All Weapons Are Replaceable
1832 HOURS, SEPTEMBER 5, 1973 [DEPLOYMENT + 29 DAYS, 8 HOURS] / SHIELD CLASSIFIED MATERIALS VAULT, NATIONAL BANK OF WASHINGTON, 619 14TH STREET NW / WASHINGTON, DC
The blows came in quick succession now. Over and over and over. The Asset had been silent at first, but after well over two hours of solid abuse, he'd been reduced to whimpering and begging.
"Hvatit, pozhaluista. Ya budu khoroshim." He knew that only the technician by the barred entrance could understand his words—and there was no sympathy on his face—but he didn't mind. Pierce would only have had him beaten more for showing such weakness. He wasn't supposed to beg, or have opinions, or want. This he knew. Which was why he didn't try to make himself understood.
"Enough," Pierce snapped and the man who'd been hitting him stopped, dropping the lead pipe with a clang.
The Soldier wobbled on his feet, but didn't fall. He could tell he had a few broken bones and likely a skull fracture. He was bleeding from his nose and the split along his cheekbone. Every part of his body ached, with the exception of the whirring vibranium arm.
Pierce snapped his fingers in front of the Soldier's face and he raised his gaze, though he still didn't look Pierce in the eye.
"What are you?"
"Oruzhiye."
Pierce backhanded him hard enough to shift the broken bones in his face. "English," he barked. "What are you?"
"A weapon."
"If I order you to kill, what do you say?"
"Nothing," the Soldier replied, level and emotionless. "I obey."
"And if one of the men on the STRIKE team tells you to get on your knees and open your mouth, what do you say?"
"Nothing. I obey."
Pierce's face was cold. Colder than it had been when the Soldier had first seen him. There were more lines on his face though he still looked young. But he was no longer the fresh-faced agent that the Soldier had instinctively trusted that day on the grassy knoll.
"And if I tell you to take your sidearm, put it to your own head, and pull the trigger, what do you say?"
"Nothing. I obey."
"Good." Pierce didn't take his eyes off him, searching his face for something. The Soldier didn't know what he could possibly be looking for. "Bearing all that in mind, tell me: What went wrong on this mission?"
The Soldier swallowed. "I failed to obey a directive to return to base."
Pierce continued to study him. "And what do you do with a weapon that fails to perform correctly?"
No hesitation. "Discard it." He'd done so many times. Rifles jammed, handguns ran dry, and he threw them aside in favour of a fresh weapon provided by one of his handlers.
Pierce nodded. "Exactly." He gripped the Soldier's jaw and turned his face up until their eyes met. "You may be an astoundingly expensive weapon, but you are a weapon nonetheless. And all weapons are replaceable." He let go of the Soldier and stepped back, motioning to the STRIKE agent and the tech to leave. As they moved toward the door, Pierce continued. "If you cease to be of use I will put a bullet in your brain and sell your parts for scrap. Do I make myself clear?"
"Yes."
The vault door closed behind the departing agents with a rattle.
"The next time I instruct you to return to base, what are you going to do?"
"Return to base."
Pierce turned, thumbs tucked in the pockets of his waistcoat. His eyes travelled over the Soldier's damaged body—thinner than he'd been when he'd departed for the assignment. "And will it be your place to ask questions?"
"No."
He stepped closer. "Music to my ears." His eyes were still cold, businesslike, but the tiniest shred of a smirk pulled at his mouth. "Get on your knees."
The Soldier obeyed, dropping down with a pained shudder. His right thigh was swollen and bleeding where he'd been stabbed during his recapture. His left ankle was sprained and both knees were already bruised. Yet he knelt without a sound.
Pierce just looked at him, expression bland; bored even. He stepped closer. "Zipper." The Soldier reached for his fly, but Pierce knocked his hand away, giving him a reprimanding look. "You know how this works."
The Soldier leaned forward, snaring the silver zipper in his teeth and drawing it down. There was an appreciative chuckle above him and a softly spoken "Good boy." Something distant in the Soldier's mind—something which had been getting closer over his weeks on the loose—screamed and recoiled in horror. The Soldier didn't understand it. He didn't understand why his stomach turned as Pierce's hand strayed into his hair. This was his duty. He had been given an order. He had done this many times; for Pierce, for Karpov, for Lukin, for others whose names he had not known. It was a command, like any other. So why did he feel ill?
Pierce massaged the Soldier's scalp in a mockery of tenderness, pulling himself free of his briefs, already tumescent. His fingers tugged at the Soldier's lengthening hair, tilting his face up.
"You know what to do."
The Soldier surged forward, hands braced on his thighs as he took Pierce into his mouth; not a moment's hesitation. Hesitation to obey an order would be punished. He swirled his tongue, hollowed his cheeks, and bobbed his head; the organ in his mouth stiffening fully at the attention.
After a few moments of letting him work, Pierce tightened his grip on the Soldier's hair and pulled his head forward. The Soldier didn't fight, didn't make a sound. He wasn't even all that surprised. Pierce could only resist control for so long. A strange, unpleasant feeling twisted in his gut, but he didn't have a name for it. Whatever it was, it got worse as Pierce forced himself down his throat.
He didn't gag. He'd been taught better than that. If he gagged he would have to provide his masters with release in other ways, with nothing to ease the passage. After all, it was his function to serve Hydra in any capacity they required; as a weapon, as a boogeyman, as a method of control. And sometimes as a warm mouth or a pliant body; as a reward for an agent's good performance or as a party favour for trusted friends. He'd had more men inside him than there were men dead by his hand, and in his rare moments of lucid thought he often wondered what his primary purpose really was.
Я их оружие или я их шлюха?
The Soldier's stomach churned but he ignored it, allowing Pierce to move his head with no resistance. He relaxed his throat, forcing down his panic as his air was cut off. He fell into his usual rhythm; breathing out as Pierce's cock slid down to choke him and gulping in air each time he drew back. The adrenaline ebbed as his body recognized the pattern. Muscle memory took over. There was pain—broken bones clicking and pinching in his face—but it was manageable. He'd felt worse.
He pressed his tongue to the underside of Pierce's cock as he bottomed out, swallowing around him, and felt him twitch. A barely noticeable shudder ran through him and his free hand joined the other in the Soldier's hair. A second press and a slow slide of his tongue along warm flesh and the grip on his head tightened.
Pierce was silent as he held the Soldier's head still, thrusting harsh and fast into his mouth; the only sign of his pleasure the sharp intake of breath as he spilled. He was still for a moment, his fingers releasing the fistfuls of hair to stroke over the tangled strands. When he pulled free of the Soldier's lips—fluid dribbling down the bruised chin—his voice was just a touch breathless.
"Swallow."
The Soldier obeyed without a second thought, keeping his eyes down. Pierce watched his throat bob, tucking himself away and doing up his fly. Were it not for his deeper breathing he would have appeared utterly unaffected.
"Karpov trained you well," he remarked, with a pat to the Soldier's head. His eyes strayed to the white trail on the Soldier's jaw and he smiled; a shark's smile. "Get comfortable," he said, gesturing toward the chair in the corner of the vault. "The doctors'll be in shortly. Play nice."
In the few quiet moments after Pierce left and before the doctors and technicians arrived, the Soldier finally dredged up the word he'd been looking for. The word for that feeling in his gut.
Shame.