Chapter Text
“Follow me.”
Brock Rumlow knew better than to refuse a direct order from the SHIELD head, Alexander Pierce, and he fell in line with the man’s elbow as they moved through the United States Conciliate. It was said that Pierce, ever the authority on security, intelligence, and able to chat a room full of people down, was on his way to becoming Secretary of Defense in the next few years. Being relatively new to SHIELD, having something to prove, he knew that he had to rub elbows with the higher ups if he could get anywhere close to the top himself.
He didn’t know why Alexander was even in the U.S. Conciliate of South Africa anyway, but the man apparently liked business trips where it was debatable if anything secured existed in this country. Still, he knew to keep his mouth shut as they moved to be back of the building and took an elevator, old rickety thing, to the basement. It looked and smelled like a wet bomb shelter.
“Good things have reached my ears about you,” Alexander said as they walked. He didn’t say anything, keeping his cock sure attitude in his pockets for now. “You’re a quick-learner; you have the guts and the sharp mind to make tactical decisions; you have something to prove.” If that wasn’t a good ass pat from a boss, Brock didn’t know what was. “Have you ever trained a dog before?”
The question threw him a bit because he was certain Pierce had looked into him before taking him as a bodyguard on the boring ass tours. He had sat through them, made no complaint, made sure nothing happened but most of all, kept the head of SHIELD safe without drawing attention to himself. “No sir, no dogs in my house when I grew up.”
“A pity,” Alexander said conversationally as they walked, letting the silence reign right after.
The smell and sound of water grew thicker as they walked; he hadn’t actually realized there was this much to the whole Conciliate. He also didn’t know why there were armed guards waiting for them and a reinforced steel door down in here either. They passed through it without question, but he turned his head to eye the guards who were twitchy and seemed nervous.
“My neighbours had a dog when I was a kid, ugly big mutt who barked all the time.” Brock was making some of that up actually. It had been a small white little thing. He had made the dog have an accident when it had tried to bite him one too many times. “Can’t say I ever trained him.”
He stopped the same time that Alexander did, and he looked the man right in the eye. He found himself studying the man who was to heading right to the top of government for a long moment. He had no idea why they were here and he let that play on his face too.
“What are you afraid of, Agent Rumlow?”
“Nothing, sir.” The formality of his name made him stand up taller. Something very life changing was going on, and he had no idea why or how.
“Are you afraid of dying?”
“No.”
“Discipline?”
“Giving or receiving, sir?” He wasn’t interested in being afraid of anything. He didn’t like the limitations.
Alexander Pierce didn’t reply to him, simply looked him over again before nodding to something only a man who had seen so much would know. Somehow, he was given the impression that he had passed some kind of test. “I’m going to trust you with something, Agent Rumlow. However, don’t think for a moment that if you even think of betraying that trust that I won’t make certain you fear for consequences. Am I perfectly clear?”
Brock Rumlow couldn’t suppress the shiver that ran down his frame in anticipation. He nodded his head, still managing to keep his cool, but he smirked a bit to show the man in front of him that he still wasn’t afraid.
“This way.”
He followed without question, stepping into the room that had a rather heavy door for being this far down in the ground. There was an acrid smell to the air like someone had dumped a bunch of antifreeze on the floor. The smell made his eyes water a bit as the sweet smell coated the back of his throat, but he knew better than to complain as his eyes flicked around the room. Pierce didn’t seem bothered at all.
To the left was a large metal tube, the hatches open and slush still melting on the floor. There were enough wires and some kind of mask hanging inside for him to know someone had been in there. To the right, close to Pierce was a large chair with a strange sort of large black metal halo circling the top and more slush around the chair base. In the chair lay a half naked man, pale, wet, barely breathing but with some kind of monitoring system that issued soft beeps from the screen nearby.
Brock approached to get a better look, only realizing in getting close how well-build the man was and how impossible it seemed that anyone was alive down here. His eyes settled on the light flickering off the limp metal arm on the man, the scarring where metal and flesh met something like a sick work of art. He watched the sleeping man’s chest rise and then fall slowly and he found himself staring to make sure another breath was going to follow at all. He then twitched from revulsion when Alexander simply reached out and ran a fond hand through the wet dark hair, smoothing it back as one might do with a favoured sleeping child… or a dog.
“Is he?”
