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]

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?"

[eleutheria]

“Yes, I am aware that you might not be able to remember everything.” After all, she still wasn’t sure how many years in total he had been going through all the conditioning and memory modification or whatever it was through all of these years, she was even sure yet how many times he had been, in a sense, woken up to fulfill his missions or the exact amount of time he had been awake in between, which could have entailed a lot of those procedures he had mention, hell for all he knew he was unconsciously finished offing most of his memories when he had fought nail and tooth against this particular fate. “And I have told you it’s alright if you don’t.” She had finally made peace with that possibility and accepted it now, it wouldn’t change that she wanted to help him to have a better life or be close to it.

And this was the kind of things that worried her about just how exactly he viewed her in this situation; she was just probably quite a blurry line for him between the fellow weapon, handler or the person that had been with him in the past categories. “Yes, you could have but you didn’t, you stopped before actually doing it.” He had only scared the poor man to death and that wasn’t exactly good either. “…do you want me to punish you? I am not exactly good at it you know.”

[disassembling]

He nodded, assured again that she would be alright if not everything came back to him. There were already so many details missing, and it was hard not to feel drawn to her because she was so much of what he was missing. He also was drawn to her as if she were a similar case to him but with memories and that would give him purpose if no one actually came for him, which didn't seem like much of a possibility, but he was aware enough of his surroundings and the people involve to feel the need to plan for that potential eventuality. "You'll just have to tell me some of what I missed out on then."

He had still defied the order; he had acted with knowing he was stepping on the line. Normally someone dealing with him would either praise his action or punish him. Some might even laugh at the poor bastard who had earned his ire. He hadn't figured out the way that she was going to react to him yet in those instances; she had never done more than scold him when he stepped out of line, which wasn't a measure that was normally taken with him. "It's your decision on if you think I deserve to be punished."

[eleutheria]

It was good that she had the chance to let him know, that regardless if he remembered everything or not, her stance about him wasn’t about to change. Again, she really wasn’t that naïve as to hope everything was going to magically work and that she was going to be able to restore everything, in all truth, it was more than probable that he wasn’t going to be the same man he had been before, but that didn’t mattered as long as he remained with her, in whatever role he felt more comfortable with since she didn’t wanted to push him into anything. “I will try to do that or at least till I am able to do.”

And the need to sigh returned, she was doing that a lot lately, probably what he had done will have ended earning him quite a punishment, but she wasn’t like that but there was also the fact that he could have hurt that agent and she couldn’t exactly oversee that, he might try to do it again and not stop it the next time around. “I am going to remind you that you’re not supposed to hurt any of the agents working for S.H.I.E.L.D or scare them like that,” Though if there was a mole or someone with double loyalties, then that one he could hurt, “As for your punishment, well the restriction of our interactions will be that.”