Chapter Text
The bar is crowded and noisy; just what he needs to unwind after the day that he has been through. As he suspected, working with Fëanor was like trying to be around an angry big cat; he was constantly being jabbed and tested verbally by the elf prince, and his distrust put everyone on edge. After about three hours of being verbally harassed by the prince, Arion could stand it no longer. He left the hotel where they had set up their equipment and made for his favorite bar. After downing a pint of ale and several shots of liquor, Arion began to calm down to think clearly. In all reality it was more his own guilt that made him over sensitive to Fëanor’s verbal barbs and the presence of their son, Adrian, had not helped the matter either. Maedhros had tried to smooth his father’s temper and ease the sharpness of the barbs, but Joshua played passive aggressive neutral; neither helping nor hurting his situation.
Once he had begun to unwind a bit he realized the irrelevance of the situation with Fëanor; they needed to complete their mission, nothing more. The sooner he realized this the sooner he could handle the elf prince’s behavior. Arion relaxed into his chair and surveyed the bar. The regulars were out and well on their way to becoming hopelessly drunk, even though it was only tea time. There were a few young soldiers obviously out on leave, laughing and drinking and having a good time. The bar wasn’t dark by any means but it wasn’t as light as some pubs in London either. In fact it was bright and cheery in the bar today, with all the laughter and music and brightly colored clothing. Arion turned back to the barman and was about to order another drink, when he sensed a familiar presence behind him.
‘Barkeep,’ the man behind him said, and his voice was rough and deep. Deeper than it used to be but Arion would never forget that voice. ‘How about a Guinness dark for my friend here, on me,’ he asked.
Arion turned slowly just in time to see a man in dark clothes settle down into the seat beside him on his right. His face was in profile and his long hair obscured his features. He wore a long leather duster coat of solid black that went down past his knees and underneath was a shirt or jacket of leather and knitted Kevlar. The jacket had straps and snaps going across his chest, similar to how Bucky’s old uniform looked, with a high collar. The leather was such a deep red he had almost mistaken it for black, and the straps, indeed, themselves were black. His pants were a type of combat fatigues with large pockets on the thighs and strategic padding on the knees and what looked like armored padding on the thighs. His belt was empty but Arion could see the places for several holsters for guns and knives, as well as for various types of ammunition. Everything about his appearance screamed aggressiveness and dangerous, even his boots looked aggressive; like they could hide even more weapons. Despite the aggressive clothing, which would not look out of place on a Goth, and the longer hair and ragged look to him, Arion could never mistake him for anyone but the Winter Knight himself.
The bartender placed a beer in front of Arion and a tumbler of clear liquid in front of the Knight. Arion ignored the drink and watched as his adversary picked up the glass and downed its contents in one swallow. The harsh grimace of discomfort on his face told Arion that the drink was probably straight vodka. Arion glanced around the room looking for a way to get word back to his allies and noticed how strange things started to look. It looked as if someone had taken a film and slowed it down to about one quarter the speed, and it kept getting slower. Arion turned back to the bar and saw that the barkeep was the same as well. Only the Knight seemed to remain normal as he turned the glass in his hands on the bar; twisting it on its base and worrying it in his hands. Arion’s breathing sped up slightly before he could suppress it, and he stared at the man beside him with mingled fear and hate. Suddenly the Knight turned and Arion’s breath caught in his chest. His eyes widened as the Winter Knight’s features finally came into the light.
“I need your help,” he said. “We don’t have any more time left.” Blue eyes met blue pleadingly and suddenly the Vanyar prince couldn’t breathe. Arion let out a breathless gasp and brought his hand to his mouth in shock. Tears sprang to his eyes as he tried to comprehend what he was seeing.
“Steven?”
~*~*~
Steven stared at the man that was his father for a moment and took in the changes that time had wrought. Arion’s eyes were sadder and though he was Elvish, Steven could see the way Arion’s grief had left small lines on his face and dulled the brightness in his eyes. Tears sprang into Arion’s blue eyes and he tentatively reached out to touch Steven’s cheek. Steven couldn’t help but lean into the tentative touch, yearning for a small bit of kind affection from the man that he had only just begun to love and call father. Steven opened his eyes and saw that Arion was barely holding back his tears of joy. He looked up at the golden elf sadly, knowing that he was going to wipe the joy and brilliance right back out of his eyes.
