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adrinktostopyourthirst · 3 years ago

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The Winter Soldier | Series | The Program

PART 1 | PART 2 | PART 3 | PART 4 | ...

Pairing: Winter Soldier x Reader

Plot: Forced to work for Hydra, you have no idea what they're hiding from you. But you find out about the Winter Soldier and your job to supervise him, all at the same time.

Warnings: Violende, angst, mentions of smut.

Words: 3,700

The clanging of metal when the cage door opens ripples through your head, your ears ringing painfully as the sound echoes through the concrete halls. The clanging sound merges with the rowdy shouts bubbling up from the other prisoners and you raise your head to see a new guard walk into your cell.

You know the drill and stick out your wrists, the guard giving you a filthy smirk before cuffing you and dragging you behind him, out of the confinement of your ancient cell. The loud shouts and cheers raise even more in volume as you make way past the other cells, goosebumps rising over your skin at the sounds combined with the chill that hangs between the dark stone around you.

When the doors to the ‘dungeons’ close behind you, the silence is deafening and eerie. Finally, you get to focus on your surroundings and you recognise the industrial designs. The countless rusty stairs running up and down the massive hall and the thin streaks of light that reach down from a hundred feet in the air. One of the many spaces you never get to explore. Safe to say you don’t feel the need to.

A soft ding redirects your eyes to the familiar elevator and the doors glide open to reveal the metal box that is nearly as old as everything else in the building. Stepping inside with the two guards that are with you, you prepare yourself for what’s to come. It’s always a surprise when you step up to your next assignment. Luckily, all you have to do is give your professional evaluation. Most people captured by Hydra had to do worse things. Way worse things.

The people you evaluate for example. The people trained and drilled for Hydra’s ongoing project.

The Winter Soldier Program.

Hydra started it long before they captured you and apparently had gone through quite a few of professional evaluators. Months ago, Hydra ripped you from your normal life and started holding you captive. Why they didn’t get rid of you isn’t quite clear to this day, but they found you a job to do. Close to the job you studied for, you get to psychologically assess the soldiers Hydra drafted.

At first, you thought you’d be better off dead, but as it turns out they will not allow you to die. For someone they apparently value quite a lot, you’re surprised by how terribly they treat you. After all your evaluations and even after attending a few of their official gatherings and representing them properly, you are still being treated like a prisoner. But you can’t leave.

So you take it.

Every day, you take it and serve one of, if not the biggest criminal organizations in the world. You see your cell most days and sometimes see the trip to the lab to evaluate the soldiers before going back to your cell once again.

Their agenda isn’t quite clear to you either, all you know is that only the highest commanders know what the goal of Hydra is. What you do know is that, whatever it is they do, they’re good at it. Never have any of their soldiers come back without successfully eliminating their targets and finishing up their missions.

It’s been a while since the commanders have summoned you for an examination, so you’re curious to what it is they need you for. If you’re correct, the new draft of soldiers has been picked. Supposedly, they need you to examine these as well.

A gravitational force presses lowly into your stomach before the elevator dings again and you obediently follow the guards through the doors and into the lab. It looks similar to when you last saw it, but it’s busier. People in uniforms and lab coats are roaming around and chattering loudly in Russian. Only a few words you can pick up on, but it’s not nearly enough for you to comprehend what they’re saying.

Sergeant Petrov steps up to you with a disgusting smile, flashing you yellow teeth before ordering the guards to uncuff you. Remaining quiet, you follow Petrov further into the lab, grabbing a white coat from the racks as you pass. Partly because you need people to know you’re an asset once the cuffs are off, but also to shield you from the horrid chill wafting through the gloomy space.

Petrov and you approach a door and he punches in a code you have remembered into the small keyboard next to the tightly sealed entrance. The metal doors slide open with a loud whir and you follow the sergeant into a space you haven’t seen before.

Letting your eyes roam the new discovered part of the building, you see massive incubators, glowing brightly as an icy gleam prevents you from looking through the glass. However, you don’t have to see what’s inside. Seeing the size of the incubators and knowing Hydra well enough, you know there’s people in the metal boxes.

