fossilised | I come from a land of ice and snow

Loki had seen James a few times in his cage, of course, but he had not conducted much of his time with him as he had been Bruce's to investigate and he held no personal attachment to the James of the past. To see him now was to take him in properly from head to toe, to finally see with his magic where all the cracks were in his mind.

Disturbing.

Not even the Aesir could remake someone in this way, it was pervasive and disgusting, and it made him feel unclean to touch his fingertips to James' head, but he did so in order to start delving for where the various trigger words were. Images, silent but moving, appeared like smoke every so often in the air. James being tortured, James being strapped down and electrocuted, James being remade.

When Loki stepped back, he looked truly disgusted.

"I shall write the words you require to control him on parchment, but you would do far better to kill him, it would be a kindness. There is nothing there now but a sword to command, no person at all."

"I can not let a people as wrong and diseased as those win over even a slave," Thor said, anger making the ground beneath their feet shake. He did not notice Anthony looking about ready to tackle Loki out of harm's way if it came to that, mostly because Anthony was like a gnat. A fly. He meant nothing at all and it was laughable to think he could ever protect his brother from anything. He was a pet, little more, fancy and amusing but of little worth.

Or so Thor thought.

"I must try. He reacted to the false Steven in the pens. Perhaps it was nothing, perhaps it means that there is a way to call him back. I must try. But I will not allow him to suffer long if it is impossible to bring back his mind. He does not yet have one foot in Valhalla." Thor took the parchment and though Loki likely had other things to say to him, Thor was no longer interested in listening.

Anthony was glad to leave with his mast after that. It had grown frightening in Prince Thor's tent.

Once he was alone with the Wrong James, Thor held the paper. The words translated to all-speak just fine but they made little sense to him. "I have the way to unlock you," Thor told James in the low brazier light. "But it is my goal to remove the teaching of those that hurt you. If you are but a sword, you will be as Mjolnir is, strong and perfect, and instrument for so much more than bludgeoning." He frowned at James' blank face and said the words.

Loki was glad to retreat with Anthony, he did not wish to be in the company of that strange blank James any longer. Midgardians were truly a savage and disgusting race when left to their own devices. Only in the service of those who had more understanding could they ever rise above their base instincts and become something more, and he was sure that each slave here in the training grounds could now see what a blessed life they led compared to what could have been.

The Soldier stood still and blank throughout the exchange with Prince Loki, only moving when he heard the words begin. He didn't fight it, he knew better than that, but he did grimace until they settled into place within his head.

"Ready to comply."

His eyes were now full of complete obedience, but not the loving loyalty of his last James. He would obey any order Thor gave to him, proven as a handler now, but he did not have the capacity for emotion.

Thor was certain it would come with time. He just needed to work on it. Whatever those words did, they had at least triggered obedience in James and so he had a base to start. Thor returned to his seat and he bid his slave, already claimed, to kneel at his feet as comfortably as he could manage. He knew better than to suggest he just kneel. James would have to be reprogrammed. Slowly. And Thor had all the time in the world right now.

"I do not wish your body to feel discomfort," he said with an even tone, and so you will be responsible for making sure of your comfort. Monitor this closely."

He didn't know that James would have trouble with this because he had been previously trained to ignore his body and its discomforts. But he would learn. Or he would die. Even if he did not have life as an incentive, it was a simple fact. Not a motivator.

"Now. You will tell me all of your previous training. It was done incorrectly and we have much work to retrain you. Start with your earliest memory of training and work forward. If your tongue becomes dry, fetch yourself water and wine."

The problem with the Soldier was that a lot of him was blank. In order to make sure that he became everything they needed him to be, it was necessary to remove almost every time they completely reset him, only leaving some things to continue through. He wouldn't be able to give a full record, as he only had pieces, but what he could give...

It was probably worse delivered in such a cold and dead voice, as though the atrocities committed were done to someone else or just a boring list of numbers. He might not remember it all, but the Soldier told of brutal tests that made him able to stand on broken legs or ignore gut wounds, of reconditioning and electricity, of cryogenic freeze and the lack of even a name.

He was a weapon, nothing more or less.

He only stopped for a drink when his voice nearly gave out, not yet attuned enough to his body to notice simple dryness of his mouth. Hopefully Thor would be content with the information given, because the Soldier didn't pull any punches in telling all he did remember.

