Chapter Text
The Winter Soldier tried to ignore how the sharp piece of metal was starting to dig into his side as he sat perched on the top of the metal structure of the bridge. He couldn’t move a muscle, something in him was terrified to up that high but he didn’t know why. He shouldn’t be scared, he was on a mission. That should be his only focus. He couldn’t help but think that there was a reason he was afraid of heights. Something happened? Maybe?
The sun had set below the horizon only moments before the singular set of headlights started to trail out of the forest drawing his attention away from his thoughts and back to where they should be. The soldier smiled a little, there you are. He kept his gaze slightly above the scope on his sniper rifle, it was only going to be used as a backup if the original plan didn’t work. This is supposed to look like an accident.
The stretch of road between the end of the forest and the bridge wasn’t very long but it felt like the car was taking it’s time to get there as if it knew what the future held for itself and the driver inside. As it drew closer, he slung the weapon across his back and prepared to drop down onto the bridge the moment it was needed. The soldier had placed road spikes hours earlier but he could still only hope they would work like he was planning.
He watched as the car ran over the spikes. Loud pops rang through the air as the tires lost their grip on the road. The back tires screeched against the pavement as the driver inside tried to redirect the car. He held his breath. Any second now. Without letting his irritating fear get in the way, the soldier let go of the bridge and dropped to the decking below, right in front of the car. Just as planned the car swerved tightly to avoid him, crashing into the side of the bridge.
The only thing that didn’t go as planned was that it stopped before going over the edge. He could hear screams coming from inside the car, he needed to make sure the target was least unconscious before it went over. He marched over to the car teetering on the edge of the bridge, ready to topple into the deep, freezing water below. With his superhuman strength he pulled the car back far enough that it didn’t fall before he was done.
The Winter Soldier tore the driver’s side door off the hinges as if it was made of something a lot weaker than metal. The driver was holding his head as blood dripped down the side of his face, “Thank you!” he cried in relief, “Thank you!” He tried to unbuckle his seat but the soldier reached in and grabbed the back of his neck with his metal arm, slamming his face into the steering wheel until the driver was successfully not conscious.
A scream from the back of the car made him stop. There wasn’t supposed to be anyone with the target. The soldier tore the back door off, resulting in more screams and the person flying out of the other side of the car. They started running almost before their feet hit the ground. Thankfully, the soldier was much faster.
It didn’t occur to him just how small the person was until he wrapped his hand around the arm and pulled the person close to him. A child’s face stared back at him in horror and let out a scream. She couldn’t have been more than 12 years old.
His hesitation let the child try to fight her way out of his grasp. She was unsuccessful but she had a lot of fight in her. He didn’t know what to do, this wasn’t supposed to be part of his mission. He chose to be out here in the middle of nowhere so there wouldn’t be any witnesses. But he couldn’t just kill a child. He was confused, he had killed children before without even thinking about it, why was he hesitating now?
The soldier looked over at the car, was that her father he just murdered?
“Let go of me!” She screamed, kicking him in the shin. He looked back down at her. He couldn’t kill her, she was just a child. But he couldn’t let her go, they were pretty far in the woods and she could get lost. And if she did find a way out she was a witness. He couldn’t let that happen.
The Winter Soldier thought about it for a few more seconds before making a final decision. One he could only hope wouldn’t have too many negative consequences.
---
Melanie didn’t remember when she had fallen unconscious but as she woke up she knew she was in a completely different place than she remembered herself being last. She had been on a bridge, just after the car crash but it was colder now than it was there and she was laying on what felt like concrete. She could hear angry voices all around her, but she couldn’t tell if she just hadn’t gained enough consciousness yet to understand them or if they weren’t speaking english.
She tried to pull herself out faster knowing she was in a dangerous environment and needed to see around her. As soon as she could she tried to get herself up off the ground but all she managed to do was fall forward. It wasn’t until her face was on the floor that she realized her hands were bound together behind her.
