Fifty

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I
Moon

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It sits heavy in the sky, huge and white and perfectly round, the only source of light in this deserted place.

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Putting one foot in front of the other is becoming a struggle, and no matter how much he presses his fingers -human fingers, flesh fingers- into the tender sides of his ribs, they still ache. The blood still slips between them and pools about, the torn leather of his vest failing to stem the flow.

It hurts, but assets are not suppose to feel pain, so he trudges onwards.

Just because they had trained his pain threshold though, it doesn't mean that he cannot experience the sensation.

He feels it, stabbing across the curve of his ribs, can feel the bullet still inside pinching at whatever it's caught on.

It is the first mission he's been seriously injured on, the first mission he can remember anyway. He can't remember many of them, if any.

And there are scars on his body, taunt evidence.

Mostly around the arm, the shoulder joint that connected it to his body. The metal was set to withstand this kind of punishment, to not freeze up under intense cold.

But just because the arm is functioning, it does not mean the rest of his body can progress with the same mechanical relentlessness.

His limbs, the three that are still made of flesh, are quivering now, and his breath, coiling about in the air before his lips like pure smoke, is coming quicker and quicker.

It's not a good sign, something in the back of his mind tells him, and the Asset would wince, if he remembered how to. But that instinct has been stolen from him, blacklisted, because it could affect his performance.

He staggers, managing to catch himself on his knee even as his side screams once again in protest. He doesn't end up face first in the snow though, so that's a plus.

The chill is starting to set into his bones again, and it's strange to experience this sensation without being in the container, the container that always brought the cold with it. That froze up his limbs, locked them in place and shut his mind down, teased him into sleep.

Still kneeling, the Asset finds he can no longer summon up the will to get up, that this body is betraying him. Wounded and tired, with no substance or sleep, it's grown weak, failing him.

The handlers had been picked off by the targets, but he'd taken care of the targets. Something inside him had told him to flee, so flee he had.

Now, struggling to even start to consider leaving this clearing, the Asset tilts his head back, looking up at the great big spot of wax in the sky, its pallid rays gleaming from the metal of his arm and disappearing as it touched the leather.

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Before his eyes fall shut, the Asset turns to a side, and notes a figure highlighted by the soft glow of the moon.

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II
Cloud

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Wherever he is, it is soft. It's not that warmth surrounds him, though certainly he is not cold. The temperature is neutral, it's the best description he can think of.

No, what is unusual is the tenderness of what surrounds him, the gentle scrape of cotton against his skin, the lack of restricting leather that usually encircles his torso. Delicately mild fabric clothes him instead, the Asset can tell without even opening his eyes that these are not his clothes.

That this is not a place he is suppose to be in.

But it's subdued, it's comforting, this sensation that has wrapped around him, emollient.

Like hiding in a cloud, far up and out of reach of all the horrors that would try and drag him back down to earth.

There's a sense of detachment that he's never been able to achieve before.

The isolation of a mission was different, removing himself from the lingering mindset that resides within the back of his consciousness isn't difficult, considering he never fully steps into it. So far back, HYDRA has pushed it, that he dares not approach.

All that rests down that route is pain, pain from remembering, pain as they steal all that he recalls.

This is a different type of disconnection.

He doesn't have to be aware, to be on guard at all moments. Instead, he can just remain coddled within the safety of the cloud that he has taken residency upon on. None can touch him here, here he is safe.

It's a tantalizing prospect, one that's been forever out of reach, or so it seems. The concept of safety, of being able to stop and rest, to not have to be on constant alert, is a strange idea. A foreign idea.

It stands out, a glaring oddity in the life he's been living so far.

He is the Asset.

Assets are not suppose to feel safe, to crave a lull in the constant fighting. He knows he's not suppose to wonder in regards to peace.

But it happens anyway; he considers it. Ponders over if this is what peace feels like.

A part of him just wishes to rest, to obliterate himself completely into that what surrounds him, to become one with it and to never have to emerge again.

No more missions, no more targets.

Just this sense of endless serenity.

