The Winter Soldier dislikes New York. He dislikes the smells on the streets, the noisy people, the onslaught of advertisement on every corner, the way he had to get here—and his current targets he dislikes too. However, his personal feelings have never mattered to anyone, and he learnt long ago that it’s better to put them aside and forget they ever existed. The Winter Soldier watches as an ambulance takes three badly wounded men to the nearest hospital in the lights of the latest Coca-cola ad. His job is not done, he has to make sure the men are dead. Same old, same old.
    The Winter Soldier follows the ambulance effortlessly jumping from one rooftop to another, climbing fire escapes where necessary. This area is easy to parkour around: the buildings are standing close together, there are lots of ladders everywhere and the streets are narrow enough to jump over. There is no place for enjoyment in his line of work but if he had to tell anyone his favorite part, it would be the parkour. He stands on the edge of the last rooftop as the ambulance goes down into the garage. Once it disappears, he takes a few steps back to make the final jump.
    The hospital has a classical American layout, dozens of them memorized by him in the course of his training. The Winter Soldier waits out good three hours sitting on the rooftop before going in. An explosion was powerful enough to knock all of his targets out and tear some of them to pieces—he could have used a rifle but it would give out the assassination—and the surgeons here probably had much trouble piecing them back together. If anyone survived the surgery, the Winter Soldier is here to make sure it was their last. Luckily for him, it’s 3am.
    He climbs the outside of the building, methodically checking every room before finding the needed one. Three men, all unconscious but stable, judging from the signals on the apparatuses they all are connected to. The Winter Soldier quietly gets in, using his metal arm and a knife to gently push the glass out of the window into the room. The only thing he has to do is to let a bit of air into every single IV in the room. It reaches their bodies—they all die, his job is done. There is no way of stopping it. He mutes the medical tech to be sure no nurse is going to burst in to save them.
    It goes without as much as a scratch. None of them even regain consciousness.
    The Winter Soldier watches as the last bit of air goes into the last man’s vein, the room blissfully quiet at this late hour. As the man dies, the Winter Soldier doesn’t smile, doesn’t feel any remorse or pleasure, nothing. It’s all the same to him. He doesn’t know why HYDRA wanted them dead and, frankly, he doesn’t care. All three of them dead, he has nothing else to do here. It’s time to disappear.
    Suddenly something changes in the air ever so slightly, and feeling it under his skin, the Winter Soldier turns. There is a person there, in the room with him. A nurse? A doctor? This is an unfortunate and unexpected complication. He has never left witnesses alive. He isn’t about to start now.
    It’s a pity, really, that this quiet assassination should turn out loud and messy after all.
    The Winter Soldier doesn’t even say anything. He draws the battle knife from its holster and steps forward, ready to attack whoever happened to be unfortunate enough to come into the room at this hour.

Отредактировано James Barnes (2017-07-31 19:36:25)