an-asset-blog

[an-asset-blog]

@goddessnanna

Its senses followed her as she left the cockpit – it was always good to know where your handlers was at any given time – but only when a door down the hall had audibly closed behind her did its eyes wander to the folder she had left behind.

It’s okay to do something because you want to.

It was certainly not okay because weapons don't want anything and idle hands are the devil's plaything and while it didn’t remember who had said the last parts, it knew it had tinkered with a piece of equipment and whoever had found out had broken every bone in its flesh hand.  

She must have been speaking about the food. And the water.

It could hear the shower activate with a deep, electronic hum. Carefully, the asset activated the autopilot and let it metal hand wander over to the folder, opening it carefully. The pages were disarray ever since she had dropped it in the hangar, but she had looked inside it and maybe she would notice if the order changed again. Did people notice such things? The asset didn't know. It did, because it was trained to. Better to make sure it didn't mess them up further.

It had caught a few glimpses at the contents while pretending to pick up the pages from the floor of the hangar, looking for the codes – but this time it was looking for something else. It stopped when it found a thin piece of paper – cut out from a newspaper. It was the obituary of James Buchanan Barnes, dated 1944, but it had no interest in that.

What it what it wanted was the photo above it. Two men standing next to each other. One blond and muscular in a strange, blue costume, the other – the asset didn't look at him. Didn't want to look at him. Looking at pictures of that man came with negative stimuli attached.

After returning the folder to its place, it folded the piece of paper as small as possible and hid it inside the palm of its flesh hand.

Out of a strange impulse to cover up what it had been doing, it took a few greedy gulps of water and re-positioned the bottle slightly to the left.  

When Nanna returned, she dripped water on the carpeted floor which didn't matter, because it wasn't blood and wouldn't stain. She also smelt like the Secretary's soap which the asset didn't like, but she looked slightly happier which was good. She deserved it.

"I activated auto-pilot." It said, because it didn't feel like wrestling with its programming about whether to repeat her wording (good) but that would mean saying it wanted something (bad) and even if it was getting suspiciously easy, it was still uncomfortable. Also it was an excuse for what it had done during her absence. "I will take 7 minutes."

[an-asset-blog]

The asset held itself as still as possible, pressing its lips together and holding its breath. She knew it was there – which was bad, because it had been trained not to make a sound; to follow like a ghost and if it was slipping it would have to report that and it would be trained again – except it had no one to report to anymore. The worst possible time to get defective for the asset.

But she said it was okay. Okay wasn’t nearly as positive as ‘good’, but it was better than ‘unacceptable’ and even if she wasn’t its handler, its programming soaked up her praise. Maybe the last it was going to get for a while.

It examined it surrounding for a quick way out, but the walls were too high to climb over unnoticed. Trapped, it waited, its hand still hovering above the hilt of its knife, waiting.

Soothing Voice

[an-asset-blog]

He flinched at the mere thought, grateful for the safe distance between them. Throwing another person at the asset as a chew toy was exactly what Hydra would do.

"Did he...did I..." He stopped himself from asking if he had hurt her - how he had hurt her. No matter how strong the need to fill the gaping holes inside his mind was, he had no right to demand that she relived it only to fill them with whatever he had or hadn't done to her. He would find out and add it to the ever-growing red in their ledger. "I'm sorry. It doesn’t mean much, because it's all...blurry. But I'm sorry for anything he- anything I did. That you were dragged into all of that." Heaven knew, she had had enough problems in her life without the asset.

@spawn-of-rumlow

Tame him.

Tame him.

Most of the time, the only thing he wanted was to rip the Soldier out of his soul and rid the world – and himself – of that creature. He wanted him gone and forgotten every time he couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat or found out he’d lost another few hours staring at thin air, waiting for someone to tell him what to do.

But he knew the Soldier couldn’t simply be pulled out from underneath his skin to make him into the sane, whole James Buchanan Barnes Steve history remembered again.

Without expecting an invitation, he sat down at the table, as far away from her as possible. But he looked her into the eyes when he spoke. He was practicing that lately.

