A series of one shot chapters about Bucky Barnes mostly told in the first person by different people. Stories will reflect different times in the life of James Buchanan Barnes. This is PG rated and any sexual content will be kept to a minimum.
Mar...
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In some ways the influence of the man called Pierce changed how the Soldier was treated by HYDRA. He was still disciplined physically by his handler, sometimes brutally if he didn't do something quick enough or well enough but the treatment from the support staff, those who washed him, dressed him, and prepared his weapons, was better. They feared him and he sometimes heard them whisper about the day he killed four men with his bare hands. Not that he remembered it as the memory suppression treatment was a regular occurrence now. But if the others said he did it he had no reason not to believe them. That was also part of his training, to believe everything his handler and his superiors told him. Questioning was not tolerated, doubts were dealt with summarily, and disobedience was punished to the point of injury. Yet questions and doubts still arose in his mind, especially when he was alone in his quarters trying to sleep and remembering the things he had done for HYDRA. He never voiced them, knowing it would lead to extra treatment in the room with the black machine.
The Soldier ate what he was given, drank what was raised to his lips, and spoke only when spoken to, mostly during mission reports. He was aware of being sent to many different places, usually by aircraft, sometimes by truck, given his mission and weapons, then sent out to track his target, eliminate them, dispose of witnesses and return to a rendezvous point where his weapons would be taken from him, he would report the results of the mission then be taken back to a facility, usually one close to where he had eliminated his target, and be subject to the memory suppression treatment, and sometimes placed into the cryostasis cylinder.
Time had no meaning to the Soldier. When he wasn't frozen, he was aware of the passage of the days, but he didn't know what year it was or what month, unless it was necessary to know for his mission. There was an extended run of days where he was in Russia, moved from site to site as he worked for a place called the Red Room, a training program for female assassins.
The women, many of them still teenage girls, were required to fight against him almost to the point of him killing them but he was ordered not to deliver the killing stroke. Like him, time and money had been invested in them, and their master, a brutish man called Dreykov, would allow them so many attempts at withstanding the "training" with the Asset before removing the failed assassin from the program. He never knew what happened to those who were removed. Several of the women fared well against him in their training sessions, learning enough from each encounter to hold their own against him in his restrained efforts. Apparently, they were to graduate from the Red Room, which should have been an accomplishment, at least by his understanding of the term graduation.
It wasn't until he was escorted to his quarters and told to undress in preparation for sleep that he learned one of the reasons he was there. During the time he had been at the Red Room he was freed of his usual schedule in the memory suppression machine. Knowing that displaying any of his returning memories would result in punishment he kept his thoughts private, while still performing his training requirements with the Red Room recruits in the same manner. When one of the recruits appeared at his door and entered his room, wearing only night clothes, he looked at her suspiciously. Nervously, she looked back at him.
