Work Text:
Albania, 1983.
The reek of chloramines is pungent and constant. It occurs whenever chlorine reacts with organic substances, and billions of single-celled organisms have made their graves in the walls and floors of the base. They embed their stink permanently in its pores: in the tiles, in the smooth, organic curves of concrete.
There are no corners to hide in at the bottom of the abandoned municipal pool where they keep him, but the asset scans for them anyway. He shows no other signs of apprehension. Eyes moving always, nothing else. He is still. He knows the guards are afraid of him, most of the operatives are. The asset is afraid almost all the time.
One of the guards keeps shifting his weight in a distracting non-pattern. Berisha. “Swear, I’m going to have to cut these boots off, my feet are so swollen.”
Dyatlov rolls his eyes. “Stop being a pussy and get some fucking gel insoles like I told you.”
“You’re still not supposed to stand on concrete for eight hours straight without a mat or something.” Berisha shifts around more, marches in place a few steps. “I can’t wait for this transfer to be done.”
“Yeah, well, you’re not the only one excited about it.” They both snicker. Neither steals a glance toward the asset. He knows they want to.
The asset does not understand the significance except that it is bad and he is probably in trouble, and punishment will happen soon. This is an observable pattern. He does not move.
Dyatlov scuffs his boot against the pool drain. “This might come in handy.” More giggling.
The level of anxiety the asset always experiences around non-targets burbles higher. He’s in full battle dress but not wearing the goggles because he is inside and it is night. There is no tactical advantage, but he wants the goggles. If he had the goggles there would be another layer separating him from the guards. He grips the edge of the examination table where he is sitting. He doesn’t move his hands to cover his lap. He does not. He sits and ancient buzzing sodium lights bathe the chamber in shades of bile.
Today is important. He will not be coming back to the pool after this. Probably. They are sending him to another base, at another branch of HYDRA. He will stay there and not come back, and this mission was a mission but also a test. The asset understands tests. He always completes missions and this one was flawless until the very end. He was good, he knows, everything was so good, but then he thinks he made a mistake.
Dyatlov: "Ready to go, huh?"
This question is addressed to him but the asset knows he is not meant to answer. The words mean a different thing from what Dyatlov said. It is a joke, he can tell from the sound. It is about him. The guards can see his lap and they know he's done a wrong thing. He still doesn't understand what it is or why, doesn’t dare ask, but he must have done wrong. He must have.
And: "Might want to check that nonconformity," says Berisha. His voice is laced with the same laughter. "I don't think that's regulation."
Anxiety increases and the asset crumples a little on the inside where no one will see. He fixes his gaze harder on the floor to stop his fingers from indenting the exam table. He won't let himself make another mistake, compound his failure with more irregularities. Is it a failure? He doesn't...
Maybe the Americans will not want him now. For a certainty the Soviet branch will be angry. They will hurt him. Maybe they will kill him, maybe something worse. He has yet to discover the limits of their displeasure. The lights buzz and buzz and buzz. The asset wants to crawl into a corner, but there are none. He wants to cringe, but doesn't move. He wants to sink through the floor.
He studies the drain and imagines escaping that way. It is a small drain (40.8 centimeter circumference). Removable grating. He would have to be cut apart to fit, going down piecemeal until he disappears into the darkness forever. Okay. That's okay. The asset considers the logistics of such an operation. His skull, ribcage and pelvis would require disarticulation to reduce diameter. Split in halves, thirds. Intestines would be easiest, like cables slithering through the plumbing.
Footsteps in the hallway interrupt the fantasy, and 15 seconds later Berisha says, “I hear the cryo-techs coming."
"About damn time.”
They are wrong, it is not the cryo-technicians. The asset knows their gait and this is not their gait. It is a light swift person moving efficiently in low heels, clipped strides. (Confident. Likely female.) Larger shoes move with her, just behind. (Leisurely. Longer gait. Mid-sized male.) Two only. Both are alert but the smaller shoes are more likely to engage in active offense. He tears his attention from the drain and focuses on the door.
