Russia

Winter 1996/97

Sleep had eluded her as restless anxiety kept Nadya's mind from settling. It was why she found herself in one of the mansion compound's nearly forgotten rooms on far end of the third floor, sitting with her knees hugged to her chest, ignoring the cold that seeped through the old paned window she was looking out of. It was too cold for snow, and there was a harsh sharpness to the moonlit landscape of the winter night that suited Nadya's current mood just fine.

The torn, fretful state her earlier encounter with her Training Mistress had left her with refused to abate. It certainly didn't help that, anytime her memory came close to reviewing precisely what she had all but been ordered to do, her anger and agitation came back in full force.

She fully intended to defy their wishes. She might have been raised to be morally flexible, but that didn't stop the whole situation from sitting wrong with her. But then, she was finding that was happening more and more frequently in the Red Room as she began to see past the indoctrination and conditioning to be blindly obedient to orders built into her training.

Her troubled thoughts were one factor of many that had led to her slipping from her narrow bed, leaving behind the rows of identical beds and their sleeping occupants for the sanctuary of the abandoned room that had served as her temporary refuge many times in the past.

Another was born out of the very distracting set of memories that revolved solely around the Winter Soldier. She couldn't get him out of her head and it was driving her to distraction. Her body remembered clearly the way he'd touched her up on the roof, winding itself tighter than a bowstring with want as her subconscious worked hard to wake the desires she'd been trying so hard to suppress, trying to stir the heat beneath her skin again. And she easily remembered the way he looked at her; she could have sworn there was something there that hadn't been up until then, some trace of humanity—even a trace of who he'd been before—that had managed to survive against the concerted effort to erase it completely.

But when she encountered him the next day, it was as though the incident hadn't happened. He was just as blank and uncomprehending as before, paying her no greater mind than he had any other day in the couple weeks he'd been working with them.

A faint sound jerked her from the pair of vivid memories that had been trying to reassert themselves; the memory of his mouth on her skin, his hard body flush against hers...and the memory of Madame B's blunt, withering assessment of him from that afternoon, the words echoing through her thoughts: It defies his purpose for him to exhibit any trace of freewill. The point of the Winter Soldier's programming is to erase everything that was there before, to leave only the perfect soldier behind. He can exhibit no true freewill because there is no freewill left in him.

Knowing what would happen were she to get caught out of bed, she pushed her thoughts aside, unfolding herself from her perch and slipping toward the door, careful not to make a sound as she did so.

It was then that she caught sight of a cot tucked away in the far, shadowed corner of the room.

It pulled her up short with confusion; this room was rarely used, and yet now it was a place where someone had been assigned to sleep, a set of makeshift quarters? A shiver of unease went through her as the back of her neck prickled with the sudden sensation like she shouldn't be there.

But just as she was about to move, a hand closed around her arm, pulling her back...a cool hand. A metal hand. She whirled around, instincts surging forward to lash out with a strike that would have been too fast for any regular person to react to. The Winter Soldier was far from a regular person, though. With an almost lazy gesture, he caught her fist and turned it aside, effectively trapping her against him as he did so.

The makeshift quarters were his.

Normally, she would have struggled, her hands even rising to grip at his sleeve in preparation to do so, but the sound of movement outside the room they occupied had her instinctively falling silent even as she anxiously waited for him to reveal that he'd caught her breaking curfew.

Minutes passed and the sound of patrolling footsteps faded. But he didn't move, standing just as silent and attentive to the retreating steps as she was. And then they were inarguably alone. Unexpectedly, his grip loosened.

She looked warily up at him. It was that moment when the memory of her earlier meeting with Madame B chose to reassert itself, making her mouth go dry and her stomach roil unpleasantly as she studied the object of that conversation as he stood before her, close enough to touch...close enough that they were touching. It is because of his alleged display of will in your presence that this measure has been deemed necessary. The older woman's nose had wrinkled a bit, as though unimpressed that she'd even had cause to make such a statement. But otherwise, she had shown little hint of her own opinion on the matter. He is becoming—erratic, unruly even.

Nadya hadn't quite followed where the Training Mistress had been going as she spoke...but the pieces had fallen together enough that she also hadn't wanted to. What she'd said to Nadya next had made what the older woman left unsaid crystal clear, not allowing for any form of misunderstanding. It had shocked Nadya into silence, her jaw even dropping with alarmed astonishment.

She had refused, struggling to keep her own controlled mask in place beneath her supervisor's scrutinizing stare. Just thinking on it now was nearly enough to make Nadya break out in a cold, anxious sweat, especially as she recalled the frigid, nearly cruel smile that had curled the corner of Madame B.'s mouth. Whether you agree to do this or not; it is of little matter to me, the Training Mistress had said with an absent wave, the hard glint in her eyes making Nadya grow cold. I will not order you to do it. The decision is yours. But remember, no decision, right or wrong, comes without consequences. Her meaning had been clear enough. But despite the fear that churned in her gut at that trace of a smile, Nadya had resolved to face the consequences she knew would come of her refusal.

