Chapter Text
The disassembled parts of a rifle lie on the table in front of The Soldier. Two heavily armed handlers look between themselves uneasily.
The left, a strong man with dark features; the right, a taller man with white hair. They laugh when they first meet him. A part of him knows all of his handlers are disappointed he is not more intimidating.
The Soldier does not understand. The target is always afraid.
These men are not targets. They are his handlers. They should not be afraid. The Soldier lets his mouth twist upwards at the corner. It is what people do when they are content, so surely it will put his handlers at ease.
The white-haired handler on the right is not good at regulating his outward expression of emotion. His eyes widen. Foolish to let him see such an evident display of fear.
The other’s hands drift towards the gun at his hip. They are equipped with thick, black body armor that aims to prevent injury in case the Soldier gets volatile. It is made of a synthetic, plaster style knit, so it is meant to resist sharp objects and bullets. If they are wearing this gear, they prepared for the Soldier to be volatile. Given the way their hearts beat faster, they expect it.
The white-haired handler visibly gathers his courage and draws his gun. There will be a penalty if he fires it. He is right handed and holds the gun easily. He is experienced. “What are you doing?” He speaks in Russian.
Questions are not meant to be answered. He does not change his expression, as that will be considered an answer.
His dark-featured partner lets out his breath and appears to relax. “Don’t worry, it doesn’t know what it’s doing.”
“You’re right.” The white haired handler must take that as a provocation, for he comes around the table and nudges the Soldier’s side with the barrel of his gun. Probability he will shoot: 30%, decreased by threat of severe repercussions if the Soldier is damaged. “Hell, we could do anything to it, couldn’t we? And it wouldn’t even move.”
The other handler is more cautious and clearly more intelligent. “Michail, we have a task to complete.”
Michail puts the gun to the Soldier’s temple and turns off the safety.
A shot would be lethal on any normal person, but he has a high probability of surviving. The Soldier does not acknowledge the gun. He cannot say with certainty, but a gunshot wound is among the lesser pain he has experienced.
Michail laughs, then steps back. “Later, maybe.” He joins his partner at the other side of the table, raising his arm to gesture at the disassembled rifle. “What is this?”
The Soldier does not respond. Perhaps this question is meant to be answered, but he remains silent. Let them punish him and ruin his conditioning. That will go over well.
Michail and the other handler exchange a look of amusement. There is a long pause, but the Soldier is used to silence.
“Do you know what this is?” The other handler repeats.
Again, the Soldier does not respond, and he has to wonder if they truly mean to trick him. Even so, it is better to let them underestimate him. Let them think he is unaware.
The handlers are amused, and Michail is the first to break into laughter. “Still think I’m wrong, Boris? It’s stupid.”
Boris joins his laughing. “To forget this? That’s pretty bad.”
“Maybe the shocks finally did it in, after all these years.” Boris nudges at the rifle, snickering. “What did it finally get with this thing?”
“Around 200 confirmed kills.” Michail shoots a grin at Boris. “Still counting.”
The Soldier stays silent.
Listening.
“If it remembers how to shoot it.” Boris picks up the scope of the rifle and sets it down again. It is a nervous tick. Despite their ongoing laughter, it seems the joke is getting old. Fear creeps back into his voice. “What if it doesn’t know how to shoot it?”
Michail grins again. It is an unpleasant sight. “Then we can shoot it.”
The Soldier is kept unaware. He completes missions efficiently. He is valuable to his handlers. He has the skills to blend into any group of people. He is being mocked.
He knows what a rifle is. He knows how to shoot one. They are surrounded by 4 concrete walls and metal equipment, but the Soldier remembers pine trees and snow.
He remembers the feeling of annoyance at the right handed grip. And although there is no fire, the Soldier smells smoke. He hears laughter that is different than the scornful sounds the handlers are making. He is warm in a way he does not remember ever experiencing. But even he knows these glimpses do not say much.
“Assemble the weapon,” Boris orders—at last—but it is half-hearted at best. He has picked up Michail’s thirst for blood. He does not seem to care what he does. Either way it works out for him.
The Soldier puts the rifle together with practiced ease, and smiles again at Boris and Michail. Out of stupidity or ignorance, they are significantly less afraid than they should be.
There are girls.
