Ordinary World

Passion or coincidence once prompted you to sayPride will tear us both apartWell now, pride's gone out the windowCross the rooftopsRun AwayLeft me in the vacuum of my heart

What has happened to meCrazy some will sayWhere is my friend when I need you mostGone away

-Red

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Siberian Facility, Russian Federation; 17 March, 1992

Tessa's world was shattering. She was emotionally dying there on the glacial cold of the concrete floor at the feet of her father while James screamed and was torn apart from the inside out by the Mind Crown. Again she tried to get up, and again she was unable to move from where she was.

Every scream wrenched from James' throat sliced her soul to ribbons. She didn't even try to hide the tears that poured from her eyes. Sidorov watched Tessa but he didn't dare move to assist her, not with the elder Pierce right there.

A part of the Major couldn't help but feel responsible for what was now unfolding before his eyes. He'd been the one to bring both of them back in, and now he was paying for it by watching the horrors unfold before his very eyes. Perhaps HYDRA wasn't quite what he thought it was.

The screams from The Winter Soldier eventually halted and left behind an eerie echo that faded into an even more profound silence. Tessa waited for the trigger words, but they never came. She waited for them to leave him with The Winter Soldier in place of nothingness, but they never did.

What came instead was movement from the two guards who sat him into the chair beforehand. They now unfastened him from the Suppression Machine, dragged him unfocused from the chair then all but carried him toward his stasis chamber.

Before Tessa could even hear them strapping her Soldier into place, she was hefted up to her feet with the gentle grip of Ivan Sidorov. He wrapped her small figure into his beefy arms and gingerly carried her over toward the chair. His lips pressed against the shell of her ear as he settled her into the warm spot created by the chair's last occupant.

"I am sorry, Miss Pierce," he said beneath his breath. "I truly am."

Tessa said nothing. She could feel blood and spit oozing down her chin from her busted lip as the chair locked her body into place. One of the scientists moved up to the console for the machine and adjusted its output while the younger Pierce flickered her eyes toward the retreating form of her father. She had no doubt he'd be gone before she ever regained her senses after this little punishment.

It wasn't that Alexander Pierce didn't want to see his daughter subjected to the torture she was about to go through; he just didn't care. Tessa knew it. Ivan knew it. Everyone in that place knew it, and it called into question their own loyalties with the organization. Raised in the mindset was entirely different than seeing such cruelty inflicted on their own people rather than those they were supposed to be fighting against.

Tessa's thoughts were already so broken that she didn't even feel when the electricity in the machine began coming to life. Her eyes found the suspended form of her Soldier as the oxygen mask was settled down over the lower half of his face. Soon, he would sleep because of the tranquilizing gas pumped into his lungs. Soon, he would be encased in the orange light and unnatural cold. Soon, that clear sheath of glass would lower down around him and lock him away from Tessa for who knew how long.

Right now, though, his head lulled to the side and his unfocused eyes seemed to be searching for something that he didn't even know he was seeking. Tessa's heart constricted within her chest and she gave a soft sob just as the two halves of the Mind Crown settled around her head and pressed in close.

She would never forget the first time she had to endure this seat, but even that pain was nothing at all compared to what she felt when the torture finally started up this time.

She had screamed like this only once before, and that had been when the super soldier serum had been injected into her veins. In seconds, her vocal chords were destroyed, her hips jerking upward in the vain but instinctual attempt to dislodge and free herself out of utter self preservation.

The elemental realm that held that half of her soul opened to soak in as much of the electricity as was possible, but it was spilling into her so rapidly that there was little hope of catching all of it.

Tessa could feel her brain trying to just give in and let the machine take her memories away. Hell, it might have gotten a couple of them before her innate mutation sent out an electromagnetic pulse that shut down the entire facility and plummeted everyone into darkness.

No one rushed to assure that she wasn't getting free; every single person in the silo could hear her mewling whimpers and shredded breaths from where she lay exhausted in the chair. The backup generator was finally allowed to kick in, but it only brought the lights up enough to give the place an eerie glow, mostly the same glow that now encased the frozen Soldier who held Tessa's heart and Karpov's failures still housed in their own pods.

After several moments, Tessa registered that there were voices speaking around her and men moving to reset the chair so that it would release her from its tight grip. Her eyes rolled toward the hulking man who moved up before her and leaned down to pick her up and cradle her like a child against his broad chest.

His arms held her tight against him as he pivoted and started toward the exit leading in the direction of the residential quarters for the officers of the facility. He dared say nothing at all, not even once he had her inside her quarters. He knew the whole place was bugged and had cameras everywhere.

