─── FROM RUSSIA, WITH LOVE. a winter soldier x reader fanfiction.
★ I. Snow covers everything.
⋆ WARNINGS: Violence, blood & injury, non-consensual sedation/drugging, needles, medical trauma, psychological manipulation, power imbalance, dehumanization, dark themes. ⋆ WORD COUNT: 3.7K Series Masterlist | Next Chapter
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January 20, 1972. Somewhere in the north, Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.
You reviewed the mission in your mind for the eleventh time as the vehicle carried you toward the drop point where they would leave you alone. There was no room for error in an operation like this. The Winter Soldier held vital importance for your country and for the advances it needed to reshape the world into a better version of itself. It was imperative that he returned alive into the hands of those who controlled him.
Priority Extraction. Asset 17. Potentially Hostile. Mental State Unknown. Lethal.
The visible words from the file were seared into your memory. Even though you weren’t permitted to dwell on it, you still wondered what kind of information hid behind the thick black lines deliberately placed there to keep it from your unworthy eyes. What could be so delicate that even someone at your level was forbidden from knowing? Why hide it from you if you were supposedly on the same side?
You knew those were not questions you should voice aloud. The mere act of thinking them already felt like sacrilege. You could not question whatever your superiors were doing to safeguard the Motherland. You were not supposed to question it, because the punishment would be severe.
Doubting was betraying, and betrayal was paid for with death. No exceptions.
The air inside the vehicle grew heavier the closer you came to the designated point. Fog thickened around you, making visibility increasingly difficult. Ahead, the silhouette of the forest seemed to melt into the overcast sky.
Your driver—an older man with scars across his face and an opaque gaze—had not spoken a single word since the journey began. He had no reason to. Still, you felt his judgment lingering in the silence. Men hardened by years of service and witnessed horrors viewed new assets as expendable: young tools sent to perform the work the veterans were too tired to carry out. Nothing more, nothing less.
You pressed your lips together, trying not to appear intimidated. One last time, you checked your backpack and nodded in satisfaction at its contents: weapons, a couple of tranquilizer syringes, a combat knife, an encrypted communicator, and enough canned food for a couple of days.
The vehicle stopped abruptly. The driver gave you an expressionless look, and you understood that was your signal. Without a word, you stepped out with a small jump.
The thick layer of snow crunched under your boots. Once the car pulled away, the silence of the place settled over you—terrifying and comforting in equal measure. Ahead stretched a winding path that disappeared between the tall, slender trees of the forest. You would have to cross it on foot to reach the location where the Winter Soldier was supposedly waiting.
The wind cut sharply. Though your coat offered protection, the dampness still seeped deep into your bones. With every step, you assessed your surroundings: broken branches, fresh tracks, distant sounds. Everything could be a sign… or a trap. If Asset 17 was truly out of control, there was a real chance he was already watching you. And if he did not recognize you as an ally, your training would not be enough to face him.
Still, you pressed forward, glancing at your compass every so often to confirm you remained on the correct path toward the coordinates of the last known contact. You knew he had been kidnapped, but you didn’t understand why they had simply left him behind, or how he had managed to communicate with them to request rescue.
You wondered who had dared to do it and whether they had a solid reason, or if it had simply been an attack against the Soviet Union that hadn’t gone as planned.
You knew it was imperative that the Soldier return to their control. Yet you also wondered why, if Asset 17 was so important, they were willing to risk only a single life. They had entire teams that could have completed the mission far faster and with greater precision, yet they had chosen to send you alone.
You were not naive, nor did you consider yourself more than what they had taught you to be. You knew your place clearly. You were a good agent, effective, but you were certain you weren’t irreplaceable to any of the groups you served. Just another cog—a useful but disposable piece in a much larger, ruthless machine. They had chosen you because you were young, because you had a flawless record, but also because if something went wrong, the price of your loss would be insignificant.
Sometimes that truth turned your stomach in an unpleasant way.
And yet here you were—advancing through the snow with determination burning in your chest as your only shield against the cold.
It took you nearly an hour of walking to finally spot an irregularity in the landscape. A pile of moss-covered stones formed a sort of prominence beside the path, hidden among the trees yet still visible to a trained eye like yours.
You approached the location with your weapon ready, safety off and finger resting on the trigger. Behind the stones lay a door concealed by moss and the dry, withered vines that had succumbed to the winter cold. It was camouflaged, but it looked like it had been forced open recently; the frame was dented at the corner, clear evidence that someone had pried it.
