[title song: youngblood - 5sos; i listened to this nonstop lol]
[will edit tomorrow; 20k]

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THE WINTER SOLDIER

 

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“Left, right, left—I said left—duck, jump, jump. Yikes, K.O.”

Lee Jiyoung takes a deep breath, eyeing the man looming over her with both contempt and awe as he presses the sparring sword to her jugular, the wooden end pinching at her skin. She knocks the stick away from her, leaning back on her elbows as she tries to catch her breath.

She takes his outstretched hand after eyeing it for a moment and the man—Park Chanyeol, Lead Intelligence Specialist who somehow obtained a secret, high tech, weaponized suit courtesy of billionaire, playboy philanthropist and the son of the rich doctor/scientist who introduced her to the Super Soldier Serum that she had been taking seventy years ago, Kim Junmyeon, stashed away in his closet along with a deep interest in sharp swords—grins at her as he helps lift her up off the ground and pats her head shoulder.

“I’m the best swordsman there is.” Chanyeol says, almost in explanation, and she’s scowling at him now.

“And the humblest, too, I bet.” She adds, sarcasm dripping from her tone, reaching for her wooden sparring sword he had knocked out of her hand ten moves ago.

“Yeah, thanks for noticing.” Chanyeol nods, grinning, and either the sarcasm went completely over his head or he chose to ignore it, she isn’t quite sure which one it is with him.

(Chanyeol is, for lack of a better word, interesting. He was her first acquaintance (friend, really) when she came out of cryo-sleep a few months ago, disoriented and still panicked, still mentally trapped in the middle of a military operation against the Soviet Union (it’s Russia, now, apparently), still trying to pull herself out of the war effort the government would constantly remind them of, would make every single end goal about, still grieving over the death of her best friend, of watching him get shot and fall to his death because she wanted him on her team, still worried about the heavy hand of colonialism, still worried of what the Japanese military might do to them if they found out about her, about the project she’s been enlisted into, the promise of taking a certain someone on a date once this operation was over still echoing in her head. She remembers how she had sprung off the cryo-sleep chamber bed, her lungs filling with air, her heart pounding against her chest, and her fingers wrapped around Chanyeol’s throat, vision blurred. She still remembered how his hands were in the air, gaze solemn, and gasped out a breathless, “You’re okay, Captain. You’re okay.”

It was almost sweet, how he had stayed by her side for most of the beginning, for when she sprinted out the lab—it was still Zero Division, but it looked so different from the hidden, underground, basement office-slash-lab she was accustomed to, for starters, the computers were smaller and the typewriters were replaced by flat pieces of plastic and tons of cords. Park Chanyeol was right behind her when she had stood in the center of the city, surrounded by sky-high buildings, sleek auto mobiles, women dressed in clothing above their knees, incessant honking, and little blocks people were murmuring into and raising into the air, when she was surrounded by so ing much, surrounded by such a huge sensory overload that she felt like she couldn’t breathe despite knowing that she’s been scientifically enhanced to peak human capabilities and she’s never unable to breathe imperfectly. Park Chanyeol had stood beside her, at the edge of the sidewalk, and spoke haltingly, carefully, “You’ve been asleep for seventy years, Jiyoung.”

There had been a small thought at the back of her head reminding her that she never gave him permission to speak to her so casually, yet somehow, she was grateful for that familiarity, especially in such an unfamiliar place surrounded by a million and one unknowns.

“But—but, how?” She had blinked at him, grimacing at the honking sounds all around her, the voices, the loudness of this city. It was nothing like the serenity (when the soldiers weren’t around) she had known her home country to be. “Last I remembered, I was on an island off the coast of Japan run by the Soviet Union, and there were these—these weapons. Joohyun mentioned them being nuclear or something? And Japan was planning an attack on the Unite—wait. I crashed the plane with weapons into the Arctic. I—I should be dead. I remember—I even spoke to Joohyun and told her—and told her—”

She had stared intently at the expression on Park Chanyeol’s face, the heaviness there along with the tightness in her chest making her trail off. Then, Chanyeol had replied, “This is a lot to take in, Jiyoung. I think—I think we should go inside. You should sit down.”

She had wanted to shout I’m fine, I’m genetically freaking perfect, there is no such thing as needing to take a seat, but she was reminded, right then of those men she’s had to deal with, of Japanese and Korean military officers and ranking officials alike, of men shaping their words into thinly veiled orders that she had to take, unless she wanted to lose out on everything. So, she had nodded and followed him back into the lab, back into the bare room she had woken up in, a wariness growing in her because Park Chanyeol could be just like every single one of those men she barely tolerated. Still, he was her only source of information, so she had sat on the bed while Park Chanyeol pulled up a chair and slowly explained to her what had happened in the decades she had been put to sleep. He explained how the Zero Division had pulled her out of the depths of the freezing waters of the Arctic, how World War II had ended, of the attack on Pearl Harbor and the resulting nuclear bombs set off in Japan, Korea’s brief freedom, the war, the split between the North and the South because of the United States and the Soviet Union, the series of military dictatorships, Park Chung Hee’s assassination, democratization, the Cold War, China, the U.S. writing Japan’s constitution, the decision, in the midst of everything way in the beginning, to put her into cryo-sleep because she was inherently a weapon that no one had a purpose for anymore, so they’d store her away until they needed her, how no one thought to ask her opinion or anything on the matter in the first place. How she wasn’t needed for seventy years, despite everything. How he isn’t quite sure why he was ordered to wake her now, of all times. He tells her everything he is authorized to tell her—he makes that emphasis clear, the emphasis of authorization. She never quite liked that word.

He had sat there and consolidated seventy years of history with wild hand gestures and widening eyes, with strange dialect that sounded like gibberish that she’d have to ask him to repeat slowly, with exasperated comments from him about how she speaks like a grandmother and it was hard to understand, with her retorting you’re one to talk, you sound like you’re making up words, and a sheepish look when he’d stutter over something he couldn’t remember before saying he’d google it—whatever the hell that meant. When he had asked if she had any questions, at the end, all she could manage to respond with was an incredulous, “How does all that happen in just seventy years?”

“I don’t know.” He had shrugged and muttered, “It just did. I’m no history expert.”

And she had said, “Clearly.”

He had smiled, and she had smiled back, and, for a moment, despite all the confusion, she felt that maybe everything would be all right.

Then he had looked at her, very seriously, and added, “Do you have any other questions?”

This time, it was a more personal type of intrusion, one she found she kind-of-sort-of dreaded a whole lot. She had looked at him, observed his tall gangly form and his big ears, his non-threatening smile and the way it drooped in melancholy, and she watched his eyes fill with a sort of sadness she’d later learn was a norm with him, especially when he looked at people he felt sadness for.

Over the next few weeks, she quickly learned that Park Chanyeol was perhaps one of the most empathetic men she’s ever met—though that isn’t saying much when she’s been surrounded by too many unempathetic men who treat women like their inferiors so often it was strange not to seventy years ago. Still, he’s incredibly empathetic and understanding; he’d wear his heart on his sleeves and feel for people more than they bother feeling for themselves. He had mentioned once that he was a Special Agent and he had been assigned on missions. She wonders, more often than not, if the inherent sadness in his eyes is a product of those missions, if the empathy is him overcompensating. Sometimes, she thinks her need to be honorable, to do right by others, is a product of her own missions, of watching her best friend die because of her, of having to kill men following orders for her country, of being a soldier—a super soldier. In the end, she’s glad that he had been the one she had woken up to.

Park Chanyeol never pried when she’d visit Joohyun in the hospital, especially the first time she visited, the difference between now and how she remembered Joohyun absolutely jarring her, Chanyeol running into her back. Her eyes had instantly teared up the second she stepped into that hospital room and the sight of Joohyun's wrinkled skin and grey hair reminded Jiyoung of exactly what seventy years really meant. Chanyeol had just patted her back, then, and left her alone, returning a couple hours later with a cup of coffee for her and a glass of water for Joohyun. The first time she visited, Joohyun’s eyes were unfocused, despite the fact that she was awake. During all the other visits, Joohyun’s condition would become clearer to Jiyoung. Some days, Joohyun would look at her like she recognized Jiyoung so wholly, and then the next day her brows would furrow and she’d become so incredibly confused, unable to recognize Jiyoung at all.

Some days, Joohyun would be so there; so present. That’s when Joohyun would tear up, her eyes darting all along the planes of Jiyoung’s face, and whisper, her low voice breathless, shaky, decades of grief dripping off a single word, two syllables, so full of pain, anger, despair, happiness, sorrow, that Jiyoung’s chest would fill up, up, up to the very brim in such a painful way. Joohyun would whisper, voice cracking, shaky, “Jiyoung.”

