"Soldier," Barnes hissed under his breath. "You're alive." He cursed.
He felt like an idiot for leaning on optimism. The Soldier had shut up since their last day in the chair, nearly a month ago. And here he was, active, uncontrolled, filling that space in his head. And all those men dead.
The Soldier spoke to the accusation in his thoughts with flat Russian.
"Don't blame the chair Barnes. You made me."
Barnes could not remember the first time the Soldier had emerged - perhaps it had begun with the war. Then, with the procedures in his mind, Barnes had lived with an expectation of missing time. He remembered, in the sixties, perhaps, when he returned from a mission and could not recall what he had done. There had been a fumbling, a confusion in his mind. The handlers took over, erased everything. After that, somehow the gaps could resolve themselves. Barnes could remember his own confusion - and then it would be resolved, as if it never happened. Barnes did not trouble himself over it much, until an October day in the 70s, when the Soldier began to speak.
Barnes stared at Natasha and watched as the Soldier pulled out their phone and dialed the emergency number with their conductive flesh hand. "Yes, medical assistance." The Soldier's English was ragged.
After promising to stem the blood, the Soldier opened the car door and left. Barnes struggled against the Soldier for control of their body, hissing through the Soldier's clenched jaw, "What are you doing!"
The Soldier walked silently until they had crossed two streets. He stopped at a corner and began to dial a taxi service. "That girl has been through worse," he growled, and memory flickered through their mind. A cold, arid rock outcropping, a convoy, the comfortable contour of a rifle against his flesh hand - and then, a flicker slipping through; his hands on her throat - "What did you do?" Barnes snarled, fingers trembling in useless anger at his half.
"I protected you. I protected Steve. She would shoot us."
Barnes flared with anger. As if Widow's injuries, death, could do Steve any good. "And all those men, in the photographs? Who were you protecting there?"
"They did terrible things to me. Things you do not know."
"What don't I know?" Barnes snarled.
The soldier smiled sourly.
Barnes resigned himself to watching as the taxi pulled up and the Soldier climbed inside. A short drive and they pulled up to a self-storage lot. Barnes tried to regain control as they disembarked, and to his surprise, the Soldier let him.
"Go on, Barnes. Since you are implicated in my work, I must show you that it is good work, necessary."
Barnes exhaled in disgust, but proceeded with unease. The Soldier knew things.
And I will share them with you when you are ready.
They stopped in front of a corrugated metal door. The number, 4E-9, felt familiar to Barnes, like a memory of an afterimage. The soldier bent, unlocked and lifted the door open.
Barnes mind fritzed with discomfort at the crudely outfitted room inside. The muscle of his body remembered the space but his mind did not. He sidled with practiced ease around crates of armaments decades forgotten, stopping by the metal-frame bed. Barnes sat on the edge of the exposed metal mesh and stared in horror at arsenal of ballistics.
"Now, I will explain," the Soldier said, pleased.