“You know. I’m catching up on a lot of news lately. The people of this time are…they are ridiculous.” They were. They really, really were. “They keep lions and bears and snakes as pets and stuff and I know because I read the headlines when they get bitten or eaten or they get someone else eaten. You know, they just don’t realise that some things aren’t meant to be tamed. And that thing they made of me – the Soldier - that’s one of them.”

“They tried taming him and they made him do what they wanted, murder who they wanted. But no matter what they did and what they tried. There was always one incident or another. If 10 000 volt through the head can’t stop him from snapping people’s necks I don’t think there’s much I can do.” @spawn-of-rumlow 

[an-asset-blog]

(anway I just saw Thor: Ragnarok so if anyone has questions or has already seen it and wants to scream about it PLEASE TELL ME)

[an-asset-blog]

Tame him.

Tame him.

Most of the time, the only thing he wanted was to rip the Soldier out of his soul and rid the world – and himself – of that creature. He wanted him gone and forgotten every time he couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat or found out he’d lost another few hours staring at thin air, waiting for someone to tell him what to do.

But he knew the Soldier couldn’t simply be pulled out from underneath his skin to make him into the sane, whole James Buchanan Barnes Steve history remembered again.

Without expecting an invitation, he sat down at the table, as far away from her as possible. But he looked her into the eyes when he spoke. He was practicing that lately.

“You know. I’m catching up on a lot of news lately. The people of this time are…they are ridiculous.” They were. They really, really were. “They keep lions and bears and snakes as pets and stuff and I know because I read the headlines when they get bitten or eaten or they get someone else eaten. You know, they just don’t realise that some things aren’t meant to be tamed. And that thing they made of me – the Soldier - that’s one of them.”

“They tried taming him and they made him do what they wanted, murder who they wanted. But no matter what they did and what they tried. There was always one incident or another. If 10 000 volt through the head can’t stop him from snapping people’s necks I don’t think there’s much I can do.” @spawn-of-rumlow 

[an-asset-blog]

Listening to her was…soothing in a way the asset didn’t understand. Not soothing like Hydra’s tranquilisers or narcotics were that made the world fade away even when the asset was trying to stay awake and fought them every step of the way. It felt no instinct to fight that voice. Instead it was following her, listening.

There were words now, she was singing words, but her words weren’t commands. It knew commands. Almost every time anyone spoke to the asset, it was because they had commands they expected to be carried out.

Kill him, Soldier.

Take her in, Soldier.

Blow it up, Soldier.

Please don’t kill me. Please!

The last one made something constrict inside the asset’s throat – because it hadn’t obeyed, it figured - but listening to her voice helped it breathe through it.

Her words didn’t make sense. They didn’t not make sense in the way that most people didn’t make sense to the asset because they spoke of things it didn’t understand and a world it wasn’t part of.

It didn’t make sense because birds didn’t fly on people’s skin. And because memories couldn’t be piled. (Although the asset figured if you could pile them, its own pile would be very small. And somehow she had made it think that thought and that was dizzying all by itself.)

Usually, the asset let all these contradictions and puzzles drip off of its mind like raindrops when they rolled down its leather-gear, but these ones it was soaking up; it was drowning in them and it didn’t know why.

Something about her voice made it stop paying attention to its own movements – maybe it was the fact that the constant fear was gone that usually had it brimming with adrenalin and kept it concentrated and awake. Now it was feeling content and the asset should never feel content because happiness made for poor fighters. Its foot caught a piece of metal on the ground, sending what looked like the lid of a garbage can skittering across the pavement. The noise was almost painfully loud – because it was unexpected, because the asset was trained to be quiet and making noise meant trouble and because it was louder than her singing.

Instinctively it hid behind one of the dumpsters, pressing itself as deeply into the shadows as possible, its metal hand resting on its last blade, hidden away inside its boot.

Don’t let them catch you, Soldier.