Once Ivan had his boss laid onto her bed, he pulled the blankets over her small body to assure that she didn't get too cold. His eyes searched hers with studiously. Once he was convinced she wasn't going to evaporate, he stood and hurried out.

Tessa had no idea how long he was gone nor was she really aware of her surroundings at all. Her mind was stuck on a loop that repeated the screams of her lover and that last, lost look as his instincts had him searching for his beloved even with his brain hollowed out by his conditioning.

When she was next aware of anything else, Ivan was kneeling beside her bed, his deep green eyes focused on the task of cleaning up her lip and assuring it didn't need a stitch or two in order for it to heal and leave as little scarring behind as possible.

When he noted that her eyes were now focusing on him, he paused briefly and gave just a flick of his eyes upward to indicate the camera above the door. Rather than just shutting it off, the entire thing soon popped aloud and the chemical smell of electrical smoke tainted the air of the room.

"Are you alright?" His words were soft, warm.

"No," she responded almost numbly but didn't move from where she was laying.

"I'm sorry, Miss Pierce," his voice chided himself as his strong brow pinched and regret spilled unhindered over his face. "Please, forgive me for being too much of a coward to step in and stop it."

His words made her eyes close, and when they did tears spilled from their corners. She was suddenly hyper-aware of the smell of James still clinging to her bedding, to her skin. Without pretense, she wept openly and accepted what consolation Sidorov could offer to her. He sat there on the floor, on his knees, his hand on hers for hours and said nothing at all. He was just there for her -- there to protect her as she recovered, there to wipe her tears as she cried them, there to wordlessly comfort her breaking heart. He would never be James and didn't want to be, but he was her friend. It would take hell itself to keep him away from her side for the rest of the night.

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Siberian Facility, Russian Federation; 10 March, 1994

Tessa truly had not recovered from the events that had happened almost two years ago. Had it not been for Ivan, she would have let herself go mad in every sense of the word.

At first, it hadn't been quite as bad as they thought it would be, but that was because the machine had successfully torn several memories from her brain before her body had reacted to protect itself. Over the past two years, she had recalled almost all of those memories, but some still lingered on the back of her mind, ghosts of thoughts that would never quite come back to the surface.

Today was a special day. At least, it was a special day for Tessa. It was James' seventy-seventh birthday, not that he'd be free to celebrate. Even if he was free, he wouldn't remember the importance of the day at all.

Ivan had become Tessa's most trusted friend in the two years since he'd watched her father destroy his daughter, and he was certainly pulling through for her today. With the exception of two soldiers guarding the bunker entrance, the rest of the soldiers, scientists and skeleton crew medical staff were away today under the guise of going into the nearest town to stock up on goods for the bunker. Tessa wouldn't be bothered, at least until everyone got back in the late afternoon.

Bundled warmly against the chill of the silo, Tessa tightened the blanket around her shoulders and sluggishly made her way over through the near-darkness until she was bathed in orange light and the shadows of the body suspended within its stasis pod.

Boots brought her to a numb halt there where she craned her neck and let her eyes cast themselves that long way up to where his open eyes stared lifelessly downward behind the curtain of frosty, chocolate-colored hair.

Holding the blanket in place with her left hand, she wiggled her right free and reached up to lay her palm against the glass sheath. She longed for any movement from within the pod, but she knew that would never happen. She couldn't free him because it would sound the alarm, not only inside the bunker but in Washington, D.C. as well.

"Happy birthday, my love," she whispered near enough to the glass that her hot breath cast condensation immediately across the surface of the barrier blocking her from James. "I wish we could celebrate together. I miss you so much."

A ragged breath was taken into her lungs as she felt salty tears stinging her eyes. With a sob, she slid down the glass until her small frame was huddled within the blanket on the platform at the base of the cryostasis pod. Kneeling there at the level of James' feet, she bowed her head into the protection of the blanket and her drawn-up legs and let herself weep into that small, dark space, not caring whether or not anyone heard her.

When there were no more tears to cry and her body felt entirely spent, Tessa finally found her voice again and let her head rest against the glass she was leaning against.

"We should have celebrated the last time you were awake," she said softly, nuzzling the frigid glass as if doing so brought her closer to The Winter Soldier. "We should have celebrated for both of us. I would give anything to go back to that morning, watching you laugh at me trying to catch that rabbit, watching the way your eyes sparkled with that stupid Stalinium joke."

Her heart cracked a little more as she went silent and listened to the constant hum of the pod she was leaning against. She knew he couldn't hear her, yet she spoke. She knew he wouldn't even understand what she was talking about if he was awake, yet she told him anyway.

"I miss you so much, James," she whispered, again close enough to the glass that her breath spilled visibly over the surface. "Hopefully you'll come back to me soon. I'm not sure how long I can make it without you before I become someone else altogether."

