Work Text:
1974
"Good evening, Mr. Kuryakin. It's been a while."
"Work's been busy."
"Well, you've picked a good week to come back. Mr. Gordon is putting on a good show."
"He always does, Gus."
As Illya Kuryakin handed the cover charge to Gus and walked through the door of the Village Vanguard, he could feel the tension of the past three months ease from his shoulders. He'd lived many places in his life, but he'd called New York City home for almost a decade now, and he missed it keenly when assignments had him on the road for an extended period. He missed his East Village apartment with crates of records stacked in its tiny living room. He missed his favourite deli and the Russian restaurants in Brighton Beach that fulfilled his occasional nostalgia for the motherland just fine, spasiba. And especially he missed the jazz clubs, the small, smokey rooms where one could see masters of the art or new budding talents play every night of every month.
The Vanguard was his favourite, and the first place he'd decided to visit after his extended absence. (In his business, it was a disadvantage to have routines your enemies could use against you, but the Vanguard and its staff had been vetted by UNCLE's security team and it was as safe as any New York night club could be for an international agent.) After he'd caught up on his sleep, that is. He and Napoleon had landed at JFK last night far too late last night. He'd been too wound up to even nap on the plane, but weeks of surviving on three hours of sleep a night finally caught up with him on the taxi ride into town. Napoleon had to poke him awake when they reached his building, a brownstone in the East Village where he rented the top floor.
"Are you okay?" Napoleon had asked after he'd started awake violently at the elbow in his ribs. "Do you need me to stay?" Napoleon let the question hang. And so did Illya for a moment. There were times he did want his partner close, after especially trying assignments when Thrush had tried especially hard to kill them. But this time, he was just tired.
"No, Polya." He shook his head. "I'm fine. I just need sleep."
"Well, rest then." Napoleon let his hand linger on Illya's shoulder for a moment. "Waverly has generously given us two days off, so you can sleep all you want. Call me if you want some company."
With a nod, Illya had alighted from the cab and left his partner to continue to the Upper West Side. He'd climbed the stairs to his apartment, opened the door, and barely managed to kick off his shoes and clothes before collapsing on his bed in a dead sleep.
He'd slept through the night and into the day, awaking only when the late afternoon sun forced its way past his blinds and into his bedroom.
He'd considered calling Napoleon, seeing if he wanted to go for a meal, take in a movie, but in the end he decided what he most wanted to do was reconnect with his adopted home. And the way he most wanted to do that was by going to a jazz club.
So, here he was, saying hello to the door man who knew him as a regular and paying the cover for a night of Dexter Gordon and friends. He settled in a back corner table that gave him a good view of both the stage and the customers - whether the club was vetted or not, he was still a spy, and it wouldn't do for him to be caught off guard - and settled in for the start of the show.
Gordon and his band were making their way to the stage when he heard a voice that tugged at the edges of his memory. An impossible voice. He started and turned quickly, scanning the crowd for a person who couldn't possibly be in this New York jazz club. But there he was, sitting on the opposite side of the club, also at a corner table that protected his back and gave him a good view of everyone in the club. A man he hadn't seen since he was a green agent of the Motherland: the asset. Or more appropriately, THE Asset.
The Winter Soldier was in New York, and it couldn't be a coincidence that he'd turned up in the favourite jazz club of failed son of Russia, Illya Kuryakin.
1954
When Illya had been given permission to study abroad, one thing had been drilled into him: he was a KGB agent first, and a student second. He was to drop any school obligations immediately if Mother Russia needed his assistance.
He'd agreed willingly. If doing an occasional mission for his superiors let him, a Ukrainian war orphan with no family to speak of, do graduate work in Paris, and now Cambridge, it was a price he was very willing to pay.
So far, such missions had been infrequent and unchallenging. There'd been dead letter drop pick ups and surveillance of the occasional American scientist visiting the school. But when one night he was woken by rapid fire knocking on the door of his off-campus flat and opened it to find the Soviet Union's Senior Cultural Attaché for the United Kingdom (otherwise known as Majór Mikhail Zakharov of the KGB), he knew he was not going to be asked to do something unchallenging.
Minutes later he found himself in the back of a car driven by another Soviet Embassy Cultural Attaché/KGB agent, with Zakharov in the front passenger seat. Neither Zakharov nor the other man said a word as they drove, and Illya knew better than to question a senior officer. He sat silently in the back, noting the route they were taking, and waiting for his instructions.
An hour later, they stopped in the outskirts of a small town Illya knew was halfway between Cambridge and London, pulling in front of a derelict petrol station with papered over windows and a dingy white panel van parked out front. As the driver cut the engine and turned off the car's lights, Zakharov turned to face Illya.
"The word from Moscow is that you are smart and that you follow orders well. I hope for your sake that is true."
Illya sat up as straight as he could.
"I do my best to serve the Soviet Union," he said
"Hmmph," the driver said, earning a quelling look from Zakharov.
"He's young, Pavel," Zakharov said.
"All the more reason why this is a terrible idea," the driver, Pavel, said.
"Terrible or not, it's our only option."
"I was top of my class in training," Illya said, wanting to assure this Pavel, and Zakharov, that he was at least competent.
"Training is not the field, boy," Pavel said. "And the thing we want you for is... unusual."
"Pavel Andreivich," Zakharov admonished his driver with an exasperated familiarity that told Illya the man was more than just a driver. No mere underling would be allowed to criticize Majór Zakharov with impunity.