And Jiyoung had brushed away her own tears, forcing a smile on her lips and ignoring the hollowness in her chest, her grip on Joohyun’s hand tight, and she had responded, “I’m so sorry I stood you up.”

“You’re only seventy years late.” Joohyun murmured, her smile wavering as her chin and bottom lip trembled, her eyes darting over Jiyoung’s face, trepidation and awe filling her eyes.

Some days, she’d spend hours holding Joohyun’s hand and they’d talk about everything and anything she could think of.

But, some days, Joohyun would forget Jiyoung was ever there in the first place.

Some days, Joohyun’s brows would furrow and she’d ask questions that stem from who are you, and Jiyoung would have to stop herself from crying.

Despite this, despite Jiyoung spending an awful lot of time with Joohyun, holding her hand, reveling in what the lost decades have turned her into, Chanyeol would never say a word about it. He wouldn’t even look suspicious or disgusted of her like she’s come to expect from most people.

(She remembers taking to the internet and seeing rainbow flags, people taking the streets in front of the Blue House, and she’d think, oh maybe the future really isn’t too bad. Maybe some things had changed for the better. But then, she’d see headlines of murders and disgusting comments, of celebrities losing their jobs after coming out, of children being beaten, kicked out, and she’d think, no, it’s still the same in a lot of ways, isn’t it? Still, she found herself wishing she weren’t so alone to experience the joy in knowing such a future where change seems so much more attainable than it used to be, no longer a pipe dream she used to dream of late at night, especially when the other side of her bed was still warm to her touch, where the sheets still smelled of flowers, of a pretty girl who had already snuck out the way she came, and Jiyoung could never get herself to read the handwritten note on her bedside table they'd all leave behind because they all say the same thing. At least, with men, it was easier, less lonely. But, now, she is lonelier than ever. Still, she tries not to dwell on that because it will only bring her anger and sadness.)

In the midst of all this, between the possibly worrying amount of time Jiyoung spent in Joohyun’s hospital room and her obvious awe of the parades and protests happening on the streets and throughout the world, as well, Chanyeol allowed her space and never looked at her strangely for any of it. He, unknowingly, filled her loneliness with amusement, laughter, and an easy acceptance she never quite expected from anyone, especially not a man in the military that wasn’t her long-dead best friend.

Sometimes, Park Chanyeol reminded her of her late best friend, of Do Kyungsoo and his strange sense of humor, his acceptance, his kindness. Sometimes, Park Chanyeol was a very interesting man.

And then, about two months into her new life in a new decade, she learned of Chanyeol’s high-tech weapons suit, his penchant for sword-fighting, and what his special missions really entailed.

Interesting was most definitely not the best word to describe Park Chanyeol, but it was close enough.)

“This is why I stick to my fists.” Jiyoung mutters, rubbing her thigh where one of Chanyeol’s particularly hard hits still stings.

“Ah, is that what you’re into? ?” Another voice echoes before Chanyeol can respond and Jiyoung grimaces at the familiar voice even as Chanyeol lets out a delightful laugh, smacking his thigh in the process, grin huge.

Kim Minseok saunters into the practice room, laptop balanced on his left palm as he raises a brow at Jiyoung, feline eyes glinting mischievously. He throws her a dazzling gummy smile, teeth blindingly white, and adds, “I’ll be sure to put that on your dating profile.”

“I don’t know what that means but I want no part of it.”

“What? The dating profile or the ?”

Chanyeol’s choking on his laughter, gasping out, “Please—stop—saying—that.”

“Saying what? ?” Minseok asks, expression the epitome of innocence.

All the while Jiyoung just eyes Chanyeol incredulously while Minseok’s grin seems to only grow wider.

Jiyoung snorts a little, Chanyeol’s laughter contagious, and she mumbles, “I’ll make sure to never put either of those on the list.”

Minseok giggles, shaking his head as he plops down on the couch in the corner, laptop balanced perfectly in his hand, “You gotta show me the full list someday. And I hope the entirety of Boa’s discography is on there.”

(Special Agent Kim Minseok is a mysterious creature, one she knows she should never make an enemy of. He had seemed like any other government worker, at first, until Chanyeol dragged Minseok and her to a shooting range and Minseok let loose five rounds of headshots without missing a beat. And then he had placed the gun on the counter, slipped off the noise-cancelling headphones, and spun on his heels, winking lecherously at her, smirk dripping with danger, before he had exited the shooting range and waited for the Chanyeol and her at the little coffee shop attached to the place, two iced coffees at the ready.

He is an incredibly handsome man, his feline eyes always glinting with mischief, despite how deceptively young he appeared. There’s an ethereal quality to him, almost fairy-like, and too easy to fall for, and he knows it. He uses it. He’s never told her outright what he does, but she could put two and two together. He speaks crudely at times, but he can just as easily spin honey into his words. His cocked brows and suggestive little smirks are all a mask he’s learned to use well, to make him seem so casual and uncaring, when, in reality, she notices every tick of his eyes, how he observes his surroundings and the people in each room he steps into with calculative, trained eyes. She’s sparred him at hand-to-hand combat once before and she would have gotten her kicked if she had sparred him before she had been genetically enhanced. She knew, then, that Minseok had been trained as a weapon, though not the same way she was—as a super soldier—but rather someone meant to be more vicious, more secretive than she was. Minseok was a special agent with many masks, and perhaps more red on his ledger than she will ever be able to fathom.)

She grins, “Of course it is. You’ve mentioned her about a million times.”

Before Minseok can respond, Chanyeol speaks up, “What are you doing here, anyway?”

“Is it another variety show?” Jiyoung mumbles, sighing. Ever since she was let out of cryo-sleep, she’s been relegated into appearing on talk shows and variety shows—the government’s idea to promote her as a tourist attraction and something for the people to be proud of. She spends hours doing strange obstacle courses for the public’s entertainment and making the current administration look good. She still isn’t sure why she’s been pulled out of cryo-sleep just to be a glorified idol without the dancing and singing.

(Of course, she’s kept up with her physical strength and her fighting skills, but her trademark gloves—made of a special, indestructible metal called vibranium—are collecting dust in her bedroom and she’s tired of the gaudy outfits she’s constantly forced into. Occasionally, she’d be sent on a small mission, but it’s easy and fast and then she’d be put on public relations duty again.)

Minseok shakes his head as he cradles his laptop, eyeing her for a moment, gaze unreadable, before she says, “No, we have a mission. A big one this time. There’s a ship floating too close to the border and they’ve blocked their communications. Boss thinks it might be Northern.”

Jiyoung’s stomach churns at that word: Northern. She still isn’t used to that, of a North and South Korea who are at war with each other.

Chanyeol blinks, his big eyes widening owlishly, “If it is, then they’re breaking the law.”

“Yeah, but the administration doesn’t want to draw attention to it yet. They asked Zero Division to deal with it.” Minseok’s eyes dart away from Chanyeol, lingering on Jiyoung’s pinched expression for a long moment before he says, “You up for it, Captain?”

“Yeah, of course.” Jiyoung nods, crossing her arms over her chest, her gaze meeting Minseok’s as she shrugs and says, “It’s still a little strange, that’s all.”

Minseok looks confused for a moment, while Chanyeol’s the one to say, “The division and the war?”

Jiyoung nods.

It’s quiet for a long moment until Minseok murmurs, “You’re going to have to get used to it.”

She knows that. She’s a soldier. But, the way Minseok peers up at her, eyes quite serious for just a brief moment, makes her stomach churn just a bit. “Yeah, I know.” She says.

​​​​Chanyeol just pats her back, hand heavy and eyes filled with that same melancholy she’s gotten so used to.

~.~.~.~.~

She gets used to it, especially when the missions start rolling in.

And then the evil aliens and ancient deity with a penchant for mischief and destruction come next and she’s suddenly trying to balance being up-to-date on pop culture for her variety show appearances and fending off Ancient Gods from destroying the world as they know it. Suddenly, Lee Changmin—head of South Korea’s Zero Division—is introducing her to others who are similar to her, who are powerful and apparently gathered by Changmin himself, to save the world, and she’s not too sure how this is supposed to work, but it’s better than going at it on her own.

