Archive of Our Own

The first thing the Soldier notices about Hydra’s newest asset is that he’s young. It’s an absent sort of observation. The sky is blue, the grass is green, the Soldier’s arm is metal, and the new asset is young.

It does not seem to make him less efficient. He doesn’t use a gun like the Soldier does, though he likely knows how, but instead he melts so flawlessly into the shadows that even the Soldier loses him for a brief, horrifying second. The first mission the Soldier does with the new asset, the boy takes down the first of their targets before they even notice he’s entered the room much less that there’s a knife against their throat.

The second thing the Soldier notices about the new asset is that he doesn’t speak. Not that the Soldier often speaks himself, but at the very least, he offers his handler a ready to comply as necessary.

The new asset stays silent. When the mission commences, the new asset tilts his head so minutely that the Soldier doubts that he even knows he’s doing it, and he makes a sound akin to the chirp of a bird. It’s the closest he gets to speaking, and the Soldier has never heard him do even that once they’re in the field.

One of the last things the Soldier learns about the new asset is his name. His title, he supposes. It would be foolish to claim to have names.

They call the boy the Gravewalker, and for a while, the Soldier thinks little of it. It’s a codename, another version of the Winter Soldier, and he imagines it’s much the same, too - something morbidly humorous only to those in charge.

The Soldier often finds himself with the Gravewalker for his missions, even when there are large breaks between them. More often than not, when the Soldier wakes up, he expects the Gravewalker to be in the next room to greet him. He does, technically, in his own way. There are never words from either of them, but the Soldier will nod and the Gravewalker will tilt his head the same way he does for their handlers - an acknowledgement, an I hear you - and the Soldier thinks it counts.

The boy ages, not much, but enough to notice, and the Soldier wonders if he ever sleeps the way the Soldier sleeps, or if they let time move for him as it should. He’s grateful for it, on the days he’s a little more aware. Watching the Gravewalker age makes it easier to tell how much time is passing, although he supposes that sort of thing doesn’t matter much, especially when he can’t be sure if the boy is really awake the whole time anyway.

But time passes, yes, and he’s glad to know at least that much. He starts thinking of the Gravewalker as less of a boy and more of a man.

Time passes.

The Gravewalker is surprisingly tactile. The Soldier doesn’t think much of the touches at first - usually it’s little more than a tap on his upper arm or a closeness when they’re hunkered down to wait for their target. It takes a few missions before the Soldier realizes that the Gravewalker is letting him know where he is. With how quiet he is, he has a feeling that if it weren’t for those occasional touches, he’d forget the other man was there at all.

It isn’t until they get caught up in a crowd while disappearing from their most recent mission - a little too bloody, a little too risky - that the Soldier realizes that with each touch, the Gravewalker has been speaking to him.

The tap is quick and halting, with breaks so obvious that the Soldier wants to kick himself for not catching the Morse code sooner.

Got your back

The Soldier trusts that it’s true without hesitation, and when he does it again on the next mission, tapped against his forearm as they exit their van, the Soldier believes him then, too.

The Assets are rarely injured in the field. The Gravewalker is usually too fast, and the Soldier is usually too far.

But it happens. And the Soldier supposes, as they sit in this alley and he finishes wrapping the Gravewalker’s shoulder, bullet freshly discarded, that it is good proof that they are not invincible. The Gravewalker is still human, despite their handlers’ insistence to the contrary.

And when they’re back at the base, and the other man pulls a small stash of tools out of hiding to work on a broken connection in the Soldier’s metal wrist, the Soldier finds that he feels a little more human, too.

It’s a pattern. The Soldier wakes, he greets his partner, the mission begins and just as quickly ends, and then they return to base to lick their rarely received wounds. It’s better, with two of them. Easier, than when the Soldier was alone.

It’s a pattern, until it isn’t.

They call him the Gravewalker. He doesn’t understand why, at first. Doesn’t understand much of anything. It’s a blur, most of the time.

There’s a voice and words, and he knows they should mean something, but they don’t. If they ever did, he can’t be sure.

