Prompt Post 1
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Guidelines
Don't be an asshole. One prompt per comment. Multiple fills are allowed. Put all pairings in either the subject line or first line of the fill. Prompts must be submitted anonymously. Fills may be anonymous or not.
Guidelines
Soft bristles tickle your nose. It smells like shaving soap.
For a few seconds, your eyelids won't lift; they refuse to respond to your desire to see. When you do pry them open, there's a man sitting across from you. No...not a man-a reflection of one. You're sitting across from a large mirror. There are dark circles under your eyes and your skin looks paler than you think it should be.
A slim man is grooming you, drawing a straight razor carefully down your chin. The severed hairs fall onto a towel wrapped loosely around your neck.
He notices your eyes are open and freezes, slowly lifts his hand away, holding up the thin blade. "Almost done. Want me to trim the sides?" He strokes a finger along the bottom of his sideburns.
You don't answer.
His smile fades and his hand quivers as he sets the razor down on the tray-table next to the mirror. He swallows. "We still need to cut your hair. I'll go get the scissors."
He carries his little metal tray to the door, which opens from the outside. There's an armed guard peering in from the hall. His eyes widen when he sees you. "Er ist wach?"
The door closes, and the light above the mirror dims, then begins to blink, slowly. The pattern is relaxing, and your head feels heavy.
Music plays from somewhere behind you: Bach-a Cantata the doctor favors. He plays it often while he teaches you. The chords guide you back to your last set of lessons. It's important to remember what to do out in the battlefield, when there's no time to hesitate. This is a good time to practice.
There are two hundred and six bones in the human body. Thirty-two of them are ideal breaking points. The ulna, radius and humerus are all easy to twist apart. A broken knee will render most opponents unable to continue fighting. The collarbone only requires seven pounds of pressure to snap. A hard punch from your right arm can deliver over a thousand pounds of pressure per square inch, your left arm can generate three times that much.
A soft hissing noise from your right is followed by a sickly sweet smell. Smoke filters into the room through a vent by the ceiling.
Your eyes fall shut.
There are two hundred and six bones in the human body. Thirty-two of them are ideal breaking points. The elbow is a valuable weapon, it can be used to break the nose, shatter a rib. Sleep pulls at you and you hear a voice calling a name. Maybe it's your name. Maybe it used to be.
You feel yourself falling.
A cool cloth makes your neck tingle. Your hair is wet and cold.
A glint of silver catches your eye. A knife. You reach out and grab your attacker's wrist, pushing down hard on his tendons. The knife clatters down to the floor as the bones in his forearm arm snap under your silver fingers. Ulna. Radius. Snap. Snap.
He makes a keening sound and goes down on one knee. You slam your other hand into his nose, hard, and a burst of red gushes out, dripping down onto his blue coat, the stone floor, onto the knife. Knives. Scissors. A pair of scissors.
"Mein Gott!" shouts a voice from across the room.
You stand, stepping carefully over the puddle of blood, towards the armed man by the door. His eyes are wide and you don't know him. A dark stain spreads across his pants as he watches you approach. Not a threat.
He reaches a shaking hand out towards a button by the door.
You don't stop him.
The light in the room turns red, an alarm sounds, and the vents spew more gas into the room.
***
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"Welcome back."
The room around you comes slowly into focus. Your head throbs, and your veins feel heavy and leaden.
"Three two five…" you say. The numbers are there, floating on the edge of your thoughts. They came to you in the darkness of your sleep before, shining like a beacon. You reach for them again, closing your eyes to see them better.
"What was that, soldier?" asks the doctor.
"Three two five five seven. Sergeant Barnes, Ja-."
"What do those numbers mean?"
"They're- they're my...my number, my--."
"They are nothing. You are nothing." The man sighs from next to your bed. "And do you want to know why you're nothing?"
Confusion makes the throbbing in your head worse and when you try to sit up, you find you can't. Your wrists and ankles are restrained. Cuffed to the bed you're lying on with leather and chain.
