commandos’ opening at the Smithsonian, which would have Smith, his supporters, civilians, and the Russian officials that had hired him. Very public, even the media would be there (his chances of being caught or identified increased even more with every camera).
The problem with a public assassination in such a guarded and full space is that the chances of escaping alive decrease dramatically. But he was trained to not care for his life so long as the mission is successful (he secretly wanted to live though).
The Asset did not understand why he was chosen for the mission since it would be more of a hassle to unfreeze him and train him in the current nuances and new technology than to just send out a currently active agent. He would never ask why they chose him, he was not to think and not to doubt or ask, but the question burned at his tongue.
He was answered.
His handler was speaking to their superior about 60 meters away while he was training and they observed him. They had always assumed that was a safe distance away from him and he had never corrected them (he had no idea how he knew this, he didn’t remember them having other conversations there).
“Why him?” His handler asked.
“It is a full circle comrade, have you seen the memorial?”
His handler laughed, “Of course! It pays homage to that fool Captain America and his band of cowards”
The Asset felt rage fill him as he paused. He continued training before they noticed and stopped speaking. He did not understand why he would react so strongly to that.
“While they are celebrating him, one of their ‘hero’s’ will sneak in under their noses and kill them at a party that honors ‘his noble sacrifice.’ They have practically made him a martyr and he will kill them all in the name of HYDRA!”
They laugh so loudly that even a person with regular senses would be able to hear.
He moved stealthily past a guided tour. He could hear a mother arguing with her daughter as they fell behind. He noted their weaknesses; the girl would be unable to hear anyone approaching her from behind since she had those ear things playing music so loudly he could hear it across the building.
The older woman would be easy to incapacitate if he got his hands on the girl first – mothers would do anything to save their children – he did not understand it (but sometimes when he thought about how mothers must have felt, he could picture blue eyes, blonde hair, and a sickly punk with sharp elbows and knobby knees).
The Asset snuck into the door that led to the exhibit, he told himself that he had to scope out the place (he was really just curious about the exhibit). He wandered though the show and peered at the pieces. When he reached the area dedicated to the Howling Commando that was killed in action and the best friend of Captain America, he paused. James “Bucky” Buchanan Barnes had the same face as he did.
‘[He will kill] them at a party that honors “his noble sacrifice.” They have practically made him a martyr and he will kill them all in the name of HYDRA!’
The Asset had not understood what they had meant but it looked as if he was James. It would make sense he did not remember anything from before the Red Room. He felt something fill his chest for a moment before his wrist watched beeped at him; it was time to set up.
He was setting up, distracted by his thought and analyzing what he felt when he saw the picture of Captain America. The Asset was so lost in his thoughts as he crouched on the catwalk that overlooked both the ballroom and the gallery. He was searching for the perfect hiding spot so that he could avoid the media’s cameras and the security personnel.
The Asset had found the perfect spot and was setting up his rifle to wait out the target when the young girl who he noted earlier arguing with her mother slammed into him.
“Ouch! What is wrong with you? Do you often creepily crouch in unusual places?” He felt that those words should have been important to him; he did not understand why they had such an impact on him.
He cursed, “ебать.” he would have to dispose of her now. He could leave no witnesses, for some reason he felt pain at the thought of her dying at his hand so he stalled, “you aren’t supposed to be here кукла”
The Asset had no idea why he called her кукла, Doll, it came out instinctually and as second nature with him in that moment.
The child, for she looked to be 14 at most, froze at his words and began, “You..I. I have ..those words… Ankle.” She finally blurted out what she wanted to tell him. “I think you’re my soulmate.”
The Asset froze as a previous conversation with his handler filled his mind. He was being briefed on soulmates for a mission that involved a double assassination of two soulmates.
“Do not worry too much on the nuances of soulmates,” his handler laughed. “You do not have one! You are not a man, you have no soul, you are a machine for HYDRA to use and discard at our discretion.”
He was so shocked at her statement that he looked at her and hissed what his handler told him, “I have no soul. Go away маленькая девочка.”
Her wide young eyes filled with shock. He could smell the sharpness of salt forming the tears in her bright blue eyes. She began breathing in uneven pulls; the Asset could see her young heart breaking as her ‘perfect match’ denied her.
He almost reached forward to touch her, but she had turned and fled before his training kicked in and reminded her to remove the witness.
She was gone. It was for the best, he had no soul, therefore it could not have a mate.
The ballroom began to fill and all thought and emotion left him (but the impression of blue eyes and plump lips lingered) until he became The Winter Soldier and lifted his rifle.