April

Bee

Petrichor

Burn

Two

Bury

Whistle

Shatter

Silence

Twenty-Seven

They echo in him, punctuated by the smell of rain and fresh turned earth and the phantom pain of something heavy against his skull.

He feels like a walking gravesite. They must see it too. They sneer at him when they call him to the chair after each mission. He doesn’t know why, doesn’t understand when one of them says,

“Let’s see if you come back this time.”

He feels his heart flutter to a stop as the machine drags away what little of his consciousness remains.

When he opens his eyes again, he hardly remembers dying.

The Soldier is a welcome change. While loneliness doesn’t necessarily cross his mind, the Asset is grateful for the company. Not that there’s much in the way of conversation. The Asset cannot speak, as though there’s a wire loose between his brain and his tongue, and the Soldier does not speak beyond ‘Ready to comply’.

Still, while other memories vanish between missions, leaving blots of ink throughout his head where he knows there should be more, the Soldier remains constant. If nothing else, the Soldier is a mark of reality when nothing else feels real beyond the ever present smell of rain.

The habit is natural, a muscle memory he can’t quite place, that begins after their fourth mission together. A tap to the Soldier’s arm when he begins to look too distant, a brush of shoulders when the man seems to forget that he isn’t working alone.

Got your back, he tells him, in the only way he still knows how, because something about the Soldier draws him in.

He seems like the type of man who should know he isn’t alone.

They don’t let the Asset sleep in the same way they let the Soldier sleep. He doesn’t notice it right away, too lost amidst the fog and the machine, but the Asset knows that he has a cell and a bed, and that the Soldier does not.

On the rare occasion that they do not put the Soldier into his cryochamber, the Asset finds him on the floor of his room instead. Even when he doesn’t say a word, there’s comfort in the sound of his breath. Proof that this, whatever it is, is real.

He wonders, some nights, if the blood he dreams about is real, too.

The first tool he steals is a screwdriver. It’s small and thin, barely the length of his thumb. He doesn’t know why he grabs it, he’s never done anything like it before, especially when his handler is so close. But it’s there, on the counter during the mission briefing, taunting him with the glint of metal and the rush of what if.

They don’t notice. He hides it in his boot, and it isn’t until later that he realizes it’s the perfect size to get into the joint of the Soldier’s metal arm to fix the way it locks up when he reaches too high.

He steals pliers next.

By the next mission, he has an emergency repair kit lining the entire inner cuff of his boot. Just in case.

The Soldier smiles when the Asset twists a screw back into place in his wrist. The Asset cannot return it, but he wishes he could. He wishes he could say you’re welcome when the Soldier breaks his silence just long enough to thank him.

He settles for tapping it against the metal of his inner arm. The Soldier seems to understand.

Their target is dead within ten minutes of their drop, and the Soldier can’t help but stare at the Gravewalker in surprise. He’s skilled in what they do, the Soldier has always known it, but there are some days that those skills put even him to shame. He hadn’t even gotten to pull his gun out before the man had dropped into the room via skylight and taken down their target and the two men with him before anyone could even blink, much less call for help.

The Soldier watches as he meticulously wipes the blood from his dagger before sheathing it again, and then he looks up at the skylight and meets the Soldier’s eyes. The request is silent, it always is, but the Soldier knows to reach down to offer a hand just in time for the Gravewalker to kick off the ground and catch him at the wrist. With the Soldier’s help, he’s up and out of the room in mere seconds, and then they’re gone, back into the shadows as though they were never there at all.

The running is easy, hiding is child's play when there’s no one even following, and the Soldier is grateful not to have to worry about any wounds to mend or circuits to repair for once. A flawless mission, even more so than usual. It’s not that the Gravewalker seems to mind doing the maintenance - in fact, he tends to look oddly at peace when he’s working on the Soldier’s arm - and the Soldier is fairly certain that he does a better job of it than their handler, but it’ll be a welcome change nonetheless. He doesn’t particularly like having the wires adjusted, it’s hell on his nerves.

