He was given a few days to recover after surgery. It was an injury that should have permanently crippled a normal man, but of course, as they loved to remind him, he was far from ordinary. And though they never said as much out loud, though they never admitted their error in removing him from the ice too quickly, special time and care was taken to make sure that he'd returned to peak physical form after his first stint in the cryofreeze.
They told him at great length that his performance had been subpar, but that they still had high hopes for him. They were willing to give him another chance. He would have the chance to prove himself soon enough. Until then, there was more training, deliberately mindless and repetitive, to work out the last of the damage from the fight. After that...there was only the chair, and the cold.
His first mission came six months later - he was to join a small team in annihilating a squad of SHIELD agents that were settling too close to their mountain stronghold. They were to be dealt with by any means necessary, with absolutely no survivors left to tell the tale. He was to take a souvenir from each body to prove his compliance. He didn't know why, but in the end, he did as he was bidden. In the end, he barely needed the other HYDRA agents at all, and he was brought in for debriefing with blood spatters marring the pristine silver edges of his shield. The shield itself, however, was quite undamaged from its role in eliminating no less than ten trained SHIELD operatives.
He performed three missions after that over the next two years. Eventually, they risked dialing back the severity of the wipes. When they did, his abilities as a commander could be used as an asset, alongside his abilities as a warrior. Still, he also shared the soldier's burden of stealth, assassinations, though they were always up close and personal affairs in quiet corners and places where the target wouldn't even have time to scream. More to the point, he was often deliberately instructed to make them messy, traumatic affairs - nothing that could be construed as an accident.
All of this he did, without hesitation. He was praised, and it meant nothing, besides the fact that he would be brought out again another day.
So it was...odd, when they took him aside the very night after he returned from a mission, to tell him that they needed him to look after someone - another weapon, like him. The other had been injured, and he was to ensure that he didn't injure himself further during recovery, reporting back to them on his physical progress.
The others were...odd, in their simplicity, in their apparent ease. Yet he went where they bid him, into the small room just off the surgical wing where his counterpart was being left to recover. A guard opened the door to let him in, and closed it behind him.
He stood, for a long second, leaning back against the door as he regarded the man with the metal arm. Yet, impossibly, his first impulse was to smile, to speak. "Hey. They sent me to keep an eye on you."
no subject
They told him at great length that his performance had been subpar, but that they still had high hopes for him. They were willing to give him another chance. He would have the chance to prove himself soon enough. Until then, there was more training, deliberately mindless and repetitive, to work out the last of the damage from the fight. After that...there was only the chair, and the cold.
His first mission came six months later - he was to join a small team in annihilating a squad of SHIELD agents that were settling too close to their mountain stronghold. They were to be dealt with by any means necessary, with absolutely no survivors left to tell the tale. He was to take a souvenir from each body to prove his compliance. He didn't know why, but in the end, he did as he was bidden. In the end, he barely needed the other HYDRA agents at all, and he was brought in for debriefing with blood spatters marring the pristine silver edges of his shield. The shield itself, however, was quite undamaged from its role in eliminating no less than ten trained SHIELD operatives.
He performed three missions after that over the next two years. Eventually, they risked dialing back the severity of the wipes. When they did, his abilities as a commander could be used as an asset, alongside his abilities as a warrior. Still, he also shared the soldier's burden of stealth, assassinations, though they were always up close and personal affairs in quiet corners and places where the target wouldn't even have time to scream. More to the point, he was often deliberately instructed to make them messy, traumatic affairs - nothing that could be construed as an accident.
All of this he did, without hesitation. He was praised, and it meant nothing, besides the fact that he would be brought out again another day.
So it was...odd, when they took him aside the very night after he returned from a mission, to tell him that they needed him to look after someone - another weapon, like him. The other had been injured, and
he was to ensure that he didn't injure himself further during recovery, reporting back to them on his physical progress.
The others were...odd, in their simplicity, in their apparent ease. Yet he went where they bid him, into the small room just off the surgical wing where his counterpart was being left to recover. A guard opened the door to let him in, and closed it behind him.
He stood, for a long second, leaning back against the door as he regarded the man with the metal arm. Yet, impossibly, his first impulse was to smile, to speak. "Hey. They sent me to keep an eye on you."