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This is where he understands the line to be: Bucky Barnes falls from the train. The Asset hits the ground.
His handlers say that this means the Asset has only ever known pain. They say this makes him Soviet: that he became Russian somewhere between the train and the snow. They say: the cold changes you. They smoke their pipes leisurely. Zap him, they say. As if it would change the language he spoke his pleas in, the accent with which he cursed them to the heavens above—as if the pain would change his religion, his nationality.
Well, eventually it did.
The Asset dreams of that fall sometimes. He remembers the cold. He remembers fear. Reaching for a parachute he knew wouldn’t be there. And his best friend peering down at him. Zola always liked to believe that the Asset couldn’t dream, but he was wrong. Zola also liked to believe in immortality, or at least wish for it. This was something Zola and the Asset had in common from the first: their dreams. Zola wanted to cure death and the Asset wanted to die.
Under the rule of Pierce, all thoughts of death are irrelevant. The pain is very distant. I know him, he repeats till he’s burned out of his head. The silver halo comes down and he’s thinking thank God. (He knows that name because of the ones that beg. Though they rarely say it with such relish, such victory.) Because, if he’s honest, his head hurts. Remembering hurts. Rogers, especially, hurts. The last kind face he ever saw, and he never wants to see it again.
After he drags Captain America out of the Potomac, he wonders where to go from here. Briefly he considers fleeing, but he understands better than anyone that the world is not wide enough, not secretive enough to hide him. There is not a nation that could shelter him from sight, not a roof he could be safe under. So instead of running, he stays with Rogers.
Sam Wilson, codename Falcon, discovers them.
He rushes toward them when he sees Rogers, but pulls his gun on the Asset after confirming Rogers is breathing. The Asset considers: Wilson’s gun is loaded. Wilson’s wings are broken, the fragments of them sticking from his back in broken shafts. Wilson’s repulsors are hardly functioning, but will give him a burst of momentum if necessary. Wilson is military-trained.
The Asset requires maintenance.
There are precious few things that the Soldier is capable of doing. Assessing a situation, tracking a target, and killing are some of these skills. Very rarely does he find, during an assessment, that he stands across from an opponent he cannot fight. This is one of those times. Wilson is armed and the Asset’s guns are waterlogged, his metal fingers twitchy. The mud denies a quick escape. His arm whirs anxiously.
“Step away from Steve,” Wilson demands, blocking the Asset’s route to the trees. Without any other options, the Asset complies.
Wilson calls for backup into a well-concealed earpiece (government tech, the Asset notes) and then tells the Asset “on the ground with your hands behind your back.”
Before complying, the Asset surveys the situation again. Wilson’s voice is wary, his movements cautious. His expression is grim and displeased. He looks like Pierce did the last time the Asset saw him—grim and reacting to I know him, I remember—and the Asset shivers. The water is chill as metal, making him twitch.
He lays in the mud and feels super-soldier cuffs close around his wrists, sealing them together.
A bitter, near-incinerated part of him—the ghost Rogers calls Bucky—smiles and says, Head up, Soldier. I’m sure Fury’s real pleased about that bullet you put in him. Maybe he’ll return the favor!
The rest of Wilson’s team takes longer to arrive.
Sam has been trying to hoist Rogers up since securing the Asset. One agent approaches to help with lifting him while another, a woman who moves like a Red Room spy, commands the Asset in fluent Russian to rise and walk. He’s sure they look very strange—like a funeral procession carrying a hardly-living man instead of a coffin. The Asset limps hurriedly, his expression impassive even as the flashes of pain in his ribs nearly blind him, and tries not to think about how he could’ve gotten away, if only he’d run immediately after dragging Rogers to shore.
After a long and mildly amusing (to the ghost in his head, at least) custody argument between Wilson, acting as Rogers, and SHIELD, the winning party makes him travel from DC to New York City in an armored van. They blindfold him and lead him into a garage—he can tell by the smell of gasoline and creaking engines—and then down a fortified elevator into a large chamber. The agents leading him tear off his blindfold, vaguely promise a doctor’s visit within twenty-four hours, and then lock him up behind a sheet of thick glass in what he assumes is a super-soldier cell.
The Asset paces anxiously in his cell, despite his efforts to be still in front of the cameras watching from the room’s corners. He’s—fretting, he thinks is the best word for it.
Wilson, and by extension his organization, are like his new handlers, and handler exchanges never go well. The Asset cannot function without orders, and Wilson is the one giving them—this makes him a handler. And if this is true, then…The Asset remembers Rogers on the beach, a pile of broken bones. He understands: if Wilson is his handler, then the Asset owes him Rogers’s pain.
He tries to recall Rogers’s afflictions to the best of his ability. In his haze of panic and pain, the Asset had grown reckless and forgetful. He had known, even then, that the helicarrier mission was vital, and to fail it—well. The fear of that agony was partially the Asset’s reason for remaining with Rogers after pulling him from the river. Rogers had—many gunshot wounds. Probably broken orbital and cheek bones. The fall into the water might have fractured his ribs. All of this didn’t look good for the Asset’s future health if Wilson was a vengeful type.
