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A Bucky Barnes Winter Soldier Fic - The Constant	By : TheConstant1944 Category: Marvel Verse Comics > Captain America Views: 2391 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own any Marvel characters. They are solely owned by Marvel and MCU. No money is made from this story.

Chapter List
- 57
- 58
- 59
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Hydra - The Upgrade

Caldwell studies you, and then he looks away and back down at his paperwork. “He is no longer any concern of yours. Your work is done,” he says, and you are dismissed.
You have waited three days for this interview. Alone, not even knowing if the Winter Soldier is alive or dead. Knowing nothing. No one could tell you anything. This part of the base had been cleared out, the staff gone. You had looked in the Main Room and the master chair and other pieces of equipment were missing. In the cryo freeze room, the pods were gone. The store rooms were emptied. There was nothing left of Project Winter Soldier – nothing except you.
Each day you came to Caldwell's office only to find it empty as his secretary had said. But this morning you received a phone call to say he was back, and that he would see you.
You stay seated. You cannot move. How can your life with the Winter Soldier end like this? You lean forward, trying to regain his attention.
“Please. Just tell me, is he alive,” your voice is on the verge of cracking, but you do not want to cry because you are angry, frustrated, frightened.
Caldwell carries on writing, reading from the pieces of paper in front of him. It's as if you are not there.
You stand up, you don't know what to do with yourself.
“I promised I would never leave him...” you say as if talking to yourself. You can hear the scratch of Caldwell's pen on paper, the sound of his secretary typing outside.
“Please...” You look down, finally realising the interview is truly over. He has nothing more to say to you. You turn to walk to the door. You reach out for the handle but you don't turn it - you cannot leave it like this.
You walk back over to the desk. “I promised I would never leave him,” you repeat, louder, but still he ignores you and you suddenly hate this man in front of you, you despise him, you want to hurt him, to scream at him. You can feel all of your frustration boiling up, all of your anger, and you slam your hand on the desk making the contents jump.
“Goddamn it! You can't do this to me! You can't! I won't let you!!” You are crying, but they are hot tears of anger and you lean over the desk as you shout. He actually looks up and leans back but there is no expression on his face. Nothing. “I have done everything you have asked of me. I have never asked you for anything in return. You...you even use me as your indicator for your “ticking clock”...” and you see surprise showing in his face. “Oh yes, I know about that! I know you still spy on us in our rooms and I have never, never given you cause for alarm!” You hear the door open and you know his secretary is standing there - she heard your raised voice but you carry on. “You know I will never hurt him, I can't, he means so much to me. Part of him belongs to me but all of me belongs to him...”
“Sir...” the secretary interrupts, but Caldwell indicates to her everything is all right. She hesitates but then leaves and closes the door behind her.
You do not break eye contact with him but your voice drops. “I have never asked you for anything, but I'm asking you now. I don't care where I end up. What you have me do. But please, please just let me be with him. If not, then kill me because I don't want to go on. He is all I have, all I have ever had and without him I...I...don't want to live,” you finally run out of steam and straighten up. “Just one thing though - Is he still alive? At least tell me that,” you finish.
Caldwell nods. He studies you for a few seconds, and then sighs and opens a drawer and takes out a gun. You stare at him as he reaches in and takes what looks to be a silencer out, screwing it to the end of the barrel. Then he stands up and walks around the desk towards you.
You look from the gun to him and he sees your eyes widen, sees you take a deep breath. Then he points the gun at you. You want to take a step back. You want to run. But you don't. Where would you run to? And besides...what you said is true. You do not want to live without your Winter Soldier.
“I'm sorry, Freya,” is all Caldwell says before he fires.
*
“Ready?” the man asks, and Caldwell nods. He is sat in the new programming suite on one side of a table. On the other side is Freya. She is pale, but appears to be asleep. He listens to the countdown and as the man reaches the number one she wakes and sits up blinking.
He watches as she looks around her and then she focuses on him.
*
And you are confused.