“Father,” he said and Arion let out a sound like a half laugh half sob. “Father, I don’t have much time. I can only keep this kind of psychic conversation up for a brief time.” Arion nodded too shocked to even speak for a moment. “I need to speak with you, somewhere public, where no one will notice us having Osanwe. Somewhere my handlers won’t notice I am talking with you.” Arion reigned in his wild emotions for a moment to think of a place where they could talk.
“There’s a… um, there’s a café down the street,” he said haltingly and pulled away his hand to try and regain composure. “They have an outdoor patio where they serve coffee and drinks during the warmer months. We can talk there.” Steven looked out at the warm autumn outdoors and nodded. September was warm that year and Steven was glad for the sunlight.
“Good,” he said, “I’ll meet you there.” Arion reached out for Steven again as he stood and turned away. Steven paused and looked back with somber eyes. “I’m not the man you knew before, father. I don’t know what I am, but I know I can’t do this anymore. I can’t watch him go through this. I can’t watch it anymore, and do nothing!” Arion turned back to the bar and tried to catch his breath before he turned to speak to his son. Only when he turned, everything was normal again and Steven was gone.
‘Hey, buddy,’ the bartender asked after Arion sat there a moment at a loss as to what just happened. ‘You alright?’ Arion turned back and stared at his drink for a moment before tossing down the amount for his tab.
‘I will be, thank you,’ he said and smiled. Arion got up and quickly left the bar, heading for the café down the street, hoping against hope that what he saw was not a dream.
~*~*
(‘osanwe’)
The café is less crowded than Arion thought it would be, and it seemed that, despite the lovely warm day, most of the customers were inside listening to some performer; although there were a few outside. This suited Arion and Steven just fine. Arion found his son just fine, sitting by himself in a shadowed corner near the street, with plenty of escape routes. The elf settled down at a table near Steven’s, close enough to see his face in the shadows and far enough away that no one would think they were together. Arion supposed that was why Steven picked his spot. The waiter came out quickly and Steven ordered an Americano cappuccino, while Arion ordered a simple espresso coffee with cream and sugar. Arion raised an eyebrow at his son’s ironic order. Steven shrugged and smiled.
‘I like the sweetness,’ Arion heard Steven say, though his lips didn’t move. ‘Osanwe is an easy way to talk, without them listening in.’ Steven explained and Arion nodded, picking up a newspaper, and pretending to read it. It was a subtle hint that Steven’s mind was so open that he couldn’t shield it from telepathic intrusion. Arion sighed. ‘And his mind was getting so strong too,’ he thought with sadness.
(‘What is it that you want to tell me, yonya?’) Arion asked, initiating osanwe (telepathic speech of the elves.) Steven seemed to sink into his seat with shame, and Arion sent a calming caress through his mind. He jerked away when it felt like broken glass on his mind. (‘Steven, what has happened to you?’)
(‘They found us in the ravine, where Ada fell,’) Steven said. Arion looked up from his paper and locked eyes on his son, when he caught on to his plural word.
(‘Us?’) He asked breathless and frightened.
(‘Ada is alive,’) Steven said and looked up with fear and pain in his eyes. Arion felt his façade break and shock bloomed across his features like a bruise. Their conversation halted for a moment when the Waiter returned with their drinks. (‘It was HYDRA; they were the ones that found us. Father, they knew my nickname! Only Zola knew I was called Knight by the Commandoes.’)
Arion looked at his son with shock and fear, before tears of pain and sorrow filled his eyes.
(‘Tell me what happened, my son,’) he commanded and Steven took his drink in his hands to keep them steady as he spoke,
(‘They found us in the ravine, and took us to a HYDRA base near the Russian boarder,’) he said. (‘They kept us in isolation and kept us starved. They operated on Ada’s arm while he was still awake. He lost it in the fall; it’s still in that ravine along with my tape recorder. They didn’t even tell us when the war ended, they just… they beat Ada until he couldn’t hardly move! I tried to stop it! I wasn’t strong enough. I lost time after that, when they started conditioning us; putting trigger words in our heads. Ada held out for so long, but… they were stronger. They used a telepath to put trigger words in his head; phrases or words that would make him do things he didn’t want to do. Then they put on the arm. They turned him into a Weapon; both of us into Weapons. They enhanced my powers with the Serum, and started wiping Ada’s memories and imprinting personalities on us. After a while, when I looked into Ada’s eyes it wasn’t Ada I was seeing, it was him: Soldat; the Soldier. They used us to kill who they wanted, spy on who they wanted, and when the mission was over they locked me in a concrete cell lined with Vibranium rebar and chained me to the wall with Vibranium alloy chains; and Ada… when the mission was over he was wiped clean and they put him in a Cryo chamber. They just froze him until they needed him.’) Arion clung to his drink and barely held his tears back at hearing what his beloved and his child had been put through; his face white as a sheet as he realized what his son was telling him.
