Chapter 13.
Fury sat in his office at SHIELD headquarters, leaning back in his chair. His single eye was narrowed, fingers steepled in front of his face. A short but substantial conversation with Sly Marbo had just concluded. Everything was moving along as he had anticipated. More or less.
His mind drifted back to the very beginning of this situation. First had come Romanoff's report — brief, but to Fury full of subtext. *Strange Russian kid. Clearly in possession of specific information. Requesting a meeting with the Cap.* After the personal meeting Rogers and Romanoff conducted with him, the kid had been brought to a safe house. The first conversation over the ultra-secure line had only deepened his suspicions. How could a nobody from the outskirts of New York know what he had no right to know? The hypothesis of clairvoyance or sudden revelation seemed absurd, but Fury had long since grown accustomed to reality routinely surpassing the most extravagant imagination. So he had authorized isolation and close surveillance.
He had also quietly launched a targeted internal investigation — himself, and through a handful of people whose loyalty was beyond question. No traces of digital intrusion into his systems or Stark's. But when his people began digging deeper into the histories of certain SHIELD employees, small inconsistencies surfaced. Very small ones. But for his paranoia, permanently switched to active mode, that was more than enough. The conclusion was obvious: take the Russian more seriously. That was precisely why every request from Natasha — and later from Sly — for Vetrov's equipment, nutrition, and medical supplies had been fulfilled immediately and without question.
But the more his specialists dug into Alexei Vetrov's past, the more ordinary the picture became. Entirely unremarkable. Born in Russia, an orphan, technical college, work history. No connections to terrorists, intelligence services, or criminal elements. The strangeness began only after he had been beaten up by two perfectly ordinary, dim-witted street criminals. No traces of hidden training, genetic engineering, or even mutant abilities. He was like a completely blank page.
Months passed. The reports from Natasha and Sly were dry and practical. Summarized, they reduced to three words describing Alexei: willful, tenacious, driven. Romanoff had even given him a callsign — Hardcore. Simple, but accurate. Fury, however, watched the numbers, reviewed the test results. Yes, there was progress. But if any other promising SHIELD recruit had been given the same resources and the same instructors, the results would have been comparable, or better. No miracles.
After three months of observation, Fury decided it was time to act. He went to the training camp himself for a long conversation with Vetrov. The information the kid laid out was monstrous. Valuable. Too valuable to be a fabrication. HYDRA inside SHIELD. Project Insight. The Winter Soldier. And those — Infinity Stones. Fury understood, of course, that the kid had held a great deal back. But even what had been disclosed would have been enough to turn everything upside down and keep every analytical department busy for years ahead.
These gems needed to be hidden. Hidden reliably, buried deeper than anything before. A careful, surgical purge of SHIELD's infestation would have to begin. But there was another problem: HYDRA would inevitably learn about Vetrov sooner or later. Fury was nearly certain they already knew he existed and were simply waiting. Here he allowed himself a quiet moment of self-congratulation for having trusted his honed instincts and hired Sly Marbo. The old wolf had agreed when he sensed an interesting job and triple the usual rate.
While Fury worked out a multi-stage strategy for cleaning his own house, he needed to conceal the valuable asset. But simply moving him wasn't viable — any movement could be visible. He needed a legend. And Fury invented one. Elegant in its simplicity. He carefully circulated a rumor through questionable but trusted back channels: that the Russian kid had learned the super soldier serum formula. Incomplete, but containing key components. And that Fury himself, the Director personally, had conducted successful but strictly classified trials. It had taken some effort, of course — falsified entries in reports, a few vials of failed serum variants extracted from the most secure storage, a staged "leak." But the investment was worth the return.
It had all worked. HYDRA agents had descended on the base to take Vetrov alive. And Fury had never doubted the outcome. Even if HYDRA had sent an entire special forces unit, Sly Marbo — whom Fury had at one point considered for the Avengers alongside the Wolverine — would have handled them.
Deploying Sly with Vetrov to the abandoned bunker had also been part of the plan. As was well understood, any communication channel, no matter how encrypted, carried an interception risk.
The Hand, admittedly, he hadn't calculated. It was an unexpected move from HYDRA — a more expensive and sophisticated one. But judging by Sly's brief report, he'd managed that situation too. Now Sly was operating on his own territory and by his own rules. Fury remained calm: even in such circumstances, everything stayed under control. He had needed to go to Stark for help developing some rather specialized tracking beacons, but the important thing was that the plan was still holding. And if Marbo said he would hide the kid, then HYDRA, the Hand, or anyone else wouldn't find him. Anyone except Fury, of course.
