With the two assets having been successfully introduced, HYDRA rolls out the next stage of its super soldier program: determine which is the stronger of the two and which, then, is the more disposable in the worst case scenario where one must be liquidated to save the other.
Which is the better serum, the better Winter Soldier? HYDRA's? Or that traitor Erskine's?
Today that will be determined: physically, at least, as the mental conditioning required for both Barnes and Rogers is vastly different, with Rogers needing far more attention, more care, than his old war-buddy who is practically docile in comparison to the fits the other throws. Today the Winter Soldier will be escorted to a training room that is typically lined with thick impact mats and weights. Those weights have been removed, he notices immediately, his blue eyes still red-rimmed thanks to a recent session in the Chair and he'll assume that those had been suddenly deemed a threat, a possible weapon. Even the chairs along the wall have been removed, the mirrors.
Not the usual training session, then.
The Winter Soldier waits, barefoot and bare-chested, dressed down to neoprene pants that hug and deny any advantages of his usual armored padding and any grips that the Captain could possibly use against him. He isn't surprised to see that the other asset is dressed similarly. It's the first time that the Winter Soldier believes he has seen this man, his mind, his memories still swimming in that heavy fog that weighs down on his eyelids and bows his shoulders into a hunch inward. His head tilted slightly to the side, his tangled hair half in his face, the Soldier sizes up today's opponent as he's herded in by more guards and handlers than anyone else he's ever seen before.
Similar height. Similar build. Blonde hair. Blue eyes, glazed over but still roaming around the room as if he hadn't already pinged on the Winter Soldier as a threat. Something of a beard - a sign, the Winter Soldier thinks, that this man is more dangerous than most, if a handler can't approach him with a razor. The beard is long enough that the Winter Soldier could grab it, if needed, and he dutifully files that away as he watches the other man come to a stop before him. Behind him, he's aware of someone from his own handler team roughly pulling his hair away from his face and into a ponytail.
A handler speaks.
Her voice rings across the training room like the voice of God.
"Permanent maiming or killing is forbidden. Best two out of three. Go!"
Time is always of the essence, where Rogers is involved. It's getting better — the strict regimen of electricity and drugs has been a long time in the making, with tests and failures and new formulations. It's ever evolving, but by now, they can keep Rogers compliant for hours, sometimes a day at a time. As that timescale keeps stretching, they need to know what else to expect, when it's time to put him to work. That time is coming, and the higher-ups are very excited.
In fact, there's almost a palpable excitement in the handlers who walk the Captain into the room, the pinprick wounds of several injections still fresh in his neck, scabbed over and nearly healed, minutes from disappearing. He sees the Soldier and his expression doesn't flicker in the least, blue eyes uninterested as he watches the handlers pull the other's hair out of his face, as his own team releases the heavy manacles cuffing his wrists behind his back with a soft but solid thunk, and he lets his arms fall to his sides.
Then the teams retreat, and they are given their instructions, the mission clearly outlined. There is utter silence, complete stillness in the room for a fraction of a second.
Then the Captain springs.
He's been given no information about his opponent, knows nothing about the man in front of him, except what he can see. That's by design — things can go pear-shaped in the field, surprises can pop up, and the best way to judge a fair fight is to make sure it's absolutely fair with a completely clean slate. And what are the assets, right now, but clean slates?
There's the arm — the obvious unknown, and the only way to rectify that is to make it known. So he goes right for it, for the shoulder, throwing his bulk directly at the Winter Soldier like a speeding train, hands reaching for the shoulder to see how it's attached, how strong it is, how well he can feel pressure — or pain.
Maiming is not allowed. But this is testing. Assessing. Then the Captain can adjust his attack accordingly, to better meet the parameters of the test.
The Captain comes at him faster than any other asset of interest: fast enough even for the Winter Soldier to experience that knee-jerk reaction of adrenaline freezing every nerve like a shiver.
At first he thinks he's going for the throat or eyes. The easiest and closest soft tissues. That's standard; it's what he would have done.
But no...no, this new asset comes at his metal arm, arguably one of the best, most reliable parts of the Winter Soldier, one of the parts that he has a dim, unvoiced pride in because he has controlled it now and it has to be better than the weak flesh one he had before. He had twisted, turning his head and ducking it down to give the other man less chance to get a good, solid grip on his eyes, nose or throat. Unfortunately, that opens up his left side. The Captain will get a firm hold on his shoulder and chrome bicep, the crude metal plates that haven't been buffed or painted yet.
They meet at the center of the mat, with the sickening thud of well-trained muscle and bone hitting each other.
The Winter Soldier tries to jerk his arm free, his metal fingers balled into a tight fist, whirring and rotating on his wrist at an impossible angle. For once in his memory (HYDRA declassified), he can't easily pull himself free. A strange look crosses his expressionless face, then, like a quick-moving wave. Shock. Annoyance. Rage.
No is the one clear thought that breaks through.
The Captain will find the Winter Soldier's combat boot suddenly planted high up on his chest as he throws his full weight backward in a violent front kick that rockets his heel into his opponent's chest. Normally that would cave in a man's ribs; take the fight out of him. Perhaps send the trainee into a lengthy stay in the hospital wing. But this new asset isn't like any of the others and the Winter Soldier makes that executive call not to treat him with kid gloves like the men and women before him.
The Captain sees, even as he's moving, the way the Winter Soldier is expecting him to do what's standard. It's exactly why he doesn't do it; the way the other asset shifts lightning-fast to protect his throat and face is admirable, he manages to think, even as it confirms that those parts of him are just as vulnerable as they are on anyone else. The information is valuable, too, if expected. But simply going by what's expected is not the way to win.
The metal under his fingers is strong. It's got the sound of something slightly but not completely hollow, maybe thinner plates encircling a solid core, he thinks. But his fingers can't dent the metal like they have so many chairs and tables and even medical instruments, when someone had gotten too close and he'd been sedated not quite enough.
That lack of a real gripping point means that when the Soldier kicks him in the chest, his hand slides down the metal arm, blunt, ragged fingernails unable to really gain any traction until his fingers come to the wrist and he suddenly tightens his hold, yanking and twisting to try to fling the other asset into the adjacent padded wall to his right, almost like a twisted version of some bygone dance, even as the momentum of the kick sends the Captain half-flying, half-stumbling back into the wall immediately behind him with a dull thud. His right shoulder takes most of the force, but it still knocks the air out of his lungs and jostles his head.
He's dazed but immediately rebounds into a defensive crouch, twisting to see where and how the Soldier might have landed even before his conscious mind has quite recovered fully. That was some kick, he thinks, and there's some... strange feeling stirring at the back of his mind: something he can't recognize anymore as both respect and excitement.
Anger's ghost flashes across his face. The next moment the Winter Soldier finds himself suddenly flung into the wall, hard enough that stars spark and swirl: he fights to suck in air through bared teeth. Did he crack a rib? Does he have time to be sure? (That isn't technically maiming according to HYDRA). No time to sit around waiting to see if the new asset has been floored by that kick. Wheezing, the Winter Soldier forces himself away from the wall and forward, circling to the right with quick steps to see that his opponent is...watching. Crouched down, but on his feet in a way that he can surge up easily. There's an unspoken sensation then, as if he's being studied just as much by this man as he has been by his handlers and techs. Even with the Winter Soldier's conditioning, he feels...unease. Discomfort, like he gets whenever he sees a needle or strap.
Trying to get his breathing under control, aware of how even that could be graded by the handlers, the Winter Soldier circles warily around the other man. His eyes burn blue as he sizes him. No visible prosthesis like he has. No visible scars to map out possible past injuries to exploit. Much, much faster than anyone else he ever fought.
Have to get in close. If he could get his neck, get him in a chokehold with his legs around him, then maybe...
Unlike the Captain, the Winter Soldier's approach is much slower and more deliberate. Instead of racing at him, he closes the distance a step at a time. A few paces right; forward. A few paces left; forward. Finally, they are almost within arm's reach. That is when he bursts into motion. The Soldier's deadened eyes suddenly flash, and his combat boot flashes out, aiming right for his opponent's kneecap.
The Captain gets a strange flash of… something, a snake, a — cobra, that's the word — stalking its prey. Every step the Soldier takes is calm, calculated, but opaque; it almost makes the Captain restless even as he stands his ground, lets his opponent come to him. It's not a tactic he favors, but it's one the handlers have been trying to work on with him, when the sessions in the chair seem to be going well, when the combinations of drugs make him particularly receptive, when he can be trained and worked for hours at a time. They're teaching him patience, because an asset to HYDRA is only valuable if it can use every tactic at its disposal.
That patience is finally rewarded. The last kick was strong, but telegraphed enough that there was no way the Captain couldn't see it coming. This kick is has its tells, too, but this time, it's faster than anything the Captain's seen before. It's impressive. This, he finally thinks, is finally an opponent worth fighting. Anyone they could put in the room with him before… it's hard to remember befores, it gets hazy, but he's sure it's happened before. He's sure it was never like this.
He's sure he's supposed to end this as quickly and efficiently as possible. But there's something in him that doesn't want to end it. Doesn't want to know what will happen then. Will they punish the Soldier for losing? Will they terminate him?
It's that thought that makes the Captain hesitate — he's distracted for a fraction of a second, and it's enough that the kick connects. The pain flares and the Captain grits his teeth; the Soldier is close again and the Captain grabs for his leg, tries to catch it and drag him forward, keep him close, bracing himself on his good leg while the other shoots sharp needles of pain. He's not sure how badly injured it is, but he also knows that won't matter to a handler. Pain is not an excuse. Pain is what brings order, and order is what he's made to enforce.
That's what they keep telling him, anyway.
The soft, skintight pants don't give him much of a handhold, but there's just enough that he can disrupt the other asset's momentum. He tries to use it to his advantage, to get the Soldier off balance, slam him to the floor and follow with his bigger bulk. It's a street brawler's move, nothing near as efficient as a carefully-aimed kick or hit. But the Captain does have sheer size and strength going for him.
That kick should have fractured his kneecap and required immediate surgery. It's what has happened whenever the Winter Soldier went up against other HYDRA recruits and it's what he was expecting this time: surely this other asset is fast and strong but he's human, too; a good hit should have robbed him of his mobility.
Only it doesn't.
Only he doesn't feel that crunch underneath his boot.
Confusion jolts throughout the Soldier, involuntary and searing like those times he sat in the chair and felt electricity burn through every nerve. Only then, he had learned to expect it. This is not the same thing at all. Whatever this man is, he is a different thing entirely and the Winter Soldier's face clouds again with emotion that should've been scrubbed out of him. Confusion graduates to anger, real anger and frustration that he shouldn't be able to feel, draws his eyebrows together and his lips bared in a pissed-off, defiant snarl even as the world tilts.
Caught by surprise, unaware that that little trick was something he'd taught this man a lifetime ago, the Winter Soldier hits the mat and he hits it hard. The bigger asset's frame hits him at full force, crushing the air out of his lungs as he yells and he scrabbles blindly at his opponent. The silver hand flashes out, tries to punch, to claw (but not the eyes - even the Soldier will remember do not maim). His body surges violently under the Captain. A knee flashes out and hits the new asset dangerously close to the groin.
The handlers are watching.
Always, the Winter Soldier is aware of that more than anything. They are witnesses to his failure right now: the way he lost his ground so quickly, the way he struggles more than he should against this stranger. The thought of being dragged back to the chair when he just got out of it turns the Winter Soldier into a wild animal, squirming and writhing and now he's even more violent than before, lashing out at any soft tissue, any vulnerable spot of the Captain that he can reach.
It's an unpleasant feeling, the Captain realizes, trying to restrain the Soldier as he grows more desperate, as he fights every second that ticks by. I's like trying to smother a hurricane of fury and desperation, and… this is not how he does things. This doesn't feel right. This isn't —
This is a test. This is a test and the Winter Soldier is failing. The Captain is winning. The Winter Soldier will be punished and the Captain… might not be punished, but he certainly won't be rewarded. There are no rewards for assets who do their jobs, because you don't reward a gun for firing or a land mine for going off. You only curse it when it fails you.
The Captain doesn't fail. He can't fail. Failure is unacceptable, because failure means blankness, it means pain and drugs and confusion, it means electricity spiking between his temples until his mouth tastes like charred meat and his hair smells burned. It means starvation and isolation and something left undone. He doesn't know what, but there's something he's here to do. He can't do it if they do nothing but punish him into oblivion.
So he holds his ground, withstands the barrage of scratches and kicks. He catalogs all of them, every ounce of strength in his opponent, because the Solider is strong. He's strong, and he's still desperate, and that metal arm is still an unknown. The fingers can't find quite the same purchase, a little too smooth, a little too slippery against even bare skin, but they rake deep bruises into the Captain's skin that he can feel, red marks that will turn deep purple and sickening green before they disappear. That knee to his pelvis might have cracked the bone.
He could win like this. He could simply wait out the Soldier, absorb the damage. But it feels hollow, dissatisfying. Smothering a target might be one thing. But this isn't a target. This is a test, and not of the Captain's endurance. They've put him through those before — those befores are hazy, too, but he remembers some. Machines designed to crush, chains wrapped around limbs and pulled tight until they dislocated. Pain, worse than this pain, because that was pain he had no control over. This pain feels different. This pain is worth something. The Winter Soldier is worth fighting. Not smothering.
The Captain suddenly rolls, tossing the Soldier away again, toward the corner of the room. He doesn't want to simply withstand. He wants to see what they can do together. Against each other. He gets to his feet, a little shakier than maybe he expected, muscles sore and skin scored with bruises, scratches from the flesh hand. He looks at the Soldier, and there's this tiny, almost imperceptible flicker upward of his lips, as if to say, Give it another go. Try again. Now you know what you're facing.
some timeskip, feel free to start forcing Bucky to submit
The longer it goes on, the more the Winter Soldier struggles with the aimless abandon of a panicked animal instead of a man. Not one of HYDRA's most promising weapons. Not an asset who has every faculty under control. No, instead he bares his teeth in a snarl; both hands curl, claw-like, and despite his writhing, he can't...he can't escape. A first, he thinks, that he's fighting back enough to prevent the stranger from fully forcing a submission. Then it sinks in that no, he's being played around with somehow and that suspicion gets confirmed as he's tossed aside like nothing.
The Asset hits the ground.
Immediately he scrambles to his feet. Chest and shoulders heave, his face reddened with exertion and a strange feeling that seems to burn from the inside: adrenaline? Shock? Unaware that it's rage, the Winter Soldier's eyes narrow suspiciously and he's well aware of the clock ticking away on the wall, the eyes on them. The way his lead handler has shifted weight from one foot to the other, her arms crossed over her chest in his peripheral vision. The fact that this match is being timed and that he has likely already failed. The chair might be coming no matter what now: if there is anything he can do at this point, it's maybe shave off how many minutes he's in it, at least. Even a few seconds less in the chair is worth fighting for.
He comes at the stranger again. And again. Each time he finds it impossible to get him into a chokehold, finds it impossible to go for his fingers to break them, to go for his groin to stun him. To even get a firm grip on his beard to control his head.
How? How?
The questions lance through the Winter Soldier's head like lightning, and soon he'll find himself twisted up in another one of the stranger's holds, his left arm bent at an unnatural angle, the chrome fingers clawing uselessly for purchases as he writhes and twists under the Captain who has managed to get him in a submission position again. Blood smears across his face now from a split lip, from the cut above the Winter Soldier's brow, and it'll have left dark strokes against the training mat, against patches of the Captain's skin in his struggles.
o7 He can dislocate the flesh arm in your tag if you want or I'll definitely do it in my next one!
The Captain isn't ending the fight. The handlers are getting if not restless, then dissatisfied. The Captain can feel it, feel their looks like knives between his shoulder blades. They want him to end it in a decisive strike. They know he can. He knows he can.
But he doesn't. He stops the Soldier's advances, and then he twists him up in a hold, and then he lets him go to try again. It's not exactly an even fight, but it's the closest thing he's had that he can remember, which maybe isn't saying much, but it's got his blood going. It's got his mind moving fast, got his adrenaline up. He's almost — almost — enjoying it. He wants to see what this Soldier can really do.
But he also sees, the longer this goes on, the cracks that start to emerge. The metal arm is the Soldier's greatest strength, but it's weakening, bit by bit. With every minute that passes, every punch the Soldier delivers, with every twisting hold the Captain puts him in, the arm gets louder and louder, the whining hums and whirs change pitch. It's starting to falter and the Soldier is compensating with desperation. The Captain is torn between two emotions that are honestly impossible for him to identify: disappointment and anxiety.
He hears the handlers and techs start to murmur; they're not his handlers, so it must be about the Soldier. They've noticed the weakness, too.
The Captain's got ahold of the Soldier again, after another fierce bout of blows; he's sweating, hair matted to his head and skin slippery as he rolls them on the mat, aggravating several hairline fractures and deep, deep bruises littering his own body. He's not bleeding, but he's still sustained damage, knows that when the adrenaline fades, there will be pain and fatigue. He hears murmuring again, but this time it's voices he recognizes: his own handlers. They're unhappy with his performance. He should have ended this minutes ago. He rolls and puts one knee to the small of the Soldier's back, forcing him to flail backwards if he wants to reach the Captain at all. The metal arm doesn't seem to want to move the right way, catching at the shoulder with an unnatural, almost sickening click every time.
The longer this goes on, the more the Winter Soldier slowly loses his grip on his rocks-teady composure. Every second he's being toyed with, every second that he fails to force this stranger to submit, means another second in the damn chair.
The thought burns up from the inside.
He doesn't remember Steve or his own name or all that history together, all those nights in Brooklyn where they sat on the roof with legs kicking as they talked, as Bucky listened with a half-smile and Steve just rattled off his day and showed off his drawings and everything seemed like it'd work out. When he'd fish Steve from the latest alley and have to dab away the blood and wonder if the next time will be too much even for him. That's all been scrubbed away. What the Soldier does know is that punishment awaits and that it's up to him to minimize the duration: the only control he has, really. He tries everything. The Asset's body writhes like a wild animal in the stranger's grip and he's sure he got some hits in. Fractures. Blood splatters from teeth cutting against that lower lip and soon he has the stranger's beard stained red. He's gripped it and slammed his face down into the training mat. It still isn't enough. For the first time in his recent memory, the Winter Soldier isn't the cutting edge HYDRA has to offer.
The stranger might be enjoying himself, might enjoy the challenge. But for the Soldier, this has boiled down into survival and the realization that he will be going back to the chair today. That he couldn't go even twenty-four hours before he'll be shaking and trembling in its embrace.
Finding himself face down on the training mat, the Winter Soldier struggles underneath the stranger's weight, the knee pinning him at the exact point that pain and numbness blossom and his left arm is damaged. Failing. It clicks, the chrome fingers spasming stop-motion style like an old movie. The prosthetic has been pushed to a limit that he wasn't aware it had - a limit his techs didn't account for.
He tries to swing back with his other arm. Flesh and blood, it's vulnerable and the Winter Soldier isn't surprised when the stranger catches his clumsy jerk backward. A good time to dislocate or break that arm, because it's what he would do if their positions were reversed and the opportunity presented itself.
Still, when it happens, the Winter Soldier can't quite bite back his surprise. It takes one quick, efficient application of pressure: something shifts and suddenly he can feel the arm dislocate from the shoulder. He grunts, loud enough that he's sure it was audible, and his head twists to the side, his bloodied teeth bared in a snarl and his malfunctioning silver fingers claw uselessly at the mat.
And yet the handlers haven't called it off. The Winter Soldier could still technically fight, even if the victor is clear: it's up to the Captain to finish this.
Compared with the metal arm and shoulder, it's a simple matter, once they're in the right positions, to simply apply the right amount of force in the right direction to dislocate the Winter Soldier's flesh-and-blood shoulder. Both assets know it the moment the move works and the Captain looks over toward the gaggle of handlers standing off to the side, lets now-useless arm drop. It hits the mat with a dull thud even as he feels the Soldier squirming under him, metal fingers trying and failing to find purchase.
The Captain keeps his knee wedged into the small of the Soldier's back. And he waits, blue eyes starting to dull already, for the command he's sure is going to come. Stand down, they'll tell him, and the Soldier will stop struggling, the Captain will step away, and he isn't sure what will happen next — except he is. He knows the Soldier will be punished. Likely severely. The thought leaves something acidic and thorny twisting in his stomach, but that's just the way it's got to be. He doesn't know what punishment will look like, exactly. But it will be swift, and it will be thorough.
He's not so naive to think that he'll escape punishment, himself.
But no command comes. He stares at the handlers and they stare right back, as the seconds tick by and he grows agitated, confused, even kneeling with his opponent — defeated, he's defeated, he's down — still under one knee, pressed into the mat, struggling like a wounded, dying animal.
And there's no command to stop. To stand down. Only frowns and a tense, unhappy silence, punctuated only by the Captain's ragged panting and the Soldier's frantic, if slowing, movements.
The Captain looks back down at the Soldier, and there's something in him that balks at going on. At drawing this out. That feels ashamed he'd wanted to, in the first place. He reaches down with one hand, grips the back of the Soldier's head, pulls slightly before smashing it back into the mat, with enough calculated force to render him unconscious or, at the very least, close enough to it to count.
Then he lets go. He stands up and steps back, hands by his sides, apparently docile as he turns his gaze back to the handlers and says, lips a little thick — one is split, there's a bruise forming on one cheek, where the metal elbow had caught him in the face (a good, clean shot), "I'm done."
It could be seen as a statement of success: I've completed the task. But it could be seen as a statement of defiance: I refuse to continue.
