THIS IS THE THIRD CHAPTER I'VE UPLOADED TODAY. If you haven't read the last two go back and do so or nothing will make sense.

19/01/20 - Chapter 3 of 3

Chapter Fifteen - A Person?

The Winter Soldier found itself drifting into consciousness with an incredible pain throbbing through its skull. But wait. No. Pain was irrelevant, it couldn't be allowed to impede functionality. The pain was ignored and the rest of its injuries assessed. Minimal injuries that would cause no restrictions to functionality. Good.

What was troubling was the lack of responsiveness from its arm. The Asset could feel the weight of it pulling on its shoulder, but it could not even make the arm twitch. It had likely been turned offline for repair work, the asset realised. It thought that that was unusual, though it was hard to be sure if it really was. The Winter Soldier did have memories of shutting out excruciating pain as the technician worked on the arm. It didn't seem normal to turn it off when the Asset would be still and compliant either way.

Then again, the chair was different from usual too. It was more comfortable, and, instead of the normal restraints, the Asset seemed to be tied up, by the feel of it, with thin (possibly plastic) strips, and what were definitely metal chains.

New handlers, perhaps. Or ones that it couldn't remember.

Initial assessment done, it opened its eyes to find a number of weapons pointed at it.

It forced itself not to lash out, this must be the lab, and these must be its handlers and technicians. It didn't know what would happen if it did try to harm anyone, but it had a feeling that it had done so before, and the consequences had been problematic.

"Ready to comply," it said automatically. Several of the personnel flinched back.

That wasn't a good sign. The Soldier was unsure as to what it had done wrong but it knew instinctively that if it upset the personnel it would be punished, or worse, wiped. It waited to see what would happen. Nothing did, there was just silence, until:

"Bucky?" questioned a tall, blond man.

The Asset tilted its head, there was something important there, something it was supposed to remember.

The memories came back in flashes. It had been ordered to assassinate the President. It had done so. It had tried to take out the man causing the mist, only to be attacked by this one. This man had fought the Asset on the roof. This man had likely been its handler in the past. But that had been the past, and Pierce had been yelling furiously through the com-link that the Soldier was to eliminate its past handler. Then the Asset had been held in invisible bonds it couldn't escape from, and after that there had been a sharp pain, then nothing.

The Asset frantically considered its predicament. It had been taken by its old handler and his allies. It should obey its old handler. However, its new handler had told it to kill its old handler and it should obey its new handler, especially as it had more memories of Pierce than it did the tall blond man. The consequences would be dire were it to disobey Pierce in such a way. But, its arm was disabled and it was trapped, it couldn't kill its old handler yet. The most suitable solution was complying, at least for the moment.

"Ready to comply," it promised the blond man.

The blond man looked as if he were in pain. That did not bode well. "Buck, you don't need to comply," he told the Asset, his voice shaking.

The Asset... the Bucky... frowned. What else was it meant to do?

"We sort of do want him to comply though, don't we, to avoid the destruction of my lab and everyone in it?" the one with dark hair and an odd beard said.

'Him to comply', what did the man mean by that? It seemed that either there was a person the man who owned the lab wanted the compliance of too, or the man thought that the S... the Bucky was a person. And that wasn't right at all.

"Bucky wouldn't."

"That's why we chained him up and are pointing guns at him, is it?"

The Bucky opened its mouth to promise that it would comply and not hurt anyone or destroy the lab, and clarify that it was not a person, before shutting it again. The Bucky was not allowed to speak unless spoken to.

The blond man sighed. "You're right, Tony, I'm sorry. Let's see how much he remembers then." He looked down at the gun in his hands. "Look, I can't keep holding this, someone else is gonna have to take it." The man holding a bow and arrow reached out and took it from him. "Thanks... right, Bucky, how much do you remember about me?"

"We fought after I had killed the President. You recognised me, you called me Bucky. You seem familiar, I thought you were my handler, but you said you were my friend. It is probable that 'friend' must mean something similar to 'handler'."

"Bucky, I am not y..."

The red-haired woman who had been sitting quietly in the corner, pointing a gun at the Bucky, shoved its handler/friend out of the way and stared down at it. "Steve, you're going to let me do the interrogation from now on, you're not going to get us anywhere."

"Fine," Steve replied, clenching his jaw and folding his arms. The Bucky stared up at the woman. She must be Steve's superior if he were taking orders from her.

"Why do you have gaps in your memories?"

It stared at her. Surely that was a trick question. She must know. What sort of test was this?

"Of course, we do know why you have gaps, we just want to know if you do too. To see if you are in good working order after the EMP, to see if you can still be a useful asset to us."

Good, it was still called the Asset as well as the Bucky, that made things less confusing. And her explanation made a lot of sense, so it replied, "When I displease my handlers, when I malfunction, they need to clear my memory, so they prep me, put me in the chair and wipe my mind to start afresh."