"Mikhail Dimitrivich," Pavel returned. "This is not the job for a green boy and you know it."
"Comrade Kuryakin is young, but not green."
"Training isn't..."
"He fought with the partisans in Kyiv." Illya flinched internally but kept his face impassive. His discomfort at his memories of the war were his own business.
"He would have been a child," Pavel countered.
"You know as well as anyone what even children were called upon to do during the war."
Pavel glared at his superior for a further thirty seconds - Illya counted - before his shoulders deflated.
"Fine. I suppose he'll do."
"He's our only option," Zakharov said.
"Excuse me for interrupting, but what am I the only option for?" Illya asked, the first words he'd said since entering the car back in Cambridge.
"We have an asset in need of a handler."
"I'm not-"
"We're quite aware you're not a handler, boy," Pavel stopped him. "But this asset's handler has had an...accident, and he responds best to handlers who are young blond men. Unfortunately, you're the only nearby agent who meets that description."
Illya tried, and failed, not to bristle at Pavel's words. He'd been hoping that Zakharov had picked him for this mission because he'd been recognized for his skill, his intelligence. Not because of his hair colour. But he was shrewd enough not to say any of that out loud. He merely nodded an acknowledgment and bit his tongue.
Pavel raised an eyebrow and turned back to Zakharov.
"Well, I'll give the boy this. He might have a temper but he keeps it under control."
"What are my orders?" Illya asked, keeping his voice as neutral as he could manage.
"The asset is in the petrol station," Zakharov said. "You are to read him the code words on the first page of this book," he slung a red hard-covered notebook to Illya, "then take the van and drive the asset to this location." This time he was thrown an envelope. "Once there, you will wait while the asset completes his mission, then you will return to this location. Do you understand?"
Illya nodded. "It seems straightforward."
"But that's not all," Pavel said. "Tell him the rest."
"You will only speak Russian to the asset, no matter what," Zakharov continued. "You will especially not speak English in the asset's presence. And you will not ask him to remove his mask."
"May I ask why?" Illya said, pressing his luck.
"You may not," said Zakharov, narrowing his eyes as he looked at Illya. "Don't make us regret trusting you, Kuryakin."
"I won't," Illya said. He would have saluted, but he had the impression that the gesture wouldn't impress either man.
"Off you go, then," Pavel said.
Book and letter in hand, Illya got out of the car and headed towards the building. He flipped open the red notebook, and found a list of seemingly random Russian words: Желание. Ржавый. Семнадцать. Рассвет. Печь. Девять. Добросердечный. Возвращение на Родину. Один. Товарный вагон.
Curiouser and curiouser.
The door hung unevenly, only opening after he gave it a hard push on its creaking hinges. His eyes took a moment to adjust to the dim interior, lit only by the bleed through of streetlights from outside. When he saw who was standing in front of him, he halted in place, feeling an icy chill cascade down his spine.
The man in front of him was not an asset. He was The Asset. The Winter Soldier. An operative whose existence was whispered about by young KGB agents, but never confirmed. The crowning achievement of a secret organization so deeply buried in the Soviet intelligence apparatus that a junior officer like Illya had heard only rumours of its existence.
He took another step forward, and the Winter Soldier raised his left arm, the metal one, the one Illya had been convinced was a myth, and aimed his gun in Illya's direction. He could see the Soldier better now as his eyes adjusted to the dim light. He was clothed in a black leather tactical jacket that left the metal arm with its red star exposed, black pants with plenty of pockets, and black combat boots. Most strikingly, the bottom half of his face was covered in a black mask, while his eyes were hidden behind equally dark goggles. Illya fleetingly wondered if the mask and eyewear were to hide the Soldier's identity or some horrible disfigurement.
Make the wrong move now, Illya knew, and he'd be dead in an instant. The Soldier's kill record was unmatched by anyone inside the Iron Curtain or beyond it, and though he was tougher than he looked, Illya knew he'd be no match for this man.
Read the code words, Zakharov had said. So, that's what Illya did, working hard to keep the nervousness from his own voice. The Asset stared at him as he read the words, only his eyes visible on his shadowed face. When Illya finished with the last word, the Asset blinked once.
It was anti-climactic, the way the Soldier relaxed, holstered his gun, and said "Ready to comply," in Russian.
1974
After he'd noticed the Winter Soldier at the Vanguard, Illya forced himself to keep his movements calm and smooth, making sure he didn't call attention to himself. He ordered a drink--a vodka tonic, requesting more tonic than vodka--and moved his chair quietly back and into the shadows. Only once he was satisfied with his position, did he allow himself to look back at the Soldier's position.
If he hadn't heard the man's voice, he might have never recognized him as the Winter Soldier. He was wearing jeans and a leather jacket that matched the clothing of many of the Vanguard's audience, only the black glove on his left hand standing out as unusual. His posture was relaxed, and he smiled at the waitress taking his order. The way the woman smiled back and laughed at whatever he'd said to her looked genuine, not at all how one would expect a person to react to an infamous assassin.
Illya's attention had been so focused on the Soldier that he startled when the band began to play. He took a sip of his drink, and briefly looked at the stage, where Dexter Gordon and his band were tearing into a song he hadn't heard them play before. He cursed the luck that had brought a ghost from his past to this club on this night when all he wanted to do was listen to music and relax.
