Cupboards and Cryogenics

Chapter 10

"What were you doing?" Director Pierce's voice and expression are calm, but he is obviously angry all the same. "We lost contact with the agents we sent after you the first time, and found them dead."

"I killed them." The Soldier states flatly. That should be obvious. "They were interfering with the mission and the safety of the handler."

"What mission? What handler?"

"Handler Harry James Potter gave the code word marionetka. He became the new handler. New mission was to protect him and avoid HYDRA."

Director Pierce stares at the Asset for 2.4 seconds in disbelief, and then slaps the Asset in the face. Its head snaps to the side, but it does not react otherwise.

"Abort that mission." Pierce orders.

MISSION ABORTED. The first voice says. The second voice starts to say something, but the first repeats, louder MISSION ABORTED.

"You belong to HYDRA, you don't decide to follow the orders of a child and murder your handlers." Pierce is telling the Asset. The Asset listens to the director with his full attention. "He is not your superior. Him giving the command word meant nothing, he probably just repeated what the agents said."

The Asset had briefly wondered about that, before thinking he should not question his (now former) mini-handler.

HYDRA still claims ownership over the Soldier. He had been AWOL, it is natural they would retrieve him, he thinks as they read his trigger words again. It is natural that they are angry about him defecting, are angry that Harry the Handler had become a handler in the first place. He was supposed to be the target, the package.

"Targets do not become handlers." Pierce tells him. "Understood?"

"Understood, sir."

He is HYDRA's asset again, not Potter's. The boy was evidently never truly a handler in the first place. The Asset has been going through a lot of handlers the past day.

He should have delivered Potter to begin with. If he had, Potter never would have had the opportunity to temporarily change the mission and become a handler. In the end, it didn't matter that he tried to run with Potter.

The boy is in HYDRA's hands anyways, and now the Asset is facing severe punishment in his future. He tries not to tremble.

The Soldier is once again cuffed- this time with much sturdier restraints that even its enhanced body might have trouble breaking out of. These agents are smarter. They frisk the Soldier thoroughly and relieve it of all his weapons, even the knife in its boot.

One of the agents walks past the Soldier to grab the boy.

Potter lets out a terrified sound, and Nighty sinks his teeth into the agent's leg, growling. The agent curses loudly and tries to shake the dog off.

Pierce calmly draws his own gun and shoots the dog in the head.

"Nighty!" Potter screams. Unlike when he'd been under the bed during the Soldier's fight in the lodge, Potter can see everything going on here. He may not entirely understand what just happened, but it's clear he knows something is wrong with the dog.

The child seems to want to crawl towards the dog, as if the dog has merely gone to sleep, but he's obviously to scared to go any closer to the agent.

Not that it matters, since the agent walks to Potter and picks him up.

Potter reaches out towards the Asset pleadingly, green eyes brimming with tears as small whimpers escape his throat. As soon as he opens his mouth to speak, the agent clamps a hand over it.

"He is a target. Nothing more." Pierce repeats to the handcuffed Soldier. "Come."

His metal arm whirs slightly as he follows his superiors out of the freight car and to the waiting cars that the agents drove.

Pierce leads the Asset towards one car, while the agent carrying Potter heads towards another one. They are being separated.

"Where are you taking him?" The Asset asks.

"That is none of your concern, Soldier." Pierce says testily. The Soldier is somewhat surprised he had not gotten slapped for speaking out of turn.

He is not reassured as he's shoved into the back of the car. It should not be thinking about Potter. The boy's fate should not matter. In the end, the mission is complete, even if the Asset had not been the one to complete it.

Potter is none of the Soldier's concern, but he is only a child. He should not have to go through what the Soldier goes through. He wonders if they're going to make Potter into another asset, if they know about the boy's ability to make shields without a weaponized stick.

"He has lacerations on his back and burns on his hands as well as bruises." Nobody replies, and the Soldier adds quietly, "Don't hurt him more." He himself had already accidentally hurt the boy by holding him with too much force during a vision. The boy had been hurt a lot at the Dursley residence.

This time, he is slapped and ordered to shut up.

The Soldier is chained up facing the wall, shirtless, deep in a HYDRA base. He has not seen Potter since they were put into separate cars. The boy could be in this base, or on the other side of the world, for all the Soldier knows.

The Asset has no reason to know where the boy is. The boy should not even be in his thoughts, yet the Asset cannot stop.

A whip cracks and tears into his back, and he grits his teeth, Potter no longer on his mind, only pain. This is all part of his punishment. He should have never disobeyed his orders or tried to go against HYDRA.

Pierce, standing behind him and watching him as he's whipped, reminds the Asset of this. As if he didn't already know.

Potter was a more favorable handler, despite being barely four years old and never being a handler, according to Pierce.

The Asset stays silent for the first fifteen lashes during his whipping, but afterwards can no longer hold back the screams. Being enhanced does not make this any less painful as they continue to fall.

He soon loses count of how many lashes he's received in his haze of agony, but the only reason he doesn't collapse to a heap on the ground is because he's still chained to the wall.

Then, they hose his bloody, raw back off with a powerful jet of water, bringing new waves of agony.

After an eternity, they unchain him and drag him bodily from the room.

The Soldier is almost relieved to be taken to the Chair, but being strapped down still sends his heartbeat racing and the back of the chair is extremely painful against his abused back.

Being wiped is as unpleasant as ever, and the Soldier screams through his mouth guard as the Chair shoots jolts of agony through his face until his mind is blank.

He jerks awake, gasping, when a body's weight presses down on him and something cold nudges his cheek.

The Soldier freezes, metal hand whirring as its plates shift. He grabs the attacker by the back of their neck (the front is too close to his own neck to grab easily).

Flipping over, he positions himself so he has the threat pinned to the floor with his knees on its back, prosthetic hand grabbing a gun and pointing it at the enemy. Should he just shoot the enemy now, or wait long enough to question-

The dog under him tries to growl and bite, but is hampered by the Soldier's knee pressing down on its back.

The Soldier pauses. It is the black dog. Nighty. But it had been shot.

The Asset looks around his surroundings. His night vision goggles reveal the interior of the freight car, the dog pinned under him, and Potter watching him with wide green eyes. "Don't hurt Nighty..." Potter says in a hushed voice, clearly thinking the Asset will attack him next.

It was a dream, he realizes. Pierce did not find him (although he's undoubtedly looking) and he is not being punished at the HYDRA base. Nighty is still alive, and the boy is still with the Asset.

He hopes it will stay that way.