Avengers: Search for the Winter Soldier
Chapter 13
The Red Room Connection
Steve and Natasha learn more about Vasily Karpov, the Soldier's handler, which leads them all to learn more about Natasha's childhood and history with the Winter Soldier
Dr Banner and Dr. Golden continued their consultation in the corner; going over the Soldier's test results and discussing various options for his medically controlled withdrawal and rehabilitation from the drugs Hydra had been using to control him. They spoke softly so as to not disturb the others in the room. Meanwhile, Sam and Natasha kept each other entertained with short conversations here and there while Steve caught up on his sleep, resting against the edge of the bed.
Sam noted that the entire time Steve slept he never moved his hand from the Soldier's arm. He'd been asleep for about an hour when he woke suddenly with a gasp and his head lifted from the mattress. Both Natasha and Sam looked to him, concerned. Natasha leaned forward and placed her hand on his back. "Are you okay?" she asked.
Steve looked over his shoulder at her and glanced at the others in the room; the doctors in conversation and Sam looking at him with a frown. He sat up and turned in his seat to look at Nat and nodded. "Weird dream," he told her.
"What was it?" she asked.
Dr. Golden heard their voices and turned to see that Rogers had awoken. She glanced at Nat and noticed Natasha give her a nod as if signaling her to pay attention; so she did.
"Umm… it was weird. You and I were…. It was sort of a replay of yesterday," he told her. "When you and I helped him get dressed and walked him down the hall to Bruce's lab…" he paused and Natasha nodded. "He was dressed in the tee shirt and jeans when we left the room and you and I were dressed just like we were dressed… but as we stepped into Banner's lab, it changed. You and I were dressed like… I don't know, prison guards, maybe…and Bucky was… the Soldier was… dressed in that black leather uniform that we took off him. I think we were… in the dream, we were his handlers."
Sam sat up and slid to the edge of his seat, listening closely.
"You probably dreamed that because the Soldier thought you and I were his handlers yesterday," Natasha reminded him and Steve nodded.
"Right," he agreed. "When we returned him to the room and you told him we are not his handlers. Do you remember how he looked?"
When Steve paused as if trying to remember the expression on Barnes' face, Natasha responded, "Sad?"
"Yeah," Steve said, nodding. "I guess I didn't think much about it at the time, but… why would he have been sad… or maybe disappointed is a better term… to learn we weren't handlers?" he asked her.
Dr. Golden found that information to be of great interest. "Steve," she said to get his attention, but she looked at Natasha too in order to include her. "You didn't tell me about this incident."
Steve and Natasha looked to one another and then back to her. Natasha shrugged and said, "It wasn't really an incident. We didn't think it was anything significant. Is it?" she asked.
"Actually," Dr. Golden replied, "it's incredibly significant."
Bruce looked up from his laptop and gave the group his full attention. Sam was also paying close attention when Emily stood up and said, "I have to show you something. I'll be right back."
The group exchanged glances and waited for Dr. Golden to return. When she did a few minutes later she was carrying the file folder. She sat down beside Bruce again and flipped through the files inside. She lifted out a couple of pages, scanned them quickly to be sure they were the intended pages then reached out to offer them to Steve.
"Look at these," she told them.
Steve took the pages from her and held them so Natasha could also read it with him. Before he delved into the first page, Steve scanned it and noticed the same name repeated throughout the notations. "This Karpov… he was Bucky's handler…"
"Yes," Emily answered. "I think you'll see why his reaction to you not being his handler is significant."
Dept. X
Project Report
Codename: Winter Soldier
11 July, 1970/i
RE: Comrade Vasily Karpov Evaluation
The Winter Soldier has been returned to Dept. X and put into stasis due to mental instability. The medical director and his staff have conducted extensive psychological testing and interviews with the Winter Soldier to determine how decades under the control of Comrade Karpov may have affected the operative on a mental and emotional level.
