Random writing.

Part 1 - Caught in a Net 

The bullet misses your head by an inch.

Had you been running any slower… no, you’ll think about it when the mission is over.

The precise stakes of the mission itself are a mystery. At least now you know why Nick Fury and Maria Hill had been acting so cagey about it all morning.

Technically, everyone knew the facts. Hydra is expecting a shipment tonight, S.H.I.E.L.D. wants to be there to intercept it. According to their intel, said shipment is expected to arrive at 0300 hours in a shipping container labeled, XSD344. Everyone has been thoroughly reminded that this will not end without a fight.

Even on a good day, Fury is a no-nonsense, cut-to-the-chase kind of guy. Had you not been paying close attention, it would have been easy to miss the uneasy glances shared between Fury and Hill. If you weren’t so light on your feet, you wouldn’t have heard their hushed whisper from behind a closed door.

At first, you’d written it off. Old paranoia that plagued most of the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents you know. A ghost story.

The Winter Soldier.

Suddenly, you remember a night, years ago. You wouldn’t go so far as to consider you and Natasha Romanoff friends, but that was the only other time you’d heard that name. A drunken night after a mission gone south. The two of you had been nursing your injuries over a bottle of vodka, not your favorite, but Natasha insisted, when she revealed the only other time she thought she might die.

Clumsily, she’d lifted her shirt to reveal a raised scar just above her hip. “A few years ago, I was escorting a nuclear engineer out of Iran. Somebody shot out my tires near Odessa. We lost control—went straight over a cliff. I pulled us out, but he was there.” If Natasha were the kind of person to shudder, it would have been then. “I was covering the engineer, so he shot him.” Her face went ashen. “Straight through me. Soviet slug, no rifling.”

You’d gone quiet, solemn. It was the first time you’d seen Romanoff look remotely afraid, and there was a heavy way she’d said he, as if it were something more than a random assassin. Bottle gripped tightly in your hand, you’d asked, “Who’s he?”

“Most of the intelligence community doesn’t believe he exists.” Leaning forward, she’d taken a heavy swig from the bottle and didn’t give it back. “The ones that do call him The Winter Soldier. He’s credited with over two dozen assassinations in the last fifty years.”

Thanks to the near-death experience, the two of you had drunk a lot that night. Enough that you—Natasha was somehow spared, woke up with a pounding headache, and less than clear memories of what you’d talked about that night.

Even when you’d overheard Fury and Hill whispering the name, you only vaguely remembered Natasha mentioning that she crossed paths with him once.

And frankly, when you and your team are prepping to take on at least ten Hydra operatives in the name of interception, reality takes precedent over Soviet myths. Although it does leave a bad taste in your mouth that it’s a frigid night in January, and if the so-called Winter Soldier will be joining the party, his namesake gives him seasonal advantage.

An hour ago, you and the rest of the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents selected for the mission loaded into a transport van that took you down to the shipping docks in the name of recon. Everybody was dressed in the same sleek black tactical suit and armed to the teeth.

You’d been adjusting your combat boots when Sharon Carter shoved the agent seated beside you to steal their seat. She ducked low to whisper in your ear, checking once to ensure that the comms in her ear were off. “Is it just me, or were Fury and Hill acting…”

“Cagey?” You’d supplied, relieved that at least one other person shared your suspicions. The van bumped over a crack in the road, forcing the two of you closer as you whispered.

“Yup,” Sharon nodded in agreement, “I mean, what are we actually intercepting?”

Somehow, it had only dawned on you then just how vague the mission details were. “They just said we can’t let Hydra get their hands on it.”

Whatever Sharon had been about to say was interrupted by the quiet roll of the van doors opening. Nothing else had to be said. Conversation time was over. It was time to get into position.

You never considered yourself a particularly impatient person, but there is nothing worse than the minutes leading up to inevitable chaos.

As per instructions, you’re on your stomach, waiting and watching through the scope of your rifle.

The concrete beneath you is damp and gritty, leeching the cold straight through your uniform. Down below, the docks sprawl out: skeletal cranes hunched against the dark sky, cargo containers stacked in uneven towers, each one streaked with rust and faded lettering.

Below the large docks, water slaps against the pylons with a steady, indifferent rhythm.

A heavy fog drifts in from the bay, creeping up the edges of the pier and turning the floodlights into soft halos of yellow. It’s too quiet. Even the gulls are silent, perched on the warehouse roof like they know something’s coming.

You shift slightly, the metal of the rifle cold against your cheek as you steady the scope. You know Sharon is just across the way, scanning the same way you are. Through the crosshairs, the drop point is still empty—an expanse of concrete and shadow.

What you expect is to see the chaos unfold. Instead, it's the sound of quiet footsteps that alerts you that the fight has begun.

One set, getting closer by the second. All that sits behind you but a long stretch of metal walkway. Nowhere to hide for you or the attacker.

You spin at the last second, surging to your feet. He’s just as surprised as you are, not expecting you to move first. He lunges, blade glinting under the floodlights, but you’re faster. The first swing misses your throat by inches; the second catches the side of your sleeve, tearing through the fabric.

You slam the butt of your rifle into his ribs, once, twice, enough to make him stumble but not enough to drop him. He recovers fast, throwing a wild punch that sends you careening into the guardrail. Metal bites into your shoulder.

There’s no time to think. He’s already on you again, knife slashing. You duck low, swing a boot behind his knee, and he crashes forward with a grunt. He’s bigger, heavier, but momentum is your ally, and adrenaline’s already in your veins.

With a shout, you drive your boot into his chest and use your full weight to shove. For a heartbeat, his fingers scrabble uselessly at the railing, and then he’s gone, tipping over the edge.

You don’t watch him fall, you just need to hear it: the sharp splash of water below, swallowed by the roar of the bay.

Before you can even celebrate the win, the first burst of automatic fire tears past. Bullets spark off the metal grating, ricocheting too close to you. Someone’s shouting below.

“They’re on the catwalk!” And suddenly, the night explodes.

Muzzle flashes strobe through the fog. One container goes up in a spray of splinters and shrapnel. Another erupts into flames, painting the air orange. Voices blare in your comms. Hill barking orders, agents shouting over one another, but it’s all noise under the thunder of gunfire.