His handlers seem conflicted as to which it is as their murmurs intensify, as one holds a hand to her earpiece — getting instructions from her handlers, no doubt. The Captain stands there, compliant, not sparing the Soldier on the ground a second glance. If he looks, it will show interest. If he shows interest, they might not let him be done. He will accept whatever punishment he must, but he is done. The Soldier has been incapacitated. This fight is over. The Captain is calling it, whether he has the authority to or not.
His two handlers finally seem to come to an agreement and step up, as the door opens and four armed guards approach, two on each side of him. He catches a glimpse of several more out in the hall, ready to make him comply as one handler says, disappointment clear in her cool tone, "If you're done, then we'll have to make some adjustments."
That explains all the guards, then. Adjustments mean the chair. Punishment first.
Maybe the Soldier will at least be put back together before he gets his, if the Captain's going to be occupying the chair first. He thinks they only have one.
No matter what he does, the Winter Soldier can't get free.
The dislocation is final, the pain searing in a jolt as he feels his flesh shoulder pop in a way it shouldn't. Doesn't feel broken. The only positive: his accelerated healing can deal with dislocations faster than fractures and breaks. These thoughts fill the precious seconds he has and, even knowing that he will be punished for failing, his heart is still jackhammering away as it can escape any better than he could.
He could just simply give up, go still under the stranger. Submit. Doing anything less is a waste of time. A waste of energy. And still...still he struggles, writhing uselessly, unable to dislodge the other man - bigger, not weighed down one one side by a malfunctioning prosthesis - and he can feel those eyes burning their way. The feeling of being assessed hangs heavy.
Fingers grip around the back of his skull, tangling in his matted hair with finality and he knows damn well that this is it, that it doesn't matter how much he stiffens the muscles in his neck and strains with everything he's still got. The mat rushes up. White flashes as his faces meets it hard enough for the thud to echo, and even with the cushioning of the mat, it's with enough force to immediately render him unconscious. Finally he goes still under the Captain in a limp sprawl, face down, his hair a dark, knotted halo.
As soon as the Captain stands, the handlers move. They cluster around the Winter Soldier, hands gripping under his armpits and his head hangs down, blood drooling onto the floor, and they sweep out without another word.
"Next time you will do it faster. Next time you won't hesitate," the handler studies her asset with narrowed eyes, her thin lips pursed. "Or maybe you're still weak enough to feel mercy. Don't."
A tilt of her chin. A flick of her fingers at her hip.
The chair it is.
Hearing comes back first: he can hear his gasping, the whispers of handlers and techs. The heavy staccato of his heart. The hum of the supression arc as it powers down.
Sight comes back second: fluorescent flashes. Dim lines of his own lashes cutting across as he squeezes his eyes shut and then opens them immediately at his lead handler's voice.
The last is scent: the Winter Soldier regains full awareness of all his senses even though he knows he's been walking and talking for several minutes. It's when he's herded into a new, very, very reinforced room that his sense of smell kicks in. A man's sweat and blood hangs heavy. A cloud of it hits him in a wavy and the Winter Soldier will chalk it up to his training that he doesn't hesitate at the stench. His flesh arm is in a sling to assist with the recent dislocation, to speed up the healing. His face is a healing map of yellow and faint purple bruises that he, surprisingly, remembers getting. This is your lesson someone hissed to the Winter Soldier while he drooled in the chair. You must remember from this failure and learn from it.
Observe.
Observe.
He can do that, even as he shakes and his knees tremble despite drinking the water and eating the food offered to him. Despite sitting (slumping?) on a bench, waiting for the shadows to resolve into facial features.
Observe echoes. Solid. Tangible.
And so the Soldier is herded into a room that is all too familiar. The metal suppression chair - cutting edge rimmed with rust and old tech - embraces That Man that somehow subdued him in what could be hours or days or weeks ago. (Why does he still remember that?). There are more handlers, more guards. That jaw is slicked with sweat despite the unacceptable beard. He twitches in the chair...but apparently that isn't enough to bring him back into the fold. Unfortunate. The Winter Soldier isn't a tech, but he has a base understanding of how the chair works. How it should work. From his fragmented memories, smeared at the edges, he can tell that the chair isn't enough for this stranger.
Somehow it's still a surprise when they're left together, the stranger - designated "The Captain" - is still in the chair and the Winter Soldier is ordered to check his vitals with his good hand. That dislocated shoulder is still in the sling, but he can still use HYDRA's arm: now he'll reach out, the chrome fingers cool against the Captain's skin, hot with pain and sweat.
"Vitals acceptable. Pulse slowing."
The Winter Soldier leans over the Captain, and he recognizes this man despite the agony etched in his face, the furrow digging itself between his eyebrows. This man has...forced him to submit, against all odds. A first.
Punishment is nothing new; somehow, even though his memories are sketchy, cloudy, he knows punishment and what it means. Knows it means the chair, fire arcing between his ears and the iron taste burned onto his tongue, even when they stuff the rubber bite guard between his teeth.
Punishment means pain and agony and fear; it also means a strange kind of relief, a peace, a… not exactly a desire to submit, but a strange not-caring that always seems to erode over time, in the hours and days between the chair. That much, he can remember.
But this time, when the lightning stops and the bite guard is snatched away and he half-sits, half-lies there, panting and restrained by the heavy mag cuffs he knows instinctively, somehow, that he has tried to break and can't, the room is eerily quiet. His brow furrows - there should be people here. Techs bustling, scientists buzzing, his handlers standing by with their armed guard.
He thinks he's alone, disoriented and reeling, the muscles of his forearms and thighs still twitching with the aftereffects of the shocks, when a slightly too-cool, too-unyielding touch brushes his skin. He jerks against the restraints, but they hold fast, like they always do. He blinks glassy eyes, trying to see who's with him, what's with him, and a pale, bruised face with lank, dark hair falling around it swims into view. Blue eyes gaze into his, and…
He knows those eyes. He knows that face, mangled though it is. He knows each and every bruise, he remembers them just like he remembers the metal arm, the way it had slowed and sparked after long enough, the way the other shoulder had given way and still the Soldier hadn't stopped fighting -
The Captain's lips fall open, jaw just the tiniest bit slack, as he draws a breath, almost like he's going to speak. But he doesn't, eyes darting wildly around the room, seeing that they're alone. They're alone, and he remembers this man, and he doesn't know why. He shifts against the restraints again, testing them and, as always, they pass with flying colors. He's trapped with the Soldier and no one else, and part of him thinks this must be more punishment, very specific punishment, but there's a tiny thread underneath it all, the barest hint of a whisper, that inexplicably tells him to relax. To stand down. To do whatever he can to keep this situation just as it is.
That seems foolish; maybe the Soldier is here to - well, not exactly exact revenge. But to demonstrate his own superiority, now that the Captain can't fight back. That would be one lesson, but his frantic mind isn't sure it's the right one. Isn't sure why he remembers at all, now that the chair has powered down. Is he meant to remember?
Your face looks like a badly drawn map, a voice - his voice? - drawls in his head, as his eyes travel over the Soldier's yellowed and purpled features. But he doesn't say it, just sits there with his jaw slack and his eyes darting wildly, like he can't figure out the game, but knows he's got to, and fast. That slowing pulse is starting to kick up a notch or two again as he finally moves his lips, and the smallest sound comes out: "You."
It's only been a few hours since their session back in the training room. Not long enough for the advanced healing to really kick in, and his body and face are still throbbing in time with his pulse, skin mottled with the bruise splotches.
He did get some hits in on this stranger, but the truth is, the chemical neuro-suppression rounds he witnessed, followed by the chair, took most of the wind from his sails. The other asset is still trembling, eyes dancing around the room as if searching for the escape route that doesn't exist. Sweat still trails down in glistening tracks. A much...easier target to tackle, if the Winter Soldier had been ordered to continue the exercise.
They make eye contact.
"Yes," the Winter Soldier says, not entirely sure why he's wasting his breath on affirmation. "Orders changed from engage to observe."
So no: taking this man out when he's at his most vulnerable isn't on the table anymore.
He continues to make a visual inspection of this new asset, followed by a physical one. His eyes rove, flattened and blue, one swollen over with shining purple; the other, the sclera reddened with burst blood vessels. His touch follows, and on the surface it feels not that different than the techs, the handlers. It's mechanical. No hesitancy as if the Winter Soldier recognizes the man who used to be his best friend. He touches the mag-cuffs, metal fingers brushing against the stranger's skin, still hot with adrenaline and fried nerves from the chair, and for a moment it's almost cooling.
When the Soldier presses chrome fingers against the man's throat, it's soothing, gentle as he knows that this man is valuable to HYDRA to earn the chair. To be able to make even him submit. He smooths back his sweat-streaked hair to peel away one of the electrode pads.
"You spent a long time in the chair," the Winter Soldier remarks. "It shouldn't take that long."
The Captain can't exactly remember good — he's never been told he's been good, never been showed any kindness. And yet despite that all, he knows what good is: It is the cool feel of the Soldier's fingers on his skin and smoothing over his hair. It's sitting here with only one other figure in the room. It's not being poked or prodded as he comes down off the horrible fear-adrenaline-pain spike of the chair, that he remembers without fail every time, even without actually remembering it. All of this is… good, somehow, even though he doesn't think it's supposed to be.
He also knows, without knowing how, that he's got to tamp down on this feeling, wrap it up tight and hide it deep. It's almost an effort, the way breathing and thinking are efforts once the chair starts powering down. But he is nothing if not resilient. He is HYDRA's greatest asset, and it's not for nothing.
The man he had been, the man he doesn't remember being, would have huffed a laugh, cracked some joke, at that statement. It shouldn't take that long. Here and now, though, there's silence for a beat too long, before his voice, still raw as his throat heals from the strain of screaming, says quietly, "I am a difficult asset to control. I require extreme measures."
It's what they've told him, said over him, so many times that he remembers this, too, always. Or maybe they let him remember it, too — remember how hard he is to suppress, like he should feel guilty or ashamed or proud. He isn't sure which they want, any more than he's sure what he feels. If anything. It's always dim and distant, after the chair. He just knows, "There are always guards. But now there's just you." He pauses. "Observing."
He's not sure what the other asset is meant to observe. What the Captain is like when he's weak?
He's not weak, though, even when he is; his hands curl into fists and strain, again, at the cuffs locking him into the chair. "I don't have any orders."
More difficult to control. That's become obvious, cementing in that initial assessment when the Winter Soldier first laid eyes on him in the training room and saw the beard - now that same beard's slicked with sweat and glistening tracks of drool from the bite guard. It should be shaved. But he can hear the faint whine of the mag cuffs as they're tested, can spot whitening of knuckles as the other man's powerful hands curl into fists and he knows that the risk of even a small blade around this man is too dangerous, can be used as a weapon if he gets hold of it.
"Not yet."
The orders will come, as they always do.
The Soldier can't feel pity. He can't identify the seeds of unsanctioned curiosity, stubbornly sprouting in the dark, unused, locked away corners of a ruined mind. But he does know when kit doesn't work, when equipment is faulty and it doesn't matter if it's a test or an accident.
"This," the Winter Soldier circles back to the beard.
Chrome fingers reaches out to grip it, forcing the stranger's glazed eyes to focus on him and only him.
"This is a liability. It shouldn't be here."
So why is it? is the unspoken question. You shouldn't be able to resist.
He leans in, studies the other asset. The mask of pain and exhaustion isn't new - he has felt it before, sometimes seen it in scratched medical mirrors angled to the side. Seeing it reflected in the stranger's face, sweaty and etched with pain and tears and drying saliva, isn't out of the ordinary - it means that the chair has done its job. Even so, the Winter Soldier is still careful to watch this other man, to keep an eye on his body language in case he has been biding his time, faking it and waiting for a moment to jerk his body forward - a headbutt, maybe, or the mag-cuffs aren't as secure as they're supposed to be. In the very unlikely even that happens, the Winter Soldier's programming would take hold in the form of immediate retaliation.
The Captain's eyes flutter, minutely, at the grip on his beard. It sends warring shots through him: pinprick-sharp fear, like he's been yanked around, punished, with hands on his face, tugging, forcing, before. And something… else. Something he can't identify as want. As like. That a touch like that, from the right person, could be good.
Here and now, though, those lids barely move before his eyes focus on the Soldier as he accuses him of — of what? He doesn't even know what his own face looks like, knows he has hair along his jaw only because sometimes it's scratchy or dirty or, like now, someone uses it to grab him, force his gaze. It is a liability, but maybe one he assumes they want him to have? Maybe they need it to force his gaze. Why else would he have it?
His brow knits, his mind a still jumble after the electrical storm of the chair, and then the words suddenly tumble out: "I killed a handler. He had a razor."
He isn't sure how he knows that. Can't really remember it, except as a distant, echoing scream, the clatter of something metal hitting the hard, tiled floor. The wrench in his arm when he'd broken one of the restraints — and his own ulna, in two places. They'd had to… to shoot him? With tranquilizers. Mostly. Some bullets. He thinks.
He's supposed to be HYDRA's greatest weapon. He is also hard to control. This is compromise, he thinks. And it makes them unhappy. It makes them look weak. He makes them look weak, when he looks like this.
His eyes flick down to the metal wrist and forearm. "Maybe that's why you're here."
The tone is too flat for it to be a dare. His eyes are too dull, too hollowed out. And yet.
Not surprising to find that out: a razor would easily be enough to kill the average man without a thought, but he should have been sedated heavily to ensure he wouldn't be even given that opportunity.
The Winter Soldier hisses. "I'm not here to make you compliant."
His training is to destabilize, to kill. Breaking a man down into a useful weapon isn't part of that training program - maybe it will be down the line, but he knows even with his shaky sense of reality, of his own self, that he isn't there yet. Hasn't been trusted with it. But he thinks he can handle trimming that unsanctioned beard, growing longer by the day, proof of HYDRA's failure to rein him in like every other useful asset. The Soldier's face is a mask of exhaustion, dimming pain, but there's also steel behind it. Unlike that deceased handler, he is trained, quick; the metal prosthesis means that's one less soft point for this other asset to target. Can't cut open arteries that aren't there anymore.
If he suspects the other asset can get free, he can apply the appropriate level of force until he's incapacitated - easier, he thinks, when he's bound and barely coherent. There's nothing wrong with taking advantage of a hostile's weakness, after all.
Time slithers away when the Winter Soldier suddenly leans away from view and stalks off. It could be seconds; minutes...hours to feel like it's just stale air and the cold embrace of the chair and the yawning silence of fragmented thoughts crashing into each other.
Eventually there's that sixth-sense impression of another man filling up the space in an empty room. The Winter Soldier returns with a single, disposable razor, a damp wash cloth (too thin to pose much of a threat if it's clamped over, say, his own mouth and nose), and the same flat expression as before. A hand clamps down the Captain's neck with a grip that's far stronger than any he's faced before, right over his carotid arteries: in essence, letting him know that he will squeeze with extreme prejudice and cut off blood supply to his head to ensure a far more rapid incapacitation than the usual methods.
"Hold still," the Soldier says.
Then he starts to give the man formally know as Steve Rogers his first shave in who knows how long. No scissors (that would be like handing this man a Bowie knife). The blade will dull, requiring the Winter Soldier to leave and come back with another one, instead of reaching into his pocket for a spare. The whole time his grip is unforgiving, tight enough to bruise, the metal fingers flashing in the light every now and then. It will take awhile to produce the desired results: the unkempt beard, long enough to grab onto, has been trimmed to a long stubble. If the Captain saw himself in the mirror, he might even have a moment where he recognizes himself for that split second.
The Captain is left alone in the room, but that’s… not bad, either. It’s quiet, almost calm, as his racing heartbeat and flickering nerves slowly start to slow, to calm. It’s maybe a rare treat, to be left alone to come down from the pain and disorientation and fear of a session in the chair. They feel like they last forever. Now, the silence feels the same, but he doesn’t think he minds.
Of course, the Soldier returns eventually, with a cheap razor in one hand and a damp cloth in the other. It’s obvious what he’s going to do, so the Captain doesn’t ask; he just grunts as a hand is clamped down over his neck, but somehow, somehow he stays calm as the other asset drags the razor methodically over his beard. It stings and burns — there’s something missing, the back of his mind says, something else they’re supposed to use, another step in the process? — but his mind can’t dig it up. It’s like he knows how this should go, even though he doesn’t know how it should go.
The handlers watch, murmuring, over closed circuit video feeds as the Captain allows the Soldier to shave him without struggle. The scientists are jotting down notes as well, pens racing furiously across clipboards. The Captain is more docile than usual, even as the veins stand out on his neck and in his arms, as his hands clench and forearms flex against the restraints. He’s tense but he isn’t angry or vicious or wild. Even when the Soldier has to retreat and return with a new razor, leaving the Captain half shaved, he doesn’t move. He simply waits for the other to return and finish the job.
In the chair, the Captain’s face feels almost cold. It’s a strange sensation; he wonders how long he’s had the beard. He can’t remember not having it, but that’s not necessarily strange. He can’t remember a lot of things. His eyes go up to the Soldier’s face as he finishes up, wipes the cool, damp cloth over his cheeks and lips and chin to catch any small, stray hairs. He doesn’t thank the other asset. But he does say, as if to confirm, “Liability eliminated?”
The handlers will be pleased. Or, at least, satisfied. They’re less cruel, when they’re satisfied. The next thought comes, unbidden and unexpected: Maybe they’ll be less cruel to the Soldier, too.
He doesn’t think they’ll let him out of the chair until the second razor has been disposed of, though. Even if, he realizes dully, he wouldn’t use it on the Winter Soldier. Not like he had on the handler. The Winter Soldier is… different.
The drug regimen the Captain receives this morning is different — not that he would know. He does know by now the daily routine of chair, drugs, and shocks, even if the order and amount sometimes still change as the techs continue to refine the process, hone it into the best way to control the man who still sometimes bucks control. But those instances are getting fewer and farther between. He’s been lucid-but-compliant for longer, these days. He’s less unstable, less likely to snap or go rogue. And he’s been tested against and with the Winter Soldier in enough scenarios by now that they know the two subjects aren’t going to kill each other, when left to their own devices. Not unless they’re ordered to.
Today, the drugs leave him feeling strange. There’s sweat trickling down his brow as they march him in a line of guards, two in front and two behind, to a room frequently used for asset medical observation. He has no idea if he’s been here before (he has), but he can tell the glass windows have been reinforced. The cameras are recessed and protected in the corners of the high concrete ceiling. The door is as thick as any in the rooms he’s often put in. He can remember those details, even if he can’t remember every specific instance he's seen them in.
Which is why, when he spots the single bed in the corner, the single set of shelves bolted to the floor holding several objects that aren’t weapons he’s trained with, he isn’t entirely sure if it’s odd or not. His gut says yes, but his gut is also roiling with an antsy, itchy feeling that must be showing in his body language because the guards are extra on edge when they march him up and push him inside. He’s dressed only in soft pants and an undershirt, although the pants are devoid of any ties, as usual. His feet are bare. His face is bare, too. They’ve been successful enough with the newest regimen that the techs are able to keep him shaved. It’s a significant milestone, relatively recent, after he’d only allowed the Soldier to do it for far longer than his handlers had liked.
The Soldier isn’t here when they put the Captain in, but he’s not far behind. The Captain’s guards don’t even bother closing the door, just form a line two men deep and watch him warily from behind riot gear while he stands and stares at them, blank-eyed, until he hears more footsteps down the hall and his eyes flick toward the sound, to see the Soldier being escorted in much the same way. He isn’t even sure whether he’ll be taken past the room and doesn’t realize he’s hoping he won’t be when the desired outcome occurs, his own guards parting so the Soldier’s can shove him in and shut the heavy door behind him.
He tenses but stands his ground, unsure what his orders are, but expecting a fight. It’s always a fight, with the Soldier, and there are no opponents for them to team up on, today. So when the voice crackles over the loudspeaker with the direction, “This is a test. You will begin feeling the effects of the medication in a moment. You will not kill or permanently maim each other. Anything else is permitted. Make use of what is in the room,” his head snaps up toward the sound and his brow furrows. Then he looks back at the Soldier.
This isn’t the usual protocol. He’s somehow quite sure of that.
Unlike the Captain, the Winter Soldier isn't prepped with additional drugs. He is, after all, further along in the lessons of obedience that HYDRA teaches. His body doesn't fight off the urge to submit the way it does with the other asset. He screams until he doesn't.
All it takes is a few rounds in the chair and the keywords. Hours later the nauseating pounding in his head has turned into a low-grade headache. The trembling in his limbs fades to barely-there twitches. His lashes are stiff with old sweat and the remnants of dried tears but he can finally see without the corridor tilting, his guards without their features blurring into fleshy smears. The Soldier doesn't feel good, exactly, not with how his head aches with some hollowing need to be filled with purpose, with orders, but his body's more or less behaving and he's confident he can walk without swaying: there's the vague impression that he's recovered faster than the last time, although he can't place a finger on when that last time was but he knows this is a good thing. Today required one less round in the chair, for whatever reason. At least, that's according to what his handler said while he was busy drooling in the chair's embrace, eyes half-hooded, and listening to the machine powering down. It isn't like he can keep count.
Whatever he did, though, he needs to do it again.
He isn't surprised to see the Captain in the room. That happens from time to time, the two of them escorted somewhere and locked in. It's when the guards don't follow him that he hesitates, unable to resist glancing over his metal shoulder just in time to see the door - reinforced; multiple bolts thudding into place - lock behind him. For a moment the Winter Soldier's brow furrows. His lips part. Confusion struggles its way out of his fresh conditioning, for a moment flitting across his face. That's never happened before, he thinks. Usually there's guards with guns pointed at them, handlers with tablets and notepads to take notes about their performance.
He glances at the Captain, the man clean-shaven more often than not, denying him the ability to grab his beard if this is going to be a combat scenario. The other asset stands there like a statue, broad-shouldered, lean muscle and powerful. One look at his placid face and he can verify that the Captain doesn't know what's going on either.