When it opens, both guards go rigid. The asset goes rigid.
Madam Director herself stalks in, all icy professionalism in a tailored suit, a no-nonsense stripe of silver in her ink-black hair. There is a man with her, younger than the Director by a decade and ruggedly handsome. (Early 40s. Still powerful, carries himself well. 183 centimeters. Approximately 77 kilograms.) The presence of a non-target stranger triggers hyper-alertness in the asset.
The Director was talking before but now she is silent. The asset feels her eyes rake over him slowly, is relieved when she turns away to skewer the guards with a wordless glance.
The older guard, Dyatlov, holds up his hands in submission. "We had nothing to do with it. He was already in this condition when he came in from being hosed down."
The exchange is about the asset. His shoulders hunch as Madam Director's gaze slides back across his body. He can hear the elevated heart rate of the guards. "Return to position," she snaps, and they retreat to the walls with guns raised: a triangle formation with the asset on one of the points.
The Director's attention stays focused on him. Attention is always bad. Her face makes a tight smile that doesn't reach her eyes, then she turns to the strange man, the unknown factor. In English, she says, "You are, of course, welcome to a closer examination if you wish."
The man leans, actually leans, against a piece of cryogenic equipment. A rakish half-grin flits over the man’s features and prompts a moment of confused recognition in the asset. He feels outside of himself, or: he is a different self wearing this same expression long ago and more than once. It doesn’t belong here. He is shaped from gold.
Then the bright man says, also in English, "I've heard much about the Winter Soldier from our Soviet cousins. But I confess, I was a skeptic -- we all have a habit of making legends for ourselves -- you know how tall tales get around. Yet his prowess in the field has surpassed all my expectations, a rare pleasure these days." The American’s eyes drop down below the asset’s waist.
The American. THE American. Of course. The asset blanches behind his leather and rubber gear. He should have noticed the indicators, maybe would have if he wasn't compromised. No comrade would wear an open face and brown suit so casually. The American has all the tell-tale signifiers of easy wealth and WASP arrogance that should have been obvious from the start.
"Yes, the asset is a unique tool," Madam Director says. "Unparalleled when deployed correctly. And entirely obedient. The power of an army, yet more compliant than any soldier. Observe." She turns away from the American and orders in English, "Strip down, Soldier. But keep the muzzle."
(Aside, in Russian: "And keep silent. Your new master doesn't need to hear you mewling like a whore. Yet.")
His new master. The asset systematically removes and arranges his gear on the floor. Master, the man they’ve all been waiting for. Maybe he hasn't ruined everything yet? The American's praise is a candle lit in his chest ("a rare pleasure"), but the man may still change his mind at any moment. He has reason to, the asset thinks, hesitating a second before pulling off his cotton underclothes. Not that any of his masters ever needed a concrete reason to be disappointed in him. Their wrath falls from the sky even on clear days, and it is not for the asset to question, ever.
The HYDRA executives turn their discussion to the cryogenic equipment while he undresses. He is also equipment. Malfunctioning equipment.
The disobedient organ juts out from the rest of him like a flag, flushed and appalling and impossible to ignore. After a nearly-perfect mission his body has called attention to its betrayal in the crudest way possible. The asset waits naked in a room that stinks of chemicals and sweat, and the rush of humiliation indicates this is no more than he deserves, even if he doesn't yet understand why.
Shame is familiar. They let him keep this, along with memories of discipline reinforced through conditioning, pain. He knows it is: a tightness in his throat that can't be swallowed, a choke that goes on and on through his chest and tangles in organs. Sour urine stench. The anticipation of punishment that dumps rotten adrenaline into the cavern behind his ribs. Nausea, panic. He feels like he's going to be ill, but he isn't, he won't. He will be in worse trouble if he gets sick, and worse pain will happen.
The weight of his masters' scrutiny returns, and he goes away inside himself.
"Up." The Director taps the low exam table. "On your knees." And the asset hops up into position with a single fluid motion. He is determined not to fail.
