rogue_america

1943

World War II. 1943. Even with everything she'd seen, everything she'd learned from the people she'd absorbed in this time, it was still so hard to believe. It shouldn't have been with the life she'd lived thus far, but it was.

Something had gone wrong. She'd felt the timeline resetting, had seen the Sentinels disappear from the room as their universe shifted, and then... Gunfire. Explosions. Shouting. More war.

She'd been taken with the rest of the prisoners to a compound, put into cells with soldiers who were exhausted and shell-shocked, and she'd watched as one by one their numbers had decreased, as those who were sick or weak and unable to work were taken away and never seen again. And then it had been her turn, and all it had taken was one man grabbing her face to get a better look at her before they'd found out she was different.

There were questions and tests. So many tests. She was useful to them, a rare find. There had been talk of putting her into a program, erasing her mind and starting over to make a perfect weapon. That's when they'd strapped her to that table, when she'd fought like a wild animal until they'd had to drug her. The interrogations had started then, the weasely little scientist wanting information before he began the full process, but that, if nothing else, had been familiar to her in the most terrible ways. So she'd resisted and fed him lie after lie, making things up as she went and pretending that the pain was getting to her when by then she'd barely felt any of it.

And then... she'd been rescued. Not because she could be of use to the mission, but because she was a person. Because a fellow prisoner had thought she deserved to not be left there to die. It was more than her friends had ever done for her.

When they'd gotten back to the military camp, there had been more questions, and suspicions from everyone about the strange woman who had seemed so valuable to HYDRA. Perhaps she was a plant, a double agent working for the enemy. She hadn't told them everything about who she was, but she'd told them enough, and eventually... they'd believed her. Or they'd seemed to, anyway. She'd seen the truth in their eyes - she was a danger to everyone if she stayed, but she might still be of some use to them on the front, and if she did turn out to be a spy, she could be dealt with there easily enough.

That was how she'd ended up out in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by sleeping men who had been asked to trust her, to work with her so she could get information from the enemy while they did the work they'd been assigned. She shifted on the spot on the ground, legs curled up under her as she stared at the small fire they'd decided to build because they were far enough away from the enemy to risk chasing away a bit of the cold. Only a few of the Howling Commandos were still awake to notice the way she played with the gloves she'd been provided as part of her uniform, tugging and adjusting them over and over. A nervous, comforting habit to help her face a world that wasn't her own, and a war she should never have had to see in anything but memory.

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When Steve had infiltrated the Hydra base, his main thought had been to find Bucky. Of course when he'd discovered the other soldiers locked up in those cages, he'd freed them, but it hadn't been entirely altruistic on his part. He knew the men would want to tear the place apart, which wasn't a bad goal by any means, and if they were raising hell, he'd be more easily able to slip around undetected and find Bucky.

Find Bucky he did, and not a moment too soon. And he'd finally met and confronted Schmidt, the man he held personally accountable for Erskine's death, as well as Bucky's torture. Their violent encounter had been cut far too short, when Schmidt's lackey had pulled back the walkway they'd been on. After that, it had only been a matter of getting back where they needed to, to exit the building.

Except passing by those rooms again, similar to Bucky's and obviously having also housed 'subjects', Bucky had stopped dead at one door, still left half-open. Steve had shouted at him that they had to go, the place was gonna explode at this rate, but Bucky had just shaken his head and dived into the room. Cursing his best friend's damn-fool head, Steve had raced back and followed him in. What he saw...

Bucky had already been helping the woman off the table, but Steve took in details at an alarming rate now: he saw the cuffs left dangling from the table, bloody along the edges even though they were leather, from where she'd fought so hard against them; the tray of instruments pushed to one side; the way she shied away from Bucky as soon as she was remotely steady. Steve had shaken his head. They couldn't leave her there, but there was no way she'd be able to keep up with them if they had any hope of getting out of there before the weapons stores went up.

Steve had gone over and swooped her into his arms in one quick motion, telling her to hold on, then jerking his head at Bucky and taking off through the compound. He hadn't thought twice about Bucky being able to keep up; he wasn't moving as quickly as he could, because of his passenger, and Bucky had been keeping pace with him as soon as he'd been freed and was re-oriented.

