"People are gonna die, Buck."
He didn't know who this "Buck" was, or why this man thought it was him. He didn't know this man. Why should he?
"I can't let that happen."
Whoever the man was, he wanted to scream at him to stop talking. The more he talked, the more the words bounced off the cobwebs in his mind. And it was annoying. He forced himself to focus on his conditioning and to shut out whatever thoughts this man was trying to put in his head.
"Please don't make me do this."
Target acquired. Assassinate target.
With a might thrust, the man hurled his shield at his face. Finally. This he could understand. This he could respond to.
But the man clearly was not trying to kill him, not like the last time. That he didn't understand. He had vague memories of fighting this man and his shield before, the combat style was at least familiar, but everything after that was an empty void. It didn't matter. He remembered failing and his handler's anger.
He would not fail again.
His mission was to assassinate the target, but it was quickly apparent that this man's mission had nothing to do with him and everything to do with the small square he was trying to put inside the center of the transport. He was just in the way.
But whatever the man was trying to accomplish, Hydra would not be pleased. So, against everything drilled into him, thoughts began to work themselves into actions.
New mission: stop this man's mission.
Only then would he be able to kill the man. Then the man would fight back instead of simply pushing him out of the way.
When the man dropped the piece, he scooped it up, and the results were immediate. But he had not anticipated the pain of the man's full strength working to get the piece back. With the man's arm like a vise around his throat and his limbs pinned down one at a time, he struggled to fight him off, to stay awake, but black crowded in at the edges of his vision, and finally he could not fight it anymore, slipping into sweet, mindless darkness.
xxxxxxx
The light of consciousness came too quickly, and in the same instant the realization of his second failure crashed down on him with such weight that it nearly staggered him. No. This would not be how it ended.
Bracing against the lightheadedness and cradling his dislocated arm, he spotted the man several tiers up, aimed, and fired a crippling shot into the man's leg. That didn't stop him, so he fired again at the man's hands, trying to grip the ledge. Again, no success. His last shot must not disappoint, so he took careful aim and the bullet found its mark directly in the man's abdomen.
He felt a surge of satisfaction as the man collapsed. Surely now the man would not be able to complete his mission.
The satisfaction was short-lived, as less than a minute later, a series of explosions wrenched the ground from under him, and one of the support frames came hurtling at him with such force that he barely had time to avoid it crushing his skull.
But between his flesh arm out of socket and his metal arm needing severe repair, he did not have the strength to lift the heavy beam he was pinned under. He never expected to die this way, trapped, weak. Not even able to fight back. And if the man found him helpless this way, there was no doubt the man would kill him where he lay. At least that might be better than being left to die.
Movement out of the corner of his eye drew his attention, and he saw the man heading directly towards him. Just kill me, he wanted to scream, but could not form the words.
The man made no move to hurt him, though. Instead, he lifted the beam off of him. Why would he do that? The man was injured, too. His strength must be limited. Why would the man waste it on him?
"You know me."
No, I don't!
He didn't know this man! He didn't!
"Bucky, you've known me your whole life."
He didn't have a life before becoming the Soldier. Yet what were these scenes that rose unbidden in his brain? Why, against everything he knew, did there still seem something familiar?
"Your name is James Buchanan Barnes."
Shut up!
Fight back. He struggled against the way every word this man said disintegrated more and more of his conditioning. Target acquired. Assassinate target. But what if this man was right?
"I'm not gonna fight you. You're my friend."
His friend? He didn't even know the meaning of a friend anymore. There was no way he had ever been this man's friend. Assassinate target. Fight back.
With all the rage he could muster, he tackled the man, gripping his collar so there was nowhere else for him to go.
You're my mission.
Blow after blow he drove into the man's face.
You're.
My.
Mission!
But the pain that there was something there did not go away, that he had been lied to, that he might have been someone's friend, that this man who had given him a name might have known him and he had been fighting for the wrong side all along.
Assassinate—But what about…? –target. No. He couldn't— Must fulfill the mission.
The man was talking again, and he struggled to hear over the relentless pounding in his head.
"Then finish it… 'cause I'm with you… 'til the end of the line."
And suddenly he no longer saw this man in front of him, but instead a skinny, smaller young man, bruised and bloodied from another fight. Someone that he would have died to protect and now he was the one behind the trigger. The tears that stung his eyes were not only from the acrid smoke. What had he done?
In the next moment, he watched that skinny kid plummeting down towards the river to certain death. Could he even swim? Could his lungs sustain the shock of hitting the cold water?
Wasn't death the objective?
No.
It wasn't the end of the line yet.