The Asset frets and worries and waits.
The hiss of the dropping elevator signals someone’s arrival. The Asset spins in a hurry to stand at attention before the glass, fearing the worst—a torturer sent on Wilson’s command or even Wilson himself.
Instead, a woman who appears to be a medic walks up to the glass barrier and promptly presses her fingerprint into an apparently random section of the wall. Metal stirs below their feet; the Asset startles backward. The wall swirls holographically to let the medic in, before becoming solid again.
“My name is Doctor Cho,” the medic greets, distracted at once by the first aid kit she was revealing from the depths of a pocket deeper than it appeared to be. Cho flips it open, tears a strip of gauze from within, and at last looks back up at the Asset. “I’m not with SHIELD. I work with Stark. The owner of all of this,” she adds when he displays no recognition, “and a member of the Avengers.”
The Asset nods mildly. He was briefed on Rogers’s allies.
“Then you’ll know I’m definitely not HYDRA, yes?” she confirms, and before the Asset can make a mistake by nodding or shaking his head, she asks, “Where are you hurt?”
“Everything is superficial, ma’am,” the Asset replies distrustfully. This is mostly truthful; after the time between the fight, the drive, and the wait in the cell, his ribs had begun to heal and he was no longer bleeding. But when Cho steps forward, his metal arm chortles from behind his back, shifting as he tenses. He steps back almost nervously, worrying his words will be interpreted as ignoring or even denying an order; he adds in a haste, “Mild bruising to bones and muscle. Right arm was formerly broken, but has been set. Ribs are healing. The Asset does not require maintenance.”
“All right,” she agrees, her head in a half-tilt and surveying. She is more of an agent than she looks. “But I’m going to leave this here.” She sets the first aid kit down. “There is no needle in here, nor an excessive amount of any painkiller or sedative. Nonetheless, I am sure you can make a weapon of anything. Don’t,” she tells him, stern. The Asset leans further away, his hands still clasped behind his back. He avoids looking her in the eye.
When she continues to wait, he agrees, “Yes, ma’am.”
Cho turns, apparently satisfied, and uses her handprint to open the wall again. She pauses, appearing as if she has something more to say to him, before she goes. He only relaxes once he hears the elevator rising in its shaft. After a few minutes of deliberation, he pulls the first aid kit closer.
Meals come through the glass twice a day at what the Asset decides are regular intervals—one delivery in the morning and one in the afternoon. By this, he counts the days.
This is how he knows it’s on the third day that Wilson visits.
The Asset is on his back on the cell’s bed, watching the ceiling dreamily. When the elevator falls, he rises and comes to attention like he did for Cho on the first day.
The Asset recognizes Wilson immediately, despite the substantial bags under his eyes and his general uncharacteristic gracelessness. The Asset thinks it’s the way he carries himself, as if he is still gliding into a warzone or ready to catch a plummeting friend, that sets him apart from the rest. Wilson arrives alone but not unarmed—there’s a gun at his waistband, plainly visible to both of them—and, though the Asset searches, there is nothing in his expression that indicates immediate violence. Still, the Asset ducks his head and tenses for pain when the glass becomes thin air.
“Hey,” Wilson greets, unexpectedly pleasant. Stiff in an awkward sort of way, not out of anger. Wilson steps further into the cell and the Asset plants his feet, determined not to cower.
After a moment of deliberation, the Asset nods his head in acknowledgement. No activation protocol, which is strange, but if Wilson does not mean to make him hurt then he will most likely want him to carry out a duty. “Ready to comply,” he says in preparation.
“No need for that,” Wilson says tonelessly, dropping to sit on the cell’s bed as the Asset continues to watch. They’ve turned; the Asset’s back is to the glass.
The Asset thinks. Not a mission. Not a beating. What, then? If he does not want the Asset’s brute force, then he wants his expertise. To train more soldiers? Or—the Asset almost shudders. Some handlers like humiliation as revenge. Does Wilson want—a favor?
The Asset waits, staring resolutely at the ground before Wilson’s feet. Wilson shifts, almost uncomfortably.
“I wanted to tell you the news,” Wilson says. Intel, the Asset thinks, but this is soon proven untrue as Wilson adds, “Steve is doing good. Healing factor probably saved his life.” At this, he gives the Asset a searing look, almost a glare. The Asset swallows a flinch and instead shifts back, moving just barely out of arm’s reach. Wilson doesn’t seem to notice. “You won’t be in this cell forever. At least, you’re safe from the nosy-ass governments you’ve got after you. We’re working on what to do with you after Steve wakes up. Knowing him, he’ll will probably suggest some kind of rehabilitation for you. The rest of us aren’t sure.”
The Asset stares. He wants to risk a glance at Wilson’s face but knows better.
“Of course, I’ll vote with Steve,” Wilson muses. “He’s got the intuition for this sort of thing. And I rehabilitate vets all the time. Even though you’re—well. You’re more like Nat than any soldier I know.”
Wilson is saying that he will defend the Asset. But what does he mean by rehabilitation? Does he mean Zola’s rehabilitation, the kind that made him the Soldier? Will they cut him up, send shocks to his brain, make him scream? This time, the Asset takes a full step back. His breath quickens.
