Chapter Text
The smoke rising from the wreckage of the Snezhnayan train billowed like a dark shroud against the blinding whiteout.
Twisted iron tracks lay torn from the permafrost, and the skeletal remains of the passenger cars hissed as hot engines met the freezing snow.
Major Valeriy moved through the devastation with the rigid, terrifying efficiency of a rolling fortress. Behind him, a squad of Fatui soldiers from the Special Assignments Battalion fanned out, their heavy boots crunching through the fresh powder as they barked orders and began clearing debris.
To the soldiers, this was a security crisis—a high-profile disaster that required containment. But to Valeriy, every second wasted was a direct threat to the only assignment that truly mattered.
Mitya.
The eccentric researcher had been on that train, returning from a classified transport route. Valeriy had strictly warned him about the dangers of traveling without his full personal guard, but Mitya, as always, had simply brushed past the schedule with a lackadaisical smile.
"Spread out!" Valeriy’s voice cut through the howling wind, sharp and unyielding. "Check the primary passenger cars first. No survivors are to be left unaccounted for."
Valeriy pushed forward alone, his gloved hands tearing away a jagged, overturned metal door that blocked the entrance to the midsection carriage.
The scent of ozone and burning fuel filled the air. He stepped into the shadowed interior of the derailed cabin, his Electro Vision humming faintly against his armor, casting sharp purple arcs across the ruined seats.
That was when he saw a flash of familiar, bright fabric pinned beneath a collapsed steel support beam.
Valeriy didn't call out. He didn't hesitate. In three massive strides, he reached the wreckage and dropped to his knees.
"Mitya," Valeriy muttered, his eyes widening.
The young scientist was slumped against the shattered frame of the carriage wall. His face was pale, smeared with soot and blood, and his usually unruly hair was damp with melted snow.
His eyes were half-open, glazed with pain, but they flickered with a faint spark of recognition as Valeriy’s shadow fell over him.
"Val..." Mitya choked out. The word barely formed before a sharp, wet gasp caught violently in his throat. His hand twitched toward his chest, fingers curling helplessly into his torn coat.
Valeriy braced his boots against the floorboards and grabbed the heavy steel beam. With a low, strained growl, his muscles flared with brute military strength as he threw the wreckage aside, letting it crash heavily into the snow outside.
He immediately gathered Mitya into his arms, pulling the slender researcher against his sturdy chest plate. But the moment he lifted him, Mitya let out a choked, agonized whine, his entire body convulsing in a desperate attempt to draw air.
"Don't move," Valeriy commanded, his voice dropping into a low, steady anchor meant to fight the panic rising in the researcher's eyes. Valeriy gently slid his hand beneath Mitya’s coat, checking the torso. Even through the thick winter layers, his disciplined hands could feel the unnatural, ruined alignment beneath.
Broken ribs. Deeply displaced.
Every time Mitya tried to expand his chest, the jagged bone pressed into his lungs. He couldn't breathe. His lips were staining a dangerous shade of blue, and his chest hitched in small, shallow, useless tremors.
"Ah... ca—can't..." Mitya gasped, his fingers desperately clawing at the leather of Valeriy’s gauntlets, seeking any semblance of leverage, any way to pull oxygen into his starving lungs. A thin line of blood spilled from the corner of his mouth.
"Look at me," Valeriy ordered, shifting his weight so he could cup the back of Mitya’s head, forcing the scientist to lock onto his gaze.
The stoic commander, usually so unbothered by the grimmest realities of war, felt a cold dread settling deep in his stomach.
"Mitya, stop trying to take full breaths. Match me. Small, shallow exhalations. Do not fight it."
Valeriy exaggerated his own breathing, keeping it slow, measured, and rhythmic.
Mitya stared up at him, his pupils dilated with agony and absolute terror. He tried to mimic the soldier, but a sudden cough racked his frame, causing him to arch violently in Valeriy's embrace. The pain was blinding; Mitya’s forehead pressed hard against Valeriy’s shoulder as he suffocated, his body locked in a horrific, silent panic.
"Soldiers! Bring a medical kit to the mid-carriage immediately!" Valeriy roared over his shoulder, the sheer force of his voice echoing out into the blizzard.
There was no response from the blizzard outside yet—only the distant sound of shifting metal and the scraping of plowing snow.
Valeriy looked back down, tightening his hold just enough to keep Mitya stable without worsening the pressure on his chest.
