Chapter Text
When I was a kid, I used to be afraid to go to sleep. Apparently that’s common, only most children were afraid to sleep because of the monster under their bed or the boogeyman in their closet. I was afraid of my dreams.
They weren’t necessarily nightmares in the ‘Michael Myers chasing you with a knife down the street’ type way. I just began to notice that sometimes I’d go to sleep, dream, and wake up with the hazy memory of my dream, and sometimes I’d go to sleep, or think I did, and live a waking nightmare until morning.
As a five-year-old having the later type dreams, I’d usually find a place to hide until it was over. And the entire time I’d squeeze my eyes shut and think, “Just wake up, just wake up.” The older I got the more frequent the nightmares became, but with age I developed curiosity. When I discovered I could actually control certain elements, like scenery, other people, myself, in the nightmares – power you could only dream of having in reality – I did whatever I could to induce them.
Turns out what I was doing was lucid dreaming, and it was all fun and games until I went so deep into it that I…well, it was kind of like a lucid dream meets an out of body experience and occurs in a place that doesn’t exist in this dimension.
I remember the night well. My parents and I went back to Romania for Christmas, to our hometown of Constanta. I was almost eighteen, almost ready to graduate high school back in Haverstraw, New York. We originally left Romania for New York when I was two, and with it we left our traditions. I grew up in America, we lived like Americans. I can’t even speak Romanian fluently. I can get by, because my parents speak it a lot, but I was just fine with English the older I got.
Anyway, we’re in Constanta. My parents mingled with all of their old friends and introduced me to people I had no recollection of while I was showered with praises of becoming a beautiful young lady, and then pestered with questions of when I’ll find a man and get married. When I said I didn’t know, the women came back with a ton of basil and forced me to take it, all while gabbing about boboteaza. I accepted the basil with an awkward smile and then later buried it all in the snow under a bush when I was alone.
We stayed at my uncle’s house. On Christmas Eve we helped his extremely large family decorate the Christmas tree, and after we gorged ourselves on roast gammon and pork chops made from a freshly killed pig. That night I slept on the floor in the girls’ room, tired but not comfortable enough to sleep. Finally, I forced myself to doze off, only I jerked awake what felt like moments later and found myself in the scariest place I’ve ever been.
I thought my brain was working overtime coming up with this scene for me to manipulate. Or maybe it was all the rich food we had for dinner. Either way, I wasn’t in Kansas anymore. Have you ever seen the opening theme of The Twilight Zone? Well, this place looked like what that would be if it were in deep colors surrounded by infinite darkness, accompanied by the same creepiness. Just…nothing earthly.
There were other people in this place. But not all of them could be classified as people. Alien, if you will, but with something human about them. I noticed right away that I couldn’t control them like I could in my other dreams. Suddenly, I had the feeling I was trespassing somehow.
Then one approached me. It was more human-looking than most of the others. I couldn’t move as it advanced, though. I couldn’t make them stay away, I couldn’t wake up. I had no control and it scared me.
“Welcome to the Dream Dimension,” it said. It was more fluid than I noticed from a distance. Once I looked at my own hands I realized I had the same appearance, as if our bodies weren’t here but our brains tried to pretend they were anyway.
“What is this place?” I asked.
“An astral realm. A dimension linked to and shaped by humanity’s collective psyche.”
“What can I do here?”
It smiled. “Anything your mind wants.”
“It’s not like my other dreams. I don’t have the same abilities.”
“This isn’t a dream. It’s a place you travel to through dreams. All the entities you see here aren’t figments of your imagination. They are the psychic representation of their corporeal form.”
“How is this possible?”
“The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human ambition,” it said with a smirk before wandering off.
The infinite vastness of that place left me feeling small and insignificant. Then I thought, if we were all real people’s psyches here, that meant I was way beyond lucid dreaming and I somehow accessed a place beyond reality.
It scared the crap out of me.
I wanted to wake up. Immediately. I tried and failed, and that only made me more worried. I attempted to ask other beings around me how I could get out of here but I couldn’t seem to make contact. I got so irritated with not being in control, not being able to gather the information I needed. If I can do whatever my mind wants, why can’t I simply do it?
That’s when it hit me. If they won’t tell me, I’ll just take it from them. With my mind. Since that’s the only thing I can control, apparently. I found a space rock to sit on and tried to envision what it would take to access someone else’s thoughts, and then made my mind do just that. And it worked. After a while.
