crazy, am i?

@itsaliveitsalive

It shouldn’t have been possible—defection was a concept that had never even crossed his mind. HYDRA had instilled in him the belief that emotions were a weakness, that he existed solely as a weapon for their aims. ( The training, the conditioning, the relentless indoctrination—they had suffocated any flicker of individuality within him. ) Yet, in an unexpected turn of events, something within him had fractured, a crack appearing in the impenetrable armour they had forged around his psyche. In a moment of sheer instinct, he had lashed out, a silent rebellion erupting from the depths of his programmed mind, and then he had escaped, leaving a trail of chaos and destruction in his wake.

But in the aftermath of his flight, his mind felt like a tangled mess of fragmented memories and disjointed feelings, a chaotic puzzle that he couldn't piece together. He moved through the vast landscapes of Russia, each step heavy with uncertainty, then ventured across the expanse of America, the vibrant colors and sounds blending into a blur. ( It was as if he were wandering through a dream where nothing was familiar or safe. ) After what felt like an eternity of aimless wandering, something inexplicable had teleported him toward a specific place, a magnetic force that he couldn’t understand, compelling him to keep moving forward.

When he finally arrived, he found himself in an unfamiliar location, one that felt strangely foreign yet oddly significant. He stood in a state of disorientation, unable to identify where exactly he was, as his internal systems—designed to provide clarity and guidance—betrayed him entirely, static and unhelpful. ( He swayed on the spot, bombarded by a rush of conflicting voices and lines of code echoing in his head. ) It was a swirl of noise, overwhelming and confusing, and he struggled to find any sense of focus amidst the chaos. The world around him began to spin, and he felt a wave of nausea wash over him, a physical manifestation of his tumultuous mental state. 

Before he even realised what was happening, his legs gave out beneath him, and he collapsed onto the cold, hard ground. Despite losing the strength to stand, a part of him remained alert, aware; he was never granted the mercy of oblivion without the severe repercussions that followed. ( His internal dialogue became a battleground, a relentless clash as his mind turned against him, feeding him doubts and fears that he could not shake off. ) He was left to fight his own thoughts, adrift in a sea of confusion, each pulse of anxiety a reminder that his greatest enemy was not the world around him, but the fractured remnants of the asset he once was.

His focus had shifted to multiverse travel in the years after, but every regime fell eventually. Victor had seen the writing on the wall for HYDRA long before Insight. There was no chance he would continue to survive in a place like that. Unfortunately, by the time he had a viable escape plan, they'd already hidden Valentin away somewhere even Victor couldn't find him. He did the next best thing and stole their second favorite weapon, blowing up the base and faking their deaths on his way out. It didn't really matter. Since he'd wiped every last trace of his research before he left, HYDRA had no hope of following where they were going.

The Moors were a twilight world of monsters and mad science. A vampire lord ruled the castle on the cliffs, werewolves ran howling through the moors, and the townspeople huddled around their fires at night, all of it watched over from the sea by the Drowned Gods. It suited him in a way his own world never had, and he quickly set up his work in the abandoned mill. By far, the most difficult project was breaking the hold HYDRA had on Barnes. Victor might have helped design that conditioning, but that didn't make it easy to untangle. They got there eventually, though not without a few mishaps, most notably when the Winter Soldier tried to fight an entire werewolf pack single-handedly. There was no cure for lycanthropy, but Barnes was alpha enough to keep other wolves out and further their protection over the town, and Victor was able to resume his work in trying to reverse death.

Though there was no way to predict the doors that opened occasionally into other worlds, he knew when something that didn't belong entered this dimension. The white wolf paced him, whining quietly as they came to a stop a few feet from the body, both recognizing him immediately. He knelt, not moving any closer or trying to touch him. "Valentin. Can you hear me?"

Coming out of hypersleep was never an easy or pleasant task. Even after coffee and dinner, he still felt half-dead and suspected the effects would linger in the coming days. Nothing short of actual death would keep Victor from his work though. While the crew went about their tasks, he'd gravitated to the computer room annex with Campbell to catch up on the log. Lights blinked from floor to ceiling on every wall. He typed his key into the console and waited while the screen hummed to life.

Then he simply blinked at it for a few moments. The orders were… unexpected. He'd known there was a reason the company sent two science officers on this space mission, but not what the reason was, until now. Investigate a life form, possibly hostile, and bring it back for observation.

