Chapter Text
Compromised.
The Asset’s Health has been compromised. There was a rifle—CZ 550, ammunition .338 Lapua Magnum—and it pierced his upper right arm. Close to the deltoid. Damage assessed, non-lethal.
Will not need attention. Asset will proceed as ordered with the mission.
The mission has been completed. The targets are dead. Collateral five people, one house. No tracks left.
With the mission completed, the Asset will return to his handler.
The Asset is compromised, and cannot return to his handler. The handler is across the ocean—Atlantic, over 100,000 kilometers—and should not be contacted unless the mission fails.
The mission was a success.
The Asset will return to his handler.
The Asset is compromised. He cannot return to his handler.
The handler should not be contacted.
In a back alley of a city, the Solider leans against the dirtied brick wall, clutching at his head.
It hurts. Everything hurts. Electricity is shocking and pounding at his head, and it hurts. His shoulder is throbbing, and when he touches it, his fingers come away red.
That is his blood.
The Solider did not know he could bleed. He knew of pain, but this is different. This cannot be eased by compliance. He has been wounded.
He is not supposed to be wounded.
Ever.
The Asset will not be phased by pain.
But it hurts.
In the event that the Asset is compromised, he will return to his handler.
The Soldier cannot return to his handler. He can barely even stand up, and the wound is small, but also deep. He thinks, when he peels away his suit to assess the wound again, that he can see some bone sticking out of it.
The Asset is compromised.
He is well aware of that. His head fucking hurts.
In the event of weakness, the Asset will return to his handler for assessment of the programming.
He cannot return to his handler. His handler is across the ocean, and the Soldier has somehow ended up on the pavement of this alley, and God, his head really, really hurts-
Should the Asset isolated from his handler, he will find somewhere safe.
That was new.
The Soldier has never felt that order before. It is as if the thought breaching through layers, peeling up from the bottom of his head, pushing from where it may have been buried.
The Asset will remain where it is safe until he is no longer compromised, or he is retrieved by his handler.
Safe. Where it is safe.
The Soldier just has to find where it is safe.
Locations approved for safety are any Hydra layers or labs. The Asset will not be seen with S.H.E.I.L.D agents under any circumstances, or engage with unapproved Hydra agents. He will remain docile unless given direct orders to do otherwise.
There are no more Hydra labs in the Soldier’s immediate path. He just destroyed the last one.
Target, two men who have strayed from Hydra’s mission-
Everything hurts. He finished the mission, but he is compromised, and he can’t go to his handler, but he cannot go anywhere safe, nowhere is safe, everything hurts-
Should the Asset be isolated from his handler, he will find somewhere safe.
No where is safe. The Solider presses on the wound, and more pain shoots up his arm.
The Asset is compromised.
The Solider is going to beat his head against the wall.
The Asset should not cause himself any harm that may compromise his health.
The Asset is compromised.
In the event of weakness, the Asset will return to his handler for assessment of the programming.
Should the Asset isolated from his handler, he will find somewhere safe.
Locations approved for safety are-
The Soldier roars, and it echoes. Sends animals scurrying away, makes the whole night silent for only a second. It hurts, it fucking hurts, and he cannot comply, he has to comply, if he does not, the sky will fall, and all this pain would increase and nowhere is-
If the Asset is experience distress at his actions, he will return to his-
Something cracked. The bricks of the wall, as the Solider has slammed his good fist—the better one, that couldn’t be broken—into the wall.
The Asset should not cause himself any harm that may compromise his health.
The Asset is compromised.
The Soldier slumps back down to the concrete. He is pretty certain this loop has occurred before—he can never be sure of anything, but there are vague images of people in white coats poking at his brain and muttering about how they’d messed up the code—and it will likely just end with Hydra finding him, isolating the breach, and locking him back in a chair.
The Asset is compromised.
He is fucked. The Asset, the Solider, whatever, he’s fucked. He’s hurt, and stranded, and nowhere is-
Should the Asset isolated from his handler, he will find somewhere safe.
