5
Bucky's room is quiet. If he listens, he can hear other people moving about the tower and the hum of the air conditioning units and other machinery. But no voices are loud enough to disturb Bucky as he pages through his notebook, every entry dated and labeled and even tabbed with color-coded slips as though all of that careful organization will help if he gets captured again.
"You never know," James says, and he's hanging half-off the bed with his head nearly touching the floor. The position cannot possibly be comfortable, but James doesn't seem inclined to move. "You're not gonna get captured again, anyway."
"You don't know that." Bucky turns a page, finds the picture of Captain America he had stumbled across in a run-down mart off the side of some highway. He thinks Captain America instead of Steve because there has to be a distinction there, right? Not as violent as the one between James Buchanan Barnes and the Soldier, but surely one exists.
"Even though Steve's been a stand-up guy no matter what he's wearing," James drawls. "I don't think it matters whether he's in spandex or sweats."
Bucky makes a noncommittal noise and keeps turning the pages until he finds the first blank one. There he puts down the latest scene he's remembered.
It isn't much; just impressions and blurry mental images. But Bucky remembers gravestones (a cemetery?) and the almost overwhelming need to make sure Steve isn't left alone, that Bucky is with him—
"'Till the end of the line," Bucky mutters, and suddenly he has context for that line outside of the helicarrier and it sets him back on his heels. Steve saying those words had shattered the Soldier like so much glass, leaving whatever personality remained to pick up the pieces, but Bucky hadn't known why the words resonated. Just that they had.
A noise that does not fit in with the normal hubbub jerks Bucky from his thoughts. He reaches and taps the wall.
A pause. Longer than JARVIS normally needs. Bucky's heart begins to pound.
"Yes, Sergeant?"
Bucky hesitates. The sound is—strange. Metallic? It bounces around too much to be clear. Would the AI understand a vague question?
"What is that sound?"
Another pause. JARVIS's voice is distorted, skipping syllables.
"My apologies. My sensors are experiencing—"
The AI goes silent. Cut off in the same second as the lights. When the room plunges into darkness Bucky reacts instantly, jumping back and finding one of the knives hidden on his body. His metal arm is without power, limp and heavy at his side, but after a few seconds the gears and motors reset and begin functioning again. Bucky stays still and silent, trusting his ears more than his eyes. For almost a minute, nothing.
"That was a localized EMP," James mutters. "What's going on?"
Then the metallic skittering gets closer. It is definitely not normal, and now Bucky curses himself for not reacting to the oddities in JARVIS's behavior sooner.
He spots the tiny red glow in the vent and throws the knife before the robot can get in. It collapses in a shower of sparks with the blade buried in its glowing camera lens and Bucky draws a second blade but there are already three robots climbing into his room, and he starts to go for the door—
The robots have speakers; Bucky hears them crackle, and then a voice, a recording, something speaks a word that slithers into Bucky's mind and locks it down, everything is cotton and he's on his knees, limp and unable to even focus his eyes—
It's warm but not, and Bucky tries to fight the frost holding him in place but nothing works. A switch in his brain has been pulled and now nothing moves, like this isn't even his body anymore—
James. He's—flickering? Between the grizzled soldier and something else, something that pulses like a knot of darkness in Bucky's hazy vision.
The robots are creeping closer now, picking their way across the floor, and even though Bucky can't make his eyes focus on them he can see the coloring and the curving lines that have to be the Hydra symbol etched into their black metal shells. The speakers crackle again. They are speaking to him. The voice is distorted, but Bucky can't think. Can't understand.
"Did you really think you could hide, Soldat?"
"Shut up," James growls.
"We've always known where you are. Hydra is everywhere."
Bucky's body can't shudder but his mind does the equivalent. Tendrils of fear snake through him.
He can't get captured.
Not here.
Not again.
Never again.
Steve.
Help.
"No," James says, and the darkness grows deeper as a headache pulses within Bucky's brain, something stirring that sends waves of tension along his muscles and stirs nausea in his stomach but he can't stop it. He can't. Do anything. "I refuse. We. Refuse."
Bucky's fear shivers and anger eclipses it. He has been with Steve for weeks. He knows who he is. Who he was. Who he wants to be.
He is James Buchanan Barnes, and he will not be controlled again.
