Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The cold, the cold water. The cold he knows.
His mission.
A man.
A man?
Irrelevant, his mission.

He knows him.

A man he knows. He knew.

A man, a life. Irrelevant, his mission.


A man who weighs nothing, a life saved. Not taken. Saved.
Run. Not his mission. Run.

.
Destruction, lives taken, people.
Machine and Gods.
The world is not his own anymore.
Warm, too warm.
Being awake and sleeping, not reprogrammed, not blank. Not wiped.
He’s scribbled on.

.
Things are relevant.
Memories, other lives, not his own.
Towns fall out of the sky.
He struggles to remember. The fall, a man screaming, an echo.
Cold.

.
Ultron’s fall, watched from the stillness of an abandoned apartment, a safehouse, a refuge, a hideout.

Gods and machines, a soldier, not like him, a man, not an asset, only a man.

A boy in uniform, a smaller one, dusty blond hair, a brunette all curls and bright lips. The future.
Not his memories. Irrelevant. He writes them down nonetheless.



.
One day, he wakes and it’s not Monday, it’s Tuesday.
An error. He had not fallen asleep on the bed. He wakes up in it regardless.

It happens again, two months later, he doesn’t have a beard anymore.

It scares him to no end. He looks for HYDRA agents everywhere he goes, and when he finds none, he flees out of pure fear.


.
Barely a year later, in a new country altogether, the woman at the market talks to him like she knows him.
He has no recollection of ever speaking to her.
He considers fleeing once more.

«Cum sunt? Sunt ele bune? Dă-mi șase, vă mulțumesc.»

A week later his face is plastered on every screen of the world.
The Winter Soldier had struck again.
But he hadn’t. Hadn’t he?


The man in his apartment. He knows his name, he knows how much he weighs, he knows how he used to look.
Steve.

He considers killing him.
Someone inside him screams.

And while the Soldier reflects on a kind way to kill the man, he turns and sees him.

He calls him Bucky. He hates the name. But he doesn’t spit his own back.
He doesn’t know him.

The blond man brings trouble.
It always ends in violence. Futile attempts, there is no reason for preventing the soldiers’ deaths, they know what they are doing, the same as him.
War is a machine that stops for no one. The blond man doesn’t understand it.


He’s old, he’s been awake for years now, more than he has ever been; he can feel it on his shoulders.
Another man chases him, he can’t shake the panther off, there is killing intent in his gestures, something the soldier can understand, something he knows.
He hasn’t felt this comfortable in years.
He knows how to deal with death, the killing intent, the chase.
His body sings.
He’s home.
Not in a hideout, not piecing a sense of normality back. Home.

Steve interferes.
They capture him.
Back behind a glass. He waits for the cold, the pain. Electricity.
Nothing comes.

Until a man does. Frail. Breakable.

He fights the words, but something deep inside him craves them.



He’s back home, in the scarlet certainty of violence.

——————
James Buchanan Barnes is no longer his best friend. He could not be, not while the Winter Soldier stretches his skin from the inside out. Thin, so thin that of Bucky nothing remains.
He is there, spread too thinly to be recognised in the hard dips and crevices of his metal arm, but he’s still there.
Unreachable. Bent out of shape and different.
Wrong. So substantially wrong.

How many times must he disappoint him?
How many times does he have to lose him before he stops being the hero he never was?

«Your mom’s name was Sarah. You used to wear newspapers in your shoes.»

A fleeting light, a flicker of hope.
It’s small, but it’s there. Bucky is there, he can almost see him behind the cold eyes of the soldier.

Then the question had come, and his world had shattered.
«How much time has passed?» 
«A couple of hours.»
«No, no, it’s— The last time I was awake, it was summer.»


Like a switch, a button being pressed, Bucky’s face had gotten blank, eyes unfocused and lost, and the Winter Soldier had reemerged.
Not quite the killing machine, surely not the man remembering his mother’s name.


«What did I do?» Calculating, almost a request for a report.
«Enough.»
Silence. That is not Bucky.

«Who was he?»
Silence once more, nothing else but silence, reluctance.
«People are dead, the bombing, the doctor did all that only to get ten minutes with you. I need you to do better than silence.»

The man looks at him, full attention on him, and for a moment, Steve fears for his life, doesn’t matter there are literal tonnes on the mechanical arm. Steve fears in one way or another the Winter Soldier could break free and end his life any minute now.

Calculation runs behind his eyes, Steve can almost see them, then, «He wanted to know about Siberia, where I was kept. He wanted to know exactly where.»

It’s too early to breathe a sigh of relief, but Steve concedes himself to at least swallow the knot forming in his throat. 
«Why would he need to know that?»
Another calculated silence.
«Because I’m not the only Winter Soldier.»


Not Bucky, not even The Winter Soldier.
Only something else.


Something close enough.
That version of Bucky is wrong, so deeply wrong, but that spark of old recognition had been enough. 
He’ll follow him till the end of the line, but Steve is unsure who he is following.

He’s chasing a ghost. A ghost flickering in and out of existence.



.
Bucky follows him methodically, as if he’s nothing more than a means to an end.


He glides over the fact he almost killed the kid.
The journey on the Quinjet is silent, the soldier sits stiffly, eyes focused, deadly.
Steve knows he’s on a mission, still, he silences the doubts clawing at the back of his brain.

He should have listened to them.
The Winter Soldier is a killing machine willing to end yet another life. Tony does his fair share of damage, but the soldier is simply better, more well-trained, efficient, not only calculated but ready.
A loaded gun, His best friend had grotesquely morphed into a loaded gun, always glued to its target.
He fights dirty, viciously.

He leaves Tony and him for dead. Steve begs for him not to, but his words don’t even reach his ears. That must be it, Bucky would never have left him like that, but Steve is once more forced to see his best friend get away, fleeing, not even daring a glance back, and nothing of the soldier’s demeanour speaks of the Brooklyn boy.

He’s a killer. And until the Winter Soldier festers underneath Bucky’s skin, Steve can’t do anything about it.



.
But there might be a chance for him to rip the problem at its root. Quite literally.
Doctor Cho has aged badly, fine lines marring her once perfectly smooth skin.
In less than three years.
But she speaks with such passion and intensity about her creation that Steve cannot help but fall into her own words. Taken. Sold.

In early January of the new year, he tracks him down. To be precise Nat does, in a cramped apartment in southern Italy.




That is Bucky, the scared man ready to cut off the cancer growing underneath his skin.
That is Bucky.
And even if Steve is only half sure about the morality of it all, the desperation is too much to stop now.
There are no screams, but he knows something —deep inside the broken shell his best friend had amounted to be— is thrashing.
A cornered animal. Feral.




——————
You are grossly underqualified for this.
It’s not even a question of pride, of having lied a bit on your curriculum (you don’t really speak Russian that well), it’s a matter of subject.
You are a philosopher, if you can define yourself as such, not a psychologist, and there is nothing on your curriculum suggesting any of that sort.
«Sir, I— I really don’t think I am in any way, shape, or form qualified for this job. I’m not a behaviourist or a behavioural analyst or— or anything of the sort, hell, I’m not even a plain psychologist, I’m—»
«the only one who showed any form of interest.»
The words cut you off efficiently, you should have expected that from a colonel, your disjointed ramble comes to an end and somewhere in the back of your head starts the plain noise of static and silence that perfectly follows your astonishment.

«…What?» Now that must be a lie, a plain, fat lie. It cannot be true.
You are in no way fit to be called a fanatic of this sort of thing, but you own a cell phone and a TV. You have seen the rise and fall of S.H.I.E.L.D. you have heard of Captain America and his newly-found-timely-lost brother in arms.
Hell, you had even visited the Smithsonian on your first visit to Washington, D.C.


You had not expected for the “perfect subject for your thesis” to be James Buchanan Barnes; you truly hadn’t. But you had been so excited and ready to dive headfirst into your stale project with new sources and materials, that when your professor had proposed that you take on a living subject of your own theoretical hypothesis, you had not wasted a minute.
You had packed your already-packed life in London and embarked on the first flight to the United States.

Then James’ name had surfaced, and it had been such an innocuous name, such a common one, so common you had not suspected anything at all, still giddy at the idea of being able to assist a psychiatrist (or perhaps even an équipe) on such a delicate and rare case.

Then the first red flag had shown its ugly head in the form of the metal detectors, then the countless controls had come, until the whole situation had escalated to finding out there was no psychiatrist.
None at all, it was just you, your half-assed thesis and a serial killer.
No. An Assassin, one raised to be deadly.

The more you think of it, the more you can’t wrap your head around the whole situation, the more you can’t, the more it’s painfully plain he is the perfect subject, but… but not like this! Not in the most unsafe conditions ever.

«Well, of course except some very bold HYDRA agent not-so-well under cover.» The colonel’s voice snaps you back to reality.
«Come again?» Now that was dumb.

«Listen, I understand this is a lot,» A lot? This is a whole mess, one you can’t really grip your fingers onto.
He had been the most wanted man alive, the whole world had had their eyes on him, looking for him in every corner, nations had looked for his face in every man with icy eyes and yet here you stand, the only one that had shown interest in him after his capture.

Impossible, something is deeply wrong here, and you have no idea how to address such a thing to the very stern, very tall man in uniform.

«but the facts are these. You can either accept the job or leave, I’m not wasting any more time with this.»
With what, the safety of a civilian? The containment of a rogue agent, a terrorist?
Are you even there to assist? Are you supposed to help him? Rehabilitate him?
It’s clear you are not there only to observe as you had originally intended; the colonel must want you to do something, but what?
What should you be doing with a man reclused behind a glass cage with walls as thick as forearms?

Red flags, so many red flags.

«Listen, kid, you said you were studying the root of evil or something something, the congress just wants him condemned and behind bars permanently, hell, if it were for me, he should be shot in the head but I don’t make the rules, do you want to do it or not?»

What?
No, actually: what. the. fuck.

«I am no judge, sir.»

«Well, colour me shocked, I would have pegged you for one. No shit, kid, but he will be in front of one soon enough, do you think you can bring an evaluation with him in court or should I sent him with none at all.
I’m fine with both.»

So that’s what he wants.
There is no way in hell people who care about him know about this, you must tell Mr Rogers, he had gutted his whole career from the inside out for the man in that cage, he must be unaware of all this.
Perhaps if you accepted, if you could contact him before the audience, you could save a broken man from a terrible destiny.
Your thesis be fucked, in here you are discussing a human being.
You know shit will go south if you go and snitch to Captain America but the man is not easily dismissible, still being the national hero and all that jazz, even after the whole fugitive debacle, perhaps he could protect you, if worst would come to worst you could ask him for help protecting you.
What if he was dead, though?
God, maybe he was, and you would end up stuck with a killing machine and a whole country, if not multiples, after you.
For what? A life you are not so sure is definable as such?
No, hell, what would your Ethics professor think of you if she could hear you now? You cannot go down that rabbit hole in this situation. Barnes is a man, a living, breathing man. You cannot let him rot in a cage without any help at all.
Alone in the world.

God, is this how you find out about Captain America’s death?
Is he dead? Is that why he’s not here fending for his best friend’s life instead of you?


«He’s growing restless.»

What?
Your dumb face must have spoken louder about your own thoughts than your lodged words still stuck in your throat. 
«He knows someone is coming, they told him, he hasn’t peeled his eyes from your spot since we entered.»
That’s true, horrifyingly true.
And perhaps more abhorrent than the knowledge is the fact you hadn’t even noticed.
«Aren’t we behind a one-way mirror?»
The colonel laughs dryly, he must be a heavy smoker, nothing else could replicate the gruff quality of his tone.
«Hell, the freak could see through walls for all I know.»


This is so fishy.
You can feel it deep in your bones.

And yet you find yourself nodding.
«I— I’ll think about this.»

«Don’t think too hard, I’m giving you fifteen minutes. Then you either enter there or you get out.» 

Chapter Text

Fifteen minutes, what are you supposed to do in fifteen minutes?
In the back of your head the video of Billie Joe losing his temper at a festival slithers its way into the front of your brain supplying you with the iconic “Let me show you what one fucking minute fucking means.” phrase.
God, you are losing your marbles, but this is no place to revamp your punk phase; you need to focus. There is a man waiting for you, with eyes as sharp as knives and laser attention focused on what you are sure he cannot see from inside his cell:
You.