You duck low and sprint. A grenade detonates somewhere near the loading ramp, the shockwave rattling the catwalk beneath you. Smoke and salt choke the air as you vault over a set of pipes and slide into cover.

That’s when the shot rips past. So close you feel the heat graze your ear, and forcing you to question if it was a matter of skill or pure luck that it did not hit you.

Firing back, and watching in satisfaction as your bullet lands in the center of the Hydra insignia on the man's chest, you duck behind a cargo container to catch your breath.

Predictably, you don’t get more than five seconds. The warning comes through your earpiece a second before you hear a volley of bullets being fired from a few meters away. It’s Hill, sounding more frantic than you’d expected.

“Target incoming from the north.”

“Got it,” You exhale, angling your body in the direction, the gun in your hands aimed toward the sound.

You fire the second you see a combat boot rounding the corner. The team of agents is tight-knit. You know exactly what they wear, how they walk. Nothing about this guy is familiar, and if anything, there is an off-balance trait to his footfalls.

The bullet hits him the second his body moves from behind the storage container. A good shot, clean. Straight through his shoulder. He should have been down. He should have at least been screaming or grabbing at his arm in pain.

Nothing.

The man rolls his shoulder out and keeps stalking forward. Unaffected. Unconcerned.

The oddity of it all shocks you to the extent that you don’t realize someone is coming up behind you until it's too late.

A hand fists in the back of your tactical vest and yanks you off your feet. The world tilts, hard metal slamming into your side as you hit the deck. Instinct takes over. You twist, roll, and bring your knee up just in time to block the downward swing of a combat knife.

It’s close, his breath hot against your cheek as you grapple for control. Over the din of your own fight, you catch flashes of movement in your periphery. Two S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, rifles up, emptying full magazines into the man you shot.

He moves like he’s brushing off raindrops. One agent rushes him and is swatted aside like a rag doll, body hitting a cargo crate with a crack that turns your stomach. The second tries for a flank, the man barely glancing his way before twisting his arm and driving him to his knees.

The distraction costs you. Your opponent’s blade slices low, catching the meat of your thigh and sending white-hot pain racing up your leg. You bite back a yell, duck under his next swing, and slam your elbow into his jaw. He staggers, but it’s not enough.

You slam the butt of your sidearm into his temple. Again. And again, until he crumples to the deck with a groan.

Breathing ragged, you stumble backward, eyes dragged back to the figure still advancing like nothing human. Both agents are down. He’s already turning, already calculating his next target.

Your body slides slowly to the cold floor, palm flat against the wound on your leg. It burns like hell and will need medical attention. For now, it’s not debilitating if you can stop the blood flow.

Keeping one eye on the Hydra agent, you quickly tear a strip from the hem of your undershirt and knot it tightly above the wound, crude but effective, before pressing your palm over the worst of the bleeding.

You’re not even sure what you’re looking at.

At first, you think he might be a robot.

One of his arms is entirely mechanical. Harsh gunmetal reformed into a limb with a red star stamped into his shoulder. Most of his face is concealed by a black mask, his long dark hair falling over his eyes. From what you’d seen, he moves impossibly fast. And if you couldn’t actually see the spot of blood on his shoulder, you wouldn’t even be sure that you shot him.

After taking down two agents in the blink of an eye, he stops, pressing a hand to his ear and listening to whatever orders come through the comms. Right when you climb back to your feet, he pivots and starts moving toward a tower, likely to take a sniper position.

It’s the perfect in and you know it, so you wait a few seconds before following him.

Crouching low, you peek through the opening and see him climbing the stairs two at a time. As you’d suspected, he’s looking to get high up, which gives you enough time to sneak up on him. Keeping him in your line of sight, you step through the opening and glance up the stairs.

You’re smaller than he is, careful not to let the stairs creak as you climb to the first-floor landing and duck around the wall. Just because you don’t think he saw you, doesn’t mean he didn’t.

Holding your breath, you listen to the sound of him ascending when the comms in your ear crackle. It’s an order, the kind you know not to question.

“Agent. Do not engage. I repeat, do not engage.”

If it made any sense, you really wouldn’t question it. Inching further away from the stairwell, you duck your head. “Why? He’s right there, I got him.”

It’s quiet for a moment. The steady crackle of feedback that tells you the line is still open. A second passes, then two, each one tightening the unease in your chest.

And another order comes. “Run.”

This, you do not question.

You sprint back toward the stairs just in time for the man to land mere feet away from you.

His boots slam into the metal, shaking the floor as he lunges. Blue eyes shining with intensity as he comes at you.

You don’t waste a second. You fire.

But the bullet ricochets off the metal arm, not slowing him at all. You squeeze off two more rounds, backing up with every trigger pull, and watch them both ping harmlessly away. He’s too fast, the arm moving in tight, brutal arcs, turning your bullets into nothing.

And then he’s coming at you.

Close enough now that the gun is all but useless. In a practiced move, you drop low and sweep your leg out, hooking behind his knees before spinning up into a brutal kick that drives the heel of your boot into his chest.

The second your boot hits his chest, which may as well have been a wall of steel, the truth is frighteningly clear.

The Winter Soldier.

His hand snaps out, catching your ankle mid-recoil. The grip is vice-tight, impossibly strong, and a heartbeat later, you’re yanked off balance, dragged toward him until the heat of his body crowds the air around you.

You twist, wrench, fight to pull free, but he’s already moving. A gloved hand clamps around your wrist, twisting hard until your weapon clatters uselessly across the concrete. You swing with your free hand; he catches that too, bends your arm just far enough to make pain bloom sharp and hot through your shoulder.

Two dozen assassinations in the past fifty years.

You duck under his next blow and use the spin to your advantage, driving your elbow straight into the wound you put in his shoulder. It’s desperate, ugly, earning you a sharp, bitten-off grunt that finally seems human.

It’s over before you can capitalize on it. He spins, grabs a fistful of your vest, and slams you back into the nearest wall hard enough to knock the breath from your lungs. The world tilts.

He shot him—straight through me.