Quickly I realized I couldn’t wake up because in here I wasn’t asleep. I was awake, and I arrived at this place awake, so I needed to leave. In immeasurable space there really isn’t a door labeled EXIT, so I imagined a crack in time, a hole in a dimension, and forced myself out.
I woke up drenched in sweat and breathing hard. Much like I did just now, twelve years later.
Beyond the drapes in the bedroom area of my studio apartment is darkness. I roll over and reach for my phone on the nightstand. Sixteen minutes until my alarm. Not worth it to try to grab just a few more minutes’ sleep. Reluctantly I roll out of bed with a groan and rub my face.
I’ve been a S.H.I.E.L.D. field agent for just over a year. Right after a gigantic portal opened up over New York City and dumped out hundreds of space orcs and gigantic mechanical flying fish. The country’s response wasn’t to deploy our army – where I was at the time – but instead let S.H.I.E.L.D. reveal its recent project: a band of superheroes. Like, legit superheroes.
Okay, only one of them can truly be considered non-human. Because he’s a demi-god. The rest are: trained assassin turned good, master archer, multi-billionaire with a self-designed suit that enables him to have enhanced strength and flight (to name a few things), a guy that turns so big and green it would put Lou Ferrigno to shame, and an actual Super Soldier. I heard about the project in the army. Well, I didn’t hear it so much as I read the General’s mind during a meeting I wasn’t invited to.
Oh, yeah. That’s why I left the army for S.H.I.E.L.D. Once I realized there were other people like me, people who were at the very least just different from the rest, I knew I needed to become a part of that. Not necessarily a superhero because, let’s face it, spend five minutes in a room with me and you’ll quickly figure out I’m no hero. I don’t have the makings of one either. But I’m a telepath, I’ve been one nearly my entire life, and I had to find someone to share that with.
Turns out telepaths aren’t as useful as I thought. S.H.I.E.L.D. brought me on board, though, after I met with the director, Nick Fury. The entire meeting, I couldn’t stop staring at his eyepatch and wondering what it looked like underneath. Fury was intrigued by my abilities but stressed that I keep them under wraps while working for S.H.I.E.L.D. That was what came out of his mouth, at least. What he was thinking was, he wants me working for them so he can keep an eye on me. There has never been a confirmed case of telepathy anywhere in the world, and here one just landed in his lap. In order to keep me from being a lab rat, he came up with this solution.
Despite there never being a confirmed case of telepathy, Fury’s head was surprisingly guarded whenever I tried to enter. The agents that waited dutifully outside Fury’s office during our meeting, however, were more susceptible. They were wondering if I was going to become another catalogue page in the Index, S.H.I.E.L.D.’s top secret list of people and objects with powers, and passed the time guessing what abilities I possess. I guess Fury was right about the lab rat thing, and he was right to make sure he was the only person to know the truth about me.
So as I groan and rub my face I think, this is one more day I’m not that lab rat. One more day I’m still free. So get your ass up and get dressed.
The Metrorail gets me within walking distance to Theodore Roosevelt Island, where the Triskelion, S.H.I.E.L.D.’s headquarters in D.C, was built. It’s still about a mile walk, but apparently walking keeps your heart healthy. The majority of that walk is crossing the bridge to get to the right side of the river. The only point of entry by land is the security gate on the east side.
My journey to the 16th floor is a lonely one, as it always is. I’m not exactly well-liked by my coworkers. Within thirteen months I went from a Level 1 clearance to Level 4, and while there’s no set standard for ascending levels – like length of employment, for instance – it’s still pretty rare for someone to gain three levels of access so quickly. I know what dirty thoughts they all think about it. How could I not? Point is, I don’t care. Yeah, I may have some weird ability that makes me really good at what I do, and some may say that’s cheating, but they can suck it.
The north side of the 16th floor is just a wide open room with maybe fifty desks. Standing next to mine is a woman I recognize but one I don’t regularly converse with. Tall, slender, would seem almost dainty if she wasn’t toned to hell, basically zero percent body fat.
“Agent Hill,” I greet her when I reach my desk.
“Agent Marin.” Hill’s ever professional demeanor often comes off as abrasive, but having the advantage of seeing people for who they really are inside their heads, I know she’s just extremely proper. I wouldn’t even have to read her mind to know that, either. It’s just ingrained military training. Some people are just ignorant, though. “Director Fury would like to see you in his office.”
“Regarding?” I ask warily, in order to appear more human.
“I was only asked to send you to his office.”
I learned long ago not to be offended when people lie. It’s just refreshing to see someone avoiding or withholding the truth because their job calls for it. I mean, I could avoid the whole ordeal by simply not reading people’s minds, but where’s the fun in that?
