Red Winter

January 24, 1953

He had no doubt that a large percentage of the Soviet elite enjoyed the ballet.

He just wasn't a part of that percentage.

But the target for the evening was, so the Winter Soldier didn't have much of a choice that night but to attend tonight's performance of The Fountain of Bakhchisarai, especially if he wanted to get a view of his target before the actual assassination. He couldn't afford mistakes or failure on this mission, considering that this was something of a recovery mission for his last failed assassination assignment in London.

He had never made a mistake up until London.

The Winter Soldier glanced across the theater to one tier below, several boxes over. The target was sitting with the Soviet Premier as well as the Winter Soldier's own superior officer, Major General Vasily Karpov.

Ivan Braginski. The large Russian was a favorite of the Soviet Premier's, but Karpov viewed him as a threat. Apparently Braginski also served in World War Two, but he was more popular with the people than Karpov had been. That and Braginski was infamous for not always agreeing with the Premier, especially when it came to the people's welfare. That was the reason the Premier and Karpov kept the existence of the Red Room a secret from Braginski. Karpov did not trust Braginski, and hated the fact that he was closer to the Premier than Karpov was. So he had ordered the Winter Soldier to eliminate Braginski so Karpov could continue to work unhindered.

Thin fingers brushed against the cloth of the left sleeve of his military jacket. He glanced at his student and evening companion, Natalia Romanova, who was dressed in a simple gold gown. "What is it?" he quietly asked without looking away from the performance, mindful that while the two of them were in their own private box, they were also in plain view of the rest of the theater. That included Karpov.

"A guest has sat down with Braginski. A woman," she said, taking his lead and not looking away from the performance. "I do not believe she shall be a problem."

The Winter Soldier glanced at the Soviet Premier's box. Braginski was still in his seat, but there was a pale-haired woman in a black and blue evening gown, and she was already clinging to Braginski's free arm. From this angle, it was hard to tell if Braginski was reciprocating or shrinking away from her. "She won't," he said before turning back to the performance. "But do take care to remember that devotion can make a man, or woman, dedicated enough to become a legitimate threat once their partner is threatened. Americans are especially tenacious when it comes to defending their own," he said, remembering the group of four he'd had the misfortune of running into in London.

"What of the Baltic insurgents in St. Petersburg?"

"Insignificant," he replied without looking away from the stage. Natalia wisely remained silent after that.

It wasn't until twenty minutes later that Braginski did something interesting. Five minutes into intermission, he leaned over to whisper something to the Soviet Premier before getting up and leaving with the woman at his side.

"Excuse me, I need to freshen up," Natalia murmured before standing up as well.

"Very well, I await your return," the Winter Soldier said without turning to acknowledge her departure.

Instead, he leaned forward to better examine Karpov. The other man seemed more tense than usual, which was understandable because tonight was the night, and Braginski was currently out of sight of either him or the intended assassin.

Both Natalia and Braginski returned to their respective boxes at the same time, Natalia adjusting her skirts before sitting down next to the Winter Soldier. Braginski seemed to adjust his grip on something concealed under the coat of his dress uniform before sitting down as well.

"The woman's name is Natalia Arlovskaya, and she is from Belarus. She has an unrequited love for Braginski, and scorns his three direct subordinates, whom the two met in the lobby during intermission. The subordinates were not supposed to be there, but had important information for him. They will not be a threat; they greatly fear Braginski and left almost as soon as Braginski did."

"What are the subordinates' names?" the Winter Soldier asked as the curtain rose for the next act. If Karpov wanted more information after Braginski's death, the subordinates would be an excellent place to start.

"Toris Laurinaitis is from Lithuania, Eduard von Bock is from Estonia, and the third, Ravis Galante, is from Latvia," Natalia whispered back without looking away from the stage. "Galante is drastically shorter than the other two, and is the easiest to intimidate. He was also the most eager to leave."

"Why such a diverse group?" the Winter Soldier asked, frowning slightly.

"I don't know."