You lash out again. A hail-Mary knee to his ribs. It’s like hitting stone. He catches your leg mid-swing this time, and suddenly you’re weightless, boots dangling above the ground, body caged by the strength of his hold.

For one suspended second, neither of you move. Your pulse is a drumbeat against your throat. His breath brushes the edge of your jaw. Warm, steady, close enough to count. His eyes are glacial. Focused. A static hum in the inches of space between you.

The second you think maybe you’ve rattled him, his grip tightens.

One sharp pivot and the floor drops out from under you.

Your back hits the wall again, harder this time. Pain ricochets up your spine, teeth clacking as the metal reverberates through you. The blow leaves you limp, muscles refusing to answer as your vision swims and the edges of the room blur.

When it clears, he’s already walking away. Calm. Deliberate. Reloading his weapon with the same ease someone else might light a cigarette. As if you were nothing more than a distraction he’s finished dealing with.

Bracing your palm on the floor, you can shift slightly now, and you grit your teeth, forcing your body into an upright position.

This time, you’re close enough to hear the orders that come through his earpiece: “Soldat. Ustranit' vraga.”

You’re not exactly fluent in Russian, but you know enough to recognize a kill order when you hear it.

This makes you lurch forward. Throwing yourself toward the exit and already knowing it won’t be fast enough. At least it wouldn’t have been were it not for a volley of bullets shooting straight at The Winter Soldier and forcing him to duck for cover.

The second you burst back into the open air, orders crackle through your earpiece.

“Change of plans. Shipment’s been rerouted to Dock 12. Intercept before they load the truck.”

Your boots hammer the slick ground as you run, weaving between crates and muzzle flashes. Sharon falls into step beside you, rifle blazing as she drops two agents in quick succession. You swing around the next container, fire off a burst of rounds, and keep moving.

The fight spills into chaos; smoke, shouts, the echo of gunfire bouncing off steel. Every step forward is a fight, every inch a battle, but the shipment is ahead, and you’re not letting Hydra reach it.

You skid around the final stack of crates and freeze.

One of them is already there. Tall, broad, and armored heavier than the others, a Hydra enforcer is cutting through the last two S.H.I.E.L.D. agents like they’re nothing. One goes down hard; the other crawls for cover, blood streaking the ground. Behind him, a cargo truck rumbles to life, its engine growling like a countdown.

You don’t think. You act.

Your first shot punches into his shoulder. The second ricochets off his chest plate. He turns toward you slowly, with the kind of confidence that makes your stomach clench.

“Sharon—”

“I see him.”

You break left, she breaks right, flanking him as bullets rain from both sides. He roars, swinging a heavy rifle like a club, and you duck just in time for it to whistle over your head. A follow-up kick to his back barely slows him down, but it’s enough to give Sharon an opening. Her next round slams into his thigh, forcing him down on one knee.

He’s still fighting when he charges you again. You meet him head-on, ducking under a wild swing and driving your knee into his ribs. He catches your wrist, twisting until white-hot pain sparks up your arm. You snarl, slam your head forward, and feel the satisfying crack of impact as his nose breaks.

“Get the driver!” Sharon shouts over the sound.

Shoving free, you sprint toward the truck. The enforcer staggers after you, blood streaking down his face, and grabs the edge of your vest. Luckily, Sharon is there to cover you as you reach the reuck.

He’s still moving, still cursing in Russian, when Sharon’s final round takes him down for good.

The truck’s wheels screech against the concrete as the last Hydra agent tries to peel away. You leap onto the hood before it can gain speed. Fingers gripping the cold metal, you slam the butt of your rifle through the window and yank the driver out by his collar. He hits the ground hard, groaning.

It’s quiet again.

The truck’s engine idles, cargo intact. You and Sharon exchange confused look before she jerks her chin toward the container.

“On three.”

The metal groans as you both wrench the doors open, expecting crates of weapons or rows of high-tech hardware. Instead, there’s a single shape crouched in the dark.

A man.

He’s thin, reedy, even, with close-cropped hair and eyes that gleam too sharp for someone who’s supposed to be cargo. A small, unsettling smile curling at the edges of his mouth.

“What the hell…” Sharon mutters under her breath, weapon still trained on him.

He raises his hands slowly, deliberately, like he’s mocking the gesture.

“On your feet,” you snap, stepping forward and grabbing his arm. His skin is clammy, like he’s been sitting in there for hours, maybe days. Whatever this is, it’s not a standard weapons drop.

The two of you move fast, binding his wrists with zip-ties and marching him back toward the rendezvous point.

The man’s strange little smile is still etched into your brain when Sharon stiffens beside you.

“Contact—three o’clock.”

You turn just in time to see a blur of movement cutting through the fog, fast and relentless. The Winter Soldier. He’s not retreating. He’s charging.

The two of you fall into muscle memory, stepping in front of the prisoner and raising your weapons. The air itself feels charged, tense, and then—

A blast of compressed gas fires from somewhere behind you. A lattice of crackling blue wire blossoms midair, wrapping around the charging figure with brutal precision.

The tech is simple, brutal, and S.H.I.E.L.D.-standard: a containment net wired to stun on contact and not stop until the subject’s vitals drop into a safe, non-threatening range. The net blooms in the air like lightning. It hits him square in the chest and detonates into a web of blue-white current, wrapping tight around his torso and limbs. Tiny arcs of electricity crawl across the woven cables, pulsing harder each time he moves.

The impact is violent enough to drop most men flat.

But not him.

He takes one step. Then another. Muscles seize and spasm beneath the crackling wire as he keeps moving, staggering forward like the pain is just another obstacle to conquer. The net bites harder, electricity arcing across his body, the smell of charred fabric and flesh cutting through the cold night air.

And still, he moves.

The sound he makes is primal, ripped straight from somewhere deep in his chest: a bellow, a wordless roar of defiance as his legs threaten to give. His shoulders shake, his breath tears out of him in ragged bursts.

Until, finally, his knees hit the ground.

He drops hard, muscles quivering, every inch of him trembling with the sheer effort it takes to stay upright. His breath comes in harsh, uneven pulls. Sweat beads at his temple. The net crackles on, merciless, crawling up his spine in jagged bolts of blue fire.

