Chapter Text
The oak trees surrounded a lone figure, dense woods swallowing the stray sound of every step. Weightless snowdrops floated downward on the breeze, settling on the cold stone pavement; soft white petals dissolved the moment they came in contact with leather boots. A few adventurous flakes drifted lower, catching in his hair like tiny, frozen stars. The forest looked beautiful—though his mind was the polar opposite.
Six in the morning. Six in the fucking morning and this was the result of a 'secured operation'?
Whoever came up with this was a total load of dipshit. And now Alfred has to get all morning bird and solve this himself. His boss went on hours of scolding as if Alfred was a 12 year old runaway. It was only a simple task, yet they acted like he was going to die just by examining the problem. Though the assignment itself wasn't exactly the issue, but the decision that Alfred was stepping into Soviet territory. His boss kept tabs on him like the pain in the ass he was—checking screens three times in an hour to make sure Alfred wasn't slacking. Or caught, even.
Alfred's lips curled into a frustrated sneer.
Seriously, what exactly was the reason for this? He had already managed the first report. The second was redundant, and the third was borderline insulting. And now he's learning that the operation failed to be secured? What nonsense is this? The American was assured they had it all covered.
And yet here he was—boots biting into frozen ground with every exhale turning to silver mist, walking through a forest covered in a thick white blanket. Another eight hours of sleep sacrificed just for this—Lord, did Alfred crave rest. The last time he had even gotten a peaceful night was months ago! Or possibly way before that; he had simply lost track—if Alfred was even keeping track of time anyway.
Dragging his focus back to reality, Alfred stopped dead in his tracks. “Great. Fucking great.” he said through gritted teeth. “Of course I had to get fucking lost.”
“In the heart of Russia—Moscow, out of all places, Moscow!”
Alfred clicked his tongue before a humorless laugh escaped. He shook his head with knitted brows—huffing out puffs of white fumes into the cold air. “Unbelievable.”
This was great misery and purely time wasting. Still, it was his reckless decision to come here. Pairs of gloved hands rubbed hastily against each other, creating friction for heat. The slight warmth in the midst of the cold lifted a weight off of Alfred's shoulders—his clenched jaw finally allowed itself to relax. The freezing breeze crept up the American's neck, though Alfred was lucky enough to have a scarf hung loosely around his neck. Tightening it just enough to keep away from the chill without strangling himself—he wondered about his land.
Alfred loved the snow. He adored how the stray flakes dusted his wheat-golden hair. Every time winter came or when he visited snowy states, he'd always have to wear layered clothing and jackets to fight off the cold. He loved how easily the fresh powder clumped up in his palms—forming into a solid orb to plant at people's faces, and how everything seemed to drown into white.
But a Russian winter? Oh, no, no. That's a different topic. The freezing Russian winter bit his skin uninvitingly, left his throat dehydrated, and erased all sensations from his fingertips.
And speaking of Russia, it reminded Alfred of how Ivan once told him he hated the cold. Ivan, the country personification of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, the same country who is also known as the coldest country on this planet geographically and personally—hated winter. Can you believe that?
Enough about Ivan—was he thinking about Ivan? No, why would he think about Ivan? He was only recalling memories, Alfred was not thinking about Ivan.
With a tan winter coat draped over his shoulder, he hauled the fabric tightly against his chest, a scowl settling on his face. He glared deeply at the endless white, cursing the fact that a single jacket wasn't doing shit against the absolute brutality of this weather. He was practically strangling the lapels just to keep a fraction of his body heat from escaping.
Is this really it? To freeze to death in enemy territory? At this point, Alfred honestly wished the winter would swallow him whole before any Russian citizen could see him like this. Not that he was shivering in his boots from fear—goodness, never—but merely from the unbearable bitch of a temperature. Or the fact that every involuntary shudder felt like a blow to American pride.
Simply put: Alfred despised Russian weather, but he despised communism more.
Shifting his weight against the harsh wind, Alfred unbuttoned the pouch of his winter coat with clumsy fingers, glaring warily as he fished out his navigation gear and a field radio. Navigation had never been the problem, he knew exactly how to navigate enemy terrain—where locating positions should have been the easy part. But the howling wind made things more difficult—especially when white flakes lashed against his vision. The American could only pray; he sought immunity from Snow-Blindness.
The navigation gear flickered once, twice, then the screen died entirely just as it finally surrendered to the brutal sub-zero frost. Perfect. Just when the prideful American thought his day couldn't get any worse.
Before Alfred even had time to curse, from the small speaker of his field radio came the dead static that abruptly snapped into a piercing frequency. It took the nation a second or two to realize... It wasn't the voice of his commander. The static shifted—
It was Russian.
A rapid, urgent exchange of Russian flooded the receiver instead. Alfred, despite being multilingual, didn't need to be a linguist to recognize the tone of a hunt—the fuckers had a lock on his coordinates.
His heart hammered against his ribs from an electric rush of adrenaline instead of panic—the very idea of fear felt disgusting on his tongue. With the miserable cold forgotten, a sharp click cut through the air as Alfred slammed the radio off, shoving it into his pocket before melting into the shadows of the towering pines—just as the distant, rhythmic crunch of military boots began to echo through the trees.
As the embodiment slipped from pine to pine, he took one more hesitant step—and froze. Something felt wrong. Although the ground beneath his heel didn't give away with the usual resistance of packed snow, there was a hollow, metallic click that sent a jolt straight up his spine.
“Fuck,” Alfred bit his bottom lip.
To disarm a landmine while a patrol is closing in, a landmine—Alfred's breath hitched. He had to move quickly, so the only available option he had left was to drop to his knees, keep pressure on the mine with one hand, and use his free hand to create the distraction.
A landmine. Leave it to the Soviets to litter a freezing forest with active explosives.
The thump of military boots against the snow grew louder as shadows of the patrol stretched through the tree line. For the first time ever, Alfred didn't have time to panic. Moving with agonizing slowness, he shifted his weight, gently dropping to one knee while keeping his boot pressed firmly onto the pressure plate. His fingers, numb from the cold, still dug into the snow to clear the top of the rusted metal casing.
He needed them gone, and he needed them gone now.