“Not ‘he’, Agent Rumlow,” Alexander said immediately, looking over at him. “This may look like a ‘he’, but it’s not. You may refer to this as a ‘he’ or ‘him’ in future and catch me doing the same, but this is not the case. You might even come to appreciate the difference.” The guy always had a smooth way of saying things, piquing his interest and making him wonder. “This is the greatest asset of HYDRA, and also its best kept secret. It will stay that way too.” There was iron in the older man’s voice that made him realize that this was bigger than just being afraid, bigger than being chosen. “This is the Winter Soldier, a codename given by the Soviets in 1955.”
He frowned deeply and a bit skeptical, since the sleeping bedraggled mess in the chair looked no older then twenty-five. There was no opportunity to scoff at the notion because Pierced started to talk again. “He is a weapon, trained and conditioned to respond to orders and carry them out. The Soviets and HYDRA worked together on him with input from the Germans and the United States divisions. The Soviets kept him hidden because their intelligence agency knew how to keep the best secrets, but they let him go on loan when necessary.
“In 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed and the Winter Soldier project was shifted to a safe location in the United States. He’s been under my personal care since that time.” Pierced stopped speaking, letting the weight and implications sink in as the man in the chair shifted slightly, metal fingers curling and then spreading. “The asset is the finest creation Doctor Zola ever made, but like all weapons, he needs constant upkeep and care.”
Brock was starting to not have the best feeling about why he was here, and he rolled through his mind anything in his past that might make him a danger, to make him a target. No, he knew how to fit in regardless of how much didn’t care about anyone. He enjoyed pain, giving and receiving it, but he kept that entire aspect of himself well hidden. SHIELD didn’t tolerate that sort of behaviour and HYDRA might encourage it to a degree, but it wasn’t enough to make him feel like this meeting was going to go his way suddenly. It was the first doubt that came to him, but he squished it as soon as he became aware of it.
He turned his gaze back to the wet lump of man laying in the chair. “Permission to speak freely, sir?”
“Granted.”
“How do you keep a weapon like this alive for that many years? How do you even know he’s yours?” He had a fondness for weapons after all; he had never seen someone sound so confident that a man could be one. The mind rebelled unless this was some kind of robot.
“Cryostasis,” Pierce said without hesitation, gesturing to the tube on the other side of the room. “We freeze him to subzero temperatures to preserve his vitality, but he is also unique in that he’s the only living creation to survive the process. That makes him very valuable.” Yeah, no shit… freezing and unfreezing a guy would be useful. “As for your other question, he’s mine because I know how to handle this asset.”
He watched in a horrified sort of fascination as Alexander leaned down, running hands through that matt of dark hair with a fondness that disgusted him. He curled a lip in revulsion as he watched the older man lean down, thinking Pierce was going to kiss the guy but instead, Pierce’s face disappeared to the side of the soldier’s head. He suspected that the man said something because suddenly the unconscious man’s eyes were open, unfocused but open. Another soft set of words Brock didn’t catch, and he didn’t have time to think too hard on it.
Regardless of the intravenous set pumping warming fluids into those veins, regardless of the fact that a moment ago, the guy looked on the verge of death, the Winter Soldier was out of the chair and in front of him with two steps that happened so quickly he didn’t even have time to do more than inhale. He froze as he felt the press of his own combat knife against his throat, the bite of the blade causing blood to well and slip down his throat. This was the point where he suspected people felt fear, especially staring into those unfocused cold eyes. He only felt a twisted fascination.
“Withdraw,” Pierce called softly, and the man who was not a man but a weapon withdrew, leaving his knife to clatter on the floor from limp fingers. There was a gesture from the older man, some kind of hand signal and the Winter Soldier slipped back into the chair but this time stayed apparently awake. “Are you afraid, Agent Rumlow?”
“No, sir. He’s…” Brock struggled to find words to encircle all that he felt in that moment. “The asset is the weapon I’ve been waiting for, I think.”
The older man gave a smile and a nod like the answer was pleasing, and he knew then that this was not just a twist of fate. This was something wonderful and it was hard for him to feel elation like that, feeling it well up inside of him, the illusion of a hard-on making him shake his head slightly. He had a fondness for weapons, always had, but that creature with the face of man was the best damn weapon he had ever seen.
“You are going to be trained on how to handle him,” Pierce said simply. “A weapon of this caliber can do serious damage, so proper time and investment is needed. And this is a one-way ticket as well.”
