A/N: Wrote this in two days for Tumblr and finally posted it here. Unbetaed.
1/14 Edit: Warnings for brainwashing/mind control, because, well, Winter Soldier AU.
The Man with the Shield
Stray bits of gravel crunched under the asset's boots as she walked down the street. The sound was one she couldn't remember having heard before, and she didn't like it. It wasn't nearly as nice as the feeling of the breeze in her hair or the flickering warmth of the flaming car she was stalking toward. The warmth was pleasant.
It quieted the itching feeling of nothing is right until the target is deadthat pounded at the back of her skull.
Still, there was a small part of her that didn't like the fact that there was someone inside the flames. But that was nothing but weakness. The Institute's machine would get rid of it, perhaps, next time they put her in. Perhaps the last wipe had been flawed in some—NO. She shuddered physically, as if at remembered pain, at the thought. Nothing was wrong with the wipes. Nothing could be wrong with the wipes.
The unmistakable sound of bullets pulled her mind back to the present, and she dropped to the ground to avoid them. As soon as she was in position, she returned fire, but her target was gone, and the only visual she caught was the straight-cut ends of a woman's black hair.
That was when the shield nearly took her head off.
She stepped to the side on instinct and just barely dodged it, then fired a round in the direction of the thrower, noting that he was male, somewhat tall, and not wearing armor. A resounding clang alerted her to the fact that the shield had bounced over one of the crashed cars behind her; this time, she was well out of its path when it flew back toward its owner. It sounded heavy, but he caught it one-armed.
She flexed her own arm, heard steel grind against itself, and wondered if he was like her.
She was so busy staring at him that she was nearly taken by the aerial attacker; but she caught the glint of sunlight on metal in her peripheral vision at the last moment and leapt back, out of his path. As she focused her vision on this new element—three attackers, less than optimal, must eliminate one or retreat—she caught sight of the ridiculous metal apparatus apparently supporting his flight.
She had no memory of who had taught her to fire a sniper rifle so quickly. She hoped she had thanked that person properly.
The flying one managed to get off a few shots, nearly missing the mask on her face and clipping her flesh shoulder, before he dropped like a stone.
The order was throbbing at the base of her skull now, loud and insistent: Make sure the target's dead make sure MAKE SURE.
But the man with the shield was in her way, and quickly closing on her. She fired at him again, and he dodged, then tried to punch her. She ducked and tried to sweep his feet out from under him, and he—had he just flipped over her?
This time, the shield caught her in the back of the head, and her vision fuzzed briefly. When she steadied herself and came out of her crouch, he had thrown it again. This time, she caught it without thinking and rushed him, determined to return his blow and knock him unconscious and end this distraction.
He ducked all of her blows like he knew her fighting style—impossible, impossible,she thought, even as something of his features registered as vaguely familiar—and started trying to wrench the shield away from her.
He was strong. Strong enough to match her, and they'd told her that almost no-one was. So this was what another super-soldier was like. Interesting.
He finally pulled the shield from her fingers, and in the process slammed it into her face with such force that her mask came off. She stepped back on instinct.
When she looked up, with a fury that was half an old order— don't EVER let yourself be seen —and half her own, all three of them were there. The black-haired woman—Asian, with carriage like a fighter and at least six weapons hidden on her person, plus two more visible. The flying one—brown hair flopping over his face, and his flight apparatus smoking like it's meant to signal someone. And the one with the shield.
He was brown-skinned, with disheveled dark hair that brushed the high collar of his shirt. His civilian clothes were torn and scuffed now, but they didn't fit with that shield any more than they had before. The shield belonged to a soldier, but those eyes of his—two different colors, but both of them too soft for anyone on a battlefield—didn't.
He was frozen, an easy target—and then doubled in her vision. All at once, everything turned brilliantly white and pain stabbed through her skull like she'd disregarded a dozen orders all at once. She didn't let her knees buckle.
For a moment, she saw the blurred face of a child, smiling at her.
When she got herself back under control, her head still throbbing more steadily than the blow from the shield could explain, she turned on her heel. Something waswrong—not with the wipe, of course, but with her, somehow. The doctors would fix her. They always fixed her. But she was no good to the Institute broken, and even less good dead if she tried to fight incapacitated and outmatched.
"Marie!" someone shouted.
She turned around, confused and hurting and ready for an attack, but the man with the shield was just standing there, waiting, like the name Marie ought to mean something to her.
"Who the h*** is Marie?" she snarled, glaring at him through strands of windblown hair.
Why he looked like she'd just shot him in the gut, when it had been at least a minute since she'd so much as kicked him, was anybody's guess.
It doesn't matter, she thought, as she walked away from the scene of the assassination, checking periodically to make sure none of them had followed her. The man with the shield wasn't—
Another flash of white, and another stab of throbbing pain. This time, the young boy was clearer. This time, he was a little older. This time, she recognized him.
It was the man with the shield. It was definitely the man with the shield.
Dizzy and blinking spots out of her vision, she stumbled into an alleyway and sank to her knees. Why do I know him? she thought, confused.
There were only a few images. He wore a thin cotton shift, like a hospital gown, and his smile was so small—nothing like the doctors' wide grins. Thinking of it made her feel…not like she was in a fight. The exact opposite. If she had a name for that kind of feeling, she'd lost it in one of the wipes.
No feelings about enemies! shouted an old order, faint but steadily insistent. She sighed. Feelings like that interfered with her function. That was what the machine was for.
But—she was the doctors', and he wasn't. So, why did she know him? Maybe the doctors would know. The order meant that she had to go back. But maybe, before she forgot everything, she could ask? It felt important, to know.
She got to her feet, still shaky, and started back toward the place where the doctors and the machine were. She needed to be fixed. She knew that for certain.
She just wasn't sure if she wanted to be fixed so she could complete further missions—or so she could figure out who the man with the shield was and why he thought she knew the name "Marie."