He’s just a man, let’s approach it like that.
Yes, just a man in a box in another box in a prison.
Fine, a dangerous man, then.
God, fifteen minutes are too much and too little altogether.
What are you supposed to do in those fifteen minutes without your phone? Marinate in your own thoughts? Ridiculous.
You wish you could call your mom, she had always known what to do in every situation, but for that, perhaps, the phone —security clings onto for you—is of little use, but the ouija board you sold on Facebook marketplace before leaving the UK could have suited the job.
Fifteen minutes are too many. And none at all.

You’re a coward at heart, a heavy supporter of the ideology that burying your head in the sand has indeed saved you from countless headaches, but here? Now? You cannot turn your back on that man.
You simply know the guilt would haunt you.

«Hell, if it were for me, he should be shot in the head.»

No, you cannot let this happen.
I mean… He’s a grown ass man, what is he now, ninety? a hundred? No, stop, he is not your responsibility but you are not that big of a coward. 


There is a door to your right, not the one you had entered from, a plain, unsuspicious door.
You know nothing of the job, how could you? No one has taken the trouble to brief you. You don’t even remember the man’s full name, you try to recall it to memory but you simply cannot.
James.
James something something, he has a second name, a middle one, you are fairly sure, something that rhymes perfectly with his last one, Barn, Barnes, something like that.
Something rolling off the tongue.

It’s not rolling off of yours while your sweaty palms grip the handle of the door. You try, you really do, desperate for any detail at all, anything capable of telling you something more about the man other than the gripping feeling of pure terror that is making your legs tremble, but the fact that his eyes had followed you in your little trip from where you had stood to the doorframe does nothing but put you more on edge.
You inhale.
Calm down. Exhale, he’s just a man.

The door clicks open, you enter the white room. You don’t have the guts to look at him, but you are sure he is looking at you, I mean, what’s one more minute now? He has been staring at you all day.

You try to escort the door back into its frame without letting it close, something deep inside your stomach tells you it would not open from the inside, but your attempts are futile; the door closes in a soft snap, making you jump and letting go of the handle altogether.

Well, no turning back now.
Actually, turning might be the single most difficult task you have to endure today. Not that having your back to the caged man is any better.

Say something, yes, say something, you have always chatted your way out of the slipperiest of situations, just do that again, swallow back the fear gripping your throat and start puking something, anything.
You are just about to speak when your eyes fall to the mirror.
It is a one-way mirror, but you don’t have the time to rejoice and dumbly (as a defence mechanism) bury your absolutely well-founded fear, that your eyes click into place with his.

Now you are sure he’s looking at you.
«Hello.»

How can a single word be dumb and normal at the same time?
No, stop with the self-doubt. What were you supposed to say? Goodbye?
Still. You feel an absolute idiot.

The man doesn’t respond.
You turn, eyes downcast, staring at your feet, watching him in the eyes feels like a declaration of war, a challenge you are not willing to throw.

You just press yourself against the wall, making your body as small as possible.
He’s scary.
Even when restrained to a metal chair, inside a glass box, inside a prison cell.
A matrioska.

What a silly thought.

«My name is—»
Wait! Wait, pause, do you really want to give the very dangerous, very unpredictable assassin, in the most fishiest situation ever, your name?
You are no target whatsoever —What would anyone want from you? Your collection of sun-dried insects?— But you still shift stiffly in your own shoes.

«Well, when I was a kid, my friend used to call me Bla, it’s short for an insect, the roach, in Italian.
T—They used to call me like that because nothing could knock me out for good. I came down with chickenpox and pneumonia at the same time when I was seven, and in a week, I was back in school. Also, I talk a lot, so I guess that’s fitting.»

God, you are lame.
And you also just told him where you come from. You must be the single most stupid woman alive.
«Anyway, you can call me that. What’s your name?»

Silence.
Great!
«Alright, did they tell you I was coming? This is all actually very weird to me, job’s details were all kinda blurry, didn’t even know it was you till a few minutes ago, I would have studied harder otherwise, I’m not really making a good impression not knowing your name, aren’t I.» A nervous laughter flees your lips, you cannot contain it, it has always been one of the numerous nervous tics that grip you in its hold every time you feel too big for your own skin.
«It’s James, right? Am I right? I read about you in the Smithsonian a couple of weeks ago.»

Another empty silence, something so devoid of any personality that you almost start to feel less anxious.
It feels like he’s not even in the room; he looks like part of the glass cube, only another cog in the intricate mechanics of his restraining.
The wall behind you had gradually morphed from cold to warm, your body heat slowly working its way into a balance of temperature.
You still feel on edge, but you can almost feel the grinding of your bones slowing down into a soft background sensation.

You don’t get why, his eyes are still fixated on you, his attention unwavering, but something in the big picture of the whole situation is steadily pressing a chloroform cloth to the mouth of your senses.


Something in him is not threatening. Enough so as to tell your whole body to just relax.


He feels empty.
Yeah that’s it, he feels empty.
Like nothing he could do would come directly from him.


«Okay, listen, I— I don’t know how to be subtle, everything I think, one way or another, always ends up out there, there are no “inner thoughts for me”, it’s a flaw, sue me, I wear my heart on my sleeve.
What I’m trying to say is that I’ve been told they want you either dead or behind bars for life and— god, I don’t even know how long you live. Do you— no, sorry off topic, I, anyway, I guess I’m here to… evaluate you? I don’t know, I’m not a psychologist, I told them, but I don’t even know when the hearing would be, where, hell, I don’t even know what they are accusing you of.
What I mean is. The people who should have shown up for you… Didn’t. I don’t know how else to tell you. I think that’s because no one knew about this—» and in an almost conspiratorial way, you turn your head and look over your shoulders to see if anyone had dared enter the room, darting your eyes to the mirror even though you cannot tell if someone is actually behind there.

You feel like you should get closer, like you should whisper really low your next words, they feel weighted, as if you had unknowingly known a hidden truth the colonel had not wanted you to know.
«I think I should tell Mr. Rogers, I feel like you are being deal some shitty cards here.»

At Roger’s mention, you see the first real reaction, or perhaps it is because you had actually gotten close to the glass cage. Reason aside, you can clearly see it. His eyes twitch, squinting, recalling? No, processing?
Man, you are not good at this.
But that had been a reaction, yes, you are sure of it.

«I mean, he should be the one fending for your life, but I guess no one gave him a notice, perhaps the whole fugitive thing might have had a part in it.
Do they let you read the newspapers in here? It’s old news by now, I wish I could show you, but they confiscated my phone when I entered, sorry.» The way you are rambling, spewing every living thought forming into your brain makes you cringe, but if you have to trade looking like a moron to the silence you are sure it would fall if you stopped your mouth from working then so be it.
A coward and a moron, what a nice way to introduce yourself.

«I think I should let him know you are being kept here, that you are about to be put under process, and then I guess he could be the one finding a solution for your… predicament? Not that I don’t want to! But I’m no lawyer and, hell, I’m as broke as one could get, so even if I wanted to help, I cannot afford a legal advisor for you—»
«Don’t take the job.»

Oh. That’s a nice voice.

Secondly, what?

«What?»

Then your eyes, almost without being commanded to, snap to his own.
Only for his to be elsewhere.
He’s back at looking at the mirror.
«Don’t take the job.»

You hear the click of the door being open, the colonel waits for you on the threshold, one hand in his pocket, one lazily gripping the handle.

«Stand down, soldier, the adults need to talk.»
What a huge pile of shit.


You get taken to another room, just down the long corridor at which end had been situated the room with the glass box.
You still feel silly for the little hand wave you had offered him as goodbye, but you don’t have the time to chastise yourself as your attention is needed back at the situation at hand as soon as yet another door clicks shut behind you.

«You talk a lot, don’t you?»
Fuck you.
«Yeah, sorry,» The man circles the table in the centre of the room, pulling out a chair from underneath it and pointing with his hand at the one in front.
You obey. «I guess I was a bit nervous.»
«Chatty is good for this, the fucker is a statue.» Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you.
You inwardly flip him the bird as his rough laughter fills the empty room.
No mirrors, no windows, only four walls of gritty cement and a sense of humour you don’t share at all.
You hate the way he speaks about the man, sure, he’s a serial killer, an assassin, something to be scared of, but a man nonetheless.
The colonel’s words are so undignified, so patronising, as if the man had been an animal to be kicked around and treated as unthinking.


«So, what do you say? Are you the right woman for the job?»

No.
He had literally absolved you of every obligation. He had clearly told you not to accept. Hell, maybe that intimidation had meant “don’t interfere” what do you know? Perhaps the colonel had lied to you, perhaps thousands of more qualified people had been waiting in line just outside the cell, ready to truly help him in a way you physically can not.

You could get out of here free, back to the UK, Italy even. Perhaps you stepping back would mean for the man to actually have a shot at freedom, rehabilitation, whatever he had needed the most.

And you could have gone back home. With only a weird experience under your belt and the bitter aftertaste of a new project dead before it could have even started, no guilt, no shame, not even a drop of self-loathing.
You had literally been exempted.

Then why do you feel no one was coming to help him?


Your mom used to tell you your big heart would be the death of you. Ironic since she’s the one dead now, and her heart had not been big at all.

You could always step back if a more competent person were to show interest; there was always a margin of adjustment on your part if you were to be involved in the first place.
If you don't accept, you would be forcefully cut off, but if you do, if the opportunity arises, you could make yourself as small as needed.

Besides, of something, one must die.


«I guess I am.»


The man in uniform laughs. You feel like you have made the biggest mistake of your life. You still cannot blame yourself for it.

Chapter Text

«With some conditions.»
The colonel laughs once more, thick smoke twisting around your head.
God, you miss smoking. The distinctive feeling of puffing away your worries one after the other in each rasped breath.

You had stopped like you had started every damned thing in your life.
On a random Tuesday, on impulse, not because you had seen your mother wither away, hair falling off her head and skin stretching thin over her bones, but simply because.
You had been smoking when the doctor had told you she would not make the night, you had held her hand with nicotine-stained fingers when she had closed her eyes one final time, not peacefully but not screaming either. Only tired, on a Friday night.

After, when the funeral had passed and your childhood home had been sold, you had kept your little bad habit. Sat on the curb you had scraped your knees over countless times, over and over again, when laughing and running after your only good friend.
Smoking your sorrows away. No remorse at all.
You had buried your head under the sand of blatant ignorance, yet another ticket for yet another country burning a hole in your pocket far deeper than any ember falling the tobacco pillar could have ever scorched.
You had clung to it as if you hadn’t known better, never changing, never evolving, always cowering away from new perspectives.

Then, a year or so later, you had stopped, and a day hadn’t passed since without you missing the feeling of thick clouds of poison stuffing your mouth like wadding.
But you had stopped.

You miss it now, nerves fried and head full of thoughts too thick to be chased away in a puff of air instead of a puff of smoke.
«Miss, you truly don’t get to have a saying—»
«No, I’m sure I don’t, but I need to at least know what I’m working with.
How long do I have? What is he being accused of? At least tell me what my role should be in all this. I get you need a report on him, but on what? Be specific.»

Specific is not the right word; lengthy might be.

The dude is accused of virtually everything under the sun.
Mass murder, Terrorism, Property damage, Conspiracy, Mutilation, Kidnapping, Blackmail, Treason, Mass destruction, Vigilantism —you have no idea what that means—, Torture, Abuse, Aiding and abetting, Grand theft auto, Assault, Breaking and entering, and Stalking.

It’s almost comical that you share with the Winter Soldier, —as the header of the folder supplies your memory— a voice in his long list of crimes.
Your property damage had been a petty revenge poorly executed while blacked out drunk, a puke-stained splotch on your record from that stupid, stupid, night you had decided that keying and slashing the tires of your ex’s car had been a fitting revenge for deciding to have a bit on the side.