Their findings are: despite being under Karpov's personal control for the past 25 years, and despite the instability in his mental conditioning it has been concluded that Winter Soldier is not specifically imprinted on Comrade Karpov. I personally find that hard to believe. Karpov and the Soldier have been together for 25 years and no such issues have ever been reported to Dept X by Karpov himself. Every incident of Winter Soldier's behavioral misconduct takes place outside of Karpov's direct supervision.
There are no recorded incident reports by Karpov himself in regards to the Winter Soldier's instability or inability to be controlled. So I have to wonder to what degree a new handler would be successful in his assignment. Despite Karpov's advancing age, I determine that he is still our best option to control Winter Soldier.
Update: 19 September 1970
Winter Soldier Project is being transferred out of the Soviet Union/Dept. X and into the control and oversight of the SSR and Hydra. Against our advice, a new handler will be appointed to the Soldier upon re-assignment to Hydra authority.
Update: 14 March, 1971
A new handler has been assigned to the Winter Soldier. Issues with control and discipline were immediate. The Soviets have been contacted with a proposition for Comrade Vasily Karpov. Karpov has accepted our proposal and is to be transferred out of the USSR to become the Soldier's handler within Hydra.
Update: 5 May 1971
Karpov has arrived and taken up his new position within Hydra as Winter Soldier's senior handler. Our experts maintain that Winter Soldier is not imprinted on Karpov, but the ease in which Karpov handles the Soldier is apparent and obvious immediately upon being re-united.
Steve flipped through the next couple of pages, scanning them quickly. These pages contained more info regarding the new Winter Soldier Program under Hydra.
Hydra/SSR
Incident Report
Codename: Winter Soldier
12 March 1973
I regret to report that after more than 15 years of selective use around the world; all to our great success, last month's Winter Soldier mission into the United States did not go as planned.
The target was eliminated and the death was made to appear accidental, but afterward, something went wrong. Codename: Winter Soldier failed to arrive at his extraction point.
His field handlers waited for some time, listening to the police bands to see if he'd been apprehended. There were no transmissions that implied his capture or that he'd been apprehended by authorities.
Following protocol, agents in the U.S. began an extensive search for the Winter Soldier. All extremes were taken to recover the asset, including several sleeper agents breaking cover. Agents followed leads from Dallas to Chicago to New York City. It became apparent the asset was returning home.
Winter Soldier was off the grid for two weeks. It was sheer luck that a sleeper agent covering a flophouse on the Lower East Side found the asset sheltering in the same building. It took half a dozen agents disguised as New York City police officers to take him down and into custody.
The asset was returned to Hydra Base for debriefing by Karpov and, after subsequent mental evaluation it was concluded that Winter Soldier has no explanation for his conduct, nor has any memory of what he did during the time out of our control.
While troubling, the incident appears to be an aberration, requiring nothing more than a closer watch at this time. It is further recommended by Cmrd. Karpov that he be excluded from further missions on American soil, as it is believed that too many memory triggers surround him there.
"He walked away again," Steve realized. "He was returning home. He made his way all the way to New York."
"Yes," Dr. Golden replied.
"Did he know why he was going to New York?" Steve asked. "I mean… did he know he lived there?"
"We don't know. He was apprehended by Hydra's shock squad before anyone in our government even knew he was here," Dr. Golden explained.
"Of course," Steve realized.
"Most of what comes after that incident pertains to his being isolated in cryo-stasis while they try to figure out what to do with him," Dr. Golden informed him. "They spend a lot more time… nearly an entire decade, to be precise, beating the free will out of him and re-conditioning him over and over again, until they got him back into the single mindset of doing only what he was told to do. He completed half a dozen sanctions in that time, but his subjugation, again, was in question."
Steve knew what that meant for Barnes. How in the world did Bucky survive all of this torture and trauma? He couldn't even begin to imagine.
"That being said," Dr. Golden continued, "you might want to flip to 17 October 1998. I think you'll find that report quite interesting."
Steve did as she suggested and flipped through the papers until he found the report with that date in the header.
