He walked along a path, just putting one foot in front of the other. The grass under his bare feet was soft and luminous. The wind rustled his hair and made him feel buoyant.
He did not look back.
The path did not seem to be going anywhere, but that was alright. He had no where to be. He took deep breaths of the fresh air and with each exhale he felt cleaner, younger.
It was pleasant to dig his toes into the springy ground, to feel the gentle caress of the loose shirt and trousers. Worn and much patched, but soft and comfortable.
After a while, he noticed that he was not walking alone. He reached out and felt Steve's warm hand close around his. He looked over at his friend. Steve seemed hale and healthy. He was breathing the clean air easily, with just a smallest bit of a smile on his face.
Time did not really seem to matter as they walked. After a while, they stopped walking and sat together in the grass.
"How are you doing, Buck?"
Steve was laying with his head in his lap and he lightly stroked the soft hair. The strands slipped easily through his fingers. At Steve's question, his fingers paused and he felt a tremor pass through him.
Abruptly, he was floating near the ceiling of a dimly lit room. There was a tube below him, made half of glass. A face that looked familiar but he could not place lay in the tube, asleep or dead, while two strangers in white coats gestured anxiously at the dials on the foot of the tube.
"Buck?"
He opened his eyes and saw Steve had sat up and was looking at him with concern. He shook his head, taking a deep breath. The room and the man and the strangers faded.
He focused on Steve, loosing himself in the blue eyes. "Yes?"
"You are quiet this time. You okay?"
He smiled and reached out for his friend's hand. "I'm with you," he murmured. "Of course I am okay."
Steve lay back down in his lap. "Good," he said.
Hours passed.
It was without warning that the wind picked up, that the clouds blotted over the sun. The rain came pelting down as they started to run towards a tree, to shelter under its branches. They were running when a tremendous crash of thunder came and a bolt of lightning, the brightest thing he had ever seen came out of the sky. He realized he no longer was next to Steve.
He spun wildly around. "Steve!"
"Over here!" he heard and he turned to run, but he tripped and when he fell, the ground gave way under him and he sank through it, and into the darkness of the earth.
He was shivering violently.
The surface under his back was hard. He tried to sit up, but there was something across his chest that held him down.
He had lost something.
He tried to free himself but his hands were shaking wildly and he could not grip the strap. His fingers scrabbled against it without gaining purchase.
What had he lost?
For a moment, he remembered a hand in his. Warm, soft and trusting.
He opened his eyes but they did not focus. A white shape moved around his legs.
He lifted his hands and looked at them.
One was not the same as the other.
There were voices around him but he could not make sense of the words. Someone touched his knee and then tapped it and he felt his leg jump.
Experimentally he flexed his fingers. As they closed he saw a man's face turning deep purple, the eyes bulging as he squeezed the neck. His metal hand closed on the soft throat. It was not the same as the other hand, but he could feel the metal fingers tear through skin and tendon and muscle. His other hand did less damage, but he dug his fingers into the carotid and he felt the man's pulse frantic and fast. The man's hands gripped at his thumbs and then slid away as the pulse died under his fingers. He dropped the body and walked away, blood dripping off his fingers, the smell of death clinging to his clothes.
His hands were clean now. The metal one was polished and shiny. The flesh one had a plastic tube taped to the back of it.
Across the room someone said, "Does he always do that with his hands?"
A voice answered, "I've taken out of cryo eight times. Every time he has looked at them. I have never seen him hold them like that before."
"Does it mean anything?"
"Possibly, to him. It might be just reflex. He'll be erratic until he's wiped."
A man came up on either side of him took an arm. The one on his right, the one touching his skin, said "Come on, time to get up." The other said nothing. They pulled him into a sitting position and swung his legs over the side of the gurney. He looked down at his lap and frowned.
Something had been in his lap….something…He reached out his hand as if to touch…what?