0o.o0o.o0
When he was given his next assignment he remembered nothing only had flashes of blue eyes, either shaded by dark lashes or lashes so blonde that they were almost white. Those eyes haunted him; both looked at him with heartbreaking emotions and looked lost.
He found the latter set of eyes when they became his mission, to kill Captain America. The same eyes that haunted his nights looked at him as he prepared to kill him and he could not find it within himself to go through with it.
He had no recollection of anything after the last mission with Senator Smith, only what he read in the report. They completely wiped him because he came back different and asking questions – they assumed he saw the Bucky exhibit and wondered why he looked like him.
After he was taken in by the Avengers and Tony Stark, he received his soul marks again.
Steve had told him that he had two before they went to war, but HYDRA had found a way to completely obscure them so that their assets would not leave. They had done the same to Natalia…Natasha. She had found her two soulmates after she decided to abandon the Red Room when she saw what they did to her ‘Yasha’. Which was what she called him since he had no name.
She was a danger Red Room thought, they had become lovers and she had humanized him. In order to break her they had wiped him and sent him to kill her, he had hesitated slightly remembering…something, which allowed her to escape and he was tortured for it and re-wiped.
When she was on the run two marks showed up on her skin after the drugs from the Red Room left her system and not long afterwards she had met: ‘So you are the famous Widow. I pictured you more… blonde.‘
And he helped her into escape into SHIELD with their third: ‘This is against protocol! …but I suppose Fury will understand.’
He thought about his two marks. One curved around his spine on his back: ‘Ouch! What is wrong with you? Do you often creepily crouch in unusual places?’ It was loopy, enthusiastic, and youthful handwriting, still having the swirls and decorative additions that haste had not ruined.
He wondered if he had already met her, since people of this generation always wrote quickly and small so that they could get more out in less amount of time. They sacrificed life for time and profit. Bucky could have already met her and potentially killed her.
But still he hoped, perhaps he would meet her when he was in a Nerf war with Barton and she would find him crouching somewhere?
The second was on his hip: ‘Hi, its nice to see you looking less like a homeless supervillan.’
He hated the idea that she saw him as the Winter Soldier and recognized him, but at least he knew that she was alive in this current time. He was on the news often enough that most people ‘in the know’ would recognize him as the Winter Soldier (or if they saw his hand but Stark was working on that –literally).
He was in Stark’s workshop bored while he took measurements and poked around his arm. Steve was next to him, looking on while trying to figure out exactly what Stark wanted to do.
“Its going to be a flesh-like cover for when you are in public, assuming you want one?” Tony looked at Bucky with his brows raised.
“It will be easier to go out if people aren’t screaming in horror.” He said wryly.
Steve looked at him worried.
Tony continued, “Well, it will not decrease your sensitivity in your metal arm or impede you in any way.” He poked around some more, “Say what you want about HYDRA but they did a good job on this…not as good as I would, but still.”
Steve had his ‘Captain Disapproves’ face at the mention of HYDRA, but before he could say anything Jarvis interrupted them.
“Sir?”
“Ya J?”
He could hear the voices distinct disapproval of the nickname, “Miss Lewis has displayed a dislike with the way you run the tower.”
Tony stood up, “What!?” He stared at the ceiling with a hilariously affronted face, “How dare she? Who does she think she is?” He paused. “…Who is she Jarvis?”
“Dr. Foster’s assistant. She expressed a dislike with the lack of ‘lackeys’”
He then played a snipped of what ‘Miss Lewis’ said, “I don’t know why I’m carrying this stuff, we are in Stark Tower, shouldn’t Stark have muscle bound lackeys for this?”
Steve and Bucky look at each other and smothered laughs as they realized that Jarvis tried to rile Stark up after calling him ‘J’ by saying that Miss Lewis had a problem with how he ran things. A slight exaggeration.
Tony perked up after realizing he had been tricked (he looked at the ceiling like a proud parent) and said, “Tell her I’m on my way with two lackeys for her to use!”
They burst into the lab and see a dark haired woman with curves Bucky had yet to see this century. Her lips were bright red as they moved to the music playing from her IPod.
Stark made his grand entrance and she looked up pulling out the ear buds and he said, ““Worry not I am here! And I brought unskilled laborers with me!”
“Hey!” Steve said.
“Oi!” Bucky shouted.
It was a sore spot for them since they both wanted to finish school, but the war interrupted them.
The beautiful woman looked up and came face to face with Steve. She looked at him wide-eyed before she blinked and looked at Bucky. Stark was pouting in the background at being ignored.
She looked him in the eye and smiled a little before her eyes ran down his body in appreciation (he puffed out his chest a bit). Her face turned to shock when she saw his metal arm; he pulled it back and hid it behind himself.
