[Flashback] SHIELD HQ, New York: Our Secrets Have Secrets

[phil_coulson]

Pulling James Barnes out of Russia had been the easy part of the operation, and that was saying something, because it had been in no way easy or even remotely legal, but it had been the only way. They'd bought him from a broker who wanted them to think he didn't know who he had on his hands, or what he could do. They still had operatives working their way up that chain, trying to trace this back to what he hoped wouldn't be another Red Room operation, but in the meantime the deal had gone through all too smoothly, and Coulson thought he might actually like it even less than Fury did.

He'd grown up on stories about Captain America. He and his friends had taken turns pretending to be Captain Rogers and his Howling Commandos. He'd never imagined that they'd find the Captain's best friend nearly seventy years later, brainwashed almost beyond hope. The assassin known as Winter Soldier had been little more than a ghost until they started putting the pieces together, and now he was going back to the grave. Officially, they needed to be sure Barnes wasn't a sleeper, and that he was relatively sane besides. Unofficially - well, that was irrelevant.

The transfer to the New York facility had been quick and quiet and restricted under Level 7 security protocols. They'd kept Barnes under even after they brought him out of cryostasis and locked him down besides. No one got near unaccompanied, and only a handful of Agents even knew he existed at the moment. Specialist Brandon Young was one of them.

Coulson had some limited experience with people who had superhuman abilities, but it was enough that he didn't think this idea was entirely insane. It was certainly the best shot they had.

A scan of his prints let him into the room where Young waited to be briefed. The man was almost startlingly, well, young, which was always one thing to see on a file, and almost another thing entirely in person. Coulson had a reputation among the junior agents: most of them thought he was a hardass, if they thought anything of him at all.

"Specialist Young," He held out his hand as he approached, smiling politely. "I'm Agent Coulson. I'm here to brief you on the details of your assignment. You'll be reporting directly to myself or Director Fury for the duration. As you've no doubt gathered, we'd like this to be kept as quiet as possible."

Comments

[pieceofmind]

Brandon responded by flicking a picture of one of the Winter Soldier's victims over to Coulson, letting that sit for a second. One thing was absolutely certain- this was a trained killer, someone who turned murder into a brutal science. It didn't take much imagination to put Brandon's face beneath all of that blood.

The young man was silent for a few long moments, then he softly admitted, "Yeah, I guess I am. At the same time he realizes that someone's blocked his memories, those memories are going to come back to him. He might revert back, if it happens too soon. Or he might lose control, lash out at whoever he blames for doing it to him. He might start wondering what else I've blocked or taken away from him."

A weak laugh. "You realize you're basically asking me to do some mind-rape, right? To someone who's an assassin and who, whatever he might've been in the 40s, is right now someone who won't hesitate to kill? I think I'd be crazy not to be 'concerned'!"

[phil_coulson]

Coulson's expression didn't change in the slightest as he regarded the picture. Young saw a body, and Coulson sometimes wondered what it said about him that he saw an efficient kill, no collateral damage, no evidence of torture. Which really, only made this man that much more dangerous. He didn't run black ops missions, but he had been Barton's handler and Romanov's, so he knew very intimately what a well-trained assassin was capable of, what a person was like when they were unmade.

The odds might be stacked in their favor, but he was still asking Young to bet his life against a stranger's, at best. At worst...

He blinked, lifted his eyes from the picture.

"You would be," Coulson agreed. "I won't argue that it's a great deal more moral than what was already done, and if you have another suggestion, I'd be happy to hear it." Genuinely. Though he didn't expect there to be one. "I'll protect your identity. That doesn't guarantee your safety, but the risk assessments are enclosed in the file."

Which was no doubt not a comfort in the slightest. But if Young agreed to this, his clearance level went up, and the risks increased with it.

"This can be done." It had been done. "Trust me."

"I know I'm asking you is a lot," He continued. "Frankly, Agent Young, in this particular situation, we don't have options. We need your help." He hesitated briefly, shifted in his chair, and anyone who knew him might have noticed the way his shoulders slouched a fraction lower. "Because, with or without it, he wakes up."

[pieceofmind]

"...what?" That was not news that Brandon wanted to hear. If this had been any other situation, then maybe he'd have more time to consider this. Think of the risks, try to come up with another plan, perhaps work around the memory problem somehow. But if the Winter Soldier was going to be waking up anyway, then the question was what he'd wake up as- the soldier, or the assassin.

This changed everything.

Brandon massaged his temples at that, putting his psychic amplifier on the table before he did so. Shit shit shit, that was not something that he wanted to hear. But... he'd signed up to SHIELD knowing full well that things like this might happen. So it wasn't like he could really complain about this being unfair, right? Sometimes life sucked, the only question was what he was going to do about it.

Risk his life for a stranger, or let the Winter Soldier awaken? Neither were things that he wanted, but of the two... he finally nodded. A little reluctantly, but still. "Okay... I'll do it. But I'll need some very specific things, and if even one of them goes wrong, this could blow up in our faces. Can I count on getting what I need for this?"