They are threatened with their death if they fail. The 5 remaining girls do not want to fail. From the way they set their jaws when they are reminded of their slim numbers, they are familiar with the consequences. The Soldier does not want to fail either.
He is to fight and evaluate each of them. Their task is to last a minute. Rather than being disheartened by this fact, they seem hardened to it. This is not an unfamiliar command to the girls, even if it is for The Soldier.
The first: a small, dark skinned girl fights cleverly.
Before she moves, he knows this. It is true enough. She punches and kicks in the soft areas of the human body, and punctuates them with jabs at his joints.
She is stronger than he thought she would be, and it costs him a direct jab to his throat. She uses her size as an advantage and floats around him like the wind in the never ending snowstorms. She lasts 46 seconds, and glares when he has her pinned.
The girls’ handler lets out a soft whistle, and The Soldier releases her. The fight is over.
The second: light haired, tall, but not lanky.
This one is vicious. He can admire it, even as she fights like a hale storm. She immediately undertakes offensive maneuver after offensive trick, but he knows how to fight like this. He doges more than blocks, and she gets frustrated quickly.
She telegraphs a sweeping kick that leaves her vulnerable. When the Soldier has an elbow to her throat 33 seconds in, she is still kicking and fuming.
The third: her eyes are dark, too but with no possibility of warmth.
She fights with a ferocity that is familiar to him. It matches his own. Her movements are just as smooth and just as graceful as his; they are only interrupted with the crushing fear of failing.
He is not invulnerable to it, either, but he has much more experience overcoming it. There are the traces of panic in her eyes as he pins her in 38 seconds.
The fourth: a girl with dark eyes and black hair. For a second it flashes. She is younger. And laughing before her instructor slaps her across the face for it.
Then, she is someone else entirely, but the laughs are the same; this new girl is laughing because he is dancing with her standing on his feet. She is somehow connected to him. There is music.
He is getting distracted.
He does not remember fighting this one, but it takes 49 seconds.
The fifth: red haired with analyzing eyes. This one has seen him fight already, but he has already fought them all. He has even—getting distracted.
The redhead grins as she ducks under his first blow, like she knows what he is thinking. How can she when even he has—is getting kicked in the face.
The blow disorients him for a moment too long, but that is all she needs. She swings up to his shoulders and wraps her legs around his throat. She is strong, and even with his enhancements, a position like this makes him vulnerable.
He rolls to the ground and traps her under him, jolting her spine. It weakens her hold on him for a second—all he needs, too.
He pins her in 57 seconds.
As with the others, he waits for the soft whistle of the leader of the girls’ handlers. Neither he nor the girl moves until she gives them leave to. An imposing woman, with stern black hair in a severe bun.
Her voice has always been calm with the certainty that she is rarely disappointed; and those who dare do it only once.
The whistle does not come.
The timer keeps ticking.
The girl does not telegraph her movements until the instant she flips them. Before he knows it, she has him pinned, locking him firmly in place to the floor. It is the first time she has ever beaten him.
The split second before he does the same is interrupted by the telltale sound of the whistle. She taps one finger from where it rests around his neck; an apology.
She rises smoothly, and her confidence isn’t forced this time. She joins the others. They look at her with begrudging respect. They are competitors, but they are also sisters in all but blood.
The Soldier stands at attention as the ever-changing team of handlers review the girls’ performances. They are different. Their team was different the last time…
The girls were different too last time. They were younger. They were the same age as the girl he saw, the one with the carefree laughter that was allowed to ring joyously throughout their home. Encouraged, even. It was joined by an equally happy one—deeper. Closer.
His.
But there has never been a time when he has been allowed to laugh.
His voice is not meant for that, if it is to be heard at all. He does not even know if his voice is capable of making that sound. Whoever the girl is, her laughter does not belong in a place like this, where the only girls here have never been allowed laughter, either.
“We predicted you would fail this task.” The woman stands in front of the girls, who manage to hide their expressions. “You met our expectation when you were supposed to surpass them.
She glides to stand in front of the red haired girl. “Even you. You have been taught to wait for orders. I will not repeat the lesson. Do you understand?”
The redhead nods almost imperceptibly. But it satisfies the woman, so she moves along to the others. She documents where each girl went wrong. The team of handlers debate their punishments while the girls stand. Still, as always. Waiting.
