thewinter-machine

[thewinter-machine]

bastards-stolemyipod:

                     ”Okay. I’m not people.” she admitted, a shrug of her shoulders. “I’m actually Wonder Woman. I am totally an actual member of The Avengers. My super power is looking great and being hilarious at the same time. I am not people. I am Super Darcy." A melodramatic little sigh left her as she stared off into the distance, before her gaze travelled back to his. It wasn’t quite on the same level as her usual enthusiasm, but she guessed she better tone it down. The slight raise of a lop-sided smile, a gentle one.                     She didn’t quite know how to talk to him, and so just figured that she’d talk to him as she did with everyone else. If he’d been totally out of control, Steve wouldn’t have sent her. If it was highly likely that this wouldn’t go well, she probably wouldn’t be here. Or, at least, she hoped. Apple Pie’s guess that this guy was going to get along with her had better be right.                    The clinical sense of silence in this place was described, by Darcy, as gross. It didn’t make for friendly and stress-free visits to national threats at all, and so noted it down somewhere mentally as her eyes wandered the surroundings. She’d have to tell Fury about this. Perhaps more talk at him than talk with him, but eh. Then she realised that no one was talking, and so decided to fill the super gross silence herself.                    "I, uh, brought you this. If you want it." she said, pushing the cupcake across the table so that it ended up nearer him than her. Well, she figured that food in this place wasn’t great, and she herself found sweet things comforting, and so it was an easy to obtain and un-offensive gift. "Freshly baked this morning. From the way these guys miss me giving them to every one on Fridays makes me think they’re at least pretty okay."

Her sense of timing was perhaps the worst and the best he'd ever seen. Though her joke might have made him laugh it was a quiet laugh, a very quiet laugh that isn't entirely sure he can manage for more than a few seconds. Of course it could be real and not a joke and then he'd look like a total fool, but he's looked worse. Oh he's looked so much worse. Still he laughed and settled in his chair, shifting as he heard the clink of the metal chaining his ankles to the chair hit the metal chair. Metal of metal tended to make a very unique sound. A sound he fucking hated. There was a strange sense of understanding in him when he looked down and saw the cupcake pushed in his direction. Of course he saw it when it was first placed down but now she was offering it to him and people didn't just...offer him things. They tended to ignore him more often than not or pretend he wasn't some prisoner they were keeping locked away for what Steve seemed to think was no reason. He knew he deserved to be there and more importantly he knew he didn't deserve their kindness. But she was being kind to him and for that he was...grateful. So he did the right thing to do and he reached for the cupcake, looking at it between the fingers of his flesh hand. He found himself attracted to it as he dipped his finger into the frosting and took a lick of the sweet substance. There was a smile curling on his face that he now couldn't knock off. "Don't think I've ever had something so...good." Between an orphanage, the army, and death, it was entirely likely he'd spent his whole life without ever tasting the sweetness of a cupcake. Something as simple as that.

Cupcake || Bucky & Darcy

[thewinter-machine]

Fighting seemed to come naturally to the creature before him and somewhere within him he knew this was a run away situation but he couldn't bring himself to stand down unless someone told him to leave. It wasn't his choice to stay or leave. It was his mission and he can not stand down from a mission.

But the creature was strong, stronger than the feeble body might have shown him previously. He watched him move and before he could retaliate there was a staff in his chest and he gasped as air completely left his lungs. He choked on the air, his muzzle gone making it at least a bit easier to catch his breath. Still he could feel himself growling as the other looked into his eyes. He lunged, swiping out with the bionic arm and let the machine take over. The machine that could kill a man with a simple squeeze of his neck --- and had. The man inside might be screaming if he could still feel but the machine could not as he punches, lunging again.

He knew it was stupid. Punching leaves you open. Punching leaves you vulnerable. But lawyers and politicians didn't fight back like this. They didn't know that a shove from him could mean death like this opponent did.

So when he goes to swing another hand he feels the hand around his neck and it leaves him feeling dead. Squeezing the life out of a nonexistant being.

He is not human.

These are not his memories.

But still the creature backs away and the Soldier takes his opportunity to jump and kick him square in the chest, sending him flying back into the wall. Finally he notices the arm, the grip on the staff loosening and he sneers as he reaches into his belt and pulls a syringe from it.