Content was not the right word but Thor was pleased to have the knowledge even if he did not like the knowledge itself. His eyes stayed fixed on James as if he needed to keep him in his sight at all times. The account was noticeably lacking, missing pieces, but it was as the healers said and as Loki alluded to. James, or the person this James had once been, likely was not in there.

"We must erase the damage," Thor said. "While it is commendable that you were fought through trials of fire and your body had been properly conditioned, it has left little room for your soul. You will say that you are only a weapon but this is not true and it is a mountain we must climb together. And so first we must give you a name and not a designation. Even the best weapons have names and so why should you be different? You shall answer to James. It is what I will call you and others may as well. Now we must start on lessons you have learned beyond the physical. Your skills are important to me and many may come in use later. I know of your strength and you have told of your endurance. But what of your loyalty? You have no trust of me and yet you allow me to command you completely. It is not how loyalist is earned and so you will relearn this. But first, you will sleep upon my furs. You will think of this loyalty until you sleep. None shall disturb you until you wake."

Thor felt almost as if he was trying to re-break a stallion who had been taught innocrectly how to cross a river and now was afraid of water. Impossible, perhaps. But no better than he to do this.

Once James did wake, he would wait to see his behaviour. Would be kneel before him? Call out? Or lay there until Thor said another word? Time would tell.

Thor would not find the Soldier an easy task to break, the only way to the pieces of Bucky that lay underneath the shell could be found through Steve Rogers. He didn't care enough about anything else to go for it, to think beyond his orders and try to obey them to the best of his ability. He had many handlers over the years who behaved in different ways, Thor was just one more.

He did as he was told and stretched out on the furs and immediately closed his eyes. He thought on loyalty, as he had been instructed, until he slept. But as he had been told to sleep, that time was little more than a couple of minutes, breathing quickly evening out to the steady rhythm of sleep.

When he woke, a precise five hours later, he rose smoothly and silently to stand to attention and wait for his next orders. He would not continue to lie there, for that would be deceptive and he needed to show that he was ready for his next orders. Poor Thor would not find more than a silent, but very obedient, shadow in the Soldier for a long time yet.

Though Loki did not believe him to be patient, Thor would show him otherwise when he truly wanted something. And so, as Clint was taken away to be bred in Bruce's experiments, unable to be stopped by Tony or by Steve, Thor started to be seen around camp with his new slave. James wore a simple tunic of red with gold edges, nothing elaborate like Samuel now wore or Steven had worn and would wear again. Thor was just acclimating James to the sights and the sounds of camp. So he went with him to breakfasts with Loki and dinners with Sif. He stood waiting as those dinners turned into a tussle in the furs with his friend, though Sif expressed dismay at how little James-like he was and had him turned towards the wall more often than not.

After it was confirmed that both Tony and Clint had gotten two female slaves pregnant each, they were left alone for the time being. No one tried to force Steve to couple with anyone. He was deemed unwanted.

But it had to be burning him. Why did they keep him alive? What was he to do in a cage with two men that seemed to be more cutting wit and distance as each day progressed? There was never any news of Bucky either. It wasn't a knowledge that Bruce had.

And in fact, no one paid much attention to him at all as the third month of their captivity rolled around until Thor heard James call for 'Steve' in his sleep. Just a whisper. Just an accident of the mind. As he could not see to his own slave (who now had fifteen healthy children to be marked once they were born), Thor came for Steve Rogers on a rainy afternoon as Tony slept and Clint openly sharpened pottery.

"He had called for you and you will come," Thor told Steve. "If you struggle in any way, your blood will stain the floor. If you attempt to kill yourself, I will allow it. Now come."

Steve was never going to back down, but he was beginning to lose hope. He didn't know how to help Clint or Tony, and neither of them seemed to want his help. Maybe they resented him for not having gone through what they went through, or maybe it was just too much for them, but they hardly ever spoke to each other as the weeks went by.

He tried.

Every time they came to take Tony or Clint, he tried to fight for them. He ended up unconscious so many times, he nursed broken bones and swollen bruises, but it was never any good. He demanded to see Bucky, he pleaded for news of him, and all to no avail. So it was a total shock when Thor appeared after weeks of complete silence from that end.

"He asked for me?"

