"Matthew D." (propatria) wrote in rooms, @ 2014-12-13 22:10:00 |
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Entry tags: | !marvel comics, *narrative, bucky barnes |
narrative: winter soldier
Who: Winter Soldier (narrative)
What: A bit of a jaunt in the Ukraine.
Where: Eastern Ukraine, near the border with Russia, just north of Crimea.
When: After this.
Warnings/Rating: Unfortunate ideas, death.
At night, the Soldier occasionally dreamed. This was a new phenomenon. He didn't like dreaming. The difference between awake and asleep was thin. It was almost impossible to distinguish the invented from the remembered. There was, though, a flicker of raw pleasure, small, just a kernel, at having an opinion.
He could move through the world efficiently, if not with depth of understanding. So many things were still foreign to him, purposefully kept out of sight or out of his grasp. He was not entirely an artifact. He had a surface knowledge of many things without really knowing why, muscle memory. He knew how to use a cell phone, but only a set list of numbers. He knew how to flip through songs on an mp3 player, but not how to listen to the music they played, or who wrote the songs. He knew not to look for payphones anymore when he needed to connect with a handler, and he knew where to look for security cameras, that he might always be watched.
The missions were always targeted, short, even when undercover. They had learned from New York, and they had never dared send him on another mission on American soil again, just in case. Unstable. Erratic. He didn't remember it, but he knew it had gone wrong.
The gaps in his knowledge yawned open, tearing at the edges like wounds, and he tried to catch ideas before they bled away entirely. There had been something in New York. Twenty - no, forty years ago. Something, because the gap afterward was so sharp and so long they must have put him inside the machine (wipe him) for every mission after that, before and after every thaw. He had moments where he could think about it, these open fissures, where he could grope for their edges and try until the pain was too much.
He had been a good undercover asset before, and he still was now. He waited outside an iron foundry in Eastern Ukraine, knocked out the first man who chanced by on his way home from work, and stole his clothes. He tucked his hair back and beneath the hat, because the most important thing to do was blend, and he had been trained to be useful no matter what the vicissitudes of a moment in time or a particular place might bring. He wore the clothes, kept his left hand in his pocket, and moved with purpose. He bought gloves with the money from the man's wallet, bought food from a vendor on the street. He didn't choose a type of food or a particular stall. He walked up to the first one he saw. He didn't know how long it had been since he'd last eaten, but it was important to eat when he could to be sure he stayed on his feet.
He knew the denominations of the currency without looking at it twice, and this small detail rang small bells louder and louder and made his brain sing. Yes. He had been here.
He saw nothing. His eyes were open, but he couldn't see. Sudden blindness - a punishment coded into his senses, a failure of frozen optical nerves? He fell against something hard, and he knew things that he hadn't known, choking on his own bile.
Yes, this place was a part of the great state. A general brings him into a richly appointed room and shows him a picture of another asset. Female, blonde, scientist. She sent them information loyally for months, but it went sour when she realized her stolen research was being used in human trials.
She lives in an apartment near the university, and he must get close to her. They meet in the park, and she asks him to take her dancing. She is coy, and seems proud of herself for making the first move. It doesn't take much to get her to ask, so little that she isn't even aware she's being teased into doing it.
She lets him into her small apartment and he kills her on the sofa, strangling her with her necklace, a thick gold chain with a locket. Her boyfriend is implicated - he gave her the necklace, he knew she was seeing other men, it was a crime of convenience and she knew the killer, she opened the door to him. Blood vessels burst in the hollows of her eyes, and it is neat.
By the time he realized he had stumbled into the wall, the vendor at the sidewalk stand was asking if he was alright in his ear. He lifted his hands to pull the chain taut, feeling every knitted link of metal in his right hand and nothing at all in the left, nothing at all in his head.
He could see again, he realized, pushing up to unsteady feet, revealing a glimpse of chrome at the wrist to the food vendor, who stared. He did not turn around, stepped forward, went around the corner, and did not stop walking. Blend. Erratic Unstable. They would surely wipe him now, протрите его, after a display like that. The mission had nearly been compromised by a street vendor. протрите его, протрите его, протрите его -
When he next knew himself, he was on a bus for the edge of town. He was calm. The landscape beyond flickered by with regularity. He looked up at the driver, and around to the other passengers. It was the right bus, he was sure. He was sure he had read the schedule and boarded and been polite. He didn't remember it, but that in itself seemed right.
Two hours later, and the cache under the farmhouse was intact. The building was still occupied, but only by an old farmer and his wife. They never heard him go into the cellar, and he did not dig for the marked metal box until well after they fell asleep.
He put the weapon together. All the pieces fit. Not a single one was missing.