“Cryo.” The thick Russian accent answers your silent question. You nod slowly, still observing the incubators lining the perimeter of the room. Actual people frozen to preserve to fight for a criminal organisation. The room you’re in is impossibly large, the ceiling seemingly leading up miles into the air where bright, natural light beams into the cold space. Small screens are lined up next to the metal coffins that show all the victims’ vitals and their names, which you can’t quite read.

As you squint to read the name tags, a toe-curling, piercing, electric jitter rumbles through your body and makes your eyes snap wide open. You let your eyes dart around the room to discovered where the noise comes from. Your eyes fall onto the podium in the back.

Slowly walking over and climbing up the steps as you follow Petrov, you watch a dozen scientists land their focus on their subject in the centre of the stage filled with machinery.

In a metal chair, in the middle of the round plane, a man is strapped to his seat. Muscular with slick, brown hair that reaches his shoulders and a glistening metal arm that is attached to him by a messy, painful-looking scar. The sight sends a pang through your chest. His breathing is heavy and ragged, his smooth chest rising and falling with every deep breath as the man bites down onto a mouthguard with determination in his dark eyes.

You can’t help but notice how the life has been completely drained from his eyes and it’s like you can read his mind when you can see a tiny bit a fear sparkle through the determination he undoubtedly forces to make it through his next few moments. Barely noticing how you hold your breath, his chair dips backwards as a metal plate lowers just above his face.

The electrical jitter starts up again and it makes all the hairs on your body stand up straight. Your brain warns you to look away, but you can’t. You can not let this man get hurt unsupervised, you won’t let him be alone. Your mind won’t allow it. The loud zoom of the electricity builds up to an unbearable sound and you hear the frequency strike the man, his piercing screams following shortly after.

It feels like hours upon hours that Hydra electrocutes the screaming man, his sounds now reduced to painful croaks as his body weakens under the restraints keeping him down. Eerie silence falls when the electricity stops and the metal plate ascends away from his face. You have to actively ground yourself from running over to the poor soldier, but thankfully Sergeant Petrov walks over to the subject and you follow closely behind him.

It's starting to feel more and more real as you approach the man in the chair. Sweat is dripping down his skin and his eyes are squeezed shut when the chair tips forward again, making him sit up straight. Eyes squeezing shut even further, strain evident on his face, dread creases his features when one of the guards circles the podium with a red book in his hands.

Your heart starts pounding as you hear the Russian words spat from his lips. You barely know what he is saying, but you can tell the words are random, only recognising three different numbers and the word ‘car’. The way the soldier in the chair shudders as if a dark memory makes its way to the consciousness of his brain, you think the words must be a trigger for something.

His entire posture changes, his muscles tensing and bones rigid as he hears the words. The man’s eyes snap open and he looks forward with a cold glare. Only now do you see the grey in his eyes, emptiness dulling them as his lids hang over the colour.

Petrov leans forward with a condescending scowl on his face and rips out the mouth guard, ordering the scientists with a flick of his hand to unlock the restraints on the chair. Petrov stands up straight and a big wall of muscle and metal lifts up to a stand from the metal chair, your eyes raising up to follow his face.

You step back from the intimidating man in what you have to admit is blood-curdling fear as you clutch your lab coat around your chest for warmth.

“Dobroye utro, soldat.” Petrov roars towards the soldier in front of him and you swallow hard as you wait for a response from him. The grey eyes lower darkly towards your commander and his fists tighten next to his muscular thighs.

“Ya gotov otvechat.” His voice is low and gravelly and makes your body rumble, the rasp in his tone from his earlier screaming making chills run down your spine.

“Soldat.This will be your new supervisor.” Petrov ushers his arm towards you and your eyes widen, not at all comfortable with finding out your new promotion the same time your new subject does.

The grey eyes lock onto you and you freeze, your body going completely cold when you can detect nothing behind his eyes, the words somehow stripping away the tiny bit of humanity you saw when you walked into the space.

