bakerstreet | IF EVERYONE IS EVIL IS EVERYTHING FINE OR WORSE

IF EVERYONE IS EVIL IS EVERYTHING FINE OR WORSE

DARKEST TIMELINE MEME

The darkest timeline is a phenomenon when there are multiple possibilities for a situation to turn out and progress forward. Each has a different outcome, but one of those possibilities. One of them is the darkest timeline. The timeline in which everything goes wrong and there's no turning back. The villain gets the weapon that will end the war instead of the heroes, you fuck up someone's food order and they turn out to be the health inspector, the cabin you picked has an axe murderer in it, you come back from a pizza run and the whole room is on fire and everyone has grown evil beards--wait, what?

In any case, explore those here: it may not be the end! Maybe you just have to live with this shit forever because there's no way out.

• Top level your character.
• Include any details you might think are relevant about how you want your timeline to go. Or don't. As always, we're not the cops.
• Reply to other people's top levels!
• Have fun!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

[Even more heartbreaking!]

As the plane went down, with gritted teeth and the knowledge that he'd done the best he could in his short life, Steve thought of the people who had mattered most in that life. His mother's face, faded with time and marred from the disease that finally took her, came to him first. Her hands were rough from work but her smile was soft enough to make up for it. The Howling Commandos, each unique and kind at heart, gathered around him, cheering him on. Peggy Carter, who would never be his best gal, who would never show him how to dance properly, had tears in her eyes but nodded in understanding.

It was Bucky Barnes, born James Buchanen, that embraced him on impact, though, whispering about the end of the line. Steve didn't fight him. This was how his life on Earth was ending but he would have another with all of the people he had loved and lost. And it was fitting that Bucky be the one to pull him through the rest of the way.

Hot water shocked a frozen system and Steve thrashed around in restraints. He had been warmed up slowly at first, but the process was taking too long. He was a super soldier. There was strength in his body that was in reserve in vast quantities. He was like the Soldier. Purer, the serum perfected with him. If they could break the Soldier by days of lack of sleep, of denial of food, by building tolerance to pain through forcing him to stand on broken legs, then a little hot water wouldn't kill Steve Rogers.

Especially if the water and ice didn't do it the first time.

Gasping, Steve opened his eyes for the first time in a long time. A man with dark rimmed brown eyes stood at attention, watching and familiar, though Steve's brain was still trying to kick in. "Where am I?" he croaked, voice chilled and unused to speaking.

By the time HYDRA narrows down the crash site and sends out recovery teams, the man who used to be called Bucky Barnes is long dead. Resistance had been systematically crushed. Shreds of a personality analyzed: HYDRA keeps what might be useful for the field, what they can bring back for deep cover missions so he can pass across as human. It sheds the undesired rest. Between the cryo and the revolving door of new, exciting drugs they try out to encourage docility, the man looking at Steve is a stranger from a face that might be slightly familiar in the pale blue eyes, behind the stubble and the tangled curtain of hair framing his face.

"Where you should be," the Winter Soldier says quietly. His voice still has that rasp betraying his recent stint out of cryo. He remembers, deep in his bones, like an animal instinct, that it will level out the more he uses it.

His new briefing is...new. Usually he isn't tasked with handling training of any one asset. It's groups of trainees who made it past the gauntlet, who have one more and if they don't make it past him...they don't make it at all. They leave in anonymous body bags. Wracking what he can remember - what HYDRA deems worth remembering - he can't recall a time where he's ever been one-on-one with a new asset.

Then again, none of them had been Steve Rogers.

He's familiar with the man and his work - old recordings from the war, kill count racked up against HYDRA. The original basis for the super soldier serum.

"Get up," he says. The Asset strides forward, reaches down, and even helpfully undoes the thick leather straps that had been buckled around his ankles and wrists. "Show me you can walk."

Because while HYDRA wants Rogers and it wants him bad, they won't coddle him with that funny thing called help.

Synapses firing all cylinders in an attempt to make sense of his current reality, more interested in connections than in reality, Steve missed some important clues. Even a brain as enhanced as his was to react and heal more quickly than most humans still needed some time to get used to the idea of running. It picked the simple things to focus on. First things first, a person was speaking to him. In English. His brain made sense of the sounds and so he nodded. Could he walk? "Yeah, I can walk."