Steve wasn't going to fight this at all. He'd fight if they tried to make him do something, if this was a ploy, but he wasn't going to fight being taken to Bucky. He followed Thor eagerly and dropped to his knees as soon as he reached the tent, eyes full of tears.

"Buck? Buck... it's me, it's Steve."

The Soldier snapped awake almost at once, for just a moment actual human emotion crossing his face when he looked at Steve before it settled into blankness again and his face tilted to Thor, ignoring Steve completely.

"Orders, sir?"

"Make friends," Thor said evenly. He'd been trying with James for weeks now but nothing made him smile. And while he was all right knowing that his James was gone and this shell could never replace him, Thor was too tenacious to back down. "But if he attempts to escape, you are to kill him."

It was not a good way to make friends but Asgardians understood that you could like a person and still be tasked to kill them if needed. The two were not exclusive of each other.

And so Thor left, joined by Samuel, to head over to Fandral's tent for a night of amusement and song.

It left Steve pretty confused. He hadn't been out of that ten by fifteen foot cage since he had tried to swallow his own tongue. "Buck. Has he been hurting you?"

The Soldier always obeyed any order given to him, no matter how contradictory or bizarre, because that was his purpose. But for the first time in his memory, he was completely stymied on how to actually fulfil it. Make friends? A weapon didn't have a friends, and even if they did, he had no idea how to go about it.

He stood in silence for a few minutes as he tried to puzzle it out. He already knew that this man was a traitor, a previous handler gone rogue and now a prisoner. So perhaps this was a ploy to gather information, but in a gentler way than torture? Okay, so it was playing a part, not real friendship, he could probably do that. But how were friends made?

Conversation.

"No," he said, voice rusty from disuse. Okay, how to do this? His brow furrowed as if in great effort. "Tell me about yourself." That was right, wasn't it?

Though Steve had spent weeks telling Bucky all sorts of things, he didn't take it for granted that maybe he hadn't been listened to. If that was the case, than nothing he said before actually had filter through to Bucky at all. So he could start again. Steve had been so starved for real interaction that he launched immediately into it.

He told Bucky everything he could. He started with his age and where he grew up. He told him about how he liked to draw and couldn't dance. He'd never actually danced but maybe one day if he met the right girl, he'd ask her to step out for a spin. And he told Bucky about how they met and that Steve had grown addicted to little packets of ketchup and he still kept some in his uniform. Just in case the candy covered chocolate decided to get water logged in the swamp. That happened a lot.

It was a lot of rambling and after some time, Steve realized that he was talking now just because he was afraid of stopping and because he was scared to ask Bucky about himself. The answer might be impossible to give and that would just hurt him.

"Uh... What has... What's Thor been having you do?"

The Soldier stood silent and watchful through it all.

He hated hearing about it, something about the earnest voice and bright eyes and the memories shared had a knot forming in his stomach that he just couldn't seem to get rid of. He didn't know why this man did it more than anyone else, but it was a sensation that made him feel as if he were stood on the edge of a cliff about to fall over, looking at the jagged rocks below.

"I've been following him, serving him, and observing him. He has been monitoring my comfort and health levels, and had me thinking on loyalty."

He hasn't been bred, perhaps that was just too much of a strangeness, to take something that looked so like his James and yet wasn't him on any level.

"Are we friends now?"

Is it that easy? Has he fulfilled his objective?

After being advised against it, Thor hadn't wanted to risk the twins and their health. Did he want James's children? Of course. But he needed to know how deep this all went. If it was just his mind, broken but having once been whole, then he could have his slaves lay with James and produce for him the children he wanted. If not... He was not willing to risk Wanda and Pietra.

Steve hadn't really thought about it anyway. He tried not to think about what happened to his friends when they were taken from their cell for two hours or so at a time and brought back quiet and wanting only to sleep, smelling of sex and sweat. It never occurred to him that Thor might even take Bucky to his bed. It was too far out there a concept for Steve to grasp.

"We... We used to be friends. A long time ago. Back when I called you Bucky. And I think we can be friends again. You-- You'll just know when it happens. You'll feel it." Steve laid a hand over his own chest. "In here. There will be a warmth. And when you feel that, then you'll know that we're friends."

That wasn't what he wanted to hear. He had wanted the objective to be complete already, because he didn't enjoy this at all. It made his head hurt in ways that didn't make sense and his heart do flip-flops in his chest, but he didn't know what to do about it in order to make it stop.

