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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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.