Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Everything had started there. In a hospital.

Although the outlines of the memory appeared blurred and fragmented, some details remained with unbearable clarity, as if time itself had decided to preserve only what was essential—what was indelible. The air was heavy with that characteristic disinfectant smell, a sharp mix of alcohol and bleach that, for many, evoked reassurance, but for her—even then—was unsettling. Along with that clinical scent floated a sweet, familiar floral note: her mother’s favorite perfume, a soft fragrance of jasmine and lilacs that seemed to wrap around her like an invisible embrace.

Beside her, her father, always attentive, gently combed his daughter’s platinum hair with distracted tenderness. Though his fingers moved softly, his eyes were fixed on the hallway, scanning each passing nurse, eagerly waiting for one of the doctors to pronounce his little girl's name with that French accent that, while now familiar, still somehow felt foreign. There was something in that manner of speech that subtly distanced him from the setting—a living contradiction between the safety of family and the strangeness of a medical world he had never wished to know.

Nerea didn’t speak. Perhaps because she couldn’t, or perhaps because she didn’t want to. The fear—childlike yet visceral—clung to her every movement. Her legs fidgeted, feet swinging in anxious rhythm, while her small hands repeatedly slid over the fabric of her dress, desperately trying to wipe the cold sweat that formed on her back. Her eyes, a pearly gray that under natural light took on lavender hues, fluttered around the waiting room, seeking comfort and finding none. That improvised corner filled with toys and rag dolls held no appeal: it was the fifth time she shook her head when her mother invited her to play there with the other children.

She didn’t want to leave their side. Her parents were her shelter—the only warmth she knew, the only silent promise that everything would be okay. She gently caressed her mother’s slightly rounded belly, resting peacefully under her dress. Inside, she knew, life was growing. Her mother had told her she would soon have company, that a little brother or sister—or maybe both—was on the way. Someone to play with, to care for, someone who would love her unconditionally.

A timid smile crept across her face at the thought. The sweetness of the moment grew even more intense when her mother looked at her and returned the smile with tenderness. In that gesture, there was an intimate, maternal complicity—almost sacred. A fleeting, genuine instant that lit a spark of happiness.

And then, memory shattered.

The scene distorted violently. Warmth was replaced by a cruel cold. In a blink, she found herself surrounded by bodies. The once pristine floor was now soaked in blood. The walls splattered in red. Chaos reigned. Screams. Shrill alarms echoed endlessly in her ears. The once perfumed air now reeked of metal and panic. She didn’t understand what she had done or why everything around her had descended into such utter chaos. The sensation of being covered in blood—hers or someone else's—turned her stomach.

Before she could form a coherent thought, she felt the blunt strike of a rifle butt against her temple. The pain was immediate and devastating. Her vision darkened. The darkness fell over her like a thick shroud, and the world ceased to exist.

When she opened her eyes again, time had changed.

The ceiling lights were not those of the hospital. They were colder, more hostile. The air, heavy with chemicals and metal, lacked all humanity. Her arms, immobilized by thick restraints, lay at her sides. The cold of the surgical table pierced her spine like a dagger.

She had awakened in a laboratory.

It was 1968. And she was only eighteen.

HYDRA was watching her.

Waking up there was not simply opening her eyes—it was being returned to a nightmare that had never fully ended.

The white, harsh light of the laboratory stabbed at her pupils like daggers. It wasn’t warm or comforting like sunlight streaming through the windows of her home; it was clinical, inhuman, designed to expose everything—so that no shadow remained in which fear could hide. The high-pitched, constant hum of machines was the only sound, alongside the occasional clicking of keys and the metallic snap of tools being prepared with surgical precision.

Her arms were stretched out, bound at her sides by leather straps that bit into her pale skin hard enough to leave purplish marks. Her body ached—not with sharp pain, but a muscular heaviness that spoke of recent sedation, of needles inserted without care, of tests performed while she slept. Her neck barely moved. Her head throbbed—a dull pain where the rifle had first struck her… though that wound no longer existed, at least not visibly. Sometimes she believed it never had. That it was only an image her mind clung to as the breaking point. Or maybe, it was the one memory they couldn’t take from her.

A decade had passed since that first night when her childish screams were lost among hospital alarms. Since she had felt—barely eight years old—her mother’s hands clutching her desperately, and then the violence with which she had been ripped from those arms that pleaded, cried, begged for a daughter they would never see again.

HYDRA had erased all trace of her. To the world, Nerea Garnier was dead.

And yet, fear still accompanied her like a persistent shadow. Every awakening in that cold, clinical, inhuman laboratory was a cruel repetition of her first memory: a girl torn from her mother’s arms, plunged into the silence of HYDRA’s underground corridors, where time seemed to lose all meaning.

The tubes emerging from her arms pulsed in rhythm with a nearby machine that measured her blood levels, adrenaline, and cortisol. The table beneath her was rigid, metallic—not designed for rest, but for subjugation. An overhead light hung above her face, too bright, almost insulting to her drowsy eyes. The air was dry, sterile, saturated with a piercing mix of chloroform, oxidized metal, and latex—as if every particle in the room had been stripped of humanity.

Nerea opened her eyes with difficulty, as if each blink required effort. She didn’t scream. She didn’t do that anymore. But the terror remained, lodged deep in her chest. Despite the resignation time had forced upon her, there was a part of her—intimate, almost childlike—that trembled with every awakening in that room that felt more like a clinical tomb than a place of healing. Because no one healed there. They were broken and rebuilt with one sole purpose: obedience.

A slight movement of her left wrist confirmed what she already knew—she was restrained again. Tight leather. Metal clasps. The old marks on her skin remembered well how much it hurt to resist. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a shadow moving behind the observation glass. She was never alone. The walls were lined with cameras, thermal sensors, microphones. Every change in her breathing, every involuntary twitch, was recorded, analyzed, archived.

She was an experiment.

A living weapon.

And she had been since she was eight years old, when HYDRA—like a faceless force—brutally tore her from everything she had ever known. Since then, there had been no more family, no games, no warm embraces. Only needles, merciless training, sleep deprivation, psychological conditioning, electrodes on her head, and tests to push her abilities. The mutation that once terrified her—the one that turned her first hospital visit into chaos—was now the reason she existed. Her control over blood—unstable, violent, extraordinary—had become both her sentence and her only value to her captors.

And as if that wasn’t enough, HYDRA hadn’t acted alone.

A year ago, Dreykov, that man with the rough voice and intimidating presence, crossed the facility’s threshold. He looked at her like someone assessing a broken machine and decided she would also serve his purposes. Her body, already the property of one organization, now belonged to another. The Black Widow program needed young, resilient flesh with potential. She met every criterion. Not only due to her physical condition, but also because of her carefully induced docility, her emotional fragility that could be molded at will.

For entire weeks, she was transferred to the Red Room headquarters, where she learned to kill as naturally as a child learns to read. She danced with blades on her feet, learned to seduce without feeling desire, to obey without doubt, to lie without blinking. They taught her that guilt was weakness, that affection was a luxury she could not afford, and that death was simply another tool.

And yet, every time she awoke on HYDRA’s examination table, the fear was the same. No matter how much pain she had endured, how many orders she had followed, how many times her body had been pushed to the limit—something inside her resisted. Something deeply human still pulsed amid the wreckage of her fragmented identity.

A voice echoed through the speakers. Cold. Mechanical.

"Unit Hemera, evaluation protocol active. Levels stable. Proceed with stimulation."

It was her name. The one they had given her. Hemera. A mask to cover what remained of Nerea Garnier. Every time she heard it, she felt the girl she had been dissolve a little more, as if that artificial identity was slowly displacing every trace of her true self.

The door opened with an electric buzz. Two figures in white coats entered, carrying a metal tray with syringes and sensors. Behind them came the man she feared more than death itself: Dr. Kessler. His cold eyes didn’t look at her with contempt or cruelty—but with something far worse: disinterest. To him, she was not a person. She was a set of biological reactions to be studied, a genetic anomaly that could become the ultimate weapon.

And though terror once again seized her chest, Nerea didn’t scream. She didn’t cry. She simply closed her eyes, like someone diving into an ocean they know all too well.

She knew she would have to survive again.

The walls were covered in military maps, direct telephone lines to Moscow, Berlin, and Paris, and a board full of coded reports. The atmosphere was thick with smoke and ambition. The tension wasn’t hostile, but it was firm: every word, every pause, every glance carried subtexts no junior agent could ever fully decode.

General Dreykov, dressed in his characteristic long dark wool coat, observed the base from the window with his hands clasped behind his back. His solid figure and hardened profile from years of power gave him the presence of a modern tsar—someone used to getting what he wanted without raising his voice.

Next to him, more reserved though no less dangerous, stood Commander Erich Von Zoller, one of HYDRA’s high-ranking officers in Eastern Europe. Slimmer in build but with hawk-like eyes, Von Zoller was known for his surgical precision in everything he did—from managing covert bases to dismantling souls.

“It’s ironic, really,” Dreykov commented, slowly exhaling smoke. “A girl with such powerful blood… and so afraid of her own shadow.”

Von Zoller smiled, not taking his eyes off the cigarette he lit with care.

“Fear is useful. In the right doses, of course. To break something, you must know when to apply pressure… and when to let it breathe.”

“HYDRA never knew how to raise soldiers,” Dreykov replied, barely containing his disdain. “They know how to create them, yes. But not educate them. They don’t perfect them. You yourself called me when your prodigy started… reacting poorly. And now we share her. How convenient.”

“Mutual convenience,” Von Zoller corrected, raising an eyebrow. “We don’t need Widows. You do. But you can’t control mutations like hers. We can. The deal was fair.”

Dreykov didn’t deny it. Nor did he celebrate it. He simply walked to the central table, where an open dossier displayed images taken at various stages of Nerea’s development. Cranial x-rays, blood analyses, graphs that rose and fell like seismic waves.

“And how stable is she now?”

“Define stable,” Von Zoller replied humorlessly. “The girl has been trained, programmed, and conditioned. But she still retains traces of will. She dreams. She trembles when she wakes. Sometimes she responds to her real name. Other times, not at all. But Hemera… Hemera always obeys.”

“And if she doesn’t?” Dreykov asked, lifting his gaze coldly.

“Then we recalibrate. Like we do with all assets.”

A heavy silence fell between them. Only the buzz of the lamps and the occasional crackle of the cigarette punctuated the conversation.

Dreykov dropped the dossier and, without looking at his interlocutor, changed the subject.

“And what about the Soldier?”

Von Zoller let out a short, bitter laugh.

“Ah… our golden boy. Nearly twenty years of investment. Brainwashing, cryogenics, systematic torture. And finally, we’ve done it.”

“He remembers nothing?”

“Nothing we don’t want him to. The Winter Soldier is no longer Bucky Barnes. James is gone. There are only automatic responses to specific orders. He’s been purged. His gaze is a bottomless void. Cold. Efficient. Lethal. He is everything we promised he’d be… and more.”

Dreykov nodded slowly, with a touch of forced admiration.

“The perfect weapon, then.”

“The most reliable we’ve ever had. And the best part is, unlike your Red Room, he doesn’t need affection, a sense of belonging, or ideological speeches. He only needs a target and a bullet. And he never misses.”

The Russian general turned to look at the commander with intensity. For a few seconds, he said nothing.

“Don’t underestimate the power of belonging,” he finally said. “You can break a man, yes. But you can’t completely erase his need for meaning. One day… even the Winter Soldier will remember.”

Von Zoller chuckled under his breath.

“And when he does, there’ll be no one left alive to blame. That’s the beauty of the system: memory means nothing if there’s no love left to reclaim.”

Both men fell silent. The conversation had crossed into a different threshold—one neither of them wished to explore too deeply. Because in that game of shadows, everyone was expendable. Even their brightest pawns.

Dreykov finally stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray with a mechanical gesture.

“Do what you want with the girl. But remember this, Von Zoller: weapons can be forged through force, yes… but the most effective ones are those that believe they’re choosing. The ones who kill convinced it’s the right thing to do.”

“Like your Widows,” the commander murmured.

“Like the Soldier.”

Chapter Text

The world was bigger back then.

Everything seemed taller. Farther. Brighter.

The images didn’t always come in full. Sometimes they were only shadows, fragments of voices without faces, nameless hands lifting her from the floor amid laughter, a warm breeze on her skin before the sun reached its peak.

But that memory… that one was different. It lingered. Whole, nearly untouched.

Nerea must have been four. Maybe five. And everything began with the hum of the coffee maker, the clinking of silver cutlery against fine china, and the unmistakable scent of freshly baked toast. Her paternal grandparents’ house was an old place, with high ceilings, thick rugs that muffled footsteps, and shelves packed with books with strange names she couldn’t read.

She remembered sitting on the varnished wooden floor, right by the large window in the living room. The glass was so clean the garden looked like a painting hung on the wall: ivy covering the fence, hydrangeas in bloom, and the neighbor’s cat slipping through the gate as if it owned the place.

“There you are, petite colombe,” her grandfather had said that morning, walking toward her with a cup in one hand and his unlit pipe in the other. “You always choose the same corner. Do you know why?”

As always, when she didn’t understand something, she shrugged. She didn’t need to speak. Her grandfather never expected answers. He liked to talk, to tell stories. His voice was deep, round, like the old clocks that ticked on the walls of that house.

“Because it’s where the light comes in,” he answered himself, sitting beside her with a sigh and knees that cracked like dry twigs. “And you’ve always sought the light, ma petite.”

That moment she remembered clearly. As if she’d recorded it. As if it had survived every attempt to erase what she was.

