Work Text:
The Asset had been free for months now, he still found it hard to call himself the name that had been given to him, back then as the Helicarrier fell apart around them. Every time he tried it, felt how it tasted in his mouth, he felt like he was stealing it, defiling the owner who had been memorialised in that museum next to the captain. 'The only commando to have died in service to his country.'
He called himself the Winter Soldier, the Asset, even though he didn't belong to any one any more, simply because he had nothing else to call himself. On the few occasions he had been forced to give a name, at the shelters that offered food and showers, he had used the name James, it had been given to him to use, but he could not own it.
He was remembering, memories echoing in his skull, like shouts in empty rooms. But like the name, the memories were not his, they belonged to the man who died in 1945 or they belonged to the weapon that Hydra had carved from the man’s corpse. He was neither, just the shattered remnants of what came before. But regardless of who the memories belonged to, he used them, he let them show the empty shell he is how to become human once again, or at least effectively mimic human behaviour.
Somewhere along the line, his mimicking human behaviour became something more. He felt almost human. He allowed for connection more than just two passing figures, but something that had emotion, had platonic intimacy. He learned to ignore passing strangers that walk too close, to not hold a knife to the throat of everyone who bumps his shoulder in the street. There was even a woman, a lieutenant who could bare that soldiers were living on the streets. She found him one day and with careful words showed him to a building, a shelter that offered food and beds to those in need.
It was because he was allowing himself to resemble human that he dropped on the hypervigilance he had up kept at the beginning, he allowed himself to relax as he settled into the familiar surroundings of the New York shelter he was visiting for the fourth time in as many weeks.
He'd been drawn to the city, a similar but more welcome urge to the one that was calling him back to hydra, like a whisper, like the steady drip of a tap, quiet but impossible to ignore and driving him towards the state, to the city, to the borough that was so familiar, but still so foreign.
It was in New York that he'd seen the Captain once more. He'd hid in the shadows as he confirmed the status of his no-longer-target. It had taken him a month to get across the country, he couldn't use planes or public trains, though he'd jumped a few cargo trains, and stealing cars could leave a clear trail straight to him. Just to be sure he wasn't leaving a video trail of himself all the way to New York he went off track several times. Some deep rooted programming told him just how many cameras there were in the USA and he did what he instinctually knew to avoid leaving an obvious trail to his destination.
IN that month of mindless back and forthing, the captain had healed, leaving not a trace of the damage he knew he had inflicted on that face. The captain had moved to New York with codename: Falcon, the soldier he remembered ripping the wings off of and sending him free falling back to earth. They were living at Stark tower, which even going on three years down the line hadn't had the sign replaced leaving only the giant 'A'. The tower was owned by Codename Iron Man, some old mission briefing provided, a standing order to terminate him along with Potts, Virginia 'Pepper', CEO of Stark industries. When he had seen Stark, his broken memory had provided him with a similar face of a similar age, twisted in pain as the man slowly bled to death following the crash he had caused. The woman had gone quickly but the man lingered. There was no child in the back seat, though his orders were give or take on whether the child died also. He remembered an almost relief that the child didn't have to die. The feeling had confused him, he does not care for the age of the target, he only follows orders.
After he saw the captain, He felt that he could not stray far from him, though he knew the captain, along with his team left the city, left the country, regularly, taking down hydra bases and recovering the stolen artefacts. He remained in New York State, always moving but never straying too far.
And now, just shy of a year since he escaped, got free of the masters and their torturous machines, they found him. He had gotten lax in his vigilance, he had found a friendly face and allowed her to draw him back to the shelter time after time and Hydra had found him there.
As he left early one morning, like he always did, in the predawn light, a van stopped at the lights just outside the shelter, the window wound down and a sharp pain burst from his chest before numbing and taking the world with it.
He woke to pain, sharp and engulfing like fire erupting from his wrist, he screamed through it, something he hadn't done in years outside of the Chair, his unconscious brain wasn't prepared as he felt the bones of his wrist compress and shatter under the blow of the hammer.
The arm was inactive and trapped between the jaws of a vice on a workbench. He was forced to kneel, bent under the weight of the shoulder he couldn't move. His broken wrist limp in his lap. There were four men in the room, a meagre number compared to the fifteen that had once stood guard over him when he was compliant. It was an obvious show at just how broken Hydra was now, that two men had handguns aimed at him while a third cut away the turning bar to the vice and the fourth stood, watching the show with a smug look though he tried to keep his face blank. He wore a smart suit, expensive, with shined shoes now covered in dust from the murky basement. The Asset could see the outline of a gun under his arm, but he clearly thought himself above wielding it.
Once the bar was cut, then men filed out, shutting the heavy metal door behind them with a thunk and an audible slide of a bar and turn of a key.
Alone, he looked around the room, assessing the location, the contents. It was a basement, the windows all high and barred, with concrete walls and floors. Everything had been moved out of reach, not that he could hold anything with his broken hand for the next couple of days. He tugged at the frozen arm with his body weight but it was stuck fast in the vice and he couldn't muster enough force to tug harder at his eternally delicate shoulder.
There was nothing he could do for now to free himself, except wait for his hand to heal.
