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.
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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.