Do not kill. Avoid serious injury. Bring him in alive.

He lifts the syringe in the air, ready to force the tranquilizer into his system.

Dead in the Water // Dumah and the Soldier

Dumah wasn’t about to back down. He knew this man, he’d read of many like him. Monsters in human skin, self-made demons who prey on those weaker and far less fortunate. Dumah knew that if he didn’t stop him, that if he didn’t kill this man now that the stranger would simply go after someone else. 

He relaxes his breathing and holds his staff in his hands. He holds it before him, his eyes focused on the target before him. Should he make the first move? 

He had no choice. He walks forward, slowly, gauging the man for any movement. Dumah continues until he knows he’s within range and thrusts his staff into his opponent’s chest, knocking air out of him. The man isn’t pushed back but obviously shocked and counters with a swipe of his metal to knock Dumah’s staff away.

Up close the stranger looks human. Eyes, mouth, nose, everything the same yet dead, gaunt and without purpose. Dumah can’t imagine that this monster having been anything but a monster. 

Dumah swipes his staff out making the stranger jump back to avoid getting hit only to lunge back in and hit Dumah square in the jaw. He flies back to the wall and, with clenched eyes, ducks again to avoid a second punch. He then jumps up, using his legs as propellant, and grabs the strangers throat with his hand. He squeezes air from the man but throws him —

“Bucky! Bucky! Hang on!”

It was cold, too cold. Snow everywhere. Pain, so much pain. Betrayal —

He left me!  

— Dumah comes back to the world gasping, eyes glazed over, returning to their human appearance. His handle on his staff is tight. Though his arm is already going numb he knows he can’t stop. He’s already started. By the time he looks back the man is getting ready to attack him. 

[thewinter-machine]

No Dreams || Bucky & Crowley

It is, indeed, a button, and the bookshelf slides around like a revolving door, showing him a passageway on the other side. However, at the same time that the doorway opens, the corpse behind Bucky lets out a long and hoarse sounding groan before beginning to stagger to its feet. Its eyes are sunken into the sockets and the cheeks are hollow as though he is looking at a skeleton with just a little gray skin stretched taut and leathery over the bones of the face, and the eyes are like little iron coins set into the back of the skull. Carved into the chest of the skeleton is the word HUNTERS with some blood smeared around the cuts.

It staggers toward Bucky, making another and louder groaning sound. As it stands a very interesting looking journal covered in runes and symbols falls out of its pocket.

[thewinter-machine]

As the dart moved straight passed the man -- how the fuck did he do that -- the Soldier took a moment to calibrate. He assess the situation as the eyes of the other begin to glow and that forces his own eyes to widen but no there's no way he can tell as his mask is still firmly in place. But just as soon as he considers his option there is a fist directly in his face and suddenly he's flying back toward the wall, brick hitting the back of his head and sending his muzzle free of his skin. He rips the glasses from his face, now certain that they are of no use to him, and lets them fall to the floor.

His mission is to bring this man back to HYDRA alive but he isn't certain he'll be able to grab him at all. If the situation becomes kill or be killed he knows eactly what he must do.

No words leave his mouth, he simply tilts his head to straighten his neck out, arm flexing out as each piece of metal paneling moves back into it's rightful place. He has some kind of tool in his hand now but that does stop the Soldier from pulling a knife out of it's holster around his hip.

He stands his ground. No reason to move yet. He is armed and ready with nearly every weapon imaginable and back up is close by. No need to panic ----

 ------ though to panic would imply he had the ability to feel anything toward this situation. Or at all.

He felt nothing.

Dead in the Water // Dumah and the Soldier

Dumah had been having a rather frustrating day, like the universe had decided to take a figurative dump in his corn flakes — whatever those were. After a rather abrupt morning, a mess at the library and a hot walk back to his apartment he could hardly bring himself to think of much else besides going home and resting. He was in the mood for a cold drink and a good book, something to help settle into the afternoon air as the sun set over the this bustling city. 

He was walking how he normally would, quick, straight, heading for the destination planned while stopping once and a while to grab a quick look at something. A poster here, old graffiti, different individuals there. All fascinating.

But it was on his way home, fresh book under his arm and nothing on his mind that he suddenly felt uneasy, like someone was watching him. Passing a quick glance behind him he registered that no one was following him but as he turned back he caught sight of someone in the alley he was walking past.

