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“What,” said Rumlow, “The fuck. Is that?”
“Pretty impressive how you’ve been on this shithole of a planet 35 years, and you still don’t know what the fuck a baby is,” Jack said idly.
He was tipping back in his seat, scrolling through his phone. Ignoring Edwards, the baby in the carrier on the floor next to Edwards, and also the Soldier, who was for some reason sitting in the corner of the meeting room instead of dozing in a peaceful, subzero sleep.
“Well, I sure as shit didn’t expect to see one hanging out with you two virgins.”
“You knew my wife was pregnant,” Edwards said, typing away at his laptop.
He wasn’t paying much attention to the baby. It didn’t seem like anyone was, except for the Soldier. He kept glancing at the sleeping infant, gaze lingering for a second before skittering away.
“Yeah, but you never said it was yours.”
He fistbumped Jack as he dropped into the seat next to him, ignoring the middle finger that Edwards gave him. The satisfaction of the jibe eased his hangover somewhat. It had been a good mission—since Rogers had started working with STRIKE, there hadn’t been many chances to take the Soldier out. So the assassination had been all the sweeter, and maybe that led to Rumlow partying a bit too hard afterwards. Whatever. He still had at least an hour before Pierce called him and Jack in to debrief.
Apparently he wasn’t the only one feeling some kinda way after last night. Neither Edwards nor Jack made any attempt at conversation, and of course the Soldier was as silent as always.
With nothing else to do, Rumlow looked back down at the baby. She looked like… a baby. Dark hair and a tiny face wrinkled in sleep, sucking on a pacifier. She lay in one of those baby carriers, a fat bag resting on the floor next to her. Nothing special; nothing to warrant the way the Soldier’s persistent attention.
“Seriously. Is it Bring-Your-Child-to-HYDRA Day? We recruiting that young?”
Edwards sighed and stopped typing just long enough to crack his neck. “No. You-Know-Who found out my wife had the kid and got all excited, said he’d like to meet her and shit. Probably just being polite. But Pierce heard, and you know, since we’re trying to get him more involved, he ‘suggested’ that it might be a nice bonding opportunity if I brought in Bella. But then someone had to go out Avenging today, so there’s not even any point to having her here. But the wife is all, ‘oh, it’s my first free day in three months, yadda-yadda-yadda,’ and she said she’d cut my balls off if I brought her home early.”
He resumed typing. “So there you go. My first time babysitting on my own, and I’m stuck here.”
Huh. Rumlow nodded. Then he jerked his chin toward the Soldier and asked, “So how come he’s still out?”
“Because the techs are all fuckin’ idiots who got food poisoning partying last night,” replied Jack. “So none of them are in.”
“Yeah, but why isn’t he back in his cell?”
“Pipe broke. Flooded the whole thing. I don’t even know if he can get pneumonia, but I didn’t want to find out. At least, not when he’s scheduled to go back in as soon as those morons stop shitting themselves.” Jack shrugged. “I tried just leaving him in the break room, but people were complaining about him doing the goddamn staring thing. So now he’s in here.”
Rumlow looked back to the Soldier. His eyes were once again locked on the baby.
Rumlow snapped his fingers, and the Soldier flinched. “She’s not an enemy combatant, Soldier. Stand down.”
“I don’t know what his problem is,” said Edwards. “Maybe he’s never seen a baby before.”
Then he glanced at the clock. “Shit. I gotta get to a meeting. You’re good to watch her, right?”
“What?” said Rumlow, at the same time that Jack said, “The fuck we are.”
“It’s just gonna be a couple of hours.” Edwards stood up. “You’ll be fine.”
“We gotta debrief with Pierce,” said Rumlow. “What, you want us to drag a baby into his office? You want her to hear all about the guy whose brains the Soldier blew out yesterday?”
“Pierce is in this meeting. He’ll probably call you up after.” Edwards pushed in his chair carefully. “Bella’s three months old. All she does is lie around. She’s got a bottle in the break room fridge; just heat it and give it to her when she wakes up, and she’ll be fine.”