He watched the band for a brief minute, enjoying the way the musicians worked together, throwing the focus of the music back and forth to each other. It reminded him of the way he and Napoleon operated, both in the field and off, each improvising on moves the other made as they figured out a way to defeat each villain. On another night, he would have basked in the music, drunk some vodka, and gone home to a good night's sleep. But this night...
He sighed, leaned back further in the shadows, and turned to where the Winter Soldier sat, leaning forward, listening raptly to music.
If the Soldier was here to cause havoc in his adopted city, Illya Kuryakin was going to stop him.
1954
For all that it had an ominous start, Illya's first mission with the Winter Soldier was remarkably unremarkable.
He drove the Soldier to the given location, a small hotel on the outskirts of Heathrow airport. He waited in the van while the Soldier went, armed, into the hotel. When the Soldier emerged exactly seven minutes later, his gait was the same murderous strut that it had been on entering. Illya waited until the Soldier was back in the van, and then returned them to the petrol station they'd started from.
As instructed, the few words he exchanged with the Soldier were all in Russian. And there was never any question of him asking the Soldier to remove his mask.
Zakharov's car was missing when he arrived at the petrol station, and he had a moment of panic. If Majór Zakharov had disappeared, what was he meant to do with a masked Soviet assassin? But no sooner had he shut the ignition of the van, than Zakharov threw up the rusted creaking door of the place's service bay.
Illya descended from the van, leaving the Soldier sitting against the metal wall in the back of the vehicle, as silent and unmoving as he'd been the entire trip.
"Well?" Zakharov asked, Pavel standing a step behind him.
"Mission accomplished," Illya said, dropping the key to the van in Zakharov's hand. "Whatever the mission was." Illya didn't know exactly what the Soldier had done in the hotel, and he didn't want to know. He didn't even want to guess.
"Where is our friend?" Pavel asked.
"Still in the van," Illya said.
"There were no...complications?" Zakharov asked.
"None," Illya said. "I followed all orders," he added, wanting to impress on the Majór that he'd done exactly as asked.
"Hmmph," Pavel said.
"I told you he was the one for the job," Zakharov said with a grin.
"You were right."
"I usually am." Zakharov said and spun the van's key around one finger. "I'll deliver the Soldier to where he belongs. You can take our young friend back home."
"Well, Illya Nickovetch Kuryakin, it looks like you're with me."
For the first 15 minutes of the drive back to Cambridge, Pavel Andreivich was silent and so was Illya.
At the start of the 16th minute (Illya was keeping track) Pavel turned to him and said one word. "Ask."
"Ask what?" Illya responded.
"Any of the many questions that must be tumbling through your mind," Pavel said, turning his attention back to the road. "You must have questions. I don't imagine you're doing graduate work in quantum physics at Cambridge because you're an incurious fellow. So. Pick a question."
The problem wasn't that Illya didn't have any questions. The problem was that he had too many. After all, it wasn't every day that you ran into a living legend that you hadn't quite believed in.
He had to start somewhere, so he picked what he was most curious about.
"Who is he?"
"Pick another question," Pavel Andreivich said with absolutely no hesitation. "Neither of us has a security rating high enough to know that."
Illya frowned in annoyance, but picked another question.
"Where is he based?"
"Siberia."
"Isn't that a bit isolated for an operative who works around the world?"
"I can only tell you what I know, not the reason behind it." Pavel raised an eyebrow. "But if I had to, I'd guess the Winter Soldier is kept where he's least likely to do damage, should he slip our masters' control."
"Is he likely to do that? Slip our masters' control?" Illya thought about his drive with the Soldier in the back of the van behind him and wondered again at the danger he'd been put in.
"Who can say?" Pavel gave a very Slavic shrug. "Are you likely to do it? Am I?"
Illya remained very still as he took in Pavel's questions, but inside his mind was roiling with possibilities he'd never thought to consider. He'd never questioned his own loyalty to the Motherland, even as he'd indulged in minor, if secret, disloyalties: his love of jazz; his insistence on scientific truth, even if it disagreed with Soviet ideology.
He had no desire to betray his country. But what if there was a way he could slip the control his masters' had placed on him, if only a little?
What if?
1974
Through most of Dexter Gordon's first set, Illya kept his attention on the Winter Soldier, though he did let his gaze sweep the room regularly to make sure the Soldier had no accomplices in the audience waiting to ambush a stray U.N.C.L.E. agent. When he finished his drink and the waitress returned, he changed his order to tonic water alone. He knew he didn't have a chance of defeating the Soldier in a fair fight, but he at least wanted to give himself the best chance of surviving if that's what it came to. More alcohol in his blood stream wasn't going to make him better able to fight a super soldier.
As much as his attention was on the Soldier, the Soldier's remained on the music. His toe tapped in time to the music; he grinned in glee during the blistering solos; he clapped as enthusiastically as anyone at the end of numbers. He even whistled once or twice. He behaved not like a legendary assassin, but like a jazz fan.
Which led to the question, was the Soldier being in New York City in Illya's favourite jazz club a coincidence? Or part of an operation?
1954
After Pavel Andreivich deposited him at his Cambridge flat just as dawn was breaking, Illya took a shower, made a strong cup of coffee, walked to his lab, and worked on forgetting what had happened the night before.