Hydra – S.S.R
Project Winter Soldier report
Training New Operatives
Red Room
17 October 1998
Comrade Karpov has reported that the Winter Soldier is assigned the task of training potential sleeper agents for the Soviet Union to be used against the United States of America and its allies. We believe this partnership will further benefit Hydra's agenda.
Update – 9 December 1998 – The use of the Winter Soldier as trainer for new stealth operatives inside the KGB's Red Room has been a great success. To date, he has been given 34 trainees; 6 Soldiers and 28 -. Those who remain and have graduated the training program are 3 Soldiers and 6 -. Those who failed the physical conditioning and training program have been dispatched permanently.
All Stealth Operative training includes; SERE and BUD/S training (U.S.A) as well as SAS/MI6 (UK) and Spetsnaz (USSR) training. These operatives are of the highest caliber and can go toe to toe with the most elite military units in the world.
Training included Special Operations Military training from three separate countries: USA, USSR and UK. Continuous physical conditioning and training designed to enhance balance and agility, hand-to-hand combat, firearms, knife fighting skills, stealth ingress and egress, information gathering, dispatching of enemy combatants, strategy and tactics, IED training, aircraft operations, water craft operation, combat diving, long-distance underwater transit diving, ATT(Armored Troops Transport) operations, land navigation, small-unit tactics, single operative tactics, rappelling, military land and underwater explosives, all large and vehicular weapons training, field emergency first aid, extrication and evacuation, foreign language training, SEAL tactical communications training, sniper training and tactics, military free-fall parachuting, jump master training, explosives breaching, mechanical breaching, ballistics breaching, sabotage, reconnaissance and assassination, and much more.
Steve's jaw dropped as he read the list of training operations the Winter Soldier had gone through and quite obviously excelled in. 'No wonder he's a ghost,' Steve realized.
"What's under these redacted parts?" Steve asked, looking to Dr. Golden for the answer. "Here… describing the training he underwent and then he in turn trained others. It says he was given six soldiers and twenty-eight… it's unknown because it's redacted. And then below that it says only three soldiers succeeded along with six…"
"Black Widows," Natasha said flatly. Everyone looked to her in astonishment. "That's how many girls were given to the Soldier to train. There were twenty-eight of us to start and only six of us graduated. The rest either died in training or were killed when it was determined they had or would fail."
"Wait," Sam interjected, "you worked with this guy before?" He asked, not knowing the others were already aware of that information. Natasha nodded.
"That's why I didn't know he'd worked with the Black Widows… that part was redacted," Dr. Golden realized.
Steve stared at Nat in dismay. It took him a moment to find his voice again. "Did Bucky… did the Soldier… kill them?"
Nat shook her head. "Not directly," she told him. "Either they died during training by their own mistakes or they were led out of the training area and dealt with by KGB officials. The Soldier never personally dispatched any of the Widows."
Steve frowned. "Did he personally dispatch the Soldiers?"
Nat considered his question and considered lying to him, but this was a fact finding mission after all. "Yes," she told him. "I personally witnessed him killing the Soldiers during their training, although he repeatedly refused to dispatch any of the Widows."
"Why?" Steve asked.
Natasha shrugged. "We didn't know why. We were all terrified of him. We had seen him kill the Soldiers who failed, he was brutal and never hesitated… but when it came time for him to render judgment on a Widow… she was 15 years old," Nat told them. She took a moment to re-live that day in her memory. "He had turned to her and was ready to strike… but he stopped. They ordered him to kill her… it was the first time we had ever seen him hesitate. He remained poised to strike, but had become still. Then his eyes shifted, only his eyes so no one else would know, and he looked at me… and I saw something in those eyes at that moment that I didn't even know existed."
They waited for her to tell them what she saw. When she seemed caught within her own thoughts Sam had to ask. "What did you see?"
Natasha raised her eyes and looked at him. She grinned, but it held so much sadness with the memory. "Humanity," she told him. "It was the first time I realized he wasn't a willing player in all that he'd done. He was a victim… just like us. He looked at me for what seemed like minutes, but couldn't have been more than a few seconds. We connected. I saw him… and he saw me. The voice boomed over the loud speaker again… telling him to kill her." She paused again, letting her memory replay the scene for her.
