Avengers: Search for the Winter Soldier
Chapter 38
The Soldier
Summary: The Soldier wakes from his drug induced stupor as Steve and Bruce return to his room and an amazing revelation leaves Steve stunned.
Wanda glanced up from her phone to check on the Soldier. The digital book she was reading on the screen allowed the time to pass without effort, but she'd noticed a few minutes ago that his eyes were moving under his closed eyelids. That was the first sign she was given that the drug therapy, which had included a mild sedative, was wearing off. The rapid eye movement indicated to her that he had moved from unconsciousness into a natural sleep state and he was probably dreaming if the movement of his eyes told the truth.
He opened his eyes slowly and stared straight ahead. He didn't blink or move; he simply stared at the opposite wall. He recognized that wall and knew instantly in which cell he was standing. It belonged to the one he referred to as Broken Man. He didn't call him that to his face or to anyone else for that matter; it was simply the label he'd attached to the man cowering on the floor in front of him.
He knew the man was there as he could see him with his peripheral vision. He could smell him… his filth… and he could hear his whimpers and muttering. His own presence inside the cell was a curiosity to the Soldier, but he remained as still as a statue.
There was the sound of footfalls nearby and then there was a face in front of him. He stared through the person, not focusing on him but on the wall beyond him. To the handler he would look like a blank slate… until he spoke.
"Dobroye utro, Soldat." Good morning, Soldier
He immediately recognized the voice of Vasily Karpov, his handler. He blinked once and refocused his eyes to look directly at Karpov. "YA gotov otvechat." Ready to comply
"Ochen' khoroshiy," Very good Karpov complimented him with a nod. He stepped to the side and the Soldier's eyes followed him now. He watched Karpov's every move as he walked slowly around the man on the floor. He watched as Karpov stood directly in front of the man who knelt naked on the cold cement, one arm wrapped around his chest as he rocked back and forth. He was curled so far forward with his chin tucked against his chest that his forehead nearly scraped the floor as he rocked forward.
He stared at Karpov who, in turn, stared down at Broken Man as if considering what to do with him. When his handler hadn't moved from that spot for a few minutes, the Soldier shifted his gaze to look at the prisoner.
His attention was pulled back to his handler when Karpov raised a hand and waved it in a gesture to call someone else to him. The Soldier didn't move except for his eyes that shifted to the activity outside the cell door. He watched as two wranglers entered the cell.
"Podnimite yego," Stand him up Karpov directed the wranglers who immediately reached down to grab onto the man's arms and lifted him to his feet. They had to keep their hands on him so he wouldn't fall as his legs were slow to straighten fully. The coldness of the cell along with the ice cold water with which they often hosed him down only served to tighten his muscles. Broken Man was too thin and too wounded, the Soldier realized, to be much use to anyone. He wondered what they intended to do with him.
"Podvedite yego k stulu," Take him to the chair Karpov directed the wranglers. The two men nodded and turned around with the prisoner to half-carry him out of the cell. The Broken Man tried to get his feet under him and to stand on his own, but the wranglers walked too quickly for him to be able to do so. He watched silently through the bars as the wranglers disappeared from sight.
"Soldat," Karpov summoned him and he jerked his head to look forward again. He stared at the opposite wall again and when his handler remained silent, he let his eyes slide to the left to focus on him. Karpov was just looking at him. The Soldier blinked once as he waited and finally his handler said, "Poydem so mnoy." Come with me
He took a step forward to let Karpov know that he heard and understood and then he followed his handler out of the cell and down the hall. They passed by dozens of technicians busying themselves at their stations and he was aware of the cautious stares he was given by those coming toward them in the corridor. Many of those people stopped walking when they saw him and moved up against the wall until he passed by. He didn't understand why they did that. He wondered if they feared him in some way.
As he followed his handler down the corridor they turned right once and then left twice before entering a large area that was just as cold and dark as any in the complex. In the center of the large room was a shallow pit and inside the pit was a chair with monitors on either side of it. Technicians in white lab coats moved about like bees in a hive; each one with their own task to finish that, in conjunction with the tasks of the other worker bees, would conclude with a successful outcome… for what, he didn't know and it didn't matter that he didn't know. He was only supposed to care about the mission; his own mission; whenever he was given one and only Karpov gave him the details of those missions. He knew that he'd been on dozens of missions but he couldn't remember them, not completely anyway. Once in a while he might get a flash of an image or a sound, usually that image and sound was a stranger's face screaming in agony before it went silent at his hand.
