Chapter 1
“Soldier, we have a mission for you,” the man said, holding out a folder to him. Without any emotion, he grabbed the folder and looked inside. There was a picture of a man and a woman, though it wasn’t very clear. It had obviously been taken without their knowledge. “You are to keep them safe. They have valuable knowledge that needs to be protected. You leave in an hour.” With a nod, the Winter Soldier stood and walked quietly out, going to get his gear.
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The cabin was small, not optimal for protection, but it would do. He wasn’t here to protect the couple indefinitely, just until extraction forces could get through. The snow storm raging outside wasn’t not helpful either, as it kept him from seeing outside threats. However, it also might dissuade said outside threats a bit longer. The Winter Soldier stalked the perimeter of the house, making sure the windows and doors leading outside were locked and secured. Three days, that was how long he had to protect them. Just three more days in this God-forsaken place. The couple had hardly said two words to him, choosing instead to watch him work with wide, scared eyes. A camping lantern provided the only light inside the house, and it was pitch black outside from the nighttime blizzard. Finally, satisfied with his work, he sat down on the bench against one wall, watching the two with blank eyes. They looked back down at their board game, Scrabble, he thought he had read on the box, and continued to play silently. When the clock on the wall showed eleven o’clock, they got up and shuffled off to bed, leaving the game where they had left it. The lantern was still on, but they went out into the rest of the cabin in the dark, leaving him with the only light. A useless gesture. He didn’t need light; the darkness was afraid of him, not the other way around. Everything was afraid of him; it was his job, his mission, to be the cause of terror and fear. He stared at the doorway they had left through in silence, eyes glazed over in thought, but ears listening to the slightest sounds in and around the cabin. Just three more days. Three more days, and he could leave. Just three more days.
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They would be here in twelve hours. He could last that long. The extraction team would be here in twelve hours, and he could be rid of these annoying people who wouldn’t say a word to him, only play their little game and watch him fearfully. His contact had said to be ready for a fight. Other people that wanted his missions were on their way, and they weren’t going to ask nicely. If they thought he was simply going to hand them over, they were wrong. He would not fail, could not fail. The silence in the room was tangible. The two were scared, barely focusing on their game. Let them be scared; what concern of it was his? He’d be rid of them soon enough. A soft sound outside the cabin caught his ears, and he stood up, listening. “Lozhis', i byt' spokoynym,” he said harshly, and the two obeyed, getting down on the floor without a sound. With a crash, the door to the cabin burst open, letting the frigid air from outside into the cabin. Gunshots filled the air, and the fight was on. (Lie down, and be quiet.)
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Grunting slightly, the Winter Soldier leaned against the wall, pulling himself up onto the bench he had been inhabiting for the past three days. Twelve men, all armed with guns, had burst in, guns blazing. The man and woman were dead, but so were the twelve men. He had failed his mission, but in a way, succeeded. He’d managed to find the couple’s journal, with the pages full of notes on experiments and theories. Surely that must be worth something to his superiors? Cursing under his breath, he looked at the wound on his leg with distaste. He could hear their words now. “The Winter Soldier doesn’t get shot, nor does he fail his missions.” It wasn’t going to go well, no matter what he had found. His mission was to keep the man and woman alive, and they were dead. That was that.
His eyes shot over to the doorway towards the rest of the cabin. He had heard something moving back there. With a grunt, he stood to his feet and limped over to the doorway, steadying himself against the wall when black dots began to dance across his vision. This was not going according to plan at all. Limping down the short hallway and using the wall as a crutch, he checked inside every one of the rooms, looking for whatever had made the sound. He found nothing. Thinking it had been something hitting the outside the cabin, such as a stick, he went back to the front room and collapsed onto the bench again. His pants leg was soaked in blood now. The bullet must have hit an artery. As he leaned his head back and looked up at the ceiling, he heard another sound, this time much closer. So fast that he nearly gave himself whiplash, he snapped his head back up and met the cautious gaze of a small child. She couldn’t have been more than six, but she was tiny. She was gazing at him with childish curiosity from the doorway. On silent feet, she stepped closer to him, and he noticed that she was dragging a sheet behind her. He watched her come right up to him, looking at him with big, innocent, bright green eyes. Sitting down on the floor in front of him, she took the sheet in both of her hands and began to rip it into strips.