"All sophisticated tools require maintenance," she continues in English for the American, snapping on a pair of latex gloves. "This one is no different. Codename Winter Soldier can be wielded as a hammer, a blunt object, but it is capable of so much more."
(In Russian she hisses: "Hold the overhead restraints. Maintain grip for stabilization.")
Leather cuffs hang from chains above the table. The asset swallows down a flash of dread as he reaches up and loops his wrists through the restraints, lets them take some of his weight as he balances on the examination surface. He closes his fists around the chains to remind himself that he isn't actually trapped, he is the one holding, not being held down. The American watches the maneuver in amused silence.
Madam Director says, "You've seen the documents. Our wiping and implantation programs allow for increasingly complex skill-sets to be inserted." She runs her gloved hands over the asset's calves, the corded muscle in his thighs. "Multiple languages, coordinates, weapon specs, anatomy." She tests the curve of his spine, his ass; fingers probing the ticklish expanse of his intercostals. Clear fluid drools from his cock to the table. "Logistics. Over three dozen unique target dossiers, simultaneously. Complex geometry. Trigonometry." His shoulders and chest. Throat. His abdomen and solar plexus. He knows the Director would have checked his teeth too if not for the mask. He has already endured this examination immediately post-mission.
Nothing is amiss except for his aching groin. Ligaments attached to his pubis constrict tighter, and the asset watches in horror as his erection twitches up slowly, involuntarily, like a metronome on the slowest speed possible. He huffs behind the muzzle, but is quiet.
"Inversely, is also necessary to prune or entirely remove certain knowledge sets to maintain control. Basic self-sufficient behaviors such as body-care and autonomy are greatly reduced in the process. Some of this is a natural result of rerouting the brain’s finite resources." The Director swats his knees farther apart on the exam table. "As you can see, the asset still experiences physical states, but the lack of context makes it entirely dependent on its handlers."
"Fascinating," the American murmurs, circling around for a better view.
The asset avoids the new master's eyes. Looks instead at the weapons pointed at him from across the room. Behind the rifle, Dyatlov's face is the face he made when there was laughter in his voice earlier. The asset's face feels like burning, like the throbbing between his legs. He clenches the chains tighter and looks at the guards' shoes instead.
As an exercise, he runs through all the ways he might kill everyone in the room. He has long since tallied the guards’ strengths, weaknesses, variables. The asset creates a hypothetical scenario in which all the occupants are replaced by hostiles, busies himself constructing logic trees applicable to different behaviors they might present. Doesn't move. He is a ghost, he does not exist for real people.
But he is flesh, and he flinches when the Director grabs him roughly by the testicles. She massages them, feels the weight of him. "Of course," she says, "we considered neutering it for convenience's sake, but didn't want to rule out the possibility of a breeding program." She gives his balls another squeeze before releasing him, the asset doesn't breathe, then the Director is rubbing something from a tube over her gloved hands. It makes a wet noise.
He does more than flinch when cold slickness wraps around his cock. His entire body lurches forward until his grasp on the chain is the only thing keeping him upright. The asset braces himself, huge-eyed and trembling in the Director's grip, and his heart is very loud. Her hand is steady around him. His legs shake, his lungs shake: weakness. Stop it.
"I'm not going to do all the work for you," she says.
This is directed at him. He is meant to perform a task. The asset knits his brows together.
Madam Director sighs and presses her free hand against the small of his back, shoves him forward. She doesn't have the power to shift him by force, none of them do, but the gesture is instructive so he lets himself be moved until the length of him is sliding through her lubricated fingers.
He slips, shuddering, forward and then back through the tight circle of her fist, and swallows the request for more. The sway of his hips is the answer he didn't know there was a question for. It's the closest thing he's felt to relief all morning.