"You are nothing, because you don't know your purpose. A purpose that I gave you." The doctor doesn't look well. His skin is tinged a sickly shade of green and his words are interrupted by coughing fits that make his eyes water. "These…cowards. They don't understand how important you are. How can they?"
With some effort, you crane your neck to the side, until you can see the mirror, and the makeshift barber's chair, surrounded by splotches of dried red-brown.
"They expect you to behave like an ordinary man. But there's nothing ordinary about you. Not anymore." He tugs on his collar, as though to loosen it. "You are the fist of Hydra." The doctor shrugs his shoulders, smiling sadly. "In war, there is always collateral damage. And we are, both of us, creatures of war." He brings his hand to his mouth as he coughs again, so hard it makes him double over. When he rights himself, his powder-blue bow tie is dotted with little speckles of red.
You wait for him to finish.
He pulls a small silver key out of his breast-pocket and undoes the small locks on your cuffs.
You sit up and slide back against the wall. The doctor sits down next to you. He looks exhausted.
"They were going to send me along with you, out on the field, you know." He smiles at that. "As punishment."
"For what?" you ask.
"For insisting we give you another chance," the doctor says, sighing. "Of course, our wise leaders agree with me. Your record speaks for itself. Everything we've tasked you with, you've done. Thanks to you, we have eyes and ears in more cities than ever. You are the reason we thrive. And over these next few days, you will remind them of this."
There's an edge to his voice that makes you remember a chair and a vice around your head, the smell of manmade lightning.
"Don't worry," he says. "They won't decommission you. They don't have the authority."
Flashes of silver and blood flit across your brain. Someone tried to attack you and you stopped them. "I was defending myself. I didn't do anything wrong."
"No, you didn't. You were never in any danger. All you did was swat a fly." His eyes meet yours. "The problem is that in so doing, you made the others here doubt your loyalties." His face sours. "You failed us."
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There's a cold lump in your throat and you don't have an answer. Your memories of earlier are grey and muted, but you remember a knife, and blood and the scent of piss and fear. You betrayed them. Your own people. The ones that were counting on you.
The small man sighs and adjusts his glasses."You won't fail us again, will you?"
"No," you say, quick as you can.
"It's not often that men are given more than one second chance, soldier." The doctor smiles. "But I know that you will prove yourself more than worthy." He clasps his hand lightly over yours. "I believe in you."
You watch him struggle to stand and consider helping him for a moment. He leans against the wall, catching his breath, before looking back down at you. "Come with me."
The door opens, and you follow the doctor down the hall, trailed by a dozen men with guns. You don't have to look to know that they're all aimed at you.
At the end of the hall is a room full of shining metal and machines. Men in blue jackets guide you to the chair in the center and strap you in. No locks or chains, just belts of cloth. Your back arches as the hydraulics underneath you shift your body into position.
The doctor leans down next to your ear. "Learn your mission. Complete your mission. Show them that my faith in you is not misplaced."
A black-haired woman wraps a cuff around your right arm. It inflates, tightening. She doesn't look at you, just your arm and the readings on her device. "BP one fifteen over seventy-six. Heart-rate at seventy-five and stable."
"Began calibration," says the doctor.
An iron halo closes around your head and before you can protest, someone's forcing open your jaw. They shove a piece of leather in between your teeth just before the pain sears through you.
***
Your mission is successful.
Both targets are eliminated without the need for collateral damage or cleanup.
The doctor's smile greets you as soon as you enter the debriefing room, and only widens as you deliver your report. A heavily decorated general frowns and stays silent. The only acknowledgement he gives you is a grunt as he leaves the room.
"That was a thank you," the doctor says, chuckling. He walks you back down the hall, but stops along the way, succumbing to another heavy coughing fit. A spatter of blood from his spittle hits the wall. He pulls a handkerchief out of his pocket and tries to wipe it off, but the rough grey walls don't lend themselves to being cleaned.
