The Nature of War

The Nature of War
Date of Scene:	24 August 2017
Location:	Mercy's Garage, New York
Synopsis:	Sam Winchester takes a turn guarding the Winter Soldier. They discuss the nature of war, and reach a strange sort of understanding between one another.
Cast of Characters:	Winter Soldier, Sam Winchester
Tinyplot:	Tayaniye

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Sam Winchester has posed:
It's late morning when Sam Winchester comes to visit the soldier, a day after the capture. Mercy's already with customers. He's had a sleepless night, thanks to a long, emotional night with his brother and his lady love. But he's in the habit of slipping out in the mornings anyway, and, well. He might as well visit the second prisoner he's involved in keeping on lockdown. He's already had his morning moment with the first.

He brings ham and cheese kolaches from a decent local place. Coffee. Vodka. And a bag with something else in it. The Vodka is maybe a bit much at this hour of the morning, but it's 5:00 somewhere and Sam's own experience with being imprisoned is pretty much that time ceases to have any real meaning anyway.

He stays well out of range though, taking a seat across the room and frowning faintly in Bucky's direction. Frowning faintly, because while this is necessary it feels somehow wrong.

But at last he says, "This is all for you, if you're hungry."

Winter Soldier has posed:
The Winter Soldier is... well, a soldier. He can sleep anywhere, anytime, on command, and wake up on command as well. His sleep, through the night, was not particularly disturbed. Especially since, being a super-soldier, he only really needed about two hours of it.

The remainder of the time he spent pacing around under the baleful eye of one Mercy Thompson, who like as not actually called Sam to come take his turn standing guard because she's sick of this asshole and his face, and is in need of a nap and a very cold beer.

On Sam's arrival, the Winter Soldier is sitting against a wall of the garage, the chain leading up to the overhead beam pooled in a pile of links a little behind him and to his left. When it's piled up like that, it's kind of hard to tell exactly how long the chain is, or the length of the Soldier's potential reach... and that is, in fact, probably exactly why he coiled it up that way.

His eyes are closed, even up until the point Sam takes his seat, though it would be a mistake to think he is not aware of who has arrived.

Eventually Sam speaks up, and one blue eye lids lazily open. The Winter Soldier studies Sam-- or perhaps more the vodka that Sam is holding-- and eventually opens the other eye as well. "I hope you got the good shit," is his only answer, for now. "It's touch and go finding it, in America."

Sam Winchester has posed:
"I went and found the same stuff you got for me," Sam says, his features basically betraying that same earnest compassion they wore when-- well. When he tried to defend the soldier from nobody at all, seconds before Bucky stuck him in the neck and carted him off to Hydra. "I paid attention to the brand."

Not particularly caring, now, if the Soldier sees what he does...the cat is kind of out of the bag, he figures...he reaches out a hand and sends the bottle floating until it sets down, neatly and gently, within reach of the soldier. The coffee and the rest of it follow, and if he has underestimated by far how much the man needs to eat comfortably, he's included what is basically generous portions, basically Dean's idea of a big meal plus seconds. He's at least deduced the Soldier might have different caloric requirements from the average bear.

But maybe it will be ok. There's a pork chop or two in every bottle of Vodka, right? Ask any fisherman.

He rests his arms over the back of the chair, happy to take his turn. Weirdly, for a moment, he feels like he's in the room with someone who may not exactly care about him, but...won't judge him or give him worried faces or try to die for him either, all events which have been vexing him, just a bit, of late. And Bucky sounds almost amiable himself.

Winter Soldier has posed:
The Soldier notices that compassion, unchanged even after everything that has happened since the last time it was aimed at his person. Notices the way Sam says he paid enough attention to remember the brand. His mouth draws into a cynical, hard line, but he actually says nothing.

He doesn't seem surprised either about the display of telekinesis, but it feels a little bit beyond 'just because he had it violently employed against him yesterday.' He seems unsurprised in that bone-deep way people are unsurprised when they're in on something and have been from the start. Something they're not about to share, not even now.

The Winter Soldier eyes the offerings as they're set down, the wariness of a chained wolf in his eyes. He eventually takes the coffee, of all things.