Brock just nodded his head, lifting a hand to touch the wound on his throat, feeling the warmth of blood there. This was a weapon he wanted to learn to handle well. This was a weapon he would learn to master.
“Your training begins tomorrow,” Pierce said, patting a hand on that flesh shoulder. He felt a bit of understanding on why the old man was so fond of this weapon. It was like a favourite gun or knife, some sentimental bullshit that rung clear and true without a proper explanation. “Once he’s fully awake, he’ll either accept you, or he’ll kill you.”
Brock Rumlow snapped awake and regretted it a second later as the agony of his burnt and broken body assaulted him so harshly that he nearly gave voice to a cry. He breathed deep the warm oxygen from the mask that he wore, aware it was probably the only thing that would keep him awake. The drugs that were supposed to keep him comatose through the ordeal were not working, and his chapped lips felt as horrible as the dryness in his mouth and throat. Sensitive tissues burnt or ruined from the dirt and debris, though… it felt like they were sloughing and new even more sensitive flesh lay beneath.
He still managed to swallow hard, turning his head a slight bit to regard the intravenous bag nearby and noted that it wasn’t running as well as it probably should. The bag itself was over half full, the monitors near it flickering lights and numbers that would have made sense if some nurse had bothered to lubricate his eyes as they were supposed to. Something was wrong and it wasn’t just the fact that he was burnt to over ninety percent of his body and felt like the other ten percent had already sloughed off from being bedridden.
His eyes took in the room as much as he could, picking out nothing but clean walls, equipment, no sympathetic bullshit from people who didn’t actually care, and not even a nurse in sight. His private suite would have been comfortable if he could have moved in it, but as it was, moving was not really an option at all for him. If they had given him skin grafts, he didn’t think they would have taken because there wasn’t enough healthy skin to take from. He’d scar, but he didn’t care. Scars would change his appearance, and he apparently needed that right now.
Yet, the question of why he was suddenly awake and in pain hadn’t been answered. His fingers searched for the button that patients like him were given to summon a nurse, except he just hoped it allowed him to dope himself up with more morphine. He found the control, but his fingers hurt too much to push it until about the ninth fumbling try and a stiff grunt of pain. He was used to pain, but this already wore on him.
He waited, hoping the nurse was at least pretty. The woman that slipped into the room was that, but she clearly wasn’t a nurse. He wanted to narrow his eyes at the red head, but she walked to the chair and seated herself without passing him more than a glance. The man who entered next was someone he actually expected to see, though he would have preferred it to more be on his terms.
“Still alive, huh?” He decided to at least have the first words, but his throat hurt and his voice was raspy from disuse and smoke. “What do I owe the pleasure? I suspect you’re not supposed to be here.”
Steve Rogers was not particularly a man to be denied, but the self-righteous prick was here and there was no way that he was getting up to shake his hand. From the little he remembered, Project Insight had not gone off as planned, and he had worked with Rogers two years to know he could place the blame on the man. The fact that they measured each other up didn’t surprise him either, though he was at a distinct disadvantage.
After a measure of silence, the great Captain America deigned to speak with him. “Alexander Pierce is dead,” he said simply and without emotion. He supposed it was intended to jar him, but it didn’t. “HYDRA is scattered and broken. You apparently didn’t have enough time to choke on cyanide, so you’re the one we know has information.”
He might have laughed if he thought it wouldn’t make him black out. “You think I’m going to tell you anything?”
“I’m hoping you’ll be agreeable if I can get you amnesty,” the soldier said. There was something in the man’s voice that made Brock smell heart-string jerking weakness from the man. “Tell me about the Winter Soldier. Did you know about him?”
Brock forced his chapped lips to part, not caring that they cracked and dribbled blood down his chin and into his bandages. “The weapon,” he drawled softly. “I knew about him, but Pierce gave him orders, set the missions, woke him up or put him to sleep.” That much was true, but he wasn’t about to squeal the entire truth right now either. It wasn’t worth his while.
Somehow, Steve remained emotionless about the few details. He was a bit impressed; he knew the history lessons after all. He’d looked it up. “What else do you know?”
“Not much,” he said carefully. “He’s an asset, a weapon with the face of a man, conditioned to do as ordered so I’m told.” He could see the strain in the man and damn, why weren’t his eyes lubricated to really enjoy this? “Is the Winter Soldier dead?”
