It's American Hydra Idol time.
Disclaimer: These characters are all Marvel's. I make no money from this and in fact give Marvel (willingly) lots of my money so they will continue creating movies I love.
Author's Note: A couple of fairly long chapters coming up. It's American Hydra Idol time. I believe Rumlow has a soul, it's just a very little one.
Nothing too explicit in this one, but a few references to past sexual molestation and attempted rape. Plus a few well deserved deaths. Oh and some mildly homophobic ribbing.
After just a few seconds – made to seem an eternity by the smirking jackass beside him – the doors opened and Rumlow walked out into what he assumed was the vault level of the bank to find Secretary Pierce and the rest of the STRIKE team waiting for him. Apparently Sanchez was now in and they were a full set. Whoopdeedoo.
He saluted Pierce "Sir."
"At ease Agent Rumlow," Pierce said in his smooth voice.
Brock relaxed a little but not too much.
Pierce turned his attention to Rollins. "Thank you Rollins. You and the rest of STRIKE should stay here until you're needed."
Rumlow couldn't help the slight rush of satisfaction he felt at seeing the smile on Rollins face vanish at the words. He'd clearly wanted to see Brock's reaction to whatever it was that was down here.
Pierce focused back on him, "Walk with me."
They set off at a measured pace along the surprisingly lengthy corridor.
"What do you know about The Winter Soldier?" Pierce asked.
Was he fucking kidding?
"A ghost story sir. A mind-fuck from the Russians to try and scare all good little agents and give them nightmares."
Pierce burst out laughing and drew them to a halt outside an open vault door. Brock glanced in to the interior; it was empty except for a weird chair.
"Well more of a mind wipe by the Germans, but I'm glad you're familiar with his reputation."
"Wait. He's real?" Brock couldn't contain his shock and confusion. What did the Germans have to do with any of this?
"Yes and even better he's ours," Pierce stated in a satisfied voice.
OK Rollins had a point; his mind was officially blown.
"It's taken years to arrange it but we finally have the Fist of Hydra in our hands," Pierce was clearly bordering on ecstatic. Brock was bordering on 'more than a little creeped out'.
"I'm sorry sir but I thought The Winter Soldier was a Soviet?"
"In some ways, but he's always been Hydra's weapon. Tell me agent how is your military history?"
What was this? A pop quiz?
"Pretty damn good sir."
"What about the Second World War period in particular?"
"Spectacular sir," he replied confidently. Birth of the special forces? You'd better believe it.
"Let's see then shall we," Pierce said with a half-smile and one eyebrow raised in amusement. Maybe it really was a pop quiz.
Pierce made an onwards gesture, and they moved up the corridor to a heavy-duty metal door; probably some form of extra safe deposit box storage. It was secured by a passcode which Pierce entered in on the pin pad to the right on the door. There was a grinding of heavy locks and gears and then the door swung slowly open.
The room was bigger than Rumlow had anticipated. It contained a host of electronic equipment, a huge-ass metal tube and three, what Rumlow would kindly call, 'science types'. And it was weirdly cold.
"After you agent," Pierce instructed.
Brock stepped into the chilled room. They'd clearly interrupted some heated discussion the eggheads were having, as all three had fallen silent the moment they entered and were now standing around awkwardly.
"What seems to be the issue gentlemen?" Pierce asked in that immaculate diplomat's voice of his. Brock stood at rest to one side to observe.
One of the ner…scientists cleared his throat, "It's nothing sir just a slight difference in interpretation of the instructions our Russian colleagues left for us."
"And that is?" Pierce asked, patience sounding strained.
One of the others piped up now, earning a glare of disapproval from the guy who at least thought he was in charge. "That there's no reason to run the revival process that quickly. The defrosting has to take its toll, and doing it at that rate has to cause unnecessary damage."
Pierce seemed to take a moment to consider his words, "How long would you prefer to defrost him over?"
What The Fuck? Defrost? A person?
Rumlow suddenly found his eyes drawn towards the now suspiciously coffin-shaped metal container across the room, that he now realised was the cause of his chills in more ways than one.
There was a person in there...?
He'd missed the scientist's reply, but apparently Pierce had agreed to the suggested change from the smug look now on the guy's face.
Pierce walker towards the 'freezer' which Brock now noticed had a window in the front at what he supposed was around head height, but which was currently totally obscured by a layer of white frost. He waved Brock over towards him.
In a few purposeful strides he was standing directly in front of the device. "Brock I'd like to introduce you to The Winter Soldier. I'm afraid The Asset won't be up for much conversation for a little while, it'll take us a few hours or so to wake Sleeping Beauty here up once the revival process is underway."
Brock thought that was an odd way to talk about a legendary assassin, but whatever.
Pierce turned back to the room's other occupants. "Can we get this cleared?" he said pointing at the iced-over window.
The so-far-silent and apparently junior member of the geek team ran up with an ice scraper. Brock had been hoping for something a little more high tech.
He began to attack the ice layer but Pierce stopped him. "Agent Rumlow can to the honours." The tech handed the scraper over with a shrug and went back to doing whatever it was his function was here.
"The Asset is kept frozen in suspended animation between missions," Pierce finally explained. "I doubt he's been conscious for more than a year total over the last seven or so decades."
He was that old! That raised a shit load of questions. But first things first…
"Sir I thought freezing people was science fiction?" he said starting to scrape away the ice. He could just about make out dark hair.
"It is, no normal person could survive this process but our friend here is more than a little bit special as you'll find out," Pierce answered.
And here Brock was thinking 70-plus-year-old ghost-like killer and spy was special enough. More fool him.
He'd cleared most of the ice by now and used his sleeve to clear the slush and condensation from the glass panel. The blue-tinged face this revealed was – kinda pretty for a guy he had to admit – and surprisingly young and bizarrely familiar.