A click on his keyboard brought up the files of several mid-level agents from the logistics division. Small fish, but with clear indicators of HYDRA affiliation. Time to begin the larger purge. Romanoff and Barton were already waiting for the signal. Fury allowed himself a faint, barely perceptible smile. The game was entering its most interesting phase. And the valuable asset would wait for his moment. Fury was confident that when they met again, Vetrov would have much more of interest to tell him.
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Two days later, exactly as Sly had said, we emerged at the highway. The sight of asphalt and the occasional passing car produced a strange sensation — a mixture of relief and wariness. Civilization. Even in this roadside variety.
The motel Sly had chosen looked cheap at a glance. Faded sign, a couple of trucks in the parking lot, peeling paint — it was obvious from first impression that this place had seen better days. But personally, right now, it might as well have been a resort.
The front desk clerk, a man of about fifty with tired but kind eyes, greeted us with surprising friendliness.
"Two rooms?" he asked without really looking at us, simply nodding at a sign reading *Cash only.*
"Two, adjacent," Sly replied briefly, laying cash on the counter.
"No problem. Here are the keys. Hot shower works, TV works. Anything you need — I'm right there," he waved toward a small room behind the desk.
Sly took both key cards and silently handed me one.
"Two hours. Clean up and stay inside."
I just nodded and went to my room.
The door closed and I stood there for a moment, taking stock. Two single beds with worn coverlets, a nightstand, an old television on a stand, a bathroom door. And — silence. Not the hum of a generator, not the creak of trees or the rustle of leaves, but the blessed quiet of a motel. I took a slow, deep breath. It smelled of old carpet, cleaning products, and — freedom. Relative freedom, obviously.
I just stood there for a while, letting myself adjust. Then slowly, almost ceremonially, I took off the dirty, sweat-soaked clothes and stepped into the shower. I turned the tap — and a miracle: genuinely warm, almost scalding hot water poured from the showerhead. It was difficult to put into words how blissful that was. For the first several minutes I simply stood under the flow with my eyes closed, letting the water wash away the sweat, the dirt, the dust, and — in some measure — the memory of the last few days. The hunting, the blood, the cold bunker, the fight with the ninja — all of it gradually retreated, dissolving in the steam. I lathered from head to foot, rinsed, and did it again. When I rinsed my face, the water running down my skin was clean in a way that felt unfamiliar, and unlike the icy stream water, it was actually warm.
Toweling off with a rough but clean cloth, I felt a lightness I hadn't known in a long time. My body, accustomed to constant tension and pain, had finally released. I walked out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped at my waist and dropped onto the bed. The springs protested with a squeak, but the mattress felt like a cloud after bare boards and cold concrete.
*We don't know what we have until it's gone,* ran through my head.
Six months ago this room would have seemed like a dismal little cell, and right now it was the absolute pinnacle of comfort. I lay on my back and just lay there, looking up at the ceiling with its peeling paint, listening to the quiet.
Then I reached for the remote and turned on the television. The screen flickered to life and the news came up. Some politician making promises, then an advertisement for some gadget. All of it was so ordinary, so remote from my current reality. I flipped through channels, pausing a couple of seconds each time. Sports, a drama, cartoons. The world went on about its business. And that was strange. I, who had recently killed a man in that dirty forest fight, was now lying on a motel bed watching a cartoon.
I was so absorbed in this peculiar sense of returning that I almost didn't hear the knock at the door. I lazily lifted my head.
"Open up, it's me," Sly's voice came through.
I stood, adjusted the towel, and opened the door. Sly was on the threshold. He had on a fresh T-shirt, but from his face and his taut posture it was plain — he had not been resting. While I was enjoying hot water and a bed, he had been working.
"Get ready," he said shortly, his eyes moving around the room as though checking I hadn't left traces. "Rest is over."
"Already?" I couldn't help asking. "You said we had two hours—"
"Plans changed. While you were resting here, I made some calls and arranged a meeting. One person who can help. Reliable. We need to go now, and it's a long way."
His tone left no room for discussion. I simply nodded and turned back to my dirty clothes.
*Well. It was nice while it lasted.*
But the pleasant lightness and ease vanished, replaced by the familiar alertness. The pleasant moment was over. There was road ahead again.
I dressed quickly while Sly stood by the door, watching through the peephole, monitoring the corridor.
"Reliable person?" I said, pulling on my trousers.
"As reliable as it gets," he answered, not moving from the peephole. "At any rate, this person understands the Hand and their tricks — the kind that are making our lives difficult. Ready? Let's go."
I nodded, slung the pack over my shoulder, and took one last look at the dingy but paradisiacal room. Hot shower, bed, television. For a little while — but still — I had felt like a human being again, and not a galley slave.
And we were off.
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We had been driving in silence for nearly two hours when Sly finally broke it, eyes not leaving the road.
"Fifteen minutes and we're there."