The intercom clicks on.
The Winter Soldier's already moving even before the voice on the other end finishes speaking. He's always been the one to strike first at the Captain and today isn't any different as he lurches toward the closest thing next to him, choosing the metal suitcase sitting on a nearby shelf and popping it open. He doesn't know what they mean by medication, if it's already been injected or force-fed by pills or it'll be vented in through the room in gas form. Whatever it'll be, he doesn't wait to find out, immediately reaching for whatever looks useful inside the suitcase's blood-red felt cushioning.
A plastic breathing mask with a vial attached to it, a mystery liquid sloshing inside, glowing a faint pink. A pair of handcuffs.
Handcuffs. Presumably the mask is attached to a sedative, although the Soldier doesn't recognize the color or the serial code printed on the side, and he assumes it's something new from the labs to test out. The handcuffs in hand, he wheels around in one motion and lashes out a kick at the Captain's knee, dimly aware that the other asset's fast, that you have to control his legs to control him. If he catches him off-balance, he'll be springing toward him with the handcuffs, trying to handcuff him to the bed that looks like it's bolted to the floor.
It might not be strong enough to keep the Captain in place. But it'll slow him down, enough to retrieve the mask, and press it to his exposed face. Now it makes sense why he's shaved, the Winter Soldier thinks. It's for the mask's seal.
Edited (woops accidentally wrote his name) 2025-04-30 09:46 (UTC)
The Captain stands his ground as the Soldier stalks right past him over to the shelf — then pops open the lid of the case he’s chosen, pulls out its contents, and whirls on him, pain blossoming predictably in his kneecap where a foot connects without hesitation.
This is how it always is, he thinks vaguely. He doesn’t know why he thinks it, the words spring to his mind, unbidden. But it’s true, he can feel it. The Soldier takes the first blow, and the Captain lets him, because there’s no better way to size up your enemy than to let them strike out at you and show their hand.
(It would be a tactically poor choice for nearly anyone — except the Captain, who can take whatever he’s given. He will take it until he can’t. And then he will get up again anyway.)
He takes a step back when the Soldier kicks at his knee, shifting his weight to the other; he doesn’t go down but it’s still enough for the Soldier to press him with the cuffs. No one but the Soldier would be able to tell, and he might not be able to comprehend, but there’s a flash almost like amusement in the Captain’s eyes, as they flick to the cuffs and then up again. What do you think those are going to do?
The Soldier presses again, and the Captain doesn’t so much retreat another step as twist out of the way — but it turns out that’s exactly what the Soldier wants and, lightning-fast, the metal snicks shut around one of the Captain’s wrists and then the metal frame at the foot of the bed.
It’s barely enough to slow him down — an inconvenience, at most — but it is enough time for the Soldier to dart back to the case. And just as the Captain’s snapping the metal links on the cuffs with a sharp jerk of one arm, he turns back and the Soldier is coming at him again with the mask, the vial clearly visible, catching the harsh light. And the Captain’s entire awareness zeroes in on it. He knows what vials mean. He knows what they are, what they do to him — except when he doesn’t, like what they’d given to him earlier is doing to him now. He doesn’t understand, and there’s an animal panic in his gut as he realizes that the Soldier is trying to drug him.
The Captain desperately does not want to be drugged.
There’s a reason the improved regimen involves shocking him first and drugging him second. Now, something in him snaps and he lashes out with a fast, fierce kick that catches the Soldier in the gut. He follows up with a shoulder in the solar plexus, rushing him like a linebacker, toppling both of them to the floor and crushing the mask, the vial, in between him, spilling the entirety of its sharp, sickly-sweet contents largely into the Soldier’s face, with only a few wisps sliding through the air the Captain’s breathing in.
Still, the Captain flinches away — his handlers take note, techs scribble down assessments, he’ll be punished and conditioned later, again and again until vials and drugs don’t make him flinch, because it’s a clear weakness — and for now it’s enough of an opening for the Soldier to weasel his way out of his grip, if he can pull through the haze of the drugs to take it.
It's not a surprise when the handcuffs snap. Sometimes that happens. HYDRA will lace the equipment provided with inferior models or even just models meant for restraining normal, weak men, not superior ones like the Captain, in order to judge the reaction. By then the Winter Soldier's already rushed for the plastic mask, groping for it, in his hurry spilling the empty metal suitcase onto the floor with a clang of steel against linoleum.
Next thing he knows, the Captain's bare foot hammers into his stomach. It pitches him stumbling backward with a pained grunt before he can get the mask over his face. That look on the other asset's face - a lightening in the dull blue eyes, a barely there quirk of his lips - suddenly tightens, slams down like a defensive wall as if he, too, realized that the real threat is whatever's in the mystery vial, not the possibility of being just restrained or merely beaten. It's why when the Captain tackles him that the Winter Soldier tries to pivot, to twist his body, to protect the mask. His grip tightens on it so the other man can't simply grab it. They hit the floor together, the Captain's full weight brutal and crushing as he lands on him.
The vial cracks. Something wet spurts in the Winter Soldier's face like blood splatter. Despite knowing better he instinctively inhales for air the other asset crushed from his tortured ribs before he can stop himself. Dizzying sweetness winds sharp in his nose, cloying against his tongue even as he jerks his head away with a grimace, spitting out what he can, his hand coming up to frantically wipe away the vial's residue from his mouth before he can ingest even more than he's already had.
It wasn't the whole vial, he thinks. But it's enough and even as he writhes out from under the Captain with a panicked shove against his chest and a palm strike slamming his chin backward, he can feel something already happening. His head swims. The room alternates from blurring to snapping into startling detail. Colors vibrate at the edges, oversaturated. Warmth spreads. The majority of it pools in his core, throbbing between his legs even as he scrambles on all fours toward the shelf for a new weapon.
Toward anything at all he can use against the other man. Before the sedative really kicks in.
By the time the Winter Soldier makes it to the shelves he's started panting and it's not just because of his aching ribs. His tongue's heavy with saliva all of a sudden. The heat building in him is fast becoming a distraction. Crouching down next to the equipment shelf, dark hair hanging down half in his face, its limp tangles slicking with hints of sweat, the Winter Soldier suddenly finds he can't stand his clothes scratching against suddenly sensitive skin. Even as he reaches for something on the shelf with one hand, the Soldier's removing his shirt with the other, his metal fingers tearing through cloth, raking angry red lines across his heaving chest and stomach and exposing his flushed skin to the sterile air of the cell they both share.
Whatever was in that vial? It's become clear real fast that it was no sedative.
The Captain temporarily overbalances as the Soldier disappears beneath him, both of them pawing at their faces. He didn’t inhale much of the drug, but it doesn’t matter — he doesn’t know it, but the cocktail they’d already injected him with is picking up speed, and while his metabolism differs from the Soldier’s, that little bit of the vial’s contents that did get in his face isn’t helping matters, any.
Or, the techs might argue, it’s helping things along nicely.
By the time the Captain has rolled into a wary crouch, the other asset is already on the other side of the tiny room again, grabbing for something on the shelf. The Captain feels a spark of annoyance and rises to his feet, ready to stalk over — but it’s immediately subsumed by something else as metal fingers tear at the Winter Soldier’s own shirt.
The Captain’s gut goes tight and hot like he’s been hit with a wrecking ball. He goes perfectly still, mind racing. He doesn’t understand the reaction. It’s just skin, and yet his eyes feel like they’re drawn there like a compass to true north. His own chest heaves with a gasping breath and his fists curl, unsure what to do with this feeling and not liking that at all. He always knows what to do. It’s his purpose, his function, to know what action needs to be taken and take it without hesitating. He has learned that much in the endless tests and assessments and sessions he’s been though, each one reinforcing one pathway in his brain: Decisive action is paramount. Hesitation is not allowed. Hesitation will endanger the mission.
He doesn’t know what the mission is today, but whatever it is, he needs to succeed. He can’t lose. He makes a move for the Soldier but it’s uncharacteristically clumsy, fueled by his indecision. Does he want to tackle the Soldier to subdue him or to — touch him? Suddenly that feels like he wants to touch that expanse of bare skin like nothing he’s ever wanted before. He wants to rub himself all over the Soldier, wrap himself up in him, do anything, anything to get them close. He wants that bare skin. And he wants more of it.
He reaches out, but doesn’t seem to notice the reinforced leather and metal in the Soldier’s flesh hand. The Captain’s fingers are reaching out to touch that bare skin, to skim over the red lines. He wants to know what the heat from that skin feels like on his hand. On his face. On his own bare chest.
His hand closes over something flexible. The Winter Soldier has just enough time to register it in his peripheral - leather collar, the black leash attached to it vibrating unless he forcibly blinks it back into focus - before there's sudden movement before him. His head jerks toward it. The Captain. He's closed the gap, close enough now to strike, to finish this. To also help himself to whatever's on the shelf...not that he needs any of that to incapacitate the Winter Soldier when he's backed up against the shelves, still clawing the last shreds of his shirt off his shoulders and arms, lips parting, his glassy eyes fixed on the other asset.
The Captain crouches down. His hand reaches toward him.
He starts at the initial touch, fully expecting to have his head slammed back into the shelves or to be bodily hauled against the Captain's muscular frame in a sleeper hold. Muscle memory whispers both happened before. Not this. Not the Captain running his hand over his skin, tracing out where the Winter Soldier's metal fingers have raked angry red marks against his chest and his taut stomach. A little moan is dragged out when the Captain's palm runs over the peak of his nipple, stiffening and warm and more sensitive than it had been just a few minutes ago.
He goes rigid when the other asset touches his face, palm fitting against his jaw, thumb tilting his chin upward as if he's inspecting him. Even through the haze of the drug burning him up from the inside, making him want to squirm toward the touch, the thought swims up that he needs to defend himself. Use what's in his hand. It flits away the next second, something powerful and distracting surging in him. It's been so long since the Winter Soldier's felt want, felt need, that he doesn't identify it for what it is. All he knows is the heat's pooling, his pants are feeling all of a sudden tight, too tight against his swelling bulge. He needs to remove his fatigues.
He needs - ?
He wants.
The Winter Soldier suddenly surges forward, his metal fingers gripping the back of the Captain's head hard enough to dig into his scalp. Without thinking, acting just on thoughtless instinct, he crushes a bruising kiss against the other asset, his lips hot against the other man's mouth, saliva smearing, his stubble scratching against skin. The kiss itself is artless, nothing like the man he used to be could've managed; it's just pure force, pure animal need and the Winter Soldier almost forgets about the collar in his right hand.
Almost. Something wraps itself around the Captain's neck, thick leather that's been reinforced with metal filaments in the straps settling over his Adam's apple. The Winter Soldier keeps a solid grip on the black leash leading to the collar with his flesh hand, some part of him even through the drug realizing it's the only way he has to control the Captain's movements. His other hand slips down to fumble with his fatigues, fondling the heat of his aching cock free of his standard-issue underwear. It's a relief when it curls against his thigh, no longer constrained by fabric that feels too tight, too itchy. The relief's short-lived, however, when he registers how much it's throbbing, a pulse traveling from his limp shaft to his groin and up his stomach and seeming to pound against the sides of his skull so much that it's hard to think.
The Winter Soldier jerks down suddenly on the collar hard enough to break away the kiss, hard enough to cause the other man's breath to hitch, trying to forcibly drag the Captain's head down toward his legs spreading on either side of him, toward the insistent heat between them.
His tongue swipes out to lick at the corner of his mouth, blue eyes glazed. "Take it," he hisses through his teeth, the expression looking almost like a feral snarl. "Take me."
The Winter Soldier starts but doesn’t pull away when the Captain’s hand touches his chest. That, combined with the soft little sound he makes and the pure heat of his skin under the Captain’s questing fingertips ignites something low and hot and pleased inside him. He wants more of that hot skin to touch. He wants more of that sound coming out of the Soldier’s mouth, and he wants it to be because of him.
He feels the Soldier tense, in the split second before their mouths crash together. It’s the Captain who makes a soft, barely-there sound that’s swallowed by the clashing of their lips as they come together and the way his muscles had tensed in anticipation of weathering the inevitable attack starts to ease. Whatever the Soldier is doing, it is not exactly attacking. Or rather, it is, but it’s attacking in the best way. The Captain wants this attack, the way it’s hard and demanding and perfect, and he growls against the other’s mouth, biting into the kiss and fingers curling against the Soldier’s jaw and reaching for the waistband of the pants that the Soldier is already working at with clumsy fingers, not knowing why but knowing he wants to help —
And all that pleased, self-satisfied pleasure at getting exactly what he wants vanishes in an eyeblink, as the Soldier fits something soft but unyielding around his neck. As it clicks shut and the Soldier yanks hard — harder than he should be able to, has he been upgraded since the last time they fought? — and the Captain has no option but to follow, betrayal flaring icy cold in his gut and flashing unmistakable in his eyes.
This time, the growl isn’t pleasure but anger, resistance, as he rears back out of instinct, knowing he’s been trapped and he can’t allow it, even as his eyes are brought level with the Winter Soldier’s exposed, ruddy cock, and the sudden sight of it, of the thickening flesh and the smell of sweat and musk that the Captain has never inhaled before, makes his own cock give a sudden twitch and throb between his legs, spread on the floor as he kneels. He stares at the cock in front of him, then he stares up at the Soldier — at his flushed face, his heaving chest. His blue eyes, pupils clearly blown. His hand, tight on the short leash that gives another yank at the look, practically pulling the Captain’s face flush against his groin, cock brushing the prickly stubble left on his cheeks from his recent shave. He gets a noseful of nothing but that thick musk, even as his throat strains against the collar, Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows.
His mouth opens and he lets out another low growl. His hands dig into the skin of the other asset’s thighs, but they don’t push back, overbalancing the pair of them to give the Captain the upper hand. That scent is doing something to him, the vision of the Soldier’s cock practically filling his field of view, swelling slowly against the backdrop of his taut stomach, the sparse dark hair that starts beneath his navel. The Captain is furious, but he’s also entranced; he’s like a cobra captured in the thrall of a charmer, and almost without thinking, his lips part, warm breath puffing over sensitive skin. He doesn’t do exactly as he’s told — he doesn’t immediately take the hot flesh into his mouth, doesn’t dive in and start suckling. He still balks at the order, at the same time he wants to shrink underneath it. But the Soldier isn’t his handler. The Soldier is is… equal? But the Soldier also has the upper hand. And the Soldier has given him an order that he both does and doesn’t want to follow.
His whole body tenses, again in that strange, liminal space of indecision, and while he hangs there, the Soldier shifts his weight, widens his stance, and his cock rubs again against the Captain’s cheek and his lips open wider practically of their own volition. He’s made a decision. His fingers tighten against muscled thighs, certainly to the point of pain, but he mouths wetly, inexpertly along the side of the cock in his face, wanting to see if it will get thicker. Bigger. More insistent.
If he can take control by making it do what he wants.
The Captain surely understands the lesson in compliance HYDRA teaches. Having it come from the Winter Soldier, though, is an entirely new beast and they both know it. Something in the other asset's blue eyes darkens as they widen and then narrow. Whatever that look is, the Winter Soldier decides he not only is somehow capable of liking it - liking something at all - and he also decides he likes seeing that loss of control. Likes it that for once the Captain isn't guaranteed a win in today's training. Or, at least, he'll have to actually work for it for a change.
He almost remembers how to smile, despite his lower lip aching from the bite.
Continuing to forcibly guide the other man down to his waiting cock, the Captain has no choice but to bend lower and lower before him. There's tension on the black leash wrapped around the Winter Soldier's wrist, his fingers curled around the loop so tight his nails dig white half-moons into his palm, and he can see that as he pulls that the Captain does as well in the opposite direction, the leash goes taut. As he gets closer, his mouth and nose so close to the hot shaft that he's almost nuzzling it, and the Winter Soldier finds himself breathing even harder, his nostrils flaring, lips parting and his tongue sneaking out once more to wet the corner of his mouth and running a glistening trail against his upper lip.
His knees draw up slightly before the Captain's bruising grip clenches down on both his thighs, thumbs fitting against the tense, flexing muscle along the inside and stopping him from moving further. Whatever pain the Winter Soldier feels isn't enough to cut through the drug's haze. Throughout it, his whole body seems to vibrate and thrum with need just under the surface. Every nerve's on edge. Stubble tickles maddeningly against the heat of his shaft, each touch sending little jolts of something he hasn't felt often, if at all, in HYDRA; it takes several seconds of the Captain nuzzling against his stiffening cock, lips teasing against the hot shaft, an experimental flick of the tongue, before he realizes what it is.
Physical pleasure. Happiness at the sight of the Captain submissive.
That unfamiliar urge - of need, of want - swells.
The details of the room, the bed bolted to the floor, the shelves, and the featureless walls penning them in, pulse in the Winter Soldier's field of vision as he squeezes his eyes shut with a little strangled gasp. His eyelashes stick together a little, still coated with drying remnants of that pink mystery vial. The next second he forces his eyes open, wanting the Captain right where he can see him, partly because he is and always will be a threat, partly because he doesn't want to miss the sight of the other, stronger asset submitting on his knees before him. To encourage him along, the Winter Soldier shifts from where he's sitting with his back against the shelves, his hip tilting from the floor to push his cock insistently up against the other man's mouth. It's half-hard now and getting harder still, thick, shining in places where the Captain has tried sucking here and there, the tip shining with a mixture of saliva and precum.
After awhile of the Captain exploring, coaxing his hard shaft so that it curves upward into the air, the Winter Soldier's the one to break ranks first, unable to tamp down on the need surging through him any longer even if it might looked like he blinked first. The black leash jerks again like the barrel of a gun to the ribs. With his free hand, the Soldier grips the other man's shorter blonde hair, chrome fingers curling against his scalp, as he forces him to look up at him.
"Stop stalling, Captain," the Winter Soldier says, his voice tight, strangled with mounting frustration. With his hand he'll force the Captain to return to his erect cock, the length teasing against his mouth, pushing aside his lips as it plays across them to smears precum.
The musky scent of the Soldier fills the Captain’s nose, the little gasp he lets out feeling almost like a physical shock that travels down his spine and yet ends up somehow between his legs. The Captain is feeling hot and prickly all over, still fully clothed as the Soldier curls naked before him, fatigues around his ankles and bare, heaving chest shining slick with sweat in the harsh light.
He’s feeling pleased with himself, at the Soldier’s reactions — all of them, as he feels the shaft swelling under his lips, feeling the Soldier’s hips arch and thinking that this is how it should be. The Captain may be bound, but he’s still in control. He’s still got what the Soldier wants, and he decides when and how much he can have —
Except the Winter Soldier is having none of it. There’s a sharper tug at the leash, and the Captain’s neck flexes as he tries to resist, but he’s not in the strongest position, particularly when the Soldier threads fingers through his hair. He looks up with that same flash of something in his blue eyes, smugness and defiance intermingled, even as his head is forced down toward the Soldier’s groin. His grip on the other’s thighs tighten and his own back arches but it’s not enough. Somehow, the Soldier overpowers him and pulls him exactly where he wants the Captain, the tip of his glistening cock sliding against his lips and now the Captain tastes that musky, salty scent on his tongue.
He huffs out a warm, wet breath against the head, balking for a moment more, and then without warning he dives in. If the Winter Soldier wants him to stop stalling, then he’ll stop stalling. He’ll show the Soldier who’s in charge — and that it’s the Captain who’s going to take him apart without remorse, lips parting as he inhales sharply, pulling more of the Soldier’s aroused, sweaty scent into his nose as he drops his jaw and tries to force himself to take his cock in all in one go.
The best word for the effort, really, is clumsy. Inexpert. Teeth scrape, albeit gently, along the thick vein along the underside as the Captain tries to suck the half-hard shaft into his mouth. The head bumps the roof of his mouth, nudges up against the back of his throat. There’s a shaky second there where the Captain’s throat tenses, where his shoulders tighten and a normal man would have gagged. Coughed. Pulled off.
The Captain will not show weakness. He will not do those things. He grips the Soldier’s thighs, pulling them — pulling the other asset’s hips with them — toward himself, arching his head down and refusing to give in, pushing past the reflex until it relaxes. He doesn’t know if he’s been trained not to gag or if it simply is a matter of mind over instinct, but his nose nudges ever closer to the thatch of dark hair between the Soldier’s legs. It helps, admittedly, that the Winter Soldier isn’t fully hard yet, even if the Captain means to change that as quickly as he can.
All the same, he’s not doing more than trying to fit the Soldier’s cock in his mouth. Doesn’t think about sucking or running his tongue along it or anything but simply doing as he’s told — and somehow winning the game, while he’s at it.
It's getting harder for the Winter Soldier to think, to focus, and for once it doesn't have anything to do with the chair's arcing electricity searing through his temples or cold IV drips or the needles digging into the crook of his elbow. Preliminary tests, he'd heard disembodied voices say, before trials proceed on the Captain. The Captain. The only other asset he's laid eyes on and somehow, deep in his bones, his gut, he still remembers him.
He thinks he'll remember this, too.
The Captain has his mouth on his cock, stubble tickling his naked thighs, and it feels weirdly right. That warmth encircling him. Lips wrapped around the heat of his stiffening shaft like they're made for each other. Physical pleasure is still an alien thing to the Winter Soldier and it shows from how at first he stiffens at the unfamiliar sensation, flinches at the hint of teeth, the exhausted lines of his features pinching at the bridge of his nose and at the corners of his eyes, how he sucks in a breath rattling through his parted lips when the other asset bodily drags him closer. His thighs throb where the Captain's powerful fingers dig into skin and muscle.