But then, suddenly, the Gravewalker stops running. They’re nowhere near evac, and yet he pauses. He looks down an alleyway and the Soldier follows his gaze to the sleek black car parked at the other end.

“What is it?” the Soldier asks, because the Gravewalker shows no sign of moving and the sound of the Soldier’s voice - rare as it is - usually drags him back to reality when his mind starts to wander.

He doesn’t look away from the alley though. Just keeps staring at the car, frowning softly, until the Soldier takes a step closer to him. It’s enough to make the Gravewalker jump slightly, and then he shakes his head, turns away, and goes back to running towards their evac.

The Soldier grimaces at the odd reaction to the simple black car, but he doesn’t think to ask about it. Why would he? It has nothing to do with their mission, after all.

It’s not like the Gravewalker would answer.

Something changes after they see the car.

The Soldier doesn’t notice it right away. He doesn’t even remember the car, doesn’t remember the Gravewalker pausing on their way to evac, doesn’t even remember much of the mission beyond the success of it. He knows, somewhere deep down, that that’s the point. If he remembered, then the machine wasn’t doing its job, and if it weren’t doing its job, then something else would have to.

But the Gravewalker is different. He’s more aware, often looking around the base as they walk to and from their mission briefings. The Soldier shouldn’t notice. To notice would mean that he’s looking, that he’s paying attention, and that’s something he shouldn’t do. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t.

Their handler notices it, too. He must. Because one mission, the Gravewalker is still thin and lithe and deadly, and then by the next, after the Soldier has been frozen and thawed once again, he is broader and taller and still just as deadly - perhaps more so now that he’s been given the same ‘gift’ the Soldier himself has borne from his conception within Hydra.

There’s an awareness in his eyes that wasn’t there before, but he still remains silent. He still does not open his mouth for more than the simple chirp of compliance, but the Soldier thinks that now, sometimes, he looks like he wants to.

The Asset twists the screwdriver between nimble fingers, watching the way the metal glints in the low lighting of his cell. Their cell, he supposes as he looks over at the Soldier sitting on the floor with his metal arm outstretched over the bed, considering how often they have the Soldier sleeping on the floor these days. A panel is open in the forearm, wires bare for the Asset to work on them, repairing frayed edges and untangling old ones left behind by their handler. The Soldier stares straight ahead, letting the Asset work in silence as they always do.

But he doesn’t work. He stares at the screwdriver, then at the wires, and then risks a glance to the open door where the current guard is standing with his back to them as always. They’re never left completely alone on base, despite the fact that the Asset is pretty sure that no one there thinks either of them are capable of forming a single thought for themselves.

He doesn’t mind letting them believe that. The Soldier doesn’t seem to either.

But playing dumb leaves them in their own heads, and even though they’re both used to it by now, it doesn’t mean the Asset is used to the questions it brings. And he can’t stop himself from reaching out to the Soldier to ask him too.

The touch against his metal arm is soft but insistent, and silent so as not to draw the attention of the man outside their room. It’s enough that the Soldier catches on and finally turns his head, if only to decode the Morse being tapped out.

Do you dream when you close your eyes?

The Soldier watches his finger until the question is finished, then looks up steadily to meet the Asset’s eyes. He doubts he’ll get an answer from the Soldier. Casual conversation isn’t exactly their usual pastime.

The Soldier surprises him though, and frowns. It’s not a real answer, really, but it’s enough of one that the Asset knows he understood the question.

Still, he taps it again, slower, just in case.

Instead of answering, the Soldier asks him a question in return, and the Asset finds himself at a loss.

“Do you?”

He’s not sure, but he doesn’t know what else the images could be. The flashes of rooftops and city skylines and a strange, sleek black car roaring down the road - they’re certainly not anything they’ve seen on their missions, and yet the Asset sees them whenever he sleeps.

Several long seconds later, he’s answering the Soldier before he even means to.

I think so, he taps against his arm.

