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Published:
2025-08-25
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2025-08-28
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3,063
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2/?
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Asset Two-Seven-One-Nine

Summary:

There’s an asset by Bucky’s beginning to recognize in the Hydra facility.

He’s the only one that refers to Bucky by his true name. Not a number. Not a code word. He’s the only one that seems to hold some shred of humanity, despite how dangerous it is here.

The asset’s just a kid. A boy, likely no older than fifteen, with short brown hair and big brown eyes. He has a mask across his face every time Bucky sees him, and a small line of numbers under his cheekbone. He tilts his head when he sees Bucky in the halls.

Bucky saw him again in the frozen hell where Hydra sometimes puts their assets. The boy with careful eyes. The boy who writes jagged letters in the frost and calls himself a string of numbers. He writes that he’s “unfinished.” Not trusted. He tapped the side of his mask not long after. The sound had been metallic, cold—

Not a mask at all.

 

And no matter how much Bucky loses of himself, the boy… he always seems to bring some part of Bucky back.

 

Or: what if we bent the timeline? What if a certain well-loved character arrived decades too early, just in time to meet the Winter Soldier? What if he was already Hydra’s asset, long before Bucky ever was?

Notes:

I had an idea :]

This’ll either go really well, or it won’t, but either way, I get practice in, which is all I ask for.

 

This fic is sorta different. It starts off in a place in the timeline I haven’t seen much of and then continues from there. For a while, the format of the fic will have a sort of connected “moments in time” feel to it to sorta emulate Bucky’s frankly extremely frazzled, scattered, and disorientated mental state, but if we (I the author and yall the readers lol) can last long enough, we’ll see the fic get more continuous as we get closer to and move through the movies timelines (starting with Captain America; The Winter Soldier btw! :D). But we’ll have to fight a long, uphill battle to get there. lots of rough stuff (and good, in this fic) happens to Bucky between the time he’s captured and that movie, after all. And now we’re throwing someone else into that mix. It’s gonna be a ton of fun :]

I hope y’all like it. Have fun <3

(See the end of the work for more notes.)

Chapter 1: The Boy With the Mask

Chapter Text

Bucky remembers enough to know that the first few days were bad.

 

His memory shows him photographs of the direct aftermath. The sight of a man on the bridge– Steve– gone in a blink. The sight of his blood in the snow. Too much of that. Then boots. The sun had changed in that last one, almost blindingly bright from the east. A sunrise. The last he’d seen in a long while. A shame he couldn’t enjoy it. 

 

After that, his memory becomes even more fragmented. It gets worse. 

 

Stillshots of the inside of a truck. Then a hallway, then a clean white ceiling. Men in white coats he didn’t recognise, though he does now. His own blood again. 

 

A cell. Bandages where his arm used to be. 

 

The white ceiling again. Bad, bad pain. Then, for a while, nothing. The next shot he remembers is in the cell again. Pain again. Then… a metallic arm in the place of his old one. 

 

And then the Reconditioning started.  

 

