December 22, 2007
[chapter one]
Mission Report: December 22, 2007
He is lying in wait.
His breath cannot be seen; his mouth packed full of snow as it is. Any vapor he would breathe is consumed by the icy, frozen wall that lines his teeth, unfaltering and refusing to melt against his frigid tongue—gone before it even exists.
If he could feel, he thinks he would be cold. But he does not think—he certainly does not feel.
It is not permitted.
Eto ne razresheno.
It is an order he has heard every day that he can remember (not that he remembers much).
So the cold—it does not bother him.
It is not permitted to bother him.
There is the quiet crunch of boots, and he is immediately snapped from the stupor of his wayward thoughts.He doesn’t move an inch, the two feet of snow he’d burrowed under and the six inches of fresh fall that had followed is completely unruffled; his tracks are covered. But it’s almost as if his mind tenses, a rubber band pulled taught. His eyes have adjusted to the darkness that had fallen hours ago, and through the scope of his sniper, he can see them moving through the thick throng of leaf-barren, frozen trees, who’s boughs bend under the weight of the white powder.
He can feel his heartbeat, a slow, steady thud that fills his ears and keeps the time.
Through the scope, there is a blurry flash of red.A bullfinch, maybe? No, it’s far too late in the year for that.
Still, color in this barren landscape is a rarity. Too obvious, with all the snow that has fallen. As it is, had he had weaker eyesight, he wouldn’t even be able to see his targets, what with their reflective white gear that matches the blinding white that makes up their soon-to-be graves.
He moves the scope slightly down, searching for the footfalls that had first drawn his attention.
From this far away, he can’t tell how old either person is, or whether they are a man or a woman. Were he even three meters closer, he would be able to hear their heartbeats, get a closer look at their features, and maybe then he’d be able to tell.
It’s no matter, really.
The objective is clear: kill anyone that attempts to cross through the forest. Do not leave until dawn.
Eight hours have passed since he first arrived, and dawn is due to break shortly. Frankly, it is shocking no one appeared earlier. It is no matter, though. He will complete his mission, as ordered.
He evens his breath out and relaxes into familiar sensations:snow, frosting the eyelashes of his right eye, the one not pressed against the scope he stares through. It is cold, and it creates a halo of white around his vision when he blinks it open. There is also the worn, cold-stiffed leather of the butt of the gun, pressed against the sliver of skin that makes up his wrist, whose sleeve rode up three hours ago and will remain that way due to his delicate position. He will likely be frostbitten there, come tomorrow, but that is unimportant.
His discomfort is unimportant.
He does not feel.
He breathes out and squeezes the trigger. The gun bucks into his shoulder; the impact sure to leave another bruise, despite the padding in his gear.
The taller of the two figures collapses sideways, a stain of scarlet blooming across their chest, visible in its stark contrast, even this far away. The other figure dives down into the snow, and he draws another breath, gently moving the scope towards the spot the second target disappeared into when a cry cracks through the air, louder than a whip.
“Run!” The shout comes from above him, and the snow shifts around him when he startles, surprised at the proximity of the voice.
It should be impossible for someone to have snuck up on him.
He would’ve heard them, their heartbeat a dead giveaway to their presence. But he can’t even hear a heartbeat, now. Immediately, he rolls to his left—and just in time too, because a lithe figure falls from a tree branch above him, the sharp ring of a knife blade against the unforgiving stones he’d laid upon two seconds prior clear in the frigid air.
He is on his feet before his attacker can move, his goggles firmly covering his eyes, and he whips the barrel of the gun towards the figure’s temple, his reflexes automatic. The person, a woman—a detail he catalogues for his mission report—dodges the blow, dropping low and swinging a leg out to try and unbalance him.
She is swift, he will give her that.
But he has been doing this for too long for her to take him by surprise twice.
He meets her kick with a strong return of his own, and he hears her quiet grunt as his steel-toed boots meet bone. Her head snaps up, her eyes covered by white goggles. She is dressed like his targets, covered from head to toe in white, reflective gear.Hers is much lighter than the target’s though, he can tell by the flexibility allowed in her movements.