Yeah. Turns out Wilson was the vengeful type.
“The Asset does not require maintenance,” he says, almost desperately. Swallows a plea. His hands close harder around each other behind his back, but his left arm does not hiss or whir; he keeps it carefully quiet, inconspicuous as possible.
Wilson watches him thoughtfully. The Asset can feel the prick of his eyes like bulletholes against his head. It reminds him painfully of Zola—the memories of that voice, that face, too deep to ever be burned out. “I know. Listen,” Wilson says, rising, “we’re not like HYDRA. Nobody’s going to put you in ice or”—here he almost chokes—“electrocute you. We don’t do that. We’re the good guys.”
The Asset knows this speech. You are doing well, Soldat. You are making the world a better place. Carry out HYDRA’s will, and there will be no need for pain.
He’s too lost in his thoughts. When Wilson steps forward, the Asset rears back, a rictus of anticipated pain on his face. He slams his flesh shoulder into the glass behind him, the impact booming like thunder.
Wilson pulls back, surprised. When the Asset darts his eyes up to his face, unable to battle the urge to know what his handler is thinking, he sees the same considering look. Wilson presses past him—the Asset standing stock-still, awaiting a punishment—and presses his hand to the glass, striding through.
He pauses across the barrier. Though neither of them turn to face each other, Wilson’s voice is clear. “We’re not going to hurt you,” he promises, some wicked conviction in his voice—the Asset almost snarls at the injustice of it, the lie—and then disappears around the bend and into the elevator.
“Why did you save me?”
The Asset stares at the man before him—the first to visit since the disastrous talk with Wilson. There’s two black eyes under his hair and one arm is held close and poised as if recently removed from a sling and his cheeks are still somewhat swollen, but this is undeniably Rogers. After only two weeks of rest, he looks like he got in a bar fight, not a battle-to-the-death with one of the most notorious assassins in the world. Bereft of his shield and his suit, stripped of reds, blues, and whites, he looks like a man the Asset would never look twice at. Like a member of STRIKE, like one of Pierce’s goons.
And how to answer? The Asset paces closer. Wastes time.
Across the reinforced glass and with white walls all around him, Rogers almost looks like the prisoner here.
“I don’t know,” the Asset admits, semi-truthfully. And then, looking at the strangely hopeful expression developing on Rogers’s bruised face, he hurries to add: “Not because of your Barnes. I just—”
He cuts off, glances at Rogers, whose head is now ducked just slightly, and can’t bear to avoid the truth any longer. “I know what dying feels like,” the Asset says, almost a whisper. Because he does. He knows because he died in a ravine he hardly remembers; he knows because in his dreams he feels his fingers slip from a slick surface, hears a train horn, a scream, a long fall—he dies in the Chair, he dies under a scalpel, he dies every damn time something he loves burns, he dies when he lets a bullet fly, he drowns in snowmelt as he is trapped under a boulder, he dies in an avalanche, he dies chewing off his own arm. “I wouldn’t wish it on anyone,” he lies. And then revises: “Not you, at least.”
“That’s not the full truth,” Rogers acknowledges mildly.
The Asset studies him. “No,” he agrees. “I was very confused. And I had failed. If I had gone back to HYDRA—” He breaks off. Pulls his arms out from behind his back. Something about Rogers puts the Asset at ease.
Silence. A camera stirs in the back of the Asset’s cell.
“I dreamt of you once, I think,” the Asset says at last. It is the truth, but he is also testing his new handlers: will they allow him to dream?
Rogers snaps his head up. “Do you—remember? Before you were the Winter Soldier?”
“I have always been the Winter Soldier,” the Asset recites loyally. He will not go this far.
Rogers looks—disappointed. “What was your dream about, then?” he asks, sounding slightly hopeful.
The Asset must tread very carefully with this. “You were in a building. An apartment. I was outside, on the adjacent roof. A—you were with a target,” he says solemnly, like this is a mission report. “I shot him through the wall. You went after me, but I escaped.”
“And this—this was just a dream?”
“A memory,” the Asset says mildly. “Probably recent.”
He glances at Rogers’s face, which looks positively joyous. He ducks his gaze downward again, feeling sick. This is what he wants, then—for the Asset to admit to his flaws, and to torture them out of him.
Rogers’s hand rises, quick as a snake. It presses to the glass and makes it incorporeal so he can step through. The Asset pretends he isn’t afraid, acts as if he doesn’t want more than anything in the world to bolt out of this cell, away from this continent—but Rogers approaches slowly, mellow. He puts a hand on the Asset’s flesh shoulder and softens at the Asset’s flinch. “Tell me what else you remember,” he says, his tone making it sound like a question. A handler never sounds this unsure. The Asset hesitates, looking at him. Rogers murmurs, “Please,” and some buried part of him, something soft as a heart but not quite, compels him to nod.
“They’re mostly missions,” he admits as Rogers leads them both tenderly to the Asset’s bed. The Asset perches at the end of it, nervous. His throat is dry.
“That’s fine,” Rogers says softly. And then: “Go on.”
And the Asset does.