 

~~~///~~~

 

Bucky woke up with a gasp. 

 

Immediately, the men in white coats scattered, talking quickly in that language he only had fragments of. Bucky pulled himself upright, shaking the dull fog from his head. He pulled wires and IV lines with him, and he grunted, ripping a few of them off. Blood welled up. Bucky shook his head harder. He shoved a scientist brave enough to come nearer on instinct, uncaring of the way the man went sprawling into equipment. 

 

Then the handlers were on him. 

 

“Asset 325,056,” said a sharp, thickly accented voice, and Bucky stiffened. The hands at his arms continued to hold him still, freezing him where he was sitting on the edge of the table. Bucky blinked, squinting through the blur of his eyes. The man lifted his chin. 

 

“Asset 325,056,” he said again, and this time, Bucky recognized him as one of the officers of the damn place. “Get back on the table.” 

 

“That’s not my name,” Bucky mumbled, clenching his fists, and the handlers at his sides lit their batons. He flinched. 

 

Through his blurry vision, the officer grew colder. Straighter. “It is your designation, soldier,” he said, his voice growing darker, and Bucky shook his head once more. 

 

“It’s not my name, you bastard,” he said again, louder this time, and raised his head higher. The officer’s face twisted in disgust. “My name’s James Buchanan Barnes.” 

 

“Not anymore,” the officer spat. 

 

“My name,” Bucky hissed, jerking his shoulders. The handlers scrambled to keep their grip. “Is James Buchanan Barnes. Let. Me. Out.” 

 

The officer turned away with a scoff. He turned to the scientists, speaking German or Russian or something along those lines, Bucky doesn't know. He waved an arm to the hallway beyond the white-ceilinged room they were already in. And Bucky knew that hallway. 

 

The Reconditioning room. They’ve only forced him in there a handful of times. Each time was torture. And each time, he felt something slip. He doesn’t know what, he never does, and he hates it. Hates it all. He doesn’t want to forget, doesn't want to watch Steve’s name and face slip from his mind alongside everything else. He doesn’t want to go in that room. He doesn’t want to forget. 

 

He wants to go home. 

 

Bucky stiffens. 

 

“My name is James Buchanan Barnes,” he says, growling, standing up fully. He earns a baton-shock to the ribs for his efforts, and he goes down to one knee with a grunt, still weak from whatever hell they’d just put him through. He grits his teeth and stands back up. “Let me go.” 

 

“You’re no longer Barnes,” the officer says to him over the noise of the men in the room moving. “You are Asset 325,056, and you are a Hydra weapon–”

 

“Let me go! My name’s–” 

 

“You are 325,056!” The officer bellows, just as a scientist comes down that long hallway and speaks to the man. “And you will do well to remember it!” And at that, the man jerks his arm in the direction of the hallway, nodding to the scientist that had come to him. The Reconditioning room. More hands join those at his arms and drag him forward. And Bucky’s breath hitches. He digs in his heels. The hallway looms closer. He doesn't want to go. He doesn't want to go in. 

 

Bucky snarls. 

 

Then the handlers are on the ground. He’s running. Shouts erupt behind him as he sprints. He slams his way through the door and turns at the first corner he finds. 

 

And he doesn’t make it more than three corridors. 

 

Someone barrels into his back, and Bucky goes down with a shout. He twists, shoving the man off of him, but another takes his place just as quickly. And Bucky, as tired and as weak as they’d made him, can’t fight them off when a third comes to help. 

 

“MY NAME’S BUCKY!” He bellows as they lift him to his feet, a snarl on his face as he kicks and thrashes and fights. “I AM JAMES BUCHANAN BARNES. I AM A U.S. SOLDIER, AND I AM NOT YOUR ‘ASSET!’”  

 

And the soldiers and the guards ignored him. They paid no mind to his shouts, his arguments, and continued to rush him until Bucky could scarcely move. He punched a man, but another joined the fight, and so on and so forth until Bucky was slowly, painstakingly, dragged back down the hall towards the room where everything hurt and everything slipped away. They ignored his shouts, and no one in the hallway, the bystanders pressed against the walls, did a thing to stop it. They didn’t even move. They stared straight ahead.

 

All bystanders, but one. 

 

A flash of motion down the corridor caught Bucky’s eye. He twisted, glancing for no longer than a moment before he continued his useless fight. But the glance was enough. 

 

He saw a boy. Young– maybe early or middle teens. He was held back by several men, one arm over one of the men closest to Bucky as if the kid had tried to leap over the arm blocking him before getting pulled back. He had a uniform on, something like a patient gown mixed with a  prison uniform. Just like Bucky’s. He had a dark mask on his face, a stark contrast to his pale skin. It covered his mouth and nose and continued under his short brown hair. 

 

His entire body leaned towards Bucky. Everything about him screamed that he had tried to come closer, to break free from his handlers– because it was clear now that’s what the men were– and go down the hallway. 

 

His eyes had locked with Bucky’s in that moment. When Bucky had just enough time to look, to spot the boy down the hallway, before he was dragged beyond the corner and closer to the Reconditioning room. 

 

That was the last thing Bucky remembered that day, before the haze of Reconditioning erased and diluted and took over everything else. 

 

The sight of the boy leaning forward, his eyes on Bucky’s. 

 

As if he’d tried to help. 

Chapter 2: The Ice Block

Summary:

Turns out, there’s a very old, very cold, and very dark cell block on Hydra’s property.