Now that he knows what this feels like, what the absence of all he was before is like, he never wants to leave.

.

But that is not how this works.

.

He can already feel the conscious world beckoning to him, enticing him into its throes, extracting him from this place of tranquillity that he feels no urgency to abandon.

He doesn't want to leave, the Asset realizes. It has been such a long time since he has remembered wanting something, that the thought of such a thing is startling.

Yet, as the tattered remains of his memories suggests, he has no control.

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And so, he wakes.

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III
Caress

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He wakes to pain flaring in his side, burning and snaking into his innards with a fierceness he's forgotten, a result of his brief reprieve into unconsciousness.

The Asset cannot remember a time in which he was injured upon awakening.

There have been injuries during missions, during compulsory training, but it was always mended by the time he was awoken again. He was always fixed, charged and ready for the next mission, the next target. They make sure their asset is working smoothly, in order to ensure maximum success in regards to the mission.

Yet, he's conscious, with pain in his side and no ice in his veins. He hasn't been put under, he hasn't been drugged, he's still among the waking world.

And it's new, different.

Something isn't right.

His entire being shifts effortlessly into a state of utmost alertness, eyes snapping open to take in everything he can visually, even as his mind registered there's only one other human in the room.

Light breathing, soft footfalls; small, female, athletic but not trained.

Not HYDRA.

This realization stumps him for a second.

HYDRA are more often than not made up of males -females are easier to emotionally compromise- who have been trained to fight, to survive. Spies or scientists, that is the company that the Asset is given.

The only time he meets civilians, he is there to become their end. To guide them out of the land of the living in as effective a manner as possible.

For he isn't human, he's the Asset, a ghost in a world of ghosts, creating wraiths and leaving spoors of blood as he goes. He is untouched by the world, but he is the one who shapes it, the tool, the weapon, within the hands of the creator.

Only now, someone else has picked him up, sought out the discarded instrument and taken him from the caisson that was HYDRA and stored him away in this new place.

A new handler?

The Asset is uneased, unsure of what is going on. Unsure if this is acceptable or not.

There are no protocols in the event of his kidnapping, for it was never predicted to have been a problem. He was a ghost, none could catch him.

Yet, here he lays on the softest support -a bed?- that he has ever been allowed near, with a woman -young, light, short- standing cautiously over him.

His vision's good enough to pick out the sharp contrast of her brilliant green eyes against the pale of her skin, the thick scarring that wraps around the upper half of her face like sharp lightning.

"Hey, it's okay, I'm gonna patch you up, okay?"

This is, new.

Comfort was never offered to him before.

A hand, thin and delicate, reaches out, a gentle caress against the bullet wound, and yet, smearing a foul scented concoction across the puncture.

All he can consider is how easy that dainty wrist would break beneath his hands.

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Unconsciousness takes him again.

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IV
Strain

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The next time he wakes up, the pain is gone.

His body feels light, even the arm feels light, which is so abnormal that it's the first thing he notices when he snaps to attention atop the soft bed.

Not a table, not the unregenerately hard backed table that HYDRA always strapped him down to.

But a bed.

Sitting up is a strain on his abdominals, but he pushes past the pain like always to inspect his arm instead.

It's his greatest advantage, capable of deflecting bullets and crushing a multitude of objects with force that no normal arm would ever be able to replicate. It's fine, it still operates, but it's different too.

Unfamiliar symbols have been carved into the surface, likely with a laser. He can think of no other tool that would result in such straight, crisp cuts.

His flesh fingers carefully trace the outline of one, shaped almost like a lightning bolt, and something nags at the back of his mind, a persistent feeling of wrongness, of violation.

No one was suppose to touch the arm, no one that wasn't approved by the handlers.

But the handlers were all dead now, their brains decorating the asphalt with their limbs broken and twisted.

There was a new one.

Because he'd been picked up, fixed, which meant someone had need of an asset, of his skill set.

Frowning is beyond him, but the emotion it expresses is not, and the soldier slowly sits up, glancing around the room.

It's an old building, with antique furnishes from times long before he could remember, perhaps even before HYDRA. Victorian, a part of his mind whispers, but that's not quite right either.