Locations approved for safety are-
All the Hydra warehouses and layers were destroyed-
No.
The Soldier frowns. That’s new. It’s coming from even deeper than the safety order, and it feel like his brain was being shredded and burned, but it was—and always is—easier to just comply.
There is one safe location in the Asset’s area. The safest location. Go to the safest location, and they will take care of you.
People don’t take care of the Solider, that’s not what he’s-
Go to the safest location.
But nowhere is safe, and-
Sirens start to blare from the road, the night growing blue and red and flashing and fuck-
The Soldier covers his ears—hissing as something tore in his shoulder from the movement—and the new order grows louder.
The safest location. Go. Now.
He doesn’t have directions. The Solider was usually provided with directions.
But right now, he doesn’t need them.
He just pushed up off the ground, stumbles down the alley, and knows exactly where he was going on instinct.
The safest location.
Whoever came up with college needs to be shot. Whoever came up with internships needs to be tarred and feathered and drawn and quartered and-
Huh.
You were paying attention in that history class.
It had still been a waste of your time, but most things felt like they were. You’re tired, and hungry, and there are little blisters and callous all over your hands from work—not work, if it was work you would be paid—and you really just want to sleep for a million years, but you have to get home first.
You just have to get home.
It had started to storm, while you were inside. Sudden and without warning, heavy and cold, where you couldn’t tell if it was storming, or if the sky was falling down in tiny, biting, frozen fragments. There were safety alerts about harsh conditions when you finished up, and a smarter person would’ve heeded them. Would’ve locked down in the warm building with the vending machines and excellent plumbing, instead of getting in their beaten down car to drive home.
Through the storm, on the iced roads and in the pitch black.
But you’re not a smarter person. All your smart has been spent on stretching budgets and working until your feet were swollen, and you just want to go home. To sleep in a bed that’s a little lumpy, but yours. Eat food that isn’t pre-approved for the lab. Throw some more darts at the photo of your history professor, the one you’d pinned on the back of your door.
You’re so close. Ten minutes. All you can see out the window is blurs of white, disappearing into the darkness and shimmering for split seconds in your high beams. They’re barely enough to see anything but a foot in front of you, and God, you hope there’s no one ahead of you, because if you’re blinding someone and they decided to pull over and yell at you, you’re going to burst into tears-
It happens too quick. You’re not going fast, but you’re going fast enough, and for a second you think you’re seeing things.
He’s like a ghost. A large, broad figure coming into your view—meaning he was close to your car, close enough for your headlights to let you see him—before vanishing. Into nothing.
You haven’t slept in almost forty hours. You’re probably just finally losing your mind.
But you look in your rearview mirror anyway. Just to check.
And there’s an overhead streetlight, casting a faint glow in the night and illuminating the night just enough to let you see shadows, and-
He’s there.
Off to the side of the road.
The figure is standing so still he could be a shadow himself, the streetlight giving him an odd halo, and you can feel him. Feel his eyes deeper in your skin than they should be, feel something very, very deep in your chest starting to stir, feel an odd, magnetic type of force that’s boiling in your blood and shooting up your spine, telling you to go back. Turn around. Nothing in the world is more important than turning around and returning to his side, because you are tired and hungry and thirsty, but this is a newer, rawer need. It’s deeper. More primal. You’ve seen him and if you don’t see him again you may wither away and you need him. More than air, you need to turn around.
You’re not a smarter person, but you’re not an idiot. You’ve haven’t survived this long on your own by helping strange, large men standing in the middle of the road during storms. You’ve heard horror stories and had some of your own, and it is way too long a day already to end with you being hurt-
You won’t get hurt. He can’t hurt you.
He’s a ghost in a storm. You’re pretty sure, in the brief flash you got of him, that there was something red coating his body.
He won’t hurt you. He’s safe.
You need to turn around, before it’s too late.
This is fucking insane.
You’re not a fool. And you just want to go-
That’s home. Home is behind you.
