thecapitol | [open]

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WHO| Rumlow. And open.
WHAT| Taking in the lay of the land.
WHEN| Day after his arrival.
WHERE| Tribute Common Area
WARNINGS| None yet. The day is young.

Whiskey sounded like a good first step.

The people around here didn't skimp on quality, that's for damn sure. He got service with a smile, and a glass of the top-shelf stuff, two fingers, neat. No charge, they said, and he didn't question it for a second, draining the clear amber liquid a swig at a time.

These were the sort of accommodations the one percent dreamed of, back home. Kind of reminded him of Dubai, if Lady Gaga had taken over the fashion industry. With a privately amused snort Rumlow took it all in, the people wandering by, the lush decor and the swanky bars, the prestige that came with being a 'tribute'. As far as kidnapping and imprisonment went, they could definitely do worse for cells. He'd give them that much.

All he had to do in return is participate in these...games, and crack a few skulls along the way. It all seemed a little too simple, too straightforward. Someone around here had to have the real score. He supposed he could return to his floor -- District 6, they'd said -- and investigate matters from those supposedly on his own team.

One more drink, maybe.

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It shouldn't as much of a surprise at it is.

The once Asset, now going by the reclaimed name of Bucky Barnes, stops in his tracks when he see's the man drinking in one of the seats in the lobby. It takes him a moment to positively identify him with the gut feeling that the guy is HYDRA hitting him before he can put a name to the face. Brock Rumlow, STRIKE team leader.

Bucky's hands tighten into fists in the pockets of his jacket. A quick mental check assures him that the kitchen knife he plucked from the cutlery drawer in District 1 is still hidden in his left sleeve as he advances forwards with no real plan in mind, it's like he's on autopilot suddenly and he'll only know what he's going to do when he gets there.

In the months he's been here not much has physically changed about the Asset (dying and being reset twice will do that) but Brock might notice that his left cheek is sporting a messy and ugly brand on it, a wound that hasn't healed the way it should have.

You want a way to spook a guy, that was it. Right there.

Seeing the asset approaching a quick clip with a look that meant business was all that was needed to send a very real chill down his spine. It wasn't as if he didn't know what he was capable of. He'd seen him fight, more than once, a privilege at the time. That thing was a finely-honed weapon, brutally efficient in ways he could only dream of. And if he was a tribute? Rumlow's chances just took a tremendous nose dive.

Rumlow doesn't let that fear shine through, though. You never let them smell fear or panic. Instead he locked eyes right back, his back straightening, jaw tightening. He's taken account of the ways out of here already, if it comes to that, but he's already got a smile pulling into place, lacking warmth of any kind. "Well, look who it is."

He takes another swig, not lowering his eyes for a second.

"I know you."

Bucky gets all the clarification he needs for that fact in Rumlow's reaction to him but he doesn't attack (for now). There's certainly the temptation to go ahead and eliminate the potential threat, a thought that's clashing in his head with what's left of the programming they gave him. However he can't forget that Capitol has too many eyes and ears everywhere for him to ever hope of not getting his own execution order if he did, the rules are clear and their captors are unforgiving.

His hands slide free of his pockets, the silver metal of the left one gleaming in the artificial lights.

"How long have you been here?"

Never a good thing, when a weapon starts asking questions. He's got no notion himself of how long the asset has been here -- out of their control, his mind warns him -- or what kind of state his mind is in. He's not a technician, he doesn't know how any of those wires are supposed to fit, or what happens when he's out of the cage for too long.

He knows him. Wonderful.

"More importantly, how long have you?" His eyes narrow slightly, not giving an inch. It's like staring down a goddamn tiger, and if it's a matter of pulling on what programming remains intact? Damn right he will. "Guessing our captors must have had a Hell of a time convincing you to go against orders and play their little game."

His irritation spikes as his question is left unanswered and pushed aside in favour of Rumlow's own. He had no expected better, to this man he would not be so much a person as a thing, a weapon that was supposed to be stored and put away except for when it needed to be fired. A weapon was not supposed to ask questions.

Bucky's hands tighten further as they stare each other down. The impulse to answer spikes high despite his intention to disobey, Rumlow might not be a handler but he's high up, high enough that Bucky knows his identity and command. "Five--" His jaw clenches, bites down on it, the next words come near a growl, "Answer me."

Five months he's made it without any of them and now it's suddenly changed. If there's one, are there more? This probably wasn't a good idea but it's too late to turn around now.

