Steve Rogers (
onlyforthedream) wrote2012-05-22 09:54 pm
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if you can hold on, hold on
This isn't a scene I ever wanted to witness.
The run to the Compound was brutal, and Tony was on his way out to get Xavier when I was on my way in. At some point, I took the Shield off my back and set it on an unoccupied bed.
There are doctors moving deftly from the table Bucky's stretched out on to the sink, or trays of gauze and utensils and back again. I didn't let anyone get near the arm until Dr. McCoy was there. I know the kind of technology he's worked with. He removed it, and I felt something wrench in my gut. I was vaguely aware of someone at my elbow speaking with concern before I shrugged them off and went around to watch them peel away the Winter Soldier's uniform. It would take a soldering iron to cut through it. He's covered in superficial wounds- severe bruising, mostly, damage to his ribs. With the arm gone, they manage all right.
Oh, God, Bucky.
I beg off questions, agree to let McCoy take care of the knife wound in my side after another reprimand I barely register. I'm numb to it, whatever he's doing. I don't bring up the gash on my leg. There's enough blood and dirt that I can't imagine anyone noticing for a while, anyway.
"...you'll want to restrain him," I say, as the thought occurs, though the words are hard to get out. I catch Rory frowning in my peripheral vision, bagging the ruined and blood soaked t-shirt I'd been wearing before depositing it in the trash.
"Just- until-"
There's a sound in the hallway of heavy metal on flooring and I'm up, off the spare bed, ignoring Dr. McCoy's curse of frustration.
"Professor?"
The run to the Compound was brutal, and Tony was on his way out to get Xavier when I was on my way in. At some point, I took the Shield off my back and set it on an unoccupied bed.
There are doctors moving deftly from the table Bucky's stretched out on to the sink, or trays of gauze and utensils and back again. I didn't let anyone get near the arm until Dr. McCoy was there. I know the kind of technology he's worked with. He removed it, and I felt something wrench in my gut. I was vaguely aware of someone at my elbow speaking with concern before I shrugged them off and went around to watch them peel away the Winter Soldier's uniform. It would take a soldering iron to cut through it. He's covered in superficial wounds- severe bruising, mostly, damage to his ribs. With the arm gone, they manage all right.
Oh, God, Bucky.
I beg off questions, agree to let McCoy take care of the knife wound in my side after another reprimand I barely register. I'm numb to it, whatever he's doing. I don't bring up the gash on my leg. There's enough blood and dirt that I can't imagine anyone noticing for a while, anyway.
"...you'll want to restrain him," I say, as the thought occurs, though the words are hard to get out. I catch Rory frowning in my peripheral vision, bagging the ruined and blood soaked t-shirt I'd been wearing before depositing it in the trash.
"Just- until-"
There's a sound in the hallway of heavy metal on flooring and I'm up, off the spare bed, ignoring Dr. McCoy's curse of frustration.
"Professor?"
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Windswept from the flight over and disoriented from the haste with which he was summoned, Charles nevertheless keeps his voice professional as he steps into the room. There's a time for academic curiosity, but this certainly isn't it, the tableau in the clinic grim, to say the least -- not that he had expected much else, even with what little information he was provided ahead of time. Right away, his gaze falls on the prone form of James Barnes. A note of concern sounds in the back of his throat; the man's seen better days. Then again, the same could very well be said for the Captain, desperation rolling off of him in waves.
For a moment Charles is not entirely sure which of the injured is meant to be his patient.
"Mr. Stark informed me that Barnes had been... programmed?" he says, casting a glance to the man in question as though to confirm the information. "Do we have any idea what set him off?"
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This was perhaps not Tony at his most diplomatic. Not to mention that Tony's most diplomatic was not exactly the stuff of legends. But he'd nearly been shot in the face and -- more upsetting to his sensibilities, he'd claim -- his armor had been shunted offline by a gadget in the guy's arm. Not even one of Tony's gadgets, which was both a plus and a minus.
"I don't even think he got the reference, honestly."
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"If we're restraining him and all," he drawls mildly, but he doesn't ease back from Bucky. No one said he was a genius with his own self-preservation in mind.
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"He's one of the most brutally efficient fighters I've ever seen," I answer, keeping my gaze fixed and level on the doctor.
"And if he wakes up in this room, even missing an arm, he won't need to equip himself with a weapon to amass a body count." Unless there's someone here to stop him, and I know doctors aren't usually fond of that scenario.
