Chapter 15
Samara ( Kuybyshev), Russia, 1991
The gun seized against his metal hand. The boy's hands clapped over his ears, but that wouldn't obstruct the noise. The trembling child, horrified and unsupported, fell to the floor in a wheeze as his frail body jostled in a thud. The thunderous crack of the bullet discharging had vibrated deep within the Winter Soldier's chest, wracking the bones of his tightening ribs as he heaved out a sharp breath. His ear drums altered to respond or dull with the aftershock waves of the firing shot. His darkened blue eyes landed on the fallen body of the older man.
The target of termination had been a former and elite member of the SS, a war criminal in hiding. He was a traitor and betrayer to the Black Order. He had been convicted for murderous and inhumane crimes against POW allied prisoners and young man sent to death camps. He was called "the angel of death" and it was irrelevant for his debased soul to sire future bloodlines -he was a butcher of lives- a slaughter that had no concept of feeling pain. This game of rebuilding his life was a cover up to hide the sins of his past, but he couldn't hide forever.
Another shot discharged from the scope rifle, untraceable slug pierced through the skin of the man's sheen forehead, and cut deep into his skull, the echoes of screams were sucked into the darkness as the bleak sounds of breath faded into dull silence. The world froze before the child's teary eyes. The acrid smell burnt, smoking and metallic gun powder crawled at the back of his throat. The Winter Soldier leered a step back, lowering his weapon to his side, and stared down and into the wells of innocence mirroring his deaden gaze.
"Don't move from this spot," he warned in a muffled voice, his lips curled into a frown against the cold graphite of his mask, but he felt himself pulling away as the intrusions of slovenly voices controlled his thoughts.
Breathing, he stared blankly at the boy through the streams of mussed brown hair hooding over his pale eyes. He didn't know how to react to emotions, the mournful cries ripping through the air. The clusters of voices told him to run away as he felt trapped and panicked with an aggressive growl. He never wanted to cause pain to the child. With one look of his ghostly blue eyes, he captured every detail of anguish shrouding over the child's pallid face, and saw tears before he felt the urges to vanish into the confines of shadow.
The boy just stood there looking blankly at him. He didn't belong to corpse lying in front of his tattered boots. He was an orphan, as slave who had been used to help the war criminal infiltrate borders without becoming detected by the USSR. His appearance was pathetic, thinned, gaunt and fallen cheeks smeared with dried maroon and filth. He had a mop of dirty blonde hair and his eyes tear filled eyes were the colors of seawater. He reminded the despondent and muted assassin of another blonde haired boy from the overlays of memories scrounging in his unconnected mind.
The Winter Soldier looked hard and wary at his torn and tattered clothing; it was barely enough to keep his disheveled body warm. He wasn't a target, but a liberated victim. Blinking, he withdrew an alarming step back, preparing to leave the apartment, but then the bookshelves was declining from the hinges, it seemed with bullets of the gun his target fired; sliced with the support bolts, silver and gold plates were beginning to crash hard, and the boy froze in shock-he had to do something. The boy didn't deserve death. Quickly, without any hesitation; he lunged in front of the shelves, lifted his metal arm, and pushed his weight against the wood threatening to the crush the child.
Releasing an eruption of screams. It had become a deafening wave of dullness in his ears. Desperately, with a hinge of hope, the boy ducked against him; burying his face into the leather of his armored jacket. It seemed refreshing to feel human touch. He felt the child's frail arms snake around his waist, using his body as an anchor to grasp as chaos distinguished the light into plumes of smoking gray. He spared a glance at the innocent latched against him, peering beyond the void of swirling crimson. He sensed an encroaching presence looming in the shadows of the room. Something dangerous and reeking with vengeance. It had always been a stale smell to inhale.
