verb.
To fall back under pressure. To shrink back physically or emotionally.
noun.
The kickback of a gun upon firing.
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It takes a stubborn mind to cling to their humanity when the world seeks to strip it away.
It takes a desperate soul to reach f...
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Katrina wondered how she had ever found the holding room cold. Several times now she had wiped her face on the sleeve of her shirt as beads of sweat trickled into her eyes. Her hands ached with the effort of gripping the intricate tools required to manipulate the puzzle of circuits before her, her eyes burned with exhaustion as they struggled to focus on the minute details of the problem.
Still, she was almost there. She had whispered that phrase and other reassuring nonsense several times in the last few hours, more so to steady her own nerves than anyone else's. She wasn't sure if anyone had heard her anyway, the only pair of ears close enough to hear her murmuring belonged to a man who hadn't so much as flinched as she had toiled over his arm.
The familiar, smoky odour of solder clung to her hair, long since scraped back from where it had hung loosely around her face. All pretence of professionalism had been abandoned the moment she had realised the extent of the job before her. The crisp, white shirt and khaki slacks she had dressed in that morning were now creased beyond recognition, smudged with dark stains of grease that would never come out. Still, it was a small price to pay to work at this level, to elevate herself through the ranks and prove her worth to the organisation.
That was what she told herself. Objectively, the opportunity to work with technology this advanced, to broaden her knowledge and skills and be given the chance to improve upon it? It was why she had followed in her father's footsteps. It was the reason HYDRA had been able to offer her more than the KGB had. She just hadn't expected the strain such opportunities would put upon her morality.
Sighing, she sat back on her heels, grimacing at the painful tingle the action sent up her legs, not having realised that the limbs had gone to sleep as she knelt there on the cold concrete, her face inches from the join where shoulder met arm on the silent man in the chair. He could have been carved from granite, she noted as she cast her eye over his perfectly still form and breathtakingly sculpted physique that hadn't failed to occasionally distract her from her work. Even motionless as he was, he radiated strength, capability - the image of the perfect assassin.
"Progress report, Ivanov."
Katrina resisted the urge to roll her eyes at the order, one that had been made every time she had paused for breath in the last few hours. Karpov was growing impatient, but this was not a job she was inclined to rush.
"We are fully reconnected and stable, physically speaking." She grunted, forcing herself to her feet and bracing one hand on the steel table at her side as the blood rushed back to her legs, returning feeling to them in an uncomfortable wave of prickling. "The hydraulics have responded to basic testing, but I can't reactivate them until the sensors are reconnected, otherwise he'll have no control over them." Her eyes wandered to the Soldier in the chair, his gaze resolutely set upon the floor, showing no indication that he had registered the words being spoken over his head. She didn't like it, talking about him like he wasn't there – it was his body she was working on, not Karpov's. By rights she should be making these reports to the Soldier directly, but slowly she was beginning to understand the mindset around this man. His body, his mind, his actions, his arm; none of it were his, not really.