(‘The Winter Soldier,’) Arion said, with sinking realization, (‘James is the Winter Solder.’) Steven looked up at his father with shame and self-loathing.
(‘I tried to stop it, but I wasn’t strong enough! They got in my head and now I can’t get them out! I black out sometimes, now; during missions. When I wake up, I’m covered in blood and surrounded by bodies!’) Steven was physically struggling to get the words out of his mind clearly. He took a deep breath and calmed. (‘I can’t do it any more, father! I just can’t! They turned Ada into this cold calculating machine, and there are times I look in his eyes and it isn’t the Soldier I see looking back.’) Arion looked up sharply and his eyes lasered in on his son’s face.
(‘What do you mean?’) He demanded. Steven looked frightened and struggling with his words, but he finally found them.
(‘sometimes, when Ada is out of cryo too long, the programming fuses with ghost impressions from the personality and memory imprints, and something new seems to form. For a while it seemed like the wipes prevented it from surfacing, but now… Ada’s programming is more extensive than mine. It had to be in order for them to control him. He fought so much harder than me; he still does sometimes, when he’s out too long.’) Steven worried the cup in his hands for a moment, looking down into the liquid, before he continued. (‘I think Ada has developed a second personality because of the programming and imprints. He acts so different than the Soldier, or Ada, so I know when he rises back out. It only happens when he’s been out of cryo for longer than a week and without a memory wipe, but he remembers things Ada doesn’t if he ever peeks back through the wipes. The other assets… the girls call him Yasha and he… I want to hate him, but I can’t. He’s so much like Ada sometimes, but other times he’s more like that blank Soldier. I have to get Ada away, before our time runs out.’)
(‘Why didn’t you try to escape; get help?’) Arion asked gently, and Steven began to giggle almost hysterically.
(‘I tried, we tried,’) Steven said, (‘back in the seventies. Something happened I don’t know what, while he was on a mission in New York, and he ran. He didn’t come to the check point for extraction and no one had seen him. They sent me after him, and I tried to run too. They caught up with us. Dragged us back, and reconditioned us. They Wiped Ada so hard, that they had to retrain some things back into him. They put me in the Cell for weeks without food, and left me there to rot. That’s when the discipline sessions started.
(‘Father, we don’t have any more time left. We’ve out lived our usefulness. We’ve been scheduled for decommissioning in august next year.’) Arion paled and had to set down his cup, his hands were shaking so badly.
(‘Why?’) Arion asked his eyes wide with shock and fear. Steven looked him in the eye and told him.
(‘Because as soon as the baby’s born, the Red Room, HYDRA, won’t need us anymore,’) Steven said and let out a mirthless chuckle, his lips pulled up in a sad copy of his Ada’s old trademark smirk. (‘Why bother keeping a faulty version around when you could have the perfect Super Soldier molded from birth? I don’t know how they got it but they had Steve’s sperm, and they found out that Ada was a hermaphrodite. They harvested his eggs to create the perfect Soldier from their offspring. I don’t know what happened but their attempts to implant them in loyalist failed, and they used Ada as a last resort to carry the baby.’) Arion looked at his son in growing horror, as all his worst fears about what was being done to Steve’s sperm became true. Steven looked at his father with sudden steel in his eyes, and Arion knew that this was the last ditch attempt of escape from a desperate man.
(‘What do you need me to do?’) He asked with determination, and Steven seemed to melt with relief.
(‘Ada’s being kept out of cryo for now, until the baby arrives. He is being kept in isolation at a Red Room base in Siberia. They want him to go out on one last mission before he is deemed obsolete, so he’ll be kept combat ready for as long as they can. They can’t keep him blank, however, and I think I can convince Yasha to come with me when we make our escape,’) Steven looked confident, as he spoke and a small vicious smile tugged at the corner of his lips. (‘I can take care of the guards from the inside. What I need is a distraction from the outside so that they don’t know I have gone rogue until it is too late. If you and a team attack the base from outside; I should be able to get to Ada and get him out before someone triggers our submissive codes.’) Arion grinned viciously into his cup and swallowed down the last of his espresso.
