Captain America Bucky Barnes Winter Soldier Steve Rogers Fan Fic - The Constant

Chapter Thirty-Eight: Why Do We Do This To Him?

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7 Months Ago

They have brought you and the Winter Soldier out of cryo freeze and programmed him in record time. It has never been this short a timetable before.

An urgent assignment, you are told.

A team are assembled and waiting for him. You are told the mission will be done, the report made, and then he will be wiped and put back into cryo freeze. There will be no need for you to do anything for him.

You are still suffering from the after effects of cryo; after all they only bought you around two hours before they woke him so that you could be present as usual; but then after you helped dress him you were excused and he was taken immediately to programming. From there they drove him away for the mission.

No rest period. Nothing.

You ask to see Director Lehmann but are told that is not possible. You ask why not and the person tells you someone will talk to you soon. The person you talk to will not look at you. You have never met them before you don't even know their name. You persist with your questions. You ask why the Winter Soldier is to be immediately put back into cryo on his return. The person finally looks at you and shrugs, you are told there is no reason to keep him out any longer.

It is then you remember that he is merely an asset to them.

You have only been awake for three hours but already you know things are so different. You do not recognise any of the rooms although you recognise the systems, the pods. It is obvious whilst you were asleep you have been moved to the new base. Stefan finally joins you. He is still working on the cryo freeze team and was not there when they woke you.

"We need to talk," are his first words to you, which is funny because that is just what you were going to say to him. Then he shocks you.

The first thing he tells you is that there is a new director. Your mind is still humming, trying to take in new facts, the new surroundings.

"Lehmann's gone?" you ask, bewildered.

"Lehmann's dead. Look, lets get you sat down you look as if your going to faint." Stefan fetches a chair and you gratefully sink into it. Your head is pounding.

"I don't understand," you look at him. Part of your mind is out there, wherever it is they have sent the Winter Soldier; when he left he looked as dazed as you feel now. You need to concentrate on what Stefan is telling you. There is something very wrong here.

You hadn't been permitted to speak to the Winter Soldier at all before he left. You were in the corridor when they brought him back from programming, and your heart had jumped when you saw him bleeding from his nose but they assured you it wasn't a problem. You could also see one of his eyes was bloodshot. You tried to argue to get them to let you see if he was all right but they said there wasn't time, his team would look after him. As he left, you saw he was shaking his head as if trying to clear his mind.

Stefan sits next to you. "Freya, things are a little...different now."

"What do you mean different? How?" His words frighten you. Your head is not allowing you to think. It all seems to be crashing in on you and Stefan can see this.

It is why he volunteered to be the one to tell you.

"Short version, okay...whilst you and the Winter Soldier were in cryo, Lehmann had a massive coronary...he was in a meeting with us talking about this new camp and then pshwst...gone the next. It was so sudden nothing could be done. And we soon found out that nothing was in place should something like that happen. No-one knew what to do with the project. It was pandemonium."