"What happened?" Steve asked.
"He didn't move for a few seconds. To me, it looked like he was thinking about his options. We didn't have options. We did as we were told."
"What did he do?" Steve asked. It was more than curiosity. She could hear it in his voice – he needed to know. Natasha smiled but it didn't reach her eyes.
"He abandoned his killing strike. He was in position. He was…right there, poised for it. Instead, he straightened his posture and just stood there. Then he bowed his head… and dropped his knife. He outright refused the order… we'd never seen such a thing."
Dr. Golden, along with her teammates, listened intently; all of them imagining the scene playing out in their heads.
"The next thing we know, the doors opened and a squad of shock troopers marched in. I wanted to shout to him… to warn him, but I realized he knew they would come. He knew they were there. It was a very tense moment." She paused, remembering the incident. "He knew they'd come for him… he knew they'd punish him… and he defied them anyway." Again she paused as her memories transported her back to that day. "They beat him to the ground, right in front of us… but he fought back. Pretty sure a couple of them ended up in the infirmary… but in the end, there were always more of them and only one of him. I don't think he was conscious when they dragged him out of the Room. I thought they had killed him. It was months before we saw him again and when he returned… he was different."
"How old were you?" Steve asked, realizing the date made her very young, but he couldn't remember the exact year she was born.
"I was fourteen when I went through the Soldier's training program," she told him.
"Fourteen," Steve repeated, unable to even comprehend how children were expected to be able to survive the type of training many full grown men couldn't handle.
"After he killed the first two Soldiers," Natasha continued, as she followed the memory back in time, "I realized that he might not have done it because they failed, but because they were showing potential. I think his handlers suspected the same thing because they instructed him not to sanction them, but to simply stop and turn his back on any he deemed a failure. He did as instructed and the third one was removed from the room and executed.
"When the handlers judged the final three to be successful, they put all three in a cage with the Soldier. Their final test… if they could best the Winter Soldier, they would be ready for their first field test."
"Did they best him?" Steve asked, even though he didn't really want to know the outcome.
"No," Natasha told him, "they didn't. Three against one… and they couldn't keep him down. It was an amazing sight. Oh, they could put him down, but they couldn't keep him there. A few weeks later, they put the ten of us in the Red Room… four against six. They pitted the Soldiers against the Widows."
"Four highly trained full grown men against teen aged girls?" Sam asked in disbelief.
Natasha grinned. "Thanks to the Soldier we were much more than that. We were highly trained teenage girls and we held our own for quite a while, but as you would suspect, their size and weight gave them an advantage over us."
"What happened?" Steve asked.
"The Soldier happened," she said, smiling with the memory. "At the beginning he fought alongside them as the handlers instructed him to do before the test started. After a few bouts… when he saw the dirty tactics the Soldiers were using against us, he turned on them. He sided with the Widows and with his help we took all three down and kept them down. With that, he'd earned the support and loyalty of the Widows.
"Before the handlers entered the room to separate us, I remember him standing beside me. He bowed his head to allow his hair to fall and hide his face from them and he said to me 'Molodiets, Mushonok'. He said it so softly only I could hear him." She looked at Steve and then to Dr. Golden; both were hanging on her every word, as were Sam and Bruce. All of them waiting she assumed for a translation. "It means 'Well done, Little Mouse'." Then she paused to think about that alone.
"He spoke to me, of his own accord, and had the mindset to hide our exchange from those who handled us. I just stared at him for a few moments; shocked. He connected with me. He saw me as something more than what he was supposed to. He acknowledged my skills, beyond being judged to live or to die. He acknowledged me on a human level… despite everything he'd been through.
"Looking back, I realize that I must have stared at him too long, because one of the wranglers took notice and came over to retrieve him. He slammed the Soldier in the head with his baton. He must have suspected something had been exchanged. I felt really bad that I had caused him another beating. But as the wranglers pushed him away, prodding him to keep moving out of the room, he twisted around enough to look back in my direction and he looked right at me. Our eyes met and I could see… whatever he had become… he wasn't exactly what the Soviets thought he was."