“No,” Steve said a bit harshly, the denial both a refusal to believe and a refusal to let fear take root. “Bucky is out there, but he’s elusive.”
“Bucky?,” he just had to ask, watching the verbal knife go in.
“It’s his name, Rumlow,” Steve replied with the same steel the man was known for.
“Oh, does the guy you’re chasing know that?” He watched, waited and savoured the pain that flitted across what he could make out of Rogers’ face. Of course, if the Winter Soldier knew his old name, that just made things a bit more interesting in the long run. “Look, he’s a ghost story. He knows how to hide I imagine, the whole ‘disappearing in plain sight’ thing I heard when we took you in the streets. Even if you catch up with him, you probably can’t make him stay.” He tried to sound logical, like he was just solving another problem for a mission. Damn his throat hurt from talking. “Unless you find someone who can call him to heel.”
The soldier flinched at the phrasing but still came around the bed closer to him, to look down into his face. The man’s jaw worked, but the tension was so obvious that he wanted to have a chuckle. It would hurt his lungs, so he refrained, waiting for Rogers to ask him the question. He wasn’t going to answer without one, and he shifted his head and issued a soft groan of pain just for show.
“Steve,” Natasha said softly.
“What do you mean by that? Call him to heel?” There was a strain in the man’s voice. The only reason that this man was holding it together was for hope of an answer, hope to get to the Winter Soldier before HYDRA did.
“You need a handler,” Brock said slowly. “So Pierce said.”
“Who are they and where do I find one,” Steve asked neutrally. It was so carefully neutral that he knew it was a ruse.
“HYDRA trained a select few people how to take the Soldier’s leash and tug him along as far as I’m told. I don’t have names. I just know they existed.” He shifted slightly on the bed.
“Leash?” This from Natasha, clearly aware that Steve was grappling with the idea.
Brock issued a cough which sent stabbing pain through his body, and he thought for a moment he might actually black out. Still, he had to smile through blooded lips. “You think HYDRA would let that thing run wild normally? No, they apparently designed him to follow commands or so Pierce mentioned.” His eyes flicked to Captain America’s face. “Like a well-trained dog.”
It was pleasant through his haze of pain to see the blond man’s lips form a thin line and anger radiate in waves. It almost made having this conversation worthwhile, but he was done playing. He had information of his own, minimal at best. The Winter Soldier was still out there, no doubt either hiding or snapping at anything that came too close. Pierce had mentioned the weapon going AWOL a few times, but the reasons and the results tended to be different. Sometimes the asset was passive and other times a destructive force to be tamed.
“Where does he go to ground?” It was a pointless question, but he knew Steve was grasping at straws. What a hopeful idiot.
“I don’t know,” Brock said.
“You’re a liar, Rumlow,” Steve said with a curl of lip. “Where does the Winter Soldier go to ground? Which HYDRA safe house would he go to?”
“Don’t know,” he insisted calmly. “Find a handler, Rogers. Don’t find one and you’re shit out of luck.”
He and Captain America stared at each other for a long time. Well, he stared at the fuzzy image of Rogers in front of him, and he assumed that the old man was looking at him. He shifted and groaned in pain, hissing through clenched teeth. As he expected, his intravenous was turned up again and the curl of drugs in his veins let him relax as much as being as damaged as he was could. It was wonderful to play a good part in these little conversations.
He didn’t even hear the pair leave. He did however realize that with Pierce dead that he topped the handler hierarchy, which was an interesting place to be. Now, if he was the malfunctioning Winter Soldier, where would he go?
Probably to bite the hand that fed him, take off those fingers before the muzzle closed around his fangs. How many handlers were left? That was the important question. And how many did the Winter Soldier have in that empty head to snap at?
***
Steve wasn’t even certain that he had gotten any viable information out of Rumlow or if the man was just jerking his chain. He walked down the steps of the hospital without letting Natasha keep up, aware that she wasn’t even supposed to be here in the first place. She had come because they had both worked with Rumlow and she was very good at reading people. He couldn’t face her impressions of how that conversation had gone either, and the whole idea that he was off in search of a HYDRA agent that had the ability to command Bucky made his skin crawl.
“Rogers,” Natasha finally called when he was near the car.
