Chapter 8.
I woke up as though from an internal alarm clock. I lay there for a moment, just listening to myself. Nothing hurt. Nothing at all. Not a single knot of tension, not a trace of the hellish exhaustion that usually accompanied me into every evening. The regenerative compounds were doing their job beautifully. Every morning was a small miracle — I woke up completely recovered, full of energy, and lately with a savage urge to go tear that energy apart again in training.
I brushed my teeth, did a light, almost meditative stretch — just enough to loosen the joints and clear my head. No forcing, no battle with myself. Then I went to the kitchen for a light breakfast from one of the specialized rations we had in abundance. Everything was calculated perfectly: not enough to feel heavy, but enough energy for the morning's activity. I was already mentally bracing myself for the strength session, wondering what particular hell Sly had invented for me today, when the architect of my future suffering walked into the kitchen.
"Strength session is cancelled," he said briefly, brewing himself some kind of nuclear-grade tea in a mug. "Day off today."
I froze with the spoon halfway to my mouth. A day off? From Sly? From the man who I was fairly certain made me run obstacle courses and train with sandbags even in his sleep?
"But… it's only Thursday. I thought we'd still have sessions, just maybe not as brutal…" I tried to argue, feeling faintly ridiculous.
Natasha appeared in the doorway at precisely that moment. She caught my remark and smirked.
"Hear that, Sly? He's upset. Wants to be tortured," she said to Sly, then switched to Russian, addressing me: "Relax, Hard. Even a machine needs maintenance. Today's your maintenance day."
I had nothing to say to that. I just finished eating, feeling a strange hollowness.
*What am I going to do with a whole day? Just sit?*
I went outside and settled onto the improvised bench made from tires and planks that stood by the hangar. The weather was genuinely beautiful. The sun was warm without being brutal, and the air still carried the cool of the morning. But instead of enjoying the peace, I felt uncomfortable. My body, accustomed over these three months to the daily dose of adrenaline and pain, didn't know what to do with the absence of them. My hands kept clenching into fists on their own, my legs fidgeted, demanding movement. It was stupid, it was abnormal — but I missed the training session.
Natasha came and sat beside me. She was quiet for a minute, looking off into the distance, then said in Russian:
"Nice day. Sochi's probably already getting hot about now."
"Probably," I nodded, unable to share her wistful mood.
"Seriously, Alexei." She turned to face me, and there was none of the usual mockery in her eyes. "You need to learn how to rest. Really rest. Any mechanism, no matter how tough, will break down if you run it without stopping. That applies to Steve with his super serum, and to Sly — who, whatever he'd have you think, loves to sit with a fishing rod by the lake in the evenings. And it applies to me."
"How do you rest?" I asked, genuinely curious.
She smiled slyly.
"That's a secret. But trust me — I know how. And I'd advise you to learn. Otherwise, at the worst possible moment, when a window of calm opens up, you simply won't be able to come down. And that'll cost you."
We sat in silence for a while. Then she studied me and asked:
"Can you feel how much you've changed? Not just on the outside — inside?"
I thought about it. Yes, of course. I was different. Harder, more focused. More… complete, maybe.
"I can," I said simply.
"Imagine," she continued, "that someone offered you the super soldier serum. The way they gave it to Steve. To become just like him — fast, strong, and durable, all at once, without any of this training and self-overcoming. Would you take it?"
The question was unexpected, but I knew the answer.
"Of course I'd want it. Any idiot in my position would want it. But… no. That would be the short road. And I chose a different one."
"Why?" Genuine curiosity in her voice.
"Because everything has a price," I said, looking at my hands. "Look at Steve. He became a symbol. Everyone expects something from him. He owes the world something. They made him an icon, whether he likes it or not. And you — everyone expects you to be the perfect spy, the flawless Widow. If you make a mistake… the consequences are severe. Too much expectation. So in my view, power that comes for free… it makes you a hostage to something, in a way."
Natasha listened closely, not interrupting. Then she laughed softly.
"You're right about some of it. But you're also deeply wrong about the rest. Strength is a tool. What you do with it is your own choice. Steve could have become not a national hero, but a thing people fear — here and in other countries. I could have used what I am not to make the world better, but to become a terrorist or a mercenary. But we didn't. Because we chose not to. Yes, there's a price for everything. But you pay it yourself — no one pays it for you."
Her words gave me pause. Maybe she was right, and I was simply finding justifications for my own difficult and painful path.
And since we were talking so openly, I finally allowed myself to ask the question that had been sitting on my tongue ever since I'd started training in earnest.
"Natasha… what's it like? The first time you… kill someone?"
The air between us seemed to grow heavier. I was already prepared for her to ignore the question or deflect with a joke. But she paused, and then answered. Her voice was level and calm.