Even then, he isn’t done.

With a broken growl, he claws forward. Inch by inch. One hand, then the other, dragging his weight across the concrete. His body convulses with each pull, electricity tearing through every nerve ending, and still he crawls. His knees scrape, legs buckling beneath him as he drags himself forward anyway.

“Jesus Christ,” Sharon breathes, voice barely audible. “He’s still going—”

“Hey!” you shout, voice cracking with the surge of adrenaline. “Hey! Stop moving, you’re just frying yourself!”

It’s pointless. Ridiculous. But you can’t not say it. Because no one does this. No one fights through this. The pain is supposed to make surrender inevitable. It’s supposed to break the body before the will.

He refuses, like he doesn’t know he’s allowed to stop.

His jaw clenched so tightly a vein stands out in his temple. His eyes, those impossible, ice-blue eyes, are wild with pain, glossy with it, and still focused. Still locked on that same man. His breath stutters. A hoarse, ragged sound tears from his throat as he drags himself another inch.

You step forward before you can think, drawn to him by a mix of horror and awe. The air around the net vibrates with power, hissing and snapping. Instinct takes over. Your hand reaches out, brushing the crackling wire. Agony bites into your palm. White-hot, searing. You yank back with a sharp gasp, the stink of your own burned skin joining the electric tang in the air.

“Damn it!” You hiss, shaking your hand. “I said stop! You’re only making this worse!”

It is as if someone far away is controlling him with a remote.

It takes another thirty seconds before the crawling stops. Before his arms finally buckle and the strength drains out of him. Even then, he collapses slow, fighting gravity until the last second, until his cheek hits the concrete and the world goes still.

Part 2 - Medical Restraints

The S.H.I.E.L.D. base is a mess of even more chaos than usual.

The west med bay overflowing with agents all in need of attention in the post-mission phase.

Neither you nor Sharon escaped the ordeal unscathed, but your injuries pale in comparison to what some of the others have suffered, so you linger in the hall outside the door until things calm down.

On a regular day, there are two emergency rooms prepped and ready for mission fallout. Today, no one dares step into the room across the hall. It’s occupied.

The whispers have risen steadily in the past hour. Ranging from disbelief, scorn, and fear.

Is The Winter Soldier real?

Did S.H.I.E.L.D. actually manage to catch him?

Fury and Hill have been annoyingly absent. The second you and Sharon arrived back at the base with the ‘cargo’, they dismissed you for medical treatment without an explanation. Both of your many questions about who the man is, if they knew the shipment would be a human, and what the hell they want to do with him now have gone unanswered.

The two of you came to a silent agreement to at least not tell everyone else about the mystery, but it eats at you now.

Your palm burns, the wound in your thigh throbbing as you glance once toward the door of the room holding The Winter Soldier.

When The Asset wakes up, he is restrained.

It is not unusual for him to be tied down. Horizontal.

Especially in rooms like this. Sterile with fluorescent lights. Medical equipment lining the walls.

A sharp flare in his shoulder makes him flinch. Jolting against the restraints anchoring him to the bed.

The doctor closest to him jumps back. Afraid. This is unusual.

They are supposed to be used to it. Ignore it when he screams or pulls away. Normally, they do not stop.

The doctor's voices scramble over each other in a panic.

His skin burns. A web of heat that wraps around his body. Electric barbed wire.

He remembers falling. The net.

What is this place?

“Get more sedative! I don’t know how the hell he’s still awake!”

Slowly, his senses come back to him. A sharp sound muffled by the muzzle when someone tries to touch his shoulder.

The door opens with a bang, one of the doctors sprinting out.

Through the hall, he can see you.

Alarmed and already reaching for your gun like the blonde woman beside you.

You. You were there when the net trapped him. Ordering him to hold still.

A hand is back at The Assets shoulder. This time, his entire body jerks away. Skin barking in protest. Like the nets electricity is still coursing through his veins.

The Asset tries to hold still. To stay calm. But he always hates when they restrain him like this.

From experience he knows. Rooms like this always make the pain even worse.

And he tries. He does. Fighting the confusion in his head.

For a moment, he inhales. Exhales. Takes in his surroundings because they will punish him if he fights too much. For a moment he is calm. And then everything changes.

He snaps.

Sharon tramples your foot as she staggers back from the open door.

Up until seconds ago, things had been relatively under control. Or as close to control as anything gets when it involves a living weapon. Now? The med bay is a warzone.

You don’t know much about science, but even you know it’s strange, unnatural, that no amount of sedatives can keep The Winter Soldier unconscious.

The muzzle is still locked tight over his mouth, but his eyes are wide open, wild, snapping from face to face with feral precision.

And then there’s the rest of him. The bare rest of him. His upper body is stripped down to skin, all scarred muscle and sweat-slicked tension—the burn marks from the net still angry and red across his chest and shoulders. It’s brutal, wrong to see someone like that and still feel the air hum with danger.

The inevitable comes fast. The metal arm rips free of the restraint bolting it to the bedframe with a crack. A surgical tray goes flying through the door, spinning end over end before smashing into the wall hard enough to dent it. You and Sharon both duck, the clang echoing down the corridor.

Your gun is in your hand before you even register pulling it, sights trained on the open doorway.

Risking a glance down the hall confirms your suspicion. Fury and Hill are here, and between them, the man from the container walks in shackles, head held high, the picture of arrogance.

Fury’s gaze cuts to the med bay, to the chaos spilling out of it. His jaw tightens, and then he’s shouting, voice carrying over the alarm klaxons and shouting agents.

“Enough! Treat him as hostile. Full containment protocols, now. Get him out of medical and into Vault 13! I don’t want him anywhere near civilians or staff.”

Vault 13. A place designed for things that don’t stay down.

More agents flood the hall in seconds: armed, armored, coordinated. It takes six of them to wrestle him to the ground, another two to secure the thrashing metal arm in heavy cuffs. Even muzzled and drugged, he’s fighting like something rabid, his muscles straining, chest heaving, the sharp snarl of his breath audible through the mask.

You watch, gun still raised, as they drag him past the door. His boots scraping against the tile. A smear of blood and burn against pale skin.