Her humanity was slipping, her will to live flaking off of her as time slowly passed. Just the idea of Bucky had been enough to keep a spark of good burning low within her, but without the hope of him coming back that small flame was losing the oxygen that kept it alive. She adored James, but that deeply hidden piece of himself that had once been pure -- that Bucky -- was what gave her hope the very first time she ever saw it.

Had Ivan not been there, Tessa would have already lost herself. She would have turned into the monster that her father had always wanted to create. Without hope, she was just a pawn like everyone else in HYDRA, and right now she had no hope other than the promise that The Winter Soldier was still needed. She needed to be there when he was finally removed from his icy hell. She needed to be there to help guide him back to who he truly was.

She wasn't going to play nice next time.

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Siberian Facility, Russian Federation; 25 May, 1996

Dawn hadn't even touched the horizon when there was a solid triplicate of knocks that landed against the metal door of Tessa's quarters. The sound jerked the woman's head upward from the pillow where -- as always -- she was momentarily lost between sleep and wakefulness before she realized what had woken her.

Someone twisted the knob of the door only to be met with a solid click when the mechanism hit the lock. Immediately, Tessa thought it was her father. No one else just walked into her room after a knock. Everyone else waited like normal fucking humans. Thinking it might be her father soured her mood before another breath could find her lungs. 

"Minute," Tessa managed to get out before climbing to her hands and knees then moving to standing at the side of her bed.

She didn't wake up easily and never had. Most people were long accustomed to that, with one exception apparently. Another knock was given, this one louder than the one before it.

"I said give me a goddamn minute!" she shouted at the door in hateful irritation. She could think of two people that would disobey her request -- her father or Ivan, if something was truly wrong and he needed her.

The incessant knocking halted long enough for her to pull on her shoes so that walking across the cold floor didn't pain her further than it already had. With irritation in every movement, she unlocked the door knob, slammed the deadbolt into the open position then reached up and slid the last lock out of the way so that she could jerk the door open with enough force that the gust from it caused silken hair to fly back behind her should briefly.

The look in her eyes of manifested hellfire fell into a look of complete shock as she found the knocker on the other side. It wasn't her father nor was it Ivan. Instead, The Winter Soldier stood there in place, his eyes frosty over having been yelled at by the woman before him. It was so completely unexpected that she wasn't sure what to say for the longest time.

Slate blue eyes regarded her in silence, never softening but not pressing his luck by snapping back, either.

"Dobroye utro, Soldat..." The good morning offered sounded more like a confused question than what she would have normally said to him had she been the one to awaken him from his long slumber.

Rather than replying that he was ready to obey, he motioned with his left hand toward the direction of the silo then stepped back to fall to parade rest to the side of the door so that he could follow her back. Her brow pinched as she watched him. It had been so long since Tessa had seen her Soldier so thoroughly gone, and it was a heartbreaking thing to witness.

"Let me dress," she stated simply, her heart hammering in her chest with both excitement and confusion. "I will only be a moment. Wait here." She shut the door then tore her warm pajamas from her body so that she could replace them with actual clothes she could wear into the rest of the bunker.

Once dressed, she brushed her hair then headed back over to open the door. As she knew she would, Tessa found her Soldier waiting exactly where he had been before she shut the door on him. Why had no one told her they were waking him up? Why was he awake at all? Was her father actually here?

While she wanted to embrace her beloved, she didn't. Instead, she turned and started briskly down the corridor toward the silo with the Soldier following shortly at her back. While Tessa was happy he was awake, she didn't like even the idea of him not walking as an equal at her side. He was always her partner, not her charge and not her supervisor. Neither had to be saved by the other, but they needed each other in order to feel complete.

Cold air swept platinum hair up and away from her face as Tessa finally broke the threshold of the door and stepped into the glacial air that was allowed in from that overhead door at the top of the silo. Her initial glance around expected her to find her father standing somewhere in the room, but he was nowhere to be seen.

Who she did see was Major Sidorov, and his mouth harbored a small smile that touched just the corners of his mouth. Tessa had no idea why James had been woken up, but Ivan was pleased to be able to bring his friend's beloved back to her, even if it was just in the form of The Winter Soldier.

"Good morning, Miss Pierce," he stated as he let his hulking body straighten.

Tessa didn't even try to hide the joy she felt right then. Her small body was soon wrapping itself around his waist in a hug that was tight enough that he didn't even have to guess at why she was doing it. Neither of them even seemed to care about being seen, either, though most of the facility was still sleeping anyway.

"Good morning, Ivan, my friend," she beamed a smile up to him as she stepped back, her neck craning so that she could look at his face.