(Across the room, "What's he doing now?" "I am not sure." Pages were flipped, "He did that on activations 4, 9, 10, 15, 17 and …uh…21 though.")
He remembered the feel of something silky sliding over the fingers of his left hand, the hand that was metal and could not feel such a thing.
The attendants around him were touching him, moving him, but he paid them no mind. He was trying to remember the feeling on his fingers.
"Look up," one of them said, but he was still staring at his fingers. The man touched his chin, putting a hand between his eyes and his lap.
Around him, he heard the click of rifles being cocked.
He realized that he had grabbed the man's wrist and had yanked it away.
He looked around. At least six guns were leveled on him. He released the man.
The man who had been touching him had grey hair and a white coat. The man was now cradling his arm. He had damaged it. He had felt a bone snap.
Before he had been thinking of something….What was it?
"Are you okay?" a younger man in a white coat asked the older man.
"I'll be fine," the older man replied. "I should have known better. I think he broke my wrist."
"Do you want me to…."
"No. He's too unstable. You watch."
"Shouldn't we just wipe him?"
"Not yet. He's too weak. In a day or two he'll be ready."
The man stepped back in front of him and snapped his fingers. "Focus. I need you to focus. Start with this…" The man held up a small light and he looked at it, automatically following it with his eyes.
"Good," the man said. "Now, can you stand?"
When the exam was over, they moved him from the lab into a barren room. All there was in it was a cot and a movable table on wheels. They brought him food and he sat on the bed and ate it ravenously. It tasted like chalk.
They left three men guarding him, each with a drawn gun. After the doctors were gone, two of them no longer held their guns pointed at him.
Sloppy, he thought.
As he ate, he contemplated what order would be the best to kill them in. The one by the door was the younger and was most uncertain. The one in the back was scared.
Those two would be easy to kill. He would rush the man in the back and take his gun. The one in the front would react slowly. He'd be able to grab the man in the back, to pull him around and use him as a shield, as he took the gun and shot the man in the front.
Then he looked at the man to the side. He recognized this man.
The man looked back. "Figuring out how to kill us?"
He turned his head slightly, looking at him out of the side of his eyes, trying to keep an eye on the other two.
"We are on the same side, soldier," the man said. "I was on your team on 22. And the two before that. But you don't remember that."
He frowned, still studying the other man. This one would be harder to kill. He would not freeze up. This one could fight.
He remembered this man. This man had helped him sit up in the lab, before. He had said something to him. This man had been on the roof with him. He had had the target in his crosshairs. When he had pulled the trigger, his gun had jammed. This man had handed him another gun. He had made the kill with this man's gun.
The food was gone from his plate. He stood.
He heard the guns level on him, but he lifted his hands and shook his head. "I just wanna walk," he growled
The room did not give him much space to pace. He walked with short, fast strides. The guns followed him.
Overhead, there was a pipe suspended from the ceiling. He jumped up and grabbed it and did one armed pull-ups until his flesh arm burned. He did sit-ups until his stomach was quivering. He was hungry again and they brought him more food. Then he curled on his side on the cot went to sleep, feeling the ghostly touch of the guns pointing at him as he dropped off.
In his dreams, he wandered through a maze of violence. The man whose throat he had ripped out stood before him, blood pouring down his front. The men who had found their ways into his crosshairs shouted at him. Bodies came up out of the ground and grabbed at his ankles as he walked by.
When he woke, there were different guards watching him. The guns that were lazily held in the crooks of their arms were brought up as he rolled over and sat up. They brought him food. It tasted like metal.
When he was done eating, the old man in the lab coat came back, along with his shadow. The young man was holding a bundle of something. More alert, fed, he watched them warily. He recognized the old man, now. A doctor, he supposed. The old man had treated him after the last mission. The man had looked different – his hair had been salt and pepper and the lines around his eyes were not so pronounced, but he was sure it was the same man. He had returned with a long gash in his side. This man had stitched him up. Experimentally, he touched the spot and felt a long healed line.
