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The Winter Soldier looks down the barrel of his snipper riffle and hesitates. That’s his first mistake.
He doesn’t like something about the mission but he’s not sure what. There’s a protest like a stalled engine that sputters ‘no’ and ‘no’ and ‘stop’ whenever he tries to turn the key. He takes his finger off the trigger to analyse it. It’s his second mistake.
He kills a suited man with his build two blocks from the party, strips him and dumps his body in a dumpster. He’s throws a piece of cardboard over the body in case one of the nearby workers actually look in the bins when taking out the trash. He estimates roughly that if the body isn’t found by midnight he’s got an open window of four hours.
It’s unlikely anyone will track him down to this particular event, but it’s best to avoid guards with itchy fingers and an increase of police in the area.
He goes into the nearest open drug store, pockets some hair gel, a comb, and walks right past the razors for a variety of reasons that he narrows down to rules and necessity. He has the first, but not the second. A small amount of facial hair appears acceptable amongst the crowd he’d been observing. He will blend in easily.
He watches the entrance to the building and pins down a group heading in. He times his entrance through the golden doors to coincide with theirs and smiles ‘charmingly’ at one of the women at the back of the crowd.
“Are you trying to sneak in with us?” She mock whispers once he’s sidled up beside her. He grins broadly to convey pleasure in a shared joke.
“Don’t tell anyone.” He echo’s her volume, which is not quiet and she laughs, latches onto his arm, and pulls him along. He doesn’t have any blades strapped to that arm so he lets her do as she pleases releasing out a soft laugh of his own. He can snap her neck faster than stab her, he knows. If he stabbed her she’d bleed out slowly, maybe even survive the initial attack but his blades are too far away and the mess would draw extra attention.
“Not on my life.” She promises close to his skin, body curling around his arm like they’ve known each other forever. He makes sure to smile, to lace his gloved fingers with her own to add to the illusion.
The bouncer doesn’t look at either of them, and she laughs like they’ve won a grand game as they board the elevator. Her friends give him a puzzled look, one of them congratulates her, but no-one questions his presence. He counts twelve in the party, memorises their faces. Security feeds will have to be wiped, and if needs must they won’t be hard to find if things become messy.
The party is swarming with people. He wades into the mass and loses the woman on his arm almost as quickly as he acquired her. She goes left with her friends, so he smiles and indicates the other direction with his head.
“I hope I see you later!” She calls and he blows her a kiss and saunters backwards like he wants to keep his eyes on her. The moment the crowd gets between them he turns about face and lets himself disappear.
The problem with crowds is that they are messy and unpredictable and even all these people decked to the nines with money dripping off their fine tailoring can’t keep things ordered. It’s also the benefit of crowds. Without any particular set of eyes on him, he can let the smile drop away and return to the mission. His target will still be in the crowd, he’s punctual to arrive to functions and stays as long as is strictly necessary. This party will be going until 2am. The drinks won run out, the conversation will become more animated, and the memory of a stranger in their midst will fade. He’s got time to figure out why his mind hasn’t stopped its radio static panic since he sighted the target and prepared to pull the trigger. And then he has time after that to finish the job and return to his handlers.
The vantagepoint he choses, after doing a few circuits of the room, is already occupied by a man who looks like he’s meet with both the wrong end of a blunt object and the bottom of his own glass too often. He ignores the unconscious mess of a human and leans against the railing overlooking the ball room. His target is male, tall, blonde, solid muscle, he should not be hard to spot amongst the crowd but there’s a distinct lack of him. There’s a slight twitch of fear that he’s miscalculated but it dies as quickly as it’s born. If he has miscalculated he will engage the targets handlers to extract information, he will report back the failure and be sent out again at the next opportunity. He will report back the change in behaviour, he will not use the word ‘miscalculated’, he will not speak if he can avoid it.
“So, I don’t believe I’ve met you before. Who invited you to the party?” A man says behind him, and the Soldier assesses the tone, the sharp jabbing speech, and the slight accent on the s’s and knows Tony Stark is behind him. He resists the urge to click his neck, forces the muscles in his face to relax and turns around to face the problem head on. He leans back onto the railing in a show of nonchalance and slants a smile at the man.
“Pretty sure it was you.” He glides the words out easily.
“Little old me, ha?” Tony Stark has sharp eyes and an edge of hysteria he hides as quirk. The Soldier doesn’t try to not look dangerous, that would be impossible and look more suspicious than the open confident body language he’s decided on as his cover but he intentionally does not notice the way Stark’s got a computer on his right lens reading out information to him and an ear piece in that’s probably verbalising that data.