He didn't think he would ever see Pavel or Zakharov or the Winter Soldier again. After all, they'd only called on him as a last resort replacement for a handler incapacitated by an accident. (What kind of accident? Illya's traitorous brain would ask him at inopportune times, but he always suppressed the question.) But one month later he was grading the problem sets of a second year physics class he tutored when there was a knock on the door of his flat. When he opened the door, it wasn't Zakharov, but Pavel standing leaning against the door jamb.
"Pavel Andreivich," Illya said, his mind too full of Fourier transforms and frequencies to form a coherent sentence.
"That is Kapitán Pavel Andreivich Sokolov to you, Comrade Kuryakin," Pavel said with a grin. "Now go get your coat. We have need of you again."
He was driven to another desolate location, this time an abandoned warehouse on the Suffolk coast, and given the red book with the Winter Soldier's control words, the keys to another panel van, and an envelope with the details of another mission. Yet again, he took control of the Soldier, drove him to where his mission was and then returned him to the care of Majór Zakharov, and was driven home by Kapitán Sokolov who he could not think of as anything but Pavel.
This time, Illya did not ask questions about the Soldier. He'd already received any answers he could on that subject from Pavel. Instead they discussed other more interesting topics. How the British couldn't make a decent vodka but did make superior beers. How it was impossible to get good piroshkis on this island, but the better pubs produced good English roast dinners that were almost as good. And how the Royal Ballet's dancers were nearly, but not quite, as good as the Bolshoi's.
There were other things he did not tell Pavel about. Like the swelling collection of jazz records under his bed, and his growing affection for that decadent Western music. Or the wide-ranging talks he enjoyed with other grad students at Cambridge about everything from politics to art. Pavel Andreivich was friendly, but not quite a friend, and Illya knew as well as anyone that one did not trust even a friend with an opinion that varied from Soviet orthodoxy.
After that, Pavel's appearances at his flat became a semi-regular occurrence. And Illya continued to enjoy their drives to whatever location the Soldier was being stored at, talking about art and theatre and scientific breakthroughs. After the second mission, there was no more mention of a missing handler. Several more missions after that, Illya realized that he had become the Soldier's de facto handler in the British Isles.
If Pavel had become a near friend, as well as a superior, Illya's relationship with the Soldier was something else entirely.
One couldn't make friends with the Soldier. The man never initiated conversation, only responding to questions concerning their current mission, his voice a dry rasp. Illya supposed he must eat and drink, but he never did so in Illya's presence. And that brought up the fact that Illya had still never seen the Soldier's face. Not all of it, anyway.
He had, occasionally, seen the Soldier's eyes without the goggles. Illya wasn't sure what he'd been expecting, but it wasn't the intense grey-blue eyes that the goggles had been hiding. Eyes that mostly displayed a steely resolve. Mostly. Though on rare occasions, Illya thought he saw an unexpected vulnerability behind the Soldier's eyes.
If he wasn't friends with the Soldier, he did find he was becoming more relaxed in his company. And he had the impression that the Soldier was becoming more comfortable in his.
On one mission, when Illya was called on to be more than a glorified chauffeur, the Soldier seemed to trust him to cover his back. On another, after Illya had used a well-placed bullet to stop an adversary from attacking the Soldier, the man reached out to give Illya what looked like a friendly pat on the shoulder before he froze, his metal hand mere inches from Illya. Illya had responded to that aborted gesture with a grin and a shrug. It had been one of the most human responses he'd seen from the Soldier.
As Illya got closer to finishing his schooling, he started to wonder where he would be assigned next after England. If perhaps he would be assigned permanently to Majór Zakharov and Kapitán Pavel Andreivich and the Winter Soldier. He decided he would ask Pavel if he could put in a good word for him. He would do it after his next mission with the Soldier.
But he never got to ask for that recommendation.
1974
Illya was on his third tonic water when Dexter Gordon launched into the final song of his set, which built from a slow cadence to a scorching rhythm, Gordon's saxophone weaving through the piano and bass, drums and horn, bringing so much colour and light to the music that it captured all of Illya's attention.
And then everything went wrong.
The music ended and the audience exploded in a final frenzy of applause, and Illya looked back at the Soldier's table. And found only the waitress placing the Soldier's glass on her tray and scooping up the tip he'd left her, with the man himself nowhere in sight.
Illya forced his breathing to remain calm, even as he could feel his heart pounding in his chest.
It could be nothing. The Soldier being in his favourite jazz club really could be a coincidence. He might not even have noticed Illya sitting in the corner. He could have just enjoyed the music, finished his drink, and left.
Illya took a last deep breath and took a last look around the club.
And that was when the Soldier, sliding in from what must have been the only sheltered approach Illya hadn't noticed, appeared at Illya's elbow.
1954
It wasn't supposed to be a difficult assignment. The Soldier had been called in to liquidate an another asset who'd turned out to be a double agent.
"Do you want me to back you up?" Illya had asked the Soldier.
"No need," the Soldier had said in a voice that was perhaps slightly less raspy than usual. "This shouldn't take long."
So, Illya had waited in a panel van in an Ipswich car park, waiting for the Soldier to return from the warehouse where they'd been told his prey was waiting. An hour had passed. Then two. When he could see the light of false dawn beginning on the horizon, Illya knew he had to act.
He carefully checked his surroundings, and unholstered his pistol. But just as he was about to get out of the van, a flicker of movement caught his eye. He looked right to see the Soldier emerge from behind the warehouse.