"I don't remember you, and I don't know that name."

He frowned, anger rising even if he was usually extremely difficult to rile up because of his calm and cool learned exterior.

"My handler has designated me as 'James' for now."

Handler. Well. At least he wasn't calling him Master like that young version of Tony did. It was a small comfort.

Seeing how Bucky struggled with all of this, however, caused Steve to relent a little. He started to take in his surroundings. Sloppy. He should have done this immediately but his attention had been fully on Bucky. Much too sloppy. He had a lot of people that were counting on him... Including a lot of women now with unborn babies. Those were lives that he needed to save too.

"Your mom named you James. James Buchanen Barnes. Barnes is the name your whole family has. I call you Bucky because it's a short version of your middle name. It's just a nickname. Do you want me to call you James?"

There were so many weapons. So many chests of steel. He could arm them both in an instant but he didn't touch anything. He was making a real connection with Bucky here. He had to live for him now. He had to save him. Whatever that meant, he had to stay alive.

So those weapons? They stayed put. Steve poured two drinks instead from what he thought was a water pitcher and was really for bathing.

It was a great opportunity.

If Steve could continue being allowed to spend time with Bucky privately, if he could break his programming or, at the very least, convince him to be loyal to Steve instead of Thor, then they might stand a chance of arming themselves and getting some people out. Or, more sensibly, setting up some kind of covert operation to smuggle people out and to safety... if they could figure out where an 'out' could be found.

The Soldier didn't warn Steve that he had poured water from the jug used for bathing, that wasn't his place and he took the goblet offered to him without complaint, though he didn't actually drink any of it.

"I don't want anything, except to be friends with you."

That's probably the least comforting declaration of intended friendship ever, issued more like a threat.

"I want to be friends with you too, pal. I'm pretty sure we'll get there too." Steve took a long drink of from the goblet before he spit it out as the detergent inside burned his tongue. It wasn't dangerous, it just tasted foul. He looked at the water and at the mess on the scattered furs and wrinkled his nose. "First rule of friendship-- tell your friend when they're about to do something stupid."

Thor would be out all evening but Fandral's personal slave would be sent in with food and smiles for the two Midgardians. She had yet to see raw slaves up close and so, sassy and redheaded with hair to her waist, she couldn't help but lean a little into Steve as he took the tray from her in an attempt to be gracious.

"You smell funny!" she declared. "You should try a bath. I'll draw you one."

"Uh... No no. You don't really need to do that..." But she flipped a hand at him and Steve just let her finish. Her speach was so... Modern. He didn't understand this world at all. But when she left, they had hot food and hot water and the detergent he hadn't swallowed to wash with.

It was the best he'd been treated yet.

The Soldier was used to the other slaves by now. At the start they had looked at him with something approaching awe and admiration, as if he were a hero, but that had worn off now. They had come to see that he wasn't the spirit of their heroic James brought back from Valhalla, but just someone with his face who their prince had taken in to try and help like the generous person he was.

She ignored him and he ignored her, at least as far as conversation went, but he watched her intensely the whole time she stood within arm's length of Steve. He waited until she had gone before speaking again.

"What are the other rules of friendship?"

That was useful, that there were rules to it that he could follow, it would make it much easier. He stripped off his tunic and gave Steve his first look at the metal arm and the horrific scarring around his shoulder where it connected to skin.

"You should bathe with me, I have seen the Prince and his friends do that."

Maybe Steve shouldn't have said rules. Obviously the guy was going to fixate on that like he did with orders. But then again, Steve could really try to help him out here. He could make him see that Thor was the enemy, that the people here were worth protecting, and he could get his best friend back. Not that it was really ideal to figure all of this out through a massive alien invasion on Earth but he'd take what he could get now that he had no way of taking it back.

"Uh okay, well the second rule is to always have the other guy's back. I have to be able to trust you right? Not just to warn me if I'm about to do something stupid, but to get me out of a jam in other ways." It was what Thor had also mentioned. Loyalty. Trust. Marks of friendship but also subservience. Then again, the other James had been someone of great importance to Thor so it might go both ways in that instance.

He was trying to come up with a third rule when Buck mentioned bathing.

