A/N: We've all had nights like this...
This is another one that I was getting tired of re-reading. It's another very delicate, picky chapter. Let me know if you spot typos.
Plot Interlude #2
Later that night:
The colonel settles himself heavily at his desk and thumbs open the file folder that's still sitting where he left it this morning. Two personnel photos are neatly paper-clipped, one above the other, along the side of the page.
One is a skinny, sickly looking blonde head, settled over bony shoulders, and staring challengingly into the camera.
The other is a handsome young man with dark, neatly-done hair and a barely contained smirk.
He stares at them for a few moments in the semi-darkness, then rubs wearily at his eyes, and gets up and pours himself a couple of fingers of whiskey from the bottle in his desk.
He's grateful that his subordinates are gone for the night. He's not feeling very conversational right now, and frankly they all already think he's a mean old asshole. He spends enough time proving them right as it is.
He should probably turn in too, they've got a busy day in the morning…
He stands at the corner of the desk instead, then turns and walks to the door. Walks back.
He paces the small space for a few minutes, thoughts scattering like startled birds, then sits down and stares at the photos again.
He hadn't wanted to lean on Barnes like that. He's seen too many kids come back jumping at their own shadows to want to be the bastard that pushes their buttons. It's his job to bring these boys home in one piece, not break them even more.
It's just… what other choice had he had?
He takes a long drink, grimaces, and sets the glass down.
He feels tired. Really tired. The day is wearing on him.
Rogers' photo is staring at him. Accusing him - even if Rogers himself has no idea what he's done. Hopefully never will.
He wonders what Rogers would do, all hopped up on righteous fury, if Barnes ever did spill the morning's events. He decides he'd rather not dwell on it.
The thing is, he needs Rogers to win this war, dammit. He might not like it, but he needs the stupid, reckless bastard.
He almost likes Rogers. He can respect grit when he sees it. But he can't keep the kid in line, and that's a big problem.
What he was promised was a whole platoon of super-soldiers. Hundreds of Steve Rogerses, only without the damned attitude. What he got was one little smart-ass that is suddenly a real big smart-ass - with a chip on his shoulder and an anti-authoritarian streak a mile-and-a-half wide.
Kid takes orders like suggestions. Rules are just guidelines. If he wants to do something he wasn't told to do, he just does it. That's no way for a soldier to behave, but there's only so much the colonel can do about it.
You come down on Rogers from the top and he just digs his heels in more. Gets that stubborn look in his eye, smiles like he's being the most obliging little shit in existence, and come hell or high-water he'll push back.
Disciplining a man like that is a nightmare.
Phillips has got a weapon that could level all of Nazi Germany, but he can't control it worth a good goddamn, and that's dangerous for everybody involved. You don't just hope the gun is pointed the right direction - you aim it properly or you don't shoot.
A weapon you can't control is one you can't use.
He can't afford not to use Rogers. Not with the war as messy as it's been. That's why he had to learn to aim the stubborn bastard somehow.
He knows, following several days of reading and following up, and pulling records, and making late-night phone-calls back to Washington, that fate has dropped the best aiming mechanism in this world right into the middle of his camp. Hand delivered by Rogers himself, ironically.
Rogers' best friend. His 'family'.
Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes -'Bucky' to his friends- may be the one man on this earth who stands a chance of keeping Captain America in line and on task.
And with that bastardized serum in his veins, the poor sap might even stand a chance of surviving to see the end of this mess.
Agent Carter helps in corralling Rogers, he'll admit. She's a good agent, but he can see her crush printed all over her face. Hell, she all but admitted it to him not five minutes before Rogers came back, seemingly from the dead. Carter has barely even tried to keep it quiet since. Like she's daring him to say something.
He won't, as long as she isn't causing him more problems.
Carter helps and he's not going to jeopardize that... but she's harder to predict, and she can only do so much.
...And he knows full well that she'd spit in his face if he told her to do something she had real objections to.
Carter takes orders, but only to a point. She's like Rogers that way.
Barnes on the other hand… Barnes can be pushed, molded... especially right now. Barnes has everything they need. He's got the history, he's got the insight, and he's got the motivation to keep his pal on a short leash.
If he won't do it for Uncle Sam and the folks at home, he'll sure as hell do it for Rogers' own sake. Phillips has made sure of that.
The colonel already knows Rogers would do anything for this man. Anything at all.
He's seen it in action.
And he now knows, from reading Barnes' file and watching his behavior, that it goes both ways.
Sgt. Barnes could have easily been on a plane back to New York City within hours of reaching camp. His ticket was all but stamped. But Barnes hasn't asked to go home.
He's been conscious and lucid, just sitting around on a rickety old infirmary cot, clearly bored and scared out of his mind ...and he hasn't said one word about going home.
Especially given the fuss Rogers kicked up over being apart from his friend for a matter of days, it hadn't been hard to figure out why not.
He closes the folder, but finds himself staring at the nondescript cover instead. He rubs at the bridge of his nose and drops his hat onto the edge of his desk with a quiet thump.
He'd seen a pressure point and he'd used it. God help him, he'd used it.