The old man's arm was in a cast.
The old man looked at him for a moment and then looked down at the clipboard he held cradled on the cast and then back at him. "You are going for a run," he announced. "Eric here," he gestured at the younger man, "is in training for when I retire. Try not to break his arm while he gets you dressed."
He watched as the younger doctor came up. The man's face was pale and he smelled of fear. He was going bald. Killing this one would be no challenge at all. He compliantly held his arms out let the doctor put the sweat suit on him. As the light fabric settled over his body, it felt wrong. Incomplete.
They took him outside and he ran and stopped and ate and ran again. Distance first then speed. He sprinted around the track.
He was running down his target. He leapt on the man's back, twisting him before they hit the ground, his hands closing around the man's throat, digging into the soft flesh.
He was kneeling on the ground, sitting back on his knees, looking at his hands. There was no blood on them. There was no man under him. He looked up. The soldier from his room met his eye. "Get up," he ordered. "You are not done yet."
They put him through an obstacle course. He rolled, crawled, climbed, leapt. They took him to a shooting range and put a gun in his hands. They timed him breaking it down and putting it together and his hands moved automatically through the task. They let him shoot and the heavy recoil against his body was solid and familiar. They had him shoot on the right, and then using the metal arm on his left.
He counted a dozen soldiers hidden away in the trees with guns aimed at him.
They took him back to the obstacle course and gave him targets. He was on top of a structure and his target was on the ground. A white square. He aimed quickly - it was not a hard shot. On its way, the gun's path crossed the pair of doctors standing to the side with their clipboards. For a moment he hesitated and the gun lingered over the old one.
He moved the gun on. He hit the target.
As they brought him back in, he heard the younger doctor comment to the older one, "He hit all the benchmarks."
"Yes."
He wondered what that meant.
They brought him back to the lab. They cleaned him up. He was hungry but they did not bring him food.
They sat him down in the chair that occupied a place in the center of the room. He had noticed the chair before. His eyes had been drawn to it. His pulse quickened as he sat. He was not sure why.
The young doctor pressed him back. When the doctor brought the bite guard up, he opened his mouth. This was familiar.
As the restraints closed around his limbs, panic welled up from deep inside of him. His breath came fast. As the pain started, he thought he heard a voice, "….ucky, are you al…" but then it was gone, washed away in wave after wave of pain.
"Are you sure this is safe?" The young doctor looked around the room. The specialists had been sent away and it was just him and his mentor watching the Winter Soldier sleep.
The old man chuckled. "It's fine, now that he is wiped. You'll see. He'll be docile in the lab, especially once we have him in his gear."
The young doctor looked at the man on the bed. Sleeping, with the metal arm under him, he looked so normal.
"Why is that?"
"The gear is simple. He is like a guide dog. Put him in his harness and he knows it is time to work. In here, he will be focused on preparing for the mission. Out there…" he shrugged. "He does his job. He is very different, once he's suited up."
"Why not suit him up when we take him out of cryo then?"
"We can't. They tried it once, back on activation 2, I think, or 3. He was even more violent and hard to control. He killed two technicians and tore the lab apart before they got enough lead in him to slow him down."
"That's odd."
"Not really. I have a theory about this. Here, look at this graph. He's always worse after missions that involve civilians. Wipe him and have him train other agents or send him against military targets, he can function for over a month. He can handle independent missions behind enemy lines. He can take out whole units. Fifteen years ago, at the start of the war in Afghanistan, he operated independently for nearly six months. On the other hand. missions like the last one, or the one the boss has planned for this one, conflict with some core part of his mind, something so deep we can not wipe. He can do it once, twice, maybe three times before the dissonance makes him unstable and we have no choice. When we wipe him, we reset those memories and the dissonance stops."
"So he really won't remember anything?"
"Skills he retains. Faces, names, events – those are all gone. He is a blank slate, a dry sponge, ready to soak up whatever we give him."
