If the Wind Turns

Something about Sam’s favor still doesn’t sit quite right with Bucky, but he isn’t sure what. 

It isn’t like Sam would ever lead him into a trap—not on purpose, anyway—and all of the information he’s been given seems to add up so far. Still, something pulls at his gut until he feels a little bit sick and can’t put a name to the feeling. So he does what he always does when something feels inexplicably off : he waits. 

Bucky isn’t always the prime example of patience, so maybe there’s a hint of hesitation weighing on him. Maybe some part of him isn’t ready to confront the demons he thought he’d left behind. He knows he can’t run forever, and he knows that running is something he never would have done in his past life. The Winter Soldier didn’t run from anything. Bucky ran from everything. 

But he can’t run from this. Not when someone finally needs him for something. Him, and not the Winter Soldier. Just him.

So he presses his body into the cool earth, infinitely thankful for the shade of the trees that keeps his metal arm hidden from the moonlight, and he watches his target from afar. 

Admittedly, the Hydra lab looks exactly as he’d expected it to—exactly like someone would expect a terrorist group’s research and development space not to look. The architecture is modern, full of angular surfaces and massive panes of glass. Everything about it seems open and inviting, like the type of place that might be trying to cure disease instead of being full of people that would probably rather spread it for their own gain. The clean lines and deceptive facades wouldn’t fool him, though; he’s been in enough places that were actually trying to help people to know that this most definitely is not one of them.

Bucky spares a glance at the small notepad he brought with him, comparing the blueprint Sam had provided with the building before him. He’s quick to note the apparent lack of exits aside from the loading docks—whatever is hidden here, Hydra clearly is willing to risk safety to keep it that way. The main entrance is guarded by security, and he can pick out the multitude of cameras in plain sight. Knowing them, there were probably even more that weren’t visible. 

He tucks the notebook back into his jacket with a sigh as he gets to his feet, the material scratching softly against the leather of it. There’s a whisper of unease in his blood as he slowly circles the perimeter, a remnant of the Winter Soldier’s programming that couldn’t be removed, one that he’s long since learned to ignore. But as hard as he tries to push the instinct away, it only grows stronger, and he realizes that the feeling isn’t coming from him as he closes in on the loading dock. A distinct hum emanates from the building, one that reminds him a bit of heavy machinery, of something powerful being controlled and contained. He doesn’t like it at all, but he’s not entirely sure why it’s so unsettling. 

Something inside of him itches to tear things up in a blaze of metal and lead and fury, but Sam’s informant had been very clear on the importance of subtlety here…at least until he got what he came for. He needs information, namely leads on the Enhanced, and he isn’t going to get that by going on a rampage and blowing the lab to smithereens—although, he thinks, the research lab would look much better as a pile of rubble.

Plus, he had promised Dr. Raynor that he wouldn’t hurt people anymore. He’s already breaking his first rule—don’t do anything illegal—right now, which he feels a twinge of guilt at. But she’d understand, right? Hurt a few people to help a lot more? There’s no escaping Dr. Raynor’s gaze, so he knows he’ll have to fess up eventually once this is over. It’s a conversation he’s dreading already; he’s never been a particularly good liar when it comes to her.

Bucky runs a hand through his hair as his eyes scan the dock, lingering on the movement of researchers and the people lifting crates, pushing carts, and barking orders to each other. The blueprint had marked the loading dock as a secondary delivery point—the first being the landing pad on the rooftop of the central building—but it was also the only way that larger things could come through, things like weapons and live specimens and chemicals that wouldn’t withstand being transported by air. Not to mention that he didn’t exactly have wings.

"Alright, Sam," he murmurs into his earpiece. "I’ve got eyes on the loading dock. Looks like a potential entry point. Less cameras, more movement."

A crisp voice sounds in his ear as Sam responds. "Good. Be careful—we don’t know what’s going on in there, and I can’t come save your ass this time."

"It was one time–"

"And I’m not letting your geriatric ass live it down. Remember, info first, fireworks later."

A humorless smirk tweaks at Bucky’s lips. "Fireworks later, got it. I’ll see you on the other side."

Bucky slips into the shadows at the building’s edge, moving with the fluid grace of someone that had been going through the motions for years upon years. He waits for the movement of workers in the area to die down completely before cautiously approaching one of the heavy metal doors that lay in the blind spot of the security cameras, ensuring he wouldn’t be seen or heard.  

There’s a magnetic lock and a keypad keeping the door secure; Bucky isn’t particularly worried about either one. It would only take a few minutes, maybe even less, for him to crack it open. It’s time he didn’t really have, time he needed, time he’s just going to have to make.