(‘I have just the team ready for that, my dear,’) he said with a smug smirk. (‘in fact, they were put together to take you down.’) Steven smirked and chuckled.
(‘They wouldn’t have been able to stop me if I hadn’t wanted to be stopped. I am much more powerful now than ever before, and I got a whole lot of triggers in my head that make me too lethal to try.’) Steven said with a sardonic smirk. (‘you’ll need a powerful telepath to undo the damage they did to Ada, father. Also, he is going to need a new cybernetic arm. The one he’s got now… it’s as heavy as a dead horse, and doesn’t have half the neural connections that it needs to have for Ada to not feel phantom pain.’) Arion smiles and begins to fold up his paper.
(‘Do you remember Fëanor?’) He asked and Steven smiles fondly and nods. (‘Well, I know for a fact that Fëanor is more than capable of making the physical structure, like the internal skeleton, and the outer shell would definitely be something that he would relish in making. And as for the internal circuitry, if Stark and his son, Tony, worked together instead of fighting they might just make it light as a real arm and even stronger than the one he has now.’) Steven raised a brow in shock and curiosity.
(‘Stark has a son,’) He asked incredulously. (‘they let him breed?!’) Arion barely managed to stifle his snort and tried to desperately smother his chortles before he drew attention. He looked up at his son and saw a happy grin in place and a twinkle in his dimmed eyes for a moment.
(‘very funny, Steven,’) Arion said blandly. (‘But seriously, Anthony is a prodigy with robotics and technology. And Howard … well, Howard likes a challenge and those two need proper father son bonding.’) Steven grinned and finished his drink.
(‘Great,’) he said and took a pen out of his pocket and wrote down the coordinates of the base and drew the outline of the base itself; outlying where the security checkpoints were and how to get past them. (‘A sneak attack would be good but a full frontal assault is the only thing that will get past the gates. You’ll need the power cut to the alarms first. I’ll give you a telepathic signal, and you send in the cavalry.’) Arion smiled and watched his son use is artistic talent to draw the lay of the land around the base and point out where to attack and where to steer clear.
(‘Sounds like a plan to me,’) Arion said. (‘I’ll still need to convince the others of this, but I think I can give them ample proof in time for the assault.’)
Steven smiled and continued drawing, quickly adding a series of letters and numbers at the bottom before he finished and left the drawing on the table along with the pen. He stood with a sad smile and moved to leave.
(‘I need to make my rendezvous or they’ll get suspicious and probe my memories.’) He said, and looked sadly at his father. (‘goodbye, father. I’ll see you in a few weeks.’) Arion watched him walk away, back toward his masters and was overcome with a profusion of pride.
(‘Goodbye, my son,’) he said across the distance. (‘Know that I am proud of how brave you are, and that I will always love you; no matter what.’)
Steven paused for a moment, letting the feeling of his father’s love and pride wash over him, before he continued to his pick-up. For once, he was a little less afraid of what was coming than before, because he and his Ada were going to be free!
~~*~*
(Flashback)
The rows of beds were filled with young girls of varying ages around twelve or thirteen. They were cuffed to the bedposts while they slept and the sight of it brought sorrow and regret to Steven’s heart. All of these girls were in training to become an assassin for the Red Room. Steven stood next to the school’s Madam and forced the horror and sorrow out of his face. He had to stay blank, or else they would send him back to the Cell for more isolation and weeks without food. He swallowed down the bitterness in his mouth over the fact that all the young girls were becoming trained killers, and he was here to finish their training.
Today they would be advancing to the next step and he would be selecting a few of the girls to train personally. He looked up at the lit door way and saw the Soldier. The girls began to wake as his carefully loud steps echoed across the room, as he prowled down the main row in front of the guards. He came to stand beside Steven and turned his gaze over the girls, calculating evaluating. It seemed as though the Soldier found what he was looking for, because he looked over at Steven and caught his eye in a deliberate gesture. His eyes quickly flashed over to three girls in the group; ones that stood out to his critical eye. It was a silent gesture they had perfected over the years, a way of communicating without gestures or telepathic thought.
Steven zeroed in on the three girls and started scrutinizing them, first on the surface then deeper within. The first girl he looked at was one of the star students, in fact the prodigy; a little red haired girl named Natalia. Steven remembered the initial instructions he gave them the first time they came to the school, and Natalia stood out like a star in her class. She was graceful and poised in a way many of the other girls had lacked. Her hand to hand skill was top notch but needed refinement. Steven knew she would benefit from personal training.