The Soldier barely glances down to catch the Morse, going right back to looking the Asset in the eye once he’s done. Nothing else is said, and eventually the Asset must finish his work. He screws the panel back into place, and the guard takes the Soldier away, and the Asset sits and he thinks and he wonders what’s so important about shiny black cars parked in alleyways.

The Soldier dreams. He doesn’t think he ever has before, and if he did, he doesn’t remember it. The machine would have taken care of it anyway.

But he dreams, this time. He sits in that chair and the machine whirs to life around him, tears through his heart and his mind like it always does after their missions, sends electricity to every finger tip and toe until his whole body is little more than pins and needles. And then they put him in the chamber and he shuts his eyes before the ice can close in all the way, and he dreams.

He dreams about riding a train, and about a man and about snow, and when he wakes for the next mission, the dream doesn’t fade.

They find themselves lying in wait, with the Soldier’s gun resting against the ledge of the roof. The Soldier holds position, watching for their target due at any moment. Behind him, the Gravewalker sits on his knees and looks over his shoulder, and he’s so quiet that if he wanted to, the Soldier could pretend that he wasn’t there at all.

He does for a while, but then there’s something there, something tugging at him and at his thoughts, and he opens his mouth before he can think better of it.

“What do you dream about?”

The Gravewalker stiffens at the sound of his voice, too sudden a change from their usual pattern. The Soldier doesn’t make small talk. He doesn’t blame him for all but flinching now that he’s trying to.

There’s a pause, a hesitation, and then the Gravewalker cautiously sets his hand against his own knee and taps out a response.

A city

The Soldier frowns. “We see a lot of cities.”

He watches the Gravewalker for long enough to see him tap out I know, and when he repeats the sentiment several times over in a daze, the Soldier feels no guilt in turning his attention back to the window, and the sights of his rifle.

Eventually, their target comes and the trigger is pulled, and the Soldier doesn’t think about the way the other man’s face twisted into something unreadable.

The machine is broken. It’s the only explanation the Soldier can come up with when he next comes out of cryo and realizes that he remembers the question he asked the Gravewalker on that rooftop on their last mission.

He’s never remembered the finer details before. He remembers the Gravewalker, remembers the way the other asset can slip in and out of the shadows as if he were one himself, remembers the way he works on his metal arm as if the technology were as natural as flesh and bone, remembers the way he ‘speaks’ only in Morse code and only to him. But he’s never really remembered the actual words.

Do you dream when you close your eyes?

The Soldier does now.

He dreams of a train and a man and of snow, and he remembers it every time. And he remembers sitting on a rooftop and asking what the Gravewalker dreamed of, too.

A city. He dreams of a city, and, the Soldier realizes, he remembers. He’s remembered every single time.

The machine is broken.

The Soldier does not tell them.

There’s blood on the Soldier’s hands. He knows that, of course, but usually when he thinks about it he means it in a less than literal sense in the moment. And, when it does cross his mind how many people’s lives he’s ended, he doesn’t really think much of it. Apathy, he supposes, is the most prominent of the drugs his handler has instilled in him.

Right now, though, the blood is very literal, and still warm. It drips down his chest, splattered from their target’s neck when the Gravewalker ran a blade across it. It dots the other man’s face, wiped across his cheek from where he’d tried to rub it away from his eyes. The Soldier can’t decide if he appreciates the efficiency of his partner’s work, or if he’s put off by the look in his eyes, the one that says he barely even knows what he’s done, and certainly doesn’t know why.

It was a messy kill by their usual standards, but it shouldn’t feel like this.

For a single, brief moment, the Soldier wonders what her name was.

Got your back.

The tap is familiar and the message is second nature to decipher. The Soldier looks up at the Gravewalker, who’s hand is still around his flesh wrist and tapping Morse against his pulse point, oblivious to the blood between their skin. The words are an anchor, dragging the Soldier back to Earth.

The Gravewalker tilts his head towards the open window they’d slipped in through, and the Soldier follows his lead into the open air.

