DISCLAIMER: I do not own the Winter Soldier or Captain America or anything Marvel (unfortunately, for me). All I own is my OC.
WARNINGS: AU. OC. Hydra. Violence. Language. Amnesia. Past brainwashing. Trust issues. Not "Captain America: The Winter Soldier" compliant.
Chapter Summary: They never had to wipe his memories or torture him into submission. He's been their soldier from the beginning. It's all he knows how to be.
[Many Years Ago]
Small, cornered, and outnumbered, the boy's back is to the wall. He couldn't be any older than ten years old. Dirty, covered in grime. Skinny and malnourished. Dressed in shabby clothes. Obviously has been living alone on the streets for quite some time. He lingers in the shadows, attentive, with watchful shadowed eyes.
They charge, and he blurs into motion. The glint of a knife, easily avoided. He is bared teeth and lethal action. Dangerous. Fierce. Wild and savage. Untrained talent. Unruly golden hair and intense blue eyes like raging oceans. A feral beauty.
Four men on the ground. He stands above them, short of breath. Tense. Ruffled. Bruises on pale skin. He turns and glares down the alley at the observer. Eyes speak challenge.
Unabashed, operative "Scout" slowly lifts his hands and claps.
It the beginning of 0043X137.
Subject six.
The first memory he has of Hydra is from when he is very young. He'd been a child, an orphan without even a name of his own, whom no one cared about. They found him on the streets and took him for themselves. He remembers the moment the drugs wore off and he woke up in a cell with a deep stab wound in his stomach. A bespectacled man in uniform had tossed a needle and thread at his feet. He was told to stich himself up or die.
He chose the former option – patched himself up with inexperienced, trembling fingers.
When he survived, they gave him a name: 0043X137. It was inked into the skin on inside of his left wrist. Then they put him through training. There had been others, too. He wasn't the only one trained in that compound. There they lived by the motto: only the strong survive. At the end came the initiation ceremony.
He remembers the pistol being pressed into his hand and the words: "Finish him."
He remembers it all: the sweat trickling down his temple, the pain in his ribs (broken), the slice on his neck, the blood dripping from his chin. He remembers the heavy breathing, the knife on the ground, and the wide brown eyes of the boy staring back at him.
"Do it."
He remembers pulling the trigger.
There are other moments he recalls, missions that have stuck with him over the years, haunted him in his sleep. Kind wrinkled eyes of the woman whose throat he'd slit. Her old voice calling him "dear." A baby laughing happily in a crib as he approached, covered in blood. He had to use the pistol. A mother begging for mercy as she tries to hide her child from view…
"You disobeyed orders and failed to accomplish the mission."
Mission objective was accomplished. The mother and child had meant nothing.
He'd been punished for leaving them alive. They died anyway, so his leniency was meaningless, only serving to earn him a useless beating.
"Sentiment is impractical. It's a weakness. Harden your heart, kid. Caring will do you no good."
Demon child, they called him behind his back.
He had a teacher, a specific man who trained him, took interest in him. His designation was "Scourge." The man had been strange: hardened and stern on the outside, but idealistic inside. Scourge had thoughts that he shouldn't have had and was always going on about odd things.
"You can do terrible stuff, and you may feel guilty, but never let them make you regret. Got it? Guilt is manageable. Regret is what'll destroy you."
They were weapons, not people. Weapons did not have opinions or feelings of their own.
"Here, I figured you would forget again."
A plate of food shoved into his hands…
"Congratulations, kid. Now get some sleep."
He remained under the man's tutelage until the time came that he was ordered to take the next step in his training. Hydra never stops training its assets. Death, murder, and violence is always the next step – it keeps them from developing attachments.
"I went through the same training as you, kid. I know why. Don't think I blame you for this."
It happened fast. Scourge was older and slower.
"I un-der-stand," Scourge choked out. The man was on the ground in a crimson puddle, hand clamped over his throat. "Don't for-get who you are."
0043X137.
"You're a person."
He is a weapon.
"Don't l-let them make you regret."
Regret is futile. Emotion is impractical.
An apology is the last thing Scourge utters. He had felt wetness on his cheeks and wiped it away with his bloody hand.
The next day, he was assigned to a new handler and moved to a new facility. He was given highly classified missions with objectives ranging from surveillance to assassination. Retrieval missions were not uncommon, either. Then came the experiments. He was assigned to participate in a scientific trial, along with a few others. He was test subject number six. His tests, at least, proved to be successful.
Existence blurred into an endless repetitive cycle of following commands and spilling blood.