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As of May 3, 2014, the spoiler policy is no longer in effect.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 39

[lauralot]

They bring him a tablet and Sam pulls up pages of information on Project Insight, formerly classified documents that had been released online alongside other HYDRA and SHIELD files. The Soldier has not seen them before; it never occurred to him to look into HYDRA's plans. He has researched its members—Pierce is dead, Rumlow is in a burn ward, and most everyone else he recalls is arrested or missing—but the organization's projects did not attract his interest once he realized his own was not among those leaked.

He doesn't think he ever cared about the reason behind his missions. It wasn't his function to concern himself with why he was fulfilling an objective, he was only meant to complete it.

Zola had developed an algorithm to determine who would be a threat to HYDRA. Twenty million targets were identified, and the helicarriers would have taken them out in a matter of seconds.

The Soldier tries to comprehend twenty million missions. It is not an objective he could have reached even if they had kept him out of the tank indefinitely. He cannot recall the exact number, but it seems to him that in seventy years he had less than fifty missions.

This Project Insight, then, was a brilliant solution. He is not surprised; HYDRA has always been brilliant. Had they succeeded, the world would have been theirs in under a minute and nothing could ever have shaken that hold. And with the helicarriers, the Soldier's skill set would have become obsolete. He would not have had to kill anyone ever again.

He thinks he would like that, and wonders what he would have been utilized for after HYDRA had the world.

"You okay, Bucky?"

Turning to face Steve, the Soldier attempts to comprehend why this information would make him not okay. It isn't that he likes the thought of twenty million dead. Remembering even one death, watching the fear and life fade from a target's eyes until they are as dull and empty as his own, it causes some nameless sensation to pervade his being, cold and wrong and nauseating.

But twenty million: it is simultaneously both too large and too small to stir much in the Soldier. His mind can't grasp the number in anything but the abstract, and yet he knows there are seven billion people alive on the planet. Looking at twenty million in relation to that is akin to pulling buckets of water from the sea. The Soldier tries to make it personal. He believes Steve wants that.

"You were on the list?"

"I was. Me, Tony, Natasha, all of us." The names are vaguely familiar, but Steve is continuing before the Soldier can put faces to them. "And millions of other people. Kids, some of them. Because they might have been in HYDRA's way."

"Sacrifices must be made for the greater good," the Soldier mutters. He does not think the words; they are suddenly in his mind and on his lips.

"What was the greater good?" Sam asks, while Steve buries his face in his hands. "Did anyone ever tell you the end game?"

The Soldier nods, eager to provide a right answer, to let them see that there was more to his world beyond the suffering they seem to think comprised it. He knows the goal, remembers hearing it time and again whenever he looked at his handlers with anything other than unquestioning compliance. "Freedom. To give order so the world could be free."

"All right." Sam raises his hand and Steve, who had been about to speak, falls silent. "Freedom. Tell me, Bucky, how were people going to be free with weapons pointed at them every second of their lives?"

The logistics of freedom were never something he needed to concern himself with. The Soldier has no answer and his body tenses.

"If they wanted freedom, why did they keep you amnesiac and locked in ice?" Sam's voice is not hard but it still commands attention. "If they wouldn't give one man freedom, how could they give it to the world?"

"I wasn't a person then," the Soldier says, but his voice sounds as it used to when he was given unclear orders and repeated them, attempting to determine the objective as he spoke.

Steve's hand finds his own, skin intertwining with steel, holding tight as though the metal isn't freezing to the touch. "You were always a person." He says it like a command, though the Soldier can't recall any handlers who delivered orders in that tone. Except perhaps for Captain America, but he has no clear memories of the Captain beyond the image of his suit.

He tries to believe it without question, struggles to force the conflicting data into a coherent whole. A picture forms but it makes his insides cold. "If," he begins, and his heart speeds, throat constricting. He can feel the words slipping out of reach again, and he wonders if this is some type of fight or flight mechanism or training he's forgotten. Speaking in battle would be a distraction, after all, and this situation carries the same stress as combat. "If I was…person…and HYDRA is bad…I am. Bad. I'm bad."

"Bucky, no." Sam is not like Steve. He doesn't touch. But his voice is softer now, enough that the Soldier can almost feel contact by listening to it. "You had no agency to decide whether you wanted to take part in what they were doing. You couldn't choose to refuse their orders."

"People choose." He shifts his hand, trying to slide it free of Steve's grip. Steve Rogers is a hero and the fist of his enemies should not be welcome to take comfort from him. "You said I'm person."

"It's not that simple. Ideally, yeah, everyone would be able to choose for themselves. But when people are abused and isolated, the way you were, they can lose that ability. That's what makes you different from HYDRA, all right?" Sam leans forward. His voice is more direct now, but still far from an order or reprimand. "You never chose to join them. The others made that choice. And once you were able to choose for yourself again, your first choices were to disobey and leave them. That's not a coincidence."

He tries to breathe, head down, dark strands of hair hanging in his face. Steve smoothes them back and he leans into the familiar motion. It would be soothing if he could forget his surroundings.

"I know this is a lot to deal with," Sam says. "It hasn't even been three weeks since your whole world changed. But it's important for you to understand that you can choose now, okay? You have free will here, and that's something HYDRA never gave you. Stripping a person of their agency, that's abusive, whether or not they intended to hurt you. No one will ever take that from you again, we won't let them. Do you understand?"

"I have..free will," he repeats, forcing out proper English. "Nobody will take it. HYDRA abused me?"

Sam nods and Steve says he's proud of the Soldier. He might as well be repeating coordinates for all he feels from the words, but the Soldier thinks the coordinates would trigger more sensation. Then there would be a mission, and the sense of determination in accompaniment. These are just words, syllables that form statements he almost understands. Maybe if he repeats them enough they will become true.

Or maybe he can will himself into believing because Steve agrees with these words. Steve is always honest, so it follows that he is always right. Aligning his beliefs with Steve's should not be so difficult; Barnes must have agreed with the man to follow him into battles.

"That's right. You can choose." Sam sits back, smiles. "So what do you choose to do now, then?"

"Sleep," the Soldier says, aware of how heavy his body has become. He then chooses to have Steve lead him back to the bedroom.

Re: Fill: And I Am Always with You, Part 39

[(Anonymous)]

This hurts in so many ways. I don't think I like this pain, but I'll endure it for Bucky.

Re: Fill: And I Am Always with You, Part 39

[lauralot]

I seem to be incapable of writing without pain. I apologize.

Re: Fill: And I Am Always with You, Part 39

[(Anonymous)]

"Sacrifices must be made for the greater good," the Soldier mutters. He does not think the words; they are suddenly in his mind and on his lips.

"What was the greater good?" Sam asks, while Steve buries his face in his hands. "Did anyone ever tell you the end game?"

The Soldier nods, eager to provide a right answer, to let them see that there was more to his world beyond the suffering they seem to think comprised it.

Just kill me right now, why don't ya?

Re: Fill: And I Am Always with You, Part 39

[lauralot]

I have a gift for pain I never realized until this story.