Don't take your eyes off the Captain. That's rule number one, a rule not officially taught by HYDRA, a rule he isn't sure he was supposed to come up with on his own without prior authorization from a handler, but it's a rule that, generally, seems just like common sense. Don't close your eyes, no matter how good this feels. Even as the Winter Soldier's head tilts back against the shelves, his mouth hanging wantonly open in a moan, he still has his eyes open - half-open - flinty blue-gray glittering through his dark lashes. The shape of the Captain, on his knees instead of towering over him on a training mat, his mouth full of cock, shimmers before him, foggy at the edges. Hypersaturated. Something in his head and along his neck pulses. Whatever that drug was, it's currently burning through his body, dismantling whatever shreds of control he still has left.
The Soldier's metal fingers tighten against the other man's scalp.
Something's missing. He can't remember if he's ever had someone - man, woman, whatever - with their mouth on him like this. If they did, he can't pull up the memory but somehow he has this vague idea that the Captain should be doing something more than he already is. Not just trying to swallow him whole, holding him heavy and hot in his waiting mouth. Frustration mounts. The Soldier's hips twist, thrusting up into the other asset's mouth, not caring if he gags or if he makes sounds of discomfort vibrating against his cock. He pushes away from the shelf to curl forward, right hand with the leash bracing against the floor, his titanium one gripping the Captain's short blond hair, the back of his head, and trying to pump him along his shaft and see if that'll fix what's missing.
"You need to do better," the Winter Soldier grunts. "I know you can do better, Captain."
He drags the other asset further along his almost fully hard shaft, watching how his lips are forced wider as it stiffens, how the Captain's body language and posture might change as he's forced to take more than he was prepared for. He pulls him closer, forces him to take him, all of him, to see when it almost seems like he's kissing his groin, his nose buried in dark hair. If it gets hard to breathe, so what? The Captain's probably had the same lung capacity training he did. He'll manage.
The Soldier might be keeping his eyes on the Captain, but the Captain is watching him right back. His eyes aren’t cast down or closed, either — piercing blue-green zeroes in on the Winter Soldier’s own blue-gray eyes, and doesn’t let them go. He doesn’t even flinch when those metal fingers dig into his hair — it’s not like he hasn’t had his hair pulled before, in combat. It’s not like he can’t withstand it.
Even if there’s something different about the way the sharp pain registers in the back of his mind, this time. Some strange sensation, strange little shock of pleasure racing along his nerves at the same time. That’s… new, he thinks. Can’t be sure, of course. But he thinks it is. Despite having only a hazy frame of reference for times before, something about this test, this situation, feels different. He thinks, carefully, deep down where even he can’t really focus too much on it, that he might like it.
Or he would, if the damn Soldier wasn’t being so goddamned demanding, pulling the Captain back and forth on his cock like he doesn’t know what he wants, only it must be something like this. Except… except that’s pleasing in its own way, too, isn’t it. He says You need to do better, but what the Captain hears is I need more. And that… that is a position the Captain likes having him in, even when it seems like the Captain himself is at a disadvantage. It doesn’t feel like it, even when his jaw has to drop a little more, his throat has to strain against the girth of the Soldier’s cock down it, and yet all the Captain can think is, I did that.
And also, I want more, too.
That’s what makes him give the first suck — the idea of more despite the fact that he’s not sure how to get it any more than the Soldier is. But sucking, swallowing, those seem only natural, and so that’s what he does, throat constricting around the sensitive head as his mouth stretches wide, lips pink and wet with saliva and precome, a little trail of it dribbling from the corner of his lips. His eyes narrow, gaze still locked on the Soldier’s, and he starts to pull back a little on his own, experimentally, as he hears the barely-there whine of servos in the Soldier’s prosthetic signal he's about to slide him back again by the hair — only to rock forward again suddenly, hard, with a wet slurping noise as he tries to inhale at the same time. Metal fingers tear at his short hair, but his own thighs tense and he’s got enough leverage to force himself back and forth on the Soldier’s cock, rather than being made to do it. He adds the sucking and swallowing again, and again, the noise of it filling his ears almost louder than the blood already roaring in them.
There’s no real rhythm to it at first, but the Captain is HYDRA’s premier asset. He is smart, he is intuitive, and he is a fast learner. He sets his own pace, using his sheer strength to resist when the Soldier tries to pull or push him sooner than he wants to be pulled or pushed. His lungs do start to burn, but he can take it. He can take anything the Soldier throws at him. And more.
One hand suddenly slides down between the Soldier’s legs, fumbling for his balls, squeezing firm but careful, rolling them in a big, rough, warm palm, then squeezing, then pressing, then rolling again. A thought flashes through his mind: I wonder what he tastes like there — and quick as a thought, he flings himself back and pulls off the Soldier’s hard shaft with a wet sound. But then he’s diving right back in, tilting his head to suck the Soldier’s balls into his mouth as the hand that had been squeezing them slides up along the Soldier’s spit-slick cock instead, twisting at the head before slipping back down again to squeeze hard at the thick base.
The drug vibrating its way through the Soldier, jacking up his sensitivity and lowering his self-control, is overwhelming whatever shreds of focus he's still clinging at with a loosening death grip. Everything feels like it's somehow more. It isn't helping when the Captain finally decides to put his mouth to good use, to experiment and innovate, sucking and swallowing and the surge of the Captain's tongue against his rock-hard shaft has the Winter Soldier's back arching, his legs jerking up only to get slammed back down by the other asset's bruising grip around his thighs. At first he tries clamping down on the sounds coming out of him; the breathy gasps, the needy noises he somehow knows are points against him and are marked down by the handlers who are watching on the camera feeds.
After awhile he can't bite them back.
The Soldier finds himself more vocal than he'd like, his sweat-slicked chest heaving with each throaty groan, breath hitching as he tries and fails to bite back on the strange sounds that take a needy, almost mewling quality that he's somehow sure he's never made before. Cheeks flushing, he tries to make up for it by digging his fingers into the Captain's scalp - an attempt, really, to regain control - but the man's got other ideas, the muscles along his neck and back flexing as he fights doing exactly what the Winter Soldier wants, pushing when he wants to pull, pulling when he wants to push.
With his cock stuffed in the other asset's mouth, warm and inviting, his saliva coating its straining length from base to weeping head, it's getting harder and harder to keep his eyes on the Captain at all times. Without meaning to, the Winter Soldier's eyes squeeze shut despite his better judgement, his mouth falling open in a moan each time the other man sucks on his shaft, each time his tongue swirls around it as he forces himself to take more even though the Soldier's fingers are digging into his scalp to pull him away. Even the feeling of the Captain's fingers fondling his balls - the perfect position to squeeze, to immediately translate pleasure to debilitating pain - isn't enough to drag him back. Each squeeze, each press of his callused fingers makes the Winter Soldier's hips twitch away only to return wanting more.
His eyes flare open when the Captain suddenly frees his mouth. The Winter Soldier's eyebrows furrow together as he jerks up with a scowl, his spine gone stiff with irritation and his cock bobbing in the sterile air with its shaft shining with saliva under the florescent lights, so hard it almost hurts.
"I didn't say you could - " is all he gets out before the Captain steals his words away with a two-pronged approach.
Mercilessly he mouths at his throbbing balls, nose tickling the underside of his thigh as his tongue flicks out and lathes against it, and the Winter Soldier's legs twitch obediently wider despite the black collar around the other asset's throat. The Captain's hand circles around his straining cock and strokes it at the same time, palm and fingers glistening, and the Winter Soldier groans, low and throaty and desperate even though he knows it's a sign of weakness in the body and the mind. His head spins and the room tilts as his eyes roll up toward the ceiling, lashes fluttering, and he spots the glint of a camera recessed into the corner of the cell's reinforced wall. His hips thrust into the Captain's touch once, twice, three times, his eyes rolling again and then it finally sinks in - the camera.
The chair. Whoever does worse in this exercise - nevermind he doesn't know exactly how it's graded - will spend longer in that goddamn chair.
Despite the collar wrapped around his neck, the Captain's somehow got him under control.
The Winter Soldier's eyes flare open and dart down, pupils contracting to black points in a sea of blue-gray. He almost caves when he spots the Captain's blond head buried between his legs with his nose nudging against the base of his erection, his tongue pressing wet and hot and pink against his balls. It takes whatever shreds of self-control he still has left to do something about it: the Winter Soldier suddenly scoots away, his back wedged against the shelf hard enough that they dig into his skin and hurt, and he'll manage to get his foot wedged up against the Captain's chest, bodily pushing away even as at the same time he tightens his grip on the leash and pulls to steal the other man's breath away.
"N...no," the Winter Soldier grunts through teeth bared in a snarl. "Enough!"
The Captain, likewise, doesn’t know how the assessment is being scored, or how to win. But he, too, knows in his bones that whatever the rubric, the winner will be the one who’s punished less.
And he knows, just as deep, that the sounds the Soldier is making sure make it feel like the Captain is winning.
Until, that is, the Soldier gives an unexpectedly hard yank on the leash and the Captain, admittedly feeling a little drunk (does he know what drunk feels like? This must be it) on the scent and taste of him, is caught off guard by it, and then by the foot in his chest. Every inch he’s shoved back makes it harder to breathe — he gasps as his throat strains against the collar and his arms start to lift, as if to reach out for the Soldier, to drag them back together.
But the Soldier has him at a disadvantage. Two, really, between the collar and his locked-out leg. Now the Captain is off-balance, crouched and panting as his chest heaves beneath the sole of the foot pressed against it, his mouth cherry-red and glistening, his eyes dark and blown. The soft pants he’s wearing do little to hide the way they’re distinctly tented at the front, a little damp. The Captain hadn’t noticed before, previously too intent on his task and then too concerned with pulling air into his lungs to pay much attention to the heat that’s been pooling, slow but steady, below his navel. But now the fabric shifts just so and the zing that shoots through him makes his eyes roll back a little and flutter.
He snaps them open a second later and glances down, almost like he’s got to see with his eyes what he can feel, suddenly and almost overwhelmingly, about his own body. His breath rasps harshly in his throat as his eyes flick back up to the Soldier — snagging first, admittedly, on the hard shaft bobbing in the harsh fluorescent light, thick and flushed. Then they finally crawl up to the other’s eyes.
The Soldier says he’s had enough. The Captain feels like he needs… something, now. Right now. Friction. Hard muscle against the aching parts of him. He’s never needed anything more. He does finally reach up now, grips the Soldier’s calf, straining to keep him at a distance. He doesn’t pull yet, though his muscles tense, ready to twist or yank. He waits to see if the Soldier is going to keep him here. If he needs to take the upper hand. The Captain is not usually patient. It feels like patience is the last thing he wants to exercise now. But it also feels like the only measure of control he has in this situation, and he clings to it, stubbornly, just like he clings to the other’s leg.
“Is that really enough?” he asks, voice hoarse and thin with the collar still constricting his throat. “I could do more.”
What, he’s not sure. But he wants to find out. And there’s no alarm blaring, no bell sounding, no one shouting at them to stand down. Why should they stop, until someone makes them? This test isn’t over yet.
The leash with the opposing pressure of his foot and locked knee should've - would've - strangled the fight out of anyone.
But the Captain isn't just anyone. And as usual, he doesn't go easily.
The Soldier's aware of his increasingly shaky positioning. He's still the one on the floor, pinned with limited avenues of escape with the shelves digging into his spine and shoulder blades, and now his weight's shifted in a bad way with one leg up and fresh pain jolting through his quivering calf as the other asset digs fingers punishingly deep into the muscle, bruising flesh to fibula, coaxing out five red beads of blood around his nails. A normal man might dislodge his leg from this position. The Captain could easily dislocate his leg, if not outright break it.
Yeah, he could definitely do more.
Everything swims. Static pops in his vision, but he can't tell if it's from the drug overheating his body or from the pain of the Captain's fingers digging so deep into his calf it's like he plans to peel back the scarred skin there. His face is hot with a flush navigating its way across his cheeks. If he jerks back on the leash, the Captain responds by digging in his fingers into his flesh even harder, applies a little pressure to the side that sends lightning jolting up from his hip socket like warning shots. The Soldier's breath hitches into wet gasps that only quicken when the Captain squeezes again and his eyes somehow dart from the look in his too bright eyes to...his pants. To the crotch. To what's protruding the fabric there. Just the sight it makes his own achingly hard cock, the shaft slick and glistening with drying saliva, twitch with need.
For a second he almost lets go of the leash, lets it slither between metal fingers. He...could submit. HYDRA has been teaching him how to submit in a timely, orderly fashion and while he can't remember the specific lessons, he can feel the urge, the rightness of it simmering away in his blood and settling in his bones.
But he'd never been taught to submit to the Captain. The Captain's not a superior; not a handler, a highly ranked officer. He's an equal in that they're both just lowly assets and he's had to have realized they're fighting over the same thing, like two starving men clawing each other over one ration.
Instead of releasing the leash tethering the Captain to him, reddening the man's throat in the shape of the black collar locked around it, the Soldier suddenly jerks with all his might, metal hand curled into a chrome fist. In the same motion he kicks against the other asset's powerful chest, feeling the arch of his foot slipping against his undershirt because even his soles are sweating. Using his foot shoved against the Captain as leverage, he takes a risk then to drive his other heel toward the erection tenting the Captain's pants; in an ideal combat scenario, choking the Captain out and hitting him there at the same time would have plenty enough stopping power.
Edited (fixing the leg part so it's the calf) 2025-05-30 11:52 (UTC)
The Captain's throat will surely be bruised, where the skin isn't just plain scraped raw as he strains against the collar. His eyes are sharp, dark, as he watches the Soldier flush, chest heaving, leg straining —
Until the Soldier gives a sharp yank with the metal arm, squirming like a landed fish so that as the Captain's back bows, the bare foot slides down from his solar plexus past his abdominals, his waist, down to his groin.
The strangled, desperate sound the Captain makes is not one any of the handlers watching have heard. They've heard grunts of desperation and anger, growls of frustration, even scoffs of victory. This is something else entirely, a low, grinding, animal sound as the Captain's eyes roll back for just a fraction of a second as pleasure-pain-pleasure courses through him like he's been struck by lightning. It's not like the electricity of the chair, that he knows so well. It's like something else entirely. Hot and sharp and crackling and wild.
It's driving him wild, that feeling, and now his own body twists, the collar digging angry, bloody welts into his skin and he can barely breathe but it doesn't matter because in another instant, the Captain throws himself forward, the Soldier's foot sliding away from his crotch but that's okay because he's wedged the Soldier's other leg between his own, wrapped that offending, bruised foot and leg around his waist, and he's thrown himself up at the Soldier, chest to chest, trapping the other asset's hard, red, wet erection between their stomachs. It's trapped between bare skin, the Captain's shirt half-torn, half-hitched up, the Soldier's in shreds. The Captain's face comes at the Soldier's and knocks it into the side of the shelving, but the move is clumsy and where he could bite or even headbutt, he doesn't. Instead he follows, mashing his sweaty cheek up against the Soldier's flushed temple and arches, rocking his own hardness hard into the muscular thigh between his legs, again and again.
Outside the room, a twitter goes through the handlers. There are snorts and crude jokes and derisive remarks — there have already been plenty, when the Captain's head had buried itself in the Soldier's lap — but now the tide has turned and there are more, as the Captain tries to climb the Soldier like a tree and pin him like a wrestler and hump him like a dog, restless and desperate and not at all sure what he's doing, only he's going to do what feels good, and this feels good. The Soldier between his legs, pressed up against his stomach, breathing hard against his chest, under him, feels good.
Against the Soldier's ear, his breath stutters and pants, still constricted by the collar although it's better now, with less space between them, more slack on the leash. "Put your hand down my pants," he says, an edge to it like a command. He has the upper hand now. And he knows where he wants the Soldier's free one. "Your flesh one."
He doesn't even care if the Soldier won't release the leash. He doesn't need to breathe. He's got the Soldier's thigh pressed up against him but he needs the Soldier's hand on his cock, now.
The Captain moves...but not in the way he planned.
It happens fast - the man surges forward all of a sudden to catch the Winter Soldier off-guard even though he'd been half-expecting it, quick enough that even as he instinctively jerks back on the leash the Captain follows it forward instead of fighting it. Before he can pitch himself to the side the Soldier finds himself bodily pinned. One leg's wrenched painfully around in a position where he can't get any leverage, can't kick; can't do much more than writhe against the Captain with his weeping cock pinned painfully between them, streaking against their sweat-slicked skin. He spits out a pissed-off sound between his bared teeth, saliva smearing against their cheeks as his head's forced to the side, the Captain dragging a trail of it up against his profile almost to his hairline.
The Soldier's struggling only seems to egg on the other asset. He twists and writhes and his aching balls sliding against the floor with each futile buck, his breath coming in wet, shaking pants, overwhelmed by the double assault of the aphro burning inside him and the Captain rubbing all over him like he wants to claim him. The bulge straining against the crotch of the Captain's pants already started to soak through and soon his thigh's damp where he grinds and grinds and grinds. The Captain's shifted high enough that the Soldier's gets a faceful of his tattered shirt, the other man's stiff nipples seeming to be everywhere - his flushed cheek, sweeping against his nose, teasing against his parted lips - the shirt hiking up even further so that his head's pinned against the shelf by the firm press of his pectoral.
For a second he doesn't obey. Blood rushes in his skull, a roaring sound that almost drowns out the Captain's voice tickling against his ear, his breath hot and demanding; the brush of his swollen lips sends a shudder wracking down the Winter Soldier's spine as he jerks uselessly against the other asset and just ends up with a stiff nipple poking the corner of his mouth for all his trouble. Quivering against the Captain, trapped, the Soldier's breaths come in ragged, needy gasps. Something that's remembering it's anger wars with a yawning, animal need, with the sudden, inexplicable urge to tilt his head to the side so that the Captain's nipple could pop into his mouth. His cock twitches against the Captain's stomach, the straining shaft hot and engorged against flexing muscle.
The Soldier relents.
With a snarl that almost sounds pissed, he gropes his way down the other man's taut stomach. Fingers slide through the glistening trails of his own precum until he can slip them past the waistband. When he encounters the Captain's cock, he won't exactly be gentle as he grabs its trapped shaft in his callused fingers. At the same time the Winter Soldier's dark head shifts to allow that nipple digging into the corner of his mouth to finally slip inside, his tongue sweeping and suckling around the rosy bud. Teeth graze against skin. It feels marginally better to have something in his mouth - though maybe it's too small - but he can't seem to keep it in because the Captain keeps moving; one second his pectoral's bumping against his mouth, hard enough to drive his nose into firm muscle, only to pull away the next so that the Soldier has to hungrily seek it with his mouth, open and questing, tongue slipping out as he manages to recapture his nipple.
The hand shoved past the Captain's waistband is exploring, stroking, squeezing, hot palm to hot length. It's random, without an idea of where best to touch, his knuckles outlined against the soaked fabric of his pants as rough fingers curl and pull against the underside of his trapped cock. (But even high on aphro, The Winter Soldier knows better than to squeeze with all his might, to sink his teeth into the nipple stiffening against his surging tongue)
The Soldier may sound pissed, but he does what the Captain wants, and for a just a minute, that’s all that matters. It doesn’t matter if he’s not trying to be gentle or skilled — what matters is the double assault of gun- and knife-calloused fingers around his cock and the wet heat of a mouth on one aching nipple, a feeling he’d barely noticed until the press of a hot tongue against it brings something that’s both relief and something that feels like the opposite. It’s that hot, crackling, wild energy arcing through him, like his chest and his crotch are the anode and cathode, and the Soldier’s touch is electrifying him in a way the chair never could. This is kind of torture, the Captain thinks, that he would be willing to endure forever.
He lets out a sound that’s half-grunt, half-groan, body arching toward the Soldier’s as he continues to rock, to press. There’s a new war going on in his brain, where deep down he knows he needs to keep the upper hand, stay on top, dominate the Winter Soldier. But at the same time, some blind, untraceable urge is telling him he wants to be under the Soldier. He wants to be on the floor or against the wall and he wants the Soldier to be the one pinning him, because as much as the Captain is enjoying the position he’s in, there’s just something about it that’s not quite right.
This time, when he moves, it’s to snake arms around the Soldier and pull them even tighter chest to chest, heat blooming between them as any sliver of air that might have separated them disappears. It crushes the other asset’s hand against his cock, which is certainly nothing to scoff at, either — the shaft now feels as hard and straining as his nipples, like there’s sparks dancing under his skin, like he’s going to explode like ordnance and he won’t even care. He wants it.
Once the Soldier is firmly in his grip, the Captain rolls them like wrestlers, legs wrapping around the other’s waist as the slide to the side and the hard flood comes up and knocks the air out of him just as the dark shadow of the Soldier’s head, too-long lanky hair hanging down, comes up to blot out the too-bright overhead lights. All the Captain can see are the blue-gray eyes, whittled down to thin rings of color with the pupils blown wide, as he arches his hips up eagerly into the Soldier’s grip, encouraging.
Of course, even as one arms stays tight around the other’s torso, the other snakes down to find the hot, hard length of the Soldier’s cock pressed between them. A large, hot hand takes it up in a firm grip, sliding up and down almost maddeningly slow and steady. The Captain feels like he might fly apart, but this motion is nonetheless utterly calm and controlled. He might have put the Soldier on top, but the Soldier is not in control. This is still where the Captain wants him. And he gets only what the Captain wants to give him. “Keep touching me,” he demands, as if the other could even stop, pinned now with the Captain wrapped around him like he is.
The Soldier goes stiff as soon as he feels those strong arms loop around his body. This happened before, the Captain trapping him, powerful arms wrapping around his torso and squeezing - but it seems like this time there's something different planned, because the other asset doesn't crush the resistance out of him. Instead he's suddenly bodily jerked away from where he'd been pinned against the shelves. The Captain spins them together as one onto the floor, the Soldier surprised to find himself actually on top of the other man instead of pinned below, where he usually is when he's been made to submit.