The Director guides him again, and he moves and she doesn’t, and he’s so hard. He wants to sob with gratitude but she said (she said, "And keep silent.") and the best way to repay his masters is through obedience. (“The power of an army, yet more compliant than any soldier.”) He's already arching before the next push comes. She doesn't correct him, and the asset can feel this is right without needing to think. He's passing the test, he's being good. He doesn't stop. He experiments by undulating his body, threading into the friction over and over again, establishing a careful rhythm. He mimics the many oscillations of a sound wave until his toes curl on the plastic exam table, and that's it that's the right shape, the right sound.
The only sounds in the room: buzzing lights and the asset -- gasps and the wet tempo of flesh pumping into a slippery fist. A cheap sound, he thinks from nowhere. Animal sound, desperation sound. Unspoken “please” echoing loud against the drained pool walls.
The other occupants watch this performance dispassionately, watch him rocking on the platform of the examination table while new sweat beads on his skin and is dislodged by him taking his pleasure. The weight of four sets of eyes make him feel like burning again. He shuts his own eyes and hides his face against a bicep of metal. And he wants to stop but also he doesn’t, and he, he.
He hitches off rhythm and makes himself smaller, less to look at. Legs starting to drift closer together and, and maybe he's curling one knee into himself, okay. But that's not okay. He knows it's not okay when the Madam Director gives his cock a vicious pull that sends more pain firing to the root of him than it does pleasure. Hurting is a clear directive. He spreads his legs and tilts his head back, throat bared.
The Director puts her hand on his back again to correct his cadence. "This procedure,” she says, “is less necessary for function compared to providing regular hydration or nutrients, though a prolonged state of priapism has been shown to be a distraction. To other operatives as well as the asset." The Director doesn't glance at the guards, but an acid note creeps into her voice. "The asset has been trained to withstand extreme physical stressors and remain operational, but I prefer to avoid unnecessary liabilities when possible." She pauses to dispense more lubrication, and the asset barely prevents himself from whimpering at the loss of the Director's hand.
He grinds against the air helplessly. Would beg, wants to beg. (Remember, remember: "Keep silent. Your new master doesn't need to hear you mewling like a whore. Yet.")
The need to continue this task registers at priority levels approaching his need for caloric intake, which is absurd. He isn't more hungry or thirsty than usual. The absence of contact reads as physical distress, but he hasn't taken damage and can't identify a source of pain. He can’t trust himself. He is afraid to be touched, but he wants it, but he never wants to be touched -- wanting at all is rare enough to be suspicious. The asset grimaces, keeps grinding through contradictory drives. His head hurts. Touching always hurts, except for this new, confusing flavor of pain.
-- that comes back even worse before, and he hisses and his cock dribbles on the table through gloved fingers. A whine is cut off before it can escape: please, please, please. ("Keep silent.")
When it’s almost too much, which is immediately, he goes away. Just a little. Enough to remember the directive, the protocols. The protocol is: to steady himself, whatever it takes, even if he has to squeeze his eyes shut again. He does. Focuses on exhaling sharply into the muzzle every two thrusts. This seems to be allowed. His voice is not in the desperate huffs, so it's okay. Just harsh, muffled breaths.
His flesh knows what it wants. He’s pushing (fucking) into the slickness, alternating between shallow strokes that keep all the friction on his swollen head, then long sweeps that envelop all of him until his hips collide against the bar of the Director’s wrist. The asset surrenders himself to sensation until he doesn’t care that the handlers are all staring. He pounds in deep thrusts that he feels from tip to base to his balls. Muscles clench. His feet flex and curl by themselves. Building tension makes his thrusts erratic, he’s on the cusp of something. Something urgent.
Then it’s gone. There’s a palm bearing down on his shoulders instead of his dick.
“Bend your back. Further,” barked in Russian, not for the American’s ears. Her hands rearrange him. He yields like the equipment he is. “Before you make a mess on the floor. Or the Secretary.”
Sweat running down his belly and thighs makes him slippery, mobile on the table when the Director positions him to her liking. He sprawls lower so the leather and chains take almost all of his weight, and the muscles of his back and shoulders bunch together. Hips angled in lordosis. Presenting like a cat in heat.