“When you come back from your next mission. She will take over your evaluation.” He explains and spins on his heel before walking back to the lab, assuming you will follow him.

You do, knowing obedience will get you furthest in this institution, but you can’t help but throw one more look over your shoulder towards your newest subject only to see his eyes never left you. But one more look before the metal doors close and you see him stare down at the floor, the soldier with the red book barking new orders at him.

…

“You’re finally treating me like an employee.” You scoff as you look around the poorly furnished apartment Hydra has assigned you.

It’s small, but it has a kitchen, bathroom and proper bed. But most of all, it has privacy. No more rowdy cellmates or metal bars instead of walls around you. There’s even a small window that looks out over the snow covered mountains, the view quite captivating if it didn’t just turn your bones to ice when you realise you might not ever escape.

“Only for as long as you act like one.” Petrov warns, not amused by your sarcasm “When the soldier comes back, you evaluate him. On your table there is a file with all the information on the Soldat. Read it and come prepared. He should be done in three days. Until then, you stay here.”

You swallow hard and nod curtly at his orders. Before you can spin around to look at him, the metal door closes and you hear a loud lock twist shut, sealing the material together with the wall and reminding you that you’re completely alone with no way of ever leaving.

After all, you’re still a prisoner.

…

James Buchanan Barnes.

An American soldier, born March 10th 1917. Found injured and severed from his left arm, which they replaced with the strongest prosthetic they could make. Pumped full of the super soldier serum, he is one of the most skilled, strongest, smartest assassins Hydra has. Undetected throughout the globe and a hundred percent success rate. Conditioned with electroshock therapy to do Hydra’s bidding and put to cryosleep to preserve as Hydra endures.

He is nothing more but a trained puppet for Hydra. Stripped from his humanity and identity, he lives to serve the enemy.

Three full days, you have bent yourself over all of the information, trying to take in as much as possible and trying to figure out why you are the one who gets full responsibility and authorisation over the Winter Soldier. You see yourself as a tough woman and you only made it this far because that is close to factual, but you’re not sure you are tough enough to handle him.

Not many men had you feeling intimidated. Most men working under Hydra weren’t necessarily intimidating, but you’re smart enough to know not to test them. But the Winter Soldier made your entire body lock up tightly. His instability radiated off of him and you could immediately tell that he is completely unpredictable. You would even go as far as to say Hydra might overestimate the hold they have on the Soldat and underestimate the man behind the brainwashing.

Almost three full days have passed when your door finally unlocks and two familiar guards step inside, one of them makes you actually smile.

“Look who finally upgraded.” Antonov grins at you and you walk over, already holding out your wrists for him to cuff you as his partner waits outside in the hall. The handsome man smirks down at you with brightly blue eyes and gives you a wink “As much as I’d love to cuff you up, you’re good to walk freely now.”

Eyebrows furrowed in confusion, he shrugs, just as clueless as you are. Antonov had visited you in your cell plenty of times and tried to bond with you in your interrogation cell when you first got taken. Hydra wanted to be sure you had no information that they should know about, so they interrogated you for weeks, not refraining from light torture to get information you didn’t have. It completely wrecked you. Antonov was the only familiar face during that phase of your captivity as he took pity on you.

After a few sessions, he started bringing you some extra food, empathizing with your clearly innocent soul as the other soldiers berated you for information and treated you with less respect than a garbage bag.

Finally taking trust in the man, things escalated quickly and before you knew it, the handsome soldier had you bent over the interrogation table, having you screaming out his name as he pounded into you. That ended up repeating itself a few times. It was the only highlight of your stay and probably the only reason you didn’t go completely insane.

“I’m some sort of a supervisor now.” You explain to him, letting the two guards lead you out to the elevator once again “Apparently I have to check on the Winter Soldier.”

Antonov nods, looking slightly uneasy “I heard about him.”

You look up at him as the elevator takes you up to the lab. Antonov also wasn’t a man easily intimidated, but the look on his face speaks volumes and you know for a fact you are going to have your hands full with the Soldat.