On his lap, he held an album. An old one, worn leather and thick pages that smelled like aged paper. He opened it carefully, and his trembling fingers pointed to a black-and-white photo: several soldiers standing in formation, all wearing helmets and stern expressions, and in the middle, one taller, imposing figure that drew all the attention.

“Do you know who that is?” her grandfather asked, a particular gleam in his eyes.

She shook her head, even though the image had fascinated her from the very first moment. The uniform. The round shield slung across his back. The serious, but not harsh, expression.

“That’s Captain America,” her grandfather said with a proud smile. “Steve Rogers. The man who stood against the Nazis and never wavered. I saw him with my own eyes. I was at the base when he arrived, before the final mission in Europe. He shook my hand. He said, ‘Thank you for your service, Sergeant.’”

She remembered that part with absolute clarity. Even the French accent her grandfather used to imitate Steve Rogers’s English. The gleam in his eyes when telling that story for the hundredth time.

“He was different from the others… It wasn’t just strength. It was something else. It was like he carried something inside him the whole world needed to find again: hope. Pure courage. Justice without hate.”

A pause. A sip of coffee. A long sigh.

“And that, ma petite,” he added, looking at her with tenderness, “is what you must remember, even when everything around you is burning. That someone like him existed. That he was real. That it wasn’t just a dream.”

Nerea had rested her head on his shoulder then, and her grandfather slowly wrapped his arm around her. Outside, the hydrangeas swayed in the wind, and the world felt safe. Small. Contained within that house that smelled of wood, old books, and unconditional love.

Her grandmother came in a little later, in her navy blue dress and floral apron. She always complained that the pipe made the cushions smell, but she never took it away. She brought Nerea a small bowl of cut-up fruit and leaned down to kiss her forehead.

“You’re just like your father when he was a child,” she murmured. “Always quiet, watching the world as if you could catch it with your eyes.”

They were soft words, barely a whisper, but to Nerea, in that moment, they were a promise. That this moment would be kept. That not everything would be pain. That, no matter what came, something of that light would survive.

And then… she blinked.

Just once.

And the world changed.

The wooden walls were gone. The warmth of the sun in the window vanished. The smell of coffee and fruit was replaced by rusted metal, damp latex, and the chemical burn of disinfectant that seared the throat with every breath.

She was back.
In the present.
In 1969.
In HYDRA.

The drugs coursed through her body with the precision of a well-measured poison. Cold. Slow. Efficient. The effect wasn’t immediate, nor complete: they didn’t put her fully to sleep, but trapped her in a thick lethargy, as if she’d been submerged in a lake of liquid crystal she couldn’t quite surface from. Every attempt to move a muscle cost her tremendous effort, as if her body belonged to her only halfway.

Yet her eyes—though heavy, blurry, and dry—remained open, blinking sluggishly at the scene around her.

The room where she lay wasn’t unlike the many she’d woken in before: surgical steel walls, medical instruments placed on trays like pieces of a soulless ritual, cold lights hanging overhead casting sharp shadows. Everything in that place seemed designed to strip away any notion of humanity. Even the voices around her sounded detached, measured, as if their very tone had been calibrated to prevent any sense of attachment.

"Cortisol levels stabilized," said a sharp male voice, far too close to her left ear.

"The response to neurological stimulation has been lower than projected," replied another voice with a German accent. "Adjust the voltage in the next session. I don’t want her to go into shock, but we need to push her to the threshold."

Nerea tried to focus her eyes, to distinguish the faces behind the surgical masks. She couldn’t. Everything was fog. Figures in black and white, outlined by the light. They moved with precision, like dancers in a choreography rehearsed to perfection. They had stopped speaking to her directly years ago. They no longer referred to her by name, not even by designation. She was “the subject,” “the specimen,” "Hemera." Or simply nothing at all.

One of them, perhaps the youngest, sighed in frustration as he filled a syringe with a translucent blue liquid.

"Every day is the same. This girl should be performing better. With the mutation she has... we should be in a different phase by now."

"She has natural resistance," answered another, deeper voice. "Despite the conditioning, she still maintains consciousness thresholds that interfere with the commands. Even Hemera doesn’t respond one hundred percent. Sometimes it’s as if... something inside her is still fighting to get out."

"And what does that matter?" the first voice muttered with contempt. "If Dreykov didn’t have so many plans for her, we would’ve recycled her already like the rest of the failed assets." A pause. "Though, of course... you don’t find a subject with control over blood itself every day."

A pause. Footsteps. A shift in the rhythm of the assistants’ movements.

And then, the atmosphere changed. The energy in the room shifted subtly, as if something heavier had settled into the air. A different kind of silence, expectant, began to wrap around the conversations. The instruments were set down more quickly on their trays. Hands stopped moving around Nerea’s body. The voices, one by one, faded. And then, without warning, they were no longer talking about her.

"Has the thaw schedule been confirmed?"

"Yes. Commander Von Zoller gave the order directly."

"And the protocol? Has it been verified? We can’t afford another incident like Novosibirsk."

"Everything’s under control this time. They say... he’s completely broken now. No residual memories. He’s finally ready."

Nerea barely blinked. She didn’t fully understand, but something in that change of topic sharpened her senses, despite the haze. The words were unfamiliar, and yet they carried a weight she couldn’t ignore.

"And what’s the target this time?" asked one of the scientists in a lower tone, as if the name itself demanded reverence or fear.

"Washington. A senator. But that’s not the point. What matters is the full activation of the protocol. If this deployment is successful... they’ll be able to send him on missions without needing cryogenic intervals. No more pain, no more confusion, no fragmented identity. Just a weapon."

"God... twenty years. Twenty years of trial and error."

"Twenty years and dozens of bodies later. But it was worth it."

A bitter laugh came from someone further back.

"He was just a boy when they captured him. Look what they turned him into. The Winter Soldier..."

The name echoed in Nerea’s mind like a shout in a hollow cavern. She had never heard it before, but something about that designation had an edge. It wasn’t a heroic title. It was a sentence. A weight. As if winter itself—harsh, lifeless—could wield weapons and follow orders.

The Winter Soldier.

The name floated among the white lights of the laboratory while the scientists continued speaking, with increasing enthusiasm.

"They say he doesn’t even blink when he kills."

"I saw him train once. He doesn’t move like a human. Not like us, anyway. He’s... like a perfect mechanism."

"And what about his arm?"

"The new model was integrated three months ago. Titanium alloy and conductive polymers. It withstands impacts ten times stronger than the previous version. He doesn’t feel pain. Doesn’t react to touch. And since he only activates by direct command..."

"How is he controlled now?"

"Keywords. Neurolinguistic activation. A specific set of commands wakes him and puts him into execution mode. Outside of that... he goes back on ice. Until further notice."

"A frozen creature, waiting to kill," murmured one, with a mix of awe and fear.

Frozen.
Waiting to kill.

Nerea felt a shiver, even though her body couldn’t respond. It was as if the cold they spoke of had slipped through the walls and settled in her very bones. She knew nothing about that soldier. Not his story, nor his face, nor his voice. But from the way they spoke of him... she understood they were dealing with something else entirely. Not like her. Not like the Widows. Not even like the altered or the mutants HYDRA hoarded.

No. That being was something else.

Not just a tool.

A symbol of the absolute failure of human will.

The gurney vibrated slightly when one of the technicians connected new cables to her arm. A red light blinked on the nearby monitor. They didn’t look at her. They no longer spoke of her. Yet the world shifted again under her skin with a sharp, precise pang.

A needle pierced the inner side of her forearm with the efficiency of someone who no longer saw flesh, only an interface. The liquid flowing down the tube was dense, opalescent, with golden glints that shimmered each time the lab’s white light struck it. She felt the pressure as it entered her, as if her veins were being filled with thick fire. Her body temperature reacted instantly; a wave of heat surged from her fingers to her chest, like an artificial fever induced in seconds.

“Administration of Compound 019B: cognitive activator. Log marked, reanimation phase initiated.”

The words weren’t meant for her, but she heard them. Like everything. Like always.

Her back arched slightly—an involuntary reflex, subtle, but enough to set off the sensors attached to her temples. A sharp beep confirmed that the body was responding again. That the brain was awake.

And then, as if the echo had come from some forgotten corner of her own mind, a voice emerged. Familiar. Intimate. Relentless.

“Took you long enough. I was starting to get bored watching you drool like a vegetable.”

Nerea didn’t react. She couldn’t. She shouldn’t. Even so, the voice rang out clearly, loaded with sarcasm and disdain. Hemera, always Hemera—this other part of herself that spoke when the pain was too much, when consciousness teetered between dream and wakefulness, when reality became too… human.

“What is it this time? The new mix? Are we going to see stars, or do they just want to make sure you don’t pass out when they start jabbing electrodes in again?”

Nerea’s pulse quickened. The drug was working. She could feel her muscles beginning to respond—slow, trembling. Her eyelids were no longer lead but damp paper. Through the haze, the figures began to take shape: white coats, masks, latex gloves stained with ink and dried blood. The hum of medical equipment, the spinning of fans, the blinking of heart monitors. A constant murmur of living technology.

“Wake up.” The doctor’s voice beside her, distant, almost mechanical.

A gloved finger roughly pulled up her left eyelid. The light of a small flashlight stabbed into her pupil.

“Slow response. Pupils dilated. We need more precision. Increase the level in the next dose. I don’t want her consciousness fluctuating during the scan.”

Hemera snorted from within.

“Yeah, sure. Because we’re the problem. It’s easy to play god with a broken doll.”

Nerea didn’t answer. Internally, she never did. She’d learned to let Hemera speak—to scream, to laugh, to curse. She was her shield, her voice when Nerea’s had been silenced by blows and chemicals.

Suddenly, the sound changed. The constant murmur of the lab was replaced by a heavy metallic clang. Doors opening with force. Heavy boots on gleaming floors. Rushed voices. Orders. Tense. Precise.

“Watch the arm! Hold it down tight!”

“He’s going into spasms! Secure the restraints before he wakes up completely!”

Nerea couldn’t turn her head, though she tried. Her neck obeyed sluggishly, but before she could focus on what was happening to her right, a firm hand took her chin and returned it to face forward.

“Don’t move,” ordered one of the assistants. “You’re not done yet.”

The others, further back, were attending to a new guest.

Though Nerea couldn’t see him, she felt it. A different energy had filled the space. Like an invisible field had shifted the air, making it denser, harder to breathe. The temperature had dropped a few degrees, though sweat still formed on her back from the injected compounds.

“Quick report: Subject has been thawed without complications. Time out of ice: four minutes and twenty seconds. No active consciousness yet.”

“Monitor him. Stabilize vital signs. If he goes into crisis, proceed with neuromuscular block.”

The gurney creaked as it was moved. Someone—or something—heavy lay on it.

“Is the arm functioning?”

“Yes, though it’s not responding to commands yet. The system takes time to reboot after freezing. But… look at it. It’s perfect. Almost untouched. Not a single visible scar.”

Nerea felt an involuntary tremor in her fingers. The drugs made everything seem more distant, but not completely unreal. She heard the words. She absorbed them. That subject they were talking about… he was different from the others. There was no contempt in their voices. There was respect. Almost… fear.

“They say he can kill ten men in thirty seconds. That he never speaks. That he doesn’t even remember his name.”

“Ah, the prodigy boy.”

Hemera again.

“What did I tell you? We’re not the main attraction anymore. Looks like the new guy is the star of the show. Don’t worry… I’m sure he’s not nearly as charming as we are.”

Footsteps approached. A couple of technicians passed by her with more equipment, and another team headed straight toward the newcomer. Nerea heard the snap of restraints being tightened, the clink of metal chains securing limbs. The low hum of a life-support machine. A faint gasp. It was the only human sound that had come from the other body so far.

She looked forward again when the same assistant from before brought the flashlight to her eyes once more.

“Pupils more centered. Heart rate stable. The compound is stabilizing. Beginning visual scan in five seconds.”

And as that light pierced her retina once again, and the machine began to slide over her head, emitting rhythmic beeps, Nerea could only think of him.

Of the one who had arrived.

Of the one they spoke about so carefully.

The Soldier.

“Do you think she and he… could ever talk to each other?”

“Talk? What would be the point of that?”

“I don’t know. Just curious.”

Chapter Text

The sound of the piano floated gently through the marble corridors, a Bach melody repeating in a loop like a mechanical prayer, incapable of redeeming the brutality unfolding within those walls. The notes, cold and perfect, drifted through the halls like smoke, slipping into lungs with a poisoned sweetness. It wasn’t music meant to comfort. It was music meant to numb.

The place seemed designed to confuse the senses. The walls, covered in beige wallpaper with golden moldings, mimicked the elegance of an imperial theater, while chandeliers hung heavily from the ceiling with a warm light that couldn’t quite melt the ice building up in the bones. Every corner was crafted to mask cruelty with beauty. Every inch was a meticulously constructed lie.

The Widows walked in a line, in absolute silence. Dark gray training uniforms clung to their bodies—no insignias, no distinction. They were all identical: hair tied back in perfect braids, spines straight as spears, breathing so controlled it might as well not exist. Not a sigh. Not a shuffle. The silence was thicker than the condensation gathering on the frosted glass.

Nerea walked among them, part of the swarm. And yet, isolated.

Not by choice. Not by desire. By difference.

The room they were led to lay at the end of the east corridor. The double doors opened without a creak, as if even the wood didn’t dare protest. The training hall was spacious, square, bordered by white columns. The wooden floor shone, waxed with obsessive perfection. It was a stage. An altar.