She is used to this environment in the same way he is; in the same way his first target was not.
His hand shoots out, aiming for her goggles, and he almost manages to snag them before she jerks away. Her forearm slams into his forehead as her leg arcs up and her knee crashes into his ribs. He grunts at the impact and snarls under his mask, slightly winded.
She's stronger than she looks.
His teeth grit involuntarily, and he manages to snag her hood as she rolls and tries to scramble back to put some distance between them. He yanks harshly and the spandex-like material that had been hidden underneath the fluffy hood to hold her hair back loosens, freeing a rope of thick hair.
It is as scarlet as the flash of red he'd seen earlier, and fury slides over him at the realization that she'd found him before he'd had the chance to hear her.
The metal fingers of his hand seem to move of their own accord, snagging the tail end of her braid and wrapping it around his fist before he is tugging hard enough to snap her head back; exposing the pale column of her slender throat. He doesn't see a pulse threading rapidly in the smooth skin though, and he frowns. His eyes slide up, and he is met with bared teeth, as white as the snow surrounding them. Without hesitating, he removes her goggles, though she twists and bucks like a fish caught on a hook. Impatiently, he slams his boot into her shoulder, pinning her down and forcing her movements to cease as she gasps in pain at the audible crack of her collarbone.
“James!”
He freezes at the word, her breath sounding like it’s been knocked from her lungs as it echoes in his ears.
He knows that name. He knows her face.
He blinks, staring down at her, hesitating suddenly.
Longing.
Rusted.
Furnace.
Daybreak.
Seventeen.
Benign.
Nine.
Homecoming.
One.
Freight car.
The commands whisper their way down his spine, curling through his consciousness and hushing the tendrils of uncertain memory, soothing him. Before he has settled back into the mission though, she has reached up and cracked her hand against his face, shattering the lens of his own goggles and snapping him out of his stupor.
He snarls, but before he can retaliate, a knee slams into the side of his head and his vision goes white with pain.
When he comes to, he is aware of the cold of the snow before anything else, and he sees blood spatters—his own blood—in the white as his eyes refocus. He grimaces and reaches for his temple, only for his gloved hand to come away, wet with red. He hears the skitter of his gun being kicked away, and he shoots up and whips around, his metal hand catching around an ankle. He tugs, hard, to unbalance the new opponent. It is another woman—the other target, he thinks. Instinctively, he swings his arm out in an arc, her boot-covered ankle still in his hand, tugging her along involuntarily. He releases her at the last second, and the sickening crunch of her body meeting the base of a nearby tree rattles through the air, shaking loose the snow in the branches.
It would be enough to kill an ordinary human, but he knows neither of these women are merely humans. They are enhanced, as he is. It is the only explanation for how they have managed to sneak up on him, disarm him, and dole out the blows they have dealt.
He cracks his knuckles and dodges the dive that comes from the left, from the scarlet-haired woman. Her braid has gotten loose, and tendrils of coppery hair frame her face, a stark contrast to the grass green of her eyes.
“James.” She says again, raising her hands in mock surrender.
The word is familiar; her voice is familiar. How does he know her?
His head buzzes from the blow he’s been dealt, and he snarls again, desperately wanting to remove the mask that covers his mouth.
But that is not permitted. He is not allowed to be identified.
“James!” Her voice is sharper this time, and he snaps his gaze up, glowering darkly at her as he slowly takes his goggles off, letting them fall by the wayside.
His memory sharpens; clears. And then—
He is in a barren courtyard, surrounded by high, barbed-wired fences that hum with electricity. She is across from him; her hair in two braids, her green eyes bright. She advances on him slowly, her fingers clenching and unclenching in those fingerless gloves they have given her for grip.
She is no older than fifteen—but he knows she has already killed, because he has watched her do it.
They’d introduced her to him as a companion—someone to accompany him on missions that required a more…subtle distraction for their targets in order for him to complete his work after she had sedated them. She has been a loyal constant since their introduction six months ago.