He stopped and turned to face her, stuffing his hands into his pockets and forcing himself to take a deep breath, to calm his nerves. It had been a bad few weeks, and it certainly wasn’t looking to get any better. Still, he knew that she had other matters to attend to that didn’t involve playing his second in an interrogation, not that what had happened in the hospital room had been anything but. He took another deep breath anyway.
“Steve,” Natasha said again, more gently this time. “Thoughts?”
“He was lying,” Steve replied with a shrug of his shoulders. He knew better than to believe someone like Rumlow, but he had to try as well. The man was one of the few HYDRA agents who had been high enough to probably know some information. Everyone else mumbled about ghost stories. STRIKE members were either dead or missing and presumed dead. “I knew he would lie.”
“He wasn’t entirely lying.” Natasha came to lean on the car side and crossed her arms over her chest. “He mentioned handlers, and it makes sense.” She ignored Steve’s irritated glaring at the world around them. “That file I gave you said nothing about them?”
Steve had the good sense to look uncomfortable. “Once there was a notation that the scientists believed that training qualified people to retrieve him when he malfunctioned. It was just a quick blurb before they went back into…” he paused to swallow hard, “before the conditioning and training notes.”
He looked at Natasha, wondering how much more she picked up out of Rumlow that he had missed, how much of his anger had blinded him to the little details. That was why he had asked Natasha to come, had drawn her out of hiding because he and Sam had searched too long based only on hints and whispers.
“I think you’re right about him though. Brock knew more than he was letting on, but I think he gave up good information about handlers,” she said slowly and carefully. “I think that’s your lead and even if you find out, don’t employ him or her unless you trust them, which we both know you shouldn’t. Best you find one of these handlers and get them to tell you where to find your friend or how to track him.”
He nodded. It was a good lead, even if he wanted more answers. He would never employ a handler against Bucky and not just because of their friendship. If the word ‘handler’ meant what he thought it meant, a handler was going to be dangerous around Bucky and could even possibly give him a command to attack him again. He doubted they just managed the situation; they no doubt knew how to control it. The notes might have been specific on some aspect of Bucky’s conditioning, but there were still things that translation did little for. He didn’t know enough Russian to be certain of some things, and it was still painful to read about how his best friend had been stripped to the studs and then built up into something that he still had trouble grappling with.
“Why would he talk about them though? If they are so important, if Bucky is so important, why even give up that information?” He knew that Rumlow was a good soldier but also a snake, ready to bite at any moment. The man was skilled enough to make any bite hurt too.
“Probably because he realized he’d have to give something up to keep you from probing for more,” Natasha said with a shrug. “Or he wanted to push your buttons.”
“I’ll believe the latter before the former,” Steve replied with a shake of his head and a sigh. “A handler,” he added just to taste the words.
“I know this is hard.”
Steve glanced at her and felt like he had a smile a bit. “It is, but you were on the other side of the fence than I am. You were on… Bucky’s side of it.”
Natasha had a way of smiling but not letting it indicate one thing or another. She was doing that now and he almost felt bad for the comment. He didn’t know much about her because of some vain need for her privacy, which was unnecessary since it was all in the internet right now anyway.
“If you…” he trailed off and finally just turned to look at her. “If you were Bucky, if you didn’t have it all but some things, what would you do? Where would you go?”
Her smile was a little warmer this time. “I’d find my weakness and destroy it.”
Steve sobered and nodded. “He’ll go for the handlers if he can remember them.”
“He’ll remember.”
“You sound certain, Nat.”
“If you had spent your life being controlled and had to work intimately with people who knew your buttons, you might not remember everything about them, but you’d know them.” She looked right at him and tapped her temple and then her heart. “The mind might not be entirely functional, but the flesh remembers, Steve. HYDRA was not gentle with him, so his flesh will remember and he’s keen enough and dangerous enough to know his own body. Don’t think he won’t use every advantage that he has right now.”
He nodded slowly, drinking in the information and sorting it passed all the emotion that he felt when it came to his best friend. He had to be level headed if he was to use any of this information appropriately. He wasn’t about to go to what remained of SHIELD with it, not when there was so much data mining happening right now anyway. Everyone left seemed to take personal affront that HYDRA had been among them. He also couldn’t trust that there weren’t sleepers, which bothered him immensely; he didn’t like not trusting people who he worked with.
