Disclaimer – Vesperia is Bamco's and Marvel is Disney's.
Inspiration – Imagining Yuri with the Winter Soldier's arm.
Teaser – Yuri Lowell falls off a train and into Hell. Or, how a man from the 40s comes to own a bakery in 2015, all while looking suspiciously young.
Baking Mix
When they were kids, Flynn was always the faster, stronger one. But he got pneumonia when he was twelve and was never the same afterwards. Suddenly Yuri was the faster, stronger one. When Flynn refused to stop standing up for kids who were bullied and animals being mistreated, Yuri had to be the one who hit harder than the other guys, because Flynn couldn't.
Yuri got into more trouble for fighting after Flynn recovered from pneumonia than he ever did before. Flynn didn't really seem to appreciate all the times Yuri had to sweep in and save the day. He'd snap and yell that he didn't need Yuri to protect him all the time, only to apologize later, quiet and depressed as, slowly, it began to sink in that his lungs were never going to be the same again.
Even when Flynn began to accept his infirmity, he never stopped standing up against the bullies. Yuri could never bring himself to get mad about it all either. After all, Yuri couldn't stop standing up against them either.
When the war came, they were both old enough to enlist. So they did... or, rather, Yuri did. Flynn tried and tried and tried... and kept getting washed out. His body couldn't handle the strain and Flynn just wouldn't – couldn't – admit the truth.
"There's no shame in doing other jobs, ya know."
"I know that, Yuri. But it's not right for me to sit here doing nothing compared to..."
"Compared to, what? Flynn, asking to do a job you can't handle doesn't make you brave, it makes you stupid. And refusing to do the jobs you can do – jobs that are really damned important to the war effort – just because they're not important the way you want them to be..."
Yuri hadn't liked shipping out with that argument still between them. He liked it even less as he was taken prisoner by Hydra, strapped to a chair, and tortured for the sake of torture.
They never asked him any questions, but Yuri gave them his name, rank, and serial number just the same. Every time they injected him with something he'd tell him his name, rank, and serial number and then insult them in every language he knew. He came up with nicknames for his captors based on what insults made them react the most.
Then, near delirious from the pain and unclear on just how long they'd been experimenting on him, Yuri had the most peculiar hallucination.
It had to be a hallucination. Flynn was there, taller and buffer and healthy.
Flynn was rescuing him.
So, hallucination, then. But it was a nice hallucination. It included weird details like Flynn playing lab rat to a German scientist who'd defected to the allies and the leader of Hydra being a man named Alexei who, as it so happened, had similar experiments done to himself, only instead of being really handsome and buff like Flynn, Alexei's skin peeled off to reveal the unnatural appearance of a monster beneath.
Red Skull.
But, despite the weirdness, the hallucination let Yuri experience things like blowing up the facility and leaving with Flynn to catch up to the other escapees, all walking in the direction of temporary safety at the nearest Allied base.
Then Yuri woke up the next morning. The base was still blown up, he was still rescued, and Flynn was still ridiculously buff.
Clearly Yuri needed to sit down and have a long talk with his best friend about concepts like 'self preservation' and 'self worth' and 'not volunteering for dangerous, life threatening experiments'. There were words for idiots like Flynn and none of them were polite.
Despite the ensuing argument, Yuri signed up for Flynn's special squad, the Howling Commandos. Mostly because someone had to make sure Flynn didn't get himself killed. Besides, having Flynn around helped make the nightmares not so bad... made it easier to remember when he woke up that this was reality, not the horrifying moments between falling asleep and waking when he'd be strapped back in that chair while god-knows-what was pumped into his veins by 'Insults-to-Mother' and 'Anything-French.'
The train job, however, was where what little good Yuri could find in the midst of the war was ripped from him, along with his right arm.
Mostly, Yuri remembers the lead up to the job.
"This is payback for Coney Island?" Yuri asked, half-joking and half-queasy from the height. Flynn just grinned brightly and laughed.
He remembers landing on the train, but not the fight that must of ensued. If he concentrates hard enough, Yuri can remember bits and pieces of shooting at someone and throwing Flynn's shield with as much precision as Captain America himself and then... then he's holding on to the train with his right hand and reaching for Flynn with his left...