"The Winter Soldier was trained to be ruthless and not to ask questions. He... They broke down all the parts of him, of Bucky, that made him a hero and a good soldier and used the skills that were left to make him a weapon." The pressure is still there but it's not just in my jaw. It's in my shoulders and my chest, squeezing. I'm not shaking, because I... don't. That's just never been a physical response I had to trauma, or anger, or... It just isn't. I think this may be what it feels like, though. To be shaking apart on the inside. I've got to keep it together.
How the hell did this happen.
"But they couldn't erase the person that was there before, just bury him. He slipped his handlers a few times over the years, he went off-target. That's when they'd redouble the conditioning. You have to understand, this went on for decades." Decades I was asleep in the ice. What a joke.
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"I'm aware this situation is delicate, but to the best of your knowledge, could he have still been under the influence of this conditioning when he arrived here? Was he ever formally deprogrammed?"
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"It was after I'd been-" Not the time to bring up my assassination.
"I wasn't around for it, he said a doctor had gone in and 'cleaned up after the Soviets'. I only saw the programming overridden once, and it was using means we... don't have here."
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"Could you be a little more specific on 'means'?" he said, not precisely ignoring the fact Dr McCoy was talking but filtering it out to be referred back to later. He could multitask, it was an asset. "Could we get the means? And by we I mean... me, if it was some kind of hardware. I can add to our means, if I know what we need. Are we talking some kind of chemical compounds, or directed electrical stimulation of the neurons...?"
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"I don't know," I say to McCoy, my voice sharp to my own ears, before frowning at Tony.
"It can't be replicated here. It was a cosmic cube." There's a moment of what can only be described as skeptical silence and I want to put my fist through a wall.
"A containment matrix that has a reality-warping engine built into it. And is at least partially sentient. It's not an option."
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That hadn't been a bad breakdown of what that thing was, actually. Scant on the technical details, but it was just an overview, it did the job.
"No, okay, barring greater scientific documentation and quite likely additional resources, we can't make -- cosmic cube? That's the name they went with? -- we can't make one of those. In a reasonable timeframe. Alternative methodologies, then. Back in your court, Charlie."
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Eyes narrowing in thought, he frowns. This would be much easier if he could get inside Barnes' head and take a look around to see what's missing, what's buried. Dr. McCoy's scans, impressive as they are, eliminate the human element he's accustomed to manipulating, a tangled web of thought and memory resorted to lines on a screen.
"We need to wake him up."
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"Are we really doing this?" he asks once more, just in case someone has a lick of sense suddenly.
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"Why?"
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"Moreover, Dr. McCoy, I'm used to my patients being conscious. Had I my usual... resources, I could circumvent that issue, but unless one of you has a better suggestion for determining how deep this conditioning runs -- again, assuming that's what we're even facing, which is not guaranteed -- then ensure these restraints will hold, and wake him up so we can get some bloody answers. I will not risk this man's life on a hunch."
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He steps back, gesturing to Charles to be on the front lines for when they wake up sleeping beauty.
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It doesn't mean I don't start to. I do. There's a moment where my knee jerk reaction is to take half a step in his direction before I realize it, and then I do, and then I stop myself. Swallowing thickly, I force myself to back away from the table, to give them space, and to stay out of Bucky's sight, even his peripheral vision.
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"Wh-- You," he chokes out when he realizes just who is holding him down instead of what, straining against red hands. "Get-- Get off of me, you son of a bitch."
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"Yeah, no," he said, applying enough pressure to make sure Barnes wasn't going anywhere without actually damaging the man further. Hopefully more than that wouldn't be necessary, but he didn't exactly seem cooperative. "Your therapist wants a word."
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"My name is Charles Xavier," he says quickly and calmly, hoping that by providing some information he'll get the same in return. "I promise I'm trying to help you, but I'll need you to cooperate. Do you know your name?"
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No. He was supposed to avoid this, supposed to get up after that damned repulsor hit him in the back, but the seconds leading up to his blacking out are missing. It's only when his head slams against the bed in his attempt to break free, stars exploding in his field of vision, that he realizes Rogers must've got him with the shield. He bites down a scream, breathing hard through his nose as he continues his futile fight with renewed fervor.
"Don't have one."
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"Ask him what he's called," I suggest, then step away again.
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