@mermaid-lost-in-a-sea-of-fandoms

Soothing Voice

[an-asset-blog]

@goddessnanna The asset had hurt many people and the fact that it hadn’t wanted to do it hadn’t changed anything at all. They were still hurt or dead. But then people were more complicated and hurt each other for reasons it wasn’t told with means it didn’t understand so it didn’t argue. If she held her word and took her to her home-world, it would still protect her when she told it to. The words ‘better safe than sorry’ were suddenly floating in its mind, just within the reach of awareness, but trying to get a hold of them to figure out who said them only made them shrink away again.

Her offer (it was almost convinced that she was offering and not testing) cut through its musings and it considered. The idea of being locked into a small cubicle with water made something coil just below its diaphragm, but it still smelled of the chemicals from the tank – although that smell never really left its nose, the smell of chemical soap at least mixed it with something else.

If the Secretary knew it would use his personal shower he would-

It stopped. It had no idea what would be the punishment for such a transgression. It had never been in a position to abandon protocols in such a way. Lash out against agents, sometimes, even kill them. But never anything so…personal. The thought of the consequences was terrifying, but there was nothing the man who could do everything could do about this. And Nanna had done that.

“Whatever you prefer.”

[an-asset-blog]

Okay I’ back from my trip and I’m going to fall into my bed now and I hope to answer everyone in a few hours. Already wrote some stuff down on the train.

[an-asset-blog]

Rejection. Good.

It shouldn't feel as satisfying as it did, Brock Rumlow being denied what he wanted – but it did.

“You're better off without him.” And so would the world be. “And you have every right to hate him, whether he likes or or not. I try to hate them. Heck, I do hate them, hate all of them, but he-” He gestured towards his forehead to indicate the Winter Soldier, “He doesn't play along. He doesn't hate anyone, least of all his handlers, because he doesn't get what they did wrong. It's pretty...conflicted.” @spawn-of-rumlow

Bucky wasn’t sure he had masked his distaste quite quickly enough.

Brock Rumlow had apologised to her, had he now?

Among his decades of Hydra-memories – the asset’s memories, warped and sometimes non-sensical as they were – Rumlow didn’t particularly stand out and the asset hadn’t born any particular sentiment towards him, neither positive nor negative. The asset had rarely held such feelings for anyone, considering their abuse an inevitable part of its existence.

Bucky on the other hand did mind it, thank you very much, and even if his memories of Rumlow were muddled and inconclusive, the man had been a member of Hydra and as such he had been complicit with their atrocities. If he apologised for the the suffering he had caused her, then it was not the suffering that bothered him but that it had been someone he cared about whom he had caused it. Selfish even in their sympathy.

“Did you accept his apology?”

@an-asset

[an-asset-blog]

Soothing Voice

Melody sighs softly as she rubs her temples. She feels down lately and nervous. She doesn’t really know why thought. And it’s getting frustrating. She chews on her lower lipt, then grabs her keys and a jacket. Maybe going for a walk would help her calm down. Soon enough she realises it isn’t helping. She lets out a sigh and walks to a parc nearby. Then she sits on a bench ans starts singing. Hoping her voice would calm her down. Altough she knew it didn’t work. Her voice didn’t any kind of effects on herself. If someone walked by then her singing would calm them down. But eventough it doesn’t work on her, she keeps singing. Because now at least she can focus on it and not on how she feels

@mermaid-lost-in-a-sea-of-fandoms

The water was still dripping from its hair and from the inside of the asset's leather gear and its body was shivering from the cold of the night but it barely noticed the physical discomfort over the  agony throbbing inside its mind. Barbed-wire and glass shards seemed to fill its head, its conditioning was screaming and every thought – Weapons Do Not Think – and every memory – But I Knew Him – eluded its grasp, always taunting it from just outside its reach.

The asset knew it wasn't safe out here. It had run as far as it could after it had saved its Mission - saving the Mission! It had saved the mission - but it had nowhere to run and nowhere was safe.

Protocol: Return, Protocol: Re-calibration.

It had to get up now and find its handlers but at all it knew how to do was curl up against the wall of the back alley, claw compulsively at the dark hair that kept falling into its face and watch The Mission fall from the helicarrier again and again inside its mind.

