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 43 Mentions of Torture and Animal Cruelty

[lauralot]

Barton has an archer's hands.

He carries a folding recurve bow on his back and the Soldier knows that, were he to pick it up, his shots would be as flawless as they were with his rifle. He has no memory of holding a recurve bow, nor a longbow nor a compound bow—if he strains, he remembers a crossbow—but the knowledge is there without the memory. He knows that the metal hand would close around bow while the right hand would draw the arrow, and he knows that the shot would be perfect. But his hands are not an archer's.

Barton's hands are bruised and bandaged on some fingertips, but even with the damage the Soldier can see the skill in every movement. He can picture a bow and arrow in those hands as easily as he can envision a pencil in Steve's, or a wrench in Stark's. Archer's hands, artist's hands, mechanic's hands.

He sees a rifle in his own mismatched hands and perhaps powder residue and blood.

His sniper's hands—weapon's hands—are for destruction and efficiency and he looks away from them, focusing again on Barton's.

The archer does not miss his gaze. "Lost some nails," he says, tapping at the bandages, but no one loses fingernails. They were either torn out with pliers or had thin, flat objects worried beneath them until they were pried up and away. The Soldier thinks the second method is more effective because it is slower and the visual is more distressing to the target.

He also thinks that the correct response to hearing a person has been tortured is likely not to wonder about the techniques used. "I'm…sorry?"

Barton shrugs, and the shoulder in a sling seizes up as he does. "It looks bad. I've been through worse."

The others have left the room, though the Soldier can hear that Steve, Stark, and Sam are lingering nearby. He cannot hear Romanoff, and he believes that is due to skill in stealth on her part rather than a lack of proximity. His mind drifts again to foxes and red.

Worse, Barton says. The Soldier imagines he means the brainwashing, because that would seem to be the entire point of why everyone else has left them alone in this room. To talk about shared experiences. The Soldier nearly asks how long Barton was with the people who repurposed his mind. It can't have been seventy years; Barton is too human for that. Maybe fifty.

Instead, he says "You're an archer."

Barton smiles—he does it so naturally—and takes the bow from his back, unfolding it. The tension of the bow as he does must place strain on his body, as he winces, but even with the pain his enthusiasm is visible. "Ever used one, or did they just give you guns?"

The Soldier makes an ambiguous sound, positioning his arms and drawing back the string as though he has an arrow notched.

"Okay, you've definitely used one." Barton's hands ghost over the Soldier's limbs, making minute adjustments, but there does not seem to be much to adjust. The Soldier smiles, slowly moving the string back to its original, un-drawn position. He moves to return the bow to the archer, but Barton is reaching into the quiver on his back, pulling out an arrow. "Check this out."

The arrow has no point. Rather, it ends in a long, grooved cylinder. Staring, not touching, the Soldier tries to sort out its purpose.

"Boomerang arrow," Barton says. "It comes back to you in the end."

It is not that he cannot see the use in a boomerang. An arrow that behaves as a boomerang, however, would seem to have as many disadvantages as any benefits it could provide. "Why do you need an arrow that returns after you shoot it?"

The light in Barton's eyes dims just a bit. "Because…boomerangs," he says.

"Were you HYDRA's?" the Soldier asks, because Barton had mentioned SHIELD. His mind shuffles through other organizations he knows, though considering the lengths of time he would spend out of the field, it is possible all his guesses are outdated. "Or KGB? M16?"

"What do you know about the Chitauri invasion?" Barton asks. He replaces the arrow in the quiver, the motion heavier than it was when he retrieved it.

"2012 incursion by the Chitauri forces into New York City," the Soldier recites. "Their army entered Earth via a wormhole opened by the Asgardian Loki. Human defenses were led by the SHIELD team known as the Avengers, who redirected a nuclear missile into the wormhole before closing it. Estimated cost of damages to New York City, one hundred sixty billion USD. Estimated causalities in the thousands."

Though he is no longer exerting himself physically, Barton is wincing again. "Right. Do you know how Loki created the wormhole?"

Neither the information HYDRA had given him on the incident nor his own research had gone into those specifics. The Soldier shakes his head.

"SHIELD, see, was researching an Asgardian artifact called the Tesseract. Unlimited energy source. HYDRA used it power weapons."

The Soldier sees a flash of blue light. He remembers hanging from the side of a train and he forces his hands not to tense for fear of breaking the bow he still holds.

"Loki used the Tesseract to power a wormhole generator," Barton continues. "And when he showed up to take it, he had a scepter from the Chitauri. It let him control people, take over their minds." He pauses. "And I was one of the ones he got."