“What will they have you do?”

“I have to probe in his mind, apparently. I get to ‘bond’ with him before taking over his entire case. I’m not sure why they put me on it, but I know for a fact Petrov has something to do with it.” You tell him, your voice puzzled as you still try to figure out why you’re doing this.

Your entire body is screaming at you that the other shoe hasn’t dropped yet and that you have to be cautious. But what are you going to do? Deny the job and run? Go back to your awful cell? Maybe, just maybe, Hydra actually has the dangerous man under control and you have nothing to be afraid of. Perhaps you can even turn the soldier to your own hand and become the most powerful woman within Hydra.

Probably not, but you’re fighting to stay optimistic – a fight you’ve been battling ever since Hydra dragged you from your normal, civilian life.

Antonov sends you a playful salute from his spot in the elevator after you step out of the metal box. You give him a weak smile in return and turn towards the lab before walking over to one of the racks to snatch a lab coat for yourself.

“Miss.” Another thick Russian voice sounds from behind you and you turn around to see who it is. Not understanding the language is making it awfully difficult to distinguish different voices from each other “You have your own coat.”

You frown at the man in confusion, before he drapes a fresh lab coat over your arm, your name embroidered onto the fabric and staring back at you. Giving the man an unsure smile in return, you allow him to get back to his job as you slip into the coat, especially tailored to fit you. Breath getting stuck in your throat, you catch yourself getting awfully comfortable in your position as an active member of Hydra. You’re not quite sure that you’re supposed to get used to this, reminding yourself you are still a replaceable asset to the institution.

Dragging your feet forward, you move to approach the metal doors leading to the round room as you call it. 5614875. You punch in the code and the doors slide open, the thick metal making you feel fragile as you wait for the entrance to open up entirely.

Revealing the big space filled with even more scientists and soldiers than before, you’re shocked to find Petrov not amongst them. Your eyes fall on the soldier, who is once again strapped to the chair. When you step into the room, at first, you go unnoticed. But once the head scientist noticed you, he shouts something in Russian and everyone stops dead in their tracks.

You refrain from frowning at the situation, trying to take the power as it comes and deciding to assert yourself with it. Confidently stepping up to the stage, you approach the soldier. Curious, grey eyes follow you as you walk closer, the man’s features not revealing any sign of emotion.

Just before reaching him, you divert to the desk next to him, grabbing a notebook and a pen before dragging a chair from the desk to the spot in front of the soldier. Wooden legs of the chair scraping over the concrete and making people in the room wince at the sound, you drop the chair down in front of the soldier and take a seat, crossing your legs and resting the notebook on your lap.

“Miss…”

“-Leave.” You order and everyone scurries out of the room quickly, leaving you alone with him.

It’s a strange feeling to be alone with your subject in a room this large, knowing damn well the soldier could snap and then proceed to kill you every which way he wishes. Turns out, he is the only person you live for now anyway. He can kill you if he wants.

“Soldat…” You start, but his hard stare doesn’t change at the name. He doesn’t acknowledge you aside from the fact that he watches you.

“Mr. Barnes…” You correct yourself and shift in your chair. He watched the small shift before returning his piercing eyes to your own. You clear your throat and straighten your back “How was your mission?”

Silence.

“Did you succeed?”

Silence.

“Do you understand me?”

Again, silence.

You heave a deep sigh and slump your head down, uncrossing your legs and flinging your notebook and pen to the ground. Since you have been captured for almost a year now, you know perfectly well how to play the silent game.

Lifting your head and crossing your arms over your chest, you lock your eyes with his and narrow them at him, staying quiet as you continue staring at him intently. It’s intense and intriguing, the longer you stare at him, the more human he seems to become. But you’re completely sure you imagine the delusion of his humanity and decide not to get your hopes up.

That’s when you remember why you’re so good at your job.