It wanted to ask her if they were going to do the same. But that was stupid, because the Asset didn't have wants. And it knew the answer, anyway, it would be wiped. When, it didn't know. But it was inevitable, it was procedure.

"What do you remember since you were last wiped?" the woman asked.

"It was just over a month ago. I had likely been in cryo shortly before as my body temperature was below optimal levels. They needed to reprogramme me as I had forgotten many things such as proper mission procedure and how an asset should conduct itself. I remember how now though," the Bucky added quickly, and then froze, anticipating a backhand at the very least. Trying to reassure superior officers was something people did, not something that the Asset was permitted to do, or should even be able to do. Nothing happened, which was strange, perhaps they would tally up all of the Bucky's infractions and make it learn how to be a better Bucky later. "I was told everything I needed to know and then I was sent out to assassinate President Ellis," it continued.

"How did they teach you?" the woman questioned, her eyes narrowing.

The Bucky responded. It didn't matter that it would rather forget how it had been reminded to be a useful Asset, it wasn't meant to have preferences and it knew to follow orders. It was halfway through the first sentence when it was interrupted by the sound of screeching metal. It turned to see Steve, a piece of twisted metal from the workbench crumpled in his hand, blood dripping from between his clenched fingers.

"Steve!" the woman snapped.

The Asset's chest clenched in fear for the man. Why fear? Because it was forbidden to damage the property of a superior officer, it wasn't certain of the consequences for a person and not an asset but it knew they were bad. But still, it shouldn't be reacting like this, it must be really malfunctioning.

"Bozhe moy, if you can't..."

More blood dripped from between the man's fingers. Must protect Steve, must protect Steve, must protect Steve. Small Steve, bleeding Steve, in an alley, surrounded by trash, being kicked into the dirt by six people twice his size. "Don't hurt him!" he yelled before he could stop himself.

Everybody turned to look at him and the Asset crumpled. It should not have done that. It would be wiped for sure now. But why had it done that. Why had it said those words? And in such a strange accent too. It had felt nice though, the words had rolled off his tongue - its tongue! As it stared at the woman, waiting patiently for her reaction, the Bucky wondered if being wiped was a good idea, it might stop it from acting like a person, maybe it had been around them for too long and was starting to emulate them. That would not do. And it shouldn't have opinions on whether or not it wanted to be wiped anyway, that was not for it to decide.

"Well, what do you know," Tony said.

"Bucky," Steve whispered, and the Asset could see the piece of metal clattering to the floor.

"You know what, I think you're right, I think he is in there," said the archer.

"Just how much, is the question." the woman replied, staring at the Asset appraisingly.

"There's enough, because that, that right there, that was Bucky," Steve said, before walking over to the Bucky... or was it just 'Bucky'? He had always been 'The Asset' or 'The Winter Soldier', even though people called him 'Asset' or 'Soldier'. But maybe 'Bucky' wasn't ever meant to have a 'the' in front of it? It willed itself stop thinking, that wasn't important.

"Bucky," Steve told him seriously. "I know you're in there, and we're gonna get you out. Because whenever they wiped you or they punished you, they did that because you were still there, inside, still fighting, and we're gonna get you out. And we're not gonna hurt you, we're not gonna wipe you, because you're a person, Buck, you're my best friend, and you don't deserve anything that's happened to you. We're gonna get you back."

I really hope you all enjoyed those chapters.

Also, I'm gonna be honest. One of the reasons I hadn't uploaded them was because irl kept me very busy, another reason is, I feel like if basically no one cares about this story, then why bother taking the time to write it and format it and share it, I could just keep it up in my head or on my computer for myself. I got one review on chapter 12 (from a friend from Tumblr, so who I could just send the chapters to there), I'm hoping more than one person liked that chapter, but, frankly, how am I meant to know? Views tell you if people looked at the chapter, as an author, I have no idea whether that means that someone has read the whole chapter or read the first three lines and then thought 'nope'. Of course, I more than understand that people tend to care much less about a story if it's updated sporadically, as the connection you feel to the story and memory of the plot fades over time, I also realise that people naturally will loose interest in a story as the plot unfolds, as what I want to write is not what everyone wants to read.

Also, this message does not mean that I'm not grateful to all the reviews I've received in the past, hopefully my replies to them will show you that I really am. Also, I'm very happy with the follows and the favourites, but as I didn't get any for ages after the last chapter was published it left me thinking, well, no new people are enjoying this, and how on earth am I meant to know if the old people are?

I would appreciate it if you guys left a small review, like literally a word or two, just to show that you've reached the end of the chapter and you're enjoying what you're reading.

Thank you very much,

StardustOwl.