In the center, the combat circles were marked with red lines, not white. Like targets. Like stains foreshadowing blood.

Madame Voska emerged from the far end, her figure upright, elegant, lethal. She held a cane in her right hand, made of dark wood with gold detailing. She walked with measured steps, the sound of her heels echoing with surgical precision. She stopped in front of the rows of Widows, her gaze icy but the corners of her lips curved into a faint smile.

Her voice was clear, without needing to raise it:

"This will be a final assessment. We no longer need decorative butterflies. Only blades."

A deadly silence followed. Only the faint drip of a rusted pipe broke the stillness of the air.

"One out of every two will walk out."

A slight twitch flickered through Nerea’s pupils. Her jaw tightened. It wasn’t fear she felt. Fear was something she had once known, when she still cried at night, when she still dreamed of voices calling her by name. This was something else. An ancestral pressure, like the memory of a threat not yet given shape. A restlessness that came from deep within her flesh, from a part of herself she didn’t understand. And most unsettling of all—Hemera was silent. Not whispering. Not interfering. Not laughing.

And that silence was deafening.

"Garnier," Voska said, without even looking at her. "Circle two."

Nerea stepped away from the group. Each step echoed with the stiffness of a body that didn’t want to move. But it did. Because there was no other choice. Because in the Red Room, to stop was to die.

Another Widow was already standing in position before her. Svetlana. Eyes black as bottomless wells. Hair braided with the kind of precision earned by years of punishment for the smallest mistakes. She was young, too. Lethal, too. And yet… there was a barely perceptible tremor in her eyelids.

They looked at each other. Just for a moment. A faint nod. Not out of respect. Not out of compassion. Out of recognition.

"At the signal," Voska announced. "No weapons. No mercy."

A sharp beep fell from the speaker system like a needle stabbing the ear.

And hell began.

Svetlana moved first, a blur of speed. A kick to the head. Nerea blocked it with her forearm, but the impact rattled her entire skeleton. There was no room to think. Only to react. She dropped her center of gravity and spun with a sweeping kick, but the other girl jumped with feline precision, landing behind her and throwing a punch straight at her spine.

Nerea twisted on her axis, caught the fist and wrenched it with both hands. A dry crack. Svetlana gasped, but didn’t stop. With her free arm, she struck with fingers aimed at Nerea’s face. Nails like claws. Nerea turned her head just in time, feeling the sting of a scratch opening her skin like a whisper.

They didn’t think. They didn’t speak. They were machines. They were weapons.

An elbow. A kick to the ribs. A spin. A clash. Falls. Blood. Teeth.

They rolled across the floor like two wild animals, indistinguishable. Sweat mixed with blood, ragged breaths and muffled grunts filled the hall like a dirty litany. Heavy blows. Skulls hitting the ground. Knees in stomachs. Elbows in throats.

And then, a mistake. A slip.

Nerea found the opening.

She mounted Svetlana, pinning her arms with her knees. Her right hand, soaked in sweat and blood, lifted. Ready.

She didn’t beg. She just looked at her. And in that look, there was something human. Something broken. Something that looked too much like herself.

Nerea’s heart faltered.

"I don’t want to do this."

The phrase spilled like a drowned lament. Not out loud. Inside. Deep inside.

But her hand came down anyway.

One.
Svetlana’s skull bounced against the floor. The sound was wet, dull.

Two.
Her body convulsed. Blood splattered Nerea’s face. The metallic taste invaded her mouth.

Three.
The blow to the neck was precise. She wanted it to be clean. She wanted it to end quickly.

Svetlana went still. Her chest no longer rose. Her eyes remained open.

The entire hall fell into sepulchral silence.

Nerea remained on top of her. Sweat ran down her back, mixing with the blood on her jaw. Her knuckles trembled. She could still feel the heat of the Widow’s neck under her palm.

She stood. Clumsily. Wordless. Her body turned to iron and her soul reduced to dust.

Voska spoke:
"Not bad."

The perfectly polished boots of Commander Erich Von Zoller tapped with patient rhythm on the dark marble floor, where a thin garnet carpet muffled everyone else’s steps. That slow gait was a ceremony in itself, like the beat of a funeral march only he could hear. Standing by the large observation window, his gloved hands rested behind his back, shoulders straight as if he still wore the dress uniform of old—one he had soaked in blood and arrogance during Europe’s darkest days.

Beside him, more motionless yet no less imposing, General Dreykov stood in silence, arms crossed over his chest. His stance was stone-like, as if his very flesh had hardened with the years. His eyes, however, remained alive: they shone with sleepless vigilance, like an animal that never blinked.

They both looked down, beyond the armored glass that separated them from the world they shaped with their decisions. There, at the center of the combat hall, the young Widow stood over another’s motionless body. There was something deeply inhuman in the serenity of her ragged breathing, in the way her shoulders didn’t collapse after killing. Her movements had been clean, methodical. A score executed without hesitation. No room for chance. No need to unleash the uncontrolled brutality that, both knew, pulsed deep within her like a timed bomb, a dormant cell waiting for the right trigger.

The Commander leaned forward slightly, eyes narrowing, watching with a particular gleam in his gaze. A predator observing the growth of a creature he had helped deform.

"I must say, it’s fascinating to watch her work with such surgical precision." Von Zoller’s voice was soft, almost liquid, with the melodic tone of someone commenting on a play during a Viennese soirée. "As if the girl doesn’t know, or remember, what it means to tremble before death. Not someone else’s, at least."

Dreykov replied without shifting his gaze.
"Precision is the result of years of training. Efficiency, on the other hand, comes from somewhere else."

Von Zoller smiled. A restrained, elegant gesture, like a scalpel hidden behind a linen napkin.
"Ah, yes. Somewhere else."

They both knew that without the Red Room, Nerea Garnier would never have become what she was now. But they also knew that without HYDRA, she wouldn’t have survived the early stages. She had passed through operating rooms where surgeries were done without anesthesia, bled in cages where food was a reward and mistakes were a sentence. She was a two-headed monster. And they were the surgeons.

Silence reigned for a moment as they watched the assistants remove the fallen Widow’s body with the cold detachment of those who clean up an animal carcass from an experimental cage. Nerea remained upright, her knuckles stained with dried blood, her gaze lost on some invisible point on the floor. Her face held no pride, no mourning, no relief. Only the mechanics of a chest rising and falling, the functional residue of a still-active machine.

"There are still fragments we haven’t managed to remove," Dreykov murmured, more to himself than his companion. "Memories. Scraps. Parents. A womb. Even a perfume."

Von Zoller turned his head with theatrical sarcasm.

"A perfume?"

"White flower. Orange blossom, perhaps. She never says it, but she reacts every time we use it in the hallways. We’ve tested it."

Von Zoller let out a brief, humorless nasal chuckle.
"The human mind is exquisitely primitive. So many weapons, so many protocols… and they still break over something as banal as a childhood scent." He turned back to the window. "But it no longer matters. Because, you see, I believe it’s time to send her on to something… greater."

Dreykov looked at him, distrusting as always. Every word from Von Zoller came wrapped in velvet but carried a blade.

"What do you mean?"

"That her performance has exceeded our combined expectations. She’s ready to stop dancing with dolls… and start playing with titans."

Dreykov’s eyes narrowed slightly.

"Do you want to send her into the field?"

"Not just any field. A special one. A mission… of critical strategic importance."

Dreykov didn’t answer. He knew how to read between the lines. And what he was reading didn’t please him.

Von Zoller took one step closer to the window, with a casual air, though his silhouette reflected against the glass looked like the shadow of a guillotine in motion.

"Our… shared assets are being mobilized once more. One of them has recently been reactivated, as you well know. And his mission will be… delicate. A volatile environment. A living target. High priority. No room for error."

He didn’t say his name. He didn’t need to. They both knew he was referring to the Winter Soldier.

"And you want to send the girl as well," said Dreykov bluntly.

Von Zoller gave a slight nod.
"A new issue has arisen on the other side of the country, and we need someone to excise the problem at its root, since our golden boy will be occupied with… other matters. I want to see her operate. I want to know if the perfection you all celebrate so much holds up when the board is real and the pieces bleed."

There was a pause. Dreykov clenched his jaw.

"And if she fails?"

"Then we’ll know her usefulness has reached its peak. And you can begin again with another. There are several promising ones, aren’t there?"

Dreykov didn’t reply immediately. Finally, he gave a grunt and nodded. It wasn’t the first time he’d sacrificed a pawn to keep the game in motion.

"But I want direct control over her tactical direction. No interventions outside the framework."

Von Zoller smiled.

"Of course, General. The last thing I want is to spoil her."

His eyes returned to the young woman, who was now back in line, watching two other Widows attacking each other like rabid dogs. The blood on her hands still hadn’t been cleaned.

The silence was absolute. Not the clean silence of sleeping nature, but the thick, industrial kind—the kind that settles in when even the animals have abandoned a place. A silence broken only by the subtle, almost reverent crunch of snow compacted beneath the calculated weight of her boots. Every step she took seemed contained, contained like her own breath.

The white suit she wore—form-fitting, reinforced at key points, waterproof and thermal—blended with the snowy landscape as if it were just another part of the environment. She wore no visor. No mask. Her face was exposed to the merciless wind, which bit at her cheeks with frost-tipped fangs and made her long platinum hair billow behind her like strands of suspended glass.

She wasn’t fragile. Not at that hour. Not on that mission.

She had entered the compound through an opening in the eastern side of the outer wall: a crack between crumbling concrete blocks and twisted wires that hadn’t withstood the passage of time. The rusted mesh that served as a barrier put up barely any resistance. She cut through it silently, with surgical precision. Then, she slipped inside like smoke. She left no trace.

The first two guards were obstacles. Not enemies. Not men.

The first had no time to react. A precise stab to the throat, just beneath the jawline. Direct, efficient. Not a whimper. The body fell with a sigh.

The second, turning, had already raised his weapon, but his muscles began to convulse before he could aim. Nerea raised her left hand, fingers spread as if sculpting the very air. Her gaze took on a strange glow, faint, like moonlight reflecting off a frozen lake. The guard’s blood trembled within his veins. Thickened. Hardened. The spasm that ran through his chest was like an invisible blow, and he dropped to his knees, eyes bulging, lips quivering without sound. He died in silence, uncomprehending.

"A bit dramatic, don’t you think?" murmured Hemera, her voice surfacing from the dark corner of her consciousness. "You could just snap their necks like the others. Less fuss. Less waste."

Nerea didn’t respond. She only exhaled. Slowly, controlled, as if expelling the voice with her breath. The tingling behind her eyes was still subtle. A hum. A warning. Not pain—yet.

She moved through the interior of the compound, where the bare concrete of the hallway offered little cover and less warmth. The walls were stained with damp, peeling with age. Rusted pipes hung from the ceiling like metal intestines, some dripping viscous fluids. Emergency lights flickered in ochre and green tones, casting intermittent shadows that played with her figure as she advanced.

The place was a Soviet husk, forgotten by bureaucracy and used by operatives with even less name than her. Minimal surveillance. A trap, in any other context. But not that night. That night, it was her hunting ground.

Every step was deliberate. Every hallway crossing, calculated.

Finally, the north wing. A door without a lock. The sign, worn, still read in Russian: СВЯЗЬ. Communications.

The room contained exactly what she expected: rusted filing cabinets, a central radio console, transmission equipment with reprogrammed plates. Old, but functional. A living relic.

She took the floppy disk from a compartment on her belt. Small, thin. Inserted it into one of the readers, and waited.

"The Soviets and their relics," Hemera remarked with disdain, her tone bordering on boredom. "It’s a miracle this garbage still works. You could be warming up next to a stove in Moscow right now. But no, here we are. Chasing old paper that smells like death."

The lights flickered, but the disk was read without error. The data loaded.

Nerea didn’t answer. She was too focused on listening. On sensing.

She removed the disk. Stored it in the hidden compartment within her left glove, securing it with a faint click. She turned.

Footsteps.

Voices.

A patrol was approaching from the south corridor. Two men. Routine, careless. She slipped behind a toppled metal cabinet, controlling every muscle, her breathing, her pulse.
When she saw them pass, her hand rose again. The movement was barely a whisper. One of the soldiers faltered. His knee buckled. A second later, he collapsed. The other turned, alarmed, barely had time to raise his weapon.

The dagger was already in the air. It flew straight, silent, and embedded itself in his neck with surgical precision.

Silence again.

In the next thirty minutes, Nerea moved along the perimeter like a scalpel. Five more enemies. None survived. Not all died from her mutation—she couldn’t allow that. Her body wasn’t an infinite battery. Most fell by more traditional means: knives, sedatives, a strangulation cord, the edge of a metal plate torn from a console.

Finally, she reached the records room. A forgotten chamber in the basement. It had a wall-mounted safe, reinforced, with a mechanical lock. Nothing electronic. HYDRA had provided her with the combination. It was etched into her memory like an echo. She recalled it silently. Turned the dials. One. Two. Three.

Click.

The door gave way.

Inside, yellowed papers. Old photographs. Diagrams. Handwritten notes. A folder with red letters: Operation KRASNY VETER.
Nerea held her breath.

“You know what the worst part of this is?” Hemera whispered. “No one—”

“Shut up.”

“Ha. Even I don’t want to talk to you anymore, and I’m your best company,” Hemera added with a dry laugh, pretending that the interruption hadn’t bothered her. “See how alone you are?”