Fear grips his mind, slowing time, making the features of the man stand out more than anything. Long dark hair, pale skin, black mask, half machine and all death on the inside. Something that crawled out of one of his horror novels that had come to stand right beside him. 

He had a gun. It was aimed at him. 

DUCK NOW!

The voice of the human he’s inhabited screams out in his mind, making him flinch, his body filling in the blanks with the years of combat training the human had endured. He ducks just as the shot fires and he feels pain erupt from his shoulder, numbness following. He’d been hit. Someone hurt him.

He reaches up and pulls the dart from his shoulder and holds it in his hand. That was the final straw.

Dumah was pissed.

“You’ll pay for that," comes easier than Dumah would have liked. He thought himself calm, collected, neutral and patient but this had done something, snapped something. 

His eyes are glowing, blue in color and bright. The air in the surrounding area drops in temperature. Dumah clenches his fists yet his body remains loose. He was ready and he wasn’t about to wait. Dumah lunges and, in less than a blink of an eye, Dumah’s fist connects with the strangers face and sends him backwards. He skids, tumbles, and lands further into the alley. 

Everything is still for a moment and Dumah almost thinks it done and over with. But then the stranger moves, gets up, and stands again and Dumah can’t believe it. A normal human would have been dead, that or injured and unable to continue. 

Dumah called forth his staff, a weapon he’d chosen long ago.

This was no normal person. Not human, a thing, a monster and if Dumah had learned one thing from his brothers and sisters it was that monsters didn’t belong on Earth.

That, and angels were to extinguish them.

[thewinter-machine]

Dead in the Water // Dumah and the Soldier

                                              Deep freeze. Icy cold. Defrost. Repeat.

               But there's a mission to complete. So it's time to rise up and warm up.

His hands grip the gun from where he stands, watching and waiting. It wasn't his place to question his orders, especially not when they had been so direct:

                     BRING THE TARGET IN FOR QUESTIONING. DO NOT ANGER. UNSURE OF                      STABILITY. SHOOT BUT DO NOT KILL. MISSION DETAILS TO FOLLOW.

It was a simple request of a not so simple assassin. He was to do his job. And that was all. He wasn't the interrogator. He wasn't the one to order the hits. He simply did as was demanded of him. If they saw someone or something fit to be brought in --- then that was all he did. But he had to perch first. He had to wait. He had to watch. Perched with a blank face and a gun trained on the door until he saw him leave.

             He looked harmless enough. But looks could be deceiving.

With ease he jumped from the rooftop, landing in the alleyway just as the man walked by. A dart filled with tranquilizer aimed from the top of his gun and he took a moment to calibrate before

     Ready                       Aim                                   Fire.

[thewinter-machine]

The knife pressed past Steve's body, swinging with a practiced precision. He took a step back, both of them staring each other down. He twirled the knife within his grasp, holding it out before moving to try to cut the man, or at the very least the shield. No one had warned him of the power the vibranium shield contained. No one told him that when he jabbed his knife into it it would barely make a dent let alone never be able to cut through it. He scowled, pulling the knife back out, duck and rolling out of the way. Knife still in hand he headed straight for the Captain, trying to figure out the best way to take him out. He snarled and jumped in the air, feet aimed the loose end of the shield in preparation to kick it off the other man's arm.

Behind the Trigger // Steve and the Soldier

[thewinter-machine]

Behind the Trigger // Steve and the Soldier

                                                Ice. That's all there is. Ice.

For the last two days he'd been hunting. Fury was the mission. Fury was taken down. The mission directive had changed -- there was a glitch in the system. Something they didn't anticipate. They only told him location, and the location changed with time. It changed with persona. There were multiples. But his new mission were the few ----

                                                                        His new mission was to destroy Captain America.