He’s being pulled down the corridor, deeper into the belly of S.H.I.E.L.D., where steel and electricity will be all that keeps the rest of the world safe from him.

Part 3 - Pinned to the Wall

You wait until the base quiets down. Intentionally postponing your medical treatment so you’re the last one in the med bay.

One shot of anesthetic later and the wound in your thigh is stitched, dressing wrapped around the burn on your palm.

With carefully deft fingers, you may have stolen some medical supplies that you're confident no one will miss. Keeping an eye out, you shove them into one of the many pockets in your suit and step back into the hall.

Almost everyone is gone. Either back to their homes or crashing in one of the bunks on the upper levels. Even Sharon called it a night, only leaving when you promised to be close behind her. You were lying, of course, but what Sharon doesn’t know won’t hurt her.

What you don’t know gnaws at you. That same uneasy feeling that seeded when you saw The Winter Soldier thrashing in that net.

It leads you down one floor to where Fury, Hill, and a select few have been stationed with the man from the docks for the past few hours. As if he could sense you coming, Fury meets you right outside the door.

A frown furrows his brow. Different from the stern look you’d grown accustomed to.

“Who is he?” The question is out before you can find a more tactful way to get information.

When Fury shakes his head, you can tell he’s lost rather than withholding. “Wish I knew. The guy won’t say a word. Not a fucking word in twelve hours.”

“Seriously?” Your eyes narrow. Everyone knows that S.H.I.E.L.D.’s methods of interrogation are often… unorthodox. You’d seen the agents Fury selected to help him deal with the man. They never leave a room without answers. Not to mention that the man himself hadn’t looked all that impressive, at least physically. “You’re telling me he’s holding up against—”

“We aren’t doing that.” Fury looks at her, almost startled. “We don’t know that he’s a threat. And frankly, we aren’t even sure the guy speaks English.”

Surprise makes you blink. Because, according to the intel you’ve been receiving for the past week, the shipment Hydra was expecting to receive had been considered a Level Five threat. “Russian?”

“Who knows. Where the hell is Romanoff when you need her?”

“Derek speaks Russian,” You point out.

“Derek's an idiot.”

“I speak a little.” The offer falls flat. Both of you know that the amount of Russian you know is not enough to get any helpful information out of this guy. Before you can incriminate yourself any further, you lie again. “I’m heading out then.”

“Yeah, see you tomorrow,” Fury just nods once, already heading back into the room.

Which is perfect. He doesn’t see you descending the stairs and finding Vault 13.

It was easy to convince the agent on duty to leave their post.

Nobody likes taking overnight watch. Especially not for Vault 13. Especially not when the rumored Winter Soldier is just behind the thick metal doors.

You, on the other hand, are too curious to be afraid.

Waiting until the agent is gone, you push through the door and step inside.

Vault 13 sits at the far end of a heavily reinforced corridor. The hallway narrows into a short antechamber; the lights dimmer. Ahead of you, behind a thick pane of reinforced glass, is the most dangerous man alive.

The Winter Soldier is no longer thrashing. No longer fighting. They’ve made sure of that.

He’s upright, pinned to a reinforced metal wall by a lattice of restraints.

Both arms are pulled wide, the metal one shackled into a magnetic lock that hums faintly when you draw close. His legs are forced apart, ankles bolted to the floor, and a heavy band cinches across his chest, tight enough that you can see the rise and fall of his breathing beneath it.

The muzzle is still on.

The first thing that hits you is how still he is. His eyes are open, fixed on some indeterminate point in the middle distance, unnervingly motionless. As if even the act of resisting has been beaten out of him.

His hair hangs in dark, damp strands around his face. There’s a split in his lip, a dried streak of blood at his temple. Across his torso: a map. Old, silvered scars crossing fresh burns; a puckered mark beneath the left clavicle; newer scorches striping the lines of his ribs.

Even without the armor, he looks weaponized.

For a long moment, you just stand there, separated by the glass.

You tell yourself you’re only here to look. To understand what they’re dealing with. To remind yourself why they had to do this. The longer you watch him, the harder it is to convince yourself that’s true.

He doesn’t move when you approach—hardly acknowledging you at all. And yet, as you draw closer to the glass, a flicker of something crosses his face. Barely perceptible, gone before you can name it.

Recognition, maybe. Or curiosity.

The keycard trembles slightly between your fingers because every instinct you have is screaming that this is a very, very bad idea.

For a second, you question if this is stupid. If you should turn around and ignore the strange feeling in your chest for better or for worse. Deciding for you, the lock clicks open.

The door seals hiss as they release, and a wave of cold air greets you the second you step inside. The temperature here is lower than the rest of the facility, hitting the raw skin of your knuckles with a sharp, needling sting.

Gooseflesh rises across his chest and shoulders; his skin is too warm for a room this cold, heat ghosting into the air between you.

The door closes behind you.

Up close, the restraints look even more brutal.

He’s watching you now. Still as ever.

It’s unnerving, the way his eyes track you, the way a hawk might track something moving across the ground. Precise. Unreadable.

Your boots break the silence as you take another cautious step forward. The plastic water bottle in your hand crinkles slightly under the pressure of your grip. You don’t even remember grabbing it, some impulse to offer something, anything. The carrot or the stick, and you really don’t think the stick will work on him, but now it feels absurd, almost insulting, against the scale of him.

The muzzle means you can’t see much of his expression. Even so, the eyes are enough. Icy, focused, threatening without trying.

You hover a few feet away, just outside of reach, not that he has any reach, and suddenly it’s too quiet. The soft hum of the restraints, the slow rhythm of his breath, the rush of your own pulse in your ears.

He’s not a ghost. He’s not a myth.

He’s a man, chained to a wall, watching you walk closer with eyes that haven’t decided yet whether you’re a threat or something else entirely.

You stop a few feet in front of him. Just far enough to feel safe, close enough that if he could move, you’d have time to back away. The bottle hangs loosely at your side, condensation slick against your fingers.

“Alright,” you murmur, more to fill the silence than anything else, before trying to run through the little Russian you do know. “YA sobirayus' zadat' tebe vopros.” I’m going to ask you a question.