He couldn’t see the attraction in her eyes anymore, only wariness. He hated it; he had felt a little like his old self when a beautiful dame with a killer figure appreciated his looks.
She walked up to him and awkwardly rubbed her arm and said, “Hi, its nice to see you looking less like a homeless supervillan.”
Steve and Bucky both froze in shock before Steve came out of it and laughed in happiness he slapped him on the back and said, “Looks like you met your soulmate Buck!”
Bucky was so happy, he never expected to meet her here, so close. But when he looked in her eyes he had a flash of his old nightmares, the unidentified blue eyes that always appeared with Steve’s…they looked like hers, “Have we met before, Doll?”
Darcy noticed what he said and froze, “No.” She shook her head while looking at him with slight fear and lots of shock, “Its not supposed to be you again, it’s impossible! Its never happened before!”
Stark had slowly backed out by then; he hated drama that he didn’t cause. Steve realized from the panic in her voice – and the knowing way she looked at Buck along with the fact that Bucky seemed to recognize her – that something was wrong.
“What are you talking about Miss?” Steve said sternly.
She became lost in her thoughts as a flurry of emotions flew across her face as they stared at her.
“Miss!” Steve said again.
“I’ve met him before. It was a little bit before he assassinated Senator Smith. Well it was the Winter Soldier that did it.” She answered shocked, still lost in her thoughts. “He called me Doll then too” she noted absentmindedly rubbing her arm.
He had read the files HYDRA had on him and he remembered reading that they had him preform a hit on an Anti-Russia Senator so that he wouldn’t impede the Red Room. It was noted in his file that they chose him for the irony; a brainwashed national hero kills a Senator at a party that honors him ‘post-humously.’
He wanted to punch Hydra when he read that.
He couldn’t believe that the two marks on him were of the same woman but he had to make sure so he turned around and took off his shirt and said, “Is that you?”
‘Ouch! What is wrong with you? Do you often creepily crouch in unusual places?’ was curved waving from side to side as if wrapping around his spine on the top of his skin.
She nodded and turned him around while she pulled up her leg on a nearby chair to show him his old words on her ankle twisting like a manacle. Bucky at first only saw a perfect specimen of a woman’s leg. It was arousing to see it covered in seamed stockings; he ran his fingers on it remembering how much fun they were to pull off.
He finally saw his words ‘ебать you aren’t supposed to be here кукла.’
“That’s my handwriting when I was the Winter Soldier, they trained me to write quickly and efficiently in Russia” He caressed the last word, “I called you doll.”
Steve walked up and placed his hand on Bucky’s shoulder and said, “Its nice to know they didn’t completely brainwash you, you still managed to flirt with a beautiful dame.”
Darcy was watching them with a bemused expression until she decided to drop a bomb on them, “I was 13.”
Bucky groaned Great, he was a pedophile and Steve laughed and said teasingly, “You liked ‘em young Buck!”
Suddenly Darcy became extremely serious as she steered the conversation back, “This is nice and all, but can we figure out how I have two different handwritings with two different meetings for the same soul mate.”
They sobered, it should have been impossible, there was no other situation like this on record.
Bucky said, “I have the same, the handwriting was different but now that I know how old you were that could be attributed to your handwriting maturing after 10 years.”
He showed her the ‘Hi, its nice to see you looking less like a homeless supervillan.’ that was running across his hip it did look a bit juvenile know that he looked at it. She reciprocated and pulled her sweater up enough to show the small of her back that said, ‘Have we met before Doll?’ in his normal handwriting.
Even the small of her back was perfect it seemed as if it was made for his hand. He had no doubt that if he stood behind her she would slot seamlessly against him.
Like a puzzle piece.
Darcy nodded, “That explains the handwriting but that doesn’t explain why we have two meetings.”
Steve had been pondering this and thought he had an answer, “Maybe its because when Bucky first met you he was The Winter Soldier instead of just Bucky like now. Maybe he was different enough that whatever makes soulmates considered each meeting the first time.”
Darcy paused before finally nodding and said, “That makes a lot of sense,” she turned to Bucky and stuck out her hand, “I’m Darcy Lewis your double soulmate.”
Bucky gave her his most charming smile and took her hand, “Nice to meet ya Doll-face.”
Bucky was so happy that he had his soulmate and that ’they’ were happy and healthy. Although she saw him at his worst he was determined that she would get to experience him at his best.
It would be a struggle since he still experienced flashbacks and nightmares, but he hoped that the good times outweighed the bad times.
Bucky Barnes was pretty sure that would be true, especially when she turned her beautiful face to him and her bright blue eyes shined with happiness and her red lips quirked with mischief.