There’s Kim Junmyeon, founder of Kim Industries, the Iron Man. He’s nothing like his father, the man she might have called her friend who created the super-soldier serum that turned her into this. He’s snarky, rich, and always has a response to everything, but he’s the most charitable billionaire she has ever seen, and she thinks maybe he’s not like his father because he refuses that similarity to come to fruition. There’s Minseok, of course. Special Agent Kim decked out in skintight leather and assault weapons—the Black Widow. There’s Jongdae, God of Thunder, brother to the trickster god from the old myths, the god who had recently tried to take over the world, Baekhyun. At first, she thought it was a joke, or a concept. The God thing. But it turned out that Jongdae and Baekhyun were truly deities from the old, founding civilization of Korea her grandmother used to tell her stories of, all of whom presided over Mount Baekdu, hidden from mortal eyes in another dimension (as Jongdae told her with a giant grin in the middle of a battle) but always so there. There’s the skilled archer who has a long history with Minseok and a constant look of exhaustion, Zhang Yixing—Hawkeye. Then, there’s the Hulk, angry and volatile as the Hulk, but kind, awkward, and so incredibly intelligent when he’s just Dr. Kim Jongin. They are what Lee Changmin dubbed the Avengers. She’s still trying to get used to the name and sometimes, she’d hear that voice in her head that always sounds like her best friend’s, chuckling at the corniness of it all, and she’d wonder how he’d react to who she is today.

She gets used to just doing and not really questioning. It’s a hard thing to do, though. She’s always been the questioning type, always so stuck on her values. Kyungsoo used to roll his eyes at that, at how stubbornly she’d refuse to do something she’d perceive as wrong.

She gets used to the under-the-radar ships, the publicity shoots, the new world she’s been dumped into. She gets used to it, perhaps numbingly so.

~.~.~.~.~

“.” Junmyeon yelps through the headset as he bounces off the side of the building, propelling sideways and pummeling into the trees below in the process. She can see the side of the building glow bright, electric blue before it fades away.

“Language!” Jiyoung responds, almost automatically, dropping low before she dives in for the punch, the sound of her vibranium gloves hitting the metal jeep echoing throughout the forest, reverberating loudly before it caves in on itself a moment later with a satisfying crunch, thrown back by the impact. “Sehun, how do we get through that deflector shield?”

“I can turn it off. I just need a few minutes. The code wall they’ve written is complicated.” Sehun’s voice echoes in her ear the same way it always does, as if it’s coming from the void, which it might as well be, since Sehun is a sentient computer program Junmyeon created.

“I don’t think we’ve got a few minutes, guys.” Minseok responds, slightly out of breath.

“And, we’ve definitely lost that element of surprise we were banking on.” Yixing adds.

“At least we know it is in there. It is finally within our reach.” Jongdae responds, just as a bolt of lightning shoots up into the sky, lighting up the snowy darkness all around them.

“Wait, so we’re all just going to ignore Cap saying ‘Language’?” Junmyeon asks, tone filled with amusement that makes Jiyoung wrinkle her nose.

“It just—” Jiyoung grabs the handle of a motorcycle, throwing the man on it off, before she spins and tosses it in the direction of the bunker shooting at them, the bunker exploding in a blast of debris, smoke, and neon blue energy, similar to the field surrounding “Slipped out.”

Junmyeon snorts through the telecommunications unit.

Jiyoung pauses to knock bullets out of the air before grabbing the gun of one of the men and twisting it, tossing it before knocking the man unconscious, “I’m not going to get to live this down, am I?”

“Nope.” Junmyeon says, his lips popping at the last syllable as he snickers. She sighs, but she can’t help the smile.

They get in. Yixing gets hurt, though, a gash right through his side, and she worries, frets really, because she’s always worried about losing another member of her team, of watching another person die (always reminded of watching her teammate—best friend—slip out a moving train) and knowing that it’s happened on her watch, because of her. Seventy years have passed and she still feels so responsible, so anxious. Yixing is okay, though. Minseok levels her with a pointed look as he says it, much later, his eyes a bit too soft, too pitiful, like Chanyeol’s are much too often.

She just nods, crossing her arms over her chest, and mutters, “Good. I’m glad.”

(She is getting used to so many things, but maybe not everything. And, maybe not so numbingly after all.)

~.~.~.~.~

Aliens are real. Aliens are real.

“Wow.” She whispers, her neck craned as she stares in horror at the blue beam of light shooting straight up from the heart of Seoul, the alien ship hovering above the black hole it’s torn through the sky, the metallic alien creatures crawling out from the holes, bearing its teeth as suited aliens drop down alongside it, blasters in hand, screams from civilians filling the streets at a slow crescendo, building and building until Jongdae’s voice cuts through the shock and horror, the stupor.

“Baekhyun! What the hell have you done?” Jongdae’s voice booms overhead and she turns sideways, watching as Jongdae raises his metal hammer, lightning bouncing delicately off the metal, off his skin, his anger barely contained.

“What, brother? Not up for the challenge?” Baekhyun tilts his head, grin spreading across his face, his eyes alight with amusement as he twirls his curved sceptor in his hands. She thinks he looks like the perfect representation of what a trickster god is supposed to look like. Jongdae’s expression flairs, another, larger spark of lightning forming along the base of his hammer.

Aliens are real. And so are the gods her grandmother used to tell her stories about. They are real and the thunder god looks about ready to smash the trickster god’s head in with his hammer.

(For a moment, she thinks of what Kyungsoo would say if he were here, witnessing something like this, something so extraordinary. But, she only allows herself a brief moment to dwell on that, on the past and on her dead best friend, before she pulls her vibranium gloves tight and—)

Professor Kim Jongin comes soaring off one of the high rise buildings, his features morphing quickly from his tan skin tone to a garish green, tendrils of green crawling up his face as an angry expression overtakes his usually sweet face, his glasses cracking and falling off. Jiyoung vaguely wonders just how many pairs of glasses he’s broken already. By the time he lands, right beside Baekhyun, he is fully Hulk. He slams his fists into the floor, cracking it and making Baekhyun stumble, scepter nearly slipping from his grip.

“Who the hell are you?” Baekhyun turns his scepter on the Hulk.

Junmyeon practically cackles, from somewhere up above, even as Minseok and Yixing exchange looks and turn to focus on the aliens that are beginning to descend on to the streets of Seoul. Junmyeon says, “I said we have a Hulk, didn’t I?”

Before Baekhyun can say a word, Jongin—rather, Hulk—roars, before he swings a fist at Baekhyun, launching him back through the wall of windows behind him.

“Nice one.” Jongdae grins, appreciatively, his dialect too formal, regal, before he allows his hammer to zip him forward to where Baekhyun’s grumbling in pain. Hulk slams his green fists against his chest.

Jiyoung decides Baekhyun is covered enough and turns her attention on the portal and closing it, before more and more aliens come through, before they have enough of their kind touching base to overrun Earth.

When a giant metal creature, as long as a skyscraper, hurls out the black hole, snarling as it dives towards Earth, Jiyoung can’t help but whisper, “Holy .”

“Language, Captain.” Junmyeon doesn’t fail to remark, almost immediately.

She can’t help but laugh, despite everything that’s happening around her.

~.~.~.~.~

Artificial intelligences can become real, live beings, too. Sehun, Junmyeon’s AI operating system that had been the base operator for every single thing in Junmyeon’s tower, including his Iron Man suits, is overwhelmed by Ultron, an AI that is so utterly intelligent, it decides it will destroy the world because that is only right, that is what the data says. Jongin and Junmyeon secretly repurpose Sehun into Vision, the powerful stone they salvaged from Baekhyun's scepter lodged into the center of his forehead. Jiyoung didn’t agree, but when they tried to stop the experiment, Jongdae decided he’d lend a hand, in terms of powering up the machine Jongin and Junmyeon built.

“Vision.” Junmyeon whispers, almost reverently. Jongin looks on, too, glasses askew, eyes wide, as if he is a God in awe of what he’s created. Perhaps, that is what it’s like. They’re both scientists, after all.

“Yes. Although, I do still prefer Sehun.” Vision—Sehun—murmurs, his eyes contemplative, unsettling almost in the way he reminds her of both a newborn, seeing the world for the first time, and an old man, seeing the world for everything it is, bare and stripped down.

The computer system running Kim Towers is a real live being and she thinks Kyungsoo would have cried with joy seeing such a thing in person. He’s always enjoyed fantastical concepts and ideas that are so utterly far-fetched, that they could be real. He was such a nerd and she finds herself smiling at the thought.

~.~.~.~.~

“That’s…a lot.” Chanyeol mumbles between deep breaths. They’re jogging through the park and he’s heaving for air, his gangly limbs flailing all about and his hair flopping. “Also, can you, like, slow down a little? Or at least pretend like you can’t breathe.”

“Maybe, I should spray some water on my face. Look sweatier for you, too?”

“God, please. You’re making me feel like a potato.”

She laughs, then, loudly, and sometimes, she finds she feels a bit better, less lonely, less hollow these days. She thinks, maybe, she can call the Avengers her friends. Even Kim Junmyeon, though he evokes frustration out of her often and most of the time she just wants to punch him. Still, he had proved her wrong a long time ago and she respects him, trusts him, perhaps even enjoys his company on occasion.

