Out of the freezer

[disassembling]

What: AU where The Winter Soldier is found by SHIELD before CA: TWS and settled in with an agent.
Warnings: Just tl;dr. It is my specialty.


Trains weren't generally a source of overland transport anymore, not with planes so conveniently available, but there were points where subtly was required more than quickness. There were less questions about trains, fewer looks with the amount of goods moved into a country so more was able to get through. It was easier to pay people off in shipping yards to look the other way while important items were shifted in and out.

If it had been known early in the process that his superiors had known that an agent had defected and tipped off that there were weapons being moved in from Russia, he would have been removed from the train. Too little, too late though, and the train was hit with SHIELD looking for both intelligence and weapons from the Soviets. It wasn't until a STRIKE team had made it towards the back of the train that some members suddenly realized that their mission had just gotten a lot more complicated.

Cryostasis was a process developed out of the 1940s, though perfected over the years by the Soviets first and then the Americans. Of course, it only worked on him, others never coming up from the surface again because their bodies were advanced enough to cope with the strain on the body and the healing powers required to make it back out of deep freeze. He was special because he was a weapon, made that way to survive the worst conditions. So he bubbled up as he was thawed from the inside out in a process that took hours generally but could be sped up.

Speeding up the process left him disoriented and intractable, irritated and violent. It was fine when enemies of the organization were kicking in the door and shooting the scientists in charge of thawing him. The damage was done though, the anti-freeze drug fast acting in his body as his muscles became suffused with warm blood and his lungs filling with a deep gasping breath as he arched, his blue eyes unfocused as men yelled orders, called in findings. It was all a blur to him.

Someone touched his cold flesh shoulder, but they were gone in the next minute as his metal arm swung around and slammed into the man's gut, blasting him away. He rolled from the chair, acting only on instinct as he grabbed the nearest object - metal table and threw it into a group of men raising their guns. He fought them; worse, he killed them until another team moved in and manhandled him to the ground. Someone did something; a familiar voice called a set of words that made him relax and stand down, so he did.

He was blind-folded, cuffed from wrist to elbow so his shoulders were forced to bow in awkwardly, but his legs were left free so that they could walk him into the SHIELD medical facility where many interested parties had gathered in the time it took to transport him. News had circulated and damage control had not been fast enough where the fact a man was found half-frozen on a train. If he had had his memories of his other life, he might have found it ironically he was found on a train.

The only words spoken above whispered tones was that there had been another similarly unfrozen a few years before. "Call them in. Maybe give us a clue on stabilizing this guy." He was pulled off, seated and chained to a bed in a padded room. With the blindfold off, he knew he could break down the door if he was ordered to. He was deemed too 'unstable' to be in a more populated area, so he was caged and observed.

Damage control indeed. Where were his orders and mission debriefings?

Comments

[disassembling]

"Maybe you will, but there are other factors," he replied soberly because he knew it to be true. Yet, the sheer idea that she would try to give him time, let him come back into his own again warmed him in the strange way that only she could he found. It made his stomach feel like jelly and his legs stiffen up like he was going to collapse if he didn't lock his knees.

He was aware of her pain before he understood it, and even then, he couldn't say that he understood much about it. He stepped forward to her cautiously, closing the distance with the intention of studying her expression. "You are guarding me well here," he replied softly, the only bit of comfort that he could. Slowly, he lifted his metal hand and brushed his fingers against her cheek. "Don't be sad."

He shrugged a little, thinking that he was higher priority than killing her right now. "They won't be taking me; it's just an extraction," he said, not understanding the difference. He shook his head a little at her question. "I was given no time frame, just to be patient."

[eleutheria]

“Yes, I know they are.” She hadn’t forgotten about their circumstances and how probably hopelessly wishful she was being here. “Doesn’t mean I still won’t try, I’m stubborn like that.” And now she was kind of thankful he didn’t remembered just how that stubbornness had landed her in more trouble than she could count, it was technically doing the same right now, making her take on something that she wasn’t sure she was ready to handle.

