Chapter Text
In the Komi-Permyak languages gundḭr, gundḭrl’i, gundḭrli, gundḭl means ‘dragon, snake, multi-headed monster, hydra, evil spirit …
In Middle Ossetian, of Iranian origin, kœfqwyndar ‘dragon, monster (folk)’ = (according to V. I. Abaev) kœf-qwyn-dar literally means ‘fish covered with hair’, where kœf = Osset. kœf ‘fish’, qwyn = Osset. (Ir.) qwyn , ğun ‘hair, wool’ < Iranian. *gūn, and dar is related to Osset (Ir.) daryn, darun ‘to hold, to support, to contain (cattle), to wear clothes’ (< Iranian. *dяr─ ‘to have, to hold’).
Napolskikh V. V. Centaur~gandharva~dragon~bear: towards the evolution of one mythological image in Northern Eurasia
Phase Four
As soon as Steve steps over the threshold of the cell he never plans to visit again, his eyes immediately catch the streaks of water running down the walls and the fresh puddles gathered around the drain of the latrine.
Only then, hearing the sound and turning his head, does he have the dubious pleasure of watching Not-Bucky collapse from the bunk in one heavy fall and somehow fold into a kneeling position, his hands locked behind his head.
He is savagely beaten, but that is not what draws Steve’s attention. He is wet. Water streams from his hair onto the jumpsuit clinging tightly to damp skin. Even from a distance he reeks of tar soap.
Around his neck rests a shock collar — the kind used in special high-security prisons for the most dangerous, unstable, and violent inmates.
Predictable, of course.
“Got anything you’d like to tell me?” Steve asks after a long pause.
The Winter Soldier stirs, like he wanted to shake his head, but suddenly lifts his eyes to Steve, revealing the yellowish bruises on his face, and says:
“Ready to comply.” Then, quietly, almost reproachfully, he adds: “You weren’t going to come back. Why did you?”
“I changed my mind,” Steve replies evenly, and decides to explain: “They told me you tried to escape. More than once.”
In response, Not-Bucky twists his battered mouth into a crooked smile, tilts his head slightly, and drawls:
“Oh, so that’s what this was. Almost flattering. Worthy, even. I’ll stick to that version.”
“Don’t lie to me,” Steve warns, already drawing his conclusions without all this theater.
“I won’t. You’ve got professionals for this purpose. Me — I just won’t deny it.” His voice grows softer, dreamlike, as he slumps slightly to his left, probably under the weight of the prosthetic.
Before Steve notices, he is already standing close, leaning in farther than would be safe for a man, and just as softly, in the same tone as Not-Bucky, he asks:
“Then why did they beat you this badly? We both know you don’t cost that much.”
“Well, let’s say someone reminded me very clearly of self-respect. Of dignity.” Not-Bucky’s voice drops further, conspiratorial, as if sharing a secret. “So what if I never had them? Maybe I wanted to know what it’s like — to defend myself.” He lowers his eyes, and when he lifts them again, he looks aside. “But in the end, do people even need reasons to beat a whore? And it seems I look, talk, and act like one.” He shrugs briefly, hopelessly.
“For three of your so-called escape attempts, you’ve injured eight guards in varying degrees,” Steve already read the official record.
“Unfortunately, almost all of them at the very first time. After that, they put on the collar. Doesn’t leave you much room to fight back.” Again Not-Bucky shrugs, slipping further left.
He stares sideways and nowhere at once. His face is expressionless. His eyes remind Steve of Bucky’s, in those rare moments of quiet despair, before Bucky manages to slip on the mask of a loud, carefree rascal. The same color of thick fog. Of smoke. Of ashes scattered on the wind.
“Sorry about your Bucky’s face,” the Winter Soldier murmurs. “Maybe I should’ve kept fighting. Maybe… I should. But you see, we all believed—” he gives a short, jagged laugh and this time looks Steve straight in the eye, “we believed you really weren’t coming back.”
