Chapter Text
As instructed, the Winter Soldier walked down the dark hallway behind two low-ranking operatives.
‘You! Asset. Come.’
He told himself that he shouldn’t even bother to check his gait when the two buffoons made enough noise that it would be impossible to pick out a foreign or hostile noise, even if he wanted to. The habit was ingrained, however, impossible to break and forged by painful punishments.
They came to a stop in front of a metal door and one man pulled out a key.
“You will tell no one that I brought you here.” The first operator, a gangly, light-haired man with a weak chin, said to his companion. His words said one thing but his tone spoke of arrogance and the need to boast. His companion, a portly, sweaty, wretch of a human, nodded in a way that he probably meant to look thoughtful. It did not.
‘Dumb and Dumber’, the soldier sneered inside his mind. With the slightest hesitance in his step (no one here would notice, there would be no consequence), the Soldier pondered that thought. It was, wasn’t, was his own. Who else would it be?
He stepped into a poorly-lit room after the men and immediately took sentry in the corner closest the door, the shadows of the room swallowing him like a lover’s embrace.
Unsurprisingly, they were not alone in the room. Something small, no, someone small was curled in the opposite corner.
“How old is it, again?” Dumber asked.
Dumb walked over to the shivering form on the floor. He used the toe of his boot to drag the pathetic piece of cloth that the child (could only be a child) had bundled themselves in. “Five and you know it is a fucking boy.”
Dumber knelt in front of a head of dark curls that had been revealed. The boy was turned toward the wall, and he held something tight against his chest. “Are you sure? My sister has a three-year-old that looks like a linebacker compared to this. Does Stark not feed it?” He reached out a hand and tugged on what the boy held in his arms.
‘Stark, Stark, Stark,’ the voice (his, not his, his) in the back of the Soldier’s head alerted.
The child immediately curled into himself, almost painfully so, and around what appeared to be a stuffed animal. The Soldier didn’t hear the boy make a single sound.
“Your sister is fat and ugly and so’s her kid,” Dumb said dryly, and kicked Dumber away from the child.
Regaining his balance, Dumber stood and glared. “So, what is the plan, then? He’s fucking five. Randsom? Early, forced recruitment?” The fat man tossed a smirk toward the Soldier’s corner before looking at the kid once more. “And what is with the stupid bear?”
They both backed toward the door, even as Dumb shrugged. “Don’ know. I was ordered to take Stark’s son. I ambushed the kid and Stark’s cook on their way home from the market.”
The noise the small bundle made at that was nothing short of a heartbreaking whine and the Soldier thought he may have choked out a sound, “Ana.”
Dumb chuckled. “The cook put up a good fight, but when it was all over, Baby Stark wouldn’t let go of that fucking bear. We scanned it and the kid. Ain’t nothing in there but stuffin’.” He shook his head and chuckled, “What the hell could a kid do, anyway?”
They had reached the door and Dumb pushed Dumber into the hall and barked, “Watch him,” before he slammed the door.
Minutes passed and the boy didn’t move. The Soldier watched, as ordered, and less than half of an hour later, the small boy started talking.
“Is okay,” his tiny voice whispered, and the brown bear was pulled up until the Soldier could see its dark brown fur, matted in a way that showed it was held often, and wearing a dark blue jacket. “It is okay ‘cause Aunt Peggy said that he always came to save his brave boy and I am a brave boy.” The softest sob the Soldier had ever heard was muffled against the stuffed bear. “I am a brave boy. Aunt Peggy said F-father was wrong, I am a brave boy, and Bucky always comes for his brave boy.”
The thoughts, not his, his, NOT HIS, buzzed angerly, frantically, anxiously.
“Who the hell is Bucky?”
The little boy shrieked and sat up, the bear held in front of him like a shield, obviously having not noticed that he hadn’t been left alone in the room. His tiny chest rose and fell, each too shallow breath a struggle, and his legs kicked against the concrete as he tried to get purchase to press himself tighter into the corner.
“Wh-what? Wh-whoo?” he stammered.
The Soldier started to ask the question again and then admonished himself. He had not been given permission to interact with the boy. He schooled his face, his stance, and his voice (not his mind, though, his thoughts were a violent storm, Bucky, Stark, Bucky! inside his mind. Or maybe not his mind. Fuck.) “No one is coming for you.”
To his utter surprise, and contrary to how the child had behaved for the operatives, his tiny mouth thinned while his small nose scrunched, and huge brown eyes (should a child’s eyes be that impossibly round?) glared up at him, directly meeting his own.