A set of heavy boots came into her vision and stopped in front of her face. Looking up she was greeted with the opening of the barrel of a very large gun and the angry face of a soldier behind it. She was expecting to see the soldier that took her to be the one holding the gun to her face but it wasn’t. A quick look around the room showed he wasn’t too far away, sitting on a chair with a large, scary torture device looking machine behind him. He was still wearing the muzzle mask he had been wearing before on the bridge. She hadn’t noticed back on the bridge that one of his arms was made entirely of metal. There was another soldier standing in front of him in full uniform, different from the one the metal arm soldier was wearing. Melanie didn’t know the military ranks very well but he looked like a general just by the way he was standing.
A loud smack sounded as the general’s hand came in contact with the metal arm soldier's face. His head snapped down but he made no movements beyond that. His hair hung down blocking his face from her view. He took a second to compose himself before looking back up at the man standing in front of him.
The general took a step back and shouted something in a different language and three other soldiers rushed towards the metal arm soldier and the machine. Two helped him sit back in the chair and held him down as the other one pressed some buttons on the machine causing pieces to clamp down around his arms, holding him in place as the chair tilted him back. One of the men carefully took the muzzle off him. The machine started up and dropped down to his face.
Melanie looked away and squeezed her eyes shut as his screams filled the room, bouncing off all the surrounding concrete walls. She didn’t know how long it lasted but with every moment she felt more panic rise in her, is that what they were going to do with her? She needed to get out, but she was still surrounded by several guards with huge guns. She was trapped.
She only opened her eyes again once she knew his screams were really done. Looking back over at the metal arm soldier she watched as the machine unattached itself from his face. The general was pacing around him, it seemed as if he was reciting a series of words still in a language she did not understand. Whatever the words were they seemed to be physically hurting the soldier in the chair. Melanie couldn’t imagine what was being said to him.
The metal arm soldier was freed from the chair as the general finished his words. After breathing deeply the metal arm soldier replied with a short response. One of the other soldiers came forward and put the muzzle back on his face.
The general started talking like he was giving instructions to the metal arm soldier. He handed him a hand gun and pointed to Melanie. The metal arm soldier made eye contact with her and stood up.
Panicking, Melanie rolled forward and tried to get herself up on her feet. The guards grabbed her and pulled her to her knees, “Let me go!” she screamed trying to wiggle her way out of their grasp. The metal arm soldier was closing the distance quickly, already readying the weapon in his hands.
Melanie kicked one of her legs out to the side, coming in contact with one of the soldier’s knees. He let out a shout of pain and his grip on her arm lessened enough that she was able to escape his grasp. She launched herself to her feet and pulled her legs out from under her, hoping her weight would work in her favor as she fell to the floor. To her excitement it worked how she planned and she slipped out of the other soldier’s hand. She felt her crush her own hands below her back but it almost didn’t register as her adrenaline rose.
There was more shouting and most of the men in the room started running at her. She was stopped before she could get to her feet again. Four more men held her down on the ground. They picked her back up to her knees, this time holding her with stronger grips. She could already feel the hand shaped bruises forming on her arms.
The metal arm soldier stood in front of her, unbothered by anything that had just happened. The gun was sitting in his hand almost as if he was itching to use it on her.
Melanie couldn’t keep the scream down anymore. She was going to die. She was going to die with no idea why she was brought there or why anything for the past few days had happened. She had just turned 15 years old, she was so young. She wasn’t ready to die.
The metal arm soldier held the gun up to her face inches from her forehead but he didn’t pull the trigger, it seemed like he was waiting for something. Melanie looked up at his face, she knew that pleading would be pointless and that there was no way out of the situation. She came to terms with death a lot quicker than she thought she would, she was still terrified but at least she would be looking her murderer in the face and he was looking in hers. Maybe he’d feel bad about this later, she was hoping it would haunt him to take the life away from a child.
There was a shout of command behind him and the metal arm soldier placed his finger on the trigger. She didn’t take his eyes off him. His eyes were dead and lifeless. Maybe he wouldn’t feel bad. She still didn’t look away as he stepped closer, the cold metal pressed itself against her forehead.
There was a shout from the general and the gun was taken away from her head. Melanie gasped out loud in relief. Some tension in her body relaxed, maybe she was going to survive this.
Before she could really process everything there was more shouting and she felt a sharp pinch in her neck. She was unconscious in seconds.