Coincidentally, it’s the longest period of time he can recall being awake.
They have just gotten back to base, and despite their time together and the skills he has witnessed her exhibit, he is determined to make sure she can handle hand-to-hand combat without the need for his careful oversight. She is quick, but she is small, and many of their targets could easily overpower her if she were to ever be caught unaware.
The handlers are smart enough to not allow her to be alone with targets for long—they all know he hits harder and faster whenever she accompanies him on a mission; though no one has openly acknowledged it yet. They wouldn’t dare to. He sees the fear in their eyes when one of them gets even the slightest bit to close to her, and they carefully avoid any confrontation that could follow.
The success of their most recent mission has guaranteed them an additional hour in the courtyard each day. He has been instructed not to break her, and he scoffs at the notion. She is stronger than she looks. Besides, he would not hurt her, not even—he thinks—if they tried to order him to.
As it is, she circles him, low and close to the ground, her movements graceful and sure-footed. He moves in sync with her, watching her carefully over his muzzle. They have not permitted the removal of that, too concerned with something they keep referring in muttered whispers to as “The Rabid Dog Incident”.
He knows he did something, but they refuse to tell him what transpired. Whatever it is, it was before the last memory wipe. He has been unable to recall anything in vivid detail, but it’s been months since a cryogenic freeze, and he finds that little bits and pieces are starting to come back to him. Not enough to make sense, not really, but he knows they kept him frozen for longer than usual afterwards. And they’d brought her to him when they woke him up again.
“Kill him.”
The instruction had been simple enough, and he disoriented enough from his recent thaw, that she had tried.
He had not been instructed to kill her in return, so he only defended himself. Where she struck, he blocked. She threw every hit first, and when it was all said and done, they were both bloody and bruised on a filthy training room floor. She’d managed to get herself back up, to climb over him as her hands wrapped around his throat, straining. The determination in her eyes had been clear, and only when his vision began to darken and blur around the edges, did someone tap her on the shoulder to stop her.
“Khvatit, malen’kiy shpion.” Came the command, to which she’d finally relented, releasing him. He took a sharp gasp of air, rolling over as she leapt away from him, gracefully rising to her feet in one swift movement, dipping into a low bow before standing straight and staring directly ahead. His handler stood beside her, his wizened hand resting on her shoulder.
“Soldat,” he said patiently, “this is to be your companion. You are to protect her life as your own, just as she shall for you. Do you understand?”
He wheezed, still winded from her strangulation attempt and his position on the floor, but managed a nod.
“Her success is dependent on your success. If you fail, so too shall she. Do not fail. You know how much I hate failure.”
He’d managed to sit up at that point, and he’d levelled his gaze at the young girl. She’d stared back at him, her green eyes as hollow as her sunken cheekbones.
“Ponyal.” He’d affirmed.
“Do not mistake me, Soldat. If you fail, she will kill you. And if she fails, you will kill her.”
These are the words he hears in his head as she lunges toward him suddenly, diving between his legs and slicing at his ankles with the knives that have materialized as if from thin air. Her blades are dull, and they glances off of the backs of his boots. She is not aiming to kill him, though a cut to the Achilles tendon would certainly maim him, had she actually been trying to do so.
He steps back, kicking at her wrist, and she hisses in pain, reflexively releasing one of her knives and striking upwards with her injured hand, directly into his jaw. His head snaps back and he grunts from the force of it. He reorients himself quickly though, and sweeps her legs out from under her, catching her by the waist and throwing her over his shoulder. Her legs kick, and he drops her down on her back, planting a boot firmly in the middle of her chest to pin her down as he frowns at her beneath his mask.
Too easy. She barely put up a fight, and he knows she could’ve dodged him, had she actually been trying. She has been as swift as a viper on their missions these past few months, and while the goal of these sessions is to enhance her strength training, he has grown to know her well enough to know she was fast enough to evade him before he’d swept her legs.