“I don’t have clearance to get to his office.”
Hill offers one of her rare smiles before walking away. All I got from her head was, Just wait. Then her thoughts strayed to the cheese Danish she ate earlier and if there might be any more in the break room upstairs.
After I lock my bag in my desk drawer I head back to the hall, burning with curiosity. Did I only gain access to the 42nd floor, or did my clearance just jump to Level 6?
There are multiple sets of elevators in the Triskelion, each with varying levels of security. I take my usual minimum security elevator back to ground level and head to the opposite tower. One of the most secure elevators is here, only allowing access based on facial recognition. When the doors slide open I warily cross the threshold. Three quick, happy beeps signal my admittance. I look to the screen and see a picture of my face pop up, overlapped with Access Granted. Above my face is a new label: Level 6. Holy crap!
This elevator is also voice activated. With a surprisingly shaky voice, and feeling somewhat awkward, I say aloud, “D-Director Fury’s office.”
“Confirmed,” the computerized voice informs me.
As the elevator quickly ascends, I glance out of the glass windows. The higher I get the more I can see of D.C. This height also sends my heart into my throat with this weird sense of anticipation and exhilaration.
Outside of Fury’s office, I take a moment to compose myself. Flatten my hair, straighten my blouse. As if it matters. It just seems sort of habitual. Then I knock.
“Enter,” Fury’s deep voice commands from behind the double doors.
I have enough respect for Fury that I refuse to read his mind. Turning off the telepathy is impossible, but I can choose not to hear someone’s thoughts if I wanted. It took a long time to figure out how to do that, and honestly, it’s nice to keep the telepathy on silent mode. Being stuck inside my head with just me is bad enough sometimes.
“To what do I owe this promotion?” I ask with a wide grin as I cross Fury’s ridiculously large corner office. Fury just raises his head with a look that says I haven’t known him long enough to be so familiar.
“This promotion can easily be a temporary thing.”
I stop at the edge of the desk, facing Fury as he stands. “But you gave it to me before talking to me about it. That means something big is going on and you need me. And not just because I’m a five-star employee.”
“I’d be surprised that your oversimplification of the situation was accurate if I didn’t know you could read my mind,” Fury says flatly.
“I can read your mind,” I point out. “Doesn’t mean I do.”
Contemplating my words, Fury narrows his eyes. “I need you and Agent Leon to look into something in New York.”
“Agent Leon doesn’t know what I can do, and it’s not easily explainable. Isn’t it better if I go alone?”
“No,” Fury says simply. “You don’t need to tell him anything. Investigate as you normally would, but report back to me with anything…strange…you find with your–” He wiggles his fingers in the general direction of my head.
“What exactly is going on?”
“Scattered over the last year or so, there have been an unusual amount of reports to the NYPD. Complaints of petty larceny, stalking, B&E.”
“What’s so wrong about that?” I interject. “It’s New York.”
Fury sighs heavily. Doesn’t take a mind reader to see he hates being interrupted. “In each report, the assailant turned out to be something the victims were deathly afraid of. The Pope broke into one woman’s house. A six-foot-tall red alien with horns stalked a man around the city for weeks. A working girl got into a car with a John that turned out to be the man she accidentally murdered four years ago.”
“I’m assuming she was cleared of all charges since she willingly brought it up to the police?”
“That’s what you’re focusing on?”
“Right, right. Fearing the Pope is way weirder.”
“Agent Marin,” Fury says sternly.
“Okay, yeah, all these situations are strange. They could also be attributed to a bad acid trip. Were they drug tested?”
“Yes. All of them clean. Well, except the prostitute, but she was clean enough.”
“And you need me to, what, see if they’re telling the truth?”
Fury plops a folder down on his desk and opens it, spreading around papers. He hands me one. It’s a printout to a Twitter thread. I glance over it quickly and frown.
“This guy saw Sasquatch siphoning gas from his car at two in the morning? At least his peers are supportive.”
“Oh, there’s more,” Fury says, gesturing for me to keep reading. “There’s too many similarities between official NYPD reports and random Twitter posts. Not all of the situations necessarily have a crime committed, either. Just reports of seeing their worst fears, some irrational.”
“You’re thinking there’s someone with powers doing this,” I say.
“If there’s anyone out there with strange abilities, we need to keep an eye on them. Some of them are dangerous, Marin. Not all of them can just take up a job at headquarters.”