Yuri wonders if falling is what flying feels like when there's no airplane involved.
When Yuri wakes the first time, he's in a cell with his right arm missing from the shoulder down. He can still feel it, through the pain, but it's not there, not really, and he winds up passing out. Too much, too soon.
The second time Yuri wakes up, he's strapped to a table and two unfamiliar men are standing over him, tinkering with a metal... thing where Yuri's arm should have been. They remind him of 'Insults-to-Mother' and 'Anything-French,' though they're Russian, not German, and Yuri puts his rusty Russian skills to use, wishing his grandmother had been able to teach him more before she died. He doesn't understand much of what they say, but... what he does understand scares him.
When they flip something on in the metal thing attached to him and the pain starts, right before passing out again, Yuri screams for Flynn, begging his friend to come save him again.
Yuri looses count of how many times he wakes up, slowly learning to utilize the painful prosthesis attached to his arm. Flynn never comes. Yuri learns to be an even better marksman than he already was... learns to speak Russian like a native... slowly forgets his past because it's easier to be a clean slate than take the constant, painful onslaught of their regimen of electricity and injections...
Flynn never comes, but Yuri still forgets his own name before he ever forgets Flynn's.
Her name is Judith Hermes. She's in the Black Widow program, the best of the candidates, and the Winter Soldier has been assigned to train her.
"What's your name?" she asks, leaning forward to show off a little more cleavage. Her voice is low and lilting, seductive.
"I'm the Soldier," he informs her. "I don't have a use for names."
She frowns thoughtfully and then shrugs. "I will think of a name for you," she assures him, as if he'd care. Then Judith reaches over and tucks an errant strand of hair behind the Soldier's ear.
Flynn tucked the long hair behind Yuri's ear. "You need a trim," Flynn told him, his hand dropping away. "How can you see with your hair in your face like that?"
"If I enlist, I'll need more than a trim," Yuri sighed, already mourning the inevitable loss of his long locks. "I'll have to cut it as short as yours."
The soldier frowned and stepped away from the girl, wondering what that was all about... and who the blond man had been.
He'd seemed important.
Judith tries out a different name every time she sees the Soldier.
"Today... today, I think... Yuri," she decides.
He flinches, not really understanding why, but Judith's eyes widen at the sight.
"That name... is important to you?" she guessed.
The Soldier shrugs, feigning indifference, but... the name feels important.
"I think I will only call you Yuri from now on." Judith smiles and nods and then they fight.
"They... they had me kill a little..." Judith's voice stutters to a pained halt and finally, she says, "Yuri, please... help me. I must leave. We must leave."
The Soldier... Yuri... nods. Judith had to kill children as part of her most recent assignment. Though he knows he's done it before himself, the idea of her having to do it sends revulsion through him and he wonders if he'd be able to complete such a mission himself anymore.
He doubts he could.
"Do you trust me?" He asks her, quiet.
"Always."
It would have been safer to split up from her, Yuri knows, but he can't bear to let Judith out of his sight. She's all he knows in this world and he loves her, to at least some degree. He's not in love with her – he's not sure he even knows what that means – but together they can keep the darkness at bay.
They sell their skills to the highest bidder, taking only the contracts their comfortable with. Yuri's not really sure what they're doing is much better than what they left behind, but... he's such a mystery to himself that he'd rather let Judy call the shots for now.
At least they'll never have to kill another child. Not so long as they're free.
Judy takes a bullet to the gut and Yuri just knows he's going to lose her. So he turns to the other man pinned down with them and says, "if I can provide a distraction, will you get free and save her?"
The man's eyes widen and he nods. Yuri drags him over and has him apply pressure to the wound. "If she dies, you die too," he warns him, then runs off, drawing fire off from the other two.
Everything after that is a blur, but when he's done the people responsible for shooting Judy are dead. Judith and the man Yuri left her with are gone, and there's so much blood on Yuri's hands that he doesn't know how he'll ever get clean.