---
The Winter Soldier stood in the middle of the training room. He was waiting on their new “recruit”. He couldn’t remember all the details of how she came to be there, but he was certain he had something to do with it. The way the soldiers talked about her made him think she was never part of the plan, but why would he take her here? Weren’t they looking for more people to use as test subjects as they tried to replicate the Super Soldier Serum? Wouldn’t that be why he brought her back? She was a lot younger than he'd been told to bring in, though.
The heavy door swung open and three guards came into the room dragging the girl behind them. She was conscious, but barely. They dropped her on the ground a few feet in front of The Winter Soldier and the guards took their posts back in front of the door as more people walked in. He knew what was happening, he’d done it too many times before. They were testing her to see if she had any promise. If she did, they might spare her. If she didn’t, they wouldn’t care if the experiments killed her. The experiments had already killed all the others that had come in, she didn't have any luck in her favor.
The girl’s face was covered in markings that The Winter Soldier immediately recognized. She hadn’t been here more than a few days and they already started experimenting with The Winter Soldier programming on her. She must not have been out of the machine for very long, the injuries still looked fresh. They were setting her up for failure, making her fight so soon after being brainwashed.
She groaned in pain loudly as she started to pick herself off the floor. The Winter Soldier wanted to help her but he had been ordered to stand in attention until told otherwise so he didn’t move.
“Longing,” The Winter Soldier felt a painful snap inside him, “Rusted,” he didn’t know why he always tried fighting against it, he knew he could never win, “Seventeen,” the look of horror on the girl’s face when she realized who was standing in front of her was heartbreaking, “Daybreak,” she was only a kid, why were they making him fight her? He would kill her before she was able to even think about defending herself, “Furnace. Nine. Benign,” The little girl had picked herself off the floor. She looked terrified and exhausted. He could almost feel bad for her that she was going to go out this way, “Homecoming. One. Freight car,”
“Soldier?”
“Ready to comply,”
“You know what to do,”
---
Melanie kept her hand clasped on her thigh, the blood was still making its way through her fingers but she was managing to keep it from bleeding out. She tried hard to not cry in fear, anger, pain, confusion, so many emotions, as she was being led away from the room by a couple soldiers. Every step she took with the leg was agonizing but she did her best to walk without limping. She didn't want to appear weak, something in her knew it would get her killed.
She had no idea what just happened or why it was happening. She didn’t know where she was or how she got there. There were no memories left in her head anytime before that painful machine was taken off her face.
When she had been brought into the room with the man who had killed her father, she was sure he was going to kill her, too. He almost did, the other people in the room seemed like they wanted him to.
He had tried several times, but he was almost going easy on her, like he was giving her a chance to either win or put on a show for the other people in the room. She had been certain there was no way she was going to win against him, the only way she saw out of it was by him killing her. She thought she could at least draw it out and appreciate the last few moments of life before she was brutally murdered by the scary man.
She didn’t understand why what saved her was when he threw a knife at her and she caught it in her thigh. It had just skimmed the very outside of her thigh, hitting mostly flesh, but in a panic she had pulled it out and threw it back. The throw was pathetic, the knife didn't even make it half the distance between the two of them, but the scary man stopped. One of the men in the room yelled something, still in a language she didn’t understand, and she was picked up off the floor and forcefully pushed out of the room.
She was too afraid to ask where they were going, but she was hoping it wouldn’t be another murder trap, she needed to do something about her leg.
The soldiers stopped in front of a door. It took her a moment to realize she was supposed to go in the room. Her heart was beating as she turned the handle but all that was in the room was medical supplies. She let out a breath of relief and rushed inside.
She didn’t know a lot about first aid but she knew she needed to have pressure on the wound to keep herself from bleeding out. She didn't think she'd bleed out from the wound but her anxiety kept her thoughts at their worst. She grabbed the first rag she could find and held it tightly against her leg. She let out a yelp as the pain in her leg shot through her whole body. Her head snapped towards the door, expecting the soldiers to run in and take her to her death but none of them moved.
Melanie looked around the room for something else she could use. There was a sink in the corner, right, she had to clean it. Melanie turned the faucet on and placed her free hand underneath the running water. It didn’t get very warm, but at least she didn’t have to work with completely freezing water.
After a few seconds of hesitation and planning of how she was going to get the water to the wound the quickest Melanie let go of her wound and quickly hoisted herself up onto the counter. It was higher than she was expecting so it took her two tries, her leg was burning once she finally got up.
