#c: vasily karpov

[murder-popsicle]

The inclusion of HYDRA in the MCU drives me insane sometimes, not gonna lie. @abrooklynboy and I have been yelling about this all day, so I’m going to yell about it on the dash now, too.

I really, really like the comic book version of Bucky’s death and recovery by the Soviets, specifically Vasily Karpov. I love Vasily Karpov in the way that one loves a good villain. He is horrible. He was horrible during WWII, and he’s horrible during the Cold War, too. What he does to Bucky out of sheer pettiness and injured pride is indefensible and tragic.

But I also really love Arnim Zola, again in the way that one loves a good villain. I think he’s an excellent character in the movies specifically because he’s not a sadist. He doesn’t take any particular pleasure in torturing or killing people. He’s driven by the pursuit of knowledge and a love of science. He’s an utterly amoral intellectual who is willing to do anything in service of his research goals, regardless of how much pain he causes or how many deaths it takes for him to succeed in his plans. I find that interesting, especially when compared to the more cartoonishly evil villains like the Red Skull.

The trouble is, as much as I would like to have Karpov and his people find Bucky first, I can’t do that if I want to keep Zola involved in the Winter Soldier Project. The logistics don’t work. Zola is a Nazi. And Karpov may be an evil son of a bitch, but he still absolutely despises Nazis. If he had Bucky in his hands, there’s no reason at all that he would ever reach out to any Nazi, much less one like Zola who is working for the Americans.

On the other hand, if Zola’s people found Bucky first, that would give Zola enough leverage to manipulate Karpov by offering him a deal that 1) undermines the Americans, and 2) gives Karpov control of someone he truly hates. Because Vasily Karpov hates Bucky Barnes, specifically and personally. I believe that he hates Bucky enough that he would cut a deal with Zola if it meant he got the chance to enact his own personal revenge on Bucky.

So I’m stuck in this situation where I have to mash the 616 story and the MCU story together with a lot of handwaving to get a story I can work with that has the characters I like, and it means I have to stick HYDRA in places where they really shouldn’t be (like Department X and the Red Room). And I do think that the whole shadowy-background-organization-pulling-the-strings shtick takes away responsibility from Department X for the evil that they did. And not just Department X -- it does the same to the Nazis and to SHIELD. The fact is that, in the real world, the Nazis and the KGB and the CIA and a fuckton of other groups did evil things entirely of their own volition, not because there was somebody else manipulating them behind the scenes.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier is a good movie. It’s still my favorite MCU installment. But it was definitely pulling its punches by making Project Insight a HYDRA operation. Project Insight is essentially the NSA + unmanned drone strikes -- two things that we already have in the real world. And we have them not because we’ve been infiltrated by evil squid Nazis, but because my country’s government and military have decided on their own to use them. CA:TWS would have hit a lot harder if it had addressed that.

[murder-popsicle]

abrooklynboy​:

Looks at the woman and frowns. Memorizing her face so he didn’t forget that. Wouldn’t forget her. Hopes he remembers soon. “<No, no. I’m sorry…Don’t remember…Any names…>” Speech was incredibly garbled. Must be important. If only he knew the man’s opinion of her; the Captain would have ripped him limb from limb without a second thought. Whatever she was to him, it was not that of a lover.

It was hard to think; he tries to dive to where that word had been. A place, then. Village? So, the blizzard he had saw was real. Holds onto that. The man, the woman. Blue rays of light, vaporizing anyone who was in its path. He winces, hand to his head, fingers tightening around her hand.

“<There was a fight.>”

How much time had passed from there to here? The man sounded like it had been a while. Where was here anyway? Captain. Always Captain. Was that all he had been? He had to have had a name besides that. But it was gone.

On his arm had been a disk. Red, white, blue. Strongest metal they knew. Always came back to him.

“<Where’s my shield?>” he manages, facing the man again, trying to stand to his full height. It was cold in here and they were barely dressed. He shivers. Hoped they’d go somewhere warm soon and start figuring everything out. Piece themselves back together. Heal. Go home, wherever that was.

Had a feeling that wasn’t on the agenda. The man didn’t seem like the type.

If Rogers couldn’t even remember Barnes’ name, his memory must have been impaired. Good, Karpov thought. That would make things simpler. As some of Department X’s earlier experiment had shown, those with no firm memories of their own were easier to manipulate.