Once they'd begun the long trek back to base, he'd put the woman down, but not a lot was said at the time, by anyone really. They knew they were behind enemy lines still, and even after they'd crossed into allied territory, the journey was still dangerous. They could be ambushed at any time, and it had subdued a lot of the men. Reaching base had been rather anticlimactic, although Colonel Philips all but praising him for his actions (in his own backhanded fashion) had been nice.

Steve was ashamed to admit that for a while, he hadn't even thought about the woman they'd rescued. He'd been too focused on Bucky, and then debriefing with the war room, giving them intel from the base, the map he'd seen, giving Howard that strange weapons energy pack... His mind could keep track of a lot, but she'd been pushed to the back, mostly because he didn't know her.

It was Bucky who brought her back to the forefront of his thoughts; Bucky who told him they were questioning her, interrogating her, incensed at the way they were treating her. Steve had had words with Philips over it. Eventually an agreement had been made. Nobody at the base trusted her, and Philips explained why - Steve didn't believe for a second that she was a spy, but he understood their hesitation when he learned about her... gift. Philips basically told Steve he had to take her onto his team, newly christened the Howling Commandos, both because she could be an asset to them - and because none of the other soldiers in his units trusted her enough to be around her, and he didn't want any 'accidents' happening.

If that was what he thought might happen, Steve wanted her with him whether she'd be an asset or not.

Now, he lay by the small fire in their current little camp, eyes closed but sleep a far way off. He didn't need much sleep, and he hadn't expended enough energy to warrant it yet. His eyes were closed, but that only made his already acute hearing even sharper, and he could hear the smallest rustle of leaves, bodies shifting around... and the lowest murmur of Bucky's voice. He'd gone over to sit by the gal, Rogue.

"Hey. Mind some company?"

Steve cracked an eye open, catching a glimpse of Bucky settling beside Rogue, about half an arm's length away and facing away from her, staring out into the blackness of the surrounding trees.

The actual moments of being rescued from that horrible room were still a bit of fuzzy blur in her memory, but once Rogue had learned who it was who had found her, who had risked his life to get her out... Well, she'd taken an interest in this Sgt Barnes. Bucky. She'd watched him back at the SSR camp, observed how he was with the other soldiers, and she'd looked for signs of how he was handling everything. She'd heard his screams back in the compound, knew that what they'd done to him had been no better than what she'd endured. But she could tell that he didn't talk about it with anyone, and she didn't blame him for it, even though she knew his friends worried about him. That was the hardest part, facing the other people who didn't understand.

She hadn't expected him to approach her that night, though she wasn't really surprised. They hadn't spoken much, but their shared experiences meant there was a connection between them. An understanding that didn't need elaboration, not between them. A small smile was her answer as she peered up at him in the dim firelight, though it faded as he sat close but not too close.

"You dream about what happened back there, don't you?" she asked him quietly after he'd settled, the crackling of the fire filling the silence around them. She glanced at him for just a moment before looking back at the flames. "I do. Every time I close my eyes." It was an opening. He didn't have to take it, but if he did... there would be no judgment or pity from her. Only acceptance and understanding.

Bucky didn't so much glance at her, as his eyes flicked in her direction. He could see her well enough in his peripheral vision, and it wasn't her that had him on edge.

"They're afraid of you," he said quietly. "The other soldiers. Not--not us, but the rest of the troops, who've heard what you can do." It seemed like a non-sequitur, but he brought it up for a reason. "They don't-- I didn't tell them--"

Taking a long, slow breath, steadying his heart and calming his mind just like when he was sighting down a rifle scope, Bucky continued staring straight ahead, into the darkness. "I was tortured for information," he said dully, repeating the lie he'd fed Philips and the others who'd questioned him. And then he confided in Rogue what he hadn't even told Steve. In a hushed whisper, he said, "They put fire in my veins. Thought I was gonna explode. I think... I think maybe I still will, or am. Everything's... different, now."

Zola haunted his nightmares, but it was questions about what would happen to him in the future that kept Bucky awake at night.

Across the campfire, Steve queezed his eyes shut, unconsciously biting his lip as his mind turned over what Bucky was saying, and alluding to.

