The Ideal I
The Asset goes to the museum. It dresses appropriately. It pushes back its hair and it wears a hat. It does not see how tired it looks. The Asset was never one for mirrors. They used them, sometimes, to show it things, but the Asset is not vain. The Asset’s motivation here is simply to learn about the man that was its mission. Because the Asset recognized the man and the man recognized the Asset but not really the Asset. The man’s words echoed in the Asset’s mind. It cannot remember much, but it does not think that any other person’s words have ever done that. It categorizes this as weakness in its mind.
Though it’s not really the Asset’s own mind, is it? It was created by HYDRA, so therefore the Asset’s mind also belongs to them. It doesn’t have its own mind, though it might be starting to carve out a space for itself in there. Even if that just comes down to using existing pathways in slightly more creative ways than they were originally meant for.
There are people there. The Asset blends in and away from them. Most don’t give him a second look. The teachers herding massive groups of small children give him looks, but he stays away from them. People are protective of - no - he absolutely cannot lose himself in public like that. He presses on his broken finger, feeling rooted in the hint of pain. It feels the pain, in case any of its handlers had ever wondered about that. It feels it, but it only reports it when it becomes a hindrance to mission success. This does not happen often. Perhaps if it did, the impetus to escape would have been more attractive. Perhaps this is why they trained it for this.
And oh, does the Asset’s brain hurt. It looks at all the things around it - it is still standing in Early Life - and it feels things, like the electricity of the chair. It almost turns around and leaves, because it is overwhelmed by the feeling that it should not know any of this. But it decides it needs to stay, just because of that very fact. It sees flashes in its mind, sometimes. It knows what page lurks behind the current one in one of the sketchbooks. It doesn’t know anything else, but it knows that there’s an alley cat behind a drawing of what is, according to the sign, Steve Rogers’ mother.
Then it comes to the section on the war. It has a headache now - almost blinding, but not quite. The mission can still be completed. There are so many photographs. The Asset remembers music, remembers cold metal - what is your name no one is coming for you - 3255 - it nearly creates a new fracture in its already broken finger. There is a photograph, two men. One is the mission, Steve Rogers. The other is - pain. It reads the card instead. James ‘Bucky’ Barnes and Steve Rogers were friends from childhood. Born March 10, 1917, Barnes met Rogers when they were both still young, forming a bond that would last until Barnes’ death in the Alps. The Asset shudders. It looks to the photo again. It will be sick later, it thinks. To do so now would draw attention. The man in the photo has a face that in some ways resembles the Asset’s. It understands now, why Captain America would call it by that name. The Asset does not think that the man in the photo is him, the machine, the weapon staring up at it. This is not a mirror. This is an image that evokes a reaction. He thinks that there are memories imbued in many of these items - they definitely hurt his head enough - but none of them reflect the Asset. For that to happen, the Asset would have to have a sense of self. It doesn’t know what a sense of self is yet, though perhaps it is edging towards one.
The image is of a face like his, but he’s not convinced that it is his. There is a death associated with that face and the Asset is neither dead nor alive. The Asset was created. It knows this. They told him. However, even staring at this image, there are some truths about it that he cannot escape. He doesn’t recognize the body - this body cannot be the same one that is looking at it. He doesn’t remember being like that.
But maybe there’s something to it. He’s started thinking of himself as a ‘he’ and less of an ‘it’. The Asset doesn’t really know why. It was called by those pronouns, it remembers this, but it was never encouraged to think of itself as a person. Maybe the fact that it is trying to blend into humans is giving it the idea that he might be able to become one. Maybe this is a part of the new mission. Steve Rogers thought he was a person. Was willing to speak to the Asset like he was a person.
The Asset gives up on staring at the large photograph of the two men and moves on. It has no other moments like that one, but flashes of memory float through its mind. It goes through the end of the exhibit quickly - it knows what Captain America looks like in the modern day, and the man’s voice makes his head hurt. It returns to its new shelter. Once it has sat down, his head leaning against the wall, he loses time uncontrollably. Images flash and he is paralysed, unable to reach out to break the stream. It hurts. It always does. It always hurts. Order through pain.