Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Your eyes blink open for the first time in what feels like years, and you’re pretty sure you’re going to die.

Or maybe you’re already dead, your bones ground into a fine sparkling powder and your blood frozen in your veins.

But your eyes are open, so you can’t be all that dead. You lurch into open air as the ice coating your skin flakes off, refusing to succumb to the weakness that pulls at you as your body rouses itself from cryostasis. There’s a deep and insistent pain in every millimeter of your body, as though something had peeled back your skin until your nerves beneath were raw and exposed and set ablaze. It burns and burns until your blood feels some semblance of warmth, and you’re almost sure you’re breathing but not quite. There’s a ringing in your ears and bile in your throat. The room is spinning but not enough to leave you on your knees, and you straighten up as you try to gather your bearings.

And just when you feel a little more awake, your stomach immediately expels its contents on the pristine tile floor. Maybe not so pristine now that there’s bile all over it, but who’s counting?

You swipe the back of your hand against your mouth and stagger forwards until something cold grips your arms carefully—but not particularly gently—and you’re able to vaguely register the feeling of nitrile gloves against your skin. There’s a low, grating voice that reaches your ears, which strain to catch the sound in your current state.

"Welcome back." It says your name like it’s somehow less than a name, like it’s a designation and no more, like it isn’t the only part of you left inside the questionably human husk of feathers and bone and sinew. But your name had been taken long ago, and you never really felt like it was yours to keep when the sound of it hit your ears nowadays. The lack of it had left you poor—but not monetarily, given that you had no need or use for currency—and defeated. Maybe that’s why you never really fought much anymore. Not for the things that mattered.

Your blurry vision comes into focus as the shapes before you blend into a face. An older man with greying hair and an unfortunate hairline, a scientist, stands before you, and you’re not entirely sure whether it’s relief or dread that scratches at the base of your spine as he steps around you. That cold, gloved hand—gods, it’s freezing—presses against the small of your back as the scientist ushers you towards the bathroom, where you already know what awaits you.

The unremarkable, unscented soap. The hot water that’s just a little too close to scalding for you to be grateful. Scratchy clothes—especially the shirts that probably can’t even be called shirts with the way the panels in the back are cut open, a recent improvement that gave your wings room to breathe. It was those same wings that you stare at in the mirror as the scientist shuts the door to give you the illusion of modesty. Your feathers rustle uncomfortably in the cold. The umber spots and bars that crisscross your white underwings seem a little more pale than usual thanks to the lingering frost that clung to the feathers, and you shake them out as though it might warm you a little. It doesn’t.

The shower doesn’t warm you much either. Despite the water feeling like it might dissolve your skin with burning rivulets, there’s a permafrost seizing your vital organs and clutching them in a viselike grip. Cryostasis has a funny way of sinking its teeth into your system and shaking its hideous head until everything you were made of came crashing down in a messy torrent of ice and blood and bile. You already know that you won’t be rid of the chill for a long time.

There’s a look in your eyes that even you can’t seem to identify, one that you’ve never seen before. It’s as if something dark swirls within your irises, daring you to grab it and yank as hard as you can. It’s manic and feral like a caged animal that learned that violence is the only way to survive. You don’t recognize yourself in the mirror anymore. You aren’t entirely sure if you ever did. You’re still you, at least on the surface, but your hair has gotten longer and your gaze lacks the ferocious spark you once clutched on to like your life depended on it. And as you tear your eyes away from the dark circles underneath them, you wonder if maybe it did.

The same scientist is waiting as you emerge from the bathroom. He beckons you down the hallway, and you fall dutifully into step behind him despite the lingering unease from having seen your own reflection. He’s taking you to the lab, some part of you realizes, but you don’t know if you care enough to question it. After all, where else would he be going? You aren’t exactly getting a vacation any time soon, and it’s not like there’s much of a change of scenery to be had here.

You feel a little bad for not even remembering his name as you stare at the back of his lab coat…but you also feel bad about where he’s taking you, so, in your mind, it evens out. You know his routine by now. You no longer flinch at the flashlights that wave in front of your sensitive eyes, or the poking and prodding at your feathers, or the hand that reaches up to part your jaws and examine your pointed canines. You stare straight ahead with as impassive an expression you can manage, because you are a good little weapon, and good little weapons never complain.

You had tried to struggle once before, sinking your teeth into the man’s hand as he checked over them. The feedback from the ever-present collar around your neck had been both immediate and aversive, and the surge of white-hot electricity that had your muscles screaming in unison was the only reminder you needed that your compliance was not requested but demanded. Good little weapons always comply. They never bite the generous hand that graciously feeds them.

Even when it’s the same hand that mutilates them.

You’re drawn back to the present by the scuffing of standard issue boots on the shiny black tile. The footsteps are heavy and unmeasured. You would know the sound of them anywhere, the cadence burned into your mind at some point in the many years of your ‘service’. Maybe there would’ve been a pang of fear in your heart if the fist-sized mass in your chest was still beating. It couldn’t be beating, not when all that you were and all that you knew had been reduced to wings and talons and the righteous meeting of flesh and teeth. The fear hangs back for another day: a day when your heart would pump blood and you would finally feel human again, or at least alive, and the roar of it in your ears would drown the thoughts that snapped at sleep’s heels in the night.

When your eyes lift to take in the unforgiving, dark gaze of the man standing before you with a tablet nestled in the crook of his arm, you have the gall to feel something more volatile than fear. Good little weapons aren’t meant to feel anything. You wonder if maybe that makes you something worse than a weapon, or perhaps better, but does it really matter when you’ll end up bathed in gore by the end of the day regardless? You’ve long since given up hope that any gods will receive you at the end of your life. Does it matter what you're called while you live it?

It’s anger, you finally realize. It pulses within you, a subcutaneous venom that injects itself into every fiber of your being. It curls just below the surface, waiting, a snake poised to strike. You wonder if being compliant all this time had fed the viper, if you were the only one that could take the blame for the hateful thing that coiled where your heart should have been.

The man says nothing as he taps away on his tablet, a slight scowl creeping across his features as he eyes you as one might a petulant child. You’ve played this game before. He’ll tap away as though you aren’t there, you’ll wait for his orders—no matter how long it takes—and he’ll give you that sick look of satisfaction when you’re forced to bend to his will or break beneath its unyielding pressure.

But something is different today.

The anger builds to a sweltering crescendo and you’re moving, lunging before your rational thought can catch up to your instinct as your talons aim for your Handler’s throat.

His lips move to form syllables that you know all too well. The anger curbs a moment too late, and all it takes is a single word.

You don’t wake up from the trance he places you under.

Bucky’s life has been on the uptick ever since the whole Flag Smashers ordeal had been wrapped up. Sure, there’s still court-ordered therapy, and, sure, there’s no escaping the knowing eyes that follow him everywhere he goes, but at least he isn’t behind bars. He’s learning new things every day, doing his best to move on from the fucking awful cards he’d been dealt, and adapting to the brand new world that had all but left him behind. He’s trying brand new foods that never existed in his past life, even the ones that suck, just because he can. He’s still unable to sleep comfortably in a proper bed and spends most of his nights on the floor, but at least he can sleep at all. He’s finally getting a chance to do what he wants to do, even if that autonomy sometimes leaves him feeling slightly cornered and very confused and at least a little bit out of place wherever he ends up. He’s like a chameleon that can never quite get the color just right, but he’s trying his damnedest to make his scales match.

It hasn’t been easy. He won’t lie and say it isn’t shitty, but then again, things have never exactly been peachy for him in either of his previous lives. He’s just trading shit for something slightly easier to stomach. 

Slightly, because he still can’t choke down the fact that his days are long and listless. He knows he lacks purpose—Dr. Raynor had made that painstakingly clear when she’d chewed him out during his latest therapy session with her—but he’s been benched from fieldwork and left stranded without a life vest in the sea of the mundane. And it isn’t like he has anyone to blame, either. Not even himself, if Sam’s words are to be believed at all; a small part of Bucky desperately wants to believe them. He wants to finally wash the years of invisible, caked up blood off of his hands, to lift his shoulders a little higher, to smile at something as if he actually means it. He wants to feel as though he’s worthy of something, although maybe not love, because he’s broken and bruised and his heart beats a little bit differently than it ought to, pumping something that feels a lot like defeat through his veins. The Winter Soldier never knew defeat, but Bucky is very well acquainted with it, and it hangs around him like a lost puppy that he just can’t seem to shake off. 

The toaster pops beside him, and he whirls around on instinct as if he’s about to punch it. The two waffles he’d put in it seem to stare depressingly back at him, and he sags his shoulders. There’s a blanket of embarrassment that settles over him—What kind of person gets scared by a toaster?—and he uses his metal hand to grab the somewhat disturbingly crunchy breakfast items before tossing them on a plastic plate. 

Most things he owns are plastic.

The cutlery, the dishes, the chair, and the small table that sits in the otherwise bare corner of his apartment, near the kitchen. Even the small potted plant on his windowsill, the one that Sam insisted he place there because his apartment ‘felt more like a hospital room than a home’, is made of it. It isn’t that he doesn’t want nice things—there’s that word again, want, as if he deserves to have anything at all, much less ask for more—it’s that he always destroys them. It usually isn’t on purpose. After all, for the most part, Bucky is careful. He’s mindful of his surroundings, he tries to set things down gently, and he always reminds himself not to grip things too hard or hold on to them too loosely.

But he’s bad at keeping nice things intact.

He’s just about to dig into his overly processed breakfast of champions before his phone rings. And rings. And rings. He stares at it on the table as it vibrates, contemplating letting it ring until the caller gives up. But he doesn’t even need to check the name to know who that caller is, given that he can count on one hand the number of contacts in his phone. Bucky rolls his eyes as he picks it up—but not with his metal hand, because he had learned the hard way that metal doesn’t exactly play too nicely with unprotected phone screens—and swipes to answer the call, wondering who he’d be playing wingman to impress or what pop culture ‘masterpieces’ Sam decided Bucky needs to see this time. 

It had been a band called Black Pumas last time. Bucky hadn’t minded the music—he might’ve even enjoyed it a little bit—but there was no way in hell he would admit that to Sam, or else he’d never hear the end of it.

"Need a little bit of a favor from you, Buck."

The urgent tone in Sam’s voice wipes the tiny ghost of a smile from Bucky’s face, and he can’t help but fear the worst. It’s a bad habit, one that therapy was trying to help him break, but he can’t help it. He was built to always expect the worst, and that was a reaction drilled into his head far deeper than any conditioning or counterconditioning could reach.

"Told you not to call me that," he bites back, a curt edge in his words. 

"You tell me a lot of things. Can you do it or not?"

Bucky drags his metal hand down his face in something that he suspects is annoyance. He has nothing but free time, but even then, he doesn’t have time for this. Whatever this is. "Haven’t told me what you wanted."

"Well– Yeah–" Sam mutters simply, and Bucky’s sure he can practically hear the birdbrain roll his eyes. "That’s because I didn’t know if you’d say yes–"

"And I’m not saying yes to a favor I don’t know the details of. Spit it out."

There’s a pause on the other end of the line, one that lasts so long that Bucky is almost wondering whether or not he should question it out loud. He doesn’t.

"It’s related to Hydra," came Sam’s reply.

If Bucky’s blood could freeze over in an instant, he’s sure it would have. But it doesn’t freeze, and his heart doesn’t skip a beat, because he knows this day would have come eventually. Cut off one ugly head; two more will rear.

"Absolutely the fuck not," he says simply, because some things are better left in the flames of the personal hell you found them in, and it just so happens that a global terrorist organization falls under that category. He hangs up without another word.

Dr. Raynor would probably have some passive aggressive words to say about Bucky constantly hanging up on his best—and, really, only—friend, and that’s a can of worms that he can open later. At some point. Probably when he’s forced to, maybe at gunpoint.

But something with sharp teeth picks and gnaws at his chest like a scavenger as he gets up from his sad plastic chair to pour a mug of instant coffee from the shitty machine on his kitchen counter. He’s not even entirely sure when he made the pot of brown sludge, but it’s warm, and he’s too tired for this, and that’s about as much as he cares. He stares at his phone in its place on the table until it rings again. Wonders if he should just let it go to voicemail.

The thing with sharp teeth—Is it guilt? Some twisted sense of obligation?—grows more insistent in its shredding of Bucky’s insides until he finally pads back to the table and presses the answer button. 

"Not fair, man," Sam mutters, his tone indignant.

"Neither is asking me for a favor that you know I can’t complete."

"If I knew you couldn’t do it, I wouldn’t be asking, old man. I would do it myself if I was able to. But I can’t, and you’re the only one I can trust with this, so I’m gonna need you to say yes or—"

"Or you’ll use your magic fucking status to make me do it," Bucky finishes for him. There’s something like anger inside of him, or maybe like fear, something that doesn’t have sharp teeth when it bites, but maybe that’s somehow worse. "You know I don’t fuck with Hydra, man. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt and the metal arm."

"Please, Bucky. I really don’t want to pull rank on you. Just…it’s important." Bucky wants to turn him down. Desperately. He had just finished fighting tooth and nail to free himself from Hydra’s grasp. He’s not particularly eager to march back into it. But there’s something in Sam’s voice that twists Bucky’s heart in a way he can’t quite name, and he finds himself loosing an exasperated sigh.

"Fine. But when you say important—"

"I mean important. There’s another Enhanced."

Bucky blinks. He blinks and blinks again and stares at his phone as if maybe he was hearing things incorrectly. But Sam doesn’t volunteer any extra information until Bucky finally gets his bearings. He doesn’t have that jokingly snarky undertone in his voice. He doesn’t laugh, and Bucky knows he’s damn near incapable of not laughing when he’s trying to tell a joke. 

So he isn’t joking at all.

"An Enhanced." Bucky repeats slowly. There’s a bitter feeling a little bit like acid on his tongue, sour and stinging and settling with a harsh aftertaste.

"Yeah," Sam confirms. "Yeah. I can’t physically get involved without explicit permission, which has been denied over and over. Which leaves you—"

"To do the dirty work for you, and hopefully not end up in jail when someone finds out. The Sokovia Accords were pretty clear, Sam."

"And you didn’t sign them anyway, so who cares? If all else fails, we’ll just get you another pardon." There’s a hint of Sam’s joking tone in that part, but it doesn’t bring Bucky any reassurance at all. How could it, when every part of what he’s being asked to do is waving giant red flags in his face? 

But Bucky is trying to be a better person. To clean up after the messes he made and right his past life’s horrific wrongs. To be there, to be reliable, to show up and get shit done. And whether he wants to admit it or not, he figures Hydra probably wouldn’t have needed to create another Enhanced if the Winter Soldier was still around…which makes this his mess, in a roundabout way.

So, against his better judgement, he agrees.

Chapter Text

Something about Sam’s favor still doesn’t sit quite right with Bucky, but he isn’t sure what. 