“Do we look like fuckin’ babysitters?” Rumlow asked incredulously. “We’re supposed to give her a bottle of what, your wife’s titty milk? You want me to go and start a mommy blog while we’re at it?”
“You can watch her,” Edwards said in a tone of extreme patience, “and when You-Know-Who gets back from Avenging, I’ll mention to him how good you were with her. Really talk you up. Make him think you’re actually a nice person. Or you can not watch her, and I’ll say something about how you were talking about my wife’s tits. Except it won’t be in front of him, it’ll be in front of Romanoff.”
“You’re a real asshole,” Rumlow said after a second.
“Yeah, yeah. Everything’s in the diaper bag, for after she has her bottle.”
“What?”
“Have fun!” And then Edwards was out the door, and it was just him, Jack, the Soldier, and the baby.
“Motherfucker,” hissed Rumlow.
Jack reached into his pocket and pulled out a deck of cards. He slapped them on the table. “Whatever. She’s a baby. How much trouble could she be?”
In her carrier on the floor, the baby blinked. She looked around the room for a moment. And then she opened her mouth, pacifier dropping to the floor, and started to wail.
“Do you think there’s something wrong with her?” Rumlow shouted.
“How the fuck would I know,” Jack snapped back.
Bella hadn’t been crying continuously since Edwards had fucked off to his meeting, but it was a close thing. They had managed to quiet her down at first, Rumlow gingerly rocking her carrier while Jack went to microwave her bottle. They had managed to get her mostly fed, only spilling a quarter of so of the bottle in the process.
But now she was back to crying again, screechy wails as she raised her little fists threateningly. They had tried everything: sticking her pacifier back in her mouth (it hadn’t been on the floor that long), waving the stuffed lamb they’d found in the diaper bag in front of her face, even holding her for about ten seconds each, before they both mutually decided that they weren’t cut out for that.
Nothing worked. She just kept bawling, loud enough that Rumlow was seriously considering just leaving her there by herself and going to McDonald’s or something. What would Edwards do, report him to CPS?
“I dunno how much more of this shit I can take,” Jack muttered, apparently having the same thoughts.
Rumlow opened his mouth, about to suggested that they go get lunch. Or maybe a drink to ease the hangover headache that her screeching had summoned back up. Bella would be fine; it wasn’t like anyone could kidnap her, there were cameras everywhere—
“You didn’t burp her.”
He and Jack stared at each other for a second, and then simultaneously turned to look at the Soldier, still seated in the corner of the room, knees drawn up to his chest.
“The fuck did you just say?” asked Rumlow, maybe raising his voice a bit more than was strictly necessary to be heard above the baby’s cries.
The Soldier’s eyes met his for a brief second, before glancing at Bella, and then at the floor again.
“You didn’t burp her,” he repeated. “That’s why she’s crying. Sir.”
“You some kind of baby whisperer?” asked Jack. The Soldier didn’t respond.
“Hey,” said Rumlow, kicking Jack’s ankle. “He thinks he knows what he’s talking about. Why not give him a chance? Soldier, you think she wants to be burped? Then come over her and do it.”
If it had been anyone else in the room with him, they might have questioned the wisdom of handing an infant over to history’s most prolific assassin. But Jack was Jack, and Rumlow knew that he was equally as curious about what the Soldier would do with a baby.
Rumlow was pretty sure he wouldn’t hurt it. Not out of any sort of moral code, but because he’d gotten pretty good at reading the Soldier’s tells in the moments before he lashed out against his handlers. There wasn’t anything right now to suggest that he was on the verge of violence.
No, the Soldier seemed perfectly calm, maybe even cautious, as he unfolded himself into a standing position and crossed the room. He knelt down in front of the carrier, examining Bella carefully. His right hand hovered in front of her for a moment, like she was a dog he was trying to get to sniff him.
In a swift movement, the Soldier unbuckled her from her carrier. He stood up straight, holding her against his left shoulder.
Rumlow had seen the Soldier, on multiple occasions, use his bare hands to snap people’s necks. Or strangle them. Or disembowel them.