In the room at the end of the hall, your chair is waiting for you, as are the technicians who fine-tuned your arm before the mission. One of them examines it. The other examines you.
"No damage incurred," says one, and then the other.
"Good." The doctor sits down across from you and slides a needle into your vein. "You've done well, soldier. You deserve a rest."
You taste metal on your tongue and your head feels heavy. Hands grasp your arms and legs, but you're too tired to keep your eyes open. They bring you to a hard curved bed and cover you with a blanket of ice.
***
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The target is slow-moving, unaware he's in any danger at all. You take him down as he's climbing into his limousine. One bullet to the back of the head. The driver gets out, staring anxiously up at the roof of the main building. He doesn't see you, nor does the valet or the screaming woman on the sidewalk. You stay where you are, looking out through the basement window, until the ambulance comes, until they zip up the body-bag.
You deliver your report, note the method of execution, and the confirmation of death. You await further instructions, but they have none, so you walk back to the maintenance room.
The blue-coats inspect your arm thoroughly, opening access panels to check the circuitry underneath. They close you back up and one of them leaves. The other stays behind, polishing your shoulder to a high gleam. He takes a step back, looking at his handiwork and clicks his tongue, satisfied.
"Where is the doctor?" you ask, wondering why nobody's examined the rest of you. They always do. The doctor himself always double-checks your vitals.
"Why, something wrong?" the tech asks.
"No."
Brow furrowed, the man walks across the room and presses a button on the intercom, mutters something into the phone attached to it. "He's on his way." He gives you a sloppy two-finger salute, and leaves the room.
Twenty minutes pass.
The door opens and a man in a white coat enters. The wheels of the blood pressure monitor squeak as he rolls it close to your chair. He wraps the cuff over your upper arm and checks your heartbeat with his stethoscope. "Vitals normal." He straightens and undoes the cuff on your arm. "Did you sustain any injuries?"
"No." There's a prickle of anger brewing in your gut. "Where's the doctor?" you ask again. It's not a hard question. The doctor's always close.
"I'm the doctor," the white-coat says.
"No, you're not."
"Dr. Zola is dead," says a new voice from the door. An older man with a goatee enters. He's dressed in uniform: a general, high-ranking, Russian colors and pips though the cut is different than you remember. "He passed away ten years ago, while you were resting."
The doctor was sick, you remember that much.
"He was very ill." The dark-haired man tilts his head to the side. "Does that trouble you?"
You consider the question and the expected response. "No."
"Recalibration sequence ready," says the white-coat, looking to the general for approval. "Should I charge the magnets?"
"Nyet. His next mission is a related level four target. Current short term memory may be crucial." The general leans down and looks you in the eyes. "We have another mission for you tomorrow. Go to your room and await instructions."
***
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After running through your second round of strength drills, dinner arrives. Three bottles of sweetened, chalky milk. You drink them and sit on your bed, waiting. The lights turn off. A slideshow begins a few seconds later, projected onto the wall across from you.
The first image is a target data-sheet. Ivan Petrovitch, age fifty-six, 110kg, 190cm. Photos of his face, a profile view, shots of him with a mustache, and one without. Skilled in hand-to-hand combat, bad left knee.
The second, third and fourth slide show other incidentals you're authorized to take down. Photos, names, notable skills. None seem like they'll pose a challenge.
The last slide shows a list of Hydra agents to protect. Three of them will be present during your mission, on assignments of their own. They're reinforcements should you need them; you won't, but they're useful for clean-up.
The slideshow restarts.
Eyes on the projected images, you jump straight up and wrap your fingers around the wall-mounted bar next to your bed. Legs up, legs down, center straight, stomach tight. The projector replays the three slides again and again. You time your movements to the switching of images, shins to forehead just as the picture flicks from one to the next.
The projector shuts down some time later, but the lights stay off. You switch from leg raises to twists, bringing your knees to your left, your center, your right and back again. It's not easy to tire yourself out, but you sleep better when your body's exhausted. Tonight, you need sleep. At least three hours.