Your head throbs the same way it had done the morning after, when policemen had shown up at your place and you had had to witness a grainy video from his Ringcam of you stumbling over your own feet, a pink butterfly knife you had bought on Amazon a couple of mistakes ago in one hand and a bottle of cheap alcohol in the other.
At least this is not as humiliating as that.

«Okay, so you want me to do what? Confirming all this? That he is a dangerous individual?»
You still cannot see his point, but something in you tells you the colonel had not lied; you are no psychologist, and that was clearly a job for a psychologist; you were there only because no one else wanted to. You had been the only option available.
«Yes and no, you see the thing is that he wasn’t really of sound mind during all this.»
Yeah, you doubt he was.
Your knowledge of the whole Winter Soldier case is still awfully scarce, but you knew he had been under some sort of brainwashing, an asset from a terrorist group that had made of him an unthinking and uncaring weapon.

Is this why the colonel was so set on treating him like an object, an unfeeling machine only capable of destruction?
It kind of makes sense now, you still highly disapprove of the base idea, but you can see it better now. The list is massive after all.

«So you want me to make a philosophical evaluation on his implication on the matter? The root of evil and all of that? You want me to say he is still responsible for what he did.»

There is no true satisfaction in the grin the colonel sports; it’s jarring, something not clicking into place, but his next words completely obscure anything you could think of it.
«Good girl, I see you understand.» 

So patronising, so utterly patronising and slimy.

The man stands up, moving rigidly to the door.
«Since we have understood each other so well, I’ll leave you to it.»
What? No! You still don’t know how much time you have, when and if you can speak to him, or if a lawyer would have been involved.
«Wait!—»
«You have two weeks, the hearing is on Monday, you’ll need to read your evaluation to the jury, but every written material needs to be done in a week, evidences, and anything falling under that spectrum, need to be viewed by the court beforehand.
You will be given a room here in the compound, but you can leave anytime you want. The file room containing the Winter Soldier reports is at the end of this corridor. You can speak to him whenever you need to.
He doesn’t sleep, and if he’s sleeping and you need to talk to him, wake him… use as much of his time as you need.»

Oh no, no, no, no. A week is too little!
You are no magician able to pull out of the hat a perfectly structured, perfectly formulated rabbit shaped thesis, you had hoped for three months, two if they had been stingy, but a week? A week is nothing but an anticipated sentence of doom.
You are still panicking when the colonel stops in his tracks and lingers. 
«Pieces of your evaluation might be read out of context. Keep that in mind.»

Does he want you to be cruel? Direct in every page you write? Does he want you to destroy a poor, used, and discarded man mercilessly, so much so that even a single word read out loud would have spoken against him?

The thought makes you shudder, the file in your hand rattles, the long list looks at you with the same intensity blue eyes had done back in the converging room.

You cannot do this.

«I need my phone. For— for research, and my pc.»

The colonel nods.

«They both will be brought to you, but they cannot enter the containment room. If you need to register anything a voice recorder will be given to you.

.
It’s clear why it’s better to stay there, the cab ride back to your B&B is not quick, and although the driver tries to bill you for a longer detour you are sure you did not take, you still know it took you more than forty minutes to reach your temporary home.
You are too devoid of energy to argue, you still do, as stubborn as ever and too broke to pay a hundred dollars for a 45-minute drive.
You end up paying the right price; you’ll have to flag down another cab once you’re ready to head back to the compound, but you are not too stressed about it.

Unsure of what you will need, you take your whole selection of manuals with you. Still willing to make at least a good job, thesis or not. Your unpacked trolley and your phone charger lazily dangling from a too far up outlet planted in the middle of the wall.

The room they gave you is not only small but cramped and dark too. You had not expected a suite, but that looks more like the old-fashioned version of the soldier's own room.
No white walls —Thankfully, you would have gotten crazy in a day instead of slowly falling into depression lulled by the cement tones— with a bed, a sink, a nook for a toilet and a shower and a desk.
Damn, that is depressing.
It’s clear someone in here doesn’t want you to be comfortable, probably looking forward to the moment you will throw in the towel and call it quits.
You don’t care, your old apartment in London had been shared with two Egyptian brothers and an overly enthusiastic, freshly moved, Balkan girl with a strong Serbian accent and a very poor English vocabulary.
You know how to make due.

Your computer is already stationed on your desk, you hastily dump your case over the worryingly thin mattress, a back pain waiting to happen, it’s already 1 pm, your stomach is rumbling and you desperately want to put something under your teeth, the very sad, very impersonal cafeteria in the building you had passed on your way back from your apartment calling you like a sirene.
You need energy, you need to eat and then start to grind.

You are barely one step out of your room when your body collides with someone.
A youthful and only half stern voice erupts from their chest, «Careful.»
The man you had bumped into is clad in a military uniform, not the colonel's one, but a very simple, very average-grade uniform, and he’s carrying a tray of food. You offer him a half-formed apology, the gears in your brain spinning on the thought: that cannot be your lunch. You had been told you were not a captive, and the slob on tray in his hands screams prison food.
You don’t even have the time to fully formulate any of the numerous questions festering in your brain when the military man resumes his previous trajectory and, surpassing you, keeps walking down the corridor.
Oh.
That is the Winter Soldier’s meal.

Your stomach does something ugly, it squeezes its own base at the very bottom of your tummy and churning painfully shoots you a dreadful feeling up your spine to the pit of your throat, your blinding hunger withers and dies, and something horribly akin to a retch almost triggers your gag reflex.

That was unpleasant.

It happens again, when in front of the cafeteria lady, you pay with a crumpled 5-dollar bill, the very appetising food looking back at you from the bowl it rests, not a tray, not a lump of unshaped food.
Dignity.
Your lunch has dignity.

You wish you could finish it, but you simply cannot.

The next five hours pass in a pile of old files you spend your afternoon sifting through; they are either terribly lacking in details or missing pages altogether, going back as far as the late 1950s. You knew the man was old, but god, he was ancient.

You don’t know him, you don't.
You should not be the one doing this; you have the distinctive feeling you are doing Satan’s work in looking for a reason to condemn him, but you push the thought down.
You are not, you are only trying to get an objective point of entry.

You are not looking for a fault, you are simply trying to understand what you should feel. You can build your thesis after that, you first need to understand what you think of him.
He’s dangerous, ruthless, piles of files tell you that but even you, after barely five hours of reading the reports, are growing desensitised.
No unnecessary violence, no cruelty, only mechanical volition.
No.
You scratch the last word scribbled on your tired notebook, the cardboard cover bent out of shape and fraying.
Volition is not the right word, he had not had any.
Your phone dings, a notification illuminates your face, but it’s only a spam text that had managed to get past the very lazy barrier your provider put up.
No reply yet.

You had tried something dumb, hell, the whole ordeal should be called that, but after finally getting your hands back on your phone, you had looked for Steve Rogers’ phone number.
Unsurprisingly, you had found nothing. But during your fruitless attempts you had found out Steve Rogers was still marked as a rogue agent alongside some names you had no idea who they belonged to.
Some had led to no one at all, until Sam Willson’s one had finally popped up.

Some pretty spectacular, low-quality videos later, you had decided that writing a mail to Sam Wilson —or “The Falcon”— had been your best shot at getting The Winter Soldier’s situation to Steve Rogers.

You are still waiting for a reply.
The cracked screen protection of your phone blinks back at you the very European setting of 19:34, your stomach protests for the almost skipped lunch, and your brain does that thing where, for a second, it feels way bigger than your cranium.
You crave a cigarette.
Or a lobotomy. Either should do the trick.

You shake your salad in its container, sitting cross-legged on the floor of the file room.
Something plain, something not too difficult to push down.
The “main” file is an account of the most recent evaluations the Soldier must have gone through; one report is from a psychiatrist but their evaluation is cut short, suddenly. Another is older, this time from a behaviouralist, but on the top page, a red writing you don’t recognise the penmanship of, states “unusable, out of date” in scribbled letters.
It’s from three months ago.
The other files are just plain medical mumbo-jumbo; you don’t even begin trying to dissect those, way too out of your field to understand anything of those entries at all.

You have the almost sure idea that he has been kept in that box for a little more than three months, a horrifying knowledge that almost makes you choke on an olive.
Three months roaming a two-by-two box with his hands confined in metallic shackles.
That has to be a violation of some convention.

You feel so bad for him. You cannot help it.

Your phone gives no sign of activity, you refresh your mail page but nothing changes.
The medical files are all too difficult for you to understand but some things you can still take as for set.
Some more futile details if you wish.
For example, he’s 6'0” sharp (183 cm Google supplies you for your own peace of mind), he’s 260 lbs (and you truly hope they are including the metal arm, otherwise the man would simply be an absolute weapon of packed muscles.) and has had two sessions of… chelation therapy? You don’t really know what that means, but you’ll Google it later.
You turn yet another page, reading the two remaining voices under “medical procedures under governmental care”, only to jot down on your notebook the word “Hemodialysis” already knowing what “stomach pumping” meant, having received one after a very nasty food poisoning that had not let you live up to your childhood nickname.
What truly puts you on edge, though, is the next page’s content.
A photo.

When you had entered the room that morning you had been scared. You had looked at your feet with insistence, almost stubbornly refusing to look up at him. So much so that if someone had put a gun to your nape and asked you to describe the Winter Soldier, you wouldn’t have known how to save your life.
You can’t truly recall any details to memory, you can only make a half-decent job recollecting his general shapes and colours, but even your stubborn ignorance could not have prevented you from noticing immediately just how much wrong the difference had been.

The man hauntingly looking up to you from the flipped page is a broken one, true, but at least healthy-looking. It suddenly clicks into place just how much skinnier the man in the cell had looked, something you had not noticed immediately due to your damned stubborness.
Unlike the man in the photo, the one you had met had looked carved out of his own flesh and bones, completely hollowed out.

You shakily unclip the portrait from the dossier, twisting it in your fingers. In the back, a date.
Three months ago. The photo had been taken only three months ago.
Another horrible growl in the depths of your stomach rumbles.

Criminal or not, you need to pull him out of here.

Almost on cue, your phone chimes.

Chapter Text

The girl was soft, some youthful fat still clinging to her cheeks, a heart-shaped face with soft eyes and the distinctive features of someone who grew up in good conditions.

She talked a lot, fidgeted a lot, spoke with her hands.
She would go crazy in his situation, hands tied and silence filling the aseptic room.

But she has no business being in his situation; only monsters end up in his situation.


Time passes, the lights dim.

He will not see her again.
Better to close the memory in a sealed-tight container in his brain, less messy, more organised, no stray thoughts confusing his order.

The soldier closes his eyes and sits on the metal bench bolted to the side of his glass cube.
Forget her.
She had not accepted the job. He had told her not to.


Steps, an irregular heartbeat, something weirdly spaced, too much adrenaline in the body hosting that heart.
«Contrary to popular request, I accepted the job.»


Fool.


«I spoke to some guards, and I guess I can give you this. They were kinda unprepared for the request.»
A giggle, true, no, nervous.
Fake, no, still true.
Chatty.

She’s dressed the same way, not much must have passed; he doesn’t know.
A t-shirt, graphic, literally, some sort of rat wearing a spiked collar, a messy font saying something the creases of the shirt do not allow him to decipher; jeans, worn, old, borderline unsalvageable, sneakers.
A messy rhythm in her chest.

She’s carrying a package.

Files, missions, reports.

Bread.

What?

She takes it out of the brown bag, gets closer, scared, still scared.
Unsteady heartbeat, fast, then slow, then fast again. No. Not adrenaline. Something else.
The bread gets put on a paper plate, in the slot in his cage for feeding.
Waiting.

«There, eat.»
An order.
A new handler? HYDRA?
Hesitation.
He should not hesitate.
«Or don’t! You can choose.» A choice, not a handler. Softness, not HYDRA.
«I just— I saw your dossier, and the photo.» What photo? Photos of his missions? Horrors, her heartbeat unsteady, something that had shaken her. Fear? No, she doesn’t beat to the rhythm of fear.
«And you looked way healthier.»
He’s functional.

«So, you know, I thought you could use some more food.
Anyway, this morning, you knew I was there, didn’t you?».
Such casualty, such disorienting honesty. She knows.
«Could you see us through the mirror?».
She knows and she doesn’t. She observes.