It was interesting, though, that despite not remembering his own name, the captain remembered his shield.

«Your shield was damaged in an accident,» he lied. «Our technicians are working on repairing it. It will be returned to you eventually, Captain. You have vital work to do for this country, and your shield will be necessary.»

Then, he turned his attention to Barnes.

She was still holding fast to the captain’s hand, but her posture had become more subdued, more defensive, because she had gradually come to realize that the three of them weren’t alone in this room. There were guards at the door and at several strategic points along the walls, dressed like soldiers, their badges decorated with a red star.

That star meant something, but she couldn’t recall what.

Dimly, she realized that the man with the goatee was speaking to her. «We have work for you as well, soldier,» he said, and then, when she didn’t respond, added, «Do you understand me?»

She looked at him, still unsettled by the eerie familiarity of his face and the sick feeling it sparked in her stomach, and nodded.

«What do you remember?» he asked.

Nothing. That was the answer. Even the blond man’s words, Kronas, fight, had failed to spark any recollections in her mind.

“I,” she said, “I--”

But she couldn’t get beyond that one single word. The space in her head where the rest of the sentence should have been was distressingly blank. So she settled for shaking her head again as she tightened her grip on the blond man’s hand.

[goalhofer]

2021-22 Metallurg Magnitogorsk Roster

Wingers

#6 Josh Currie (Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island)

#12 Arkhip Nekolenko (Maryino, Russia)

#15 Anatoly Nikontsev (Yekaterinburg, Russia) A

#18 Pavel Akolzin (Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan)

#21 Semyon Koshelyov (Oskemen, Kazakhstan)

#35 Nikita Korostelev (Moscow, Russia)

#76 Andrei Chibisov (Prokopyevsk, Russia)

#81 Brendan Leipsic (Winnipeg, Manitoba)

#87 Nikolay Goldobin (Moscow, Russia)

#91 Maxim Karpov (Chelyabinsk, Russia)

#92 Bogdan Potekhin (Magnitogorsk, Russia)

Centers

#16 Denis Zernov (Chelyabinsk, Russia)

#22 Danil Yurov (Chelyabinsk, Russia)

#61 Philippe Maillet (Terrebonne, Quebec)

#94 Yegor Korobkin (Magnitogorsk, Russia)

#98 Igor Shvyrev (Magnitogorsk, Russia)

Defensemen

#2 Grigori Dronov (Magnitogorsk, Russia)

#7 Linus Hultström (Vimmerby, Sweden)

#8 Artyom Zemchyonok (Moscow, Russia)

#33 Mikhail Pashnin (Chelyabinsk, Russia) A

#42 Vladislav Semin (Moscow, Russia)

#44 Egor Yakovlev (Magnitogorsk, Russia) C

#72 Artyom Minulin (Tyumen, Russia)

#77 Ilya Nikolayev (Chelyabinsk, Russia)

#78 Yaroslav Khabarov (Magnitogorsk, Russia)

#85 Alexei Maklyukov (Voskresensk, Russia)

Goalies

#45 Juho Olkinuora (Helsinki, Finland)

#70 Gleb Moiseyev (Magnitogorsk, Russia)

#83 Vasily Kosechkin (Tolyatti, Russia)

[murder-popsicle]

Vasily Karpov was disgusted when he found out about the relationship between the Winter Soldier and the Black Widow. The Black Widow is not supposed to do that sort of thing for her own pleasure. Use of her body is for the state to order, whether for mission purposes or for her marriage to the Red Guardian. And the Winter Soldier is not supposed to have any desires at all, let alone ones that Karpov thinks are unnatural and perverted.

Zola, on the other hand, viewed it very clinically. He saw it as an intriguing malfunction in the Winter Soldier’s programming, and he wanted to dig around in her brain to try to determine why it had occurred -- especially as, to the best of Zola’s knowledge, nothing in Bucky Barnes’ history or behavior prior to this had ever indicated any level of same-sex attraction. He and Karpov had both assumed, erroneously, that she was involved with Steve Rogers.

The idea that the two women might genuinely be in love was never considered.

[murder-popsicle]

@abrooklynboy​

[murder-popsicle]

[murder-popsicle]

[murder-popsicle]

[murder-popsicle]

Just making a formal announcement/headcanon post to say that I do not follow the MCU as it regards Vasily Karpov.