A perfect place to punish disobedience, apparently. It never seems to discourage Asset 325,056, but maybe this time it’ll work. But this time, something’s different.

This time, there’s someone else in the cell next to Bucky’s.

Notes:

:]

Still think my writing feels and seems awful, but hey, I’m still here, so that’s a win in my book 💕🎉

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

He was starting to forget why he was fighting so hard. 

 

His legs barely locked enough to keep him upright. His boots scuffed the concrete as the guards, only one on either side, half dragged him down the corridor. They ignored his intermittent struggles, weak as they were, and his murmured insults. Though some did earn a hit to the back at the head. The soldier struggled, jerking his shoulders. It made no difference. 

 

He was still weak from his last attempt. Blood dripped from his split lip, and one of his eyes, his right one, felt swollen and stuck. He was weak, he knew he was, his energy spent. First in whatever the lab-coats had done, then his fight. It was hard to recall why he’d tried to run, now. Why he’d tried at all. 

 

It was getting hard to remember. What it was he was fighting for. Why it was important, other than it was. 

 

It was hard to remember. 

 

Then a guard opened a door, and his escorts dragged him though. Their footsteps echoed, and the soldier’s breath rose in clouds across his face. Through his dirty hair (which was longer than he last remembered seeing it) he looked up, and he flinched at the sound of the door closing behind them. He muttered a swear.

 

The Ice Block. 

 

The guards kept walking, pulling him further and further into the frozen hell despite his resistance. They passed old, rusted cells with prisoners tucked in the corners. The guards ignored the calls from the men in there, the ones who moved at all. The windows were uninsulated, rectangular, and simply barred, but snow blew in every few minutes from the cold night. Beyond what light there was from the windows, water dripped in the darkness, and ice and grime coated the concrete bricks every other step. The soldier thrashed. The bruises littering his body flared with pain. 

 

And all too soon, the guards stopped, opening the first unoccupied celldoor and shoving him in. 

 

He fell to his knees with a grunt, catching himself with one hand, his metal one. He didn’t move, breathing heavily, hunched over, until long after the guards had left with some chuckled comments in German he was distantly surprised to understand. The water dripped in the corner of his cell, feeding into a growing puddle of ice to his right. The soldier stared at it, already shivering. His eyelashes were beginning to stiffen. 

 

He had come to learn that the Ice Block was a favorite of the handlers. 

 

They seemed to think that it’s a wonderful, peachy place to put uncooperative prisoners. Or assets. See if they survive the night. Or see if they simply never wake up again. It’s an easy thing to do, here. Almost welcome. 

 

The soldier closed his eyes with a shudder. 

 

Then a sound. Something shifts to his left, the soft rasp of fabric on concrete. He stays still, feeling the cold creep into his bones. Then, when the noise stills, he tilts his head up. 

 

He didn’t see anything at first. He blinked, staring into the darkness past the dividing floor-to-ceiling bars. He heard the shift again. He blinked once more, and suddenly, he could make out a shape in the cell next to him. The soldier didn’t move. Didn’t care to, with all his aches. He watched, still in his knelt position, as the form in the cell next to his came into focus as it came closer to the light of the soldier's window. The sounds of shifting fabric broke through the rhythm of the dripping water. 

 

And a face appeared between the old fashioned bars. 

 

He had a black mask on his face. There was gray writing under his left cheekbone, and above that, dark eyes peered out of the darkness. The prisoner blinked at the soldier, tilting his head, silent, before shifting forward by another couple inches, drawing himself closer to the bars that separated them. The soldier watched, his face still. More of the prisoner came to light in the small shaft of moonlight; short, dark hair, maybe brown, and an all-too-familiar uniform. One much like the soldier’s own.

 

Another asset. 

 

The soldier tilted his head lower, eyeing the asset as he settled cross-legged to the soldier’s left. The asset had frost in his hair, and his eyelashes were frozen with white. The edges of his mask, where it met the skin of his face, was flecked with ice crystals. He was continuously shivering, but his gaze were clear. 

 

His eyes were on the soldier’s. The soldier turned to face him more, moving only his head. The asset looked down. Towards the frost that shone clearly in the moonlight on the soldier’s side. His shoulders were shaking.


And, laboriously, the asset drew a hand forward. 

 

His eyes went to the soldier’s again, pausing just before his hand went between the border and onto the other side. The soldier didn’t move. The asset looked away again. 

 

His outwretched finger hit the frost a moment later. 

 

The soldier shifted, finally turning his head fully as the asset began to draw with trembling movements. He looked up more than once as he carefully wrote in the frost, glancing at the man across the bars. But the soldier never looked back at him. He was looking at the letters. 

 

“YOU  AR  JAIMS  BUCANON  BARNS,” they said. In a jagged, child-like script.

 

And the soldier snapped his gaze up. 

 

“How’d you learn that name?” he demanded immediately, dropping his words into a whisper when the asset flinched and subtly looked over his shoulder, towards where the guards had gone. The soldier swallowed, twisting until he was cross legged as well, mirroring the other asset. “Sorry.” 

 