You are sat at a table next to a window. You look around the room. It is beautiful, and you realise you are in a house but one you have never dreamt would exist. It is fully furnished, with polished wood flooring, sumptuous ornaments and paintings adorn the room and walls. You look out of the window onto decking which then falls away to a large canyon. The sun is warm, coming in through the window, the sky outside blue and clear. The sunlight makes you feel sleepy.
You cannot remember arriving here, but when you realise that Caldwell is speaking, you look at him frowning slightly and try to concentrate on what he is saying.
“Los Angeles is always this bright I'm afraid. It's something you won't be used to.” And he smiles as he waits for your reply.
You feel rude. You obviously were not paying attention to him and you try to focus and nod to give yourself time to think of a reply.
“How do you like the house?” he asks, indicating the room around you. You turn to look again at the décor and you swallow. For some reason, your ears are humming.
“It's very...beautiful.” You smile and look back at him.
“Well, it's yours now,” he says, as if he is coming to the end of the conversation with you. “If, of course, you want it.”
You look at him and you cannot help the confusion showing in your face.
“Your choice,” he says, looking down at the table top. You realise for the first time there are some items laid out in front of you. On the left hand side is a set of keys on top of an open bank book showing a figure containing more zeroes than you thought possible.
On the right hand side is a gun.
Your head is hurting. You do not understand. You cannot remember what it is he said. You look back at him.
“As I said, we no longer require a Constant any more. The Winter Soldier no longer needs one. He no longer needs you. I'm offering you...” he indicates the keys, “this beautiful house and enough money to enable you to live in comfort for the rest of your life, or...” and he indicates the gun but does not need to say any more than that.
You are still taking in what he has said. You are not needed any more. You will never see the Winter Soldier again, even if you begged them to let you. Your part in his life is over.
She looks at Caldwell once more, and the smile she gives him is so sad that for the first time he realises finally just how much she loves James Barnes.
He watches as without hesitation she picks up the gun, puts it to her temple, and pulls the trigger.
*
And you are confused.
You are sat at a table on a balcony. You look around and into the room it has lead from. It is stunning, and you realise you are in an apartment - but one you could never have dreamt would exist. It is furnished, carpeted, with beautiful ornaments and paintings adorning the room and walls.
You turn and look at the stunning view from the balcony. You have only ever seen pictures of it before - the Eiffel Tower. And here you are now looking out at the real thing. It is a beautiful day out here, you can feel the warm sun on your skin, feel a breeze and smell the flowers in pots next to you. The sun makes you feel sleepy.
You realise Caldwell is sat opposite you, a glass of wine next to each of you looking half-full. Perhaps it is the wine that has made you sleepy. He has asked you a question, but you cannot remember what it was.
“I'm sorry, I feel a bit...” you indicate the wine and ask him to repeat the question.
He does.
And suddenly the sun goes behind a cloud and you shiver as you remember. He is offering you all of this, and money too. You will be set up for the rest of your life. You will never want for anything...except the Winter Soldier. You can never see him again.
Why? Why would they ever think this would be enough? To never see him again, never hold him again, never...you can't think of that any more and without hesitation you take up the gun on the table, put it to your temple, and pull the trigger.
In your programmed state you even hear the bullet whistle from the chamber and feel a momentary pain before everything is black.
*
Caldwell re-enacts the scenario five times with her offering her something slightly different each time but each time she chooses death. He is satisfied and ends the test. Freya is slumped, unconscious, in the chair. He knows how much the Winter Soldier means to her – she will never stray, never risk his life – they have her complete loyalty through James Barnes and that is what matters.
“I still don't like it,” the new handler, a man named Alexander Pierce, says and Caldwell pats him on the shoulder. “It's not that you don't like it, Alex, it's that you just can't imagine anyone not wanting power or money over love.” He smiles.
Then he stands up and looks back at Freya.
“We still need someone to be his companion just in case, we believe we have done away with the need for a Constant but only time will tell if we have been successful. She will have no control over him, but he will be safe with her. She will do everything she can to protect him, and...Alex,” he peers at Alexander over the top of his glasses. “This is my decision.” His voice is firm, and Pierce knows that he will not win this battle.
“Will you be flying back tonight?” he asks, and Caldwell nods.
