Chapter Text
The Asset was only intended for use a few hours, at most, in the field at any given time. The Asset was designed to be utilized as a weapon, to be pointed at a target when the field had been properly prepared, all relevant intelligence had been gathered, and the appropriate operatives had been placed to facilitate the most efficient completion of the stated objective. Once the fences were in place, the Asset was released like a dog to hunt and kill. The Asset was trained like a dog, and muzzled like a dog, and beaten like a dog if his performance was inadequate.
Here were the complications inherent in utilizing the Asset, and these were known from the beginning: the Asset was being conditioned to operate under non-real world conditions. With a metal arm and the fighting style and with the laboratory having had, ideally, stripped the Asset of any impulses to behave or socialize like a normal human being—the ideal conditions for this weapon would have been in a battle-field, in a location of overt warfare.
The Asset was an experiment in weaponizing a human being.
In other circumstances, an assassin may have been expected to have a sophisticated understanding of contemporary society and human psychology, and also the art of disappearing in a crowd. How often was an individual really going to be able to wander around a city without encountering other human beings; and an operative simply could not be allowed to kill everyone who happened across their line of sight, unless the goal was to attract unwanted attention.
The Asset was not an assassin.
The Asset was not a Natasha Romanov.
The Asset was a weapon.
During the earliest experimental assignments, the Asset was given strict orders to not be seen by anyone when fulfilling a mission.
At this stage in conditioning and training, the Asset made mistakes.
The Asset was seen: perhaps by an unlucky housekeeper; perhaps by a homeless man on the street.
The Asset was not asked to kill these civilians. Too messy, after all. The Asset was not being trained in the art of making murders look like accidents. The Asset was being groomed to be a ghost that made a lasting impression on those who would oppose Hydra’s ideals. The Asset’s kills were intended to look like assassinations, to send a clear and grim message.
So.
That unlucky housekeeper, that unfortunate homeless man—they were cleaned up by other Hydra operatives.
And the Asset was, of course, punished.
The Asset was punished in such a way that his body knew, and would always know, the pain of failing a mission objective.
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Further criteria concerning the Asset:
The Asset did not eat, or drink, or consume any substance of any kind except those specifically given to him by his handlers.
The Asset did not sleep until his mission objectives were completed.
The Asset was not to be concerned with the care and protection of his own body except in keeping with Hydra’s best interests.
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In 1949, the United States of America passed the Federal Property and Administrative Services Act which classified military working dogs as “equipment to be discarded when worn out.”
When the Asset had been known as James “Bucky” Barnes, during the Second World War, and as a member of the Howling Commandos, he had sat in a bar and drank with his compatriot, Steve Rogers, and made a joke about “being relegated to side-kick status, a regular Rin Tin Tin.”
The Asset was not, in literal terms, a dog of a military.
The Asset was less than a dog.
The Asset was a piece of weaponry, and weapons did not accept offers of drink or food from senior Hydra operatives. And weapons did recognize mission targets as anything other than mission targets. And weapons did not cower and whimper when struck by their handlers, and when the blows came raining down.