Karpov walked closer to the chair and then stopped and the Soldier stopped behind him. Karpov turned and put his hand up to indicate to him that he should remain in place. As his handler moved away, he stared at that chair and wondered where the prisoner had been taken. Karpov had told them to take him to the chair. His attention moved from the empty chair up to the halo resting passively on its metal arms. The Soldier swallowed thickly as the memory of that halo suddenly moving above his head, spinning around in a grotesque ballet before the two curved apertures clamped down on either side of his head and a moment later they'd send a bolt of lightning through his eye and his brain felt like it was shriveling up in response to the volts of electricity shooting through his skull.
He became aware of the sound of movement behind him but he didn't turn around. He remained precisely in the spot, facing in the direction that Karpov desired. His eyes, however, slid to the side as the wranglers came into view peripherally and he noted that they were dragging the prisoner to the chair.
He recognized the prisoner as the same one that had been taken from the cell, but he was now dressed in black, in the same outfit that the Soldier now wore. He also had a shiny silver bionic arm, just like he had. The Soldier's gaze focused inward as he followed his own thoughts and wondered why they had created another just like him. Was he no longer good enough for the tasks they put before him? He completed all of his missions precisely in the manner in which he was instructed. He was a good soldier.
He watched as the prisoner was pushed back into the seat and a technician started a line that attached to the man's hand and went up to a bag of fluids above his head. Vitamins and other nutrients he'd heard the technicians talking about it one day. After the line was secured, they proceeded to strap his arms and legs to the chair itself with heavy metal rings that clamped over his biceps and wrists and around his lower legs.
The technicians moved away and the halo began to buzz and a moment later it began to spin. The Soldier looked up at it, as did the prisoner in the chair. His long hair was a tangled mess and a few strands had fallen across his eyes. The Soldier became aware of his own hair having fallen in front of his eyes but he dared not move to brush it aside unless he was told to.
As he stared at the metal armed man in front of him, he focused on the arm and then looked down at his own. He took in the details of the prisoner's uniform and lowered his head to look at his own. Right down to the boots they were the same. The long hair now clamped down under the halo pads was the same color as the hair he could see in front of his own eyes. Were they clones? He wondered. Were they making more of him?
He was shocked back to the moment when the sound of static emanated from the machine. The Soldier stared wide eyed at the prisoner in the chair whose entire body convulsed with the electrical charge and he screamed in agonizing pain. The man screamed and screamed again and the Soldier took a step backward. When he realized he'd involuntarily moved away he looked around the room and every technician, every handler and wrangler was staring at him. His gaze shot to his handler to see Karpov tilt his head to the side and then moved it side to side. Disappointed. He'd disappointed his handler. The man screamed again and the Soldier brought his hands up to cover his ears and he stepped back again.
Another step back and he bumped into something. Before he had a chance to look, a dozen hands grabbed onto him and forced him forward. They dragged his hands away from his ears and pushed him closer to the screaming man in the chair. The man screamed again and the Soldier screamed too; the sound of their voices were identical he realized. He closed his eyes and the hands pushed him forward. He stumbled on the edge of the pit and when he tried to put his hands out to brace his fall, he couldn't move them.
He opened his eyes to realize that he could only see out of his right eye… something was clamped over his left. Oh god! No!
He stared with one eye at the dozens of men and women standing in front of him shaking their heads in disappointment. The sound of static and then the force of raw electricity shooting through his eye into his brain… he screamed. His entire body tensed as every muscle constricted painfully against the volts of electricity searing his tissues. Another jolt and he screamed… another jolt and another and another and then there was silence. He barely registered the lightning anymore and he simply stared blindly toward the ceiling. All that he could distinguish was the sound of his handler's voice.
"Toska…" Longing
"Rzhavyy…" Rusted
"Pech…" Furnace
The Soldier in the chair screamed as the words began to affect his senses and Karpov waited for him to adjust before saying the next word.
"Rassviet…" Daybreak
"Semnadtsat," Seventeen
He screamed again and the clamps suddenly release his head. His whole body jolted with the aftershocks of the electrical charges. His face screwed up into an angry sneer. Karpov walked around the pit into his field of vision as he read from the red book with a black star on the front.