“I'll take her through and show her what we expect of her. Then, if Maggie could take over?” Caldwell says and Alexander smiles and nods.
“I'll leave you to it then,” he says to Caldwell, and knows he will not be needed for the next few hours. He is still settling into this new home himself. The base is huge, old, carved into the mountainside itself. He won't be here all the time but it will be one of his base of operations. Being the new handler is just one of many operations under his command.
*
When Freya had first been brought into Caldwell's office, he had been shocked at her appearance but did not let it show. They had woken her from cryo freeze three days before but no-one had told her what was happening. She wasn't even aware that she had been in cryo for two years. She had been left to fend for herself - after all, she was just a minor player in a big game. When she stood before him, he wanted to see what her reaction would be but all he could see was how her sorrow had taken its toll. When he had shot her, it had been with a tranquillizer gun, she did not know that, she believed he was going to kill her and she welcomed it.
He is explaining this to her now.
They had thought of terminating her, but he had decided to wait on that decision until he knew what the outcome would be. On whether the Winter Soldier would live or not. He had taken the decision instead to have her placed in cryo, and so once she had returned to her room it was easy enough to sedate her and move her into cryo where she lay for the next two years.
Alone.
And you listen, stunned at what he tells you.
“If you remember, the serum wasn't just trying to repair the damage done to his shoulder and arm. It had been trying to regrow them...but it wasn't just stopping there. It had mutated, and we found it was moving into his bones, misshaping them, they were growing into and damaging his organs. The Winter Soldier was dying.”
“I could have helped...” you begin to say, but he shakes his head.
“Freya. You were too close; it would have destroyed you to watch what we had to do to finally save him. We couldn't continue to treat him at the facility. We simply did not have the technology he needed. So the decision was made to move him here - one of Zola's original work labs. This place is huge, runs miles back into the mountains...but I'll go into that later.”
You are walking with him down a long stone corridor, and even though it is warm you still feel cold. You don't think you will ever be warm again.
“We had to remove his entire left shoulder - collar bone, everything on that side. The surgery was extremely invasive. The new prosthetic doesn't just extend into the shoulder; it is tied into parts of his rib cage and spine. The whole of that area is now artificial.”
“But how? I mean, the technology...” you stutter.
“Hydra never stands still, never stops. We had already been working on a new technology for his arm, for wiping his mind, even for programming. I made the decision to take the leap...we needed to.”
“And the serum?”
“That was the worst part. It was going through his body at such a rate, creating infection after infection. We had to flush it out of his system, whilst at the same time feeding in a new batch. I won't lie to you Freya...we nearly lost him several times.”
And finally you appear to reach your destination. He stops in front of two large metal doors, but as he does so he turns to you. “Are you sure you want to do this, there is no turning back once we go through this door?” he asks, and you nod your head. Your heart is hammering and you feel overwhelming dread. Your mind is trying to create pictures of what you will find but later you realise nothing could have prepared you for the shock of what Caldwell showed you.
He takes out a key card and passes it over a metal panel with glass inset into it, and the panel lights up. He then says his name and an electronic voice repeats it back to him and the light in the panel turns green. The doors open silently.
Behind the first are a second set of doors, and he repeats the process again - only this time when the doors open there is a cold rush of wind and you feel as if you are stepping into some cavernous room. It is semi-dark and you can see shadows of strange shapes. The room is huge.
“This way,” Caldwell says, and you follow slowly, looking around trying to figure out what some of the shadows are. Your footsteps are loud on the stone floor, and the room is cold around you. He stops half way down the room and he offers you a jacket from a peg on the wall.
“You'll need this,” he says, and so you put it on. He puts one on to.
He moves to the side to reveal another set of doors, repeats the same process, and this time when the doors open it is even colder. You step in and this room is darker but feels just as big and cavernous. When you breathe, your breath mists before you. He walks over to a computer panel and presses a button and the control panel lights up, extending a bit more light into the room, but you still cannot work out what is in there.
He beckons you to follow. The place is so cold, so lonely that you can almost think you hear wind whistling through and it is as if there is no one left on Earth alive but you and Caldwell.