It isn’t like Sam would ever lead him into a trap—not on purpose, anyway—and all of the information he’s been given seems to add up so far. Still, something pulls at his gut until he feels a little bit sick and can’t put a name to the feeling. So he does what he always does when something feels inexplicably off : he waits. 

Bucky isn’t always the prime example of patience, so maybe there’s a hint of hesitation weighing on him. Maybe some part of him isn’t ready to confront the demons he thought he’d left behind. He knows he can’t run forever, and he knows that running is something he never would have done in his past life. The Winter Soldier didn’t run from anything. Bucky ran from everything. 

But he can’t run from this. Not when someone finally needs him for something. Him, and not the Winter Soldier. Just him.

So he presses his body into the cool earth, infinitely thankful for the shade of the trees that keeps his metal arm hidden from the moonlight, and he watches his target from afar. 

Admittedly, the Hydra lab looks exactly as he’d expected it to—exactly like someone would expect a terrorist group’s research and development space not to look. The architecture is modern, full of angular surfaces and massive panes of glass. Everything about it seems open and inviting, like the type of place that might be trying to cure disease instead of being full of people that would probably rather spread it for their own gain. The clean lines and deceptive facades wouldn’t fool him, though; he’s been in enough places that were actually trying to help people to know that this most definitely is not one of them.

Bucky spares a glance at the small notepad he brought with him, comparing the blueprint Sam had provided with the building before him. He’s quick to note the apparent lack of exits aside from the loading docks—whatever is hidden here, Hydra clearly is willing to risk safety to keep it that way. The main entrance is guarded by security, and he can pick out the multitude of cameras in plain sight. Knowing them, there were probably even more that weren’t visible. 

He tucks the notebook back into his jacket with a sigh as he gets to his feet, the material scratching softly against the leather of it. There’s a whisper of unease in his blood as he slowly circles the perimeter, a remnant of the Winter Soldier’s programming that couldn’t be removed, one that he’s long since learned to ignore. But as hard as he tries to push the instinct away, it only grows stronger, and he realizes that the feeling isn’t coming from him as he closes in on the loading dock. A distinct hum emanates from the building, one that reminds him a bit of heavy machinery, of something powerful being controlled and contained. He doesn’t like it at all, but he’s not entirely sure why it’s so unsettling. 

Something inside of him itches to tear things up in a blaze of metal and lead and fury, but Sam’s informant had been very clear on the importance of subtlety here…at least until he got what he came for. He needs information, namely leads on the Enhanced, and he isn’t going to get that by going on a rampage and blowing the lab to smithereens—although, he thinks, the research lab would look much better as a pile of rubble.

Plus, he had promised Dr. Raynor that he wouldn’t hurt people anymore. He’s already breaking his first rule—don’t do anything illegal—right now, which he feels a twinge of guilt at. But she’d understand, right? Hurt a few people to help a lot more? There’s no escaping Dr. Raynor’s gaze, so he knows he’ll have to fess up eventually once this is over. It’s a conversation he’s dreading already; he’s never been a particularly good liar when it comes to her.

Bucky runs a hand through his hair as his eyes scan the dock, lingering on the movement of researchers and the people lifting crates, pushing carts, and barking orders to each other. The blueprint had marked the loading dock as a secondary delivery point—the first being the landing pad on the rooftop of the central building—but it was also the only way that larger things could come through, things like weapons and live specimens and chemicals that wouldn’t withstand being transported by air. Not to mention that he didn’t exactly have wings.

"Alright, Sam," he murmurs into his earpiece. "I’ve got eyes on the loading dock. Looks like a potential entry point. Less cameras, more movement."

A crisp voice sounds in his ear as Sam responds. "Good. Be careful—we don’t know what’s going on in there, and I can’t come save your ass this time."

"It was one time–"

"And I’m not letting your geriatric ass live it down. Remember, info first, fireworks later."

A humorless smirk tweaks at Bucky’s lips. "Fireworks later, got it. I’ll see you on the other side."

Bucky slips into the shadows at the building’s edge, moving with the fluid grace of someone that had been going through the motions for years upon years. He waits for the movement of workers in the area to die down completely before cautiously approaching one of the heavy metal doors that lay in the blind spot of the security cameras, ensuring he wouldn’t be seen or heard.  

There’s a magnetic lock and a keypad keeping the door secure; Bucky isn’t particularly worried about either one. It would only take a few minutes, maybe even less, for him to crack it open. It’s time he didn’t really have, time he needed, time he’s just going to have to make.

But there’s a flicker in the corner of his vision as he forces open the keypad’s panel with his metal hand and fiddles with the internals. A shadow shifts just beyond one of the glass panes nearest to the door, and he stills himself. He watches and waits as his flesh hand drifts towards one of the many knives sheathed at his hip. If he’s being honest with himself, the thought of having to use it makes his stomach turn. A firearm he could handle, but knives were…personal. To get close enough to use one, you had to also be close enough to get the victim’s blood on your hands, to hear the rattling of their final breaths, to see the light in their eyes as it winked out. The Winter Soldier wouldn’t have batted an eye. Bucky might have thrown up.

 The figure moves with a purpose that doesn’t feel remotely casual, as all of the workers and researchers had. Its stance suggested it was searching for something, and though it cocked its head curiously at the window, it didn’t seem to find what it was looking for. 

Bucky’s breath hangs suspended in his chest as the figure lingers for moment after agonizing moment. The dim lighting makes it impossible to pick out any identifying features, and the deliberate movements of the figure makes his heart rate tick upwards. Things aren’t adding up—he had done surveillance on this lab for a long time, and never once had he seen a major deviation from the security patrols and delivery times. A cold dread itches at the back of his neck, and it still doesn’t ease up when the figure offers a shrug and slinks away, apparently having lost interest. 

But he can’t be sure that whatever it was is gone, so he waits. He counts the seconds in his mind until the remnants of that murderous thing in his head are satisfied. His position shifts slightly as he refocuses on the door’s keypad; metal fingers fly over the screen with practiced efficiency. The magnetic lock’s slight hum disengages with a minuscule click, and with a gentle push, the heavy door swings inward just enough for him to slip through.

Bucky’s footsteps are nearly silent as he traverses the eerie halls. He checks every intersection before proceeding, until he rounds a corner to nearly bump directly into a rather startled—and apparently disgruntled, if the bags under her eyes and her gaunt cheekbones are any indication—researcher. It’s entirely on instinct that he whips her around, clamping his metal hand over her mouth and wrapping his other hand around her throat as he yanks her spine to his chest. 

There’s a sick feeling in his stomach as he internally steels himself. 

She recognized him, that much he’s sure of. The way her eyes had widened wasn’t just from surprise—there was a brief flicker of recognition across her features, partially obscured by mousy hair. If he releases her, he knows she’ll probably scream, run, beg for her life…or maybe all of the above, if she’s feeling a little cowardly.

He can’t risk being found out, not when he’s so close. Not when Sam is counting on him to see this through. 

So he dons the visage of the feral thing that lurks in the furthest and foggiest and darkest reaches of his head, feeds it and shoves it into the spotlight where it can revel in the scientist’s fear.

"You’re going to listen very closely," he hisses, leaning down near the shell of the woman’s ear in an effort to keep his voice lowered. "I’m not planning on killing anyone today, so I advise you to keep your mouth shut when I let you go."

Every fiber of his body recoils in disgust at the mechanical tone that slips from his throat. It bubbles like poison; part of him wants to retch, but he knows he has to keep speaking or else his guilty conscience will get him caught and killed.

That isn’t entirely true. Hydra had been generous enough to prove to him that there are fates far worse than dying. They’d find another purpose for him, no doubt. 

He tightens his grip slightly until he hears a muffled squeak from the woman.

"Am I clear?" Bucky grits out. The sound of his own voice doesn’t feel remotely familiar. Part of him wishes he could pry it from his larynx and shred it into scraps, because it feels a little too much like the person he’d left behind, and he’s never able to distance himself as far as he wishes he can from the long shadow that trails him.

The researcher offers a jerky nod in response; although he can feel her frantic pulse hammering against his hand, he slowly releases his grip on her. His body remains tensed, a spring coiled and ready to snap at the slightest hint of a refusal to comply. 

Despite that, when the woman’s lips part, it’s only to loose a dry, rattling cough. He studies her carefully, but she doesn’t attempt to scream. She doesn’t even attempt to run. She merely turns to face him with something like fearful defeat in her stare, her eyes fixing on the wall behind him rather than his own.

Something about her refusal to look at him leaves anger to simmer just under the surface of his skin. He shoves the feeling far, far down, somewhere that he can dredge it up later.

But he’s never been good at processing things. The anger will stay lodged between his ribs where he won’t touch it until it cracks the bones open, leaving ugly weeds to grow in the gaps it leaves behind.

"What do you want?" The scientist asks. Her voice is a hoarse, small whisper. A pang of what Bucky thinks is guilt seizes his chest until he draws in a deep breath.

Admittedly, he hadn’t expected her to do as he said. 

"I’m looking for something," he replies after a long moment. "Another… asset." It isn’t easy to bite out the word that had haunted him for the longest time. He hates the way it rolls off his tongue, just another relic of the ghost he’s tried to kill over and over.

The woman’s eyes finally jump to his. There’s a flicker of something unreadable in them. 

"An asset?" She inquires, her voice finally gaining the tiniest amount of strength. "What kind of asset?"

Bucky pauses, considering his words carefully. He doesn’t want to divulge too much information, but he knows he needs to give her enough to understand what he’s after.

"Someone like me," he grinds out. "Enhanced. Trained. Used."

The admission is a hard and bitter pill for him to swallow. It must show on his face because the researcher’s wary face softens a fraction despite her fear. 

Somehow, the hint of pity makes him feel even worse. He can’t describe the relief that washes over him like a cooling mist as her gaze finally darts away.

"You have no idea how little that narrows it down," she says slowly.

"Like me," Bucky repeats. His tone is a little harsher than he meant it to be, and the researcher flinches. "Would’ve been active recently. Probably has similar capabilities."

There’s something about the way her back straightens up almost imperceptibly that leads him to believe she knows. He taps the holster at his hip meaningfully, nodding in her direction. 

The silent threat clearly works, because she immediately volunteers the information. "You’re looking for the Osprey," she breathes, bordering on a whisper.

Bucky’s heart stalls for what feels like forever. But it can’t be forever because she’s still looking at him with those wide brown eyes and he hasn’t moved an inch and any hope that there wasn’t another thing like him came crashing and burning to the ground. He’s not sure how he manages to collect himself. He’s not sure if he’s completely collected.

"The Osprey?"

The woman nods, fidgeting under the weight of Bucky’s piercing glare as though it might stab through her. "She isn’t– She’s not like you at all. They fucked up. Big time."

"Where is she?" He demands, reaching with his metal hand to grip her arm—the fidgeting was making him nervous. 

But the scientist only hesitates. Her eyes dart down the hall, almost like she’s terrified someone will suddenly appear out of thin air. "She…she was moved."

A heavy sigh wrenches itself from his lungs. That isn’t exactly the answer he was hoping for. His pulse is a war drum as he presses on. "Moved where?"

The breath the woman takes is shaky, and Bucky is pretty sure she’d attempt to run if he wasn’t tightening his hold on her arm. 

"I don’t know– They don’t tell us everything. Just what we need to know." A bitter laugh bubbles from her lips, and Bucky narrows his eyes at her. "Which, in my case, is barely enough to run a coffee machine."

Frustration gnaws at Bucky’s insides. He’s so close. He got a name, but he needs more. 

"Think," he urges, his voice low. "Anything. Any rumors. Any whispers."

The researcher’s eyes squeeze shut in concentration, but Bucky’s small hope is crushed when she shakes her head. "If I had to guess, I’d start with the cryolab. Something like that would have to be…contained."

Something. Not someone. Something. As if there isn’t a person somewhere inside the weapon Hydra had built with bloodied hands. 

He nods, releasing her arm. Her brows furrow slightly as she rubs the area where he’d grabbed her. 

"You’re going to take me there."

You’ve grown accustomed to receiving orders. 

Some intrinsic part of you preens when you do. It isn’t because you crave praise—such a concept is near unheard of for you, and you’ll never receive it from the researchers that train you and cage you and force you to hunt until your feathers are soaked in gore and final prayers.

It’s a little more complicated than that.

There’s a clarity that settles over you when you do as you’re told. It roots in your chest, buried somewhere under the rib cage and inside the heart that you’re convinced doesn’t beat, and it blooms into some sharp, thorn-covered thing. It hurts, and you can never dig it out like you had wanted to when you were younger and smaller, more innocent and less bloodied. You had tried.

So instead of trying to pry it from yourself, you embraced the ease of compliance. Compliance didn’t hurt as bad. Compliance didn’t starve you. Compliance didn’t force you to wallow in abject horror at the bodies that piled up at your feet, or at the copper tang that never left your tongue, or at the shredded ribbons of flesh you seemed to always leave in your wake.

There were moments of lucidity, of course, brief flickers where some part of you would wave aside the mist in your head. Where some part of you would dig into your chest with metal talons in an effort to cut the thorns loose. 

The Handler isn’t fond of those moments. You’ve never managed to draw blood in those moments when you know, when you remember what they’ve done to you, but you’ve gotten close, and he’s quick to put you back in your place. 

The resets are slow and painful. There are parts of you that vanish in the process, lost in the electricity that roars through your muscles like a wildfire. There is no place that the burning won’t reach, no place to hide, no place to run, only white heat and a sensation that you’re losing something important until it finally slips away from you. 

And just like that, your sense of self fades into nothing.

You lean against the wall of your Handler’s office as he gathers his files for the night and locks them away. He doesn’t say a word to you. He never does, not casually—not that you mind. You don’t make the greatest conversation partner in your current state. You don’t make much of anything at all.

But when the motion sensor pings on his phone, he speaks for the first time in more than half a day. 

"There’s a containment chamber breach in sector seven," he says with all of the concern of a person being asked what they want to eat for dinner. "Handle it."

The order is like a switch flipping in your head. The thorny thing in your chest tightens, a painful and yet familiar anchor. Clarity recedes into the well-worn grooves of obedience, and the fog settles into your skull like wool. Containment breach. Handle it.

The directives don’t require thought, only action, and your body moves without your conscious command. Your wings flex in anticipation as something in your blood sings for the promise of violence and metal and an end to the pain, which only compliance brings. 

And so you let your programming take hold.

The OSPREY will approach the containment area. Eliminate all non-personnel.

Your senses sharpen as they pick out the faint tremor that rocks the ground as you approach. Sector seven. The cryolab. That’s where the researchers store you between your assignments and security details, the only way they can keep you docile and contained. But you’re here, not there, and you can count on one hand the number of people with a clearance high enough to access it.

Until your gaze hones in on the metal door separating the cryolab from the rest of the sectors, and you realize that clearance was never an issue. The door is pried open at an unnatural angle, buckling in on itself as though someone had torn it open with sheer force. 

There’s a ghost of a voice in the corner of your mind that whispers and hums and warns, but it doesn’t matter because orders are orders and compliance completes you. 