But there’s a flicker in the corner of his vision as he forces open the keypad’s panel with his metal hand and fiddles with the internals. A shadow shifts just beyond one of the glass panes nearest to the door, and he stills himself. He watches and waits as his flesh hand drifts towards one of the many knives sheathed at his hip. If he’s being honest with himself, the thought of having to use it makes his stomach turn. A firearm he could handle, but knives were…personal. To get close enough to use one, you had to also be close enough to get the victim’s blood on your hands, to hear the rattling of their final breaths, to see the light in their eyes as it winked out. The Winter Soldier wouldn’t have batted an eye. Bucky might have thrown up.

 The figure moves with a purpose that doesn’t feel remotely casual, as all of the workers and researchers had. Its stance suggested it was searching for something, and though it cocked its head curiously at the window, it didn’t seem to find what it was looking for. 

Bucky’s breath hangs suspended in his chest as the figure lingers for moment after agonizing moment. The dim lighting makes it impossible to pick out any identifying features, and the deliberate movements of the figure makes his heart rate tick upwards. Things aren’t adding up—he had done surveillance on this lab for a long time, and never once had he seen a major deviation from the security patrols and delivery times. A cold dread itches at the back of his neck, and it still doesn’t ease up when the figure offers a shrug and slinks away, apparently having lost interest. 

But he can’t be sure that whatever it was is gone, so he waits. He counts the seconds in his mind until the remnants of that murderous thing in his head are satisfied. His position shifts slightly as he refocuses on the door’s keypad; metal fingers fly over the screen with practiced efficiency. The magnetic lock’s slight hum disengages with a minuscule click, and with a gentle push, the heavy door swings inward just enough for him to slip through.

Bucky’s footsteps are nearly silent as he traverses the eerie halls. He checks every intersection before proceeding, until he rounds a corner to nearly bump directly into a rather startled—and apparently disgruntled, if the bags under her eyes and her gaunt cheekbones are any indication—researcher. It’s entirely on instinct that he whips her around, clamping his metal hand over her mouth and wrapping his other hand around her throat as he yanks her spine to his chest. 

There’s a sick feeling in his stomach as he internally steels himself. 

She recognized him, that much he’s sure of. The way her eyes had widened wasn’t just from surprise—there was a brief flicker of recognition across her features, partially obscured by mousy hair. If he releases her, he knows she’ll probably scream, run, beg for her life…or maybe all of the above, if she’s feeling a little cowardly.

He can’t risk being found out, not when he’s so close. Not when Sam is counting on him to see this through. 

So he dons the visage of the feral thing that lurks in the furthest and foggiest and darkest reaches of his head, feeds it and shoves it into the spotlight where it can revel in the scientist’s fear.

"You’re going to listen very closely," he hisses, leaning down near the shell of the woman’s ear in an effort to keep his voice lowered. "I’m not planning on killing anyone today, so I advise you to keep your mouth shut when I let you go."

Every fiber of his body recoils in disgust at the mechanical tone that slips from his throat. It bubbles like poison; part of him wants to retch, but he knows he has to keep speaking or else his guilty conscience will get him caught and killed.

That isn’t entirely true. Hydra had been generous enough to prove to him that there are fates far worse than dying. They’d find another purpose for him, no doubt. 

He tightens his grip slightly until he hears a muffled squeak from the woman.

"Am I clear?" Bucky grits out. The sound of his own voice doesn’t feel remotely familiar. Part of him wishes he could pry it from his larynx and shred it into scraps, because it feels a little too much like the person he’d left behind, and he’s never able to distance himself as far as he wishes he can from the long shadow that trails him.

The researcher offers a jerky nod in response; although he can feel her frantic pulse hammering against his hand, he slowly releases his grip on her. His body remains tensed, a spring coiled and ready to snap at the slightest hint of a refusal to comply. 

Despite that, when the woman’s lips part, it’s only to loose a dry, rattling cough. He studies her carefully, but she doesn’t attempt to scream. She doesn’t even attempt to run. She merely turns to face him with something like fearful defeat in her stare, her eyes fixing on the wall behind him rather than his own.

Something about her refusal to look at him leaves anger to simmer just under the surface of his skin. He shoves the feeling far, far down, somewhere that he can dredge it up later.

But he’s never been good at processing things. The anger will stay lodged between his ribs where he won’t touch it until it cracks the bones open, leaving ugly weeds to grow in the gaps it leaves behind.

"What do you want?" The scientist asks. Her voice is a hoarse, small whisper. A pang of what Bucky thinks is guilt seizes his chest until he draws in a deep breath.