“God- Fuck.” You’ve stopping the car. You’re not sure when you did that, but the engine is idle, and it’s only you and the low sound of the radio as you bow your head to the wheel.
It would be impossibly stupid to turn around.
But that feeling in your gut is loud. Demanding. Running through your blood and turning into a song or hymn, calling you like a war drum to turn around.
And it’s warm.
The whole night is so very cold, but this feeling is making you warm, and home is behind you
You’re driving again, before your brain can catch up.
Making a careful three-point turn, and turning back.
Fuck.
If you die tonight, you’re going to be really pissed off.
He will not let you die.
The man doesn’t move, when you pull off to the side of the road. Doesn’t even flinch, or back away to ensure that he doesn’t get hit. He just stares. Watching you silently, as you fumble for your jacket and gloves.
You glance down for half a moment. Just to unplug your phone. And maybe you should just dial 911 now, and wait in your car until they pick him up-
You should not let anyone else touch him. He’s here for you.
That’s not as reassuring as the song in your blood seems to think it is. And this is just a feeling, based in no fact, just a gravity like, immovable desire to go to him, and you went to him, so staying in the car is fine. You should just check that he’s not in immediate need of medical attention—although there is something pounding on your skull, and it’s telling you help him, all the world will crumble to ash if you don’t help him—and then stay in the-
“Jesus fucking Christ!”
He’s right at the window. Staring at you.
And the whole night is so dark and gray, but this man’s eyes are really blue. Searing, mind-numbing blue, and you suddenly remember being a kid, and seeing the ocean for the first time, and wandering into the water even though you couldn’t swim.
You hadn’t drowned, then. The riptide had tried to pull you out, but you’d watched a PBS documentary the night before, and it had said not to panic.
That the worst thing you could ever do was be afraid. That you needed to float, and wait for help.
This man is the ocean. And the riptide.
And the Coast Guard, that had found you, put you on a boat, and wrapped you in a blanket.
He’s home, that song in your blood whines. You’re home.
You really must be losing your fucking mind.
Because, holding the man’s gaze, you open the door.
He takes a step back, avoiding the door slamming into his gut, but returns in a second. Simply standing tall and rigid as you take him in, not speaking or offering any sort of introduction, but not lunging for you and strangling you into the dirt, either.
“Hi.” You whisper, and he only blinks. “I, um, are you…”
He’s staring right into you. Deep into you, sparking that song into a choir, but he’s not speaking.
He seems to be… waiting. Puffing out his chest slightly and tracking your every movement, close but not close enough to touch you.
Almost putting himself on display, for you to asses.
He’s tall, but most broad. Muscular. Longer hair that looks a little ratty, like he’s managed to grow it almost to his shoulders, but nobody’s bothered to mention conditioner or a brush to him. That’s certainly blood staining his face, but it looks smudged—as if he’s wiped it off a few times, or its been washed away in the storm—and there seems to be a tear in his dark clothing, near his shoulder.
Something keeps tugging you closer, telling you to touch the gash in the fabric to check the damage even though this man is not your patient, and you haven’t made a single oath-
You don’t need an oath. Not for him.
That’s not helpful. You’d help him because he was a person, and you might be trapped in his proximity, but he’s covered in blood and not saying a single word and holding-
A gun.
That’s a gun, in his hand. His shining, silver hand, and-
It’s metal.
This man has a metal hand. Arm. The whole arm is shining in the low light, and he’s holding a gun.
All thoughts are leading to the same conclusion. Whoever he is, he’s not just a person.
No. He’s yours.
The song really needs to shut up, or you’re going to hit a new peak of stupid. This man is yours—he’s not, logically, but rationality went out the window when you turned the car around—and you think he’s in pain. All his weight is on one side of his body, and the longer the look the more certain you are that a dark stain is bleeding into the fabric on his shoulder, and you could help him, but he still hasn’t even spoken.
He’s just been looking down at you with a blank expression. What you think is a blank expression.
You can’t really tell.