Finding the car had been the easy part. After all there weren't very many get away cars that he could get a hold of. It made the mission that much more simple, his hands gripping his knife as he jumped from the SUV and onto the fast moving vehicle. Knives were always the most handy, his grip tightening as he stuck it straight into the top of the car and cut. Still moving, for as long as the driver remained alive, he reached in and pulled. But it was seconds later that he saw the body of his target roll from the car, his own body flipping off the top of the car before landing with metal scraping against the cement. He felt a piece of the car fall with him, metal bouncing up to crack the screen of his protective glasses. Within moments they were thrown from his face. He didn't scowl, he just grabbed a gun and began to shoot. It wasn't wild, and it wasn't crazy. It was practiced. Well known. A sniper's training. A spy's skills. He had already narrowed in on the very obvious shield in the crowd, itching to go in for it. There were others involved, he was certain that the rest of his "teammates" would go after the rest on the Captain's side, but the Soldier had one mission.              Kill the man with the shield. Destroy him if you have to. And then walk away. Do not wait for the other men to accomplish their goal. Take your gun, and walk away. Do not look back. Let the world mourn the loss of its beloved Captain. Finish your job. The overpass he remained on gave him a good shooting range to hit the Captain, but it seemed the other was better at dodging bullets than he anticipated. He stood on top of the railing, gun in hand, and he jumped to the ground some fifty feet below. His face mask remained as he turned, throwing the gun from his shoulder in hopes of a much closer fight.              His blade was sharp, but his wit was sharper. He could hear him. He swung.

[thewinter-machine]

"ʏᴏᴜ’ʀᴇ ᴀ ʀᴇᴀʟ ᴄᴜᴛᴜᴘ, sᴛᴇᴠᴇ, sᴏᴍᴇᴛɪᴍᴇs ɪ ᴛʜɪɴᴋ ɪғ ʏᴏᴜ ᴅɪᴅɴ’ᴛ ʜᴀᴠᴇ ᴍᴇ ᴛʜᴇʀᴇ ᴡᴏᴜʟᴅɴ’ᴛ ʙᴇ ᴀ sɪɴɢʟᴇ ᴘᴇʀsᴏɴ ɪɴ ᴛʜᴇ ᴡᴏʀʟᴅ ᴡʜᴏ ʀᴇᴀʟʟʏ ᴜɴᴅᴇʀsᴛᴏᴏᴅ ʏᴏᴜ" - ʙᴜᴄᴋʏ ʙᴀʀɴᴇs

[thewinter-machine]

Time hadn't been something people had given him a good sense of in here. Someone said he'd been locked away for a month a few days ago, though Steve had promptly given them a stern stare for mentioning "locked away" in front of the childlike gaze the comment had received. It seemed that some of his guards measured by attitude instead of time.         He was a machine. Then a monster. He's still not human though. Is he ever going to be? Perhaps they didn't say it like that, but the words mumbled behind closed doors were never really heard to the man. He could just imagine what was going on by the way their lips moved in front of the bars of his window. The guards of his prison cell that whispered into the night of the creature they were forced to watch over.                  But at least he had some reprieve. At least he had Steve. They didn't treat him like a monster, and they barely treated him like a prisoner minus the cell they used to hold him. He wasn't a villain, and they didn't lock him away to have him answer for his crimes against the country. They locked him away for fear he'd commit another one. And he didn't care if they did --- it was for this country's own good that he was behind these bars. But at least they let him have visitors. Tony once a week working on his arm (with robots who seemed to be more friendly than any human interaction), and Steve on a nearly daily basis. But Steve didn't sit opposite him today. Today he stared at an unfamiliar girl. He wasn't as distant as he could have been, nor as cold. But he did sit stalk still, shifting as he caught sight of the cupcake on the table. He raised an eyebrow and looked back up at her.                             "Steve doesn't send people."

Cupcake || Bucky & Darcy

            Cold. It’s the feeling she got from the place, even when she’d worked in similar grey little rooms that were instead offices, not a high security holding cell block for the highly super and likely dangerous. The rooms felt inhuman, clinical, not a place you’d want to be spending your 24/7. No wonder this guy was making slow progress.                   From what she’d heard over the news, The Winter Soldier wasn’t to be messed with. He’d totalled more cars than in Tony’s third garage in twenty four hours and nearly killed America’s Last Hope and Ol’ Eyepatch in one fell swoop. That wasn’t even mentioning the shady as hell shit with the new helicarrier program that came quite literally crashing down around SHIELD (and HYDRA’s) ears. Not everything had emerged from the depths of internet theorist’s back pockets quite yet, but her trust in the organisation and it’s motives had gone down hill faster than bricks in a shopping cart.                        But Steve made her question it.               Question this guy’s rep now that he was apparently more himself. Brainwashing. Yeah, she could believe that. Weren’t a lot of sane persons that would go around ripping car doors off with their bionic arm. The way the super soldier had talked about this guy quite lead her to believe there was some glimmer in his eyes that spelled out the most heartfelt kind of relationship she ever could have imagined. Then Kirk and Spock resurfaced in her memory and she had a hard time deciding.                       But now, as she sat opposite him, the feared terrorist, The Winter Soldier, Darcy noted three things very quickly.                 1. Sad. He just looks so sad.                                                       2. He could kill me.                                                                             3. He needs a hair cut.             “Hi. I’m Darcy, Steve sent me.” she muttered, gaze flicking back and forth between the cupcake she held resting on the table and his own stare. 

