A/N Written for the Marvel-ous Rare Pair Valentine's Fic Exchange.
For those unfamiliar, Josef Petkus and the People's Protectorate are a Russian answer to the Avengers. Red Guardian (Petkus) would is an answer to Captain America, Crimson Dynamo (Dimitri Bukharin) is an answer to Iron Man, Perun is based off the Slavic god of thunder, and Vostok would be an answer to Vision. Going with the Avenger theme, Fantasma is most similar to Scarlett Witch. Their team goes through a few iterations, but in comics they have fought with both Captain America and the Avengers.
TICK TOCK
His pocket watch counted down the minutes until the bus came. He stared as time passed by slowly- second after second, minute after minute, ready to take him to the next leg of his journey. His hand shook as he closed the watch.
tick tock
The strangest thing, Josef always noticed, was the fact that there was always a clock in whatever new prison they devised for them.
So, he watched time pass as the five of them were put through training- brutal, cruel, and endless "training." He watched a man- many men- many faces. The faces hounded, tortured, and dehumanised his team. His people. And himself.
TICK TOCK
Josef had gotten intel that Hydra was up to something in Lagos. And that he was with them. Oh, the Red Guardian would stop whatever plans they had, that's why he had a message ready to alert his team, but he didn't want them involved in the other part of his mission. The revenge part. They would help, surely, after knowing why- which exactly is why he didn't tell them.
So instead, Josef Petkus boarded another train alone.
tick tock
The People's Protectorate had been given a hope, told a new agency was coming to help stabilise their government, give them a cohesive country to protect once more. This "Hydra" agency wanted to train others to be as efficient as the Soviet Super-Soldiers had been before their defection. It was to be a new world, and Hydra promised to lead his people into it.
But it was a lie.
Perun and Vostok were sent on a "mission" to recover metals in a small country in Africa and in Vietnam from which they'd still yet to return. Fantasma was sent off as a diplomat and political influencer and hadn't been heard from in months. Which left only Josef and Dimitri as the original members of the Protectorate, training others loyal to their cause, along with Hydra's prized "Asset," a man they referred to as Winter Soldier.
Josef and Dimitri joined three others to be injected with a serum, reportedly similar to the serum his friend Captain America had once possessed before his untimely demise. The Winter Soldier had been injected, and they were given a demonstration of his skills- unbeatable, obedient, capable.
Josef talked the others into being part of the serum test. He was their leader. After all, he was the Red Guardian. He made a call.
Allowing the serum to take effect was its own torture. Even after it they all continued to be caged like animals- for their safety, they were told. However, when they were brought to fight the Winter Soldier with no holds barred, they realised they had been lied to and betrayed. For months, they were subjected to "experiments." Psychological and physical tortures designed to test the limit of their endurance and capabilities. Handed off as though they were beasts instead of men and women. They were brought before the Asset again and again before they realised they had broken him as well, until he was what Hydra wanted Josef and his fellow prisoners to become- a machine.
Josef was responsible for them. And so, he took responsibility.
He led a revolt against their captors. The Winter Soldier escaped. But they didn't. Not then. They made it to the doors before they were surrounded and captured once more, words in their heads more powerful than the strength in their bodies.
TICK TOCK
He was relieved to learn a few years ago that Captain America had survived. His own lengthy recovery and protecting his people had taken precedence over social calls, but he did listen for news when he could. So, they had heard of the Insight Carrier incident. And much of Hydra intel was leaked. The People's Protectorate used it for their own purposes and missions, but Josef did send messages to the Captain's new "Avengers" team about some interesting things they'd learned about in Sokovia.
He checked his watch again, this time in an airport where he could discreetly board a plane. The nightmares were worse than the shaking.
tick tock
The new handlers were even worse than the ones they had before one of their "frozen hibernations." One, an American with a smile like a tiger, gave the orders to his own personalised Strike team. It was that team who were charged with keeping all "Winter Soldiers" in line. Josef and Dimitri still woke with nightmares from what had happened to them. But one man invaded Josef's dreams more than any other.
The leader, Brock Rumlow, was the worst of them all. The other guards would take them for "tests." They would beat them or shock them or use words the words in their heads designed to trap their minds in their own tortures when they "acted out of turn." But Rumlow- he would look on them with compassion, offer them sympathy, then turn around and ignore their screams into the night. So many times had the others looked on them as scum, as subjects, as villains. Rumlow looked on them as people, offering kind words or looks- before he would turn away as though deaf.
He would give them hope. And then destroy it every time. The hope was almost worse than the torture. They were Russian. They had spent many years without hope. It was a new feeling. And he destroyed it again and again and again.
But that was before.