The sheer shock of it is enough to prevent him from rolling off, lunging back to the shelf so he can get another tool - a weapon - to arm himself with.
Unable to roll off, the Soldier can't help but groan when the Captain ensures he can't escape easily by grabbing his cock jutting between them. A hand circles around it tight and while he doesn't squeeze to incapacitate, that could change at any time. Maybe he should get it over with, the Soldier's husky gasps taking on a frustrated edge at the slow - too damn slow - pace of the strokes, his grip just firm enough that he can't easily force the issue by pistoning his engorged shaft against his palm, its head weeping from its slit to glisten along the Captain's fingers.
Doesn't mean he doesn't try, his hip pushing forward.
Pinned like this, his torso and his cock trapped between their bodies, and the Soldier has no choice. His breath rushes hot against the other asset's face, disheveled hair hanging down, casting his worn face in shadow even as his wide eyes glitter. He needs more. He needs - wants? - the Captain to speed up instead of torturing him with these always slow, always even, always the same leisurely pumps of his hand circled around his throbbing cock.
Still gazing down at the Captain, his hand shifts position. Whether it's frustration at how trapped he is, the aphro warming his body and lighting each nerve on fire, or just a general kind of impatience - the Soldier decides the pants and underwear are in the way and have to go. Now. The fatigues are thin, not the thicker types for field work, and gripping the fabric in his titanium hand, he tears them with a sideways jerk that will draw angry red marks where the waistband dug into the Captain's sweat-slicked side.
His standard-issue underwear gets the same treatment from the Winter Soldier, the thinner fabric tearing much more easily than his pants. Now he can fondle the Captain free, his straining member hot and pulsing, his fingers pressing down against the softness of his sac, rubbing, exploring, not sure what to do but figuring that he will know from the Captain's breathing, if he flinches or he moans.
If he moans - without thinking, the Soldier leans down, hair tickling the Captain's face, and he'll capture his lips with his, tongue invading his mouth, the kiss rough, hard enough to crack the other asset's head against the floor all over again. At the same time he attempts to thrust his cock into the Captain's hand, maybe hoping to catch the other asset by surprise. To force him to do something - squeeze, pick up the pace - instead of keeping him in that awful limbo.
The Soldier can’t escape, but he can take advantage of his new position to push his hips against the Captain’s grip, clearly unhappy with the pace. The Captain doesn’t laugh — doesn’t even remember how, barely knows it’s a sound he can make, though the handlers certainly do — but there’s a quirk of his lips and a flash in his eyes that only the Soldier can see, so close, hidden from the cameras and the viewing window by the angle of their heads and the fall of the Soldier’s hair. It’s just as well, really. Any expression past determination on either asset’s face would certainly warrant punishment.
He doesn’t have long to enjoy his victory, though, before the Soldier is moving; not struggling to get away, but grabbing at the Captain’s pants with a sharp tearing sound that almost — but not entirely — masks the harsh, hitched gasp the Captain sucks in as the relatively cooler air of the room hits his heated cock, as the Soldier’s rough hand, just the right size, slides back over and down and around his dick and balls, unhindered now by the annoying fabric any longer. It may not be a moan, exactly, but there’s something on the tail end of the sound that must be close enough, because the next thing he knows, there’s chapped lips pressed against his and his head hits the floor with an explosion of sparks behind his eyes — and he likes it. It’s jarring and painful and there’s an almost angry hitch of the Soldier’s hips against his, as the other fights for what he wants and the Captain refuses to give up the upper hand. As the Captain doesn’t laugh again, but radiates a kind of satisfied smugness even as his lips, for just the briefest instant, yield out of something close to surprise.
But not for long. He bites at the Soldier’s lips in retaliation, tearing at the soft flesh and tasting a sharp little burst of copper on his tongue. It won’t bleed much or long, but it’s enough to smear both their lips with blood as the Captain growls into the Soldier’s mouth, writhing under him but never breaking his hold, never moving away far enough to ever risk losing the Soldier’s hand on his cock. He kisses and bites and sucks like he wants to swallow the Soldier whole and never come up for air. He kisses like it’s a contest — everything between them is — but also like it’s a lifeline and he never wants to let go.
The Soldier’s hips smack against his again, clear wanting in them and the Captain tightens his arm around the other asset’s back, a warning. And yet, kissing like this, with the Soldier’s free hand all over him and making him see sparks long after his head should have cleared from that hit, is making him feel… something. It couldn’t exactly be called generosity. Maybe more like curiosity, as the Captain’s eyes open, too close to the Soldier’s, everything out of focus even as everything in his body feels like it is focused, right now, on the aching, straining place between his legs. On what’s building there. On the way he wants the Soldier to feel it too, to react, to give himself over the Captain without pausing in the way he’s giving the Captain what he wants, too.
His legs slide down now from the Soldier’s waist, the Captain stretching out without giving ground, legs sliding along the Soldier’s inner thighs until he’s got the other asset pinned over him by the ankles, grip still as hard as iron. With both of the laid out, the Captain has the advantage again, bucking and arching off the floor while the Soldier should find it harder to keep up that thrusting. At the same time, though, the Captain’s strokes finally, finally speed up along the Soldier’s cock, fingers gliding easily, slick now with all the precome that’s been drooling over them, coating his hand and his belly. He tilts his head enough, shifts just enough for their lips to part and the kiss dissolve into harsh, panting breaths, that his eyes can focus fully on the Soldier’s, now. His gaze bores into them with a focused attention that demands to know if this reward will be appreciated, or if it will be fought. If he ought to keep going, speeding up ever so slightly with every stroke, starting to aim his hand so that their knuckles bump together every few pulls, cocks inches apart, or if he’s going to have to take away this gift again. If the Soldier will fight him on it. Because whatever this is… the Captain has still got to win.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
physical combat assessment 1
Which is the better serum, the better Winter Soldier? HYDRA's? Or that traitor Erskine's?
Today that will be determined: physically, at least, as the mental conditioning required for both Barnes and Rogers is vastly different, with Rogers needing far more attention, more care, than his old war-buddy who is practically docile in comparison to the fits the other throws. Today the Winter Soldier will be escorted to a training room that is typically lined with thick impact mats and weights. Those weights have been removed, he notices immediately, his blue eyes still red-rimmed thanks to a recent session in the Chair and he'll assume that those had been suddenly deemed a threat, a possible weapon. Even the chairs along the wall have been removed, the mirrors.
Not the usual training session, then.
The Winter Soldier waits, barefoot and bare-chested, dressed down to neoprene pants that hug and deny any advantages of his usual armored padding and any grips that the Captain could possibly use against him. He isn't surprised to see that the other asset is dressed similarly. It's the first time that the Winter Soldier believes he has seen this man, his mind, his memories still swimming in that heavy fog that weighs down on his eyelids and bows his shoulders into a hunch inward. His head tilted slightly to the side, his tangled hair half in his face, the Soldier sizes up today's opponent as he's herded in by more guards and handlers than anyone else he's ever seen before.
Similar height. Similar build. Blonde hair. Blue eyes, glazed over but still roaming around the room as if he hadn't already pinged on the Winter Soldier as a threat. Something of a beard - a sign, the Winter Soldier thinks, that this man is more dangerous than most, if a handler can't approach him with a razor. The beard is long enough that the Winter Soldier could grab it, if needed, and he dutifully files that away as he watches the other man come to a stop before him. Behind him, he's aware of someone from his own handler team roughly pulling his hair away from his face and into a ponytail.
A handler speaks.
Her voice rings across the training room like the voice of God.
"Permanent maiming or killing is forbidden. Best two out of three. Go!"
no subject
In fact, there's almost a palpable excitement in the handlers who walk the Captain into the room, the pinprick wounds of several injections still fresh in his neck, scabbed over and nearly healed, minutes from disappearing. He sees the Soldier and his expression doesn't flicker in the least, blue eyes uninterested as he watches the handlers pull the other's hair out of his face, as his own team releases the heavy manacles cuffing his wrists behind his back with a soft but solid thunk, and he lets his arms fall to his sides.
Then the teams retreat, and they are given their instructions, the mission clearly outlined. There is utter silence, complete stillness in the room for a fraction of a second.
Then the Captain springs.
He's been given no information about his opponent, knows nothing about the man in front of him, except what he can see. That's by design — things can go pear-shaped in the field, surprises can pop up, and the best way to judge a fair fight is to make sure it's absolutely fair with a completely clean slate. And what are the assets, right now, but clean slates?
There's the arm — the obvious unknown, and the only way to rectify that is to make it known. So he goes right for it, for the shoulder, throwing his bulk directly at the Winter Soldier like a speeding train, hands reaching for the shoulder to see how it's attached, how strong it is, how well he can feel pressure — or pain.
Maiming is not allowed. But this is testing. Assessing. Then the Captain can adjust his attack accordingly, to better meet the parameters of the test.
no subject
At first he thinks he's going for the throat or eyes. The easiest and closest soft tissues. That's standard; it's what he would have done.
But no...no, this new asset comes at his metal arm, arguably one of the best, most reliable parts of the Winter Soldier, one of the parts that he has a dim, unvoiced pride in because he has controlled it now and it has to be better than the weak flesh one he had before. He had twisted, turning his head and ducking it down to give the other man less chance to get a good, solid grip on his eyes, nose or throat. Unfortunately, that opens up his left side. The Captain will get a firm hold on his shoulder and chrome bicep, the crude metal plates that haven't been buffed or painted yet.
They meet at the center of the mat, with the sickening thud of well-trained muscle and bone hitting each other.
The Winter Soldier tries to jerk his arm free, his metal fingers balled into a tight fist, whirring and rotating on his wrist at an impossible angle. For once in his memory (HYDRA declassified), he can't easily pull himself free. A strange look crosses his expressionless face, then, like a quick-moving wave. Shock. Annoyance. Rage.
No is the one clear thought that breaks through.
The Captain will find the Winter Soldier's combat boot suddenly planted high up on his chest as he throws his full weight backward in a violent front kick that rockets his heel into his opponent's chest. Normally that would cave in a man's ribs; take the fight out of him. Perhaps send the trainee into a lengthy stay in the hospital wing. But this new asset isn't like any of the others and the Winter Soldier makes that executive call not to treat him with kid gloves like the men and women before him.
no subject
The metal under his fingers is strong. It's got the sound of something slightly but not completely hollow, maybe thinner plates encircling a solid core, he thinks. But his fingers can't dent the metal like they have so many chairs and tables and even medical instruments, when someone had gotten too close and he'd been sedated not quite enough.
That lack of a real gripping point means that when the Soldier kicks him in the chest, his hand slides down the metal arm, blunt, ragged fingernails unable to really gain any traction until his fingers come to the wrist and he suddenly tightens his hold, yanking and twisting to try to fling the other asset into the adjacent padded wall to his right, almost like a twisted version of some bygone dance, even as the momentum of the kick sends the Captain half-flying, half-stumbling back into the wall immediately behind him with a dull thud. His right shoulder takes most of the force, but it still knocks the air out of his lungs and jostles his head.
He's dazed but immediately rebounds into a defensive crouch, twisting to see where and how the Soldier might have landed even before his conscious mind has quite recovered fully. That was some kick, he thinks, and there's some... strange feeling stirring at the back of his mind: something he can't recognize anymore as both respect and excitement.
no subject
Unacceptable.
Anger's ghost flashes across his face. The next moment the Winter Soldier finds himself suddenly flung into the wall, hard enough that stars spark and swirl: he fights to suck in air through bared teeth. Did he crack a rib? Does he have time to be sure? (That isn't technically maiming according to HYDRA). No time to sit around waiting to see if the new asset has been floored by that kick. Wheezing, the Winter Soldier forces himself away from the wall and forward, circling to the right with quick steps to see that his opponent is...watching. Crouched down, but on his feet in a way that he can surge up easily. There's an unspoken sensation then, as if he's being studied just as much by this man as he has been by his handlers and techs. Even with the Winter Soldier's conditioning, he feels...unease. Discomfort, like he gets whenever he sees a needle or strap.
Trying to get his breathing under control, aware of how even that could be graded by the handlers, the Winter Soldier circles warily around the other man. His eyes burn blue as he sizes him. No visible prosthesis like he has. No visible scars to map out possible past injuries to exploit. Much, much faster than anyone else he ever fought.
Have to get in close. If he could get his neck, get him in a chokehold with his legs around him, then maybe...
Unlike the Captain, the Winter Soldier's approach is much slower and more deliberate. Instead of racing at him, he closes the distance a step at a time. A few paces right; forward. A few paces left; forward. Finally, they are almost within arm's reach. That is when he bursts into motion. The Soldier's deadened eyes suddenly flash, and his combat boot flashes out, aiming right for his opponent's kneecap.
no subject
That patience is finally rewarded. The last kick was strong, but telegraphed enough that there was no way the Captain couldn't see it coming. This kick is has its tells, too, but this time, it's faster than anything the Captain's seen before. It's impressive. This, he finally thinks, is finally an opponent worth fighting. Anyone they could put in the room with him before… it's hard to remember befores, it gets hazy, but he's sure it's happened before. He's sure it was never like this.
He's sure he's supposed to end this as quickly and efficiently as possible. But there's something in him that doesn't want to end it. Doesn't want to know what will happen then. Will they punish the Soldier for losing? Will they terminate him?
It's that thought that makes the Captain hesitate — he's distracted for a fraction of a second, and it's enough that the kick connects. The pain flares and the Captain grits his teeth; the Soldier is close again and the Captain grabs for his leg, tries to catch it and drag him forward, keep him close, bracing himself on his good leg while the other shoots sharp needles of pain. He's not sure how badly injured it is, but he also knows that won't matter to a handler. Pain is not an excuse. Pain is what brings order, and order is what he's made to enforce.
That's what they keep telling him, anyway.
The soft, skintight pants don't give him much of a handhold, but there's just enough that he can disrupt the other asset's momentum. He tries to use it to his advantage, to get the Soldier off balance, slam him to the floor and follow with his bigger bulk. It's a street brawler's move, nothing near as efficient as a carefully-aimed kick or hit. But the Captain does have sheer size and strength going for him.
no subject
Only it doesn't.
Only he doesn't feel that crunch underneath his boot.
Confusion jolts throughout the Soldier, involuntary and searing like those times he sat in the chair and felt electricity burn through every nerve. Only then, he had learned to expect it. This is not the same thing at all. Whatever this man is, he is a different thing entirely and the Winter Soldier's face clouds again with emotion that should've been scrubbed out of him. Confusion graduates to anger, real anger and frustration that he shouldn't be able to feel, draws his eyebrows together and his lips bared in a pissed-off, defiant snarl even as the world tilts.
Caught by surprise, unaware that that little trick was something he'd taught this man a lifetime ago, the Winter Soldier hits the mat and he hits it hard. The bigger asset's frame hits him at full force, crushing the air out of his lungs as he yells and he scrabbles blindly at his opponent. The silver hand flashes out, tries to punch, to claw (but not the eyes - even the Soldier will remember do not maim). His body surges violently under the Captain. A knee flashes out and hits the new asset dangerously close to the groin.
The handlers are watching.
Always, the Winter Soldier is aware of that more than anything. They are witnesses to his failure right now: the way he lost his ground so quickly, the way he struggles more than he should against this stranger. The thought of being dragged back to the chair when he just got out of it turns the Winter Soldier into a wild animal, squirming and writhing and now he's even more violent than before, lashing out at any soft tissue, any vulnerable spot of the Captain that he can reach.
no subject
This is a test. This is a test and the Winter Soldier is failing. The Captain is winning. The Winter Soldier will be punished and the Captain… might not be punished, but he certainly won't be rewarded. There are no rewards for assets who do their jobs, because you don't reward a gun for firing or a land mine for going off. You only curse it when it fails you.
The Captain doesn't fail. He can't fail. Failure is unacceptable, because failure means blankness, it means pain and drugs and confusion, it means electricity spiking between his temples until his mouth tastes like charred meat and his hair smells burned. It means starvation and isolation and something left undone. He doesn't know what, but there's something he's here to do. He can't do it if they do nothing but punish him into oblivion.
So he holds his ground, withstands the barrage of scratches and kicks. He catalogs all of them, every ounce of strength in his opponent, because the Solider is strong. He's strong, and he's still desperate, and that metal arm is still an unknown. The fingers can't find quite the same purchase, a little too smooth, a little too slippery against even bare skin, but they rake deep bruises into the Captain's skin that he can feel, red marks that will turn deep purple and sickening green before they disappear. That knee to his pelvis might have cracked the bone.
He could win like this. He could simply wait out the Soldier, absorb the damage. But it feels hollow, dissatisfying. Smothering a target might be one thing. But this isn't a target. This is a test, and not of the Captain's endurance. They've put him through those before — those befores are hazy, too, but he remembers some. Machines designed to crush, chains wrapped around limbs and pulled tight until they dislocated. Pain, worse than this pain, because that was pain he had no control over. This pain feels different. This pain is worth something. The Winter Soldier is worth fighting. Not smothering.
The Captain suddenly rolls, tossing the Soldier away again, toward the corner of the room. He doesn't want to simply withstand. He wants to see what they can do together. Against each other. He gets to his feet, a little shakier than maybe he expected, muscles sore and skin scored with bruises, scratches from the flesh hand. He looks at the Soldier, and there's this tiny, almost imperceptible flicker upward of his lips, as if to say, Give it another go. Try again. Now you know what you're facing.
some timeskip, feel free to start forcing Bucky to submit
The Asset hits the ground.
Immediately he scrambles to his feet. Chest and shoulders heave, his face reddened with exertion and a strange feeling that seems to burn from the inside: adrenaline? Shock? Unaware that it's rage, the Winter Soldier's eyes narrow suspiciously and he's well aware of the clock ticking away on the wall, the eyes on them. The way his lead handler has shifted weight from one foot to the other, her arms crossed over her chest in his peripheral vision. The fact that this match is being timed and that he has likely already failed. The chair might be coming no matter what now: if there is anything he can do at this point, it's maybe shave off how many minutes he's in it, at least. Even a few seconds less in the chair is worth fighting for.
He comes at the stranger again. And again. Each time he finds it impossible to get him into a chokehold, finds it impossible to go for his fingers to break them, to go for his groin to stun him. To even get a firm grip on his beard to control his head.
How? How?
The questions lance through the Winter Soldier's head like lightning, and soon he'll find himself twisted up in another one of the stranger's holds, his left arm bent at an unnatural angle, the chrome fingers clawing uselessly for purchases as he writhes and twists under the Captain who has managed to get him in a submission position again. Blood smears across his face now from a split lip, from the cut above the Winter Soldier's brow, and it'll have left dark strokes against the training mat, against patches of the Captain's skin in his struggles.
o7 He can dislocate the flesh arm in your tag if you want or I'll definitely do it in my next one!
But he doesn't. He stops the Soldier's advances, and then he twists him up in a hold, and then he lets him go to try again. It's not exactly an even fight, but it's the closest thing he's had that he can remember, which maybe isn't saying much, but it's got his blood going. It's got his mind moving fast, got his adrenaline up. He's almost — almost — enjoying it. He wants to see what this Soldier can really do.
But he also sees, the longer this goes on, the cracks that start to emerge. The metal arm is the Soldier's greatest strength, but it's weakening, bit by bit. With every minute that passes, every punch the Soldier delivers, with every twisting hold the Captain puts him in, the arm gets louder and louder, the whining hums and whirs change pitch. It's starting to falter and the Soldier is compensating with desperation. The Captain is torn between two emotions that are honestly impossible for him to identify: disappointment and anxiety.
He hears the handlers and techs start to murmur; they're not his handlers, so it must be about the Soldier. They've noticed the weakness, too.
The Captain's got ahold of the Soldier again, after another fierce bout of blows; he's sweating, hair matted to his head and skin slippery as he rolls them on the mat, aggravating several hairline fractures and deep, deep bruises littering his own body. He's not bleeding, but he's still sustained damage, knows that when the adrenaline fades, there will be pain and fatigue. He hears murmuring again, but this time it's voices he recognizes: his own handlers. They're unhappy with his performance. He should have ended this minutes ago. He rolls and puts one knee to the small of the Soldier's back, forcing him to flail backwards if he wants to reach the Captain at all. The metal arm doesn't seem to want to move the right way, catching at the shoulder with an unnatural, almost sickening click every time.
i'll do it in my tag!
The thought burns up from the inside.
He doesn't remember Steve or his own name or all that history together, all those nights in Brooklyn where they sat on the roof with legs kicking as they talked, as Bucky listened with a half-smile and Steve just rattled off his day and showed off his drawings and everything seemed like it'd work out. When he'd fish Steve from the latest alley and have to dab away the blood and wonder if the next time will be too much even for him. That's all been scrubbed away. What the Soldier does know is that punishment awaits and that it's up to him to minimize the duration: the only control he has, really. He tries everything. The Asset's body writhes like a wild animal in the stranger's grip and he's sure he got some hits in. Fractures. Blood splatters from teeth cutting against that lower lip and soon he has the stranger's beard stained red. He's gripped it and slammed his face down into the training mat. It still isn't enough. For the first time in his recent memory, the Winter Soldier isn't the cutting edge HYDRA has to offer.
The stranger might be enjoying himself, might enjoy the challenge. But for the Soldier, this has boiled down into survival and the realization that he will be going back to the chair today. That he couldn't go even twenty-four hours before he'll be shaking and trembling in its embrace.
Finding himself face down on the training mat, the Winter Soldier struggles underneath the stranger's weight, the knee pinning him at the exact point that pain and numbness blossom and his left arm is damaged. Failing. It clicks, the chrome fingers spasming stop-motion style like an old movie. The prosthetic has been pushed to a limit that he wasn't aware it had - a limit his techs didn't account for.