[thewinter-machine]

He twirls the knife between his fingers, the sound of the spiders skittering sending the blade flying straight at one. He cuts it in half, eyes directly on it in the dark. Never let it be said his training did him wrong. Slowly Bucky stalks over grabbing the knife from its hold in the table it had landed in and moving to see where the spiders were coming from. He sees the corpse, wrinkling his nose at the putrid smell, knife still gripped tight in his palm.

                  "Где я?"

His fingers run against the bookcase, but they stop quickly. He feels something --- something he wasn't expecting. A button? It could be nothing. It could be everything. He grips his knife tighter, letting his finger dance against the shift in space before pushing on the bookcase.

No Dreams || Bucky & Crowley

The door will not open, not quite yet. Bucky is stuck in the room with his knife for the time being. The smell of the rotting corpse wafts over, and a few spiders skitter around the place, suggesting a nearby food source.

[thewinter-machine]

He pulls open the bars, the darkness of the space turning to light as he moves toward the glowing orb. The light reflects and he sees there is more, so much more. He hadn't thought of it before, but suddenly the realization occurs to him that he had a knife in his back pocket before. He reaches behind with one hand, pulling his baseball cap off with the other. As the hat falls to the ground, the knife finds its way into his grasp.

The room seems bleak, and he's nearly tempted to call out to see if anyone else was present. The idea of drawing attention to himself seemed horrible, so instead he just continues on, moving until he sees the bookshelves and old books. He doesn't care much for them, the way they make this place seem ancient. Lived in. Was it lived in? Or was he the first soul to inhabit its walls?

His searching ended when he caught sight of the door, wooden and decrepit. He didn't need his knife, the iron lock seeming easy enough to rip off. He kept his glove secure, latching to the padlock and pulling it free.

Though of course the door wouldn't budge.. 

No Dreams || Bucky & Crowley

The metal rips under his strength once he has achieved an ability to move. Within a few moments there is an enormous hole in the bars through which he may pass. On the other side of the bars is the small orb of gentle pale white light, which pulsates every so often as though it were a living heart.

Bucky is now standing in a large room with a high cave ceiling that is semi-furnished, with a rough stone floor. There is a rotting corpse inside of his cell which may be investigated, and the rest of the room may be searched. Inside the room is the corpse, a small chair, a table, a small chest, and several shelves of ancient, dusty looking books. The walls are made of stone and earth just like the inside of his cell. 

There are a few patches of moss on the damp walls surrounding him, but there is no mildew or mold. The door lies across the room from him, and it appears heavy and wooden, and it has several strange symbols carved into it, and there is an iron lock on it. 

There is the steady sound of dripping water and the smell of earth and water and a damp cold crawly feeling here, although nothing very unusual. It appears something like the room below, except the shelves are full of books.

[thewinter-machine]

None of this was possible. He was pulled away from where he was and moments later he was somewhere else. Perhaps Loki would have be able to explain this to him...or perhaps he would be as in awe of the situation as he happened to be.

Days. Hours. Minutes. Seconds.

He could feel the power seeping into him, cutting him up inside. It wasn't an unfamiliar feeling, the touch of something else attempting to infiltrate his mind. In fact the feeling of things probing around inside of him might be more comfortable than not. All he could do was think, and thinking grew hard. His desire to be controlled was little, but his compatibility to obey was great. It had become his go to emotion. Why struggle?

So he didn't. He let the juice work it's magic. To warp his mind. To practically destroy him. It wouldn't though, it would just leave him paralyzed for long enough for his eyes to grow adjusted to the dark again. For the cold to seep into his body. For the stench of an underground containment to feel like home...again.