That task came next. It was all muscle memory, the shifting of his weight forward on legs that had not held weight in who knew how long. Steve's body had a metabolism four times faster than a regular human and so he healed four times faster, the levels building exponentially. A regular person would have tried to stand and would have fallen like a newborn deer on shaky legs. Steve Rogers' legs trembled but then locked and his body remained standing.

It was only then that he looked, and really saw, the person that had been sent unbeknownst to him as primary captor and trainer and his entire face lit up.

"Buck?" This was impossible and wonderful and suddenly he didn't care that his body was recovering or that the voice that spoke to him wasn't warm and jovial, that there were no doctors around and that he was in a nondescript room. "Wow, aren't you a sight for sore eyes, pal!" At least he showed the Soldoer that he could not only walk, but also at least attempt to hug a ghost of a friend.

Seems like the reports are true. Rogers stands. While he does sway, he also stays upright with his back straight, chin up, and that's a good sign, after what he's been through. Of course there's eyes on the room - his handler and his handler's handler watching the cell's audio and the video feeds - but he'll report it anyway for thoroughness's sake.

His real name drags a grand total of zero reaction from the Asset. No flicker of recognition behind his worn face. No raised eyebrows and he doesn't break out into a slow grin, as if he hadn't been expecting to see a ghost all these years.

What he does do is grab Rogers by the neck.

The Winter Soldier's arm flashes out in a blur of mercury hissing with internal pistons. Metal fingers lock around the exposed column of his trainee's throat, clench, pull. He drags him close without even having to struggle with another man's weight.

"You don't fraternize with your handler, Rogers," the Winter Soldier says. He's still squeezing, still cutting off his trainee's air supply knowing perfectly well that he might be a super soldier, the super soldier, but he still breathes like everyone else on the planet. "You do that again and I'll break your arm starting with your humerus."

That wouldn't stop his conversion, either. He'll just have to train through it and once HYDRA feels like the lesson's sank in, they'll simply rebreak it and set it and let his advanced healing do the rest...without painkillers. It's worked wonders on recruits less skilled, with less potential and history, than Steve Rogers here.

Shock was all that showed on Steve's face as he found himself smashed back against the wall. Pain would register in a moment, fracturing out from between his shoulders towards his skull and down his spine. Pain always came second, but it didn't disappoint when it showed its face. Steve was more than capable of compartmentalizing this situation, of fighting through the pain, but his muscles weren't listening to him as well as he would like them to and combined with a lack of oxygen, he was not in very good shape.

That did not stop him from lashing out, however, his fists true despite the lack of power behind them.

Upstairs, watching large monitors on the walls depicting the training room from multiple angles, men and women with various job titles and responsibilities critiqued the lesson. So far, the Asset was behaving appropriately. There was no worry that the familiar face and eyes would work through his hard pressed programming, not since they had carefully given their weapon handlers that vaguely resembled Steve Rogers from the start.

Eventually, the blond on the video feed would be unable to keep fighting. He struggled, periodically lifting a hand until he was nearly limp, face puffy and red. Any other man might have been pushed too far to come back, and some of the scientists worried that the Asset would kill their new trainee until Captain America nodded.

He understood. It was not a backing down, it was not giving up. Steve needed to breathe to win this battle.

He needed to breathe to save Bucky.

This part is more or less standard operating procedure. SOP is usually the trainee submits and/or loses consciousness. If they're valuable, if the Asset has standing orders not to kill, then this is the part where he drops them. If he doesn't, he keeps squeezing until life functions cease and he moves onto the next candidate worth his time.

Rogers is far too valuable for that.

His metal fingers suddenly release the man's abused throat, dropping him unceremoniously on the floor in a heap. It's a familiar position. Countless others have found themselves where Rogers is, coughing and wheezing, and the Winter Soldier towering over them in a tall, silent shadow who doesn't look pleased or pissed or anything in between. He stands there with a squared, unworried stance, arms loose at his sides, staring down at HYDRA's greatest enemy and maybe for a moment, for a split second, he wonders if he can do it. If the years of conditioning and programming are enough to break HYDRA's worst nightmare.

"Get up. You're a soldier, so stand at attention."