He tries to swing back with his other arm. Flesh and blood, it's vulnerable and the Winter Soldier isn't surprised when the stranger catches his clumsy jerk backward. A good time to dislocate or break that arm, because it's what he would do if their positions were reversed and the opportunity presented itself.
Still, when it happens, the Winter Soldier can't quite bite back his surprise. It takes one quick, efficient application of pressure: something shifts and suddenly he can feel the arm dislocate from the shoulder. He grunts, loud enough that he's sure it was audible, and his head twists to the side, his bloodied teeth bared in a snarl and his malfunctioning silver fingers claw uselessly at the mat.
And yet the handlers haven't called it off. The Winter Soldier could still technically fight, even if the victor is clear: it's up to the Captain to finish this.
lemme know if anything here doesn't work!
The Captain keeps his knee wedged into the small of the Soldier's back. And he waits, blue eyes starting to dull already, for the command he's sure is going to come. Stand down, they'll tell him, and the Soldier will stop struggling, the Captain will step away, and he isn't sure what will happen next — except he is. He knows the Soldier will be punished. Likely severely. The thought leaves something acidic and thorny twisting in his stomach, but that's just the way it's got to be. He doesn't know what punishment will look like, exactly. But it will be swift, and it will be thorough.
He's not so naive to think that he'll escape punishment, himself.
But no command comes. He stares at the handlers and they stare right back, as the seconds tick by and he grows agitated, confused, even kneeling with his opponent — defeated, he's defeated, he's down — still under one knee, pressed into the mat, struggling like a wounded, dying animal.
And there's no command to stop. To stand down. Only frowns and a tense, unhappy silence, punctuated only by the Captain's ragged panting and the Soldier's frantic, if slowing, movements.
The Captain looks back down at the Soldier, and there's something in him that balks at going on. At drawing this out. That feels ashamed he'd wanted to, in the first place. He reaches down with one hand, grips the back of the Soldier's head, pulls slightly before smashing it back into the mat, with enough calculated force to render him unconscious or, at the very least, close enough to it to count.
Then he lets go. He stands up and steps back, hands by his sides, apparently docile as he turns his gaze back to the handlers and says, lips a little thick — one is split, there's a bruise forming on one cheek, where the metal elbow had caught him in the face (a good, clean shot), "I'm done."
It could be seen as a statement of success: I've completed the task. But it could be seen as a statement of defiance: I refuse to continue.
His handlers seem conflicted as to which it is as their murmurs intensify, as one holds a hand to her earpiece — getting instructions from her handlers, no doubt. The Captain stands there, compliant, not sparing the Soldier on the ground a second glance. If he looks, it will show interest. If he shows interest, they might not let him be done. He will accept whatever punishment he must, but he is done. The Soldier has been incapacitated. This fight is over. The Captain is calling it, whether he has the authority to or not.
His two handlers finally seem to come to an agreement and step up, as the door opens and four armed guards approach, two on each side of him. He catches a glimpse of several more out in the hall, ready to make him comply as one handler says, disappointment clear in her cool tone, "If you're done, then we'll have to make some adjustments."
That explains all the guards, then. Adjustments mean the chair. Punishment first.
Maybe the Soldier will at least be put back together before he gets his, if the Captain's going to be occupying the chair first. He thinks they only have one.
and back at you - I winged it :3a
The dislocation is final, the pain searing in a jolt as he feels his flesh shoulder pop in a way it shouldn't. Doesn't feel broken. The only positive: his accelerated healing can deal with dislocations faster than fractures and breaks. These thoughts fill the precious seconds he has and, even knowing that he will be punished for failing, his heart is still jackhammering away as it can escape any better than he could.
He could just simply give up, go still under the stranger. Submit. Doing anything less is a waste of time. A waste of energy. And still...still he struggles, writhing uselessly, unable to dislodge the other man - bigger, not weighed down one one side by a malfunctioning prosthesis - and he can feel those eyes burning their way. The feeling of being assessed hangs heavy.
Fingers grip around the back of his skull, tangling in his matted hair with finality and he knows damn well that this is it, that it doesn't matter how much he stiffens the muscles in his neck and strains with everything he's still got. The mat rushes up. White flashes as his faces meets it hard enough for the thud to echo, and even with the cushioning of the mat, it's with enough force to immediately render him unconscious. Finally he goes still under the Captain in a limp sprawl, face down, his hair a dark, knotted halo.
As soon as the Captain stands, the handlers move. They cluster around the Winter Soldier, hands gripping under his armpits and his head hangs down, blood drooling onto the floor, and they sweep out without another word.
"Next time you will do it faster. Next time you won't hesitate," the handler studies her asset with narrowed eyes, her thin lips pursed. "Or maybe you're still weak enough to feel mercy. Don't."
A tilt of her chin. A flick of her fingers at her hip.
The chair it is.
Hearing comes back first: he can hear his gasping, the whispers of handlers and techs. The heavy staccato of his heart. The hum of the supression arc as it powers down.
Sight comes back second: fluorescent flashes. Dim lines of his own lashes cutting across as he squeezes his eyes shut and then opens them immediately at his lead handler's voice.
The last is scent: the Winter Soldier regains full awareness of all his senses even though he knows he's been walking and talking for several minutes. It's when he's herded into a new, very, very reinforced room that his sense of smell kicks in. A man's sweat and blood hangs heavy. A cloud of it hits him in a wavy and the Winter Soldier will chalk it up to his training that he doesn't hesitate at the stench. His flesh arm is in a sling to assist with the recent dislocation, to speed up the healing. His face is a healing map of yellow and faint purple bruises that he, surprisingly, remembers getting. This is your lesson someone hissed to the Winter Soldier while he drooled in the chair. You must remember from this failure and learn from it.
Observe.
Observe.
He can do that, even as he shakes and his knees tremble despite drinking the water and eating the food offered to him. Despite sitting (slumping?) on a bench, waiting for the shadows to resolve into facial features.
Observe echoes. Solid. Tangible.
And so the Soldier is herded into a room that is all too familiar. The metal suppression chair - cutting edge rimmed with rust and old tech - embraces That Man that somehow subdued him in what could be hours or days or weeks ago. (Why does he still remember that?). There are more handlers, more guards. That jaw is slicked with sweat despite the unacceptable beard. He twitches in the chair...but apparently that isn't enough to bring him back into the fold. Unfortunate. The Winter Soldier isn't a tech, but he has a base understanding of how the chair works. How it should work. From his fragmented memories, smeared at the edges, he can tell that the chair isn't enough for this stranger.
Somehow it's still a surprise when they're left together, the stranger - designated "The Captain" - is still in the chair and the Winter Soldier is ordered to check his vitals with his good hand. That dislocated shoulder is still in the sling, but he can still use HYDRA's arm: now he'll reach out, the chrome fingers cool against the Captain's skin, hot with pain and sweat.
"Vitals acceptable. Pulse slowing."
The Winter Soldier leans over the Captain, and he recognizes this man despite the agony etched in his face, the furrow digging itself between his eyebrows. This man has...forced him to submit, against all odds. A first.
it's perfect~ :3
Punishment means pain and agony and fear; it also means a strange kind of relief, a peace, a… not exactly a desire to submit, but a strange not-caring that always seems to erode over time, in the hours and days between the chair. That much, he can remember.
But this time, when the lightning stops and the bite guard is snatched away and he half-sits, half-lies there, panting and restrained by the heavy mag cuffs he knows instinctively, somehow, that he has tried to break and can't, the room is eerily quiet. His brow furrows - there should be people here. Techs bustling, scientists buzzing, his handlers standing by with their armed guard.
He thinks he's alone, disoriented and reeling, the muscles of his forearms and thighs still twitching with the aftereffects of the shocks, when a slightly too-cool, too-unyielding touch brushes his skin. He jerks against the restraints, but they hold fast, like they always do. He blinks glassy eyes, trying to see who's with him, what's with him, and a pale, bruised face with lank, dark hair falling around it swims into view. Blue eyes gaze into his, and…
He knows those eyes. He knows that face, mangled though it is. He knows each and every bruise, he remembers them just like he remembers the metal arm, the way it had slowed and sparked after long enough, the way the other shoulder had given way and still the Soldier hadn't stopped fighting -
The Captain's lips fall open, jaw just the tiniest bit slack, as he draws a breath, almost like he's going to speak. But he doesn't, eyes darting wildly around the room, seeing that they're alone. They're alone, and he remembers this man, and he doesn't know why. He shifts against the restraints again, testing them and, as always, they pass with flying colors. He's trapped with the Soldier and no one else, and part of him thinks this must be more punishment, very specific punishment, but there's a tiny thread underneath it all, the barest hint of a whisper, that inexplicably tells him to relax. To stand down. To do whatever he can to keep this situation just as it is.
That seems foolish; maybe the Soldier is here to - well, not exactly exact revenge. But to demonstrate his own superiority, now that the Captain can't fight back. That would be one lesson, but his frantic mind isn't sure it's the right one. Isn't sure why he remembers at all, now that the chair has powered down. Is he meant to remember?
Your face looks like a badly drawn map, a voice - his voice? - drawls in his head, as his eyes travel over the Soldier's yellowed and purpled features. But he doesn't say it, just sits there with his jaw slack and his eyes darting wildly, like he can't figure out the game, but knows he's got to, and fast. That slowing pulse is starting to kick up a notch or two again as he finally moves his lips, and the smallest sound comes out: "You."
I remember you. Do you remember me?
Re: it's perfect~ :3
He did get some hits in on this stranger, but the truth is, the chemical neuro-suppression rounds he witnessed, followed by the chair, took most of the wind from his sails. The other asset is still trembling, eyes dancing around the room as if searching for the escape route that doesn't exist. Sweat still trails down in glistening tracks. A much...easier target to tackle, if the Winter Soldier had been ordered to continue the exercise.
They make eye contact.
"Yes," the Winter Soldier says, not entirely sure why he's wasting his breath on affirmation. "Orders changed from engage to observe."
So no: taking this man out when he's at his most vulnerable isn't on the table anymore.
He continues to make a visual inspection of this new asset, followed by a physical one. His eyes rove, flattened and blue, one swollen over with shining purple; the other, the sclera reddened with burst blood vessels. His touch follows, and on the surface it feels not that different than the techs, the handlers. It's mechanical. No hesitancy as if the Winter Soldier recognizes the man who used to be his best friend. He touches the mag-cuffs, metal fingers brushing against the stranger's skin, still hot with adrenaline and fried nerves from the chair, and for a moment it's almost cooling.
When the Soldier presses chrome fingers against the man's throat, it's soothing, gentle as he knows that this man is valuable to HYDRA to earn the chair. To be able to make even him submit. He smooths back his sweat-streaked hair to peel away one of the electrode pads.
"You spent a long time in the chair," the Winter Soldier remarks. "It shouldn't take that long."
Re: it's perfect~ :3
He also knows, without knowing how, that he's got to tamp down on this feeling, wrap it up tight and hide it deep. It's almost an effort, the way breathing and thinking are efforts once the chair starts powering down. But he is nothing if not resilient. He is HYDRA's greatest asset, and it's not for nothing.
The man he had been, the man he doesn't remember being, would have huffed a laugh, cracked some joke, at that statement. It shouldn't take that long. Here and now, though, there's silence for a beat too long, before his voice, still raw as his throat heals from the strain of screaming, says quietly, "I am a difficult asset to control. I require extreme measures."
It's what they've told him, said over him, so many times that he remembers this, too, always. Or maybe they let him remember it, too — remember how hard he is to suppress, like he should feel guilty or ashamed or proud. He isn't sure which they want, any more than he's sure what he feels. If anything. It's always dim and distant, after the chair. He just knows, "There are always guards. But now there's just you." He pauses. "Observing."
He's not sure what the other asset is meant to observe. What the Captain is like when he's weak?
He's not weak, though, even when he is; his hands curl into fists and strain, again, at the cuffs locking him into the chair. "I don't have any orders."
Is he supposed to observe, too?
He doesn't want to engage again.
no subject
"Not yet."
The orders will come, as they always do.
The Soldier can't feel pity. He can't identify the seeds of unsanctioned curiosity, stubbornly sprouting in the dark, unused, locked away corners of a ruined mind. But he does know when kit doesn't work, when equipment is faulty and it doesn't matter if it's a test or an accident.
"This," the Winter Soldier circles back to the beard.
Chrome fingers reaches out to grip it, forcing the stranger's glazed eyes to focus on him and only him.
"This is a liability. It shouldn't be here."
So why is it? is the unspoken question. You shouldn't be able to resist.
He leans in, studies the other asset. The mask of pain and exhaustion isn't new - he has felt it before, sometimes seen it in scratched medical mirrors angled to the side. Seeing it reflected in the stranger's face, sweaty and etched with pain and tears and drying saliva, isn't out of the ordinary - it means that the chair has done its job. Even so, the Winter Soldier is still careful to watch this other man, to keep an eye on his body language in case he has been biding his time, faking it and waiting for a moment to jerk his body forward - a headbutt, maybe, or the mag-cuffs aren't as secure as they're supposed to be. In the very unlikely even that happens, the Winter Soldier's programming would take hold in the form of immediate retaliation.
no subject
Here and now, though, those lids barely move before his eyes focus on the Soldier as he accuses him of — of what? He doesn't even know what his own face looks like, knows he has hair along his jaw only because sometimes it's scratchy or dirty or, like now, someone uses it to grab him, force his gaze. It is a liability, but maybe one he assumes they want him to have? Maybe they need it to force his gaze. Why else would he have it?
His brow knits, his mind a still jumble after the electrical storm of the chair, and then the words suddenly tumble out: "I killed a handler. He had a razor."
He isn't sure how he knows that. Can't really remember it, except as a distant, echoing scream, the clatter of something metal hitting the hard, tiled floor. The wrench in his arm when he'd broken one of the restraints — and his own ulna, in two places. They'd had to… to shoot him? With tranquilizers. Mostly. Some bullets. He thinks.
He's supposed to be HYDRA's greatest weapon. He is also hard to control. This is compromise, he thinks. And it makes them unhappy. It makes them look weak. He makes them look weak, when he looks like this.
His eyes flick down to the metal wrist and forearm. "Maybe that's why you're here."
The tone is too flat for it to be a dare. His eyes are too dull, too hollowed out. And yet.
winging it with the beard
The Winter Soldier hisses. "I'm not here to make you compliant."
His training is to destabilize, to kill. Breaking a man down into a useful weapon isn't part of that training program - maybe it will be down the line, but he knows even with his shaky sense of reality, of his own self, that he isn't there yet. Hasn't been trusted with it. But he thinks he can handle trimming that unsanctioned beard, growing longer by the day, proof of HYDRA's failure to rein him in like every other useful asset. The Soldier's face is a mask of exhaustion, dimming pain, but there's also steel behind it. Unlike that deceased handler, he is trained, quick; the metal prosthesis means that's one less soft point for this other asset to target. Can't cut open arteries that aren't there anymore.
If he suspects the other asset can get free, he can apply the appropriate level of force until he's incapacitated - easier, he thinks, when he's bound and barely coherent. There's nothing wrong with taking advantage of a hostile's weakness, after all.
Time slithers away when the Winter Soldier suddenly leans away from view and stalks off. It could be seconds; minutes...hours to feel like it's just stale air and the cold embrace of the chair and the yawning silence of fragmented thoughts crashing into each other.
Eventually there's that sixth-sense impression of another man filling up the space in an empty room. The Winter Soldier returns with a single, disposable razor, a damp wash cloth (too thin to pose much of a threat if it's clamped over, say, his own mouth and nose), and the same flat expression as before. A hand clamps down the Captain's neck with a grip that's far stronger than any he's faced before, right over his carotid arteries: in essence, letting him know that he will squeeze with extreme prejudice and cut off blood supply to his head to ensure a far more rapid incapacitation than the usual methods.
"Hold still," the Soldier says.
Then he starts to give the man formally know as Steve Rogers his first shave in who knows how long. No scissors (that would be like handing this man a Bowie knife). The blade will dull, requiring the Winter Soldier to leave and come back with another one, instead of reaching into his pocket for a spare. The whole time his grip is unforgiving, tight enough to bruise, the metal fingers flashing in the light every now and then. It will take awhile to produce the desired results: the unkempt beard, long enough to grab onto, has been trimmed to a long stubble. If the Captain saw himself in the mirror, he might even have a moment where he recognizes himself for that split second.
perfect!
Of course, the Soldier returns eventually, with a cheap razor in one hand and a damp cloth in the other. It’s obvious what he’s going to do, so the Captain doesn’t ask; he just grunts as a hand is clamped down over his neck, but somehow, somehow he stays calm as the other asset drags the razor methodically over his beard. It stings and burns — there’s something missing, the back of his mind says, something else they’re supposed to use, another step in the process? — but his mind can’t dig it up. It’s like he knows how this should go, even though he doesn’t know how it should go.
The handlers watch, murmuring, over closed circuit video feeds as the Captain allows the Soldier to shave him without struggle. The scientists are jotting down notes as well, pens racing furiously across clipboards. The Captain is more docile than usual, even as the veins stand out on his neck and in his arms, as his hands clench and forearms flex against the restraints. He’s tense but he isn’t angry or vicious or wild. Even when the Soldier has to retreat and return with a new razor, leaving the Captain half shaved, he doesn’t move. He simply waits for the other to return and finish the job.
In the chair, the Captain’s face feels almost cold. It’s a strange sensation; he wonders how long he’s had the beard. He can’t remember not having it, but that’s not necessarily strange. He can’t remember a lot of things. His eyes go up to the Soldier’s face as he finishes up, wipes the cool, damp cloth over his cheeks and lips and chin to catch any small, stray hairs. He doesn’t thank the other asset. But he does say, as if to confirm, “Liability eliminated?”
The handlers will be pleased. Or, at least, satisfied. They’re less cruel, when they’re satisfied. The next thought comes, unbidden and unexpected: Maybe they’ll be less cruel to the Soldier, too.
He doesn’t think they’ll let him out of the chair until the second razor has been disposed of, though. Even if, he realizes dully, he wouldn’t use it on the Winter Soldier. Not like he had on the handler. The Winter Soldier is… different.
timeskip: sexual assessment
Today, the drugs leave him feeling strange. There’s sweat trickling down his brow as they march him in a line of guards, two in front and two behind, to a room frequently used for asset medical observation. He has no idea if he’s been here before (he has), but he can tell the glass windows have been reinforced. The cameras are recessed and protected in the corners of the high concrete ceiling. The door is as thick as any in the rooms he’s often put in. He can remember those details, even if he can’t remember every specific instance he's seen them in.
Which is why, when he spots the single bed in the corner, the single set of shelves bolted to the floor holding several objects that aren’t weapons he’s trained with, he isn’t entirely sure if it’s odd or not. His gut says yes, but his gut is also roiling with an antsy, itchy feeling that must be showing in his body language because the guards are extra on edge when they march him up and push him inside. He’s dressed only in soft pants and an undershirt, although the pants are devoid of any ties, as usual. His feet are bare. His face is bare, too. They’ve been successful enough with the newest regimen that the techs are able to keep him shaved. It’s a significant milestone, relatively recent, after he’d only allowed the Soldier to do it for far longer than his handlers had liked.
The Soldier isn’t here when they put the Captain in, but he’s not far behind. The Captain’s guards don’t even bother closing the door, just form a line two men deep and watch him warily from behind riot gear while he stands and stares at them, blank-eyed, until he hears more footsteps down the hall and his eyes flick toward the sound, to see the Soldier being escorted in much the same way. He isn’t even sure whether he’ll be taken past the room and doesn’t realize he’s hoping he won’t be when the desired outcome occurs, his own guards parting so the Soldier’s can shove him in and shut the heavy door behind him.
He tenses but stands his ground, unsure what his orders are, but expecting a fight. It’s always a fight, with the Soldier, and there are no opponents for them to team up on, today. So when the voice crackles over the loudspeaker with the direction, “This is a test. You will begin feeling the effects of the medication in a moment. You will not kill or permanently maim each other. Anything else is permitted. Make use of what is in the room,” his head snaps up toward the sound and his brow furrows. Then he looks back at the Soldier.
This isn’t the usual protocol. He’s somehow quite sure of that.
no subject
All it takes is a few rounds in the chair and the keywords. Hours later the nauseating pounding in his head has turned into a low-grade headache. The trembling in his limbs fades to barely-there twitches. His lashes are stiff with old sweat and the remnants of dried tears but he can finally see without the corridor tilting, his guards without their features blurring into fleshy smears. The Soldier doesn't feel good, exactly, not with how his head aches with some hollowing need to be filled with purpose, with orders, but his body's more or less behaving and he's confident he can walk without swaying: there's the vague impression that he's recovered faster than the last time, although he can't place a finger on when that last time was but he knows this is a good thing. Today required one less round in the chair, for whatever reason. At least, that's according to what his handler said while he was busy drooling in the chair's embrace, eyes half-hooded, and listening to the machine powering down. It isn't like he can keep count.
Whatever he did, though, he needs to do it again.
He isn't surprised to see the Captain in the room. That happens from time to time, the two of them escorted somewhere and locked in. It's when the guards don't follow him that he hesitates, unable to resist glancing over his metal shoulder just in time to see the door - reinforced; multiple bolts thudding into place - lock behind him. For a moment the Winter Soldier's brow furrows. His lips part. Confusion struggles its way out of his fresh conditioning, for a moment flitting across his face. That's never happened before, he thinks. Usually there's guards with guns pointed at them, handlers with tablets and notepads to take notes about their performance.