Illya felt his shoulders begin to relax the tension they'd been building up for the last three hours. He went to re-holster his weapon, but stopped. Because something wasn't right.
The Soldier was moving more slowly than usual. As Illya watched, he stumbled, catching himself only with difficulty.
Before Illya knew it, he was out of the van, running towards the Soldier, weapon out, eyes open for danger.
By the time he reached him, the Soldier was barely holding himself upright. Illya slung one of the Soldier's arms, the non-metal one, over his shoulder and half supported, half dragged him back to the van. Ignoring the blood on his own clothes, he settled the Soldier into the back and scrambled into the driver's seat. He was just about to turn the key on the ignition, when he realized he didn't know if the Soldier's condition was because he'd failed in his mission, or if his target had gotten lucky before he'd been taken out.
He looked back at the Soldier, and didn't think he'd get a coherent answer out of him. So, he'd have to check himself.
He took out his pistol once again, his finger against the side of the trigger guard, and ran as quickly as he could to the warehouse. Illya spent just enough time to assure himself that the target was indeed dead, then he ran back to the van and put his foot hard on the gas to roar out of the car park.
He drove out of the industrial estate that housed the warehouse and out into the country, looking to eliminate a pursuit that never came. Only when he was sure they hadn't been followed did he pull into a hotel car park on the outskirts of a small town with the unprepossessing name of Bury St Edmonds. (As he checked that there was no one surveilling the van, he started wondering about the town's name. Was there more than one St Edmond? And who, exactly, was trying to bury him/them?)
He climbed into the back of the panel van. The Soldier was sprawled exactly where Illya had left him, blood oozing from several wounds in his chest and torso and one in his leg.
Illya had had questions before his first mission with the Soldier. Chief among them was what he should do if the Soldier was wounded.
"Nothing," Majór Zakharov had said. "He won't get wounded. And even if he does, he recovers quickly."
"What if it's a serious wound?" Illya had pushed. "What if he's dying?"
"He won't die. But in the extremely unlikely chance that he is wounded, Comrade Kuryakin, you will stop the bleeding, return to your rendezvous point and let us deal with it."
And now, Illya was dealing with Zakharov's "extremely unlikely chance." Taking a deep breath, he pulled out the first aid kit stored behind the driver's seat, and got to work patching up the Soldier.
A pressure dressing on the leg wound was his first step. (That the first aid kit had not one, but many pressure dressings answered the question about whether the kit had been supplied by whatever car hire company it had been acquired from or the KGB. It was far too well-supplied to be a civilian kit.) The Soldier had started to recoil when Illya put the dressing in place, but had forced himself to hold still without Illya even asking.
The three wounds in the Soldier's torso were alarming, but not near any essential organs, so Illya began to relax, thinking Zakharov's advice had been good. But then, as Illya watched, the Soldier's breathing changed into a shallow, grating rasp.
When he'd started working with the Soldier, he'd been given two rules. Always speak Russian to him. And don't remove his mask. But Illya couldn't imagine the mask was helping with the Soldier's breathing. He guessed that Zakharov and Pavel Andreivich would rather he break the rules than return with a dead Soldier.
He knelt at the Soldier's side and spent a moment examining both his goggles and mask, looking for the mechanism that held them in place.
"I'm going to remove these," Illya said. (In Russian. Always in Russian.) The goggles weren't affecting the Soldier's breathing, but being able to see his eyes would let Illya judge his condition better.
The Soldier tensed at his words, but after a moment he nodded.
Illya reached out and removed the goggles. The blue grey eyes he'd seen before were revealed, and they frowned at him, as if he was trying to solve a difficult puzzle.
Without giving the Soldier time to solve his puzzle, Illya unclipped the mask and removed it, finally revealing the Soldier's face.
In the time he'd been working with the Soldier, Illya had imagined all sorts of reasons why the Soldier might wear a mask. To hide a disfigurement. To remove outside distractions for the Soldier. To inspire fear in his victims. But he'd never thought that it might be too hide how young he looked.
Because behind his mask, the Soldier, the Motherland's unbeatable warrior, looked young. Young and vulnerable, with lips that quivered in pain and eyes that were beginning to glisten with tears.
And then the Soldier did another unexpected thing.
He spoke English.
"Steve?" The Soldier said. "Is that you? They told me you were dead, but I knew they must be lying. I knew you couldn't die."
The Soldier didn't speak English like a Russian. He spoke it like it was his mother tongue. He spoke it like an American.
The Winter Soldier was American.
He was American, and he'd had a friend named Steve that Illya would bet a thousand rubles was slight and blond-haired and blue-eyed. Just like Illya.
Illya had been playing the role of this Steve this whole time. He just hadn't known it. And now that he did, he needed to keep playing the role, but even better.
He looked down at the Soldier's mask in his hands, and thanked the KGB instructor who'd taught him English. The woman had drilled him in a number of different accents so Illya could fit in wherever he was assigned. In Cambridge, he'd let his English drift into a vaguely Oxbridge accent, upper class, but not too upper class. But now he pulled out a different accent, a working class New York city accent that seemed to match's the Soldier's and that he hoped matched the mysterious Steve.
"They couldn't kill me," Illya said.
"That's what I kept telling 'em. Steve's too stubborn to die."
Illya had heard about his own stubbornness from enough of his superiors that he thought he might have more in common with this Steve than his hair colour.
