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He and the Soldat used to spar sometimes.
He knew who he was, of course. Gilbert had never had much to do with Hydra and hadn’t had much reason to fight Captain America and his merry band. He’d been on the eastern front mostly, doing stupid shit like invading Russia in winter. But he knew enough to recognize James Bucchanon Barnes when he saw him.
It made him feel a little better, in a mean kind of way, this brave american boy, stolen and mind wiped until he couldn’t even remember his own country or his best friend’s name. It was sort of reassuring to know that despite everything he still had it better than some people.
They sent the Asset to him because he was still one of the very best when it came to fighting. He maybe should have felt a little apprehensive or something, training up such a powerful weapon for the soviet cause. But he couldn’t manage it, it was just so much fun. He liked the kid, and wished he could have met him before he’d been brainwashed down to a shell of himself. He liked the fighting even more.
The Soldat was a quick study, and between that and the super strength and the fancy metal arm it wasn’t long before Gilbert was outmatched by his own student. Didn’t mean that the asset ran out of things to learn from him, but it did make their brutal spars the most fun Gilbert had as the DDR. He’d get beaten down and come up again bloody-faced and grinning, with a little criticism and advice because being the quickest, strongest thing around isn’t an excuse for getting sloppy, and then they’d do it all over again.
Sometimes the Soldat got this look on his face, like Gilbert reminded him of something important he’d forgotten. Gilbert had the strangest suspicion that that something might Captain America, which was weird. Not the most insulting thing he’d ever been compared to, but definitely weird.
After the Berlin wall fell Prussia was too busy hugging his brother (despite the latter’s protestations) and being generally outrageously happy to think much about what had been done with an old soviet assassin. It was years and years later, when they found Captain America in the ice, alive against all logic, that he thought about the Winter Soldier again. Ludvig was making angsty faces, probably related to nazis and guilt. Gilbert was thinking about a man whose life and mind were stolen from him, off who knows where doing who knows what, the property of who knows who, and about a man waking up all alone in a world he didn’t know and didn’t know him any longer. He looked at his brother sitting right next to him and thought how damn lucky he was.
“Hey,” he said, “How about we go meet him! You can apologize or whatever and I can tell him how awesome the internet is.”