It wanted to scream and without its muzzle there was nothing stopping it from screaming so it buried its teeth in its sleeve.

It tried to calm itself, breathing deep and slow, trying to imagine itself safe back in its holding cell where it belonged, imagined the sound of  the Secretary's low voice praising it – but it didn't deserve praise because it had failed and the Asset never failed and the panic wouldn't go away because the its mind knew what consequences would follow even if it refused to tell the asset.

The asset that withstood world renowned torture methods without shedding a single tear and that thanked its handlers afterwards  for their efforts teaching it to be better now couldn't even calm the storm inside its own mind.

What got through the skull was a sound near it, a voice, human, female, on the young side. But it wasn’t the clipped and harsh recital of its trigger-words or someone barking an instructions – in fact it was a song, someone singing in the lightest, sweetest voice the asset had ever heard and it couldn't even make out the words.

The asset was too focused on the soft melody to even notice the relaxation of its own muscles or the way its fingers stopped tearing at its hair. It could focus enough to get its feet back under its body and force itself to stand up.

It didn't know why its body insisted on following the lovely sound and the woman who produced it - as quiet and unnoticed as the Soviets had taught it to be, its eyes constantly scanning the environment until it finally spotted the woman singing as she walked passed the alley and the asset's hiding place in the shadow of a dumpster without a cue.

As silent as the ghost i was trained to be the asset followed her, absorbing the music that came from her earbuds and relishing in the peace the sound brought to its mind, replacing the painful maelstrom with the usual calm emptiness.

[an-asset-blog]

@goddessnanna

The asset didn't know much about either beauty or freedom in this world. They existed. It knew that because Hydra saw freedom as the root of all suffering. But then the asset had never been free (that it could remember) and it had never felt particularly happy about it – a realisation that had been hovering at the edges of the asset's mind for a long time but for the first time since it could remember it had actually pieced the thought actually and recognised it for it was:

Contradiction. Contradiction tasted of iron and throbbed painfully against the base of its skull. She said the world she came from – Asgard – had cruelty of its own. That she had suffered there too. Suffering was inevitable then and it had been stupid to consider anything else. Maybe all the worlds were the same. Or just the people in them were.  

She said that they had hurt her – worse even than Hydra had she said and the asset clenched its fingers around the steering wheel at the mere thought, it felt angry – then she wasn't safe there and she shouldn't go back. No one had a right to hurt her.

"I go where you want me to." The asset should be scared how soon lack of reconditioning made room for its own desires. Hydra said that selfish needs undermined loyalty. Instead lines began to blur. But instead, Nanna didn't need to speak of any greater good it wouldn't understand. Helping her was good enough as far as it was concerned. "You shouldn't go back if...it hurts."

[an-asset-blog]

Bucky wasn't sure he had masked his distaste quite quickly enough.

Brock Rumlow had apologised to her, had he now?

Among his decades of Hydra-memories – the asset's memories, warped and sometimes non-sensical as they were – Rumlow didn't particularly stand out and the asset hadn't born any particular sentiment towards him, neither positive nor negative. The asset had rarely held such feelings for anyone, considering their abuse an inevitable part of its existence.

Bucky on the other hand did mind it, thank you very much, and even if his memories of Rumlow were muddled and inconclusive, the man had been a member of Hydra and as such he had been complicit with their atrocities. If he apologised for the the suffering he had caused her, then it was not the suffering that bothered him but that it had been someone he cared about whom he had caused it. Selfish even in their sympathy.

“Did you accept his apology?”

@an-asset

[an-asset-blog]

Washington. The day the helicarriers fell and Bucky had had the first clear thought inside its head in decades. He didn't miss the sadness inside her eyes – Brock's actions weren't her fault and she had still suffered a loss. "What did he say?"

@spawn-of-rumlow​

@spawn-of-rumlow The bird disappeared as if it had never been there, its warm glow and the soft crackling noises gone. It wasn’t his place to judge her or preach the virtues of going outside - he was more than familiar with the instinct to hole up somewhere. The first few weeks after Hydra fell, he hadn’t done much else. What drove him out the house now weren’t the coping mechanisms he found on the internet, but revenge on the men who’d done this to him. That and grocery-shopping. “I need your help.”