They're afraid of you. She knew that. Every time she got within so many feet of the other soldiers, she'd seen that look in their eyes - the look of fear and mistrust that had followed her for fifteen years. It didn't matter where or when she was, she was never going to be able to escape that look, was she?

She wondered vaguely if the looks would change if they knew everything about her ability. They knew that she drained the life from people as she took thoughts and memories from them, but the fact that their minds stayed within her own - that piece she'd left out of the debriefings. That part was too personal and too strange for most people to grasp, and it wasn't essential to the mission. So long as she could keep a hold of everyone, there wouldn't be any problems. Do the job, don't think about anything else.

Turning slightly to face Bucky, her eyes on the line of his profile, she told him softly, "You're going to be fine. If you've survived this long, then you'll be fine." It took a great deal of effort to fight off the instinct to reach out and touch his shoulder, to offer him even an ounce of physical comfort, because she just didn't know if it would even be welcome. "They were trying to make another. A supersoldier. That's what they did with all the others they took away. That's what they were doing to you."

She took a breath and then did lean closer, just a few inches, though still she didn't reach out to touch him. "I know it doesn't seem that way right now, but you're going to be okay." Though she doubted he would believe her.

Bucky shuddered when she mentioned them trying to make more supersoldiers. Like Steve. Like Schmidt. "Did you ever see him? The Red Skull?" He remembered hearing whispers, while he'd still been strong enough to be put to work on that giant plane; just because the guards were Nazis, didn't mean they didn't gossip just like every other soldier bored while on duty. "He's like Steve, too. What..." Bucky chewed on his lip. What if that's what I turn into? Wouldn't it be better to be dead, than turn into something like that?

But Steve hadn't turned out like that. He had to remember that. And hope that he was closer to Steve's goodness, that his own outweighed the anger and rage and ruthless coldness that settled heavy in him at times. "You don't know that," he finally said softly; not angrily, but just stating a fact, almost like he was letting her down easily. Nobody knew. Not even the scientist who'd created the serum, according to Steve, had really known what the side-effects would be on each individual who was given it.

Finally, Bucky looked all the way at her, his eyes sweeping over her face quickly, but thoroughly. "Y're gonna be okay, too." He reached his own hand out, but let it hover over hers, clearly leaving the decision up to her. "You know that, right?"

Rogue wished desperately that she could make things better for Bucky. Anything, if not everything. He had been through something horrible and now there was a vicious uncertainty hanging over him that wasn't likely to dissipate anytime soon. He was going to be okay, though, she was certain of that. She hadn't met the Red Skull herself, but the impressions of his evil still clung to her thoughts like a bad dream she couldn't shake. Bucky might not be in her head, but she knew him well enough to know that he wasn't anything like the creature they were trying to stop.

When Bucky looked at her, there was something in his eyes that she couldn't place, but that made her throat tighten. When was the last time someone had looked at her like that? And then he said those words and she could barely breathe. She looked down at his hand, wanting so badly to take hold of it, to accept the comfort she had wanted to give him, but she couldn't. The heavy guilt inside her wouldn't allow it.

"That wasn't the first time I've been tortured." The words slipped out easily, though they were as dull as his had been earlier. She looked away as she continued, her gaze moving past him to the dark night. "I spent three years in a lab being studied. Tested. I don't know that anyone can be okay after that."

After a moment, Bucky let his hand drop back to his lap. His shoulders slumped a little, and he became slightly more animated as he reached up to rub a hand over his face. What could he say to that? He wasn't okay, and he'd only been in Zola's tender care for two weeks. Finally, he licked his lips, the only sign of nervousness about him, and still staring into the forest, away from her, he said with only slightly-forced teasing, "I didn' say you'd be okay right away." Despite the teasing, his tone was still gentle. He tried to make it clear that he was trying to lighten the mood, but not make light of her situation.

"Is gonna take years, to be okay with this," he finally murmured, humor leeched from his voice. "But i's gonna end eventually. An' then... Someday, we'll be okay." He knew it wasn't true. Even if they survived, he'd seen his father's generation, survivors of the Great War; drunks or wife beaters, or some just plain crazy, too unstable to hold down a job, forced to beg on the street for money nobody had to spare. But some of them, some of them had been okay. And if he and Rogue could survive torture, and still speak coherently, he thought they'd be okay, too.

