human
Seconds pass. You’re frozen and stalled. Just staring and working through the contact in your brain.
You’re finally able to drag your eyes from the touch to examine the face this hand belongs to.
Stunned at what you find, every muscle in your body begins fighting to hold back tears. Whether they’re tears of fear or sadness or just about every emotion under the fucking sun, you aren’t sure.
The steely blue eyes piercing you through curtains of dark brown hair are brimmed with tears- bloodshot, too, eyelids trembling. You manage to catch the few quick blinks that try to make the tears dissipate, but the attempts are unsuccessful. A single one trails from the left eye, cutting through the grime and blood, leaving a mark down his face.
The energy that radiates from him and sinks into your presence can only be described as scared. And broken.
He’s terrified, hurt, and broken.
A light gasp leaves his lips before they begin moving, the voice that follows so quiet that you nearly miss it entirely. Hell, if you weren’t looking so intently at every fiber of his being, you would have.
“Please,” the voice shudders out. In English.
“Please, help, it… hurts.” Another tear escapes from his left eye, following along the same mark as the first. His accent is bizarrely similar to yours-
Is he from fucking Brooklyn? Is he not Russian? This whole time, you’ve been thinking the six Winter Soldiers were Russian assassins, notRussian assassins and one guy from Brooklyn who your family probably knows. You did think he looked familiar when-
Jesus fuck, focus Louise this is not what you should be concerned about right now.
You try to put as much sincerity into your stuttering words as possible, saying “Um, fuck, I.. yes, yeah. It’ll be okay, I’ve got you. You will- you’ll be okay Soldier, it will all…”
The warmth on your wrist is gone.
The instant the word ‘Soldier” left your lips, he was gone.
Just like that, every vulnerable emotion he displayed was gone.
One muttered word and he is rigid, still, emotionless again. Glassy blue eyes looking straight ahead at nothing in particular.
You gently let the arm down on top of the armrest, rolling back in your chair, hands coming up to cover your mouth that’s open in utter disbelief.
Shit just keeps getting fucking weirder every fucking day?
The Asset just cried?
He looked at you?
He looked at you, and he cried?
God, he looked so shattered and so human.
This super soldier, this assassin, this person HYDRA had turned into their own robotic killing machine, is not just a shell.
He’s in there.
Fuck, he feels it all. Everything they make him do, he knows it. He doesn’t want this.
And he’s from fucking Brooklyn.
Did they brainwash him?
Of course, of course they did, that’s why he’s a damn robot, Louise.
What do you do?
What can you do?
His touch was so soft, so delicate. How did he not just crush your wrist? How did he not crush it just like he did the armrest of the chair those couple months ago?
Who was he?
No.
Who is he?
How did you never once stop to think about how this is a fucking human, not a literal robot with a super realistic skin suit?
Why did you not ask more questions?
You didn’t even try to ask about him? Why have you not tried to pry and get information?
Fuck, you have to do something.
Louise, you can’t just sit here and think to yourself, do something.
You stand up, wiping the inevitable tears off your face, pacing around the lab for what feels like weeks.
Then you make your way back over to him, pulling your chair up, sitting back down, grabbing your tool.
As you lightly pick up the metal hand, hear the grinding of the arm’s gears, you can’t help but feel gutted when you look expectantly at the emotionless face, search the glazed-over eyes, and nothing happens. You let out a light huff that turns into a small chuckle as you try to ground yourself and think about anything, anything else as you press the tool under the metal wrist-plate, easily popping it out of the socket.
You work on the arm diligently. Occasionally finding yourself resting against a wall in a corner of the lab, knees pulled to your chest, tears lightly falling onto the dark blue denim on your legs. Other times, you find yourself standing directly in front of the Soldier, blocking his unmoving gaze, searching the structures of his hollowed-out yet chiseled face to find any answers you possibly can. But you spend the most time welding and measuring and carving and calculating angles and sliding new plates into place and
“ANDERSON!” A voice booms from the top of the stairs.
“What.” You reply, weakly, voice cracked and hoarse.
“What the fuck are you doing??”
“What do you mean, Rumlow, I’m fixing his arm.”
“It’s fucking three a.m.; he should be in the freezer and you should be in your quarters?”
Three a.m.?
It’s been sixteen hours? Has it been sixteen hours since they brought him in here? No, there’s no way. You look over to the windows of the lab, hoping the outdoor scene would confirm your side of the story, but you somehow hold back an eye roll when you see the pitch-black, star-scattered sky.
“Seriously Anderson, I want the Asset in the freezer within the next ten minutes. You can do more… whatever it is tomorrow.” He shouts, motioning lazily at nothing in particular. He’s more irritated this time.
You walk towards the stairs before stopping at the base.
“I want him in here by seven.” You say, pointedly, punctuating the last half of the sentence harshly.
“You don’t get to boss me around, sweetheart.” Rumlow offers smugly.
“Call me that again and you’ll have a fucking knife in your thigh, I fucking swear.” You toss back as you turn and begin to walk to your workstation.
“Really? Threatening me now?” He lets out a chuckle before adding “Please honey, I’m sure SHIELD didn’t train you well enough for you to brag about your knife skills.”
Fed up, rubbed entirely the wrong way, and clearly sleep deprived, you make a slightly impulsive decision.
Facing Rumlow once again, you let your right hand fall to your thigh, gripping the handle of a throwing knife and slipping it free from your holster. You send an innocent smile his way as you give the blade a few spins between your fingers, holding the smooth metal of the handle again when the timing feels right.
Batting your lashes, you lift your hand and turn your body clockwise ninety degrees, pulling back and letting the knife leave your grasp.
Never breaking eye-contact.
You don’t turn to examine the result of your throw, because judging by the wide-eyed look on the asshole’s face, you made your statement pretty clear.
“Next time, it’ll be your thigh or his head. Your choice, doll. We on for seven?”
You take his response as a yes, observing him scoff and cross his arms over his chest, turning, and slamming the door behind him.
When you hear that slam, you drop the smile along with your shoulders, walking over to the chair. You find that your knife had stuck into the headrest about an inch away from the Soldier’s oily, slightly wavy hair.
You pull the blade from the leather-covered foam and slip it back into the sheath, muttering to the Soldier without thinking, “Sorry about that, he’s such a fucking prick. It won’t happen again, I promise.”