He’s grateful for the darkness. It’s easier to ignore the red.

It feels like hours later when they come to a stop in the agreed upon alley for their evac, but the van isn’t there. The Soldier grimaces as he looks around, but there’s no sign of it. The familiar tap of the Gravewalker’s finger against the brick wall pulls the Soldier’s attention back.

Early

The Soldier’s grimace deepens. In all their missions, no matter how efficient they’ve been, they’ve never been early. But when he sees the blank look on his partner’s face, the blood drying on his cheeks and hands, he decides he won’t question it yet. Instead, he nods and motions for him to come over.

He’s not sure what possesses him to do it. The Gravewalker does as directed, coming closer, and there’s an emptiness there that the Soldier just…can’t stand. It makes something ache in his chest. So he reaches for the edge of his shirt sleeve and rips a section off, and he pulls the asset’s face close enough that he can wipe some of the blood away before it dries completely.

The Gravewalker’s face scrunches with confusion but he doesn’t pull back. He meets the Soldier’s eyes instead, a million questions asked in the silence, and the Soldier cuts him off before he can follow through on any of them.

“What’s the city like?”

The confusion increases, but the Gravewalker still reaches up and taps against the back of the Soldier’s hand, even as he continues working at the blood.

You remember

He knows it isn’t a question but it feels like it should be. The Soldier doesn’t answer it.

“What do you dream about?” he says instead, and the Gravewalker hesitates. His hand stills on top of the Soldier’s, and the Soldier pauses with him and they stare at each other, neither budging in their silence until he finally taps out an answer.

The city is old but I know it. Know it better than the base.

The Soldier’s brow knits. “From before?”

The Gravewalker’s eyes pull away, dart off to the side and down the alley with paranoia before he answers. Do we have a before?

Something about it feels wrong to ask. Every person in the world has a ‘before’. They had to have come from somewhere, they didn’t just materialize in the world as these weapons, these assets that Hydra uses for…for…

When his thoughts trail off beyond his control, the Soldier says the only thing he can. “I dream about a train.”

The van is another block away. The Soldier wants to believe that it’s an accident that the Gravewalker didn’t have the evac point correct, but it doesn’t feel like one.

It’s been hours. The blood is gone, but the Asset keeps reaching up to run his fingers across his cheek anyway, expecting the skin to stick. He can still feel it there, even if the Soldier wiped so much of it away before they’d even made it to the van.

He’s not used to it, not used to being touched like that. It’s too gentle, certainly not something their handler would have approved of.

But he wouldn’t mind if the Soldier did it again.

Patterns change. They shouldn’t - the Asset knows the way things are supposed to go, how the missions work, the training, the machine, everything that makes up his life on the base. But now there are these moments where things are different and wrong and yet the Asset finds very quickly that he doesn’t mind.

He does not mind that when they find themselves waiting for their targets or passing time on a stake out, the Soldier asks him what he dreamed about last. He does not mind that the Soldier will pause them on their way to evac to help him clean the blood from his weapons and from his hands. He does not mind the way the Soldier looks at him when the mission is done and their handler isn’t there yet, a truly indecipherable look that the Asset wishes he understood but knows he cannot. For all it’s worth, for all the missions they’ve worked together, he still doesn’t know what’s going on in the Soldier’s head. The look in his eyes is as utterly unreadable as always.

But the Asset is glad for the changes. He tells the Soldier about the city he dreams of, about the rooftops and the cars and the smog covered starlight, and the Soldier nods. He lets the Soldier clean the blood from his face, meticulous and careful as if he’s handling something breakable. Sometimes, the Soldier smiles, and the Asset thinks that he would say anything - do anything - to make him smile again.

The question comes unexpectedly, while they’re sitting on a rooftop and putting together their weapons. The Asset is sharpening the edge of his favorite dagger and the Soldier is fitting bullets into the magazine of his pistol, and the Soldier looks even more distracted than he’s already been lately. The Asset finds himself staring at him with every clink of metal against metal.

When he can’t take it anymore, the Asset taps the tip of his blade against the ground.