I go with a slightly-modified Earth-616 canon for Karpov. He was a Soviet officer with whom the Howling Commandos once worked, and he and Bucky quarreled over his murder of a surrendered prisoner, embittering him towards her. Arnim Zola took advantage of this to place the Winter Soldier in Department X; Karpov thought HYDRA had been destroyed with the Red Skull, so he was pleased to take over control of the Winter Soldier program.

From this point on, I basically follow 616 canon. Karpov believed himself to be in charge of the Winter Soldier. He oversaw her training, sent her on missions, punished her after his discovery of her relationship with Natasha, and took her to Afghanistan as his bodyguard during the Soviet-Afghan War. He died in 1988, at which point the Winter Soldier was put back into cryo. She stayed there until 1991, when HYDRA got their hands on her directly and sent her to assassinate the Starks.

In my verse, the HYDRA agent shown in the movies is someone else.

[murder-popsicle]

Who is your favorite villain?

ask me anything || always accepting

My favorite MCU villain is a tie between Alexander Pierce, who is terrifying specifically because so many people like him exist in the real world and hold positions of power, and Helmut Zemo, whom I find much more compelling in the MCU than I do in the comics. 616!Zemo is really kind of ridiculous, but MCU!Zemo (and Sokovia) are surprisingly deeply rooted in the history of the ex-Yugoslav countries. Obviously we’re still waiting to see what Marvel will do with Zemo in TFATWS, but so far they’ve taken him in such a different direction from his comics counterpart that I really consider them to be two distinct characters.

My favorite comic book villain is probably Vasily Karpov. He’s just such a bastard, a petty, twisted, iron-fisted son of a bitch. The MCU did him dirty by sticking his name on that sniveling HYDRA agent, and I’m forever going to be salty about it.

[murder-popsicle]

[ The Nameless One ||  1952 ]

several months after this

“And she has no memories of who she is?” Vasily Karpov asked. He rested his elbows on the table between himself and the man opposite him, a sharp glint in his eye.

Arnim Zola shook his head. “Complete retrograde amnesia,” he said. “She remembers nothing prior to being revived in the prison hospital. Not her name, not her age, not her home… She only knows that she is American because we told her so.” He tapped his fingers together and added, ��Her first few months of captivity are hazy also, thanks to my psychotropic treatments.”

Barnes didn’t even remember the trauma of her miscarriage. His blend of drugs had done its work well.

“You say you told her she was American. Does she believe everything you tell her?”

“I do not think she would believe the moon was made of cheese,”  Zola said dryly. “But as long as what she is told seems logical, and as long as her questions are answered, she seems to accept it as the truth – particularly if it comes from Comrade Papanova. Barnes has great trust in her. I have taken careful steps to ensure it would be so.”

By intervening during Barnes’ desperate escape attempt and freeing the woman from the abuse of her former guards, Roza Papanova had positioned herself as an ally and protector. Between that and the cocktail of hallucinogens that Zola had administered in the beginning of Barnes’ time in the Russian prison, Barnes seemed to have come to trust Papanova’s words more than her own memories.

Karpov leaned back in his chair. ”Your project interests me greatly, Doctor Zola,” he said. “But I must confess, I question your motives. I know that you now work for Stark and Carter’s American intelligence agency. Why have you withheld knowledge of Sergeant Barnes’ survival from them? Why do you offer her to us?”

Zola smiled – a smug, self-satisfied smile that the old Bucky Barnes would have recognized. The question pleased him. He knew of Karpov’s past encounters with Barnes, and he had worried that the man might prove too eager for revenge to be trusted. Zola wanted his subject in good hands, hands that wouldn’t use her recklessly.

“I have no love for the Americans, General,” Zola said. “They have taken me captive, humiliated me, and stolen my research. I now have the opportunity to turn one of their own heroes against them. You have seen Barnes in action. She is well-trained in combat and a marksman of extraordinary talent. Not to mention the effects of my serum! I believe that I can craft her into a perfect operative for you. One agent, with the right skills, in the right place, at the right time… That is your philosophy, is it not?” He spread his hands wide. “HYDRA may be dead, General, but that does not mean I cannot have my revenge.”

