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.

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Update, April 22, 2014:
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Fill: And I Am Always with You, Part 25

[lauralot]

The Winter Soldier recalls setting a man on fire.

He cannot remember the details of the mission. The location, the name and face of the man he burned, whether he had doused the target in gasoline or kerosene beforehand—those facts are hazy as the smoke that rose from the body. But he remembers the effects of the fire on flesh, the almost glistening sheen the skin took as it bubbled and warped before blackening.

That is what the surface of pizza makes the Soldier think of.

Feeling revulsion and curiosity but mostly the former, he tears his gaze away from it and back to the glass of water the server had placed in front of him.

"When was the last time you ate?" the man who had wings asks.

It's such a senseless question—obviously the answer is never, what purpose would it serve?—that the Soldier forgets to respond to it, distracted by trying to work out why it was asked. Sometimes interrogations begin with innocuous or unrelated questions to lure the subject into answering readily. But it makes little sense to interrogate him. HYDRA never told him any information beyond what was necessary to fulfill a mission, and most everything has been wiped from his mind. Beyond that, he can only offer detailed information on methods of assassination and the care and handling of various weapons, and somewhat less detailed information on the lives of Steve Rogers and James Buchanan Barnes. When it comes to gathering intelligence, he is less useful than a phone.

"I broke your wings," the Soldier says, testing. He knows without remembering that no one takes powerful assassins into restaurants "just to talk." Likely there will be an abduction attempt to either hand him over to Steve or to the government. But there may be retaliation first, punishment for kicking this man off of the helicarrier and anything that may have preceded that. He is confident in his ability to take a beating and remain upright, but he'd like an estimation of how severe a reprimand to expect.

He can gauge that by the eyes, he thinks, as if it's something his body remembered when his mind was made blank.

The eyes of the man who had wings contain no dark glimmer as he takes a slice of the pizza, folds it in half, and bites. "You did. But we stole those to begin with. Well, Steve and Natasha stole them. I mostly offered moral support, but either way, I don't think that puts me in a position to get too steamed about it."

The Soldier is beginning to think Steve steals a lot of things. He glances around the restaurant for approximately the twenty-seventh time since entering. If this is an ambush, everyone may be a part of it, including the server who brought the water. He hopes she is not a part of it. People don't often give him things and he thinks he would rather not disable the people who do.

"Here." The man who had the wings picks up a paper packet from a stack of them on the table, next to the salt shaker. "Put this in your drink."

It is an order and he does not think to question it until he's already torn the packet open with his teeth—the immobile hand remains concealed in his jacket—and has poured half of the white powder within into the water. "What is it?"

"Sugar."

He can see no tactical advantage the man can gain from providing him with sugar, so he hesitantly sips. It tastes like sugar and the Soldier hadn't realized he knew that taste. It's good, extremely good. His gaze falls to the other sugar packets on the table, and what he feels is not a need as with water, but a desire. A strong one.

The man makes a soft sort of a laugh and nudges the stack toward him. "You can have another."

The Soldier adds a second packet.

"What's your plan, Bucky?"

His hand moves from the glass to rest on the handle of the knife. "This interrogation is—" What is the English word for inept? "Not good."

"Probably 'cause it's not an interrogation." There is openness in the winged man's face that is not unlike looking at Steve. Perhaps that is why Steve allied himself with this one. "Just friendly concern."

It isn't until now, sitting down, that the Soldier is aware of just how weary his body is. When he is walking and must focus on placing one foot before the other, it is easier to dismiss. "I don't have friends."

"You could use some. They tend to give good advice." The man offers another of the sugar packets, which the Soldier takes only because it's possible the desire is his body's way of saying sugar is something needed. "Like, wasting away at the Smithsonian? Not a great plan."

His voice is not cold, not cutting the way some handlers and agents could sound. It's soft, but the Soldier thinks the softest voices sometimes possessed the hands with the harshest slaps.

"I won't be your weapon," the Soldier says. The instinctive flinch that accompanies talking back is small, but it still makes him grit his teeth. "Or your captain's."