"It was you," he eventually says. His eyes have drifted back to the spot where the chain attaches to the beam, again. "You told them where."

Sam Winchester has posed:
Sam hesitates, his expression growing troubled. The Winter Soldier has pumped him for information before.

But...then...what? He told Misha and Stasya all about it. And they started something inside him for their own purposes. And it isn't a good idea for Hydra to think it was any of the others anyway. For whatever reason, he's pretty sure Hydra still wants him alive. They obviously don't feel the way about most of the others.

He swallows, and he tilts his furrowed brow down towards the hard concrete floor. He nods and says, "It seems I'm a precog. Stronger. In fact. After my...visit. With your people."

Ironically, it hadn't even been one of the visions he'd tried to force. It had come on its own, lending a strange air of inevitability to this very moment. Of destiny. "It's how I found you back at that one guy's house too. And...pretty much every other time."

His smile is fleeting, self-depricating. "It is not, in fact, because I'm just that good."

Winter Soldier has posed:
The Winter Soldier hears out the confession. His mouth curls in an amused curve, but he holds his silence until Sam is done.

"Well," he says, "I'm glad it's not because I'm losing my touch, then. I'm old, but not expired. Or so I'd like to think."

He offers no comment nor information to Sam about his observations on his increased strength after his time with Hydra, nor the corresponding and disturbing fact that they now seem quite interested in his continued life. He just finishes the coffee, sets it aside, and seems to decide on the vodka next. He checks the seal on it. His wariness of poisons is more habit than an actual concern, but he's sure there exist toxins strong enough to overwhelm his considerable resistance.

He rolls his eyes a little at the self-deprecation at the end, and pops open the bottle. "Way I see it, you have two options," he says. "Either get good, really fast, or unchain me. You won't survive if you keep holding on to me."

Sam Winchester has posed:
The seal is completely unbroken. Sam didn't feel like early morning Vodka, it seems. And while he hadn't at all thought of being poisoned when the Soldier brought him his, the Soldier had.

Bucky makes his threats, and Sam looks up at him. A brief flash of a smile crosses over his lips. It's the same smile that breaks hearts all over the country, though there's no flirtation in it. It's at once boyish and cynical, amused yet bitter, with a hint of brooding inevitability.

"Yeah, that's pretty much my life," he allows, with no particular bravado. He says it like it's simple fact: being threatened by things above his weight class, and punching things above his weight class, is 100% his life. Or, in Bucky's case, people.

It's futile to try to confront the man with reality at this juncture; Mercy has some sort of a plan, or thinks Liam will, and Sam won't mess with that. Neither will he risk damaging Barnes psychologically, even now. But that doesn't stop Sam from wishing he could explain why they are essentially acting just like Hydra themselves right now. What he says, instead, is: "You know I'm not going to unchain you. Just like I knew you weren't going to let me out of that cell."

He floats the other bag over. It's a bit of a risk, what's in there. For all he knows, Bucky can chew up all the paper inside, spit it out again, and make himself a paper mache crowbar that will let him out. But it seems like a small risk.

"I brought you some books," he explains. "I didn't really know what you liked to read, so I just...picked up a best seller from every genre." The bag rattles gently, shifts about, next to the kolaches.

Winter Soldier has posed:
"It won't continue to be your life, you drag this out," the Soldier says, drinking casually straight from the bottle. He finishes half before he sets it aside, deftly replacing the cap one-handed. His hand stays poised there, afterwards. "Do you know the scale of what you're up against?" He glances over, at the look on Sam's face. "I suppose you don't."

He toys idly with the bottle, tipping it back and forth. "Well, I shouldn't say you. You noticed the special treatment already. It'll be everyone around you who won't survive."

Sam tells him they're, of course, not going to unchain him. The Winter Soldier grins briefly, a cold expression that doesn't reach his eyes, but at first he makes no reply. He's distracted by the sight of Sam employing his telekinetic abilities again, his eyes tracking the bag until it sets down beside him. Books, Sam says. He didn't know what he liked to read, so...

"I didn't have time to read," he says, lowly. "I was sixteen when I went to war."

