Chapter Text
Pepper’s upstate cabin has those old-timey radiators. Cap didn’t have any handcuffs or anything, so he just brought a metal pipe up from Pepper’s basement, weaved it through the radiator bars, and twisted it around a bunch of times with his bare hands. Rumlow’s been tied up like that the past few hours, cycling through the five stages of grief in increasingly creative orders.
He’s not getting out of this one.
Cap’s been on and off the phone basically all day. Seems like whichever agency he’s trying to get a hold of is stretched to capacity. Rumlow can hear him, right now, talking on the phone in the other room.
“...Yeah, no. Seventy years. Yeah. You’re, uh. You’re welcome – listen, sorry, Special Agent… Agent, but can we get back to the Hydra agent I need you to… thank you. Yeah. Brock Rumlow. R-U-M…”
When they first got here, Cap had tied Rumlow up by his good arm. He’d stayed like that for a big chunk of the day, until Cap must have come to the conclusion that he didn’t particularly feel like hand-feeding Rumlow, or helping him piss. So now the pipe is twisted around Rumlow’s good leg. And there’s a bottle of piss near him on the floor.
Cap must be on hold or something. He hasn’t said anything since he spelled out Pepper’s address, not even any ‘mhm’s or anything.
Softly, the Asset asks, “When are you gonna hand him over?”
“First thing in the morning,” Cap sighs. “They’re coming here. He said they could – Yeah,” he says into the phone. “Alright. Thank you very much, sir. Okay. Good night.”
There’s a silence.
“How long until you’re healed?” Cap asks. Rumlow can hear the shrug in the Asset’s voice.
“Morning?” he guesses.
“Yeah, me too.” Rumlow hears a mug clatter on the counter and Cap hiss.
“Late morning, pal,” the Asset says. Cap huffs out a laugh. The Asset adds, thoughtful, “I got this feeling like I should be mad at you about something.”
“Get in line,” Cap says dryly.
“Something about,” the Asset continues, “you sitting here with me across this table, covered in bruises. I feel like I should put a cold towel on your nose. Then yell at you.”
“You used to patch me up,” Cap tells him. “After I’d get in some stupid fight.”
“Yeah?” the Asset absorbs that. “Guess not much has changed, then.”
Cap barks out a laugh. “Yeah, buddy.” He’s quiet for a moment. “Afterwards, we’d pop open the back window and you’d head out onto the fire escape for a smoke. If it was warm enough out, I’d sit there with you.”
That was in the original Asset Management manual, actually. A smoke as a reward. It had stayed part of SOP all the way up until Insight. Makes Rumlow feel kinda weird knowing this is where it came from.
There’s the sound of someone pulling open a drawer and digging around. “What are we waiting for, then?” the Asset says. A second later, Rumlow hears their chairs scraping back. Cap leads the way past Rumlow, onto the porch. He’s got a pack of cigarettes in one hand and a BBQ lighter in the other. The screen door clatters shut behind them and pretty soon Rumlow can smell them lighting up.
“I missed this,” the Asset says. He sounds surprised. “I didn’t even know about this and I missed it.”
“Missed you too, Buck,” Cap says back, and tries not to sound as choked up as he does. There’s a pause. Hesitantly, he says, “Do you remember… that that’s your name? I told you it was, but. Not the same thing as remembering.”
The Asset doesn’t say anything for a long time. “I don’t remember it,” he answers finally. Cap looks like he’s about to cry. “But,” the Asset continues, “It’s my name now, isn’t it? Bucky Barnes.” He takes a puff of his cigarette. “That’s what you named me.”
“I shouldn’t get to,” Cap starts. “You should choose that for yourself, when you’re ready. If that’s the name you still want. Or—” he corrects quickly, “not want, sorry, but— you should choose that for yourself.” Look at Cap, scrounging up a C in Handling 101.
The Asset shrugs. “You choose your name, pal?”
Cap goes quiet. Then he snorts out a laugh. “Fair enough, Buck,” he says. “Fair enough.”
It’s gotten dark enough out that Rumlow can only see Cap and the Asset from the glow when one of them takes a drag. They’re in undershirts and bandages, and with how little Rumlow can see, they even look like they’re in fucking black-and-white.
There’s nowhere for Rumlow to go. There isn’t even a lock for him to pick. He could get out of this if he broke his own ankle, but then that’s two broken legs and twenty miles of woods in every direction. Some escape plan.
He can’t even muster up the energy to freak out. He already freaked out enough over dying the other day, after the investigation finished. He’s just drained. And hurting. Everywhere.