Sleep used to be easier to come by, you think.
Sweat trickles down your forehead, and the room feels warmer. If you keep going until your limbs start to shake, then you'll feel cold when you stop. Cold helps you sleep.
The front wall lights up again, and a movie starts to play: sorrowful music and narration blaring in through the speakers above you.
"The world is diseased," says the voice, to the image of a broken city. "We live in a corpse filled with maggots and rot." The camera shows images of the dead. Bodies crushed and burned, draped across the rubble.
"There are those who would seek to break it further." The images shift to faces you know to be enemies. Men of power, men in costumes, wearing their countries' banners like armor.
"Nations grown fat with greed hide themselves behind their weapons, and their masked supermen." The image fills with white. A blizzard that gets stronger until it becomes one with the white wall of the room.
"They dwell in an endless summer, while here, we have nothing but our winter."
A single figure stands in the center of the snowy field. A man, or a small tree. Far in the distance is Mount Narodnaya, you recognize its shape, though you're not sure why.
"Winter was for a long time our enemy. It takes from us everything, and gives us nothing."
The music shifts and becomes gentler, more hopeful.
"But we have learned that it is also what makes us strong. We alone know how to endure it, we alone can harness its unforgiving strength."
The camera closes in on a black flag, decorated with the image of a red skull with six curved tentacles.
"Be like our winter. Wait out our enemies, isolate them, end them with silence. Be inevitable and merciless."
You drop to the floor as the movie reel finishes, and begin doing push-ups. Sweat trickles down your forehead, and drips onto the grey floor. You're still not tired.
"The world is diseased," says the voice, to the image of a broken city.
***
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Your target escapes. He escapes because of unexpected interference. Someone else is hunting him. You see her once in the ballroom, and again when your target falls dead while you're lining up your scope.
She took your mission from you. You're furious, and spend the rest of the night following her.
You can't deliver a proper report now. The target is dead, but you don't know by whose hand.
It's difficult to track her, but not impossible. She fades and hides the way you do, but you still see her, flitting along in the shadows; her red hair shines when she passes under a lamp, a lit match in the night.
Her movements become rushed and panicked, she knows you're tailing her. You follow her for over half an hour, keeping your distance. When she makes a run for it across Arbat Street, you take to the roofs, let her think she's lost you.
She delivers her report by phone, in her small, dimly lit motel room, and takes a shower. The window in the bathroom is barely the size of your hand.
The larger kitchen window slides open quietly and you slip inside. The weight of you makes the floorboards creak. You pause, wait for a reaction-but the water doesn't turn off. The woman's quiet singing continues uninterrupted.
There's a chair across from the bathroom door, next to a small table. You sit, set your sidearm down next to you, in clear view, and wait.
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The water shuts off. Seconds later, the door opens and steam billows out, settling like fog in the small bedroom. The woman from the opera house is wrapped in a towel. Her hair is darker auburn now that it's wet; her skin is flushed from the heat of the water, the cold air of the room. She walks right to the bed, doesn't spare a glance for you or your gun. She lifts her towel up to dry her hair, keeps her back turned to you as she dresses. When she turns around, the black of her bra shows through her pale undershirt.
You watch her eyes for pupil dilation, her throat for rapid swallows. She isn't nearly as nervous as she should be.
She crosses the room, stands across from you, hand resting lightly on the table. A drop of water drips from a strand of her hair and lands near your arm. You smell cinnamon.
Her mouth curves into a smile as she steps closer. "When I said I liked the thrill of the chase, this wasn't really what I had in mind." Her fingertips nudge your gun across the table. Out of sight, not out of reach. She straddles you, wraps her arms slowly around your neck and leans in close. "It's been years, you son of a bitch," she whispers into your ear. "Where were you?"