Now, he used those same hands to cradle the shrieking demon-child against him, and to gently pat her on the back.
“What the fuck,” muttered Jack.
Rumlow had seen some weird fucking shit in his time with HYDRA—hell, they both had. But this just might take the cake.
It only took a few seconds, and then the crying just—stopped. Rumlow held his breath. It didn’t start up again.
The Soldier nodded, apparently satisfied. He… bounced Bella in his arms. There was no other way to describe it. He just bounced her, like he was a normal person holding a baby.
But she didn’t start crying again. Weren’t kids supposed to be good at judging people’s characters? At sensing things like how high someone’s kill count was? He was pretty sure he’d heard that before. Apparently Bella was defective, at least in that department.
The Soldier started to remove Bella from his shoulder, body angled towards Rumlow.
He didn’t step back—he would never show that sort of weakness in front of the Soldier—but it was a near thing.
“I’m not taking her.”
“Don’t look at me,” added Jack, right when the Soldier did, in fact, start to look at him.
The Soldier stood there, baby not quite resting on his shoulder, still bouncing her like it was some kinda subconscious reflex. He glanced from him to Jack and back to him, wearing the stupid, perplexed look he got whenever he was asked to make decisions outside of the field.
Rumlow sighed. “Just put her back in the carrier.”
The Soldier obeyed immediately, of course. But the second she was sat in the seat, before the Soldier could even start to strap her back down, Bella screwed up her tiny face, opened her tiny mouth, and let out a shriek that rivaled the sounds the Soldier made during some of Pierce’s choice punishments.
“Pick her back up!”
The second she was gently bouncing in the Soldier’s arms again, Bella quieted down. She stuck her thumb in her mouth and stared at the Soldier, who regarded her with an almost-identically solemn expression.
Fuck it. Rumlow was way too sober to deal with this shit.
“Soldier, do whatever you have to do to keep her quiet.” Then, remembering the importance of giving clear instructions, and also the fact that Edwards would probably get all bitchy if anything happened to his daughter, he quickly added, “Without causing any bodily harm.”
He hadn’t actually realized that the Soldier was capable of producing scandalized looks, let alone directing them at a handler. Today, it seemed, was a day for surprises.
“Look at me like that again, and I’ll make sure you remember what happens next, even after you’re wiped.”
The Soldier cast his eyes away, looking apologetic. After a moment, he half-turned from the two of them and carefully stepped backwards until he was more-or-less in the corner again.
But Bella stayed quiet. That was all that mattered.
“Best two out of three, loser has to do all the next mission’s paperwork?” asked Jack, already setting up for blackjack.
Rumlow sat back down, headache already abating in the silence. “You’re on, asshole.”
Jack’s nostrils flared halfway through the tiebreaking third round. A half-second later, Rumlow’s did as well.
“Aww, Christ,” muttered Jack.
Rumlow took a deep breath. In the back of his mind, he debated the merits of arranging an “accident” for that stupid fucker Edwards who was still in his stupid fucking meeting.
“Soldier, status report.”
The Soldier and the baby had both been quiet, save for occasional babbling followed immediately by soft hushing sounds that Rumlow hadn’t known that the Soldier could even make. But he responded to the question promptly.
“The child requires a diaper change. Sir.”
Rumlow pinched his nose, for both the obvious reason and because his headache threatened to flare back up. “Do you know the proper protocols for dealing with that?”
He glanced over in time to see the Soldier’s eyebrows knit together in thought for a moment before he responded. “Yes, sir.”
“Fuckin’ great.” He waved a hand at the diaper bag on the floor. “Supplies should be in there. Just take her to the bathroom down the hall and change her on the floor, or something. Figure it out.”
“Yes, sir.”
The Soldier strode from his corner to the table, kneeling down to where the diaper bag lay on the floor. He somehow managed to keep Bella balanced on his hip—still not crying, though she’d begun to make vague whimpers of distress—while he rummaged one-handed through its contents.