The two sat in silence as the second act continued, but the Winter Soldier was anything but relaxed. His eyes kept flicking back to Braginski throughout the performance, cataloguing potential weak points and possible strengths. Braginski however seemed at peace with himself, smiling a little and ignoring Arlovskaya, who was clutching onto his arm as though it was a lifeline. She was also warily eyeing Karpov, who was studiously ignoring her as well. The Winter Soldier mused that it would be a true shame if Arlovskaya witnessed Braginski's death; he'd hate to have to kill her too.

Unfortunately, he couldn't afford to leave surviving witnesses.

It wasn't until the end of the ballet that the Winter Soldier nudged Natalia with an elbow. Without another word, they both stood up and quietly left their box, slipping out into the hall as the applause began. The Winter Soldier took advantage of the empty theater halls to start heading for the fire exit, loosening the tie of his uniform and unbuttoning his shirt as he did.

"What is the plan?" Natalia asked, appearing at his side. She'd already pulled her evening gown off and was now in the black training uniform of the Red Room that she'd been wearing underneath.

She wasn't quite ready to test for the title of Black Widow, but she was getting there.

"Aerial attack, we can get the element of surprise that way. He's too big for a direct attack." Pulling off the military uniform, he made sure his own armor was still intact before gesturing for Natalia to follow him. "His evening companion is your responsibility if she creates trouble or avoids the shot. We cannot have witnesses or prisoners."

"Of course, sir."

Pushing open the window at the end of the hall, the Winter Soldier checked around one more time before climbing out onto windowsill in order to survey the fire escape, which was already covered in a fresh, thin layer of snow. Mindful not to step on the metal platform or the steps, he used the structure to brace himself so he could start climbing up the side of the building wall to the roof. He could faintly hear Natalia copying him; to leave disturbances in the snow would be to leave incriminating evidence.

The snow was falling steadily by the time the Winter Soldier pulled himself up onto the roof. Standing up, he walked over and brushed off the tarp covering his weapon of choice: sniper rifle. Bypassing the rifle stand completely, he glanced at Natalia and said, "Watch my back" before settling down near the edge of theater roof. As Natalia got into position, he made sure the silencer was in place before crouching down and lining the rifle up along the lit street below. Theater attendees were already leaving in thick crowds, and the Winter Soldier carefully scanned the heads, searching for the familiar pale mop of hair.

There.

Braginski was talking to the Soviet Premier just outside the theater entrance, Arlovskaya hanging off his arm as usual. Karpov was standing near the Premier, his face smoothed over in a polite smile, but the Winter Soldier knew from experience that Karpov was feeling extremely threatened right now. Finally, Braginski moved away from the Premier and began walking down the empty yet lit street that ran perpendicular to the main road.

The empty road also happened to go right by the Winter Soldier's position.

Finally.

The Winter Soldier repressed a sigh. He hated having to kill Arlovskaya, he did try to cut his losses when he could, but Karpov had drilled the rule of No Witnesses too deeply into his head for him to blatantly ignore it. He raised the rifle, lined up the shot, and squeezed the trigger.

Braginski fell without a sound, almost taking Arlovskaya down with him.

Arlovskaya took two steps back in complete shock before a second bullet brought her down.

It was over just like that.

"Now we leave?" Natalia whispered.

The Winter Soldier remained crouched for a few moments as the snowfall continued. Cleaning up the evidence was going to be tricky. Although they were still unaware of the two assassinations that had just happened, the other theatergoers still had unhindered view of the bodies if they cared to look. They would definitely notice though if the Winter Soldier tried to drag the bodies out of sight, and he didn't want to risk capture. It also didn't help that Braginski was going to be extremely hard to move because of his bulk.

"Now we double-check to make sure they are actually dead," he said finally, glancing at Natalia. "Always make sure that your victim was dead before you turn."

He'd made that mistake once, in London. As he shimmied down the fire escape, the Winter Soldier recalled the mission in question. The task was to pretend to be an American and assassinate one Arthur Kirkland in order to drive a wedge between the United States and the United Kingdom before their wartime alliance became too strong to break. Due to the Winter Soldier's perceived carelessness, not only did Kirkland survive a bullet to the chest, he also personally led the manhunt that rooted out all of the Soviet sleepers and drove the Winter Soldier out of England

Karpov had been… less than pleased.

