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[The Soldier has few such problems. He dislikes some orders, but carries them out and after he knows there will be nothing to haunt him. Much more broken than fingers. Much more rent apart than can be put back together.

He's dogged that way. Sometimes even pushes too hard. Very occasionally, if he presses for one, a memory surfaces and he turns it over in his mind, the bloodstains imposing themselves over pristine silver.]

There must be other methods.

[And as he says it, he doesn't think it would be so bad.]

What methods would you suggest?

[He isn't asking just to ask - he wants to know. They are different men, for all that they have been treated so similarly.

And for all the congeniality, for all the smiling, for all the romance, the Soldier will find that his Captain is brutally effective, and that the key to him is brutal. There is no subtlety, perhaps, but there is elegance to his violence.

He stops the car - they are almost there, they'll walk the short rest of the way.]

[He hums over the question (he shouldn't question anything) and then lets it go.] No, nothing so efficient.

[Looking up when the car stops, the Soldier nods his approval and waits for the Captain to step out before joining him on that side of the car.]

You could have run it into the ditch.

[But they can achieve the same effect without taking the knock. He crouches beside the bonnet.]

I could have.

[He looks over, and there's a slight expression on his face, one that is almost curious as to why his decisions are being questioned. Clearly this is the actual mission, now, as opposed to cheerful banter in the car.]

It's a nice house.

[Just an observation.]

[Better than some of the kennels he's slept in. Better than a lot of nights.]

Ambassadorial housing. [He looks to the Captain.] Not ours, but on loan.

[Some agreement with a minor european state, an exchange of subterfuge for protection, and Russia's agents find themselves taken under a different wing. The building will be empty tonight: it's residents keep plusher places with embezzeled funds.

He looks to the tree line from where he's hunched, and decides that this is out of the way enough. They can risk the car another day.

It's not his decision, in the end, but he likes to know the reasoning.]

[He gives a nod, and up the steps he goes, away from the car, to open the door. It is a nice house. He looks the inside of it over, just from the doorway.]

Get comfortable. I'll handle the car.

[He's not driving it into a ditch with the other man in it. He's not sure why. He just doesn't feel right doing it.]

[He straightens, looks at the Captain and past him to the house. It's a direct order but, like the smiling, not one on which the mission rests. Two steps and he turns, arms folded, to watch.]

I'm comfortable.

[He doesn't seem to take this one quite as easily as the previous mostly-ignored order - he just looks at him, and there's a set to his face that says he'll handle the car, he'll get it a good distance and find a nice secure ditch.

The seriousness on the Captain's face isn't one that is easily ignored.]

[Yes, he says all those things with a look and the Soldier recognises the tone of command in that stare as equal to an order. He stands where he is, case already stated.]

[He shakes his head and makes his way back out, out the door, back to the car, and starts it a moment later, driving it off. It doesn't take long for him to find somewhere where he can crash it, and he's annoyed now.

But the run back mostly does the work of clearing his head of that feeling

(why do you care if he gets hurt, why do you care about him, you don't, he's just an asset)

(don't let him get hurt don't let him fall don't let him don't let him)

(shut up)

but not of everything else. He looks more than annoyed when he comes back inside, and heads for the kitchen.]

[Well. After all the Captain's efforts to break him into a smile, it's almost surprising that it's taken so little in return to stir anger to his surface. He almost doesn't seem designed for it until it's there, a presence behind his eyes and no - such determination is anger's perfect foil.

The Soldier follows him inside after a moment, and stands in the room he goes to, awaiting reprimand or punishment.]

There is no point in both of us taking a hit if we don't need to.

[He says this, pointedly, in English, as if it's more comfortable than Russian. Meanwhile he's searching the shelves - ah, a bug - and he takes a coffee mug and carefully sets it inside.

He continues with his sweep.]

You can argue that in your head.

Are you [Damaged, he thinks.] hurt?

[It's not entirely pointed, there is reason to ask other than to say that if the Captain is not then his Soldier would likewise have walked from the wreck. It's not only to say that the both of them have had worse and brushed the experience off as mild inconvenience. But if those points are made, so be it.

He doesn't go to help the sweep, it won't take both of them. He watches.]

No.

[The word is brief, and he finds a couple more, and takes them to the window and sets them just outside of it and closes the door. Tomorrow he will put them back. Tonight they will have some level of privacy, at least in here.

He turns, looks at the Soldier, down at the metal hand concealed by thin cloth. He does not forget they are both lethal, men rebuilt.]

Then you have reason to smile.

[Now that is pointed. And now he moves past the Captain, opening cupboard doors, crouching in front of the fridge.

(They are men rebuilt. Still, they have needs.)]

Are you hurt?

[The same logic applies, he thinks. But he's reaching over the Soldier's head for a bottle of milk and then for two glasses. He will not ask. He just pours and pushes it over on the counter, slightly.]

[Milk, butter, ham, bread, whatever else there is a stock of to empty, he does. They ate yesterday in the restaurant of the boat from France, too delicately for his interests, and now he acknowledges hunger it's a matter of fact business of dealing with it.]

Do you know what they would do to me, if you were? And for how long?

[There's no lift of emotion there, this is laid out as he lays out the supplies - a simple, necessary business.]

Then you have nothing to worry about. I don't get hurt.

[Injuries heal quickly on him, but that's not really want he means. He does not know why intrinsically, he is worth more than anyone else.]

And you are not my bodyguard.

[He drinks his milk, calmly, tilting his head to look over and watch food being prepared.]

I am your comrade, and I'm aware the stuff you're made from.

[And if Steve Rogers is compromised in any but the ways prepared for, the things visited upon his Soldier will not bear thinking about. Not that the Soldier's mind lingers there. Not that it lingers for that reason.

For some reason the proximity tugs at him, a twitch he can't seem to shake. He looks back, irritated.]

Sit. I don't need supervision.

[Don't hover, a voice echoes, faint and thin. What'dyou think I'll do, burn it?]

[There is a sigh, and he moves heavily, more heavily than he usually does, particularly considering he weighs so much. He grabs a chair and sits at the table.]

You have nothing to worry for.

[That feels familiar, too. Niggling.]

[So he's said, and it's not worry that sits leaden in the Soldier's chest, not concern for personal security, nor that the Captain might be hurt. He hadn't appreciated watching the car pull back away from the house. Being left behind.

Perhaps he's grown too used to working under his own command. Perhaps that's what troubles him (but no, he follows orders well).

It isn't long before he slides a plate across to the Captain and sits.]

[He takes the plate, and eats, silently, for a few minutes. They are big men, the both of them, and it's been a long day, so it takes up his attentions.

When he's finished (it's not bad, this food, it's simple but in a way that's comforting) he looks up.]

They are taking a risk, sending us both.

A strange way to see it.

[Not that there isn't agreement in that. But the risk is one the Soldier has been briefed on and the Captain is intended to remain unaware. Unless this is a double ended blade and they each have their own missions. That would not be impossible.

It would not be unlikely.]

[He looks up, his expression that measured look, the one that says that no, it's not strange, but explain. He sets his utensils down.

He has no mission outside the hit, no order that says he's to stop the Soldier if he goes off grid. But of the two of them, the Captain has always been more difficult to control, and no one really understands why.]

They're improving their odds, sending both of us.

[That, at least, is the logical way to see it. Two operatives for a job that, both of them can see, necessitates only one. It seems, on the surface, excessive. Below the surface is where it seems like a test.]