If the Wind Turns

Her chest is rising and falling shakily, and Her wings twitch with apprehension as the frost creeps up the glass of the lab’s cryogenic chamber. 

Bucky tries to ignore the slight panic that flares in Her eyes before the cryosleep solution swimming in Her veins takes hold—he’d have to thank whatever small instinct that had urged him to swipe the remaining doses from the tray after he had bested the Osprey some other time, but not now.

Everything will be fine, or at least okay and fixable. He won’t have to kill the person he had just been instructed to save. Probably.

It’s the most Bucky dares to hope for as he watches the point where the Osprey’s unconscious form is held behind the frosted glass, the top half of Her face obscured by the neural scanner. The Stark-designed device looks bulky and nowhere near the slim form factor of Wakandan technology, but Shuri had insisted that the results would mirror the ones he received if all went well.

If.

The word sinks into some cavity of his skull that no light would ever settle in, the part that fears the worst and expects the best to slip through his fingers like fine silk. 

He’s trying to be more positive. Dr. Raynor—as much of a hardass as she could be—was right in her attempts to make him see the brighter side of things, even if he’s less of a ray of sunshine and more of a still puddle of rainwater after a storm.

He’s trying, but he can’t shake the feeling that this might not work and he could’ve fucked everything up and She might—

She might…?

Bucky isn’t sure where the line of thought leads because he snips that thread before it gets a chance to weave itself any further into his head. He can fix this. He can finish the favor Sam had asked of him. He can dismantle Hydra’s best weapon and walk away unscathed, and the lingering questions he has about Her will dissipate into a thin mist. He can ignore the subtle itch somewhere just behind his eyes that demands that he look at Her, that he observe, that he learn everything he can about what makes that sharp mind tick. He can grab that weak, nagging thing that insists that he’s just like Her and strangle it in his grip until it ceases in his chest. He can swear up and down that the Osprey is a cold-blooded killer and not just the result of science pushed to and beyond its moral limits, and he can believe it.

But Dr. Raynor also told him not to lie to himself, didn’t she?

So he has to admit to himself that only some of those things are true.

And he doesn’t know if he can do that.

His eyes remain fixed on Her despite his every attempt to look away. She looks so…small in the cryo chamber, without the rigid posture and simmering tension that seemed to define Her. The soft glow of the monitors bathe the pod in shifting hues of blue and red as they display complex patterns of brain activity that Bucky isn’t even going to try to comprehend. 

It’s not his job to. He can leave it to the two Wakandan scientists that Shuri had hand picked and sent damn near a world away for this, and he can stop worrying and sit the hell down like they’d asked him to do no less than three times.

But he’s really not all that good at waiting and relying on other people. He paces and paces and paces until the taller of the two women looks as though she might tie him to a chair. 

It isn’t like he doesn’t trust Shuri’s judgment or technology. Both had been instrumental in Bucky’s own treatment in Wakanda. King T’Challa—may he rest in peace—had said it best: Shuri was the most brilliant scientist Wakanda had ever known, and he trusted her with his life.

Bucky can say the same.

But his life and Her life are two very different things, and he isn’t sure which one would weigh more in blood and sin if placed on a scale at the end of them.

Safe to say, he’s a little apprehensive. 

The digital map grows increasingly intricate as the minutes tick by. 

And then it stops. 

Patches of red bloom across the blue web of crisscrossed lines like blood tainting clean water, and Bucky’s heart plummets as one of the two Wakandan scientists turns towards him. 

Her eyes aren’t unkind, but the words that come from her lips are a wooden stake directly in his chest:

“…We may have a small problem.”

You aren’t sure if you hate the rain.

You’re not sure because that’s a choice, and you’re unable to do much of anything with those. Hydra has made sure of it, and your Handler reinforces it every single day that you spend outside of the cryo chambers.

Choice had been taken from you long ago, rendering likes and dislikes entirely useless to your lethal existence. If you had ever recalled anything with something more or less than a detached apathy, you don’t remember it.

But as the rain pelts down on you like tiny needles against your exposed arms, you feel a slight spike of annoyance. 

And annoyance is fine.

It’s one of the few things you’re allowed to feel, one of the few things that won’t send your mind reeling until you end up right back at your Handler’s feet like a dog that had been kicked and told to go home. 

You try not to think too hard about that fact as your boots make steady progress against the glass of the high-rise building. Your descent is quick and methodical as you count the floors, instinctively taking note of their contents. A few people had seen you as you rappelled down, but you don’t particularly care. Witnesses aren’t an issue here. They could scream, point, stare, or even call the police, and you wouldn’t bat an eye.

The police would never be fast enough to halt your mission, and they wouldn’t believe a word of what the witness would tell them.

Your hands tighten slightly around the rope as you feed it through your hands, growing ever closer to the 98th floor. The programming in the back of your skull is an ever present chant, driving your every movement as if you can’t function without it. 