He moves in a blur. He's on his feet and strained to the very end of the chain within seconds, his left hand looping around what of its length he can reach, given his hobbled upper arm. The prosthetic shrieks as it tests its binds, metal grating against metal. The beam overhead groans, but holds.

"I was eighteen when I had this blown off," he says, over the demonstrative hiss of his metal arm.

He abruptly lets the chain slack off. His eyes narrow, and he recedes back into his quiescence. "I don't have //preferences//," he growls, circling back in on himself, his chain pooling on the ground.

Sam Winchester has posed:
It would be a stone cold lie to say Sam didn't flinch, tense, and reach for his weapon when the Soldier starts testing his bonds. It's in his hand, the safety is off, and he's on his feet by the time that beam is holding, pointed straight between the Soldier's eyes. It's the Beretta, and not the ICER; half of Sam is all empathy and desire to save, but the other half is coldly ready to do what has to be done. And that? Wasn't even the human and the demon sides of him. That's the boy, and the Hunter.

But Bucky Barnes is saying he was 16 when he went to war and 18 when he had his arm blown off, and Sam Winchester is given to wonder what war he remembers fighting, and for whom. It almost strikes him as a net positive, that Bucky Barnes is angry about not having preferences.

He had preferences. War stories about his childhood hero. It seems almost shameful in light of men younger than him getting their arms blown off, even if it did give him courage. It didn't instill selflessness. He ran away to Stanford at the first opportunity.

Empathy wars with the need to just end this for the sake of his friends, because he //does// know the scope of what they're up against. Some people become monsters too. It's regrettable when they do, when a person gets bitten or infected and starts...

Abruptly he drops his gaze, swallowing, his hair falling forward to cover his face, shame suffusing every line of him. He lets the gun fall, pointing it at the ground, clicking the safety back on. "Well, you might as well discover one now, then," the young man says roughly. "Captivity is boring."

Winter Soldier has posed:
Sam's reaction is quick. Gun up, aimed between the eyes. Not that sissy SHIELD gun, either, the ones with the sedatives, but a real one with live ammo.

The Soldier grins, a warrior's hard-edged expression of approval. With one last saber-rattling shake of the taut chain, he slacks it off and backs down, circling away and letting the links pool at his feet. He makes no move to accept Sam's latest gift, for it's not the absence of preferences in his life that angers him. The personality he is-- was given-- is not a man that wants preferences. It's the presumption that he would care for books when his life has been defined by war, and war has been all he ever prioritized or found important. That he would want to waste time on such things when his work holds countries at stake--

He keeps his back to the hunter. But he hears the click of the safety re-engaging. You might as well just discover a preference now, Sam says, because captivity is boring.

"You would know," is the cool reply. "But you can't afford to hold me that long. Someone will come here." He turns the cold stare of one blue eye over his shoulder. "And Claire, without me there...?"

Sam Winchester has posed:
Someone will come here, the Soldier says, and it does speak to a nagging fear that Sam has been having ever since they chained the man up. He really hopes they're going to enact this plan soon, because the man is right.

That hard-edged grin of approval generates all sorts of conflicting emotions in Sam. He hesitates, weirdly not sure whether he intends to holster the gun or keep it out. At last he holsters the thing with some irritation at himself. He sits back down, straddles the chair once more. For all his misunderstanding of the growled words of Winter, he doesn't press the issue any further. He might, when he has a moment to think about it at length, realize what the man was really getting at, but for now he is distracted.

His hazel eyes are troubled, as he considers Claire. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. He's trying to force a vision of her. Unlike Mercy, he doesn't bother asking questions...it seems like a ridiculous thing to try until they've played out their gambit with him. The man is hard on every level of hard, and Claire is a weapon in his hands right now.

He lets that silence stretch out for a few moments as he mentally chases for any scrap of information. Eventually he opens them. Looks at the soldier. And says, "I hope you're wrong. We're doing the best we can for Claire, and that honestly doesn't include turning you loose right now. If we thought that were the play, we'd have avoided that junkyard like the plague."

Or tried to follow a man notorious for his ability to slip into shadow, a gambit that wouldn't have ended well.