"Dobrokachestvennyy…" Benign
"Devyat…" Nine
His muscles twitched and jerked as the electrical impulses began to absorb into his body's tissues.
"Vozvrashcheniey na rodinu…" Homecoming
"Ahdien…" One
"Gruzovoy vagon…" Freight car
His mind now clear and his whole system settling into a calm state he blinked and shifted his gaze to look at Karpov. His handler, seeing that he had his attention, slapped the book closed and set it aside.
Karpov regarded his soldier silently for a moment.""Dobroye utro, Soldat." Good morning, Soldier
"YA gotov otvechat." Ready to comply he answered automatically.
"U vas yest' missiya. Sanktsiya i dobycha. Nikakikh svideteley," Karpov told him. You have a mission. Sanction and extraction. No witnesses.
Suddenly Karpov is no longer standing in front of him. He's on a motorcycle and riding fast on a dark road. He's chasing a car up ahead and when he catches up to it he throws a knife at the tire. The tire pops and sends the car careening into a tree.
He spins the bike around to go back and he finds what he is to extract in the trunk of the vehicle. His attention is drawn to the driver who had opened the door and fell out of the car. He was trying to crawl away and begging for the life of his wife who was sitting injured in the passenger seat. The Soldier deposited the metal case in the saddlebag on the bike and then returned for the driver. His mission…to extract the case with the serum… to sanction the man who developed it so no more serum can be produced… and to leave no witnesses. That was the mission.
He walked over to the injured man and grabbed him by his hair. He pulled the man up onto his knees and when the man looked up at him, the Soldier frowned. Did he know this man? He thought that he might.
"Sergeant Barnes?" the man asked as he looked at him.
On the bed, the Soldier gasped loudly and jolted awake with such violence the bed scraped against the floor. Wanda startled in surprise and nearly dropped her phone. She jumped to her feet, gripping her phone tighter and stepped sideways away from her chair to put a little distance between her and the Soldier.
She just watched him without saying a word, trying to assess what state of mind he was in. It was hard to tell as his entire body was shaking and she didn't know if it was tremors from his drug withdrawal or fear of whatever dream he'd just had that woke him forcefully. He was staring straight ahead as if not really awake, but still focused on his dream.
A moment later, Steve and Bruce entered the room and stopped when they saw her standing up and staring at the Soldier who was now awake.
"Wanda?" Steve said quietly.
She turned slowly toward him and then looked back at the man on the bed. She stepped backward toward her teammates to speak to them. "He just woke up," she told them. "I think he was having a dream. He woke up very suddenly, gasping as if frightened. Now he's just staring."
Bruce and Steve walked slowly toward the bed. The Soldier didn't move as Banner stepped up to the side of the bed and slowly disconnected the IV from his arm. He coiled up the tubing and hung it on a hook on the stand and then focused on his patient. He could see the tremors and that his pupils were dilated. He was definitely feeling the effects of the drug therapy, he noted. Steve walked to the foot of the bed and watched the Soldier closely as Bruce disconnected him and removed the needle from his arm.
"Does he know we're here?" Steve asked. Bruce looked at him and shrugged then turned back to his patient.
"Can you hear me?" he asked. Bruce waited a moment and then waved his hand slowly in front of the Soldier's face a few times. The Soldier's eyes slowly followed his hand as he waved and then as he withdrew it. He looked up at Banner but was still seeing the face of the man he killed seconds after the man seemed to recognize him. When Bruce asked again if he could hear him, the Soldier heard only the question repeated – Sergeant Barnes? And in his delirious state he spoke it aloud.
"Sergeant Barnes?" the Soldier echoed the man in his dreams, his voice cracking with the effort to speak in his drug induced state.
Steve heard the two words even as part of it had come out as a whisper and he gasped. Bruce looked at him but Steve stared at the Soldier holding his breath. The moment of surprise and shock at hearing the Soldier utter Bucky's name in question ended as the Soldier went into convulsions. Steve moved to the side of the bed, opposite Banner to protect him from falling off the bed. The convulsions were short-lived and stopped completely a few moments later. The Soldier opened his eyes and looked up at the blonde man standing over him.
"Rodzhers," he whispered.
The single word spoken by the Soldier was close enough to Steve's last name to leave him standing stunned beside the bed. Was that his name? It sounded like Rogers but with a heavy Russian twist to it. He was afraid to let himself have that much hope, until Bruce asked…
"Did he just say your name?"