Objective reached. The OSPREY will eliminate all non-personnel.

You slip through the remnants of the door frame as the harsh crack gunfire reaches your ears. It’s a long moment before your eyes fully adjust to the way the emergency lights bathe the lab in a hazy crimson glow, and your nostrils flare at the scent of something metallic and sharp. It’s crisp and vaguely familiar as it mixes with the tinge of gunpowder, like ozone after a lightning strike. 

You aren’t sure what to make of the situation; by the way the sharp thing in your chest loosens, your programming doesn’t, either. 

There’s a handful of scientists in white lab coats strewn around the room, some unconscious and some…not…And your eyes land on him.

Seven personnel unresponsive. Three personnel deceased. One friendly conscious, responsive. One non-personnel. The OSPREY will eliminate all non-personnel.

The dark figure is a whirlwind of controlled violence as he moves with brutal efficiency. There’s a brief glint of metal underneath the flashing red lights as his arm slams into a guard; a sickening crunch of bone echoes as the gunfire lulls. He’s focused—terrifyingly so—as he clears out the remaining security personnel, leaving only two people left.

You, and a mousy little researcher that looks like she’s seen better days and would rather be anywhere but here. You recognize her, you think, which makes it all the more confusing to you that the man isn’t disposing of her as he had the others.

The OSPREY will reassess containment zone threats.

Your wings unfurl in warning as he turns, his gaze sweeping the room. His eyes—a startling shade of blue—lock onto yours. He’s your directive. He’s the disturbance. And if he isn’t killing the woman…

Reassessed. Two non-personnel identified. Hostile identified. Noncombatant identified. Noncombatant presence will not be tolerated. The OSPREY will eliminate all non-personnel.

The thorns curling around your organs don’t tighten as you expect—they go still. A raw and disturbing and unidentifiable emotion claws its way up your throat until you’re damn near choking on the feeling, but your conditioning spurs on your movements before you can even attempt to stop yourself. You’re nothing but a passenger as your form lunges, wings propelling you faster than the man can move to intercept you.

You aren’t aware of when the metal talons extended from the beds of your nails. Your blood doesn’t sing with joy as it should when they tear into the woman’s throat in a spray of scarlet, slashing until her hands clutch the open gashes with a disgustingly wet gurgle. You sidestep as she staggers. 

She takes a single step before crumpling to the ground.

Noncombatant eliminated. Hostile combatant identified. The OSPREY will—

When you lift your chin towards the final figure in the room, you find yourself staring down the barrel of a firearm. It never would have scared you before. The thought of death wasn’t something that lingered in or even crossed your mind. 

But it isn’t the stolen rifle that forces unbridled fear through your veins. 

It’s the metal arm holding it.

Chapter Text

It’s a tad ironic, you think, that time slows as you stare down the barrel of a gun. 

Ironic and downright cruel. To watch your inevitable death is awful enough, but in slow motion? That’s just heartless. 

The man before you doesn’t move, doesn’t even flinch or look remotely surprised as you level him with the most defiant glare you can manage. He doesn’t move, which means his finger is still hovering over the trigger without touching it, and it doesn’t rest on the metal or squeeze like you’re expecting it to.

You know that can change in an instant, but a part of you doesn’t care, not when he’s fixing you with a hauntingly beautiful, icy stare that promises to pick you apart, to slice your retinas open and spill all the light you’ve ever seen across the floor. Something in your head recoils underneath the mist that clouds it, but your orders are stronger than your instincts.

The OSPREY will eliminate all non-personnel.

It’s a constant drone in your head. If you could dig your talons in deep enough to tear it out of your skull, you’re pretty sure you’d do it in a heartbeat. But you can’t, so you don’t, and you simply surrender to it.

And he still doesn’t pull the trigger.

The glint of the barrel is a familiar threat. You’ve been on both ends of it countless times. With anyone else, you’ve always come out on top—sometimes beaten and battered and certainly worse off than you started, but victorious and alive and compliant and that was all that mattered.

But you know that arm. You know those piercing eyes, framed by long, dark hair. You’ve never seen him in person until now, but you wouldn’t have needed to—it’s him. Someone that you don’t know if you can beat. The Winter Soldier.

The Winter Traitor.

He was a legend that Hydra recruits would speak of. A bloodthirsty, cold man, with a heart as hard as metal and an arm to match. You might have looked up to him, once, during a time when you had been caught up in the sweeping ideals of the organization. A time long before they had taken everything from you, before they had created a wonderfully efficient affront to nature from your body.

Not only had you looked up to him, you were created to be like him. Reborn in his likeness and pushed even further until you were nothing but titanium talons and sharpened teeth and winged fury. You became the legend in his absence. You became the silent assassin, the dutiful soldier, the tortured experiment. The serum in your veins might not be of the same caliber—the original serum was lost to time, and the strength it would’ve provided would have made it impossible to fly—but your blood is just as cold.

So when your programming urges your wings to drive you forwards and your crimson-stained talons to grab the rifle and shove the barrel down and away, you slip into it as easy as ever. You don’t try to fight it, either. The fog thickens in your mind, or maybe it clears, and you wouldn’t know the difference because there is a frigid rage swirling just under your skin that demands to be unleashed. The fact that your anger aligns with your orders is purely coincidental.

There’s a harsh crack that makes your ears ring as he finally pulls the trigger; you’ve already moved away from the barrel’s path. The Winter Soldier drops the rifle and tries to reorient himself, but your reflexes are just slightly faster as you lunge for his throat with outstretched talons. A metallic clang sounds as he lifts his arm to block the strike, leaving your claws screeching harmlessly against the vibranium.

You numbly register the punch his other fist delivers as it slams into your stomach, and you stagger a step back as it leaves you winded. 

But there’s something warm and wet where he punched you.

He hadn’t punched you at all, had he?

Your eyes flick downwards. There’s a copper scent that reaches your nostrils, strong and metallic and familiar. The mist in your head eases slightly at the shock, but the pain doesn’t register. Your clawed hand drifts towards your abdomen until it grazes against the small black hilt of a knife, but the Winter Soldier makes a warning grunt as your palm instinctively wraps around it.

"Wouldn’t pull that out if I were you," he advises. Your gaze slams into his, and you blink slowly as you release the blade’s hilt. His eyes widen almost imperceptibly, a flash of surprise reaching the surface before he can mask it. It wasn’t the reaction he was expecting from a Hydra asset—the hesitance. 

Your wings twitch for a brief moment as your gaze shifts to the cryo pod on the nearer side of the room. The Winter Soldier’s eyes follow yours, and his stance shifts slightly. It’s enough for your conditioning to snap to attention, recognizing the vulnerability, and a low, guttural noise tears from your throat as you launch yourself at him again.

His vibranium arm lifts once more to stop your talons, and his hand closes around your wrist before the blow can connect. 

You had expected that.

You step in and drive your left hand’s talons into his thigh, knowing you won’t be able to get a good hit on his armored chest. He tenses. There’s a hint of annoyance in those icy eyes as you yank your claws out from his flesh with a sickening tearing sound. That’s it. He doesn’t hiss or grunt or speak. It’s as if you did nothing at all. 

But the action is enough for him to loosen his grip, and you’re able to jerk your wrist away. Your wings beat to maintain your balance, and your gaze darts around the room in search of a weapon. There are a few guns left strewn about from the dead—or maybe unconscious—guards, but they’re a little bit closer to the Winter Soldier than they are to you; you’re not feeling fond of the idea of him getting his hands on you. 

Which leaves only one other option. It’s a choice you aren’t sure of, a gamble that could lead to your untimely departure from this mortal coil. You feint to the right and he follows the movement, his eyes tracking you like a predator. Then, with a burst of speed that you know he can’t match despite being your equal, you switch directions and dart for the metal trays stored next to the cryo pod. 

He might be fast, but you’ll always be faster.

Your vision tunnels towards the carefully placed syringes on the tray. Your programming thrashes in your chest, the thorns piercing some deep and vital organ as they demand for your claws and teeth to rend and tear, but you shove against the feeling as hard as you’re able and grab two of the syringes with a small clink of glass before whipping around to face your attacker once more. If you can land a hit, he’ll be out cold from the cryosleep solution long enough for you to fulfill your orders and kill him. 

The Winter Soldier is closing in. He rotates his black metal arm with a mechanical hum that sends a shiver down your spine, and you can’t help but notice that his eyes look angrier than they did before. His brow is furrowed and, though you can’t see under the mask covering his mouth and nose, you imagine his lips are probably drawn in a harsh expression. He moves with a grim determination. He understands your intent. 

He knows what’s in those syringes, you realize.

You hazard a glance at the vibrant blue liquid stored within them before yanking off the cap covering one of the needles. Your wings spread wide in a defensive manner, but you can’t back up any further—in grabbing the cryosleep solution, you’ve effectively cornered yourself against the pod. 

"Stay back," you hiss, your voice strained. You can feel a hint of the pain breaking through the thorns that bind you to your objective, a dull throb in your abdomen that makes you feel a little unsteady on your feet. An unreasonable part of you wants to grab hold of the knife embedded in your stomach and yank it out, but you know better.

You don’t want to die here.

The Winter Soldier continues his advance, but there’s something unsettling about the way he moves. Every step is slow, calculated, as though he’s approaching a cornered, feral little thing. His gaze is unwavering and resolute and dangerous because he can see right through you and past the shell of the weapon Hydra so desperately wanted you to be.

He can see something in some corner—some small cavity that the thorns couldn’t touch—that even you can’t, and you aren’t sure if you’re terrified or angry.

You throw the capped syringe, a last minute distraction to buy you even a few seconds. He only pauses and raises his arm—the glass shatters against the vibranium with a sound that echoes your last hope breaking, splintering into a million pieces and filtering through your grasp like sand.

The uncapped syringe in your hand raises and you eye his neck carefully, waiting for him to draw closer.

And he does.

He lunges for you, and a glint of metal under the emergency lighting is the only warning you get as his arm reaches for you. You can’t move fast enough to jab the syringe into his throat before he wraps his hand around your wrist again, stalling the needle’s path. As hard as you try to force the needle closer, the Winter Soldier is stronger than you—there’s nothing you can do as his grip tightens until it’s almost crushing, forcing your hand to drop the syringe.

He deftly catches it in his organic hand and raises it.

A dizzying wave of panic hits you. Stronger than your conditioning—the will to survive. It consumes every millimeter of your nervous system until you feel sick and sets you into motion. Talons scrabble uselessly against armor as you try to pull away, create distance, get loose. 

But he ignores your futile attempts at resistance. With a swift, decisive movement, he positions the needle against your neck and presses the plunger until the cryosleep solution is fully expelled from the syringe.

You never liked the feeling that comes next. Drowsiness settles into you like a cloud over everything. A part of you wants to sink into it, but you’re never allowed to want for anything, so you fight against the drug swimming through your system.

But you were never good at fighting for the things that really matter. You—the real you, the version hidden away somewhere dark and hopeless, not the Osprey—always give up too soon, or lose sight of your main goal, or get beat down and don’t manage to find your footing in time to get back up.

So when the Winter Soldier’s face swims in and out of focus, his eyes filled with a strange mixture of resolve and something that almost looks like pity, you surrender. The thorns that control you like a puppet, so desperate in their tenacity, tighten at your refusal to comply, but it’s already too late. 

The man catches you with one arm as your wings droop and your body slumps against his own. It’s funny, you think, how surprisingly gentle his grip is. He’s holding you carefully, as though you aren’t a thing but a person, and you aren’t built to become him but are forced to play his role. He holds you as though you’re marked fragile, do not break and covered in warning signs, but not the kind of warnings that would send most people away screaming.

The Osprey doesn’t know how to feel about that. For once, you think you might be on the same page.

"I’m sorry," he murmurs. His voice is uncharacteristically soft and barely audible, but you can’t tell if it’s him or you that’s to blame. You don’t even get a chance to respond as the cryosleep solution forces you past the wall at the edge of your consciousness and leaves you limp in his arms.

The Winter Soldier spared you. 

You aren’t dead, because he spared you, and you’re awake and breathing and none of that matters because your mission failed.

Failed.

Failure is not something you’ve experienced before. You’ve had close calls, sure, but never outright defeat. The voice of your conditioning that clouds your head almost feels like it’s mocking you at this point.

Target unable to be neutralized. The OSPREY will return to its designated Handler.

Something tells you that you won’t be going anywhere soon as you look around in an attempt to get a better sense of your surroundings. But the voice doesn’t know that. The programming doesn’t particularly care.

A cursory glance makes it immediately obvious that, well, you have no fucking clue where you are. The room is almost entirely bare, with only the bed you woke up in and a plain drawer. You swing your legs over the side of the bed, hissing at the pain that shoots through your bandaged stomach, and stand on shaky feet. When you rifle through the drawer, it’s clearly filled with nothing but clothes—all in your size, you realize numbly. You shut the drawers quietly despite the annoyance you feel and stretch your aching wings.

Except you can’t stretch them at all.

Thick metal—at least, you assume it’s metal, based on how cold it is against your feathers—encircles each wing, preventing them from extending properly. The result is a harsh cramping feeling in the muscles, one that has you wanting to claw your own wings off just to relieve it. Clearly leaving wouldn’t be an option for you.

You can see through the shimmering walls of your cell, which isn’t any consolation because there’s nothing but lab equipment outside and you know damn well what that means for you. You’ve been a lab rat for long enough that you couldn’t forget the gritty details if you tried.

But there isn’t anything you can do, so you wait.

As it turns out, waiting is the worst hell you can imagine. Not because you’re impatient—years of your programming leaving you standing around idly had quickly drilled patience into you—but because the programming in your head won’t shut up.

Nonfatal injury sustained. Target unable to be neutralized. Reconditioning required.

The OSPREY will return to its designated Handler.

Unable to establish connection to designated Handler. 

You’ve never heard that before. Your handler has always been around, an ever-present force that pummels you into submission if you ever dare to step out of line. You aren’t sure if it’s panic or relief that you feel as it floods your veins and leaves something cold and numb behind like toxins in your bloodstream.

You don’t know where to report to when you get out. You don’t know who to report to. That thought is terrifying—you’ve never had a lack of instruction, nor have you had any bodily autonomy for years on end. You were merely an extension of Hydra’s will, a means to an end. 

You would keep nothing. You would want nothing. You would be nothing.

But there’s something selfish in that tiny part of you that your programming can’t quite reach. There’s something delusional, a piece of your mind that picks over the last moments before you woke up here and holds them up in the glaring light until you have to acknowledge them.

He caught and held you like you were something. You would lose this memory in your eventual reconditioning, but you selfishly want to hold onto it for as long as you possibly can—the feeling of being anything, of being anyone at all. You aren’t meant to want anything, but you do, and the crippling weight of wanting is heavy enough to pulverize even the tallest mountains and carve deep ravines from the rubble.

Psychological condition critical. Reconditioning required. 

Unable to establish connection to designated Handler. 