The asset was patient, he could wait this out for weeks if he had to.
It was only hours though, before he registered that his body had needs now, needs that he had been taking care of with regular efficiency. As the Asset he had never registered these needs, he didn't have the capacity to, but now forced in to a bend that put pressure of his swelling bladder, it was hard to ignore.
At least it offered some distraction to the ache building in his knees and thighs as he tried to not pull on the join between flesh and metal. At least it offered some warmth in the cold of this basement, oh how he hated the cold.
Food was not a necessity he had regular access to, and so he had learned to ignore the need for that, but as he watched the sun start fill the room for the second time the clenching pains begged for him to bend further than his trapped arm would allow.
No one had been back to see him since they had brought him here. Sure he was used to being ignored by hydra, but this behaviour was strange, even for them. Hydra's procedure was to reset him, when he strayed from the machine they made him in to, any sign of independent thought, any stray memory resurfacing, any questioned orders and they would strap him into that Chair and clean him out.
And he remembers the cold. Cold that made his bones brittle.
What his internal clock told him was three hours after dawn, the latch slid and a key turned and the metal door groaned open. He couldn't see it, it was around a corner. He listened as footsteps approached, there must be a whole other room between the door and where he was being kept. The four men from before had returned. The suited man once again didn't draw his gun but he did take a Taser from his pocket as he approached.
The Asset's hand was healing, he could move his fingers again now, but didn't have the strength in them to curl them in to a fist never mind fight off the approaching man. Still he waved his arm, threatening a strength he didn't have. The suited man avoided the elbow aimed at his crotch and lunged forwards with the Taser, catching him in the chest. His whole body went stiff and his muscles spasmed as much as his forced crouch allowed, he felt the pull at the anchor points in his flesh as he thrashed around the frozen arm, he felt the connecting flesh burn as the metal conducted the electricity coursing through his body.
He didn't scream. This was nothing compared to the Chair. Not even the blank slate protocol could wipe the memory of the chair from him.
When the electricity finally stopped, it left him weak and panting, unable to tell his muscles what to do. The men took advantage of his weakness and brought his right hand up on to the table, one of the men held his arm in place while another handed the suit a large headed mallet. He weighed it up, bouncing it in his grip a few times before he swung it round over his shoulder and down to connect with his hand where its being held on the table. Once. Twice. Three times it connected, moving up his arm with each blow.
He heard the breaks just as much as he felt them.
Still he didn't scream.
One of the goons left and came back with a car battery with wires attached to a crown of electrodes. They forced it over his head batting his broken arm away with ease as he fought against them.
It was powered up as soon as the goons were clear.
It was excruciating, he clenched his jaw over the scream that threatened to climb out of his throat, but it was nothing compared to the Chair. The Chair that was so painful, he couldn't even feel it. He felt nothing in the Chair, not the tensing of his muscles, not the scream that ripped his throat apart, not the lightening that ripped through his skull. The only thing he was aware of was the feeling that he was forgetting, the knowledge that there was information in his head only seconds ago and now there was nothing. it was terrifying.
The car battery mock-up of the Chair wasn't powerful enough to clean him out. If he wasn't fighting back the scream, he thought he would laugh. This is what Hydra had been reduced to.
When it was finally over he collapsed, barely even feeling the pull at the Arm. They pulled the electrode crown from him with tongues, the parts that were exposed metal were heated to the point they had started to glow red.
"Identify." the suited man ordered.
He ignored him as he panted, convincing his muscles to listen to him, to take the weight from the sensitive join of flesh and metal.
"Identify." The suited man repeated.
He repeated the word a third time with a kick to the stomach.
"Barnes." he finally laughed. He couldn't feel any new void in his recovered memories, how precious few they were. Though it did occur to him that he might not be able to tell a new void from the old one, the one that has been there since he broke free all those months ago.
He could feel the hot sting over his scalp where the heat of the electrified metal had scorched a ring around his head, like a crown of burning thorns.
The threat of having it stripped away from him again had finally given him cause to claim the name.
The fiery crown was forced back on to his head and the process was repeated. This time he did laugh, he laughed until he screamed.
"James Barnes." he told them when asked to identify again. He was rewarded with more kicks to his hunger clenching stomach. When a leather toe connected with his groin and he let out a pained and angered growl, the suit finally seemed satisfied with the punishment.
They gathered up the equipment and filed out once more.
One goon returned and dropped a slice of bread covered in the foul protein paste he vaguely remembered from before and a half full bottle of water on the dusty work bench. He treated Barnes to a back hand that snapped his head round before he retreated again.
Carefully, he used his injured hand to pull the bread towards him on the bench and ate it straight off the table. It was almost orgasmic, the relief the food offered his crippling stomach. But though it offered relief, it wasn't even close to enough to sate the gnawing hunger.
He slid the bottle towards the edge of the table, ignoring the agony that bloomed with every twitch of his muscles. He caught the bottle cap in his teeth and maneuverered the bottle under his arm, catching it tight in his armpit as he twisted the lid off with his teeth. Spitting the cap away he clamped his teeth around the neck of the bottle and raised it, greedily downing the contents. Again it wasn't even close to enough to sate his thirst, but it offered relief, for now at least.