“Wrong!” he spat out in his childish voice. “Aunt Peggy said that Bucky always followed and protected his brave boy. While the brave boy was saving everyone else, Bucky was saving him. I am a brave boy.” The ridiculous child clutched his bear and his whole body shook. “I AM a brave boy. I am.” Tears streaked down baby cheeks and for a second the Soldier though he would curl into himself again before his stubborn chin lifted and he yelled, “I AM!”
The little boy glared for only a moment longer and then huffed dismissively and turned his back to the Soldier.
“Bucky-Bear says you’re stupid.” Before the Soldier could even process the absurdity of those words, a small hand shot out and snagged the forgotten blanket. The kid threw it over his head and tucked what cloth there was around him and his bear. “And I hate you.”
The Soldier silently stepped back into his own corner.
Who the fuck was Bucky-Bear?
~
The Soldier watched as the boy wiggled and wiggled under the blanket. Minutes passed and he heard, “Oh, no, oh. Nonono,” before the blanket was thrown off and he shot up, red in the face with the bear clutched in his arms. Was it anger?
“I have to..” The boy wiggled as he stood. “I have to pee!”
Ah, embarrassment.
The Soldier glanced around and pointed to bucket that lay on its side across the room.
The boy shook his head and dark curls fell over his eyes. “What am I s’pose to do with that?”
“Relieve yourself.”
His small head shook again. “No, I can’t,” he muttered into the bear that he had lifted to nearly cover his red face.
“Use it.”
“No. I can, I can hold it.” His face was now smashed into the bear.
“Use the bucket, Stark.”
The kid recoiled like he’d been slapped. “Yes, sir.”
He shuffled toward the bucket, his eyes never leaving the Soldier while he mumbled into the bear, words too muffled even for his enhanced hearing. The tone indicated furious suspicion. The Soldier wished (dangerous, so dangerous, too dangerous to wish) that he could make out the words. Several steps from the corner, the kid set the bear against the wall almost reverently. It didn’t go unnoticed that the bear’s eyes were pointed directly at the Soldier. “Watch him,” the boy ordered, and the Soldier considered for a moment who was watching who.
~
Back in his corner, the boy and his bear glared at the Soldier.
“Is he a robot. BB?” the boy asked. “Would he know if we asked him? Huh, he asked me questions. Can robots question? He was mean. Can robots be mean? Alternately, can humans hold that still? Are his eyes drying out? Why hasn’t he peed?”
Suddenly, the boy yanked off his shoe and threw it at the Soldier. Without breaking eye contact, the Soldier grabbed the shoe out of the air and threw it back. It slammed into the wall inches from the boy’s head before it landed in the bear’s lap. The boy yelped but his eyes widened comically, and he pointed at the Soldier’s arm. “Robot! I knew it, I knew it! He’s, its, huh… Are robots boys and girls? How can I tell the difference? Can robots tell? Doesn’t matter. Whatever. Look! It’s a robot, BB!” the kid crowed and yanked the bear back into his arms.
“Wrong.” He held up both hands, one real and one metal before opening and closing them both. He ignored the click that one of the fingers had started making after the last mission. The Handler had made a note. The Soldier wouldn’t mention it again. The remedy was, more often than not, worse than the problem.
For the first time, the boy took a tentative step toward the Soldier. “Are you angry? Can robots be angry? I guess you could program mean, but angry is a feeling, right? Not an action. Is mean, feels angry. I gotta think more about this, BB.” His small nose was scrunched and his forehead wrinkled. “Can I touch it?”
The Soldier shook his head once. “No.”
The boy came to a stop less than a step from the Soldier. “Okay, then, can Bucky-Bear touch it?”
“No.”
The Soldier looked down and the little boy was a breath away. “I could, maybe, or not, but probably maybe, I could fix that.” The boy's small finger poked his metal hand and then he jumped back.
“No.”
Disappointment flashed over the boy’s face. “You’re mean.”
“And you’re kidnapped. Sit down.”
The boy’s small mouth fell open in surprise. The Soldier silently chastised himself but it didn’t seem to register over the amusement he felt. Did robots feel amusement? Is amused, feels amusement.
“You don’t think I can,” the boy accused and his tiny foot, sans shoe, stomped against the floor. “I am Anthony Stark. I can fix something as stupid as a tin can arm.”
The Soldier arched an eyebrow. His hand curled into a fist and the click echoed throughout the room. “Sit. Down.”
The boy didn’t sit, but he did step back. His small white teeth troubled his bottom lip for a moment. He was thinking and it was adorable.