It wasn’t the full truth, of course, but Zola could see that it was enough of the truth for Karpov to believe him.

“She is still crippled,” Karpov observed.

“I am skilled in the field of cybernetics. I believe I can devise a sufficient prosthetic.“

Karpov fell silent, seeming to think the offer over. “I do not suppose I could persuade you to share your formula with us?” he asked.

Zola shook his head. “I will not reveal all my secrets.”

Karpov nodded. “I suspected as much. Very well. But I wish to see her in person first.”

“By all means,” Zola said. “I will arrange it immediately.”

[murder-popsicle]

[goalhofer]

2020-21 Metallurg Magnitogorsk Roster

Wingers

#6 Taylor Beck (Niagara Falls, Ontario)

#10 Sergei Moziakin (Yaroslavl, Russia) C

#11 Nikita Rozhkov (Orenburg, Russia)

#12 Arkhip Nekolenko (Maryino, Russia)

#14 Nikolay Kulemin (Magnitogorsk, Russia) A

#16 Sergei Plotnikov (Komsomolsk-Na-Amure, Russia)

#76 Andrei Chibisov (Prokopyevsk, Russia)

#82 Harri Pesonen (Muurame, Finland)

#91 Maxim Karpov (Chelyabinsk, Russia)

#92 Bogdan Potekhin (Magnitogorsk, Russia)

Centers

#21 Andrej Nestrasil (Prague, Czech Republic)

#63 Yury Platonov (Saratov, Russia)

#74 Nikolay Prokhorkin (Chelyabinsk, Russia)

#90 Juho Lammikko (Noormarkku, Finland)

#94 Yegor Korobkin (Magnitogorsk, Russia)

#98 Igor Shvyrev (Magnitogorsk, Russia)

Defensemen

#2 Grigory Dronov (Magnitogorsk, Russia)

#8 Artyom Zemchyonok (Moscow, Russia)

#33 Mikhail Pashnin (Chelyabinsk, Russia)

#42 Vladislav Semin (Moscow, Russia)

#44 Egor Iakovlev (Magnitogorsk, Russia)

#55 Yegor Martynov (Chelyabinsk, Russia)

#57 Nikita Khlystov (Magnitogorsk, Russia)

#72 Artem Minulin (Tyumen, Russia)

#77 Ilya Nikulayev (Chelyabinsk, Russia)

#89 Vadim Antipin (Tolyatti, Russia)

Goalies

#45 Juho Olkinuora (Helsinki, Finland)

#70 Gleb Moiseyev (Magnitogorsk, Russia)

#83 Vasily Koshechkin (Tolyatti, Russia)

[murder-popsicle]

abrooklynboy​:

He doesn’t remember this, but he screamed “Bucky!!” like he was continuing a thought when he woke the first time after thawing. Tossing swarming men aside like they are dolls, trying to get up, find her, find her. Needles tearing out of him, blood in his eyes. Everything is so bright. He stands, walks three steps, and collapses, dry heaving, as his head feels like it’s going to split open. Maybe it already had. A prick of a needle in his neck.

Whoever she was, they were, this woman was to be protected. This wasn’t chauvinism or because she was (more) seriously injured. He knew her. The particulars of name, rank, serial number didn’t matter (Concepts were beyond him anyway). They were together and that was better than being apart. Together, they could take on the world.

Slowly, the rest of the room comes into focus for him. Medical facility. There were bandages encircling his head, plastered to his face. Pounding headache, broken nose. Mouth was dry, lips gumming together. His vision swims, ears ring, and his legs threaten to buckle, but he keeps standing, guard still up, in case the man is going to attack or send people after them. One hand searches for her hand. She had brought him out of the darkness.

Headache increases, burst of pain, as he moves his head to look between her and the man. Two familiar people but he was a stranger to himself. Looks at the dark, industrial ceiling.

This man is not to be trusted, he does not like this man, his instincts tell him. He is cruel. This man would kill a cousin for bringing shame to him. He is familiar. Something in the fragments of his mind provides the image of a village on fire. Smoke mixing with blizzard until it was hard to tell what was rising and what was falling. Was that real or imaginary?

Something’s missing. Many things are missing, like his name, who he is, his memories. Thoughts are hard to string together, they don’t make sense. One foot in front of the other. Stand and fight. He looks at his own left arm as it’s between the two people. Something should be on it, or on his back. Comforting weight. Can protect her without it but he doesn’t feel right without it. 

