trusted | (no subject)

[He walks to the other side, letting himself in as easily as before. Settles into the passenger seat with an appreciation for its comforts, just as willingly as he forgoes such things when missions call for it.]

Romances.

[There, something low and teasing under the word.

He reels off the address that they need to reach, the point at which they should abandon the car (just abandon it, flames draw too much attention. They'll leave nothing behind.]

And what do you do with what you read?

I remember.

[That's almost a dirty word for them. The Captain handles the car - it's an old skill, familiar and fast - and begins to drive, smoothly. He has a map in his head, they'll get there with little delay.]

All kinds of things. Romances. War stories. Tales of the Revolution. Poetry, if you'll believe it.

[He shakes his head.]

Soviet poetry lacks something.

[He smiles when the Captain isn't looking, turning his head to the open window. Perhaps it's just the feel of the wind rushing past, over and through him, blowing off the chill.]

No, what do you do with your romantic ideals.

[What use do you put this romance to.]

I make my subordinates listen to them.

[The car drives so smoothly, with almost no noise, compared to the cars they usually are given to burn back home. Maybe there is something to this Capitalism. Better cars.]

Am I winning you over?

Romantic ideals are a good way to find yourself in Siberia. [He tips his head back, the motion of it less still than usual, a test.]

Ears everywhere.

[They call it paranoia, in England. The Russian suspicion of their neighbours, their children. Eyes everywhere. Ears. In America something they call McCarthyism is taking off and it seems that the land of the free has taken lessons at the USSR's knee. Trust no one.]

What's left to win?

[He'll follow commands without question. What else of him is there to be won.]

I don't want your poems.

With us?

[Siberia is better than a full wipe, he thinks sometimes, but he would never say, so he shrugs and finally nods in agreement. Yes. Romantic ideals are a way to find oneself on a long train ride. There is no gulag that could hold either of them for long, though.]

I'm only your Captain.

[Meaning the Winter Soldier's loyalty is only his insomuch as it doesn't contradict superior orders.]

You are my Captain.

[The only is unnecessary. This man is his Captain and that is all, and that is everything (save in that saferoom in his mind, the small bricked up part that's supposed to be ready to override this loyalty, to bring him down).]

I wouldn't follow someone who still needed to win me.

[No matter the programming. He's killed inefficient subordinates on the training grounds rather than wait to see them die in combat. It earns him reprimands but it makes the others work harder to win his respect.]

[He doesn't say anything, at first, he just drives for a while. That comment is worth silence, at least a little silence.]

Then you should smile, comrade, to be so certain.

[Yes, right back to that.]

[He breathes out a sigh and this time when he tips his head to one side it's to look across at the Captain. To watch him watch the road. He lets his eyes roll and then - if not quite the look of the romantic saviour the Captain had described, it is at least a smile. Dry amusement.]

With this persistence I'm surprised they don't leave you to run interrogation.

[Interrogation is the nice word for what goes on.]

[That earns a laugh, as he turns the car.]

They're not concerned with anyone smiling in interrogation.

[He has run an interrogation before, and finally information was handed over after broken fingers and three cracked ribs, but he doesn't remember it. They wiped it, because after he was shaking, he couldn't breathe, something that was in his head was clamoring at the injustice, at the bullying.]

[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.)]