The young doctor nodded. "So, suiting him up before wiping him gives him the signal to be violent without providing him a mission to channel that violence."
"That's my theory, anyway," the old doctor replied.
He woke with strangers in the room. Two men in white lab coats – one with grey hair and one much younger - were bent over a folder. They looked up as he pushed himself into a sitting position.
"Ah, you are awake," said the older one, setting aside a folder. "Are you ready for your next mission?"
A mission. Yes. That is what he was for. He looked at the man without saying anything.
"Call in the specialists so they can get his suit on him. Then we can start."
The suit was heavy and hard and he understood what it meant. It meant someone was going to die. It meant that he was going to kill them.
"Remarkable," the young doctor said to his mentor. "Hard to believe that is the same man."
They stood behind a sheet of one way glass, watching as the Winter Soldier studied the files for his new mission - names, places, lists of priorities, mission objectives, known security, maps – with a single-minded focus.
The old man shook his head. "Careful, son. That's not a man. Not anymore. Let your guard down for an instant and..." he held out his wrist in a cast. "I got lucky. He could have killed me just as quick. Over the years, he's killed five of his handlers who forgot."
"But that was before he was wiped."
"True and now that he's in uniform, he's preparing, he will be pretty focused. But after?"
The helicopter let him off on the top of the building he had chosen. He leapt out the door and rolled to his feet as the helicopter zoomed off without landing. He adjusted his mask and goggles as he came to his feet and walked over to the edge of the building.
This building was ideal. It had a clear view of the park. It was a long shot, over a 1000 yards, but the wind was light. He knew he could make a longer shot. In three hours the park would be full of people and children and food and music. Hundreds of people enjoying the afternoon. Including his target.
He sat down with his back against a parapet. Idly, he pulled a knife from his belt and practiced flipping it in his metal hand while he waited.
Four hours later, the target dropped dead from a single shot between the eyes. The target had been standing next to his wife when the shot hit him, his arm had been around her.
He made his way through screaming sirens and angry crowds to his pickup.
"Mission report."
He looked up as the man in a suit and glasses entered the lab. It took him a moment to process the words. The man spoke in a different language than he had been hearing. He was sitting in the chair, half stripped of his armor, while the doctors and technicians checked him over. He was fine. Nothing was damaged. This is how it was done.
"The target was eliminated with one shot."
"Were you seen?"
"Not on the roof. Not exiting the roof."
"Any collateral?"
"No."
The man turned to the old man in the lab coat. "Prep him for phase B."
The old man in the lab coat nodded. "Yes sir."
"What is your assessment?" the older doctor asked.
They were standing behind the one way glass, watching as the specialists got him in his armor for the night's mission.
The younger doctor looked at the clipboard in his hand and shook his head. "It is hard to get used to reading these charts. His normal is so far outside the typical range."
"You'll get used to it. The best of the specialists are within a standard deviation or so of him."
"I guess. He's off the top of the physical assessments, and off the bottom of the psychosocial baselines."
The older doctor shrugged. "He has to be. So, what's your assessment?"
"Physically, he's fine. He checks out near the top peak range, which is good even for him."
"Go on."
"He is eating. He slept eight hours last night. He sparred with some of the specialists this morning and he was in complete control of his actions."
"Mentally?" the older doctor asked.
The younger man shrugged. "He seems stable enough. No violent outbursts. He does not talk much but that seems pretty typical. He was within his allowable tolerances on the PSBT."
The older doctor nodded. "I concur. It will be different after this mission, though."
Through the window, they watched as the specialist handed him knife after knife. Each one, he weighed in his hand testing the balance, before secreting it away.
"He does his own mission design?" the younger doctor asked.
"Generally, yes. The boss gives him the parameters. He decides how to execute it."
"Why snipe the target yesterday and use knives tonight?"
"Did you read the parameters?"
"Of course."
