Pairing: The Winter Soldier x S.H.I.E.L.D. agent!Reader
Summary: With your team dead and your mission failed, you’ve been taken by the assassin to an unknown location and are at the mercy of your cruel tormentors. (This fic is explicit, 18+ only, mild dubcon)
You awoke with a start, limbs jerking as you opened your eyes to find a bare concrete ceiling above you. While remaining completely still, you took quick stock of yourself: you were tired, thirsty, cold, and your upper right arm throbbed in time with your heartbeat. Slowly and with great care, you sat up and panned your head to assess your new situation.
You were in a small room of some kind, an isolation cell by the looks of it. A single bulb behind a cage illuminated your stark surroundings. There was barely anything in the way of furnishings, a combination sink/toilet, a thin sleeping mat, and a door made up its entirety. It was steel and had a small square window in the top.
The more you examined the cell, the more convinced you were that you were in an actual prison or some kind of correctional facility. The air was stale, chilly, and carried a sour hint of mold.
You looked down at your arm and winced. You had been stripped of your vest and long-sleeve shirt, leaving you only in your black tank and tac pants. You could see the wound clearly, a nasty gash tacky with dried blood, and while the wound itself had clotted it was clear it had been left untreated.
There was no way to tell how much time had gone by—nor if you were still in New York. You weren’t hungry and your thirst wasn’t enough to convince you that more than a couple of hours had passed. But you had no doubt that HQ would be looking for you by now.
You had reasonable expectations when it came to your chance of survival. Whoever had taken you had also divested you of your radio and cell phone. If they were smart, they would have done so at the scene before taking you away.
No, not they. Him. He was the one who had taken you. The assassin with the metal arm.
i don’t know how many times i can say that i love how you write without it sounding less meaningful each time. but i just truly, truly fucking love how you write. i love every last thing about it. i love how sheassesses.
the utter horrorof this: there were, however, only two reasons he would have spared your life: to pry you for information, or for a hostage exchange. and shield didn’t negotiate with terrorists. every agent going into the field knew that. it was expected that if you were caught behind enemy lines and you couldn’t be extracted, you kept your mouth shut until the bitter end. the last chapter, how i said you write with such knowing. you’re so good with language. and i think that’s why this story, and all of your work, feels so immersive.
look at all these spy words: a bare concrete ceiling; a small room of some kind; a single bulb to illuminate it; bare furnishings; you could see the wound clearly, a nasty gash tacky with dried blood, and while the wound itself had clotted it was clear it had been left untreated; no way to tell how much time had gone by, but the way she deduces from the lack of hunger & thirst it had been no longer than a couple hours; HQ; the winter chill that pervaded the room; caught behind enemy lines; extracted; keep your mouth shut until the bitter end; the way her mind immediately goes into strategizing mode each time she opens her eyes.
shield had access to every sort of intelligence available on the planet. satellite with various imaging filters. access to highway cams. the vehicles themselves would have sent an automatic distress signal as soon as they had been damaged. no doubt your SO would use every resource available to find you. i’m telling you, i’m there right now.
god, and she immediatelykicks ass, disoriented, injured, and all. i get the image of bloodied, gritted teeth. surviving out of spite. fueled by rage.
and truly, if i picked out every last detail that i loved, i would straight up fucking quote this entire chapter ((and all chapters)) word by word. i’m trying not to do that, but you make it hard. i love how you describe this: they pulled you along at a brutal pace, led down corridor after corridor, leading you somewhere else. everything here screams death and inevitability, blankness and nothingness.
this torture room - how you write it the way she analyzes it - matter of factly, seriously - how she clocks item by item manually, on autopilot - each description is infused withhorror. it’s scary. it’s gothic.
this is something else entirely: but the centerpiece of the room was a particular chair. it had restraints along the arm and leg rests, but what drew your eye was the machine behind it. there was a mismatched headpiece hanging above it, its proportions large enough to fit around a human head. just looking at it made you shiver. [just reading this makes Me shiver.] +it was only a piece of metal, but it looked predatory. and hungry.
it was only a piece of metal, but it looked predatory. and hungry. my god. that is such poetry to me, man. it looked predatory. hungry.
you pressed your lips together, not allowing them to tremble as your heart beat frantically in your chest. you tried to remember as many details of their faces as you could on the off-chance you survive long enough for a debriefing. my god. my god. mygod. it is as i said, everything here, infused with horror. not allowing them to tremble. tried to remember as many details of their faces as you could. the off-chance you survived long enough for a debriefing. god. ghostly, how haunting that feels.
am i, like … notsupposed to fixate on this?: then the screaming started. and it took some time, drowning as you were in a haze of electric agony, to realize that the screaming was your own. i mean, holy effing shit, dude. you’ve gotta be kidding me. ain’t no way, man. ain’t no way. jesus.