“It’s fine, you know. I was assigned to you to -I don’t really know- get you to open up I guess. They’re completely crazy for thinking that someone as far gone as you is going to give anything away. You’re not even a real person anymore. I don’t care though. I don’t have anything better to do than sit here.'' You cross your legs again "You are awful company, you know that? But I suppose it’s still better than my empty room. Actually, maybe not. My room makes more noise than you. But without the weird staring thing you’ve got going on.” You ramble on but almost jump up from your seat when you see a flash of something in his eyes.

“James, listen to me." You start once more, your tone a lot more serious towards him "You don’t have to open up to me, but I’m going to be here either way. Every single day from now on.” You explain to him and get up from your chair, staring down at the massive man sitting down in front of you “You can open up and maybe ease some weight off your shoulders, or stare at me if that’s what you want. But I’ll be here either way.”

You give him two more minutes before heaving a deep sigh and walking towards the doors and letting the scientists and soldiers back inside. What you don’t know is that the Winter Soldier hears you tell the scientists to cut it with the electrocution until further notice or you will cut their balls off. It does make him curious towards your motive.

But you’ll never know.

Because the Winter Soldier much prefers staring at you.

______________________________

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greensparty · 7 years ago

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RIP Chris Cornell 1964-2017

Last week music fans everyone (including me) were shocked and saddened by the news of the passing of singer Chris Cornell. I was out of town on vacation and when I woke up Thurs. morning, my phone had multiple messages about this. Total bummer. While I was in L.A. I stopped by Amoeba Music and there was a run in the Soundgarden section. Since the initial news, the police have ruled it a suicide. So sad that after seeing so many of his Seattle music peers died way before their time (Andrew Wood, Kurt Cobain and Layne Staley to name a few) and cleaning up his act, Cornell seemed like he was in a good place and able to deal with fame, success and had overcome depression and substance abuse.

Cornell in the early 90s

When I was a teen, sometime around 1989/90 is when I first became aware of Cornell in Soundgarden. They were one of the first big success stories to burst out of Seattle at that time. My guitar instructor often talked about guitarist Kim Thayil and their 1989 album major label debut Louder Than Love (they had a few albums and EPs on Sub Pop prior). The band’s sound was loud and heavy enough to please the heavy metal audience, but they were experimental and cutting edge enough for college radio and the burgeoning alt-rock movement. Cornell himself often talked about how they sometimes weren’t accepted by the alt-rock crowd for being too metal and not accepted by the metal audience for being too alternative. Like so many Seattle bands from that era, Soundgarden intersects with many other bands’ history (i.e. Nirvana’s Jason Everman joined Soundgarden for a short time in 1989 after Nirvana, Soundgarden’s Matt Cameron later became the drummer for Pearl Jam, etc). The band was incredible, but the MVP was Cornell and his powerful voice! What a set of pipes he had.

Soundgarden (with Cornell center) in 1989

Their outtake “heretic” was featured on the Pump Up the Volume soundtrack (another cassette tape that I listened to countless times as a teen). In 1991, the band’s breakthrough album Badmotorfinger (read my memories of this album here) was released in the same timeframe as Nirvana’s Nevermind and Pearl Jam’s Ten and signaled a change in music that was happening. The band started to appear on rock radio and MTV, opened for Guns N. Roses, headlined the 1992 Lollapalooza tour, and “loud love” was featured in Wayne’s World even thought it didn’t make the soundtrack album (ditto for Temple of the Dog’s “all night thing”). While Nirvana and Pearl Jam were the poster boys for Grunge, Soundgarden was more of the hip cool band of the genre. I quote some of Cornell’s lyrics from this album frequently (i.e. ”I’m looking California, but feeling Minnesota”).

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Soundgarden’s music video for “rusty cage”

At around this same time, Cornell was mourning the loss of his friend and roommate Andrew Wood of Mother Love Bone in 1990. To help deal with this loss, Cornell and members of MLB (and later Pearl Jam) formed the supergroup Temple of The Dog, who released one of my all-time favorite albums ever made in 1991 (read my memories of this album here). Listening to Cornell sing some of these songs like “say hello 2 heaven” now, seems achingly poignant. They re-released the album in 2016 and did a mini-tour. Now I’m kicking myself for not having splurged and gone to see their NYC show at Madison Square Garden.