He heads back to the apartment he and Judy had been squatting in. It's compromised, but he's got no where else to go and maybe... maybe Judy will know to find him here.
Instead, the next morning the man who took Judith away shows up, nervous and armed with a bow and a quiver of arrows, of all the damnedest things.
Yuri lets him in with a severe frown. "What's her status?"
"Stable. She came out of surgery late last night. It was a near thing, but she's gonna be okay." Hesitantly the man added, "she woke up long enough to give us this address."
"Good. Who are you, anyway?" Yuri demanded, hating having to trust someone with Judith's life without even knowing who he was.
"Agent Raven Schwann, of SHIELD."
Yuri hums thoughtfully. "American?" he asks. SHIELD showed up on his radar a few times as the Winter Soldier, but he was fuzzy on the details.
"Yeah. UN charter, but mostly American run," Raven agrees. "Look, I'm supposed to take you in, but I'm pretty sure you could kill me with a paperclip, after seeing what you and that arm of yours did yesterday. I know you probably hear this from all the super spy agencies, but we're the good guys and we'd like you on our side..."
"If I go with you," Yuri interrupts, "can I see Judy?"
"Uh... yeah?"
"Then lead the way," Yuri tells him. He hopes that SHIELD is all Raven seems to think it is, but Yuri doubts it. There's no such thing as good, in Yuri's limited experience. Just shades of gray.
Yuri sits there in the infirmary, holding Judy's hand and telling her stories in Russian while. She's in a medical coma at the moment, but he's been promised they'll bring her out of it as soon as its safe. So, until then, he speaks to her softly and pretends that he isn't listening as the doctors and guards gossip.
"Calls himself Yuri. Even looks like him, I swear..."
"Winter Soldier program. Apparently they took enemy soldiers and brainwashed them to be their own assassins. The program's extreme measures killed all but one of the candidates."
"Judith Hermes, former Black Widow. Her training began when she was still only five years old..."
"Do you think its possible for SHIELD to rehabilitate them? I'm not sure either of them can be held totally accountable for their actions... they'd need to be deprogrammed and we need to know for sure if he's..."
"I promise you," Yuri murmured to Judith, "if we aren't safe here, we'll find a way to run again."
"Yuri Lowell."
Staring into the mirror, Yuri waited for recognition to set in. Nothing sparked, no memories unlocked. The name was familiar, but then that wasn't really anything he hadn't already known. After all, that was why Judy had been calling him Yuri for so long.
SHIELD had given Yuri a folder filled with information on Yuri Lowell because they were certain he was the same man. Apparently, he'd been Captain America's best friend and most trusted ally.
Yuri had seen the comic books, well a few of them anyway. In the comics, Captain America's best friend was a lanky kid too young to be in the war who emotionally manipulated the Captain into letting him come along on all the adventures. Comics were supposed to be escape fantasies for kids, after all, so what does it matter if the story depicts an American Hero subjecting a child to the horrors of war. Suffice it to say, the comics were not high on Yuri's list of great literature; hopefully the real Captain America was better than that.
Sighing to himself, Yuri tried saying his name one more time. "Yuri Lowell." Nope, nada, zip, zilch. "Still nothing," he grumbled and finally flipped open the folder on Sergeant Yuri Lowell.
There was a picture paper-clipped to the inside of the folder. There were two men, one unmistakably Yuri himself. His hair was shorter and his eyes younger, a wide smile on his face as he gazed at the man standing beside him.
Swallowing in sudden nervousness, Yuri reached out and tentatively brushed a finger gently against the blond man's face. Grief welled up inside him for everything he'd forgotten about this man and the knowledge that he'd never see him again. Captain America was dead, after all.
"Flynn..." Yuri whispered, and the dam broke.
Judy wasn't ready to quit the spy business. Yuri was.
So while Judy became Raven's new partner and the two gallivanted around the world doing who knew what for SHIELD, Yuri went back to Brooklyn.
He spent time standing in front of the building where he and Flynn used to live. It was still there, but renovated to the point where Yuri wouldn't have recognized it if not for the street corner being the same. The cafe where they used to get lunch was now an ice cream parlor. The ice cream parlor where they used to get root beer floats was now a cafe.