This was probably the Winter Soldier’s temporary hideout. Or his prison.
The door had no visible lock. When you pushed it carefully, it gave way with a low, rusty creak.
Thick, damp air heavy with the stench of prolonged confinement rushed out. The interior was pitch black, forcing you to switch on your flashlight. Its beam barely managed to pierce the darkness more than a meter ahead.
You moved through the space with caution, placing one foot carefully in front of the other, sweeping the beam around you. Nothing seemed out of place, and you began to wonder if the soldier had simply passed through.
Then you heard it—a weak groan coming from the far side of the room.
You swung the light toward the sound and found the figure of a man who, at first glance, posed no threat. He lay sprawled on the floor, handcuffed to a piece of furniture, curled in on himself as he tried to recover.
When the beam reflected off the metal arm, a sigh of relief escaped your lips. You had found him, and it had been easier than you had dared to believe.
The Winter Soldier lay on the ground, his face bruised and his lower lip split and bleeding. His breathing was labored, his gaze empty. Your brow furrowed. The man before you was the greatest weapon the Soviet Union had ever created, and yet he was trembling like a frightened puppy.
“Agent Vronsky,” you called, using as much firmness as you could muster—the only name visible in the documents.
He didn’t react immediately. You took a couple of cautious steps closer, keeping a safe distance while shining the light more clearly over his form. His uniform was torn and battered, and his metal arm bore dents, as if it had been struck with force in an attempt to render it useless.
“Soldier,” you spoke again, this time with more determination. “I’m the extraction agent. I’ve come for you.”
Those words seemed to stir something inside him. His eyes shifted slowly, focusing on you. He frowned slightly.
“Extraction?” he growled, his voice rough, as if each syllable cost him effort. “Who sent you?”
“Director Azimov.”
A sigh of relief slipped from his cracked lips at the name. His muscles visibly relaxed, and he glanced briefly toward the handcuffs securing him to the concrete fixture.
You noticed then that his human wrist was swollen and covered in dried blood. You wondered if his other hand was too damaged to rip the cuffs free, or if he simply hadn’t tried. Either possibility felt like a bad omen.
A heavy silence settled between you. He looked at you again.
“The bodies of both are on the other side of the hill,” he said simply, jaw tight and little expression in his eyes. “Though with the storm, they’ll probably be buried under the snow in a few hours.”
It took you a moment, but you realized he was giving you the closest thing to a report. There was no fear in his words, no trace of remorse—only the precise tone you yourself used when reporting to your superiors.
But you were not his superior, and you weren’t sure it was wise for him to share information you weren’t certain you were supposed to receive.
“I’m going to release you,” you announced with a small nod.
The soldier nodded and looked away, as if what you did didn’t really matter. And in part, it didn’t. He didn’t see you as a threat. Nor as an ally. You were simply the next figure sent by those who held his leash, which meant he had to obey your orders. That was his only purpose: to obey.
You knelt beside him and pulled a lockpick from the side compartment of your pants. Only then did you remember the protocol questions you were supposed to ask. You let out a heavy sigh and cleared your throat.
“Were you interrogated?”
“No.”
“Are there any injuries besides this one that need urgent attention?” you asked, looking at his wrist.
“No.”
“Witnesses to eliminate?”
“A couple on the outskirts of the city where they took me. I don’t know if they were dealt with.”
You nodded and began working the lockpick into the handcuffs’ mechanism, careful not to move them too much and worsen the injury. Vronsky grimaced in pain when the metal shifted against his skin and hissed at the sting. You continued working the tools, trying not to cause him more harm.
Finally, the cuffs gave way. The metallic clatter as they hit the concrete floor broke the silence and made you wince. The man didn’t get up right away. Instead, he stared at the wound around his wrist, as if assessing how bad it was.
You moved around the room by feel for a few seconds until you found a switch on one of the walls. A yellow light flooded the space, flickering a couple of times before stabilizing. You let out a breath and allowed yourself to look around.
It wasn’t very different from the bunkers you usually worked in. The harsh architecture felt strangely comforting. There was a wooden table that, though sturdy, looked like it would fall apart if touched. At the back of the room sat a couple of armchairs and a dusty heater in the corner. A small stove stood beside a rusted sink that clearly hadn’t seen running water in years.