That hushed voice, that smoky gaze, the smile without reproach or bitterness — something presses against Steve’s chest, sharp and unfamiliar. Or maybe familiar, only long-forgotten.
“You shouldn’t have,” he answers coldly, straightening to his full height. His eyes sweep the cell he himself ordered for his failed assassin. Two by three meters. Bare concrete walls. A bunk in one corner, a latrine drain in the other. No window.
“I’m taking you out,” Steve says calmly.
“Not-Bucky opens his mouth in astonishment, and for a fleeting moment he seems so gullibly trusting — so unlike Bucky ever was.”
“Taking me? Where?” he asks blankly, as if a knowledge could change anything.
“To my place,” Steve replies simply.
Strange how, for all the years of his celebrated deeds — human and inhuman alike — people never understand that his brightest decisions, both fortunate and disastrous, he always makes spontaneously, guided by anything but reason.
He bends down, awkwardly hooks his arm under the Winter Soldier’s left side, helps him up, steadies him on his own shoulder, and leads him to the door. There he repeats to the prison warden:
“I’m taking him. You’re relieved of duty. An investigation will follow into falsified reports, doctored video and archive files, abuse of power, unauthorized torment and mistreatment of prisoners. And tell me — what have you been adding to his food? He’s limp as a spoiled sausage.”
The warden opens and closes his mouth like a fish, shifting his eyes from one to the other, unable to grasp the horror of being personally exposed by the Dragon himself. Steve tires of it quickly.
“Give me the remote for his collar,” he orders. Once it’s in his hand, he drags his prize out of the dungeons and up toward the helipad, where his private jet waits.
Not-Bucky on his shoulder makes odd muffled sounds — whether trying to clear his throat or to hide ragged laughter, Steve cannot tell.
Antiphase Four
To limp at Supreme Existimator’s side, struggling to keep up with his angry stride, feels both awkward and oddly familiar. Usually, when he isn’t able to walk on his own — most often to the chair after thawing— it takes two guards to drag him, splitting his weight evenly between both of them. But this, this is different. Almost right. As if among the countless sensations and memories long erased, there could be something that feels like this. Or even exactly this.
On the jet, the familiarity only sharpens. When Rogers leaves for the cockpit to issue a few clipped orders to the pilots, Winter Soldier doesn’t hesitate — he slips into the back, takes his usual place on the bench, quiet.
That wild surge of relief that hit him when Rogers pulled him out of the cell still hasn’t worn off. He knows it’s too early, that there’s no reason to feel joy. But leaving that place, stepping into something new, is enough to make him feel good. Against all reason, he even finds himself curious what comes next.
The Supreme Existimator in all his grandeur strides to his personal chair, then sweeps the nearly empty cabin with a glance, finds Not-Bucky, and comes straight to sit across from him.
“Forty minutes and we’ll be there,” he says flatly.
And Winter wants so badly to answer something—anything—that he blurts out the first thought that crosses his mind:
“You said you’re a Dragon. But you’re flying a plane.”
Rogers lets out a grunt, the corner of his mouth twitching like muscles that have long forgotten how to smile. Winter knows the feeling all too well — those futile, involuntary attempts.
“A dragon’s shape isn’t transport. And I’m not a taxi, in case you were hoping.” He pauses, then adds, “Besides, this way I give people work. Purpose. Social standing.” He nods toward the cockpit. “There are so many people on this planet it’s not easy to keep a fair balance of resources and employment without tipping into war.”
“You don’t eat them?” Not-Bucky asks in surprise.
Rogers grimaces.
“God, no.”
“But isn’t that strange?” Not-Bucky presses. “When a species grows too numerous, predators come to thin them out. That’s the law of nature, isn’t it?”
“The fact that people cover the earth like dirt doesn’t make them a food source,” Rogers replies, and then with a dry huff adds, “And before you ask—no, I don’t eat dirt either, even if there”s plenty.”
Winter takes the rebuke in silence, holding his tongue for several minutes, until he can’t anymore.