The OSPREY will locate and eliminate William Holmes.

Upon mission completion, the OSPREY will return to its designated Handler. 

You wonder what William’s crimes are. That’s the part Hydra never fills you in on—they simply point you in a direction, agitate your collar until you’re practically snapping and foaming at the mouth, and set you loose on whatever poor soul decided to cross those above your pay grade. You never get to know why. Does he deserve it? He’s a wealthy CEO with plenty of government contracts up his alley, but just how bloodied are his hands? Does he have a wife? Kids? Is there someone that he comes home to, someone that might miss him after you—

Emotional response outside of acceptable margins. Reconditioning required upon return to designated Handler. 

Well, fuck. You’ll be in for a long night when you return.

Your eyes briefly squeeze shut as you shake your head to clear it and then blink the rain droplets from your lashes. Regardless of your imminent threat of reprogramming, the mission’s completion isn’t optional—though you’d certainly appreciate it if it ends sooner rather than later, if only so you can dry your heavily waterlogged wings.

One gloved hand steadies the rope securing you as you pause your descent and carefully survey the target floor before drawing your goggles over your eyes. 

William, whoever he is, clearly has a taste for luxury. Expensive rugs, sweeping chandeliers—who even needs that many lights, anyway?—and display cases of various trinkets that you don’t particularly recognize. Working with Hydra doesn’t exactly give you an expansive education in fine arts, after all. You don’t know how to feel about the interior design, so you feel nothing at all. 

The perfect lap dogs don’t have to question what they think, only follow orders.

There’s a light on somewhere within the penthouse, but you can’t quite tell what room it’s in. It won’t be a problem, because the information you’re given is always correct, just as your Handler’s words are absolute and just as your mission is the top priority.

And if the information is always correct, then Holmes is unguarded and preparing for a black tie event.

Which should make the lit room a master suite.

Your boots scuff against the glass for a moment as you shove as hard as you can against the insulated pane and draw your sidearm from the holster in your vest. The momentum swings you outward just long enough for you to squeeze the trigger three times. The first and second impacts shatter the glass but leave the sheet otherwise intact.

The third bullet has the glass raining down around you as you hurtle through the frame and unclip from the belay device controlling your descent. 

Your wings snap open to help you find your balance and stop you from landing directly on your face, and only after you’ve gone still does everything come crashing back.

Blood roars in your ears like a caged animal, and your heart slams so hard in your chest that, if you didn’t know any better, you’d think it’s going to shatter your rib cage. 

Nonfatal injuries sustained. The OSPREY will proceed to eliminate the target. 

You don’t bother checking over your injuries as you press onwards, although some part of you underneath the programming can feel the dulled bite of the glass shards that must be embedded in your skin. 

If only you could get hazard pay.

A shout comes from the master suite; you hone in on it like a predator. There’s something that unfurls in your chest at the noise, something that preens at the sound of fear and confusion, something that settles comfortably into the well-worn tracks laid by a hunter’s instinct. You can practically smell the uncertainty in the air like the shift just after lightning strikes.

The crunch of your boots through the broken glass is slow, methodical. You hold your handgun at the ready, the smooth glint of metal dancing under the distorted light that floods in from the broken window. 

The door to the suite is open. William Holmes stands just beyond the doorway, in front of a ridiculously large mirror that no person with any sense of taste has any right to own. His hair is still wet and his dress shirt is halfway buttoned, but it isn’t like that would matter after the next few moments. No one would be seeing him in this state.

No one except for you.

Though classically attractive, there’s something about the CEO that forces another twinge of annoyance down your throat. You aren’t sure what or why. You can’t help but catch the unadulterated sort of fear that settles in the man’s eyes as you approach. 

There’s a brief moment of silence as you track his movements like your namesake implies, an osprey watching its prey just before swooping in for the capture. He scrambles to reach for his phone on the dresser, but it’s not like it’ll be of any use to him. He’ll never even get to hit the call button. 

The barrel lifts. Points towards his head, seemingly of its own volition.

But there’s a burning sensation deep within your veins that prevents you from pulling the trigger, and you can’t fight it no matter how hard you try to gain agency over your body.

A wave of pure cold crashes over you a moment later, and you want to fight it. You really, really do, but the chill feels better than the heat searing your blood and the pounding in your head and the insistence that you kill the man before you without a single thought of what crimes he did or did not commit.

So you let it take you under.

Bucky’s eyes snap away from the cryo chamber as the words hit his ears.

Maybe he isn’t hearing properly.

After all, if anyone can manage this procedure without a flaw, it’s Shuri and her team—which means that he must be hearing things incorrectly, and there really isn’t any problem at all.

But the scientist’s warm brown eyes stay locked on his own and don’t waver even as something makes itself comfortable nesting in his chest. It twists at his insides until he feels sick, horribly fucking sick, and he thinks maybe he should’ve taken the woman’s order to sit down with more than just a dismissive nod. 