"Answer you?"

Oh. Someone went and grew a backbone. That's all kinds of not good, but Rumlow's going double or nothing on this, straightening up and staring the asset down like he just gave the wrong answer. Five. Five hours? Five days? It can't have been that long since the Helicarrier went down.

He sets his glass down, rises up out of his chair. The asset has inches on him, true, but he's not balking at that now.

"When did you start demanding answers out of anyone?" His head cocks, brow furrowed. That's an honest question. He needs to know how deep Shit Creek is at this point, and how far up it he really is.

His body stiffens when Rumlow decides to stand. It's ridiculous that there's any kind of intimidation felt on Bucky's part. Logically he knows he's perfectly capable of defending himself and taking Rumlow down if it comes to it, even diminished as he is -- which is a factor he hopes the man in front of him is as of yet unaware of -- but that's not how their control worked. The number HYDRA had done on Bucky Barnes was far more insidious than that.

It didn't matter what he knew his body was capable of when his mind had been brutally broken and shaped beneath their hands over and over until he could barely think for himself outside the missions they gave him. It didn't matter that he could easily take down a room full of armed men when the lessons of pain and order had been planted so deep they were almost as natural as breathing. You don't shake off years of living that way in the space of a few short months.

He needs to give a Rumlow an answer and the one he chooses is also a reminder to himself. "Since HYDRA failed."

"Failed?"

That conditioning is what he's relying on now, more than anything. If he falters, gives him an inch, he could be screwing himself over royally. No, he just shakes his head, as though the asset had just said something funny.

"You think because Cap downed a couple of Helicarriers, that we're finished? You know better than that. You know the saying. Cut off one head..."

There's a reason he said failed and not fell. HYDRA is not gone, is never gone. Even with their secrets spilled across the internet, Pierce dead and the whole world hunting them they wouldn't die. That pervasiveness is the very reason he exists.

"I know." he said, his jaw clenches up at the dismissive way Rumlow reacts to his declaration. He's had it good these past few months with people treating like a person instead of a thing but it all comes flooding back too easily.

"I know who I am. I know what HYDRA took." He can't waver here, that anger is what he tries to hold onto.

"Oh yeah? And who's that supposed to be?"

Rumlow folds his arms loosely, and the look he gives him is nothing if not patronizing. Even if that were true, even if someone had laid out his entire life in front of him and told him exactly who he used to be, what was done can't be that easy a thing to come back from. What's rattling around in his head right now can't be the man he used to be. That's impossible, after everything he's gone.

Everything they put him through. But there was cause, there had been good reason to do that to him. Pain brings order, and the Winter Soldier was the most effective killing machine in their arsenal because of it.

He can't tell if Rumlow doesn't know or if he's testing him. If the story of Bucky Barnes was truly as widely known as Stark and the others had told him it probably means the latter and it hardly surprises him if so.

"Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes, Howling Commando." It then occurs to him that he's already quickly lost the control of this conversation. The questions being asked are Rumlow's questions and he's answering them with no answers of his own to show for them. Maybe it's the conditioning pushing him and this isn't supposed to happen, he's not HYDRA's puppet anymore.

Bucky's fingers flex and his lip curls in a snarl when he talks, the realisation combined with the patronising look snaps his temper and his right hand snatches for Rumlow's shirt collar. "Answer me!"

He moves quick, though not as fast as the asset. The second his hand touches Rumlow's collar he moves to dislodge him, swinging up to smack that hand away. He knows, panic rising in the back of his brain says, but he refuses to let control of his slip entirely through his fingers.

"Might have been who you were, but you think you're anything close to him now? You should take a second look in the mirror," Rumlow replies in a low tone, eyes boring into him. Lying to him now, trying to deny the facts, he's not interested in doing. There's probably too much left in his head that could balk against a denial.

No. He has a different tactic in mind.

"You figure that out yourself, or did someone tell you?"

Rumlow's hit connects and Bucky's hand is knocked down, the left immediately starts to move to respond and things might have gotten ugly there if not for the two familiar figures of Peacekeeper's exiting the elevator and striding across the lobby. It's enough to check him, for now at least.

Fighting outside the arena is not permitted. He might not see himself as HYDRA's weapon anymore but Bucky knows he is still far from free. A night in Peacekeeper cells or, at worst Avoxing, is what he'll get if he truly tries to attack Rumlow here. As a result his whole body is taut with forced restraint.