He'd gotten what he needed.
And they do need Barnes for this… They do. That's why he did what he did.
He had to be sure Barnes would cooperate. Would keep his mouth shut and not fire Rogers off in the wrong direction.
He did what he had to do.
It's just...
Just…
He's not completely sure how he's going to live with himself now that he has.
You have to do ugly things in times of war, sure... He's done his share of nasty, underhanded, vicious things. You don't get the luxury of playing nice if you want to survive on a battlefield.
...But he never thought he'd have to dig his boot into the gut of one of his own…
He hadn't wanted to do it this way.
Not like this.
If there'd been a better way-
He throws back the rest of his drink and pours out some more. It doesn't make him feel any better.
He feels bad about Barnes.
Much worse than he does about anything with Rogers, honestly. Hell, he can't say he feels particularly bad about Rogers at all. That kid wanted to be here so bad he'd have done just about anything to get in. Rogers signed up for this. Rogers volunteered.
Barnes didn't volunteer.
He's seen the records. He knows that now. Belatedly, he wonders if Rogers does.
He doubts it.
He breathes out a heavy sigh, and sets the glass down, untouched.
And who, of course, has he just kicked right in the metaphorical balls?
Of course it'd have to be Barnes...the poor fucked up kid, that he left trembling and halfway to pissing himself in an infirmary cot after scaring the living hell out of him to make a point.
He'd known what to do to terrify the bejesus out of that boy, and he'd done it with a vengeance. He'd made the kid sweat bullets.
And Barnes had somehow still scraped up the gumption to look him right in the eyes at the end of it. His stomach sours to remember the fire that just wouldn't fade in that kid's tired face.
That'd been the twist of the knife that's been haunting him ever since. Barnes knew what he was walking into. What he'd just agreed to do.
And he'd looked it right in the face and said 'sure, why not?'.
The colonel can't decide if that's admirable or tragic. … Maybe it's both.
Either way, it's done.
...He'd needed to make an impression. And he had...
He stares at the amber liquid in his glass. Then he picks it up and drains it all in one go.
Yeah, he can admit when he's being a bastard.
He is. He can see that. He knew it when it was happening.
But the thing is, he's got responsibilities.
He's got a lot of lives in his hands right now, and the longer this war goes on, the more of those lives get lost. Most of them needlessly.
He's an old man, as soldiers go. He's seen two wars try to devour the entire world, and in quick succession at that.
He'd thought the last Great War was the last one there would ever be.
He'd been mistaken.
He can't afford to let on, but he's so tired of being at war. So tired of watching these unsuspecting boys get funneled in and watching dead men, walking or not, come out the other side.
He's certain there will only be more if they keep going this way. He just doesn't see an end to it anymore. He's so sick and tired of the bullshit. This constant fighting, killing, destruction. The consuming wars that ravage the globe.
It's only getting worse with time.
Soon, there will be nothing left to fight over.
He used to live for the rush of battle…
Now he's a weary old soldier who's sick and tired of war.
He could almost laugh at that.
Who isn't?
Colonel Chester Phillips never opted to go sit at a desk and command men via telegrams and telephones - though he could have. He's earned it, if he wanted to.
...No, he stayed out in the field... and he's seen a lot of good men die out here.
He's buried many a subordinate with his own two hands, because there was nobody else left to do it and he couldn't bear to just leave them lying there in the dirt.
Most of his people nowadays think he's a crusty, hard-hearted, old fucker. That he doesn't feel anything anymore; just does whatever Uncle Sam sends down the pipeline and goes on about his life. The problem is, he does feel. Oh he does. He feels everything alright. He just can't do anything about it. Feeling doesn't do anyone any good. He got that message ages ago, loud and clear.
He feels every single death he's ever had to notify somebody for. He feels the ones where there's nobody to notify even more. It's never stopped men from dying.
He's written form letters to so many widows and orphans, that he wonders if there are any intact families left out there sometimes.
He's so tired of dictating his condolences for the hundreds of wasted lives.
It's got to end.
He doesn't have to like the methods, but he didn't get to be where he is by making the easy decisions...
Two soldiers to save thousands? Those are odds he's got to take. He can't do otherwise.
If he's got to use Barnes and Rogers as sacrificial lambs to bring the rest of these boys home safe...? Then by god, that's what he's going to do.
… Even if it makes him not sleep so well at night.
A/N: I very nearly wrote this as a super long and rambling Author's Notes explanation... but then I realized… why don't I just show instead of tell?
So that's what I did.
I always sort of wondered, watching the movie, what goes through Phillips' head during all of this craziness? We see SOME of it, but he's very much a background character.
This is a man who's been through two World Wars now, and he probably served in both extensively. These wars were on a nearly unprecedented scale of destruction and violence for that time. And there were two of them practically back to back. What does that do to a person?
He'd have to be getting pretty disillusioned.
This is what I came up with.
-Sometimes, when life gets messy and complicated and confusing... the answers you come up with aren't even right or wrong. They're just answers. You apply them as well as you can, and you hope for the best.-