“It is your party, right?” He asks. He’s got his Derringer on his ankle, his SIG strapped to his back and five blades, ankle, back, and three in the jacket and Tony Stark knows about all of them already. His chances of killing the man close range are less than 50% and rely entirely on speed and surprise. There is absolutely no chance of doing it quietly. It will alert his target and then there’ll be an outright battle. Taking into account the other people who must be in the room the Soldier drops his odds of a successful kill down to 20%. If he succeeds his chances of survival are minimal and he can’t complete the mission if he’s dead. It was foolish to enter the ballroom, it was foolish to leave his post, it was foolish to listen, to let the malfunction in his head control his actions. But he did all those things and now he must adapt.
A hand settles around his shoulders and if he hadn’t been so focused on Tony Stark he would have seen the person approaching. But he was focused, and the person’s a stealthy shit.
“Actually I invited him.”
The Winter Soldier is adaptable. He smiles smugly at Tony Stark because he sees the way Stark’s eyes switch to his partner and a marginal tensing and relaxing of his muscles, like he’s not sure if he wants to fight or accept whatever’s happening. The Soldier steals a glance at the man next to him and the voice in his head that’s been saying ‘no’ and ‘no’ and ‘don’t you fucken dare’ blanks out with excited white noise.
“And you left me.” The Soldier jabs, like they’re partners, like this is normal. He could get his gun out and shot the Target dead right here and now. Eight bullets through the brain and no-one wakes up from that. He’d die, of course, Iron Man would kill him, maybe lazy bones passed out on the coach would kill him because the Soldier can see he’s not as asleep as he looked to be. They’d kill him maybe before he’d gotten more than three bullets off. But he’s sure three would be enough and after that- after that it doesn’t matter. Only the mission matters. Despite this, he does not reach for any of his weapons.
“I told you I hate these things.” The Target bemoans, and the Soldier isn’t sure why this is happening, why the Target is protecting him from Tony Starks inquisition. The Target is a tactical thinker, smart, fast on his feet, he’s a veteran who’s seen the very worst of humanity, and he has absolutely no reason to be doing this. It works for him, but the Soldier is not sure of the cost. His heart beats abnormally fast within his chest. It feels like it’s going to break something, but he keeps his metal hand down by his side, careful not to let it touch the Target.
“Well if you say so Cap.” Stark shrugs, but he’s watching still like he expects the Soldier to shoot him through the eyepiece. The Soldier has a fleeting moment of wondering if he could get a bullet there before the man had any protection especially since his facemask was almost always the last thing to fall into place but does not act on the curiosity.
“I do.” The Target replies steadily, and Stark takes a few more moments before he throws his hands into the air and leaves them. He mutters something, something the Soldier does not catch, but judging from the scowl on the Targets face his super soldier hearing heard it. “Natasha’s looking for you.” The Target adds, and the man on the couch stands slowly, like he doesn’t care, stretching and popping his back into place.
“Don’t let him kill you.” The man salutes as he ambles off, and the Soldier is frozen, suddenly without any sort of back up even though none of the strangers had been his backup at all. The pulse in his chest is harsh and drowning and he thinks maybe he should not have been deployed on this mission at all. Maybe his handers made the mistake this time.
The arm leaves his shoulders and he is both furious and thankful. That man who is Captain America steps in front of him, boxes him in against the railing. The Soldier can vault over the railing, disappear into the crowd, take a hostage, kill everyone, escape. He has options but he can’t seem to move faced with the overwhelmed look on this mans face. There’s panic clawing at his throat and he’s not sure what his next action is going to be, but it is not going to be good.
“Do you want to get out of here?” This ridiculous man asks with an expression of genuine concern.
The Solider cannot think of a single way to say yes even though it is exactly what the mission requires. He could recommend a bathroom stall, a bedroom, an alley way, the rooftop. He could make it romantic or friendly. He could be ill and need assistance. He could look stricken (he already does) and beg for help. All of these would work on the Target, all of them are viable ways to move forward. Instead he says, “I have to kill you.” because it’s on loop in his head and he cannot get past the words.
“Okay.” The Target agrees. And the Soldier snaps backwards but there’s a railing there. The Target goes to stop him, goes to box him in further and the Soldier flinches so the hands never touch him. He’s lost track of the rest of the room, they could be screaming, dying, or all staring up here right this very second and he wouldn’t know because his pulse is thick in his ears and there’s a screeching rattle in his head that drowns out everything but this man. The Target.
“Don’t let me kill you.” He begs, because this is imperative.
“I wont.” He promises, and the Winter Soldier feels relief, because he can’t do it. Even if he were to, Steve Rogers would stop him.
Because Steve said he would.