Nerea clenched her teeth. Cold sweat slid down her back, gluing the suit to her skin. It was the accumulated use of her mutation. She knew it well. First came the sweat, then the trembling fingers. After that, the pain behind the eyes. And finally, the bleeding. She wasn’t planning to go that far. She copied the most relevant documents. Stored the evidence in her belt. Then, a sound. Deep. Distant.

BOOM.

A dry explosion. Followed by another, clearer, closer. Then, bursts. Gunfire. Echoes of hurried steps. Shouts. Orders in Russian.

The complex woke up all at once.

Nerea pressed herself against the wall, eyes wide, muscles tense. That wasn’t in the plan, she repeated to herself. No one else was supposed to be there. No operatives. No intervention.

When silence took over the place again, she slipped out of the room silently. The hallway stretched before her like a tunnel of concrete and gloom, lit only by emergency lights blinking red every few meters, like the faint pulse of a dying heart. The walls, covered in layers of peeling paint and rust, seemed to close in around her as she moved forward, as if they wanted to trap her there.

She moved quickly, but no longer with the razor-sharp precision that had defined her at the beginning. Her steps were still steady, yes, but her movements were starting to lose that lethal grace that set her apart. Her limbs felt heavy, as if she were carrying sandbags tied to every joint, and the cold didn’t help. She breathed through her mouth, trying to keep a steady rhythm, but her breath came out ragged, white, dense.

Her pulse pounded behind her ears, each beat a warning.

The doses they'd given her before the operation—painkillers, metabolic accelerators, neural pain inhibitors—had let her move without feeling the real strain. But the effects were starting to fade. The mutation, that cursed gift she had learned to control with surgical discipline, was draining her energy in a slow, almost imperceptible way. But now... now she could feel the toll with every step, every shallow breath, every burning wave climbing her spine.

She was heading back toward the northeast exit. The extraction point. The only thing that mattered.

And then, just as she turned a narrow corner, she saw him.

Him.

A figure emerging from the smoke as if hell itself had spat him out. Tall, solid as a block of black marble, with a mask covering the lower half of his face and those eyes—those inhuman, cold, empty eyes. Charged with surgical precision, devoid of emotion. Like those of a predator that had already scented its prey’s blood.

Nerea’s heart stopped for a fraction of a second.

Because she recognized him.

Not from a photo, not from a file, not from a past mission. No. She had seen him in the flesh. In a white laboratory room, frozen, aseptic. When they still dragged him unconscious. She had seen him strapped to a gurney, with scientists all around. And more importantly: she had seen him because of that.

That arm.

Not a weapon. Not an accessory. A full arm, made of polished steel, with a platinum finish and functional engravings, so perfectly fused to the body it looked like it had always been a part of him, with that red star burning on his shoulder.

It was him.

The Winter Soldier.

And yet, there was no time to confirm it. No space for doubt. Because they both lunged at the same time.

He was faster. The first blow was lightning, a flash of concentrated violence. His metal fist sliced through the air with a deadly hiss, aimed with surgical precision at Nerea’s side. She spun on herself, fast, almost feline. She dodged by mere inches—but not entirely. The impact grazed her, striking her shoulder with enough force to make her stumble.

Her main weapon—a short-range, silenced pistol—flew from her hand, clattering against the wall. There was no time to retrieve it, only pure instinct, trained reflexes.

And fear.

She drew one of the curved daggers she kept hidden in her right thigh compartment. Without making a sound, she attacked. The blade cut through the space between them at a speed bordering on the impossible. But he raised his metal arm, and the knife collided with it with a dry, metallic crack. The vibration ran up Nerea’s arm like an electric shock.

He struck again. Hard. She dodged. Gracefully.

She lunged again. A violent dance of steel and flesh.

She drew the second knife with her left hand. Armed with both, she launched a low stab toward his abdomen and an upward one toward his neck. The Soldier blocked both with apparent ease, his movements nearly mechanical. One of his elbows slammed into Nerea’s jaw. The blow shook her, made her see stars, made her dizzy, disoriented.

She reacted as best she could with a low, spinning kick aimed at his knee. The impact was clean. It didn’t knock him down, but it made him stagger for a second.

Just enough to breathe.

"What did I tell you?" Hemera murmured in her mind, her mocking voice like someone enjoying the climax of a bloody show. "The show’s just getting started. And they’re already clapping with their knuckles."

Nerea didn’t answer. She couldn’t. She shouldn’t. Every thought was a distraction. Every doubt, a possible death.

She lunged again. This time the Soldier charged head-on. They collided with devastating force, their bodies crashing like runaway trains. Nerea was thrown backward, rolling across the rough floor of the hallway.

The air rushed from her lungs.

She heard him breathing heavily, kicking away the weapon that had fallen from her hands minutes earlier.

Just as the Soldier lunged again, she twisted in one clean movement and drove her right knife into his side, just between the tactical vest and the bottom of his ribs. It didn’t go in all the way. But it was enough to draw a grunt.

A retreat. An opening.

She spun immediately. A quick kick—not to hurt, but to distract. It struck his masked face and, in the same motion, she launched herself down a side hallway.

She ran.

Jumped over a broken railing. Landed on the lower level with a dry crack. Pain exploded in her side, in her face. Blood poured from her nose.

But she kept running.

The metallic echo of the Soldier’s arm rang against the concrete. He was getting up. He was chasing her.

And she ran as if hell itself were licking at her heels.

Because that’s what it was: hell made flesh. A frozen memory. A faceless soldier.

And he was right behind her.

The snow crunched under her boots in a frantic, uneven rhythm, like the heart of an animal on the brink of collapse. Every step was a challenge to the pain, a muffled scream dissolving under the pressure of her burning lungs. The cold didn’t caress her; it bit her. It cut her skin like a dull scalpel, seeping through the seams of her torn suit, soaking into her bones, her marrow, her will. The wind hit with treacherous gusts that made the tall branches of the firs creak. The whole forest felt like a cathedral of ice, ready to bury them both.

There was no strategy anymore. No mental maps. No escape route. Only forest, snow, lifeless trees. And behind her, that presence —overwhelming, constant, relentless— that didn’t need footsteps to be felt.

Her pulse pounded in her temples. Her breath came in ragged gasps, forming clouds that vanished into the air, as if her life, too, evaporated with each exhale. Her muscles were pure acid. Blood —her own blood— began to soak through the fabric of the suit, making it heavier, stiffer, and the pain from the blows was barely dulled by the fear and adrenaline coursing through her veins.

Her silhouette stood out. The white of her tactical gear, now stained with dark smears of soot, mud, and blood, gleamed in the shadows like an involuntary signal —like a painted target in the midst of chaos. She was an open wound in a landscape of death.

She tripped over a hidden root and tumbled down a slope covered in ice and packed snow. She rolled uncontrollably, feeling every branch, every rock, every damn clump of ice stabbing into her body like knives. She landed at the edge of the clearing with a thud that knocked the air out of her. She stayed there for a few seconds, knees buried in the snow, trembling. The stabbing pain in her ribs pulled a groan from her. Her body was beginning to fail. It wasn’t just the cold or the exhaustion anymore.

She spat a thin line of blood and forced herself to move.

The gasp she let out as she pushed herself up again was more a roar of survival than a strategy. She threw herself into a run toward the tree line, and that’s when she felt it behind her. Again. One meter away. A breath away.

She didn’t hear it. She sensed it.

A shadow struck from her left flank.

And everything turned into a storm.

The impact of the Soldier’s body against hers was brutal, savage, devoid of technique. He slammed into her with such force that they both went flying, tangled, crashing into the snow in a tangle of blows, grappling, and gasps that echoed like sounds from hell. They rolled through frozen branches, smashing shrubs, leaving behind a trail of blood and chaos.

He recovered first.

He grabbed her by the neck with inhuman strength and lifted her off the ground as if she weighed no more than a soaked rag. Nerea kicked wildly, gasping desperately. Her fingers clawed at the steel wrist gripping her. A knife still strapped to her leg was her one hope, but he saw it first. With a swift blow, he knocked it away.

“Well… if you’re gonna die, at least make sure you look pretty from above,” Hemera murmured, almost amused, without a trace of worry.

Nerea’s head snapped forward with the last spark of strength she had left, and her forehead slammed into the Soldier’s in a sharp, solid blow. A dull crack exploded between them. He staggered back half a step. She dropped to the ground, struggling to catch her breath, and rolled to the side, her lungs collapsing into a mix of snow, mud, and screams.

She stood. Somehow. As if the ground shook beneath her feet. As if it were the last time. And then came the final assault.

They clashed between silent trees and the whisper of the wind, like ancient beasts designed only for combat. No words. No emotion. Just strikes. Quick stabs. Claws.

She with a knife. He with his hands.

Every hit was a dance rehearsed in pain. He attacked with programmed brutality. She responded with the precision of someone who learned to kill to avoid dying. The blade sliced through the air, grazing her side. The metal arm tried to land a lethal blow. Nerea deflected it by mere inches. Then his knife appeared, gleaming. It aimed straight for her abdomen. Nerea blocked it with both hands, twisting her body. The blade nicked her skin, drawing a gasp.

The next kick landed square in her stomach. She went flying.

The blow slammed her into a thick tree trunk. She fell on her back, the snow softening the fall, but not the pain. The impact knocked the wind out of her. She spat blood. She trembled. And still, she stood.

“Enough!”

“On the ground, both of you! Now!”

The flashlight beams pierced through them like needles. Armed men emerged from the mist in dark uniforms, the HYDRA emblem glowing red on their chests. They looked like ghosts marking the end of a nightmare. Their weapons pointed at both of them. Their voices gave commands that allowed no disobedience.

Nerea turned toward them, barely conscious.

The Soldier did too.

But he didn’t surrender. He raised his arm, ready to continue.

“Suppressing fire!”

An electric shot sliced through the air. The projectile hit Nerea in the side, and her body arched in a violent spasm before collapsing into the snow. She couldn’t scream. She couldn’t breathe. The world spun around her.

She felt a soldier’s knee press into her back. Rough hands tied her arms. They took the knife. Beside her, the Soldier was restrained more violently. Five men held him down, and one plunged a syringe into the base of his neck. He fought for another moment, then his knees buckled. He dropped.

“What the hell is this?” one of the officers growled, looking at the scene with disdain. “Didn’t they know they were on the same op?”

“Apparently not,” another snapped, gripping the metal arm tightly. “Someone forgot to pass the memo.”

“Idiots. They’re weapons, not brains. What did you expect?”

They laughed. Like hyenas at a feast of corpses.

“Daddy’s rabid dogs, biting each other.”

Nerea couldn’t respond. Her face against the snow, breath ragged. Her body trembled. Her mouth filled with blood. She could barely feel her fingers.

She closed her eyes.

“All this over a pretty damn arm,” Hemera muttered, a resigned echo. “Swear to God, if we make it out of this, I’m sleeping for a whole week.”

There was no reply.

Only the gag of pain.

The office windows were covered by a thin layer of frost, almost artistic, as if the ice were trying to mimic the stained glass of an old church. Inside, the heat was oppressive, fueled by underground boilers that kept every wing of the base running regardless of the extreme temperatures. The office walls were adorned with military maps, weapon schematics, classified photographs, and numbered recording tapes.

The air smelled of expensive tobacco, aged leather, and dry ink.

Seated comfortably behind a polished desk, Commander Erich Von Zoller held a glass of whiskey between his gloved fingers, the amber liquid swirling gently as his attention focused on the young extraction officer standing rigidly before him, visibly uncomfortable.

“So?” Von Zoller inquired, his tone thick with mocking theatricality. “What did you find, Lieutenant? The target’s corpse? The plans in flames? Or perhaps…?”

The young man swallowed hard.

“Commander… upon arriving at the extraction point, we found the two agents fighting each other. With severe violence.”

Von Zoller narrowed his eyes. Then, as if it were the most unexpected joke in the world, he burst into laughter. A true, deep, sustained laugh that forced him to set the glass down so he could slap his knee.

“Für alle Dämonen, I didn’t see that one coming!” he said, throwing his head back. “They went at each other, you say? Hand to hand? Against each other? Oh, that’s brilliant! Brilliant!”

To his right, standing with arms crossed and jaw tight with tension, was General Dreykov. His face remained impassive, but his eyes were those of a predator who had yet to decide whether to attack with claws or venom.

“It’s not funny,” Dreykov muttered, not taking his eyes off Von Zoller. “What it is, is idiotic.”

Von Zoller glanced at him sideways, still smiling as if he were hearing music only he could perceive.

“Oh, come now, General. Don’t tell me you didn’t find it even a little amusing. Two elite assets, both programmed, both perfect in lethality… and neither knew the other was on the same mission. It’s tragicomic. Romeo and Juliet, HYDRA edition.”

“You knew she would be there,” Dreykov said, his voice low but firm. “And you still sent your monster without informing me.”

Von Zoller raised an eyebrow.

“Monster? How inelegant. He’s my masterpiece, Dreykov. Just like you have your collection of dancing, murderous dolls, I have my Winter Soldier. Don’t tell me you didn’t know this would happen eventually.”

“Eventually,” Dreykov repeated, stepping closer to the desk. “But not without preparation. Not without a protocol. You threw him in there like a rabid dog without a muzzle, fully aware that she was part of the same operation.”

The officer before them faltered, clearly uncomfortable with the escalating tension.

Von Zoller, however, seemed to relish it.

“Exactly, General. I wanted to see what would happen. What they’d do when they ran into each other without clear instructions. How ‘programmable’ they really are.” He leaned forward across the desk, his smile dark and almost charming. “And I must say: the results were delicious. They were seconds away from killing each other. Not a flicker of doubt in their eyes. Pure instinct.”