“What do you mean, a small problem?” He asks. His voice is harsher than he means it to be, but the two scientists don’t even flinch.

He wonders if fear is even a word in their vocabulary. They don’t seem to shrink away from anything, much less him.

The taller of the two women, the one that had introduced herself as Asanda, gestures towards the digital map of the Osprey’s brain with one perfectly manicured hand. 

“I’m sure I don’t need to explain to you what the red parts are,” she begins, and the thing coiled somewhere between Bucky’s heart and ribs squeezes just a little too tight for him to ignore. 

But Bucky can’t identify it or give it a name. It might eat him alive if he does, leaving only the shell of a man that had taken a favor just for the chance to do something right for once. So he does the mature thing: he pulls the writhing thing from his chest and shoves it in a glass jar somewhere, and it isn’t pretty but it works, even if his therapist will probably chew his ass out later—

Asanda’s calling of his name drags him back. 

Right. The problem.

Bucky’s well aware of what the red areas on the brain scan mean. It had been explained to him during Shuri’s initial briefings: the stark visual representation of the way the programming had ravaged Her brain, the deep-seated neural pathways carved out like gouges in stone by years of indoctrination. The blue areas are the baseline and the only sign that there’s really a person somewhere underneath…except the blue looks like it’s been swallowed up for the most part.

“The primary layer of Hydra’s control is just as deeply entrenched as we thought it might be. However,” Asanda pauses, her brow furrowing, “there are secondary and tertiary layers functioning almost like…failsafes. We were able to isolate and begin the erasure of the core directives, the ones enforcing her general inability to refuse orders.”

She gestures towards the blue sections. “These are the parts that have been successfully targeted with few challenges. But these,” the woman notes as she points to the persistent, angry blooms of red on the holographic screen, “these are far more resistant. They seem to be tied to specific memories or points in her past, acting as anchors to reinforce the programming.”

“What kind of memories?” 

Asanda exchanges a glance with Imani, the shorter scientist beside her, before casting a more careful look towards Bucky. 

“We can’t be certain at this stage. The neural activity spikes every time the algorithm attempts to access the red zones. It’s…chaotic, but the patterns suggest a strong emotional response—it could be fear, aggression, or even something more complex.”

“Complex? How?” Bucky’s voice feels a little too hoarse and a little too shaky for it to really seem like his, and he wouldn’t have believed the words had come from his mouth if he didn’t feel the way they clawed up his throat like bile.

He’s not sure why he’s worried.

Imani taps a section of the screen where the red is flaring, a violent, angry thing.

“It almost seems like a connection. A personal attachment—as if, deep down, she doesn’t want to let go.”

Bucky scoffs; the sound is harsh and humorless. “Attachment ? Hydra doesn’t breed attachment. They breed weapons.”

“Perhaps,” Asanda counters gently. He hates how kind her tone is, hates the way she looks at him with something akin to pity in her eyes, hates the way her voice is calming and grating all at the same time. He’s never been good with kindness, and he certainly doesn’t know how to handle her gentle demeanor now. “but even Hydra’s weapons were people once. And people form attachments, however twisted or suppressed. Are you not proof of that, Mr. Barnes?”

He doesn’t want to consider it. Admitting to her words feels like a personal betrayal, a stab in the fleshiest part of whatever hidden and desperate piece of him wants to pretend that Hydra had never stolen him away. That he never had any sort of connection.

There’s the lying again.

He can lie to anyone else, but never himself.

So, fuck it, maybe he understands where Asanda’s coming from. And maybe he understands just how deep Hydra’s tentacles can sink into someone’s mind. And maybe he can admit that, even if he wants to distance himself, the same tainted blood running through Her veins is the same thick poison being pumped through his.

…And maybe he understands the attachment, too.

But the thought of the Osprey, the ruthless assassin that She is, harboring any semblance of human emotion feels…wrong, somehow. Dangerous. It complicates all of the things that he just wants to keep simple.

“So, what do we do?” He asks finally, and he hates that his voice still doesn’t feel entirely his, almost as if he’s hearing a version that’s been recorded and distorted and played back just a couple cents sharper than usual.

“We continue the treatment. The algorithm is designed to adapt, to refine its approach as it encounters resistance…but it will take time. We’ll be monitoring her brain’s activity closely—the relived memories could provide valuable insight into the extent of her programming and the nature of her conditioning.”

“Insight?” Bucky repeats. The word tastes bitter in his mouth. He doesn’t want insight into the monster that had been created—he wants it gone completely. 

But Imani fixes him with a firm yet not unkind stare. “It’s crucial for ensuring the complete erasure. If you want the algorithm to do its job, you’ll need the information.” 

Bucky brushes his hand through his hair, the metal of his prosthetic cold against his scalp. It’s clear he doesn’t have much of a say in this, no matter how much he’s regretting suggesting the procedure. 

He only hopes it’s the right decision.