"Shoulder." Romanoff said, starting to walk. Bucky jumped up from where he'd been crouched, metal arm taking more weight than the real one, and caught up with her. "Stand." He stopped dead. He looked more balanced with that thing attached to him. "Shoulder." He caught up with her again. "Down." He dropped to a crouch. She stopped and turned to face him. "OK, that's not what I meant. Cover." Bucky looked around, then dashed towards a block Barton had been using for something earlier. "Soldier, stop." She sighed. "Oh, it's 'lay down', isn't it. Soldier, lay down." Bucky did. Steve stepped out of the shadow of the doorway. Romanoff looked round at him. "How was..?"
"Could've been worse. It does sound like word that we've got him hasn't spread too far at least."
"Good. He's only the most desirable creature on the dark web right now. Since people started speculating that HYDRA'd gone down, contracts on him started appearing; kill and catch."
"How bad?"
"The kill bounties are no worse than mine, the catch ones get pretty big." Romanoff drew breath slowly. "We're also harbouring a fugitive right now. He's wanted by a half-dozen governments worldwide, including ours."
"I know." Steve said quietly.
"Having been in this position," Romanoff continued, "he has two options. He can hide, and just keep on hiding, probably for the rest of his life, or he can surrender and sue for mercy. If SHIELD were still… you'd just bring him to Fury, or, if you could, Coulson, and explain. He'd get a new name and just… integrate like he'd always been there. We need to figure out what structure within government to deal with."
"What about the army directly? He was captured on active service, so I guess he's a POW in that sense. We've done that before."
Romanoff shrugged. "Maybe. We need to be very sure before we move, or they'll just lock him up and leave him, and I think we need a lawyer. Do you want me to do that part?"
"Did you have someone in mind?"
"We just need to be very sure they're not HYDRA."
"And that HYDRA can't buy them."
"In a way, the more obscure they are the better. I don't think HYDRA knows we've got him yet."
"That can't last long." Steve said. He sighed. "How is he?"
Romanoff shrugged. Bucky had blacked out almost as soon as Stark had touched him. He'd only had time to pull back before Romanoff had got him under control like this. "He's the soldier. I asked, he still thinks he's not fully functional-"
"He is still full of stitches."
"I guess, most things are running at 'optimal' or 'sub-optimal' now, and breakfast hasn't come back up yet." Steve nodded. "OK, so we can prove it worked, how many commands do you know?"
"Enough."
Romanoff looked hard at him. "The point of this is that you can control him when he's like this. You need to be able to get him to do what you want. You need to word it right." Steve didn't reply. "OK, first, just watch me do this and remember. Soldier, face me." She held her hand about two feet in front of her face and clicked her fingers. Bucky came over. He resented being made to run around like that. He always had. "Acknowledge handler." Bucky dropped to one knee in front of her and dropped his head. She laid a hand on his shoulder. "Soldier, submit to handler." Bucky rolled down on to his side and lay there, half curled up, arms pulled in to his chest. Romanoff rested a foot on his neck. He didn't move. He just lay there. Steve wanted so badly to look away. He was going to have to do this in a minute.
After a moment, Romanoff moved her foot, but Bucky didn't get up until she told him to.
"Now do me." Romanoff said, turning her back on Bucky, who was still watching her unnaturally attentively. He'd always been an irreverent jerk, this just wasn't… it wasn't Bucky. Romanoff started walking towards him. "It's not difficult Rogers." He did have to do this. He had to do it to keep Bucky safe, and to keep everyone else safe from Bucky.
"What do I call you?"
"It doesn't matter." Steve took a deep breath.
"Romanoff, acknowledge handler." She walked calmly up to him and knelt down. This didn't seem to bother her at all. She flicked her eyes to her shoulder. He set one of his hands there. He didn't like this. He didn't like this at all, displays of submission like this were the sort of thing Nazis did. She was just looking steadily up at him, as though she did this every day. Maybe at one time she had. "Romanoff, submit to handler." She folded down towards the floor and lay there like Bucky had. He rested his foot on her neck. "I'm sorry." He said quietly.
"Rogers, I've lain down for men for more unpleasant reasons than this." Of course she had. He felt himself colour slightly. She smiled. "That'll do, let me up now." He took his foot off her neck. "You have to tell me to."
"Get up." She did. Bucky was still standing there watching them. You couldn't even begin to guess what was going on in his head when he was like this.
"Now him." Romanoff said. Steve sighed heavily. He had to do this. He had to make Bucky safe.
"Soldier, acknowledge handler." And he just did. He didn't even look like he'd thought about it. He just did what Steve asked him. If he'd tried to push Bucky around like this he'd have got a fist or an expletive back, nothing else. He wasn't… he just wasn't when he was like this. He could feel Romanoff staring at him. He laid a hand on Bucky's shoulder. "Soldier, submit to handler." And he still just did it. Steve let him up as quickly as he dared. Romanoff nodded.
"He should do what you tell him to now, but by the way, if you tell him to 'follow', he'll keep his distance and stalk you. Say 'shoulder' if you want him to stay close to you." Steve nodded once. He didn't want Bucky to stay like this so he'd better get him to sleep.
"Soldier, shoulder." Bucky came and stood at his elbow like a bodyguard. Romanoff smiled.
"Good. Just out of interest, try to get him to stand still."
"Why?" He didn't like feeling like they were experimenting on Bucky.
"To see how well it worked. Soldier, shoulder." She said. Bucky took half a step towards her.
"Soldier, stand." He stopped.
"Hey." Romanoff clicked her fingers. "Shoulder." Bucky was looking between them uncertainly. But he didn't move. "I said shoulder." There was real menace in Romanoff's voice now. Still Bucky didn't move. Romanoff smiled again. "He prefers you."
.
Minute to minute, dealing with The Soldier was kind of easy. He did exactly what Steve told him, without hesitation or question and he only disobeyed Romanoff if her order contradicted his. And as long as he didn't eat too much at a time, the sickness had more or less stopped. They'd managed to teach him to go to bed, by ordering him through it step by step then saying "Assign status: in bed." once he was. One of the problems was that Bucky still didn't sleep for more than an hour or two before the nightmares kicked in. At least he took the arm off to sleep, so he couldn't do too much damage thrashing about. He usually woke up as Bucky rather than the Soldier, at least. And Bucky wasn't… of course he wasn't right. He'd been in HYDRA hands for seventy years. He was quiet and disengaged and always half seemed to think he might come under sniper fire. He clung to the edges of rooms, wouldn't make eye contact and didn't seem to enjoy anything. Steve still hardly dared take him out of the tower. In a way it was easier to take the Soldier outside, he was nothing if not predictable. New year's had been horrendous. Steve and Stark had both had public appearances that night, so Romanoff had been left in charge of Bucky. Steve had got back to the tower at one in the morning to find them both in the training hall.
"Why are you still up?" He'd asked them, then realised Bucky wasn't capable of answering him. He'd flipped out.
"He woke up every time a firework went off." Romanoff had said. "I gave up trying to moderate it, he's obviously been trained not to ignore explosions."
Talk to me, folks; is anyone out there?
