You're Too Sweet For Me

Bucky Barnes is the Winter Soldier. He knows himself as James, or Soldier. Normally he forgets more, normally he's less himself but they've decided he's compliant enough. He won't leave, even when given parts of himself back. This new programming makes him more intelligent, makes him even more of an asset. It's worth the risk.Steve Rogers is a guard for Hydra. He hates it there, but he's in too deep to leave. Normally he just tries get through the day unnoticed but the Soldier keeps teasing him and worse he keeps liking it. He's finding excuses to talk to the Soldier despite common sense. He sees himself in the soldier, and worse he sees someone he could love. And so he follows the soldier to the red room.Natasha Romanov is a widow. She has graduated the red room program and is only growing more dangerous. Normally she's wary of outsiders but when the soldier and his guard are transferred to the red room to assist in training? She's intrigued by them. She wants to know them, and she'll find a way too.

I came up with this driving home from the circus? But I'm proud of it. For this au, Steve and Bucky haven't met before hydra. Everything else follows roughly a similar timeline of Bucky getting captured and being freed (just not by Steve) before falling off the train and being recaptured. Bucky has been in cryofreeze for several decades and it's closer to the 1990s now. Steve is from a more modern time period and recently joined hydra.Natasha has just graduated although remains at the red room aside from missions.