(She remembers their argument before he launched himself into the black hole crawling with aliens with a missile in tow, her gritting her teeth and biting out, You only fight for yourself. You’re nothing without that suit.

Junmyeon giving her that frustrating, trademark smile and eyebrow raise as he responds, And you’re just a lab experiment.

But, she had been so wrong.

Sorry, she had later apologized. He had nearly died destroying that alien ship and there was something different in Junmyeon’s expressions after that, something that reminded her so wholly of herself when she first woke up from cryo-sleep, when she looks in the mirror some mornings, even now, that had her softening. Just a bit.

There’s nothing to apologize for, grandma. He responded, so nonchalantly, shrugging.

Jiyoung had rolled her eyes, but Junmyeon gave her a small smile and she couldn’t help but return it.)

“There’s a mission tomorrow.” Chanyeol says, so very suddenly, “Did you look at the debrief yet?”

There’s a concerned look in his eyes, though this time it’s not at all directed at her. It’s a look she sees on him when he’s recounting stories from his missions while enlisted. She had learned, a couple months ago, that Chanyeol leads group therapy classes for other retired military who used to be in active duty.

(PTSD, he had told her, oh-so-casually while they were sparring, the sound of Minseok’s typing slowing significantly for just a beat before it resumed, as if time itself had stopped for just that brief second. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

She nods, pats Chanyeol’s hand reassuringly while Chanyeol jumps from topic to topic, but she makes a mental note to put that term at the top of her list. And then she goes home and spends hours on google and WebMD, scouring through article after article.

She thinks of her nightmares, of seeing Kyungsoo fall to his death off that train, of knowingly flying that plane full of nuclear weapons into the Arctic and never waking up but never quite dying either, of sometimes being in Kyungsoo’s place and watching him stare down at her, eyes swimming with accusations, of waking up breathing heavily, her fingers wound tightly around the sheets. She thinks of the panic, faint but so there, when they all thought Junmyeon hadn’t made it out of that black hole alive, those off days when she would take the train downtown and there’d be a moment, a shift in her vision, and suddenly she was back on a moving train in the middle of winter, kilometers away from Seoul.

She had sat there, in front of that computer, and thought long and hard about her nightmares, her deepest thoughts, but she knows she’s genetically perfect. She’s fine. She is supposed to be fine. So, then, she had turned off her computer and decided she would stop thinking about it, in terms of her, and instead shape her findings as a way to accommodate Chanyeol, if he ever needed it. She’s fine and she should stop thinking she’s anything but fine. It’s easier that way.)

In truth, she hadn’t looked at the debrief yet. She isn’t quite sure why, though.

Chanyeol peers up at her expression and mumbles, deep voice low, “You should.”

~.~.~.~.~

Assassinate the world’s most wanted assassin—there is a possibility he is currently aligned with North Korea.

She stares at the black and white photograph. His face is covered by a mask and his hair is a little long, falling into his eyes. There’s no distinct identifying feature except for the metal arm. She isn’t sure if it’s real or for show. Either way, he looks strong, radiating an aura that shows just how deserving he is for being an internationally wanted terrorist. There’s barely any information on his file though. No names, no age, not even a possible ethnicity. She thinks about the mission, of having to kill a man, and wonders if it’s bad that she thinks it’s okay. He’s killed so many others, as an assassin, and it’s only right. Minseok only glances at the file for a moment, his brows furrowing just the tiniest bit, a minuscule movement she barely manages to catch.

Instead of saying anything about the target, Minseok says, “What do you think about the girl working in MNET? Somi? Solji? So—”

Jiyoung blinks, “Oh! The girl with the lip piercing? The mic girl from Mcountdown? It’s Somin.”

“Yeah, her.” Minseok nods, waving his hand in her direction, brow raised, “What about her?”

“I’m not ready for that yet.” Jiyoung says, with a smile.

Minseok grins.

Chanyeol rolls his eyes, “Is now really the time to set up dates?”

“Yes, absolutely. Like they say, there’s no time like the present.” Minseok retorts.

Jiyoung, though, can see right through it. Chanyeol, she knows, is anxious, his fingers tapping out a fluttering beat against the table top as he stares at the photograph of the target. But Minseok is too relaxed, too dismissive.

~.~.~.~.~

She pulls him aside, a couple days later, after they’ve suited up to find the target—he’s been spotted in the outskirts of Finland and they’ve got an unmarked plane ready to go.

“What do you know?”

Minseok blinks down at Jiyoung’s hand pressed to his forearm before he shrugs it off, eyes glinting dangerously at Jiyoung. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m not dumb, Min.” She sighs, frowning at Minseok. “You barely looked at the picture. What are you up to? Did you get another secret mission?”

(She remembers when they had to do a simple recon mission and Minseok disappeared off his assigned path, nearly jeopardizing the whole team. She had found him in the computer room, USB plugged into one of the databases, and a nonchalant shrug at the ready when she asked him what the hell he was doing.

“Zero Division has their own priorities.” He had said, tone cryptic, dismissive. She was pissed.)

Minseok’s almond eyes narrow slightly as his gaze flickers back and forth between Jiyoung’s. Jiyoung’s not necessarily the tallest—the super soldier serum added to her height, but not by that much—but she’s taller than Minseok, who’s naturally tiny already. Still, Minseok’s gaze alone adds inches to him, especially because now he’s standing with his back to a wall and she’s hovering over him, frowning. She’s come to learn, over the course of her time in this new decade, that Minseok doesn’t appreciate being backed into a corner, literally or figuratively.

“Back off. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Jiyoung steps forward, angrier now, and Minseok stands his ground. They’re a hairsbreadth apart and she can see the contemplation in his eyes, even as she bites out, “Stop lying.”

“I’m not.” Minseok tilts his head, though his smile drops. He looks so very serious right then. She knows he knows something and she’s so sick of all the lying, of the hiding that Minseok does so easily. In a way, she’s come to trust him, like she does with the rest of the Avengers, but, also, she has her reservations. She doesn’t want to trust him, not if he can’t stop lying to her.

Jiyoung grits her teeth, enunciates each word forcefully, “What do you know?”

It’s quiet again, just the sounds of their breathing in the hallway, Minseok’s eyes darting between hers, widening ever so slightly at whatever he sees there, until finally he says, “They call him the Winter Soldier. He’s been credited with over two dozen assassinations in the last fifty years, but no one’s ever been able to catch him. No one knows what he looks like behind that mask.”

Jiyoung observes Minseok’s expression for a moment before she takes a step back, allowing Minseok space as she responds, “So he’s a ghost?”

There’s a tension in his shoulders, then, his eyes darting to the ceiling as he takes a breath, a slow deep one, as if he is trying to steady himself. And then he speaks, his words steady, clinical, too unaffected. “It was a bodyguard mission in Singapore a few years ago. Professor Wu. Chinese Canadian. An astrophysicist. Nice guy, but a little weird.”

Minseok meets Jiyoung’s gaze, his dark eyes filled with sincerity. Jiyoung knows, at least for this very moment, that Minseok is not lying to her. “Some people wanted him dead so they hired me. That’s where I met him. The Winter Soldier. He shot off the back tire and had us diving into a ditch on the side of the road. The only thing between him and Professor Wu was me. So—so he shot him straight through me.” Minseok reaches for his shirt, lifting it up. Jiyoung glances down, taking in the sight of the otherwise smooth skin of his stomach marred by an ugly scar and stitches, the skin red, raised, and expanding from his side to the center of his belly. Jiyoung’s eyes shoot back up and Minseok has his default smirk back on, though his eyes are dark, “Soviet slug, no rifling. Bye, bye speedos.”

Jiyoung can’t help the slight eye roll at the snarky comment and the unwanted imagery. She mumbles, sarcasm dripping from her tone, “I bet you look terrible in them now, huh?”

Minseok’s smirk lengthens, stretching across his face, his eyes alight with amusement.

Jiyoung smiles back, before she sighs, refusing to tear her eyes from Minseok just yet, “I need to be able to trust you, Minseok.”

Minseok straightens up from against the wall and he says, with a strange sincerity in his eyes, “I owe Changmin a lot and my loyalty goes to him, first and foremost. But—but trust that I am not your enemy.” Minseok pauses, biting his lip before he mutters, almost reluctantly, “I don’t want to be.”

Jiyoung eyes him for a long moment and she can see the sincerity there. There’s a strangeness to it, a vulnerability, and she trusts it, trusts him. She always has, especially after all the different enemies they’ve fought together, but at this moment, she finds comfort in knowing he isn’t lying.

Slowly, Jiyoung nods. “Okay.”