PRIORITY ONE ENSURE RETURN OF ORGANISM FOR ANALYSIS ALL OTHER CONSIDERATIONS SECONDARY CREW EXPENDABLE

After a long silence, he glanced at Campbell. "That seems fairly straightforward." He was trying to gauge by his expression if he had an ethical objection to sacrificing their crewmates. Since Victor considered ethics to be nothing more than an interesting intellectual exercise, it didn't bother him. A great many lives had been lost in the name of science. A few more wouldn't trouble his conscience.

"It does at least the company we are working for have their priorities all set," he spoke after reading the message and knowing of his mission. Campbell was not too worried, he always expected for things to go wrong and so he was ready for almost anything. Often Campbell worked alone but he had no problem working with the other and he could sense that they shared the same feelings and view as him so this would make things so very easy for them. "Are you still feeling the effects of hyper sleep? I have something i designed to help."

"MU-TH-UR, what is the probability of both of us surviving this mission?"

He tilted his head while a cool, computerized voice spat out the numbers. It was by no means a guarantee, but Victor found himself intrigued regardless. What kind of organism was it that the corporation would be willing to sacrifice so much to acquire it? Obviously, it was dangerous. Were they hoping to make a weapon of it? He was willing to risk his life to find out.

"That was higher than expected." He cleared the digital record of their conversation and rose from the chair. "No, thank you." There wasn't enough trust established between them for him to take some unknown substance for what were essentially the symptoms of a hangover. "We'll arrive tomorrow. I suggest rest and plenty of fluids."

Victor had worked with HYDRA for several decades, first on the super soldier serum, then the Winter Soldier program, and finally multiverse travel, though he'd never disclosed to them just how far he'd gotten on that project. He had mixed feelings about the success of the second one, but mind control had never been of particular scientific interest to him. Tides had shifted as they moved toward a new century, however, and Director Pierce had new and ambitious goals for the organization. Victor had never had any particular loyalty to HYDRA. He worked for them because it suited his purposes at the time and because they had fewer ethics than their competitors; if it hadn't been HYDRA, it would have been something else.

But he could tell when it was time to get out. Faking his own death right under their noses was by no means a simple process, but he was meticulous about it, wiping his name and much of his research from their databases on his way out, the body nearly unidentifiable in what little remained of the base after an unfortunate lab accident. Then he'd stepped through a door and more or less left that world behind. In a few decades, it was unlikely anyone would even remember his name. Except someone did. Victor came back to that Earth every now and again to check on things. HYDRA had fallen with Insight, but he knew it was like a cockroach or the common cold, impossible to ever fully stamp out. He'd also discovered that someone had freed Zola from his technological prison, a problem that would need to be dealt with sooner rather than later-- if it wasn't already too late.

Someone was searching his name in tandem with Zola's. They had worked together for a time, but there were few people left alive who would know that. Curious though he was, he wasn't foolish enough to reveal himself to them, simple text appearing on the screen:

Hello.

Steve had taken on the job of liaising with Nick Fury and Maria Hill, who, at Bucky's request, had agreed to keep the information under wraps for now. After all, HYDRA had only been exposed two years previously, so there was still the question of exactly who within SHIELD could be trusted; HYDRA could very well have undiscovered double agents remaining in the organization, people whose cover was particularly deep. And Arnim Zola was far too formidable a foe to be allowed to reconnect with his old network.

As for Bucky herself, she was still searching, sometimes with Natasha or Steve and sometimes on her own. Tonight she was alone, in an old fallout shelter that had been built into the anchorage of the Brooklyn Bridge. HYDRA had co-opted it as a base sometime in the mid-90s, and Bucky had discovered it on her second pass through New York City during her eighteen months spent seeking bloody revenge against her former captors. Being as she had been -- and in many ways still was -- the Winter Soldier, she'd done her work efficiently and well, which meant that every HYDRA agent who'd known about this place was now dead, making it a perfect place to try to draw Zola out if she could. She knew already that the servers in this bunker held little of interest to her, but she was searching them for Zola's name nonetheless, as well as the names of a few other people whom she remembered being involved with the Winter Soldier Project but hadn't yet been able to locate.

When a single word unexpectedly flashed across the screen, the text bright green against the black background of the old CRT, Bucky smiled -- a thin, knife-blade smile that was there and gone in a flicker.

bill skarsgard in every episode of hemlock grove ever

“There is something at work in my soul, which I do not understand.”

#yes please

Frankenstein good ending where Victor accepts the creature ❤️