Rumlow watched as he picked up a package of diapers. He turned it over and studied the diagrams on the back, brow furrowed. Then he picked up a package of baby wipes and did the same, reading through the information on the container.
He was apparently satisfied with what he saw: he swung the bag up onto the shoulder where Bella wasn’t currently drooling and stood. Instead of going to the bathroom, though, he hesitated.
Rumlow sighed and unpinched his nose long enough to ask, “What is it?”
“The diaper,” the Soldier said hesitantly. “Where should I put it?”
Rumlow stared at him. “Where do you think?”
The Soldier’s brow furrowed. “…in the bag?”
“Jesus Christ,” Rumlow muttered as Jack choked back a laugh. “Throw it out. What the fuck else would you do with it?”
“You wash them,” the Soldier said, hesitating as he spoke, like he knew the answer wasn’t quite right but couldn’t figure out why. “And hang them out to dry. And use them again.”
“Do you think Edwards is some kind of fuckin’ hippie? The fuck would he do with reusable diapers?”
The Soldier just stared at him, the lines between his eyes deepening even further.
Rumlow sighed again. It was tempting to tell the Soldier to just stick the shitty diaper back in the bag, as a surprise for Edwards. But then they’d have to keep the bag in the room with them for however long it took until Edwards came back, and even if they zipped the bag up tight, that wasn’t something he wanted to deal with.
“Just throw it out.”
The Soldier nodded, and muttered, “Yes, sir,” and then quickly headed out the door.
Rumlow shook his head and turned back to the table. “You think all the wipes might be giving him brain damage?”
“That’s the point, dumbass,” Jack said, slapping down a card.
Their cellphones buzzed simultaneously approximately eight seconds after the Soldier and a happy-looking, presumably fresh-smelling Bella had stepped back into the room.
“The fuck do we do with them?” Jack asked, glancing at the same message Rumlow was reading. Pierce was ready to see them now. “I’m not gonna risk pissing off Pierce just ‘cause Edwards isn’t back to babysit.”
Rumlow glanced over to the corner. The Soldier had laid Bella out on a blanket on the floor. He was carefully placing the stuffed lamb next to her. His hair fell forward, obscuring his expression as he looked down at her, but Rumlow couldn’t make out any signs of imminent violence.
“Let’s just leave ‘em. Soldier?”
The Soldier’s attention instantly shifted from Bella to Rumlow.
“We gotta get to a meeting. You gonna cause grievous bodily harm to the kid if we leave you alone?”
Whatever hints of a personality might’ve shown through earlier had apparently withered away. The Soldier showed no sign of offense as he answered, blandly, “No, sir.”
“Great.” Rumlow stood up. “Let’s go.”
They found Edwards waiting in Pierce’s office, apparently joining them for the briefing.
“Gentlemen,” said Pierce with a nod as they greeted him.
Edwards was far less kind. “Where the f—where’s my daughter?”
“She’s with the Soldier,” Jack said, settling into the rightmost chair and leaving the center one for Rumlow.
“She’s what,” said Edwards, very calmly. The vein that ran along his temple bulged.
“Relax.” Rumlow kicked his ankle, subtle enough that Pierce probably didn’t notice. “They’re fine. He’s good with her—got her to stop crying and everything. Did you know you gotta burp babies after you feed ‘em? ‘Cause the Soldier knew that.”
He glanced at Pierce while Edwards took a second to rein in his apoplexy.
“I know babysitting isn’t a strictly authorized use of the Soldier, but…”
“Don’t worry about it,” said Pierce, smiling in that vaguely fatherly way he had. “It’s not on the books, but I actually used to do it myself. When my daughter was still too young to remember and my wife would need a break, I’d take her to dinner and leave the Soldier to watch her, if he was already unfrozen anyway. He was quite good with her, and I couldn’t think of a better bodyguard, should anyone try to harm her.
“I always thought of him a little like the dog from Peter Pan,” he added. “Certainly not a person, but a good nana all the same.”
For the sake of professionalism, Rumlow banished the image of the Soldier in a nursemaid’s costume from his head. He also didn’t point out that the dog from Peter Pan had been wholly incapable of preventing the children from being kidnapped.