After she had torn one off, she handed it up to him silently, waiting for him to take it. He took it in his hands and looked at her in silent confusion. She gave him an exasperated look, if a six year-old could be exasperated, and motioned to his injured leg. Oh. That’s what she was doing. She handed him another strip and waited from him to finish tying his leg up. Then, she took another strip she had torn and stood up, pointing to his right arm. Looking down, he noticed that he was bleeding from his upper arm. Watching her carefully, he turned his arm towards her and let her tie his arm up. Then, she sat back down on the floor, wrapped up in the torn blanket and looked back at him. Her face was eerily blank, like she was used to people showing up out of nowhere and shooting. The two stared at each other for long enough that the Winter Soldier started to get uncomfortable, which was a feat in and of itself. She gave him a small smile and stood up, heading back down the hallway on quiet little feet. He started to get up to follow her, but she looked back at him from the doorway, shaking her little head and making her light brown hair fly around her face. She returned not five minutes later with two paper plates in her hands.
She handed him one and sat back down on the floor. He regarded the food on the plate with caution. She could be trying to poison him for letting what were obviously her caretakers get killed, or his superiors had found out that he had failed and sent this little girl to kill him by poisoning him. He looked down at her as she took a bite out of the sandwich in her hands, along with a bit of the crackers she had. She looked up at him, and then at his untouched food. A light seemed to click on in her head, and she scrambled to her feet, putting her plate next to him on the bench. With tiny hands, she tore off a piece of his sandwich and ate it, doing the same with the small collection of crackers she had put on his plate. Satisfied that she had proven her point, she sat back down and resumed eating her own meal. He bit into his own food and watched her eat in silence. Why didn’t she talk? Was she mute? Why hadn’t she tried to sign to him if she was? Who was she? Questions bounced around in his head about this small and surprisingly calm child. He watched as she placed her now-empty plate in the trash can next to the bench and curled up in the torn sheet, using his foot as a pillow. He watched as she went to sleep almost immediately, raising an eyebrow as the only sign of his confusion. Otherwise, his face remained as stoic as before. The radio on his hip crackled to life, and he placed it closer to his ear, listening to the new instructions. There was another team coming, looking for the first, no doubt. Take his charges and head to the meeting place. “Oni mertvy.” (They are dead.)
“Unfortunate, but not unexpected. I take it they came in with open fire?”
“Da.” (Yes.)
“I see. Head to the rendezvous point now.”
“Sushchestvuyet devushka.” (There is a girl.)
“Bring her, then.” With that, the radio went silent, and the Soldier stood to his feet, waking the girl in the process.
“Vstavay,” he barked at her. (Get up.) She regarded him with sleepy eyes. “Vy ponimayete Rossii?” (Do you understand Russian?) The girl looked at him blankly. “Do you understand me?” he tried in English. Still, she merely looked at him silently. “Glukhoy i nemoy. Zamechatel'no,” he muttered grumpily. (Deaf and mute. Wonderful.) Reaching down to where she lay on the ground, he picked her up and tucked her up in the sheet, wrapping a coat around her as well. Holding her to his side, he stepped towards the still-open door. She buried her little face in his shoulder and wrapped her arms around his neck. Looking around outside, he stepped into the blizzard, hissing against the cold. She burrowed into him even more but didn’t make a sound. Satisfied that there were no immediate threats, he set off through the snow, trudging along quietly. The rendezvous point was two miles into the woods, and at his current speed, it would probably take about an hour to get there, loaded down with the girl and his injuries. Suddenly, the sound of gunfire broke the silence of the area. Holding out his metal hand, he blocked some of the bullets, felt the girl tightened her grip on his neck, and pulled out his own gun. Firing at the attackers, the Winter Soldier doubled his pace, ignoring the pain in his leg and arm. He saw a familiar truck waiting ahead of him, and he limped towards it. Large hands reached towards the girl, but she whimpered and pressed closer to him, if that was even possible when she was already clinging to him as if her life depended on it. On second thought, it probably did.
“What’s taking so long?” a rough voice asked from inside the truck.
“It’s a child. It won’t let go of him,” the man next to him answered.
“Aw, let him keep it. It’ll make a cute pet.” Something flared up in the Winter Soldier’s chest, and he wrapped his right arm around the girl’s tiny form, shivering from the cold and fear. Stepping up into the warm interior of the truck, he sat down, letting her swing her little legs across his lap and bury her face in his chest while medical teams looked at his injuries that were healing except for the bullets still lodged in him. They pulled them out with only a slight grimace on his part and put clean bandages on his wounds that would most likely be healed in less than an hour. With a jolt, the truck began to move. Amid the joking and sneering of the other guards, he felt the girl gradually start to relax against him, eventually letting herself sit calmly in his lap. She pulled his arm tighter around herself and went to sleep, using him as both a blanket and a pillow. Neither of them moved or made a sound for the rest of the trip back to the Hydra base.