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Temple of the Dog performing “say hello 2 heaven” on 11/4/16 in Philadelphia

Alt-rock soon took over! Cameron Crowe’s 1992 film Singles was in the right place at the right time to make a movie about 20-somethings looking for love in Seattle with the music scene as a backdrop. In addition to Soundgarden performing live during a rock club scene, Cornell had a cameo as he headbanged next to Matt Dillon and Cornell had some solo compositions on the soundtrack (the newly released deluxe soundtrack features several Cornell songs including the early incarnation of “spoonman”). Soon the band was popping up on soundtracks and compilations left and right. Cornell even collaborated with Alice Cooper on his 1994 album Last Temptation. The band’s 1994 album Superunknown became one of the monster epic albums of the 90s (read my memories of the album here). It debuted at #1 and went on to go 5 times platinum! I bought the album on vinyl - yes vinyl in 1994 before it became all trendy. It was an album I listened to constantly throughout junior and senior year of high school.

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Soundgarden’s music video for “my wave”

After 1994, alt-rock was still big (Radiohead, Beck and RHCP were among the biggies in the late 90s), but it had simmered. Having said that, Soundgarden were still one of the big bands of the era. The band’s 1996 follow up Down on the Upside was a little long and not as strong as the last 2 albums, but there were some gems such as “blow up the outside world”. In July 1996, I saw Soundgarden live on the 1996 Lollapalooza Tour. They co-headlined that tour with Metallica, as well as The Ramones (their final tour), Rancid, Screaming Trees and Psychotica (also on side stages were Ben Folds Five, You Am I, Ruby and Beth Hart). Without a doubt Soundgarden were one of the highlights of that hot summer day at a VT racetrack for me that day. One of the highlights was when Cornell did “black hole sun” solo without the rest of the band, just him and his guitar!

Lollapalooza ‘96 set list for Pownal, VT show

In April 1997, Soundgarden broke up. Cornell didn’t waste anytime sitting on his laurels. He began working with Eleven (check out their Ava Maria on the Very Special Christmas 3 album if you haven’t yet). That led to Cornell’s first solo album: 1999′s Euphoria Morning. I was a big fan of the album, even if it flew under the radar. In Nov. 1999, I saw Cornell on his solo tour at the Orpheum Theater in Boston. It was a phenomenal show and he truly had the audience in the palm of his hand.

By the early 00s, Cornell joined his next band Audioslave with other members of Rage Against the Machine after they broke up. I picked up their 2002 debut, but I was kinda let down. They weren’t bad at all and they had some great songs (”cochise”, “show me how to live” and more), but the problem was the bar was set high. Having a band with Cornell and Tom Morello and the members of RATM, I wanted them to be so much better.

When I was working at Fuse in 2005, they were quite popular and some of my friends there were working on a special about Audioslave, including some interviews with the band. At around this time, they had just performed in a historic concert in Cuba.

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Audioslave’s music video for “doesn’t remind me” (their best song!!!)

In 2006, Cornell continued to do some solo work, like his theme to the James Bond movie Casino Royale. As Audioslave came to an end in 2007, Cornell continued to do some great solo and soundtrack work, including 2007′s Carry On. Then in 2010, the unbelievable happened: Soundgarden reunited! It began with some concerts and led to 2012′s awesome King Animal album. What a treat to have that band back and rocking like it was 1991! Dave Grohl even directed their music video for “by crooked steps”. Cornell, later, continued his solo work. Just last month I saw the movie The Promise and his theme song is sure to be an Oscar nominee for Best Original Song, I thought to myself.

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Cornell’s brilliant cover of “nothing compares 2 u”

Saddest of all is that Cornell was so well-liked and used his celebrity to do a tremendous amount of charity work. He is survived by his wife Vicky, their 2 kids and a child from his previous marriage.

Cornell’s final performance

RIP Chris

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