What’s wrong

The Soldier pauses with the magazine half full. “Nothing’s wrong,” he says, and the Asset knows it’s a lie.

Bullshit, he taps, and by some miracle, the Soldier smirks and stifles what can only be described as a chuckle.

His expression is back to normal a split second later, distant and thoughtful. “Do you know who we’re killing?” he eventually asks.

The Asset frowns. No, he answers.

“Me either.” He finishes filling the magazine and slides it back into place.

It’s the last he says of the matter, and the mission moves on like usual. They close in, their target dies, and the Soldier helps him clean his blades again before they go for evac.

A man is dead. His name was Theodore.

It becomes a habit to learn their names. Neither of them speak of it, not even in the field, but they always know who they’re killing before they pull the trigger or make the cut.

It changes nothing.

Their job is still done, there is still blood on their hands.

It changes everything.

There are some days that the Asset finds himself watching the Soldier and wondering if his thoughts are the same as his own. He wonders if the Soldier is dreaming about the blood they shed and the lives they end, and if he, too, questions why.

Why do they have to die, and why do the assets have to do it?

Why does Hydra get to decide?

And why do they want to make the assets forget?

He supposes the last one is easy enough to answer, but he’d rather not think about the implications. He’s done enough of that recently. So he focuses on the other questions instead, tries to think about their targets, think about why Hydra might want them dead, and finds that he doesn’t particularly like the conclusions he comes to.

I don’t like it, he taps against the Soldier’s arm the next time he has it stretched out and pulled open for repairs.

The Soldier looks at him and raises a brow. He’s more expressive than he was before, unafraid to frown or smile or react at all when it’s just the two of them, even with a guard still posted outside their door. He doesn’t need to voice his question for the Asset to understand it.

They’re using us. He watches the Soldier as he taps out each word, watching for understanding or really any sort of thought he might have on the matter.

The Soldier scoffs under his breath and shrugs, jostling his arm in the process and forcing the Asset to scramble to catch the loose screw that rolls off of it. The Asset shoots him a glare, but it’s only met with a smirk.

There’s warmth in the Asset’s cheeks that he does his best to ignore.

The Soldier seems to take pity on him, and his expression softens. “They are.” He pauses, glancing at the door, but the guard isn’t paying attention. They rarely ever do. When he looks back at the Asset, there is only determination in his eyes.

“What do you want to do about it?”

It works like dominos. The Soldier asks the question and the Asset doesn’t know how to answer it. What does he want to do about it…? What can he do about it?

And everything falls apart from there, because the two of them realize something very quickly.

The Gravewalker and the Winter Soldier are very, very good at what they do. There’s a reason they’re always Hydra’s first choice, and there’s a reason they are so desperate to keep the two of them under Hydra’s thumb.

And when the Asset thinks about that, he has the strange theory that maybe - just maybe - that means that Hydra might be a little bit afraid of their own creation.

I want to burn it down

The Soldier looks up when the Gravewalker taps the message out late one night after their most recent mission. There was no blood to clean up this time, no repairs or injuries to tend to, just information to give to their handler. Sometimes that’s better.

They’re supposed to be sleeping. Instead, the Soldier sits up to look at the Gravewalker where he lays awake in bed, staring at the ceiling above them with a look in his eyes that the Soldier doesn’t know what to make of yet.

“What?” he whispers, and the Gravewalker doesn’t look at him while he taps out his answer.

I don’t want to keep killing

The Soldier frowns, silent for a while as he weighs the asset’s words. If he thinks too hard about it, he knows he’d feel the same. Sometimes he looks down at his hands and forgets that they aren’t really red.

“We could just leave.”

The Gravewalker’s fingers press into the fabric of his own shirt, twisting it up into his fist. For a long while, the Soldier thinks he isn’t going to say anything else. They could leave. The Soldier is fairly certain of their abilities - they could make it out of the base, or even just leave on a mission. They could walk away from it all.

They’d follow, the Gravewalker taps back with his free hand, and the Soldier knows he’s right.