The Soldier's brow furrows as he considers the logistics. The first publically known appearance of Asgardians on Earth was in 2011. Assuming that Loki arrived on Earth with the scepter then, that would mean Barton was the Asgardian's asset for only a year. No, it must have been longer than that. Surely there were other appearances by the Asgardians that weren't released. The Tessaract was on Earth at least as far back as the 1940s. "How long were you under his power?"

"Three days."

"Что?" Days? No, he must mean decades. Three decades. He must.

"Three days," Barton repeats. "I know, it's not even a drop in the bucket compared to what you've gone through. I get that. But…when I close my eyes, those days are all I can see. Whenever I sleep, it's like being there all over again."

Three days. This is the man whose life experiences are the most similar to the Soldier's. Three days. If the Soldier looks only at his waking times with HYDRA, it still amounts to months. Possibly years. Even when he was an asset, silent and unthinking, spoken to only to communicate objectives and check statuses, the Soldier thinks he never felt as alone as he does in this moment.

"Hey." Barton's hand is on his shoulder. "Look, I'm not gonna patronize you and say it's okay, all right? I know it isn't. Believe me. I can't promise that everything will be fine. But I can promise that you'll never have to go back to that. None of us are going to let them have you."

These people hardly know him. He has attempted to kill three of them in the past, and the two he hasn't been sent after were likely targets of Project Insight anyway. None of them, save for Steve and possibly Stark, have any sort of emotional connection to James Buchanan Barnes. Yet they are so willing to defend him. He would say something about that if he had any idea of what to say. If the words didn't catch in his throat.

Instead, he says, "Did you forget who you were?"

"No." There is visible pain in Barton when he speaks of these things. The Soldier's own suffering inspires mostly apathy and sometimes that feeling of heat in his face. Is it recovery, for it to hurt when one speaks of it? He cannot imagine the benefit. "I was—I was there the whole time. But it was like being locked out of my head, and no matter how much I screamed and fought I had to sit back and watch as I was turned against innocent people. People I cared about."

The voice in the Soldier whispered rather than screamed. But they are not without similarity after all. "Do you…" He drops his gaze down to the bow. He thinks of Steve and Sam's worry and the word abuse; perhaps he should not ask. "Do you ever miss the Asgardian?"

There is a long stretch of silence. The Soldier slightly tilts his head so that if Barton is insulted by the question, he will not have to put forth much effort to strike him. Barton is injured and the Soldier does not desire to cause him further pain.

"Yeah."

The Soldier raises his head.

"What he did—it didn't just make us follow him. There was a part of us—a part of me—that wanted to help him." His shoulders shake when he exhales in a long, shuddering breath. "I don't know if that's the worst part about it, but it sure as hell doesn't help. It's not that you want to go back, is it? It's not like you don't know it was wrong. But the connection—"

"Remains," the Soldier murmurs.

"Right."

"Hey, Clint."

Romanoff is in the doorway, and while there is still no red about her person, he can remember a woman in a red dress, another door, the scent of alcohol and the sounds of music. The Soldier feels something he cannot name.

"Yeah?"

"Who's watching your dog right now? Because you might want to give them a head's up that you're still alive."

"Theoretically," Barton says, finally taking the bow from the Soldier and placing it onto his back harness, "my neighbors. In actuality, probably any pizza delivery guys on the block."

"You know they make dog food, right?" Romanoff has her arms crossed, leaning against the door frame. "As in, food made specifically for dogs?"

"Dog likes pizza. I don't control that. You like dogs?" he asks, turning to the Soldier.

Dogs. He thinks of attack dogs. Threats eliminated with bullets. "I don't know."

"You like pizza?"

"It looks like melting flesh."

Barton seems to mull over that description. "Yeah, it kind of does. But the taste makes up for it. You've never had it, have you?"

"No."

"We're gonna need to remedy that, like yesterday. Come on."

It an order, but it is also a request. The Soldier is beginning to grasp the distinction, beginning to realize that even with how very different this man is from himself, it is possible he understands. The Soldier follows. He thinks he may follow him anywhere.

Re: Fill: And I Am Always with You, Part 43 Mentions of Torture and Animal Cruelty

[(Anonymous)]

Fucking love the bonding! Clint will be good for Bucky. I mean, Clint's good for anybody, but he'll be good for Bucky in particular.

Re: Fill: And I Am Always with You, Part 43 Mentions of Torture and Animal Cruelty

[lauralot]

Clint is the greatest.