For a moment, you wonder if this is more than a blatant attempt at distraction. She sounds genuine, and bizarrely, she seems…almost happy to see you. Her teeth graze your neck and her breath feels hot against your skin.
"Ivan Petrovitch was my target," you say. "Who sent you?"
She pulls back and watches you curiously, like she's waiting for something.
Her hand hasn't moved towards your gun, and her pulse is steady. Either she really isn't afraid of you or she's remarkably good at hiding her intentions.
"Who sent you?" you ask again.
She brings a fingertip to your lips, and smiles as she shifts her hips, pressing her body against yours. Gently, like she's afraid she'll spook you, she traces her fingers up to your cheek, leans forward and kisses you.
You bring your right hand under her shirt to the small of her back, feel her damp skin. The scent of her is distressingly familiar. In the back of your brain there's a film-reel playing. It's charred and torn, missing everything but a few bright moments. Her proud smile, her foot crashing into your chest, her laugh as the two of you tumble onto a bed. Her hair smells like cinnamon, and you remember kissing her--remember her on top of you, remember her moaning as a train whistle sounds. Memories-- disjointed and incomplete. You can't place them; you can't place her.
The cool barrel of a gun pushes against the side of your head.
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"Nobody sent me," she says, pulling away. Her eyes hold none of the warmth they did before. "I heard you were around. Felt like saying hi."
It would be easy to throw her off and take the gun, but you're just as tempted to wrap your silver fingers around her throat. You do neither. "This is how you say hi?"
She cocks her head to the side, smiles sadly. "Safer this way. Especially when I don't know who's going to answer." Finally, there's a hint of the fear you expected, mixed with something else: hope, or maybe disappointment. She knew you once, or thinks she did.
You slide your hand down to her hip. "Who are you?"
"Who are you?"
The question should be easy to answer. But it isn't.
Her face shifts--a flicker of pity before her eyes go cold. The memory of her rattles in your head, trapped in an echo chamber. Her scent, the feel of her skin, her teeth against your throat, your lips on hers. You knew her, but you don't know her name. You don't know your name. You don't have a name. You can't answer her question.
It makes you angry.
She notices, but not quickly enough. You shove your metal shoulder into her, hard enough to knock her off balance. She catches herself quickly, rolling into a crouch, gun aimed directly at your head.
You stand but stay where you are--arms down, vulnerable, an easy target. Your mission was a failure. When you deliver your report, you won't have an answer. You don't know her name. "Who are you?" you ask again.
"Doesn't matter." She swallows, eyes glassy. "They'll know you saw me, and you won't remember."
The mission was a failure. Of course they know. There were others at the opera-house and they've surely delivered their reports by now. Your mouth goes dry, and fury clenches in your chest. You don't fail. You can't fail.
"Why did you kill Ivan Petrovitch?" you ask one last time, as you lower your hand to your belt, fingers hovering over the hilt of your small knife.
She opens her mouth, anger flashing across her features for little more than a second, but she catches herself, takes a deep breath. "I had my reasons."
Without breaking eye contact, you draw your arm back and let the blade fly. It grazes her shoulder, just barely, as she lunges behind the bed.
Metal arm bent slightly, you take a step towards her, ready to block if she decides to shoot you.
But when she reappears, she isn't holding your gun. She's wearing two large brown cuffs on her forearms. Without meeting your eyes, she flicks her wrist straight out.
Something small and round hurtles towards you, but you dodge it easily. It lands two feet away--a small silver ball, the size of an marble. There's a soft hiss and it cracks open, right down the middle. A purple-pink haze spills out of it, and the air smells sickly-sweet. You dash forwards, headed for the bed, headed for your gun, for the woman who brings her hand to her left wrist and squeezes. A slim projectile shoots out of the cuff. You dodge, but not far enough. It hits you in the thigh and burns going in.
Yellow tints your vision and your jaw locks up, your legs give out. The warped floor rushes up to meet you.
With the last of your strength you push yourself up with your left arm. The room spins as you turn your head, just in time to see the woman's legs disappear out the window.