Yet...standing here? She had been presented with an opportunity...she could just...she shook her head at the thought, hating herself for thinking it at all, for even considering it.

She searched his features for even the slightest hint that he wasn't just the mindless soldier Madame B and his handlers insisted he was. He was staring past her, steel-blue eyes just as blank as always. Her breath shuddered as she inhaled, her nerves warring with her discomfort and her untimely yearning.

Her hand relaxed where it still lay on his arm, the solid warmth of him beneath her palm and the proximity of him beginning to quicken her pulse even as the adrenaline borne from her surprise faded. His gaze turned toward her at the change in her touch, the crease between his brows appearing at the easing pressure of her fingers. She ran her palm slowly up his arm, skimming up his bicep and across his shoulder until it came to rest on his firm chest. It was an unconscious move, one she hadn't even willfully decided to make. The heat beginning to run through her veins intensified, revelling in the forbidden contact.

But he barely seemed to react at all, pale eyes following the path of her hand as her own did before lifting to look at her, a flicker of uncertainty in them. She sighed heavily, knowing she should pull away but unable to just the same. She met his perplexed gaze. Hesitation had surfaced in the steel-blue depths, but little else.

She knew it was wrong, this attraction between them—what did that make her if she still wanted something to happen despite his compromised mental state? How selfish and monstrous was she because of it?

But she was already a monster, wasn't she...to have survived as long as she had in this place?

She had to be.

But even forcefully reminding herself that the Winter Soldier wasn't in complete control of his own mind didn't keep her body from humming with desire at the very thought of being with him.

"Do you even know what's going on? What they want me to do? You were there; you heard the assignment. Do you even comprehend where you are...who you are?" The whispered words had spilled out before she could stop them. His frown deepened as he stared back at her, the conflict she was beginning to think of as familiar finally appearing. It did little to alleviate her unease. She fought back a shiver as his hand lifted to her cheek, brushing back a few strands of her fine hair. In that moment he seemed so unaware, innocent even, as he looked down at her...not at all like one of the deadliest assassins in the world. Truthfully, she wasn't even sure he had understood her; she'd never heard him speak, and the few words she'd heard spoken to him during his time among them were in Russian, not English.

Her hand rose impulsively to his cheek as she mirrored his gesture, brushing back his own dark hair. His stubble was rough against her fingertips as she laid her palm against his jaw. His eyes hadn't left hers, growing more conflicted with each passing moment even as they began to darken with a desire that matched her own. His brow furrowed deeper while his hand curled around the back of her head. He leaned closer. Nadya's body was humming with traitorous anticipation, her breath catching in her chest.

"Do you even want this?" As before, when she spoke it was little more than words forming around an escaping breath. And, as before, she expected little response.

But then his lips crashed into hers, hot and insistent, almost desperate as they met her own. She was so caught off guard that she gasped, her mouth parting beneath his. As his tongue delved deep to meet hers, the dull heat that had been simmering beneath her skin erupted, threatening to consume her as it blazed through her body. The taste of him was intoxicating and before she could even properly process that he was kissing her, she was hungrily kissing him back, her arms winding around his neck. Her fingers clutched at his hair as she pulled him closer, wanting to feel more of him against her.

One of his hands was just as tangled in her own blonde hair as his mouth left hers to burn a searing trail down her throat. His other arm snaked around her waist, pressing her harder against him before trailing lower, latching hard onto her hip.

She was so caught up in the feel of him against her, his mouth devouring the sensitized skin of her throat, that she barely even realized her tugging hands and his insistent steps had backed her up against the wall, pressing her almost painfully against it. But being pinned by him, trapped between the unforgiving wall and his hard body only stoked the scorching want growing wild between them. Her fingers clutched harder at him, digging into his shoulders through the thick material of his gear, her other hand pulling hard at his hair as she yanked his mouth back to hers.

He complied without hesitation, and his hands lowered further to tug her nightgown out of the way so he could reach the bare skin of her thighs. She whimpered as his fingers dug into her flesh and with a groan he had her hitched up against him, bracing them both against the wall as her feet were lifted from the ground.

All coherent thought had long fled, leaving her a creature of lust and desire. There was nothing gentle to her want, nothing tender, nothing careful, and neither was there in his. It was primal and it was frantic and the need was growing so intense it was painful.

As he reached between them, a small, rational voice urged her to think through what was about to happen, to warn her that there would be no turning back.

But then he was inside her, and every remaining shred of thought, rational or otherwise, was seared away.

It was a feeling unlike any she'd experienced before, certainly nothing like the lacklustre couplings her training had conditioned her to expect. The initial discomfort of his sudden intrusion mingled with the hard ache from the intensity of her want, spiralling into a searing, white-hot pleasure as they moved against each other. The rough desperation of it somehow made the pleasure that much sharper and that much more intense, the frenzy of it threatening to burn through her even as she pleaded for more.

He took his pleasure from her, but she took just as greedily, her hands dragging through his hair and across his shoulders as she urged him on, her grip hard enough that where her nails met skin, he bled under her touch, her teeth and nails marking whatever flesh she could reach. And as his frantic pace devolved, growing erratic, her own body wound tighter still with painful anticipation, making it hard to breathe.