He strains against the word burning like a commandment in his brain and his headache worsens, a distant feeling that he shouldn't resist, that he needs to obey humming in his brain but Bucky takes that feeling and crams it into a box, buries that box in his head and locks it away where it can't do anything but burn. He grasps for anything that will force his muscles to move, anything at all.
James shakes.
The robots are closer. One has a syringe in its metal claws.
Were there more? Were they going after Steve?
The needle sends a fresh wave of panic through Bucky and he screams in his own mind, thrashing against the bonds until James finally turns and the darkness has his face and James is yelling something, panicking, no don't—
The world tilts sideways and then rights itself.
The panic disappears. Fury takes its place, and the Soldier stands. He has no orders that he can remember, no briefing to guide him or mission parameters. But he is ordered to defend himself in the absence of a handler. These robots are a threat. They have the symbol of allies but they are threats.
Threats will be eliminated.
He reduces the small robots to scrap in an instant, but takes the syringe. It could be useful.
(Why?)
The Soldier turns away from the bots. There will be more; the threat must be eliminated. The mission is to—
(What?)
The halls are empty. So are the rooms. The Soldier finds six more robots and destroys them. One slashes at his metal arm with rusty claws. The Soldier snaps the claws and then the robot.
(What is the mission? Where is the handler?)
Moonlight spills in from the windows but the Soldier could have seen without it. He reaches the elevator and finds two more machines scratching at the cables. He leaves the smoking carcasses in the hallway and goes down, a directive he does not remember receiving guiding him to the common floor.
(A directive but no mission no handler what—)
There are twenty-four robots on the common floor. The Soldier sees three individuals fighting the robots: a woman and two men. The woman fights with electrical weapons, while one man fights with arrows and the other with kitchenware.
Presumed allies, if they fight the threats. Further threat potential can be determined once the immediate threat is eliminated.
(You know them—)
The last man speaks.
"So happy you could join us, Terminator. Mind helping?"
The words do not line up. They are not an order, or a directive. They are mere noise. The Soldier ignores them and focuses on the robots.
As the last robot is destroyed the Soldier realizes the people in the room are watching him.
He lets the robot drop from the metal hand and assesses the individuals for any signs of threats.
"Hey, Frosty, no need to glare. We're all friends here."
Allies confirmed.
(No, no, listen we're not—)
More noise. The woman speaks.
"Tony, did any robots reach Barnes's room?"
"I don't know."
"They're Hydra, Tony. What if—"
"Oh. Oh. Shit."
The Soldier dismisses them. There are more robots; he can hear them in the vents. There must be a way to draw them out.
He goes to the kitchen. The sounds follow him. The robots must be tracking the Soldier. How.
The Arm? Possible.
The Soldier waits. When the robots come, he destroys them. When no more come, the Soldier waits once more.
(For what?)
Another person has entered the room. The Soldier turns.
The person is not either of the men from the previous room. The man is—
(Steve.)
—tall. Blond. A threat?
"Buck."
The man is looking at the Soldier. Addressing him? Is this man the handler?
"Bucky. I know you're in there."
Bucky?
(You.)
The Soldier blinks. In his head there is static and fire and chaos but this is normal, this is within mission parameters but there is no mission there is no handler and this man—
"Please, Buck. I don't know what those bots did, but I know you're stronger than they are. Please."
(Steve. Steve, I'm—)
The Soldier's breathing is irregular. The metal arm whirs, the fingers spasming.
(Bucky. I'm Bucky.)
"Just—come back. Please." The man (Steve) hesitates. He searches the Soldier's (Bucky's, we're Bucky listen to me please) face. "You know me."
He does. But he can't speak. Can't move.
He falls, the haze in his brain returning as the fury burns out.
Everything fades to black.
"—codes. They predate me."
"But we have a recording. You can—"
"I can't work miracles. I need time."
"проснуться, солдат."
"—don't care, Tony. We're not locking him up. Bucky wouldn't—"
"He wasn't Bucky two hours ago, Rogers."
"Don't 'Rogers' me. He's my friend."
"Слушать, солдат."
"Come on, Barnes. проснуться."
If any of you happen to speak Russian, feel free to correct anything in here. In order, the Russian says: "Wake up, soldier." "Listen, Soldier." "Wake up."
Please review.