Chapter Text
Red alarms blared throughout the facility. A man with a baby swathed in his arms was miles ahead of it. Sweat beaded from his brow. He ran through the Siberian woods, hiding behind tree lines. His enhanced hearing picked up on enemy footsteps, crunching in the snow. Everytime he leaned against a tree, breathing heavily, the thought of getting caught creeped into his mind, terrifying him to his very core.
But then he took one loving look toward the child in his arms and renewed energy had him bounding across the snowy plain again, eluding the soldiers raging to bring the two of them back.
To be brainwashed.
To be destroyed.
To be assimilated into assasins.
No, getting caught was not an option.
He hurried toward the small lake at the edge of the forest. This was the civilian side, as far as he understood. The forest was the divider between the facility and the outside world. No human could survive going through all of the forest, with wolves and lack of edible vegetation all throughout the year. The facilty, made it so no humans could get through... or survive.
Luckily, the man wasn’t considered human anymore.
He spotted the cabin there. Same as the last time he got through. Lit lattern on the porch, lonely rocking chair illuminated by it. The young man crept up the stairs, careful not to make a sound. Leaving the babe was not an easy task. He saw her grow, for all of the first few months of her life, an innocent child about to grow up in a place set on making a monster out of her. It was imperative that he take her away, as far away as he could. Yet, he couldn’t bring himself to separate himself from her. Not yet.
Placing her gently on the chair, he bent down on the wooden porch floor, surprisingly rid of snow. The people inside must be awake then.
They will take care of her.
With a metal arm balanced across a bent knee, the man picked up his flesh hand to swaddle the baby tighter in the threadbare blanket, safe in knowledge that her enhanced body kept her warm and the people inside will undoubtedly have something better to give her. He needed to make this quick, the agents were coming…
In a cracked voice, the man whispered “You be good now, ya hear?”. He hasn’t spoken to another being in such a formal manner in so many years. The last time he did he was with… no, no time for those thoughts…
“I can’t give ya anything else besides this. Wish I could though… you would’ve made me a proud dad. One that didn’t kill on command,” Holding back tears, he said the next words with fragments of screams and splatters of blood in the back of his mind...
“But you are going to be good now, ya hear?”
The baby was quiet all the while. Staring inquisitively up at the blue eyed man who carried her, she knew the situation was bad, just didn’t know how or why. Were they moving to a new place? Why was the man crying? He always looked at her happily, if a little sad…
“And I love you. So so much. You never forget that ok?” The blue eyed man said. Ok, she thought, though she didn’t know how to communicate that yet...
“Always remember that you’re loved” the man finished.
He placed a soft kiss to her forehead and pushed some stray hairs, the same dark brown as his, behind her ear. Standing up, he walked over to the wooden door, annonymous and quaint. He taised his flesh hand and knocked three times, too precise to be mistaken as random creaks.
Then he turned away, calmly stepping down the stairs and into the tree line. Calmly walking through the forests and stepping into the agents’ peripheral. Calmly raising his hands, both flesh and metal, above his head as Hydra agents surrounded him. Calmly prepared to take his punishment. The baby no longer in his possession.
For the babe was no longer in the Hydra facility, raised to be the next killer. She was instead in the possesion of an elderly couple, who were both delighted and confused at seeing a child being dropped on their doorstep. And the child, although she knew she would never see the man again, embraced her fate. Calmly. Because she know one thing,
She was loved.