May 14th, 1993
Hydra Safehouse and Lab – United Kingdom.
What's a Hydra safehouse and lab (in an undisclosed location within the vastness of the UK) without the purposeful milling of heavily armed grunts, scurrying scientists, and data-obsessed technicians? For it to be without any of those three would demote it to less than the essential label of a Hydra hub, for each of those three had their parts to play in keeping the well-oiled machine ticking over.
The scientists (of varying academic backgrounds, some including experimental medical doctors) and the technicians fulfilled the roles one would expect and imagine within a laboratory but… what of those headhunted from the army and special forces? The ones tempted away from serving their country (or still believed they were for a heavily cloaked government organization) for a higher, if more secretive, paycheck and guns and munitions they could only dream of in regular service?
Well… They had their place too.
Perhaps their numbers and their firepower were unnecessary; after all, his fight had died out years ago, before any of those who steered him now had even been born. Broken, dejected, and scarred in more than just physicality, the one dehumanizingly called the Asset kept pace quietly and cooperatively with his forceful escort; the tightness of their ranks left no room for break or escape, not that he would have tried. His exhaustion and post-mission tranquilization prevented it anyway, just long enough to move him.
One broke formation, a particularly ruthless and ambitious young soldier called Rumlow, to approach a superior while the rest of the grouping continued to march the Winter Soldier to his holdings.
"Back on ice, sir?"
"No." Came the near-disinterested dismissal of a doctor, too taken up with a file to pay much mind to the brash, boorish grunt who would steadily work his way up. "There's no point. He's due on another mission in a day or so. As a matter of fact… Feed him. His protein levels need to be maintained."
"Yes, sir." With the order, Brock Rumlow departed.
The shattered James Buchanan Barnes did not know where he was.
Groggily edging through the last of the Winter Soldier's hold, bleeding back into himself, Bucky could feel the cold scraping of stone beneath his cheek where his less-than-careful handlers had pushed him. He knew, from casting his swimming vision around, that he had been secured in a holding cell; "resting" would be too kind and considerate a term for what he was expected to do. "Recharging", perhaps. Aside from that, where in the world, in one of many Hydra hideouts, he could not possibly know. He knew he had been on a plane, but beyond that… He did not even have much to guess on.
Feed him… He remembered hearing, distorted, as if underwater, as he passed through the main lab. His protein levels need to be maintained.
Better than goin' back under, I suppose. Bucky thought miserably, staring at the ancient brickwork opposite as he worked through the chemical restraint; the irony of potentially being in an abandoned WWII bunker twisting painfully in his mind. I'm not that hungry but I'm gonna take it while it's goin'… Means meat anyway…
James was right. When the tray arrived a few moments after he did, all but thrown into his cell in his wake, the lean beef stew cooled quickly in the frigid damp of the bunker-esque holding.
Naturally, as could be expected, Bucky had very few highlights or points in his consciousness that could be worthy of looking forward to but just then, curled up with a warm bowl of stew, crusty bread, a cup of milk and a random selection of other meats and cheeses, Bucky could count those as a small comfort. A sad indictment, to be sure, when the high point of his wakefulness was a meal, mandatory for survival. And really… What good was he to them dead or underperforming from lack of nutrition? The food, satisfactory or not, was more to benefit them than the Asset. It served in their best interests to keep him fed; his comfort being secondary and incidental.
Mopping up the last drain of gravy from the bowl with the bread, Bucky didn't think about much; his mind still too clouded by the effects of those awful words and the leftover fear of a simple red notebook. Aside from being incapable of it, he felt it best not to imagine what else could be, for the crippling pining and disappointment when the hopelessness of his seemingly iron-clad situation re-registered rendered him in a worse state than before. Ergo, to dwell on happiness or possible happiness only hurt him more.
Christ, if only he knew. If only he knew what waited for him, some twenty-five years down the line.
The word free would be a laughable understatement. He would not be confined to a dungeon-like a dirty secret. He would be able to go to his own fridge and choose a snack whenever he felt like it. Not only that, but some of those snacks would be lovingly handcrafted by someone who adored him beyond all sense and reason, the selection of ingredients dictated by his own likes and dislikes. He would be able to sleep (mostly) peacefully with a smaller brunette tucked close to his side or draped across his chest; affection abound and plentiful.
And the sex? Jesus, the sex…
Not just sex either, but complete, wholesome, enamoured, infatuated, heartfelt lovemaking. Everything it should be in a happy, connected couple.
He would, despite the impossibility if he could even bring himself to think about it, get married. Have his own home, farm, business. A dog. Children, maybe.
Absentmindedly, Bucky slowly chewed the last hunk of broth-damp bread; savouring the paltry, pathetic treat. As he did, some inkling of his subconscious piqued; a built-in organic radar to alert the Winter Soldier when he had been spotted.
Now? Bucky was being watched.
Heightening vulnerable eyes to the holding door, it made sense for the prickling sensation to originate there; with no other entrance or exit or even a Goddamn window, it could have come from nowhere else.
Who the Hell…?
A boy. A teenager, thirteen or fourteen if Bucky had to guess. Just standing there, warily watching and observing every natural, benign move the monster made. And if he wasn't a monster now, he would be soon. There was nothing special about him: dark floppy hair, pale acne-pocked skin, too far away and shrouded in the shadows to determine an eye colour but… he was definitely watching him; privy to something Bucky was not yet privy to.