They settled in to a routine after that, coming every second day, three hours after dawn, breaking his hand again just as he started to regain movement in it. Frying his brain with the car battery mock up, that only added to his dehydrated confusion, and aimed a hard kick to his groin every time he laughed out his name and their failure. They checked the tightness of the vice, occasionally reinserting the turning bar and tightening it just that little more. All he could feel from the Arm was pressure and extreme temperature, but the tightness he could feel around in now almost seemed to translate as pain, but maybe that was just his imagination.
On the day he was expecting their eighth visit, he was so dehydrated, his breaths were rasping and his head was long past pounding. His body was screaming, he hadn't moved in over two weeks, and despite the cold of the basement he felt warm, or maybe he was so far beyond exhausted he just couldn't tell anymore? The place had felt like a meat cellar when he first woke up here, and the think cotton shirt did nothing to hold back the frigid air.
The usual three hours after dawn visiting time came and went and Bucky thought to him self that maybe they had managed to effect his memory. Maybe they had been, or he'd lost track of the days. Maybe he had dreamt yesterday’s dawn and today was only the intermittent day.
The day turned to night twice more before, and if Bucky could muster the energy to do so, he's pretty sure he would panic that they really had figured out to take his memories, but he still remembered everything else, he was almost certain, or maybe. He couldn't think straight, barely form a coherent thought, never mind string together his memories.
Maybe they had given up and he was finally being allowed to die. It had only taken them seventy long and painful years but finally.
The latch slid and the door opened, and two pairs of boot falls followed two voices. The voices were calm and not even trying to be hushed, they were not expecting to find anyone in the basement.
One set of steps, light but long, someone who was no stranger to stealth, moved slowly around the first room. The second pair, heavier and more certain in their stride walked straight for the second room, straight for him.
Codename Falcon didn't even break stride when he saw him, just called out to the rooms.
"Hey Cap."
The lighter pair of boots moved with determination straight to where the Falcon had shouted out. Codename Captain America - Steve - entered through the side door.
Bucky couldn't look up, his body was exhausted, not answering his need to look to captain, to the light.
The captain stopped, looking straight at the broken man trapped in the jaws of the vice. His face was set with horror and anger, but he did not move towards him. The Falcon moved to Steve, turning his back on the broken Asset as he spoke in an echoing whisper.
Finally his burning muscles answered and he raised his head, looking to the captain like a candle in the dark.
He was used to being ignored, being talked over, but some desperate part of him wished they would just hurry and release him, let him off his knees and give him water.
"This would have been a lot easier a week ago."
"If we call Tony-"
"Ah, he won't believe us."
"Even if he did-"
"Who knows if they'd let him help."
"... We're on our own."
"Maybe not.... I know a guy."
"Call him in. We need all the help we can get."
Finally, finally the captain, Steve, stepped forward. He wanted to say something, but between the knives and cotton in his head and the paper dryness of his throat all he achieved was working his mouth like a fish out of water. All he could do was watch him.
The captain crouched before him, taking him in with sad and angry eyes, his nostrils flared at the intensity of the smell that must surround him like a wall.
"Heya, Buck." he said, barely containing the waver of his voice. He stood quickly and in a rushed but fluid movement was standing by the workbench, his fingers hooked under the top jaw of the vice, pulling at it. It groaned in protest, before giving up and breaking off completely.
Bucky was desperate to move, to wrench his frozen arm away from the remaining jaw of the vice, but his muscles were locked in place, stiff and unyielding.
Steve pulled something from his exposed metal forearm that he'd never noticed before and his neural connectors were bombarded with information. The pressure he was so sure he was feeling before proved to be phantom, now he really felt it and it truly was bordering on painful. The plates themselves were made of a nigh on indestructible metal, but the delicate machinery beneath, the pressure receptors below had been crushed.
Steve carefully moved the Arm for him, lowering it to his side. It felt stiff, just like the rest of him.
His other hand seemed to have given up healing a while ago, the breaks still raw and the skin black with bruising.
The captain moved as though to touch him, to pull him to his feet, but stopped, hands hanging in the air.
"Can I- Can I touch you? Help you?" he asked.
Bucky moved his jaw and his papery lips cracked, thick blood oozing slowly from the wounds. Very slowly, he nodded.
Steve hooked his hands under both of Bucky's arms and tried to help him stand. He groaned as his body protested the movement and Steve quickly stopped.
The captain moved around to his left side, pulling the metal arm to hook over his shoulders, and sliding one hand under Bucky's legs and the other around his back, in one smooth movement he lifted him up and stood, the Winter Soldier cradled in his arms like some distressed damsel. Even this small amount of movement felt too much after so long immobile, even so, he allowed his head to fall to the firm chest and his eyes to fall shut.
He may not have remembered much in the year since he found freedom, but he remembered enough to know that Steve meant safety. Captain America would never allow anyone to hurt him, and he would never allow anyone to hurt that little punk from Brooklyn.
“Ant Man is on our side and has somehow managed to get all of Pym Tech at our backs.” Falcon said, pocketing his phone.