It was so good to see her smile again, to see a light in her eyes and a reason to put one foot in front of the other. Ivan would have given everything in his world to keep that expression on her face for the rest of her life.

"I received an operation briefing yesterday that needs your immediate attention," the Russian Cyrillic on the front of the folder he handed over read Operation: Insight.

A brow was raised at Ivan, but she opened the folder and looked down at the contents, that brow quirking higher on her forehead with everything she read. After blinking several times, she upturned her gaze toward his and closed the folder.

"New Jersey?" she asked.

The Winter Soldier shifted a bit, his weight adjusting from one leg to the other. It was out of character to some extent in that he could remain still for hours at a time if needed, but perhaps he was newly awakened and still stiff from years in the cold.

"That's what it says," Ivan gave a shrug. "All I was told was that you needed to visit, that The Winter Soldier knows the way and that you're to be his field handler but he's there as personal security. In other words, you do what he says if his job is needed." Ivan liked her dad about as much as she did.

Tessa turned her eyes toward her Soldier and watched him a moment before looking back to Ivan.

"You'll have to give him the order," she said without going into more detail than that.

She didn't have to; Ivan knew what she meant.

"Soldier," he stated with the firmness a handler should carry in their tone. Once he had The Winter Soldier's attention, Ivan continued with his words. "Your orders are to take Miss Pierce to Camp Lehigh, show her to the first head of HYDRA and protect her until your last breath. No harm is ever to come to her. She is your handler now, so should something arise in the field, defer to her judgment on the matter unless it involves her personal safety or the protection of yourself."

The words struck deeper than just an order would have, though the Soldier had no idea why right then. Slate colored eyes pivoted from Sidorov to the small woman between them. Just looking at her, he knew she would always be his first priority no matter the mission. After letting the man's eyes linger on Tessa for several seconds, Ivan then called attention back to the matter at hand with a soft clearing of his throat.

The Winter Soldier looked back at the man and gave a single nod of his head.

"At all costs," the Soldier stated with a firm nod of his head.

Sidorov nodded in return then looked to Tessa and gave her a smile, "I would suggest your suits, just in case, but the mission is yours, Miss Pierce. I'll have the transport ready to go immediately."

Tessa raised her hand, "No, not just yet, Ivan. Have it ready to leave morning after tomorrow. Give The Winter Soldier a chance to shake off his stasis, maybe train a little before we head out. Just in case." And she actually meant it even if it did give James a fighting chance of reawakening too.

"As you say, Miss Pierce," Ivan gave a half-bow then turned and moved out of the silo so he could make preparations for the day ahead.

Ivan was one of two friends that Tessa had on the entire planet, and she couldn't have adored him more than she did as she watched him leave them standing alone in the cold space meant to house UR-100 intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Once she could no longer see the Major, her attention turned toward The Winter Soldier only to find he was studiously watching her every movement already. For a long, quiet moment, he stood there as she studied every inch of his face. While there was a bit of confusion in his features, he said nothing and didn't try to halt whatever she was doing.

"Are you hungry?" She surprised him with her words when she finally did say anything at all, both that she spoke so suddenly as well as the fact that she spoke to him in English and not Russian like everyone else did.

The Winter Soldier took a moment to actually think about it before he finally gave a nod of his head. Hunger wasn't something he was trained to think of until it was a necessity. With his acknowledgement, Tessa turned and headed off toward the innards of the bunker and toward the chow hall where they could grab breakfast while most everyone was still asleep.

When they both had their food and were seated at their usual table (that Tessa hadn't eaten at since he was last awake), the petite blond turned her attention on The Winter Soldier yet again. "Do you remember much of me?"

He reached up and tucked his hair behind his ears in a very human manner. She could see his thoughts chasing around his eyes as he processed anything that could be considered his core programming.

"You're a mutant. Electricity," he stated the words without a pitch of questioning in his tone. "You run this facility. I've known you since you were a kid."

A piece of her withered over the lack of information he was able to respond with, but she knew those memories were in there somewhere. Eventually, they would return. They had to. Tessa was counting on it. A little deflated, she poked at the reconstituted powdered eggs then speared some onto her fork.

"I'd die for you," he said after a moment, his eyes immediately swiveling toward her as if he was concerned he'd said too much.

Tessa lifted her eyes toward his then offered a sad but reassuring smile, "And I'd die for you."

Their eyes held the gaze for what seemed to be minutes, more said between them in that time than words could really ever say. Tessa was the first to look away and finally draw the bite into her mouth, a spark of light kindling in the pit of her for the first time in so many years. Perhaps it would be this time.

Perhaps now was their time to escape.

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Posted: 19 August, 2021