For several moments, uninterrupted, they marked each other; confusion meeting caginess, amplified when eyes many decades younger than Bucky's tended to wander to the titanium appendage at the Winter Soldier's left side. Uninterrupted, of course, until the banging of a nearby door, footsteps, and genial conversation suggested the staring match was about to be broken.
"This way, Doctor." James knew it to be one of his crueller masters; a doctor with an accented drawl and an air of grandeur to make the Queen curtsy. United in their dubious curiosity (with Bucky's edging more into noticeable fear), both heads turned to the source of the gleefully icy tone though only one of them could actually see him: the boy, who retreated but not without one last (dare Bucky think it, almost pitying) glance. "He is just down the hall, though I will ask you to refrain from entering if you would. He can be unpredictable."
With the boy gone, the reinforced glass panel in the door remained vacant; facing out onto nothing but the blank wall opposite.
"This is my youngest son, Richard." A fresh voice, just as bone-chillingly callous as his companion without the enthusiasm, introduced itself to the new stimuli, someone new for Bucky to try and place.
"Well, Richard? What do you think? Impressive, no?"
"I've been watching him." The teen, Richard, replied; unfazed and still hidden though his voice (as well as those of the other two concealed men) carried. "Is he really as dangerous as everyone says? He doesn't look it. He just looks… sad."
"Ah, my dear boy, that is but a ploy. To lure a victim into a false sense of security. And speaking of victims… Doctor, would you care to expand on your request?"
Bucky, still focused on the dirty glass of the door, watched as the face of another imposing figure filled the pane; the similarities to Richard's undeniable if advanced in age, mid-forties perhaps. The same dark hair (threaded with grey) but clipped tight and practical as opposed to floppy. Eyes, once again, of undetermined colour but radiating ruthlessness and detachment; as if he viewed a mediocre exhibit at a zoo rather than an assassin soon to be dispatched at his behest. Automatically, the temptation to recoil under that scathing observation nearly won out but James held both his nerve and his gaze; fighting not to wither under the piercing dissection of his future father-in-law.
"A woman named Fiadh Collins." Doctor Robert Kincaid drawled (just as unaware of the as-of-yet unfolded connection) in the temperature of a glacier without moving that whittling stare. "She is the mother of my daughter and up until a week ago, she was my secretary." Bucky wouldn't see it, the angry stiffen in Richard's entire being but it appeared dear old Robert Kincaid had made lying and manipulation a cornerstone of his very personality. To that end, to ask the teen, that tramp Fiadh and her brat were the cause of his parent's bitter, hostile divorce, not his father. And now? She was going to pay for it.
"Elizabeth is two years old, and I will not allow her to return to Ireland where Fiadh no doubt intends on taking her. I've warned her but she seems hell-bent on defying me. He will find the target at the address I have provided." Mercifully, Robert had turned from the door just as a jolt of helplessness struck poor Bucky hard in the gut; almost enough for him to see his meagre meal again, splattered all over the flagstones.
Flustered, deeply upset and near distraught by the mere idea of having the blood of a child on his hands, the Winter Soldier (or the shadow of himself with a conscience) tried to process the utterly disgusting concept. Eliminating adults (specific targets or silencing bystanders) was one thing but… a child? Who was the real monster here? Him? Or the man on the other side of the door, sending the bogeyman after his own little girl?
Bucky's routine anxiety upon the discovery of a mission began to claw unyieldingly at his chest. His torso heaved and the various failed attempts to smack some moisture back into his trembling lips drove him deeper into despair; said moisture springing to his eyes instead. The shiver could easily be attributed to the cold on his bare chest, but he knew better.
Please don't make me hurt a kid... I don't wanna hurt a kid…
But in the cruel, savage unfairness of Bucky's circumstance with the last nearly fifty years, he would be powerless to do anything other than what he was fiendishly commanded.
Two Nights Later
May 16th, 1993
Bucky had never felt dread like it.
As he traipsed from his holding cell to the main expanse of the lab where, in a matter of moments, he would be put under, and every sense of bodily autonomy taken from him, he wanted nothing more than to turn and run. If he could fight his way out, kill a few on the way, they might let him go.
No. Wishful, desperate thinking. The Winter Soldier was far too valuable. What's a few replaceable, expendable security if it meant retaining the Asset?
The suffocating circle of grunts allowed only a certain space which dictated Bucky's pace; should he drop below that pace, he would most certainly receive a blow square between the shoulder blades. The conversation from a few nights previous had played in a torturous loop and more than a few tears had been shed at the very idea of putting a gun to a child.
Every step weighed like concrete in his boots. Every breath had to be coaxed. Even more so when that Goddamn chair came into view and before he knew it, his legs were taken from under him by calloused hands to his shoulders forcing him into the seat.
A final debrief would come once those vile words came into effect and the detail that had overwrought him to the point of exhaustion would, thankfully, become mute. For now though, Bucky's pre-emptive guilt burrowed into his innards to make itself cosy.
Elizabeth…
The name would stay with him, having plagued his waking moments over the past forty-eight hours.
Elizabeth…
The appearance of the red notebook emblazoned with a star twisted Bucky's stomach; watching it and its wielder with plea in his eyes. It mattered nothing, not when the machinery clicked into place around his head and the blinding agony followed as it always, faithfully did. The string of terrible words would not be far behind and, as promised, James Buchanan Barnes still panted from the skull-shattering agony that tormented every cell of his being as they assaulted his ears.
"Желание…"