His own handlers take him from the room—probably for his own lecture on where he failed today. It is regrettable he has to leave before he learns what will happen to them. Even if he does not remember...he would have liked to know.
And if there is a girl somewhere who could keep her joy...he hopes she laughs as hard and as long and as much as she can.
The Soldier is not given explanations for his missions. They keep things from him that would distract from his mission. All that matters is the completion of his mission. There are others with different missions who handle what happens after. Who decides what missions he completes.
He knows these as facts. But he is not supposed to care.
But—
He is not supposed to care.
The Soldier is tasked with setting off bombs that will take out a visiting politician and the noncombatants around him. It is known that the target is a man of military experience, and is believed to be paranoid.
But despite how the mission parameters change every time, there is one constant: he is a ghost. He has never met another one, but they must be able to shift forms, because this is what he does.
After a day of surveillance, he walks into the building with his nutrient shake in a paper coffee cup and a general weariness for the world. He has a small bag, seemingly for his break later on in his shift. He is dressed in similar clothing to the nurses, a bright blue set of scrubs, long white coat, and a pair of purple synthetic gloves. All together, it does a good job.
Ye, it is uncomfortable to be in such clothes. In his experience, nurses and doctors and scientists mean pain.
The stolen key card and spare lanyard decorated with cartoon characters give him enough of an appearance of personality to avoid suspicion. It is a nice touch, and pays off when another nurse smiles a little at the sight of it.
She does not even consider that he is a deadly assassin hiding a metal arm. And who would, when he shyly approaches the desk nurse. Of course, his handlers had not given him a layout of the building in the mission brief, and there is only so much discernible from the outside.
“I hope I’m not bothering you,” he says, easily. His accent is indiscernible. He taps his fingers against his cup out of apparent nerves. “But I’m a new transfer, and I can’t seem to find my way around, yet. Where’s the South Ward?”
The desk nurse, a man with dark hair and glasses, laughs good naturally. It is nice, one that is unapologetic. “Oh, I know, it confused me for months. But I’m sure a man like yourself will be finding your way in no time.”
Instinctively, he smiles as the other man looks him up and down deliberately. He raises his eyebrows over his cup. “I don’t know, I might need help finding a way home, later.”
“I might just be your guy.”
He lets the moment draw out, then makes a show of regret. “But really, I shouldn’t be late today.”
“You’ll hit the South Ward if you follow that hallway there,” the man says, understanding. “Good luck,” he says.
Saluting him with his coffee cup, he makes his way to the ward. It tastes better in this cup than the horrible bags he is usually given. But on this mission, his handlers value secrecy over micromanaging. So long as he remains on schedule, he has no oversight.
It is a rarity. His handlers dropped him off at the edges of the city, where he found his way to the hospital and set up a makeshift base across the street. There, he observed the staff so that he could better infiltrate it and ensure the politician was where he needed to be. He has stayed on task—but there is a thrill in carrying the nutrient shake in a cup and drinking it as he pleases. The previous night, he even allowed himself 4 full sleep cycles.
He plants the explosives with ease, hiding them in the vents. He can remotely deploy them. The Soldier has already done the calculations so that structural collapse is inevitable. The entire wing will collapse, as per the mission directive. No one questions his movements, and he hides inside supply closets if it is a close call.
Finally, he finishes. He prepares to leave.
As far as he can tell, the hospital is nice, if under supplied. But he is almost positive most hospitals are. It is certainly brightly decorated, with simple murals of bees, flowers, and plenty of bright colors. As he gets closer to the South Ward, he notices that it is because the occupants are children, so the murals are an attempt to calm them.
This is a children’s hospital.
He does not realize he has stopped until suddenly, a woman’s hand touches his arm. He jolts aware and barely restrains himself from striking her. She does not notice. “Please, what can I do for him?”
“Excuse me, ma’am?” He replies in the same language.
She gestures inside the hospital room, where a small, sickly boy lies in the bed, “He has a horrible fever. We can’t seem to get him comfortable, he keeps shifting and trying to take out the IV.”
“Is he dreaming?” He asks. He does not know why—the only medical knowledge he has is from torturing.
“Yes!” The woman looks relieved he might have a solution.