For a man whose entire life was governed by precision and absolute control, the sheer helplessness of watching Mitya slip away in his literal grasp was the worst torture. He could fight armies, block catastrophic energy leaks, and stand as a fortress against any threat—
but he could not breathe for the man dying in his arms.
"Hold on," Valeriy whispered, his rigid discipline cracking as he pressed his forehead briefly against Mitya’s damp hair. His Electro energy flickered, keeping Mitya's fading consciousness tethered by a thread.
Valeriy’s demeanor would shred even more, watching the weak Mitya struggle to survive in his vicinity.
He tried to keep his hope faithful.
The howling wind outside intensified, screaming through the jagged tears of the shattered carriage.
"Major Valeriy!" a voice faintly echoed through the whiteout, distant and choked by the storm. "The permafrost drift blocked the approach path! The primary medical kit—we're trying to dig through—"
The rest of the words were swallowed entirely by the blizzard’s squall. They weren't coming. Not in time.
Valeriy didn't waste his breath replying. He looked down at Mitya, and for the first time in his military career, a sickening spike of cold terror shot straight through his chest.
Mitya’s clawing fingers had lost their frantic grip. They were slipping weakly down the leather of Valeriy’s gauntlets, scratching uselessly before falling limp against the snow-dusted floorboards.
The frenzied, panicked arching of his spine was fading into a terrifying stillness. His body was giving up, exhausted from the sheer lack of oxygen.
"Val..." Mitya’s voice was barely a thread, a faint, raspy whistle that barely carried over the hum of Valeriy's own Electro Vision. His eyes were half-lidded, heavy and unfocused, staring blindly at the dark collar of the commander's coat.
"...hurts.. Can't..."
"Stay with me," Valeriy snapped, the command sharp, though his hands were shifting with desperate gentleness.
He had to stabilize the chest wall now. Without proper tools, the jagged edge of the broken rib would continue to puncture the lung every time Mitya’s diaphragm involuntarily twitched.
Working with brutal, calculated precision, Valeriy unbuckled his own heavy outer tactical sash—a thick, unyielding strip of reinforced leather and insulated fabric meant to hold ammunition crates.
He sliced through the straps of Mitya’s heavy winter coat using the combat blade at his thigh, peeling back the layers to expose the severe, dark purple bruising swelling rapidly over the scientist's ribs.
Mitya let out a weak, agonizing whimper at the cool air, his head lolling back against Valeriy's arm.
"This will hurt, Mitya.” Valeriy muttered, his voice dropping into a low, gravelly growl.
Positioning himself, Valeriy used one massive hand to firmly press down on the displaced section of the chest, forcing the broken bone away from the lung and back into a rigid, albeit temporary, alignment.
Mitya’s eyes flew wide open. A silent, breathless scream tore from his throat, his body tensing into a rigid line for a moment before going completely limp.
He looked dead — as he had passed out from the sheer intensity of the pain, his head falling heavily against Valeriy’s chest plate.
Valeriy was careful not to blink.
He watched Mitya’s lifeless eyes dilate, panic setting in. Valeriy tried to keep himself calm, and tried to ignore the sight and focus on keeping Mitya stable.
Using his thick tactical sash, Valeriy wrapped it tightly around Mitya’s torso, pulling it taut and pinning the fractured ribs firmly against his frame to act as an external brace. He buckled it down hard.
It would restrict Mitya's ability to take deep breaths, but it would stop the internal bleeding and allow the lung to partially expand without being torn to pieces.
Valeriy gathered the unconscious scientist back into his arms, pulling him flush against his body. He angled his own massive frame against the open tear of the carriage, using his heavy winter cape to shield Mitya completely from the freezing wind and biting snow.
With his gloves off, Valeriy pressed two fingers against the side of Mitya’s throat.
The pulse was faint, irregular, and terrifyingly thin—but it was there. With the rib bound tight, Mitya’s chest was finally making small, shallow, unobstructed hitches.
The frantic suffocating had stopped, replaced by the weak, fragile breathing of someone hovering right on the edge of the void.
Valeriy closed his eyes for a single second, pressing his jaw firmly against Mitya’s temple, his broad shoulders shaking slightly as he let out the breath he hadn't realized he was holding.
The stoic fortress had held, but only just.
