Prompt Post 1

[capkinkmod]

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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As of May 3, 2014, the spoiler policy is no longer in effect.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 11

[lauralot]

The asset is malfunctioning.

He must be, because he's stopped running, but his breaths are still shallow and insufficient though there is no cause for his body to remain winded. His heartbeat is too rapid for his current level of injuries and exertion. And the voice in his head has yet to stop screaming.

[—ALIVE I'M ALIVE I'M ALIVE—]

Молчи, he orders, but the voice does not be quiet. The Soldier tries to breathe, fails, walks. He has lost track of his surroundings, but if he moves he will find his way back to the rendezvous point. He always does. The location seems hardwired within him.

Though he has no way to be sure his knowledge of that is not malfunctioning as well.

Perhaps something became damaged in his head when the shield hit the asset's face. Can a fractured skull cause this, or a concussion? His body can repair those things, and HYDRA can restore what cannot be healed. They replaced his arm. If they do not put him down for failing the mission or break him further as punishment, they may replace his mind. He hopes—no he doesn't, he is a weapon—he would be best able to fulfill missions if his mind were quiet again.

The weak hand

[MY HAND I'M HUMAN]

presses lightly against his face. There are no open wounds, no bleeding, only a faint tenderness where he was struck. His body rarely bruises, and this damage does not feel severe enough to leave a lasting mark on his skin. His hand lingers, pressing harder, as though he can reach inside his skull and scrape out the broken pieces.

"Who the hell is Bucky?" he repeats, and the fist he drives into his face does not stop the voice screaming I AM.

There are new symptoms of damage that accompany the recitation: a twisting in his stomach and a feeling of cold inconsistent with the temperature around him. The asset increases his speed, ignoring the burn in his lungs.

"Who…the hell…is Bucky?"

The hell. What is the hell? The Soldier said it without thinking, but how can he say things he does not know? He must have heard it before. Someone must have said it. He does not remember because it was not necessary for him to remember, but without remembering it should be impossible to recite. "The hell." The words are foreign, but his mouth does not stumble when it forms them. The phrase is alien yet as familiar as the weapons strapped about him.

The asset is panting for oxygen and he forces his body to be still, to inhale as deeply as his constricted throat and chest will allow. He cannot stop the tremors running through the weak hand, but it does not matter. None of it matters. He will find HYDRA and they will punish him and he will deserve if for failing, for being very bad, but then they will repair him and this will stop, and he will complete the mission and HYDRA will save the world and he will be content again.

[Can't go back they'll take it again they'll take everything away]

Everything needs to go away. His feet are faltering and the asset's teeth grind as he moves.

[I'm awake can't go back under won't go back]

Why is the screaming English? He barely speaks English unless his handlers require it. He does not think in English. The asset recalls Romanov jumping onto his shoulders, Rogers's hands striking the Soldier's head and face and ripping the mask away. Is this a trick of theirs? Some sort of implant or precise damage to distract him? Foolish. HYDRA will reverse it.

[Not theirs I'm not theirs I'm human I'm not a machine I'm HUMAN I'm Bucky]

"Заткнись!" The Soldier's lips draw back from his teeth as the sound tears out of him, unplanned, and then there is a hand on the metal arm and it is only the damage to that limb combined with the shout of "Stand down!" that keeps him from throwing whoever dares touch him.

But why wouldn't they dare? No one asks a gun's permission before they aim it.

His eyes follow the hand on his arm up to the man's face. Rumlow. Behind him is a black Jeep with another strike member, Rollins, exiting it. The Soldier realizes that he was headed the right way, that his memory of the rendezvous point was not malfunctioning, and he feels a glimmer of pride that weapons should not feel. "Where have you been?" Rumlow demands.

"What is the hell?" The asset braces himself for the blow that will inevitably follow his failure to answer, but he cannot keep from asking.

Rumlow stares. "What?"

"What is the hell?" he repeats.

"It's where we're going to be if you don't hurry the fuck up." Rumlow nods to Rollins, who grabs the other arm, and together they steer him toward the vehicle.

The Soldier bites back the sudden urge to shove the men and shout at them to keep their hands off. The desire is so immediate it is instinctual, but he's never had that instinct before. He is

[a person]

HYDRA's to order and lead. Of course they can lay their hands on him.

"What's wrong with it?" Rollins asks as the asset is shoved into the backseat.

Rumlow shrugs, taking the seat beside the Soldier. "Nothing they can't fix. Shut up and drive."

The Soldier has the sudden thought of not wanting to be fixed, and when has he ever wanted things? He should not be wanting, he should be out completing his mission. He has completed missions while damaged. Never with screaming in his mind, but that can be ignored. Would have been ignored, if he hadn't run away. Why had he done that? Why was he weak?

Rumlow is speaking into a phone beside him. "—secured the asset, on our way to you. There's damage to his arm, I don't know what else they did. Just be ready for repairs. Before Pierce gets there."

A thought occurs to him, a thought not about being a person, being alive, or being awake, and so he holds onto it. Rumlow is here. If the strike team is traveling back to the bank vault, they are not looking for the missions. If they are not looking for the missions, it follows that the missions are either secured or dead. "The mission," he says.

Rumlow pockets the phone. "Oh, now you remember it."

The asset bites his lips.

[Go to hell.]

"Did the mission succeed?"

"No." Rumlow's hands are clenched against the fabric of his pants. "And I'm not gonna be the one to get my ass reamed for it."

He doesn't know what ass means. Or reamed. He's beginning to think that he doesn't understand most things, least of all the things happening in his head. "Who's Bucky?"

He can see Rumlow's eyes lift to the rearview mirror, follows his gaze to see Rollins staring back at them. "What?"

"He called me Bucky."

There is a pause. Then Rumlow's hands are gripping tight onto either side of his face, pulling his head forward until their faces are an inch from each other, eyes staring unblinking into his own. The asset thinks he remembers someone else holding onto him like this, long ago, but he can't remember feeling the hands. "Listen. Captain Rogers tried to kill you after you shot Fury. He's trying to stop HYDRA. He's the enemy. Got it?"

"He's the enemy," the Soldier repeats. He decides he likes repeating things. When he does so it gives him less time to think about anything else.

When Rumlow releases him it is a shove back. The asset's hand clenches and he knows he is malfunctioning because Rumlow is a commanding officer but the asset nearly hits him.

He draws his thoughts back to Rogers, because Rogers is his mission, his enemy, and that should give him focus, keep his mind off malfunctions and personhood until he can be repaired. He is the enemy. He is the enemy.

For a moment it works.

Then a new thought joins the screaming, an impossible thought even more pervasive than the rest.

[I knew him.]