Us, two heartbeats, the older man beats at a sick rhythm, old, dying. She beats faster, like a mouse. Something small and full of adrenaline.
How has she noticed?
Sharper, a threat, she could be a threat.
«Are we alone right now?»

Not what he expected.
Is she scared of it?
Good. Who wouldn’t be?

He nods.
«Good.»
Yes— what?
«I contacted Sam Wilson.» The man in the tight car? «To get to Mister Rogers the news you are here, but— god, I don’t know what I was expecting but I wasn’t expecting that, he thinks you already are in hiding with Captain America, he’s adamant about it… I— I don’t know what I’m doing, shit, were you captured with him? Is he like, detained too?»

No plan, no plan is a bad plan, the girl is unprepared, not a threat. In danger.

«Fuck. Can I take a bite?» She paces the room, nervous, heartbeat spiking, doesn’t wait for a response, nobody ever does.
A stress eater.
Not poisoned, the sandwich is safe.
He’s starving.
«Sorry, I have another one—»
«No.»

Silence.
Her cheek protruding, mid-chew.
«You don’t want it?»

When you are in a cage, you don’t get to want.
How did he forget something as simple as that?

«You want… This one?»
Observant.
«It has the same filling— Oh, oh, okay, here, sorry about the bite.»

He’s starving.
She’s no capturer, she’s buzzing, stressed, soft. Still chewing.
Swallowing.
Safe.

It tastes better than anything he has ever eaten.
It’s the hunger speaking, but it speaks truths.

The food is gone in under a minute, clean, efficient. Still starving.

«Do you want the other one too?»
He does, he really does.

Another plate, clean, new.
Soft, she is carelessly soft.

Silence.
Waiting.
He’s starving.
«What?» A laugh, soft, breezy, true. Not nervous. «Do you want me to bite that one too?» a joke, another laugh.
Faltering.
Silence.
«Do you want me to?»
A frown.

A nod. From the soldier.
«Oh, um, okay.»
A smaller bite.
«There, started.»

She is not swallowing.
A trap, he should have known, was the rest of the food given to him poisoned too? Was it—

Gulp.

She swallowed it.

«Oh no, shit, you are right this one has mayo.»




.
Chatty.
So chatty.

She sits on the chair, then on the floor, one file becomes two, then three and then four.
She speaks a lot.
He has to respond.
No, he doesn’t have to; something else.
Maybe he needs to.
«Okay, this one.» Another file pressed to his glass.
«Was that you?» another question.
The same answer: Another nod.

December 16th 1991
Yes.

«Fuck dude, that’s bad.»
No judgment, only a remark. Not toward him, a casual one.
Not efficient.

If people had words instead of days to live, she would have been dead at two.

«Shit, I haven’t even offered you water.»
She licks a thumb, ink staining it.
A bad taste, bitter.
He knows, but he doesn’t know why.
A camping bottle, a cup.
«Here. Should I bite the cup?» Another joke, not mocking, only teasing.
Laughter, soft laughter.
Freely given.

«A sip.»
«Oh, okay, sorry. Lousy mouth.»

The water is safe, she sloshes it in her mouth and swallows it. Safe.

«Are we still alone?»
A nod.

«Alright, man, I really don’t think you should be rotting in here, but if Steve himself is being detained, I don’t know what I, mind you not being a lawyer, can do for you.»

«Steve’s free. In hiding.»
«What?
Are you sure? Then I have to tell him, shit, I need a photo of you, a recording, something to give to Sam—»
«He won’t come.»
She freezes, truly, finally, no nervous fidgeting, no absentminded movements, true stillness.
He feels better, something in her nervousness clings to him.
Better like this.
Undisturbed, empty.

«But… but it’s… It’s you.»

Something squeezes his chest.
It’s him.
That’s why no one will come.
«He cares about you.»
No, no, he doesn’t care about him.
A cancer, a sickness, an illness.

«No.»
«Why wouldn’t he?» she presses. Insistent, petulant. «He does, he screwed his whole career for you, he must—»
For him, for him, not for him.
«He won’t.»

Uneven beats, nervous, no, frustrated, no, something else.
«Why. Because you think he wouldn’t? People are weird, dude. You don’t really get to understand their feelings most of the time.»

«Because I took the shot.»




————
The phrase rings hollow, an unspoken continuation lingering in the blindingly empty room.
You can’t decipher it, you don’t know where to look for an answer. He’s written in an alphabet you don’t know.
You don't understand who he is trying to convince, is it you? You doubt it, yet somehow it's truly difficult not to believe him, he doesn't look anxious, he doesn't look backed into a corner, he just looks empty.

And angry. Not blatantly, deeply, under layers of nothingness.
So deeply angry.
The pen clenched in your fist creaks, or maybe your joints do, it’s hard to tell, you are gripping too hard.
«How many of those you killed did you personally know?» Sifting through files, your notebook, the worn cover, the bent rings, you refilled it for the occasion, back in the UK, back when you had still thought you would have taken notes on a criminal, a serial killer, cowering behind rows of medics and therapists.
He snaps, like a rubber band just waiting for the last yank.
«Some—»
«Not as Bucky Barnes.» This time is your index knuckle, a low creak, the grating of bones. The quiet in a chaotic place, something misplaced and alien.
His silence, your creaking, you two are like a haunted house.
Chaotic, silent, tired.


«None.»
Keep pushing, keep pressing until he cannot but tell you, you must, it's an itch you can't scratch otherwise.
«And how many do you remember?»
Stillness, calm, something misplaced. Wrong.
«All of them.»

Your knuckle pops. Painfully and satisfyingly
There you go.
«I don’t think an unsalvageable man would remember even one.»

He hadn’t said that; you had heard it.


The pen scratches, you hum lowly, mumbling your own thoughts to not let a single phrase get lost in the labyrinth of your horribly messy mind.

His voice is soft, his words are not. «Quit it.»

The job? You are not even sure you still can.
It’s such a small peep, not the order he gave you yesterday.
"Don’t take the job." You are so stubborn.
No, this one is fragile, almost shy. You don’t expect it to escalate. It does, but instead of roaring lowly in anger, it just grows heavier, tired.
«Don’t make me think I could be good.»
Until his words soften.
«It hurts.»

Your heart shatters for the man; you don't pity him, but you ache.
Deeply and freely. You bleed for him.

And yet you must press, because nothing comes without a price, and you have a job, and for how much he hates you for doing this to him, you have to.
You know no other way to save him.
«It wouldn’t stop. Even if I quit.»


You let him be at peace for a while, you try to stay still while scratching some notes on your notebook. You have noticed how much he relaxes when you just stop existing in the loud way you have always existed, but it’s hard for you.
Your leg begs to be bounced, your fingers gather air in your knuckle pleading you to just pop them and after that keep twisting and cracking until your joints ache and your pads tingle.
«Do you want me to go?» It’s an honest question, one you are positive will receive an honest answer.
You don’t think he likes you that much, it makes sense, you are not exactly the quiet type, and he looks constantly dipped in silence.

Surprisingly, he shakes his head.
This time, you don’t press further; you just acknowledge it with a nod and resume your work.


Your eyes grow heavy, you can feel his eyes on you, but it’s less and less unnerving by the hour.
He’s empty once more, no more anger, not the speckle of bottomless sadness you had glimpsed.
Only empty. Waiting.

«I think I should let you sleep.» You finally declare, getting up from your contorted position on the floor and popping as silently as possible your stiff back.
He doesn’t respond.
You collect your things, buzzing the intercom beside the door.
You wave at him, a tight-lipped smile more focused on being quiet and not overly you than polite.

A couple of seconds pass, nothing happens, then a full minute goes by, still nothing, you try the door handle, then you buzz again.
Nothing.

«They went to sleep.»

«You are not surveilled 24/7?» Well, that was rude, but something is gnawing at the bottom of your stomach and you are pretty sure it’s anxiety clawing its way back from where you had tried to bury it.

«The food.
It has tranquillisers.»

«What— No! I would never—»
«Not yours.»

Oh.
Oh, this is messed up.


«Well that is fucked up.»
You warned him, everything going on up there must find a way to get out.
You simply cannot keep a thought to yourself.

The room fills with silence once more.
You spin on your heels, then slowly slide your way to the floor, tiredly sliding down the walls.

«I guess we’ll just have a sleepover then.»

The thought unnerves you, and you doubt you’ll be able to close an eye, but the man doesn’t need to know this.
«Do the lights turn off?»

Silence.
You are probably annoying him.
Scratch that, you are definitely annoying him, hell, you are annoying yourself.
«Нет.»

Silence.
You should maintain it.
«Animals.»
No inner thoughts, right.




.

1st day of the 1st week: morning.

If you had not closed an eye, you would not find yourself opening both of them, back stiff, your shoulder being shaken.
«Ma’am, ma’am, what are you doing here?»
Oh, the kid from yesterday, the guard bringing the soldier his mixture of gruel and tranquillisers.
You want to reprise him, to ask, “Do you know they are sedating him?” without caring about any consequence at all, if not for the hope of changing the way things are being done, at least to make someone face the objective cruelty of their own practices.
But even though you still need to reboot properly, and you still struggle to keep your own thoughts to yourself, you know that stating what you now know could not be a good move.
What if he was not supposed to know? What if your lousy mouth ended up making things worse for him?

«Ma’am?»

James’ eyes are already on you, of course they are, what were you expecting? But something is amiss, there is a certain tension in his jaw, something deeply unnerving given the fact it’s distressing to the Winter Soldier.
His eyes dart to the younger man in uniform, you can feel the faint buzzing of metal somewhere in the room.

Something is really tense in here, and it’s not your creaking back.

You jump up, knees popping loudly, a surge of nervousness punching a laugh out of your mouth.
«Well, I need to shower.»
The kid follows your moves, a machine gun you had not noticed strapped to his torso, dangling between your bodies.
«Ma'am, I’m sorry I left you here—»
«No harm done, kid. I had a lovely pyjama party, now please, I really need to pee.»
And with a quick handwave, you bid goodbye to the man in the cage and shove past the door.

You had not lied.
You need to pee so badly.



.
”He has a mole on the left side of his forehead. He’s being sedated and kept in a locked container.
Believe me, he is not free. Please, I really don’t know what I should do to help him.
This is my phone number. I’m begging you to give it to Steve Rogers.”

Well, there is no harm in trying; you still firmly believe that if only Captain America knew, he would come barging through the door to rescue his friend. You simply have to tell him.


You are barely out of the most uncomfortable, cramped and cold shower you have ever taken that your phone starts ringing.

«Hello?»
«You are in a very bad situation.
Whatever you are doing in there, stop. I’m saying this for your own good. You sound like a sweet girl, and I get that you want to make things right, but there is nothing to be set straight in this situation.
Please.
Go as far as you can from that man.»

Silence engulfs you, something rings hollow in your ears, a piercing sound that makes you shiver.
«Steve Rogers, I gather.»

«I’m sorry you find yourself in this situation, whatever your job is, drop it.
I’m truly sorry.»
Prick, you had known the Winter Soldier for less than a day and you are more set on helping him than his life-long best friend.

A coward and a prick.

«Yeah me too, I thought Captain America had more spine than whatever the fuck you have.
Have a nice day, sir. I’m not quitting.»

«You should—»

The line cuts, your thumb stays pressed on the red button, something boils deep in your chest, so furiously that you almost think sleeping in the same room with the Soldier had made you cling onto some of his repressed and deep anger.


Alone in the world, he is alone in the world.
«FUCK!»

Chapter Text

The cafeteria lady doesn’t look at you.
Your ears ring, the rush of your blood in your ears sings loudly.
You can’t fixate on the money.
He’s alone in the world. You are alone in this.
A life depends on you.
«I’m sorry, what?» The lady at the counter looks at you unimpressed, shoves your three sandwiches to the side and taps a finger over the display blinking $6.45.

It’s fine, you can do this.
«Yeah, right, sorry.»

The file room is still an impressive mountain of boxes and papers; you don’t even think you can read all of them in a week, let alone study them. You’ll just have to skim through some of them, probably most; the box you had shoved some stray dossier into weighs more than you had expected, the brown bag dangles from your clutched hands, your water flask perched on the top.