She barely reacted when he moved closer, a clear sign that she didn’t minded the sudden closeness between them since it didn’t felt threatening or dangerous, she wanted to laugh at the irony of the situation, she wasn’t guarding him, she was helping to keep him as a prisoner and that’s not what she wanted. “It doesn’t feels as if I am to be honest, I feel as if I’m complicating things.” And maybe she was, when she felt the light brush of metal against her skin she turned to look at him. “I’m sorry.”

Just to be patient, the same thing she had been telling him since he had arrived here and she suddenly felt an aversion to the words se had said. “Tell me something, do you want to go with them? Do you want them to succeed in that extraction?” And she really didn’t dared to ask if he also wanted to leave her, no, it was best if she didn’t since she knew that if they succeeded she might not see him again.

[disassembling]

He hadn't seen her stubborn side much while they were together, but her mentioning it rang true to him as he watched her. No doubt she had used it a lot in the past, and he wonder what it would take for her to be stubborn around him. Perhaps she had used that stubbornness when he wasn't around, trying to improve his stay while he waited for extraction. "Stubborn punk," he murmured, surprising himself with the old nickname.

He wasn't being harmed, so he considered that she was out for his well-being. She hadn't taken him to task for escaping either aside from to tell him not to do it again. His fingers caressed up her cheek, smoothing up until he could tuck a strand of her hair back behind her ear. "You aren't, not with me. You're guarding," he said simply. "Why are you sorry?"

At her question, he looked at her, slipping his metal hand down the side of her face to catch the edge of her jaw, tipping her face towards his own. "I will go if they order it. My wants are not important... no, they are a sign of malfunction." He paused, drew a breath and added, "I want to be close to you."

[eleutheria]

Her eyes widened a bit at the old as hell nickname, surprised beyond belief that she had actually managed to remember something like that and really it was so strangely fitting that he remembered that right now of all things, she couldn’t help the rather fond smile while she shook her head a bit. “…jerk.” And from the rather fond way she said it, she hoped it worked as enough of a hint that she didn’t meant it as an insult per se, it had just been part of their usual banter.

The contact of the metal fingers felt different, not exactly in a bad way, but it was something she was going to need to get used to if it was going to happen again, which she wasn’t sure if it was going to happen or not. “…I guess I am trying the best I can give the circumstances.” It wasn’t as much as she wanted, but it was better than nothing and they weren’t treating him as a weapon or using whatever means necessary to try to get information. “I am not exactly sure; there are a lot of things I am sorry for.”

She silently allowed him to tilt her head in his direction and she just bit her lower lip, trying to think of what to say or more like deciding if she should dare to ask him or not. “Your wants matter here but what are you going to do: follow your orders or what you want?” There was another unspoken question here. “You know you can’t have both.”

[disassembling]

When she replied with a name that should have been offensive and might have been offensive if said in a different tone, but somehow, he knew it was a name meant for him. He was pleased by it, pleased he had remembered his half of things before... before... well, he didn't remember what came after, but he didn't care about that either right now.

He went on her reactions to base his touch on, but she didn't move away, slap his hand, or make it clear that he wasn't to touch her. It made him bolder as he caressed her cheek again before looking at her. "Are your circumstances not very good then?"

Her question stumped him, and he knew that he didn't really have an answer either. His conditioning would make him go with what he was ordered, but he didn't know what he would do when it came to her. He wanted to be close to her. "You could come with me, yes?"

[eleutheria]

The fact that he didn’t reacted negatively when she called him that assured her that at the very least, even if it was unconsciously, he remembered that and she was also pretty sure that the people watching them were either confused at their interaction or understood it quite well, it wasn’t rare after all for close friends to reach a level in their relationship were everything was fair game and acceptable.

She leaned just a bit against his touch, it was a brief moment of weakness from her part, she had been specifically told that she wasn’t supposed to get this close to him and she had in a way agreed, it could confuse him further, but there was the part that had missed this gentle moments between them, even if this wasn’t probably exactly as real as it had been before, she was going to be stronger next time. “I guess that will depend on anyone’s point of view.”

