The sound of gunfire and screeching tires shattered the calm of Lower Manhattan.
A battered black SUV, its engine coughing smoke and its body riddled with bullet holes, skidded across the street and slammed sideways into the curb.
The driver's door burst open, and a bleeding, limping Phil Coulson tumbled out, dragging his leg, one hand clutched tight to his ribs where the blood was soaking through his shirt.
"God, not like this."
He was staggering toward the building with a glass sign reading: Everlife Medical Center.
He banged his fist on the door, eyes flicking over his shoulder in terror.
"Soren! I know you're in there, open the damn door!" Coulson gasped.
"Please… he's coming!"
The door remained shut.
From the alley behind him, a silhouette emerged through drifting smoke and flashing streetlights. The figure walked with precise calm.
The metallic whir of his left arm echoed softly as he raised it slowly… there was no need to rush.
His prey had nowhere left to run.
The Winter Soldier.
Phil turned back and slammed the door harder. "Soren!"
"Don't make me die on a doorstep, man!"
Inside the clinic, in a room glowing with faint blue light from a floating Tesseract in a containment matrix, Soren stirred from his meditation.
He had dark rings under his eyes, arcane patterns still burned into his cornea from studying the spatial lattice too long without rest.
He blinked, annoyed.
The magical array dimmed. The swirling runes paused mid-rotation.
"I swear." Soren muttered as he rose.
"If it's Coulson again, I'm charging rent."
With a wave of his hand, the clinic door hissed open.
Phil stumbled in, nearly collapsing onto the floor. Soren caught him with one arm, already flicking his fingers to summon a diagnostic that scanned the SHIELD agent head to toe.
"Punctured lung, fractured femur, internal bleeding. You're a mess." Soren said flatly, tossing a glowing crimson vial to Phil, who barely caught it.
"Thanks for the warm welcome." Phil muttered, swallowing the potion with a grimace.
"Wasn't sure if you'd help."
Soren raised an eyebrow. "You came to my door dripping blood and desperation. I'm many things, Coulson."
"Indifferent isn't one of them."
A slow, heavy footstep sounded from outside.
Soren turned.
There he was, the Winter Soldier. Leaning into the doorway with the grace of a panther.
[Winter Warrior: Bucky Barnes]
[This World Class B]
"You're harboring a target." Bucky said in a voice like ground steel. "Stand aside."
Soren didn't move. He stared at Bucky with unsettling calm, his hands now glowing faintly with the resonance of two gems, Time and Space, their magic flowing through the circuit marks etched onto his wrists.
"Ah." Soren said quietly. "You're the one they send when they want the job done and the body unrecoverable."
"Hand him over." Bucky repeated.
"He dies, and you stay out of HYDRA's way."
Phil tensed behind Soren. "That's not gonna work. He doesn't take orders well."
Soren tilted his head, scanning Bucky.
"Hand him over. Or die."
Soren didn't falter. Instead, he let out a sharp, amused snort, the kind that cuts deeper than mockery.
"A reprogrammed attack dog trying to growl like a wolf." Soren said, voice dripping with cold curiosity.
"What happens if I say no, tinman?"
Bucky's response was not words, but action.
A blur of motion. The Winter Soldier lunged, his arm, a nightmare of steel and servos, pulled back with enough force to punch a hole through a tank.
Phil Coulson's breath caught as he witnessed the swing.
He'd seen that arm rip a car door off like it was cardboard. He'd seen it drive through reinforced glass like wet paper.
As Bucky's fist was about to collide, barely a breath's width from Soren's face, it stopped.
Frozen. Inches away.
Time and momentum fell away like shattered glass.
"What the…"
Soren exhaled like he'd just swatted a fly.
"The moment you stepped inside, you surrendered control." Turning away from the suspended fist like it were nothing.
"You really thought you could hurt my friend?"
Bucky's eyes widened, panic and confusion swirling beneath the brainwashing.
His body trembled in place, caught in the grip of the clinic's power, a protective field that turned kinetic energy into stasis.
"Now." Soren muttered, rolling up his sleeves.
"I just woke up from three hours of sleep, I'm cranky, and you brought blood into my clean hall. You know what that means?"
Without waiting for an answer… CRACK!
A backhand slap sent Bucky flying backward like a ragdoll launched from a cannon.
His body crashed against the marble floor, teeth scattering in a trail of blood as he slid to a stop.
Phil's jaw dropped. "...Jesus."
Bucky tried to rise, his cybernetic arm twitching, his expression dazed but still murderous.
Soren didn't give him time.
He strode forward, movements unhurried but terrifying in their precision, and laid into him. No flashy spells. No reality-warping abilities.
Just pure, brutal, enhanced physical power. A knee to the ribs. An elbow to the jaw. A downward fist that cratered the floor tiles beneath Bucky's skull.
Bang-bang-bang!
Each hit was surgical, calculated.
Bucky's bones cracked under the weight of it, ribs, collarbone, even parts of his reinforced frame groaned in protest.
And the whole time, Soren said nothing.
This wasn't a fight.
This was discipline.
Phil Coulson, barely able to sit up with his healing wounds, winced.
"This is... somehow more terrifying than when Fury yells."
By the time Soren stepped back, Bucky's entire body was battered into ruin.
Blood dripped from his mouth. One eye swollen shut. His metal arm hung at an odd angle, the servos sparking from overload.
But something was happening behind the pain. Deep within Bucky's mind, something was... cracking.
The pain. The fear. The helplessness.
The memories.
"Steve…" He murmured through blood and broken teeth. "The bridge... train... Brooklyn…"
Soren paused, narrowing his eyes.
Then Bucky looked up. No longer rage. No longer mindless programming. Just confusion.
"I'm Bucky... Bucky Barnes." He said, as if the words tasted foreign. "Not... not the Winter Soldier."
Soren looked down at him, expression unreadable.
He could've helped. Could've drawn out the rest of Bucky's shattered memories with a touch, a whisper of power. But instead, he turned away.
"You want redemption?"
"Dig for it yourself."
He knelt, placed a glowing palm on Bucky's chest. A pulse of light washed over the man, unlocking the final layers of the stasis field.
"You walk out of here alive. Tell HYDRA…"
"Tell them I'm coming."
꧁𓊈𒆜༺⚜༻𒆜𓊉꧂
PhantomDream