Admittedly, he hadn’t expected her to do as he said. 

"I’m looking for something," he replies after a long moment. "Another… asset." It isn’t easy to bite out the word that had haunted him for the longest time. He hates the way it rolls off his tongue, just another relic of the ghost he’s tried to kill over and over.

The woman’s eyes finally jump to his. There’s a flicker of something unreadable in them. 

"An asset?" She inquires, her voice finally gaining the tiniest amount of strength. "What kind of asset?"

Bucky pauses, considering his words carefully. He doesn’t want to divulge too much information, but he knows he needs to give her enough to understand what he’s after.

"Someone like me," he grinds out. "Enhanced. Trained. Used."

The admission is a hard and bitter pill for him to swallow. It must show on his face because the researcher’s wary face softens a fraction despite her fear. 

Somehow, the hint of pity makes him feel even worse. He can’t describe the relief that washes over him like a cooling mist as her gaze finally darts away.

"You have no idea how little that narrows it down," she says slowly.

"Like me," Bucky repeats. His tone is a little harsher than he meant it to be, and the researcher flinches. "Would’ve been active recently. Probably has similar capabilities."

There’s something about the way her back straightens up almost imperceptibly that leads him to believe she knows. He taps the holster at his hip meaningfully, nodding in her direction. 

The silent threat clearly works, because she immediately volunteers the information. "You’re looking for the Osprey," she breathes, bordering on a whisper.

Bucky’s heart stalls for what feels like forever. But it can’t be forever because she’s still looking at him with those wide brown eyes and he hasn’t moved an inch and any hope that there wasn’t another thing like him came crashing and burning to the ground. He’s not sure how he manages to collect himself. He’s not sure if he’s completely collected.

"The Osprey?"

The woman nods, fidgeting under the weight of Bucky’s piercing glare as though it might stab through her. "She isn’t– She’s not like you at all. They fucked up. Big time."

"Where is she?" He demands, reaching with his metal hand to grip her arm—the fidgeting was making him nervous. 

But the scientist only hesitates. Her eyes dart down the hall, almost like she’s terrified someone will suddenly appear out of thin air. "She…she was moved."

A heavy sigh wrenches itself from his lungs. That isn’t exactly the answer he was hoping for. His pulse is a war drum as he presses on. "Moved where?"

The breath the woman takes is shaky, and Bucky is pretty sure she’d attempt to run if he wasn’t tightening his hold on her arm. 

"I don’t know– They don’t tell us everything. Just what we need to know." A bitter laugh bubbles from her lips, and Bucky narrows his eyes at her. "Which, in my case, is barely enough to run a coffee machine."

Frustration gnaws at Bucky’s insides. He’s so close. He got a name, but he needs more. 

"Think," he urges, his voice low. "Anything. Any rumors. Any whispers."

The researcher’s eyes squeeze shut in concentration, but Bucky’s small hope is crushed when she shakes her head. "If I had to guess, I’d start with the cryolab. Something like that would have to be…contained."

Something. Not someone. Something. As if there isn’t a person somewhere inside the weapon Hydra had built with bloodied hands. 

He nods, releasing her arm. Her brows furrow slightly as she rubs the area where he’d grabbed her. 

"You’re going to take me there."

You’ve grown accustomed to receiving orders. 

Some intrinsic part of you preens when you do. It isn’t because you crave praise—such a concept is near unheard of for you, and you’ll never receive it from the researchers that train you and cage you and force you to hunt until your feathers are soaked in gore and final prayers.

It’s a little more complicated than that.

There’s a clarity that settles over you when you do as you’re told. It roots in your chest, buried somewhere under the rib cage and inside the heart that you’re convinced doesn’t beat, and it blooms into some sharp, thorn-covered thing. It hurts, and you can never dig it out like you had wanted to when you were younger and smaller, more innocent and less bloodied. You had tried.

So instead of trying to pry it from yourself, you embraced the ease of compliance. Compliance didn’t hurt as bad. Compliance didn’t starve you. Compliance didn’t force you to wallow in abject horror at the bodies that piled up at your feet, or at the copper tang that never left your tongue, or at the shredded ribbons of flesh you seemed to always leave in your wake.

There were moments of lucidity, of course, brief flickers where some part of you would wave aside the mist in your head. Where some part of you would dig into your chest with metal talons in an effort to cut the thorns loose. 

The Handler isn’t fond of those moments. You’ve never managed to draw blood in those moments when you know, when you remember what they’ve done to you, but you’ve gotten close, and he’s quick to put you back in your place. 

