The Winter Soldier's Spare
The HYDRA agent nodded slowly, closing the leather-bound book nestled in scarred hands. He placed it on the table next to the Soldier, walking around the weaponized chair with an arrogant breeze about him.
“Mission report: May 4th, 2012. Target: Michael Vasquez. Quiet neutralization. No witnesses.”
He materialized in front of the Soldier, leaning down to try and meet his cold gaze. There was nothing there, just a pale face and a hard set jaw.
“Mission report: May 4th, 2012. Target: Michael Vasquez. Quiet neutralization. No witnesses.” He echoed, voice devoid of any emotion.
Things went sideways almost immediately.
For one, there were aliens appearing from the sky. The Soldier had seen a lot, most of which he couldn’t remember, but it didn’t hold a candle to the creatures reigning hell from above. The com in his ear buzzed with frantic Russian, staticky and breaking out.
“Sold–” Static. “F–” Static. “–ait further instructi–”
There was a loud explosion before the line went dead. He clenched his jaw, glancing around. He’d been stationed at a coffee shop, waiting for the target to roll down the street in a white BMW.
By now, the place was deserted. Why wouldn’t it be after aliens fell from the sky?
For some reason, they steered clear of him. The Soldier was glad, although he wasn’t really sure what that felt like. Maybe relieved. Spared a few bullets.
Screeching came from the telltale sound of wheels against grated concrete. His head jerked in the direction of the sound. Before the comms went dead, they’d been following the target’s vehicle with a tracker. No word had followed, but that didn’t mean he could abandon his mission. They’d extract him when they could.
He shrugged off the disguise they’d supplied him with, a green PVC jacket and a cap, and bounded toward the sound of screeching rubber. After wrestling with a duffle bag, he pulled out the Heckler and Koch, the familiar groove of a handle settling into his palm.
“Rita! Rita!? Open your eyes! Please, oh please, Lord, please for the love of God open your eyes!” The Soldier’s mind ran a mile a minute trying to decipher the language. Spanish. “It’s going to be okay! It–The tire popped, that’s okay! Rita, baby, we’ll get to a hospital!”
The right side of the car was being crushed by rubble from a fallen building. A woman lay face down on the dash, unmoving. The front windshield was shattered, giving the Soldier a complete view of his target.
He was injured. Busted lip and a bleeding nose. Still, nearly identical to the image they’d seared into his brain. Black, close cropped hair. Tan skin. Moles underneath his eye and in the corner of his chin. He was young. The file had said 26. Married, with a kid.
They didn’t tell him why he had to kill this man. They never did. Sometimes there was an item he had to retrieve, files or a weapon. Sometimes he had to bring them back alive. Most of the time, though, it was killing. Lots of killing.
Michael Vasquez, the target, managed to move his bleary vision to the Soldier’s fast approaching figure. It took a moment to process before he began to fight with the seat belt, spewing out pleas in rapid Spanglish.
“No– No, no! I didn’t tell anyone– I told them I wouldn’t say anything–” The Soldier was five feet away from the car, lifting up and cocking the gun. His face was obscured by the mask and goggles, but evidently, the target already knew who he was, and who he was sent by. “Please! My wife! She’s–She’s injured and–”
The Soldier pressed down on the trigger. One shot, right between the eyes.
Michael slumped forward in the same position as his wife. The Soldier eyed his surroundings. Aliens were still flying from above, although most of them seemed to be heading toward the busiest part of the city, where Stark Tower rose above New York. The streets were clear. No witnesses.
Mission successful. If he tried to focus, there was the smallest ember of pride in his gut before it was snuffed by a sniffle.
His head snapped to the car. Michael. Dead. The wife. Dead.
Silently, he lifted his boots to walk around the half-decimated car, shadow casting menacingly over the back door.
Metal on metal screamed as his left hand yanked the back door clean off. The Soldier was met with big, teary eyes.
A child, no older than maybe eight stared back at him. Terrified, scared shitless.
His handler’s voice echoed in his head, surly Russian laced with arrogance. No witnesses.
The Soldier gripped the gun with both hands, lifting it to the child’s head.
He didn’t cry. He didn’t scream. Didn’t say a word. The kid went cross eyed staring down the barrel, perhaps wondering why the Soldier wasn’t firing.
He wasn’t sure his damn self.
Morality, maybe. Whatever was left of it. Whatever HYDRA would manage to get out if he didn’t kill this kid. This witness. He’d seen it, after all, right? The Soldier’s figure, his father’s begging, the bullet’s exit point through the headrest.
Why wasn’t his finger moving? Why could he not complete the mission?
His mind reeled. Had he ever killed this young? Teens, sure. But not a child.
Too long. He’d been thinking too long, too much about himself, about his past. The kid was still there, unmoving, now staring straight at the Soldier. Shit.
Faster than he could comprehend, the kid was gone. He fired at the empty seat, not even stumbling when something appeared around his midsection. Tiny arms, barely able to connect around his back, and a face smushed directly into his stomach.
Violently, his world blurred for a second. Memories, distant, foggy, almost nonexistent, pried at a part of his brain HYDRA had meddled with. Bony hands and arms. Cherubic faces of childish glee. Smiling and laughing. Happiness.
When was the last time he was happy?
“Thank you.” The child’s voice was slightly muffled by the Soldier’s leather vest, Spanish falling clumsily from a mouth with missing baby-teeth.
“Soldier!?” A new voice. His comms were back online. “Mission status?”
“Complete.” He grated out. His hands–hand. His hand was shaking. The flesh and blood hand. Why did he only have one?–“Ready for extraction.”
The Soldier stayed perfectly still, taking in his surroundings. It was quiet, now. The sky had gone dark for a moment, but the mission came first. He didn’t have time to worry about the alien invasion. The child was still wrapped around his stomach, not saying a thing.
He was dressed hurriedly, in a rush. A too-small jacket over a ratty shirt and even rattier jeans. He didn’t wear shoes, just mismatched socks with holes in them. The Soldier couldn’t see the child’s face, but he had dark hair and tan skin like his parents. Nothing else identifiable.
Desperately, he tried raking his mind for more details about the target’s file. The wife was an immigrant, naturalized nine years ago. The child was almost nonexistent on the documents, if memory serves correctly (it probably didn’t).
Criminal records. The Soldier knew the target wasn’t innocent. Several charges of child endangerment and reckless abandonment. This was the victim in question.
His eyes zeroed in on a kid’s backpack laying on the floorboard of the car. Multicolored, over-the-top, exactly the kind of junk a parent would get their kid for daycare. At the top, there was a clear slot, displaying a sloppily written name on the piece of paper behind it.