Pairing: The Winter Soldier x S.H.I.E.L.D. agent!Reader
Summary: With your team dead and your mission failed, you’ve been taken by the assassin to an unknown location and are at the mercy of your cruel tormentors. (This fic is explicit, 18+ only, mild dubcon)
Relocate the Kartal family from their house in the Hamptons to a S.H.I.E.L.D. safe house. Simple. You had run the scenario a hundred times with other members of your team.
It should have been simple. That’s what you told yourself as you hid Mrs. Kartal and her son behind a rusted tractor, wiping Mr. Kartal’s blood out of your eyes and checking to see how much ammo was left in your P226. You had already run out of magazines for the Glock, spent in vain to try and stop the man who had attacked your convoy.
Not a squad. Not an enemy raid. Your entire team had been killed and the primary escort target had had his brains blown out inches away from your face.
i have loved this story for a very, very long time. i’ve thought of it often. i’ve replayed it out in my head before i go to sleep. i have theorized, i have analyzed the text like a bible. i have sat down so many times to write out my love for this story. i’m a criminal for taking so long. i just worry that i won’t be able to convey it all, you know? you have shared something so precious i feel paralyzed that i can’t give you anything worth giving in return.
it’s like you have superpowers. i don’t know what it is. for this story specifically, i get such main character vibes. a strong lead in an indie movie with bits of blood, horror, and action thrown in. jesus, the way you write this. i’m watching an action movie.
the format in which you date it, begin with a straightforward op, relocate the kartal family. everything is backed and organized into neat little boxes. it’s so straightforward it’s practically clinical. it does so much to show the reader’s needfor control - emotionally, professionally. it is how she doesn’tlose her mind and how she stays alive. you always, always speak and write with such purpose. my love.
i am always thrilled to read in-depth, plot-driven pieces like this. the way the author speaks with such knowing,suchtruth.if you told me you were a survivalist or had personal knowledge of guns or weaponry, i would believe you, easily. that would make so much sense in my mind. i can see it in your work, the way in which you write this. i feel so there. i feel imbeddedinto the story. i feel swept off my feet, with how you write.
even though things are very fast paced and everything is quickly, immediately dissolving into unmanageable chaos, you handle it with such even pace. i just feel like everything is so perfect. you have the exact amount of detail needed. you don’t weigh anything down with unnecessary wording, but at the same time you don’t use too little detail. god, it’s like it’s effortless of you. i think that’s so beautiful.
i love how there’s so many things at once. the undercurrent of horrorand the way it bleeds into all the action. the immediate intrigue. oh, your superiors lied to you?oh,we contacted the fbi and not you? shield is notwhat i think it is?
i love this detail of the reader rising to her feet after running out of ammo. that is bad bitch behavior, and we stan. and the way this man does the same thing. ♀️
i don’t know why, i don’t know how to explain it for the life of me, but the way he mirrorsher action is taking me the fuck out.
and so is he braced his rifle against his shoulder and strode toward you as if he didn’t have a goddamn care in the world. his stride, the broad set of his shoulders, the way he swaggered that was almost graceful - it was a powerful sort of confidence -
i am eating my fist. like?? i knowwe’re talking about the murder strut. it’s been a lifetime since that godforsaken movie and i still die every time he does it.
oh,oh,andthis:his metal plated arm reflected in the sunlight with a deadly sort of beauty, like the gleam of light on a knife. he was death personified. a deadly sort of beauty, like the gleam of light on a knife. death personified. ☝
his dark goggles giving him the impression of some kind of insectoid alien bearing down on you, inhuman and merciless. you write this so fucking well. and i know this is besides the point, but like? what if he was though??
you shut your eyes. you couldn’t bear to look at him a moment longer. jesus, you give such weight to this. i love that. i love how it reads the way it plays out in her mind. slowly, surreally. a nightmare-scape, choking in dread and inevitability.
here you were, shutting your eyes like a child waiting for the monster under the bed to vanish. oh, man. i tell ya, i tell ya.
the way she fears death and survival equally.
i’ve read this more times than i will ever know. i’ve loved it each time. i’m sorry i take so long. i hope you’re okay. ❤