You’re not even sure if he hears you.

You nod at the restraints pinning him to the wall. “Ty sobirayesh'sya popytat'sya napast' na menya?” Are you going to try and attack me?

It’s a stupid question. With the magnetic locks and cross-brace over his chest, he couldn’t reach you even if he wanted to. For some reason, you’re desperate to know how he’ll respond.

Slowly, shortly, he shakes his head.

“Good,” you say, and it sounds steadier than you expected. Possibly because that was exactly what you’d expected him to say. Dots you hadn’t even connected until now.

On the docks, he could have easily killed you. You were down, too dizzy to fight back or even move, and all he’d done was walk away. It wasn’t until direct orders came through his earpiece that he looked at you like anything more than an obstacle.

You take a step closer, letting your gaze flick briefly to his shoulder. The skin is stained a deep rust-brown around the hole you put in him. The edges are still raw, angry.

You tilt your head, professional and detached. Or trying to be. “Pulya proshla navylet?” The bullet went clean through?

He hesitates, just for a second, before nodding once.

You ask the next question quickly. “Did they at least cauterize it?” English, for two reasons. One, no one ever taught you the Russian word for cauterize. And two, you’re certain he did understand your English when he was trapped in the net earlier.

This time, he shakes his head. You’re not sure if the tiny coil in your chest is foolish, misplaced sympathy.

The silence stretches again. It’s heavier this time, crowded with all the things you want to ask and all the things you know you shouldn’t. Curiosity wins.

You shift your weight slightly, eyes never leaving his face, by now, you’ve abandoned your attempts at Russian. “Who is that man?”

For the first time, something changes. His expression, if you can call it that, shutters completely. His gaze slides away from you, fixing on a point somewhere over your shoulder. No nod. No shake of the head. Nothing.

The question hangs in the air between you, unanswered and humming like static.

Silence stretches until it almost starts to feel like a power play. You cross your arms, studying him the way you would a suspect in an interrogation room.

“Were you going to kill him?” You ask finally.

Nothing. Not a twitch, not a breath out of place. His gaze stays fixed somewhere past you, as though the question never happened.

“Why is he here?”

It’s subtle, a flicker. A hitch in his breath. The smallest, involuntary flinch.

And suddenly, it clicks.

The net. That relentless, desperate thrashing wasn’t just rage. He wasn’t looking at you or Sharon or the dozens of agents aiming rifles at his chest. He was staring past you, at him.

And in the med bay, when all hell broke loose, it hadn’t been the doctors or the restraints or the pain that pushed him over the edge like everyone assumed. It was the moment that man walked by the door.

You glance at The Winter Soldier again, really look at him this time. The tightness in his jaw, the way his pulse beats hard at his throat. There’s no way to know for sure. But if you didn’t know better, you’d almost say it looked like fear.

You should leave it. You should. And if your eyes would stop drifting to the black muzzle strapped across the lower half of his face, you might have been able to.

Up close, it’s worse than you expected. The edges dig harshly into his skin, leaving angry red welts along his cheekbones and jaw. The material cuts into the soft space beneath his eyes. Every breath he takes sounds shallow and forced, like he’s dragging air through too-small gaps.

Against your better judgment, your hand is already moving, hovering near the strap.

“Don’t bite me.” You murmur, part bad joke, part warning, just to alleviate the suffocating silence.

The clasp resists you at first; intense Hydra tech meant to keep it locked in place. You fumble for a while until it gives with a soft click. The muzzle comes free with a slow, reluctant hiss.

The reaction is instant.

Air rasps over his bare throat, the tendons standing out as he drags it in like it hurts to breathe, and he’ll do it anyway.

A sharp, uncontrolled gasp rips from his chest, his whole body jolting as the first real breath of air hits his lungs. His head tips back just slightly as he drags in another breath, and another. The relief is raw and physical, impossible to hide, and for the first time since you walked in, his eyes betray him.

It’s there, just for a heartbeat. Relief.

You just stand there, the weight of the muzzle heavy in your hand, and try to reconcile the myth you’ve heard about with the man gasping for air right in front of you.

Turning the muzzle over once in your hands before setting it aside, you try not to think about how light it feels compared to the damage it’s done. The water bottle is still clutched loosely in your grip.

A step forward.

His gaze follows the water instantly. It’s instinctive: a predator tracking movement. At a closer glance, it looks simpler, more human. His lips are cracked, Adam's apple bobbing as he swallows around the dryness. The need is obvious, written in the smallest clues of his body and the way his eyes linger on the bottle.

You lift the bottle, uncap it, and raise it toward his mouth.

The rim bumps his lower lip and a droplet slides off the plastic and tracks over the cut at the corner of his mouth, down the hollow at the base of his throat.

That’s when the shift happens.

The hunger is still there. Layered now. Tangled with something older. He tenses, head jerking back a fraction, a subtle recoil like he’s bracing for the worst. His eyes dart to yours.

They are full of suspicion. Like the instinct is carved deep. A lifetime of never trusting what’s offered.

Your chest tightens with understanding.

This isn’t at all what you’d expected. He’s acting less like a threat and more like a rescued hostage who still hasn’t learned to trust the world. Just a few months ago, you and Natasha brought down a Red Room warehouse and brought back half a dozen girls to be reunited with their families. None of them even ate the food offered to them until they saw you and Natasha biting into the sandwiches.

More surprised than anything, you bring the bottle to your own lips and take a sip. Intentionally unbothered. Then you lower it again, hold his gaze, and offer it back.

This time, he doesn’t look at the water. He looks at you.

Slowly, he leans forward. The cool rim brushes against his lower lip. It’s almost imperceptible the way his eyes flutter closed for a heartbeat, the faint tremor that runs through him as the water touches his tongue.

No, this isn’t similar to a recovered hostage. It’s exactly the same.

It’s greed and resistance all at once. He drinks in short, careful swallows, his body pulling him closer even as his shoulders stay tense, ready to flinch away at any second. You tilt the bottle a little more, and his throat works as he swallows again, each movement betraying how long it’s been since anyone offered him something without force.

When the last swallow is gone, you lower the bottle and step back,. His breathing is steadier. His shoulders still haven’t loosened, but the harsh edge of tension has dulled into something quieter. Watchful. Waiting.