“Again.” He orders, as she stares up at him, her face unreadable.
“James.” She whispers, and he immediately drops to his knees beside her, searching for the wound she has not disclosed.
She does not ever use that name.
Not here, not where they can hear. Not where they can punish either of them for the transgression of familiarity. She has only used that name when they are alone, or when she has been injured. So, his hands tug at her thick jacket as he goes to unzip it, only stopping when her small hand covers his metal fingers.
She shakes her head.
“Sorry.” She murmurs. “It’s not that. I just…” She hesitates, her gaze flicking to the guard that watches them from the edge of the gated courtyard. His hands shield his eyes against the cold winter sun as he takes a step closer, and Soldat knows he can’t hear them from this far away.
“Chto takoye, malen’kiy?” He asks through his muzzle, brow furrowing.
“I’m leaving.” She says, finally. He sits back on his heels at this information, watching her carefully.
“When?” He finally manages to ground out.
“Tomorrow.” She says, otherwise unmoving from her position on the ground.
“For how long?” She looks away at the question. His spine tightens and straightens at that.
“I see.” He says, brusquely. “Were they going to tell me?”
She shakes her head, once.
“Where?”
Another head shake. She doesn’t know.
“Am I—?” He cuts himself off, the words dying in his throat. She doesn’t need to shake her head or nod at all to confirm what he fears. They’re going to put him back under. He rocks back on his heels, sucking in a breath, then stands. He holds out a hand to her, an offering. She frowns, then.
“James.” She whispers again, her voice so soft it would be inaudible to anyone else. He shakes his head, bluntly.
“C’mon malen’kiy. We only have a few hours for me to show you the basics. You will need to practice these, at least once, daily.” She stares at his proffered hand, her face conflicted. “Poka my ne vstretimsya snova.” He says, the words hollow even to his ears. They will not meet again, not in any way he will be able to remember, at least. And they both know it.
This six month reprieve was a test, more than anything else. Of that much he is sure. To see how well they could stabilize him for longer missions, to see how he operates with a secondary mission of ensuring someone other than himself makes it out of a mission alive. They are both pawns in this, neither of them capable of choice.
He knows that they will use this against him, in the future. Not with her, because they will make him forget her by the time the moon is rising in the sky. But they will undoubtedly use this softness they have created in him against him, when it will benefit them most. They had to see if he could still feel, or if they had stolen that from him, too.
It is a horrible thing to know that they haven’t.
She is still staring at him, the hesitation clear on her face for just a moment longer, her green gaze otherwise unreadable. Then her hand is clasping his and he is pulling her to her feet to practice while he still knows who she is.
He snaps from the memory, his mind foggy with foreign emotions, things his consciousness has buried deep, long ago. He glowers down at her, anger turning his blood hot.
“Traitor.” He finally hisses, wrenching himself away from her. Her green eyes narrow and she practically spits at him.
“I’m not the traitor here.” Her voice is a cold as their surroundings.
Fury ripples through him at the implication in her voice.
He is not a traitor. He is not. To be labelled a traitor is a fate worse than death.
“You promised.” She continues, staring at him, as if she expects him to know what she’s talking about.
“YA ne priznayu prisyagi predatlyu.” He snarls, hands moving of their own accord as they wrap around her pale, slender neck. He squeezes, his breath coming out in quick pants as he tries to reconcile the girl before him as the girl from a flashing memory he isn’t even sure he can trust.
“Miryam!” She manages to wheeze out, and before he can clear his thoughts, the other figure—the woman he threw earlier—is upon him. She is holding something, a device of some sort, and it crackles with electricity in her gloved palm. She slams it into his metal arm and his vision whites out again as the electricity courses through him, searing his nerve endings and rendering use of limbs impossible.
For the second time, he finds himself falling to the wayside, unable to stop the seizing that overtakes his body. His teeth chatter in his skull as the current makes its way through him, and his vision whites out, once, twice, three times before consciousness is lost to him.
__________________________________________
When he wakes again, he is raring for a fight. It is far too late for that though, as he is in familiar quarters.