Melanie had never been more grateful she was wearing shorts. She was easily able to roll the fabric up high enough to look at the wound. She had already noticed that the bleeding had started to slow down but there was still a lot everywhere. It was the first time she had looked at it. She gagged at the sight.
She wasn’t sure how much time she was going to have so she quickly stuck the towel under the running water and started wiping away all the blood. The water immediately became a light shade of red at the bottom of the sink. She kept scrubbing until she was sure it was ok to stop.
Looking around the room, she could see it was basically a more advanced first aid kit. There wasn’t anything too special in the room. If she got seriously injured, it would not be a pleasant experience. She didn’t know much about the insides of her legs but she was sure if the knife had gone in at a different part she probably would have had to lose it. At least she still had both her legs.
It took Melanie a few more minutes to gather everything she needed and make her way back to the sink to wrap it up. She didn’t entirely know what she was doing but she felt satisfied with her bandage once she was done. She stuck a few more supplies into her pockets, unsure if they’d bring her back there, and tried her best to walk out of the room without limping.
---
The Winter Soldier started to feel himself come back. The programming was slipping away enough. He squeezed his eyes shut, the throbbing in his head helped him know he was there.
He bent forward in the chair he was sitting in and waited for the feelings to pass. It took him a moment to realize his arm was gone. They were probably doing repairs. He sat up and looked at his shoulder. Years of the arm getting taken off and put back on had torn the flesh to shreds. Scars snaked their way far into his chest and almost up onto his neck. There hadn’t been enough time since the last time they took it off for it to heal properly, new scrapes and cuts burned on top of the already existing healing wounds.
The Winter Soldier sighed and tried to remember what he had been doing.
The little girl.
His eyes shot open. Did he kill her? No. Even worse. She survived.
He leaned forward again and covered his face with his hand. Guilt washed over him.
What had he done?
---
Melanie looked at her face in the reflective metal in her room. There were scrapes all over where the machine had repeatedly been pressing on the sides of her head as it turned her thoughts and memories to mush.
It only took a few hours for the memories to make their way back together inside her head but she did her best to hide that it happened. Once they knew she remembered they would do it to her again.
All the tests and all the experiments terrified her, what were they trying to accomplish? She could only understand that they were trying to keep her there but she had no idea where they were to begin with and even if she did, how was she supposed to escape? For the months she had been there, she had been watching. Watching the guards, watching the hallways, watching the rooms, she was searching for a perfect time to try to escape. But no matter how much she looked, there was no way out. Obviously there had to be but they kept her far away from it. There were always several armed guards with her wherever she would go and she only knew basic self defense, there was no way she would fight her way out. She’d have to be more strategic if she wanted to make it out alive.
Her only option was to wait until something came.
Or was that her only option?
Melanie lightly touched one of the wounds on her face but quickly pulled her hand away as the whole left side of her face got shot with pain. She couldn’t keep living like this.
The door swung open, a guard stood in front of it holding her food. The same stuff she ate every time. Flavorless, disgusting food. The guard didn’t move, she had to come get it from him.
Melanie walked over to the guard with her food and out of the corners of her eyes looked at the other guards.
There was another option.
Melanie reached out her hands as if she was going to take the food from the guard but instead she threw it into his face. He shouted and took a step back. She darted between him and the doorway but the other guard grabbed her arm. She swung around and sunk her teeth deep into his hand. The taste of blood filled her mouth before he was able to react. He pulled his hand away before he screamed but she was already running down the hallway. She turned the corner right as the bullets hit the wall.
She knew her way to the main room with the brainwashing machine and she knew there were three hallways she had never walked down before. There was only one she saw most of the guards coming in and out of so she could only hope that led to the exit. If it wasn’t, she’d still make it out of there, not alive but at least she’d make it out.
Melanie ran into the main room, surprised to see a bunch of the men in there already. She froze when she saw who was standing in front of the brainwashing machine. By that point she knew his name, or at least what they called him. The Winter Soldier.
She hadn’t seen him at all since their fight but he still looked exactly the same. Same uniform, same hair, he even had the same blank expression on his face. She wondered if he could even feel anything at all. Her fear of him kept her in place for a moment.