You tilt your head slightly, breaking the quiet first. “So you guys do speak English.”

For a beat, there’s nothing. Just the hum of the magnetic locks and the faint rasp of his breath. Then, finally, like the words are being dragged from somewhere deep:

“I prefer Russian.”

It’s flat, mechanical. The cadence is too smooth, too even, as if he’s repeated that exact sentence a hundred times before. It sounds less like preference and more like a line he’s been taught to give.

You hum quietly under your breath, neither agreeing nor arguing. “Do you have a name?”

A slight shake of his head. At first, it looks like a refusal before you realize what is really is. Confusion. The question doesn’t compute.

“Do you?” He asks after a long moment, voice low and hoarse, eyes locked on yours.

You shake your head, shrugging slightly. “Not if you don’t.”

Clearing your throat, you let your weight shift back to one hip, eyeing the torn flesh and dark stain around his shoulder. “You realize you fought off a team of doctors trying to deal with that bullet wound, right?”

He blinks once. No denial, no defense. It is as if he genuinely doesn’t remember fighting anyone. Like his body acted on its own.

“You shot me.” He says, more fact than accusation.

Right, of course he’d remember that. “Didn’t seem to affect you much.”

Your gaze drifts back to his shoulder. Up close, the damage is worse than you’d thought. The net caused the fabric of his tac suit to fuse to the wound in places, even after the doctors cut it off. A jagged ring of dried blood circles where the bullet punched clean through.

That’s not the only thing making your stomach twist.

It’s the way the restraints hold him. Arms spread and pulled taut, chest bound back against the cold steel of the wall. His weight isn’t centered. Every muscle in his body strained. He can’t even take a breath without pushing his chest against the band crossing it, sawing the harness into him.

And every slight shift tugs at the healing wound, a mean little pull at the edge of torn tissue.

It’s a wonder he hasn’t said anything about the pain. The setup itself is pain.

Your eyes keep moving, unwilling but unable to stop. And that’s when you see the rest of it.

The burns.

They lace across his skin in an ugly, angry pattern. Deep, jagged streaks where the net’s current kissed exposed flesh. Some are faint, others are raw and blistered, darkened and split along his forearm, his neck, the side of his jaw. Considering the pain in your palm, you can’t imagine how it would feel to have that covering most of your body.

You swallow hard, remembering the way he thrashed inside the net, how the electric hum didn’t stop until his body finally did. The acrid smell of scorched fabric and scorched skin. Now, standing this close, you can almost feel the residual heat coming off those burns.

The worst part? He hasn’t made a sound. Hasn’t complained once or attempted to shift away from the pull of the restraints. He just stands there, silent and still, like this is all he’s ever known.

It does something strange to your chest.

“I can help,” You say finally, not even realizing your tone has already shifted from interrogatory to cautious. The same treatment you give to hostages. To people so clearly afraid and in pain. “I’m not a doctor, but…”

You’d watched for a reason, hadn’t you? When the medics upstairs cleaned and treated the burn on your hand. Normally, you don’t concern yourself with how doctors do the things they do. All you ever want to know is how quickly you can be back in action again.

When he finally nods, you start at the neck.

The skin there is mottled red and black, streaked with raised welts that trace the shape of the net’s wires.

Up close, you can see where the fabric of his suit melted and fused to him, where electricity bit straight through into flesh.

You soak the cloth in cool saline and press it to the worst of it. Liquid gathers at his collarbone, then slips down the notch of his sternum in a cold line.

His head snaps back; a ripped-off noise punches from his throat before he can catch it.

It builds there first. In the shallow hitch of his chest, the breath that stalls half-formed behind clenched teeth. You can see the fight in the line of his throat, the way his body braces like it might hold the sound in by sheer will.

Your hand drags lower, wiping away the soot with more pressure now. The movement coaxes a small, involuntary twitch from his abdomen. A ripple beneath the skin, like his body’s trying to flinch even though the restraints won’t let him.

At first, there’s just breath. Uneven, shaky. Then a hiss, teeth clenched so hard you can hear the grind of enamel. His shoulders pull tight against the wall, muscles locking in a losing fight against the current of pain crawling through him.

You know what those muscles are capable of. The same ones that ripped through a dozen armed agents on the docks. Now they’re shaking beneath a scrap of wet cloth, every ounce of lethal strength made useless by something as simple as pain.

Another swipe. Deeper pressure. The cloth snags over charred skin, and his chest stutters on a breath that dies halfway out. A low sound ghosts past his lips, too soft to name, half-swallowed before it ever reaches the air. Instinct, not intention.

He’s been taught, you realize, to stifle his reactions.

You keep going. The next pass earns more than a twitch. His jaw clamps harder, veins standing out along his neck as the restraint bites into his wrists. Every muscle in his chest jumps under your palm, ribs flaring with each harsh inhale. It’s like watching a dam fracture one crack at a time.

And then it happens.

The first real sound breaks free—a sharp, strangled whimper, raw and unguarded, clawing its way out of his chest. His head jerks against the wall with a hollow clang, metal clanking as his biceps flex hard against the cuffs. The sound lingers in the air, thin and wrecked. A confession he never meant to give.

It’s enough to make you freeze. Until logic catches up: the faster you go, the quicker this will be over. For both of you.

You press again, firmer this time, dragging the damp cloth along the burn to lift soot and char. His breath comes out in uneven bursts now, each one shuddering through his chest. The next sound is quieter, more desperate, vibrating low in his throat as his knees nearly buckle, body instinctively trying to curl away before the restraints drag him upright again. The lines of his obliques jump under your palm; his ribs flare and fall too fast.

“Sorry,” you mutter, barely audible. Then bite the inside of your cheek, furious you even said it.

When you reach for the next patch of damage, the breath stalls in your lungs.

You take in his bare abdomen. The tactical fabric must have ridden up and torn in the struggle, leaving broad planes of skin exposed and burned beneath the harsh light. The net hadn’t spared him there either. Blackened streaks and jagged, blistered trails slash right across the ridges of his abdomen, cutting cruel lines over muscle that tightens and shifts with every shallow breath. You brace yourself and press the soaked cloth against them.