Winter Soldier has posed:
The Winter Soldier watches Sam with some interest as he closes his eyes. He's not sure what the other man is doing, but he has a number of guesses, and one of those guesses is very interesting indeed. Is this what it looks like, when he does his thing? He would have thought there would be something more remarkable involved. That has been his experience witnessing 'magic' to date, anyway, from...

...well, that's neither here nor there.

He hopes the Soldier is wrong, Sam says. The older man looks away, toying with his own chain. "I'm not usually," he says. "I know what gets done to people with no use."

His eyes turn back up to Sam. "And what is your play? Rewiring me to be on your side?" He snorts. "Again with trying to convince me I'm someone I am not."

Sam Winchester has posed:
It's an interesting philosophical question, actually. On what makes a person a person. Because right now, he's not looking at Bucky Barnes, but the Winter Soldier. So in a way, they are trying to convince the Winter Soldier he's someone he's not.

Actually, he could break his brain very fast, thinking like that.

"I'm not in charge of the play," he says, in tones that are quite implacable for one so young. "I'm in charge of keeping you in those chains until the play is made or my shift is over. Right now I don't care what you believe."

Also true, since it does not matter if the gambit works, and if the gambit doesn't, well, telling Barnes over and over who he is won't make a damn bit of difference, especially while the man is locked up.

"Our version doesn't come with beatings or injections though, so there's that. And if we're wrong about you, you can be sure that letting you go is still not in the cards."

His eyes are capable of great compassion, but they go a bit flat and cold now. He intends to pull the trigger himself, if it becomes evident that there's no other play left. Claire will be lost, but they'll have done the best they knew to do. Hunting 103: sometimes the best you know to do is all there is.

Winter Soldier has posed:
The lies that James Buchanan Barnes has been told over the years, in order to turn him into Yakov Aleksandrovich Morozov-- the Winter Soldier-- have been deep and extensive indeed. They are able to persist so pervasively in his mind, in large part because the falsified life of the man who would become the Winter Soldier... is identical to the life of Bucky Barnes. Just retold from a different angle, on behalf of a different country.

The history that the Winter Soldier remembers is so broadly similar to his true one, as to prevent his mind from questioning reality for as long as possible. Both orphans, both sent to war young, both crippled in a devastating explosion. It is little wonder that Department X has been able to keep command over him for decades, feeding him such a closely-matching story.

Yet there are things they cannot reproduce in his history. These form little hairline cracks in his memory, cracks that always inevitably widen over time. Enough so that he starts to remember the truth. They tell him, at that point, that his brain damage is returning, that his serum is destabilizing... anything they need to tell him in order to make his return to freeze as easy as possible. For them.

So it has gone over the years. And this is what Sam and the rest fight against, now.

Sam says he's not in charge of the play, though. That brings the Soldier to laugh, a humorless ghost of a sound. He winds the chain about his wrist and pulls, drawing it tight with a clink of metal on metal. "Convenient," he says. "It's always better not to be in charge of anything. I suppose it's Mercy who is, then."

He cants his head, contemptuously. "You've decided to be the one to do 'what must be done,' though."

Sam Winchester has posed:
The contempt produces a corresponding flash of guilt on the face of one Sam Winchester. He's troubled, and he looks it. He is a little creeped out by how easily the man reads him, for all that it's to be expected. The young man glances away for a moment, then looks back at Bucky Barnes.

His childhood hero.

Everything cracks, everything breaks, everything corrupts. There are few happy endings. It's knowledge he's always had, and the weight of it settles on him now. He meets Bucky's eyes and says, "I'd rather not have to," he says, honestly enough. "But if it comes down to it, I'm going to be the one to murder you, yes."

He won't dress it up, or sugar coat it, or pretend it's something it's not. He won't even justify it. He'll put the blood on his hands to protect the people he cares about, and he'll do it to spare them from having to take a real, human life. He'll do it because the side of him that sees the threat is fine with it, even if the side of him that would rather save James Buchanan Barnes is a little sick from it. And it's still going to be murder, when he does it.

Winter Soldier has posed:
The Winter Soldier is silent in the wake of this singular declaration from Sam Winchester. He watches the boy a few moments measuringly, head still canted, a vague interest in his gaze.