To further drive in the point, the Winter Soldier reaches down in an easy gesture, undoes the his thigh holster's release with a click of metal against the leather clasps. Rogers might find the idea of his advanced healing struggling around a bullet lodged in the meat of his thigh particularly motivating. He knows it was for him, in some distance fog without a time or date. The same might (should) apply to another super soldier.

There are definitely times where accelerated healing is more trouble than it's worth...especially when it's trying to repair muscle and knit skin over a bullet.

If there was one thing Steve didn't need, it was a pep talk to get back to his feet. He had already been trying to get there as his lungs acclimated to each breath he wheezingly took on his way to skitter back up to a more or less standing position.

"Put it away," Steve said, chest heaving and hands on his knees before he could get his knees to lock and his back to straighten. He knew all about intimidation tactics, he knew what the release of that holster meant, but Captain America had never lost the stubborn streak that let to many a beatings up in alleys while trying to stand up for people who couldn't find a voice to stand up for themselves. "We both know you don't got it in you to shoot me, Buck."

That wasn't true, though. A few moments ago, Steve wouldn't have thought that Bucky would have had it in him to choke him like that. Or at all.

"What would your mom say if she saw how much of a bully you've become?" That he could speak at all in anything louder than a whisper was a testament to his healing factor. "Think, Buck. Really think. You know me and I know you."

The Asset doesn't pause out of shame. What he does is pause to assess that name again and he comes to the conclusion that it doesn't feel familiar, it doesn't ring any bells like maybe he used it once upon a time on a mission as cover. HYDRA wouldn't leave something like that lying around, anyway: they'd make sure to scrub that clean.

"Doubt it. If you knew me, you'd be dead," the Winter Soldier says, and he'll take that bully remark as a compliment and a clear sign he's doing his job. For a moment, one brief second that he isn't supposed to be capable of, he actually feels the ghost of pleasure at the idea that he's very, very good at carrying out his parameters. "Order me around again. We can put it to the test whether I'll shoot you or not."

He would've already if it was anyone else. No trainee mouths off like that, no matter how much potential they could have. It's dangerous, undesirable behavior in HYDRA's world order, and the only reason that the Soldier is giving Rogers this warning is because he's at the very top of the recruitment wish list.

He doesn't shift his hand away from where he's resting on the butt of his gun, the challenge silent, daring Rogers to try whatever misplaced trust he has in that name of his.

[Sorry for the delay. Mandatory holiday gatherings.]

"I out rank you," Steve said, not often pulling that particular stunt. He had no idea what was happening here, but every extra heightened sense he had was slowly coming back on line to tell him what everything on the surface had been blaring warning klaxons since he woke, drenched in water. This was Bucky, but Bucky was not acting like Bucky. He was a prisoner and Bucky was his jailer. This reeked of HYDRA.

But Steve never took the easy way out of anything, not when he was sixteen battling kids at school for fair use of the yard, not at twenty-two, getting beaten up behind a movie theater because some jerk was ruining the film for everyone. And certainly not now. He straightened up, lips set in a straight line as it took a great deal of his effort to find the strength to do that much. His shoulders rolled back and looked down at Bucky, stoic and hand on his weapon.

"You're a Sergeant, soldier. I'm a Captain. Now stand down."

If Bucky didn't, and Steve was pretty sure he wouldn't, Steve would rush forward, kicking outward. If Bucky got the weapon out of the holster, at least the bullet would only graze him, or perhaps just shoot through a meaty section of his body.

It would hurt either way.

"I don't have a rank."

And that's about as much warning as Steve gets because just like he'd been broadcasting, the Winter Soldier immediately goes for his gun, draws it in one smooth motion and he's picked out a non-lethal spot in the meat of his shoulder. He sights and fires, the report deafening in the close quarters of the cell.

The thing is, he can't tell if the bullet hits. Rogers moves fast, faster than any recruit he's ever seen, his boot lashing out and slamming into his chest.

It actually hurts.

It's enough force that it might've caved in his chest if he hadn't been enhanced himself. Instead of collapsing to the floor, blood frothing at the corners of his mouth, the Asset instead staggers back and slams up against the steel table on the other side, bolted to the floor. It groans and rocks against the bolts. He's still got a hold of the gun but Rogers has closed in to the point where it's easier to just go with melee combat. His metal arm, for instance, or the knife that he immediately swaps the gun for. The blade flashes silver in the harsh overhead light as he swings low, aiming for the meat of his trainee's thigh.