Kneeling down beside the two bodies, here in the now, the Winter Soldier pressed two fingers against Braginski's pulse, and found to his satisfaction that it was gone. "This will be reported as the work of Baltic insurgents, the sniper rifle was one of theirs," he said quietly as Natalia stood up from checking Arlovskaya's pulse.

"That will work, especially since he was seen speaking to those three earlier," Natalia replied. She smiled and said, "You don't have to look for scapegoats tonight."

"Good." The Winter Soldier glanced up the street, and noted that the theater crowd had noticeably thinned. "We'll leave the bodies here for the police to find in the morning," he said grimly.

A sharp inhale from Natalia was his only warning.

Turning sharply, he took a step back in disbelief at what he was seeing.

Ivan Braginski was standing. He was in the process of brushing snow off his face as Arlovskaya pulled herself to her feet, brushing snow of her black evening coat. Two pairs of violet and blue eyes settled on the Winter Soldier and Natalia.

"Now that wasn't very nice, wasn't it?" Braginski said pleasantly, as though he was speaking to a misbehaving child instead of his assassin. He turned to Natalia and clapped his gloved hands eagerly, saying "And here I though you had such wonderful manners, you were so nice back at the theater!" He sighed as the Winter Soldier managed to shake himself out of his shocked stupor long enough to reach out and pull Natalia out of harm's way. "Unfortunately, I don't like it when people hurt my baby sister," he said, reaching into his thick coat. The Winter Soldier started backing away when he realized that Braginski was reaching for a weapon.

"Yes, you hurt Big Brother," Arlovskaya growled, a pair of thin yet sharp knives in her hands. Then she launched herself at the Winter Soldier.

Before the Winter Soldier could react, there was a flash of black and red, closely followed by a sickening crunch. Natalia rolled off Arlovskaya before the latter could stab her, but she stumbled slightly as she realized that she had Arlovskaya's full attention now.

As the two women disappeared down the darkened streets, the Winter Soldier recovered from his shock when he heard a faint whistling sound and managed to duck right as a thick lead pipe came around. Then he lashed out against Braginski with a kick aimed to the solar plexus.

He must have miscalculated; the large Russian only staggered back a step or two before returning with a punch to the jaw. The Winter Soldier once again miscalculated the speed and caught the punch on the side of his face. The surprise force behind the swing caught the Winter Soldier off guard and sent him sprawling to the street. He used his momentum to roll back onto his feet and away from the steadily advancing Russian; he needed to reassess the situation.

Braginski, and Arlovskaya for that matter, weren't human, that much was certain. Otherwise, they both would have stayed dead, not gotten back up and walked around like nothing happened. Braginski wasn't an early Red Room experiment gone rogue; all of those had been terminated years ago (the Winter Soldier was quite grateful for that illegal excursion into Karpov's private files). This had to mean that Braginski was either an experiment of someone else's creation, or an immortal being beyond the Winter Soldier's comprehension. The same went for Arlovskaya.

The Winter Soldier kept retreating, careful to stay just out of reach of the lead pipe. He'd delivered enough concussions of his own to know exactly how helpless the victim was after the blow, and he had no intention of experiencing that himself.

Mentally blocking the reverberating pain in the side of his face, the Winter Soldier reassessed the situation. Direct attacks weren't going to work; the Russian was physically bigger than the Winter Soldier and was better prepared for close range combat than the Winter Soldier was at the moment. He would never be able to get far away enough for a long-range attack. All in all, striking back would not only be pointless, but fatal.

Unless he got a hold of that pipe…

Plan in mind, the Winter Soldier feinted before attempting to land a blow on Braginski's temple; he had to fool Braginski into thinking that he was still going to keep fighting, he had to provoke Braginski the right way…

Yes!

