a queer writer who loves winter

EXT. ROTKOV RIFT — DAY.

There was a gunshot, and the horned creature fell. She turned, and she saw him.

Dmitry. His steady hands held the gun he'd just used to protect her, and on his face, he wore a resolute, familiar expression. It was the man she'd married, and the man she'd left behind when she'd been taken to the Siberia base.

He affected calm and coldness, but she could still read him — she always could, even when they went months without seeing each other. She caught the faint widening of his eyes at the sight of her, and the rise of an emotion, something deep and monstrous, that he immediately smothered with his characteristic focus. It was a ruthlessness she'd also fallen in love with.

They eyed each other, and then she could tell he'd taken a decision—

He hit her temple with the butt of his gun and the world darkened.

INT. ROMANOV ESTATE LIVING ROOM — DAY.

She woke up on an unfamiliar couch, wearing unfamiliar clothes. Her heart dropped when she didn't feel her usual chain on her neck, the chain on which she kept her wedding ring as well as Dmitry's dog tags.

Her husband had given them to her the day she'd left for the Siberia base. She'd never taken them off since.

______

John kicked down the door, quickly firing twice.

The two bullets lodged themselves perfectly into two of the people he’d startled by barging in. The third person only had time to shoot him once before John had taken them down as well. He winced slightly as the bullet in his left shoulder (ha, they should have aimed for his right side) was pushed out of his body, clattering to the floor.

John loved firearms, at least when they weren’t in his enemies’ hands. Perhaps they weren’t quite as eye-catching as the swords he’d used decades ago, but their efficiency was a modern marvel.

In other parts of the building, his team were clearing the other rooms with much the same M.O. He could hear the shots through the flimsy walls. He rolled his shoulder as the skin finished knitting itself back together.

He quickly surveilled the room, but there were no hiding spots nor new enemies charging at him. Finger going up to his earpiece, John called, “Clear.” Hearing back four other ‘Clear’s in succession (Bucky, Yelena, then Bob and Alexei), he nodded to himself and lowered his weapon. Instant communication; another wonder of modern life.

Behind him, he heard a gunshot—

John awoke with a pained gasp and the peculiar feeling of his brain still pulling itself back together, synapses out of sync. He was on the floor, and even with his mind muddled and a blinding migraine, he pushed himself up, trying to locate his gun.

He heard shouting, and someone exclaiming, “What the fuck, shoot him, shoot him!”

He had to—

He groaned in pain. The floor rattled under him, and he quickly ascertained he was in a moving van of some sort. He tried to move his hands, and only then noticed his wrists were tied behind his back, and when he managed to flutter his eyes open, he saw his kidnappers above him, all masked.

“Damn it, we waited too long,” one said, voice a bit muffled. “Now, quick, shoot him again!”

Fuck, they know about my immortality, John thought with dread, before he felt a bullet go through his heart. He was unsure if he would die first or if his body would reject the bullet immediately, and then he saw one of the kidnappers aiming the barrel of a gun at his forehead with their finger on the trigger and he—

______

It was the middle of a quiet night and John was asleep, alone in his bed, when his throat was slit. He was dead before he'd even properly started to choke on the blood.

The most shocking part was when he woke up. He gasped, lurching up and pawing at his own throat. The skin was unmarred. The cut had closed, not even leaving a scar behind.

A dark figure, standing in the room, yelped, and John didn't know how he'd survived, but he knew this shadow was his would-be assassin. He jumped out of bed, grabbing the sword hanging on his wall. In one swift movement, he impaled his killer through the chest and pushed them until their back met the wall.

His killer grunted in pain, their wide-eyed gaze fixed on John, but they did not otherwise seem very worried, considering their current predicament.