He would like to know what his solution is, as well. He leans into the room to get a better look at the boy. Sure enough, he is fidgeting. He is small-framed with black hair. But for a second...it’s a boy with blond hair. “Try telling him stories. It should let him imagine those in his dreams instead of whatever he’s seeing.”
She takes his right hand in both of hers. “Thank you,” she says earnestly.
“Of course, ma’am.”
She goes back inside to her son, but the Soldier stays in the hallway. To avoid suspicion, he picks up a random clipboard outside the room and appears to be examine it. But inside, his mind is reeling.
His mind is not supposed to be reeling. He has completed the mission prep. All he has to do is lead the politician inside the ward, then ignite the explosives.
And the entire wing will collapse, killing all those inside. There are children inside.
The Soldier hesitates. He has never hesitated before. Hesitation is deadly.
Nevertheless, he hesitates.
He makes his way back to the front desk, and is pleased to find the same nurse on duty. The man’s face brightens considerably when he sees him. The Soldier forces himself to do the same, so he lets his face soften and his mouth curl into a smile.
“Did you find your way alright?”
“Just as you said,” the Soldier relaxes his stance so he is leaning on the desk. “Can you help me out again?”
The man’s eyes crinkle at the corner. He is amused. “What do you need?”
“How many patients are in the Southern children’s ward?”
The man leans blinks in surprise. “Oh, well, those are our long term care patients. I would say around 30 at any given time?”
The Soldier makes a show out of considering saying more, then letting the subject drop. “It’s probably nothing. I’m probably just paranoid.”
“No, what is it?” The man leans forward. “It’s better to be safe than sorry.”
“Well,” he shakes his head, as if he's uncertain. “I just smelled gas while I was in there. Does it normally do that? I don’t know, maybe I’m just not used to it yet.”
He knows the moment it sinks in, because the man’s attractive eyes widen. “No, that’s serious. Where?”
“It was strongest towards the end of the wing, only when I went to the other floors, it was still there. Maybe the gas line is connected to the entire side of the building?”
It is, he has the utility lines of the building memorized.
The Soldier can tell when the man pushes down his rising panic in favor of making a plan. He is stronger than many of the operatives he has worked with. “We have to move the kids from the wing,” he says calmly. “I’ll make some calls after to check it out.”
They won’t need one. But...he can not be known to move the children. He is already going to get into trouble for not preventing something like this, let alone causing it.
He shuffles his feet. “Listen, I want to help, but I can’t get fired on my first day.”
The man nods, but clearly loses respect for him. He does not like it, but the Soldier can deal with a loss of respect. The man looks down for a moment, steeling himself, before standing up. “I understand, I’ll take care of it.”
The Soldier nods, and before he knows it, he’s reaching out to the other man. He places his right hand on his arm. “You’re very brave, you know that?’
The man’s shy smile is the most beautiful thing he has ever seen. “You were right to bring this to me. I’ll see you around?”
For a moment, the Soldier indulged himself in the possibility of doing just that. He would work here, take care of patients, make sure kids could go home healthy. It is a nice life for someone. “Yeah, I’ll see you around.”
The Soldier slips out a side door, just another tired nurse at the end of his shift, and returns to his makeshift base. He changes into a suit and thin gloves, does his hair, and puts brown contacts in his eyes. To the world, he appears as a perfectly unnoticeable security guard.
He slips back to the hospital as the other security guards are arriving. The politician had sent five of them ahead of time, and the Soldier claims to have been sent even before then. When delivered with an eye roll, the guards do not question it.
As they wait for his arrival, he listens to his guards grumble about how the politician never even fought in the war—just stayed all high ranked and protected while the rest of them did the bleeding and got a job in politics for it. He catches one wondering why they are even here. After all, who would attack a hospital?
The Soldier nods along in agreement.
Despite their complaints, they come to attention as the politician emerges from a black car. Following him is a team of reporters and public relations officials. The politician's predatory look is so familiar, the Soldier almost mistakes him for a handler when he looks over all of them approvingly. He enters the hospital and they flank him. The Soldier manages to get a position at his left. He enters, and is apparently disappointed by the lack of fanfare he receives.
“Why is everyone in an uproar?”