"Then I'm glad we're on the same page. People aren't weapons. What HYDRA did to you was wrong."

He has not, the Soldier observes, taken another bite of the pizza. It seems a waste. If its purchase was an attempt to bribe the Soldier or curry his loyalty through gifts, even more so. "I won't be Bucky Barnes, either. He…" The words are missing. How does he say I want to be him more than anything but I can't and what if I try and fail and then what's left and I hate him he failed Steve but he's Steve's friend and I want to be that too? That would be more than he's ever said in his life and his voice would likely give out. "He's dead."

"Who says you have to be?"

His body is broken but that doesn't impact his speed, and a shaking hand closes around the man's collar, pulling him halfway across the table as the Soldier snarls. "I'm—" He doesn't know how to say amnesiac. "I can't remember things, but I'm not stupid. The only reason I'm not dead or locked away is because I look like him and that's the only reason Steve wants me back." He shoves as he lets go, pushing the man back against the far seat of the booth. The metal hand has slid out of his pocket and dangles limply at his side.

The Soldier can feel eyes on them. He had not planned to do that and his face goes hot at the realization, then cold. He's been a weapon for so long that he reacts as one without thinking. Smiling in the Smithsonian feels so far away now.

"Hey." The man's voice is softer than the Soldier expected. "Forget Steve."

He can't.

"What do you want? It's your life, it's about damn time you had a say in it."

More than anything, he wants to sleep. Just collapse with his head on the table, possibly forever. Maybe there will be no dreams, or maybe the world will be smaller and simpler when he wakes up. "I want to be a person," the Soldier says, but he can't raise his eyes from the floor as he does.

He can, however, lift his head when the man says "You haven't done too bad a job of that so far." The Soldier looks for the dark in the man's eyes, the laugh, but his face is still all openness. "No, really. You realized your orders were wrong, so you acted against them. You chose not to go back to HYDRA. And you decided what you wanted. Those are all very human things, you know that?"

The Soldier did not know that. There is heaviness in his throat that the water does not cure.

"But you're also a complete mess, no offense. You could use a friend. Hell, you could use a dozen."

"There aren't a dozen people who would take up such a doomed cause," the Soldier says.

"Really?" The man who had wings indicates himself. "There's one down. Bet we can find eleven more."

Shaking his head, the Soldier pushes himself back against the booth, gaze averted again. If he says yes, then he's trading HYDRA for a new handler. They will want to make him Barnes rather than an asset, but the end result is the same. And worse, he will have act human for his masters. He can be a tool. To be whole and alive is something he doubts he will learn to fake convincingly.

"Bucky." This man doesn't say it with Steve's familiarity and that helps. "You've been on your own for decades. You've earned a break, all right? It's not wrong or shameful to accept help."

"I can't be him," the Soldier whispers, eyes shut.

"You won't have to be. And anyone who says otherwise can answer to me, all right? If they keep at it, I'll demonstrate that chest-kick-off-a-building move of yours."

The Soldier's mouth twitches. Barnes might have liked this man.

"What do you say?"

He can't say. He can barely nod. The little movement of his head takes everything he has and he ends up slumped over the table, nerveless.

"Good. Now what do you say we get you to a shower?"

"My legs are not functioning," the Soldier says, realizing that he is seconds from unconsciousness and also that his hand won't grasp the knife to do anything about it.

The man who had wings curses and comes around to his side of the table. "Here, get your arm over my shoulder."

"My arm is also not functioning."

"Are you shitting me?"

The Soldier opens his mouth to say he doesn't know the meaning of "shitting" but he yawns instead. He can feel the world tilt around him as he's dragged by the broken arm out of the booth, his torso draped across the man's shoulders. He hears the man ask why super soldiers are all so damn heavy, and then he is unconscious.

Re: Fill: And I Am Always with You, Part 25

[(Anonymous)]

Buckyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy. Oh god everything hurts. But Sam is so wonderful. I want to be a person. Oh my god it's raining on my face.

Re: Fill: And I Am Always with You, Part 25

[lauralot]

It has been raining on my face ever since I saw CA: TWS.