Though the bullet did land, not in his shoulder, but just above his elbow, gouging at a chunk of skin rather than making a clean entry and exit towards the wall, Steve Rogers didn't stop. He couldn't. Getting the gun away from Bucky was a priority, and once that was abandoned, doing the same for the knife became the goal. And that certainly wasn't easy.

Bucky didn't seem to want to kill him, but he didn't mind damaging him. Steve, however, only raised his hands in defense. And a defensive game could only be won with stamina. He knew off the bat that it was a game he would lose since he refused to hurt Bucky in return, even to escape.

It didn't stop the blond from grappling with his best friend, however, pressing him further back against the straining table. He was a fantastic fighter, in no small part because of Bucky Barnes himself. He'd learned to box thanks to his friend, though it was never something he'd been able to use pre-program due to his asthma and the heart problems he'd been born with.

"Stand down," Steve kept shouting, working on getting Bucky to comply without harming him, hoping something would jog his memory. "Your sister's name is Rebecca. We used to tie her braids to the back of the chair whenever she stole our homework!" He took more hits than he would have liked, since he never took open shots himself. "I bought you boxing gloves for your eighteenth birthday!" He'd gone hungry for a month, eating condiments or getting half rations to save his money up...which had been ridiculous considering how skinny and unwell he was.

It was an impossible task in the end. One good blow with fist or knife would be enough to get Steve down. Not that he would stay down, but at least it took effort to get back up.

The onslaught of details, yelled at him with hoarse desperation, simply slide over the Asset without sinking their claws in. The conditioning saw to that. If he had time to feel pride for HYDRA's thoroughness to the mission, he would indulge and maybe appreciate - maybe that's too strong of a word for what he's capable of - what HYDRA's done for him. Right now he's busy trying to get his recruit under control.

As it isn't over in a matter of seconds, he has the suspicion that he'll be due for another round in the suppression chair. No doubt his his handlers and army of techs will work around to clock to figure out where it went wrong.

The Winter Soldier focuses on Rogers. He ignores what he says in favor of reading his body language, trying to match it up to what war footage HYDRA had on record. Problem is, they never did say that Rogers is chatty.

Where Steve is talking up a storm, trying to break through to this Bucky of his, the Asset has defaulted to his usual silence. The most that Steve might drag out of him is a soft grunt between clenched teeth, maybe a flick of cold blue eyes, but other than that, he's nowhere as talkative. The table buckles as he's shoved into it with enough force that even the Soldier's surprised for once in his years of operation, the reaction betraying him in the two-second widening of his eyes, the part of his lips. He might've taught Steve boxing, but what he does next, when Rogers gets a hand around his knife wrist and holds on, keeps him from stabbing, isn't something from the ring. It's quick, dirty. Hopefully it'll give him the space he needs to get the situation under control.

He doesn't want his trip back to the chair to be any longer than necessary. If Rogers prolongs that...

The Asset jerks forward in a brutal headbutt. It's explosive as he slams his head into Rogers with enough force that even his vision flashes white; his head spins and nausea wells up and he actually has to catch himself against the dented table before his legs give out under him. Recovering, panting, he's lunging at Rogers again, throwing his weight forward, metal fingers tangling in clothes as he swings with the knife that he's managed to keep hold of.

It was one thing to know about a head butt, to be the one attempting it, and to therefore be mindful of it and another to have it happen to you. Steve had crashed back, hard, landing on his elbows and shoulder blades before he toppled back head over heels. He had blood in his eyes and running down his chin as he pushed himself up only to be met once more with a metal arm and a knife to his throat.

He'd only managed to get to his knees before the blade touched his skin. Steve was more resilient than most but he could still bleed and he could still die. Knives would still cut and this one nicked the skin.

He couldn't push this one. Bucky would kill him.

He lifted his hands slowly, panting hard and trying to clear the blood from his eyes with a few rapid blinks of long lashes, and gazed up into Bucky's face as his own started to swell. "You know me." Steve's voice was nasal, but certain. "Bucky, you've got to fight what they've done to you."