Before the rest of the Protectorate rescued them. Before they explained they, too were lied to. Before they explained the years they looked for their Red Guardian and Crimson Dynamo. Before they, and the three new teammates from their prison destroyed Hydra's "lab" and went after all reaches of the organisation in their country. Before a furious and vengeful Fantasma created a standing illusion that all five of the new "Assets" were still wasting away, frozen, as they had seen Winter Soldier do time and again. And before the People's Protectorate wreaked havoc on all the Hydra members they were able to hunt down.
Josef found a pocket watch on one of the "doctors." He carried it with him still.
TICK TOCK
He heard his friend Captain America had had an altercation in Lagos. Rumlow, now Crossbones, had finally let his true nature show to the world. Steve and his team thought they had killed the monster. Josef knew better. They hadn't identified a body. Josef went to make sure there was one.
He looked first at the site and found evidence of all the people this monster had murdered. Then he began to search surrounding hospitals, warehouses, and "unoccupied" buildings for evidence he had survived.
During his weeks-long search news of the "Sokovia Accords" reached him, and he knew the world itself stood at a tipping point. His over-analysing mind began strategizing, plotting where he would go and what his team would do when good men made bad choices and bad men tried to make good choices until none of the world could tell which was which or whether there was a right and then the fight ceased being about right and wrong and became only about winning and losing.
But, right now, he had a mission.
He had found Rumlow. And he was going to wipe out his brand of evil once and for all.
Maybe then, he'd be able to sleep. Maybe then, the shaking would stop.
tick tock
"I don't know why you all still resist. Hydra's going to win. And when they do, they'll bring a new world order. Isn't that what your little team is about?"
So, it was to be appeals to "logic" today. Dimitri had fallen for it before. Agreed with whatever Rumlow or his little dog Rollins said, only to question an order and get punished for it tenfold. Now, at least, they all knew the trap for what it was.
Josef looked up pleadingly, hoping to appeal to compassion.
"We will not go down without a fight."
He should not have been so naïve. Rumlow offered words of comfort to his painfully earned breath, before the guards set on him again, making him scream so loud he thought his throat might never heal. Rumlow walked away in peace.
TICK TOCK
"So now the outside finally matches the inside," Josef said, levelling what was left of Crossbones with a look as he raised his shield.
"Heh. Figured you come for me eventually. What took you so long?" he asked as he coughed feebly.
"My team and I spent a long time making sure you had no one else to call," Josef answered.
"I heard," Rumlow replied, "I don't sleep, I've been blown up,and this… room is all that's left of Hydra's resources," he continued, reaching weakly for the glass of water by his bedside. Josef noticed his hand shook. He snapped his head up. He wasn't here for pity.
"The Captain and his team worked you over. I came to make sure they did the job right."
Rumlow- Crossbones- took a laboured breath. He tried to get to his feet, a determined look in his eyes, only to fall sideways onto the bed.
"I won't go down without a fight," he warned.
Josef snorted as he looked at the pathetic lump that was once one of his greatest tormentors. A man who could no more stand than he could fight. No backup, broken, and left in a sad excuse of a run down old sick room that made his old prison chambers look grand and his ice cell look luxurious. Is this what Rumlow had seen when he had looked at Josef and his team for all those years?
He remembered looking back at him, almost begging for the hope of an ounce of compassion. And being denied every time.
Tick…Tock time was ticking away as it always did. Tick…Tock ending this man would help the nightmares end, he could tell Dimitri and the others they could finally be at peace. Tick…Tock he could finally be free of all the lies and fear they had tried so hard to instil.
Tick…tock- that broken beat wasn't his watch.
"You have a clock?" Josef asked, looking around. Rumlow seemed surprised at the change in topic, but only for a moment.
"A watch. Found it in the rubble of the building that made me this," he weakly moved a hand over himself in demonstration before pointing nodding toward the broken timepiece on his nightstand.
Josef looked again at Rumlow. He saw the tormentor who walked away, the man who taunted and jeered, the man who was so sold out for a lost cause that… he gave everything to it. A man just like Josef.
But Josef didn't have to be a man like him.
He approached him and reached with an outstretched hand. Rumlow aimed a punch, but was again caught off guard as Josef laid him down. He scowled and Josef could see the calculating look in his eyes, followed by surprise as Josef reached over to pour another glass of water. He held it to Rumlow's lips, who refused to drink.
"I knew a man who used to walk away when I needed this," Josef explained. "He would always say it wasn't personal. But it is. And I don't want to be anything like him. Drink. You are safe in my care."
"Why should I believe you?" Rumlow spat.
Josef looked at him, then took out his own still-functioning watch, setting it next to Rumlows half-broken one. His hand was steady.
"Because your time has passed, and it's time for a new world order. My team and I will bring it about. And in our new world order- we don't walk away."
Rumlow rolled his eyes and drank, something new and light settling in him- something like renewed hope. Josef watched over him as he slept.
A/N- "The best way to destroy an enemy is to make him a friend." Abraham Lincoln.
Inspired by the true story of Takashi Nagase and Eric Lomax