Instead, he asked, “So did you train him? I mean, he knew how to change a diaper. Mostly; he thought you were supposed to reuse ‘em.”
“Yes, he had that quirk when I had him babysit too—some nascent green streak in him, I suppose. He also put whiskey on my daughter’s gums when she was teething; I had to make sure that the wife didn’t find out about that. But no, I didn’t train him. It seemed like a natural enough extension of his abilities. You have to remember, one of the Soldier’s primary characteristics is his loyalty. You put him in front of a child and tell him to protect it, he’ll do it without question.
“Although it’s a bit more than that, if I’m being honest. Children have always been a flaw for him. Previous handlers have noted his reluctance to hurt them—he needs to be ordered to do so immediately after the application of the trigger words, or he’ll become non-compliant. And in the events where he did carry out orders, he exhibited significant emotional distress afterwards.
“Of course, that was before he came under my control. I found we could exploit that vulnerability for good. For example, the Soldier is very good at carrying out interrogations, but can occasionally be resistant to the idea. But if you tell him that if he doesn’t carry out the interrogation himself, you’ll be forced to hurt a child until he complies, then he obeys immediately.
“And as for the more technical childrearing abilities—” Pierce shrugged. “Someone must have taught him how to change diapers. Perhaps the Soviets used him for that. Or perhaps it goes back further—it’s said he had siblings, younger ones, once upon a time. I’ve never questioned it. Gift horses, and all that.”
“Huh,” said Rumlow. “Learn something new every day.”
“Indeed.” Pierce clapped his hands together. “Now. I heard yesterday’s mission went quite well? Tell me about it…”
“I am going to fucking kill you,” Edwards hissed as soon as they were out of Pierce’s office. “I can’t believe you just left her—”
“Relax.” Rumlow rolled his eyes. “She didn’t like me or Jack. Kept crying. Shut up as soon as the Soldier picked her up, though. She’s got bad taste in men. You’re gonna have to be careful when you’re older.”
“If you think I’m talking you up in front of Rogers after this, you’re dead fucking wrong.”
“You wanna make sure your gun jams next time we’re out in the field? ‘Cause that’s what happens to assholes that go back on their word.”
“You’d leave my little girl fatherless?” Edwards shook his head, like the both of them hadn’t made several dozen orphans between them. “Shame on you.”
Rumlow just smirked. He probably wouldn’t actually do it—Edwards was a shithead, but he wasn’t bad at his job, and good coworkers were hard to come by. But it also wouldn’t be the first time he’d arranged for an accident for a STRIKE team member who pissed him off, and Edwards knew it.
Jack was walking in front of them, ignoring their bickering. That meant that he reached the conference room first, peering in through the window on the door, and—stopping.
“Sweet mother of Christ,” he muttered.
“What? What did he do—”
Jack’s arm shot out to block Edwards from breaking down the door. “Relax. Look at this shit.”
He stepped aside so that Rumlow and Edwards could crowd up to the window, and see—
What the fuck.
The Soldier was right where they had left him, sitting in the corner with Bella lying on the blanket before him. Except the Soldier had his hands in front of his face. And as Rumlow, Jack, and Edwards watched with the same intensity as Bella, the Soldier pulled his hands aside and…
Smiled.
He smiled.
It wasn’t just weird. It was disturbing. The Winter Soldier was not supposed to smile.
He seemed to know it, too. His lips curled up unnaturally, strained. Grotesque.
But Bella didn’t seem to realize that. No, when she saw the Soldier’s face, she laughed. They could all see it clearly through the window. She laughed, and the Soldier’s creepy-as-shit smile got even bigger, and then he put his hands back in front of his face, and Rumlow decided that he’d seen enough.
The door banged against the wall as he slammed it open, and the Soldier jumped, hands dropping to his side, like he hadn’t even realized he was being watched.
“The fuck are you doing?”
The Soldier glanced at him for a second before looking back down at Bella, who’d gone quiet at the interruption.