Sliding into a booth at the cafe, Yuri smiled blandly at the girl who brought him the lunch menu and started glancing through the options while ordering a root beer. Some things ought to remain the same, after all, or at least as close as he could get without the ice cream to go with it.
While the waitress was off filling his drink order, a young woman with short brown hair and a pair of goggles pushed up like a hairband, settled across from him at the booth.
"I'm Rita Mordio," she said. "You are Yuri Lowell. My father, Eric Mordio, worked with you and Flynn Scifo during the war." She paused and then added, "I run Mordio Enterprises now, so if you need anything..." she shrugged.
"How did you even know I was around?"
Rita smirked, shark-like, and flagged the waitress for some water and a menu of her own. "I keep tabs on SHIELD."
Yuri regarded Rita thoughtfully for a long moment. "Do you know what happened to the rest of the Howling Commandos? If any of them are still around... I don't know if I want to see them, but I'd like the option."
"Yeah, I know where they are. I know where the graves all are too, if you'd like to pay your respects to the ones who aren't around?"
"I'd like that." Rita looked a lot like her father. "I take it Eric isn't around anymore?"
"No. My parents died in a car accident when I was eleven." Rita shrugged, adding, "they were gone most of the time and never knew what to do with a girl who liked building bicycles and learning about engines than about keeping my dresses clean."
It didn't surprise him. Yuri hadn't been fond of Eric and that was before he'd found out about the man's klepto tendencies. "Flynn knew him better than I did," Yuri finally demurred and Rita took that as sign that he'd rather not start his grave visiting with her father.
She seemed a lot more amiable after that, and willing to personally escort him around. He rather had the impression that if he had known Eric well and, worse, actually liked the man, then Rita would have foisted him off on an employee and satisfied herself with having done her duty to a family friend.
By the end of lunch, Yuri found himself sharing some of the more bizarre stories about his childhood with Flynn and feeling, for the first time since he was made into the Winter Soldier, like maybe he was still a real person after all.
Rita decided, about halfway through their trip across the states on what Yuri called the Howling Commando Tour, that Yuri's greatest gift was his ability to make bad coffee drinkable. He told her that his ability to make inedible food edible was a self-defense skill he'd picked up in response to Flynn's ability to make edible food inedible. He'd never suspected the skill extended itself to coffee-house chains, if only because Starbucks hadn't yet invented time travel in order to invade the forties, yet.
Not of course, that he'd know the difference when they did.
"A bakery?" Rita sounded incredulous and Yuri just shrugged in response, taking another sip of his coffee. Seeing that she wasn't going to get an answer yet, Rita tentatively picked up a piece of fudge – peanut butter & butterscotch fudge, to be exact – and took a bite.
Rita made a humming noise of contentment, eyes flickering closed even as she sat up straighter. Setting down the fudge, she snatched a brownie and tried that too.
"Oh my god, that is amazing."
Yuri smirked, still not saying a word.
Rita sighed and clutched her plate of goodies a little closer. "All right. You want to start a bakery, I'll be your investor."
Since Yuri could not bake and run the counter at the same time, he hired a couple of local college students – Estelle and Karol – to help out.
"You know, Rita, I can't help but notice that when you visit, you're more likely to spend time with me if Estelle isn't here to distract you," Yuri teased.
"I don't know what you mean," Rita denied, flushing and looking away.
"Sure you don't," Yuri agreed in amusement. "You'd better ask her out before someone else gets around to it. She's adorable, after all. Other people are bound to notice."
"Uh..." Rita floundered for a moment and then zeroed in on Yuri's wince. "What's wrong?"
There was no point in lying to the girl, so Yuri admitted, "my arm has been bothering me lately."
"Let me see." Rita arched an eyebrow expectantly.
Yuri held out his mechanical arm and rolled up the sleeve of his shirt. "I think something is starting to short out."
"How... how did you get this arm, anyway?" Rita asked hesitantly, prying open the casing on his upper arm and poking around. He'd let her look it over once before, but she'd never asked how he'd gotten it until now. He'd figured she already knew the gist of it from her time spent hacking SHIELD, but was simply polite enough not to say anything before.