Eyes flick back to the man who asked him a question. “Kronas.” Word muffled and quiet, more of a grunt rather than an attempt at communication; means nothing to him.

Captain America’s response surprised Karpov. The doctors had told him that both prisoners appeared to be suffering some degree of brain damage, and that Rogers’ head wound was particularly severe -- as was clearly evidenced by the blood-stained bandages wrapped around his skull. He’d apparently called out for Barnes immediately after waking, but since then had been silent and bewildered -- at least, until he had seen his compatriot in the flesh.

Compatriot. Karpov thought it was a kinder word than the woman deserved. His lover, more likely, assuming she hadn’t been a whore for the Captain’s entire team. Barnes’ level of impairment was unknown; her own skull fracture hadn’t been as severe, and she’d had greater control of her own body upon waking than the Captain had had, but she also had yet to say a word to anyone, even when addressed directly. Whether she wouldn’t speak or couldn’t speak had yet to be determined.

Rogers, though, clearly remembered at least something. Why else would he mention Kronas, the town where Rogers and his woman had humiliated Karpov in front of his own men? But remembering Kronas wasn’t the same as remembering Karpov’s name, or how and when they had known each other. Was it that Rogers only had fragments of memory? Or was it that his brain damage had rendered him unable to give better voice to his thoughts? The word had been slurred and inarticulate, so perhaps the man’s command of language had been damaged.

«Yes, we last saw one another in Kronas,» he confirmed. «Do you remember more than that, Captain? Do you remember my name?» Then, looking at how tightly he and Barnes were clasping hands, he asked, «Do you remember the name of the woman beside you?»

After all, he and Barnes clearly recognized each other on some level, given the way they’d been drawn to one another. But they hadn’t actually exchanged words. They’d simply rushed to one another’s side, as though each was the only anchor in the other’s world.

For Bucky’s part, she hoped that the blond man would answer, hoped that he knew more about her than she knew about herself. She remembered nothing -- not her name, not her past, not the name of either man in front of her. All she knew was a bone-deep feeling that, as long as she and the blond man were together, they would be okay.

That feeling would turn out to be tragically wrong, but she didn’t know that yet.

[murder-popsicle]

Many had called it a fool’s errand, but now, standing in front of the wreckage of Schmidt's Valkyrie, Vasily Karpov knew that his expedition had been successful. Even if the Tesseract was not on board, the ship itself could be mined for volumes’ worth of technological advancement.

“Comrade Karpov!” one of his men called from inside the bomber. “Come quickly!”

He climbed inside the plane and picked his way over to the man who was waving. “What is it?” he asked.

“Over there, Comrade.”

Karpov looked to where the man was pointing and stopped dead.

Poking through the snow was a shield. A familiar shield, an iconic shield. And a few yards away on the flight deck were two frozen corpses, arms around each other as though they had spent their last moments huddled together in a vain attempt to share warmth. The tell-tale red, white, and blue uniform on one was visible even through the ice coating the bodies.

A slow smile spread across his face. This was better than any ship. This was true hope for the future.

There were arms wrapped around her but Bucky couldn’t feel them. Her own body had gone numb hours ago. –Hours? It felt like hours, but maybe it had only been minutes. She had no way of knowing. She couldn’t feel anything, could only hear the slow, weak beat of her own heart and a slurred voice murmuring, “S'okay. Gonna be okay.” It was cold, dark and cold, and something was crusting over her lashes and weighing down her eyelids and it was cold, so, so cold–

She opened her eyes to a cold table beneath her and a team of men bending over her -- one holding an oxygen mask to her face, one sliding a needle into the back of her right hand. and one adjusting a bandage wrapped around her left arm. It wasn’t until she looked at the bandages that she realized her left hand was gone, as though it had been cut off, leaving only a stump that ended just above the elbow.

That, combined with needle and the looming presence of so many strangers, sent her into a panic. She surged up off the table with such force that the needle ripped from her hand, splattering a few drops of dark red blood across the floor, and grabbed the man nearest her around the throat, forcing him to the ground as she squeezed the breath out of him.

The others converged on her, but not quickly enough to save him. By the time the sedative-laden syringe plunged into her neck, he was already dead.