I just nodded, though he probably didn't see the gesture, and pressed my forehead against the cool glass again. Outside, one-story houses slid past with their neat green lawns — a painfully familiar image from the American Dream advertisements I had seen in TV shows countless times. Salt Lake City, Utah. We had spent almost two weeks getting to this state. Two long, tense weeks that seemed to stretch without end.
My thoughts drifted back on their own to those days. The journey had been difficult. Not physically — though the fatigue accumulated every day. The main hardship had been the constant waiting. We changed vehicles, took back roads and byways, but the damn ninja kept finding us again and again.
The first time they hit was a couple of days after the motel, at a gas station in the middle of the night. Sly moved quickly and cleanly as always, leaving one for me — young, resembling that very first one. My fight almost exactly replicated the one at the bunker. Same tactics, same mistakes. I used the chokehold again. And took the knife again. This time the trembling in my hands was less, and inside there was only the clear understanding of necessity. No pleasure. Just work. Dirty, but required. And naturally, I earned no WP — which was entirely predictable.
The second time was worse. We were sleeping in an abandoned barn. The ninja Sly left for me was considerably more experienced. And he was nowhere near as exhausted or injured. He gave me a beating I could still feel as a dull distributed ache across my whole body. He broke through my blocks, his strikes precise and hard. I went down several times, barely getting back up each time. I won only because of his overconfidence: certain of his victory, he dropped his guard — and I, gathering every last thread of will into one point, caught that moment and caught him across the jaw, dropping a very capable ninja in his tracks. I finished him already in a near-blackout, working on pure automation. After that fight I simply sat against the wall and stared blankly at the ceiling, feeling every single place his strikes had landed still throbbing. Fortunately, Sly had one more regenerative compound tucked away from the old training days. Without it I would have been recovering for at least a week.
And the third time — the third time was just a straightforward beating. By then I was fairly convinced that Sly was deliberately dragging things out and selecting progressively stronger opponents for me. Possibly he was. That fight with the ninja was a genuine masterclass, at least by my modest assessment. He was fast and strong. I couldn't even think fast enough to keep up. He hit me, I went down, got up, and he hit me again. At some point I simply stopped feeling the pain — there were only the dull impacts and my own helplessness. And when I tried to get up one more time, he executed a sharp leg sweep, I went down on my back, and he was already looming over me, raising a foot for a finishing blow to the head.
Instead of the blow, a sharp crack of a gunshot rang out. A bullet put a neat hole in the ninja's head, and he swayed slightly and fell on his side.
Sly was standing a couple of meters away, pistol smoking in his hand. He walked over silently, looked at me without a trace of expression, and put the last regenerative compound — the last one, he said — into my hand.
Later, driving along an empty highway, I couldn't hold it in anymore.
"You said it yourself — if I lose, he walks free. So why did you shoot?" The thought of that first, harshest fight in my new life still wouldn't release me.
Sly gave a short laugh without looking at me.
"Stop talking nonsense. There are no rules in war, kid. There are allies and enemies. If you can use an enemy to your advantage — use him. If you can't — eliminate him. Simple. I couldn't let him walk away, that should be obvious. And he served his purpose. Now you know your own level. And you know not to take an enemy at his word."
After that we drove nearly a full day in silence, with only short stops. I turned his words over and over. He was right. Infuriatingly right. But that didn't make it easier.
The rest of the journey passed in relative quiet. On foot, in hitchhiked rides, in old wrecks Sly found God knows where. We avoided large cities and busy roads. And even though I was out in the open rather than in the four walls of the bunker, I felt like a prisoner of this endless running.
And now here we were. In some quiet, drowsy neighborhood of Salt Lake City. The car came to a soft stop at the curb in front of an entirely unremarkable single-story house. Except — I noticed that along the entire perimeter of the porch, on the windows, and on the branches of the trees in the front garden, hung dozens of dreamcatchers — those Native American talismans of hoops, feathers, and strings. It looked — strange.
"Right," Sly switched off the engine and turned to me. "The person we've come to see is — unusual. Very. And we need their help with all this Eastern magic and the surveillance. So when we go in, keep quiet and try not to stare too obviously. And don't be surprised by anything out of the ordinary — better yet, just accept things as they are."
"What kind of out of the ordinary?" I asked, watching him warily. "And who is this exactly?"
But Sly had already opened the door and gotten out, leaving my question unanswered. I hurried after him.
We walked up to the porch. Sly exhaled heavily — as though gathering either patience or resolve — and pressed the doorbell. A minute passed, maybe two. Then a lock clicked, and the door swung open at an unhurried pace.
I saw the person in the doorway and went completely still, unable to move, feeling my mouth drop open of its own accord. A single thought ran through my head:
*And this is the reliable person?*