Slowly, he sighed heavily and leaned against the car. “I’m going to have to call Tony, aren’t I?”
“You’re going to have to call Tony.”
“You know for a fact that’s going to be a painful call,” Steve said but his smile was warm when he looked at her next to him.
“I thought the lever pulling incident bonded you two like war buddies.”
“That’s… really not encouraging me to call him.” He issued a soft chuckle before glancing at her again. “How much information do I trust him with, do you think?” She had worked with Stark after all.
“He’s going to be nosy regardless and figure things out no matter what you tell him. Remember, most of HYDRA’s secrets are on the internet along with SHIELDs. If he hasn’t been forefront on the data mining, I’d say that he’s probably dying of fever,” she said as she pushed off of the car.
He did the same, fishing in his pocket for the keys. He had to call Tony, but he wasn’t looking forward to that and thought it might be best to process the information that he had gained and read what he could from the file that Natasha had given him. Maybe he missed some information about the handlers and their system, even maybe missed something like a name. He’d settle things in himself before he decided to take on Tony Stark even in a phone conversation, and he knew he’d run it by Sam first. The guy had a way of being logical and bringing his thinking down beyond just the considerable emotional attachments he had for Bucky.
“Come on, I’ll give you a ride to wherever you want to go.”
“Are those the kind of pick up lines you brought forward from the forties, Rogers?” Natasha smirked at him, and he could just shake his head to her teasing.
***
The low moan of fear didn’t particularly pique his interest, nor the blood drying on the man’s chin. He simply stared from his crouched position, his expression impassive as he purposefully allowed his gaze to roll over the dark-haired man’s struggling form. He would have thought that this wasn’t personal – none of his missions were – but it was this time. It was utterly personal, but he didn’t let that show either.
The man collapsed in front of him twisted bound hands around, the fingers not broken moving lamely in an attempt to create some sign, but it was pathetic and looked more like worms flailing in the air. The scent of blood filled the air and it became more potent with the sudden head shaking, a new wash of blood from between the man’s lips coating that stubbly chin with new fresh red.
The Winter Soldier continued to stare, feeling as empty now as he had when he was on any mission. He had thought that he might feel something, but the cold emptiness remained. He took no pleasure in this duty regardless of the fact that it was both necessary and supposed to be sweet to him. After all, how often had this man ruined his day? It was supposed to be joyous to return the favour, wasn’t it? It didn’t, which was a bit of a disappointment.
It didn’t detract from the man’s obvious pain and fear.
“You’ll bleed out soon enough,” he said softly, reverting to Russian out of habit. He hadn’t bothered to cauterize the tongue stub he had left behind after all. It was fatal, but he would stay to the end.
There was the sound of wet flesh hitting wet flesh, but the attempt to talk was pointless. There would be no words for him, no commands or key words whispered to bend him. He had taken care of that as soon as he had opportunity, and those swelling fingers couldn’t move enough to signal him to do anything that he didn’t choose to do.
It was interesting really, this free choice. He leaned his chin on the heel of his hand, not bothering to think too hard on the idea that he had free choice because it was an illusion. What he was doing was self-preservation, nothing more. How many handlers were left he didn’t know, but he would find them and he’d cut their tongues out and break their fingers and arms all the same. He would not be commanded to bend to a knee again; he expected if he destroyed more of them that he might eventually feel something towards it.
His blue eyes flicked at the sound of the man’s head hitting the wall with soft thumps of noise, but it wouldn’t attract anyone.
”Bleed and be content I haven’t decided on something worse for you. No cold water baths, no batteries, just knives.” He had no reason to comfort this dying man, watching his blood spill out from a ruined mouth, but he still took no pleasure in it. Not everything this man had done came to his memories, but he had flashes and they were enough.
The soft gurgling noise didn’t motivate him to quicken the situation. He watched as blood flowed, the man struggled in restraints and even tried to spit curses at him. He was far enough away that not even the attempts at spittle reached him, but energy flagged, fear returned and then even that melted away in the hour before the handler went still and cold.
Once the man was dead, he dragged the body over to the stove, stuffed the top half inside the open door and then turned on the gas, allowing it to fill up the room as he walked to the window. He flicked a simple match and threw it expertly inside to its target. It lit the gas before ever reaching the stove, and he was gone into the night before it could be seen as anything more than a suicide.
HYDRA was losing more heads than could be replaced at this rate.