Insanity

Chapter 3

Song: Human by Of Monsters and Men

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"Cage me like an animal."

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Karpov was waiting for Barnes just outside of the door to the makeshift training room. Barnes and the bald man sauntered out, the clipboard tight in Barnes's hand. He glanced around and noticed Natalia was nowhere to be seen, and he assumed Karpov sent her back to the previous room with the other operatives.

"Well?" Karpov said, arching a bushy eyebrow towards the ceiling. "Did they all pass?"

"You said people were having difficulties training them to fight. Why?" Barnes asked, dodging Karpov's question like it was a bullet. Sure, five of the operatives had done fairly poorly, but Natalia had performed creatively and wisely. Barnes doubted she needed any more training.

Karpov clasped his hands behind his back as he so often did, nodding. "For starters, none of them are physically all that strong. Sure, they're enhanced, but they still need muscle."

"Muscle doesn't affect learning," Barnes deadpanned. "Who was training them?" Karpov shot Barnes a warning glare, but Barnes chose to ignore it. "Because I don't see why I-"

Smack!

Karpov smacked the back of his hand across Barnes's cheek, effectively silencing him. Barnes's cheek immediately began stinging and he was certain it was now in the same color family as the star on his left arm. He bit the inside of his cheek and glued his arms down at his sides, resisting the overwhelming temptation to bring his cool left hand up to soothe the burning on his face. It felt as though several fire ants had decided to bite him at the same time, their little red bodies giving a reddish glow to his cheek.

The bald man gulped awkwardly. "The doctors were training them," he piped, sounding as if he had a cough trapped in his throat. "I observed their progress. Or, their lack of progress," he said, clicking the top of his pen rather obnoxiously. Barnes had to restrain himself from ripping the pen from his grip and strangling him to death.

"So you'd like Soldier to train all of them, I presume?" Karpov said with the tonality of a proud father, completely disregarding what he had just done. Completely disregarding the fact that he just backhanded someone, and that that someone was still standing just a mere few feet away from him.

And there he went again, talking about Barnes as if he was still asleep in the cryostasis chamber, as if he was a machine waiting to be put to use. He supposed in a way, he was. He was only awake when Hydra needed him for a job, after all. To them, he knew he was little more than a weapon of mass destruction. He was a weapon that was only filled with ammo when they needed him to fire away at something.

The bald man shook his head and Barnes squinted slightly, his interest peaked. "No, no," the bald man said. "You see, I think most of the operatives will respond well to training by a more. . . qualified trainer, such as a general as opposed to a doctor. Most of them have no problem following orders and doing as told, so I think given the proper training they will go quite far."

Karpov furrowed his brow. "Most?" he questioned, speaking exactly what Barnes was thinking.

"Well, yes. Most. You see," the bald man started, handing Karpov the clipboard. Barnes tried to peer around Karpov's side and read what it said, but Karpov kept it angled perfectly away from him. "I told the girls to go in, answer the questions, and demonstrate their skill set. I intended for them to answer the questions truthfully and then show off their fighting skills so that ideally, your soldier could see where they needed improvement. As you can see, for the most part, they did just that."