The young man in uniform opens the door for you.
«Thanks.» You murmur back, he smiles, but your attention is already to the man you were there to see.

«Hello. -You look around, no clock in sight, damn, that must be alienating.- It’s almost 2 pm, 1:40 or something like that. So… good evening, I guess. Have you had lunch yet?»

Silence obviously greets you, but the military boy still standing at the door responds for him.
«He did, ma’am.» And with that, the door clicks shut behind you.

«I got you sandwiches.»

Apparently, you still need to take a bite out of them; you don’t really get why, but if that’s what it takes for him to eat, then you’ll gladly do it.

Like a band-aid, you know it will hurt, but you have to. 
One deep breath. «I had a heart-to-heart with Steve Rogers.» 
He stops chewing. 
Frozen. 
Like a band-aid, come on… and yet you don’t know how to break the news to him; he was so adamant Captain America would not have come back for him, but you had told him he would have, you had been so sure. 
You feel like you have let him down, but you can’t lie.

«I’m so sorry,» silence, acceptance.
That is no band-aid at all.
That hurts. You can feel it.

He returns to his meal. «A-and I’m sorry for what I said.
I still believe you don’t deserve to rot in this place.
I guess… —god, you are rambling again— I guess it’s just one less of us thinking it.
No big deal, you lose some, you win some. We’ll make do.»
No reaction.

The first sandwich is gone, wolfed down in one go, you step closer, fishing the second one out of the bag and mindlessly tearing a small corner and plopping it into your mouth.

He looks at you, deeply, and menacingly, but you don’t really feel the threat; you are beginning to feel like this is his natural state of existing: on high alert, always ready to strike; as if there wasn’t any true active intention behind his unnerving presence.
Only a blanket of primal instinct following him around.

«You shouldn’t have taken the job.»
You swallow the piece of bread you’ve been chewing for what feels like minutes and shift your eyes over his body, looking at him.
A chuckle leaves your lips, you pour him a cup of water and take a small sip before depositing that too on the tray entrance.
«Yeah, broken record, tell me something you haven’t told me yet.»

He drinks. Eagerly and quickly.

And you are supposed to betray him, to write page after page of dripping venom on this poor, broken man.
Assassin, he was still an assassin, but the more you thought of him as one the less you felt afraid and the more you felt like bleeding.
Aching.
The devil’s work, you are supposed to do the devil’s work.

«Do you know what my job is in here?»
A moment passes, you are still holding onto your untouched lunch. He had cleaned off his own without leaving a single crumb.
«Here, have mine too.»
The small bite you force yourself to swallow is all bread and scrape your dry throat falling down.

«Evaluate.»

You chuckle, dry, without any real mirth behind it.
«I wish. I’m supposed to look at you and write about how evil blooms inside a man for no reason at all, I’m supposed to say you are rotten to your core.» Your head falls back, your eyes sting.

«I read your files, and all of them are missions, all of them are actions, not reasons, not your thoughts, I guess that’s the point.
To just see the action, never the motivation.»
Silence keeps its tight hold on your throat, it makes breathing harder. It’s painful.

«And yet I look at you and I only have questions.»
If you are doing the devil’s work, then you must be the devil.

«I took the shot.»

He did; there are mountains of files proving that.
But the question remains, the only one you should have really asked.
«But did you want to?»

—————
He knows this protocol. Carrot and stick.
The bread is the carrot.
Her softness is the carrot.
Then where is the stick?

«I can’t.
I can’t tell them you are a monster…»
Irregular beats, uneven, wrong.

She is wrong.

Something falls down her cheek, he doesn’t understand.

«Why did you take the shot?»

That one he knows.
«Orders must be obeyed.»

«Why?»

Insistent, pressing.
She is difficult to swallow, to exist in her orbit.
She pulls, and pushes, and asks.

He doesn’t want to respond.
No, he cannot want, he… He doesn’t… He doesn’t—
He has to.

His chest is squeezing, not functional; he is not functional.
No, he always must be.

Shallow breaths.
He—
«Please.
Please just give me something.»

An order, no. Please. A plea, a request.

«Training.»
A safe answer.
He is trained.

She looks at him, he knows that look.
His victims, kneeling before him, his gun to their heads.
Pleading.

Hurt, he hurts.
Pain is irrelevant.
He can not feel.

Shallow breaths, hers, soft, his, hollow.

A beat, unsure, fragile, wrong.
She feels wrong.

«Do you think you should be in here?»

Silence.
One minute, two minutes.

The scratching of her pen.

Time passes, he waits, the same routine over and over again.
He watches her. Soft, jittery, never still.
She’s chaotic, it’s hard to witness, hard to accept.
Movements are meant for purposes, an action requiring a reason, a reaction.
Reason.

Why did he take the shot?
No.

Why must orders be obeyed?
No. Stop.

Actions and reactions.

Cryo was better. No, he cannot have preferences.

Cryo was easier.
Yes, cryo was easier.

But in cryo, there wasn’t any woman to observe, no bouncing legs, no popping knuckles.

Her neck, loud and deep, followed by her shoulders.
He knows the sound, the creaking sound of joints, he had caused it, then he had pushed beyond, bending, snapping.
A sigh.

Her sigh.
Satisfaction.
No. Tiredness.
Then a deep breath. Exhale.

Soft.
Safe even if unpredictable.

Safe.

«I’ll leave you to rest a bit…» hesitant, lingering, suspended on a string.
Not gracious, only losing her balance.
«Will you think about it? Please…»

The door closes in a soft click, the lights flicker for a second, he follows her uneven heartbeat down the corridor until even his ears lose the frantic clicking of worn shoes falling into place with the soft thuds of her heart’s voice.

—————
Your room is depressing, your computer is dangerously hot, and the fans are loudly spinning in their case, making your own thoughts spin at the same dizzying speed.

You got yourself into the messiest mess you could have stuck your stupid head into.

The blinking cursor on your pc stares idly at you, the blank page makes your stomach twist.

You turn to your notebook, your messy notes scattered in all kinds of directions over crumpled paper. Your handwriting had always mirrored the way you felt; you were taught how to write neatly, in cursive with pretty pens now lost to time. With metal nibs and ink that had stained your fingers and had looked messy only on your hands, a pretty handwriting that during your school years had morphed into a mess slanted on every side possible, with black boxes furiously scratched over, covers for your mistakes rendering them impossible to know and yet impossible to miss.
Unreadable.

There are dozens of tabs open on your pc, another mess you have no idea how to tackle.

You had stumbled upon tons of forums on the whole Avengers thing, but only some serious fanatics seemed to know about the “Winter Soldier Rabbit hole”, as they call it. It helps that loads of files had been released to the public in 2014, giving your case enough time to sit and brew tons of conspiracy theories and paths for you to follow, trying to piece things back together, given your extensive possibility of knowledge.
Yup, because that’s what you have, potential knowledge, not yet yours, only there for you to grasp it.
But you also have little to no time.
The game had been rigged from the start, giving you a semblance of possibility while trimming your wings each hour spent not even making a dent in the monstrous mountain of files and reports.

In all honesty, you know you are being used as a scapegoat, you accepted, so that means they can say he had been followed by someone, he had had help, and that same help had deemed him unfit for civil life, for life altogether.

It’s a scam, you know that much.
And yet you dive deeper into rabbit holes found in forums that make your antivirus notify you every five minutes, and your fans work overtime as if you had not paid your pc a hundred bucks and a smile.

You build something, a painstakingly long process that drags well into the night and the early hours of the morning, you build it slowly, eroding your delete button. You don’t know how to structure your thesis. Is it supposed to be a statement? An advocacy? An accusation? Something needing to be written in legal terms?

Since you don’t know any, you just stopped wrapping your head around things you cannot control, and you simply started doing what you know how to do.

Your text is based on your knowledge; you had studied Ethics in university, it had been your favourite course. And the little dissertation you are setting up shows it.

You doubt the jury would understand a single thing you’ll write if you let yourself run wild, so you try your best to keep it simple, not too in-depth, not too contorted.
You still have time to weigh your options, to carefully decide where to load the heavy stuff and where to simply draft some edges of monoliths of topics.

Your focal points are essentially two:
-The recurring memory wiping with annexed brainwashing
-And the brutalisation of a man until nothing of previous morality and ethics had remained.
The existence of said man, still there, still buried.
Left alone to rot in his own mind.

You had argued, citing names you had then found more opportune to summarise in a note at the end of the page, that James Buchanan Barnes had been conditioned into doing what he had been ordered to do.

It’s a contrite argument, but it’s genuinely the only thing you can think of.
He doesn’t speak to you, why would he? He doesn’t even know you. And for how much you can pull out of the magician's hat, you simply don’t know how to navigate such a complex situation with only theories constantly put to the test and infinite mental jerking-off sessions that only give you a different view and never a definitive answer.

You wish you had stayed in law school, or that you had followed your high school teacher’s suggestion and gone for psychology, but you had followed your heart and dived into Philosophy as if it would have brought you to something more than a life full of bigger questions and nothing at all to help the man counting on you.

You simply don’t know, and although the Socratic paradox might have comforted you when you had spent your night studying for exams seemingly impossible to pass, right now, it’s only putting you down.

Your phone rings its alarm. It’s 7:30 in the morning, you haven't slept a wink, and in an hour or two, it will show on your face, it’s already showing on your slumped shoulders.

.
2nd day of the 1st week: morning.

«Do you like coffee?»

Gently shuts behind your back, a fresh batch of dossiers and files is piled into your arms, culminating in two steaming mugs of porcelain, deep and full.

The man behind the glass wall remains silent.
Not that you had expected something else.

The liquid gurgles, and you struggle for a while with your own nightmare of a structure. Once the files are finally down at your feet, you pluck both of your mugs and, taking a —scolding— sip from both of them, you offer one to him.

«Just found out that if you bring your own cup, the cafeteria lady only charges you 50 cents, isn’t it great?»

Another stretch of silence.
That you expected, but James also seems not to make a single move for the coffee.
«You don’t like coffee?»
Silence.
«It’s yours if you want it.»

A minute must have passed.
You feel both stupid and restless.
«I’ll leave it there in case you change your mind.»

He doesn’t respond; he’s a complete blank slate of pure nothingness. You try to pry answers from his sealed lips, but nothing comes out of them.
He doesn’t eat or drink, you swallow down half a sandwich you later puke in the narrow bathroom of your room.
Chest tight and eyes heavy.
Something ugly grips your stomach, and you wish you had puked it out along with your scarce lunch.

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

So if you don’t retreat in fear, if you don’t stumble back, then what do you do?
You just stare.
The nature documentary you had watched with lazy interest, too tired to get up and change the channel, would argue that that is the worst strategy you could muster up, but you are completely frozen.
You cannot will your legs to move if your life depended on it.
It feels like it does.
And yet you stay.

«No.»
«So he just… decided he… couldn’t help you?»

Silence keeps ringing in your ears, heavy and dense, but it’s not filled with fear or nervousness; it’s just… charged.
«No.»
You do feel unsafe, so close to the man and the entry point.
No.
One step forward, three steps back.

«You do know that our time is running out, right?»
The man doesn’t nod, but you know he registers everything you say. You just hope your honesty will somehow get through to him.
«I don’t know if I can win this, I don’t even know what winning would entice. —you take a deep breath, you must tell him, you must tell him now.— There is a chance Steve Rogers will be at the process… testifying against you.
I’m sorry.»

——————
Cold, what is this feeling? Cold, nothing else but cold.
Light, no, lightness, a sense of purity.
Freedom, no, freewill.
It’s tight around his neck; it tastes bitter.

It’s being ripped off his skin.
Painfully. 
Stop, stop, please stop.
He doesn’t want to lose it; he has just found it, he doesn’t want.

He wants… what does he want? What could he want? He cannot want; there is nothing in yearning that belongs to him.

What a silly thought to have.
For him to want.
Silly.

«There is a chance Steve Rogers will be at the process… testifying against you.
I’m sorry.»

I’m sorry.
She’s sorry.
For what? He does not feel nor want; he’s nothing but a shell, a machine, a gun.