“I think I’d eat a man,” he says quietly. “If there were nothing else. An enemy maybe. One I killed myself. That would be fair, don’t you think?”
Rogers doesn’t answer, and the rest of the flight passes in silence.
As befits a true Dragon, Rogers lives in utterly inhospitable desert mountains. Not in a cave, but in a vast man-made complex carved into the solid rock, no doubt by his order. The jet lands on a sheltered platform beneath a fortified ledge, and from there they move down a stark corridor into the Dragon’s lair.
The Winter Soldier doesn’t quite know what to expect. Whatever knowledge he once had of the lives of powerful men — the ones he was sent to kill, deaths staged as accidents, natural causes, or suicides — was always carefully stripped from his memory.
Even so, he lets out a soft gasp at the enormous, almost bare hall, with one side entirely open to a colonnade.
There are only a wooden table — plain, both dining and work, with a single chair; three tall, lonely bookshelves pressed together in a far corner, an armchair beside them; and a massive bed such as he has never seen.
“Impressed?” Rogers asks, catching his silence.
“It’s so… poor here,” the Soldier says honestly.
“Sorry to disappoint you,” Rogers replies, sounding almost taken aback. Then he orders, “Go wash up. Take your time.”
Not daring to jinx his fortune, the Soldier only nods and slips into the door Rogers indicates, finding a bathroom nearly as vast as the hall. He takes guilty advantage of the toilet, washes his hands, then turns to the tub — heavy cast iron, deep and high-walled, clearly built for a man Rogers’s size. Two plastic bottles stand by the faucet. Winter plugs the drain, turns the water on as hot as he can bear, and, with a sense of committing an unforgivable crime, pours generous handfuls of both soap and shampoo beneath the stream. Stripping quickly, he climbs into the rising heat, foam swelling around him in a frothy crown.
The sensation is so forbidden, so long denied, he can’t at first tell if it feels good or bad. Is he warming at last, or boiling alive? He sinks back, bends his knees, and finally slides under, gazing up through the cloud of bubbles spreading above.
When he surfaces, blinking, Rogers is there, relieving himself without the slightest inhibition — just as Winter himself had minutes before.
“Why so much foam?” Rogers asks, rinsing his hands, voice tinged with curiosity. “Shy? I’ve seen your files. Won’t see anything new.”
“It keeps the heat in.” Winter mutters into the bubbles. “The foam keeps the water hot longer. Slows the cooling.” Where such scraps of knowledge hide in his broken memory, he never knows. So he exhales loudly and lets himself sink deeper into the heat, the pain of his beating softening into a warm cocoon. “Thank you,” he whispers, then louder, “Thank you, my lord.”
“‘Thank you, Steve,’” the Dragon corrects him. And he is suddenly close, above him, faster than even a supersoldier can anticipate. His eyes are pale as desert sky, parched as centuries of thirst. He gazes into Winter’s face as though feeling it with his stare. “You can use my name. And you are welcome… Not-Bucky.”
Winter nods carefully, still unsure what to do with such vast grace, and repeats quietly, obediently:
“Thank you, Steve.”
The Dragon swallows, closing his eyes for an instant.
“Say it again.”
“Thank you, Steve. Steve.” Winter studies the marble-carved face — stern, beautiful, terrifying. A shiver runs through him as Rogers swallows hard, eyes still closed, listening to his voice and repeats. “Steve. Steve.”
The Dragon reaches for him suddenly. Winter relaxes, bracing for the hand to plunge into the water, to seize his body. Payment for kindness, he understands well enough. Resistance would be useless.
But Rogers’s hand never touches the bath. Instead he snatches the discarded prison jumpsuit, crumples it, and throws it into the trash. Then he strides out without another word.
Winter sinks crosswise in the tub, legs dangling over the edge, submerged almost to his nose, staring after him for a long time.
He must be very stupid. He understands nothing.
