Chapter Text
You gasped in pain as the man dragging you along pulled on your hair particularly savagely. You were struggling to keep up with his punishing pace. Your dislocated knee had only just been reset a few minutes ago and although your super soldier healing was starting to kick in, you could still barely move your leg.
You stumbled, desperately trying to stay on your feet, knowing from experience that being dragged across the ground was always so much worse, but you were so weak and in so much pain. You collapsed to your knees and had to bite back the scream that threatened to break free as your poor knee made impact. You didn’t have to worry about it too long though because sure enough, your guard only made sure to get roughed as he dragged you by the hair across the cold and jagged floor. You tried to reach up and claw at his fingers but he just yanked you hard, sending you sprawling forward. You reached out your hands to catch your fall and this time, couldn’t help your cry of pain as your cut palms skid against the floor.
“Get up.” The command was in Russian and was delivered coldy and without an ounce of empathy. You’d long ago given up hoping to find it.
Shakily, you pushed yourself up and immediately took on a subservient pose as men closed in on you. Your eyes searched the room, as they always did these days, looking for one person in particular. Tears threatened to spill when your eyes made contact with the familiar man in the chair. You didn’t know his name. Neither of you did. In the few moments of solitude you were allowed to spend with each other in between missions and that cold cold room you were put to sleep in, you’d grown to trust each other. Even to . . . well . . . you could hardly remember the concept of love anymore but it was still there somewhere, in the back of your mind. In the few seconds here or there that you allowed yourself to dream of a better tomorrow, you let yourself believe that maybe what you shared with this Soldier of Winter was really love and maybe one day, you’d be able to experience it at its fullest potential.
Then again, as you glanced around the room at the scientists and the soldiers who held your lives in the palms of your hands, maybe it was foolish to even let yourself dream. They never lasted and you would never be free.
The soldier looked at you with pain in his own gaze. With all eyes on you, he was able to mouth a single word that shot pain straight through your heart. “Run.”
You knew what would happen next. It was the only way that this could play out. You might have a more successful version of the serum running through your veins but it was a glitch in the matrix. A blip. The serum had swept through you, changed you down to the very DNA that made up who you were, but that was it. It couldn’t be synthesized. It couldn’t be drawn. Your bloodwork all came back showing normal results that couldn’t explain why you were still faster, stronger and better than normal people. You were valuable as a soldier but if you fled, they wouldn’t hunt you down. Not if they were distracted with keeping him here. You could make it. You knew this. But you’d have to leave him behind.
You subtly shook your head even as you felt the tides of fate striking against you. You couldn’t stay here. They were growing disinterested with you as an experiment and you’d failed on missions one too many times. Next time, they’d kill you. But to leave him behind . . .
“Please.” He mouthed. “For me.”
You squeezed your eyes shut as tears threatened to fall.
“Open your eyes.” Commanded a voice. “Watch your punishment.”
Instinctively you opened your eyes and watched as your soldier was shoved further back into the torture machine you were all too familiar with. You watched as they shoved a mouthguard in his mouth and strapped him down. Everything they did to him, you felt as if it were you in that chair and the entire time, you obeyed, and you watched.
The soldier didn’t take his eyes off of you as he begged you in his own way to escape the hell that had long since trapped you both and he saw the moment you finally agreed. Relief swept through him even as they fixed the machine to his head.
The man in charge turned to you, his cold eyes and clinical expression making your skin crawl. “You have failed HYDRA. You have failed us. You think we would not know? You let that man live, Asset.”
The man paused, but you knew better than to think he was waiting for you to say something. You kept your lips pressed shut.
“You need to be punished.”
Again, you said nothing.
“We will wipe him and we will keep wiping him until you learn to obey or until you are dead. Do you understand?”
You nodded your head just once.
“Do not forget this lesson, Asset.” The man was already turning away from you. This was your chance.
The man in charge nodded his head at the scientists controlling the machine. You took one last look at the man you thought you could be in love with, memorizing the shape of his face and then you acted.
You threw yourself into motion, throwing punches and dodging strikes as you dove through the gaps in the bodies and into the hallway. Orders were being shouted in Russian behind you as you dug deep and ran faster.
You could escape.
You HAD to escape.
It was that one thought that drove you harder and harder as you fought for your life and the memory of the man who had given everything up to let it happen. In the distance behind you, you could hear your Soldier of Winter struggling to escape, keeping enough guards in the room with him that you had a fighting chance.
You ran, nearly blindly, through the maze of hallways deep underground in a land you did not know. You were chasing nothing but the faint smell of snow on the air as you plowed onwards. If you could just get out - if you could just get free . . .
You turned a corner and you saw a faint light at the end of the tunnel. Cold air swept towards you and you knew you were almost there. You pressed even harder , fighting against the pain your body was threatening to overwhelm you with.
A hesitant smile grew as you reached the end of the line. You heard no footsteps chasing you. The soldier must have been putting up a hell of a fight for you.
A single tear slid down your dirty cheeks as you took a single step outside.
It was as far as you got.
There was an all-too familiar bang that echoed off into the night air and a blinding pain that overtook your senses.
You glanced down to see a deep crimson color spreading across your chest.
You’d been shot.