There really wasn’t any pang of hurt or disappointment when he couldn’t answer her question, she had already knew he wouldn’t be able to do so and she had managed to brace herself enough to not be hurt, she couldn’t undo years of conditioning and whatever training he had gone through in a handful of days. “You know that’s not possible.” And maybe if circumstances had been different, if they were not in the middle of this she would have followed him like always. “I am technically the enemy, aren’t I? Or at least for them I am and I am better out of the way permanently.”

[disassembling]

She still didn't reject his contact with her, and he stepped in subtly closer to her, drawing her face towards his own with his metal fingers hooked under her jaw. He tuned out the idea of observation as his flesh hand rose to settle on the side of her hip, controlling some of her movements in the process but also to feel her body shifting. "What about your point of view? Do you accept how things are going, accept the orders you are given?"

He frowned at the idea that things were impossible, but he had always been told that change was always possible, that his hand on the trigger made the impossible possible again. It was why he was so necessary to the grinding of the gears of the machine that he laboured under. "How are you the enemy? I have no enemies; I go where I'm told to go and do what I'm told to do." A weapon didn't have enemies any more than a gun did.

Still, the topic of conversation seemed heavy, felt like it wasn't supposed to be going this way. He stepped in, brushing his body against her own and leaned in to kiss her again.

[eleutheria]

She was more than aware that she needed to stop this, to step away and try to put an adequate distance between them, her mind was telling her as much, she could even hear Fury’s voice at the back of her mind reminding her of the slight rules that had been placed for her next interactions with him and this was definitely breaking most of them and she really couldn’t or more like didn’t wanted to move. “It depends really, right now I wish things could be different, but they aren’t and I have to work with what I have.”

It was then that she kind of remembered that by his perception they were the same, that she was a weapon just like him, she might need to clarify that at some point. “I might not be yours, but that doesn’t applies to whoever might come for you, and for that fact along I can easily become your target, right?” After all, if he was a weapon used to get rid of enemies or people that were in the way, she might fall in that category.

When his body brushed against her, she froze and looked at him and she just knew, oh God, she just knew what she was planning to do and this couldn’t end well for either of them, and yet she allowed it, she could have moved away but she allowed his lips to brush against hers and she couldn’t help but to respond to it, as naturally and easily as she had done in the past.

[disassembling]

She wished things could be different, but she also didn't sound like she was bridling under the commands that she was given, just like him. She accepted them, but unlike him, he felt no reservation for what he had to do. It was his mission, and he completed his missions with little regard for those around him unless they were a handler or another designated team member.

"Work within the parameters of the orders," he agreed softly. Talk seemed cheap though, action far better in a situation like this. He wanted her to feel good, to be content and happy near him, which was odd considering he didn't really feel those things at all for anyone. He knew he was malfunctioning, but he just didn't care.

Her lips were soft and warm under his own, and his metal fingers caressed down the curve of her neck before encircling her shoulders to pull her up against him. Since she didn't pull away, he kissed her harder, his lips nudging hers and parting so he could run his tongue along her upper lip in a tease. A soft throaty growl emerged from him as he stepped in fully.

[eleutheria]

Oddly enough those words were rather fitting in a certain way, while she really didn’t had any qualms about following orders and going through her missions, she was after all a soldier and it was sometimes second nature to follow through them. But then sometimes, rather willingly and depending on the situation, she found some loopholes to be able to work outside of her given orders and act as the situation required it, improvising and as long as she got the work done it didn’t mattered at all.

And right now, well she was breaking the set of orders she was given and she was never going to heard the end of it, Fury was going to kill her or ban her from seeing him again and if that was going to be the case, well, she might as well try to get as much out of this since God it had been so long and she was going to feel guilty about it later, way later.

Her hands came to rest over his hips and she shifted her body just a bit, enough for them to be pressed even closer together and she shuddered in surprise at the growl, it really took her a few seconds to realize it had came from him and well she didn’t recall that ever happening in the past, her lips parted letting out a little sound that she knew he had seemed to enjoy so much in the past and flicked her tongue teasingly against his.

[disassembling]

He, like her, was breaking many rules carefully laid down through time, imprinted on everyone who associated with him to have a strictly business-like attitude with him. That was the way of his life, to be treated as a weapon and little to work with beyond those parameters. Because no one treated him much differently and lived long to see the other side of that interaction. He generally didn't notice.