What? These thoughts, not his, his, they were becoming a problem. He would have to report these anomalies in his thought process to the Handler. That would be... unpleasant.
The little boy held up both his hands like he was negotiating. The bear flopped about like a noodle. “Okay, okay. I know that maybe you are scared.”
The Soldier scoffed.
The boy dropped his arms and looked down at the bear. He sagely nodded, agreeing with some unspoken assessment.
“Yeah, you’re right.” He took a deep breath, like he was steeling himself for something and looked up at the Soldier. “Once, Bucky was with his howling friends… not werewolves, I asked, but how neat would that be… and there was a war. War is scary because everyone is trying to stay alive and not die and that means having to hurt other people so that you aren’t hurt. Aunt Peggy says that it’s a big person thing and that I am small, but I know that hurting someone, being hurt, being killed,” he whispered, "is scary."
The kid looked down at the bear tucked against his chest and rubbed his thumb over a stain on the navy material. The Solider immediately recognized it as blood. Relatively fresh. The cook’s?
The Soldier blinked when a tiny hand wrapped around his wrist and tugged him toward the wall. He froze and they both stopped moving. When had he started moving in the first place? The kid sighed with exasperation.
“He was scared ‘cause he missed his mommy, and his sister, and his best friend, and something called, um, something with water. Creeklyn, maybe river. No, too big. Brookville? Doesn’t matter. Whatever. And he didn’t want to hurt anyone but he didn’t want his friends hurt, so sometimes, he went off by himself and he waited and waited. Bucky was really, really good at waiting.” The boy shook his head and look of disbelief flashed across his face. “And then he stopped waiting and he stopped the bad people from hurting his friends. The thing is, you see, Bucky knew that his friends being hurt, well, that would hurt the most, right? And so, he was scared but he still did it.”
The Soldier felt a tug at his wrist and followed the boy to his corner. When the boy plopped onto his bottom, the Soldier slid down the wall. This was wrong. It was wrong and someone, him, this idiot boy, was going to be hurt.
“Being scared is okay. ‘Cause you don’t want to be hurt, right?”
Too late for that. The Soldier made to push himself up and the boy scrambled up and threw himself against his shoulder.
“Listen, listen, listen.” Little fists twisted into his shoulder. “I am scared.” His voice cracked. “But I can, I can stop you from hurting. Okay? Okay. Let’s do this. Okay?” The boy moved back enough that they could look at each other. “Okay? Please?”
This was wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong.
“You have no tools. You are unable to do maintenance.”
“Psh!" Suddenly the boy crawled into his lap and his small hands roamed over his tac vest. Are robots this stupid? His mind, not his, probably his, hissed at him. Fingers brushed over and skipped anything that could be considered a weapon. Alternatively, are small children this stupid?
“Ah-ha!” A lock pick set was thrust into his face. A smile split his round face and he sat back on the Soldier’s thighs. Curls brushed against his forehead, and he batted them away impatiently. “Before we start, my name is Tony and I’ll be your doctor today. This is Bucky-Bear. He’ll be my assist, assist… He will assist me. What’s your name?”
Oh, this was the worst idea.
“Asset, or Soldier.”
And again with the nose scrunch. “That’s not… that’s not actually… Doesn’t matter. Whatever. Let me see.”
The boy, Tony, made grabby fingers and then ran them from his shoulder down to his wrist and over his individual fingers.
“BB,” he spoke softly, “This is, well, it’s not a tin can.” Using just his fingers, Tony poked and prodded. “Huh, the plates' overlapping is nearly perfect. I can’t even hear the mechanism. How is this even… What makes it, you know, go? This, huh, this is great. Move here. Oh, I could probably, when we have time. Yeah, B, I think I could. What is this? This is good. No, you’re right. I shouldn’t like it. This is bad. Twist, no this way! Anyway, yeah, bad. Idiots! The lot of them.” The Soldier watched as the boy rambled to his bear and he wondered if the boy ever talked to anyone else. Those thoughts were aggressively shelved when the tools came out. He tensed and his flesh hand was on the boy’s arm, squeezing before the thought to react had completely formed in his mind.
“Hey, hey, hey, ouch! Hey! Quit that!”
The Soldier blinked and his hand let go as if it were burned when the bear was shoved into his face hard and then fell into his lap. “Mind our patient, would you, please, BB. Geez.”
The Soldier looked down and unseeing plastic eyes started back at him, judgingly. He ran his fingers over the smart coat and tugged at a worn ear.
