Prompt Post 1

[capkinkmod]

Remember to title your comments, use appropriate warnings (or "choose not to warn"), and be civil. Embeds are not allowed.

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As of May 3, 2014, the spoiler policy is no longer in effect.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:
For fills, please use the following format:
Fill: Title
Including the pairing, warnings/CNTW, and any other information after the fill and title in the subject line or in the first line of the comment.

Links:
Page A Mod
Fills
Discussion
Delicious Archive

Comments

Fill: Remote Part VI

[(Anonymous)]

"He's asleep again."

"What?" Steve jerked himself back to awareness from a combination of road fugue and obsessive contemplation of Bucky's current status.

"Bucky," Natasha said. "He's asleep again. Third time in four hours."

"Oh. I noticed that. I'm not sure what's going on with him. You would think seventy years would be enough."

"He was asleep that whole time? I thought he was in cryo-freeze."

"Yeah, that." Steve remembered the cold. "He's away from his usual environment. Do you think he's sick?"

"He may be, but I don't think it's that." She had a distant look in her eyes. "I'm trying to imagine the way he lived all that time, and I think they must have woken him up for missions only, just a few days at a time. During those times, he was running on adrenaline. Probably only slept an hour or two, here and there. Then he would go back, they would repair any injuries and put him back under. But cryo-freeze isn't sleep. Not really. The body and mind can't repair themselves the way they would naturally during a deep sleep. I bet he's been awake for the equivalent of months, maybe years. There's no telling how much damage that did to his brain."

Steve glanced at her. He had seldom if ever heard Natasha say so many words at one time. "How do you know all this?"

"Basic physiology. You can't test the body's limits without knowing what they are. Bruce could give you a much more thorough explanation."

"I'm counting on it."

"He won't be in New York when we get there, you know. He has a longer drive than we do."

"Why does he refuse to fly?"

Natasha lifted an eyebrow. "Would you seal yourself in a tin can 40,000 feet in the air with a hundred other people for four hours if you were him?"

"I guess not. Anyway, it's really Stark I want to see. I always feel a little funny asking Banner for favors."

"You take into account what it costs him to grant them. That's one of the things I like about you. Are we sure we can trust Stark?"

"Are we sure we can trust anybody? All I know is, he was willing to give his life once to save people. That doesn't sound very Hydra to me." He felt Bucky nearly wake up in the back seat, but it only lasted for a moment before his breathing evened out again. "I just realized something."

"Do tell."

"Bucky... he's been worried that he's going to die."

"Die? Of what?" Natasha glanced back at him, her forehead creased.

"Of basic physiology. He knows he's been declining in health for years, but he doesn't know that it might just be lack of sleep. And he's afraid his body will reject that arm, but I seriously doubt Zola would have missed that. Surely he would have done something to Bucky to keep it from happening."

"His skin around the arm didn't look very healthy."

"No, but it's possible they never gave him time to completely heal." He tapped his upper thigh. "I have the frags of two hollowpoint bullets in this leg."

"Why didn't they extract the petals?"

"At the time, surgery was a little more primitive than it is now, and they would have had to tear my leg apart. Even I would have had trouble healing from that. But it's okay, because I was... am... in no danger of lead poisoning. My body adapts to metal and it resists toxins. Dr. Erskine had plans to, well, upgrade me. Steel bones, stuff like that. Not sure I would have agreed to it, but it would have been interesting."

"And you think Zola's work on Bucky was similar?" He could see Natasha turning the idea around in her head.

"Judging by how it felt to fight him, yeah, I do."

"Which brings me to another interesting point. Rogers, why hasn't he tried to kill us yet?"

"Because he wasn't ordered to kill us. Just Fury."

"Is he that... robotic?"

"He's..." Steve paused. "If you had known Bucky before... if you had... it's difficult to explain. I can see what's going on in his head, and sort of know what he'll do next, but then some strange kind of shadow will come up and I think that's the brainwashing." He firmed his jaw. "The important thing to remember is that if he was trained to be this way, he can be trained out of it, too."

Natasha was silent for a long moment. "Rogers, you and I both know it doesn't work that way. Once a killer, always a killer."

"But you of all people know that it's possible to make choices; to use those skills for the right cause instead of the wrong one."

"Turns out I was using them for Hydra's cause when I thought I was doing the right thing. And that can happen to the best of us. Including..." she gestured behind her.

"Unlike you, Bucky knew he was never doing the right thing, only what he had to do."

"How did they motivate him, then? Fear of death only goes so far."

"They convinced him that the world was even worse than he was."

"And if I know you, you think you can convince him that the world is a good place."

Steve nodded tightly.

Natasha smiled. "Better you than me."

Steve was about to reply when the world erupted into flames.