Bucky feels like he’s watching a car crash in slow motion. 

He can do nothing but watch the security feed as the Hydra asset within the containment cell digs Her fingers into Her own scalp as if trying to claw something out of Her head. A raw and pained and guttural scream tears through Her throat, a sound that spoke of pure agony. It isn’t the same rage he’d seen in Her eyes before, the kind that made those brown and white wings tremble and those titanium claws shake. This is something more primal, more unsettling.

Because he’s been in Her shoes before.

He’s seen the way Her features are haunted in his own gaze, in the mirrors he couldn’t stand to look in and covered as a result. He knows the effects of Hydra’s conditioning on people like the back of his own hand: the blank stares, the unwavering obedience, the way they stand as though they’re always poised to strike, tension like a taut wire stringing their bodies.

This isn’t that at all.

This feels like watching a formerly well-oiled machine blow itself to pieces in a critical and spectacular malfunction, gears grinding together until the whole system threatens to seize. And Bucky can do nothing about it. His metal fist clenches involuntarily as Sam speaks up beside him.

"What the hell is happening to her?"

Bucky doesn’t answer for a long moment, his eyes fixed on the video feed. He wonders if he should answer at all—there aren’t any accurate words to describe what he’s seeing, even though he’s experienced it himself.

"It’s the programming," he says finally. His voice is measured, his expression masked by impassive features. "She’s fighting it."

He knows exactly how hard it is. He isn’t ever going to forget the phantom commands echoing in his mind, their crushing pressure to obey ringing in his ears. But his own struggle had been a relentless climb into the man he’d been before, aided by Shuri and the rest of the nation of Wakanda.

She had no one. 

"Fighting it?" Sam asked, a hint of disbelief seeping into his voice. "I thought it was unbreakable."

Bucky’s jaw ticked. "Nothing is. Just takes a hell of a price to crack it."

He remembers the pain and disorientation and sheer will it had taken to push against the Winter Soldier’s ingrained directives. He wouldn’t put anyone through that particular brand of suffering if given the choice. Not even his worst enemies.

Sam shoots Bucky a sidelong, concerned glance as the man pushes himself off of the viewing room’s wall and makes for the door separating the lab from the observation chamber. He makes a move to follow, but Bucky shakes his head. "Stay here," he instructs.

"She could still be dangerous—"

"And still caged. Stay here."

Bucky’s tone brooks no argument, and Sam relents after a moment without another word.

He enters the lab alone.

Her eyes snap towards his, and all he sees is unadulterated rage within them. Her gaze flicks to his metal arm before settling back on his face. 

"Come to finish the job?" She snarls, the sound low and still perhaps not as frightening as it would be if She wasn’t clutching the bandages around her abdomen as though She might pass out. She makes no move to stand or fight as Bucky approaches the energy barrier separating them.

"No, ‘m not gonna hurt you. We," he says, jerking a thumb towards the observation room just outside the lab. "just want to help."

That earns a harsh, bitter laugh from the woman before him. Her eyes flash with a certain intensity that could force a mountain lion to drop dead at the sight. "Help me? You cage me, you bind me, and you call that help? You’re no better than the people you took me from."

The accusation stings a little, because She does have a bit of a point. 

"We aren’t Hydra. We’ve been trying to crush them for years."

"And you think I don’t know that you’re not Hydra?" She pointedly jerks Her chin towards Bucky’s metal arm. "I’d recognize the Winter Traitor anywhere. Especially when I’ve been told to put you down like a dog."

Bucky’s laugh in response is dry and mirthless. “Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve heard that, little bird. But you aren’t in any condition to be fighting much of anything, so you can drop the tough act.”

He takes a slow and deliberate step closer to the barrier, earning another defensive snarl as his gaze shifts to Her wings.

"They were using you. Against people that didn’t deserve it."

"I don’t care. At least I had a purpose."

"You wouldn’t be trying to fight it if that was how you really felt." Despite his impassive expression, Bucky knows his voice is tinged with a hint of hope. He stops a few feet away from the energy barrier as he assesses the weapon Sam had been hunting. She merely tucks Her head against Her knees without gracing him with another poisonous word. 

She doesn’t speak for a long, long time.

Chapter Text

The days are starting to bleed into each other.

It’s a Tuesday, and Bucky is only sure of that because his therapy session with Dr. Raynor—who wasn’t exactly thrilled about his escapades, even though he successfully managed to conveniently leave out the killing Hydra scientists part—was yesterday, and therapy is always on Monday. 

Actually, he isn’t really sure of that at all, and he doesn’t think he has it in him to care about something so trivial. It isn’t like he has any plans, anyway. He never does. Whether it’s a Tuesday or a Saturday, his phone never rings, no one shows up at his doorstep, and he proceeds through his day in relatively comfortable silence.

Comfortable, until it isn’t.

Usually Bucky heads to a spot with just a little bit of noise when the silence gets to be too much. The dive bar in the shitty part of town, the nice restaurant that’s just a tad too fancy for him to feel entirely comfortable, or the calm but not crowded park where he can just observe. He doesn’t really make any attempts to talk to people in those places. He was social, once, before the war and the Winter Soldier, the kind of person that would drink and flirt and dance. 

But he can’t get drunk, his flirting game is outdated by a century, and he isn’t exactly in a dancing mood lately.

So he just observes.

Sam thinks Bucky has a staring problem. Hell, maybe he does—he can never really tell when he’s giving too much eye contact or not enough, not after he spent so many years with the same blank look on his face as he awaited orders. It’s just another in a long list of habits that he can’t seem to break.

Lately, one of those habits is checking on the Hydra operative kept under lock and key. He isn’t entirely sure why he’s drawn to the cell, to be entirely truthful. It’s probably that same sense of obligation that pushed him to accept Sam’s request to begin with. The same one that now refuses to let him allow the operative to rot away in a cell under his watch.

Except She seems to be doing that anyway, he notes, once again watching the video feed from the observation room. 

She’s curled on the floor, back against the corner of the cell, with a thin blanket that She pulled from the bed wrapped closely around Her. He doesn’t need to question why. He knows exactly how hard it can be to feel any semblance of comfort from soft bedding after sleeping on nothing but awfully firm mattresses and concrete and dirt with sharp rocks poking at his sides for years. 

There’s a chilling stillness in the operative’s form. The Osprey hadn’t spoken in days. She’d barely moved at all aside from subtle twitches here and there and restless motions in Her sleep. Twice a day, the guard outside the cell would slide a tray of bland, unremarkable food—if it can really even be called food—through the small gap in the containment barrier. 

Twice a day, the tray would be retrieved, entirely untouched. She doesn’t pick at the food on it. Doesn’t even pick the tray up or look at it. She drinks water occasionally, though seemingly only enough to keep Her alive. 

Bucky’s attempts to coax the operative into eating are met with blank stares. Questions, both gentle and firm, elicit no response at all. He isn’t sure how to proceed—it’s not like he has all that much experience in the ‘stop the woman brainwashed by terrorists from slowly killing herself via malnutrition’ department.

He’s at a complete fucking loss.

Truthfully, he finds himself drawn to the observation room more often than he cares to admit. There’s something of a morbid fascination that he holds as he watches Her. Her suffering is a disquieting mirror that displays the time in which his own mind had been a battleground, when words held zero meaning and sustenance felt like a betrayal to some vital piece of himself. Bucky doesn’t know what to do except stare at the reflection.

Beside him, Sam seems to be equally confused. “We can’t sit here and do nothing, Buck. She’s clearly not going to help herself at all.”

For once, Bucky says nothing about the nickname. Doesn’t care enough to bother. His eyes are still fixed on the screen, on Her motionless figure. He’d tried talking to Her multiple times over the days, his voice low and even, sharing nothing of his own past but offering a simple acknowledgment of Her pain. Each attempt was met with the same vacant stare She’s currently leveling at the doorway of the cell. Like talking to a ghost.

"I know," he says, because what else can he say?

"Maybe a doctor…" Sam presses, though a hint of skepticism lingers in his voice. They had already tried that—Bucky had ordered medical personnel to check Her over after the initial outburst; all physical examinations were returned revealing no outstanding results. Her vitals are still stable, albeit weaker than they should be…The problem is something deeper and darker and hidden in recesses of Her mind that he can’t reach if he tries.

And, damn it, he’s trying.

Bucky shakes his head slowly. "Programming is too deep. This isn’t something a blood test or MRI can fix." He pushes himself away from the monitors and opens the door leading to the lab, casting a glance back at the Falcon. "I’m going to try again."

"What are you going to do? Stare her into submission?"

That got an eyebrow twitch out of Bucky, which is a lot more of a response than he usually offers in the face of Sam’s jabs. He doesn’t respond as he passes through the doorway and approaches the cell. Sam only watches, a worried frown replacing his usual shit-eating grin. He knows Bucky’s own history leaves him uniquely positioned to understand, but he also knows that old wounds don’t always stay closed forever. The agent is a potentially dangerous trigger, a stark reminder of what it means to have one’s life stolen and mind violated.

And, admittedly, Bucky’s not sure what he’s hoping for. He doubts She’ll respond. His goal might have been to find the operative, but that doesn’t mean he can do anything to fix Her. He doesn’t even really know if such a thing is possible. 

He finds himself praying to gods he’d long since stopped believing in.

The Winter Soldier is back, or maybe he never really left to begin with, and you can’t seem to find a part of you that really cares.

He usually asks the same questions. Sometimes the order changes, but the selection never does. You don’t answer him—whether it’s spite or some other unknown emotion keeping you from speaking, you’re never sure—and eventually he leaves you in the yawning silence that threatens to swallow you whole and leave no remains behind for the world to remember you by.

"Do you remember anything…before?" He asks. His voice isn’t unkind. You don’t want to hate him, but the traitorous whisper of the conditioning in your head makes the decision for you. Pins him as an enemy. "A name? A place?"

The minutes tick by and the silence continues to yawn and you say nothing because there is nothing to say and no words that will shake you violently enough to allow you to escape the trance you’re under. You figure it’s about time for him to give up soon. He’s been trying for a while.

But the Winter Soldier doesn’t leave you.

It’s clear to you that he’s considering his options as he shifts from foot to foot, but he isn’t leaving you. Before you can stop yourself, your lips finally part, the movement so slight that you wonder if he even sees it. 

A dry, raspy sound claws its way up your throat as you clear it.

You know he’s holding his breath by the way you see his chest go perfectly still from the corner of your vision. There’s a barely-hidden flash of surprise in those pale eyes as your own flicker slightly and slowly—agonizingly slowly, as if the movement was painful—turn towards him. It isn’t a look of recognition. You know your stare is probably still vacant.

You don’t care.

There’s another long silence as you stare at him, and he does nothing but stare back.

Finally: "Does it…come with a warranty?"

The Winter Soldier blinks. You don’t blink back. You’ve clearly caught him off guard, and he frowns as he attempts to process the meaning of your question.

"The hell are you talking about?" He asks finally, his voice flat.

There’s a ghost of a smirk that tugs at your lips. There isn’t any real emotion behind it. "The brainwashing," you reply, your bitter voice sounding far rougher than you intend as a result of disuse. 

"Does it usually…y’know, malfunction like this? Or did I just get a lemon?"

The man just stares. He doesn’t smile. At this point, you’re convinced he never does. But there’s an almost imperceptible upwards twitch of his lip that has some small part of you wondering what it would look like if he did.

“Not that I’m aware of.”

“Well, they did a bang-up job,” you snort, your voice full of loathing that you don’t even attempt to conceal. “Can’t even remember my own name. Or if I ever liked pizza. Real tragedy, that.”

"It can come back. The pieces. Takes time, and it isn’t easy, but—"

You cut him off with something that vaguely resembles a dry and humorless laugh before he can finish. Your eyes are narrowed, darkened with something that gives him pause. "I’m sure you know all about that, Sergeant Barnes. The Winter Traitor in the flesh! Tell me, did they offer you a refund on the programming?"

His jaw ticks, and you know your jab found its mark. His expression stays otherwise neutral though. Some part of that fact annoys you more than you can comprehend.

"No refunds," he mutters. "Just a long, hard road back."

"And you think I’m...what, lining up for the scenic route?" There’s a heavy dose of cynicism in your words, but you can’t bring yourself to shut up now that you’ve started talking. Clearly the silence did a number on you. "Frankly, the amnesia is the best part of this whole gig. Less baggage."

"Everyone has baggage." The Winter Soldier counters. His gaze doesn’t waver. Some part of you wants to recoil underneath it. You feel as though you’re being examined and can’t decipher why.

"Oh, I’m carrying it alright. Just don’t know what the hell’s inside the suitcases. And this," you say, gesturing around the stark containment cell with a bleak expression. "Doesn’t really look like baggage claim, does it?"

"No. It doesn’t." You like that he doesn’t try to offer platitudes, you think. You wouldn’t have wanted to hear them if he did. 

Another silence descended, but this one isn’t as heavy as the last. 

"We can try to help you recover your memories. The ones you lost."

You snort again, fixing him with a shit-eating grin. "I’m sure you’d just love to poke around in my brain...Find all kind of fun Hydra secrets. Unfortunately, you’re outta luck. I got nothin’."

But he meets your eyes steadily, and he doesn’t seem to find anything about this funny. "It’s not about that. It’s about giving you back what was taken from you."

"Sentimental, are we? You, of all people?"

That jab didn’t land. You didn’t get so much as a nostril flare from him.

"I know what it’s like to lose yourself," he replies simply. "And I know what it’s like to fight to get back."

"Nothing to fight for." It was the truth as you knew it, but the Winter Soldier doesn’t seem satisfied with that response. 

"You don’t remember anyone? Family? Friends?"

You can feel your lips twisting into something that probably resembles a grimace. "Friends? You think they encourage friendships at that charming little trade school?" If the bitterness in your tone could sting any more, you’re sure it would leave a gaping wound in your throat that no number of sutures could close. "We’re nothing but weapons. Sharpened and pointed in the right direction. We don’t get the luxury of making pals."

He shakes his head, and you tilt yours in a birdlike expression of curiosity as you watch him carefully.

"No, before that. Before Hydra."

"I told you. There is no before. As for family…I’m sure if I had a mother that I remembered, she’d be thrilled with how I turned out. Model employee, sociopath extraordinaire—you think she’d send a fruit basket?"

That earns a choked laugh from the Winter Soldier, as if he’s not sure that he should laugh at that at all but yet can’t seem to stop himself. Some part of you preens at the sound. Another part despises it.

"Maybe a greeting card," he says dryly. "Why the sudden talkative streak? Finally thinking about letting us help?"

"Maybe," you reply after a long moment. Your voice seems a little quieter, a littler smaller than before. As if you’re hiding, but you’re not even all that sure of what you’re hiding from. The armor forged from bitterness is still there, but it’s a little less potent and a little less painful and you aren’t aiming it at him.

"Or maybe I’m just…bored. And you’re the only entertainment this lovely little box has to offer."

The Winter Soldier doesn’t respond other than offering a curt nod. 