Half his face is covered in a mask.
And something in you hates that. You want to see him. All of him.
He’s yours.
“I, can you,” you point to your own face. “Please?”
He gives a sharp nod, and the mask comes off.
He’s attractive. Really attractive. Lightning seems to shoot through your whole body at the sight of him, because it’s like staring in the sun with no need to ever look away.
And he’s all yours-
The song needs to calm the hell down. Bigger problems.
“Do you need help?”
The man just stares.
“I- I know I’m a stranger, but your shoulder-“ You nod to the tear. “If you need help, I know how to do stitches.”
Still nothing.
“My kit is at my house, but it’s not far from here, and- As long as you promise not to shoot me-“
The man cuts you off with rough, smooth words that you don’t understand. It sounds Eastern European. Slavic.
Fuck.
You let out a slow breath, and it turns to mist in the cold. The snow is sinking into your clothing, freezing it and sticking to your skin, and you aren’t cold inside your body, but your fingers are starting to go numb, and-
The man starts to herd you, and for some reason, you don’t run or scream or fight. You just let him walk you backwards until you’re pressed to the car, and then he pulls you forward.
Right into his chest.
You still can’t scream. You’re not paralyzed with fear, and all the nerves in your body are a little alight from shock, but everything else is impossibly peaceful. Alarms that should be setting off humming with the song, and your body is relaxing in his hold, and what the fuck is happening-
Suddenly, you’re behind the driver’s seat, and the door is closing behind you. The light flashes off the man’s metal arm as he stomps around the hood, and before you can figure out if you should get back out or call for help or call for him—you don’t even know his name—or just hit him with your fucking car-
Don’t hit him with your car, you can’t, he’s the world and nothing will ever be okay again if you hit him with-
The man opens the passenger’s door, slides into the seat with a grunt, and now you’re sure he’s hurt. It’s twisting in your stomach, and he’s pulling back to collar of his shirt to check something, but you don’t need to see it to know.
He’s hurt.
You can fix it.
“I, um,” you clear your throat, tapping your fingers on the wheel, and the man looks at you with a slight frown. “I’m going to drive us to my house, okay?”
He doesn’t respond.
You don’t know what you expected.
But it’s still unnerving. The whole ride is almost dead quiet, and when you turn on the radio—anything to drown out the song in your blood, that doesn’t seem to understand that you can’t just fix him by touching him—the man’s frown deepens.
“Do you, the song-“ You need to get a grip. “If you don’t like this song, I can change it. If you want.”
You chance another glance at him, and he gives a short shake of his head.
It’s the most you get out of him. Movements. When you park and ask if he needs help getting inside, he ignores you and stomps to your door, waiting until you’re out of the car to herd you inside. When you ask him to sit, he does, and when you tell him you need to see where he’s hurt, his whole shirt comes off.
You blink at him, and swallow.
You’d just meant he should pull down his collar, or roll up his sleeve.
But now-
He’s muscular, but you hadn’t really expected anything else. What’s making you freeze is the scars. Pale in his skin and running like tiny rivers around where the metal arm has been fused into his body. It takes up most of his shoulder, and when you reach out to touch one of the plates, he doesn’t even blink.
It’s starting to twist the song into something furious. Something happened to him, and you can feel it when you trace over one of the raised marks. Something hurt him, and it’s stinging on your fingertips.
They’re faded. Still visible, still obvious, but faded enough that you know they’ve been there for a while.
Some very twisted, wrathful part of you wants to pick up the gun he’d dropped on your table, and figure out how to make whoever did this to him regret it.
It’s far from your craziest thought of the night. But you still don’t even know how to use a gun, and you have no clue who he is, or if the people who hurt him are still alive.
Maybe that’s their blood, on his cheek and dried on his clothing.
The thought doesn’t disgust you half as much as it probably should.
It’s been a weird night.
“Is the-“ You swallow, brushing his hair away from his right shoulder. It’s a small gash, but not a graze. “Were you shot?”
He nods.