He was fully expecting to be knocked out. Or to be dragged back to the chair and strapped down. This time, he wouldn't fight. Not when he knew that there was going to be a next time. And he could try again.

After Steve Rogers was secure, the lights immediately went out so that he wouldn't see the agents swarming the room to take the Soldier into custody (should he require subduing) or the face of the blond man who had been chosen long ago as the Asset's handler when he was a much younger man. If Steve was still conscious, all he would see would be his outline, ringed in light from the hallway, and all he would hear would be orders for the Soldier to come along with them.

He doesn't fight it.

What the Asset does do is obediently follow his handlers out of the room as they secure Rogers, inject him with a sedative that's rated for a super soldier's metabolism, and he even sits himself down in the suppression chair without an ounce of resistance. A few hours later of screaming and gibbering and he's back the next morning in time for Steve to enjoy the new quarters he'll wake up in: four concrete walls, too thick to punch though, and a sorry excuse for a cot. One depressingly small slit of a window that says it's a nice sunrise outside and that's about it, if he wants a view of the morning clouds and a grand total of zero landmarks to get his bearings.

The Winter Soldier shows up in the morning with dark bags under his eyes, his shoulders slightly hunched in pain as he walks off the fresh round of conditioning. When the door opens, he'll be standing there with a plastic tray in his metal hand and his chin lifting as he squares his shoulders, straightens his spine.

"Breakfast," he says, as if last night hadn't happened. He steps in past the guards posted outside the door, eyes raking across Steve and searching for any sign that he'll cause more trouble. "Eat it. Or don't."

But as it's calculated to be optimally nutritious, even for a super soldier, he'd suggest Steve eats it. He'll need it for training. The Winter Soldier steps inside, the door closing behind him with a decisive thud of the deadbolt - make that deadbolts, plural. The tray is extended as he stares at Steve as if he's just a sentient part of kit, not some guy he grew up with practically a lifetime ago. A guy he basically died for.

Edited 2017-07-06 07:34 (UTC)

With the serum allowed to do as it was meant to, Steve didn’t need a lot of tending to. They cleaned him up, checked to see if he needed stitches (and he did, but just one), dressed him in new clothing as if to make him feel less like an animal for the moment, and dropped him off to sleep in his fantastic new holding cell. Top notch. Location, location, location. He’d already memorized everything he could about it by the time that he was commanded away from the door and Bucky swaggered in with that little limp of his and the disconcerting look in his eyes from earlier.

Steve had lost all sense of time. He knew it was daylight, but the amount of time that had passed between going down in the plane, waking up in that other room, and now waking up here could have stretched from hours to weeks. It never occurred to him that it had been years between the first two occurrences and he wouldn’t have believed anyone that tried to tell him the truth of that.

He needed to eat. His body demanded it. But all Steve did was ignore the tray and the words and instead focused on Bucky himself.

Something told him that their scuffle before caused Bucky the pain, not from the fight itself but from whatever had happened after it.

“You all right?” A strange question. No one cared about the comfort of a weapon.

And of course Rogers is being stubborn by not taking the tray. Considering the sizable file on the man, he probably shouldn't be surprised.

The Soldier does feel something that wants to be frustration. Every other recruit has wanted to be here, wants what HYDRA offers. They knew what was at stake and they had done everything to try to get a leg up over their competitors - bribes and threats and even seduction, which hadn't worked out for the most part. Not with him. Rogers, though. Rogers is still trying to have a conversation, doing exactly what he told him not to: seems like the two words "no fraternizing" isn't something he understands.

He'll have to strip that from him sooner than later.

The Winter Soldier sets the tray down on the table that's been bolted both to the wall and the floor. It's doubly reinforced after his handlers reviewed the fight's footage and he doubts either of them could budge that thing now even if their lives depended on it. No chance it could be moved or used as a weapon. Something that could be approval swells before he squashes it and turns back to stare at HYDRA's latest recruit.

"Why wouldn't I be?" The Winter Soldier doesn't care for the suppression chair, but he recognizes its purpose, accepts it just like the cryo that will be waiting for him after Rogers joins the fold. "I would eat, if I were you. If you want to keep breathing, you should show you're useful to the cause."