"You are not dying in this wasteland," Valeriy whispered fiercely into the dark, his Electro energy pulsing in tiny, rhythmic currents through his hands.
Worriedly he sat there, clutching the limp— but alive — scientist in his hands.
For what seemed like ages, the oppressive whiteout finally broke, the howling wind dying down into a low, bitter hiss across the Snezhnayan permafrost.
The dense, choking fog of snow parted to reveal a weak, pale sun slicing through the gray sky, illuminating the skeletal, charred ruins of the derailed train.
A sharp crunch of heavy boots echoed through the sudden silence.
"Major Valeriy! He’s over here! Clear the path!"
The heavy iron door of the shattered carriage was thrown completely open, bathing the dim interior in the stark, blinding glare of the winter sun. A squad of Fatui Skirmishers stepped through the gap, their faces hidden behind their dark, glowing masks. Behind them, two specialized Fatui medics rushed forward, hauling a specialized military trauma kit between them.
The soldiers stopped dead in their tracks, the urgent commands dying in their throats at the sight before them.
Major Valeriy sat completely motionless in the corner of the ruined carriage. He looked like an immovable monument of ice and iron.
His massive frame was angled rigidly against the open tear of the metal wall, his heavy winter cloak pulled tightly forward to form an absolute, impenetrable shield against the elements. Wrapped securely inside that cloak, buried against the commander's heavy chest plate, was Mitya.
Valeriy’s ungloved hands were still pressed firmly against the makeshift leather brace he had bound around Mitya’s chest. A faint, low purple hum of Electro energy flickered rhythmically from his fingertips, keeping a microscopic, artificial pulse running through the scientist's fragile frame.
Valeriy finally lifted his head. His eyes, usually cold and unbothered, bore into the medics with a terrifying, predatory intensity.
"Report," Valeriy ordered. His voice was a low rasp, rough from the freezing air but cutting through the room like a blade.
"The... the permafrost drift has been cleared, sir," the lead medic stammered, quickly recovering his voice and dropping to his knees beside them. "The transport vehicles are waiting outside the ridge. Let us take him."
The medics gently reached out to pull Mitya away, but for a fraction of a second, Valeriy’s grip tightened. His knuckles turned white against the leather.
The rigid commander, who had never let personal attachment interfere with a directive, felt a visceral, defensive instinct flare in his chest.
Then, forcing his iron discipline to take over, Valeriy slowly, carefully unclasped his arms, refusing to look at the Fatui around him.
As the cloak fell away, the medics gasped slightly at the sight of the brutal, dark purple bruising and the crude sash buckled tightly around Mitya's torso.
Mitya was completely unconscious, his face deathly pale, his shallow breaths rattling weakly against the bound leather.
"His right ribs are severely fractured and displaced," Valeriy stated, his voice flat, mapping out the trauma with clinical precision despite the storm raging inside him.
“The lung was compromised. I compressed the chest wall and immobilized the skeletal frame to prevent further puncture. His heart rate is failing. I have been utilizing localized Electro stimulation to sustain systemic circulation."
The lead medic checked Mitya's pulse, his masked face turning toward his assistant in genuine shock,
"The forced alignment saved his life. If the bone had shifted any further during the suffocating panic, the internal hemorrhaging would have killed him before the storm could clear.”
They quickly and efficiently transferred Mitya’s limp body onto a specialized hover-gurney. A localized Cryo-stasis field hummed to life around him, instantly freezing his vital signs in place to prevent his condition from worsening during transport.
Valeriy stood up. His joints popped painfully from holding the rigid position for hours in the freezing cold, but he didn't stumble. He refused to show a single ounce of vulnerability before his subordinates.
"Secure the perimeter and salvage the remaining classified documents from the research carriage," Valeriy commanded the standing Skirmishers, his voice returning to its absolute, unyielding authority.
"I am accompanying the medical transport back to the Armory Palace."
"Sir, you need to be cleared by the field medics yourself—"
"I said," Valeriy interrupted, stepping forward fiercely. “I am accompanying the transport."
The soldiers quickly saluted, stepping aside without another word.
Valeriy walked out of the ruined train car, his eyes locked entirely on the glowing capsule holding Mitya.
He survived.
Valeriy had kept Mitya alive in the broken carriage— but as he followed the gurney into the blinding snow, the commander knew the true trial would begin in the quiet, sterile halls of the medical bay, waiting to see if the eccentric researcher would ever open his eyes again.