» healer // b. barnes

» six. her

*Now, since Leigh understands most Russian, everything that is supposed to be in Russian will be in italics, unless she doesn't understand what is being said. Those will still be in actual Russian and translated at the end of the chapter. I hope this makes sense. Thank you*

1980. Siberia, Soviet Union

The last few months have been a blur. I don't remember my name. The men in white jackets always sent me to the chair whenever I got close to figuring it out. I am now always addressed as лекарь, or The Healer.

        Over the past few weeks, they began teaching me Russian, and it came extremely easy to me. They said that it was their 'brilliant serum' that made my mind this way. I had also been learning self defense and fighting skills, which I'm not as good at. According to them. I'm too afraid to actually hurt my opponents. It's the fact that I'm in training and it isn't an actual life-or-death situation. My most common sparing opponent was the man with a metal arm. His name is The Winter Soldier, but I learned to call him Winter or зима.

The men in lab coats checked on me everyday before I was escorted back to my small room. This was the only time of the day when I was away from Winter; we were not allowed to see where the other persons sleeping quarters were.

       A punch in the gut brought me out of my thoughts. I stumbled a little from the unexpected blow.

       "Focus," it was Winter. We were supposed to be training. My training schedule has gotten more and more intense in the past three days, and I don't understand why. The men in lab coats said I was making better progress than expected. Before, I only had one or two different training sessions in a day, along with a session for my power and a session to be taught Russian and about Hydra. Now, it was a minimum of three training sessions, two power sessions, and only half of a Russian lesson.

A kick behind the knee through me off balance, nearly making me fall to the ground. I shook the thoughts out of my head and turned to fight. Winter had an annoyed look on his face, he recently came back from a longer mission. He wasn't hurt too bad physically, but he was exhausted and still is. He didn't want to be training with me right now, but neither of us ever had a choice in what we did.

He was waiting for me to make the first move, so I did. I swung my right leg up, attempting to kick his chest. It didn't work. He was too fast, grabbing me by the ankle and twisting my leg. Before I knew it, my face was shoved into the thin, beat up mat.

"Too predictable. Stop making it that easy." It wasn't Winter who spoke this time, it was a voice through the speaker system. I nodded my head, determined to take Winter down. I remembered once that the voice in the speaker told me to use my size to my advantage, so that was what I was going to do. Winter could only move so quickly because of how large he was. I, on the other hand, was small and agile.

        Instead of going right for him chest, I went for his legs. I ducked down and slid between his legs to get behind him. From there, I grabbed his one ankle and pulled. He reacted by trying to kick me in the face, which I mostly dodged. He ended up kicking me in the shoulder. I laid on the ground, acting like I'd lost. He turned to face me and assisted me by grabbing my wrist to pull me up. When he did that, I shot back up, and punched him in the face. The quick movement made him unbalanced. From there, I kicked out his legs from under him, making his back land on the ground, myself straddling his torso.

         "She's ready," Winter spoke to the speaker without looking at me.

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