[an-asset-blog]

@goddessnanna It wasn't the asset's place to question things. What its handlers said was the truth; was the asset's entire world, and doubt was not allowed.

But then, most handlers didn't claim to come from another planet.

It sounded...(insane).

But then, so did fleeing from its handlers (don't think of the punishment) and stealing the Secretary's personal plane (don't think of the punishment) to chase after the voices inside its head (don't think of-).

And it sounded nice, an entire world full of people like her. The asset tried to imagine a world like that. A world with people who were beautiful like her and patient and had soft voices and who didn't hurt their asset when it messed-up.

Except, if they were strong themselves and healed fast like the asset did, they wouldn't even need a servant like that to begin with. They didn't need to give someone a serum and turn their mind inside out and shatter them to pieces and put them together with some parts missing.  They could do everything they needed themselves.

In the asset's mind, the world she came from had forests, because it liked forests and rivers and a wide open sky that was nothing like the dark confinement of Hydra's underground basements.

"You must hate our world. The people. What they..." It considered. It was not people. But it was also from this world. "What we did to you. We hurt you." The asset was convinced of the truth of its words. The world – realm, she had said realm - it had painted for her inside its head was beautiful like she was beautiful and this realm was pain and war and suffering. She would want to return to that world, the asset figured, like it wanted to return to a world where a man named Steve cared about it and whispered nice things with a kind, familiar voice.

"Will you go back?" The question was out before it could stop itself. If everyone in her world was strong and they all healed, they had no use for a used, broken asset and if she returned there, she wouldn't need it anymore. She would leave and it wouldn’t see her anymore. It would lose the only person it could remember who'd ever been nice to it.

[an-asset-blog]

BOLD ANY FEARS WHICH APPLY TO YOUR MUSE. ITALICIZE WHAT MAKES THEM UNCOMFORTABLE.

Repost, do not reblog!

⋆ the dark ⋆ fire ⋆ open water ⋆ deep water ⋆ being alone ⋆ crowded spaces ⋆ confined spaces ⋆ change ⋆ failure ⋆ war ⋆ loss of control ⋆ powerlessness ⋆ prison ⋆ blood ⋆ drowning ⋆ suffocation ⋆ public speaking ⋆ natural animals ⋆ the supernatural ⋆ heights ⋆ death ⋆ dying ⋆ intimacy ⋆ rejection ⋆ abandonment ⋆ loss ⋆ the unknown ⋆ the future ⋆ not being good enough ⋆ scary stories ⋆ speaking to new people ⋆ poverty⋆ loud noises ⋆ being touched ⋆ forgetting ⋆ caves ⋆ the cold ⋆ being insignificant ⋆ being forgotten ⋆ guns ⋆ torture ⋆ getting lost ⋆ confrontation ⋆ natural disasters ⋆ Tagged By: @goddessnanna

Tagging: Anyone who wants feel free!

[an-asset-blog]

Okay I’m back! Due to Ophelia I had neither power nor wifi nor light nor anything and spend the day playing poker in candlelight. But now I’m back and I’ll work through my drafts!

[an-asset-blog]

"You know that since Nat-" He stopped himself. She didn't know about this part of his past. He barely remembered much himself. "Since the Widow leaked the files to the public, Hydra has been in disarray. They're wounded and they're angry and I need to know who's out there before they strike. I need to know if-"

He hesitated but forced himself to continue, keeping his tone neutral.

"I need to know if you heard from Rumlow."

@spawn-of-rumlow

@spawn-of-rumlow The bird disappeared as if it had never been there, its warm glow and the soft crackling noises gone. It wasn’t his place to judge her or preach the virtues of going outside - he was more than familiar with the instinct to hole up somewhere. The first few weeks after Hydra fell, he hadn’t done much else. What drove him out the house now weren’t the coping mechanisms he found on the internet, but revenge on the men who’d done this to him. That and grocery-shopping. “I need your help.”