A lube-coated digit slips inside of him. His traitorous flesh yips and almost tumbles from the table, which earns him a slap behind the ear. The asset hangs his head. Makes himself be still, even when one wet glove wraps back around his cock and strokes him down toward the table. The Director rotates her wrist in efficient little twists at the end of each pull like she's milking livestock. She looks bored as she slides a finger back into him, then a second.
The tandem sensations of being penetrated and stroked are overwhelming. The fingers inside him hook towards his belly, brush against something impossibly tender that makes him clench and stop breathing. They press again and all his organs turn to liquid, and he's rutting backward into the Director's fingers instead of down into her fist. The new position gives him less traction, every movement is awkward, but he's rolling his hips into her hand, dripping steadily while she stretches him from inside. The asset cants his pelvis to open himself for the Director. He wants to take everything his master can give him.
A few strands of black hair have come loose from the Director’s pins. Even she starts to look flushed from the effort of working both arms. He doesn’t want to hurt her. He’s afraid that maybe he hurts people enough already. He’s afraid that’s maybe an understatement.
“Hurry up, slut,” she orders in Russian. She twists a third finger inside him, presses hard against that impossible, tight bundle of nerves and commands, “Finish it. Now.”
The order confuses his mind, but his body, his body. It is. He’s obedient.
Muscles in his stomach seize, his spine wants to curl in but he is arched the wrong way so he spasms in inelegant jerks, saved from tumbling to the floor by the leather cuffs on the chain. Metal links squeal and deform in his grip. His eyes screw shut. His body is finishing, just like he was told, he’s making a mess on the table, just like he was warned against. But he’s good. He’s good and he’s not making any noise because he can taste the warm salt of his bitten lip behind the mask. And, and -- fingers curl deep in him again and he’s, more is coming out of him. He feels it coming out of him in soft bursts. A few more shudders before he finally stops spilling into the puddle between his knees.
The Director pulls out when the objective is complete. Sudden emptiness followed by more involuntary contractions. The asset receives a smack on one buttock that doesn’t feel like punishment. Again, the idea of livestock surfaces in his mind.
He droops from the chains he hasn't yet been allowed to let go. The asset feels ... strange. Light but tired. He assesses his body and doesn't think the discharge has damaged him. If anything, the convulsions released enough pressure so that his genitals can shrink back to a more recognizable state. Normality. No wonder he feels relief.
To sleep now would not be such a bad thing, he thinks. Even, maybe, cryo, but--
"On that note," says the Director, "I believe our tour has also reached its conclusion."
This earns a polite clap from the American. “How thematic. It’s been a pleasure as always, Director Gagarin." The American's eyes crinkle. Flirtatious. His expression seems to say he is always flirtatious with older women, and the Director's expression says she knows. "Though I hope,” he adds, "you’ll excuse me if we don’t shake hands.”
The Director snaps her latex gloves into the trash. “I’ll try to contain my disappointment, Pierce." A shadow of his smirk plays over her features as she smooths her hair back into place. "Before we depart for the evening, do you have any questions?”
Secretary Pierce cocks his head, mock-studying the tableaux: piss-yellow lights over concrete and metal and the wilting wet flesh of the asset that will soon be his to command. His expression of smug irony falls for a moment. “Can I remove the mask?”
The Director shrugs. “If you want.”
The asset can hear the man's pulse kick up as the distance between them closes. His own adrenal glands respond any time a non-target approaches. They respond now.
The American -- no, Pierce -- slides a hand around the asset’s cheek, then to the back of his head, and the strap clicks free. The asset tucks his face to his shoulder, but Pierce's large hand molds firmly around his jaw and forces his gaze back as the muzzle clatters to the table. He swallows reflexively but doesn't dare look away from the man who doesn't belong in this yellow, ammonia-reeking room with his Western suit and his confidence and tasteful cologne. Not from the man whose fingers are pressing against the lines of his skull (against the trigger of a weapon).
Pierce looks back with hugely dilated pupils, and the asset is flooded with terror and relief. The new master is pleased.