“S.H.I.E.L.D. deals with these situations all the time. You’ve got a team of great people out there handling unnatural threats. My powers could have been used in interrogations or intelligence long ago. Why are you doing this now?”
With a huff of a breath, Fury leans forward against his desk, palms on the tabletop. “Because it’s time for you to join the team, Agent Marin. Are you in, or are you out?”
Oh, it’s hard to resist this guy. Bald head, dark skin, eyepatch, long black coat. He’s the epitome of superhero law enforcement. And I’d probably jump on any bandwagon that rolled by.
Smiling, I say confidently: “I’m in.”
Agent Leon is a nice enough guy, but a little too by-the-book for my taste. At first I wanted to believe his prim and proper borderline OCD personality was really just that, until I looked into his head and saw he became that way to hide a sickening addiction to Futanari. If you don’t know what that is and you fell for the blue waffle thing before, I highly suggest you just take my word for it and move on. Needless to say, Leon is now Agent Futanari in my head.
Despite his atrocious taste in porn, Leon has sensible taste in music. He plays some easy rock station while we begin the eight hour drive to New York City, and I browse through the case file Fury gave me.
“Did you get a chance to read any of this?” I ask. The unmasked excitement in my tone draws an odd look from Leon.
“No. Why don’t you fill me in.”
“Long story short, people are seeing their nightmares in real life. We’re supposed to find out who or what is doing this and, for some reason, ask them why they’re doing it. They aren’t harming anyone so I don’t see what the problem is, but, whatever.”
“They’re scaring people, that’s the problem.”
“So should we just ban Halloween, then?”
Leon throws a disgruntled, narrow-eyed look my way. “Now I see why no one ever wants to work with you.”
“Yeah, well, it’s their loss.”
We drive in silence for a long while. Instead of brainstorming about our mystery scare-a-thon, I think about Leon’s words. That no one ever wants to work with me. That’s not entirely true. It’s me that doesn’t want to work with them. People are so fake, hiding behind lies, putting up a front, and for what? Social media? Popularity? Trends and fads? Everyone is so afraid of being themselves because they’re worried about what everyone else thinks. Well, I know what everyone else thinks and to be perfectly honest, no one gives a shit. They either like you, or they hate you. Then it’s all more pretending from there, pretending to like someone you hate, pretending to hate someone because your friends do. It’s a mess. I hate people. I began to isolate myself from them at an early age, and I’ve done just fine so far.
The journey up to this point has been pretty much smooth sailing. Plenty of cars on the road but that’s normal. At least they’re moving at a decent pace. Just as I think those words, everyone on the northbound side of the highway slams on their brakes, including Leon. The sinking of my stomach is instant as I jerk forward against the tightened seatbelt with a grunt. Once the car is stationary and still intact I forego all my fear.
“The hell?” I complain aloud.
“Sorry,” Leon groans. “They all just stopped. I don’t know what’s going on.”
Guess that’s my cue. Within my head I release all the boundaries I put on my thoughts and cast my senses out into the world. I dip in and out of the minds of the people in the cars in front of us at lightning speed, gathering impressions of their thoughts and emotions. The cars ahead saw a man with a metal arm jump onto the roof of a car in the southbound lanes and yank one of the passengers out through the side window. He proceeded to toss the man into oncoming northbound traffic, in the direct path of a semi-truck, causing the sudden halt of cars.
“Holy shit,” I mutter. I don’t waste a moment undoing my seatbelt and getting out of the car.
“Where are you going?” Leon calls, reluctantly opening his door as well. “Agent Marin!”
I draw my gun, keeping low, as I make my way a few lanes to the left. At the center divider I crouch down and look to the right, a small ways down the highway, and see the man with the metal arm now in the middle of the road some hundred yards in front of the car he was riding on.
He crouches down at the end of long, thin grooves in the concrete, which I realize are from his metal fingers dragging against the ground to slow him down when the target car braked hard enough to throw him off. Cars still drive by as he gets to his feet but he’s oblivious to them. He faces the target car, a little Chevy, and he doesn’t even flinch as the car is plowed from behind by an intimidating black tactical Hummer and pushed along, despite its efforts to brake.
Now intrigued more than afraid, I push into the mind of the man, full of curiosity. What I find is not at all what I expected.
The majority of people’s minds are constantly thinking, whether they’re aware of it or not. Their attention darts from thought to thought like a ping pong ball, and even if they’re doing something that occupies the majority of their brainpower, there’s still little nagging thoughts in the background. A song they heard eleven years ago that they still can’t place. Remembering to stop by the grocery store. Repetitive, random phrases stuck in their heads. Something.