“We were just. Playing. Sir. It makes her laugh, because she thought I disappeared, but I didn’t. She doesn’t understand object permanence yet.”
“You didn’t disappear—Jesus, do you think that I don’t understand object permanence?”
The Soldier swallowed. “No, sir. I mean—I know you do.”
“Fuckin’ right I do.”
Jack snickered from behind him. Rumlow shot him a hateful glare, then took a long, tight breath and looked back at the Soldier.
“Playtime’s over. Give her back to her daddy.”
“Just stick her in the carrier,” said Edwards. “Fuck it. I’m taking her home. Rather have my wife pissed off at me than leave her with a psycho babysitter.”
“Won’t be babysitting much longer,” said Jack. “I just got a text. A couple of the techs managed to show up.”
“Perfect. Soldier, you heard him. Put her back in the carrier.”
The Soldier bowed his head, looking down at Bella. His greasy hair fell in front of his face, blocking his expression, and Rumlow felt his pulse pick up, adrenaline starting to heat his blood at the thought that the Soldier might refuse a direct order.
But instead, he scooped up Bella and brought her over. The moment he placed her in the seat, she screwed up her face. A second later, as the Soldier strapped her in, she let out a shriek entirely disproportionate to her size, and started to cry.
“Better hope she doesn’t do that all the way home,” muttered Jack. Edwards made a noise of agreement.
The Soldier stood and headed back to where he had been sitting. He folded up the blanket on which Bella had been lying.
He also picked up her stuffed lamb. As Rumlow watched, he stared at it for a second, holding it flat in his metal hand. Then he reached out, draping the blanket over his arm so that it wouldn’t fall, and carefully stroked its soft, velveteen head with his human hand.
What the fuck, Jack mouthed.
All he could do in response was shrug.
The Soldier flinched, like he’d seen the exchange, even though his eyes had been wholly focused on the tiny plush toy. Apparently realizing what he’d been doing, he let his right arm drop away and quickly crossed the room back to the still-wailing Bella.
After he tucked the folded blanket back into the diaper bag, he knelt down beside her again. As Rumlow watched, he pressed the toy against her, tucking it in place as he made a gentle shushing sound.
She didn’t stop crying, exactly, but she did quiet down—more of a piteous sound to her wails than outright fury.
It was that, the fact that her cries had taken on a softer tone, which let Rumlow half-hear it as the Soldier said something to her. He spoke softly, touched her cheek, and then he stood up and turned around.
Rumlow stared at him. “Bella.”
The Soldier looked back with that prey-animal type look about his face, the one he got when he knew he’d done something wrong but couldn’t pinpoint what. “Sir?”
“Her name is Bella. You said, ‘Goodbye, Becca.’”
The Soldier blinked, looked away, looked back at him. His mouth worked, like he wanted to say something but didn’t have the words. His shoulders drew in, tensing and trying to make himself look small all at once.
Fuck it. He didn’t know what that was all about, didn’t particularly want to know, and certainly didn’t want to deal with it.
“Jack, text the techs. Tell ‘em he’s gotta be wiped before he goes back in.”
Jack nodded, already pulling out his phone.
Rumlow turned away from Bella, who was still crying even as Edwards knelt down next to her, and opened the door. “C’mon, Soldier. We’re out of here.”
The Soldier followed him out into the hall. As Jack shut the door behind them, cutting off the baby’s cries and leaving them in blissful silence, he looked back.
Rumlow didn’t shudder—he’d never show that sort of weakness in front of the Soldier—but he kind of wanted to. The look in the Soldier’s eyes was so nakedly sad.
He hated when the Soldier got to acting too much like a person. Creeped him right the fuck out.
“Chin up,” he said as they made their way to the elevator. “Ten minutes, you won’t even remember her.”
The Soldier stared at the floor. The skin of his throat tightened and flexed as he swallowed, but he didn’t say anything. He just nodded. And when they got to the chair, he looked back up the way they had come one more time, but he didn’t fight as Rumlow shoved him into place. He just sat there, quiet, eyes bright, and let the electricity wipe him clean.