"His missions create chaos. If all goes well, when our wheels go up in a couple of days and we leave this god-forsaken malaria infested continent behind, we will leave a war in our wake. Yesterday, the target was a beloved popular minister, a known moderate who preaches peace, picked off in broad daylight in the middle of a festival for his ethnic group. Tonight's killing of a school teacher, a member of the other ethnic group, another known moderate, will be interpreted as retribution. The more heinous the better. Hydra operatives have been at work here for months, sowing the seeds of instability. He will push them over the edge."
It was the darkest part of night and he crept through the underbrush towards the house where his target lived. He carried only one gun this time, but he was bristling with knives. When he had asked for blades, they had complied. As they had dressed him, his handlers showed him where nearly twenty different knives could be stashed in his uniform.
He came within sight of the house and stopped to observe it. Somewhere nearby a dog barked, and he froze. After a minute of silence he moved on.
Jimmying the latch was trivial. A blade slid between the doorframe and the door was all that was needed.
There was a dog in the house and it rushed him, but he caught it mid-flight with a knife thrown so hard it buried itself up to the hilt in the dog's chest. The momentum carried the dog into him, but it was dead already as he knocked it aside.
He stood in silence with the dead dog bleeding on his feet for several seconds before he moved.
The first room had a child in it. The profiles he had studied contained a name and an age, but that was not relevant now. He slid the knife across the boy's throat quickly. The only sound that escaped was a wet gurgle. He dropped the knife next to the body and walked away.
The next room contained his primary targets – the school teacher and his wife.
He watched them sleep for a moment. Then, he leapt. He landed on the man, crushing his trachea with his metal hand. He drew the knife across the man's throat with his other hand.
The man's wife woke during the struggle. She tore herself loose from the covers and started to run. Releasing his grip on the man underneath him, he drew a knife with his mental arm and threw it. It buried itself into her back. The force of the throw knocked her to her knees and then she fell forward onto her face.
Less than fifteen seconds had passed from when he leaped on the man.
He stood and watched them twitch, turning the woman over with his toe to make sure she was dead.
He walked out of the room to look for the last of his targets.
When he found them, they were under their bed, clinging to each other, holding their hands over their mouths, trying not to cry. He dragged the first one out. She was whimpering and begging. He slit her throat and dropped the body and the knife at the same time. The other was screaming as he pulled her from under the bed. Her French was so accented he could not understand the words. It did not matter. He broke her neck and suddenly the room was silent.
His instructions had been clear, delivered by the man in the suit. He left blades buried deep in each girl's body. He had not asked why he was to do this.
When he was done, he made his way out of the house, a shadow once again. The lights at the neighbor's were on – perhaps they had heard the screaming – and a phone was ringing unanswered in the house behind him.
"Mission report."
He looked up as the man in a suit and glasses entered the lab. He was sitting in the chair, half stripped of his armor, while the doctors and technicians checked him over. He was fine. Nothing was damaged. This is how it was done.
"Primary target and four auxiliary targets eliminated."
"Were you seen?"
"No."
"Any collateral?"
"No."
"You followed my instructions?"
"Yes."
The man nodded and turned to the old man in the lab coat. "Prep him for phase C."
The man in the lab coat nodded. "Yes sir."
They stood on the side of the field, watching the Winter Soldier practice with a pair of specialists. They were taking turns driving a car at high speeds, trying to dislodge the driver. They were on their third round and the car was missing all of its glass and two doors.
At the moment, the Winter Soldier drove as one of the specialists clung to the roof. The other specialist had been thrown and he stood watching to see if his partner would have any more luck.
"Assessment?" the older doctor asked the younger one.
"Physically, he's still fine. He came back from phase B covered in blood but none of it was his. He checked out in the peak range again this morning."
"Go on."
"He ate about half what he ate yesterday. That could be his metabolism leveling out after cryo, or it could be something else. He slept seven hours last night, but he was up doing sit-ups for an hour in the middle of that . He sparred with the specialists again this morning and they reported he was in good form."