And then it was over. With a hoarse cry into her shoulder, he spasmed and went rigid against her. As his completion shuddered through him, it was just barely enough and she came apart against him, her whole body wrenching taut as the coil in her belly exploded, the shards of pleasure ripping through her.

It was only then, as the blistering desire burned itself out in the aftermath and her rational mind slowly returned to her, that she realized the gravity of what had just happened.

Yet even as the guilt and horror at what she'd allowed herself to do suddenly threatened to consume her, she couldn't bring herself to immediately let go or push him away, her arms not moving from where they were wrapped around him. He had relaxed against her as his breathing began to even out, his cheek still resting against her neck as his grip on her eased into something far less fierce. For a split-second, it felt—nice to hold him close, to have him hold her close. It left her with a strange feeling of emptiness as he lowered her to the ground with a bewildering display of tenderness. It was so at odds with the rough, feral fucking—as much as she hated the vulgarity of the term, it was the most fitting—of mere moments before.

Even as her eyes began to prickle with shame, she looked up to him, searching his face for, well, anything. Her physical discomfort meant nothing just then, the dull ache growing in her lower body fading from her awareness, the hot, sticky trickle seeping onto her inner thighs not even registering. She suddenly—desperately—needed to know that, on some level, he had been there, that he'd wanted what had just happened even a little bit. But the echo of Madame B's talk once again slithered through her mind, her memory repeating the exchange Nadya had been trying to escape since that afternoon, the memory of her Training Mistress' voice just as cold and ruthless as ever as it sliced through Nadya as mercilessly as any bullet or blade:

He can exhibit no true free will because there is no freewill left in him. Yet, his handlers seem to believe that it is a mutual attraction for you that is interfering with his compliance. It appears to be a biological compulsion that even his programming can't quite eliminate.

As such, a decision has been made to allow the Winter Soldier some—leniency in some of his behavioural restrictions, allowing him to—indulge in some of his more basic instincts.

Her cheeks had burned then as she'd realized what her Training Mistress had been implying; mortification and horror had drowned out all other reaction.

His handlers believe that allowing him that freedom to—to work off this restless energy, if you will—will save them the necessity of having him undergo additional memory modifications. They are concerned that employing the memory modification process too frequently will have undesirable, even detrimental side-effects; it is a risk they are keen to avoid, given how valuable an asset he is. The objective is to gauge if such an allowance will resolve the issue without the need for such measures.

Too many emotions had flooded through her at once at the cold rationalization her supervisor had presented her with; shock, fear, humiliation, excitement, disgust, anger, apprehension. As she'd stood there, unable to leave, painfully aware that he had been standing in the room with them, it had seemed as though she'd felt everything she could in response to Madame B.'s plain words at once.

Machines work less efficiently when they are not provided proper maintenance, after all; it is just so in this instance with the Winter Soldier.

When Madame B had said that, Nadya had felt physically ill at how no one else seemed to realize that, despite appearances and their apparent best effort, there was still a real person somewhere inside the Winter Soldier, that he wasn't a mere machine to be 'maintained'.

Or perhaps they simply hadn't wanted to see.

You find yourself attracted to the Winter Soldier, don't you, Nadya; as you seem to be compatible sexually, it makes you the natural choice for this—experiment. You will be providing a service to help keep the Winter Soldier in peak condition.

Nadya had only been able to stare in horrified disbelief at the blunt, remorseless pronouncement, unable and unwilling to hide her contempt for her supervisor's opinions on the handling of the Winter Soldier from her face.

But as she looked up at him now, her pulse still racing in the aftermath of their frenzied coupling, it was her own words echoing in Nadya's ears: I will not submit to being used as a—an outlet by a man who is allowed no will of his own. It is not what I have spent my life training for. I will not be used like that. I will not use him like that.

I will not seduce a man who has no idea what was going on.

Bile rose in her throat to choke her as bitter realization lodged in her chest, causing it to clench painfully even as hot trails began trailing slowly down her cheeks. In that moment, she wanted nothing more than to curl up and die for self-loathing. Madame B had all but sneered at her assertion, her reply nearly mocking:

Then you are naïve, Nadya. It is not a matter of using. It isn't even a matter of seduction. You simply need to be available. I am not even convinced what is being expected of you is possible, as such a demonstration of autonomy would go against his programming.

Evidently it was possible.

And Nadya had just done exactly what she'd told Madame B she wouldn't do.

A/N: Thanks for reading!

Just one brief note on this chapter's content since I feel I have to address it: This was admittedly a hard chapter for me to wrap my head around and to ultimately post in its entirety, mostly because it really does toe the line of non-con and that truly does bother me. I have no interest in dismissing, diminishing or trivializing how horrible sexual assault and the like really are (especially the importance of consent) and it is definitely not my intent to do so. Again, if you have any concerns about what happened in this chapter, by all means, feel free to pm me or ask. I'd be more than happy to discuss it.

Be sure to vote and comment! I'm dying to hear your reactions!