~.~.~.~.~

Chanyeol peers through the parted curtain, his mouth set into a stiff frown. He takes a sip of his coffee, still unused to the time difference between Seoul and Finland. She thinks Finland is a beautiful country, but it’s cold, the kind of cold that’s biting, nipping at her skin and bones, and it reminds her of her nightmares, of trains and Kyungsoo slipping from her grasp, falling to his death. “It’s been hours since he stepped out of there.”

Jiyoung turns to Minseok, who is stretched out across the bed, chin balanced on his palm. “Have we figured out who he’s scoping out?”

“Give me ten more minutes.” Minseok mutters, leaning into his laptop.

Chanyeol yawns, still frowning, “I have a bad feeling about this.”

Jiyoung turns to face Chanyeol, “Maybe he’s still searching for th—”

An explosion rocks the building, so suddenly Minseok rolls off the bed, landing lightly on his feet, Chanyeol has his gun out and ready, and she’s pushing past him, pulling back the curtain.

“.” Jiyoung whispers, her eyes widening. The motel their target, the illusive Winter Soldier has been staying at is in flames, black smoke billowing upwards in large clouds. “, , .”

“Language, Captain.” Chanyeol mutters, halfheartedly, rooted to his spot due to the utter scale of the destruction before them, before she’s moving and Chanyeol’s moving, too, yanking back the curtains.

Jiyoung makes a face and Chanyeol gives her a brief smile before they’re hurtling out the door, Minseok leading the way.

~.~.~.~.~

“Check for civilians.” Jiyoung calls out, turning to Chanyeol. Chanyeol nods, glancing up at the sky, and she knows he’s waiting for his suit to fly in from the ship. Jiyoung figures she should tell Junmyeon to fix that problem on the Falcon suit on Chanyeol’s behalf, since autopilot docking takes five minutes too long and Junmyeon’s suit is so much faster. Still, Chanyeol steps into the smoking motel, without any regard for his safety.

Minseok points overhead, his mouth forming the first syllable of a word when there’s suddenly a loud screech and Jiyoung barely manages to brace herself as she’s slammed sideways by something heavy—a damn car, she later realizes—veering back. The impact hurts for a moment, despite her genetic advantage, but she’s quick to recover, using one vibranium glove covered hand to grab the underside of the heavy truck and slam it down and using her other hand to dig into the cement ground, pulling up debris and rocks as she slows her momentum before she slams straight through the building behind her. She really can’t be having buildings collapsing in on her right now.

(Changmin had specifically instructed them to remain under the radar, discreet, about this mission, but discretion and stealth was long gone the moment someone decided to throw a truck at her.)

Jiyoung blows her hair out of her eyes, scowling up at the figure down the street. She can just make out his broad shoulders, long shoulder length hair, and metal arm glinting in the sun. He’s big, much bigger than her, and he has a rifle in his hand, a gun she’s never seen before that’s certainly not standard issue like she’d expect a hired assassin to carry.

“It’s him.” Jiyoung tightens her gloves, watching the man—the Winter Soldier, their target—carefully.

“Well, that’s convenient.” Minseok’s voice carries through the communications unit in her ear.

That’s when the Winter Soldier starts advancing, brandishing his gun with one arm, the sun making his metal arm shine brightly as he shakes his long, dark hair out of his eyes.

“Uh, Minseok?” Jiyoung glances sideways at Minseok, who’s fingers are curled into fists. Jiyoung steps up, then, meeting each of his steps with steps of her own.

“Yeah?” Minseok watches the stand-off, his pistol locked and loaded, as he watches Jiyoung advance cautiously, hands up in a defensive position while the Winter Soldier aims his rifle.

“Did you ever figure out who his targets are?” Jiyoung starts jogging, bracing herself, her gaze focused on his gun and his movements.

There’s a pause.

And then Chanyeol’s deep voice rumbles through the ensuing silence, his tone filled with disbelief, “It’s us, isn’t it?”

That’s when the Winter Soldier lets loose a round of bullets. Jiyoung bursts forward, knocking the bullets to the ground as she braces her fist, flexing before she aims for his face.

She misses, grimacing when his metal arm moves lightning fast, grabbing her fist and twisting, angling his gun towards her torso. She reaches down, knocking the gun to the side just as he presses the trigger, firing off to the side instead of right at her torso. She uses her heel to catch him by the back of his knees, but he practically tosses her off him, much too easily. She frowns at the level of strength he possesses because she’s never met anyone that strong—aside from Jongin when he’s the Hulk or Jongdae. His strength is superhuman.

“Incoming, guys.” Chanyeol shouts as he quite literally swoops in, finally diving into the scene while Minseok fires shots at the Winter Soldier. He grimaces, reaching out and swiping at Chanyeol’s dangling ankles, nearly getting him because of how long Chanyeol’s limbs are. Jiyoung places a swift uppercut right into the center of his stomach, sending him upwards, and Chanyeol grabs him, tossing him into a car.

“What do you want?” Jiyoung asks, straightening up, carefully watching every single minuscule movement of his, just in case. The Winter Soldier snaps his head to the side, a single eye showing through the strands of his hair and she’s taken aback, for a moment, by the intensity in them, his eyes so cold and angry that she finds herself blinking rapidly at the sight.

He says, “You talk too much.”

And then he’s lunging forward, towards one of the cars. He moves unbelievably fast, yanks the car up by the bumper before tossing it like a frisbee straight at Chanyeol. Chanyeol barely moves out of the way, the car catching his right wing, sending him veering into the smoking building. She’s vaguely aware of the ambulances and police rolling up, confused about what the hell they’re supposed to do in a situation like this. He throws a grenade right in her face and she knocks it away, though the blast gets her and she rolls, hitting the ground twice before skidding the rest of the way on her side, wincing at the initial twinge of pain coursing through her.

Minseok runs at him, then, from behind, catching him off guard as he jumps, locking his leather clad thighs around the Winter Soldier’s neck, suffocating him as he gets in punches. The Winter Soldier flails, yanking at Minseok’s legs and shooting blindly before slamming Minseok into the cars around them, trying in vain to get him off. Jiyoung drives forward, then, while Minseok has him distracted, knocking his legs out from under him, grinning as his knees buckle and Minseok twists, driving his top half right into the ground. For any normal person, this would have cracked a spine, but the Winter Soldier seems unfazed, grunting angrily.

She can hear the Finnish cops shouting at them to stand down, but it’s lost right then. Everything, the entire world, is lost in the bitter cold weather, in the way Minseok slips off the man, though his gun remains poised, cold black metal pressed right against the side of his head. It’s his eyes, she realizes. Despite the coldness in them, the sheer intensity manifesting in the darkness there, there is something about them that makes her pause. There is something familiar there.

The police sirens are loud, obnoxiously so, and maybe she hesitates for a moment too long—Minseok’s frown, the slight crinkle between his brows as he glances at her signals that immediately—because suddenly he’s moving, lightning fast, as always, just as Chanyeol appears, grumbling loudly.

“Dude, we get it. You can throw cars—Min!”

She catches the movement too late, when his metal fingers wrap around the barrel of the gun and he twists, making Minseok wince, before he tears the gun out of Minseok’s hand and tosses it, grabbing his wrist and throwing him over Chanyeol, causing Chanyeol to swivel and go after him, an instinctive move he probably anticipated from Chanyeol.

“Oh no, you don’t.” Jiyoung grits out, just as he jumps to his feet without using his hands, landing lightly. She tackles him and he swings, catching her in the face, cutting her cheek. She pauses, wiping at the blood with the back of her hand, before she shakes her head, and swings. She uses her vibranium gloves to knock his metal arm away, the sound of metal against metal reverberating loudly. She twists an arm, grabs his metal arm and squeezes, crushing one of his metal fingers. She sees his eyes widen significantly in surprise and she grins. But then he’s kneeing her and they fight. For once, it’s an equal match. Even when she switches into different martial arts styles that she’s learned, he adapts, and she notices from the way he tends to grapple, from the way he holds himself, that he leans towards familiar fighting styles, namely the ones she learned seventy years ago in training— Korean martial arts styles.

Immediately, there are alarm bells ringing in her head, but she can’t figure out exactly why. He’s an assassin and East Asian martial arts are popular. But his eyes are filled with the sort of intensity she’s never seen on a person. His strength is on par with hers. She ducks when he swings at her, a sideways hook that flies right over her head. She moves in then and levels a vibranium-glove clad fist right to his face, the resounding bang of metal on metal and a resulting grinding sound audible all around them as his arm cracks under the pressure. She’s grinning at her hit, at the way he reels back, his metal mask flying off and clattering against pavement.