It took him a few seconds to place it. Not bad considering the long locks partially obscuring the features and the complete impossibility of it all. He took a step back.
"No fucking way. It can't be."
"What can't be Rumlow?" Pierce asked looking massively amused.
Rumlow turned to the US head of Hydra, "Sir that's Bucky fucking Barnes."
"I'm well aware. Good it seems you do know your history after all."
Of course he recognised Barnes. Matching, or attempting to match his sharp-shooting was still a rite of passage in SHIELD training. They even had one of his old weapons, immaculately maintained, to try and attain his range score with.
Over the years maybe only a handful had done it. Barton not too surprisingly was among them.
But even if that wasn't the case he'd loved reading about the Howling Commando missions growing up, and had dived right back in to the reports when Cap had been unearthed, devouring everything he could find on his tactics and wartime operations to help prepare him for the task of training one of his idols. Barnes being the other. But Barnes was dead.
"Bucky Barnes is The Winter Soldier." That is whole levels of messed up.
"I'm sure you want to know how?" Pierce queried.
Brock nodded decisively.
Pierce stepped closer gazing in at the unconscious and frozen, presumed-dead, war hero with a proud and proprietorial stare.
"His current, or should I say previous, Russian handlers had no idea who and what they had. He'd been in storage for three years. They just left him to collect dust." The disgust in Pierce's tone was evident. "Back in '43 I think it was, just after Project Rebirth had been derailed with only Captain America to show for all its work, the US pulled back from Super Soldier research. Without Erskine who created the formula they were pretty much at a loss anyway," he explained. "But Doctor Zola was doing his own work."
Now that was a name Brock knew well.
"In a rather incredible twist of fate, Barnes pre his Howling Commando days, was captured by Hydra and chosen by Zola as a test subject for his variant of the serum. All without the knowledge that he was actually Steve Rogers' best friend."
Maybe Zola just had a thing for pretty boys? But that wasn't something Rumlow was ever going to suggest out loud.
So he was a Super Soldier like Rogers? Guess that explains why the higher-ups weren't fussed about getting Cap then, they already had the other part of the matching set. But something wasn't adding up.
"How come no-one noticed they suddenly had two Super Soldiers on their hands?"
Pierce shot him a pleased look. "It seems that Captain Rogers launched a daring rescue before the good Doctor was quite finished with Barnes. There was a final stage that needed to be administered. What he'd already had meant that he was physically changed enough to survive the fall that everyone believed killed him, but actually just landed him in the hands of the Russians, and eventually right back with Zola who then managed to complete his project under SHIELD's very nose. Astounding really."
"So the mind wipe comment?" Brock queried, already kinda knowing the answer.
"The chair you saw coming in, it's how he's programmed. He doesn't know who he was, which is why we're doing the initial reveals to personnel while he's still in cryo. Never refer to him by any name other than The Asset. The machine blocks his access to his memories – the ones we choose to block – and lets us boost his learning and quickly prep him for missions."
"You can upload stuff?" That was fucked up, impressive but definitely fucked up.
"To a certain extent, apparently we can bolt things on to existing neural pathways. It's a little over my head to be honest, but luckily his pre-existing skillset worked nicely in our favour as it's been weapons, tactics and languages mostly. According to the reports, he picked up using modern technology all by himself, it seems Barnes had a bit of a fascination with it," Pierce emitted a quiet chuckle.
Now Brock was getting over his initial shock he saw where all this was going. "You want STRIKE to run missions with The Asset sir?" best get used to saying it and crush the urge to say 'Bucky' as quickly as possible.
"Yes you'll be mostly back-up to start, but I want you to evaluate him and report back to me. He's only been used for covert wet-works which I think is an under-utilisation of his talents, so I'm keen to see what he's really capable of. I may even send him with you on a SHIELD mission or two if I can work around Nick."
"Sir does this mean I'm now in charge of STRIKE's Hydra missions?"
"Yes effective immediately," Pierce confirmed. Eat that Rollins.
"They're just about to kick-off the revival process but it'll take a little while, why don't you and your men go out for food and a couple of beers down the road on me, and we'll send someone to collect you when there's something to see," Pierce added.
Brock knew a dismissal when he heard one.
"Yes Sir." He snapped a smart salute and headed out of the room and back up the corridor to where they'd left the rest of STRIKE.
Rollins met his eyes with a questioning look as he approached. "Well? Cool or what? We've got the fucking Winter Soldier on our team!"
"Yeah." Rumlow flashed his friend a grin, but found himself fighting back a pang of regret that a man like Barnes had had to be destroyed for The Soldier to be created. But great achievements demanded great sacrifices.
"Jack you do realise he used to be Bucky Barnes don't you?"
"No shit? Really? So he's not just a super-cool, super-strong, killing machine, he's also one of the best shots ever? This just gets better and better" Rollins enthused.
"Christ am I going to have to get the two of you a room?" Brock joked.
The rest of the team laughed.
"Hey you're the one who hero worshipped that Barnes guy. I should be asking you that," his friend countered.
"Shut up before I order you to do something unpleasant," Rumlow shot back. "I'm in charge now and the first order of business is dogs and beers at the bar I just passed down the street."
The announcement was met with unsurprising enthusiasm; they'd not had much down time of late.
"But only one or two beers, we have to be back in a couple of hours to welcome the new arrival back to the world."
There were a few good-natured complaints, but it was clear that all of them were excited by the prospect of seeing a legend in the flesh.
Rumlow wondered if there'd be anything left of the Barnes he'd seen in the archive footage. Guess he'd find out shortly.
He shrugged and went back to bantering with his men, feeling that finally everything was getting back to how it should be.