They would never let their greatest weapons just disappear, and if they couldn’t bring them back, he doubts they’d hesitate before simply killing them both.

The Soldier reaches over to gingerly release the Gravewalker’s hold on his shirt, loosening his white-knuckled grip one finger at a time to untangle him from the fabric.

“Then we burn it,” he murmurs, finding that even once he’s gotten the Gravewalker to relax his hand, he doesn’t want to be the one to let go first.

Missions come and go, and the list of names they now keep in their heads grows longer. They try not to think about the blood, try not to think about what they become every time those words are said at the start of each day or when they step away from that machine at the end of it. They try to focus on the escape, on finding an opening.

Too much time passes. The Soldier isn’t sure if there will ever be one.

And then the Soldier realizes that the Gravewalker was always going to find it.

The Soldier’s body is loose and uncomfortable as they drag him from the machine, and even though it no longer pulls the memories from his head the way it’s supposed to, it’s still draining. He expects it. He stumbles the first step out of the machine and doesn’t bother resisting when the scientist grabs his arm to keep him upright. They’re rough, as always, but it’s never mattered before and shouldn’t matter now. They’ll take him to the Gravewalker’s cell and he’ll sleep it off.

Except, as he watches them lead the Gravewalker into the machine next, the Soldier realizes that they aren’t walking towards the right hall. No, the Gravewalker’s cell is the other way. The only thing this way is the cryochambers.

The Gravewalker must realize it too, because there’s a moment when the Soldier is looking back at him and their eyes meet, and the world seems to slow down. A pair of agents push him against the machine, start to strap him in, and then suddenly there’s the bang of a gun, and the scientist holding the Soldier falls to the floor in a heap.

The Gravewalker is holding a gun, swiped from the agent beside him who is quick to meet the same fate as the scientist. The other agent slams into the Gravewalker, hoping to tackle him to the ground before he can get another shot off, but it doesn’t stop him. The second agent collapses on top of the Gravewalker with a bullet in his gut and they hit the ground hard.

The Gravewalker doesn’t move, and the Soldier finds that he can’t either. His feet are glued where he stands and stares at his partner.

No one else in the room is breathing, but they can’t count on that for long. Someone will have heard the gunshot. They’re working on borrowed time.

The Soldier swallows hard. “Nice shot,” he manages, and it’s enough to force everything into motion.

The Gravewalker shoves the dead agent off of himself, rolling him off to the side with a heavy thump. He’s drenched in the man’s blood, it’s soaked through his shirt and decorates his arms and hands, and there’s an uncharacteristic look on his face that’s bordering on horrified. This wasn’t the plan.

Even so, the Gravewalker clumsily gets to his feet and finds his balance, swiping the gun back up from the ground. He yanks a second one from the other agent’s belt and tosses it to the Soldier without sparing a glance, and the Soldier catches it with ease.

“We need to go,” the Soldier says, hurrying to his side. When the Gravewalker doesn’t look his way, the Soldier grabs him by the wrist to get his attention.

There’s fear in the other man’s eyes when he turns to him, and it’s so unexpected that the Soldier’s grip loosens. The Gravewalker’s hand turns in the Soldier’s until he can place his fingers against him to tap.

I couldn’t let them take you

“I know,” the Soldier says, and he’s sure he’d smile at him if he could right now. If he wasn’t just as terrified as the Gravewalker looked. “Plans change, right?”

The Gravewalker nods stiffly, and yet they don’t move. Instead, both of them turn to the machine, and something settles in them at the same time. They share a look, and they know.

Rigging the machine is child's play. They’re in a lab, after all, and neither man is lacking in talent when it comes to creating fireworks. It takes less than a minute, and then the Soldier raises his gun and shoots out the generator.

Sparks fly, and then the whole damn thing goes up in flames.

A second later has the alarms blaring, and when the Gravewalker once again finds himself unable to move, the Soldier does the only thing he can.