Not this guy. The first thing that comes to my mind is programmed machine. There is no sense of identity, of personality, to this man. No name, no past. His mind is a blank hard drive running a single program: his current agenda. He calculates more than he expresses. When he thinks about wanting to jump back onto the Chevy as the Hummer pushes it nearer, that is literally the only thing in his head. The action at hand. No abstract thoughts about the texture of the ground, the color of the car. Not humming the theme song to Fresh Prince during an intense car chase (that one’s mine). This man was ordered to kill two Level 6 S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, and that’s exactly what’s on his mind.
“Holy fuck, he’s an assassin,” I whisper. A brainwashed, mentally hijacked one. Who was this guy before he became Jason Bourne?
My conditioning from the military and S.H.I.E.L.D. training is screaming at me to aim my gun at this guy and shoot him, but for some goddamn reason I can’t seem to pull the trigger. Instead I watch as he makes an unnatural leap from the middle of the road onto the hood of the oncoming Chevy, plunge his metal arm through the windshield as if it were water, and rip out the steering wheel. Someone in the car starts shooting at the man, so he does another inexplicable leap onto the Hummer pushing the Chevy. They’re not far from where I stand now.
“Agent Marin!” Leon shouts. He comes to my side and gawks at the scene on the other side of the highway. “I should call this in.”
“Be my guest,” I say.
Leon pulls his phone from his pocket but it’s quickly forgotten as the Hummer backs off the Chevy so it can gain speed and ram the corner of the little car. The Chevy doesn’t stand a chance. It starts a wobble that turns into a tailspin. Soon the car will be rolling down the highway. The people inside must realize this because as the car makes its first tumble, the passenger’s side door breaks off with a loud metallic crunch, leaving the three passengers to skid along the blacktop like riding a sled while the car rolls on, breaking apart as it does.
The Hummer, still with evil Robo-Cop on the roof, flies by Leon and I. It then does a quick U-turn and comes to a halt. The man leaps off the roof and stares down the man and woman standing in the middle of the highway next to the door sled. Their third counterpart fell off some ways back.
“Is that…Captain America?” Leon whispers incredulously.
“You sound excited, Leon. Want his autograph?”
After pointedly scowling at me, Leon gets on his phone and turns away. I look back to the road. Leon’s not wrong. It’s Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanoff, in civilian clothes. Just as I think it’s probably time to help out, Mr. Bionic is handed a Milkor MGL grenade launcher from one of the men in the Hummer. Unlike my mystery man, the stooge’s mind is completely normal. I go digging.
They are HYDRA mercenaries here to destroy S.H.I.E.L.D. They already infiltrated our ranks and are working on taking out the major players. Starting with Steve Rogers and Natasha Romanoff and ending with Nick Fury. Holy crap.
I pick out flashes of people’s faces I recognize but are categorized as HYDRA in this guy’s head. Some are nobodies, paper pushers on various floors. Some are important. John Garrett. Grant Ward. The sorry bastard that became roadkill was Jasper Sitwell. World Security Council Secretary Alexander Pierce is running the show. And the man that’s about to launch a grenade at America’s Golden Boy is coined the Winter Soldier.
What the hell can I do in this situation? Anything involving physical interference will get me killed. And honestly, how much interference could my fucking SIG Sauer M11 and I possibly have against a kill squad with grenade launchers and assault rifles? One would think, it’s time for a superhero! Someone with superpowers! The only thing my powers are good for is telling me the bad guy’s plan. I can’t control anyone with my mind, just read their thoughts. Fucking useless. That’s what I am.
Does that mean it gives me a tiny bit of satisfaction when a bona fide superhero goes flying off the highway overpass and into a public bus when the grenade explodes against his indestructible shield? Yes, yes it does.
Team HYDRA starts a slow advance down the highway on the two other passengers, Romanoff and some guy I don’t recognize but keeps repeating to himself, You got this, Sam. You’re the Falcon. The Falcon! Unofficially, but no one needs to know… The baddies in black rain bullets on the good guys, who quickly take cover behind abandoned vehicles. Romanoff has more balls than I do because she bravely returns fire with a handgun. Fine, show-off.
Soon the firing lines’ backs are to me. In sync with Romanoff’s bullets, I land clean head shots, my personal favorite, in two HYDRA goons. With all the chaos, no one realizes there could be another shooter for the A-team. Oddly, of the HYDRA squad, the only one to pay heed to their fallen comrades is the Winter Soldier. Don’t be so quick to think remorse just suddenly sprouted in his head. He takes note of the fallen men and assesses how to adjust for the loss.