"It was in Russia. A prominent politician who had sold out his country's interests for money. A liquidation. Everything went according to plan — fast and clean. Two shots. Heart and head. Just to be thorough." She paused briefly, her gaze directed somewhere into the sky. "What I felt was… emptiness. And a sense that it was right. Not fear, not disgust. Just… a fact to be noted. Mission accomplished. Other feelings came later. But in that moment — only focus on the task and emptiness."
I swallowed. Her candor was unnerving in a particular way.
"I… don't know if I could," I admitted. "I don't want to kill anyone."
"And you don't have to," she said immediately, and her eyes became alive and present again. "That's not the goal. The goal is to complete the objective. Most often — to stay alive yourself and not let others die. If killing can be avoided — that's the ideal outcome. But if the choice is between your life and the life of whoever has you in their sights… you have to be ready to make that choice. And to live with it afterward. That's what matters. Not the act itself — what follows it. In here."
She tapped me lightly with one finger, against my chest, over my heart.
We sat together for a while longer, talking about nothing in particular. Food. The weather. My training. And it was… pleasant. Human. I nearly forgot the restlessness that came with having nothing to do.
The sound of an approaching engine broke the idyll. A black SUV, coated in dust, rolled slowly around the bend. It pulled up to the hangar and stopped. The front doors opened. From the passenger side — Steve Rogers. And from the driver's side — Nick Fury.
Fury looked around with his single eye, methodically scanning the area for threats, even though security here was at the highest level. His gaze moved across me, across Natasha, then settled on the hangar.
"Vetrov," he said, giving me a short nod, no emotion attached. "You look… considerably better than last time."
"I'm working on it, Director," I replied, standing and mentally bracing myself for the interrogation ahead.
"Come on, let's talk," he gestured toward the hangar and, without waiting for an answer, walked inside. Steve followed him, nodding silently to me and Natasha.
We made our way to the only reasonably presentable room — the local office, which currently looked more like a command post. Fury took the seat behind the table, leaned back in his chair, and pointed me toward the chair across from him. Steve stayed by the door with his arms crossed, his posture radiating readiness for anything.
"Well then," Fury began, fixing me with his single eye. "Three months. You've worked hard on yourself — that's obvious. But have you worked on the information? Everything you know. Everything you saw in your… visions. Start talking. From the beginning. And don't rush."
I took a slow, deep breath. This was the moment. I started with the most critical piece — HYDRA inside SHIELD. I told him about Project Insight, about the three Helicarriers that were meant to become instruments of global intimidation, operated from the inside by HYDRA's own people. About Alexander Pierce, his double game — how a man who was practically Fury's friend was also one of the conspiracy's key architects. I named several names I could remember. And I watched Fury's eye narrow when he heard them. He didn't interrupt, only occasionally made notes on his tablet.
Then I moved on to the Winter Soldier. I told him that Bucky was alive — that he'd been found, his memory wiped, reprogrammed, and turned into a perfect instrument of murder. That he would be standing in Steve's way when Steve tried to derail HYDRA's plan. Steve listened without moving, but the tension in his jaw told me exactly how this information was hitting him.
I laid out the general scenario as I remembered it: the attack on Fury, his faked death, the hunt for Steve and Natasha, the fracture in SHIELD, the battle on the Helicarriers.
"Details," Fury said when I stopped. "Dates, locations, specific operations."
"I don't know the details," I admitted honestly. "Only the broad outline. Timelines… they're fluid. Something might happen a day earlier, something a day later and somewhere else. Certain specifics can change. But the core… the core stays the same. HYDRA in SHIELD, Pierce is their man, Project Insight is their goal."
Fury was quiet for a moment, studying me.
"You told Rogers and Romanoff that in some versions of the future, they themselves worked for HYDRA. Is that true?"
"Yes," I nodded. "In other probable futures… yes, it happened. But here, now… I believe and hope that it doesn't."
"And have you had other visions? Since you started training?" he asked.
"No. Not one. Even when I push myself to the point of losing consciousness, nothing new comes. Only what's already in my head."
Fury leaned back in his chair, hands folded across his chest.
"Fine. Let's say I accept your information at face value. Let's say we vet Pierce and the others. What then? You called this a threat on a human scale. HYDRA is serious, but it's certainly not the end of the world."
Here I steadied myself and said what I had been afraid to say out loud.
"HYDRA is nothing. The main threat is cosmic. Its name is Thanos."
I saw Steve's frown deepen. Fury didn't flinch, but his posture became even more compact and contained.
"Go on."
"Thanos is a Titan from the moon Titan. A madman, to put it simply. He has a… philosophy. He believes the universe contains too much life, and that this leads to suffering. And he wants to fix it — by destroying half of all intelligent life. That's his logic, at any rate."
"Insane," Steve said, quietly but distinctly.
"Yes, insane," I agreed. "But he has the power and the resources to make that insanity a reality. And to do it, he's collecting the Infinity Stones."