He clutches the front of the Gravewalker’s shirt and presses him against the nearest wall, closing what little distance remains between their bodies until they melt into one. Their lips mold together as though they’d been designed with the other man in mind, and it takes too long for either of them to pull away, to break the connection they’d clearly been so desperate for.

“I’ve got your back,” the Soldier all but whispers, an inch away, and still holding tight to the bloodied fabric.

The Gravewalker blinks in a daze, opening his mouth as though, just this once, he expects the words to come. They don’t, but when he drags the Soldier back against his lips instead, he supposes the words are unnecessary.

It lasts only a moment, but a moment is enough. When they finally pull apart, they know that this isn’t the end.

The door slams open, and they do not falter. They shoot first.

In the end, Hydra cannot stand against their own hand. The base goes down in flames, until only their Assets remain amidst the rubble.

They lean together, back to back, bloody from wounds their own and wounds inflicted, and yet, it’s done. They look around themselves, and they watch Hydra burn to ash, and it’s enough.

They’re free.

The Soldier startles when the Gravewalker suddenly laughs. The sound is strained from years of disuse, raw from smoke and old scars, but the Soldier could listen to it forever. And then he’s laughing too as the relief pours through his body like a tidal wave.

Slowly, the two of them slide to the ground, tangled together, until they’re little more than a heap, fingers tangled.

Eventually the laughter trails off, but neither of them move. There’s nowhere to go, not yet. It’s okay just for this one moment if they just breathe. They’re injured, he knows it, but it can wait. Everything can wait.

The Soldier feels the Gravewalker start to go limp against him and he can’t help but smile in his giddy daze.

“It’s okay,” he mutters quietly and squeezes his hand, still held at their side. The Gravewalker squeezes his hand too, and the Soldier lets himself close his eyes. It’s okay to rest.

“I’ve got your back.”

“Director?”

Nick Fury looks up from his desk, brow raised at the blond man currently leaning his head into his office. He doesn’t give him permission to speak, but of course the man takes his silence as the same.

“That base we were tracking in Siberia just burnt to a crisp.”

It’s not what he’s expecting him to say, and he frowns in spite of himself. “I didn’t order that.”

“I know.” The man shrugs and lets himself the rest of the way into the office, wandering over to lazily lean against one of the plush chairs in front of the desk. He crosses his arms and tilts his head. “That’s the thing, boss. It wasn’t us.”

Fury’s expression hardens. “Any idea who?”

He shrugs. “No. But something tells me we should find out.”

When Clint Barton boards the jet with the rest of his team, he doesn’t know what they’re about to fly into. Hydra doesn’t go down easily. They should know.

“We’ll want to search for survivors first,” Coulson says from the seat across from him.

Natasha smirks lightly, barely sparing them a glance. “To take them out ourselves?”

“Or bring them in for questioning,” Clint corrects her with a knowing look. She’s still quick to jump to the kill shot sometimes, but he supposes he can’t ask her to change so completely all at once. She’s getting there.

They touch down some hours later, and step out onto the remnants of a warzone. The base is little more than a pile of concrete, so recently demolished that there are still thin swirls of smoke and ash drifting up towards the sky.

Clint and Coulson share a look, while Natasha starts walking without waiting for instruction. The other agents with them fan out, though none of them have any hope of finding anything useful in this mess.

At some point, Clint finds himself ducking under fallen support beams and chunks of rebar, desperate to find at least a sign of what could have possibly caused such complete and thorough destruction. Bits of concrete slip under his feet, clattering down short dips in the rubble. He listens as each bit hits the bottom and settles again, until suddenly, the sound cuts off wrong.

Soft.

Clint peers into the darkness, and it takes him a long while to understand what he’s looking at. He reaches for his comm without daring to take his eyes off of the two figures at the base of the debris, huddled together and all but dead to the world with their eyes closed and their heads leaned against one another. Clint can’t help but notice that their hands are intertwined and there’s not a single viable weapon in sight, but even from here he can see the way their chests rise and fall in perfect unison.

“I think I’ve found our guys.”