He's dimly aware of the idea that there might be factions in HYDRA that would love to kill Rogers and be done with it. It isn't his problem and until a rogue agent comes knocking, it isn't his recruit's problem either.

Steve sighed and headed towards the tray. "You look worse off than how I know I left you," he pointed out, looking over the contents of his breakfast. He didn't think it would be poisoned, that would serve no purpose. It wouldn't be drugged, though now he knew that HYDRA had the ability to drug him if they wanted to. His metabolism had somehow been accounted for. It was unnerving and something to remember for his escape, but now was not the time to spring out of the trap. He ate, slowly, eyes on Bucky.

He didn't know what to expect and that was probably by design. Steve was a smart guy. He knew what this was. The tactic was pretty well known in his day. Steve wasn't going to give up US secrets, though. For all he knew, they were still at war after all.

He ended up finishing everything given to him, not going so far as to lick his fingers or anything, but he did find the meal to be satisfying.

"So what comes next? More orders you know I won't listen to? Questions you know I won't answer? I want to make this easy on you, Buck, because I know you don't believe me right now, but I'm going to get us out of here." A smile touched petal pink lips. Despite his injuries from the last time he was awake, Steve managed to continue to look like everything was fine with him. That spoke more to his character than his body. Breaking his body would be easy. But his mind?

Well that was where the Soldier came in, right? Anyone could have been used to break Stece Rogers down but no one would be able to crack him like the guy he cared for most on this world.

"Late night briefing. You aren't cleared for it."

And he won't be cleared to sit and watch and learn about that part of HYDRA's asset program until he's proven he's loyal. Not just loyal, but completely, undeniably dedicated to the mission. One look at this man and the Winter Soldier can tell he isn't handler material. Too many questions. His eyes rove and pry. Seems personally invested in this "Buck", whatever that's supposed to mean.

It occurs to the Asset, in a moment of private weakness he'll betray himself in his report to his handlers, that he might have his work cut out for him. Killing people is easy. Bombing a diplomat's car is easy. It's in and out. This, though...

At least Rogers finally gets the hint that he should eat. It's something of a staring contest, awkward, no joking between two old buddies catching up on their reunion: his trainee stares and he stares back, doesn't flick his eyes around or sit down and kick his heels up as he tries to get comfortable. The Asset doesn't return the brief smile, doesn't have that snap of recognition flood his face even though he's heard his name several times now.

He waits until Rogers finishes eating before he speaks up again.

"No, you won't. I won't come with you." Not willingly, anyway. It's the first time he's faced another super soldier which means that there could be a margin for error, an unknown variable that he can feel prickle the back of his neck, raise the fine hairs along his arm. As much as the Asset doesn't want to, he's forced to admit there's a slim chance he could escape. "You're taking this. Wash it down with your water."

The Winter Soldier reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small vial of pills. Leaning over and placing them on the table, he straightens, the movement still slightly stiff. The pills look deceptively harmless, as if he's just offering Steve an Aspirin for last night.

Bucky wouldn't come willing yet. Steve was petty sure he could work on the other man enough that it would not always be the case. He just needed time and that time would have to be bought through a lot of patience and perseverance. Luckily, Steve had both in spades.

He rubbed his hands together over the tray to make sure that they weren't to dirty and was waiting to be attacked or given some sort of ridiculous order when Bucky spoke again.

The blond's eyebrow shot up. "You've got to know that I won't do that, pal." Not even if Bucky assured him it was harmless and not even if he knew it was nearly impossible to poison of sicken him.

He had thought it impossible to drug him, though, until just a little bit ago and now he wasn't taking chances.

"Though I'd sure appreciate you telling me what it is anyway." His body stiffened, readying itself for whatever onslaught Bucky would think it necessary to lay upon him for disobeying. Their relationship had never been so complicated before. Far from it. Since the day they met until the day they lose each other, their friendship had always been assured.

Perhaps more than that.

But Steve wasn't about to dredge up old, God-forsaken feelings right now.

"Minor sedative," the Winter Soldier says and if Roger's bracing himself to be force-fed the pills, he's exactly right. "It wasn't a question whether or not you wanted to take them."