The faint whistling again was his only warning. Grinning faintly, he ducked to avoid the pipe, but his cybernetic arm shot out and snatched it. He almost fell over right away though; Braginski slammed an open palm against the exposed elbow, throwing the Winter Soldier off balance (if he'd had a normal arm, he suspected that Braginski would have easily broken the joint). The Winter Soldier used the momentum however to twist around, letting go of the lead pipe so he could drive a fist into Braginski's temple.

The lead pipe appeared out of nowhere as though to block the incoming blow, but the Winter Soldier used that opportunity to snatch the pipe out of Braginski's hands. Or at least he tried to; the large Russian let out a grunt when he kept a firm grip on the pipe. The two of them struggled over the pipe for a few moments; for the first time, the Winter Soldier was grateful for the mysterious accident that had taken his left arm; he would have been able to stop a pipe with a regular flesh arm instead of the cybernetic replacement.

"You seem very young," Braginski finally said, studying the Winter Soldier. "Where are you from?"

"Moscow." The programmed answer slipped out before the Winter Soldier could really consider the question.

"Oh? And how old are you?"

"Twenty – nine."

Braginski gave a little smile as the two circled each other, neither relinquishing control of the lead pipe. "That is still quite young, da?" he said, tilting his head with a childlike smile on his face.

"No." Something was off about Braginski (other than the fact that he recovered from a fatal shot to the back), and the Winter Soldier couldn't shake the feeling that he had least seen Braginski somewhere outside the Soviet Union.

Braginski didn't seem to notice the Winter Soldier's internal dilemma. Instead, he quietly studied the Winter Soldier before he said, "Ah, you are one of his. Now it makes sense of why you were trying to kill me!" He smiled and said, "Unfortunately, this means I have to kill you before you hurt any more of my people. But I will do you the favor and send your body back to the United States, does that sound nice?"

The Winter Soldier almost pointed out that just because he looked and sounded like an American didn't necessarily mean that he was one. But Braginski was sufficiently distracted, and at this point that was all the Winter Soldier needed. He mentally activated the electrolysis feature in his cybernetic arm right as Braginski yanked on the pipe.

Stumbling, the Winter Soldier caught himself from falling face – first into Braginski, noticing at the same time that electricity was not going into the lead pipe at all, to which Braginski smiled. Then, as the Winter Soldier began to yank the pipe back, Braginski dug his heels into the snow and pulled the Winter Soldier sharply towards him. Before they could collide however, Braginski stepped aside and pulled the Winter Soldier past him, releasing the lead pipe as he did so.

Crunch!

The Winter Soldier remained still after a few moments; he hadn't seen that wall coming until the last minute because of the dark. He lay there in the snow, trying to ignore the pain that was washing up and down his spine. His head was throbbing where it had made contact with the brick.

Was this how most of his prior victims when he had to knock them out before he killed them?

A crunch of footsteps in the snow caught his attention. He could only watch in muted horror as Braginski leaned over and picked up his pipe before towering over him. Braginski just stood there in silence as the snow fell around the two of them, his face expressionless.

"I remember you now, where and when I saw you last," Braginski finally said. "You were much younger and impulsive then, whoever trained you for this assignment did well." He sighed and said, "So many questions, almost no answers. I must applaud Jones for his duplicity, for fooling me with your death. I wonder now, who else survived that war?"

He looked expectantly at the Winter Soldier, who said nothing. The Winter Soldier could only muster a hazy 'Who the hell is 'Jones'?' in his still foggy brain. But before he could speak and ask for a clarification, Braginski was already talking again.

"I am going to let you live so that you may return to America and inform your handlers that I will not be as forgiving the next time I catch you or any of your compatriots here," Braginski said, tucking the pipe back into his thick coat. He turned to leave, but then paused. "You have thirty minutes to disappear," he said before finally leaving the scene altogether.

It didn't take long for him to disappear into the thickening snowfall.

Arlovskaya was fast.

Natalia had been hoping that the other woman's evening coat and gown would at least hinder her movements long enough for Natalia to get the upper hand. Unfortunately, that wasn't the case since all it did was restrict Arlovskaya's choice of battleground… barely.