Dreykov didn’t move. His voice was a whisper that sliced the air like a blade.

“And if they had killed each other? What would you have said then? ‘What a shame,’ as you poured another drink?”

Von Zoller tilted his head, pretending to think.

“Probably. Although I might’ve said: progress.”

The silence was thick. The only sound was the ticking of an antique clock on the mantelpiece.

“You mentioned yesterday that Nerea still shows traces of memory, didn’t you?” Von Zoller asked after a moment, as if changing the subject. “Her mother. Her father. Troublesome memories?”

Dreykov nodded slowly.

“And yet,” Von Zoller smiled, picking up his glass again, “you saw her, didn’t you? In the field. In combat. She didn’t hesitate. She didn’t flinch. She faced him. If that’s not proof that she’s ready…”

“She’s broken, not ready,” Dreykov corrected.

“Same difference, in this business.”

The officer finally dared to speak.

“Shall I report that both were recovered and stabilized?”

The commander nodded with a wave of his hand.

“Yes, yes. Tell them to clean up the blood and set the bones. We need them intact. For now.”

Once the young man left, Dreykov looked at his counterpart with a hard expression.

“If something like this happens again, I promise you I won’t be laughing.”

Von Zoller smiled.

“Oh, General. Don’t threaten me with ghosts. We already work with too many.”

A longer silence followed. Dreykov didn’t move, but his presence filled the office. At last, he spoke.

“I’m taking her.”

Von Zoller raised an eyebrow, barely hiding his surprise.

“Her?”

“Nerea. Back to the Red Room. A couple of weeks. Maybe more. She needs stabilization. Readjustments. Isolation. And discipline.”

Von Zoller set the glass down with a soft *clack*.

“And you’re telling me this as a courtesy?”

“I’m not asking you. I’m informing you.”

A pause. Then the German smiled, that kind of smile that always came with a trap.

“Very well. You can take her, of course. But…”

He stood gracefully, walking toward an intricately carved wooden cabinet at the back of the office. He opened it carefully, as one would handle relics, and pulled out a dark red leather notebook, a star embossed on the cover.

He held it delicately, almost reverently, before returning slowly to the desk. When he set it down on the polished surface, his eyes locked onto Dreykov’s.

“You can have her. But on one condition.”

Dreykov didn’t need to look at the notebook to know what it was. His jaw clenched.

“No.”

“Oh, come now,” Von Zoller said, amused, as if speaking to a child refusing medicine. “Don’t be stubborn, General. If you’re putting her back in the Red Room, with your trainers, your methods… what better way to test her control than by placing her next to him. Together.”

“I don’t want that monster near my facilities,” Dreykov snapped.

“You never do. But you tolerate him. And now you need him. Because if she destabilizes… only he can bring her down. You saw it yourself. Neither you nor your dolls could contain her last time. He did.”

Dreykov’s fists clenched. He stared at the red notebook as if trying to set it ablaze with his eyes.

“You want me to reset him again?”

“Not yet,” Von Zoller murmured. “I just want you to take him with you. As a guarantee. As an observer. An instructor, if you prefer. After all… there’s no greater punishment than forcing her to work with him, don’t you think?”

The Commander’s smile was a sheathed dagger.

Dreykov didn’t reply immediately. His gaze burned. But in the end, without a word, he took the notebook. The weight of the past fell into his palm like a sentence.

Von Zoller raised his glass once more.

“To forced alliances. The most entertaining kind.”

And he drank, as if he had just signed a pact with the devil.

Because he had.

Chapter Text

The metal sparked.

One after another, tiny welding explosions flickered like incandescent fireflies over the Soldier’s motionless body. The electric arc’s glow lit up the room in bursts, as if a storm trapped inside a steel box were trying to break free. Each flash carved violent shadows from the corners of the underground lab, projecting the silhouettes of technicians, doctors, and soldiers—specters caught in an endless dance of vigilance, precision, and fear.

The smell was thick, suffocating. A blend of scorched steel, cauterized flesh, oxidized hydraulic oil, and the bitter trace of dried blood. It clung to the throat like an unspoken command, like a sentence.

James was sitting. Or rather: fixed, anchored. His body, as strong as it was battered, rested against the metal chair. The restraints—especially around his wrists—had been standard procedure for years, but that day, they felt more like a reminder than a precaution. You are not a man, they said. You are a part. A flawed machine with a tendency to break.

His torso was half-bare, barely covered by the shredded remnants of his tactical suit, blackened by fire and blood. A deep wound in his right side had been wrapped hastily in thick, poorly fitted industrial bandages. The techs hadn’t even tried to clean the blood staining his skin, pooling around the joints of his left arm—because that arm was the priority. It always was. The arm was what mattered. He, everyone knew, was just the vehicle that carried it.

Now, the titanium casing was opened wide, like the dissected chest of a mythical creature. A technician worked slowly on the shoulder joint, assisted by two others—one holding a surgical lamp, another operating a small robotic claw extracting the melted segments of the pressure circuit.

"Lower the flow by fifteen percent," the chief ordered, eyes locked on the arm’s interior. "The heat buildup’s reaching critical levels."

A high-pitched whine, like pressurized steam, slipped through the metal components. The repair laser kept working, and every time it touched exposed steel, the electric sting climbed the metal into the base of James’ neck.

But he didn’t scream. He never did.

Only his jawline, sharp as a Hellenic sculpture, tensed slightly more. His eyes—metallic blue, reflecting light like polished blades—remained fixed on the polished steel ceiling, unblinking. As if he felt nothing. As if he were only the shell HYDRA tried to manufacture.

But inside, something was boiling.

Rage.

Not controlled fury, nor the kill-frenzy triggered by keywords and electric shocks. Not the automated violence of elimination protocols. This was different. It was ancient. Raw. Human.

The image returned, unstoppable: her. The girl. No—the killer. White hair, loose, soaked in snow and blood. Eyes like shattered glass, like spring ice on a lake. The way she moved. Fluid. Deadly. Not like the other targets. Not like prey.

She had wounded him. Truly. Physically—yes, the ache still throbbed in his abdomen where the blade struck—but deeper than that. In his pride. In the surgical precision of his performance. She had been a glitch. A disruption. A crack.

And that drove him mad.

“Cut here,” one of the techs ordered. “The joint fracture reaches the central axis.”

The metal arm made a dull click. A wisp of smoke rose as one of the outer plates was removed. Heat had partially fused it to the internal wires. One technician groaned in frustration. The other said nothing. But they all knew what that meant: full elbow reconfiguration.

“It’ll take time,” one admitted, avoiding eye contact with the patient. “The connections are overloaded.”

James slowly turned his head toward him.

The young tech, maybe twenty-five, turned pale. He didn’t dare meet his gaze. He looked down, sweating—badly.

James smelled it. The fear. A real scent. Like instinct.

Five soldiers were posted in the room. Two at the door. One behind the instruments. Another in the corner near the lights. And the last, the tallest, stood by the wall, finger on the trigger of a pulse weapon aimed straight at the Soldier’s head. Just in case.

Because the last time they’d repaired him, he had killed two techs. One with a cutting tool. The other—he’d smashed his skull against the wall until he stopped moving. Not out of rage. Not out of memory. Just because something had snapped. And because he could.

Not now. Not yet. But he felt that same click in the back of his skull. A voiceless whisper.

You failed.

Not his handler. Not Von Zoller or Zola. It was him. Or what was left of him.

A girl made you bleed.

The laser shrieked again. The images flashed back. Snow. Smoke. The sound of ragged breath. The blade sinking into his flesh. Her face—hardened. Not with fear, but with resolve.

Who are you?

Not by command. Not by intel. He wanted to know. Needed to. Why had she moved like she knew every one of his attacks? Why, when he saw her, had something inside him refused to kill her on sight?

And most of all… why did he want to see her again?

Not to kill her.

Not just for that.

One of the soldiers shifted position. The squeak of his boot on the floor made the fingers of the metal arm twitch. A dull sound came from the hydraulic system. The lead tech quickly disconnected a couple of electric nodes.

“Deactivate the booster! The stabilizers are overheating!”

The arm buzzed, roared—then settled.

The Soldier closed his eyes. He didn’t breathe. Didn’t think.

Obey. Don’t remember. Don’t feel.

But he did.

Sweat on his brow, the lead tech turned to one of the soldiers.

“The arm will be operational in six hours. The system needs to cool down, and the metallic muscles must recalibrate. Otherwise, it could completely fail.”

The Soldier said nothing.

The following voices were a buzz at first, as he sank into the sea of thoughts flooding his mind. They vibrated in his ears as if passing through a dense, thick liquid, as if the entire operating room were submerged underwater and each word had to force its way through the pressure. A confusing, languid cacophony, like the buzzing of a restless hive, where meanings got lost in the viscosity of the sterile environment.

But little by little, as the heat of the cauterizer dissipated and the sensors in his arm began to register electrical activity with surgical precision again, the sounds sharpened. They were no longer murmurs. No longer echoes. They became sharp like thin blades, invisible knives slicing through the stillness of the room with uncomfortable precision. The syllables were cut with surgical brutality. Every mispronounced consonant, every breath held in fear, every technical hesitation became an auditory assault. Too sharp. Too close.

“...It wasn’t supposed to end like this. Who authorized both of them to be there?”

That was the first sentence he clearly caught. The words scraped his skull from the inside—so foreign, yet so intimate at the same time. It was a complaint, not a genuine question. A futile attempt to explain the inexplicable among colleagues.

“And since when do we question orders?”

“Since we nearly lost two Class One assets over a logistical mishap, Karl.”

That name — Karl — bounced in his memory like a stone skipping across a tense surface. The one with the scalpel in hand. The one with the stained gloves. The one whose hands trembled, barely able to hold the instruments without fear eating away at his joints. James watched him without moving a single muscle in his neck, but with wide eyes, fixed like the barrel of a gun.

They knew not to make sudden movements. They knew silence might be their only salvation. Because they remembered. They all did. The last time he had exhaled forcefully during a procedure, one of them — not Karl, but someone like him — had ended up with a crushed windpipe and his face smashed against one of the reinforced walls of the operating room.

Not by mistake. Not by accident.

As a warning.

“And the other one?” asked someone, in a tone that tried to be neutral but cracked on the last word. “Is she contained?”

“Sedated. They're stabilizing her. According to the report, she reacted the moment she saw him. She recognized him first. And she hurt him. Caused significant damage—and that without fully deploying her ability. Whatever that girl has inside...”

“She’s not a girl,” another interrupted with a harsh, authoritative, almost defensive tone. “She’s a weapon. One we still don’t understand.”

The term lodged itself under his skin with the same brutality as a bullet. Weapon. They said it with offensive ease. They said it with the same lightness as naming machine parts. As if they were talking about a defective design. As if they were talking about him.

“So now what?” another spoke up. “If both are weapons, we can’t deploy them in the field without coordination. It’s a risk we can’t afford to repeat.”

“That doesn’t concern you,” cut in the tallest scientist, not bothering to look at anyone in particular. “The higher-ups will decide. Dreykov and Von Zoller are already assessing the situation.”

The name detonated something.

Von Zoller.

It was like a spark igniting the fuse of an explosive that had been building pressure for hours. James’ jaw tightened, but it was his left fist, the mechanical one, that tensed slightly. A minimal movement. But enough to make the metal creak. A silent protest.

Von Zoller had sent the coordinates. He had written the report. Authorized the operation. He, the architect of that macabre coincidence. The puppet master who had pulled the strings to make sure he and *she* crossed paths during a “perfect mission.” And now these technicians, these mediocrities, were discussing it as if they were mere spectators. As if the failure, the pain, the wounds—both physical and mental—were just a footnote in the final report.

“Did you see what she did to him?” one said, lowering his voice as if not wanting him to hear, but loud enough for everyone else to. “The knife pierced the plates. Like she knew exactly where to strike. Who does that with knives?”

“The same one who killed three agents without taking a single step from her position. Are you really surprised?”

“I’m not surprised. I’m terrified.”

The silence that followed was as thick as oil.

James turned his head just slightly. A minimal gesture. An angle barely perceptible. But it was enough. No one dared meet his gaze. No one even dared take a deep breath. Because they knew that’s all he needed. A second. A mistake. An excuse.

The whole room tensed like a bow before the arrow is loosed.

A drop of sweat slid slowly down the youngest technician’s forehead. Its smell was acrid, almost salty. James could smell the fear. And fear… fear was real. Fear was tangible. Fear meant life. The only real thing in that artificial room.

But what he felt wasn’t just rage.

It was something deeper.

A thick fire burning inside him that no conditioning chemical could extinguish. It wasn’t stimulus. It wasn’t programming. It was human. It was his.

And that thought scared him more than anything else.

“Vitals are stable,” one muttered, almost like a clumsy attempt to cut through the tension. “The arm is aligned. Just needs fine-tuning.”

“The inner layer still has fractures. We’ll need to replace segments before the next deployment. But it can move. It can... perform.”

Perform.

A word that sounded like a gunshot. Not an assessment. A disguised order. A sentence in the form of a technical report.

James slowly lifted his head. Not much. Just enough for the surgical light to reflect off his dilated pupils, giving them that unnatural gleam that unsettled anyone with the courage—or the foolishness—to look at him. One of the soldiers, in the farthest corner, swallowed hard. Another adjusted the position of the rifle hanging on his chest.

The left arm gave a low creak, a kind of metallic protest as it tensed again.

Crack.

Silence.

Too human.