He finally leaves, but you don’t feel the relief that usually comes with his absence. There’s something…empty that takes up residence in your chest instead. 

You eventually manage to sleep, tugging the blanket over your trembling wings and curling in on yourself to preserve any lingering warmth, and the sleep is entirely dreamless.

That never happens.

And when you wake, there’s a particularly worn copy of a book waiting for you on the shelf that typically holds the food trays the guards slide through the energy barrier’s gap. You pick it up carefully, fingertips running over the texture of the creases in the book’s cover. It’s clear that the owner had read the book many times over, that the book had probably been shoved into a number of backpacks and shelves and awkward positions. There’s a single small piece of paper sticking out of the pages; the words ‘little bird’ written in surprisingly neat cursive. 

With nothing else to do in your boring little cell, you flip to the pages holding the piece of paper and read the passage highlighted there as the note gently flutters to the ground.

"But now, for the first time, I see you are a man like me. I thought of your hand-grenades, of your bayonet, of your rifle; now I see your wife and your face and our fellowship. Forgive me, comrade. We always see it too late. Why do they never tell us that you are poor devils like us, that your mothers are just as anxious as ours, and that we have the same fear of death, and the same dying and the same agony—Forgive me, comrade; how could you be my enemy?"

And something in that unknown, guarded part of you shifts and creaks and splinters into brilliant broken pieces, catching fire under some infinitesimal form of sunlight that you never thought you’d see.

Chapter Text

You’ve read the book cover to cover three times, and yet the Winter Soldier still hasn’t returned. 

It’s been a few days since his last visit, a fact you’re only certain of because of the way the light in your cell periodically dims and brightens to mimic the sunrise and sunset that you’ll probably never get the luxury of seeing again. 

You often find yourself wishing there was a window in the lab outside of your holding cell. It would at least offer a nice reminder that there is a world outside of the sterile white walls and strangely clinical smelling soap and trays of maybe food. 

But you don’t get a window, the white walls remain unchanged, the soap is as inoffensive as usual when the guards unceremoniously drag you out of the cell to the showers, and the food selection they offer you still sucks. You’ve grown hungry enough to at the very least pick at the food on the trays, but the trays ultimately end up getting taken back by the guards with most of the items still on them.

And still, no matter how long it’s been, the Winter Soldier doesn’t come back.

A part of you wants him to return. It isn’t just the part of your conditioning urging you to complete your assignment, either—there’s an unknown feeling gnawing at your gut that you’re hesitantly labeling curiosity. The longer you go without answers, the tighter its jaws clamp around your midsection until you’re sure you’ll be cleaved in two. But there’s nothing to do except read the book and stare at the doorway and wait and wait with only Hydra’s insidious whispers to keep you company. 

And they make pretty shitty company.

You wonder if you’ll go insane before anyone remembers you exist; that thought annoys you, you realize. There’s a coil of carefully compressed anger that tightens in your chest as you lean the back of your head against the energy barrier and pull your knees to your chest with a low groan. You have every right to be mad. Your target strolls in with his stupid piercing eyes and stupid handsome face and stupid gentle voice before feeding you hopeful lies and leaving you to rot. He’d stoked some tiny ember somewhere in the darkest corner of your mind, reignited the fight you thought you’d given up on years ago, and then just…left it to flicker out, extinguished by its own smoke. 

If he isn’t going to come back, why’d he have to give you the literary peace offering to keep you from losing your mind in the silence? If he isn’t going to stitch the wound closed, why’d he have to make it bleed again?

You glance to where you’ve left the book facedown on the bed that you still can’t bring yourself to sleep in, but you don’t bother getting up from your spot on the floor to pick it up. It isn’t like you’re in a mood to read it again. It isn’t like the Winter Soldier’s message that you aren’t his enemy is any compensation for the restraints that bite into your wings or the insatiable uncertainty that chews at your sanity with every passing day. 

And he knows. 

That’s the part that makes the controlled fury in your chest unravel, fraying at the edges and burning hotter until it leaves searing imprints on the surface of every single bone of your rib cage. He knows what it’s like to be a weapon, how it feels to lack agency over anything you do. He spoke like you had a choice, as if the order to tear his aorta open like a birthday piñata was nothing but a suggestion that you just so happened to be amenable to. 

And then he left.

You wonder if you’re an idiot for having believed him. 

At some point or another, you’ve stopped counting the days. You’ve read the book another four times. Your routine remains the exact same as always.

Until, one day, it changes.

There’s a soft click outside of your cell, one that you’ve come to recognize as the guards entering through the door that connects the observation chamber to the lab. It’s a little early for food, you think, but maybe your timing is off. There aren’t exactly any clocks around, and you’ve never been particularly good at estimating the hours despite Hydra’s best efforts to drill the skill into your head.

"You’d think eventually someone would get the hint that I don’t have much of an appetite," you say without raising your gaze from the long umber and white feather you’ve been worrying between your fingers. It’s one of multiple scattered around the cell, a product of regular molting that only really served to annoy you half to death. 

"Shame. You have no idea how much of a pain in the ass it is to choose fruit arrangements for an amnesiac."

Your head snaps up, a jolt of shock coursing through your veins. You blink dumbly, your mind trying and failing to process what you’re seeing. It’s a trick of the light—it has to be, because there’s no other explanation for why the Winter Soldier is here and standing in front of the energy barrier that makes up your cell while holding a fruit basket.

Which means you’ve well and truly lost it.

A choked laugh falls from your lips, bubbling up into a sound that you’re not sure you’ve ever made before. 

But he just stares at you with some unreadable expression. His wintry gaze looks…tired. In fact, he generally looks like hell right now, which certainly isn’t his usual if his last appearance is anything to go by. There are dark circles under his eyes, the set of his jaw seems tighter than before, and his 5 o’clock shadow looks a bit more like a charcoal pencil was vigorously rubbed across his jaw.

So you probably aren’t imagining things after all.

"You usually show up with gift baskets after ghosting women? Or just the ones you really like?"

He huffs a laugh—still not a full-bodied one, but one that some traitorous part of you wants to hear again—and shrugs. "Didn’t think you’d care. You’re nosy, for a soldier."

"You’re mouthy, for a soldier," you shoot back, though your voice lacks most of the bitter edge it’s had for a while now.

"Touché." He steps closer to your lovely little prison and taps something into the access panel that causes the small gap in the energy barrier to widen until he can set the basket down inside of the cell. The gap shrinks once more when he withdraws his hand, but he remains where he is. 

"If you need to know, I brought it because Sam mentioned that you still aren’t exactly eating much of anything," he says with a slight wince following his words. "Not that I blame you, given the selection."

That earns a snort from you. You narrow your eyes and search his face carefully. If he has an ulterior motive for being here, you can’t seem to sense it. The thought has you on edge, even if you’re trying not to show it.

"You expect me to believe that the Winter Soldier is just going around with acts of goodwill for enemy operatives?"

His gaze hardens, and you know you’ve struck a nerve. As much as you want to test the waters and push it again…it’s probably best not to try your luck.

"My name is Bucky. If I was still the Winter Soldier, you wouldn’t be breathing, let alone complaining about the catering," he says firmly. It isn’t a threat—he says it plainly, as if it’s simply fact. Despite the sharpness in his tone as he corrects you, he isn’t being mean. You almost want him to be. Maybe if he says something hateful and poisonous, you’ll feel justified in listening to the whispers of your order to finish the job and kill him. Maybe if you keep him at arm's length and refuse to acknowledge his humanity, you’ll never have to find out if he’s lying to you about it all.

But his name falls from your lips all the same—quietly, tentatively, as if you’re unsure of whether or not you should say it at all—and any chance of you denying his personhood flies straight out the window. 

He either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care as he shrugs. "And it isn’t goodwill bringin’ me here, either. We need to talk."

"Because that’s a line that everyone wants to hear, I’m sure," you snipe. There’s no ignoring the hint of dread that scratches insistently at the base of your spine, but you carefully school your features into an expression that doesn’t reflect it. "Isn’t that what we’re doing right now?"

He merely stares at you until you sigh and wave the feather you’re holding as a gesture to continue. Not like you have any choice in whether or not you have to listen to him.

"Had a talk with an…old friend," Bucky starts. "Same one that helped me. She said that we can replicate the treatment I had with tech we have here, but, uh—"

"…But there’s no free lunches," you interject. He hesitates for a fraction of a second before dipping his head in a nod. "So, what’s the cost? An arm and a leg?"

What you’ve said doesn’t fully occur to you until Bucky rolls his eyes, but he doesn’t comment on it.

"The cost is that she can’t help without it being made known to everyone that you," he jabs a finger in your direction. "exist. The Accords made sure of that, and you’re clearly Enhanced. Unless you plan on cutting those wings off and keeping your head as far down as you can, she’ll be forced to give the suits a call."

"What does it matter?" You ask, shrugging. "The alternative is probably to die or rot in here until I die."

Bucky’s jaw ticks, but he doesn’t give you any answer despite your hope that he would deny it. 

Yet another choice you don’t get to make for yourself.

"And what, exactly," you press on as you slowly get to your feet. You feel a little bit unsteady, like a newborn fawn, but you manage to lean your back against the wall and fix the man before you with a look of what you hope is bored curiosity. "are you suggesting as a treatment? I’m guessing an all-inclusive spa resort on the beach isn’t on the table here."

"It’s not…pleasant," Bucky admits, his voice softening almost imperceptibly. He doesn’t meet your eyes, and you still can’t quite read his body language apart from the fact that he seems tense. "Shuri’s algorithm pretty much maps your brain, finds the parts affected by Hydra programming, and…overwrites them."

A chill snakes its way down your spinal cord. The idea of something rooting around in the darkest recesses of your mind and rearranging the very fabric of your thoughts is one that you aren’t particularly fond of. You do your best not to show the trepidation that rears its ugly head. "Overwrites them? Sounds, uh, invasive…?"

"Because it is. You’d have to relive things. See places you never wanted to see again, do things you probably wish you could forget about. I can’t even guarantee it’ll work perfectly, or at all. There could be side effects."

You blink, staring at him. There’s still a tiny flicker of hope lingering heavily in your veins like silt at the bottom of a river, and you can’t seem to bring yourself to bury it. You don’t want to get your hopes up. You can’t let yourself get your hopes up, because that would mean that you’re wanting something, something that Hydra will never allow you, something that you can’t grasp and could just as easily lose.

"Like what? Suddenly developing a penchant for flamenco dancing?" You ask in a thinly veiled attempt to keep things light.

But Bucky doesn’t even crack a smile. 

"Personality shifts, emotional instability…cognitive damage. This isn’t like flipping a switch—it’s like trying to screw with wiring while things are still running."

The casual way he’s talking about potentially frying your brain like an overdone egg isn’t exactly inspiring much confidence in you. You’re trying—and failing—to keep your voice even, but your wings are trembling in their restraints. Based on the way Bucky’s eyes narrow slightly as they assess you, the motion doesn’t escape his sight. "And the chance of success?"

"Not a hundred percent. Not even close. Things might be a lot faster for you, but you’re still only the second person to try it."

A soft, disbelieving laugh escapes your lips before you can choke it down.

"You know, I’m thinking that one of these days I’d like to stop being the guinea pig." You push off the wall and slowly approach the energy barrier separating you from your captor and would-be savior. There’s enough of a height difference that you have to tilt your head slightly to meet his discerning gaze, but it doesn’t make your form any less intimidating.

"But, tell me, what’s your stake in this, Bucky? What do you get out of helping Hydra’s best little lap dog cut her leash? You said yourself that you aren’t doing things out of goodwill."

"One less weapon off the board. Hydra turned you into some sick creature, and if there’s a chance to undo that, even a slim one, then it’s worth the risk. For everyone," he says flatly, and your gut twists violently at the words. You aren’t even sure what you were expecting—it’s not like he knows you, after all. He has no personal reasons to want to save you in the first place.

Some part of you wishes that someone would care. Some part of you wants the affirmation that someone might be looking out for you, that someone would see the pain you’ve been in and reach out a hand, if only to rescue you from it. 

But you aren’t afforded that luxury. You’ve reforged yourself into a knife and kept your edge so sharp that it could slice through any enemy that might step up to you because your rage and brutal efficiency is your armor. You are defenseless without the blood in your fuller and the harsh point of your blade. Killings are the only form of mercy you’ve come to understand under Hydra’s direction. There is no rescue for a murderer.

He’s right to see you as a weapon; you’re well aware of that. 

And it doesn’t hurt any less.

"So it isn’t about me at all," you breathe out. "Just tidying up loose ends."

"It’s about preventing more damage," he counters. His stare is unwavering, but you can see the tiniest crack in the carefully constructed wall he’s created. A flicker of…what, guilt? Resentment? Disgust? You can’t quite tell, but something about it makes your heart sink.

"You were enhanced. You were trained. Left unchecked and under Hydra’s control, you’re a threat that can topple entire governments. The right person says the right words; you could start a war. This is one of the only ways to neutralize that threat without a body count."

Gotta admit, his logic is cold, clinical, and undeniably bulletproof. It doesn’t particularly make you feel any better about being labeled a sick creature, but it does offer a grim sort of comfort to know that this isn’t pity or some misguided sense of altruism. He’s doing it because it’s the pragmatic choice.

"Neutralize…" You repeat the word slowly and don’t even bother trying to dilute the venom that drips from the syllables as they roll off your tongue. "So, even if this treatment works, I’m still just a problem to be solved."

"It’s a chance not to be a problem," Bucky corrects. His voice is sharper, and it makes a clean incision a little ways into some part of your throat. "A chance to have a life where you aren’t controlled, where you make your own choices."

You scoff, turning away from the energy barrier and pacing the length of your cell. The movement is jerky and agitated, a stark contrast to Bucky’s controlled demeanor.

"Choices? That’s funny, coming from the man that had his stolen."

A muscle twitches in Bucky’s jaw. He doesn’t speak immediately; the silence yawns between you, thick with a shared misery.

When he does speak, his voice is low and rough. "Yeah…yeah, trust me, I know."

The admission hangs heavy in the air and lingers long after the words have faded. It’s a fragile bridge that you’re afraid to place any weight on for fear that it may not hold you. For the first time since he detained you, a tiny part of you wonders if you’re more similar than you originally thought. If maybe, just maybe, you aren’t alone in having experienced the horrors that had been unleashed upon you in your worst moments.

The part of your brain tainted by loyalty to Hydra demands that you tear the sentiment out with your talons, that you sink your teeth into it and shake until it dies out. 

Despite your history of obedience, you do your best not to let that part win.

"Fuck it," you bite out, halting in your pacing and casting a sidelong glance at Bucky through the cell’s barrier. "What’s the worst that can happen?"

Chapter Text

Her chest is rising and falling shakily, and Her wings twitch with apprehension as the frost creeps up the glass of the lab’s cryogenic chamber. 

