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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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.