The asset glanced back at him, blinking once with wide, tired eyes, before looking back down. He hesitated. Began to scratch out a new order of words in the frost closer to the soldier now. 

 

“YOU  SAD  IT.  BEFOR.” 

 

The soldier stared at the words for a moment, trying to decipher the messy handwriting, before he inhaled sharply. Snapped his gaze up to the asset, details finally coming back through the mist. 

 

“You’re the kid,” he exhaled, leaning forward. The asset tilted his head down. “You’re the kid I saw a while back ago. What was it, two, three weeks…?” he trailed off, his eyes jumping across the asset’s face. It was coming back. 

 

He’d tried to run. He hadn’t made it far, not at all. But he’d seen another asset down the hall, one who seemed like he’d tried to help. A kid.

 

This kid. 

 

“You tried to help me that day, didn't you?” Bucky murmured. 

 

He was feeling more like himself than he had in ages, aching body and all. The boy let out a short nod. He blinked at Bucky’s murmured thanks, but didn’t otherwise respond. His eyes, so seemingly young now that Bucky was starting to recollect more, searched Bucky’s own. He let his foot tap the ground in a steady beat. He shifted, rubbing his arms. His fingers and ears were tinged blue. He kept his hands close to his chest when he wasn't writing in the frost, shivering harshly. He didn’t say a word.

 

Bucky furrowed his brow. 

 

“... You got a name, kid?” he asked slowly, and something in his chest shifted in apprehension when the boy only shook his head. Bucky furrowed his brow, but the boy beat him to saying anything. And this time, as he wrote, Bucky didn’t watch his hands. He watched the boy’s face, his eyes, so focused on his task. 

 

His mask. Bucky looked at his mask. Watching when the boy leaned forward enough that his head dipped into the moonlight, and the mask was revealed further. It glinted faintly against the darkness, like a matte finish, and the straps were thick and rigid-looking. They stretched under the boy’s ears and seemingly connecting behind his neck. 

 

And as the boy wrote, a thought drifted through the recesses of Bucky’s mind.

 

The mask almost looked like a collar.

 

When the boy drew back, his hands stilling even as he continued to look over what he’s written, Bucky looked down, tucking the strange details about the mask into the back of his mind. He read the message etched into the frost. And he stilled. 

 

And forgot about the mask almost instantaneously. 

 

“No,” he said without hesitation, shaking his head. He leaned forward, catching the boy’s eye, and shook his head again. “That’s not a name, kid,” he murmured, tapping a finger into the frost beside the last message. 

 

A number. 2719. Nothing more than a number. 

 

It couldn’t be his name. 

 

The boy blinked, his brow slowly furrowing. He tilted his head, seemingly frowning at the number, before looking up again. He pointed at Bucky’s chest, the skin of his hand in the moonlight nearly as pale as the snow. And Bucky, upon following his gaze, bit the inside of his lip. 

 

“No. No, look–” he said, pulling the front of his uniform away from his chest. He pointed at the number printed onto the breast, A–325,056, and tried to put intention in his voice. “This is just the number they gave me,” he told the boy, his voice quiet and nearly hidden by the sound of the wind outside. “It’s just a number. My name is James Buchanan Barnes.” At this, he dropped the front of his shirt and tilted forward, rewriting his name in the frost next to the boy’s first message. The boy tilted his head, watching with sharp attention. His eyes darted over the Bucky’s much neater lettering, the corrected spelling. Once the last word was written, Bucky eased back, watching the boy. He didn't look up yet. 

 

“People call me Bucky,” Bucky murmured, and at this, the boy looked up again. “It’s a nickname, short for Buchanan.” And in the moonlight, Bucky finally made out the writing beneath the kid’s left cheekbone. The same side as his new arm. Bucky swallowed.

 

Number S-2719. 

 

“What’s your name, kid?” he murmured. And the boy watched him. His eyes, dark in the faint light, were unreadable. A bit distant. Bucky watched him back. And, for the first time in a while, he really, really began to have hope. But for once, he didn’t hope for escape. 

 

He simply hoped that a number wasn’t the only name the kid had. It was awful, how fast that thread of desire took root and burned into him.

 

And eventually, the boy looked down, tearing his gaze from Bucky’s eyes. He brought his hand to a new patch of frost, and Bucky tried to deny that some part of him wanted to hold his breath. And the boy wrote.

He wrote so matter of factly. As if it was nothing. 

 

“ SORY,” the letters said, as shaky as the hand that painted them. And he repainted his number. 2179. The two looked like a seven. The boy, once he was finished, looked up. His eyes met Bucky’s, and the shadow of the bars fell across his face. 

Bucky looked away first. 

And between them, the boy’s final message shown in the moonlight.

 

 

“ITS  ALL  I  HAV.”

Notes:

Now, then….

I wonder what all that could mean?

Notes:

Okay so!

I’m not actually sure how far this’ll go. I hope all the way to the end (like, all the way up to where the movies are, starting with Captain America; the Winter Soldier), but with the pattern of how I’ve been writing lately I’m a little afraid. I started this cause, recently, every time I look at my writing I just hate it. I can’t keep going on those projects cause I think it’s awful, so then I don’t write, but if I don’t write I don’t better, so…. It’s a vicious cycle! 😅😭

So… yeah. I mean like, if you like this, please leave a kudos or (if you’re really feeling generous) a comment. Maybe we’ll get ahead of my crushing disappointment and disgust in my abilities 😅😭 help lol

 

But anyways! Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed, and there should be more chapters to come. :] it’s gonna be fun