"They tried to break me," the Soldier said, grabbing Illya's wrist in a punishing grip. "But I didn't break."
"Of course you didn't." Illya gently pried off the Soldier's fingers and went back to patching him up.
"I knew you'd come and get me. You always come and get me."
"Of course, I do... pal." If it seemed strange to the Soldier that his best friend didn't know his name, he didn't show it. He kept talking as Illya checked his wounds and applied the dressings.
"I'll never forget when you came waltzing into that Hydra factory in Austria." He winced as Illya cleaned the wound near his collarbone, then continued. "When I got shipped out from New York, a stiff wind coulda knocked you over. And there you were, my knight in shining armour, Captain Fucking America."
Illya froze in place as everything he knew about the Soldier suddenly slotted into place. The American accent, the series of blond handlers, the friend named Steve.
Steve was Steve Rogers. Captain America. Scourge to Nazis everywhere. Even fighting in Kyiv, Illya had heard about the American who could kill a battalion of Nazis before breakfast. Which made the Soldier... Bucky Barnes. Friend to Captain America. Lost during the war.
Or not.
Illya fought to keep his hands steady and forced himself to finish his first aid job. If what he'd realized was true, Illya was the keeper of a world-shattering secret. A secret he had no doubt his superiors would not hesitate to kill him to keep.
"I couldn't believe it myself," Illya finally said, hoping the Soldier, Barnes, hadn't noticed his lapse.
"I don't know. You always had more fight in you than anyone expected." Barnes stopped talking and squinted at Illya. "Hey, has Doc Abrahams serum finally stopped working? You're looking a bit scrawny again."
"Nah," Illya said quickly. "I'm just a bit tired. I had to wait around for you all night." He started working on the last wound, noticing when Barnes winced again. And that gave him an idea for a way to avoid any more scrutiny from Barnes. Assuming the first aid kit was very well stocked. He finished the last dressing, then rummaged through the kit and came up with what he was looking for: five syrettes of morphine.
For anyone else, one dose of morphine would be more than enough to take away the pain. But Illya didn't just want to kill the Soldier's pain. He wanted to knock him out. And Illya had no idea how much it would take to knock out a super soldier. Because that clearly was what Barnes was, even if Steve Rogers was the only American super soldier in the history books. Illya wondered who had turned Barnes into what he was. Had it been the Americans? The Hydra outpost Rogers had rescued Barnes from? Or had it been the Soviets?
Illya shook his head, not wanting to know anything about how Sergeant Bucky Barnes had come under the control of the Soviet Union.
He turned back to Barnes and held up one of the syrettes.
"I think you could use one of these."
He could see Barnes actually relax at the sight of the morphine.
"It couldn't hurt." Barnes winced again. "Goddamn bullets are in the worst possible place."
Illya didn't wait for further permission. He injected the first of the syrettes near the wound on Barnes leg. Then a second into his side. As he watched, Barnes face went slack and his eyes began to close.
"Thank you, Steve," Barnes said, his words beginning to slur.
"It's the least I can do, Bucky."
The sound of his name, his real name did something to Barnes. He forced his eyes open again and pushed himself awkwardly up on one elbow.
"You'll be here when I wake up?" He reached out his hand, his flesh and blood right hand, and gripped Illya around the bicep.
"I'll be here."
"Promise."
"I promise," Illya lied.
That false promise seemed to be enough, and Barnes slumped back down on the van's floor and was soon unconscious.
Though he was fairly certain that three doses of morphine was good for anyone, he gave Barnes one final dose. He didn't want to risk him waking up half way to their destination. Then he got in the driver's seat and headed for the rendezvous point.
Pavel Andreivich and Majór Zakharov were waiting where he'd left them, in the car park of a dilapidated transport caff. Illya pulled the van beside their car and got in the back seat.
The sun was now over the horizon, and Illya knew the blood on his clothes would be all too obvious to the other two men.
"Are you wounded?" asked Zakharov, and Illya liked to think he was at least a little concerned about Illya himself.
"Not me." He shook his head. "The Soldier."
"Is he alive?" Pavel asked.
Illya nodded.
"Was his mission a success," Zakharov asked.
"It was," Illya said, an image of the body in the warehouse flashing in his memory. "He's in the back of the van. I patched him up as best I could." He held Pavel's gaze. "I gave him morphine. To knock him out. I thought he would be safer unconscious if we were stopped."
"How much?" Zakharov said, his voice sharp.
"Enough. Three syrettes."
"Hmmph." Zakharov said. Pavel nudged him in the ribs.
"The boy did well. He ensured the mission succeeded and got the Soldier back alive."
"Well, let's go see how badly damaged our asset is." Zakharov opened the door and headed towards the back of the van.
And that was when Illya realized his mistake. He'd left the Soldier's mask off, proof positive that he'd broken one of the rules. He hoped that whatever conditioning they'd use on the Soldier when he got back to whichever base they stored him in would eliminate his memories of having broken the other rule and spoken English with someone he thought was his Steve.
Zakharov opened the back door of the van, and Illya braced himself. He could tell when Zakharov realized the Soldier's mask was sitting on the floor of the van by the tensing of his shoulders. He hoped that Zakharov would limit his punishment to a reprimand, but Illya knew there was always a chance this ended with a bullet to his head.
"Comrade Kuryakin," Zakharov said, his voice as tense as Illya had ever heard it. "Explain yourself."