He stops at another computer desk and presses a few more buttons. As the lights begin to come on, you turn and see two pods up against the wall. They are the cryo pods from the facility but the lids are up and both are empty. So where is the Winter Soldier? You turn back to Caldwell who is looking at you and he lifts his hand meaning for you to look ahead.
You take a couple of steps forward as you hear him click something and three huge sets of lights come on over head showing what it is you have come to see. You shiver.
Six foot away is a circular, vertical platform about ten foot wide and four foot high. Standing on top of it is a glass container about twelve foot high and about nine foot wide. It is full of swirling white mist. You turn back and look at Caldwell, but he just indicates you are to keep watching and so you turn back. There is a humming noise and suddenly the platform itself begins to move and is moving down into the floor until only about half a foot of the platform remains. It stops.
You wait. Your heart is hammering and suddenly you don't know if you want to keep on looking. If you really want to see what is in that mist.
There is another noise and the glass shudders slightly and seems to crack – no not crack - there is a thin vertical opening and the front splits into two halves which then rotate to the back of the platform, uncovering what is inside. The white mist escapes and surrounds you in a freezing fog. You inhale and it makes you cough. You are glad to be wearing the jacket Caldwell had handed you.
As the mist begins to clear and your eyes adjust, you can see something stood on the platform and when you realise what you are looking at you gasp and your hands fly to your mouth. Your eyes tear up.
(Authors note: For image see http://i.imgur.com/btR7XJm.png
In front of you, stood in the now open container is a man. Not just any man, but the Winter Soldier.
You want to step forward but you can't move. In truth you are afraid. It is such a frightening sight.
His body and legs are encased in what looks like a dark brown leather suit. His left arm shines silver in the light and you can see it extends well into and forms an integral part of his left hand side. It appears to be partly open. A new red star is emblazoned on the top. There are tubes and leads running into the arm, and a bright blue light shows that the power source is on. But this is not the only blue light. There are two more buried in the left hand side of the suit as well as other cables.
The lower part of his face and nose are covered in some sort of breathing mask. His eyes are half-closed but there is no sign of life in them. His hair is still long and parted in the middle, it is lank and greasy, with what appears to be touches of frost in it. His right arm is bare but you can see tubes running into it and monitor leads fixed to it obviously giving out his life signs.
There are bands of metal holding him upright and in place against a body rest. There is one band around his neck, one around his chest, waist, arms and legs. Even if he was awake he could not escape until these bands are retracted.
Caldwell is talking.
“For some time now, we have been aware of how fast the world is changing. How technology is moving, upgrading if you will - and Hydra needs to change with it. We need to be a strong, determined force. We were already working on a new design for the arm, something that would give him even more strength. That and the need to find a more stable serum has always been going on in the background. So when this happened, when he became so ill, we knew it was time. We have brought him to a new base of operations, and he has a new handler, someone I will introduce you to later.”
“What have you done?” you whisper, and then turn to Caldwell, repeating your words. He sees your horrified expression.
“We saved his life,” he says simply. There is no pride in his voice. They had nearly lost the life of one of their main assets and this is what they had to do to save him. To him it is a natural progression.
“You had no right! No right to turn him into...into this!” by the end of the sentence you are almost shouting.
“We had every right. You forget, Freya, he is ours, he belongs to us.”
You turn back and step forward looking up at the Winter Soldier. You want to reach out and touch him.
“It's your choice now,” Caldwell says simply and you turn back to him. He has moved closer to you.
“You either stay with him, or I will offer you the gun again,” his voice is deadly serious. You look back at the horrific image of the man you love. Your heart is still hammering but you feel such an anger on James's behalf. 'Look at what they have done to you,' you whisper to him.
You swing back around and before he can stop you, you slap Caldwell hard around the face, knocking him slightly backwards.
“You monsters! You bloody monsters!” you cry.
“I will allow you that, this time only. What is it to be? Will you leave him to be on his own? With no one? To be totally alone? Or...” and he leaves the sentence open.
But he knows already.
He knows he has you. He knows you will stay. But then he never doubted you wouldn't.
- 57
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- 59
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A Bucky Barnes Winter Soldier Fic - The Constant