Now he did because she didn't play by old rules. Their memories and interactions were not strictly business, and he uncurled from the darkness that he lived in to reach for her. His hands slid around her body, holding her a little more tightly to his chest in fact, not hurting her but making it clear he had no reason to relent his hold on her either.

He drank down the sound that she made, feeling it curl pleasantly in his brain as he lowered his mouth harder and more insistently to hers. His tongue pushed out and beyond the part of her lips, tasting her as he shifted them slightly, directing her a little more towards the table as he kissed her with growing and very obvious enthusiasm.

[eleutheria]

Quite apparently this was another aspect of their relationship that didn’t changed, they always found a way to bend and alter rules and orders when it involved each other, it had been like that since the very start and it had just been doing whatever was needed to be done to be able to be close to the other and then to ensure each other’s lives, right now it was just a mere indulge brought for reasons, well, she really wasn’t sure about his reasons for going so far here.

Was he even doing this for the right reasons or just because she thought he wanted it? The way he was holding her hinted her a bit into the fact it could be the latter or God, she hoped it was otherwise…no she really didn’t even wanted to think about the other possibility, and just focused on their actions, on his closeness and his lips on hers.

The rather insistent way he was kissing her was oh so sweetly familiar, he had kissed her like this before, when there had been rather close calls in the fields for them and she responded back, kissing as insistently as him, allowing him to taste her before she did the same. She felt the edge of the table against her back and she ignored it, using her hands on his hips to drag and press him closer to her.

[disassembling]

He could get used to breaking rules with her. It wasn't as if there was a mission to go on right now, and because of the lack of discipline, he was able to flex his strength and push other people around as he knew they were frightened up him. Not her, she was warm and sweet and strict with him, and she also wasn't pushing him away either.

He had kissed her a lot in the past apparently, in the war. Little stolen moments under the canopy of a tree, in the tent they shared, in town when they were receiving more orders. He had stolen more kisses than she had, risking more to sidle up and sneak one save when they were on active duty. He was strictly business then. Otherwise, it was a game to steal them.

Now this wasn't just a theft of a kiss, it was armed robbery that she was playing a hand in. He lifted her slightly when the table stopped them, setting her backside to it as he hungrily kissed her. His flesh hand rose and buried itself into her blond hair, stroking his fingers against her scalp as he pushed her head back with a soft moan of pleasure into her mouth.

[eleutheria]

The rules were at the moment the last thing on her mind, even the voice of Fury that had been berating her just a few seconds away was gone, even the agents that were watching them right now and probably slightly horrified at what was going on had been forgotten, which arguably was something that tended to happen when they were doing this kind of things when he had stolen those kisses here and there when they had the chance for them.

Her hands moved from his hips and rested against the edge of the table to aid, though she was sure he didn’t needed it, on that quick move of lifting her into the table and again this kind of felt slightly familiar except the last time it had kind of been against a wall, but she was going to dwell on that later or maybe not, her hands then moved to press against his back since that was a better spot at the moment.

Finally a moan escaped her lips when her head was pushed back and well she had forgotten how good that felt, she lightly nipped and sucked his lower lip while one of her legs wrapped about his waist, moving just a bit to bring him closer and align their hips enough and slowly, oh so very slowly and teasingly, move against him and God, she was too far gone to care about the kind of show she was putting on here.

[disassembling]

He stepped into the space when she was settled on top of the table, his hands curling around before coming to rest on the table in order to box her in. It also meant that he had to lean, his chest brushing against her own as they continued to kiss like it was going out of style. For them, it might have been, and he had stopped questioning this, stopped questioning how outside of his training that it was. He didn't care; he just wanted to taste her and feel her against him and for once, it wasn't an urge that he would deny.

He shivered at the sound of her moan, using a knee to press between her own so he could step in completely. He was about to press her back against the table when the door to his cage was opened and a fluttered but determined agent stood in the doorway, and it forced him to withdraw from the kiss to stare at the man in the suit.

"You... really should stop..." the man stammered.