“Did you get the bullet out?” He seems like he’d be able to do that.
And he nods again.
“Alright, do I, can I give you stitches?”
The man blinks, a deep line furrowing in his brow, but he nods again, and you let out a long breath.
That’s relief, clearing in your head. You weren’t sure what you would’ve done if he said no.
Probably drown in the sound of his voice, if this pattern of him just existing and you being ready to offer him your life in from your hands continues.
“I have to clean it, first. To prevent infection.”
He doesn’t respond. The man only tracks you around your tiny kitchen as you grab your kit, some paper towels—you just cleaned the floor—and, at the last second, a rag for him to bite down on.
You try to hold it out to him, but he just stares at you.
“It’s going to hurt.” You mumble. “And I can give you some Advil, after, but right now, this,” you shake the rag in your hand. “Is the best I can do.”
He blinks, and you sigh.
“Can you please open your mouth?”
His jaw drops open in half a second, and you frown—that movement was incredibly mechanical, like you’d hit a button and a mechanism had clicked him into action—before carefully placing the rag between his teeth.
“It’s clean.” You tell him, although you don’t think he’ll care all that much. “I just ran it through the wash.“
The man blinks again, tracking you as you drop down at his side, and get to work. It’s a quick job, with the bullet gone. Rubbing alcohol as disinfectant, quick stitches, gauze, and a bandage for safety, then he’s done.
Not a single grunt or sound of pain leaves him, though. You’d think he was mute, if he hadn’t spoken in that Slavic language. And you be resigned to him maybe not knowing English, if he hadn’t been listening to you, all night. Doing as you asked him to, nodding and shaking his head, quite obviously understanding what you were saying.
But never fucking speaking.
And now, as you wipe the blood from his face with the rag, he’s still just staring at you. The silence is starting to suffocate you, and the longer it stretches the louder the song gets. Tell you to hold him, know him, protect him from whoever caused those scars, and get closer. As close as possible.
You’re already touching his face and stood between his legs. He’s already branding himself into you memory, just by looking at you. You’re not sure what else is possibly expected.
But you can’t sit in this silence.
“How’d you get shot?”
Nothing.
“I, um, I’ve never been shot.” You offer, and god, you sound dumb. “I’ve never broken a bone, either. I’d say I’m lucky, but I feel like it’s just in exchange for, you know. Other things.”
He blinks.
“Like I’ve been to the hospital a lot. For other reasons, like, um, internal bleeding.” There’s no possible reason to tell him this. You can’t stop. “One time I got a concussion. And another time, I- Um- Well, there were the psych wards. And the spinal tap, and the stomach pump, and the time I thought my ribs were broken, but it was really just that internal bleeding again-“
Your rambling dies in your throat, as the man’s metal hand moves to hold your hip. It’s an impossibly delicate touch. And the metal should be cold, but you’re still so warm. It’s like a fever, buzzing over your skin and lighting you up from the inside out, and the man is still just watching you.
He’s watching you. It’s wrapping around you like a shield. Like a blanket on a boat.
“I think you can understand me.” You whisper, and it’s not really a question, but the man nods. “Can you please say something?”
He frowns, and opens his mouth, but closes it just as fast. Shaking his head, his grip tightening slightly, and this is the riptide. It’s crashing into him instead of you, and he’s fighting it, and that’s not how you survive.
“What’s your name?”
It’s your lifeline. Your offer for him to give you anything, anything at all, and stop fighting.
He takes it. And you were right.
You’re going to drown in his voice.
“I don’t know.”
“Oh.” You swallow, and nod. It makes sense. He didn’t have any ID, he was shot but won’t say how, and you have no idea how long he was out in that storm before you found him.
You should tell him to go. Or call the cops. It’s almost three in the morning, and the exhaustion is crashing back into you so fucking fast as the song only grows louder, telling you that you’re safe. He’s safe, and he’s here, so you’re safe and if okay to rest.
