Names were not HYDRA standard. Nobody had names in HYDRA. Titles, maybe; he was The Asset. Some called him The Winter Soldier, but it wasn't his name. He'd come to accept that it was more lax than his previous assignments here. But his handler's insistence upon Jefferson over sir was difficult for Agent Barnes to process. Didn't it matter?
Was he expected to adopt the same pattern? Would they call him James? And why that name?
He had to bite down on his fork the next time he took a bite of fish to break the pattern of thought. Circles that would take him nowhere, that kind of thought. He chewed mechanically and swallowed, until Jefferson refuted his compliment. He nearly choked on his fish, but managed to regain his composure.
"Sorry," he said. There would normally have been a sir following that. But he preferred not to anger his handler mid-meal, especially not when he was about to get a haircut. Although truth told, Agent Barnes wasn't sure whether a child could actually have cooked the fish. He wasn't actually sure that he'd ever met a child, now that he thought about it. Had he?
He prodded the fish with his fork. "Would you prefer if I talked about something else?" Not that talking was a thing he did often; it was just that Jefferson asked him questions, in a manner that suggested he wanted Agent Barnes to answer and continue speaking for more than five words.