***
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When you wake up, the sun is high in the sky. The curtain billows in and out and the noise of the people below drifts up to you. Your gun is peeking out from under the bed, and your knife is stuck to the table, piercing a small piece of paper. The pressure in your head is unpleasant, and only gets worse when you stand. You holster your gun, retrieve your knife and read the note, printed in neat letters. Two words: "Красный зал." Red Room.
The pressure in your head grows and you bite back a wince as you pull the dart out of your thigh. It's tip is long, thin and barbed; it sinks teeth into your flesh as you pull it out.
"Spider bites," she whispers in your mind. "Always hurt more the morning after."
You slam your left hand against the wall in anger, leaving a sizable dent.
***
"Why didn't you report back after your mission failed?" the captain asks for the third time.
You give him the same answer again: "I was in pursuit of the shooter."
"But you don't have a good enough visual to share with us."
"It was dark."
"According to our rather extensive records, you've taken out targets in extremely low-light environments over a dozen times." The man stands, pacing the short length of the room. A trickle of sweat runs down his brow. He's nervous. "How did you lose track of the shooter?"
"They knew the territory."
"So do you!" snarls the captain.
The door opens, and the general enters. "Enough, капитан."
The captain stands at attention and salutes.
"Failure or not, Ivan Petrovitch is dead," says the general, addressing you. "We have another assignment for you. Report to the maintenance room for treatment."
You stand and walk to the door. The captain glares at you as you pass.
***
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***
The maintenance room has three men in lab-coats. One of them inspects your arm, another takes your vitals, while the third checks things off on a clipboard.
"How long?" asks the general from the door. The man studying your arm stiffens at the question and raises his head. "Three minutes, sir."
The general walks closer, arms folded behind his back and comes to stand across from you. "Full recording before deletion."
"Yes, sir," says the technician.
"Where did this come from?" The general asks, pressing a finger against your thigh, less than a centimeter from the dart wound.
"A poison dart."
"Yes, you stated that in your report." He frowns. "The shooter got close enough to you to do this but you didn't see their face?"
You stay silent, remembering the scent of cinnamon, and her smile. You focus on those two things, make them solid, carve them into marble so they won't fade away. There's a lockbox in the back of your mind--rusted iron and painted pale blue. You unlock it, add the woman's smile and the smell of her hair to everything else inside that little box: the scent of tomato vines, the crooked but perfect yellow house, the memory of a man's voice-he calls you Buck and he sounds like home, and oh how you wish that name belonged to you.
With as much force of will as you can muster, you slam shut the lid of the box. Only then do you meet the general's eyes. "No, I didn't."
Two of the lab-coats move to your side and strap you to the chair. You know what's coming, and brace for the feel of cold metal against your head, the inevitable pain about to arc through your brain. You know what's coming, and you clench your eyes shut. You focus on snow, on the cold of ice, of the feeling you have when you hit your mark. You don't think about the lockbox, or what's inside.
The metal vice closes around your head and your heart thuds in your chest, but the expected pain doesn't come. Instead there's a prick in your forearm, the sting of a needle. Something warm floods your veins and your face goes slack. Pentothal. You try to think of snow, of ice, but you can't. Your thoughts drift, free-floating and you feel yourself unspooling.
"Who was the shooter?" the general asks.
"I don't know," you hear yourself say from the other end of a long tunnel. "A woman."
"What did she look like?"
"Beautiful. Red hair. Moved like a dancer.
"Did she recognize you?"
"Yes."
"What did she tell you?"
They pull the words out of you like fishermen, reeling in one detail after another. "Red room," you finish, and you smell cinnamon. The pain arcs across your temples and you scream yourself empty.
***
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***
Your targets are enemies of the general, enemies of Hydra. Politicians, dictators, dignitaries. Men of war, men of peace. Priests and predators. Who they are doesn't matter in the end. They're easy to find, easy to isolate, and easy to kill.
You move silently and aim true.
