57

The Winter Soldier woke with an uncomfortable start as everything that was cold was suddenly hot, like burning, and he panicked in an instant and tried to move, but found he'd been restrained.

"Hold still," he heard and everything was a blur and he looked over to see a person in a coat and felt a needle break into his right shoulder. "Relax." The Winter Soldier couldn't relax. Fear surged through him in the form of adrenaline and he lay there, strapped to a table and the needle came out and the Winter Soldier's straps were undone. He scrambled off the table and collapsed to the floor and found himself in a state of muscular atrophy, shaking and unused to standing. Everything was sore.

"Pull him up," a voice said. "Sit him down. He'll be fine soon." The Winter Soldier felt hands on him, grabbing his chest and under his armpits and hauling him to his feet and he was dragged over into a chair where he struggled to regain his balance and felt slowly his strength returning to him. There was a person in front of him.

"Wipe him," the person said. "Then, we'll start." The Winter Soldier was pushed back down and there were more restraints and he was confused and scared and positively overwhelmed and when the lights began to go off in his head again, he screamed.

The pain was agonizing.

There was black.

The Winter Soldier opened his eyes and everything was fuzzy and he felt a dull, throbbing headache and a weakness everywhere. He barely noticed handlers pushing him upright and he stared forward, not sure what he was seeing. There was nothing in his head but pain.

"My name is Alexander Pierce," a man's voice said and the Winter Soldier swallowed. He felt fear and he didn't know why. "We've met before." The Winter Soldier looked up slowly at this person he'd met before and only felt scared as he looked into his face. He didn't know why. "I tell you what to do and you do it. Is that clear?" The Winter Soldier stared. "I said is that clear."

"Clear," the Winter Soldier said and was surprised to hear his own voice grainy and painful to use and to hear. He hadn't spoken in some time.

"There's a group of people who are coming very close to information we don't want them to have," Pierce said and the Winter Soldier looked up at him and listened. "You're going to kill them." Then, to the Winter Soldier's handlers, he said, "Get him ready. I don't want this to last more than a few hours."

Pierce left and the Winter Soldier was dragged to his feet and dressed. They outfitted him in black leather with straps and gun holsters and pockets and it wasn't comfortable, but he knew nothing else. Then, a mask over his mouth, and goggles, and he didn't stop to realize just how much he hated that. He hated the way it was hard to breathe and he hated the way everything was darker in the goggles and he hated the way it all clicked together over his face like a muzzle around the mouth of a dangerous animal.

But of course, he didn't consciously think all these things. He'd think them later, when he was free enough to use the words and brave enough to face his own feelings.

Then, the Winter Soldier was told the names of the people he was to find and kill.

There was a long list of names.

Neal Tapper Neal Tapper Neal Tapper

The Winter Soldier was taken onsite to some warehouse he didn't recognize and told what to expect.

Three men, four women. Far left door. Don't let them leave alive.

And then his handlers shut the doors and left him behind and he was expected to wreak murderous havoc on the poor SHIELD agents who stumbled into a locked room with him. It would be a bloodbath, a horror movie. The Winter Soldier found high ground and squatted behind several large crates and waited.

The short story is that the agents came and that Bucky killed them all.

The long story is that he sat there for hours.

He didn't know how long, he lost track of time. Not that he had been keeping track anyway. Time was relative to the Winter Soldier, and it rarely mattered. But he sat there until his feet fell asleep and he had to try and massage the blood back into them and he sat there until dark came and he never wondered whether or not the agents were coming at all because he was told that this was where he should stay and this was the job he should do. No questions.

Hours later, after the Winter Soldier had sat and sat and sat, he heard noises and he looked over the crates and saw his targets enter the warehouse. The Winter Soldier backed up into shadow, drowning himself in darkness, and he waited until they came closer and lifted his rifle to his eyes.

Neal Tapper.

He died first. He was the biggest man there and he looked like a threat, so he was the first to go. The Winter Soldier fired and the sound was so subtle, it barely disturbed the talking agents until the bullet entered the back of Neal Tapper's skull and came out the front and he dropped dead on the ground.

It must have been painless, Bucky thought later. He didn't see it coming, he wasn't scared. He was just alive one minute and dead the next. If there was any ideal way to be murdered, that was it.

It wasn't important to Bucky's story as he told Sharon, so he didn't mention it, but the rest of the mission was a sitting duck hunt. The remaining agents scattered and the Winter Soldier pursued them. None of them stood a chance and once there was a bullet in the head of every one, his handlers returned for him. At headquarters, they undressed him and cleaned the blood off his face and out of his hair. They didn't touch him unless they had to and he realized then, as he'd realize again and again and again, that he wished he could be touched. And then, without another word, he was wiped again and disorientedly crammed into cryostasis and Bucky tried to be gentle when he told Sharon. He tried to dance around the painful things, tried not to think too hard about the way he could see it all again in his mind perfectly, both for her sake and for his. He was careful.

His hand still trembled when he finished.

Sharon listened raptly to Bucky's story. He told her what she needed to know, censored the way he remembered red splattering, left out his distinct longing to be touched. He tried to tell her some of the painful things, the things she needed to understand and what she needed to understand was that he was miserable and he was abused and he made no decisions whatsoever. She needed to know how it happened and she needed to know that it wasn't his fault.

"It was a relatively painless death," Bucky consoled her finally. I can't say that for everyone, he thought. "And I am so sorry." Sharon wiped tears away from her face and was looking at the ceiling and then she stood and Bucky looked up at her.

"Thank you," she said. "Thank you." And she hurried out and left Bucky and Bucky wished he had his other hand to help steady his own trembling. He looked down again at the gun wound inside his chest and estimated.

Two days. Three to completely seal up. He thought that maybe, this time, it might leave a scar.

Sharon, almost in a run now outside the hospital room, was cupping her face in her hands and sobbing. Eventually, she would be able to approach Bucky and tell him that he needn't be sorry and she understood now. Already, she understood more than she had been able to before and everything was different and she left quickly, attempting to process the horrible things Bucky had told her, the way he was clearly holding back and the way his face had gone pale and suddenly, all she felt was awash with pity for him, and sadness that this was the lot of good men. Killing and being killed by other good men.