Chapter Text
When he wakes, he is screaming, harsh noise flashing dark across his consciousness, and he can't see the color. The colors left him long ago, like everything else did on that brutal winter day. He remembers pain and euphoria, and seeing every color like a sunrise in his mind, but it's all gone now, and all that remains is numb and dark. All that remains is what they did, and what he did, and the body that he must force to move.
So he moves, so the body moves, and he groans as the metal of his arm shifts. Everything that once was easy is now hard, and he lost his grace when he fell.
Slowly, he extracts himself from the twisted, too-hot sheets – from the twisted, warped metal – and stumbles into the bathroom. The water from the shower doesn't have a color, but he remembers when it did, the sound of it eliciting sparks in his sight. He forces himself to stand beneath the shower head, the water falling like purified rain onto his sweating skin, onto the metal. He is always reminded of the metal. He would give even his memory of the colors to lose the metal, that emblem of death and destruction and crying, sobbing, wailing. Of blood.
When he closes his eyes, he sees blood. The deep red of it is the only color that he sees vividly amongst all of the grey and the black that coats the inside of his eyelids. He remembers blood on snow, on steel, on flesh, running in rivulets down skin.
Sometimes, when he becomes too desperate to breathe, when he wants nothing more than to see his colors again, he becomes reckless.
The Winter Soldier is never reckless. He is precise, exacting. He is a machine.
And yes, he is. But he – whoever he is, now – is not that, will never be that again. He is falling, and his fall is hurting.
When he becomes reckless, he seeks the danger that he wrought on others. He holds the pistol to his head and closes his eyes. He holds the knife, so sharp, to his skin, and closes his eyes. Maybe, he thinks – maybe – if he can hurt, then he will feel again. And maybe – just maybe – if he can feel again, then he will see his colors again.
It seems, though, that they, his captors, his trainers, his masters, still have a hold on him, for the metal arm is unmoving, refusing to pull the trigger or press the blade into his skin. The arm that hurt so many refuses to hurt its own, for it owns him, his flesh, his mind.
He steps out of the shower, the metal bracing his body – shaking, so weak – against the peeling wall. He reaches for a towel, his long dark hair sticking to his face, and he dries his skin. The metal never rusts. Sometimes, he wishes that it would, wishes that it would rust and fall off of him, and with it its hold on him. Their hold on him.
He is rebelling.
What do we do with those who rebel?
We push them back down.
There are tears on his skin, running down his cheeks, and he falls forward, towel sliding from his hands – one hand his, one hand theirs. His chest heaves and his vision goes black, all black, and the sound of his breath, the sound of the water still running in the shower, the sound of metal hitting tile floor, holds no color.
When he finds that he can see again, his cheek is against the cold tile floor. He feels woozy, distant, like he is not himself. He hasn’t felt like himself ever since he fell from the sky.
Shakily, he stands, reaching for the towel and wrapping it around himself. He is the only one here – he checked for two days before sleeping – but nakedness is vulnerability, and vulnerability is forbidden. Vulnerability is death.
He is crying. Why is he crying?
Pain is a part of life. You will feel a lot of pain.
He hears the voices, clear as day, but they lack colors. They lack his colors. His colors are gone.
He would be delusional, he reasons with himself, to expect his colors to ever return to him. After all that he has done, after every death and bleeding wound, surely this is a fit punishment. Surely, this is what he deserves.
So he walks into the bedroom and changes, quickly, into jeans, a shirt, and a sweatshirt. He does not notice their colors.