He whips his head back to face her and, at first, all she registers is the mirth and anger in his eyes. But then—

Then—

She freezes, her fists going slack as a whirlwind of emotions of disbelief, confusion, surprise, horror—

“Kyungsoo.” She whispers it and her voice is too soft, there is pain there that does not belong here, in the middle of a battle, in front of her best friend—her best friend who is alive, who she watched fall to his death from a moving train, who she can’t stop thinking about, even in the most mundane of moments. Her heart feels like it’s trying to tear out of her chest and she feels that same panic, fluttery and uneven breaths, pain pain pain, curl at the center of her chest—just like the aftermath of her nightmares.

He looks the same. He looks as if he hasn’t aged a day, though he looks more haggard, worn out, less full of life compared to how she remembers him, but she figures she must look the same to him. There he is, his big doe eyes, blanker than they used to be and much less playfully amused, fond. There are his heart shaped lips, his angled jaw, his heavy set brows, furrowed now the same way they were back then (because he had horrible vision and couldn’t see). He is everything she remembers and more. He’s bigger, thicker, stronger, muscles protruding. And he has that metal arm. That metal arm is Kyungsoo’s. This is Kyungsoo. Her heart won’t stop slamming against her ribs and her fingertips feel cold.

The man, the Winter Soldier, Kyungsoo, blinks at her, still so angry, so mirthful, and he responds, tone acidic, “Who the is Kyungsoo?”

Her heart drops to her stomach and her thoughts, the memories, come to a screeching halt. She’s not fast enough to block his punch and she’s hurdling through the air and coming down hard on one of the police cars, crushing it under her, the police officers yelling at her when she gets up, feeling dazed and confused.

Still, she has a mission to complete and a team to protect. The Winter Soldier—Kyungsoo, Kyungsoo, Kyungsoo—can’t lift his metal arm properly. He blinks at Jiyoung, an owlish look that is horribly familiar, and she knows he’ll retreat. He has to.

And he does. Police dispatch cars are sent after him but she knows they’ll never find him. He’s fast. Like her.

The other police offers speak in accented English, You’re under arrest. All of you.

Chanyeol is looking at her, though, his big eyes so much wider, filled with such immense concern that she can’t quite meet his gaze. She knows she should. It’s only right, but she can’t manage it.

Chanyeol says, “Kyungsoo? Do Kyungsoo?”

She’s told him so many stories of her childhood, of her childhood best friend (Kyungsoo, Kyungsoo, Kyungsoo) and her little village hometown, of her parents, of how sick she used to be, of what it was like to live under colonialism’s thumb during a war. He’s blinking at her and he looks like he wants to give her hug, though he can’t because of the handcuffs.

Minseok just nudges her shoulder gently with his, smile faint, sincere.

~.~.~.~.~

Zero Division make quick work out of getting them out, apparently with some help from their international branch, S.H.I.E.L.D. Jiyoung’s in a daze throughout it all, her brain reeling with questions, scouring for answers she does not have. Why is he alive? How is he alive? Why does Kyungsoo look like he hasn’t aged a day? How? How did he become an assassin—and not just any assassin, but the world’s most wanted assassin? Why doesn’t he remember his own name? Why doesn’t he remember her? Her questions run and run until they become nothing but her wondering why why why and how how how, until panic builds again, deep in her chest, her insides coiling and knotting up so tight, she feels like she cannot breathe.

(But she is genetically perfect. She can breathe. She can always breathe.)

Still her heart skitters along and thrums so fast, faster even than the wings of a hummingbird. It’s painful, the sort of pain she doesn’t feel anymore, thanks to the serum.

Everything is just a stream of questions and her mind is running on overload. But she doesn’t let herself show it. She is the Captain. She is the pinnacle of responsibility, of pride, of perfection, and she is supposed to be fine.

But Kyungsoo is alive and she is supposed to assassinate him and he doesn’t even know who Kyungsoo is.

The Winter Soldier is quite literally a ghost, dredged up from her nightmares, and she comes to the acute realization that she is way over her head.

Maybe, she is afraid, like she had been before the serum, when Kyungsoo would have to step in and fight her fights in the village because she was weak and uncoordinated.

Her chest hurts.

Maybe, she isn’t so fine after all.

~.~.~.~.~

They return to Seoul and Changmin is in the hospital, bandages covering him head to toe and clear medical tubes sticking out of him, an image that she thinks will be engrained into the deepest recesses of her mind for eternity. Every time she closes her eyes she sees that image of Changmin. And, when she tries to forget that, she sees Kyungsoo’s eyes, so blank and emotionless, and the pain in her chest only doubles.

Minseok joins her at the window outside Changmin’s operating room, glassy eyes pinned on Changmin and his lips pressed into a thin line. “They said he was attacked. He has a low survival rate.”

“Who’s they?” She asks, so very quietly.

Minseok stares at Changmin, “The new temporary department head. He’s also going to be the new security advisor if Choi wins reelection for President next year.”

There’s something so very biting and calculated about the way Minseok says that. There’s a hidden meaning there.

Jiyoung doesn’t need to dig deep to figure out the meaning; she never does with Minseok. Jiyoung understands, her head jerking to the side so she can really get a good look at Minseok. Minseok’s jaw is clenched. Jiyoung murmurs, “Have you looked into this new guy?”

“Chanyeol’s doing it as we speak.” Then Minseok turns and walks out the room.

Jiyoung thinks it’s not just the new guy they have to investigate, but the entire administration itself.

(Changmin’s attack was no accident and the person they replaced him with is no coincidence either. Political favors were always a thing, more so perhaps when she first started this super soldier project. Everyone was hired because of a favor they were owed. The head of security’s origins weren’t any different; it’s just that this time, the head of security wasn’t a loyalist like the colonialists thought he was. He hid that fact very well. And then she woke up in the future and she met Changmin, who was so different from the director she had come to know. For starters, he seemed to care about her opinions. Sure, the other one—Leeteuk—took time to thank her for her service, but that’s all she was to him, a soldier performing a duty and nothing more. Still, she couldn’t trust Changmin, not really, not even when he asked her to trust him, looked her right in the eye with that easy-going smile of his and said, I can’t trust you if you don’t trust me. And she remembers thinking that she’s known plenty of men of his stature and they all seemed to want the same thing from her: trust. It’s become a difficult thing for her to give, especially to powerful men. If this administration was behind the attack on Changmin, then she thinks she will never be able to trust powerful men again.)

Perhaps even every high-level official in the Blue House. Her stomach churns at that, because she knows she’s a weapon, a figurehead for the administration to use to further their agendas, she knew that from the beginning, seventy years ago. She only agreed to the super soldier program because she thought it better than ending up going back to her village and being enlisted by the Japanese soldiers, instead. But then she learned more of the program and she felt the need to prove herself, to help her people, her neighbors, her distant relatives, her friends. When she was given the super soldier serum, she thought maybe freedom wasn’t such a faraway dream after all. She thought the government would value that as well, not these games and hidden agendas.

(Perhaps, Kyungsoo was right when he used to call her naïve, too hopeful, so many times, especially during the war, his big eyes always settling on her and his mouth set into a thin line, clearly disgruntled by his own observations. Maybe she was wrong to assume her own bosses, her own people, wouldn’t lie to her. But then, she was also wrong about Kyungsoo.)

~.~.~.~.~

She recognizes the new head the minute she walks into the office and if Chanyeol hadn’t told her that he is the son of the old head, Leeteuk, the one who recruited her and actually bothered to thank her for her service, unlike every other high-level official who had thought themselves above her ranking, in all senses. At least Leeteuk pretended to value her. This man looks exactly like him, but his attitude is the exact opposite.

~.~.~.~.~

Joohyun's eyes are filled with clear understanding as she watches Jiyoung step into the hospital room.

“Jiyoung.” She whispers, in that same reverent, sad, melancholic, yet somehow still joyous, still so filled with wonder and a sort of contagious happiness that always makes Jiyoung smile, despite everything. Jiyoung’s glad, maybe even relieved, that this is one of the days Joohyun recognizes and remembers her. Jiyoung smiles, but Joohyun’s eyes narrow and she murmurs, “What’s wrong?”

Jiyoung takes a seat, shaking her head, “Just a lot on my mind.”

Joohyun raises a brow, rolls her eyes, and says, “I’m older than you. By a lot now. You’re not allowed to lie to me.”

“Not fair. You’re always using the age card.” Jiyoung wrinkles her nose and Joohyun laughs, a little weakly—something that worries Jiyoung immensely these days.

It’s quiet between them, a soft serene quietness that she finds comfort in, her conflicted thoughts slowing down just a bit.

After a long, long moment, so long Joohyun looks surprised when Jiyoung opens , Jiyoung whispers, “It’s Kyungsoo.”