Bucky tries to ignore the slight panic that flares in Her eyes before the cryosleep solution swimming in Her veins takes hold—he’d have to thank whatever small instinct that had urged him to swipe the remaining doses from the tray after he had bested the Osprey some other time, but not now.

Everything will be fine, or at least okay and fixable. He won’t have to kill the person he had just been instructed to save. Probably.

It’s the most Bucky dares to hope for as he watches the point where the Osprey’s unconscious form is held behind the frosted glass, the top half of Her face obscured by the neural scanner. The Stark-designed device looks bulky and nowhere near the slim form factor of Wakandan technology, but Shuri had insisted that the results would mirror the ones he received if all went well.

If.

The word sinks into some cavity of his skull that no light would ever settle in, the part that fears the worst and expects the best to slip through his fingers like fine silk. 

He’s trying to be more positive. Dr. Raynor—as much of a hardass as she could be—was right in her attempts to make him see the brighter side of things, even if he’s less of a ray of sunshine and more of a still puddle of rainwater after a storm.

He’s trying, but he can’t shake the feeling that this might not work and he could’ve fucked everything up and She might—

She might…?

Bucky isn’t sure where the line of thought leads because he snips that thread before it gets a chance to weave itself any further into his head. He can fix this. He can finish the favor Sam had asked of him. He can dismantle Hydra’s best weapon and walk away unscathed, and the lingering questions he has about Her will dissipate into a thin mist. He can ignore the subtle itch somewhere just behind his eyes that demands that he look at Her, that he observe, that he learn everything he can about what makes that sharp mind tick. He can grab that weak, nagging thing that insists that he’s just like Her and strangle it in his grip until it ceases in his chest. He can swear up and down that the Osprey is a cold-blooded killer and not just the result of science pushed to and beyond its moral limits, and he can believe it.

But Dr. Raynor also told him not to lie to himself, didn’t she?

So he has to admit to himself that only some of those things are true.

And he doesn’t know if he can do that.

His eyes remain fixed on Her despite his every attempt to look away. She looks so…small in the cryo chamber, without the rigid posture and simmering tension that seemed to define Her. The soft glow of the monitors bathe the pod in shifting hues of blue and red as they display complex patterns of brain activity that Bucky isn’t even going to try to comprehend. 

It’s not his job to. He can leave it to the two Wakandan scientists that Shuri had hand picked and sent damn near a world away for this, and he can stop worrying and sit the hell down like they’d asked him to do no less than three times.

But he’s really not all that good at waiting and relying on other people. He paces and paces and paces until the taller of the two women looks as though she might tie him to a chair. 

It isn’t like he doesn’t trust Shuri’s judgment or technology. Both had been instrumental in Bucky’s own treatment in Wakanda. King T’Challa—may he rest in peace—had said it best: Shuri was the most brilliant scientist Wakanda had ever known, and he trusted her with his life.

Bucky can say the same.

But his life and Her life are two very different things, and he isn’t sure which one would weigh more in blood and sin if placed on a scale at the end of them.

Safe to say, he’s a little apprehensive. 

The digital map grows increasingly intricate as the minutes tick by. 

And then it stops. 

Patches of red bloom across the blue web of crisscrossed lines like blood tainting clean water, and Bucky’s heart plummets as one of the two Wakandan scientists turns towards him. 

Her eyes aren’t unkind, but the words that come from her lips are a wooden stake directly in his chest:

“…We may have a small problem.”

You aren’t sure if you hate the rain.

You’re not sure because that’s a choice, and you’re unable to do much of anything with those. Hydra has made sure of it, and your Handler reinforces it every single day that you spend outside of the cryo chambers.

Choice had been taken from you long ago, rendering likes and dislikes entirely useless to your lethal existence. If you had ever recalled anything with something more or less than a detached apathy, you don’t remember it.

But as the rain pelts down on you like tiny needles against your exposed arms, you feel a slight spike of annoyance. 

And annoyance is fine.

It’s one of the few things you’re allowed to feel, one of the few things that won’t send your mind reeling until you end up right back at your Handler’s feet like a dog that had been kicked and told to go home. 

You try not to think too hard about that fact as your boots make steady progress against the glass of the high-rise building. Your descent is quick and methodical as you count the floors, instinctively taking note of their contents. A few people had seen you as you rappelled down, but you don’t particularly care. Witnesses aren’t an issue here. They could scream, point, stare, or even call the police, and you wouldn’t bat an eye.

The police would never be fast enough to halt your mission, and they wouldn’t believe a word of what the witness would tell them.

Your hands tighten slightly around the rope as you feed it through your hands, growing ever closer to the 98th floor. The programming in the back of your skull is an ever present chant, driving your every movement as if you can’t function without it. 

The OSPREY will locate and eliminate William Holmes.

Upon mission completion, the OSPREY will return to its designated Handler. 

You wonder what William’s crimes are. That’s the part Hydra never fills you in on—they simply point you in a direction, agitate your collar until you’re practically snapping and foaming at the mouth, and set you loose on whatever poor soul decided to cross those above your pay grade. You never get to know why. Does he deserve it? He’s a wealthy CEO with plenty of government contracts up his alley, but just how bloodied are his hands? Does he have a wife? Kids? Is there someone that he comes home to, someone that might miss him after you—

Emotional response outside of acceptable margins. Reconditioning required upon return to designated Handler. 

Well, fuck. You’ll be in for a long night when you return.

Your eyes briefly squeeze shut as you shake your head to clear it and then blink the rain droplets from your lashes. Regardless of your imminent threat of reprogramming, the mission’s completion isn’t optional—though you’d certainly appreciate it if it ends sooner rather than later, if only so you can dry your heavily waterlogged wings.

One gloved hand steadies the rope securing you as you pause your descent and carefully survey the target floor before drawing your goggles over your eyes. 

William, whoever he is, clearly has a taste for luxury. Expensive rugs, sweeping chandeliers—who even needs that many lights, anyway?—and display cases of various trinkets that you don’t particularly recognize. Working with Hydra doesn’t exactly give you an expansive education in fine arts, after all. You don’t know how to feel about the interior design, so you feel nothing at all. 

The perfect lap dogs don’t have to question what they think, only follow orders.

There’s a light on somewhere within the penthouse, but you can’t quite tell what room it’s in. It won’t be a problem, because the information you’re given is always correct, just as your Handler’s words are absolute and just as your mission is the top priority.

And if the information is always correct, then Holmes is unguarded and preparing for a black tie event.

Which should make the lit room a master suite.

Your boots scuff against the glass for a moment as you shove as hard as you can against the insulated pane and draw your sidearm from the holster in your vest. The momentum swings you outward just long enough for you to squeeze the trigger three times. The first and second impacts shatter the glass but leave the sheet otherwise intact.

The third bullet has the glass raining down around you as you hurtle through the frame and unclip from the belay device controlling your descent. 

Your wings snap open to help you find your balance and stop you from landing directly on your face, and only after you’ve gone still does everything come crashing back.

Blood roars in your ears like a caged animal, and your heart slams so hard in your chest that, if you didn’t know any better, you’d think it’s going to shatter your rib cage. 

Nonfatal injuries sustained. The OSPREY will proceed to eliminate the target. 

You don’t bother checking over your injuries as you press onwards, although some part of you underneath the programming can feel the dulled bite of the glass shards that must be embedded in your skin. 

If only you could get hazard pay.

A shout comes from the master suite; you hone in on it like a predator. There’s something that unfurls in your chest at the noise, something that preens at the sound of fear and confusion, something that settles comfortably into the well-worn tracks laid by a hunter’s instinct. You can practically smell the uncertainty in the air like the shift just after lightning strikes.

The crunch of your boots through the broken glass is slow, methodical. You hold your handgun at the ready, the smooth glint of metal dancing under the distorted light that floods in from the broken window. 

The door to the suite is open. William Holmes stands just beyond the doorway, in front of a ridiculously large mirror that no person with any sense of taste has any right to own. His hair is still wet and his dress shirt is halfway buttoned, but it isn’t like that would matter after the next few moments. No one would be seeing him in this state.

No one except for you.

Though classically attractive, there’s something about the CEO that forces another twinge of annoyance down your throat. You aren’t sure what or why. You can’t help but catch the unadulterated sort of fear that settles in the man’s eyes as you approach. 

There’s a brief moment of silence as you track his movements like your namesake implies, an osprey watching its prey just before swooping in for the capture. He scrambles to reach for his phone on the dresser, but it’s not like it’ll be of any use to him. He’ll never even get to hit the call button. 

The barrel lifts. Points towards his head, seemingly of its own volition.

But there’s a burning sensation deep within your veins that prevents you from pulling the trigger, and you can’t fight it no matter how hard you try to gain agency over your body.

A wave of pure cold crashes over you a moment later, and you want to fight it. You really, really do, but the chill feels better than the heat searing your blood and the pounding in your head and the insistence that you kill the man before you without a single thought of what crimes he did or did not commit.

So you let it take you under.

Bucky’s eyes snap away from the cryo chamber as the words hit his ears.

Maybe he isn’t hearing properly.

After all, if anyone can manage this procedure without a flaw, it’s Shuri and her team—which means that he must be hearing things incorrectly, and there really isn’t any problem at all.

But the scientist’s warm brown eyes stay locked on his own and don’t waver even as something makes itself comfortable nesting in his chest. It twists at his insides until he feels sick, horribly fucking sick, and he thinks maybe he should’ve taken the woman’s order to sit down with more than just a dismissive nod. 

“What do you mean, a small problem?” He asks. His voice is harsher than he means it to be, but the two scientists don’t even flinch.

He wonders if fear is even a word in their vocabulary. They don’t seem to shrink away from anything, much less him.

The taller of the two women, the one that had introduced herself as Asanda, gestures towards the digital map of the Osprey’s brain with one perfectly manicured hand. 

“I am sure I do not need to explain to you what the red parts are,” she begins, and the thing coiled somewhere between Bucky’s heart and ribs squeezes just a little too tight for him to ignore. 

But Bucky can’t identify it or give it a name. It might eat him alive if he does, leaving only the shell of a man that had taken a favor just for the chance to do something right for once. So he does the mature thing: he pulls the writhing thing from his chest and shoves it in a glass jar somewhere, and it isn’t pretty but it works, even if his therapist will probably chew his ass out later—

Asanda’s calling of his name drags him back. 

Right. The problem.

Bucky’s well aware of what the red areas on the brain scan mean. It had been explained to him during Shuri’s initial briefings: the stark visual representation of the way the programming had ravaged Her brain, the deep-seated neural pathways carved out like gouges in stone by years of indoctrination. The blue areas are the baseline and the only sign that there’s really a person somewhere underneath…except the blue looks like it’s been swallowed up for the most part.

“The primary layer of Hydra’s control is just as deeply entrenched as we thought it might be. However,” Asanda pauses, her brow furrowing, “there are secondary and tertiary layers functioning almost like…failsafes. We were able to isolate and begin the erasure of the core directives, the ones enforcing her general inability to refuse orders.”

She gestures towards the blue sections. “These are the parts that have been successfully targeted with few challenges. But these,” the woman notes as she points to the persistent, angry blooms of red on the holographic screen, “these are far more resistant. They seem to be tied to specific memories or points in her past, acting as anchors to reinforce the programming.”

“What kind of memories?” 

Asanda exchanges a glance with Imani, the shorter scientist beside her, before casting a more careful look towards Bucky. 

“We cannot be certain at this stage. The neural activity spikes every time the algorithm attempts to access the red zones. It is…chaotic, but the patterns suggest a strong emotional response—it could be fear, aggression, or even something more complex.”

“Complex? How?” Bucky’s voice feels a little too hoarse and a little too shaky for it to really seem like his, and he wouldn’t have believed the words had come from his mouth if he didn’t feel the way they clawed up his throat like bile.

He’s not sure why he’s worried.

Imani taps a section of the screen where the red is flaring, a violent, angry thing.

“It almost seems like a connection. A personal attachment—as if, deep down, she does not want to let go.”

Bucky scoffs; the sound is harsh and humorless. “Attachment? Hydra doesn’t breed attachment. They breed weapons.”

“Perhaps,” Asanda counters gently. He hates how kind her tone is, hates the way she looks at him with something akin to pity in her eyes, hates the way her voice is calming and grating all at the same time. He’s never been good with kindness, and he certainly doesn’t know how to handle her gentle demeanor now. “but even Hydra’s weapons were people once. And people form attachments, however twisted or suppressed. Are you not proof of that, Mr. Barnes?”

He doesn’t want to consider it. Admitting to her words feels like a personal betrayal, a stab in the fleshiest part of whatever hidden and desperate piece of him wants to pretend that Hydra had never stolen him away. That he never had any sort of connection.

There’s the lying again.

He can lie to anyone else, but never himself.

So, fuck it, maybe he understands where Asanda’s coming from. And maybe he understands just how deep Hydra’s tentacles can sink into someone’s mind. And maybe he can admit that, even if he wants to distance himself, the same tainted blood running through Her veins is the same thick poison being pumped through his.

…And maybe he understands the attachment, too.

But the thought of the Osprey, the ruthless assassin that She is, harboring any semblance of human emotion feels…wrong, somehow. Dangerous. It complicates all of the things that he just wants to keep simple.

“So, what do we do?” He asks finally, and he hates that his voice still doesn’t feel entirely his, almost as if he’s hearing a version that’s been recorded and distorted and played back just a couple cents sharper than usual.

“We continue the treatment. The algorithm is designed to adapt, to refine its approach as it encounters resistance…but it will take time. We will be monitoring her brain’s activity closely—the relived memories could provide valuable insight into the extent of her programming and the nature of her conditioning.”

“Insight?” Bucky repeats. The word tastes bitter in his mouth. He doesn’t want insight into the monster that had been created—he wants it gone completely. 

But Imani fixes him with a firm yet not unkind stare. “It is crucial for ensuring the complete erasure. If you want the algorithm to do its job, you will need the information.” 

Bucky brushes his hand through his hair, the metal of his prosthetic cold against his scalp. It’s clear he doesn’t have much of a say in this, no matter how much he’s regretting suggesting the procedure. 

He only hopes it’s the right decision.

Chapter Text

You’re pretty sure you’re falling from a deadly height, but you can’t help but notice that your standard issue combat boots are planted firmly against the asphalt.

Wait.

Asphalt?

This doesn’t make any sense. You trace back what you’ve just experienced, hoping for something that might explain the lapse in memory, the lack of glass shards embedded in your arms and wings, the missing scent of gunpowder in the back of your throat, the deafening silence instead of the sharp telltale bark of a nine-millimeter round being fired like a firecracker amplified ten times over. 

Your efforts come up empty.

Your gaze drops to your hands as you flex them slowly, staring at the way the black material of your gloves bunches and stretches at the knuckles. There’s a prickle of unease somewhere under your skin, and it’s rooted deep enough that you don’t think you can rid yourself of it even if you try your best to carve it out. You can’t place where the feeling of wrongness is coming from, but something about it screams just a little louder than your programming does, almost drowning out the realization that your orders have changed.