He glances at the Captain, the man clean-shaven more often than not, denying him the ability to grab his beard if this is going to be a combat scenario. The other asset stands there like a statue, broad-shouldered, lean muscle and powerful. One look at his placid face and he can verify that the Captain doesn't know what's going on either.
The intercom clicks on.
The Winter Soldier's already moving even before the voice on the other end finishes speaking. He's always been the one to strike first at the Captain and today isn't any different as he lurches toward the closest thing next to him, choosing the metal suitcase sitting on a nearby shelf and popping it open. He doesn't know what they mean by medication, if it's already been injected or force-fed by pills or it'll be vented in through the room in gas form. Whatever it'll be, he doesn't wait to find out, immediately reaching for whatever looks useful inside the suitcase's blood-red felt cushioning.
A plastic breathing mask with a vial attached to it, a mystery liquid sloshing inside, glowing a faint pink. A pair of handcuffs.
Handcuffs. Presumably the mask is attached to a sedative, although the Soldier doesn't recognize the color or the serial code printed on the side, and he assumes it's something new from the labs to test out. The handcuffs in hand, he wheels around in one motion and lashes out a kick at the Captain's knee, dimly aware that the other asset's fast, that you have to control his legs to control him. If he catches him off-balance, he'll be springing toward him with the handcuffs, trying to handcuff him to the bed that looks like it's bolted to the floor.
It might not be strong enough to keep the Captain in place. But it'll slow him down, enough to retrieve the mask, and press it to his exposed face. Now it makes sense why he's shaved, the Winter Soldier thinks. It's for the mask's seal.
no subject
This is how it always is, he thinks vaguely. He doesn’t know why he thinks it, the words spring to his mind, unbidden. But it’s true, he can feel it. The Soldier takes the first blow, and the Captain lets him, because there’s no better way to size up your enemy than to let them strike out at you and show their hand.
(It would be a tactically poor choice for nearly anyone — except the Captain, who can take whatever he’s given. He will take it until he can’t. And then he will get up again anyway.)
He takes a step back when the Soldier kicks at his knee, shifting his weight to the other; he doesn’t go down but it’s still enough for the Soldier to press him with the cuffs. No one but the Soldier would be able to tell, and he might not be able to comprehend, but there’s a flash almost like amusement in the Captain’s eyes, as they flick to the cuffs and then up again. What do you think those are going to do?
The Soldier presses again, and the Captain doesn’t so much retreat another step as twist out of the way — but it turns out that’s exactly what the Soldier wants and, lightning-fast, the metal snicks shut around one of the Captain’s wrists and then the metal frame at the foot of the bed.
It’s barely enough to slow him down — an inconvenience, at most — but it is enough time for the Soldier to dart back to the case. And just as the Captain’s snapping the metal links on the cuffs with a sharp jerk of one arm, he turns back and the Soldier is coming at him again with the mask, the vial clearly visible, catching the harsh light. And the Captain’s entire awareness zeroes in on it. He knows what vials mean. He knows what they are, what they do to him — except when he doesn’t, like what they’d given to him earlier is doing to him now. He doesn’t understand, and there’s an animal panic in his gut as he realizes that the Soldier is trying to drug him.
The Captain desperately does not want to be drugged.
There’s a reason the improved regimen involves shocking him first and drugging him second. Now, something in him snaps and he lashes out with a fast, fierce kick that catches the Soldier in the gut. He follows up with a shoulder in the solar plexus, rushing him like a linebacker, toppling both of them to the floor and crushing the mask, the vial, in between him, spilling the entirety of its sharp, sickly-sweet contents largely into the Soldier’s face, with only a few wisps sliding through the air the Captain’s breathing in.
Still, the Captain flinches away — his handlers take note, techs scribble down assessments, he’ll be punished and conditioned later, again and again until vials and drugs don’t make him flinch, because it’s a clear weakness — and for now it’s enough of an opening for the Soldier to weasel his way out of his grip, if he can pull through the haze of the drugs to take it.
no subject
Next thing he knows, the Captain's bare foot hammers into his stomach. It pitches him stumbling backward with a pained grunt before he can get the mask over his face. That look on the other asset's face - a lightening in the dull blue eyes, a barely there quirk of his lips - suddenly tightens, slams down like a defensive wall as if he, too, realized that the real threat is whatever's in the mystery vial, not the possibility of being just restrained or merely beaten. It's why when the Captain tackles him that the Winter Soldier tries to pivot, to twist his body, to protect the mask. His grip tightens on it so the other man can't simply grab it. They hit the floor together, the Captain's full weight brutal and crushing as he lands on him.
The vial cracks. Something wet spurts in the Winter Soldier's face like blood splatter. Despite knowing better he instinctively inhales for air the other asset crushed from his tortured ribs before he can stop himself. Dizzying sweetness winds sharp in his nose, cloying against his tongue even as he jerks his head away with a grimace, spitting out what he can, his hand coming up to frantically wipe away the vial's residue from his mouth before he can ingest even more than he's already had.
It wasn't the whole vial, he thinks. But it's enough and even as he writhes out from under the Captain with a panicked shove against his chest and a palm strike slamming his chin backward, he can feel something already happening. His head swims. The room alternates from blurring to snapping into startling detail. Colors vibrate at the edges, oversaturated. Warmth spreads. The majority of it pools in his core, throbbing between his legs even as he scrambles on all fours toward the shelf for a new weapon.
Toward anything at all he can use against the other man. Before the sedative really kicks in.
By the time the Winter Soldier makes it to the shelves he's started panting and it's not just because of his aching ribs. His tongue's heavy with saliva all of a sudden. The heat building in him is fast becoming a distraction. Crouching down next to the equipment shelf, dark hair hanging down half in his face, its limp tangles slicking with hints of sweat, the Winter Soldier suddenly finds he can't stand his clothes scratching against suddenly sensitive skin. Even as he reaches for something on the shelf with one hand, the Soldier's removing his shirt with the other, his metal fingers tearing through cloth, raking angry red lines across his heaving chest and stomach and exposing his flushed skin to the sterile air of the cell they both share.
Whatever was in that vial? It's become clear real fast that it was no sedative.
no subject
Or, the techs might argue, it’s helping things along nicely.
By the time the Captain has rolled into a wary crouch, the other asset is already on the other side of the tiny room again, grabbing for something on the shelf. The Captain feels a spark of annoyance and rises to his feet, ready to stalk over — but it’s immediately subsumed by something else as metal fingers tear at the Winter Soldier’s own shirt.
The Captain’s gut goes tight and hot like he’s been hit with a wrecking ball. He goes perfectly still, mind racing. He doesn’t understand the reaction. It’s just skin, and yet his eyes feel like they’re drawn there like a compass to true north. His own chest heaves with a gasping breath and his fists curl, unsure what to do with this feeling and not liking that at all. He always knows what to do. It’s his purpose, his function, to know what action needs to be taken and take it without hesitating. He has learned that much in the endless tests and assessments and sessions he’s been though, each one reinforcing one pathway in his brain: Decisive action is paramount. Hesitation is not allowed. Hesitation will endanger the mission.
He doesn’t know what the mission is today, but whatever it is, he needs to succeed. He can’t lose. He makes a move for the Soldier but it’s uncharacteristically clumsy, fueled by his indecision. Does he want to tackle the Soldier to subdue him or to — touch him? Suddenly that feels like he wants to touch that expanse of bare skin like nothing he’s ever wanted before. He wants to rub himself all over the Soldier, wrap himself up in him, do anything, anything to get them close. He wants that bare skin. And he wants more of it.
He reaches out, but doesn’t seem to notice the reinforced leather and metal in the Soldier’s flesh hand. The Captain’s fingers are reaching out to touch that bare skin, to skim over the red lines. He wants to know what the heat from that skin feels like on his hand. On his face. On his own bare chest.
no subject
The Captain crouches down. His hand reaches toward him.
He starts at the initial touch, fully expecting to have his head slammed back into the shelves or to be bodily hauled against the Captain's muscular frame in a sleeper hold. Muscle memory whispers both happened before. Not this. Not the Captain running his hand over his skin, tracing out where the Winter Soldier's metal fingers have raked angry red marks against his chest and his taut stomach. A little moan is dragged out when the Captain's palm runs over the peak of his nipple, stiffening and warm and more sensitive than it had been just a few minutes ago.
He goes rigid when the other asset touches his face, palm fitting against his jaw, thumb tilting his chin upward as if he's inspecting him. Even through the haze of the drug burning him up from the inside, making him want to squirm toward the touch, the thought swims up that he needs to defend himself. Use what's in his hand. It flits away the next second, something powerful and distracting surging in him. It's been so long since the Winter Soldier's felt want, felt need, that he doesn't identify it for what it is. All he knows is the heat's pooling, his pants are feeling all of a sudden tight, too tight against his swelling bulge. He needs to remove his fatigues.
He needs - ?
He wants.
The Winter Soldier suddenly surges forward, his metal fingers gripping the back of the Captain's head hard enough to dig into his scalp. Without thinking, acting just on thoughtless instinct, he crushes a bruising kiss against the other asset, his lips hot against the other man's mouth, saliva smearing, his stubble scratching against skin. The kiss itself is artless, nothing like the man he used to be could've managed; it's just pure force, pure animal need and the Winter Soldier almost forgets about the collar in his right hand.
Almost. Something wraps itself around the Captain's neck, thick leather that's been reinforced with metal filaments in the straps settling over his Adam's apple. The Winter Soldier keeps a solid grip on the black leash leading to the collar with his flesh hand, some part of him even through the drug realizing it's the only way he has to control the Captain's movements. His other hand slips down to fumble with his fatigues, fondling the heat of his aching cock free of his standard-issue underwear. It's a relief when it curls against his thigh, no longer constrained by fabric that feels too tight, too itchy. The relief's short-lived, however, when he registers how much it's throbbing, a pulse traveling from his limp shaft to his groin and up his stomach and seeming to pound against the sides of his skull so much that it's hard to think.
The Winter Soldier jerks down suddenly on the collar hard enough to break away the kiss, hard enough to cause the other man's breath to hitch, trying to forcibly drag the Captain's head down toward his legs spreading on either side of him, toward the insistent heat between them.
His tongue swipes out to lick at the corner of his mouth, blue eyes glazed. "Take it," he hisses through his teeth, the expression looking almost like a feral snarl. "Take me."
Another insistent tug on the leash.
no subject
He feels the Soldier tense, in the split second before their mouths crash together. It’s the Captain who makes a soft, barely-there sound that’s swallowed by the clashing of their lips as they come together and the way his muscles had tensed in anticipation of weathering the inevitable attack starts to ease. Whatever the Soldier is doing, it is not exactly attacking. Or rather, it is, but it’s attacking in the best way. The Captain wants this attack, the way it’s hard and demanding and perfect, and he growls against the other’s mouth, biting into the kiss and fingers curling against the Soldier’s jaw and reaching for the waistband of the pants that the Soldier is already working at with clumsy fingers, not knowing why but knowing he wants to help —
And all that pleased, self-satisfied pleasure at getting exactly what he wants vanishes in an eyeblink, as the Soldier fits something soft but unyielding around his neck. As it clicks shut and the Soldier yanks hard — harder than he should be able to, has he been upgraded since the last time they fought? — and the Captain has no option but to follow, betrayal flaring icy cold in his gut and flashing unmistakable in his eyes.
This time, the growl isn’t pleasure but anger, resistance, as he rears back out of instinct, knowing he’s been trapped and he can’t allow it, even as his eyes are brought level with the Winter Soldier’s exposed, ruddy cock, and the sudden sight of it, of the thickening flesh and the smell of sweat and musk that the Captain has never inhaled before, makes his own cock give a sudden twitch and throb between his legs, spread on the floor as he kneels. He stares at the cock in front of him, then he stares up at the Soldier — at his flushed face, his heaving chest. His blue eyes, pupils clearly blown. His hand, tight on the short leash that gives another yank at the look, practically pulling the Captain’s face flush against his groin, cock brushing the prickly stubble left on his cheeks from his recent shave. He gets a noseful of nothing but that thick musk, even as his throat strains against the collar, Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallows.
His mouth opens and he lets out another low growl. His hands dig into the skin of the other asset’s thighs, but they don’t push back, overbalancing the pair of them to give the Captain the upper hand. That scent is doing something to him, the vision of the Soldier’s cock practically filling his field of view, swelling slowly against the backdrop of his taut stomach, the sparse dark hair that starts beneath his navel. The Captain is furious, but he’s also entranced; he’s like a cobra captured in the thrall of a charmer, and almost without thinking, his lips part, warm breath puffing over sensitive skin. He doesn’t do exactly as he’s told — he doesn’t immediately take the hot flesh into his mouth, doesn’t dive in and start suckling. He still balks at the order, at the same time he wants to shrink underneath it. But the Soldier isn’t his handler. The Soldier is is… equal? But the Soldier also has the upper hand. And the Soldier has given him an order that he both does and doesn’t want to follow.
His whole body tenses, again in that strange, liminal space of indecision, and while he hangs there, the Soldier shifts his weight, widens his stance, and his cock rubs again against the Captain’s cheek and his lips open wider practically of their own volition. He’s made a decision. His fingers tighten against muscled thighs, certainly to the point of pain, but he mouths wetly, inexpertly along the side of the cock in his face, wanting to see if it will get thicker. Bigger. More insistent.
If he can take control by making it do what he wants.
no subject
He almost remembers how to smile, despite his lower lip aching from the bite.
Continuing to forcibly guide the other man down to his waiting cock, the Captain has no choice but to bend lower and lower before him. There's tension on the black leash wrapped around the Winter Soldier's wrist, his fingers curled around the loop so tight his nails dig white half-moons into his palm, and he can see that as he pulls that the Captain does as well in the opposite direction, the leash goes taut. As he gets closer, his mouth and nose so close to the hot shaft that he's almost nuzzling it, and the Winter Soldier finds himself breathing even harder, his nostrils flaring, lips parting and his tongue sneaking out once more to wet the corner of his mouth and running a glistening trail against his upper lip.
His knees draw up slightly before the Captain's bruising grip clenches down on both his thighs, thumbs fitting against the tense, flexing muscle along the inside and stopping him from moving further. Whatever pain the Winter Soldier feels isn't enough to cut through the drug's haze. Throughout it, his whole body seems to vibrate and thrum with need just under the surface. Every nerve's on edge. Stubble tickles maddeningly against the heat of his shaft, each touch sending little jolts of something he hasn't felt often, if at all, in HYDRA; it takes several seconds of the Captain nuzzling against his stiffening cock, lips teasing against the hot shaft, an experimental flick of the tongue, before he realizes what it is.
Physical pleasure. Happiness at the sight of the Captain submissive.
That unfamiliar urge - of need, of want - swells.
The details of the room, the bed bolted to the floor, the shelves, and the featureless walls penning them in, pulse in the Winter Soldier's field of vision as he squeezes his eyes shut with a little strangled gasp. His eyelashes stick together a little, still coated with drying remnants of that pink mystery vial. The next second he forces his eyes open, wanting the Captain right where he can see him, partly because he is and always will be a threat, partly because he doesn't want to miss the sight of the other, stronger asset submitting on his knees before him. To encourage him along, the Winter Soldier shifts from where he's sitting with his back against the shelves, his hip tilting from the floor to push his cock insistently up against the other man's mouth. It's half-hard now and getting harder still, thick, shining in places where the Captain has tried sucking here and there, the tip shining with a mixture of saliva and precum.
After awhile of the Captain exploring, coaxing his hard shaft so that it curves upward into the air, the Winter Soldier's the one to break ranks first, unable to tamp down on the need surging through him any longer even if it might looked like he blinked first. The black leash jerks again like the barrel of a gun to the ribs. With his free hand, the Soldier grips the other man's shorter blonde hair, chrome fingers curling against his scalp, as he forces him to look up at him.
"Stop stalling, Captain," the Winter Soldier says, his voice tight, strangled with mounting frustration. With his hand he'll force the Captain to return to his erect cock, the length teasing against his mouth, pushing aside his lips as it plays across them to smears precum.
no subject
He’s feeling pleased with himself, at the Soldier’s reactions — all of them, as he feels the shaft swelling under his lips, feeling the Soldier’s hips arch and thinking that this is how it should be. The Captain may be bound, but he’s still in control. He’s still got what the Soldier wants, and he decides when and how much he can have —
Except the Winter Soldier is having none of it. There’s a sharper tug at the leash, and the Captain’s neck flexes as he tries to resist, but he’s not in the strongest position, particularly when the Soldier threads fingers through his hair. He looks up with that same flash of something in his blue eyes, smugness and defiance intermingled, even as his head is forced down toward the Soldier’s groin. His grip on the other’s thighs tighten and his own back arches but it’s not enough. Somehow, the Soldier overpowers him and pulls him exactly where he wants the Captain, the tip of his glistening cock sliding against his lips and now the Captain tastes that musky, salty scent on his tongue.
He huffs out a warm, wet breath against the head, balking for a moment more, and then without warning he dives in. If the Winter Soldier wants him to stop stalling, then he’ll stop stalling. He’ll show the Soldier who’s in charge — and that it’s the Captain who’s going to take him apart without remorse, lips parting as he inhales sharply, pulling more of the Soldier’s aroused, sweaty scent into his nose as he drops his jaw and tries to force himself to take his cock in all in one go.
The best word for the effort, really, is clumsy. Inexpert. Teeth scrape, albeit gently, along the thick vein along the underside as the Captain tries to suck the half-hard shaft into his mouth. The head bumps the roof of his mouth, nudges up against the back of his throat. There’s a shaky second there where the Captain’s throat tenses, where his shoulders tighten and a normal man would have gagged. Coughed. Pulled off.
The Captain will not show weakness. He will not do those things. He grips the Soldier’s thighs, pulling them — pulling the other asset’s hips with them — toward himself, arching his head down and refusing to give in, pushing past the reflex until it relaxes. He doesn’t know if he’s been trained not to gag or if it simply is a matter of mind over instinct, but his nose nudges ever closer to the thatch of dark hair between the Soldier’s legs. It helps, admittedly, that the Winter Soldier isn’t fully hard yet, even if the Captain means to change that as quickly as he can.
All the same, he’s not doing more than trying to fit the Soldier’s cock in his mouth. Doesn’t think about sucking or running his tongue along it or anything but simply doing as he’s told — and somehow winning the game, while he’s at it.
no subject
He thinks he'll remember this, too.
The Captain has his mouth on his cock, stubble tickling his naked thighs, and it feels weirdly right. That warmth encircling him. Lips wrapped around the heat of his stiffening shaft like they're made for each other. Physical pleasure is still an alien thing to the Winter Soldier and it shows from how at first he stiffens at the unfamiliar sensation, flinches at the hint of teeth, the exhausted lines of his features pinching at the bridge of his nose and at the corners of his eyes, how he sucks in a breath rattling through his parted lips when the other asset bodily drags him closer. His thighs throb where the Captain's powerful fingers dig into skin and muscle.
Don't take your eyes off the Captain. That's rule number one, a rule not officially taught by HYDRA, a rule he isn't sure he was supposed to come up with on his own without prior authorization from a handler, but it's a rule that, generally, seems just like common sense. Don't close your eyes, no matter how good this feels. Even as the Winter Soldier's head tilts back against the shelves, his mouth hanging wantonly open in a moan, he still has his eyes open - half-open - flinty blue-gray glittering through his dark lashes. The shape of the Captain, on his knees instead of towering over him on a training mat, his mouth full of cock, shimmers before him, foggy at the edges. Hypersaturated. Something in his head and along his neck pulses. Whatever that drug was, it's currently burning through his body, dismantling whatever shreds of control he still has left.
The Soldier's metal fingers tighten against the other man's scalp.
Something's missing. He can't remember if he's ever had someone - man, woman, whatever - with their mouth on him like this. If they did, he can't pull up the memory but somehow he has this vague idea that the Captain should be doing something more than he already is. Not just trying to swallow him whole, holding him heavy and hot in his waiting mouth. Frustration mounts. The Soldier's hips twist, thrusting up into the other asset's mouth, not caring if he gags or if he makes sounds of discomfort vibrating against his cock. He pushes away from the shelf to curl forward, right hand with the leash bracing against the floor, his titanium one gripping the Captain's short blond hair, the back of his head, and trying to pump him along his shaft and see if that'll fix what's missing.
"You need to do better," the Winter Soldier grunts. "I know you can do better, Captain."
He drags the other asset further along his almost fully hard shaft, watching how his lips are forced wider as it stiffens, how the Captain's body language and posture might change as he's forced to take more than he was prepared for. He pulls him closer, forces him to take him, all of him, to see when it almost seems like he's kissing his groin, his nose buried in dark hair. If it gets hard to breathe, so what? The Captain's probably had the same lung capacity training he did. He'll manage.
no subject
Even if there’s something different about the way the sharp pain registers in the back of his mind, this time. Some strange sensation, strange little shock of pleasure racing along his nerves at the same time. That’s… new, he thinks. Can’t be sure, of course. But he thinks it is. Despite having only a hazy frame of reference for times before, something about this test, this situation, feels different. He thinks, carefully, deep down where even he can’t really focus too much on it, that he might like it.
Or he would, if the damn Soldier wasn’t being so goddamned demanding, pulling the Captain back and forth on his cock like he doesn’t know what he wants, only it must be something like this. Except… except that’s pleasing in its own way, too, isn’t it. He says You need to do better, but what the Captain hears is I need more. And that… that is a position the Captain likes having him in, even when it seems like the Captain himself is at a disadvantage. It doesn’t feel like it, even when his jaw has to drop a little more, his throat has to strain against the girth of the Soldier’s cock down it, and yet all the Captain can think is, I did that.
And also, I want more, too.