"While I was... in Hydra's custody in Russia, it was one of their experiments." Yuri went still, looking stiffly ahead. "It didn't really make up for all the things they took away from me."
"I think I can fix this, but I'll need you to come back to my lab," Rita told him, shutting the casing. "One of the wires is stripped and needs to be replaced. I could make you a new one, if you'd like?"
"I new arm?" Yuri echoed, to be sure. When Rita nodded, Yuri frowned thoughtfully. "I don't suppose you could make it lighter than this one?"
"Yes."
Yuri smiled and nodded. "Then, yes, I'd like a new arm." He paused and then added, "don't think I didn't notice the topic shift, Rita. I still think that you and Estelle would make a cute couple."
Rita sighed and stole a piece of pumpkin fudge off of Yuri's plate. "If it'll shut you up, then fine, I'll ask her out. I wouldn't think a guy from the forties would notice two girls making eyes at each other," she grumbled.
"Yeah, well, this guy from the forties is bi or pan or whatever the term is for thinking gender and sex matter less than personality," Yuri shot back in amusement. "So, yeah, I notice when people are 'making eyes' at each other. Also, 'making eyes'? Really, Rita?"
"Oh shut up."
Judy and Raven slunk into the cafe and took over a corner table, as was usual when they got back from a mission. Yuri put together their normal orders – coffee and a white chocolate chip macadamia cookie for Raven and a hot chocolate and caramel cheesecake slice for Judy – and brought it over to their table.
The looks on their faces, however, were unusually solemn.
"Yuri," Judy said quietly, pushing out a chair. "There's something I need to tell you. You... you'll want to sit down for this."
Frowning, Yuri sat down. "Judy, what's wrong?"
Judy exchanged a look with Raven, who answered in her stead. "SHIELD has located Captain Scifo's plane in the Arctic."
Yuri felt himself go pale. Judy put her hot chocolate into his hands and made him drink. "And... Flynn? When he... when he died..."
"He isn't," Raven interjected, elaborating upon seeing Yuri's confusion, "he isn't dead. The serum altered his physiology enough that being buried in ice basically acted as a natural cryogenics. He's still being chipped out of the ice, but medics are convinced he's still alive and that as long as they go slow in defrosting him, he'll wake up just fine."
Yuri closed up the bakery early that day.
Rita threw a towel in Yuri's face and then glanced back at the door where Estelle was hovering, ready for their date.
"What was that for?!"
"You need to sleep. When Flynn gets back, you don't want to pass out the first time you see him just because you're sleep deprived. He'd never let you live it down. Also," Rita edged towards the doorway, "you need to come by my place tomorrow. I've got the new arm ready for you to try out."
"I'll be there," Yuri agreed.
"Bright eyed and bushy tailed!" Rita called back menacingly, "if your eyes look more sleep bruised instead of less, I reserve the right to sick Estelle on you."
"It's too late for that," Yuri complained, "you should have heard her mother henning me during her shift this morning."
"I could always step it up a notch," Estelle contributed sweetly.
"I'll sleep. I swear, I'll sleep."
For the last three days, every time a blond man came into the cafe (not counting regulars, of course) while Karol was on duty would cause the kid to excitedly summon Yuri to the front to verify whether the person was Flynn or not. So far today they'd had Estelle's cousin Ioder, a guy named Guy, some long haired man called Mithos (who had a major sister complex, judging by his half of a phone conversation that he had very loudly, and rudely, while clearly expecting everyone else to act like they couldn't hear him), and Richard (also long haired, but actually a SHIELD agent, whom Raven and Judy had been raving about Yuri's place too).
So when Karol summoned Yuri forth again, he wasn't expecting to see the familiar combination of blond hair and blue eyes that was Flynn Scifo. He most definitely wasn't expecting the kiss. Not, of course, that Yuri had any intention of complaining.
When a couple of idiots try to hold up the bakery for all its cash and baked goods, Yuri is pissed but keeps himself under control.
Then there's a gun pointed at Estelle and Yuri just...
He doesn't take that well.
