the “mission” was a failure from from the start when the winter soldier, an extremely talented marksman/sniper who shot thru natasha to get his hit, waited out in the open and chose to engage in close combat. who never left his targets alive but shot steve (a large colorful target) in the leg, at his hand, in the abdomen but never the head or chest.
who laid his flesh hand on steve’s heart and punched him until he was bloody instead of using his metal hand to crush his throat. who keeps his hand on steve and lowers the metal arm after hearing the vow of ‘til the end of the line effectively choosing his humanity over what he was made into
I’m sure hydra wanted steve to see the the man that killed him. an added cruelty, an exploitation of his biggest weakness, a sick joke. could he hurt the face of the person he loved? but they didn’t consider that the winter soldier wasn’t just bucky barnes’ face. even watching his programming fail after one word, they still believed their science would triumph
they didn’t understand that “but I knew him” wasn’t just ‘he looks familiar’ it was ‘but this is someone I love’