I'm going to be the one to murder you, Sam says.

That brings a smile to the Soldier's face. He leans forward, with the aspect of an old soldier imparting some wisdom to a green recruit. "That's not murder, Sam," he says, enunciating the younger man's name. "It's war. You're on your side. I'm on mine..."

His smile doesn't alter when he adds, "Though you're right that it's not very sporting to shoot a chained man."

Sam Winchester has posed:
The Soldier weirdly absolves him, even though he chastizes him for not making it sporting. Sam looks down and says, "Sporting is for people who think war is glamorous and honorable and full of glory."

What does the soldier see, when he studies him so? Sam has no idea. He looks up to meet those blue eyes again and reiterates, "I'd rather not though."

Some things bear repeating.

Then: "You were kind to me when I was your prisoner of war, and that's not something I wish to forget. I mean I guess it could have been some sort of mind game, but...I appreciated it anyway." He shrugs, uncomfortably. In that study of the boy, Yasha might well see that everything about this makes him uncomfortable. As willing as he is to do what must be done, as much as he's capable of doing it, as bloody as his hands already are, he does not like holding someone prisoner one bit. Not a human, anyway.

Winter Soldier has posed:
Sporting is for people who think war is glamorous and honorable...

The Winter Soldier barks a laugh. Leaning back, he spits to one side on the floor. It doesn't seem like an insulting gesture. To the contrary, it almost seems an amiable statement in some rough, wordless language... a coarse punctuation of agreement for Sam's stated truism. "I haven't killed anyone in any sporting way since '97," he agrees genially.

His head cants. "It's good you have some sense."

He falls silent, however, when Sam feels the need to add an appreciation for Yasha's small kindnesses during his own imprisonment. The Soldier has little to say to that at first, his blue eyes cool and distant.

"Whether it was real or not," he eventually says. "it doesn't matter now, does it?"

Sam Winchester has posed:
A flash of a wry, self-depricating smile appears when Yasha says he has 'some' sense. "I'll try not to get a big head over it."

Sam considers the final question. He's gone cool and distant. Sam goes contemplative. He's still trying to make sense of the times when he angers Yasha, when Yasha goes cool and distant, when Yasha seems approving and amenable. He hardly knows the man, and what he's dealing with is an implanted personality to boot. Some of this is familiar, very similar to things he saw in his father, and some of it is a whole new territory for him.

"It doesn't. Sometimes the deed matters more than the motivation does. I think this is one of those cases."

There is, in this moment, perhaps an opportunity to see if he can't ease a little information out of Yasha in regards to why Hydra continues to want him alive, why they have invested in him at all, but Sam can't bring himself to ask. Mostly, because interrogation is for enemies. When-- no. If. If Bucky comes out the other side of this, well, maybe he'll share. But until then, it just feels wrong to interrogate someone he is trying to help.

Winter Soldier has posed:
Sometimes the deed matters more than the motivation.

Yasha holds his silence. He turns his back and walks slowly away, back to the only wall he can reach. Sitting against it, back to its cool surface, he drops the chain in a pile beside him. It clatters in a heap.

"Interesting thought," he shrugs. "Not the way I have lived my life. When the ends don't justify the means... where does that leave me?"

He grins. He's not looking for an answer. "Hmmm. Out of a job, I suppose."

He tilts back his head, closing his eyes. "Relax, Sam Winchester," he says. "I'm not going anywhere, not now. But we'll see what happens when you try to 'murder' me."

Sam Winchester has posed:
"Not always. Sometimes the motivation matters more than the deed," Sam says, shrugging. "If I didn't believe the ends justified the means sometimes, I guess you wouldn't be here. It's all on a case-by-case basis."

Sam only relaxes a little as the man tilts back his head and closes his eyes. The Winter Soldier makes it clear he won't exactly go gently into that good night, and Sam expected nothing less. But the closed eyes also indicate that he'd like to be left alone now, maybe even take a nap. Sam is not into inflicting sleep deprivation on anyone, so he simply falls almost respectfully silent, content to leave the man in peace and do his job of the moment if the Soldier is done speaking.