She’s sorry.
It feels good.
For some reason, it does.

.
.
.
The light buzzes, she bleeds, she bleeds so easily, tearing at the corners of her nails, blood, thick, flowing in rivulets, dense, wrong.
Too much for a simple scratch.
A dying beat, sick, and ill.

A drop falls, crimson red onto cold white.
It could sizzle; it doesn’t, but for all he knows, it could; as if he hadn’t been born bathed in blood.
She’s so warm, so close. So real.

Complete, not a scratched idea like him, a discarded piece of bones and skin.
She’s full.

Soft.

A nail digs in too deep, her face scrunches up, she whines. The soldier, in his memory, brands with fire her every movement.
She winces, her lip purses, her eyes twitch.
She’s an open book, not safe, not venomous.
Only truthful.

Soft, so maddeningly soft.

She will not win, she cannot, she has been set up not to and somewhere deep inside him, the soldier feels sad, for a woman that suffers for him, dark circles under her eyes and pale skin stretching thin over her cheeks.

She can not win this fight; she should never have accepted the job. She should tap out as soon as possible; the sooner the better.
Except.
Except he cannot will himself into telling her.
He simply can’t.

«Well, I need to use my pc, I guess I’m out for the night, unless… do you… You know what, actually I don’t need it, do you mind if I stay?» She’s fidgeting once more, rambling on nothing at all, 
«No.»
«You mind or…?»
«Stay.»
«Okay, loud and clear.»
She scratches at her knuckles, a nervous habit, not a violent one; he feels naïve for having thought her capable of violence.

«Thanks.»

The guard enters the room.
«Ma’am, it’s 2 am, you should s—»
«It’s alright! You can go.»

.
.
.
Thanks
He thanked her.
Why?

The night passes, and by morning, he still hasn’t a definitive answer.

——————
You are left with two days, your argumentation is mostly finished, it needs to be polished but to do that you’ll have to leave the room and possibly disappear in your room in an adderal induced frantic rush from the remaining time you have.
You plan to use the following week to train him for the process, what to say to support your thesis and how to respond so that he doesn't sound like a robot but a human being worth saving.
No, bad wording, not worth saving, but rather in need of being helped.

«If I hope to finish this in time I need to go, I’ll still be back with lunch and dinner, well, additional lunch and dinner, but I don’t think I’ll be able to stay and chat a lot, you good with this?» You’re sure he is, the idea of being left in peace, you fear, it might actually be beautiful to him.
Still, you ask.
And as expected, you simply receive a nod in response.
Oki doki 

It’s on your last night that you come across it, cross legged on the file room you had made a second home of.
It’s in a folder, and it’s not the original, only photocopies of aged pages.
And although the content is horrifying, you had wondered where the original had ended up.

The answer you are looking for stares at you from the first page of the dossier.
“Propriety of the United States of America, original material in possession of the State’s military.”

That might be useful.

You hand in your report on Monday morning. The colonel glosses it over with disinterest; you barely breathe.
«Not one for rules are we?»
«It’s my objective interpretation.» The two words clash together, you know it, and yet you can’t think of anything more fitting.
The older man hums, fishing for what you assume would be a cigar.
«You did good, use this week wisely.»
You have no idea for what team he’s playing; the notion unnerves you, the advice sticks.

«Hi…»
The door clicks open; to your side, with a foot jammed in between its hinges and the metal plate, you try to keep it open. After two days of barely even seeing him, you feel as if somehow you had regressed to square one.
But he looks up to you. And somewhere in those empty glaciers, you see a flicker of recognition.

«I got us steak.»
It had cost you well over what you had appointed for day-to-day consumption, but after leaving him all alone for the past two days, you feel like he may be in need of a pick-up.
That, of course, if he had even registered your absence, let alone disliked it.
You try not to dwell on the thought.

You finally manage to enter the room, the stacked dossiers topped with the brown bag where you had stashed your dinner, not an easy tower of precarious equilibrium to manoeuvre. The door bangs in its hinges, you expect the man to jolt straighter, to look at you wrong or even curse you, but he simply watches you, eyes empty, almost bored.

«Sorry.
And sorry in advance for the state it’s in.
They confiscated the cutlery, so I had to improvise.
Here, steak morceau, or toddler-sized bites, whatever tickles your fancy.»

When you finally free yourself from the mess of files, you get closer, propping the paper bag on your leg and beginning to unravel the lunch.
«To you it might have been a vacation without me, but believe it or not, I missed you.»
You drag the sole chair beside the opening, the smoking platter in between you two.
«Are you hungry?»
The man seems lost.
«Do you want me to take a bite?—» oh, ah, the steak is cut. Every piece a ticking bomb ready to explode.
You had understood the strange habit the moment he had told you they spike his food, a lingering fear everything he is offered might be his last meal, but like that, you are in a predicament.

«Ah, yeah, that was dumb from me.» Your head runs in circles like a decapitated chicken, desperate for a solution, then you remember the condiments.
«Okay, idea!» you rummage through the bag for a minute, then, almost stupidly triumphant, you emerge from it with the hot sauce.
«Okay close your eyes. I’m gonna put hot sauce under a piece and you’ll do the same. You can eat whatever piece you want, but every other turn, you get to tell me which one to eat. But! You can’t make me eat the spicy one. If I got it before you find mine you win; if not, then I do.» It’s an idiotic game, some sort of contorted Russian roulette, playing with your very delicate stomach, but you hope it will work, you truly spend too much on the steak, and you bought so much of it you are afraid you won’t be able to finish it in the remaining week.
There is silence for a second, then he stares at you.
Impossibly blue eyes boring into your soul. «You first.»

You manage to survive six rounds.
Then the tingling sensation hits your taste buds like a train wreck.
You wave a hand in front of your open mouth like a damned idiot, not daring to swallow the chunk and yet unable to spit it out.
«Fuck, fuck, fuck, how much did you put?!»
His laugh is sharp and low, barely audible, and yet you hear it.
Of course, the fucker would rejoice in seeing you suffer.
And yet you cannot shake the bubbly feeling that seizes your throat at the idea of having managed to make him laugh.

.
3rd day of the 2nd week.
«Okay, maybe it’s better if you don’t talk at all. No big deal, right? You love awkward silences.» as if to prove your own point, he stares at you in complete silence, but there is a pettiness in the gesture you almost feel as if it has been done with intent.
Or maybe you are just losing your marbles. 

.
4th day of the 2nd week
«We won’t plead Insanity, for my thesis, it makes little to no sense, it still makes you guilty even if for rightful causes, that is, of course, if I’m your defender, which I hope I will not be, otherwise follow your attorney’s guidance.
You crane your neck and stare upward at him. You have no idea when you started to feel so at ease, you had decided to ditch the chair in favour of sitting back to his glass box, but you did, and now you almost feel as if you had gone back to your days in London when you had repeated your studying material to the glass panel of your shower while Sanja had murmured some empty encouragements from underneath a cloud of steam and bubbles.
«We should plead Diminished Capacity even if it’s more of an European thing, but I’m sure it will count regardless. I found a ton of POW cases similar to yours. I’m starting to think it might actually work.»

The rest of your days slip in heavy silence and your wining plea to respond to your attempts at a process, he is hardly cooperative, but you try to make do.
You can’t forge more time nor a relationship that’s not there at all.
He trusts you marginally, but somewhere deep inside your soul, you know that might not be enough.

The night before the process, you dare a hand over his imprisoned ones, you try to sound convincing while you tell him you both got this, but in your shaky voice, all your fears must be obvious.

The next day, you shower, you dress in the only formal attire you own, and you pray to the god you don’t believe in to assist you.

Colonel Thompson is waiting for you in front of a black SUV, military, no, maybe something else, you don’t know.
Surprisingly, he’s not smoking; he’s simply leaning against the car door.

«We won’t have an attorney, won’t we?» The landscape rolls away from you, outside the car, it’s a beautiful mid-January day; you’d give your pinkie to spend it elsewhere, anywhere else.
«You’ll suffice.»
No, you won’t.

You embark on a plane, private, the Colonel still at your side. You don’t even have the time to register you are being tossed around, nor to panic over your missing passport, that you get stuffed in the plane, the seatbelt clicks shut on your lap, and although you are almost certain it will open if you press the central button, you don’t confirm it, too scared of what the opposite would mean.
You know nothing at all; you are being thrust into this case blindfolded and scared; if you doubted you could win this before, now, you are sure you can’t.

When you land, you are not even given the time to focus on where you are, on what the hell is going on, that they put you in another car, smaller, not as flashy.

The Hague International Criminal Court stands ominously before you. This is real, so very real, there is no emergency exit for you, no turnout to stop and veer yourself into the opposite direction, you are trapped, no turning back now.

The court is massive; it towers over you far more than any classroom ever has. You are not taking an exam; your career doesn’t depend on this, but the life of a man does.
You dwell in your own thoughts, holding onto your notes, onto the little notebook that had accompanied you since your very first day of university, back in another state, back when life was easier and you were just a student battling against money and poorly planned housing. The courtroom fills, you look frantically around you, faces you don’t recognise, journalists, some cameramen, and then you see him.
Not who you were looking for, but still. The man of the hour, Steve Rogers, enters the room quietly, his stature towering over any other person in the massive space, and behind him… your… client?
You’ll fumble over the proper wording another time; this is not the moment. What baffles you is that that is not James Buchanan Barnes, at least not how you had known him.
The man following Steve Rogers is the one in the photo you still hold onto, the one found on one of the first alienating nights you have spent inside the almost prison. Tall, healthy.
Scared.

What—

You don’t even have the time to ask yourself further questions than both doors leading inside open.
The Winter Soldier, no, your James, gets escorted inside by five men heavily armed, wearing a muzzle and heavy shackles made out of something black and shiny.
You stand confused and horrified, lost, so utterly lost.
There are two of them, a lost man and a machine, a weapon.
An innocent and an assassin.

The judge enters last and sits. Colonel Thompson urges you to do the same; you crumble to your seat.
Your whole line of defence bleeding at your feet.
You are doomed.
You had been from the start. 
The process begins.

Chapter Text

They talk about a Regeneration Cradle, a thin woman presents what you gather is something massive for the medical field, she speaks animatedly about a gruesome process, something you gag at barely imagining it, she points at James, then at the version of him you had learned to care for, she uses words that makes your skin crawls with such careless your ears start ringing.
You feel a panic attack coming. Evidence gets shown, the gruesome tapes of his executions, his attacks. But you can’t have it now; you are the sole person standing on his side, you simply can’t; you swallow it down like a bitter-taste medicine, your palms sweating as countless agents speak, your defence sinking before it could even take off.
Then Steve Rogers speaks, and your heart shatters.
«I’ve done what was necessary. The man standing trial is the literal embodiment of James Barnes’ crimes, I’ve brought to you the part of himself that should be prosecuted.
All the horrors he did stem from that man and that man alone, if you want justice you’ll apply it to the real culprit.»

«I remember waking up and not knowing where I was, after I fled conditioning— After I left Steve on the riverside, I went into hiding. Some days it was me, others… others it was him.
I remember waking up not knowing if I had killed the night prior, not knowing what had happened for an entire week, sometimes more.
When Steve found me two years later, I was scared. When he proposed Doctor Cho’s experimental… cure, I wanted to try; I was tired of being afraid of myself. Not in control.
But I— I don’t think he’s inherently evil…»
The last fragment, the last words softly whispered by James Buchanan Barnes are barely audible; he struggles to hold eye contact, head downcast, deep dark circles under tired eyes.
He looks haunted.
You barely have the time to rejoice at the admission that your spark gets stomped.

The prosecutor speaks in a language you barely understand; if it had been done in your mother tongue, the trial, perhaps you would have understood a bit more.
His voice is stern, measured, it speaks of years of practice.
«Your honours, the accused, the man known as The Winter Soldier, the very man responsible for the assassination of dozens of public officials, civilians, and the author of terrorist acts across continents, is a monster of precision, intent, and efficiency. —no he’s not, perhaps, but… no, not the man you had known, not the one you had promised you would help, not the one that had told you to stay away, to not accept the job.
Not the man who had begged you not to make him think of something worth being saved.
Not him.— The defence will argue that this man was a victim, a mere tool. —he is, stop this farce, he still is, now more than ever.— But I submit to you: a tool does not choose to kill with strategy.
The Winter Soldier was not a puppet; he was a soldier. Trained, yes. Controlled, perhaps. But not mindless.
If we accept his detachment from James Buchanan Barnes, we must equally accept his accountability.
As jurors, you are not to be swayed by sympathy; justice demands more than pity. It demands responsibility.
Thank you.»