“Was…” the name rolled in the back of his throat before burning across his tongue. “Was Bucky a bear?” Even as he asked the question, it didn’t make sense. The kid said Bucky was in a war.
A peel of laughter erupted from Tony, joyous and carefree. The Soldier's eyes snapped to the boy's face. How had he forgotten Tony was only five years old? Then he watched as the boy popped open the panel over his wrist with deft fingers and his small pink tongue poked out in concentration.
“What? A bear? No. BB, do robots make jokes?” One thin tool was shoved at the Soldier while another appeared in Tony’s tiny grip. “No. My aunt gave me Bucky-Bear. He’s vin… vint… old. He was like a marketing tool, I guess. I don’t know. Promoting a real person. Vintage!” he cheered and then hummed absently, attention once again on the arm. “This isn’t tricky at all. I wanted this to be tricky. Why isn't this tricky? So disappointing. Idiots, indeed. I’m embarrassed.”
The vocabulary on this kid. This five-year-old kid who was moving wires and popping gears in and out of his arm with more confidence that he'd seen from any of his mechanics.
“So, yeah. The bears were named Bucky-Bears, play on sounds, maybe. There is a word, I heard it once, it means words that start with the same sound and they are repeated over and over. Maybe something to do with poetry. Gross.” His nose crinkled and he made a little noise of disgust. “Doesn’t matter. Wha…”
“Whatever,” the Soldier muttered, and pretended that Tony wasn’t watching his fingers move over the bear’s head.
“Yeah,” Tony said softly and gave the Soldier a softer smile. “Whatever. The point is, the bear repre… rep… stands for a real person. James Buchanan Barnes. He came in a pair with…”
Nonononono. The pain splintered through his mind like a thousand lightning strikes, and he didn’t know if the scream that exploded in his head was him, not him, both, neither, whywhywhy…
“But I kinda, sorta, threw him in the garbage ‘cause my Fath… ‘cause reasons… Oh! Look at that! I might be done.” He barely noticed Tony’s attention lift from his arm and the soft click of closing metal. Tony noticed him though. “HEY! Stop that. He needs both his arms!”
Tony tossed the tools to the floor and yanked the bear from the Soldier’s hand, hugging it tightly.
“You’re okay, B, it’s okay. This was dumb. He is dumb. You’re okay. I’m sorry, BB.” Tony’s fingers delicately moved over the bear and he looked up, accusingly. “You tore his arm! Why? He wasn’t hurting you. I wasn’t hurting you.” Tears streamed down his face and the Soldier saw the bear’s arm holding on by a thread.
“Where is James Buchanan Barnes now?” His mouth tasted like blood and ash.
“He’s… he’s,” Tony clutched at the bear while a sob ripped from what could only be his heart and then a look of hard resolve, like nothing the Soldier had ever seen, turned too young, too old, too young eyes cold. “He is coming to kick your ass!” the little boy screamed.
Tony backpedaled away from him, (‘He is coming. I am a brave boy. I am.’) and had nearly hit the wall when the door to the room opened.
The Handler smirked at whatever he saw, benign tools scattered across the concrete, the Soldier on the floor and the boy panicking against the wall.
“Well, isn’t this interesting.” The Handler motioned for two guards to take the boy.
The Soldier’s eyes never left Tony, even as he pulled himself to attention, and the little boy screamed and kicked as he was carried out of the room.
“Follow me, Asset. Lessons to be learned, I should think.”
~
The room never changed. Didn’t matter where in the world that it was located. The cold chair, the faceless guards, and even more faceless scientists and mechanics. Forgettable, replaceable if this didn’t go as they hoped, if the Winter Soldier fought.
The fear was more than justified. Extrapolated data and all that. But this time, he did not fight.
Not when they walked him into the room. Not when two guards removed everything from his person but the clothes on his back. Not when they shoved him in the chair and strapped him down, restraints biting into his arms and holding his head still. He didn’t fight but he did watch while the Handler motioned for the boy.
Tony was on a counter, his small hands tied together and the back of his shirt held so tightly that the collar cut into his throat. His wide eyes tracked everything in the room but always, always came back to the Soldier.
The Handler watched them both, a smile like pain and death stretched over his face. “I think I’d like to answer your question, Asset, and, perhaps, also correct young Mr. Stark.” He walked over to Tony and tilted his chin up. From behind his back, he produced the stuffed bear. He moved the bear like a marionette. “Where is James Buchanan Barnes?” he mocked in a childish voice.
Tony glared and reached out with his bound hands to grab the bear. The Handler skipped backward and Tony gagged as his shirt tightened on his throat.