A snarl rips through him and he rolls off the cot he’s been placed, overturning it in his fury. He snatches it up and slams it against one of the concrete walls, and a deafening crack rings through the room as the frame shatters. Blood leaks into his eye from the cut on his forehead and he swipes at it furiously as he paces the small cell.
They’ve taken his gear, and he is left in only worn sweatpants. He is barefoot, and any weapon he might have had at his fingertips have been removed.
It is rare—extremely so—that he fails a mission. An assassination wherein only one target was successfully executed counts as a loss. An assassination with two survivors to tell the tale constitutes only failure.
His pacing increases, and his arm hums lowly in his ears. It is surprising, really, to find it still attached. Normally, they would have removed it by now. He must have woken up before they were able to dose him with a sedative for removal.
He halts his pacing at the sound of footsteps, and he turns to find his handler watching him from behind the bars of the cell.
“Soldat.” He greets, his voice marred by displeasure. “Mission report: December 22, 2007.”
He glowers at the man, blood still leaking into his eye, and lets out a low, inhuman grown.
“Tsk.” His handler says, his face darkening further. “Use your words, Soldat. I am not a patient man, and you are not an animal.” He voice turns sour. “Much as they may have trained you, otherwise.”
His jaw clenches, and the fingers of his metal arm flex. He is struck by the realization that a weaker design would have frozen and cracked in the snow he’d been left in—it had done so before, on a different mission. He remembers the maroon that had splattered across his boots, when they’d ordered him to kill the designer.
If he had been permitted to feel, he thinks he would’ve felt angry.
Not for the order, which gave him structure—his true north, the thing that guided him when there was ever any doubt—but for the fact that it meant he’d failed his mission. He knew what the price of that was, and while he was not permitted to feel, the terror that had filled his chest like an overinflated balloon had tested that order, too.
He feels that same terror, now. He knows what is coming. He will give his mission report, and then they will take him to be wiped, because a perfect soldier does not fail. A perfect soldier is occasionally allowed to retain his memories. But he is not a perfect solider.
His shoulders hunch and he turns further away from the handler.
There is a sound of a match, and then the scent of clove cigarettes greets him.
“Soldat,” the handler calls again. There are more footsteps. The guards, surely, who will take him to the room. He does not turn around to face them. “Mission report: December 22, 2007.” The handler orders again, and his shoulders straighten.
“Two targets.” He begins. “A man, and a woman, based on heights and builds. The man is unconfirmed. I was unable to examine the body before I was ambushed, but he appeared to be a man, from the distance.” His handler hums, waiting for him to continue. “Time of death, 04:38 a.m. No movement after he fell.”
“And, this…ambush?” His handler prompts. “Explain yourself, Soldat.”
He turns then, meeting the gaze of the shorter man. If the handler is intimidated, it doesn't show on his face. His handler knows all of his weaknesses, and they both know who has the upper hand here—metal arm still attached or not.
“There were two of them. One, was a target. She disappeared before I could shoot her.”
“And this other ambusher?”
“Another woman.” He admits. “She took me by surprise. I never heard her heartbeat, and she was in the tree above me. Armed, though only with blades. No guns. She distracted me enough for the second target to reach us to help her.” A low whistle accompanies these words, and his gaze snaps to one of the guards standing to the right of his handler, who smirks darkly at him.
“Who knew the Winter Soldier would be beaten by a couple of girls?” He says cruelly, and snickers from the other men follow. “I thought you were supposed to be the greatest Soldier since Captain America.” He doesn't know who this Captain America they speak of is, but it doesn't soften the sting of the words.
“Tishina.” His handler orders, and the men’s comment cease. “Continue, Soldat.”
“They were enhanced.” He states, turning his gaze back to his handler. “Strong. Stronger than anyone else I have been sent to eliminate.”
“Hm,” comes the contemplative response, “and these women, they overpowered you, yes?”
He breaks his gaze away and nods once, shortly.