Involuntary, or with spastic urges of instinct, he whipped his head violently around, his blue eyes watered as tresses of his hair poked against his eyelids, and he shot a piercing gape through the clouds of dust that encased him. His mind functioned by commands, not with emotions. He couldn't stop his heart from thumping against his hollow felt beads of feverish sweat dripped from his brow, and lips curled into a tight grimace as he caught another smell wafting in the dense air-gasoline-he knew that the target had a contingency plan to erase all evidence. Somewhere in the apartment was a firebomb. Daring his calculated and eyes to stare at the doorway, he met the cold and dear eyes of another assassin. A female whom had been trailing his steps since his last attack in Zurich.
The woman intruder gave him only a glimpse of her presence, long curls with the tinge of blood red and sleek leather. She never exposed her eyes under the thick shadows, just pale skin and full lips that held a vacant smirk. He felt his muscles tense into a defensive stance, as her PSM pistol gleamed in the faint streaks of light. She aimed the muzzle of the gun directly at the boy's head. It was the prime target. Her finger threatened to pull the trigger down as she leaned against the door molding with patience of a cunning spider waiting to make her kill at the prey caught in the clustering weavers of her destruction.
She extended her arm, making the stiffness of her uniform hug over her lithe body. He wanted to throw his knife at her, wound, spill blood and destroy her before she twisted those red lips into a lethal expression. She was taunting him-looking at the boy with uncaring eyes. And she lips twisted into a sadistic smile. A devil's grin. "Hand over the brat," she demanded in Russian, narrowing her eyes to the child's white and smudged face. She face turned vicious, and teeth clenched. "He isn't your concern. He is nothing."
"He is not a target." The Winter Soldier growled, holding his lips firm under the mask. He punched through the wooden shelf, breaking pieces with the force of his iron fist, and through the planks aside. He created an obstruction between them. "He is not the mission!" he seethed aloud, and gravelly unyielding.
"It's not your game to play," the red haired woman hissed, with ire burning in her murderous green eyes. "Are you going to stand down or will I have to take both of you out?"
With one sharp thrust of his metal arm, the Winter Soldier seized the boy's emaciated shoulder, "Move," he hissed through clenched teeth, fumbling his steel fingers over the compartments of his uniform. He removed a sharp projectile, and threw it against the window planes, glass exploded and shards followed. He snarled, and fired his own weapon at her, but her reaction time was quick, and she dodged before the bullet skimmed over her exposed limb, tearing through the wood molding instead of flesh.
Then, he crouched down and wrapped his arms around the boy and the female watched as he carefully slipped his metal fingers through the boy's blonde hair, obviously comforting the child, and shielding the small body with his right arm as bullets sliced through the air. "Stay close," he murmured his blue eyes wide and manic. He stood there in the range of her shadow, undaunted and prepared to open fire with his sub-machine gun attached, and swinging loose against hip holster. His knife was still strapped to his thigh. Things were going to get dangerous very fast.
Kill…He thought with alarm, swiping his gun from the hostler with fast reflect and drawing the muzzle directly at her chest. No regret was trapped in his gaze. Taking a step back, he waited for her to fire; he kept his metal digits coiled over the weapon and shot a glance at the compromised window. Any injuries the child could sustain wouldn't be lethal, maybe a few gashes on the face and arms. Nothing deep and life threatening. "The boy is leaving with me. Fire at him and I will kill you," he warned with abrasive intent.
Smirking, the woman lifted her gun, and discharged a bullet, watching it penetrate through the boy's dangling leg. Listening to her young victim scream out in utter anguish as blood seeped from the gaping wound, and watching him squirm in frantic thralls against the Winter Soldier's chest, she took a step back; withdrawing from fire and said in clear Russian. "I'm not in the mood for negation." she said, no emotion in her harsh voice. "Now, hand over the brat and I will dispose of him."
"No, I won't! This boy is not a threat. He is an innocent. My orders were clear. I kill only the objectives." He entreated through clenched teeth as he placed the sobbing and injured child on the ground, before he lunged at her like a starving and rabid wolf and he wrestled the pistol away from her hands.
Growling loudly as he made his direct assault; he knocked her slender form to the floor, crushing her with his weight, and pinning her wiggling arm with the clasp of his metal hand. His face was dark, sweaty and monstrous as he looked down at him; mussed hair fell over her pale cheeks and hot breath against her lips. The cold glare he received from her was harsher than a bitter Russian winter. There was no trace of remorse or even recognition in those swirling pools of green just crimson and darkness. The colors of blood and ash.