So he just sits there and listens to Cap and the Asset smoking.
It’s really over this time.
And it’s… not fine, obviously. But it is what it is.
Fuck.
The screen door opens again and the Asset heads inside. He’s grinning, but his face falls a bit when he spots Rumlow.
Cap’s face falls a lot when he spots Rumlow.
“Tomorrow morning,” he tells him. Rumlow just nods. They’re most of the way past him, about to leave, when he decides, fuck it.
“Any chance I can get a last drink?" It’s not like he’s got anything to lose by asking. He’d like to taste something good before some Camp Phoenix goon tears out his tongue for funsies.
Cap stares at him for a long second.
“I’ll see what we have,” he says, and goes into the kitchen. Rumlow hears cabinets opening. A moment later, Cap’s back with a bottle of Glenlivet single malt, and a coffee mug. Rumlow’s 100% sure Pepper has proper whiskey glasses somewhere in this bajillion-dollar house, but he decides now’s not the time to rib Cap for his Depression-era upbringing. To be fair, it’s not like Rumlow knew what to drink whiskey out of until he was in his thirties.
Cap pours what sounds like a full mug and hands it to Rumlow. “This thing’s older than me,” he says.
“Thanks.” Rumlow takes a long swallow, shutting his eyes. That is the best fucking whiskey he’s ever had in his life. Expensive shit is just better.
Cap watches him sip it. "Good?" He asks.
"Fucking fantastic."
“Wish I could still get drunk,” he muses.
The Asset’s eyes squeeze closed for a second. He blinks them open, looking surprised.
“You can,” he tells Cap.
“No, Buck,” Cap says regretfully. “Sorry. We can’t, anymore. Serum burns through it too fast.”
“Well, yeah, faster than we can drink,” now the Asset’s starting to sound excited. Rumlow’s honestly kind of happy for him. That’s an important thing to remember. “You gotta set up an IV.”
Rollins had been the one to find it in the original Soviet notes, actually. They’d gotten stuck for a week longer than planned in a snowstorm, trapped in their boring ass stakeout with nothing to do and sick of playing cards. Rollins had said, “they must have done something for fun in Siberia”, read through the notes, and found this one batshit crazy experiment they’d done on the Asset in fucking 1945 or something, with a goddamn vodka IV.
They’d found a stash in one of the cabinets and gotten the Asset drunk with the rest of STRIKE. It was pretty fun – he’d mostly just shit-talked Kaminsky, their backup sniper, for sucking. To his face. After that, once in a while, if STRIKE was drinking and the Asset was around, and he’d been well-functioning, Rumlow let Rollins give him a shot of vodka in the crook of his elbow so he could join the fun a little.
Fuck. Rumlow hopes Rollins is still alive. It feels worse than the broken leg and the burn on his chest, not knowing.
“I can show you?” the Asset offers. Cap’s nostrils flare for a sec, like he’s about to demand how the Asset knows he can get drunk via IV, then he kind of loses steam and deflates like it’s not worth it.
“You know what, Buck?” he says. “Sure. Sounds fun. God knows I could use a drink.”
They take the fancy whiskey with them. Rumlow’s still got half a mug left, though, so it isn’t half bad.
Cap and the Asset must go off to one of their rooms, because he doesn’t hear them anymore after they leave. About a half hour later, he hears footsteps upstairs - Wilson’s been in the jacuzzi for a solid four hours trying to “soak off the fact I’ve been somehow kicked out of the Avengers” and now he must finally be going to bed. Rumlow hasn’t heard anything since.
He doesn’t wanna sleep. Feels like a waste.
This is how it fucking ends. He can’t say he can’t believe it, but… wow, does this suck. There’s no one to talk to, to talk his way out of this. Nowhere to go. There’s nothing left to try.
He drinks all the whiskey, and it doesn’t take long for him to start to feel pleasantly woozy. He might be hung over tomorrow, but who cares. Right now, it tastes good. Burns nice. It fucking sucks his life is over, but he’s got no huge regrets, at least. He’s had a great career, until it - literally – went up in flames. Seen a lot of things. No kids, but he never really wanted them. At least Rumlow’s not gonna be one of those pussies going ohh, I should have done this, I should have done that, at the end.
He’s feeling pretty sleepy now. It’s warm, right next to the radiator, and the whiskey’s pulling him down fast. He grabs the pillow Cap left him and shoves it under his head.