"The Soldier was having difficulty breathing. I made the decision to risk breaking your rule rather than risk the death of a Soviet asset." Illya hoped if he spoke of the Soldier in the most dehumanizing terms that it would keep Zakharov from thinking of him as a man who might have discovered more secrets that just what the Winter Soldier looked like.
"You made that decision, did you?" Zakharov turned to face him, a frown creasing his forehead. "And was there any other decision you made?"
"No, sir." Illya stood as straight as he had as a naval cadet on the parade ground. "I removed the mask and made sure his breathing was steady. Then I patched his wounds, gave him the morphine, and drove here."
Illya was faced with the uncomfortable experience of being stared down by Majór Mikhail Dimitrivich Zakharov. He'd heard it said that Zakharov could read a lie in the face of any Western agent who was foolish enough to face him down, and Illya could believe it. But knowing that his own survival was quite likely on the line, he kept his expression as neutral as he could manage.
Illya wasn't sure how long Zakharov would have kept up his inspection, but it was finally ended by Pavel Andreivich.
"Are you done terrifying the boy?" Pavel asked, his voice dry and unimpressed.
"You know what's at stake," Zakharov snapped without taking his gaze off Illya.
"I do. And I'm sure Comrade Kuryakin has done his duty. Haven't you, Comrade Kuryakin?"
"I have," Illya agreed immediately, taking the lifeline that Pavel was throwing him.
"There you have it," Pavel said. "The boy did his duty, the Soldier is alive. All is well."
"You are too much the optimist, Pavel Andreivich."
"And you are too much the pessimist, Mikhail Dimitrivich."
"One of us has to be." The two men stood facing each other, their gazes locked together.
Illya found himself holding his breath, waiting for the deadlock between them to break.
"Very well, Kapitán," Zakharov finally said. "If you are satisfied with the boy's report."
"I am quite satisfied, Majór."
Illya wasn't quite sure how they managed to make their ranks sound both insulting and affectionate, but they did. He hoped that someday he would have a partnership with the same level of trust.
There was a bit more posturing between them, but Illya knew at that moment that the fight was over. And he found himself in Pavel's car heading back to Cambridge as Zakharov took charge of the Soldier and brought him back to wherever he'd come from.
"How much do you know?" Pavel asked after they'd driven in silence for a few miles.
"Not much," Illya hedged. He trusted Pavel, but only so far. "I know that he's American." He decided to trust Pavel a little bit further. "And that he had a friend named Steve."
Pavel sucked in a deep breath at that last piece of information and gripped the steering wheel tighter.
"If you are debriefed by anyone but me, you will not reveal that you know any of that. You will especially not reveal the name of the Soldier's friend. Not even to Mikhail Dimitrivich."
"I understand." Illya said, understanding far more than he hoped Pavel realized.
"I hope, for your sake, that you do," Pavel said. "Misha is a good man, but he's less imaginative then I am. He would throw away your potential to keep a state secret. I, on the other hand, can see the agent you will grow into and I think you're worth my trust."
Illya didn't know what to say to any of that, so he decided to change the subject.
"He's your friend? Mikhail Dimitrivich?" It wasn't quite a question.
"We served together during the war." And that wasn't quite an answer. "When Misha joined the KGB he recruited me into the service." Pavel paused and turned to Illya, looking at him carefully in the eye. "But there is one thing you need to know. Misha is not *just* KGB."
Illya frowned.
"What does that mean?"
Pavel turned away again.
"It means you should be careful with him. Beyond that I hope you never find out more."
"But he *is* your friend?"
"Because he is my friend I am more careful around him than anyone."
With that pronouncement, Pavel set his jab and didn't say another word until he pulled in front of Illya's block of flats.
"Good luck, Illya Nickovetch Kuryakin. And remember what I told you," he ordered. And then he drove off.
It was the last time Illya saw Pavel Andreivich or Majór Zakharov. But not, as it turned out, the Winter Soldier...
1974
"Illya Nickovetch Kuryakin," the Soldier said, placing his hand, the metal one, on Illya's shoulder, its weight a promise of the violence the Soldier could inflict. His expression was serious, and his accent drifted somewhere between Russian and American.
"Soldier," Illya said, working to keep his own expression as calm as he could. Fortunately, he'd had nearly twenty years of practice managing his reactions on operations, both in the KGB and U.N.C.L.E.
The Soldier winced at the name, and that gave Illya some hope that he hadn't been targeted by a wing of the KGB that was unsatisfied with Soviet cooperation with U.N.C.L.E.
"Not quite," the Soldier said, giving Illya's shoulder a squeeze that stopped shy of being threatening. "Try again." His accent was becoming more American the more he spoke.
Illy dropped his voice to a whisper.
"Sergeant Barnes?"
"Now ya got it, pal." The Soldier...no, Barnes, released his shoulder and patted him on the back, his accent now fully Brooklyn. "Glad you remembered."
"It's not the kind of thing you forget, running into a dead legend."
"Hey, not so much with the dead, kid."
"I'm sorry. A presumed-dead legend."
"Steve was more the legend. I was just the helpful sidekick."
"Somehow I think you were more than that."
Barnes grabbed a chair from the next table and sat down next to Illya, so they both had a good view of the whole room. Illya appreciated Barnes' tactical awareness, but he supposed you didn't get to be a feared Soviet asset without it.