The courtroom falls silent, your heart doesn’t; it runs a little bit faster than your own thoughts.
In circles.
You can’t help him, you can’t help him, how can you help him if you had been made to enter this in complete blindness?
«Defence, you may now speak.»
Even Steve Rogers is against him, his own best friend. No, not the Winter Soldier’s, Bucky’s.

Roger’s words come back to you in an avalanche: “There is nothing to be set straight in this situation.
Please.
Go as far as you can from that man.”
He meant that.

«Defence.»
The stern voice jolts you back into motion; you must look lost, completely lost.
Pathetic.

«He was subjected to ECT.»
It’s the first thing that comes to your mind, the horror of it, the sensation that reading that had caused in your stomach. «Electro-convulsive therapy. It causes damage to the brain, memory loss… but you already know that.»
Of course they do. You must look pathetic, pleading at the dunes of a desert of voultures.
And yet you can’t stop. That terrible itch scratching at your brain, your hands, the back of your throat.
Someone to watch him bleed, you have been that someone; you bear the responsibility of it.
«What you might not know is that it was targeted at the specific part of his brain that controls decision-making and emotions. He was drugged with psychotropic drugs, rendering his free will nonexistent. 
Are you really alright with processing the result of such horrors?»
«And that’s why we are processing him, the author of those crimes.»
You wince, they speak over you, with a scoff, as if you had been nothing more than dirt under their shoes, you feel like this will not be an isolated occurrence.
They don’t even have a face in your mind; you can’t stop trembling long enough to actually see their faces. All blurry, all chaotic.
«No, you are not, you are processing the victim, the only one that truly couldn’t escape his captivity for the reason of being born in it.» You are convinced of it, you have sat with that shell of a man countless hours as defenceless as a newborn fawn, he had been unnerving, silent, but that laugh, that sound still haunts your memories.
Not the sound of a weapon.

You murmur it, almost to yourself, or maybe you say it for him.
«The best way to keep a prisoner from escaping is to make sure he never knows he is in prison.» his eyes dart to yours. And you know in that single stare.
He’s worth saving.

This time you speak louder, «How could you state he possessed Mens rea or even Actus reus when he had no intent at all?
Can you certainly say “evil” is a part of someone that can be split into a separate entity?
Can you punish part of a person while forgiving the other?» The clicks of cameras disorient you for a second, you wince, confused enough to actually shield your eyes from the flashes’ assaults.

You need to recover though; you fear they might stop you if you don’t.
«How can you do either evil or good if you had known nothing of it for the entirety of your existence?
If he was denied choice, then he must be denied blame.»

«Objection, a man is his actions, he is the personification of his crimes, and therefore he must be processed as such.»

«And yet he isn’t! You mustn’t be a philosopher to understand Frankfurt’s concept of “second-order desires”, the idea that moral responsibility requires a person to-want-to-want something. If someone acts under coercion or manipulation, their second-order desires might as well be nonexistent; you mustn’t be a philosopher to understand Susan Wolf’s ideology of “the sane deep self” her view of responsibility, the ideology that for a person to be responsible, they must act in accord with their deep self, and that self must be sane, he— The Winter Soldier, when under Hydra’s control, lacked both.
In a sense, we are just saying he didn’t exist at all. Overridden, holding him morally accountable would be like blaming a machine for its programming.»

The prosecutor’s last turn should start now, but it begins even sooner, as he cuts you off with a sneer; you are not even sure he’s allowed to do so, but no one stops him regardless.
«The Winter Soldier may have been broken, yes, but not empty.
The defence speaks of moral infancy. I speak of consequence.
If we accept the claim that coercion removes all guilt, then every soldier, every agent, every pawn of every war becomes blameless. 
Where, then, do we situate justice for the victims? 
The Nuremberg Trials taught us obedience, even under duress, does not erase accountability. 
The Winter Soldier executed unarmed civilians. He planted bombs in civilian cities. If he were a weapon, then he were a sentient one, and sentient weapons are not above the law.
He may not have been free, but he was never innocent.»
There, that is your entry.

«In this, you are wrong. You speak about Nuremberg, but even there, the criminals punished more severely were those who chose ideology over conscience. The Winter Soldier chose nothing. He had no ideology, no loyalty, no identity at all. —The colonel taps your leg, shit, you are not supposed to address the prosecutor directly.— The Winter Soldier is not a whole person in any moral sense. He differs substantially from the case the prosecutor addressed. He is a fragment of a shattered psyche, a tool forged through the destruction of autonomy.
He did not have the capacity to know he was acting immorally; he didn’t have the capacity to know he was acting at all. And if he couldn’t have prevented himself from acting as such, how can we consider him blameworthy?
Would you condemn a kid for misfiring a gun? Would you process the gun? This case is not even about ignorance of the consequences of the actions; it’s about the complete nullification of free will.
I could argue with you that it was a necessity, I could build a stronghold on Mary Anne Warren’s criteria for moral personhood, but I won’t.
He had no actions to begin with—»
«But we are not talking about a gun, Miss, we are talking about a man.»
And that, that single, hypocritical statement makes you livid.
«Then why do you still hold onto its trigger?!»
Silence falls.
You stumble through your files, desperately looking for your last hope.
And then you find it. You brandish it like a sword, or a shield, you don’t know.
You just know you’re desperate enough to use that.
«The red book, or the Winter Soldier book, however you prefer referring to it. I only possess copies of some parts, not even the entirety of it, and yet the original is in the United States Military’s hands. The activation words, to be precise.
Why not destroy it if he was to be considered a man and not a weapon?»
You will beg for his forgiveness later, that is, if you even have the opportunity to do so, to see him one last time, regardless of the outcome; you will burn the pages in front of him and plead your own case, the necessity of bringing this up, but for now, you have to twist the knife in the wound.
«That is classified, Miss.»
«Not after the Hydra files release.»
You have done your homework, you know what you can and cannot say.
The jury murmurs. Bucky Barnes looks at the table in front of him, Steve Rogers doesn’t even dare to look at you; in return, you have no guts to look at the Winter Soldier.
Not a man, not a weapon, you have no idea how to call him.
«You all know you are processing a victim, him more than the man testifying against his own horrors.»
You are tired, you have exhausted all the rabbits inside your magician’s hat, and you have no more argumentation. Only a plea.
«I can’t do more than this, I’m a philosophy student; I haven’t even finished my studies yet, I’m no legal advisor, not even a lawyer; he had none because you didn’t provide any. You are already processing him as a weapon, and yet you all fail to see the hypocrisy a condemnation would entail.
I know, deep down, you all know this man has been set up to fail. I can’t save him, but you all can.
I just need— He just needs another chance.
To punish him is not justice; it’s vengeance against a ghost.»
You finish, almost panting, terrified they would speak over you.
And yet no one speaks for a long time.

«We may now have a short recess.»

Colonel Thompson drags you out of the courtroom via a lateral entrance, you are still in such shock, so out of your own mind, that you don’t even register his movements as he shoves a cigarette in between your teeth and lights it without waiting for your permission.
So much so for having quit.
You’re in a small courtyard, a quiet one, away from all the noises and the flashes.
Somewhere in the back of your mind, you wish to remain there for the rest of your life, dramatic, you know, but simmering anxiety still seizes your throat, and your heart feels like it’s beating at the wrong pace.
«You did good, girl, you did exceptionally good.» You jump a little, not yet ready for your existence to be acknowledged.
You doubt him, and yet you smoke his peace offering nonetheless.
«I doubt he will walk out of this a free man —you scoff, drawn your sorrows in smoke— and even if he did… Hydra agents are everywhere, you said that yourself.»
The colonel follows you suit, lighting a cigar and inhaling the rich smoke.
You keep going, never knowing when to stop, always yapping and yapping. «I can’t do more than this, and yet I already know I will fall short regardless.
I can’t protect him even if he’s deemed not guilty.
I’m doing the devil’s work and I can’t stop.» the last part is a whisper; had you not been in partial shock, you’d cry: «The lesser evil is still evil.»
The colonel smokes with you, the fat cloud of his cigar engulfing the translucent one left after your greedy lungs inhale.
«You are a good kid, one of the very few left, don’t ever lose that.
I’m truly sorry for what I’m about to do.»
You don’t understand.

Back inside, it’s one of the jury members who speaks, you are not sure that’s standard procedure, an agent, sleek back hair, suit, a heavy accent you don’t know where to pinpoint. 
«If we were to grant him freedom by reason of duress, for a minute, let’s pretend we absolve him of his crimes, how could we protect the world from this… man.»
When Colonel Thompson sits in the testimonial spot, you do understand.

«We have a solution, if we wish to rehabilitate the man, to keep him confined somewhere he will not hurt anyone else, she’s the answer. He proved hostile towards most handlers except her. My reports on his behaviour and behavioural changes during the interaction with her have already been submitted and evaluated.
A significant spike in empathy and emotional regulation has been noticed.
We are sure she has no affiliation with terrorist groups, Hydra, S.H.I.E.L.D. and no agenda behind her actions.
I forward my motion to institute her as his guardian.»

The world falls on your shoulders, your ears ring.
This must be a joke.

But it’s not, and as the verdict comes out, you find yourself as the sole legal guardian of an assassin.

Outside the courtroom, you let yourself have the panic attack that had brewed under your skin for hours now; your lungs don’t expand properly, your head feels light and a tonne altogether, you feel like dying.
You don’t have the means to help him; hell, you don’t even have the money to support his sole existence, let alone his rehabilitation. How could they ask this of you? With no safety accommodation, with no plastic box containing his fury, no metal shackles to stop his arm from wrapping around your throat and ending your life.
Are they hoping for his final snap, the moment he will commit a crime out of conditioning, so that they can use your death as the final implication?
Breathe.
Yeah, you just need to breathe. Anything else will fall into place eventually, just, just breathe, damn it.
Just—
A flash blinds you, then another and another one, you cover your eyes, someone speaks to you, multiple voices, no distinction, all jumbled together.

Someone grabs your arm, you feel yourself being dragged, you barely register you are being escorted somewhere, not even given the time to relocate your wandering mind.
The Colonel shoves you into a different vehicle from the one you had arrived in, a military truck or something similar, you can’t really tell, you just know the ceiling in this one is way taller, the metal benches bolted on both sides more solid, unforgiving. They remind you of the one in the soldier’s cage, uncomfortable, cold. 
The voices follow you until the door shuts. Your head spins.
«You were amazing.» The old man sits in front of you, and only now do you take your time in truly assessing his face. Open, kind, undoubtedly old. Smart, something feels smart in his expression, almost smug. 
«You sentenced me.» you spat it more venomously than you expected, an underlying hatred and betrayal that shocks even yourself.
«You saved a man, girl. I did what I had to.» his carefree tone rubs you the wrong way; all of this does.
«I thought you wanted him dead. For all you care.» hell, apparently he also wasn’t as unwanted as the Colonel had told you.
How badly had the Winter Soldier reacted to the others who came before you? How many had they been?
«And you didn’t, that’s why you got there, that’s why you accepted the job. What changed?»
What changed? Is he out of his goddamn mind?
«What changed!? Are you mad? I’m no behaviouralist, no psychologist, what makes you believe I can even try to help him? My good heart? You know that if he snaps and he kills me, he’ll be convicted for life, all I said in that room will be nullified, all my work.»
His smile is smug; you can’t even start to believe the guts this guy possesses, and yet… and yet something soft underlines his satisfaction.
«You’re doing it again. If he kills you, you are dead. Wouldn’t you be happy he’ll get convicted for it?»
Ah.
God, you are stupid.
And god, your mother was right, you had a golden heart, no matter how much you tried to bury it under layers of sarcastic callousness.
«He won’t kill you.»
But no, it doesn’t matter how self-deprecating you can get; you are not stupid.
«He will, and if anything I said inside that courtroom is true, it will break him.»