That’s what makes him give the first suck — the idea of more despite the fact that he’s not sure how to get it any more than the Soldier is. But sucking, swallowing, those seem only natural, and so that’s what he does, throat constricting around the sensitive head as his mouth stretches wide, lips pink and wet with saliva and precome, a little trail of it dribbling from the corner of his lips. His eyes narrow, gaze still locked on the Soldier’s, and he starts to pull back a little on his own, experimentally, as he hears the barely-there whine of servos in the Soldier’s prosthetic signal he's about to slide him back again by the hair — only to rock forward again suddenly, hard, with a wet slurping noise as he tries to inhale at the same time. Metal fingers tear at his short hair, but his own thighs tense and he’s got enough leverage to force himself back and forth on the Soldier’s cock, rather than being made to do it. He adds the sucking and swallowing again, and again, the noise of it filling his ears almost louder than the blood already roaring in them.
There’s no real rhythm to it at first, but the Captain is HYDRA’s premier asset. He is smart, he is intuitive, and he is a fast learner. He sets his own pace, using his sheer strength to resist when the Soldier tries to pull or push him sooner than he wants to be pulled or pushed. His lungs do start to burn, but he can take it. He can take anything the Soldier throws at him. And more.
One hand suddenly slides down between the Soldier’s legs, fumbling for his balls, squeezing firm but careful, rolling them in a big, rough, warm palm, then squeezing, then pressing, then rolling again. A thought flashes through his mind: I wonder what he tastes like there — and quick as a thought, he flings himself back and pulls off the Soldier’s hard shaft with a wet sound. But then he’s diving right back in, tilting his head to suck the Soldier’s balls into his mouth as the hand that had been squeezing them slides up along the Soldier’s spit-slick cock instead, twisting at the head before slipping back down again to squeeze hard at the thick base.
no subject
After awhile he can't bite them back.
The Soldier finds himself more vocal than he'd like, his sweat-slicked chest heaving with each throaty groan, breath hitching as he tries and fails to bite back on the strange sounds that take a needy, almost mewling quality that he's somehow sure he's never made before. Cheeks flushing, he tries to make up for it by digging his fingers into the Captain's scalp - an attempt, really, to regain control - but the man's got other ideas, the muscles along his neck and back flexing as he fights doing exactly what the Winter Soldier wants, pushing when he wants to pull, pulling when he wants to push.
With his cock stuffed in the other asset's mouth, warm and inviting, his saliva coating its straining length from base to weeping head, it's getting harder and harder to keep his eyes on the Captain at all times. Without meaning to, the Winter Soldier's eyes squeeze shut despite his better judgement, his mouth falling open in a moan each time the other man sucks on his shaft, each time his tongue swirls around it as he forces himself to take more even though the Soldier's fingers are digging into his scalp to pull him away. Even the feeling of the Captain's fingers fondling his balls - the perfect position to squeeze, to immediately translate pleasure to debilitating pain - isn't enough to drag him back. Each squeeze, each press of his callused fingers makes the Winter Soldier's hips twitch away only to return wanting more.
His eyes flare open when the Captain suddenly frees his mouth. The Winter Soldier's eyebrows furrow together as he jerks up with a scowl, his spine gone stiff with irritation and his cock bobbing in the sterile air with its shaft shining with saliva under the florescent lights, so hard it almost hurts.
"I didn't say you could - " is all he gets out before the Captain steals his words away with a two-pronged approach.
Mercilessly he mouths at his throbbing balls, nose tickling the underside of his thigh as his tongue flicks out and lathes against it, and the Winter Soldier's legs twitch obediently wider despite the black collar around the other asset's throat. The Captain's hand circles around his straining cock and strokes it at the same time, palm and fingers glistening, and the Winter Soldier groans, low and throaty and desperate even though he knows it's a sign of weakness in the body and the mind. His head spins and the room tilts as his eyes roll up toward the ceiling, lashes fluttering, and he spots the glint of a camera recessed into the corner of the cell's reinforced wall. His hips thrust into the Captain's touch once, twice, three times, his eyes rolling again and then it finally sinks in - the camera.
The chair. Whoever does worse in this exercise - nevermind he doesn't know exactly how it's graded - will spend longer in that goddamn chair.
Despite the collar wrapped around his neck, the Captain's somehow got him under control.
The Winter Soldier's eyes flare open and dart down, pupils contracting to black points in a sea of blue-gray. He almost caves when he spots the Captain's blond head buried between his legs with his nose nudging against the base of his erection, his tongue pressing wet and hot and pink against his balls. It takes whatever shreds of self-control he still has left to do something about it: the Winter Soldier suddenly scoots away, his back wedged against the shelf hard enough that they dig into his skin and hurt, and he'll manage to get his foot wedged up against the Captain's chest, bodily pushing away even as at the same time he tightens his grip on the leash and pulls to steal the other man's breath away.
"N...no," the Winter Soldier grunts through teeth bared in a snarl. "Enough!"
no subject
And he knows, just as deep, that the sounds the Soldier is making sure make it feel like the Captain is winning.
Until, that is, the Soldier gives an unexpectedly hard yank on the leash and the Captain, admittedly feeling a little drunk (does he know what drunk feels like? This must be it) on the scent and taste of him, is caught off guard by it, and then by the foot in his chest. Every inch he’s shoved back makes it harder to breathe — he gasps as his throat strains against the collar and his arms start to lift, as if to reach out for the Soldier, to drag them back together.
But the Soldier has him at a disadvantage. Two, really, between the collar and his locked-out leg. Now the Captain is off-balance, crouched and panting as his chest heaves beneath the sole of the foot pressed against it, his mouth cherry-red and glistening, his eyes dark and blown. The soft pants he’s wearing do little to hide the way they’re distinctly tented at the front, a little damp. The Captain hadn’t noticed before, previously too intent on his task and then too concerned with pulling air into his lungs to pay much attention to the heat that’s been pooling, slow but steady, below his navel. But now the fabric shifts just so and the zing that shoots through him makes his eyes roll back a little and flutter.
He snaps them open a second later and glances down, almost like he’s got to see with his eyes what he can feel, suddenly and almost overwhelmingly, about his own body. His breath rasps harshly in his throat as his eyes flick back up to the Soldier — snagging first, admittedly, on the hard shaft bobbing in the harsh fluorescent light, thick and flushed. Then they finally crawl up to the other’s eyes.
The Soldier says he’s had enough. The Captain feels like he needs… something, now. Right now. Friction. Hard muscle against the aching parts of him. He’s never needed anything more. He does finally reach up now, grips the Soldier’s calf, straining to keep him at a distance. He doesn’t pull yet, though his muscles tense, ready to twist or yank. He waits to see if the Soldier is going to keep him here. If he needs to take the upper hand. The Captain is not usually patient. It feels like patience is the last thing he wants to exercise now. But it also feels like the only measure of control he has in this situation, and he clings to it, stubbornly, just like he clings to the other’s leg.
“Is that really enough?” he asks, voice hoarse and thin with the collar still constricting his throat. “I could do more.”
What, he’s not sure. But he wants to find out. And there’s no alarm blaring, no bell sounding, no one shouting at them to stand down. Why should they stop, until someone makes them? This test isn’t over yet.
no subject
But the Captain isn't just anyone. And as usual, he doesn't go easily.
The Soldier's aware of his increasingly shaky positioning. He's still the one on the floor, pinned with limited avenues of escape with the shelves digging into his spine and shoulder blades, and now his weight's shifted in a bad way with one leg up and fresh pain jolting through his quivering calf as the other asset digs fingers punishingly deep into the muscle, bruising flesh to fibula, coaxing out five red beads of blood around his nails. A normal man might dislodge his leg from this position. The Captain could easily dislocate his leg, if not outright break it.
Yeah, he could definitely do more.
Everything swims. Static pops in his vision, but he can't tell if it's from the drug overheating his body or from the pain of the Captain's fingers digging so deep into his calf it's like he plans to peel back the scarred skin there. His face is hot with a flush navigating its way across his cheeks. If he jerks back on the leash, the Captain responds by digging in his fingers into his flesh even harder, applies a little pressure to the side that sends lightning jolting up from his hip socket like warning shots. The Soldier's breath hitches into wet gasps that only quicken when the Captain squeezes again and his eyes somehow dart from the look in his too bright eyes to...his pants. To the crotch. To what's protruding the fabric there. Just the sight it makes his own achingly hard cock, the shaft slick and glistening with drying saliva, twitch with need.
For a second he almost lets go of the leash, lets it slither between metal fingers. He...could submit. HYDRA has been teaching him how to submit in a timely, orderly fashion and while he can't remember the specific lessons, he can feel the urge, the rightness of it simmering away in his blood and settling in his bones.
But he'd never been taught to submit to the Captain. The Captain's not a superior; not a handler, a highly ranked officer. He's an equal in that they're both just lowly assets and he's had to have realized they're fighting over the same thing, like two starving men clawing each other over one ration.
Instead of releasing the leash tethering the Captain to him, reddening the man's throat in the shape of the black collar locked around it, the Soldier suddenly jerks with all his might, metal hand curled into a chrome fist. In the same motion he kicks against the other asset's powerful chest, feeling the arch of his foot slipping against his undershirt because even his soles are sweating. Using his foot shoved against the Captain as leverage, he takes a risk then to drive his other heel toward the erection tenting the Captain's pants; in an ideal combat scenario, choking the Captain out and hitting him there at the same time would have plenty enough stopping power.
no subject
Until the Soldier gives a sharp yank with the metal arm, squirming like a landed fish so that as the Captain's back bows, the bare foot slides down from his solar plexus past his abdominals, his waist, down to his groin.
The strangled, desperate sound the Captain makes is not one any of the handlers watching have heard. They've heard grunts of desperation and anger, growls of frustration, even scoffs of victory. This is something else entirely, a low, grinding, animal sound as the Captain's eyes roll back for just a fraction of a second as pleasure-pain-pleasure courses through him like he's been struck by lightning. It's not like the electricity of the chair, that he knows so well. It's like something else entirely. Hot and sharp and crackling and wild.
It's driving him wild, that feeling, and now his own body twists, the collar digging angry, bloody welts into his skin and he can barely breathe but it doesn't matter because in another instant, the Captain throws himself forward, the Soldier's foot sliding away from his crotch but that's okay because he's wedged the Soldier's other leg between his own, wrapped that offending, bruised foot and leg around his waist, and he's thrown himself up at the Soldier, chest to chest, trapping the other asset's hard, red, wet erection between their stomachs. It's trapped between bare skin, the Captain's shirt half-torn, half-hitched up, the Soldier's in shreds. The Captain's face comes at the Soldier's and knocks it into the side of the shelving, but the move is clumsy and where he could bite or even headbutt, he doesn't. Instead he follows, mashing his sweaty cheek up against the Soldier's flushed temple and arches, rocking his own hardness hard into the muscular thigh between his legs, again and again.
Outside the room, a twitter goes through the handlers. There are snorts and crude jokes and derisive remarks — there have already been plenty, when the Captain's head had buried itself in the Soldier's lap — but now the tide has turned and there are more, as the Captain tries to climb the Soldier like a tree and pin him like a wrestler and hump him like a dog, restless and desperate and not at all sure what he's doing, only he's going to do what feels good, and this feels good. The Soldier between his legs, pressed up against his stomach, breathing hard against his chest, under him, feels good.
Against the Soldier's ear, his breath stutters and pants, still constricted by the collar although it's better now, with less space between them, more slack on the leash. "Put your hand down my pants," he says, an edge to it like a command. He has the upper hand now. And he knows where he wants the Soldier's free one. "Your flesh one."
He doesn't even care if the Soldier won't release the leash. He doesn't need to breathe. He's got the Soldier's thigh pressed up against him but he needs the Soldier's hand on his cock, now.
no subject
It happens fast - the man surges forward all of a sudden to catch the Winter Soldier off-guard even though he'd been half-expecting it, quick enough that even as he instinctively jerks back on the leash the Captain follows it forward instead of fighting it. Before he can pitch himself to the side the Soldier finds himself bodily pinned. One leg's wrenched painfully around in a position where he can't get any leverage, can't kick; can't do much more than writhe against the Captain with his weeping cock pinned painfully between them, streaking against their sweat-slicked skin. He spits out a pissed-off sound between his bared teeth, saliva smearing against their cheeks as his head's forced to the side, the Captain dragging a trail of it up against his profile almost to his hairline.
The Soldier's struggling only seems to egg on the other asset. He twists and writhes and his aching balls sliding against the floor with each futile buck, his breath coming in wet, shaking pants, overwhelmed by the double assault of the aphro burning inside him and the Captain rubbing all over him like he wants to claim him. The bulge straining against the crotch of the Captain's pants already started to soak through and soon his thigh's damp where he grinds and grinds and grinds. The Captain's shifted high enough that the Soldier's gets a faceful of his tattered shirt, the other man's stiff nipples seeming to be everywhere - his flushed cheek, sweeping against his nose, teasing against his parted lips - the shirt hiking up even further so that his head's pinned against the shelf by the firm press of his pectoral.
For a second he doesn't obey. Blood rushes in his skull, a roaring sound that almost drowns out the Captain's voice tickling against his ear, his breath hot and demanding; the brush of his swollen lips sends a shudder wracking down the Winter Soldier's spine as he jerks uselessly against the other asset and just ends up with a stiff nipple poking the corner of his mouth for all his trouble. Quivering against the Captain, trapped, the Soldier's breaths come in ragged, needy gasps. Something that's remembering it's anger wars with a yawning, animal need, with the sudden, inexplicable urge to tilt his head to the side so that the Captain's nipple could pop into his mouth. His cock twitches against the Captain's stomach, the straining shaft hot and engorged against flexing muscle.
The Soldier relents.
With a snarl that almost sounds pissed, he gropes his way down the other man's taut stomach. Fingers slide through the glistening trails of his own precum until he can slip them past the waistband. When he encounters the Captain's cock, he won't exactly be gentle as he grabs its trapped shaft in his callused fingers. At the same time the Winter Soldier's dark head shifts to allow that nipple digging into the corner of his mouth to finally slip inside, his tongue sweeping and suckling around the rosy bud. Teeth graze against skin. It feels marginally better to have something in his mouth - though maybe it's too small - but he can't seem to keep it in because the Captain keeps moving; one second his pectoral's bumping against his mouth, hard enough to drive his nose into firm muscle, only to pull away the next so that the Soldier has to hungrily seek it with his mouth, open and questing, tongue slipping out as he manages to recapture his nipple.
The hand shoved past the Captain's waistband is exploring, stroking, squeezing, hot palm to hot length. It's random, without an idea of where best to touch, his knuckles outlined against the soaked fabric of his pants as rough fingers curl and pull against the underside of his trapped cock. (But even high on aphro, The Winter Soldier knows better than to squeeze with all his might, to sink his teeth into the nipple stiffening against his surging tongue)
no subject
He lets out a sound that’s half-grunt, half-groan, body arching toward the Soldier’s as he continues to rock, to press. There’s a new war going on in his brain, where deep down he knows he needs to keep the upper hand, stay on top, dominate the Winter Soldier. But at the same time, some blind, untraceable urge is telling him he wants to be under the Soldier. He wants to be on the floor or against the wall and he wants the Soldier to be the one pinning him, because as much as the Captain is enjoying the position he’s in, there’s just something about it that’s not quite right.
This time, when he moves, it’s to snake arms around the Soldier and pull them even tighter chest to chest, heat blooming between them as any sliver of air that might have separated them disappears. It crushes the other asset’s hand against his cock, which is certainly nothing to scoff at, either — the shaft now feels as hard and straining as his nipples, like there’s sparks dancing under his skin, like he’s going to explode like ordnance and he won’t even care. He wants it.
Once the Soldier is firmly in his grip, the Captain rolls them like wrestlers, legs wrapping around the other’s waist as the slide to the side and the hard flood comes up and knocks the air out of him just as the dark shadow of the Soldier’s head, too-long lanky hair hanging down, comes up to blot out the too-bright overhead lights. All the Captain can see are the blue-gray eyes, whittled down to thin rings of color with the pupils blown wide, as he arches his hips up eagerly into the Soldier’s grip, encouraging.
Of course, even as one arms stays tight around the other’s torso, the other snakes down to find the hot, hard length of the Soldier’s cock pressed between them. A large, hot hand takes it up in a firm grip, sliding up and down almost maddeningly slow and steady. The Captain feels like he might fly apart, but this motion is nonetheless utterly calm and controlled. He might have put the Soldier on top, but the Soldier is not in control. This is still where the Captain wants him. And he gets only what the Captain wants to give him. “Keep touching me,” he demands, as if the other could even stop, pinned now with the Captain wrapped around him like he is.
no subject
The sheer shock of it is enough to prevent him from rolling off, lunging back to the shelf so he can get another tool - a weapon - to arm himself with.
Unable to roll off, the Soldier can't help but groan when the Captain ensures he can't escape easily by grabbing his cock jutting between them. A hand circles around it tight and while he doesn't squeeze to incapacitate, that could change at any time. Maybe he should get it over with, the Soldier's husky gasps taking on a frustrated edge at the slow - too damn slow - pace of the strokes, his grip just firm enough that he can't easily force the issue by pistoning his engorged shaft against his palm, its head weeping from its slit to glisten along the Captain's fingers.
Doesn't mean he doesn't try, his hip pushing forward.
Pinned like this, his torso and his cock trapped between their bodies, and the Soldier has no choice. His breath rushes hot against the other asset's face, disheveled hair hanging down, casting his worn face in shadow even as his wide eyes glitter. He needs more. He needs - wants? - the Captain to speed up instead of torturing him with these always slow, always even, always the same leisurely pumps of his hand circled around his throbbing cock.
Still gazing down at the Captain, his hand shifts position. Whether it's frustration at how trapped he is, the aphro warming his body and lighting each nerve on fire, or just a general kind of impatience - the Soldier decides the pants and underwear are in the way and have to go. Now. The fatigues are thin, not the thicker types for field work, and gripping the fabric in his titanium hand, he tears them with a sideways jerk that will draw angry red marks where the waistband dug into the Captain's sweat-slicked side.
His standard-issue underwear gets the same treatment from the Winter Soldier, the thinner fabric tearing much more easily than his pants. Now he can fondle the Captain free, his straining member hot and pulsing, his fingers pressing down against the softness of his sac, rubbing, exploring, not sure what to do but figuring that he will know from the Captain's breathing, if he flinches or he moans.
If he moans - without thinking, the Soldier leans down, hair tickling the Captain's face, and he'll capture his lips with his, tongue invading his mouth, the kiss rough, hard enough to crack the other asset's head against the floor all over again. At the same time he attempts to thrust his cock into the Captain's hand, maybe hoping to catch the other asset by surprise. To force him to do something - squeeze, pick up the pace - instead of keeping him in that awful limbo.
no subject
He doesn’t have long to enjoy his victory, though, before the Soldier is moving; not struggling to get away, but grabbing at the Captain’s pants with a sharp tearing sound that almost — but not entirely — masks the harsh, hitched gasp the Captain sucks in as the relatively cooler air of the room hits his heated cock, as the Soldier’s rough hand, just the right size, slides back over and down and around his dick and balls, unhindered now by the annoying fabric any longer. It may not be a moan, exactly, but there’s something on the tail end of the sound that must be close enough, because the next thing he knows, there’s chapped lips pressed against his and his head hits the floor with an explosion of sparks behind his eyes — and he likes it. It’s jarring and painful and there’s an almost angry hitch of the Soldier’s hips against his, as the other fights for what he wants and the Captain refuses to give up the upper hand. As the Captain doesn’t laugh again, but radiates a kind of satisfied smugness even as his lips, for just the briefest instant, yield out of something close to surprise.
But not for long. He bites at the Soldier’s lips in retaliation, tearing at the soft flesh and tasting a sharp little burst of copper on his tongue. It won’t bleed much or long, but it’s enough to smear both their lips with blood as the Captain growls into the Soldier’s mouth, writhing under him but never breaking his hold, never moving away far enough to ever risk losing the Soldier’s hand on his cock. He kisses and bites and sucks like he wants to swallow the Soldier whole and never come up for air. He kisses like it’s a contest — everything between them is — but also like it’s a lifeline and he never wants to let go.
The Soldier’s hips smack against his again, clear wanting in them and the Captain tightens his arm around the other asset’s back, a warning. And yet, kissing like this, with the Soldier’s free hand all over him and making him see sparks long after his head should have cleared from that hit, is making him feel… something. It couldn’t exactly be called generosity. Maybe more like curiosity, as the Captain’s eyes open, too close to the Soldier’s, everything out of focus even as everything in his body feels like it is focused, right now, on the aching, straining place between his legs. On what’s building there. On the way he wants the Soldier to feel it too, to react, to give himself over the Captain without pausing in the way he’s giving the Captain what he wants, too.
His legs slide down now from the Soldier’s waist, the Captain stretching out without giving ground, legs sliding along the Soldier’s inner thighs until he’s got the other asset pinned over him by the ankles, grip still as hard as iron. With both of the laid out, the Captain has the advantage again, bucking and arching off the floor while the Soldier should find it harder to keep up that thrusting. At the same time, though, the Captain’s strokes finally, finally speed up along the Soldier’s cock, fingers gliding easily, slick now with all the precome that’s been drooling over them, coating his hand and his belly. He tilts his head enough, shifts just enough for their lips to part and the kiss dissolve into harsh, panting breaths, that his eyes can focus fully on the Soldier’s, now. His gaze bores into them with a focused attention that demands to know if this reward will be appreciated, or if it will be fought. If he ought to keep going, speeding up ever so slightly with every stroke, starting to aim his hand so that their knuckles bump together every few pulls, cocks inches apart, or if he’s going to have to take away this gift again. If the Soldier will fight him on it. Because whatever this is… the Captain has still got to win.