When, an hour later, he finally emerges wrapped in a towel, Rogers sits at the table, back turned, typing on a laptop. Without looking, he points to a folded stack of clothes on the bed.
“Get dressed,” he orders.
The Soldier obeys, pulling on knit pants (too long) and a gray T-shirt (a bit tight). But these are Rogers’s clothes, and somehow that makes them more precious. He smooths the shirt, rolls the pants, and approaches.
“It’s lunchtime in prison right now,” he says, not knowing why he risks it.
“Already homesick? I can have you sent back. You’ll enjoy the new management.” Rogers doesn’t look up. Then adds, “Lunch will be in half an hour. Wait.”
“Thank you, Steve,” Winter whispers, and wanders off to study the cavernous hall. His eyes cling to the bookshelves, treasures out of reach. He dares not touch, only devours the titles from afar, like a drunk staring at fine bottles behind glass.
He slips through the colonnade onto the balcony, but the biting wind drives him back quickly.
At last he stands by the great bed and asks:
“Steve, where do I sleep?”
“With me,” comes the unruffled reply.
Winter Soldier clenches his fists, eyes fixed on the fold of the coverlet. His voice is steady.
“So my low rates finally suit you? Even sloppy seconds will do?”
The laptop snaps shut. Steve’s voice is calm, precise:
“If I fuck you, I kill you. And it’s not if. It’s when.”
“Wow,” Winter says, turning to face him, gaze sinking into that scorched desert sky again. Nervously, he licks his lips. “I doubt you can.”
Against all expectation, Steve laughs — rough, almost threatening.
“You know, Not-Bucky, in a few hours you’ve managed more insolence than I’ve heard in twenty years. But that — what you just said — is an insult not only to the Dragon, but to any man.”
Winter shakes his head quickly, hurrying to explain:
“No. Not that. I mean — I don’t believe it. I should be scared, but I’m not. Maybe I wouldn’t even mind. You don’t know how many times I should’ve died. How many times I wanted to. But death doesn’t want me. Like it… finds me disgusting, maybe? And I don’t believe you’ll manage it either.”
Rogers steps close, touches the metal shoulder.
“In your medical files I saw more than nude photos. EEGs, MRI scans. Proof enough you you can’t lie. And you really don’t remember anything. So I’ll tell you. I don’t think your masters ever planned for you to kill me outright. Even with Bucky’s face. Their plan is subtler: that I take you in. And you find my weakness. Or become it.” His fingers trace the metal arm. “With that face, I won’t kill you immediately. I’ll play with you. You won’t even need to act. My Siegfried’s maple leaf, my Achilles’ heel, will take root on its own. And then the blow will fall on my weakest point. And then — a signal, a trigger, and you finish the job. You are just a zombie, as your brain scans already suggest.” He lets go of the arm, steps closer, thumb grazing Winter’s chin. “It’s a very good plan. Even if I didn’t take you in, it would be easy enough to whisper to the right guards what they could do to you — and that they’d never be punished. Stimulate my possessiveness, if it didn’t come naturally. That’s the game, I suspect.”
Winter swallows, staring into eyes full of hunger, contempt, and wrath.
“Then why take me at all? Why not just fuck me to death right now, before lunch? No need for leaves and weak spots.”
“Because I intend to play along. Let them think it’s working. They’ll move, and reveal themselves. Because, Not-Bucky, I have no weak spots. Because you are not Bucky. And I will fuck you and I will kill you, either way. The only question is when.”
The Dragon is so close his breath is in Winter’s face. His whole body seems to vibrate with the urge to seize him, crush him, bury his face in his throat. The desire is palpable. But he holds himself still. And he hates Winter for making him want.
“Fine,” Not-Bucky says. “Well, since we’re clear, could you check on lunch? By my count, half an hour’s already gone, and nothing’s been brought. I’m not complaining, but prison ran a tighter schedule.”
Rogers’s laugh cracks the tension, sharp and sudden. He shoves Winter’s shoulder, almost friendly.
And just like that, spring feels a little closer.