He’s asleep for a few minutes – it feels like – when there’s footsteps walking past him. He looks up and sees the Asset, coming back from the kitchen. He’s got a glass of water in one hand. They look at each other for a drawn out moment.
“Hey,” Rumlow says stupidly.
“Hey yourself,” the Asset says,“Commander Rumlow.”
You know those kids cartoons, where the guy runs off a cliff and doesn’t realize it at first? And just sprints in mid air for a second before he stops, and then he falls?
Yeah.
Yeah, that feels about right.
“So,” Rumlow says. “You finally remember who I am, huh, Soldier?”
The Asset nods. “For a couple days now. I wasn’t 100% sure at first.”
On the bright side, Rumlow’s not gonna see the inside of Camp Phoenix, because any minute now Cap will vault down the stairs and brain him.
Except… he hasn’t.
“A couple of days?” Rumlow says again. The Asset nods. And Rumlow finally gets it. “You didn’t tell Cap.”
The Asset winces. He looks uncomfortable. “No,” he echoes slowly. “I didn’t.”
They stare at each other for a minute. The Asset leans down and hands him the glass of water. Rumlow takes it, dumbly, and takes a long gulp. He’s rapidly sobering up.
“Are you gonna?”
Instead of answering, the Asset crouches down and reaches for the pipe that’s keeping Rumlow tied to the radiator. Rumlow flinches when he touches it. It takes him a second to realize that the Asset is carefully un-twisting the metal.
Holy shit.
This is so not what he expected to happen that Rumlow just stares as the bar’s unwound from his leg, blanking out. What the fuck is going on?
“Status report,” he demands.
“Extraction is on its way here,” the Asset says. Rumlow looks up sharply. Did he actually just say that? That wasn’t a fucking hallucination?
“You got in contact with Hydra?” he asks. The Asset nods. “Who?”
“Agent Rollins.”
There had been something squeezing Rumlow’s chest for the last few days, and he hadn’t realized it until just now when it disappeared.
“He’s alive? You actually talked to him?”
The Asset nods again. “When we first got here. He should be outside in a few minutes, if he isn’t already.”
Rumlow can’t believe what he’s hearing. He doesn’t know what to say. They’re actually gonna get the fuck out of here.
The metal groans as the Asset straightens out the pipe, and Rumlow gets a jolt of anxiety.
“Cap’s gonna hear—” he hisses, and the Asset tsks.
“Stevie’s always been a lightweight,” he says dismissively. “And he hasn’t had a drink in five years. Or seventy. Whichever way you look at it, he’s down for the count.”
They sit in silence as the Asset works on a particularly tight loop around Rumlow’s ankle. He has to do it piece by piece so it doesn’t constrict and break anything else. It’s a slow process.
“So, Bucky Barnes, huh?” Rumlow asks. The Asset shrugs, uncomfortable.
“Apparently.”
“Who woulda guessed?”
“Not me, that’s for sure,” the Asset says. He looks up and meets Rumlow’s eyes. “Would it have changed anything, Commander?” he asks. “If you knew?”
It’s a fair question. Rumlow thinks about it as the Asset pulls the loop around his ankle straight. Primary handler of American war hero Bucky Barnes. It sounds more like a kid’s game than anything else, like something they’d play out after watching Howlies!. It’s bullshit. Even knowing now who the Asset was made from, it doesn’t make a difference. He wasn’t Bucky Barnes’ handler. It wasn’t Bucky Barnes that Rumlow took into the field, and rewarded and punished when he needed it. It wasn’t Bucky Barnes that Rumlow sent off to maintenance, and put in the Chair, and hung out with during downtime. Rumlow’s never been anything to Bucky Barnes. But he took good fucking care of his Asset.
“Would’ve explained the weird slang, at least,” is all he says. The Asset chuckles. “Why are you getting me out of here?” Rumlow asks, because he’s gotta ask.
The Asset answers without even hesitating. “I have to protect my handler,” he recites.
“Even from Steve?”
The corner of the Asset’s mouth twitches. “Guess so.”
“Sounds complicated,” Rumlow says as the Asset helps him to his feet.
“You’re telling me,” the Asset agrees.
Rumlow tries to step forward, but even leaning on the Asset, he almost falls back down. He really misses those robo-crutches. After an awkward shuffle-hop, the Asset just reaches down and scoops Rumlow into his arms bridal-style for the second time this week. Carefully, he navigates them through the screen door. Rumlow sees a pair of headlights coming up the drive. For a second, he thinks the suits are here early to take him away. But then the car passes under the porch light and he can see Rollins at the wheel, in a neck brace. He’s got a black eye and some nasty gashes on his face that are probably gonna turn into more scars.
