1953-07-12 - A New Comrade

Russia, USSR, July 1953.
Mirny Superior Training Facility, more informally known as the Red Room Facility. Labs and medical bay.
Concrete. Over the years, one gets used to it being the primary form of decoration. It is cheap. It is sturdy. It is easy to build. The walls of the laboratories are painted a stark white, probably to make them feel cleaner. But this far underground, no matter how clean they are, there's something to the hallways and rooms that just feels gritty, dusty.
As if there is something unclean roaming the halls.
The hallway outside the labs proper has a long set of heavy 'glass' windows running the length of the main lab and medical area. For a country that thrives on secrets, there are none that can be kept in the open, stark white concrete.
Perhaps that's why this section of the facility is always emptied before anyone undergoes the injections. And it is empty, the doorways on all three entrances into this section guarded, not allowing any of the trainees, or workers for the facility by.
Inside the lab, the red-headed man stares up at the ceiling, seeming calm as two technicians move around him, tightening straps and checking his blood pressure. Alexi Shostakov isn't panicking. Lesser men would. But lesser men do not make a career of strapping themselves inside half-built cockpits with half-engineered engines attached and blast themselves into low atmosphere.
For Mother Russia. For the Soviet. Being here is another sacrifice he must make for his country. Soon, the prick of the needle, he knows, but for now, it is waiting. Just waiting.
The Winter Soldier had often killed men. But, he'd killed them with his own hand. Knives. Bullets. Garrotting. Or simple snapping their necks. He'd not attempted to orchestrate another's death. But, there is always a first time for everything. He watches over the experiment, as it was his voice, cunning and contrived, that'd been placed in the ears of the appropriate political, and military powers that the small test pilot, the promised to one Natalie Romanov, would be the perfect one to bear the brunt of their own super soldier program.
He has nothing to say to the men working, overseeing the final stages of the injections to be prepared. He, too, waits. And his own face is severe, a thin line of intensity. He waits, for Alexi to die.
And all he thinks about, is Natalie.
Alexi sees the man through the glass as his bed is slanted upright, the technicians readying him for the final stage of the process. He doesn't know the man, but he knows a killer when he sees one. The grim expression, intense. The red-headed man wonders for a moment why they would have someone like that man--
Wait. Could it be? The fabled Winter Soldier? Alexi shudders slightly. He knew his wife had been here, just like this, once before. She rarely spoke of it, and when she had, her comments were guarded, purposefully light. Perhaps his superiors were not entirely forthcoming about the risks, he concludes, though it matters little now. Orders had been given, and Alexi would follow them. Even the ones that ripped his heart in two; that his wife would think he dead, that he could not contact her, or his family, or anyone from his life again. He was dead already.
His mind, too, lingers on the same woman as the grim man watching does. He is entirely unaware of this, though, as the technician taps the glass of the syringe, then brings the icey needle to the vein inside his elbow, plunging the liquid hell into his soul.
Alexi screams.
The sound echoes down the hallways, a wail of pure agony, torture, as the serum begins its work, ripping through his cells.
The scream brings an odd, if not brief, smile of satisfaction to the Winter Soldier's lips. So brief, it might be missed, if one isn't looking closely. He allows himself that one moment of self-satisfaction before returning to his stoic gaze. The intense gaze, waiting for the one moment in which Alexi's body will seize, his heart stop, and his eyes roll back into his head as the serum ravages the man's body.
He moves forwards, one, two steps. Places his hands on the table, and leans forward, expectantly without giving away his bluff in the slightest. As a man would, who waits for the Super Soldier to emerge. Or, ... also, a man to die.
There are few moments that he savours, in his dealings, his working, for Mother Russia. A job, only, this assassination, or that. A mission. To be forgotten, and shunted to the past as closed business.
This? This is a moment he is even now committing to memory. Every agonizing moment that he's been forced apart from Natalie because of this man, is now returned to him, a hundred fold, in a matter of seconds.
'Justice', is the single thought that enters his mind.
Alexi stops screaming, though his body does not stop convulsing. And he continues, his eyes rolled back in his head, for several minutes.
Until he stops. Completely. Unmoving, limply hanging from the straps.
The technicians rush foward to check him.
The Winter Soldier leans back, frowns, and does well to mask the elation that starts to build up in his veins. And, his voice remains stoic, placid, through that frown and through that elation, with some effort.
"A pity," he manages, with the cold detachment of a man whose sole purpose in life is to kill to the scientists. "I was certain he would have lived through it."
'And now, Natalie, we do not have to pretend, anymore. He is -gone-.' As his arms cross over his chest, the fist that his flesh-hand makes is a rock-solid ball.
But then a sound breaks James's elation. The sound of a single breath, raggedly drawn.
And then another.
Alexi's head lifts, slowly, shakily. His arms, more filled out than they were before, pull instinctively against the restraints, even as the technicians check his vitals, grinning at each other. "Water?" he asks raspily.
One of the two step aside and fill a glass, bringing it to the man's lips. He drinks thirstily. "You will need to rest for a couple of days. Eat. Quarters have been provided for you," the technician rattles off, as if by rote, the same litany James would have heard a decade earlier. "And as soon as we're done with these tests, you'll be escorted to your room, if you need /anything/, just let the guard outside know."
"My wife?" Alexi asks after his finishes drinking. "Natalia? Can I see her?"
The technicians look at each other, both suddenly stoic. The second one hazards to speak, "No, Captain Shostakov. But we can... check with the head of this facility..."
It takes James a long, long moment to steel himself again, that crash of his elation is a significant blow, not only to his ego, but to his hopes. And in that instant, he knows what the future will hold. He knows that the Soviet's will make him a veritable hero amongst the people. That he will be forced to work alongside Alexi to keep their country safe. That they will be brothers in arms.
In a way, he's damned himself.
Yet, he also knows that Alexi will not be able to live the life he lived. The small, skinny test pilot is gone. Dead. And the Super Soldier is all that remains. And that? That at least, makes the bitter taste easier to swallow.
He is quiet, a long moment, before he tells Alexi, "Well done." And, to the scientists? "As I said it would be. He was a viable candidate for the program."
The technicians nod, unstrapping Alexi and letting the man take a shaky step away from the bed. The man shakes his head, as if to clear it, and then offers his hand to the Winter Soldier to shake.
"Thank you, comrade, for your faith in me."
It takes all of James' willpower not to crack Alexi in the jaw with his cybernetic arm, or for that matter not show that desire on his features. The only tell is the brief pause in lifting up his hand. To clench Alexi's. And squeeze, tightly. A terse nod, "Always, comrade. Serve well. You will do the people proud."
Category:Historical Log