“They think there’s a gas leak in the children’s wing,” the Soldier leans in to whisper. “They’re moving them out.”
“Ah, that explains it,” he says. He looks around and evidently decides to wait for someone to attend to him in the meantime.
The guard at the politician’s right hears him, as intended. “Are they alright?”
“They’re doing their best,” the Soldier says suggestively. “But they’re understaffed as it is.”
One of the other guards speaks up. “They could probably use our help.”
To no one’s surprise, the politician is unconvinced. That is, until a photographer leans in to whisper, “It would be a much better article if you were seen helping.”
In the end, that is what surges him into action. Suddenly, it is the only option. “Of course they need our help!”
So the team of guards, media people, the politician, and the Soldier make their way to the South Wing. A dozen nurses transporting the patients out, and the politician makes sure to be seen assisting, berating his team for not helping as well.
They are only helping a short while when it is finished.
“Should we do a final sweep?” the Soldier asks. "To make sure no one was missed?"
“That’s exactly what I was going to suggest!” The politician says. He points to the Soldier. “You, with me. The rest of you, why don’t you make yourselves useful and help the patients settle in?”
The nurses are already doing just that quite competently, so the others make themselves scarce. Perfect.
“Can you believe them?” The politician asks, incredulous.
They lock the doors behind them and do their final sweep. The Soldier makes sure to hurry along any who seem to be taking their time. When they’re finished, the politician insists on doing it again. Just to be sure. The Soldier can not help but agree to it.
“Well, we’ve done all we can do here.” He turns to face the Soldier, only to find him gone.
The Soldier watches from a distance as the South Wing of the hospital explodes, causing structural damage along the entire cleared wing. Other than the explosives he laid, it does look like a gas explosion.
No other parts of the building are affected. The Soldier waits for extraction, and tries not to dread the coming punishment.
Guards rant. Handlers talk. Technicians grumble. Given the frequency, it is easy to forget that the Soldier has ears.
He uses this.
The mission briefings are just that—brief. They leave critical information out. Whether it is intentional or not, the lack of information is likely to get someone killed.
So he listens. And while not so brief, he learns a hell of a lot more.
His target is an innovative engineer who had gone to SHIELD, an organization that opposes Hydra. She had worked with the Soldier before, and many of the guards think he will recognize her. Some even theorize he will defect with her. It was apparently a shame to lose her services, because she developed some of their most valuable weapons, including his arm upgrades.
The mission briefing told him she was “intellectually valuable, but without combat experience: eliminate.” The mission briefing is always brief.
But the Soldier is loyal to Hydra. They value him. His services are needed.
The Soldier will not defect.
He is supervised on this mission. It is not hard to guess why. They also spend most of their time playing poker, so it is unlikely they pose a significant threat—if he were to defect.
They are in a hotel room 1200 yards from the target’s home with clear visuals. After conducting through surveillance on her activities, he lines up a shot. Through the scope, he finds that he does recognize her.
She was the engineer who encouraged the guards into beating him because her superiors did not give her the opportunity to test his strength. She encouraged him to lash out so she could observe her inventions. She was fascinated by his reactions to the punishment. She cooed over him as she implanted drug capsules into his arm, prodded him while they released paralyzing chemicals into his spine. Smiled as she implanted the pain inducing chemical capsules
He makes a clean shot through her window, landing the bullet between her eyes. It was certainly more mercy than she ever gave him.
The handlers ask him questions after the mission report. They ask him what she looked like, and he describes her: black hair, tall frame, and a low level threat. They ask him more questions, attempting to make him admit he recognized her, or that he was tempted to run.
They are not satisfied with his answers, because they start torturing him.
They do not trust him.
A part of the Soldier realizes that while he is loyal to Hydra, they do not feel the same. Loyalty is mutual.
How does he know this?
There were fires. Not the ones they apply to his skin, but others.
These made him warm from the inside.
There were men huddled around the fire, and they were all making fun of their commander, a blond man with a heart the size of his will to fight: fucking huge. All of them followed this man. His sense of justice was unwavering, and they all knew that this man would fight for them, too.
Hell, he did every chance he got to, and always has.
That was loyalty: fighting for each other. Trusting each other.
This—his unquestioning allegiance to those who did not return it and punished him for their doubts—was a mockery.