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HYDRA had wanted to destroy James Barnes.
Simple as.
Only it wasn’t as simple as HYDRA thought it would be—in concept the idea of wiping someone of their identity, of their personhood through torture is all well and good until you reach the point where each person’s response to torture is different.
Sure, torture is horrendous. But you shouldn’t count all your eggs before they hatch because they might not be what you expect.
In this case, James Barnes wasn’t wiped from existence. Instead, the Soldat came to be.
But the Soldat wasn’t what they had expected. Sure, he was what they wanted—the perfect killer—the perfect killing machine that would listen to their commands without fault.
But what they didn’t know was that the moment that Soldat came to be—he knew what he was, knew what had happened and despite the Trigger Words, he held no loyalty to HDYRA.
His loyalty was to himself and James.
There had been times where he had gone rogue after a mission and it took a while for him to realise there was a tracker in the arm. He’s given up trying to escape after, knowing it was useless when HYDRA had taken to keeping a closer eye on him when on missions.
So Soldat had gone back to being a good loyal Asset.
He was simply biding his time.
Then…
Then Project Insight.
Then Captain America.
Captain America had jerked James awake in a violent manner and it sent them spieling, both trying to take control and ended up all tangled up like string.
Because of this it had taken more time than it should have to get themselves back on their feet to carry on.
When they had managed to pull their own pieces apart enough to distinguish each other, they had gone to the Smithsonian in an attempt to learn more about themselves but ultimately there was little there to be of use to Soldat or James.
So they’d gone to a library instead because they knew about the internet, knew how to use it and searched for what they needed there.
It was there they learnt as much as they could.
It was there that Soldat got the chance learn about Tony Stark.
Some of his favourite weapons had been Stark Industries and when he had no longer been able to use the guns, ammo no longer available, he had been disappointed.
Stark was a good looking man—there was no doubt about it, the Soldat had killed lots of people, interacted, walked past and been in situations that required him to be around other people and he wasn’t so—what sort of word could he use? He was a person, despite what HYDRA tried to destroy, and so naturally he had noticed people based on their appearances.
Stark was definitely one of his favourites yet.
It had brought a strange stir in his gut that he had never experienced before.
But the fact Stark had the smarts to help them too… it had been the selling point for the Soldat. But James had protested, it was too soon, they needed to lay low and they were still to integrated. So he had conceded.
Soldat regrets conceding to James now.
Now that he knows Stark would have helped them.
Now that there had been a possibility that Rogers could have destroyed their only chance.
Now that they know Tony was a better man then the media had always portrayed him as.
Now that they had witnessed Tony’s kindness for themselves.
Now, the Soldat was going to do everything in his power to make sure no one messed this chance up for them to get themselves true freedom and the chance to get closer to Tony himself.
He wonders if James had realised the true extent of the Soldat’s desires yet.