That’s what he thought. It wasn’t a rational idea. It wasn’t a moral judgment. It was a thought like a blade. Those technicians, those soldiers… thought they understood. Thought they controlled. Thought he was an equation with clear variables. But they knew nothing. They didn’t know what it was like to wake up without memories. What it was like to carry a different corpse in every nightmare. What it was like to hear a voice that wasn’t yours and have to obey it.

She, on the other hand… she did know.

And that’s why it hurt.

One of the technicians turned off the laser with trembling hands.

“We’ll be back in an hour. Let him rest.”

The others began gathering their equipment. Slowly. Cautiously. As if walking through a minefield. Two soldiers approached to check the restraints. One murmured something under his breath, and although James didn’t understand it, the tone irritated him. Sarcastic. Disdainful. Unnecessary.

His lips barely curved. An imperceptible line. Not a smile. More like a warning.

The echo of the boots preceded the man. Even before the sliding door emitted its characteristic metallic whisper, the sound had already begun to spread across the floor like a primal warning: firm, deliberate, meticulously even. Each step struck with an authority that allowed no dissent. It was not the gait of someone arriving to observe. It was that of someone who owned the place.

The two guards stationed on either side of the entrance exchanged a brief, almost imperceptible glance and moved in synchronized fashion to the sides. No voice announced his arrival, no protocol preceded his entrance. It simply happened—like a storm, or the collapse of a wall.

The air in the room changed. The technicians froze as if an invisible force had pressed down on their chests. The atmosphere grew tense, and in that suddenly compressed space, only one certainty floated among them:

Von Zoller had arrived.

His black coat, impeccably buttoned in a double row, swayed behind him like a living extension of his shadow, and his upright figure crossed the threshold with the same deliberation as a knife slicing through taut fabric. He did not look to either side. He didn’t need to. His presence was enough. The door closed behind him with a hydraulic sigh, sealing them off from the outside world with a surgical precision that felt rehearsed.

“Done playing with the welds, gentlemen?” he said in a calm voice, laced with the kind of arrogance only someone with absolute power can afford. “Or better yet… are you still trying to piece the toy back together without it falling apart in your hands?”

The sentence hit like a bucket of ice water. One of the technicians opened his mouth to reply but never formed the words. Von Zoller raised a hand with a precise gesture, and the motion spoke louder than any command.

“Don’t bother. It’s not sarcasm…” he paused, with a smile that never reached his eyes. “Well... maybe just a little.”

Von Zoller approached James with calculated ease. He took a metal chair from the corner—any chair, no distinction—and dragged it until he was seated directly in front of him. The screech of metal on the silent floor was deliberate, as if he relished dragging out every second of the moment. He sat, crossing one leg with a slowness bordering on mockery.

“I must say, I was entertained,” he remarked, as if chatting over tea. “Your little scuffle in the north was… entertaining. Chaotic, brutal, almost poetic. Like watching a dog off its leash rush into a snowstorm.”

James didn’t react. Or at least not outwardly. But inside his neck, beneath the weathered skin, a muscle pulsed. Slow. Precise.

“You know what the best part was?” the commander continued, leaning in slightly. “It’s recorded. From only a few angles in that hallway, but still. There's a perfect shot of the exact moment you lunge at her. So… visceral. Like a blind hawk diving into the void.”

James turned his face just slightly—enough for the white light of the operating room to reflect off the polished surface of his arm. But his eyes didn’t blink. Didn’t stray from Von Zoller.

“Was she… part of the plan?”

The voice wasn’t human, or at least didn’t sound like it. It was a growl barely shaped into words, a broken and rusted tongue forced to articulate.

Von Zoller laughed. Not a warm or joyful laugh—a short, soulless chuckle. He leaned in with theatrical flair.

“Ah, the eternal question. The plan? What is a plan, really? A tidy sequence of events? Or rather a space… a context, where the pieces reveal their true form?”

He straightened a little, elbows resting on his knees, the smile on his lips holding—but his eyes sharpened, as if blades waited behind them.

“Call it a strategic collision. A reactivity experiment. You’re not just any asset. You’re a catalyst. A purposeful anomaly. You’re shaping the century—even if you don’t know it.”

James didn’t answer. He inhaled deeply, as if needing more air than the room could offer. The breath hissed in through his nose like fire.

Von Zoller watched the gesture with near-scientific fascination.

“Europe, the East, America… Wherever you go, names vanish. Only bodies remain. Fire. Rewrite. And now… she appears.”

Silence stretched. Dense. One of the technicians shifted in his seat, but no one dared speak.

“It was different with her, wasn’t it?”

He flexed the fingers of his mechanical arm. Not quickly, not aggressively. He just moved them. The soft metallic click of the servos was enough to make everyone in the room hold their breath.

“She hits hard.”

“Oh, yes,” Von Zoller smiled, satisfied. “Like a memory with an edge. Like a broken promise.”

He stood. Walked slowly in front of him, hands clasped behind his back. His steps were soft, but each one landed like a verdict.

“Who is she?”

The question didn’t come out harshly. It wasn’t a demand. It was honest. Almost… human.

Von Zoller didn’t respond immediately. His eyes studied the soldier’s face—the tiny tremors in his neck, the restrained breath.

“A brilliant piece. Unstable. Beautiful in her danger,” he murmured at last. “Someone who could destroy you… or someone with whom you could destroy everything.”

And with that pronouncement, he turned.

He walked toward the monitors tracking vital signs, observing them with the same focus others might use to study a map before launching an offensive. His hands clasped behind his back—and there he remained.

The silence after those words had ceased to be merely the absence of sound. It had become something thicker, denser—like a colloidal substance hanging in the air, pressing against the lungs of those still breathing in that room. It was not a passive void, but an active silence, charged with something invisible that brushed the skin like static electricity. A long, latent pause, like the precise moment before a gunshot splits the world in two.

The technicians didn’t dare move. For several seconds, no one spoke a word, as if fearing that sound itself might trigger something they couldn’t understand. And when at last a voice dared to cut through the stillness, it did so as a whisper that barely disturbed the tense surface of the atmosphere.

“Final adjustments remaining...” said a technician, his German accent trembling, eyes fixed on the portable terminal he held as if his life depended on its faith.

The man didn’t raise his gaze as he spoke, and the rest of the team merely nodded in silent coordination. They stepped toward the center of the room as if entering a cage that wasn’t empty. Every step they took was measured, cautious, like that of an explorer approaching the nest of a creature that hadn’t yet decided whether to devour them or let them be.

James hadn’t moved a single inch. His body remained upright, back straight against the reinforced metal chair, eyes fixed on a point on the floor only he could see. Shadows carved his features, and the angle of his clenched jaw looked sculpted in granite. It was a body at rest, yes. But there was no peace in that stillness. It was the stillness of a blade before it falls. The calm before the roar.

None of the technicians dared call him by name. Not even by his official designation. To them, he was simply “the asset.” “The subject.” “The prototype.” But even if they wouldn’t say it aloud, they all knew this man wasn’t a tool. He was a postponed threat. A loaded weapon only Von Zoller, with his firm hand and sickly smile, seemed to know how to handle.

One of the younger men approached the left arm. The new plates gleamed under the cold white light of the lab like regenerated skin—harder, shinier. But beneath that apparent perfection, the recent damage was still there, embedded in the metal like memory.

“Initializing link...” the technician said, connecting a cable as thin as surgical thread to the base of the bionic shoulder. The machine emitted a faint hum, barely perceptible, but its vibration spread through the room like a warning.

Another, older man checked a list of parameters on a clipboard by a nearby desk. His voice trembled slightly as he spoke.

“Traction adjusted. Rotational system recalibrated. Axial stability within optimal margins...”

“Functional response at ninety-two percent. Field operation estimated within seventy-two hours, if no resistance presents.”

James moved the arm for the first time. Very slowly. A smooth, almost imperceptible outward rotation of the elbow, while the metal fingers curled into a closed fist. The movement was clean. Perfect. The hum of the servos accompanied the motion like the purr of a war beast.

One of the technicians disconnected the final connector. He did so with an implicit reverence, as if afraid that even the slightest tug would trigger more than just an electric impulse. The internal joints had been welded with near-artistic precision. The machine worked. But no one in the room seemed convinced that was enough to feel safe.

“Ready...” the technician whispered. But it was only to himself. No one responded.

Finally, Von Zoller turned around. His step was slow, but filled with a sick conviction. His mere presence distorted the geometry of the room.

“Good,” he said, his voice slicing through the silence like a scalpel over anesthetized skin. “You may move now, Soldier.”

James flexed his arm more freely this time, examining every detail, every stress point, every plate integrated into the original design. Nothing hurt; everything worked. But it wasn’t his body that troubled him. It was what came after.

Von Zoller stopped in front of him. He looked at him with the same devotion a weaponsmith gives to a freshly forged piece. And then he let it drop.

“I’m sending you to the Red Room.”

He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to. The mention was enough.

One technician let out a barely audible gasp and stumbled back, bumping into a toolbox that clattered with the echo of his mistake. Another froze mid-motion with a wrench in hand, paralyzed, as if someone had halted his personal time. The Red Room wasn’t a name. It was a specter. A warning.

James said nothing. But his eyes—those eyes trained to show nothing—blinked once. And it was enough.

Von Zoller noticed. Of course he did. And he allowed himself the luxury of enjoying it.

“You’ll be on her turf.” Her was spoken with the cruel precision of a surgeon. “Dreykov will have his opinion, as always... but it’s not relevant. Not to me.”

The smile that curved his lips was the smile of a man who had already won, no matter the outcome of the battle.

“And she will be there, of course.”

Silence filled with something dangerous again. James’s metal arm tensed, the fingers clenching so hard the armrest creaked softly under the pressure. His lungs filled with air—but it wasn’t a breath. It was a harbinger.

The Commander turned, as if the show was enough for him now. He walked toward the exit at an unhurried pace, like someone who knows not to rush while savoring a fall. When he reached the door—already open by the automatic sensor—he paused one last time. Turned his head and glanced back over his shoulder.

“Reset him first.”

Nothing more. No threat. No explanation.

And then he left. Like a shadow that leaves a room colder in its wake.

Five eternal seconds passed. Then ten. Until one of the technicians, with trembling hands, approached James holding a clipboard.

“We must... begin the procedure,” he said. And it wasn’t a question. It was a sealed fate.

James didn’t respond. But his eyes slowly drifted down toward the chair. Toward the straps. Toward the metal restraints he knew better than his own reflection. The kind of structure that didn’t break bones or tear skin, but emptied the soul. A ritual repeated to the point of nausea. A bloodless death.

He stepped back.

It was minuscule. Tiny.

But it was a no.

And in that instant, like a trained pack, five rifles lifted in unison. The soldiers had him in their sights. Not a hint of hesitation. Not a word of warning. The message was clear: don’t breathe more than allowed.

James didn’t try. He just looked. His expression didn’t change. But his eyes... his eyes were full of something ancient. Something unredeemed. Something that couldn’t be extinguished.

Fear.

And yet, he let himself be led. Allowed them to guide him to the chair. To fasten the straps over his flesh wrist. Then the other. The metal didn’t protest, but it trembled with a surge only the internal systems could detect.

The backrest reclined with a hydraulic sigh. The weapons remained raised.

The mouthguard was brought to his lips. Last time, he’d broken two molars from the force of his bite; they didn’t want to risk it again.

A low hum of current filled the room.

James closed his eyes.

And for a moment—one single, microscopic moment—what he felt wasn’t hatred.

It was... loss.

Chapter Text

The awakening was not abrupt. There was no violent jolt or terrifying startle like so many other times after a reset or forced sedation. This time, it felt like floating up from the bottom of a frozen lake. A slow, thick ascent, where the body felt heavy and the air, unfamiliar.

Her eyelids lifted with difficulty. A gray haze dissolved over her eyes, and a white ceiling—immaculate, adorned with elegant moldings—was the first thing she saw. There were no steel tubes. No interrogation lights. It didn’t smell of rust or chlorine. That terrified her.

The murmur of soft voices and padded footsteps on polished marble surrounded her. Classical music played in the background, so faint she couldn’t tell whether it was real or just a leftover sound from her mind. The atmosphere was warm. Too warm. Too perfect.

She felt a slight pressure on the right side of her torso. A bandage. Then another on her thigh. A needle in her forearm, connected to a bag suspended from a metal stand. It didn’t hang from a rusted hook like in HYDRA’s labs. No. It was designed. Almost beautiful.

“She’s waking,” said a soft, female voice.

The woman’s face appeared above her. Young, sharp-cheeked, hair in a flawless bun. She wore a white coat without a single wrinkle. Her expression was calm, almost maternal. Her brown eyes reflected no cruelty, but no compassion either. Only efficiency.

“Your body is still regenerating. Some wounds are deeper than others,” she explained, adjusting the IV with graceful precision. “Your mutation stabilized most of the damage, but internal tissue is still catching up.”

Nerea tried to speak, but her throat was dry. The woman offered her water. In a glass. Not plastic. Cold. Pure.

A trap.

It was all a trap.

HYDRA had never bothered to disguise torture. But the Red Room… the Red Room presented itself as a home. Deception was its native language. Control, its most refined art.

The setting screamed it. The room looked like something from a private clinic: dark oak furniture, cream walls with crimson accents, a silent chandelier hanging from the center. Even the medical staff was different—soft faces, calm movements, voices trained to sound kind without being so.

And that made her tremble more than any needle ever had.

“Do you remember the mission?” asked a doctor on her left while flipping through a wooden clipboard thick with pages, never looking at her directly.

Nerea barely nodded. Her memories were fragmented, like pages torn from a book and haphazardly taped back together. But they were still there. The building. The blood. The cold in her lungs. The metal arm.