None of this was new to him.

He began to move. First his fingers, flexing and rolling and stretching. He flexed his hands, palms pressing into the damp Earth beneath him. Everything is wet, and the wetness had already seeped to his skin. Seeped to his bones. He remembers now. He'd always remembered that wetness. It is the one thing they couldn't take from him as it was the one thing he'd always have.

Because the ice was always there.

He sees the glowing light, the bars, the wall. But he's already given in. His ability to run dwindled by his lack of ability to fight. A soldier made to kill on command. Still, he stands reaching out to grasp the metal bars. Metal bars. Metal on metal.

He begins to rip.

No Dreams || Bucky & Crowley

The demon stands in triumph over his victim as he watches him fall to the ground. He stoops to pick the knife up with a little purr in his voice. 

"Now, we can’t have kitty running away," he says, smiling down at Bucky and clearing some of the hair out of his face so he can look into his eyes. He kneels down next to his head and draws it up into his lap so he can see him. In an instant both he and Bucky are in a new place.

The first thing that will be noticeable about this place is that it is cold, and dark, and damp, and it smells like rich earth and rotting meat. There is barely any light at all here; what little there is comes from a glowing orb outside a set of iron bars on Bucky’s left. On his right is damp earth wall.

[thewinter-machine]

There was a weariness to the ex-soldier as he walked, a weariness that nearly caught him off guard. Still, a soldier was always a soldier, an assassin was always an assassin, and a spy was always a spy. There was no hiding from him --- he was the master of the shadows. He'd kept himself cloaked with a sort of precision the Russians had all but applauded him for (and perhaps they did in their minds).

He heard the man a mile away, the sound of the knife slashing through the air toward it's intended destination. In a quick second Bucky had to decide what to do. He aimed for the left, so he had to grab with the right. The uncovered hand gripped at the knife blade, pulling it easily from his aggressor. Almost on instinct a darkness filled his eyes -- a darkness Steve had been trying to help him forget.

             How easy it was to remember.

But it seemed even his quick thinking wasn't enough. He had the knife in his hand but there was something different about this knife, something that even the greatest soldier of the era couldn't for see. First his arm tensed up, but in a few moments it was his whole body -----

         ----- and his darkness seemed to shroud itself with fear as his body went toppling to the ground.

No Dreams || Bucky & Crowley

The man-shaped monster ducks into the shadows behind the light pole and readies himself as a random human walks by him. There doesn’t seem to be anything particularly special about this human, besides his arm— this demon isn’t very interested in cultural affairs. He’s just in it for the blood.

He swings around the stem of the light with the knife gleaming in his hand, aiming to bring the knife down onto the human’s shoulder and get a cut in there. 

[thewinter-machine]

Freedom.      It still seemed like such a foreign concept -- the ability to walk the streets alone at night. The ability to walk the streets at all. But he had a name again. An identity. Two men who appreciated and loved him. To most it would seem he had everything. But most hadn't ever seen the darkness that shrouded his entire being. The darkness that consumed his soul and forced him to walk the streets at night. He hadn't had a dream in over seventy years. Only nightmares when he slept. Only nightmares when he was in control.           So he wandered the streets of New York. He wandered in search of answers, in search of memories he had to discover the truth of, but most importantly ----                         In search of freedom.

No Dreams || Bucky & Crowley

There is a man-shaped monster sitting at the corner of Adams and 23rd street underneath the orange streetlight. He plays with a knife idly, flipping it between his fingers, the light reflecting off of the blade into his eyes which swallow the light and release none of it. They are black pits sunken into his face, although he does do his best to keep that fact on the down low.

The knife is a very special one. All he’s waiting for now is the right target to come along, so that he can test the edge out. It’s not a normal edge. It has a special effect, and he stole it from a special place. 

[thewinter-machine]

Just One Yesterday // Steve and Bucky

Set in the snowy hills of Europe in 1944, the night before the Howling Commandos zipline their way onto a train that will change history as Steve and Bucky knew it.

No triggers, just good ole cotton socks boys learning to love each other for the first (and though they didn't know it last) time.

(please note this was the first thing I ever wrote as Bucky so I was still growing with the muse =])

                                   baby you were my picket fence...

[thewinter-machine]

[thewinter-machine]

Covers for the original “Winter Soldier” Story Arc.