Note: this is where all that intel Fury has came from. *hands* I was writing more in the 'verse and then realized it didn't fit there. Warnings for talk of dehumanization/torture/violence, and a narrator who is an unrepentant dickwad.
George Mandle was a Level 3 SHIELD operative. He was also Hydra. He turns himself in to Coulson, hoping for leniency, and Coulson brings him to Fury, which is a bit terrifying, but not as terrifying as Pierce.
Fury just looks at him for a long time, and then he says, "Tell me what you know about the Winter Soldier."
George swallows heavily. "That was a very classified operation," he starts, "but I – I kept the file updated for Secretary Pierce, I noted everything about the asset, and if he, he glitched or misfired, I had a record and could most likely explain why."
"Asset?" Fury says. "Glitched or misfired?" He snorts. "Better hope Captain Rogers never hears you use those terms." He taps his finger on the table. "Give me everything you have," he orders, "every single scrap on the Winter Soldier and I'll send you to prison for nine years instead of ten."
George shakes his head. "I didn't do anything!" he says. "I just kept records – it was never supposed to be, be about hurting people!" Project Insight, god, what a clusterfuck.
Fury just looks at him. After a few minutes of letting George sweat, he says, "Give me everything you have on the Winter Soldier or I will tell Captain Rogers that you knowingly recorded years' worth of his best friend being tortured and made a note every time he whimpered but didn't do a damn thing else."
George blinks at him. "Best friend?" he repeats. "Captain Rogers' best friend?"
Fury smiles at him. "You didn't know, Agent Mandle? Before Hydra got a hold of him, the Winter Solder was Sergeant James Barnes, childhood friend and right hand man of Captain America."
Slumping back in the chair, George just shakes his head. "I didn't… I just wrote things down. How – he's a machine, the asset. Just a weapon. He was…" He sighs, rubbing at his eye. "He only really glitched once, before my time. He vanished, finished a mission and didn't return for extraction." He laughs a little, letting his hand fall. "They found him three weeks later, wandering around Brooklyn. I have notes about it, Wilkinson wrote goddamned novels about why the asset did anything without being told to first, but Brooklyn, out of anywhere he could've run…"
Fury doesn't do anything except raise an eyebrow. George sighs again, nodding. "My records go back to 1993," he says. "I was Hydra's first; I wouldn't have joined SHIELD, otherwise." He looks past Fury, at the mirror, and he tells Coulson, "There is a bookcase in my younger daughter's room. The second shelf from the bottom is full of hollow books. All of my files are in there."
They leave him alone in the room for hours. He knows they would have found him eventually, anyway, but he really hopes he's earned some forgiveness for giving them everything - it's not just his files, the information goes back for decades. And also… well, it's been quite clear that someone is destroying Hydra, systematically and violently. He tells the mirror, "You know, for 70 years, the Winter Soldier was a weapon, fighting for other people's missions – now, he's got his own mission, and that is goddamned terrifying." He shudders because he's lovingly detailed out the Winter Soldier's missions so he knows exactly what the asset is capable of, what the asset has done.
If the Winter Soldier is actually James Barnes… the earliest record in George's collection is dated 1963, and it starts with Success! Finally, the spirit is broken. Now begins the rebuilding process. He's always found it fascinating, how magnificent the asset was, such a powerful weapon – a machine given flesh, he'd always thought. The asset was never a man.
Fury stalks back in and looks down at George, and he says, "Here's what I'm gonna do for you, fuckwad. I'm not gonna tell Cap that you watched Bucky Barnes die for twenty years. But you're a goddamned traitor and we've got laws for what to do with traitors." He smiles at George, calling, "Coulson, get this piece of shit out of my sight."
They handcuff him and George just walks out. Lori will be home from her trip soon, and Trina's at her aunt's for the week, and Cecily went to the grocery store – and George will never be able to go home again. He tries to blink back the tears, but by the time they're shoving him into the back of the SUV, he's crying.
He just kept the notes. How did everything get this bad?