The silence stretched taut. No one asked further.

“You’ll be training again soon,” he said with unsettling calm. “You’re among the top performers. Your progress is… notable.”

The top performers. The phrase was a crown of thorns.

Nerea glanced down at her body. There were still fine cuts, slowly closing, surrounded by purpling skin. She could feel the blood inside her stirring lazily, only half-responsive to her control. Using her mutation drained her. And still, in that fight with the Soldier, she had pushed herself far past the limit.

“You’ve been asleep two days,” added the woman, closing the chart. “You needed it.”

Sleep. Another illusion of humanity. Who really slept in this place?

“Where am I exactly?” she finally asked, voice low and hoarse.

“At home,” replied the doctor without hesitation. His smile never reached his eyes. “The Red Room.”

Nerea felt a sharp twist in her stomach. Not from pain. From something else. A memory.

Home.

No.

Her home smelled of flour and her mother’s perfume. Of clothes drying in the sun and old books in French. Her home had her father’s deep voice calling her petite, and a woman’s laughter while fixing her curls every morning before the doctor’s visits.

This… this wasn’t home. It was a velvet coffin.

“How long until I’m back in the field?” she murmured, wishing her voice didn’t sound so defeated.

The woman rose with practiced grace, carrying the tray of surgical instruments.

“When General Dreykov orders it. Not before, and not after.”

Then they left.

The door closed without a sound. Not even a creak. As if the entire building had been designed not to disturb the illusion. An invisible prison, made not of bars, but of false smiles and exquisite manners.

Nerea closed her eyes. And then, for the first time in days, Hemera spoke.

“At least they didn’t dress you in pink. That’s something.”

Sarcasm, drained of energy. A shadow of a voice. A presence that no longer took control but lingered in the background.

“Are you going to help me this time?” she whispered.

Silence.

Of course not.

The IV fluid made a hollow sound in the tube as it slowly descended into her arm, dripping with the precision of a clock. Tick, tick, tick. Nerea watched it for minutes, as if staring at it could help her ignore the weight pressing down on her chest. As if she could pretend the world had stopped with her.

But it hadn’t.

The ache in her side throbbed again, a painful reminder that she wasn’t whole yet. A dry sigh escaped her lips. She tried to sit up, fumbling a hand to the mattress for support. Every movement was a dance of tension and care, trying not to pull out the catheter that pierced her vein like an icy pin.

The pain was there—but it was the kind of pain she knew well. A useful one. A living one.

She finally sat up, the hospital gown slipping to mid-thigh. The edge of the bed creaked ever so slightly beneath her. Nerea looked at her free hand, pale skin marred with faint scars. Blood moved slowly beneath the surface. She felt it. Almost heard it.

And still, she didn’t fully control it yet.

The door opened. A soft click. Not a slam, nor a theatrical entrance. The sound was contained, efficient. Almost polite. But it was enough for her stomach to tighten instantly.

She knew those steps. Knew them too well.

The first figure to appear was that of the attending physician, a slender, older man with gray hair combed stiffly and oval glasses slipping down his sharp nose. He studied a clipboard with care, as if what was written there held more weight than her presence in the room.

And behind him—like a shadow that consumed everything in its path—Dreykov.

Nerea held her breath. He wore the same long coat as always, charcoal gray, without a single wrinkle, lapels firm like a military uniform. His face hadn’t changed over the years, but it didn’t need to. His expression was a constant, etched in stone. Authority clung to him like a second skeleton. And when his eyes landed on her, the air in the room turned heavier, thicker.

“Nerea: favorable evolution,” the doctor stated, not looking at her. “The mutation responded to internal injuries, though there was significant overload. Fatigue is still present, but she can return to light sessions within 48 hours.”

Dreykov didn’t answer him right away. He simply stared at Nerea. As if he were looking for cracks. As if waiting to see something break.

She lowered her gaze, slowly. The fear rose in her throat like a dry retch. She knew him too well. Almost four years had been enough to learn that true torture didn’t always leave visible marks. That Dreykov’s calm voice could destroy more than a fist. That his silences were often preludes to punishment.

“It was supposed to be a simple mission,” he said at last, his voice so measured it was more unsettling than a scream. “Clean. Efficient. Like so many others you completed before.”

Nerea nodded faintly. She wanted to speak—an excuse, an explanation—but no words came. Her throat closed.

“And yet…” he continued, stepping closer to the bed, “it ended as a scene of chaos. Do you know what that means for me?”

Her heart pounded. Ice crawled up her spine. Her fingers trembled imperceptibly on the white sheet. Her body shrank inward, almost without realizing, as if she could make herself smaller—small enough to avoid the full brunt of the fury she sensed building in him.

She was used to punishments. To windowless rooms. To days of forced fasting. But there was something worse in the air now. Something she couldn’t fully grasp, but that raised every hair on her body.

“I didn’t ruin it,” she whispered, barely audible.

Dreykov stared at her with impenetrable hardness. Then, something broke in his expression. Not rage—Pride. There was something deeply personal in his anger, and she didn’t understand why.

“It wasn’t your fault,” he said, suddenly.

Nerea blinked, confused. She hadn’t expected that.

He turned slightly, as if the act of looking at her directly now irritated him.

“It was his.”

Silence settled in the room like a new presence. Nerea stared at him, not understanding. The doctor, still in the corner, kept his face impassive, but lowered his head slightly, as if bracing for a storm yet to break.

“Von Zoller,” Dreykov spat the name with bitter disdain. “He sends us his… project. As if our facilities were a proving ground for his failed weapons.”

The weight of that statement hit her like stone. The image of the metal arm surged back into her mind.

The Soldier.

“He… he was on the same mission.”

Dreykov didn’t respond immediately. He walked a few steps through the room, turning on his heel with forced elegance.

“You weren’t meant to know. A crossing of paths… accidental,” he murmured, with an acidic edge that couldn’t hide the simmering irritation. “The worst part of all this is I have to endure his presence here for weeks. That was Von Zoller’s condition.”

Nerea looked up slowly.

Dreykov glanced at her from the corner of his eye, as if he already knew the question forming on her lips.

“That’s not your concern,” he added coldly. “Just regain your strength. And avoid causing further… incidents.”

Then he turned. The doctor followed in silence, gliding behind him. The door opened and closed again with that same surgical precision.

Nerea remained still.

The room—perfect, warm—now felt like a gilded cage. A luxury built to disguise captivity. She felt her blood move faintly in her veins, responding weakly to her will. But there was no control. No certainty. Only the shadow of him walking those same halls.

The Soldier was here.

And for the first time in a long time, Nerea wished she could disappear.

The silence in the office was unsettling.

A stagnant, artificial stillness. As if everything were contained beneath an invisible membrane, muffling every sound: the soft hum of the lights, the ticking of a clock hidden behind a wall, the heavy breathing of the two soldiers stationed at the door. They didn’t move. They didn’t speak. They were simply there. Like shadows holding rifles.

He was seated in one of the chairs facing the desk. His hands—one flesh, one metal—rested on his thighs, though not relaxed. His fingers twitched now and then with brief, involuntary spasms. The joints of his left arm gave off a faint creak every time the muscle contracted reflexively. Still adjusting. Still aching.

He didn’t know his name. He didn’t know why he was there.

He had woken up a few hours ago—or so he thought. Time slipped through him like smoke. He didn’t remember arriving. Didn’t remember why he’d been awakened. Only the cold. And the nothingness.

White-gloved hands had unstrapped him from a metal chair. Eyes behind glasses. Voices murmuring in a language he barely understood. Some words in Russian. Then in German.
An order: walk. So he had. He walked down a long corridor without question, without looking sideways, without thinking too much. There was no need to think. Only to move. Obey. Breathe.

Until they left him here, in this office with white walls and polished wood accents—very different from the metallic hallways where he had awoken. Everything here carried a military elegance. Clean, controlled and calculated.

They told him to wait. No further orders. Just that. Wait. So he waited.

His eyes scanned the room for the fifth or sixth time—perhaps more—studying every object as if with enough focus, he could extract some meaning, some clue. A framed map on the wall, coordinates marked with small red pins. An oval portrait of an older man in a Soviet uniform. A bookshelf with books aligned with surgical precision. The cup on the desk still had coffee in it. Cold. Forgotten.

They had left him here for more than twenty minutes. Maybe an hour. Maybe more. And no one had come.

His right leg began to tap against the floor in an irregular rhythm. Nervous. Anxious. Irritated. But he didn’t know why. He couldn’t remember what anxiety felt like—yet there it was, crawling beneath his skin like an itch he couldn’t scratch. His chest felt heavy. His metal arm tensed every time he tried to relax it, as though the artificial muscle didn’t know how to be still.

He caught his reflection in the glass of a display cabinet. Long, tangled hair. Ice-blue eyes beneath a storm. A face hardened by something he no longer remembered. The faint, nearly invisible scars seemed to tell a story he had no right to know. It was a body marked by a past that had slipped through his fingers.

The first human voice he had heard after waking was that of a technician. Neither kind nor cruel. Practical. Precise. He told him he had been “reactivated” and “transferred to a new facility.” That was it. No further details. No one seemed interested in whether he understood—only that he obeyed.

The medical staff didn’t meet his eyes. The soldiers did. But with mistrust. As if they were waiting for something inside him to explode without warning. And maybe it would. He didn’t know. He didn’t know himself.

His metal fingers drummed on his thigh with a dry rhythm. One, two, three, pause. One, two… three. Pause. The irritation began to grow—like a dark heat beneath his skin. No reason. No logic. But it was there. A discomfort without a name. He had waited long enough.

His eyes lifted to the door. He wouldn’t cross it without an order—he knew that. There was a system. A code carved into him. An invisible line he couldn’t cross without permission. And yet the impulse pulsed inside him, steady and insistent.

Someone had to come.

Someone had to explain why he’d been brought to this place he didn’t understand.

His senses were sharp, even through the mental fog. He could hear distant footsteps. A muffled voice behind walls. The brush of wind outside—perhaps tree branches scraping the windows of a hallway. And beneath all of it… a dull hum in his head. A pressure. An absence.

As if something had once been there—and had been ripped out with surgical violence. As if somewhere in his chest, there was an echo he didn’t know how to decipher.

The door opened with an authoritative click, and the energy in the room shifted instantly.

It wasn’t something he could see right away, but he felt it. As if the pressure in the air had doubled in a heartbeat. A figure crossed the threshold with the gait of someone who expected to be feared—rigid, meticulous, relentless. He wore a dark gray uniform, medals aligned with mathematical precision on his chest.

The Soldier watched him with a faint frown, confused. Not out of fear—but from something stranger: a sharp discomfort he couldn’t place. As if his body recoiled instinctively before his mind could understand why.

General Dreykov closed the door without acknowledging the guards outside. He strode to the desk and dropped a folder down hard, as though the gesture alone carried military weight.

"Do you know why you're here?" he asked, without looking at him.

No response.

Dreykov lifted his gaze, and his eyes locked on him with a flash of barely veiled disgust.

“What’s wrong? Cat got your tongue in Berlin?” he scoffed, letting out a dry, humorless laugh.

The Soldier kept his eyes on the desk. Not out of fear. Out of confusion. He didn’t know how to answer. He didn’t know why he was there. He didn’t understand anything the man was saying. And even though he comprehended the language, the words had no meaning for him.

Dreykov crossed his arms and slowly walked toward him, bearing the posture of an executioner who didn’t need to raise his voice to assert power.

“You failed. Like a child. Like a poorly trained dog,” he spat with disdain. “Not only that. You injured one of our own. One of our most valuable assets. Does that make you proud?”

He lifted his eyes slightly, and for a moment, their gazes met.

Empty. Lost. Confused.

And Dreykov noticed. His brow creased slowly. The Soldier in front of him wasn’t the icy killer he hated—but at least respected. This one… looked broken. Incomplete. He blinked a few times, trying to absorb it, but before he could speak, the door opened again.

“General,” said a nervous voice.

A doctor, hunched over himself, papers in hand and sweat on his brow, stumbled in and extended the documents as if handing over a live grenade.

Dreykov snatched them without looking away from the Soldier. He broke the silence flipping through the report, his gaze running down the lines with mounting irritation. The doctor began to stammer.

“He… he’s been reset, General. By direct order from Von Zoller. Right after the extraction. His memories of the operation were wiped. He… he doesn’t remember anything. He’s operational, but his conditioning has been restored from zero.”

Silence.

Dreykov’s face hardened even more—if that was possible. A muscle in his jaw twitched in silent fury. His eyes slowly drifted from the page to the face of the man in front of him—this empty weapon, this shell without history, without memory.

“Of course he has,” he muttered, with icy venom. “How convenient.”

The doctor stepped back with an almost pathetic bow and left the room, not daring to shut the door too loudly. Dreykov stood in silence, still watching. And then, almost theatrically, he reached into his coat and pulled out a small rectangular object.

A red notebook, leather-bound, with a star on the cover. He let it fall onto the desk with a dull thud. The Soldier looked at it, one eyebrow slightly raised.

“Do you know what this is?” Dreykov asked, with a twisted, cynical smile, like he was speaking to a dumb child. “No, of course not. You haven’t got a clue. What a waste.”

He ran his fingers over the cover of the notebook like it was a useless toy, like he was on the verge of laughing. But there was fury in his eyes. A fury that held years of contempt.

“I’d send you back into the ice right now if it weren’t for that idiot Von Zoller, who seems to think you’re ‘shaping the century,’” he spat the words with revulsion. “As if you were anything more than a rusted puppet.”