“Interesting.” There is a brief stretch of silence. Then: “Is there anything else you would like to report, Soldat?”
He frowns, keeping his gaze downcast. He knows he is supposed to tell his handler everything. Any omission of knowledge, especially knowledge they might already have, could result in execution.
“One of them…I—” He hesitates. “I think I knew her.” This causes a few of the guards to shuffle their feet, uncertain.
“Oh?” His handler asks, his interest seemingly piqued. “Do tell.”
“She had scarlet hair. And green eyes. And she…she kept saying a name.”
“A name?”
“James.” The silence that falls over them again is palatable. He doesn't understand the significance of the name, but it seems to mean something to everyone else there.
“James.” His handler finally repeats, and he dares to look up. His handler’s face is composed, but there is a cold fury in his eyes. He merely nods. “Thank you for your report, Soldat. I am sure you can understand my displeasure, though. You have failed to complete your mission as ordered, and you allowed two witnesses to escape, to boot.” A shiver races down his spine at the recounting of his failures. “You will accept the consequences of your failure, Soldat. You are not permitted to retreat from your punishment, nor shall you fight back.”
He knew this was what was going to happen.
It is worse, when they order him to feel. When they order him to endure every moment of whatever torture they choose to subject him to. It is why he does not fail. Pain is a motivator that they have found to be quite effective with him.
The cell door slides open, and he forces himself to relax. Despite his lack of a fighting stance, the guards swarm him, their batons out and crackling with electricity. They are like a hungry pack of wolves, and he is little more than their defenseless prey.
A baton cracks across his ribs and he hunches over and into the impact, the breath knocked from his lungs. Another slams into his kidneys, and a third into the backs of his knees. He stumbles, barely managing to catch himself on his hands and knees as they descend upon him, the blows unrelenting. A particularly strong-armed guard slams his baton into his jaw, and he feels a tooth crack. Blood floods his mouth and he bites his tongue in an effort to hold his screams in.
Someone hits him where his metal arm meets flesh, and the sensitive nerve endings there hum in immediate disagreement, a fire igniting its way up his shoulder and neck. His arm drops out from under him, and he crashes into the rough floor below him, the scent of mildew and copper flooding his senses.
The blows do not cease when he falls, but he still does not fight back. He has not been given permission to defend himself, and so they beat him, mercilessly.
When they seem satisfied that he has been duly punished, they hoist him up between them. His head lolls to one side, blood mixed with spit dripping from his mouth. Pain radiates through every part of him, and his heartbeat is a sluggish, unsteady rhythm in his ears.
“Some solider you are.” Someone hisses next to him, and shame burns through the fog of his clouded mind.
He is dragged along, his knees barely raised above the floor, his bare feet catching on every sharp crack and snag in the uneven flooring. They have left no part of him untouched, and though he wishes he could recede into that part of his mind that would block all of this out, he has been specifically ordered to endure his punishment without relief.
He’s not sure how long it takes them to reach their destination, but it doesn’t matter. When they arrive, he is deposited unceremoniously in the chair at the center of the room, the blood still roaring in his ears. He tries to take stock of his many bruises and cuts, but it is an overwhelming amount, and he finds it too hard to focus on for long. Someone approaches and shoves a rubber mouth guard between his teeth before firmly pushing his shoulders back. His arms are manueved for him, slotted into the arm rests as silver manacles tighten around his wrists. He cracks his blackened eyes open to stare at his hander before him.
“Soldat, I have told you before that you are here to help shape the world. While you have done a great many things for your country, you know that I must guide you with a firm hand for our mission to succeed.” He shakes his head, almost as if he is sorrowful. “It brings me no pleasure to do this, Soldat. But a soldier who cannot complete a mission as ordered is useless to me. I hope you will have taken this into consideration, upon our next meeting.”
They both know he will not remember this tomorrow, or whenever they wake him next. He will only remember that he failed, and the pain that followed. But he will not remember the exact details of his failure.
He will be a clean slate, ready for the next mission.
And he will not fail, again.