He does that by launching grenade at Romanoff. It blows up the car she hid behind and sends her running over the center divider, straight for the edge of the overpass. The Winter Soldier doesn’t think she’ll jump off (which is exactly what she’s planning on doing), so he carefully aims another grenade where he thinks she’ll be trapped behind a silver Sebring. His calculations took a second too long, and instead of subjecting Romanoff to a fiery death in the car explosion, he just sent the flaming car over the edge and gave Romanoff cover to escape. But his ego made him think he succeeded.
There’s no doubt in his mind that he’s one target down. He turns to his fellow HYDRA factions, and quickly his Milkor MGL is replaced with an M4A1 complete with, you guessed it, a grenade launcher. He’s the farthest thing from sentimental but he holds this weapon dear to his heart.
The Winter Soldier takes his new rifle to the westmost highway barrier. Through his mind I see the mess down below. It looks like when Steve Rogers crashed through one public bus, it collided with a huge work truck. There’s glass everywhere, overturned vehicles, confused bystanders. But no sign of the remaining mark. Arrogance overpowers any doubt in his mind. His record is spotless, so why should this situation be unachievable?
I follow Romanoff with my mind as she runs west under the overpass, feel the fear creeping its way up from where she buried it long ago. Fear of the Winter Soldier. Her thoughts stray to a bullet wound in her abdomen, where the Winter Soldier shot through her to get to the man she was protecting, as if she were nothing more than a window separating them. Huh. I guess there’s a reason he’s got a perfect record.
Romanoff approaches the end of the overpass. The Winter Soldier observes Steve Rogers’ blackened shield lying abandoned in the bus wreckage. He narrows his eyes, focusing on the white star, the blue and red stripes. Neurons fire into nothing as he stares blankly, the components of the shield connecting to nothing but doubt in his head. Half a second later he pushes all of those thoughts away and readies his gun as he figures Rogers must still be inside the bus.
Being connected to the Winter Soldier’s head when he’s shot in the face is a hell of a lot scarier than just witnessing it. I gasp and duck down, disengage from his mind. I have no business being in the mind of a dying person. I’m not ready for that. Breathing hard, I slowly rise and peek over the center divider.
The Winter Soldier crouches down much like I had, his long dark hair now in disarray. He’s not dead, thanks to the cracked bulletproof goggles he now slowly pulls away from his face. I dare enter his mind and find him absolutely pissed to the core that Romanoff is not only alive, but got a shot off on him. He takes a few deep, angry breaths before leaping to his feet and raining fire on anyone below him. I seriously think his finger was already pulling the trigger before he had the gun pointed all the way down, that’s how mad he is. But he knows he won’t succeed if he doesn’t get a hold of himself.
Once HYDRA’s finest realize the focus of the Winter Soldier’s fire, they take up arms and shoot at Romanoff, too. She wises up and takes off running west up the street with the rest of the civilians. The Winter Soldier stares after her, brooding. Then he turns to make a command.
“Она у меня. Найди его."
Interesting. He speaks Russian, but slowly, enunciating each syllable. He can be considered fluent but it’s not his first language; he takes extra effort when constructing sentences. And the others, the pureblood Russians, recognize their commander as an imposter of sorts, but they don’t question him, out of fear.
I was focusing so much on the language that I didn’t think about the words. The Winter Soldier told his subordinates to find Rogers. He’d go after Romanoff himself. He steps up onto the barrier and casually leaps over, doing a very intimidating superhero landing on a car below. No one would be able to survive that jump, furthering my ‘this guy probably ain’t human’ theory.
As the remaining HYDRA tentacles prove themselves human by pulling out grappling hooks to lower themselves down I realize the fight will soon be off the highway and on ground level. I need to get down there. I can’t lose the most interesting mind I’ve ever come across. So I proceed to jump the center divider and run across the highway while thinking, The fuck you going to do with the mind of an assassin, you moron?
“Agent Marin!” Leon calls from safety. “What are you doing?”
“My job!” I yell back.
I hit the overpass barrier just as the sound of the continuous rounds of a mini gun cut through the air like a chainsaw. I peek over the barrier. Mini gun landed on the Winter Soldier’s demolished landing pad, the shells collecting in the dented roof at an alarming rate. Even with the four of them lighting up the bus, I have a clear shot at all of their perfect little craniums. I twist around, stabilize myself on the barrier.