"Used to do that too. When there wasn't enough water or we came up to a stream on the woods. All the guys would strip down. But I guess it's a little bit like bonding. Fellas can have some good clean fun getting good and clean. So sure." Steve was willing to try anything. He pulled off his clothes, which really had seen better days, and climbed into the massive tub. The steaming water was miraculous and eased all the tension in his shoulders. He wasn't sure how it stayed so hot but he didn't really need to understand it to enjoy it.

Magic was generally the answer to anything like that. Though it wasn't something that the Soldier was familiar with, magic not really existing on earth (or, at least, nowhere that he had ever seen), he had accepted the existence of it without question. It was just a thing that was, nothing to get upset over. He slipped into the water alongside Steve and leaned back against the side of the tub, though he didn't quite relax as much as the other man did.

Trust, however, was a stupid rule.

He couldn't trust Steve, he had been taught never to trust anyone. A good assassin was always looking for the knife in the shadows, and the traitor in their midst, he couldn't give himself over like that. But he could emulate it, and so he nodded his head slowly.

After a few moments, he drifted across the tub and reached down to cup Steve boldly in his flesh hand and began rubbing him. He had seen the prince do this with his friends also, he assumed that sexual intercourse was probably a bonding method and he had his orders...

A nice warm bath. Heated metal to lay his arms over. A sort of strategy to get them out of here that hopefully wouldn't take too long or ruin poor Tony and Clint too deeply. That might no longer be able to be helped, however. Steve would worry about them, but his responsibility was to Bucky first. They hopefully would understand that.

He was about to tell Bucky that another rule of friendship was respect and he even had an entire speach about respect laid out, but then the unthinkable happened.

Steve's head snapped up and his abdomen drew inward. "Buck--". He was supposed to call him James but right now? Nope.

It had been three weeks after Steve's mom died. He'd gotten a really bad chest cold and Bucky, as always, came over to try and make sure he ate something and kept warm. It was freezing and so he'd started the shower just so it would be warm in at least one room. Steve had spent an hour trying not to be upset but he'd ended up crying on Bucky's shoulder... They'd touched that night. Touched in a way that they shouldn't even touch themselves, and Steve had forced Bucky to go almost after it was over. They didn't speak for a few weeks. And then Bucky had a string of new girlfriends.

So could this be.... Could this be a memory?

Steve's eyebrows furrowed. "Whatcha doing, pal?"

Even though Steve's body language indicated that he should maybe back off, the Soldier didn't hesitate for a moment. He had seen what brought others pleasure in this area, even though he couldn't imagine finding pleasure in this act from some vague memories of what had been done to create him in the first place, and he knew what to do in order to bring him to hardness.

"This is how friends bond with one another."

It wasn't a memory.

Nothing so touching as that, more a violation of what that fumble in the darkness that had never been spoken about had meant to them both. It just wasn't done back then, and Bucky had been scared that he had lost Steve forever, thankful just to have it swept under the rug and forgotten.

"I have been ordered to be friends with you, and so to further that aim we'll have intercourse."

Not a memory. The glimmer of hope that had filled such perfect blue eyes dissolved at once and Steve plunged his hand into the water to keep Bucky from moving. "Friends-- Friends don't do this. This is for something special. You do this when you love someone, James. We aren't... We aren't going to do anything but have a bath, okay? This isn't how you make friends."

Steve was trying not to be flustered. He was trying not to be mean about it but he also needed Bucky to back down immediately. Thankfully, the lack of sweetness to the act softened Steve up right away. There was no reason for Bucky to touch him now since Steve was showing how obviously uninterested he was.

"Can you get me the soap, Buck?" It was hard to keep his voice steady. He felt like crying but he could never. Not in front of Bucky. Not in front of this person who might never remember him. This almost sullied his memories of his friend, this crude gesture. And that hurt too.

That wasn't how he had seen the interactions go with Thor and his friends, but he couldn't deny that he felt a tiny sliver of relief as he backed off from Steve without pushing the issue. If this wasn't how to make friends in this particular instance, then he wasn't going to force it.

"Why are you upset?"

He reached behind for the soap and handed it over obediently, but his eyes were fixed intensely on Steve's own as if searching for answers just out of reach. He didn't know how he could tell that Steve was upset, or even why he cared enough to ask, but he just... did.

This not understanding himself was getting frustrating, anger bubbling beneath the surface and getting ever closer to a boiling point.

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