You didn’t kill William—or, at least, you’re reasonably sure that you didn’t finish the assignment because you couldn’t bring yourself to listen and pull the trigger —but yet your orders have changed.

The OSPREY will locate and eliminate Allison Taylor. Leave no witnesses alive. 

Upon mission completion, the OSPREY will return to its designated Handler.

You want to question them. You want to contact your Handler, to explain the situation and get clarification on the commands ricocheting in your skull. You don’t even remember receiving them—surely there must be some sort of lapse in your conditioning?

But Hydra is not to be questioned. Their word is absolute, and straying from the path they set in iron for you only leads to suffering and the white-hot surge like lightning unleashed in your veins.

And you aren’t particularly keen on giving them a reason to erase you again. 

Which means it’s time to get to work…even if you’re not entirely sure what the job is.

The asphalt beneath your feet shimmers as you try to focus on it. The heat rises in visible waves, distorting the familiar lines of what you immediately recognize to be a suburban street. It’s broad daylight, the kind of bright, cheerful sunshine that feels alien against the backdrop of your usual grim assignments, and it’s a far cry from the high rise you had scaled only moments before now. A child’s laughter drifts from somewhere nearby, a sound so incongruous that it grates on your nerves.

Something is wrong.

Something is horribly, sickeningly wrong, and you aren’t sure if the realization is freezing or scalding in your body as it slowly inches its way down your spine and coils tightly in your abdomen. A wave of nausea follows soon after, and you grit your sharpened teeth as if it’ll do anything to stop the feeling of churning bile clawing its way into your throat.

You need to move.

You need to pull yourself together, and fast, or your Handler will recognize your hesitance and discomfort as a weakness that must be carefully and precisely culled in order to preserve the culmination of months of spitting in the face of any natural order. If you don’t move, you’ll be purged again, reduced to blood and bone and sinew and the titanium designed to shred it. Any semblance of free thinking will be wiped; you’ll be right back at square one with no recollection of your name, or the piercing blue eyes of the man that had trained you, or the things you’ve been made to do, or the one somewhat kind mutant woman that always looks vaguely apologetic as she brings you back from the verge of death over and over and over—

You manage a single step forward. Then another. Gravity is hitting you a little harder than it ought to, it must be, because every step feels like wading through thick tar.

You don’t know where you’re going. You don’t know if you care.

The world shifts again before you can get your bearings.

It’s a little bit like falling, a little bit like flying, and a little bit like drowning. There’s some equally little part of you that always seems to know where north is, except your body is a compass that broke long ago and can’t tell the direction with any more accuracy than a fortune teller with a plastic ball. Your north isn’t a direction but an intangible leash that doesn’t even need to pull taut in order to force you closer to Hydra’s grasp, to rein you in. You’ve been trained well enough that you always come back. You’ll be shot, stabbed, burned, beaten, bloodied, and all but dead, but—just as a dog returns to its own vomit—you always come back.

And your Handler, your north, your reason to breathe and your permission to do it, will send you back out to do it again.

And again.

And again, until your wounds are a little too close to fatal and your blood’s volume is a little too low and your lungs are expanding a little too slowly to pull anything but poison from the air.

Some part of you hopes that day will come soon.

But it isn’t today, you think numbly, staggering as the world finally comes to a standstill. 

Dark hardwood floors greet your eyes as they’re cast down to the ground. The lighting in the room is a little bit dim, with the warm orange glow peeking through the slightly open blinds being the only suggestion of what time of day it might be. Everything seems a little bit clearer and a little bit blurry as you take in your surroundings, eyes flitting from the tasteful yet somewhat sparse decorations to the family photos that lined the walls. They linger at the pictures far longer than they ought to, but you can’t seem to tear your eyes away as you catalogue them. At first, there were four people in the pictures: a petite, pretty blonde woman positively beaming at the camera, with a stocky man glowering with crossed arms beside her and two twins giving each other lopsided, mischievous grins—the innocent, childish kind, all youth and missing teeth and not a single hint of malice.

The snake that had devoured your heart long ago rattles its tail in your chest as if to remind you that you’ll never be afforded the same luxuries others can indulge in. You can observe, you can slip through homes and file away the information you gather from the memories captured in emulsion. You can watch, but you can never carry anything with you when you leave.

But even though you take nothing with you, there’s this funny little thing in the shadows that trail you that never leaves the homes you pass through intact. Where your boots tread over earth, death follows close behind.

And now, you realize, your shadow has beaten you to the punch this time. As you assess the wall of photos, the scrawnier of the two twins is beaming at the camera just as her mother had been…but her smile slowly grows strained as she gets a little older and her features get a little more sunken. 

And then she disappears.

The father follows soon after, though you can’t place whether he left or died. It should be reassuring. You aren’t going to be the thing that destroys a perfect family because this family unit has already been cleaved in half, dealt a blow it never could have recovered from. 

But the thought doesn’t bring you any peace.

How could it? It doesn’t change what you have to do. The lingering unease that hangs like fog in your skull doesn’t clear in the slightest as you press on through the house with unsheathed talons and a grim determination. 

Your boots make a dull, near silent tap on the hardwood planks as you round the corner leading to a playroom. 

Somehow, you knew that already.

You can’t place why—you’ve never been here before, or at least you can’t recall ever having stepped foot in this house. But your feet carry you as if they’re detached from your mind, and you’re not entirely sure that you could stop your approach if you tried. 

There are a pair of hazel eyes staring at you. You stare back, unmoving.

No witnesses.

But you still don’t move and the young boy before you doesn’t scream and you’re helpless to do anything as he cheerfully calls for his mother to come see the pretty angel that came to visit.

The blonde woman from the pictures pokes her head around the wall separating the kitchen and dining room from the play area, and the sound of shattering glass immediately rings in your sensitive ears. 

"Tommy," she says softly, her hands shaking despite the carefully measured tone she tries to keep, "you need to go to your room for a bit, okay?"

The boy huffs and shakes his little head before pointing at you. "I don’t wanna go! Miss Angel, can you tell my mom to let me stay?"

You don’t answer him. You’re honed in on his mother like a predator—if there is any threat at all in this room, it would come from her. She clears her throat as she glances between you and her son.

"Thomas," she hisses, and you don’t miss the way he straightens up just slightly. His shoulders slump a moment later as he picks up a few of his toys and pouts as he retreats into what you assume is his room. It wouldn’t matter whether or not he had been dismissed. The boy had seen too much already.

With her son gone, the woman completely crumples. The look of resignation on her face is mildly perplexing—targets usually regard you with fear, anger, sadness, or some strange combination of the three. 

This one just seemed tired. 

"I know what I did," she says after a long beat of silence. She stares at you expectantly, but you simply watch her as though waiting for her to continue. She doesn’t elaborate on her crimes.

"Just leave him out of this," your target pleads. Her voice is a low and urgent whisper, one that tells you that the boy is probably eavesdropping. "He’s just a kid."

Part of you wants to scoff. Just a kid. As if Hydra has any care for the innocence it devours or the young lives it steals away before they even start.

But you would know something about that, wouldn’t you?

You can only offer her a slow shake of your head before you pounce.

Something that might be hatred roils in your gut, and it’s leveled directly at yourself. You get the nagging feeling that the blood of this family will stain your talons for a long time.

And that worries you, because you’ve never cared before.

Every day still feels exactly the same, which is unfortunate because they aren’t exactly getting any better. The routine is so familiar that Bucky could probably do every part of it with his eyes closed and a hand behind his back.

He wakes up on the hard floor of his apartment, makes himself seem presentable and far more put together than he actually feels, and tries to keep himself busy through the long hours. He sometimes has to force himself to eat—or at the very least to order something, because he’s been poking at the takeout Chinese food in the box long enough that it’s most certainly too cold to bother with by now—but, for the most part, he’s feeling okay.

Except he isn’t really feeling okay at all. 

Asanda and Imani have all but banned him from stepping foot in the lab that currently houses the Osprey, claiming that glowering in the corner isn’t going to speed along the process of splitting Her mind apart and stitching it back together at all.

He knows that.

But, also, he wasn’t glowering. He was just…watching. Quietly. With an expression that bordered somewhere between apprehension and something that he couldn’t put into words.

Okay, maybe he was glowering. And even though he’d begrudgingly accepted Sam’s offer to keep watch over the lab in his stead, Bucky can’t quite shake the feeling that everything so far has been too fucking easy. Sure, dragging an unconscious, winged super soldier through a facility on lockdown while trying not to get shot wasn’t exactly a cake walk, but overall the whole situation had been easy—which, in his book, really just means that nothing blows up and no one dies—and Hydra doesn’t make things easy.

He’s been under their thumb for long enough to know that fact by heart.

But he doesn’t know what it means for him or Her or Sam, and the thought makes him sick. Too sick to bother eating, too sick to sleep properly, too sick to think clearly without him feeling like they may have been playing into Hydra’s hands all along. The silence that surrounds him doesn’t feel as comfortable; the late night walks when his lungs are begging for a breath of fresh air aren’t doing much to help anymore either.

Bucky only realizes just how tense he’s been when his phone rings beside him on the table and he flinches at the sound as though he’s been shot. 

He really needs to get his shit together. 

The phone continues to ring, its repetitive chirp pulling at some part of him that was already mildly annoyed until he finally answers it.

"Hey, Buck," comes the carefree voice that Bucky has grown more than used to hearing over the past few months. Sam. Always Sam. He sounds a little bit antsy—but not in the way that would send worry skittering across his nerves like a skipping stone over water—as he launches into speaking before Bucky can even correct the nickname.

"Shuri’s scientists cracked it. Asanda figured you should probably be here in case– uh– in case things go south once our little agent wakes up. Which, ouch, you would think Captain America would be enough for one person, but—"

Bucky rolls his eyes despite the upwards twitch of the corner of his mouth that he can’t seem to stop. 

"Yeah, yeah. I’ll be there in fifteen."

"That’s at least a twenty minute drive, dude."

"Make it ten," he amends as he grabs his keys from their usual spot on the table and casts a glance at his abandoned takeout. It’s not like he’s gonna be able to eat it now, whether he wanted to or not.

Oh well.

Making sure to grab his helmet from the shelf near the door, Bucky slips it on and secures it before locking the door behind him and taking the steps two at a time to the ground level. He swings his leg over his motorcycle in a motion he’s done a million times before, then turns the key and thumbs the start. He can’t help but grin at the way the engine purrs to life underneath him. 

Cars are all well and good, but nothing would ever beat the wind rushing against him or the lack of that claustrophobic feeling that cars sometimes give him when his head isn’t in the best place.

Plus, infinite leg room. Who could possibly hate that? …Aside from maybe Sam, who had tried multiple times to convince Bucky that he’s riding a metal deathtrap.

But Bucky pretty much is a metal deathtrap, so that point always feels a little bit moot.

The drive is nothing but a blur of city lights as he pushes the speed limit, weaving through traffic with a practiced ease that no doubt came from years of evading capture and getting to where he needed to be, fast. He hadn’t lied when he said ten minutes—at least, not entirely, because it had been twelve by the time he strides into the lab. 

The sterile white walls and the hum of machinery are uncomfortable but tolerable, and they’ve become familiar enough to him despite the way they cause something unrecognizable to prickle and crawl under his skin. 

Safe to say he’s not really a fan, but he never has been. It hits a little too hard and a little too close to the painfully vulnerable place he calls home.

Asanda and Imani are, predictably, hunched over a series of monitors, their faces illuminated by the screens. Sam leans against a counter nearby with his arms crossed nonchalantly, but Bucky knows him well enough by now to catch the nervous energy radiating off of him. It’s infectious. Even though he’s usually somewhat calm, even Bucky feels a mild sense of panic unfurling in his chest like a flower that rarely ever blooms.

The room is fucking freezing, and it only takes a cursory glance to figure out why.

The cryo chamber is open.

Faint mist swirls around the empty space and curls from the pod like breath into cold air. There isn’t anyone inside of the pod though, which means—

His eyes immediately find Her.

It’s that subtle itch again, the one that starts just behind some point he can’t identify, the one that forces him to seek Her out as though She’s a magnet and he’s an unfortunate scrap of metal that just so happened to be in the vicinity.

He hates it.

He hates it because he doesn’t understand it, doesn’t understand why he feels drawn to Her, and sure, She’s pretty, but She’s a man-made monster and a killer and—

And so is he.

But where Bucky is all rough hands and hard edges and piercing eyes, She’s something else. He hadn’t noticed it before—he’d been too caught up in everything that happened—but She has the kind of beauty that never looks completely real. The kind that makes you double—no, triple—take, and even then you still can’t help but doubt what you’re seeing. 

Dr. Raynor has three rules.

Bucky is adding a fourth:

Do not fuck with the Osprey.

He doesn’t know what’s driving him to consistently seek Her out, but he instinctively knows it’s an awful idea. Which is exactly why, once She’s set up with Sam and finally granted some semblance of freedom, he’ll be more than happy to rinse his hands of Her and forget that the image of flared umber wings and bloodstained talons and a rage unlike any he’d ever known was ever burned into his retinas. 

She’d be gone and things would be fine and quiet and simple.

But Bucky can’t help but notice the way She seems curled in on Herself as She sits on the edge of the medical cot. There are faint indentations on Her temples from the neural scanner, and hair obscures Her face as it turns down and away from Sam’s, casting Her eyes towards the smooth tile floor.

Asanda finally looks up from the screens after a moment of intense murmuring between the two scientists. Her expression is one of hopeful optimism as it lands on Bucky, and he feels the same hope flutter in his chest. 

"Mr. Barnes," she says by way of greeting. "You’ve made good time."

"Her status?" The question is short and straight to the point, but he can’t manage to force himself to phrase it differently or exchange pleasantries. He just wants this tension to ease. Just wants to know things aren’t about to go to shit.

Imani doesn’t even cast him a glance as she answers for Asanda. "We’ve managed to isolate and suppress the immediate triggers. The best we can do is leave them dormant."

"Dormant isn’t gone," Bucky states, his voice flat. When Imani finally raises her head, there’s a spark of annoyance in her eyes as she gives him a tight lipped smile that doesn’t meet them.

"Dormant is enough. Unless you want that woman," she retorts, pointing across the lab at the Hydra agent, "to be six feet under, I suggest you count your blessings. It is miracle enough that she’s in one piece, or something near it."

Bucky’s brow furrows with concern as he assesses the Osprey’s condition. "She hasn’t said anything?"

Asanda shakes her head. "Not yet. She’s been mostly unresponsive. No coherent communication."

Great. Now they might never get answers. 

But before he can even open his mouth to speak again, the woman on the cot shifts. Her wings twitch as She slowly lifts Her head, eyes blinking in an attempt to adjust under the harsh lighting.

And they land on him.

If She recognizes him after what She’s been through, it doesn’t show in those startlingly vibrant irises. There’s something dark swirling in them, like a roiling storm or smoke curling up from licks of flame—instinct and anger and confusion and something that he wants to carve out if only to see what Her eyes look like when they’re clearer.

