Prompt Post 1

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At least one of the characters in your prompt must have been in Captain America: The First Avenger or Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

As of May 3, 2014, the spoiler policy is no longer in effect.

Update, April 22, 2014:
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Fill: And I Am Always with You, Part 7 Warning: Dehumanization and Sexual Harassment

[lauralot]

[Note: Translations for the Russian should appear when you hover over the text]

When they speak of him, he occasionally hears the title Winter Soldier. When they address him, he is their asset. He used to wonder which of them his name was, or if they both were, before they taught him that weapons don’t have names and don’t care how they’re addressed. Weapons don’t care about anything but striking their target. Doing as their handlers command. Helping HYDRA save the world.

Sometimes he forgets he is a weapon and does things weapons aren’t meant to do, voicing opinions and making decisions on his own. HYDRA is there to guide him back on target each time this happens and every lesson hurts, but not as much as the knowledge of disappointing them. They teach him what it means to be theirs. It means doing as ordered without question, whether the order is to walk barefoot on broken glass or to pick up a pencil. It means never being hungry, thirsty, or tired, never letting pain get in the way of a mission. Most of all it means not letting thoughts distract him, not thinking at all. Weapons don’t need to think of anything beyond the most efficient way to fulfill their intended function.

Not thinking is the most difficult.

Whenever he aims a weapon there is a voice that comes from somewhere within him, sometimes whispering and sometimes shouting. Don’t, the voice pleads. Don’t be their killer. You’re better than this. It makes his head ache and disturbs his focus and when he reports it, they assure him they can fix him and then lead him back to the chair. His body tenses every time he sees it, chest constricting and breath quickening as he sits down, though he can never remember why he reacts this way. He doesn’t fight. He is broken and they are repairing him, and he is grateful that they bother to do that instead of casting him aside as a malfunctioning weapon deserves.

The voice is quieter after that. It stops interfering, so he stops reporting it.

But the first time they send him on a mission on his own—maybe the first, his memory doesn’t reach back far and that doesn’t trouble him because a weapon needs no memory—he strikes the target and there is a new voice as he watches the body crumple to the pavement. This one comes from outside him rather than within, though when he looks around, he sees no one there. The voice is familiar in a way he doesn’t have the words to describe.

Nice shot.

The asset raises his own fist to his face, blackening an eye and putting a hairline fracture in his cheekbone. The voice is gone when he lowers his hand. Weapons do not admire their accuracy. Weapons do not have pride. Nor do they listen to imaginary voices

[ghosts friends]

that serve as distractions.

When he returns, they question the damage. The asset explains that his arm malfunctioned because a damaged arm is easier to repair than a damaged mind and he has already silenced the problem, so it would be irresponsible to worry them unnecessarily. They spend an hour recalibrating his arm before sending him back to the chair and the tank.

*

He does what they require and they praise him, brush the long, dark hair from his eyes, tell him how invaluable his work is to humanity, give him new weapons and say he’s earned them.

If he disappoints him, they stomp at his bones.

He tries never to disappoint them. The asset is almost perfect, save for the periods of disorientation just after waking. Then he is worthless, weak, eyes dripping and mind full of half-remembered distractions

[there was a person I was a person I fell everything hurts]

but they are always there to guide him, sometimes kicking and shouting until he is as he should be, sometimes quiet and soothing until he comes around. He’s grateful for either method, for whatever they’re willing to give him. He hopes, each time he goes into the tank, that this time he will be better and not a disappointment when he wakes.

*

It is 1994 and the asset is in Los Angeles.

He is shaking.

The target, an American politician, is dead, eliminated before their team could even reach the location. Heart attack, called at 6:17 AM according to their intel. At 4:31 AM, an earthquake triggered the attack, much as it triggered the collapse of the bridge their convoy was traveling on. There are no fatalities among them, no life-threatening injuries. But there is no longer a mission and they cannot reach the rendezvous point. They have been told to lie low until a transport can reach them.

There is no mission and the asset is shaking.

He bites his lips behind the

[muzzle]

mask, as the others keep their distance as though he will strike them. Perhaps he will. He has no guidance, and without the guidance, his mind is left to drift places it shouldn’t. He has felt sick since the ground gave way beneath them and the feeling will not fade.

“Здесь.” One of them steps slowly forward, arm splinted, a canteen in his good hand. “Пейте.”

“Мне не нужно, чтобы.”

The hand touches skin above the mask, then catches the rim just below his eyes and gently pulls it away. “Ты горишь, дорогой,” the man says. “Не позволяйте себе стать обезвоженной. Пейте.”

He takes it as an order, lets the water slide down a throat unaccustomed to feeling it, and manages not to choke. The asset waits, lets the man stroke his hair and listens to him speak to the others about his children, occasionally muttering “дорогой.” The asset does not know what дорогой means.

*

“You’re beautiful.”

The asset is pressed against a wall. His mask is tugged away and there is a hand at his lips and dark, glittering eyes staring into his own. His handler is gone from the room. The mission is an Iranian nuclear physicist, and they are to be leaving soon.

And a member of the strike team has pushed him up against the wall.

Someone else laughs. “It can’t understand you. Look how blank its eyes are.”

“He understands fine,” the man says, tries to slide his fingers into a mouth the asset keeps shut. He grins at the resistance, his other hand winding in the asset’s hair. “They don’t freeze you right after the mission, right? I can think of a way to pass the time…”

“You’re fucked in the head,” another says.

“You’re just jealous I won’t share.”

They laugh. The door is opening and the man is off him as the asset’s handler returns. When they find the target the Soldier sends his car over a cliff, and when the physicist’s protection shields his body with her own, the asset fires through her.

His heartbeat increases and his breathing grows labored as he sees the chair, like always, but this time he is also grateful for it.

*

“This is a different kind of mission,” they tell him once he has pulled himself back together after waking. “It will be simple for you. We only need you to act if the others fail.”

They leave him to memorize the information of the new mission: Fury, Nicholas J.