The second girl was a little older, perhaps the oldest in the class; a young girl with jet black hair and a slender physique. Steven smiled just barely when he recognized her: Anya, his star pupil. Like Natalia, she was the rising star in her class, and had out shined everyone else around her. Steven sobered when he realized that the two classes had been merged as they advanced in skill and age, and because the weaker ones were “pruned out” as the Madam put it. Anya had a skill with blending into her surroundings, in spite of her height and natural beauty. She would be a better Spy than assassin, and would definitely benefit from Steven’s personal touch.
The third girl made him pause. She was a dirty blond with obviously lovely features but there was a cold detachment in her eyes that wasn’t even in the Madam or the guards. Steven remembered her: Yelena Belova, a girl with obvious talent in the terms of fighting and killing. Steven had to more than once prevent her from killing her sparring partner in a nonlethal match. She had seemed angered that he stopped her, and relished in watching her partner struggle before putting her down viciously. Steven frowned and delved deep into the girl’s mind, trying to find the source of her violence. What he found nearly made him recoil in horror; Blood and gore, and the sight of a broken young girl, with Yelena’s young giggles of glee sounding in his ears. She relished in the other girl’s suffering and pain, and Steven felt disgust and fear past though him, when he discovered that the little girl Yelena had tortured and killed, was her own baby sister.
His eyes darted over to the Soldier and saw that Yasha was bleeding through.
‘Not that one!’ he said telepathically, and the Soldier nodded imperceptive to anyone but Steven. Steven all but sagged in relief on the inside. Yelena was dangerous, and didn’t need any more training. He looked up and went to attention, when the tapping of the instructor’s hard soled shoes came to his ears. The man was skilled at training the young girls to hone their grace into lethality, and now Steven and the Soldier were going to further his work. Steven felt himself tense at the thought of training the girls again. The instructor looked at his hard face and Steven could see and feel his trepidation, and for a second he wondered why. Then he realized that these were the best of the best here, and Steven smothered a smirk. They remembered not to send the weak and untrained to him; after all they learned it the hard way when he, in a fit of battle frenzy, killed a whole group of girls he was supposed to train. After that, only the best of each class got lessons from him.
Steven glanced over at the Soldier and felt more than saw the imperceptible shift from the Soldier to Yasha: He looked at the girls with a certain brotherly fondness and the strictness of a stern father. This wasn’t his Ada’s first time at the school, and he had made an impression on the girls. Preliminary training was something his Ada could do well, and it was something that transitioned over to the Soldier’s skillset. He was more patient than Steven, and gentle. It seemed as if he could just remember teaching someone else how to fight, someone fail and small too.
Steven didn’t know who called the thing that came out of the Soldier during those months without wipes and reconditioning Yasha, but he remembered the girls asking him what to call him, saying, ‘it’s silly to call you “Soldier” all the time.’ After that they started to call him “Yasha” and it seemed to stick to the strange amalgamation of the Soldier and the personality imprints, asking to be called that whenever they were at the school. The girls began twittering with excitement, because when Yasha was at the school, it meant that something important would be happening.
The instructor tapped a cane on the floor and the girls went silent; eyes watching him closely at he walked past to stand beside the Madam. Steven sensed a flare of anger directed at the Instructor from Yasha, and Steven sent waves of calm toward him to reign in his temper. Yasha, it seemed, had inherited his Ada’s temper when it came to injustice against little girls. The Madam began to speak and Steven tuned her out. The medical tray on wheels caught his attention when they rolled it past him. He took a sharp intake of breath in shock but schooled his features. There were small medicine vials on the tray with syringes stacked in a box beside them. The liquid was a familiar iridescent blue. He ignored all else but the vials and the guards injecting it into the young girls, until he heard an internal snort of derision from the Soldier/Yasha.
‘Yeah, right,’ he heard his Ada’s voice say from inside the Soldier/Yasha. Steven smiled a little realizing that his Ada was still inside somewhere. A tap on his arm brought him back to reality and he saw the Madam motion for them to leave. Steven did so willingly, not wanting to see what would happen to the girls who had no idea what was going to happen. He glanced behind and saw that Yasha had looked back, and was staring right at little Natalia. A smirk pulled on Steven’s lips as the doors closed. Natalia was a good person at heart, and she would survive. So would Anya. It was Yelena that gave him cause to worry. Who knew what even an altered Serum would do to a Psychopath.
TBC…