The Winter Soldier hissed, grabbed the metal tray that contained what was left of his meal and whipped the metal at the agent. It flew with a perfect angle to slam into the wall next to the man's head, crumpling but also indenting and the shocked look was enough to stamp a foot and drive the man from considering warning them off of kissing.

[eleutheria]

She moved just a bit to accommodate them better when he kind of leaned over her and pressing her chest against his instead of just the light brush, her first actual kiss in like nearly seventy years and it was going a bit out of control and she was really powerless to stop it or it was more like she didn’t even wanted to do so, and really she was thankful she was sitting on the table since she was pretty sure she wouldn’t have been able to stand up properly, it was sometimes so sad how seemingly weak this left her sometimes.

Though when he pulled back, well, she was a bit confused for a moment before she heard that rather flustered and clearly embarrassed voice asking them to stop and everything just returned to her, like a cold bucket of water thrown on her and her eyes widened while her fingers gripped the fabric of his clothes, oh God, they had all seen her! She flushed even more and hid her face against Bucky’s neck and tried to will herself to disappear or anything.

She winced just a bit at the sound of the tray hitting the wall and the startled sound that escaped the agent, this just wasn’t happening.

“Just…a warning…unless you want a ban on your…interactions.”

And she really should feel a bit amazed that despite that the man had managed to still have enough guts to say that before he apparently scrambled away, considering she heard the door closing, and now she was feeling so, so mortified and she was sure it wouldn’t take long for everyone to know this.

[disassembling]

Her reaction to being told to stop didn't entirely go by his notice, but his arms remained settled around her so that she couldn't just crawl under the table with a red face and hide. He still mostly leaned into her, watching the agent with a keen eye as the man somehow stood his ground. Few did that; few lived to see the other side, but she had once told him not to kill people, to behave himself, and so he would stay more guarding her than going over to the door and ending the man's life.

"You'd have to extract her to ban her from being here," he said, slipping his flesh arm around her waist and holding her up against his chest. A warning of his own that he chose to let her leave, though he did it because he knew she wouldn't be content to sit in a cell all day and night. "If she doesn't come, I have no reason to stay here."

[eleutheria]

She actually would have loved to crawl under the table and find a way to break the floor or whatever to escape from this rather awkward situation, quite clearly she wasn’t going to be able to look anyone on the face for quite a bit and she was going to feel like wanting to die when she ended facing Fury eventually, because she was sure the man was going to end having some choice words with him, and oh God, Bucky was so not helping with those claims and really it’s not as if everyone needed even further confirmation she was the only reason he actually stayed here.

But then even her presence might not be enough for him to break the orders of whoever might come to get him and…she froze for a few seconds, her mind finally catching up and coming with a strange chain of thoughts, the mention of someone coming for him while seemingly logical had come a bit out of the blue and it was blatantly obvious even if it wasn’t out right spoken then why did he? Was he warning her cause he somehow knew someone was going to come for him soon and if that was the case someone must have contacted him but how?

A small frown appeared on her face, was it a double agent of some sort, she might need to run that with Fury and she was sure the man, if he saw all their interactions, might think the same and she might need to question Bucky about it. She took a deep breath and pulled back, trying to place a small embarrassed smile since she couldn’t just jump from what had happened and go back to question him. “Well…that was a bit awkward.”

[disassembling]

He wasn't yet letting her off of the table, his eyes flicking to her when it seemed that she had flushed from neck to hairline. That sort of reaction was not one that he was used to, and he peered at her as if she might try to explode or fall down with a sudden illness. His arms loosened just a bit in case he was squeezing her too hard, but he didn't think that he was. What was she reacting to then?

When she froze, he froze up as well, listening hard for sounds or looking for sights or smelling the air to search for some danger he might have initially missed. There was none, and he peered at her again wondering what was the matter with her. He tilted his head at her frown. "Awkward?"

[eleutheria]

She was actually quite thankful he hadn’t moved her from the table, she still didn’t exactly trusted her legs to hold her down still and especially now that she had come with such a huge realization, if there was something watching them or eventually came to learn about what had happened, she was more than surely pump herself even higher in their priorities to get rid of her quickly, she was probably wrecking quite a lot of havoc for all the things they had done to him and replacing them with, well, she wasn’t even sure with that.