The tension in the Soldier’s jaw was visible. His flesh hand slowly clenched, while the metal one continued to tremble. But he didn’t move. He did nothing.

“You’re staying here. For a while. You’ll obey. You won’t think. You won’t move without permission. And if you screw up anything else… I’ll make sure every piece of your body gets replaced with metal. Understood?”

No answer.

Dreykov didn’t expect one.

And yet, the Soldier’s eyes drifted—not toward Dreykov, but toward the notebook. His expression was that of an animal puzzled by a sound it couldn’t tell whether to fear or attack.

Dreykov watched him a moment longer, then simply sat behind the desk, as if the Soldier was no longer worth the effort.

He didn’t dismiss him. He gave no further orders.

Silence thickened in the room like fog, saturating everything.

The Soldier remained seated, muscles stiff as steel beneath the uniform, joints uncomfortably tense. There was pressure in his shoulders, in his lower back, in his left side… Pain. Persistent. Not sharp, not piercing—deep and dull, as if it came from within the bones. He didn’t know why. He couldn’t remember. There were no memories—just sensations. An invisible weight. A heaviness in the flesh, in the metal. As if his body had been dragged through a storm that left marks, but no clues.

He closed his eyes for a moment.

It was useless. The darkness brought no relief.

Dreykov’s silence didn’t help either. The General had confined himself to reviewing papers slowly, without uttering a single word since sitting down. But he could feel it, even without looking at him directly: that disdain emanating from the man’s presence with every heavy breath, every page turned. As if he were in front of a judge who had already sentenced him in advance.

It was then—without lifting his eyes from the documents—that Dreykov spoke again, cutting through the air like a gunshot.

“You’re being assigned as an instructor.”

He didn’t move.

“The Widows require a new level of training,” Dreykov continued, his voice firm, dry, lacking any real interest or enthusiasm. “And though it disgusts me to admit it…”—he paused, tone turning sharper—“…your skills are good for more than blind killing.”

The crackle of a page followed. Nothing more.

“You’ll be in charge of physical training. Hand-to-hand combat. Weapons. Control. Infiltration techniques.”

Dreykov finally looked up at him, as if evaluating a machine about to be put back into operation.

“I don’t want mistakes. I don’t want deviations. I don’t want reactions that weren’t programmed.”

He turned slightly in his chair and raised his voice in a sharp, commanding tone.

“Soldiers!”

The door opened instantly. Two heavily armed men stood at attention in the doorway. Dreykov addressed them without even glancing their way.

“Bring the doctor. The same one from the behavioral reinforcement protocol. Prepare him with the proper uniform. Equipment too. I’ll be waiting in the chamber.”

There was no need to specify which one. Everyone knew. The chamber. The place where screams were swallowed by steel walls, the place where whatever willpower remained was buried.

The Soldier frowned slightly. His jaw tensed.

He didn’t understand what any of it meant. He didn’t remember ever being “prepared” in any way. But the way they spoke—the cold manner in which Dreykov announced it, the casual way his body was once again being handed over for another procedure…

Something inside him stirred. Not rebellion. Not awareness. But something more primal: fear.

The soldiers approached him cautiously. One gestured for him to stand. He obeyed, stiffly, watching them without moving.

The air around him grew heavier.

And just as they were about to escort him out, the door opened again.

A doctor peeked in, dressed in a white coat, nervous, breathing as if he’d run up several flights of stairs. He held a paper in his hand but handed it to no one. He spoke softly, as if he knew his words were poisonous.

“General… the patient Garnier is showing significant improvement,” he said. “Her mutation has already begun to repair the fractured ribs. Wounds are about eighty percent closed. The IV is now only for hydration. We could remove it tonight.”

Dreykov didn’t bother to respond.

But the Soldier heard him.

Garnier.

That name.

He didn’t recognize it. It didn’t sound familiar. But something along his spine tightened—something he didn’t understand. His head turned, almost involuntarily, just slightly—but enough for the shift in attention to be noticed.

Not out of real interest.

More like a strange need to know who else was there. To not be the only one in a place so cold. The name lingered in his mind a second longer than normal, repeating like a dripping faucet.

Garnier.

Dreykov noticed.

His eyes snapped to him, filled with immediate, cold, restrained fury.

“Don’t pay attention to that name,” he spat. “You don’t know her. And you don’t care.”

His tone was as sharp as a blow, even if the words were barely above a whisper. The soldiers beside him tensed, waiting for a misstep. But the Soldier didn’t react. He didn’t know how to react.

He only understood that there was something more here.

Something they weren’t telling him.

Dreykov stood with the folder in hand and passed by him without a glance.

“Get him ready. Now.”

The door slammed shut behind him.

And once again, he was being led through metallic corridors toward a destination he didn’t understand, with a single name—Garnier—bouncing around his empty mind like a word that had once meant something.

But he didn’t know why.

Or for whom.

The cold air burned her lungs.

Every breath felt like a thin blade sliding between her bronchi, and yet, Nerea barely noticed. Cold was a constant in the Red Room during Russian winters, and that morning was no exception: the outer courtyard, surrounded by concrete walls and barbed wire, was blanketed with freshly fallen snow. The sun barely peeked through gray clouds that bathed everything in a dull, flat light, and the breath of the Widows became visible with every exhale, mingling with the steam rising from their overheated bodies after hours of training.

Nerea stood, fists clenched and muscles tense, facing one of the younger Widows. Her red thermal shirt was soaked with sweat down her back, clinging like a second skin beneath the icy air that surrounded her. Her combat pants, heavy with snowmelt, made it harder to move her legs—but still, she didn’t stop. Her military boots crunched against the frost every time she pivoted, lunged, or dodged.

Her hair was tied back in a high ponytail that swayed with every sharp movement. A few platinum strands had come loose, sticking to her damp forehead.

The training was one-on-one combat. It wasn’t choreographed. It wasn’t a simulation. The Widows struck with real force, with the intent to subdue and take down. One didn’t rise through the ranks in this place without learning how to leave an opponent breathless or knock them off balance. The instructor—a burly man with a blank expression and a scar across his neck—walked slowly around the perimeter, observing without intervening. He only corrected mistakes when they were grave. Or fatal.

Nerea dodged a kick that grazed her jaw and responded with a low spin, sweeping her opponent’s legs out from under her. The girl fell onto the snow with a muffled grunt. Nerea didn’t wait. She lunged on top of her, driving her knee into her chest and pinning her arm against her throat, until she heard the dry tap of the glove hitting the ground twice.
Submission.

She rose, panting, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. Blood. The familiar metallic taste. She’d bitten the inside of her cheek without noticing. Another fight. Another round. Another Widow. This one taller. Faster. She felt a stab of pain in her ribs—residue from the mission. She didn’t think. She just raised her fists.

And that’s when she felt it. A movement to her left. The muted sound of footsteps in the snow. A presence that filtered through the voices and the noise of hits like a needle through fabric.

She turned. Not fully—just with her eyes. He was there.

The Winter Soldier.

Standing across the courtyard, next to one of Dreykov’s soldiers who was speaking to him in a low voice, as if keeping calm would make any difference. He didn’t answer. Didn’t even nod. His profile was unreadable. Jaw clenched, shoulders tense beneath the new uniform: black with red details, heavy, more formal than practical. His gloves were on, his boots clean. He didn’t look like someone recently arrived—he looked like a nightmare pulled from the ice and placed there, deliberately.

The instructor saw him too.

And glared.

It lasted just a second, but Nerea didn’t miss it. That genuine look of rejection, a flicker of disdain that was obvious even from a distance. The Soldier didn’t notice... or did he? Hard to tell. He didn’t seem bothered. Or uneasy. He looked... empty.

And that’s what unsettled her.

Because he hadn’t been empty the last time they met. He’d been full of rage. Of fury. Of pain. So had she.

That day in Russia, they had destroyed each other. Blow after blow. Cuts. Broken bones. Deep wounds. Blood mixed in the snow like crimson ink on white paper. She had hurt him. He had hurt her. Neither came out unscathed. Not inside. Not out.

And now he was here. Watching her. Or not?

Was he looking at her?

A knot formed in her stomach. Fear rooted itself like a frozen hook, tugging inward with every heartbeat. Her body reacted before her mind: her pulse quickened, her breath shortened, her muscles tensed unevenly.

It lasted a second. Just one.

Long enough to lose focus.

The Widow in front of her noticed. Like a predator catching the scent of weakness. The hit came from the left. Fast, precise. A kick to the thigh that threw her off balance, followed by a shove to her shoulder that made her stumble. She tried to react, to plant her foot—but slipped on the snow.

The ground met her hard. Her back slammed into the packed ice. The air was knocked from her lungs. The world went white for a second. Then the pain. Her side. The still-sensitive ribs. A dull lash beneath her skin.

The other Widow stopped. Didn’t finish her off. It wasn’t necessary. The instructor said nothing—he only observed. Nerea clenched her jaw, teeth grinding in frustration.

Not at the blow. At herself for letting it happen.

She got up clumsily, brushing the snow off her face, eyes drifting—though now discreetly—back toward where the Soldier still stood, expressionless, unmoved... as if none of this affected him.

As if he didn’t recognize her.

And maybe, she thought with a shiver, he didn’t.

They walked in silence at first.

Well... one of them did.

The other wouldn’t stop talking—or more accurately, didn’t seem to care whether he was being heard or not.

“I think the uniform suits you,” he said, with a crooked half-smile that didn’t seek approval. “Much more presentable than when you arrived. Although, of course... that was quite the spectacle, wasn’t it?”

The Soldier didn’t respond. He walked with his arms relaxed at his sides, his stride steady but calm, eyes fixed ahead. Pain still throbbed in parts of his torso, as if his body remembered injuries his mind couldn’t reconstruct. He didn’t understand why. And every time he tried to find the answer, all he encountered was an invisible wall. Cold. Unbreakable.

“Not much of a talker, huh?” the man continued, tilting his head slightly toward him as they descended the interior stairs of the concrete building. “I like that. Too many people talk. Too many people think they have something to say. But you… you carry it differently. Quiet. Like a big dog. Well trained. Or that was the idea, right?”

Another pause.

He clicked his tongue.

“I’m Vronsky. I’m in charge of the weapons division here,” he finally said, more directly, though without losing the edge of mockery in his tone. “But General Dreykov asked me to accompany you. Let’s say... I get to be your partner. Or your handler. Depends who you ask.”

The Soldier looked at him, barely tilting his head.

Vronsky smirked.

“Relax. I’m not here to put you on a leash. Just to make sure you don’t bite someone important.”

They reached the double doors leading to the exterior courtyard. A gust of icy wind sliced through the opening like the edge of a blade. Outside, the world was gray and white. Constant snow. The Widows were scattered in formation, fighting in pairs. The combat instructor paced among them like a watchful specter, never needing to raise his voice.

“There they are,” Vronsky said, gesturing with a slight nod. “Your group.”

The Soldier’s brow furrowed slightly.

Vronsky kept going.

“You’ll train them. Or at least that’s what the General says. Hand-to-hand combat, bladed weapons, assault tactics. All that stuff you do without thinking. The kind of things that turn a Russian teenager into an elite asset.”

He said nothing. But his eyes were moving. Observing.

There were a dozen girls outside. Ten actively sparring. Two sitting on the metal bleachers, catching their breath. All in uniform—red thermal shirts, cargo pants, boots. They looked of varying ages. Some young. Others not so much. This training wasn’t for everyone. It showed. It felt.

“See that one?” Vronsky lifted a hand and subtly pointed. “Tall, long braid. That’s Ivanna. She moves slow, but when she strikes, she bites deep.”

He watched.

Ivanna moved with precision and calculation. She brought down her opponent with three consecutive maneuvers, her face void of any emotion.

“And that one, with the bandage on her wrist,” Vronsky went on. “Name’s Katya. Tried to escape once. Just once. Ever since then, she fights like she’s got nothing left to lose.”

The Soldier nodded slightly. Not in understanding—maybe out of reflex.

Then Vronsky shifted a bit more.

“And over there…” he said, lowering his voice as if this particular introduction required a different tone, “that’s Nerea.”

He looked.

There was something strange about it. Not recognition—more like a pause. As if something buried deep inside him tensed imperceptibly, without knowing why.

Vronsky crossed his arms.

“She’s good. Really good. One of the best. A bit impulsive… or emotional. Maybe both. But that makes her interesting, you know? She’s not like the others. Her file’s sealed, so no clue what they did to her. But I’ll tell you this—if one of these girls ever takes your eye out in the middle of the night… it’ll be her.”

The Soldier didn’t look away.

Nerea was fighting. Moving with precision, though her body seemed to carry an invisible weight. She struggled. Like something in her ribs still hurt. She looked strained. Resilient. Tough. But not indestructible.

And then something shifted.

Nerea looked up. Toward them.

For a second, their eyes met.

She saw him.

The Soldier didn’t know how to read her expression. It wasn’t neutral. It wasn’t professional. It was… personal?

The confusion was mutual. The consequence, immediate.

A kick. A shove. A poorly calculated pivot. Nerea’s body hit the snow hard.

“Well, damn,” Vronsky exclaimed, not even trying to hide his amusement. “Looks like you have that effect on women.”

He didn’t react. He just kept watching.

Nerea got up. Hurt. Humiliated. Furious. And she looked at him again. But this time with something else.

Fear.

Vronsky let out a nasal laugh.

“This is going to be fun,” he muttered, giving him a dry pat on the metal shoulder. “Welcome to the team.”

And the cold—tolerable until now—suddenly cut deeper.