«Then don’t let him do that.»
The vehicle stops, the Colonel sits upright, the door opens.
«I’ll make room for accommodations; you’ll be given a place to stay, both of you. I’ll try to make it as safe as possible.» His big hand engulfs your shoulder, only now you truly register your constant trembling.
«I’ll negotiate funds and safety protocols. I won’t let you alone in this, but it will be mostly on you.
Remember, you thought what you said in there, don’t let fear cloud your judgment.
You are a good kid.» Then he jumps off the car, and someone approaches. 
«You can’t trust no one else.»
And a second later, the Winter Soldier sits at your side, no plastic barrier between you, no one-way mirror concealing a ready-to-intervene guard, just some shackles you are sure, if he truly wanted to kill you, would do nothing to stop him.
Colonel Thompson gives you a last glance in between the closing doors.
«I’m in the car behind.»
No, no, no, no, you don’t want to be left alone!
The door clicks shut.

«Hi.»

God, you are stupid!

Chapter Text

«I told you to quit.»
Back to square one.
No, it’s worse and better altogether, because you have achieved something, you have achieved what you had lost sleep over so many nights and yet you haven’t, because in your card there was the necessity of going back home after this, to decompress, to take as many part-time and odd jobs to put you back on track with rent and life expanses; instead you have been dealt a horrible hand, an assassin to take care of, you were supposed to go back home, lick your emotional wounds and mourn over the fact you had gotten closer to this broken man enough to bleed for him and his past. And instead… instead you are in a limbo of your own clueless making. Not on square one, but not yet on square two, and this time it’s your fault.
You are jittery beyond comprehension; you had never realised just how safe the glass panel separating you two had made you feel. At ease. 

Now, with just a handful of centimetres in between your thighs and the swaying of the vehicle almost crushing your leg to his every few meters, you cannot still your movements.
«Yeah, well, I thought we both established I’m not very smart a long time ago.» You breathe out, a crackling laughter almost too high-pitched even to your ears.

He doesn’t respond; he never did back then, but even with the knowledge, you cannot help but feel disappointed.
Your head screams “square one” in that taunting tone that shifts from your father’s cold tone to your ethics professor's disappointment.
«Instead of complaining tho, we could rejoice! You are a free man, I mean, free-er, slightly less trapped.» You ramble, twitch your leg, pop your knuckles, fidget, the full package, the picture of anxiety itself.
He must find you so irritating right now.
The Winter Soldier doesn’t respond, eyes focused on your own, mouth still muzzled.
You hate that, he’s not a dog, why the hell should he be muzzled? For your own safety, supply your brain. But you kill the thought the moment it’s born.
«Come on, at least w—we achieved something, right? No capital punishment.»
His eyes crinkle in hurt, something flashes behind them, something raw and painful.

A horrifying feeling pools in your stomach. Your smile falls in a second. Did you— did he?
No, wait, that couldn’t be.
You must be mistaken. He would have told you, in the weeks leading to this, when it had been only the two of you in that aseptic room, when you had bent yourself out of shape to fit into a calmer presence, a still figure that could be shoved in the periphery of his mind without causing too much stress.
He would have.
«James?» Your voice shakes. It sounds so fragile, so small in the back of your throat, a pained sound too ashamed to be uttered.
«Did you… Please, tell me I didn’t take that from you.»
Did he want to die?

The man stills, you reach, your hand with a mind of its own, you have to touch, you have always been a huge tactile person, always seeking physical touch, confirmation, the warm reassurance of a simple graze. Your hand wraps around his wrist. You don’t mean to trap him, to make him feel imprisoned once more; hell, you don’t even squeeze, you just need to feel him beside you, to know that despite the drowning sensation tugging at your insides, you are not, indeed, suffocating, that you can hold on for dear life to something, someone.
You physically cannot squeeze; your hand had landed on the metal plates of his arm, without thinking, without stopping for a second and scrutinising what was wrong with your own wandering mind to actually believe being careless around him was a safe option.
You just hold him, begging you to do what he had done two weeks ago, to absolve you of every obligation, but more pressingly, every wrong you have unknowingly inflicted upon him.
«James, ti prego.
Tell me I didn’t hurt you too…»
The plea is a whisper, shoulders curled inward.

The arm buzzes under your fingers; you let go immediately. Still scared, confused, hurt.
«стой.»

The vehicle comes to a halt, as if commanded by his voice, a second later the door opens, and you have only half a mind to see you are back at the airport when two men urge you to get out.
«We’re taking you back, miss.»
No, fuck, you have a conversation to finish. A panic attack to fully expel from your system, instead, everything is lodged in your chest, a dam keeping in too many things.
«Wha—» You don’t comply, glued to your spot beside him, almost shielded by his imposing figure.
For some unknown reason to you, you feel protected. As if no one in the world could reach inside the van and force you out.
«He’ll be on a different transport, ma’am. Please, we need to go right now.»
You suspected.
«I—»
«Go.»

The flight back is silent, you sit alone in a small jet that must be private, but you have no idea to whom it may belong.
You cry silently in your white-leather seat, not even able to scream and curse your throat dry.

You are a monster.

A nice lady dressed in military gear takes pity on you when you get off the plane.
She tells you the Colonel will meet you here in a moment, flying on a different plane, just half an hour behind your own schedule, and holds your face still while she wipes snot and tears off your face, eyes soft and the same sad line in between her eyebrows that has once creased your mother's forehead a long time ago, when life had been easier on you and no famished guilt had eaten you from the inside out. 

You wait soulless and empty, staring at your shoes like a comatose patient, your ears ring, the world around you swallowed by the black borders cornering your vision into a tunnel of asphalt and gravel.

You need to puke.

—————
Her eyes look for him. He refuses her gaze, ashamed, unfinished.
In the chaos of the courtroom, he can’t even feel her heartbeat, but he can see her trembling, the confusion in her eyes, her gaze glued to his other half.
The good one, the one who had shaven his beard back in Romania, the one who had befriended the lady in the market, the one containing all his good deeds, his humanity.

She must feel cheated, wronged, offended.

He can’t sustain her eyes. Not when he knows he’ll find only hurt in them.

«He was subjected to ECT.»
That’s painful; he doesn’t know why, but it is.
He knows it has to be.
More painful than any torture will ever be.
«Are you really alright with processing the result of such horrors?»

Stop it, she can’t. He told her not to. He doesn’t want to believe he could be something good, better to be alone, to have no one believing in him, in his innocence.
He’s not innocent; he took the shot.
He told her.

She must know he’s a monster.

«The best way to keep a prisoner from escaping is to make sure he never knows he is in prison.»
His heart squeezes, for being Hydra’s highest pride of control, he sure is acting quite instinctual.

His eyes fall to her like magnets, drawn, called to her soft stare.
She looks at him like he’s worth being looked at, truly looked at, as if able to peel all the layers of years of horrors and crack his soul down the middle, having the power of finding something good inside him.

Fool.
She doesn’t know him.
And yet…

And yet he fights for him, with teeth and nails, she trembles through her panic, the voices talking over her trembling one, raising her tone, striking back.
Fierceless.

«Then why do you still hold onto its trigger?!»
The room stills, air charged, the juncture where metal and flesh meet aches dully.
And she believes it.
She believes he’s just a broken man needing help.
And it scares him. It scares him he has someone else to answer to.

She’s pale and trembling, not fierceless, not victorious, defeated.
She stares blankly in front of her, collapsed on the metal seat.
She’s alone in this, as he was before she came along; she’ll learn the pains of being left alone in something as messy and violent as his existence. She’ll learn with blood, and if she won’t be able to adapt, she’ll break. He doesn’t want for her to break, but his wants are minuscule in the grand scheme of orders and machinations.

She speaks lightly, airy, as if she hadn’t just been handed an assassin, a loose one, with no leash nor collar.
He had fantasised about killing his handler, but the looming wiping of electricity had never let him do that.
Or perhaps he had done it once, he had snapped a neck, and even that had been eradicated from his memory.

He’ll snap her if he needs to, if he wants to, no more wiping, no more electricity to hold his bloodlust at bay.
She touches him, not somewhere he can feel, not with scalpels and wrenches, with her fingers, her bloody fingertips leaking fresh crimson from the anguish of impatience.

«James, ti prego.
Tell me I didn’t hurt you too…»

She’s raw, too raw, she bleeds freely for him, just because she hurts thinking about having hurt him.
Is she sane? Is she real? So soft.
So carelessly soft.
Tossing her bleeding heart at him for no other reason than being too good.

He’ll break her, he will himself if it means the world won’t, he’ll snap her if only to vaccinate her against the horror that should have already crushed her by now.
He would be merciful, she would suffer one day, she will, better to be him, he’d make his hands gentle.

They take her away from him; he’s ready to break necks if he has to.
Instead, he let her go.
He tells her to go.
And he hopes she’ll run.

It’s a facility masked as social housing, too many cameras to be a public housing, too many young tenants, fit, ready for battle.

He’s escorted inside, injected with a tracker. Left in the middle of the room with the restraining still on.

She enters the house trembling, almost grey, a set of keys dangling in her grasp.
«They told me to free you.»
He doubts it.

Her heart races, sick, wrong.
And yet she touches him, soft hands, still pitted with the remnants of scarlet anxiety.
She trembles as she frees his hands.
«Can you lower your head? I can’t reach the muzzle…» She’s slurring words now, swaying from side to side.

When he can breathe freely, he’s ready to do what he has to.
Kill her.
Kill her and gauge the tracker off of your arm.
Run.

«I’m gonna puke.»
His grasp closes on nothing, the air almost sizzles. Sounds of frantic steps fading away into the tight corridor, then a door slamming in its hinges and the churning sound of wretches.

«I— I think we can make this work.»
When she had reemerged from the bathroom, hair tousled and face even paler, she had stopped under the little arch connecting the living room/kitchen to the corridor, fidgeting with the hem of the once ironed shirt, eyes glossy and the tip of her nose irritated.
«We could, you know, try and make this work? Don’t— please don’t run away in the middle of the night. Or— or if you do just, I don’t know, leave me a note so I don’t think you have been kidnapped… I’d… I’d worry.»

Here she was again, throwing her heart out for him to read, so openly caring and soft.
Not a puzzle, not something mysterious, just… true.

«I have a tracker.»
Her stun is pleasant, something different at least, something that doesn’t taste so strongly of pity and gentleness.
«What? Like… They microchipped you? Like a dog?» His silence must be answering enough.
«Fucking savages.»

Her irritation is definitely easier to digest, sharper, well-worn, as if she had donned herself in it far more often than her gentle calmness.
The irritation and the jittering. Two certainties.

She’s certainly not at ease, once again fidgeting with her very own existence, scratching at her knuckles, coppery red rimming her nails.
She has taken a look at the house, into every room and nook, static radiating from her charged body.
She had been charged when, shuffling her way inside the main room, she had asked with a cracking voice: «What room would you like?»

The apartment, on the sixth floor, no elevator, is symmetrically split into two rooms cornering a nook for a table in the living room much bigger but still modest space, a very small kitchen situated on the right corner of the living room, leaving a tight corridor culminating in an even tighter bathroom on the left side of it.

«Right.»
It changes nothing; the rooms are identical.
«Okay.»

«I didn’t, did I?» The soldier slides his eyes from the glass panel to the girl giving him her shoulders, so openly defenceless.
He wonders why he hasn’t killed her yet.
Blind slipping from his finger and rattling back into position.
«I promise I’ll be as quiet as you need me to be going further, I won’t bother you, I’ll even stop fidgeting, I just need you to tell me I— I didn’t— I didn’t take away the possibility of dying from you.
Tell me you didn’t want it.»
She’s washing the plate, well, she was, now the soldier can see her hands are still, carelessly dangling in the cups of the sink, “too much dust” she had said robotically before putting the yellow gloves on and starting the water.
It’s weird, oddly familiar.
«No.»
He can hear the sight leaving her lips, a plate slipping loudly on the aluminium basin.
He can’t begin to understand her.