The tilt of his head nearly made her chuckle a bit, but she managed to keep herself from doing so and instead just moved her hands to rest them against his chest. “Yes, awkward…you know a bit embarrassing and all; I had forgotten we were being watched.” He clearly wasn’t embarrassed or bothered about what had happened, of course he wasn’t, even in the past he hadn’t been embarrassed when Morita had caught them once. “Also you shouldn’t have done that to him, he was only doing his job.”

[disassembling]

He preferred that they were alone anyway, and he didn't even really put much, if any, attention to the fact that they were being watched behind the glass. He had come to accept such things that it was natural to just put it from his mind. He didn't even have any sense that he should be embarrassed for what they had done because why would they be embarrassed over something that had made them feel good?

"Should I feel embarrassed over that?" He wasn't entirely certain he knew how to feel that particular emotion either. He wasn't even certain if he had felt it in the past, though he would have to ponder that and see if any new memories flowed up to the surface. He glanced towards the door that was now closed and bowed his head slightly. "I went against orders. Sorry," he murmured softly.

[eleutheria]

Now she really couldn’t help the light laugh that escaped her and it was a good thing since it did made her feel better, getting her rather embarrassed feelings under control and she shook her head a bit. “No, that depends on the person, I mean not even in the past you got embarrassed about this kind of stuff.” The only time he had been was when she had been the one that caught him making out with a girl, way before the war even happened, and he had tried so hard to explain himself then, no, the job of getting embarrassed over this was hers and not his.

“No, you don’t need to apologize.” She rested one of her hands against his cheek and gently lifted his head, throwing damn caution to the wind, she leaned and quickly pressed her lips against his, it was a soft and gently one not like the one they had shared a few moments ago before she pulled back and pressed her forehead against his with a small smile. “I mean, I did the same after all, right?”

[disassembling]

Her laugh was almost startling to him who was subjected to so little of those kinds of emotions in his tenure with the organization that kept him. No one laughed around him or smiled or told jokes. It just didn't happen. "I didn't?" He frowned deeply, trying to draw on memories that hadn't yet emerged and shook his head a little when he couldn't draw on anything solid in the face of her words. "I don't remember..." he murmured, peering at her between his dark hair strands. He wanted to remember for her and for himself, but some things just didn't come when he wanted them to.

He didn't fight the hand that drew his head up again, blinking when she kissed him. He sighed despite how quick it had been, watching her as his eyebrows twitched in almost confusion. "I'm not... allowed to go against orders," he replied softly, shifting his shoulders. "Orders are there to keep me from hurting anyone that I'm not supposed to."

[eleutheria]

“No, you didn’t, you said there was nothing to be embarrassed about.” She did felt a bit bad when he frowned, she knew what he was doing so, he clearly didn’t remembered many things and this was one of those instances and if she was being sincere, she wasn’t expecting him to remember, it had just been a random comment she had thought about making and she hadn’t wanted to make him feel bad or anything for not being able to remember. “I know, you’re going to be able to remember, eventually and if not, then it’s alright as well.”

She really wasn’t going to push too much if he didn’t remembered certain things, if there came a moment in which he didn’t remembered certain things, she was going to let it pass and let it go for there was little else she could do. There was a small minute of silence. “And which orders did you just broke then?” She wanted to be sure if he was talking about throwing the tray to the agent or the fact they had kissed.

[disassembling]

Had he really said that? Perhaps she referred to the person that he had a bit of a grasp on but still seemed very foreign to him. He suspected that even now he wouldn't be embarrassed if he had been that person back then either, but he had no idea. He didn't remember enough to be certain, but she knew and sounded certain so he was content with that. "Maybe, I don't know if it will all come back." He wondered if she knew if that possibility was going to happen or not. Would she still like him if he couldn't remember everything or even miss some of the important aspects?

How could she not know which order he had broken when she had only really given him one to begin with? "You ordered me not to kill anyone, but I could have. I shouldn't have thrown that..." he trailed off and turned his head enough to peer at her with one eye. "Are you going to punish me or... just let me get away with it?"