The resets are slow and painful. There are parts of you that vanish in the process, lost in the electricity that roars through your muscles like a wildfire. There is no place that the burning won’t reach, no place to hide, no place to run, only white heat and a sensation that you’re losing something important until it finally slips away from you. 

And just like that, your sense of self fades into nothing.

You lean against the wall of your Handler’s office as he gathers his files for the night and locks them away. He doesn’t say a word to you. He never does, not casually—not that you mind. You don’t make the greatest conversation partner in your current state. You don’t make much of anything at all.

But when the motion sensor pings on his phone, he speaks for the first time in more than half a day. 

"There’s a containment chamber breach in sector seven," he says with all of the concern of a person being asked what they want to eat for dinner. "Handle it."

The order is like a switch flipping in your head. The thorny thing in your chest tightens, a painful and yet familiar anchor. Clarity recedes into the well-worn grooves of obedience, and the fog settles into your skull like wool. Containment breach. Handle it.

The directives don’t require thought, only action, and your body moves without your conscious command. Your wings flex in anticipation as something in your blood sings for the promise of violence and metal and an end to the pain, which only compliance brings. 

And so you let your programming take hold.

The OSPREY will approach the containment area. Eliminate all non-personnel.

Your senses sharpen as they pick out the faint tremor that rocks the ground as you approach. Sector seven. The cryolab. That’s where the researchers store you between your assignments and security details, the only way they can keep you docile and contained. But you’re here, not there, and you can count on one hand the number of people with a clearance high enough to access it.

Until your gaze hones in on the metal door separating the cryolab from the rest of the sectors, and you realize that clearance was never an issue. The door is pried open at an unnatural angle, buckling in on itself as though someone had torn it open with sheer force. 

There’s a ghost of a voice in the corner of your mind that whispers and hums and warns, but it doesn’t matter because orders are orders and compliance completes you. 

Objective reached. The OSPREY will eliminate all non-personnel.

You slip through the remnants of the door frame as the harsh crack gunfire reaches your ears. It’s a long moment before your eyes fully adjust to the way the emergency lights bathe the lab in a hazy crimson glow, and your nostrils flare at the scent of something metallic and sharp. It’s crisp and vaguely familiar as it mixes with the tinge of gunpowder, like ozone after a lightning strike. 

You aren’t sure what to make of the situation; by the way the sharp thing in your chest loosens, your programming doesn’t, either. 

There’s a handful of scientists in white lab coats strewn around the room, some unconscious and some…not…And your eyes land on him.

Seven personnel unresponsive. Three personnel deceased. One friendly conscious, responsive. One non-personnel. The OSPREY will eliminate all non-personnel.

The dark figure is a whirlwind of controlled violence as he moves with brutal efficiency. There’s a brief glint of metal underneath the flashing red lights as his arm slams into a guard; a sickening crunch of bone echoes as the gunfire lulls. He’s focused—terrifyingly so—as he clears out the remaining security personnel, leaving only two people left.

You, and a mousy little researcher that looks like she’s seen better days and would rather be anywhere but here. You recognize her, you think, which makes it all the more confusing to you that the man isn’t disposing of her as he had the others.

The OSPREY will reassess containment zone threats.

Your wings unfurl in warning as he turns, his gaze sweeping the room. His eyes—a startling shade of blue—lock onto yours. He’s your directive. He’s the disturbance. And if he isn’t killing the woman…

Reassessed. Two non-personnel identified. Hostile identified. Noncombatant identified. Noncombatant presence will not be tolerated. The OSPREY will eliminate all non-personnel.

The thorns curling around your organs don’t tighten as you expect—they go still. A raw and disturbing and unidentifiable emotion claws its way up your throat until you’re damn near choking on the feeling, but your conditioning spurs on your movements before you can even attempt to stop yourself. You’re nothing but a passenger as your form lunges, wings propelling you faster than the man can move to intercept you.

You aren’t aware of when the metal talons extended from the beds of your nails. Your blood doesn’t sing with joy as it should when they tear into the woman’s throat in a spray of scarlet, slashing until her hands clutch the open gashes with a disgustingly wet gurgle. You sidestep as she staggers. 

She takes a single step before crumpling to the ground.

Noncombatant eliminated. Hostile combatant identified. The OSPREY will—

When you lift your chin towards the final figure in the room, you find yourself staring down the barrel of a firearm. It never would have scared you before. The thought of death wasn’t something that lingered in or even crossed your mind. 

But it isn’t the stolen rifle that forces unbridled fear through your veins. 

It’s the metal arm holding it.