"I saw it. I know it's true." After Steve told him.

The words dig into the doubt he's carried since the beginning, even since accepting the name and experiencing shattered pieces of memories, the man he was is never going to be the man he is now. Not even if he gets all his memories back.

Rumlow's eyes trail to the Peacekeepers, then back to Bucky, obviously registering the reason he's holding back. Yeah. He's got to get himself in on that action.

But that's a matter for later, after his first arena, and he's got issues here and now. Still, his shoulders are being held tense, expression still as rigid as it had been a second ago.

"And what good did that do you, huh? Doesn't look like much changed, to me."

As much as Rumlow is on point with how similar his circumstances have remained to the life he had before, there are points on which Bucky considers things to have changed for the better. The most important one is what he voices to Rumlow, holding the others back.

"You're wrong, I get to remember."

Even if those memories are often horrible and painful, they are his, they remain with him even through death and resurrection. There are moments still where he wishes he could forget the worst of them to be sure, but ultimately Bucky knows he would never trade this back in for his life under HYDRA where life was nothing more than pain and cold after staining his hands with blood, over and over again.

This is better, even if not by much.

"I get to remember everything."

"Get to."

He almost looks pitying now, cocking his head to look at Bucky like he's unaware of some joke being played as his expense. "You think them wiping you after every mission was a punishment."

It's not a question. And it's clear from his tone that he's got another answer in store for him. One he isn't going to like.

Uncertainty briefly passes over Bucky's face, underneath the anger and restrained aggression.

"... they made me forget who I was."

One thing about not remembering most of your life, it leaves a lot of facts unknown and a lot of room for error. He is sure that the man he had been, the one who'd spent the war trying to destroy HYDRA, would not have worked for them otherwise.

There's an echo though, of other voices in the past soothing the Soldier down after a mission, promising him he'll be better and can rest soon if he only cooperates with the wipe...

"They also cleared your mind for the programming. You're a neurotic mess without it. Hell, the first time you went functional you nearly choked out the doctors who saved your life...at least according to the report."

The corner of his mouth curled upwards slightly.

"There's only so much a mind can take, you know. Before it starts unraveling. What they did was to keep you from going completely psychotic or winding up a drooling vegetable. Without it? I don't envy you."

He keeps eye contact all the while, no tell given as to whether he's lying or telling the truth. Which will he be inclined towards, on his own?

Bucky stares. He's unaware that someone on Rumlow's level would have gotten to read those reports about him. Metal fingers wrapped around the throat of a white-coated doctor...

While he knows that he has worked a mission alongside the STRIKE leader at least at one point (recently) he can't be aware of the extent of it with all the holes in his memory. That feeling from earlier, that it was a mistake to do this, comes back all the stronger. Bucky might be the physically more dangerous of the two but he's outmatched on knowledge about himself with no idea of how to pull the truth from fiction.

"I'm not..." that can't be true, he's been here five months, he knows that wiped him far more frequently than that. If he was out of the ice more than a few days they would wipe him and always, always before they put him back in. "I'm functional."

He shakes his head in denial, dark hair falling over his eyes. The implication disturbs him, makes him think of the panic attacks and the nightmares that keep him from sleeping at night. "No."

"Functional, sure. I can see that." Rumlow's teeth glint when he smiles wide. "Doesn't make you any less of a time bomb. Even the best machines break down eventually, if you don't maintain them. And let's face facts here. You're more machine than man."

Brow pinching slightly, he gives a casual sort of shrug, taking a step back. It's a measured move. Every word of this conversation has a point to it, and every move the same. The time for posturing for aggression and dominance has past, now that he can see doubt flickering in those eyes.

"Well, it doesn't matter. You're going to want to take out everyone around you to win in the games, right? Means if anyone gets hurt when you eventually start to lose it, it'd just improve your chances."

Lips pressing together, Bucky is inwardly relieved when the agent takes a step backwards. He doesn't recognise it but the thought of leaving the conversation after it was started didn't occur to him until that action was taken.

"In the arena..." he looks at Rumlow stiffly, speaking slowly like he's forcing each word out, "I'll kill you." it's all he'll let himself say.

Then he takes a step back himself, and another, unwilling to turn his back on Rumlow until there was distance between them. He's shaken and craving a secure space to collect himself again, as secure as is possibly in the center of the Capitol's power over them.

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