This is the longest assignment he’s ever been on, months spooling into years.
The iron fist of HYDRA was more accustomed to short-term operations, get in and kill someone with maximum efficiency and then get out,
but when operations require a subtler touch, that’s when the Red Room gets involved. HYDRA’s assets combined with the chameleonic wiles of Dreykov’s widows, their social manipulation: each wife embedded in an American home paired with muscle, their hulking soldier-husbands parcelled out like human weapons.
Hers is handsome and polite, and he barely spoke that first year at all, behaving more like a mute automaton she could order about: Fix the spare tire. Replace the light bulbs. Get rid of this dead body for me.
But the more time they spend away from headquarters, the more time that he spends on this assignment and isn’t reset, his brain thaws—
Her husband slowly seems more human. Social graces are necessary, of course, to maintain their cover: he learns how to smile, how to carry on a conversation. The first time they dare to host a backyard barbecue, it’s as nerve-wracking as if it were a white-knuckle mission, but he manages it. Cracks jokes with the other husbands. Their life goes on.
And then, today.
The soldier returns home with a heavy slope to his shoulders. He smells of gunpowder and blood. Finding his young blonde wife in the living room, he drops a duffel bag on the floor, and wearily settles on the sofa next to her with a sigh. Knee bumping against hers; his thigh warm against hers through his jeans.
His head is tipped back, looking at the ceiling.
He knows the shape of her and yet he doesn’t. He’s slept in a bed beside her for years. They’ve kissed, for show — a chaste peck on the lips in front of neighbours or colleagues — but he doesn’t steal a kiss if no one’s looking. He’s pressed his fingers into the meat of her leg to dig out a bullet, but doesn’t know the kind of noises she’d make if his fingers were inside her otherwise.
This, this is their marriage.
“Long night,” Jonathan says.
(Whatever name was redacted from the Winter Soldier’s original files, decades ago, he’s just Jonathan now. Jon. That’s the name on the passport, the fake driver’s license, the mortgage papers. They never breathe the name Yelena Belova between them, either. They’re not allowed to.)
the soldier and the widow.
The iron fist of HYDRA was more accustomed to short-term operations, get in and kill someone with maximum efficiency and then get out,
but when operations require a subtler touch, that’s when the Red Room gets involved. HYDRA’s assets combined with the chameleonic wiles of Dreykov’s widows, their social manipulation: each wife embedded in an American home paired with muscle, their hulking soldier-husbands parcelled out like human weapons.
Hers is handsome and polite, and he barely spoke that first year at all, behaving more like a mute automaton she could order about: Fix the spare tire. Replace the light bulbs. Get rid of this dead body for me.
But the more time they spend away from headquarters, the more time that he spends on this assignment and isn’t reset, his brain thaws—
Her husband slowly seems more human. Social graces are necessary, of course, to maintain their cover: he learns how to smile, how to carry on a conversation. The first time they dare to host a backyard barbecue, it’s as nerve-wracking as if it were a white-knuckle mission, but he manages it. Cracks jokes with the other husbands. Their life goes on.
And then, today.
The soldier returns home with a heavy slope to his shoulders. He smells of gunpowder and blood. Finding his young blonde wife in the living room, he drops a duffel bag on the floor, and wearily settles on the sofa next to her with a sigh. Knee bumping against hers; his thigh warm against hers through his jeans.
His head is tipped back, looking at the ceiling.
He knows the shape of her and yet he doesn’t. He’s slept in a bed beside her for years. They’ve kissed, for show — a chaste peck on the lips in front of neighbours or colleagues — but he doesn’t steal a kiss if no one’s looking. He’s pressed his fingers into the meat of her leg to dig out a bullet, but doesn’t know the kind of noises she’d make if his fingers were inside her otherwise.
This, this is their marriage.
“Long night,” Jonathan says.
(Whatever name was redacted from the Winter Soldier’s original files, decades ago, he’s just Jonathan now. Jon. That’s the name on the passport, the fake driver’s license, the mortgage papers. They never breathe the name Yelena Belova between them, either. They’re not allowed to.)