Joohyun’s eyes soften significantly and she is reminded of all those times when Joohyun would allow her small, soft smiles, when she’d gently touch Jiyoung’s forearm and look at her with a soft sort of fondness that Jiyoung had fallen head over heels for, when she’d brush her thumb along the back of Joohyun’s hand. That softness, the way Joohyun leans forward and rests a palm on Jiyoung’s upper arm, sends Jiyoung reeling. She isn’t sure why, maybe it’s a belated reaction, maybe Joohyun’s the only person she has left from that time in her life, the only one who truly knew her, knew Kyungsoo, and knew them, Kyungsoo and her, maybe all the emotions Jiyoung’s been forcing away until a more convenient time to express them comes along, all this time, has been bursting at the seams for a long, long time, maybe the soft smile reminds her of Kyungsoo. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

Jiyoung crumbles in that hospital room, curls in on herself, hands dropping to the hospital bed, but she does not cry. She stopped being able to really cry decades ago, long before she was enlisted into the super soldier serum program. Still, her chest hurts, a painful twist deep inside her, and she can’t stop thinking about Kyungsoo as she recounts what had happened in Finland, the look in his eyes, the sneer twisting his features, the metal arm, everything. Joohyun holds her hand the whole time.

~.~.~.~.~

“What about the guy who lives across the hall from you? He’s cute.”

Jiyoung gives Minseok a sidelong glance while he stares up at the ascending numbers on the elevator. Chanyeol, on Minseok’s other side, looks at Minseok incredulously. “Minseok, dude…” Chanyeol mutters, eyes flickering up to her in a very unsubtle way.

He’s thinking of Kyungsoo, they all are, even Minseok, but she’s glad Minseok isn’t tiptoeing around her emotions the way Chanyeol seems to be doing. Jiyoung doesn’t blame Chanyeol; in truth, she sort of adores him for it because he’s cautious of her feelings and it’s sweet. Jiyoung just grins at Chanyeol, trying to look reassuring, before she glances back up at the ascending elevator floor numbers and responds to Minseok, “Minho? He’s nice. Gave me an extra quarter for the laundry machine once.”

“Wow, y.” Minseok grins, turning a devious look on Jiyoung.

Jiyoung can’t help but laugh, the sound bubbling up from her lips and making her feel lighter somehow, though just barely. Minseok’s sly grin morphs into a tiny smile. The resulting silence is comfortable, quiet, but there is an ever-growing tension as they ascend to the top of the building, where the new security advisor has asked them to meet for mission debrief.

Finally, finally, Chanyeol is the one to blurt out, big eyes filled with concern, “What if he doesn’t call off the original mission?”

He whispers it, voice raspy, soft. He’s looking directly at Jiyoung, now, and Jiyoung speaks with confidence—perhaps Leeteuk’s son may not be anything like him, but if he was any kind of decent human being, especially the kind dedicated to a whole country’s security and wellbeing, he’d at least listen. And, if anything else, she’s good at being persuasive and getting people to really listen to her. “He will. Don’t worry.”

Minseok doesn’t say anything, but his gaze remains pinned up ahead. Chanyeol’s worry worsens.

(Kyungsoo had always told her that her ability to see the good in people and trust that wholeheartedly would put her in some situations. Kyungsoo had a habit of always being right, much to her annoyance and his amusement. She should have known he’d be right on this point someday, too.)

~.~.~.~.~

She’s not stupid and Joohyun’s lessons on diplomacy have been so ingrained into her mind, she could recite it in her sleep. The new security advisor dismisses her words with a wave of his hand and an underlying threat that reminds her that, to them, she is just a soldier, someone to do their bidding and amuse the people through public events—a figurehead in all senses of the word. Her fingers curl into fists for a moment, the urge to punch something filling her to the brim, but she takes a deep breath. She isn’t like that. She refuses to lash out in violence like that. She’s seen too many people fall victim to violence, even experienced it herself, when she was younger and sicker, weaker, and she promised herself and Kyungsoo she would never use her powers to hurt people, especially when she’s angry with them. She’s seen too many people abuse their power, whether that’s systemic or physical, and she refuses to mirror that. Besides, she sees the button the advisor’s hand is hovering over and the fearless look in his eyes. Minseok is scowling and Chanyeol is frowning.

The Security Advisor says, “The Winter Solder—Do Kyungsoo—has murdered thousands of innocent people. He is a threat to world security. A terrorist. It’s your duty to bring him to justice.”

She knows it is—she knows. A part of her feels this acute sense of dread, of the fact that maybe he’s right and she’s going against all her morals for a friendship that may have died alongside the Kyungsoo she remembered decades ago. But she also knows Kyungsoo. She knows he would never do such a thing. She’s conflicted, and she just wants to bring him into custody, talk to him, follow orders because he is dangerous, according to the records, but the security advisor insists she kill him on sight. She stares at him and his gaze is unwavering, commanding.

(Justice entails a proper trial, a chance for Kyungsoo to defend himself. But she isn’t allowed to give him that. It’s strange, almost, the haste in which this man and this administration wants to act.)

Slowly, she says, “You’re right. I’ll continue.” She looks at Minseok, at Chanyeol, the former’s eyes widening while his expression stays rigid and the latter’s mouth dropping. She cuts off his protest before it starts, “Are you guys in?”

There’s a brief pause before Minseok says, so very slowly, “I’m on board with whatever you’re up to, Captain.”

His tone is rigid, but his eyes are searching.

She turns to Chanyeol and he looks between the two of them, before Chanyeol slowly nods, “Yeah.”

The security advisor claps both hands together, grinning like he’s just won the lottery, “Great! It’s settled then! I have a team waiting for you at the bunker and they are yours to command however you’d like, Captain. You’re all set to leave in forty-eight hours. There’s talk that he’s been spotted in China, but we’re still investigating. As soon as we pinpoint his location, your mission will begin again.” He eyes Jiyoung, a patronizing look that’s made worse by his words and tone, “Thank you so very much for your service, Captain. Of course, I am sorry for your loss, but I’d appreciate if you do this quickly and quietly this time.”

Jiyoung nods, but she doesn’t bow her head at his words, doesn’t allow him any of the respect she’s supposed to give a superior. His eyes narrow at her actions. She spins on heels, head held high, and she walks out before he can dismiss them, Minseok and Chanyeol following her.

~.~.~.~.~

They’re in the elevator when Minseok grabs Jiyoung by the elbow, simply says, “Jiyoung.”

His eyes are filled with fire, anger, concern, so many emotions she had seen flicker through his eyes briefly when they had visited Changmin in the hospital.

“What? No ‘Captain?’” Chanyeol is looking between them, wide eyed.

Minseok tilts his head, his eyes narrowing ever slightly and his lips twisting into a scowl that she knows is positively dangerous to be on the receiving end of. Minseok mutters, “You’re starting to pick up on Junmyeon’s sarcasm.”

“That’s not nice.” Jiyoung quips back, though she levels Minseok with a steady gaze. Minseok doesn’t smile nor smirk and Jiyoung sighs, “Look, it’s better that I’m the one who leads this mission.” Minseok’s grip on her elbow tightens and she glances down at it before adding, “Trust me, please.”

Jiyoung nods towards the cameras they all know are situated above the door of the elevator. Chanyeol’s big eyes widen, but his shoulders relax and the frown disappears. Minseok looks skeptical, but he releases his grip on her elbow. She rubs it. Minseok rolls his eyes, but he seems to understand what Jiyoung is trying to imply, that she had to agree because she can’t allow someone else to head this mission and actually pull through with assassinating Kyungsoo. At least, this way, she will be able to find a way to talk to him. Or at least, knock some sense into him.

~.~.~.~.~

“Leeteuk, huh? I haven’t heard that name in a while.” Joohyun murmurs. Jiyoung can hear the roughness in her jagged breathing and the way she keeps clearing . Jiyoung had fussed over her when she first stepped into the room, but Joohyun had leveled her with one of her infamous glares and Jiyoung had decidedly sat back down, hands in her lap. Joohyun had laughed at that and Jiyoung’s heart had swelled with nostalgia and a reprieve from the stress of Kyungsoo and the mission and knowing that the team the new advisor has assigned to them were more spies for the advisor than her new subordinates. They’d turn on her at a moment’s notice, she’s sure of it. She may be naïve, too trusting of the good in people, but she’s not stupid. She doesn’t trust authority as explicitly as she’s always wanted to.

(She learned at an age much too young that not even the people placed in authoritative positions who are meant to protect you would do so.)

“He’s not—he changed a lot after the World War.” Joohyun’s voice is soft.

“How?”