Rest sounds nice. You’re starting to get a little blurry-eyed, and the only thing that keeps shocking you awake is the drifting through of sending him away. He’s a stranger. With a gun. But you can’t send him away, because he’s safe, and he’s yours, and that same deep, primal thing that made you turn around on the road is making your say-
“I- Um, you can stay here, for the night. If you want. And we can figure out who you are in the morning.”
The man nods, and something in his eyes relaxes.
He’s not fighting anymore.
When you tell him to shower then change into cleaner clothing—from the back of your closet, smelling like absolutely nothing at all—he does. When you give him water, he drinks it, and when you say you’re going to go shower, you open the door after to find him standing silently in the hall.
He scans over your body, wrapped only in a towel, with a small frown. Then he nods, you clear whatever test he was giving you, and that’s it.
You change in your room, and he waits outside the door, and when you open it he remains perfectly still, holding your gaze with something turning behind his gaze that you don’t understand.
He looks nice, wearing normal, clean clothing. The shirt is a bit small, and it’s clinging to his body in a way you can’t bring yourself to complain about.
You want to brush his hair. It’s still damp, and starting to look at little tangled, and that song in your blood really wants you to brush his hair. It’s crossing an odd, dangerous line, but you don’t really care anymore.
And you when you ask him, he just looks incredibly confused, so you guide him to sit on the carpet on your room, and get to work.
He doesn’t fight you, or push you away. You start talking just to drown out the sound of your heart in your ears and the song telling you get closer, and he listens. You know he’s listening, because he grunts at all the right parts in your stories, and sits a little taller when you tell him about your creepy history professor, and moves his hand to hold your calf when you tell him about your ex, who’s shirt that belonged to, and who gave you a few or those trips to the hospital.
He can feel this too. He’s holding you, listening, and touching you because—you think—he can feel this too.
When you finish with his hair, his head tips back to watch you. His lips are pink. And full. And he really is so handsome, and this is the ocean. Calling you. As big as you want it to be, if you’re brave enough. Dangerous, but not enough for you to care.
You clear your throat, trying to cling to one last bit of sanity. “Are you hungry?”
He frowns again, but nods.
“Do you like ice cream?”
He pauses. For a long, heavy second that look of something grinding in his brain returns, and before you can cast another lifeline, the look clears.
“I do.” He murmurs, as if he’s unsure of his own words. “Strawberry. Or cookie dough.”
You swallow. “I have mint chip.”
“Okay.”
Eating is silent too, but it’s not the tight silence. It’s easier. And when you see him eyeing the chocolate syrup and push it forward with raised brows, he takes it.
With shaking hands and small smile that has gotten you drunk on nothing at all.
When you guide him to your bed he lies down, but doesn’t close his eyes until you drop at his side.
He’s a stranger. In your bed. With a metal arm, who’d been covered in blood only an hour ago, and whose gun is still sitting in your kitchen.
But you glance over at him—watching you, always watching you—and you’ve never felt safer in your life.
This time, he breaks the silence. His words softer, but still clear.
“Do you have a name?”
“Yes.”
He raises his brows, and fuck it. He’s already in your bed, and he’s asking, and every fiber of your body wants nothing more than to tell him. For him to know you, hold you, protect you from storms and come closer.
You tell him your name, and he repeats it back with a small nod.
“That’s beautiful.”
You flush, the song beginning to glow, and your eyes dart up to the ceiling. “Thanks.”
When you fall asleep, it’s fast. Easy. Warm all the way into your bone, and that shield he’s casting around your body sinking deeper, and deeper, all the way into your bones. There are points when you’re half-lucid, and you could swear he was holding you. Wrapped around your body and keeping you carefully to his chest, and it fits.
He fits.
Whoever this man is, whatever he is, he fits because he’s yours. In a strange, pure way, he’s yours.
But when you wake up in the morning, he’s gone.
And you wouldn’t be sure he was real at all, if it weren’t for that song in your blood, wailing and sobbing that he’s gone.
Calling him, although you know he won’t answer, to return.