I watched Fury straighten slowly in his chair. His one eye was fixed on me with absolute attention.
"What do you know about the Stones?" His voice went quiet, and the danger in it increased proportionally.
"I know there are six. Space, Reality, Power, Soul, Time, Mind. The Tesseract you had — that's the Space Stone. Loki's scepter — that's the Mind Stone. The others are scattered elsewhere. Thanos wants to collect all six into a single gauntlet. The Infinity Gauntlet. And then — one snap. And half of all living things in the universe simply vanish. Turn to dust. At random. Without distinction."
A dead silence fell over the room. Even Steve looked shaken.
"And how does this end for us?" Fury asked after a long pause.
"With a war," I said with a bitter half-smile. "A war unlike anything this planet has seen. We lose at first. Half disappear. Including… possibly all of us in this room. And then there's one more battle — the final one. And in that battle there's a chance. But it would be much better not to let things get that far, because reality is a fluid thing."
I didn't go into the details of the Endgame. Too much, too soon.
"Do you know where the other Stones are?" Fury was watching me very closely.
"Some of them… yes, in general terms. Not all of them. And again — the details are blurry. The Time Stone, specifically — I'm not certain of its exact location. And the Reality, Soul, and Power Stones are not on this planet."
Fury studied me in silence for several minutes, as though weighing every word I'd said. Then he asked sharply:
"Captain Marvel. What do you know about her?"
The question was unexpected, but I'd prepared for it too.
"I know she's the most powerful asset you have. That she's out there somewhere —" I gestured toward the ceiling — "in space. And that she's your last resort. I know about the Skrulls, about Project PEGASUS, about the Tesseract, and about the flerken. In short, I know enough to understand that your belief in extraterrestrial threats is not unfounded."
Fury said nothing to that. He leaned back in his chair again, and from his expression it was plain that an extremely complex analytical process was running in his head. He, and Steve too, had just received a monstrous volume of information, and they needed time to process it.
"All right," he said at last. "Suppose I take your information seriously. What do you want in exchange? Beyond what you've already received."
There it was. My moment.
"I need equipment. A high-quality, high-durability suit. Bulletproof, fragment-resistant. And weapons. Pistols, standard common calibers. Something reliable and simple."
Fury frowned.
"We have things considerably more advanced. Exoskeletons, active armor—"
"No," I shook my head. "I don't want anything that needs recharging or complex maintenance. A battery can die at exactly the wrong moment. I need simple, dumb protection and a dependable weapon. Like the Strike team uses. I saw what Steve showed up in once — something along those lines."
Fury considered my words.
"The Strike group does have a few high-protection armor prototypes. Light, mobile, effective. And weapons won't be a problem. All right. Agreed. You'll receive several options for review in the near future."
"Thank you," I nodded.
"As for the going-forward plan," Fury continued, "I need Romanoff and Rogers. Given the information you've provided, their skills will be required shortly. You'll remain here under Marbo's supervision and continue training. I'll be in contact when the time comes."
He didn't share his plans with me, which was expected. Fury never fully trusted anyone.
The conversation was over. We came out of the office. Natasha was already standing by the SUV, changed into her operational gear — black, fitted, ready for action. She had apparently already known, or sensed, that she wasn't staying.
Time to say goodbye. Steve shook my hand firmly.
"Take care of yourself, Alexei. Keep at it. You're making real progress."
"I'll try, Captain. And you… be careful."
Natasha came last. She looked at me with those sharp green eyes, and that same slightly mocking but warm smile crossed her face.
"Don't go soft without me, Hardcore," she said in Russian. "And remember what I said about rest. That's an order."
"Yes, ma'am," I smiled back and attempted to give a military salute.
"You don't salute with an empty head," she noted, still smiling.
"I know, and… thank you. For everything."
She nodded, turned, and got into the car. The doors closed, the SUV swung around and rolled down the dusty road, carrying them away — Captain America, the Black Widow, and the Director of SHIELD — toward the events I had predicted for them.
I watched them go for a long time, feeling a strange mixture of relief and emptiness. I was alone now. Or nearly alone.
"Hard times coming," said a voice beside me.
I turned. The veteran was standing with his thumbs hooked in his belt, watching the dust trail from the departing car.
"How do you know?" I asked.
He looked at me, and in his eyes I saw not his usual hardness but something closer to understanding.
"Feeling, kid. Just a feeling." He grunted and clapped me on the shoulder. "Well, since you can't sit idle even on your day off — come on, let's work out the kinks. Get to the course. Let's see how you manage without your babysitter."
And I was genuinely glad for the offer. The same hell. The same pain. The same overcoming. But now it was my hell. My pain. My road. Every session like this was a small step. A step toward being stronger. So that when the real storm hit, I might have at least some chance of standing through it.
"Let's go," I said and walked toward the start of the course, feeling the familiar fire kindle in my chest. "But let's make it something a little more interesting today."