“Who the hell are you?” someone shouts.
I let out an audible scream and pull back my gun. The guy who calls himself the Falcon, Sam Wilson, picks up the fallen weapon of the HYDRA agent he just knocked out.
With a glare I say, “I’m Santa Claus,” then proceed to take out one of the baddies down below.
“Then I’m the goddamn Tooth Fairy,” Sam says as he shoots a handful of rounds at a goon on the left.
The sudden fall of two of their own make the other HYDRA mercs pause, giving Rogers time to escape the bus and take up his fallen shield. He makes eye contact with Sam on the overpass.
“Go! I got this!” Sam yells.
“Do you?” I ask. “Because I could use some cover.”
Sam makes a face. “You know, I never did believe in Santa Claus.”
HYDRA returns fire on Sam when he goes to shoot once more, forcing him back against an abandoned vehicle.
“Okay, new plan?” he says.
“I thought you didn’t believe in me,” I say.
“You want cover or not?”
“Yeah, yeah. Okay. Draw their fire to the left. I need to use their lines to get down there.”
“What for? Who are you, really?”
I stand up, stow my gun in its holster. Take off my pantsuit jacket to use as a buffer on the rope, since I don’t have gloves. “I’m here for the guy with the metal arm.”
Sam shoots at the air to get the goons’ attention and then draws them off. Once the rope in my hand is clear, I straddle the barrier and let myself go. I fall a lot more quickly than I planned to and nearly end up on my ass. At least I decided to wear pants today.
I jog down Lincoln Avenue after Metal Man. It’s not hard to catch up to him when he basically just saunters down the street after his target. He casually reloads a grenade and sends an oncoming cop car into flame. But then he stops, so I do as well. While he listens for something, I take cover behind a Kia and ponder my own motives. What the hell am I doing?
The man takes a silver ball grenade from his pocket and rolls it to the right, under the cars, into the path of a blue Camaro. Then I hear it – Romanoff’s voice sounding a distress call much like the one Agent Leon made on the bridge. But I don’t hear her thoughts. She’s not hiding there. My concern for her immediately switches to distress over the gorgeous Camaro as the bomb underneath it explodes. I let out a little whimper just as Romanoff appears out of nowhere to tackle the assassin.
Their fight is short lived. He tosses Romanoff into the smoldering Camaro, she retaliates by flinging an electric charge disc at his metal arm. While he’s distracted with his appendage electrocution, Romanoff makes a run for it.
Before I know why, I come out from behind the car. “Hey!” I shout. Hey? I think. Sure, greet him like an old friend, not a master fucking assassin!
He doesn’t seem to hear me as he reactively flexes his fingers. I enter his mind instinctively. Unlike most people, I get impressions of emotions from him instead of coherent sentences. Almost as if he hasn’t been allowed to have his own thoughts. Right now he’s puzzled. Guns, killing, that’s stuff he understands. Tech like that? It baffles him. And that’s curious to me.
As I walk toward the man from behind I think I’d better swing out to the side a little bit. I get the feeling that coming up from the rear would have the same outcome as if I were approaching a horse in the same manner.
“Hey,” I say again. “I’ve been trying to reach you about your car’s extended warranty.”
His head snaps to the side. I startled him, I know that, and he grips his grenade launcher with two hands. Ruh-roh.
“I don’t have a car,” he growls.
I take another step closer and see through his mind that he realizes the GL isn’t a good close range weapon, but his fist sure is. Before I can react, he proceeds to reach out with lightning speed and shove me away with unwarranted force. Super-soldier force. As I fly back I reach for his arm, his sleeve, something to keep me there, and end up grasping his ungloved hand.
I gasp, but it’s not because my spine makes contact with the Kia I hid behind moments ago. The instant I touched his hand I was drawn into his head like never before.
I always assumed my powers of telepathy were limited to mind reading current thoughts. Sure, I could go in and access recent memories. Now, though, I think I got a glimpse of an entirely different life, of a war some would think we aren’t fighting anymore.
By the time I catch my breath, the Winter Soldier’s shot Romanoff in the shoulder and he’s about to be intercepted by Captain America. At the sound of a gong going off, I push myself off the car. Can’t miss the fight. Better try a new approach next time, because now I need to know what the hell I saw in that guy’s head. Breathing hard, I limp forward. That sound could only be one thing – the Winter Soldier’s metal arm against the indestructible shield. Will I find his arm scrunched up like a cartoon accordion?