"May I assume you are not here to assassinate me," Illya said, his voice steady.
"I don't do that kinda thing anymore," Barnes said, then waved over the waitress and ordered them two double vodkas. Illya was please before by the news and the alcohol.
"You don't work for our mutual friends?"
"Not anymore."
"What about..." Illya didn't quite know how to ask "...the words?"
"I stole that damn book when I escaped. Burned it as soon as I was free. And I'm looking for a friend who I'm betting can burn those fucking words out of my head."
"That must be quite the friend."
"He was last I saw him."
"Which was?" Illya prompted.
"1945. Not long before I fell off a train."
"If you'll let me be rude, you're rather well-preserved for a 57-year-old?"
"58." Barnes grinned. "Steve got experimented on by the U.S. Army. I got the Hydra variation."
Illya raised his eyebrows, and the nodded. That made a certain amount of sense. After he'd the last time he'd seen the Soldier, Illya had, discreetly, looked up the details of the life of Jame Buchanan Barnes. Barnes had been captured by Hydra, and rescued by Rogers.
The waitress chose that moment to deliver their drinks.
"To KGB handlers," Barnes said after she'd left, raising his glass.
"And KGB assets," Illya answered, clinking the glass.
Barnes downed the whole glass, so Illya did the same. Barnes might be American but it seemed he'd learned to drink like a Russian.
"I gotta thank you for being one of the nicer handlers they gave me."
"I was a last minute replacement the first time."
"I figured. The handlers were usually trained to be assholes. You were always decent."
"Courtesy costs one nothing."
"You sound like Steve's ma."
"I'll take that as a compliment."
"It was meant to be. She was a great lady."
Illya waved over the waitress and ordered a bottle of vodka. If they were going to drink, they might as well do it properly.
After the bottle came, they both downed another glass and then Illya asked the question he'd had since noticing Barnes in the club.
"I take it you are not here to kill me?"
"No. Christ, no!" Barnes laughed. "I didn't even know you'd be here. I've been in the city, trying to find that friend I mentioned, and was just looking for some good music." Barnes poured himself another shot. "You're not going to turn me in, are you?"
"I no longer work for our former employers, so no."
"Not with the KGB, huh? You didn't defect, did you?" Barnes looked interested.
"Not exactly. I'm with the United Network Command for Law & Enforcement."
"The U.N. outfit?"
"That's right. My partner is American."
"You don't say."
"We work for everyone."
"That's what Steve and I used to think."
"To Steve Rogers," Illya raised his glass.
"To Steve. And what's your partner's name?"
"Napoleon Solo."
"Really?" Barnes' expression was beyond skeptical.
"I didn't quite believe it when I first met him either."
Barnes shrugged.
"To Napoleon Solo."
As they went through the bottle, Illya couldn't help but notice that Barnes was not getting nearly as drunk as he felt. When he mentioned this unfairness, Barnes smiled.
"Sorry kid. That's the Hydra juice. I can't really get drunk."
"You might have warned me." Illya felt a little betrayed.
"Tell you what, let's finish this off, and then I'll make sure you get home safe."
"I'm Russian," Illya said with what he knew must be a bit more dignity than needed. "I can handle my vodka."
"I'm sure you can. But let me walk you home and I'll tell you who I'm looking for. Maybe you can help a fella out."
So, they finished the vodka and tipped the waitress generously, and then they walked through the Village towards Illya's apartment. When they reached the brownstone he rented the top floor of, Illya invited him up, and then Barnes revealed the target of his search.
"Howard Stark?" Illya was incredulous. "One of the richest men in the world? Is a friend of yours?"
"He used to be. More a friend of Steve's, really, but I used to bug him in his lab when we can in from the field. I couldn't get enough of the science stuff." Illya wished he'd thought to ask Barnes about the state of military science during World War II. "But you can see why I can't just walk up to the front door of Stark's company and ask to see the CEO."
"I can."
Illya went to his little half kitchen and poured them each a large tumbler of water. Barnes wouldn't need it, but as the non-super soldier in the room, he would. After setting the water in front of Barnes at the kitchen table he sat across from him, a plan forming in his mind.
"I think I can help you out," Illya said. "The presumed dead James Buchanan Barnes can't request an interview with Howard Stark, but I could use U.N.C.L.E. channels to get you one."
"You'd be willing to do that? For a stranger?"
"Not quite a stranger. A former colleague, and maybe future friend? And who knows. If Stark solves your problem, U.N.C.L.E. might be willing to take you on."
"I don't know about U.N.C.L.E. Steve was more the guy who wanted to save the world. I just want a quiet place in Brooklyn. Or Indiana. Anywhere but Siberia."
"Fair enough," Illya laughed.
"But I'll take you up on the friendship part. Especially if you know any other good jazz clubs. All my local information is thirty years out of date."
"I would be happy to show you my favourite clubs. My heathen American colleague doesn't appreciate jazz."
"Then he's got no taste.."
"Just a different kind of taste." Illya drank his water and then gestured at his couch. "It's late. Do you need a place to stay?"
"Thanks, but no. I've got a place. And it's probably better for you if the sort of people who might be after me don't break into your apartment."
"How can I contact you?" Illya asked.
"I'll contact you," Barnes said, and then he was slipping out of the door, leaving Illya alone in his apartment, wondering quite what had happened to him that he got to run into a living legend (not just a sidekick, whatever Bucky might insist) twice in his life.