"You… shall not… hurt Big Brother… ever again and… I shall… ensure that," Arlovskaya growled between knife strikes. "I will murder you for hurting him."

"You should be dead. You were shot," Natalia snarled as she tried to sweep Arlovskaya's legs out from underneath her, but instead narrowly avoided a knife going into her thigh.

Arlovskaya let out a cold laugh as she circled Natalia. "You are extremely naïve, to have not learned anything from trying to kill us once already."

All I've learned is that it will be very hard to kill you, but make no mistake. I will kill you, Natalia thought grimly as she backpedaled to avoid the steady increase in attacks.

That's when it hit her.

Arlovskaya didn't want to be here. She was losing focus; she kept glancing off to the side as though trying to seek out Braginski and ensure his safety. She was more worried about Braginski, so she was trying to finish Natalia off quickly so that she could aid her brother.

Good for Natalia. She didn't want to fight either, not when her mentor was in danger as well.

The two women at this point had migrated away from the two men, keeping close together in an attempt to keep what little of the upper hand she might have. Arlovskaya had spent the last five minutes trying to drive Natalia into alleys, walls, and in one memorable instance, a garbage bin.

There was the faint sound of electricity, and Arlovskaya's head snapped up and into the direction of the sound. Natalia, sensing the opportunity, lunged forward and tried to drive her knife (stolen from Arlovskaya earlier) straight into Arlovskaya's neck.

The other woman was faster.

A pale hand came up and caught Natalia's wrist, stopping the attack cold. For a moment, neither woman said anything, instead just stared at each other, breathing heavily. Natalia noticed with grim satisfaction that Arlovskaya had lost her coat at some point and her dress was torn in several places, showing unmarked skin underneath.

Crash!

"Brother!" Arlovskaya screamed, turning toward the sound of the disturbance. Natalia twisted her wrist free and managed to drive the knife toward the other woman's chest. Arlovskaya twisted out of the way at the last minute, her dress tearing yet again as the blade skimmed across the skin, leaving a thin red line in its wake.

Arlovskaya turned into something… unnatural.

Moving with deadly grace from years of experience, she managed to knock the knife out of Natalia's hands, and, with one final effort, shoved Natalia with all her hidden strength. Natalia lost her balance and stumbled backwards into the wide glass window of a darkened shop.

As she quickly discovered, the shop wasn't as quite as darkened as she'd thought.

As she scrambled into the building in an attempt to hide, her bare palms scraping against shards of glass on the stone floor as she pulled herself to her feet, she realized that she'd just crossed under what looked like thick black light – dampening curtains. She held her breath for a few moments, waiting expectantly for Arlovskaya to come crashing after her, but only heard 'Big Brother! I'm coming!' followed by rapidly disappearing footsteps. Breathing hard, Natalia let out a sigh of relief that she hadn't realized she'd been holding.

A soft cough behind her caught her attention. Heart leaping into her throat, she turned sharply around.

The only source of light in the otherwise dark room was a single lamp illuminating an improvised card table, around which there were eight different players. She recognized three almost immediately; the three subordinates from the Baltic States. Then there was an albino man next to the smallest of the three subordinates, a woman with flowers pinned her hair next to him, another girl with short blond hair, a fidgety – looking man who kept glancing between the man on his other side, who seemed to have a fang slightly showing. Natalia knew that the poor lighting was only playing tricks on her now.

The man from Lithuania, Laurinaitis, gestured to the table and said, "C…Can we help you?"

Natalia stared at the odd group of eight. The one from Latvia – Galante, Natalia remembered – seemed to be shaking again, and the one from Estonia, von Bock, seemed to shrink in his seat slightly.

"I, uh, there was this woman, who tried to kill me…" Natalia began, but the albino interrupted her with a snort.

"Yeah, she doesn't usually do that unless someone tried to kill her paramour first, the big Russian guy she's attached to?" he said, ignoring the woman at his side as she scowled at him.

"They were both shot in the back. I saw them die," Natalia said. "I even checked her pulse. There was none, yet she and Braginski got right back up and tried to kill me and my mentor."