Once in sight, I know within moments that the Winter Soldier is a Super Soldier. And not because his arm is still intact. Maybe not Steve Rogers Super Soldier, but something. There’s no way he could keep up with Rogers, taking blows and returning them with some effect.
As I watch them fight I think about what happened when the Winter Soldier punched me (and managed to leave me walking). I got a surge of unknown information when I touched his skin. Whatever it is I saw, I saw it because I was in his head and touching his skin at the same time. Why have I never tried that before?
But what is it I saw? Some past life? An alternate life? Maybe a life he was made to forget? Man, this guy just keeps getting better and better.
The Winter Soldier pulls a stock Scorpion from his shoulder holster and fires at Rogers, who manages to impressively hide the entirety of his huge form behind the shield. I think again about the Super Soldier program. Steve Rogers, Captain America, was a huge success in 1943. Obviously other countries would try to replicate the serum and make their own human weapons. As far as S.H.I.E.L.D. intel goes, the Germans were never successful in replicating Erskine’s serum. Did Russia finally succeed after all these years, even before Germany?
Rogers and the Winter Soldier return to hand to hand combat. The metal arm must be heavier than it looks because my mystery man pulls to the left quite a bit. While he’s a trained assassin, Rogers is a trained fighter. His moves are balanced, graceful almost, as his counterpart comes at him with brute force, albeit accurate brute force.
That brute force seems to gain favor as it beats down on Captain America. Rogers finally gets hold of his shield that was lodged into the back of a van and jams it into his rival’s metal triceps, ripping into the electronics of the arm. With an immense heave, Rogers swings the Winter Soldier down and around with so much force his mask comes off.
Rogers breathes hard as the Winter Soldier slowly gets to his feet. I don’t know why he’s giving him a chance to recuperate, honestly, unless he’s going to give the Winter Soldier a chance to surrender before Captain America does his final act. But then Steve Roger’s face turns from hard focus to disbelief, and I just know I have to enter his mind.
“Bucky?” Steve says in a just audible whisper.
“Who the hell is Bucky?” the Winter Soldier demands angrily.
“Who the hell is Bucky?” I say as I get flashes of the same young man I saw in the Winter Soldier’s head filter through Steve’s mind.
Nobody gets to find out who the hell is Bucky, but I do realize why Sam called himself the Falcon. Sam swoops in on a jet-pack with mechanical wings and launches the Winter Soldier into a nearby truck.
The Winter Soldier gets to his feet. I leave Steve’s mind and enter his. The word Bucky means something to him, though he doesn’t know what, but he determinedly tells himself it doesn’t mean a damn thing as he lifts his Scorpion and aims it at Steve.
He never gets a shot off because Romanoff uses the abandoned enemy grenade launcher to take out the Winter Soldier. The explosion of the truck obscures the true nature of his safety, leaving me to search blindly for his mind. Without him in my sight it should be difficult, but since I connected to him so deeply for that split second I seem to have put a GPS tag on his brain. I find him running down 8th street like there’s no tomorrow. At the sound of sirens, I take off after him.
Team HYDRA has a rendezvous point in which the Winter Soldier – Bucky, whoever – heads for. I turn onto 7th and go south to try to cut him off. Brilliant me has a new plan. I take the alley on Glenn Street to loop around to Stetson Avenue, where the remaining HYDRA goons wait. When the Winter Soldier turns onto Stetson, I appear from the alley.
As he passes, I jump out and slap my palms against his temples. I don’t get the chance to go digging because he reflexively grabs my wrists and yanks me off him. But the instant was enough to throw him off guard.
I get up from the ground and charge him as he runs. This time I hold my hands against his head and send forth the mental equivalent of an electric shock. It’s a lot harder than it looks, but it manages to bring him to his knees. Then I go looking for those images I saw earlier. I don’t have to look far because those images come straight to me.
Flashes of war, World War II.
A young man dancing with a pretty girl.
The same young man dressed handsomely in uniform.
Then a conversation, a conversation he holds dear.
Don’t do anything stupid until I get back.
How can I? You’re taking all the stupid with you.
Gunfire and shouting in Russian draw me out of the Winter Soldier’s mind. Full of fear, I turn around and find the HYDRA agents gunning for us. My heart leaps in my throat as they angrily yell and point their weapons at me. Then I see what they see.
Their leader on his knees, disoriented, at the mercy of my hands on his neck. Okay, guys, they’re on his head, but whatever, I still back off. The Winter Soldier looks up at me with weary eyes and does something I did not expect: holds up one hand to halt his team. I don’t question it. With one last longing look, I head back to the alley and disappear.