Rumlow waves at him like a dumbass. Rollins waves back. He’s missing two fingers.
The Asset starts walking over as the car slows down, and stops, and holy shit Rumlow’s actually, really getting out of here. They’re all getting out of here.
“I am gonna tell Steve,” the Asset says abruptly, and Rumlow doesn’t understand at first that he’s answering his question from earlier. “I’m gonna tell him everything. I can’t not. But I’m gonna wait twenty-four hours before I do.”
It’s then that Rumlow realizes the Asset isn’t coming with him.
He looks up at him. “You’re staying.”
The Asset sighs heavily. “Yeah.”
There’s a chance Rumlow’s still kind of drunk, because that’s hitting him harder than it should. He’s worked with the Asset over a decade, now. Longer than with any other weapon. He’s always been the number one item in Rumlow’s arsenal. And Rumlow’s been his longest-tenured handler. Except…
“So,” he says. “It’s Steve, huh.”
The Asset meets his eyes. “It’s always been Steve,” he admits.
The Asset pulls open the car door and helps Rumlow into the back. Rollins half-turns around to see him, which is kinda hard with the neck brace, and they clasp arms.
“Hey, man,” Rumlow says. He’s so fucking glad he’s alive. “You look like shit.”
“Same goes for you double,” Rollins rasps. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”
Rumlow looks back at the Asset. He’s leaning down so he and Rumlow are face to face.
“Come with me,” he tries. “That’s an order.” The Asset’s already shaking his head.
“I got standing orders,” he says. “I can’t.”
So that’s that, then.
“I get it,” Rumlow tells him. He ignores Rollins’ what-the-hell face in the rearview mirror. “New chain of command, huh?”
The Asset half-smiles. “More like old,” he says. He’s looking at Rumlow exactly the way he used to after they thawed him out, like he’s the only point in the room that’s really there. After a second, he blinks and looks away. “Twenty-four hours,” he reminds him.
“Well?” Rollins presses. “Is it coming with? We gotta go, Rumlow.”
“Hold on a second,” Rumlow hisses. He looks back at the Asset. “I just gotta know,” he says. And hesitates, because… well, shit. Because. “Was I a good handler?”
The Asset’s eyes are shiny with tears. “You were the best handler I ever had.”
He shuts the car door. Rumlow rolls the window down.
“Wait forty-eight hours before you tell Steve,” he says. “As my final order.” The Asset frowns. “Come on, Soldier,” Rumlow adds. “Best handler you ever had, remember?” And then, more seriously, “You owe me that much.”
He can see the exact second the Asset complies.
“Forty-eight hours,” he agrees. He looks anxiously back at the house. “But it’s time to go now.”
And that… kind of hurts, really. Somehow, it catches Rumlow off guard. He doesn’t want to leave the Asset here. He’s got good reasons. Cap still hasn’t got a clue how to handle him, and it would be useful to keep him around, to watch his and Rollins’ backs on the run. But it just comes back to this: he doesn’t want to leave the Asset behind. He’s been his field handler longer than anyone else kept the job, he's put all that work in, he should get to fucking keep him. After all those years, he’s gotten used to having him on hand. It's been a privilege wielding such a damn fine weapon. Who apparently likes being called Bucky Barnes. But that’s neither here nor there.
The Asset’s still standing there, looking sadly at Rumlow. Goddammit, when did this happen? When did Rumlow get this attached? It feels like leaving behind an arm.
He reaches through the window, ignores Rollins’ “Brock, let’s fucking go,” and places his hand on the back of the Asset’s neck. The Asset leans into it and sighs a little, the way he always does when he gets a reward. Rumlow holds it there for a few seconds. He scratches just behind his ear.
“You’re a damn fine weapon,” he tells him. “Now that you’re remembering stuff, don’t forget that.”
The Asset swallows. “Understood.”
“Good job, Soldier,” Rumlow says, and takes his hand away.
The Asset looks like he knows he’s done good.
“Get outta here, Commander,” he says back, softly. It’s the kind of thing he would never have said, before.
Rumlow starts to roll the window back up. He looks at the Asset’s face through the glass. Reminds him of the tank. It’s not so different than leaving him behind in cryo for a while, Rumlow tries to tell himself.
“Thanks, Barnes,” Rumlow says. The Asset startles.
Rollins hits the gas.
Just before he disappears into the rearview mirror, Rumlow sees the Asset smile.