AN: Not sure how long this story will go...but it at least has become a two-shot now :-).
The Winter Soldier stood staring at the museum display. His own image stared back at him. Only it wasn't quite his own image. The man in the picture looked proud and fearless. He looked like a hero. Everything he, himself, was not. The features might be the same…but the man was different.
Bucky.
He tried the name out in his head.
Bucky.
It sounded familiar. It felt like a piece of a puzzle that fit neatly into place.
Bucky.
Is that who he was?
He turned his back on the picture and looked around the rest of the exhibit. Captain America was all around him.
Steve.
Try and remember Steve.
Brock had said that. His fist clenched.
Brock Rumlow.
He wished right now that he had command of his own darn thoughts. Everything was still a jumbled mess. Scenes would flash through his head but they were all out of order, distorted. Yet to the best of his ability when he looked back he saw a dark, massive ocean of death, killing, pain, and cruelty. And he saw Brock Rumlow. The one person he could remember ever having a kind word for them. But more than that, he had vague memories of being treated…almost like an equal. He remembered Brock talking to him. Handing him a beer. The Winter Soldier had stared at it for an awkwardly long time. No one had ever done that for him before. Not even on a mission, since his missions were always the 'seek and destroy' type. He never had to blend in. Because all he did was kill. Occasionally capture. Then kill.
Suddenly a memory jostled its way to the head of the line.
"He's not talking."
Brock swore in frustration.
They were in a large mansion on the edge of the Swiss Alps. It was a summer home of Fredrick Silvers. A man who was currently bound to a chair in the dining room, stubbornly refusing to give the information they had come for.
The Winter Soldier stood on the edge, watching Brock thinking.
"What have you tried?" Rumlow asked.
The other man shrugs. "We beat him up a bit. But, we were told to keep him more or less intact. I'm not doing more without permission."
"Yeah. Yeah. HYDRA doesn't want him too harmed." Brock sighed, unhappy. "Hold on." He pulled out his radio. "Pierce?"
A voice comes through the line. "Yes?"
"Silvers isn't talking. What do you want us to do? Shall we ask more forcibly?"
"No. Silvers isn't the kind of man who will respond to pain. At least not his own. Do you have his family?"
"Yeah. His wife and daughter are upstairs."
"Good. Have the asset shoot the wife. She won't be any used to us, she and Silvers can't stand each other. He'll never talk for her sake but seeing her die in front of him will show that we mean business. And then have the asset show exactly how much pain can be dulled out to the girl. Silvers will talk for her. Eventually. But it will take a little time."
Brock hesitated, his eyes flicking towards the Soldier. The Soldier was tense. Something in the back of his head, a feeling or an instinct, felt like it was crawling to get out. It had flared to life at the idea of hurting the girl…but it was so small, so far back in his head, under so much programming, that it would never get out. He would do his mission. He would follow orders like he always did. Still, it made him uneasy. Brock was speaking, curtly: "Understood." And shut off the radio.
"Alright," said Brock, turning to the other man. "I want everyone out of the dining room except Silvers family, the asset and myself. Understood?"
"Yes sir."
"You," said Brock, pointing at the Soldier. "You're with me."
As the other man disappeared, and Brock and the Soldier started walking towards the dining room, Brock pulled him aside.
"Look, I'm going to do this. I'll shoot the wife and I'll…" He paused, an expression that the Soldier couldn't quite describe to himself but somehow reminded him of that thing in the back of his own head, crossing his face, "I'll deal with the girl."
"But the orders were-"
"I'm in charge of this strike force. And right now I'm your commanding officer and I'm telling you how this is going down. I'm doing this. Not you."
Brock pushed past him without another word and went into the dining room, the Soldier following.
Silvers, bound tightly to a chair, was bloody from having taken a few punches but in general still seemed to have a lot of fight left in him. That fight wavered five minutes later as his wife and seven year old daughter were lead into the room. But he was a cold hearted bastard. It was another hour before he broke. But the Soldier never touched anyone. Brock did it all.
Bucky jerked involuntarily, knocking into the group of tourists behind him. He mumbled an apology and rushed out.
There was a lot of blood on his hands. Men, women, and children. But what had happened that night to the Silvers family wasn't on him. Brock had seen to that. Brock had protected him from that.
An urge to hit something, break something, washed over Bucky. Brock maybe. Break a couple of bones if he had any intact after having a building crash on him…
Bucky didn't want to feel like this. Like he owed Brock anything. He might not have most of his memories but he had enough to know he had done so many awful things, had so much blood on his hands, that he couldn't repay it. And now he had a debt to a HYDRA soldier? He told himself he'd repaid it. He had saved Brock's life. He'd taken him to the hospital. But then…could you ever pay back a man who had struggled to keep you sane during years of hell?