[phil_coulson]

He couldn't go into the details under Brandon's security clearance, but the truth was, they had paid a high price in more ways than one. S.H.I.E.L.D. funding only went so far without someone noticing, and while Coulson might have been able to cook the books and hide this transaction, it would have been a temporary solution and the fallout wasn't worth the time it bought. So the Council had been informed, had agreed to the funding, but as far as they were concerned they were buying a weapon that would be put to use.

Fury would never put the Winter Soldier into action, but if S.H.I.E.L.D. wouldn't use him, S.W.O.R.D. was more than happy to oblige. And that was dangerous not just because of what the Winter Soldier was, but because of the precedent it set for organizations like theirs. It couldn't be allowed to happen.

Asking Young to do this was still overstepping boundaries, but Coulson hadn't been bluffing: they had no other choices. Maybe they could find another psychic to do this, but Young was smart, careful, capable... and trustworthy. It was a rarer combination than one might think.

"I'll take care of it," He promised. Though he'd made a long habit of not promising anything without details and occasionally contracts... this was different.

"We need this done, and we need it done right. What do you need?"

[pieceofmind]

Well, that was that. He was going to have to live with the decision now, which meant that he was now officially on the hook for turning a merciless assassin into a law-abiding citizen for the use of a secret government organization. No pressure, right?

The promise of getting what he needed was good, though. That might just make this work. Brandon took a few deep breaths, contemplating what he'd have to have in order to make this work, and then began rattling them off. "I'll need a room where no one can bother us for a few days. If anything throws off my attention while I'm deep in his mind, one or both of us is going to suffer some pretty major trauma when I'm yanked out."

Probably both, knowing his luck.

Shuddering at the thought, he quickly continued, "He'll need to be kept under for that entire time. Reworking a conscious mind is like trying to do renovations in an earthquake, it's just not gonna happen. Likewise, I'll need like... an IV or something like that. Once I go into his mind, I can't leave it, or his brain will start compiling his memories, and I'll have to start all over again."

Of course, that was just theory, but he was confident that was how it'd work. That's how the minor changes had worked, anyway, and this was going to be something very similar to that, only on a much larger scale. If it wasn't for the long blanks in his memories, Bucky might just be a lost cause. But working with those, Brandon might just have a chance. "The room's gotta be sterile, and the temperature's got to be constant all the time. If I get any stimuli while I'm in his mind, it might cause new mental action, which might throw me off."

...shit, this was a lot more complicated than he thought. But at least now Coulson knew just how delicate a procedure this was? "...and I'll need the complete works of Mozart piped through my headphones. Not so loud I get a headache, but always on, all the time. With all that... I should be able to do this."

Another short pause, and then a weak laugh. "Oh yeah... and someone's going to have to cart me to my room afterward. And have someone check on me every few hours, okay?"

[phil_coulson]

He was drafting plans in head as quickly as Young spoke. The room shouldn't be a problem. There were a lot of rooms like that in this base alone, but they needed one with easy access to medical and a staff doctor to be on-call for the IV and any unexpected circumstances. Somewhere that was hooked into the generators, not the grid, private enough that no one would even knock... Damn. He knew exactly where to put Young and the Winter Soldier. He'd relay it to the Director and arrange it himself.

He would look in himself as well, but it would be a doctor a lot of the time. He couldn't guarantee that all of his time would be his own to oversee a single project, even one like this.

"Alright," He leaned back slightly in his chair. "How much time do you need?"

[pieceofmind]

Huh, it seemed like Agent Coulson had already decided on what he was going to be doing. That was just fine for Brandon- he had more than enough to worry about, he didn't want to bother with all the logistics of how to make this happen.

That question was really the important one, though. How much time did he need? It was a harder question than perhaps Coulson knew. How much time did he need to prepare to delve into a mind twisted by violence and 'reeducation'? How much time did he need to relive memories that no normal person should have to experience? How much time... how much time did he need, to repair his own broken mind well enough to try fixing someone else's?

The young man forced a smile on his face. Nothing for it, really. "I'll be ready when you are."

you didn't see that journal fail shh

[phil_coulson]

He could have brought Agent Young in on some of the details of what he needed, but he was still a junior agent and they needed the majority of his focus to be on the task at hand.

What he got was a non-answer if he'd ever heard one, but he supposed that was what he got for asking an ambiguous question. He took in Young's expression, wondering if more or less time would be what he needed. Some people worked better under pressure, some cracked. But if Young thought he was ready...

He checked his watch quickly. "24 hours. I'll meet you here again at the same time tomorrow. You can take the file with you until then, and if you need to contact me," He took a card out of his pocket, blank except a hand-written number. "Use this. Do you have any more questions?"

SO MUCH FAIL :||||

[pieceofmind]

"No, I think I know everything I need to," he answered with a sober nod, taking the card and pocketing it. Who knew if he'd need to contact the senior agent later on? There was nothing certain in this world of theirs, and just having it felt reassuring. Somehow like a solid promise, that he had one of the highest-ranking SHIELD members watching his back.

As it was, he stood up and offered his hand to the older man, a small smile crossing his face. "I'll be here tomorrow. You can count on me."

wanna wrap it here?

[phil_coulson]

Coulson took his hand as he stood, meeting his eyes. "I am counting on you, Agent Young."

He smiled slightly after that, though it was one of those smiles that didn't actually count a facial expression for most people. "I'll see you then."