She opened her eyes again. This time she was strapped down, and only one man was standing over her. His face was familiar, somehow, but she couldn’t remember ever seeing him before. She couldn’t remember anything except waking up in that lab. She couldn’t even remember who she was. What was her name? Did she have a name?

«Welcome back, soldier,» the man said, with a cold smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

Soldier. Was she a soldier? She didn’t like this man’s voice, or his cruel face with its little goatee. But he was talking to her as if he knew her.

He stepped aside, and behind him, also stretched out on a gurney, but not strapped down, was a large, blond man with his eyes closed. His face sent a stab of recognition through her. She didn’t know his name. She didn’t know who he was. But she knew his face, and it filled her with an urge that throbbed through her body in time with her heart: Protect. Protect. Protect.

Don’t hurt him, she wanted to say, but she couldn’t find the words. Her head was filled with rust and empty spaces, cobwebs strung where language should be. Instead, she struggled against the straps, trying to sit up.

«Yes, I expected you would want to see him,» the man said. «I’ll let you stand, but if you attack anyone, he will pay the price. Do you understand me?»

Hastily, she nodded, desperate to get to the blond man’s side. The man with the goatee undid the straps -- slowly, much too slowly -- and finally she was able to cross the room to the other gurney. She touched his hand, felt the pulse at his wrist, rested her palm against his forehead. For several long minutes, she simply watched him, until his eyelids started to flutter.

At that point, the man with the goatee pulled her away from him, taking her place beside the gurney. But when the blond man finally opened his eyes, he was greeted not with a name, but with the word Captain.

A pity. She’d hoped to hear his name, because she knew him. She might not know from where or when, but she recognized him deep in her bones. And he must have recognized her, too, because as soon as he could stand, he stepped between her and the man with the goatee, one arm held out protectively as if to shield her.

The goateed man smiled again, though the expression was still cold. «Well done, Captain,» he said. «Tell me, do you remember who I am? We’ve met before.»

if we go down, we go down together

February 1945 was a blur, even to a super soldier. The Howling Commandos went from one end of Europe to the other, always in motion, never stopping. A sort of rush - they’re getting close, they’re getting close. Peggy kept taking HYDRA bases off the map.

They had almost lost Bucky on Dr. Zola’s train. At the last minute, Steve was able to make his way out onto the edge, grab her hand, and haul them aboard. Made some stupid deadpan comment (”Told you I’d take you to the best places.”) about it to take the edge off. Doesn’t sleep that night. Tries to get drunk off of whiskey at ‘their’ pub (bombed out since they were last in London). The terror in Bucky’s eyes was at the bottom of the glass.

Steve had pulled Bucky and the Commandos out of Hell once. He’d keep doing it. Would go down instead of them. Bucky had a fiance, they all had futures, out of all this. What Steve Rogers going to transition back to a civilian role? Would he be stuck as Captain America the rest of his life? What role would a soldier like that have, in a world after Axis and HYDRA was defeated? There was always injustice to fight. Steve wouldn’t ignore that, ignore people, regardless of what the government would try and make him do. 

The thoughts still swirl in his head like snowflakes as they attack HYDRA command, Steve’s brothers and sister at his side. Cap stares at the plane charging down the runway, hellbent on destroying the world. Phillips pulls up in the Skull’s car, Bucky and Peggy in the backseat. Peggy kisses him and then him and Bucky are off, climbing into the Valkyrie.

Between the two of them, the Skull didn’t stand a chance. Shield is as much of a part of Bucky as Steve’s at this point. Steve spares a moment to look at Bucky as the Skull vanishes into the stars. “Huh.” One of the weirdest things he’s seen in this life so far. He takes the pilot seat, radioing in. Jim and Peggy are on the line; Steve can’t exactly step away from the plane pointing nose down while Bucky and Jim talk.

All he can see is blinding white rushing up towards them. He holds onto Bucky’s arm, holding onto Peggy’s promise of a date, as they hit. His head smashes against the controls and all he sees is white.

Ice burns, just as much as fire.

One moment, it’s dark. The next, it’s bright. There was nothing before this moment. “<Good morning, Captain.>” A man blocks the light. He, Captain? looks around. There’s a woman next to him. He puts himself between her and the man, staring him down.