"You can't kill an innocent. Children are victims of grief. Not of death." he executed, breathlessly.
She was as fierce and unyielding as he expected of her as he felt her fist in his armored torso hard enough to make him double forward. Once he was brought down lower, he felt the winding blow of her leather boot across the back of his neck. He found himself face down across the cold floor; slightly dazed with his vision swimming in spiraling pools of murky red.
"I kill because it's my way of surviving!" She snarled like a vicious, rabid wolf. Her blood pulsed faster inside her veins. She reached a hand down, and yanked at his long strands of hair. "You're disobeying an order…Soldier." Her voice suddenly less human, it almost had the tinning noise of robotic. She was a killing machine. "That boy is a target of operation. He must not live after this night. I have orders to destroy him…He is an asset of information. His body is useless, but his mind holds value once extracted."
"Pull the trigger on him and I will destroy you," The Winter Soldier returned; prying her hand away from his chest, at the moment he felt her knuckles dig into his ribs.
The woman smirked, ruefully. "Alright," she spoke in a cool manner, "Seems fair enough-"
She lifted her leg, coiling it around his shoulders. Violently she twisting her quad over his neck, pulling him close as she drew out a knife from her boots and held it against his throat.
"I'm not leaving empty handed."
She flicked the blade just enough to catch a trace of his blood. Then, she utilized her method of distraction. She squeezed her thigh against his neck, holding firm pressure as she tried to suffocate him. "Submit." She growled harshly in his ear. His response time was quick with reflex and hoisted her leg up, giving him an opening to slip through, and recoil backwards.
He straightened to his full height, pointing his gun at her, his seeped blue eyes revealed hardened fury as he felt his jaw tightened when mechanical instincts told him to pull the trigger. It would have been so damned easy to take her out seeing that she was an unnecessary distraction, but he also knew there was a bomb lodged in the apartment. "We can do this dance all night, but there is bomb in this place. Unless you want to die tonight, I suggest you clear out…"
She fumbled for her gun, and held it into a tight clutch, "How do I know that you're telling me the truth?" she gritted, her voice held the same urgency as his. "What proof do you have?"
He blocked out her words, and crouched down, slowly placing his hand over the boy's forehead. His flesh fingers quaked against feverish heat, and his face lax with confusion and ire. Feeling the need to comfort, he stroked his fingers through the drenched hair, tentative and unsure. It felt so familiar and yet unknown to him as he kept his palm across the boy's forehead. He blinked the water out of his eyes, noticing a paper, crinkled piece of paper sticking from the tattered pockets of the child's pants. Carefully, he pulled out the paper and looked down and hard at the name, like he was remembering something or rehashing old visions of ghosts: Timothy Aloysius Cadwallander Dugan.
Dum Dum Dugan.
He broke his lips apart against the hard graphite, and breathed out, "The boy is now my mission." he growled, leveling his steely blue eyes at her. "Follow me…You will be wishing you hadn't."
Lowering her gun, she nodded absently; and then she turned to leave through the door. Then, she twisted around and said, "Next time our paths cross, I will be putting a bullet into you."
He said nothing. He didn't look back at her. He tore his focus into the boy's teary and yet, pleading eyes looking up at him. Pulling the mask off his slick jaw, and pressed his lips together to ease the stiffness, and then he asked a simple question; easy for the child to answer. "How do you know this man?"
The boy swallowed down the sobs clogging his throat, it was almost too painful for him to speak, but somehow he managed to struggle of breath, "He's my… Grandfather."
"Grandfather?" The Winter Soldier gasped, his blue eyes widened, as he clutched the boy in his grasp, and stalked towards the window. This asset, the victim and child wasn't a threat to HYDRA, but a lost boy who had been stolen from his family. The human side of him-the ghost of a good soldier James Barnes- he wanted to return the boy to his home. To bring the child back his grandfather and to the soldier's friend.
He was going on a journey… Back into the past.
