This is probably the most anyone’s ever talked to him.
The Soldier doesn’t know how he can tell that - because he can’t say it with any degree of certainty even if a gun was pointed at his head and he heard the safety click off - but he has a gut feeling that it’s so, despite his unreliable memory. People generally don’t talk to him. They give orders like sanction this target on XX/XX/XXXX and stop struggling and take the goddamn bite guard or they fall silent when he enters the room, their eyes nervously sliding away for a second like they don’t want to look at him but then they dart back a second later, like they realize it’s a mistake to take their eyes off him. Which it is.
His captor, he notices, doesn’t take his eyes off him despite being suited up.
There’s not much more he can do but lie there on the gurney and listen, head tilted to the side toward the other man rambling away, the Asset still silently working at the straps and maybe impressed with their integrity: typically he would’ve been able to get out by now, but the stranger’s picked surprisingly good restraints. So far he hasn’t made much headway in sawing at it with the ridges between his titanium plating. He’s at least confirmed there’s a woman assisting his captor. It’s at the sight of the book that something shifts in the Winter Soldier’s face, etched with exhaustion lines and still healing bruises from the helicopter crash, a black eye forming on one side. For a second his gaze snaps to the star embedded in the red leather cover. Fear wraps itself around his throat. A muscle in his jaw tightens hard enough that his back teeth ache before he forces himself to relax.
He knows what it does. It’s compliance assurance. The fact that it’s here, that this man has it, is a huge problem for not only freeing himself from the gurney, but staging an extraction of his new handler. With that book, this stranger could easily activate the trigger sequence and transfer clearance to himself with just ten words. He could tell him to do anything. It’d be his right and duty as a handler.
He needs to get a hold of the book before that happens. He needs to free his current handler and return to the nearest HYDRA cell.
The Soldier’s pale blue eyes are still locked on the compliance book even as a lot of names get thrown at him in quick succession, machine gun-style. “Steve”…why does that sound familiar? Why does hearing that name make his gut clench, an emptiness hollowing him out like he’s starving? Why is “Barnes” an itch he can’t scratch, like a bullet his accelerated healing can’t work around?
Then there’s the last set of names. The Starks.
…those he recognizes. He shouldn’t, he thinks, because he should’ve been wiped after the 1991 mission. But he remembers that mission like it’d happened only days ago; the crunch of Howard’s face repeatedly meeting his metal fist, the hitched breath of Maria as his fingers closed around her neck -
Surprise flits across the Winter Soldier’s haggard face, which had settled into an almost mask-like expression the more Tony talked. For the first time there’s a measure of recognition. His dark head lifts off the gurney with a crinkle of the paper stretcher sheet under his body, staring at Tony straddling the chair backwards and looking like he should be crushing the thing with his metal armor’s weight. Now that he’s looking, he can see the family resemblance in Tony’s face.
“...you weren’t in the car,” the Winter Soldier says, after a pause. For a second he forgets about the red book in Tony’s hand. “You’re a loose end.”
The idea that HYDRA knew the Starks had a son and left him alive throws him for a loop. Sloppy. Someone in HYDRA screwed up not following up on this and putting out a kill order for him too. Surely Tony would’ve had questions about his parents’ death, even if he’d made sure it looked like an accident. It’s probably the most surprised that the Asset’s looked since he woke up, his eyebrows actually arched, chapped lips parted, and for a second he almost looks human again.
His face walls off again. “You’re too emotionally compromised to do this job, Stark. You say you want to help but you’ve got the book,” and now the Winter Soldier sounds tired, almost resigned, as if talking this much is difficult. “You could order me to shoot myself in the head as revenge. You could order me to comply right now to draw in this Steve. Instead you’re beating around the bush and pretending there’s a choice.”
no subject
The Soldier doesn’t know how he can tell that - because he can’t say it with any degree of certainty even if a gun was pointed at his head and he heard the safety click off - but he has a gut feeling that it’s so, despite his unreliable memory. People generally don’t talk to him. They give orders like sanction this target on XX/XX/XXXX and stop struggling and take the goddamn bite guard or they fall silent when he enters the room, their eyes nervously sliding away for a second like they don’t want to look at him but then they dart back a second later, like they realize it’s a mistake to take their eyes off him. Which it is.
His captor, he notices, doesn’t take his eyes off him despite being suited up.
There’s not much more he can do but lie there on the gurney and listen, head tilted to the side toward the other man rambling away, the Asset still silently working at the straps and maybe impressed with their integrity: typically he would’ve been able to get out by now, but the stranger’s picked surprisingly good restraints. So far he hasn’t made much headway in sawing at it with the ridges between his titanium plating. He’s at least confirmed there’s a woman assisting his captor. It’s at the sight of the book that something shifts in the Winter Soldier’s face, etched with exhaustion lines and still healing bruises from the helicopter crash, a black eye forming on one side. For a second his gaze snaps to the star embedded in the red leather cover. Fear wraps itself around his throat. A muscle in his jaw tightens hard enough that his back teeth ache before he forces himself to relax.
He knows what it does. It’s compliance assurance. The fact that it’s here, that this man has it, is a huge problem for not only freeing himself from the gurney, but staging an extraction of his new handler. With that book, this stranger could easily activate the trigger sequence and transfer clearance to himself with just ten words. He could tell him to do anything. It’d be his right and duty as a handler.
He needs to get a hold of the book before that happens. He needs to free his current handler and return to the nearest HYDRA cell.
The Soldier’s pale blue eyes are still locked on the compliance book even as a lot of names get thrown at him in quick succession, machine gun-style. “Steve”…why does that sound familiar? Why does hearing that name make his gut clench, an emptiness hollowing him out like he’s starving? Why is “Barnes” an itch he can’t scratch, like a bullet his accelerated healing can’t work around?
Then there’s the last set of names. The Starks.
…those he recognizes. He shouldn’t, he thinks, because he should’ve been wiped after the 1991 mission. But he remembers that mission like it’d happened only days ago; the crunch of Howard’s face repeatedly meeting his metal fist, the hitched breath of Maria as his fingers closed around her neck -
Surprise flits across the Winter Soldier’s haggard face, which had settled into an almost mask-like expression the more Tony talked. For the first time there’s a measure of recognition. His dark head lifts off the gurney with a crinkle of the paper stretcher sheet under his body, staring at Tony straddling the chair backwards and looking like he should be crushing the thing with his metal armor’s weight. Now that he’s looking, he can see the family resemblance in Tony’s face.
“...you weren’t in the car,” the Winter Soldier says, after a pause. For a second he forgets about the red book in Tony’s hand. “You’re a loose end.”
The idea that HYDRA knew the Starks had a son and left him alive throws him for a loop. Sloppy. Someone in HYDRA screwed up not following up on this and putting out a kill order for him too. Surely Tony would’ve had questions about his parents’ death, even if he’d made sure it looked like an accident. It’s probably the most surprised that the Asset’s looked since he woke up, his eyebrows actually arched, chapped lips parted, and for a second he almost looks human again.
His face walls off again. “You’re too emotionally compromised to do this job, Stark. You say you want to help but you’ve got the book,” and now the Winter Soldier sounds tired, almost resigned, as if talking this much is difficult. “You could order me to shoot myself in the head as revenge. You could order me to comply right now to draw in this Steve. Instead you’re beating around the bush and pretending there’s a choice.”