The shouts made her snap out of it and remember why she was in the room. She sprinted towards the hallway she wanted to go down but another hand grabbed her arm. She turned to bite it but stopped when she saw it was made of metal. She struggled against his grasp, but he was surprisingly strong.
One of the men said something and she was dragged over to the other men in the room. She tried to pull his hand off her and drag her feet on the ground to stop him, but she was fighting against the force of what should have been at least three men. Nothing she did got any reaction from him.
The man who had said the order watched as they got closer with a smile on his face. She knew who he was, he was alway there whenever she was taken to get brainwashed. He always sat and watched, almost like he was enjoying seeing them torture her. When they got close enough The Winter Soldier stopped but didn’t let her go.
The man in charge chuckled, “Were you trying to leave?” His thick accent made him even more scary.
“Why would I want to do that? You’ve all been so inviting here,” Melanie regretted what she said after it slipped out of her mouth. Maybe it wasn’t the best time for that kind of attitude, but she honestly didn’t care too much. Either way she wasn’t going to survive very long, might as well go out pissing off the evil men.
The man did not react how she expected him to. He laughed, “I see we did not make a mistake sparing you,”
“I can assure you you will come to realize it was,”
He laughed again, “You’ll make a fine soldier,”
“I’d like to see you try,” She spat at him but he was too far away and nothing made it on him. She knew she was embarrassing herself, but she had too much pride to show it.
The man chuckled and bent down so they were eye level with each other, “Then you are going to love this,” he shouted an order in another language and The Winter Soldier started dragging her forward again, towards the brainwashing machine.
“No!” Melanie screamed, trying harder than before to get away from him, "No! Let go of me!"
It took several soldiers to wrestle her into the machine and hold her down until it started up and closed around her.
She was screaming before the machine reached her face.
---
Melanie walked down the hallway, trying to look inside any of the rooms but everything was shut. As she passed the first open door she saw she slowed down, surprised that the guards slowed down with her. The room was full of weapons. Varying sizes of guns, knives, explosives, anything that could seriously hurt or kill someone.
It took her a second to see the man standing in the room. It made her stop completely right outside the door. The Winter Soldier. He was cleaning a sniper rifle on the table in the middle of the room, there were a few other weapons sitting next to it.
She wanted to keep moving before he saw her, but she was curious and didn’t want him to know she was afraid, “Why’d you stop?” The Winter Soldier looked up, surprised to see her there. He probably wasn’t expecting her to talk to him, either
He took so long to respond she started to doubt he knew english, “What?” his voice scared her. The only time she had heard it was the two times he said the same phrase to the soldiers in another language. Hearing a cold blooded murderer reply in her own language terrified her but she didn’t show it.
“The ‘initiation’ thing. When we fought. You stopped before they told you to,” If he said something about compassion towards her she was going to throw up. He killed her father and who knew how many more. She knew she looked much younger than she actually was and constantly got confused for a child but not wanting to kill a child wouldn’t pass as compassion for her. That man didn’t know anything about compassion. He was so ready to kill her before, only stopping because he had been ordered to. He was probably waiting impatiently for the day they ordered him to kill her and he wouldn’t hesitate to do it.
“Probably because I knew you showed promise,” his voice wasn’t what she was expecting. She had seen movies and all the villains had similar voices to each other; evil, powerful, dangerous. He just sounded tired.
“Promise to what?”
“All this,” he made a small gesture with his hands pointing everywhere around them.
Melanie nodded, “So… all of this is your fault,” she made a gesture with her own hands to show her being there.
The Winter Soldier stood up a little straighter, “No… I-”
“Are they going to make me into you?”
He stared at her with a blank expression on his face. She couldn’t tell if there was no emotion or too much for her to read. She settled on no emotion, how could a person like him have any emotions. The silence between them answered her question. She would never become like him, she had human decency. She couldn’t even get herself to consider him a human. He killed his way out of having a heart so he didn’t count as a human anymore.
He finally started to open his mouth to say something but she cut him off, “You’re disgusting,” he closed his mouth, “I hope you know that,” she walked away before he was able to say anything to her. She couldn’t stand to hear his voice anymore. That monster deserved to rot in hell. And she wanted to be the one to send him there.