Someone tried to shove a guard into the Soldier’s mouth but he jerked away from it, growling.
“Brave Bucky Barnes,” the Handler laughed, and the Soldier inanely thought ‘there’s a word for that’. “Well, he’s right here.” The Handler’s arm waved out toward the Soldier and it appeared like the bear was introducing an honored guest. “I present to you James Buchanan Barnes, your previous Bucky, the Winter Soldier and Hydra’s greatest triumph. I’m afraid that he won’t be coming for you, Baby Stark, or kicking any asses today.”
Tony’s head swiveled back and forth, his mouth opening and closing in confusion. “No, wrong, because I know. I know he’s d…” Tony was yanked backwards, and the agent shook him until his teeth rattled.
The Soldier felt the name awaken inside him and knew it was true. Him, not him. Asset. James. Soldier. Bucky.
Doesn’t matter. Whatever.
“Tony,” he rasped, and the little boy’s mouth snapped shut while the rest of his small body trembled. “Tony, you are a brave boy. The bravest.”
The Handler laughed and with a gesture the chair activated.
As his brain scattered outward, Bucky willed himself not to forget Tony’s anguished screams even as they chased him into oblivion.
~
When Peggy Carter and her team ambushed the Hydra facility, the rats poured out from all directions. She cursed angerly and started composing the ‘strongly worded’ rant that she would rain down onto her analysts. The bunker had been reported abandoned. A handful of Hydra soldiers at most. She and her team hadn’t planned for this many combatants, but Hydra seemed more intent on getting away than fighting back. Odd, based on past encounters, but Peggy wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth, as it were. American colloquialisms were so quaint.
By the time the dust settled, it appeared most anything of worth had been evacuated with the rats or incinerated. Peggy looked around the burnt-out room with a chair, generator and not much else and found it to be more than a bit worrying.
That is until a junior agent, who Peggy could hear coming from miles away, burst into the room. “Agent Carter. We have a situation.”
Peggy made an obvious movement with her arm toward the remains. “Yes, dear, I am aware.”
He shook his head and pointed wildly over his shoulder. Daniel appeared behind him, face pale and jaw so tight she could make out the vein running down his neck. He held something in his arms that appeared to be a child. Anger rushed through her and she cursed. What was a child doing here? Bloody fucking Hydra.
“Daniel,” she began and then saw the bear clutched in Daniel’s hand. She knew that bear with his jaunty blue coat and his soft, worn fur. Her gaze lifted to the bundle wrapped in Daniel’s suit jacket. Peggy whimpered when she looked into the listless eyes of her precious godson. Her hand trembled as she reached up to gently brush away the hair on his forehead. “Anthony, darling?”
Daniel didn’t speak and if anything, his jaw clenched tighter. He stepped to the side just enough that her fingers met with nothing. “Did you know?”
“What? Did I know what, Daniel?” Peggy snapped and the little boy whimpered. “You had better just explain yourself, Agent Sousa.”
Daniel seemed to be trying to reign in his emotions. Hiking her sweet Anthony higher, he pressed Tony’s head into his shoulder while covering his ear. “Did you know that our…” He swallowed heavily, “That Tony Stark had been kidnapped?”
Peggy started to speak, but Daniel spoke right over her. “He has been here for at least three days. I found him in what amounts to a garbage bin, Peggy, locked closed from the outside. Stupid, he couldn’t have reached the fucking the lid on his tip toes. When these bastards left, they decided he wasn’t worth the trouble of taking with and tossed him out with the trash.” With closed eyes, Daniel kissed the crown of Tony’s head. “Three days,” he growled. “Did. You. Know?”
Peggy pursed her lips and stepped into their space. Daniel didn’t stop her. “I did not know, you bloody wanker. You know that I didn’t know because you also know I would have burnt the world down to find him. Howard didn’t, he wouldn’t…”
“Stark didn’t fucking tell us that his son was kidnapped or even fucking missing. Son-of-a-bitch.”
With a jerk that startled them both, Tony’s head shot up and he looked around frantically. “Bucky!” He coughed and his too dry lips started to bleed. “Nononono, gone. Gone. Gone. Bucky!” His voice cracked and his head thumped against Daniel’s shoulder. Tony’s first, wretched sob would haunt Peggy’s nightmares.
Peggy took the bear from Daniel’s hand and tucked it gently against Tony’s trembling body. “Here he is, darling. Oh no, don’t cry. Please don't cry.”
It was only after Tony started to scream that she and Daniel noticed the bear was missing his left arm.