"Mentally?" the older doctor asked.
The younger man shrugged. "He seems stable enough. No violent outbursts." The doctor looked down at his clipboard, considering the page on top before he continued. "There was a point this morning when one of the local agents walked down the hall, past the lab. I was running him through the PSBT and he was on the low end of his tolerable ranges before the man walked by. He stopped mid-answer on a question and watched the man. After that, he refused to answer the rest of the questions."
The older doctor nodded. "How did you respond?"
Across the field, the car swerved. The specialist had somehow gripped the roof and was landing a two-legged kick on the Winter Soldier through the driver's side window.
The young man fiddled with the clipboard. "I moved him on to the next test."
The old man tsked and shook his head. "You can't do that. You can't let him be in control. Not ever. Bring in a specialist next time. He'll keep him in line."
The final target was an airplane. He did not know who was on it. His instructions had been to leave no survivors. When the RPG hit the plane, there was a tremendous fireball. Security swarmed over the crash sight. He could not get close enough, but he doubted anyone could have lived through that.
He made his way through the weeds, back to his extraction sight. A beat-up white van awaited him. Once he was in the van, one of the soldiers, the one he sparred with, the one who always seemed to be around, took the weapons from him. He did not resist as he was unburdened. He was starting to shake.
He kept seeing the face of the second girl as he snapped her neck. Her skin had been ebony black and her eyes had been white like snow as they had rolled up into her head. He thought of graceful hands on piano keys. He thought of his own hands, pale and metal, wrapped around her sister's neck dark skinned neck.
His hands smelled of blood.
Before they got back to the lab, he threw up.
"Mission report."
He looked up as the man in a suit and glasses entered the lab. He was sitting in the chair, half stripped of his armor, while the doctors and technicians checked him over. He was not fine. Something was damaged. This is how it was done.
He did not answer. He was staring at one of the soldiers in the room, trying to remember if he had seen him before. He had the oddest memory of the man standing next to him on a roof, handing him a gun, but he was pretty sure that had not happened. He had been on the roof alone.
"Mission report," the man in the suit demanded again.
He closed his eyes and saw the fireball, heard the screams of the girl begging him to stop.
"Target eliminated."
"Survivors?"
"Unlikely, but I could not get close enough to the crash scene to be sure."
"Were you seen?"
"No."
"Any collateral?"
"Yes. Eight security guards were eliminated as I was getting into position."
The man turned to the old man in the lab coat. "He's done. Ice him."
The man in the lab coat nodded. "Yes sir."
"Are we going to wipe him first?"
The older doctor shook his head. "No, we can't. It'd make things easier if we could but Dr. Zola's notes warn against it. Other subjects did not survive the cryo when they were wiped first. With no memories to hold on to, they just never…function again. When they woke they were physically fine. Mentally, there was nothing there."
The younger doctor nodded. "I understand."
They had stripped him of his armor. He sat on the edge of the gurney and stared at the back of his flesh hand. They had a plastic tube taped on it.
His hand had stopped trembling.
The old doctor came over and he looked up. "You won't see me again. By your next activation, I'll be gone."
He frowned at the doctor.
"It's been an honor, soldier."
He looked back at his hand, watching the fluid flow into his body.
He closed his eyes and saw the girl screaming, felt the abrupt pop as her neck snapped.
The young doctor took his flesh hand in his and removed the tube. He watched as a bead of blood escaped his body. Such a small amount.
Two soldiers came up on either side of him and pressed him onto his back. They strapped him down. He did not resist. This is the way it was done.
They closed the chamber over his face and there was just the briefest moments of claustrophobia before the cold took him.
He walked along a path, just putting one foot in front of the other. The grass under his bare feet was soft and luminous. The wind rustled his hair and made him feel buoyant.
He did not look back.
Someone was waiting for him up ahead.
He walked a little faster.