There was a dead silence, during which Laurinaitis, von Bock, and Galante seemed to shrink away in fear. The albino's mouth was hanging open, and the girl with the short blond hair had perked up in interest along with the man on her left.

"You… you have my eternal respect for just getting close enough to do that," the albino finally said, and she could detect traces of a German accent now that he was speaking up. Leaning forward, he grinned and said, "Want to get even closer for a second try?"

"Gilbert!" the woman with flowers snapped. "You can't just send her to her death like that!"

"Liz, she managed to do it once, a second time shouldn't be so hard. Even Braginski wouldn't risk exposure like that," Gilbert snapped to his companion, and 'Liz' only scowled. He turned to one of the other men and said, "Bochinsky, you want in on this too?"

"So long as she doesn't approve," Bochinsky said, glowering at Liz.

"We can't even be discussing this, he'll find out and then we'll all get punished!" Galante finally squeaked, mustering the courage to stand up to the others.

"And since when did you grow a spine?" Gilbert barked, red eyes flashing and caused Galante to cower next to von Bock, who scowled.

"Leave him alone," von Bock growled, leaning forward.

Natalia could easily see the power dynamics in this little group as Gilbert and von Bock turned to argue. Gilbert, the albino, easily claimed leadership from most likely having the most military experience, if the visible scars were anything to go by. He had an uneasy friendship with Liz, as exhibited by the fact that she was frowning at him. The Romanian, and most likely his friend, didn't get along with Liz. The three subordinates easily were used to sticking together as a group, but Natalia couldn't figure out how the blond girl worked in all of this; she seemed content to sit back and watch the others go at it.

But she was running on a clock, and had to make sure her mentor survived.

"Excuse me?" she said, loudly enough to be heard over the squabbling. When they'd quieted down long enough to turn to her, she said, "I need help getting out of here with Arlovskaya noticing…"

"Hey, Vlad, is that a card up your sleeve? How long have you been cheating?" Gilbert suddenly screeched, eyes narrowing on the Romanian, who was casually adjusting something in his sleeve.

"I knew it!" Liz said grinning nastily as she stood up.

Natalia stepped back just as the scene dissolved into chaos again, only jumping when she realized that someone was at her side.

"Um, if Miss Arlovskaya is with Mr. Ru- er, Braginski, then you shouldn't worry about getting caught now," Laurinaitis said, looking apologetic. He glanced back at the game, where Liz had gotten up and was standing in front of Bochinsky, arguing with him in German and a few other languages that Natalia didn't recognize.

"Thank you, Mr.?" she said, hoping he didn't recognize her from the theater.

"Laurinaitis. Toris Laurinaitis," he said, offering a small smile before pulling aside the curtain slightly to glance out in the street. "It's clear, good luck, miss."

"Thank you," Natalia said, and then slipped out into the snowy street.

It was a shame. He was nice, but it was caring for others that led to risks and other problems down the road.

She was already taking a serious chance with the only man currently in her life.

"We've been compromised."

Vladimir Menshikov, the primary handler and trainer of the Winter Soldier, looked up from the mission debriefings as Vasily Karpov entered the room, already in a foul mood.

"How so, sir?" Menshikov said, watching as his former brother in arms and current superior paced the small office.

"Our card," Karpov said curtly, tossing a newspaper onto the table. Menshikov leaned forward and picked it up, reading the bold headline that read: American Assassin Attempts Kill on Prominent Politician. "By publicizing this, it means that everyone will be on the look out for an American, so we cannot send the Winter Soldier out after Ivan Braginski anytime soon," he said, practically spitting out the name Ivan Braginski.

"Or anywhere else in the Soviet Union for that matter, Braginski is close enough to the Soviet Premier to warrant a closer watch and an alert for Americans within our borders."

"It doesn't matter, I have another assignment for him. As the Americans would say, the third time's the charm, is it not?" Karpov said, dropping the manila folder on Menshikov's desk. "Make sure he gets it, and that there are no mistakes this time."