There's items, objects, that he doesn't recognise.

The lack of shine, of metallic surfaces, isn't a relief, but it's something close.

The rugs, the dark wood of the floorboards, the patterned wallpaper, it's all foreign. It's...

Well, it's not good, but certainly it's not bad either.

Strange. New.

It's been a long time since the Asset encountered something new.

Running the tips of his metal digits down the edge of the open door -not locked in, not contained- the Asset steps out into the hallway on silent feet, making his way down the corridor.

The wood in unnaturally muffled beneath his feet, though no substance lays upon its surface to suffocate the sound of his steps.

He glances left, then right, notes the light seems to emit from the room to his left, and he heads towards the source.

His guns have been removed, but the short hunting knife still remains strapped to his forearm; odd, the handlers never allowed him to carry weapons before, not unless he was off base, completing a mission.

They didn't trust him.

Given the fact the Asset is currently thinking, perhaps they were right to do so.

Slipping into the room through the open door, the Asset freezes as the woman from before looks up, hair like fire and smile warm.

"You're awake!"

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V
Water

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Her voice flows over him like water.

Not like the gentle lapping of a calm lake shore, but as if it were the thunderous rumble of a storming ocean, the waves closing up over his head, body dragged under.

She commands attention in a way few others do, he knows little of those who can demand his attention without an order, with just an exclamation.

Snapping to attention, the Asset stills as the woman approaches, noting the distinctive scar upon her face -distinguishing mark- the soft curve of her lips -skin chapped, nervous habit- and the vibrancy of her eyes -uncommon feature- all at once.

There's a tilt of something to her lips, certainly not a smile, but not the stern line that all the handlers of the past wore.

"Feeling better?"

Another way of asking if he were serviceable? The bullet wound was closed now, and while the surrounding skin was tense and taunt, it was nothing that would prevent him from functioning to full capacity.

"Operational," was his response, and the Asset observes how the woman's lips purse, brow crinkling with the action.

"Most people say thank you when you save their life."

She hadn't saved his life; he'd have been picked up and repaired either way.

Still, it is evident from her tone that he is expected to speak, to express some form of gratitude.

"Thank you," he parrots back, watching as the woman's face falls a little more.

What did he do wrong now?

He was addressing all the protocols, standing to attention, not mentioning the completion of the previous mission, waiting for the cool down that came before the freeze.

Only, she isn't running him through the correct procedures, none of the correct equipment is present, nor are there any others; no scientists, no guards.

"Er, do you wanna sit down?"

The Asset sits himself in one of the multitude of chairs present, noting the lack of restraints, of cords and leads.

Perhaps he didn't require a wipe now.

Strange, they usually notice when he starts thinking on his own.

Slowly, the woman edges into her own seat, and now he notes she looks cautious, wary. As if she's realised how much danger he actually poses to those around him.

There's silence for a few seconds, enough that he can hear the clock's rhythmic ticking three floors above him.

"Would you like some tea?"

The handlers have never offered him tea before, nor any kind of food either.

Standard operating procedure indicates he should be given specially blended shakes, so he's not slowed by the weight of solid food within his stomach.

Being given a choice, options, has never happened before either.

Slowly wetting his lips -testing the water, usually such a nervous disposition would get him backhanded- the Asset doesn't narrow his eyes, but he thinks.

A test?

An illusion of choice?

Should he pass or fail?

He quickly jerks his head in a sporadic nod, reflexively tensing.

"Alright then, I'll be right back."

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50 random words, 500ish words per word thing, with FemHarry rescuing the Winter Soldier form a mission gone wrong, two or three years before the who Winter Soldier movie. So a year before the Avengers first movie. In Canon, HYDRA would've found him and brought him back, but here, Harry found him.

Harry had an accident with the wards on Grimmauld Place, and ended up brining herself to a new dimension with no idea how to get back.

I'm writing 500 words per word, per day. So, fingers crossed there'll be another update in five days, until we've hit the fifty words I've set myself.

Tsume
xxx