Her lips move in what feels like slow motion as a single word falls from them. Her voice is about as soft as a knife on sandpaper, raspy and exhausted.

Bucky only blinks.

Everyone in the room is looking at him, and he’s staring at Her, and he wants to say something but there aren’t any words that are willing to touch his tongue. 

It isn’t just a word. 

It’s a name. Her name.

And he recognizes it.

Chapter Text

Not a single soul has moved. 

You’re drowning in the wide silver-blue pools that face you, trapped somewhere between thick ice and an ocean floor that’s too far down for you to make out entirely…or at all. 

And the owner of them doesn’t say anything. He just stares, muscles tensed as though he’s looking at a wild animal, something chained but never tamed, disciplined but never broken in.

The silence is deafening.

It roars in your ears like a tidal wave. Buzzes like the static of an old television. You shake your head as if to clear it, but it’s the Falcon’s voice that slices through the high-strung tension like a heated knife:

“What?"

It’s a minute before you respond—or maybe it’s a year, but you can’t really tell the difference in the state you’re in. Your tongue swipes across your lips, chapped from the bite of the cryo chamber’s frost, and you just barely turn your head in the Falcon’s direction. Your eyes don’t follow the movement, though—they’re locked, or maybe trapped, on Bucky’s. 

He manages to hide his surprise in an instant, but you caught it. You saw. He recognized something.

And you have no clue what he thinks he knows.

“My name,” you eventually manage to grit out. The words practically have to be scraped off of your tongue. “He asked me, before. Couldn’t remember it.”

Until now.

Bucky’s assessment of you doesn’t waver. There’s a raw tension in his stance, his arms crossed, his posture a little straighter than most people would bother to assume. A carefully constructed neutrality settles over his features, but its effect is lost on you. 

“Right,” he grunts finally. His voice is too even, almost casual. “Well, it’s good you remember. Helps us all out.”

He doesn’t elaborate, doesn’t offer a welcoming smile or any further encouragement—but, to be entirely fair, you weren’t exactly expecting much in that department to begin with. The former Winter Soldier doesn’t really strike you as the warm and fuzzy type. He simply holds your gaze for another beat before turning his attention to the Falcon.

You admittedly don’t really know much about the other man aside from the fact that he had taken up the mantle of Captain America after Steve Rogers’s…departure. None of your assignments had been related to him, after all, so you had no reason to learn. You squint at him, trying to remember his name. Sam…Walker? Wilkins…? 

Oh well. It’ll probably come to you later, especially if his face is plastered in even half as many places as Steve’s had been.

“What’s the next step?” Bucky inquires as he uncrosses his arms and rolls his shoulders. “She’s clearly awake and not trying to kill us…yet. Now what?”

Sam’s brow creases slightly as he offers a thoughtful frown. “Suits gotta know that she’s awake and…cooperative,” he replies, glancing between you and Bucky. The last word is emphasized slightly, a hint of skepticism lingering. 

The two Wakandan scientists exchange a look that you can’t quite decipher. 

“Perhaps a more gradual approach would be beneficial,” Asanda suggests gently. “She is in a delicate state. Overwhelming her with official procedures could be counterproductive.”

Sam merely holds up a hand with a shake of his head. “I get that, but we have to consider the Accords. Even if parts of them have been repealed, we can’t exactly ignore them. A former Hydra experiment,” he shoots you an apologetic look at the choice of words but doesn’t otherwise pause, “waking up in a private lab surrounded by Captain America, Wakandan scientists, and the ex-Winter Soldier? That’s a whole lotta red tape we just walked into, and I’m not going to jail for her ass.”

He straightens up before adding, “No offense.”

Bucky’s jaw tightens. “So She’s just a weapon to be cataloged.”

“Nobody said she was,” Sam retorts, his voice raising slightly. “But we have a responsibility here. To the world, and to her. We can’t just…let her wander off.”

“I’m not planning on wandering off,” you mutter, ever the scolded dog. The idea of wandering anywhere seems, quite frankly, too exhausting for you to bother with. You just want the buzzing in your head to stop. Maybe a nap. Definitely a shower, if only to get rid of the odd tingling feeling that cryostasis brings sliding over and into every pore of your skin. 

The Falcon’s expression softens slightly as if he understands the words you’ve deliberately left unspoken, and you suddenly feel like your skin doesn’t quite fit you under the weight of his gaze. No one has ever looked at you with that sort of pity, the kind you’d level at an unwanted animal in a shelter. No one has ever dared.

Something about the way he regards you makes you entirely certain that you’d rather flay yourself alive than continue to see that knowing, slightly sad look on his face. 

You turn your head away as the serpent in your chest rattles its tail in warning once more. You will never have anything. Not understanding, not peace, not safety.

Not even pity.

There is a certain type of safety in that line of thinking, though. Not comfort—nothing about your upbringing or line of work screams comfort—but relying only on yourself means that no one can let you down ever again, and that’s something that you can’t put a price on even if you try.

And you’ve tried.

“Okay, good,” Sam says after a moment. “Good. Look, we want to help you. But there are protocols we need to follow. After that…There are support systems for people like you. For the Enhanced. We can get you an apartment, some resources, a job on the right side of history. Help you reintegrate as much as possible, yeah?”

An apartment. The word sticks out and yet sounds foreign to you, almost luxurious despite how easily most would take it for granted. A space that would be yours. Not a cell, not a glorified storage unit for a living machine. 

The thought of possessing something for yourself might’ve been appealing if you had any clue what to make of it.

But, from his position across the room, Bucky seems wholly unconvinced. His eyes rove over you, lingering for a moment at the wings tucked neatly against your spine. 

You don’t like the way he looks at you, either. 

It’s nothing like Sam’s wary-yet-concerned approach. It isn’t remotely gentle. It isn’t friendly. There isn’t a hint of pity in those icy slivers, and they’re cold enough to have been chipped straight from glaciers. But you can’t tell if it’s disgust or anger or something else that clouds his expression, and some part of you almost doesn’t want to know.

You’ve seen enough looks like it to know that you shouldn’t question it anymore. There will always be someone that sees you as no more than dirt beneath their shoe, as nothing more than an uncrossed t in an otherwise perfect sentence. 

Maybe you should take comfort in it. At least it means people tend to leave you the hell alone.

“An apartment?” Bucky says. The amount of sarcasm dripping from his voice could put an ocean to shame. “You think a few throw pillows and a Netflix subscription are gonna magically erase what Hydra did with…that?”

He vaguely gestures in your direction, and the familiar spark of anger kindles the tiniest fire in your chest before you can even attempt to snuff it out. He vouches that you aren’t his enemy when you’re locked up like a pretty pet, but yet he seems to have a damn hard time seeing you as a person. In his eyes, you must be something other. Something incomplete, a blueprint built by half measures and intentionally left unfinished.

Half remorseful. Half dangerous. Half lucid. Half human. Half, half, half.

Some distant, vengeful version of you may have ripped his throat out simply for the act of causing the turmoil that simmers gently in your nerves. This ‘new’ version seems perfectly content to stay put on the medical cot. You aren’t really sure yet if that’s an improvement or a downgrade, but it’s…something.

You shoot a sidelong glance at Sam, whose brows have practically kissed his hairline. 

“Hold on, who taught you about Netflix?” He asks, as if that’s somehow the most important part of what Bucky had just said.

It’s no surprise that the former assassin merely rolls his eyes and grunts something that sounds a bit like maybe I listen occasionally, asshat—at least, that’s what you think. If your hearing could just barely catch it, then Sam damn sure hadn’t heard a thing.

You snort, and those glacier slivers slide towards you again. The motion reminds you a little bit of a cat: unhurried, languid, as if Bucky had all of the time in the world and didn’t particularly care to spend it on you.

Imani clears her throat meaningfully, and you realize that you had nearly forgotten the two scientists were there. They have a funny way of going unnoticed, something that whispers to you that they may not be the type to spend all of their time shut inside of laboratories.

“If I may, Mr. Barnes,” Asanda follows up. Her tone leaves no room for negotiation despite her words implying that she’s asking for permission. 

Asanda doesn’t strike you as the type of woman that needs permission for anything, you realize as you observe her squared shoulders and the proud tilt of her chin. She also probably isn’t the type of woman that could eat people alive with only a look, but the one that she levels at Bucky is enough to kill the words on his tongue before they can even form.

“Her situation is very similar to your own—and you took full advantage of the resources offered to you, did you not?”

“Didn’t get much of a choice,” he replies coolly. “It was therapy or jail time.”

“And you believe that your government should not extend the same courtesy to someone else in need of it? Someone like you?”

“She’s not like me; her ledger’s fuckin’ dripping—“

You’ve had enough. 

Maybe you could have stayed silent. Maybe you could have listened quietly, patiently, as your fate was determined before you and without your input. Maybe you should be kicking yourself for opening your mouth, but the words force themselves out from your throat so easily that you think maybe it isn’t forced at all: “And yours isn’t?”

Bucky immediately falls quiet. You catch a flicker of movement at his side as his vibranium fist tightens with an almost imperceptible creak.

You’ve struck a nerve. 

And some piece of you, some vile, ugly part that must be left over from the trials because it’s no less monstrous than your talons or teeth, wants to dig even further under his skin. It wants to make him feel a fraction of the animosity swirling somewhere in your arteries like venom.

“How many people have you killed, huh? Parents? Children? Wives, husbands? Tell me,” you snarl, swinging your legs forward until you hop from the raised medical cot with a predatory grace, “just how bloody your book is, and then tell me we’re not the same.”

Something filthy is skittering over your skin, seeping deep into the flesh like a festering rot. It’s guilt, isn’t it? Or maybe it’s something else, but it sure as hell hurts as it grips your lungs and squeezes until you want to sputter and choke for air. Its sickening hold only grows as you take step after step closer to Bucky, wings splaying threateningly despite the slight wobbling of your knees.

To his credit, he doesn’t budge an inch. He doesn’t even blink—would he blink if you wave a hand in front of his face? If you feigned a punch towards his jaw?

Probably not.

That kind of annoys you even more. You don’t really know why.

Your lips part to release even more of your venom, to tell Bucky everything that you think about his stupid voice and stupid words and stupid, piercing eyes and where he can shove his hypocritical opinions, but Sam interjects before another word can come out. 

It isn’t a relief—okay, maybe it should be one—but it does just barely ease the vise grip holding your lungs hostage in your chest.

“Can you two save the measuring for later? You’ll have plenty of time, trust me,” he says with an exasperated shake of his head. 

Plenty of time? That’s just about the last thing you want with Bucky, far on the list after wringing his neck like a sopping wet towel. You just don’t get him. He had seemed like he cared—even if only a little bit, and probably only because you were his mission, as much as that surprisingly stung—but the switch in his treatment of you is nothing less than jarring. 

The way he sees you now isn’t just uncomfortable. It’s dangerous. There’s a careful, calculated way that he holds himself, one that stares straight through you as if he’s trying to perform a vivisection with his sharp gaze alone. And, despite the false confidence and high walls of anger—the only thing you’ve been allowed to feel for who knows how many years—you can’t help but want to shrink away. Who could blame you? Those silver-blue eyes are rooting through your insides, plucking through your head and chest as though you’ve purposely hidden something from him.

And you have, but he shouldn’t know that. 

He should be none the wiser to the way you’ve shoved the worst parts of yourself into a spotlight. Hidden the smaller, vulnerable, fragile pieces in the darkest corner you could find, because they were signs of a weakness that Hydra couldn’t afford.

But he knows. And you don’t know how, because he doesn’t know you.

You break before Bucky does, tearing your eyes away to focus on Sam instead. He had launched into a rant about something—work and training and something else that you hadn’t really paid enough attention to to catch—but you’ve tuned it all out. You’re never given choices, after all. Whatever happens, happens.

Or so you thought.

The first experience you get with having a say in anything comes in the form of furnishing your new place a while later. It had been nice, if a little bit colorless and all too modern, but entirely empty, save for a media cabinet and the TV mounted to the wall above it. 

So you did what any person would do. You went shopping.

The shopping wasn’t really your choice, admittedly. Sam had dragged you along to the nearest furniture outlet—which you hadn’t even known was a thing until he guided you into the absolutely massive showroom—all the while insisting that you pick whatever you think would look best in your new home.

Home.

The word still feels foreign. Like it’s been plucked from some ancient, forgotten language and translated thirty times until it lost all meaning. It hasn’t quite hit you yet, or maybe it has and it just doesn’t have the profound effect you’ve been expecting. You can’t be sure. That’s something you feel like you’ll have to get used to, but the uncertainty might drive you up a wall first.

Sam points at a particularly ugly bedroom set, and you can’t quite tamp down the curl of your upper lip despite your best efforts.

“What about—“

“Never in a million years,” you reply, immediately shutting the suggestion down. Sam only laughs and moves on to the next one, leaving you to trail behind.

“Yeah, didn’t think so,” he says, brows raising and then furrowing as he inspects the bedroom set in front of him. “At least Hydra didn’t mess with your fashion sense.”

Something in your chest snaps taut at the mention even as you force a laugh. It must be a little too close to obvious though, because Sam shoots you a questioning look that you pretend not to see out of the corner of your eye.

A wild thing is scrambling to break free from your stomach the longer you try to ignore it, itching just under your skin and gnawing at your bones as if they’re the bars of a prison. The showroom lights are a little too bright and the cheesy pop music coming from the overhead speakers is a little too loud and you wonder what you’re doing here in such a mundane place and whether you deserve to be here at all and—

And before you can splinter into pieces, a hand is on your shoulder. You barely register the touch before your talons are extended and reaching at the offending person’s throat, fully prepared to do exactly what you’ve proven you’re good for. 

But he’s raising his hands and shaking his head and backing away, and his face finally clicks for you. 

“You don’t have to kill people over furniture, you know,” Sam quips, prompting you to lower your hands slowly. It might be shame that settles over you like a weighted blanket. You aren’t entirely sure—it’s not like you ever had the chance to pick through your emotions while toppling governments and stopping Hydra’s conflicts before they could ever start. 

“Wasn’t going to,” you mumble. It’s definitely at least a partial lie, but Sam thankfully doesn’t call you out on it.

He never really calls you out on anything. 

It’s a little reassuring. 

Maybe.

He doesn’t even bring it up on the drive back to your place after insisting that maybe online shopping would be a better idea than the overstimulating environment of the showrooms. He doesn’t push—and you realize that it’s probably because he’s dealt with it before. Sam’s seen his fair share of people that had seen their fair share of awful shit. You’re probably just another person that ended up a little too worse for wear.

One transaction in a very, very long list of oligarch accounts paid in full and in blood.

You don’t really know what to think about that as you settle into the pile of blankets on the hard floor, staring at the ceiling as though it might come alive or cave in around you. That would be a mercy, you think, to be buried under dust and rubble, never to be found. 

It would be easier than trying to adjust to whatever this life has become. But things have never really been easy. 

They probably won’t ever be.