"Of course, sir." Menshikov watched as Karpov stormed away, startling other personnel before walking across the room to close the door. Then he went back and examined the folder's contents.

It was another assigned assassination, this time in Paris during a peace summit between a few Soviet ambassadors with the United Nations. It was going to be more like an attempt at a peace summit anyway, the last one hadn't gone so well just because Braginski had gotten into a tussle with the American ambassador, unnecessarily antagonizing the United States government in the process.

The target this time was a Frenchman though, a Parisian who worked as one of the ambassadors to the United Nations, frequently seen in the company of a Canadian who worked in the same capacity except for Canada.

Menshikov frowned as he studied the target's name. When he'd served in the Soviet Union's Red Army, under the command of Ivan Braginski, he'd briefly met a Frenchman once, one who went by the same name as the current victim.

Francis Bonnefoy.

Sighing, he closed the folder. There were new battle lines, and they were not allies this time around, so he had no reason to fret over the other man's fate.

"We've been compromised."

The President of the United States felt himself tense at the announcement. Next to him, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom sighed from exhaustion. The personifications of the United States and England reacted somewhat differently to the American Chief of Staff's news.

"How the hell are we compromised?" Alfred F. Jones exploded, moving so fast out of his seat that his ally, Arthur Kirkland, and the Prime Minister's secretary on his other side both jumped in their seats. "We planned this fucking mission for so long – "

"Language!" Kirkland barked, and Jones scowled but didn't otherwise react. Kirkland leaned forward and asked, "What happened?"

"An American assassin was caught trying to kill Ivan Braginski," the Chief of Staff said grimly, pushing a wrinkled Russian newspaper across the table, where Jones snatched it up and held it up right to his face. "Granted, while we do have at least five operatives in St. Petersburg and Moscow, Braginski was never on the target list. We'll have to withdraw from the Soviet Union, wait for Major General Vasily Karpov to leave the country before we try again."

"But that could take forever!" Jones snarled, throwing the paper down as though its mere existence personally offended him.

"Alfred, please sit down," the President said, sighing. "Yes, we put a lot of work into this operation, and yes, we'll have to withdraw, but all we have to do now is simply readjust our plans…"

"Can't S.H.I.E.L.D. do anything about this?" Alfred demanded.

"No. Director Rick Stoner is under the command of the United Nations, which the Soviet Union is a member of. Going to S.H.I.E.L.D. means we'd have to go through the UN, which would mean admitting that we were behind the assassination attempt. Stoner's a stickler for the rules, so he won't buy it until we go through proper procedure," the Prime Minister said calmly. Glancing at the President, he said, "We'll just find out which agent went rogue and went for Braginski, and just try again."

"Recall them now," Kirkland said. "That way, when Jones and I return from the peace summit in Paris, we'll be ready to handle the next step." Reaching up, he gently pulled Jones back into his chair before he said, "In the meantime, we'll wait for Karpov to make the next move."

"Sounds like a plan," the President said as the Prime Minister nodded in agreement. Looking back at the Chief of Staff, he said, "Now, I believe we have other war time matters to discuss?"

A/N: A very, very, belated birthday gift for Fyrepen33 (sorry!) If Eternal Guardian readers recall, this incident was mentioned briefly in Ch. 5. Anyway, Hetalia Axis Powers and all related media belong to Hidekaz Himaruya, and the Winter Soldier, Black Widow, and all related media belong to Marvel.

Widow's name: Her real name is Natalia Romanova, and she changes it to 'Natasha' when she heads to the United States for her first mission as the Black Widow. She doesn't earn said title of 'Black Widow' until after further training and other preparations necessary for the role. This takes place early on, when she's still a student, so I figured it would make more sense to use her real name here.

Rick Stoner: Was the director of S.H.I.E.L.D. before Nick Fury. Unfortunately, he didn't make it very long past his appointment; Hydra got to him fast.

Vladimir Bochinsky: The confirmed human name of the personification of Romania.

The Fountain of Bakhchisarai: A popular Russian ballet during the sixties.