No one sees you, because you don't exist. You're no longer a man, you are intent made flesh, the bullet in a gun, the garotte around a slender throat. You kill because you kill. And when those memories of home and tomato vines, of soft skin and cinnamon hair threaten to resurface, you bury them deep in a endless field of white. Because they don't belong to you. They never did.
After you take down your targets, you rest. Your bed is a metal capsule, and ice is your blanket, and you know what it is to be winter.
Your dreams are as empty as your little white room.
***
Strong gusts of wind scatter sand in the air, against your goggles, leaving grains behind on your sweaty skin. You take shelter behind an outcropping of rock and pull your goggles up just in time to see the jeep climb over the hill.
Your target is inside. You can feel it, even before you see him and his escort. You line up your rifle scope, and watch the vehicle start to decelerate as it approaches. There's a hairpin turn straight ahead. You take out the left front tire first, then the rear. The driver tries to compensate, but they're too close to the cliff, still moving too fast.
Metal screeches as the thinned tires scrape against the stone road. You leave your hiding spot and walk towards them, rifle at the ready, in case they jump out of the car.
They don't.
The jeep careens over the edge; metal clatters and thunks as it hits the ground below. It's a forty foot drop down the gorge, maybe forty-five. You holster your rifle and jump straight down, landing a few meters away from the overturned vehicle. It's lying on its side, crumpled but mostly intact.
Handgun at the ready, you watch the wreckage. A woman's head peeks out of the driver's side window for less than a second before withdrawing again. You target the fuel tank and fire. Liquid dribbles out onto the sand below.
With a loud thump, the driver's side door flies open. Moments later, the woman pushes herself up, sitting on the doorframe. She doesn't spare you another glance, but reaches down and drags an older man, the nuclear engineer, your target, out of the jeep with her.
They slide down the front of the car, clumsily. She tries to help him stand but he's too unsteady. They only make it a few steps before he falls to his knees. Her shoulders hitch and she turns to look at you over her shoulder.
You lower your gun, wait for her next move.
She turns slowly, putting herself between you and your target. The engineer's shoulders are slumped against her hips.
"Stop," she says, hands held up, palms open. A trickle of blood runs down her wrist from a gash in her right hand. Her sidearm is in clear view, but she hasn't made a move for it yet. "Don't do this."
You raise your gun. The target's head is directly behind her stomach.
"No!" she snarls, and now she reaches for her sidearm.
You take aim and shoot. The armor piercing round slices through her side hitting her intestines or kidney, possibly both. Her face distorts in pain and shock and for a moment you see betrayal flash across your face--directed at you or the frailty of her own body. It doesn't matter. Behind her, the engineer slumps to the ground, one neat hole between his eyes.
She fires two shots: one grazes your shoulder, the other misses you entirely. You move closer, gun drawn. The engineer may have been carrying notes, and if he was, you're required to bring them back.
"Help," says the woman when you pause in front of her. There's blood running through her fingers, and her skin looks waxy and white, lips rose-red slick. "Please, Зима." Her voice is paper-thin, and she falls silent with a push from your boot, right on her wound. Her eyes stay open and you watch her life start to flicker away.
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I love this piece so much, it's like we can feel the Winter Soldier being constructed out of the rubble of Bucky Barnes. I love the hints at his relationship with Natasha, his confusion when the memories of home don't line up with the memories they tell him he has.
And I'm so happy to find you writing here! The Winter Soldier is such a interesting character, and he seems right up your alley in so many ways. Can't wait to read more.
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He really is.
And I'm so happy to find you writing here!
It was inevitable really. I just thought it'd be Banner that brought me to Marvel fandom, being a lifelong Banner-fan, but lo it was Bucky ; )
There's more coming for sure - I'm crossposting on AO3 too
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continued here
this most recent chapter is 4500 words, too long to split up here easily- also, please note this chapter contains graphic body horror, sleep paralysis and hallucinations
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new chapter here
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