It was obvious the place had been built to survive, not to live in. You wondered whether the shelter belonged to him or to someone else. In the end, it didn’t matter much. By morning it would become nothing more than a fading memory, blurred by the passing weeks.
Once you had familiarized yourself with the space, you turned your attention back to the soldier. You knelt beside him again, dropped your backpack to the side, and rummaged through it until you found what you needed.
You moved quickly—or at least that was what he believed. Perhaps he was simply too exhausted and his sense of time was completely distorted. Whatever the case, he didn’t pay much attention to you until the moment you poured alcohol over the wound.
The burn made his body jerk violently, shaking off the sudden fatigue that had overtaken him. You caught a flash of momentary fear in his face as his hand instinctively moved toward his waist, searching for a weapon he never drew.
When you realized he wasn’t going to attack, you frowned and returned to your task.
“Stay still or you’ll lose this hand too,” you muttered.
The comment made him snort—almost a laugh, though he wasn’t sure it had been funny at all. By that point, your words sounded like distant babbling, even if some part of his mind seemed to register and respond to them.
You continued tending to the wound, glancing at him every so often. You would have thought he was an inanimate object if not for the unmistakable signs of exhaustion that betrayed his humanity.
You finished the bandage with a firm knot, then stood up and shoved everything back into the backpack without much care. From one of your pockets, you took out the small bottle you had been given, containing a couple of pills. You had received precise instructions to ensure the asset swallowed them.
You had expected complications, but the moment you held them out, the soldier quickly took them with his metal hand, placed them at the back of his throat, and swallowed with difficulty. Once they were down, he let himself fall back onto the floor with a look of relief. He had surrendered to exhaustion—or to whatever those pills carried.
You were deeply confused. The image of the Winter Soldier you had carried in your mind did not match what you were seeing. It wasn’t an abyssal difference, but the fact that this man looked completely exhausted and injured was not what you had expected from such a terrifying legend.
You frowned and shook your head, pushing those thoughts aside. After all, he was human too. No matter how perfect a weapon he was, his humanity had to demand its toll somehow. You knew that well.
January 21, 1972.
The sounds of the early morning were barely broken by the crunch of snow under your boots and the heavy rhythm of your own breathing, which betrayed the exhaustion already creeping through your body after the grueling descent down the hill.
Agent Vronsky was not in the best condition. He seemed slightly more alert than before, but he still needed your support every so often to keep from collapsing. The delays bothered you, yet you hadn’t said a single word about it.
“I need a second,” he asked for the third time in the last forty minutes.
You frowned but slowed your pace.
“We have less than an hour to reach the extraction point, Vronsky,” you muttered, glancing at the sky. “We can stop for three minutes. No more.”
“I only need two.”
Your face twisted into a grimace even you couldn’t quite decipher at first glance—one caught between irritation and a restrained laugh you refused to let escape.
The soldier dropped onto a rock half-buried in the snow and rested his forearms on his knees. His breathing still sounded uneven, as if every lungful of icy air burned him from the inside.
“Where will they take me once we get there?” he asked, curiosity threading through his voice.
His tone sounded different from the day before. You supposed it was because he had managed to sleep a little. Hearing him ask questions actively instead of simply answering yours like a machine felt both comforting and unsettling in equal measure. It reminded you that he was just another real human being. At the same time, it confirmed that the legend of the Winter Soldier was not merely a story told to frighten the girls at the academy. He was a conscious person, and every feat attributed to him had been painfully real.
You shook off the shiver that ran down your spine and leaned against the trunk of a tree, seeking something solid to steady yourself. Your thoughts about the soldier had made your legs tremble. You would never admit it out loud, but you were afraid.
“They didn’t give me that information,” you answered simply.
It was the truth. You knew only that you had to deliver Agent Vronsky to the extraction point. Beyond that, everything remained a mystery. You didn’t even know what would happen to you once they found the two of you.
The soldier didn’t press further. There was no point.
He took a deep breath and pushed himself up, swaying slightly. You moved to steady him, but he quickly stopped you with a gesture of his hand—one you didn’t dare ignore. “Two minutes,” he nodded, straightening up and resuming the trek.
The roar of the helicopter blades was all you could hear—more than that, it was the only thing you could focus on. Every other sound around you had faded almost completely.
The voices of the people above blended together into an unintelligible murmur that made your head throb every time you tried to make out what they were saying.
