Only after the guards beat down every prisoner still standing with their batons—and even Henry, lying in the dirt, took a few hits—did the massive brawl finally come to an end.
Dragged up from the ground, Henry looked like a complete mess.
Dust covered him from head to toe, and footprints were stamped all over his clothes. No one could tell whether he had actually been beaten black and blue or left bloodied and battered.
Ironically enough, this unidentified newcomer received no basic verification whatsoever. Like the other inmates deemed serious offenders, he was thrown directly into the prison's solitary confinement block.
There was no heating in solitary.
One could easily imagine how miserable it would become once winter arrived.
For Henry, however, it was perfect.
Otherwise, he would have had to worry about how to fly away under everyone's watchful eyes.
It was easy to predict what would happen after today.
As long as Henry remained inside the prison, everyone would keep an eye on him.
Even if they had no special interest in him personally, they would still worry about whether he might cause another incident and drag everyone else into it.
Inside solitary confinement, as long as no guard personally witnessed him flying away, then even if the cell ended up completely empty, would anyone really connect the disappearance to a man already back in America after searching the prison and surrounding area from top to bottom?
This was the best opportunity to leave.
Having completed four outstanding items on his Russian to-do list, Henry naturally intended to depart.
Despite taking plenty of punches and kicks today, he hadn't even suffered a scraped patch of skin.
If someone later discovered that Ivan Kochetov and Yuri Kuznetsov were dead and traced it back to him, that would only create more trouble.
Just as Henry was preparing to phase through the wall and leave his cell, the prisoner next door began pounding furiously on the wall.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
It sounded as if he intended to smash through the concrete itself. Dust and fragments of mortar shook loose and fell.
At the same time, the man called out:
"Hey, neighbor. If all you wanted was to settle a score, did you really need to make such a huge scene and drag the entire prison into it? You're not actually an inmate here, are you?"
Judging from the voice, it was that bear-like giant.
Thinking back to the man's earlier advice—even if it had been crude, it was still a gesture of goodwill.
Henry chose to pause his escape.
"If you want an easier time later, feel free to pin everything on me. But don't dig too deeply into my identity."
"An American, right?"
The man suddenly switched to English.
Without waiting for confirmation, he continued:
"Your Russian accent is too strange. I can't place where you're from at all. Are CIA recruits trained this poorly nowadays?"
Henry was genuinely surprised.
He never would have expected that the man who looked like nothing more than a brute would possess such keen observation.
The fellow had immediately identified a flaw and even formed a theory.
Rather than denying the CIA accusation—which conveniently saved him the effort of misleading the man himself—Henry replied in English with exaggerated menace:
"And you're brave enough to say that to my face? Aren't you worried I'll kill you to silence you?"
"How exactly would you do that?"
The man chuckled.
"Our cells are adjacent, sure. But can you walk through a concrete wall?"
"Maybe I can."
"So that's your escape plan? Mutant."
Oh, for fuck's sake.
One careless sentence and he'd revealed even more.
It really was true: the more you talked, the more mistakes you made.
"You're not involved. And considering you're locked in here too, don't tell me you think reporting me will somehow earn your freedom."
"Bezdarny!" the man cursed in Russian.
Then he continued:
"Alexei Shostakov. That's my name. What's yours, kid?"
"Clark Kent."
"Superman, huh?"
The man laughed.
"You're funny. I like you, kid.
"But Alexei is actually my real name!"
His tone suddenly shifted.
Bang!
A heavy punch struck the wall.
More dust rained down into Henry's cell.
"I know who you are," Henry said. "The Red Guardian. So why exactly do you think I'd be afraid to reveal my identity in front of you?"
Between the man's earlier display of strength and the name he had just given, Henry would have been embarrassed as a transmigrator if he still failed to recognize the Soviet super-soldier.
Meanwhile, Henry's response sounded suspiciously like flattery.
Alexei immediately brightened.
"You know me? Heh. Really? You know me?"
He chuckled smugly.
"Well, that's only natural. I'm Captain America's arch-rival. The bravest soldier beneath the hammer and sickle.
"If there's an American who doesn't know me, that American must be terribly ignorant."
Henry desperately resisted the urge to point out several flaws in that statement.
Instead, he asked:
"So, imprisoned Red Guardian, I'm pretty sure you weren't waiting here because of me. After all, my arrival was completely spontaneous.
"So here's the question: why are you talking to me?
"Do you want to defect to America?
"And if today you tell me yes, how exactly am I supposed to believe you?
"Besides, even if you're serious, I don't have the ability to make something like that happen."
From the neighboring cell came Alexei's weary voice.
"Can you imagine it?
"One day, you're still the fearless Red Guardian—the nation's most trusted super-soldier.
"You leave on a mission.
"And when you come back, your country is gone."
His voice grew increasingly bitter.
"All you can do is watch its successor screw everything up on the same land.
"People question your loyalty.
"Compared to that, criticism about mission failure is insignificant.
"Who am I even supposed to dedicate my loyalty to anymore?
"To those traitors who abandoned their ideals and embraced capitalism?
"They're selfish cowards. Besides selling out their comrades, what good have they ever done?"
As Red Guardian vented his grievances, he alternated between English and Russian.
Profanities poured out endlessly.
Whether or not he had ulterior motives, his resentment was undeniably genuine.
"So!"
Henry suddenly raised his voice and cut him off.
"Because of that, you want to defect to America?
"Are you serious?
"Or did I misunderstand?
"If your plan is personal revenge against the entire United States, save yourself the effort. You might be a super-soldier, but you're still just a soldier.
"Even if you somehow blew up the White House, the Presidential Succession Act would ensure another president took office immediately.
"And if your goal is reviving the Soviet Union, I'd tell you to save yourself the effort there too. Even the countries that used to share your bloc don't actually want Big Brother coming back.
"Or are you genuinely planning to embrace America?
"What should we call you then? The Red-White-and-Blue Guardian?"
"Khuy tebe!"
Alexei roared the Russian equivalent of go fuck yourself.
BANG!
Another massive punch struck the wall.
This time spiderweb cracks spread visibly across the concrete.
Then Henry heard something unexpected.
Alexei's voice was trembling.
Almost breaking.
"I just want to get out of here!
"This place is no longer the country I believed in—the country I was willing to devote my life to.
"And I don't want the rest of my life rotting away in this prison."
His voice became thick with emotion.
"I have a wife—Melina.
"And two wonderful daughters, Natasha and Yelena.
"Maybe we only pretended to be a family.
"Maybe it only lasted five years.
"But I want to see their faces again so badly."
A sob escaped him.
"Who could have imagined that the only home I ever had would be fake...
"…and yet I miss it this much."
Without really thinking about it, Henry phased through the wall and entered Red Guardian's cell.
The moment he arrived, he saw the giant bear of a man covering his face while tears streamed silently between his fingers.
"You're crying?"
Startled, the huge man hurriedly wiped away tears and snot, smearing both into his thick beard.
Stubbornly, he grumbled in Russian:
"Khuy tebe! No!
"Who's crying?
"I'm not crying."