He hadn't lied: they've been tested on himself, perfected, and he knows for a fact that these pills aren't anywhere close enough to floor an asset and drop him drooling on the floor. It's enough to take any hostile, undesirable edges off, to make the trainee more open to suggestion, to reason, but also capable of functioning. Granted, it hasn't been used before on a super soldier like Rogers here, with a different serum burning through his system. He assumes that's one of the points of the exercise, why he's been locked in and why they have the camera in the corner of the room.

Good.

The Asset comes at Rogers. Just like the last time, he leads with his left arm, the metal plates glinting silver as he moves and moves fast. He gets his hand around his throat, squeezing with a relentlessly inhuman pressure. Less air means less fight. Steve had responded well to the oxygen denial treatment yesterday, which means that it's round two today. He throws his weight forward, bending Steve's spine and forcing him back with his own weight until he's practically straddling the man. It's a better position, makes it harder for Steve to lash out and kick him: he can buck under him all he wants, but the Soldier is confident that he'll have better control of his recruit this time.

He reaches back during this for the vial, popping the lid one-handed. He shakes out the vial into Roger's gasping mouth and claps his hand over it before he can spit them out.

"Swallow," he says, leaning over Steve, his hair falling in a dark, tangled curtain around his face. "I'll let you breathe once you do."

The word 'breathe,' spoken in the same husky voice with the same sort of heat against his temple, was a familiar one. There had been many a times during an asthma attack when Bucky had done something very similar to him before, dragging him bodily, gasping, into a hot water bath to try and get the steam to open his lungs, or lighting an asthma cigarette with shaking hands to press the butt to his lips...

Or in the dead of winter when there wasn't enough heat to warm the water and no cigarette rations left, Bucky would just hold him and hope that it would be enough to see Steve through the worst of it.

Memories like these were never bittersweet. They were just bitter. He'd wasted so much of his last few months with Bucky running off to war, losing touch because of his performances in the USO and not looking for him after he fell from the train.

Now he was here, having the man that used to help him to breathe deny him that very thing. Steve did buck, twisting his long body to try and get a knee up to knock the other man off of him. It didn't work. In the end, he had a choice to make but it wasn't much of one at all.

He could let himself go unconscious and have the pills dissolve on his tongue anyway, or he could just swallow and stay awake.

So he did. He swallowed. There were frustrated tears in his eyes but he did what would be best for the situation.

With the bills down his throat, he tried to vocalize that fact to Bucky, growling and trying to pry the fingers from his face. That lasted all of three seconds. The sedatives were fast acting and Steve felt his head full with cotton and his eyes go fuzzy. It was like being drunk, well. Tipsy. And not wholly unpleasant. His fingers stayed hooked around Bucky's fingers but he stopped trying to pull them away.

If he hadn't gotten the jump on his recruit, there's a chance Rogers would've been strong enough to peel his fingers away from his face. Oxygen denial leeches away his strength and makes the possibility of Rogers snapping the bones of his fingers a non-threat. Good to know that it's this effective. Maybe he'll continue to use this method if his recruit decides to be stubborn again about taking the pills.

Most men in his place would've learned their lesson, their place in HYDRA. It's become more than obvious that "Captain America" isn't most men.

Steve Rogers seems like he'll need more monitoring, more one-on-one than anyone else who's been lucky enough to make it this far in the recruitment process.

It's with a dispassionate expression, bordering on a mask, that the Winter Soldier watches as the pills take hold. Seems like the calculations with the dosage apply to him as well, despite the differences in their super soldier serums. Roger's grunts fade as the struggling loses focus, that blue sharpness behind his eyes turning glassy. His face slackens as everything should be softening at the edges: in the grand scheme of things, the drug tests weren't that bad compared to what else HYDRA liked to test and the ASset remembers some of his own experiences being on the receiving end of that drug. It had been...pleasurable. All things considered. It definitely beat the suppression arc, the animal terror deep in his guts at being herded back to cryo.

It's only once he's as sure as he can be Rogers isn't faking that the Soldier loosens his bruising grip around his jaw, fingers opening so he can finally suck air into his aching lungs.

"You're to take those once in the morning and once at night," he says, as if he wasn't practically straddling his recruit, Roger's back bent at an agonizing angle. "Understood?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

IF EVERYONE IS EVIL IS EVERYTHING FINE OR WORSE

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gotcha!

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typo fix

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godmoded a bit, let me know if I should change anything!

You're good!

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