Steve couldn't bare to listen to any more. Rolling over, he stretched his arms over his head, then sat up, swiftly standing and turning toward the tree-line, opposite where Rogue and Bucky were sitting.

Bucky didn't seem surprised at Rogue mentioning being studied for three years. He didn't think Bucky couldn't read between the lines to realize what that actually meant. Steve certainly could, and now he wondered if she'd told Philips and the other COs, and he just hadn't been informed, or if she'd kept it hidden. He didn't like either option, just like he didn't appreciate her telling Bucky, but not him.

Steve stopped behind a tree, a little way outside of the firelight's reach, and pressed his back against the trunk, staring up through the canopy of leaves to the few patches of inky black sky that he could see. He'd been briefed on Rogue, before Philips had assigned her to the unit - the only member he'd insisted Steve accept. Steve understood his reasons, but the brief really had been that - brief. Just her name, what they knew about her short imprisonment by Zola, and her powers.

Looking back, he wondered if Philips hadn't had another reason for assigning her to Steve, besides the fact the other soldiers were wary of her. He'd given Steve a look, which at the time had seemed a bit odd, because of it's kindness, which wasn't really Philips' MO at all, but he hadn't thought much of it. He knew Philips respected him now, and they understood each other.

They did understand each other. And Philips knew that Steve had resented being a glorified chorus boy, being used for propaganda by Senator Brandt. The operative word there being 'used.' What would have happened to Rogue, if she hadn't come with them? Philips couldn't put her with any of the regular army units, but there were others, he knew, a lot like the Commandos, strike teams, interrogation experts... Who would have ended up using Rogue's powers to further the war's agenda, if she hadn't been assigned to him?

Steve let out a soft sigh. He'd watch Rogue, to make sure she was doing as well as she could. He'd keep an eye on her and Bucky's friendship, to make sure both of them were handling things.

Straightening away from the tree, Steve adjusted his field tunic, squared his shoulders, and turned back toward camp. When he reached the fireside again, it was as Captain America.

Someday, we'll be okay. The words were like a promise that was more a wish, a hope to cling to when the days were darkest. This was 1943, and if the war in this world went anything like it had in hers, they still had two years to go before they would see the other end of this dark tunnel. If they made it that long, then they would just have years of wartime horror piled on top of their gruesome experiences back in that compound. If. There was a very good chance that one or the both of them wouldn't live to see the end of this war. A war that might not end at all, or at least not the way it was supposed to.

She appreciated Bucky's kindness, though. That gentle teasing was sweet, and the words that followed gave her a little bit of hope, even as she knew that it was false. "You're right," she said softly, her gaze finding his face again, sad eyes catching on those strong lines. "At least, I hope you are. You're a good man, you don't deserve to spend the rest of your life haunted by what happened in that place."

When it came to her own haunting experiences, she didn't have much of a choice in the matter. The reminders were written in her skin, with ink and scarred flesh, and she'd never be able to get the sound of those screams out of her mind. She would never forget the feeling of being utterly abandoned and having no hope left except that one day they might finally let her die.

As Steve's sharp eyes quickly picked out Bucky and Rogue, there was the barest hitch in his footsteps; Bucky was leaning closer to Rogue now, and smiling softly at her. Steve moved back over to the fire, chewing on the inside of his lip.

Bucky glanced over at him, and his eyes were unreadable. "You okay?" he called over softly.

Sighing softly, Steve nodded. "I don't sleep much, anymore. Don't need to. That's all."

Bucky watched him for a moment longer, and it took all of Steve's self-control not to fidget like a naughty choir boy under his best friend's searching gaze. He forced himself to keep eye contact though, and finally Bucky nodded. He turned to Rogue and Steve heard him murmur, "You should try to get some sleep. We'll be moving out come dawn."

Moving over to his spot by Steve, Bucky patted the back of his shoulder as he passed and whispered, "Stop being weird."