The four listening to her were awestruck as Natasha detailed for them her time in the Soviet's Red Room and how she'd come to know and train under the Winter Soldier. Steve's mind reeled at the information. What a complete horror show both Bucky and Nat had survived. Somehow they'd survived… together. He shook his head as he thought about all these details.
"A month later," Natasha continued, pulling Steve from his thoughts. "I was assigned to go with him on a mission. We were an efficient team and worked very well together. I suppose that would be expected considering he trained me in all his tactics and strategies… and fighting style. We achieved all our goals and the mission was deemed highly successful.
"We headed to our extraction point as ordered, humping it fast and hard over rough terrain. He moves like a freight train and I could barely keep up. When the evac team was finally in sight he never missed a step, never turned his head, never gave them a single reason to see anything unusual through their scopes and he knew they'd be watching us… but through that mask I heard him say, 'Molodiets, Mushonok'. This time I didn't react outwardly, but inside my heart leapt into my throat. There was a man under that mess… a man the KGB and Hydra desperately tried to extinguish from existence, but he refused to let them have all of him. I don't know how he was able to hold on..," Natasha paused again to get back on track. "Anyway, when we returned, we were separated. I never saw him again… until two years ago on that causeway in D.C."
Sam listened closely to every word Natasha shared with the group. He'd look at the Soldier, considering the man still lying unconscious on the bed, as Natasha detailed her interactions with the Winter Soldier as a young teen aged girl in Moscow. He realized now that there were more layers to this man than he was originally willing to consider.
"It's hard to believe that the Hydra operative that nearly killed me and Steve… and you…is capable of that kind of connection with someone. Not just his handler, but also with Natasha and the young Widows," Sam shared with them. "I mean… he gave her a nickname."
Dr. Golden looked at him and was glad to be able to include Sam Wilson in this conversation, but she had to caution them. "It's quite possible that he isn't capable of that kind of human interaction now. He was able to make that connection with Natasha… but that was nearly twenty years ago."
"And," Steve added, "according to Natasha, the wranglers must have seen that he'd interacted with her, or at least suspected it, and likely focused their efforts on destroying any lingering autonomy he was able to hold onto to that point. She did say she didn't see him again for more than a few months. I'd hazard a guess they spent that time destroying his mind even further."
"At least… they thought they had," Dr. Golden added. Steve looked at her, his brow furrowed in confusion. Emily smiled softly and reminded him, "Natasha just told us that at the end of their mission, before the evac teams were within earshot, he commended her and referred to her by the nickname he'd given her months before."
Steve hadn't caught that significance even though Natasha had given it emphasis as she detailed her memory of that time. He turned in his seat to look at Bucky's profile. Sam watched the play of intense emotions on his face. "He's still in there," Steve told them. He had no doubt that somewhere under "that mess", as Nat had called it, his old pal Bucky was fighting to escape. "He's still in there."
They all looked at the man on the bed and each of them hoped privately that Steve was right. They'd been completely enthralled by Natasha's recounting of her history with the Soldier. Dr. Golden was finally able to pull her own thoughts back to the present and noticed Steve also appeared to be lost in his own thoughts. "So you see… his apparent disappointment in regards to you telling him you aren't his handlers… may have been an unrecognized need to connect with you the way he apparently had with Karpov." She let them think about that for a moment and then stood up. "That's enough for today. I think we could all use some fresh air."
"I'm not leaving," Steve told her. Emily opened her mouth to try to talk him into getting out of the room for a little while but he turned away. He didn't turn his back on her as much as he simply turned toward Barnes.
"I'll go with you," Sam offered and stood up. "I could use some fresh air."
"Me too," Natasha agreed and stood up. "Bruce?" she said, inviting him to come along.
He turned his attention from Steve to look at her and nodded. He put his laptop to sleep and joined the group.
TBC'd