The muscles clench under your hand so hard the V of his hips tightens; his breath breaks, head dropping and lifting again as another helpless sound slips free.

The sound he makes can only be described as a groan, low and guttural, strangled halfway between pain and instinct. His abs contract violently beneath your touch, every muscle jumping under the shock of contact. His head drops forward, chin nearly touching his chest, hair falling over his face as another broken grunt slips free.

And still, he doesn’t fight. Doesn’t curse. Doesn’t speak. He just endures.

You work faster now, because you have to. Cool liquid drips down his stomach in thin rivulets as you swipe the antiseptic over blistered skin. The sharp sting drags another hiss between clenched teeth, his breath ragged and shallow.

The cream is worse. When you smooth it over the worst of the burns, his body goes rigid. Every muscle pulled taut, trembling, a barely contained quake that shudders through him. He tries to brace against it, shoulders pressed hard to the wall as if sheer strength could keep the sound inside.

It doesn’t.

The first exhale frays apart, unraveling into something rawer—a moan, low and guttural. Dragged from somewhere deep and helpless. His eyes squeeze shut, lashes trembling, and the sheer humanity of it hits you square in the chest.

It’s too much. The smell of scorched skin. The way his abdomen clenches violently under your hands. The fact that the most dangerous man alive is hanging here, gasping and shuddering, when earlier a bullet through the shoulder hadn’t even slowed him down.

You steady him without thinking, fingers splayed under his lower ribs to keep him from twisting. His body betrays him anyway. In a sharp, involuntary jerk, his hips buck forward. A ragged grimace cutting across his face as it happens.

The reaction is raw, too revealing, and shame flickers across his features in its wake. His jaw locks, eyes darting away from yours, as if refusing to acknowledge how much of himself he just gave away.

The motion knocks your breath loose, a reminder that no amount of control can fully cage what’s breaking inside him.

You swallow hard and keep moving, because if you stop now, neither of you will make it through this.

The burns are bad. The burns are brutal. And the shoulder, the shoulder is worse.

Up close, you can see how the blast welded shreds of fabric into the entry wound. Blackened threads crust the rim, tiny charred flecks stuck in the torn flesh like grit. Some are hair-fine, almost invisible until the light hits; others are glossy, melted beads clinging to the edge. You know enough to understand that it can’t stay.

You flood the area with saline first, then bring the tip of your knife in to dig the pieces out. The point slips under a fused fragment and you lift slowly.

The sound he makes when the blade drags too close to the wound is nothing short of wrecked. A sharp argh slips from his throat, followed by a hiss that trembles at the edges. His head jerks back again, the muscles in his neck corded and tight.

It’s… different from anyone else you’ve seen. Most people scream, thrash, curse loudly. He doesn’t. He hardly reacts. Small, involuntary spasms that betray how deep the pain cuts. A quiver in the defined muscles of his abdomen, the twitch of a jaw trying to stay clenched, the heavy drop of his head when the agony gets too much.

And God, there’s something about that restraint, about the way he takes it, that’s worse than any scream. It’s so controlled, so deliberate, like he’s trained every inch of his body not to fight what’s happening.

When the last scrap of ruined fabric peels free, his breath shudders out of him like it’s been held for too long. He’s sweating now, a thin sheen across his temple and throat that makes you question how you ever found him robotic in the first place. When his eyes find yours, they’re glassy and pleading without a single word spoken.

You reach for the antiseptic next, tilting the vial just enough to let a slow stream run over the torn skin. It’s too much. His shoulder jerks violently against the restraint, fingers twitching as his jaw goes slack and a low, strangled sound escapes. This one is part hiss, part groan.

When his body jerks, the mag-lock on the metal wrist hums louder, blue light pulsing. “It’ll alert someone if you keep fighting,” You warn him. “I can… stop if it’s too much.”

“Keep going.” The words are barely a breath, so quiet you almost think you imagined them. But you can feel his breath ghosting your cheek. They’re real. They’re a command. A plea. Both.

You do. Because how could you not?

You work faster now, pressing the cloth against raw skin, every touch drawing a new sound out of him. His knees bend again, muscles trembling as if his body wants to fold in on itself, but the restraints don’t let him. They force him to stand there and take it, every motion etched across his features: the hard line of his jaw, the flutter of his lashes, the tiny muscle jumping beneath one eye.

When you finally pull your hand away to grab the burn cream, his breath catches. His head tips forward, eyes half-lidded and searching for you.

“Don’t stop.”

Like a reflex. Like some part of him needs this, needs it finished, needs it to end.

So you don’t.

The gel goes on cool, slick, a thin line of relief chasing the burn it leaves in its wake. His eyes flutter closed, breath coming in short, shaky bursts as the tension bleeds out of him inch by inch.

Is the title a ref to that Hozier song? Love it!

"Rooms like this always make the pain even worse." My poor Bucky :(

"Vault 13. A place designed for things that don’t stay down." Effective use of words (leaves enough to the imagination) but also the words are carefully chosen: "things" instead of "people"

SHIELD not being perfect (the implied torture ("Everyone knows that S.H.I.E.L.D.’s methods of interrogation are often… unorthodox") and leaving him restrained and his wounds untreated)

“Derek's an idiot.” hehe

"The clasp resists you at first; intense Hydra tech meant to keep it locked in place." PLUS that whole muzzle-removal scene. Showed the desperation super well.

"He’s acting less like a threat and more like a rescued hostage who still hasn’t learned to trust the world." YESSSS, then the realization later: "No, this isn’t similar to a recovered hostage. It’s exactly the same."

"He’s been taught, you realize, to stifle his reactions." aaah my buckyyyyyy :((((((

The sounds slowly being released? Oh goodness. Poor baby.

I think there's also a lot of meaning behind the "do you have a name"//"not if you don't" exchange. I'm trying to figure it out. Building a sense of unity/connection? I know there's a Doyalist explanation (didn't wanna say Y/n and risk breaking the immersion) but I also am trying to think of thematic or Holmsian explanations.

In conclusion: I loved this and will 100% be checking out the rest of your blog. Have a lovely day!