Your body felt heavy. Though sensation still lingered, it refused to obey any command from your brain. With great effort, you managed to turn your head slightly to the left. Your vision was blurred, but you were certain the man beside you was Vronsky. He was asleep, secured to his seat with harnesses.
You were sure this was the extraction team you had been waiting for. They had given you the correct code phrase, but the moment you confirmed it, a syringe large enough to frighten anyone sank into your neck. From that instant, you had lost most control over your body. You weren’t even sure how long you had been in the air.
A woman approached—presumably a nurse—and checked your vital signs with insistent care before offering what seemed like a genuine smile.
“You did a good job, agent,” she murmured before injecting you with another syringe. “We still have a long way to go.”
She hadn’t said it outright, but she wanted you to sleep. Not that you had much choice. Your eyelids already felt as heavy as lead. Perhaps she meant that you were still fighting the sedative—your eyes refused to close completely, and your hand kept searching for the exposed skin of your arm, pinching it lightly to stay alert.
You struggled against the gentle blanket of darkness closing over you, but the sedative was merciless. It eventually swallowed you whole.
When you woke, you found yourself in an unconventional hospital room. The air reeked of damp concrete, the familiar scent of the bunkers they called you to whenever they had a new mission. Yet nothing around you felt familiar.
Your sluggish gaze drifted across the space, trying to recognize a face, an insignia—anything that might tell you where you were and whether anyone knew your whereabouts.
The bright white lights hanging above the gurney hurt your eyes, forcing you to squint. You tried to turn over, but your body barely responded. A frustrated hiss escaped your lips.
“Inform the Director that she’s awake.”
You didn’t know where the voice had come from, and you didn’t try to turn and check. The doors opened with a heavy groan, and the footsteps echoing inside were all too familiar.
Your entire body trembled involuntarily the moment you managed to focus on the man who had assigned you that mission.
He whispered your name with a smile fixed on his face.
Azimov’s thin, wrinkled hand settled on your hair and stroked it in the same way masters pet their animals. The thought turned your stomach. You turned your head away, instinctively rejecting the touch. He didn’t seem to mind, and simply continued running his fingers through your hair, smoothing the rebellious strands you barely noticed.
“You did something extraordinary,” he whispered.
You weren’t entirely sure what he meant. Your mind was still clouded by the sedatives, and the memories of the last few hours—or had it been days? —blurred together like a fever dream you weren’t sure you would recover from.
You wanted to respond, to ask him something, anything. You only wanted to know why they had sedated you upon your return. They never did that—or at least you couldn’t clearly remember the last time they had forced sedatives on you.
The words wouldn’t come. Your tongue felt numb, and all you managed were a few incoherent sounds.
“Shh,” he silenced you tenderly. “Don’t strain yourself, koshechka.”
The nickname sent a fresh shiver through you. Kitten. Azimov had called you that since you were a child, but only when he wanted to subdue you, to remind you that you were expected to remain docile.
“You did a good job. Thanks to you, Agent Vronsky is home without irreparable damage.”
Vronsky.
The name echoed in your mind like a buzz. You turned again, searching for any trace of him. You couldn’t recall his features clearly, but the name had burned itself into your memory. You knew he was the man you had gone to rescue.
Vronsky wasn’t beside you, and you assumed he wasn’t nearby either. You wondered whether that was good or bad. You also wondered where they had taken him and whether he looked better than he had in that bunker.
You hoped so.
“Rest a little more,” he whispered again, never stopping the caress of your hair.
Much to your dismay, Azimov’s hand on your head had a relaxing effect. It was a treacherous warmth that spread from your scalp to the base of your neck, loosening knots the sedative hadn’t even touched.
It reminded you of when you were a little girl, when the women who trained you would run their hands through the favorite girls’ hair as a reward for a perfect pirouette or a flawless shot. Affection was just another leash—subtle and comforting, twisted in design to make you believe submission was your own choice.
And yet there you were, leaning into his touch against your will, craving just a little more of that warmth you secretly longed for. It made you remember… something. You weren’t sure what, but it was a distant echo that always struck your heart in the best way, a feeling that seemed to have lived in your memory forever.
“Rest, you did a good job.”
A faint, barely visible smile formed on your lips at those words. It was far from forced—an involuntary reflection of the deep hunger for approval buried inside you.
You closed your eyes and obeyed.