Rogue nodded slightly at the instruction, giving Bucky a small smile, before watching him go with that sad look still in her eyes. She could see the way that Bucky was reaching out, even just barely and likely without realizing it himself, and it was so hard to keep her distance. There was no way she'd be able to keep it up, she could already see that now; she was so desperate for friendship and any emotion other than hate and grief that she wouldn't be able to push him away for long.

She watched Bucky say something to Steve before she stood and moved away from the fire, to where she'd left her pack of things a decent distance from the others. It was safer to not be too close, and even if they weren't outright afraid of her, she didn't want to risk making them feel uneasy. As she settled down beside her pack, she fished out another pair of gloves she'd been provided, made of a thick material that luckily didn't tear if she bit into them in the middle of the night -- she couldn't take the chance that she might scream in her sleep, and it was as good a gag as any she would find out here in the middle of nowhere. Her jaw hurt in the morning after using it, but she'd endured worse.

Steve didn't sleep that night. He knew Bucky did, because he'd had nightmares. Not the night terrors he'd had a couple times before, but he'd whimpered quietly in his sleep a few times, always making Steve tense in anticipation of trying to wake him up, and then calm him down afterward. But nothing ever came after the sounds, and Steve would relax a bit, for a while.

He'd watched Rogue all night. Not that he'd ever admit it. She'd made some noises, too, and he hadn't known if he should wake her, or how she'd react even if he did. But again, it hadn't come to that.

Come morning, just as the sky began to lighten along the horizon, but before true dawn, Steve had put the small cooking pan over the low fire, and started boiling water for coffee. He still wasn't tired physically, but his brain was in that foggy in-between place. Even though he'd noticed that caffeine didn't affect him the way it used to, maybe didn't affect him at all anymore, if nothing else, the awful taste of their boiled coffee should give him a jolt.

He was just pouring a cup of the stuff when Bucky settled beside him, rubbing his face. Taking one look at him, Bucky said decisively, "You're sleeping tonight. I don' wanna hear it, Rogers; I'll take watch."

Steve sighed in resignation, but didn't argue. Bringing the tin cup to his lips, his eyes automatically trailed back to Rogue's spot, away from the other men. His thoughts had been meandering last night, but he'd continued to turn them over and around, trying to figure out just what he was supposed to do with her. They were 2 days away from their first target, and he didn't know what would happen when they reached it.

Rogue never slept well, but some nights were better than others. The night in question was one of the better ones, with only a few mild nightmares haunting her slumber rather than the worst of the memories. On the bad nights, she woke up gasping a scream against the makeshift gag she stuffed in her mouth every night -- another reason she slept so far from the others.

The light of dawn woke her. For three years, she'd known only a world of harsh light and unforgiving metal, and so the stark different between night and day woke her every time, even from the deepest sleep. She woke quickly, though her mind felt foggy and she longed for a cup of coffee. The scent from the boiled semblance of the drink drifted over on the wind and she frowned at it.

After packing up her things, she moved closer to the fire pit, keeping a safe distance from the men but making sure it was a natural one. Reminding them all if how dangerous she was seemed like a bad idea.

"Good morning," she greeted softly, southern manners shining through regardless of the circumstance. Still, she cringed just a tiny bit, because it seemed like such a strange thing to say in the middle of a war zone.

"Mornin'," Bucky mumbled, more to his mug than to her. Taking a drink, grimacing almost comically. "Christ on a crutch, Rogers. Could you make this any more foul?" he complained. "Army coffee is bad enough, but this is..."

"Shaddup, i's fine," Steve muttered back, glad Bucky was feeling well enough to give him flak. He took another sip of his own coffee - and couldn't stop himself from coughing a little afterward. "Puts hair on yer chest," he practically wheezed. Bucky seemed determined to - not ignore Rogue, but include her by not drawing attention to her, it seemed. So Steve followed his example.

"I don' need hair on my chest." Bucky glowered at the sludge they were calling coffee this morning. "I need for my coffee to not dissolve my insides. This is what I get fer lett'n' a non-coffee drinker make the coffee."

"Bitch bitch bitch," Steve muttered. He glanced at Rogue. "Apparently, my coffee is sub-par for the connoisseur over here, but you're welcome to some if you want."

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1943

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