The next thing he's really aware of are the thugs unconscious, and very battered, and Estelle's hand, hesitant and calming, on Yuri's left shoulder.
"It's okay now, Yuri. They won't try to hurt me any more."
Oh fuck...
"Okay, first of all? You didn't kill them," Rita informs Yuri, having walked into his apartment without knocking first.
Though he never gave her a key, Yuri has no doubt that she's made herself one at some point and possibly given a copy to Judy. Judy, however, breaks in through the window when she wants inside uninvited, so Yuri's not a hundred percent sure on that last part.
"Secondly, Estelle isn't afraid of you. She was justifiably freaked out that a guy pointed a gun in her face, but fortunately her boss is bad ass. Also, she'd be here, but someone has to bake things when you don't and apparently I'm only just hearing about Karol setting fire to dish towels. You need to hire more help, by the way. What about that high school girl who thinks she's a pirate?"
Yuri snorted in amusement, a smile twitching at the corners of his mouth.
Flynn poked his head in through the open door. "Is it alright if I come in?" he asked, understandably worried given the last time they'd talked, it was right after Yuri had given the police his statement and he might have told Flynn he was too dangerous for the blond to be around.
For anyone to be around.
"Both of you should leave." Yuri sighed, knowing that Rita wasn't going to respect that.
"Bullshit," she says, rather predictably. "Let me repeat, Yuri, you did not kill them. I realize that you sort of... blacked out a bit?"
"Are you hacking SHIELD again?" Yuri interrupted; he'd only mentioned that to the cops and his SHIELD therapist, though Estelle had probably worked it out herself and told Rita. Still, Rita really ought to stop hacking SHIELD and Yuri tended to bring that up whether or not he actually thought she'd found something out that way.
"No. Maybe... which answer are you most likely to believe?"
"You've been hacking SHIELD again," Yuri grumbled, slumping onto his couch.
Flynn seemed to take all of this as an invitation to ignore Yuri's request that they go away and come all the way inside, shutting the door behind him. Quietly, he went into the kitchen and started setting up the kettle for tea.
"You saved Estelle's life. My girlfriend was in danger while I was out doing my Iron Woman thing half the world away, but you were there and you saved her. So, no I'm not going to leave. I'm not going to let you wallow in self-pity. You are not a monster; you are not the Winter Soldier anymore."
"That part of me is never going to be gone," Yuri tells her – tells Flynn, too.
Flynn leaves the kitchen and settles on to the couch beside Yuri. "I know. But how you use it is up to you. That's why Estelle is safe and those men are going to jail, not a funeral home. Because you're better than what Hydra did to you."
Yuri reluctantly lets himself lean against Flynn, who immediately wraps his arms around Yuri's shoulders and presses a kiss to Yuri's forehead.
"I love you," Flynn murmurs softly against Yuri's hair.
Naturally, this is when the window pops open and Judy climbs inside, Raven close behind and griping about how much faster they'd have arrived if they had taken then elevator inside and walked through the door instead of climbing the fire escape. Yuri's not sure what he's done to deserve all these people in his life, but... he's planning on holding on to it all.
Yuri has no idea if he's a good man or not, but he gets the feeling that pushing them all away out of fear of himself would just be letting Hydra win. Yuri hates the idea of letting Hydra win.
When the Chitauri invasion occurs, Yuri insists on joining Flynn's little Avenger club in kicking alien ass. This time Yuri's got enough of a handle on himself that he doesn't black out during the fight despite all the times he sees Flynn in danger; this time, Yuri's in control of his Winter Soldier training, not the other way around.
It's still hard not to worry, though. Flynn's never seen Yuri fight since waking up from his icy sleep, though he's held Yuri on the nights when his memories turn his dreams into horror stories. Yuri knows his style of fighting still holds the brutal efficiency of the Winter Soldier and he'll never truly be able to shed that. Nor does he want to, now that he can use that training to protect instead of kill. That doesn't stop him from being a little afraid that this differences in him will one day scare Flynn away.
Flynn, however, is most definitely not scared, judging by the way he kissed Yuri once the battle was over.
A/N – Superhero remix up next.