Joohyun shakes her head, “I don’t know the full details. Not many people do. But, after the Japanese were pushed out, he lost his job. All of them did. He made a commotion about a new project he was working on, but the new government didn’t want anything to do with his programs. Not even—” Joohyun pauses, coughing loudly, the sound loud and hacking, worrying Jiyoung immensely, though Joohyun’s expression worries her more, at that precise moment. There’s something almost guilty about it. “They didn’t want to wake you up. Internationally, we had to be careful and then the split happened. No one told the U.S. about you or the super soldier serum. There was a lot going on and—I should have tried to get you out, you know.”

Jiyoung watches Joohyun’s eyes fill with unshed tears. She shakes her head, reaching out to tuck Joohyun’s hand between hers. They’re trembling a bit and Jiyoung shakes her head again, over and over. “That’s not your fault.”

Joohyun just nods and nods, before she murmurs, changing the subject, her voice still quiet, regretful, “He had another project going on up north before the country was split. After the split, we never heard from him again. I didn’t know he had a son.”

Jiyoung’s mind reels over that information, trying to make sense of it and apply it to what’s happening at the moment. She’s still holding Joohyun’s hand as she thinks, wonders if this is somehow connected to not only the new security advisor and Changmin’s conveniently timed attack, but also Kyungsoo. Somehow, someway. There has to be a reason why they’re targeting him with a kill order. How is she supposed to go about trying to do the right thing, trying to serve this country full of people who are innocent, even if the administration may not be? What is she supposed to do?

“It’s hard, isn’t it?” Joohyun asks, squeezing her hand back.

Jiyoung looks up and Joohyun’s wrinkled, wise face, and she can see the remnants of how she used to remember Joohyun’s face. Joohyun looks exhausted, decades of living (while she had just slept it away) showing on all her features, though she does not look as frail as Jiyoung thought her to be when she first stepped in here. The scars and wrinkles are a testament to the life she lived while Jiyoung slept. “I don’t know what to do or what the right thing to do is. Kyungsoo…he killed people. For decades. But—I don’t think I can trust these people, Joohyun.”

“There were times where I followed orders, knowing I shouldn’t have. I still regret those times, Ji. I regret them so much.” Joohyun slowly pulls her hands out of Jiyoung’s grip, though not without one last squeeze, “I don’t know what the right thing to do is here, but Kyungsoo is your friend. If not him, then, at least, you deserve an explanation for what he’s become. I just—when I built this organization, I never intended for it to become like this. They shouldn’t be putting you in this kind of situation. You should be able to trust them.” Joohyun smiles, a pretty, sad smile that makes Jiyoung smile, too. “We really ed it up, didn’t we?”

“No.” Jiyoung shakes her head. “Though, honestly, all the variety shows are a bit much. I would have disappeared a long time ago if it weren’t for the fact that you built Zero Division.”

“Law of the Jungle wasn’t fun for you? You went fishing with your bare hands and everything.” Joohyun raises a brow.

Jiyoung laughs and Joohyun joins her and Jiyoung finds content in that small moment. She wishes she could stay in the moment, wishes she didn’t have to leave this room and go on a mission with a kill order for her best friend, wishes she didn’t have to decide her best friend’s fate, that if she slips up in anyway, Kyungsoo could die before she ever gets to figure out the whys and the hows.

“I really don’t know what to do, Joohyun. I want to do what’s right. I don’t want to be selfish.”

“You were willing to die for us, Ji. You’re allowed to be a little selfish sometimes. You’re not—you’re not some mindless soldier, Jiyoung. Do what you have to do and do it with no regrets. I’ve felt regret before and I would never wish that on anyone, especially not the kind of regret that involves someone you love.”

The meaningful look in her eyes is heartbreaking. Her tone is soft, laced with derision, sadness, the age-old kind that’s festered for years. Jiyoung’s heart swells in her chest and she marvels at how she could have possibly gotten so lucky to have someone like Bae Joohyun care about her so deeply, to have someone so invested in her even when she was basically dead to the world for seventy years. Jiyoung wishes she didn’t have to miss out on a life with her.

“The world’s changed and not everything is so black and white anymore.”

~.~.~.~.~

“Agent Im Jaebum.” A handsome, stoic man greets her just as she steps off the ramp and into the plane. His eyes are piercing, steady, and watchful. One look at the man and Jiyoung knows he’s following orders she isn’t meant to know about. He seems nice and is certainly polite and respectful, but she doesn’t trust him from the start. He introduces her to his other teammates, Youngjae, Jinyoung, and Yugyeom, and although Youngjae seems sweet, Yugyeom seems too young, and Jinyoung seems kind, she doesn’t trust the watchful, observant looks in their eyes either. “I’m usually captain of this team, but it’ll be an honor working with you, Captain.”

She shakes his hand and replies, “Thank you. Let’s work well together.”

Jaebum gives her a thin smile, lips pressed into a tight line.

Minseok snorts. Chanyeol punches Minseok’s arm. Jiyoung suppresses the urge to roll her eyes because clearly subtlety is not a strength of her team’s lately. She thinks of the Avengers, of Junmyeon’s flashy suit and Jongin’s giant green Hulk form, and she figures she’s never been a part of team that knows the art of subtlety. Then again, her flashy gloves and brightly colored suit isn’t that subtle, either.

“We’re here to help you carry out your mission, Captain. But, judging from your skills and your reputation, I doubt you’ll need us at all.” Jaebum states.

She looks him dead in the eye and says, quite genuinely because she really doesn’t want to fight with anyone, “I really do hope that’s the case.”

Jaebum’s thin smile only gets thinner, his eyes unreadable.

~.~.~.~.~

“I can talk to Jongin and ask him for more information on why they set the kill order.”

“Why Jongin?” Chanyeol raises a brow. Jiyoung nods in agreement, slightly curious despite everything.

The tops of Minseok’s ears and cheeks redden ever so slightly, even as he shrugs, nonchalantly. “I’ve been keeping in touch and he’s a good researcher.”

“Yeah.” Chanyeol mutters, “With science.”

Minseok levels Chanyeol with a glare, “He’s good at hacking into things.”

Jiyoung observes Minseok’s flushed skin before she gives him a tiny smile and says, “I’m sure you’ll help him with whatever he can’t figure out.”

Minseok scowls, “I can’t tell if you’re making fun of me or not.”

“She’s totally making fun of you.” Chanyeol grins, teeth on full display.

Minseok rolls his eyes, “I’ll text Jongin, but I’m only doing this for Sergeant Do. Not you.”

~.~.~.~.~

They pinpoint an abandoned warehouse district in China, train tracks scaling the far-right perimeter. For a country filled with so many people, this area is surprisingly empty. Jaebum drives the van into the district, his gaze sharp, wary, his teammates holding guns she’s never seen before.

She must have been eyeing the weapons too long because Yugyeom whispers, in an informative, excited sort of way, “We got fitted with new guns for this mission. It’s cool, isn’t it?”

Jinyoung scowls at Yugyeom, who immediately purses his lips and turns away from her. She stares at the guns for a moment longer before she meets Chanyeol’s gaze, across from her. His brows are furrowed. She glances sideways at Minseok and Minseok’s fingers are curled around his own gun, though it’s still attached to his thigh strap.

“It’s cool.” Jiyoung responds to Yugyeom, since he looks slightly dejected for clearly being scolded and Jiyoung can’t help but feel a bit bad about it. She meets Jaebum’s gaze through the rearview mirror, though he’s still speaking casually with Youngjae in the passenger’s seat.

Before Jaebum can open his mouth to say something, the locator Youngjae’s holding starts to go off, the series of loud beeps jarring in its suddenness as it cuts through the silence.

Jiyoung straightens up, “Where is he?”

There’s a pause, Youngjae’s expression morphing into a deep frown.

Jaebum frowns, “Youngjae?”

Youngjae whispers, voice soft, confused, anxious, “It says he’s—he’s right here.”

Minseok stands up, then, his hands going to the roof of the car to balance himself. Chanyeol’s eyes widen. Jaebum scowls, “Right here? How?”

That’s when Youngjae whispers, “Above us,” at the exact moment there’s a thunderous bang from right above them. Before any of them can properly react, there’s another thud, as if someone is punching the roof, and an indent follows, an inch away from where Minseok’s head is. Jinyoung doesn’t waste a second, expression stoic and ruthless, turning his gun on the roof.

Jiyoung shouts, “What are you doing?”

Jinyoung looks back at Jaebum, who nods. Jinyoung yanks Yugyeom behind him and fires, just as Jiyoung raises her hands above her head, Minseok diving out the back of the van, kicking open the doors, Chanyeol stumbling out. The gun isn’t a normal gun, there’s a bluish electromagnetic current, reminiscent of the alien technology she had to fight with the Avengers earlier, and she braces for the impact, grimacing as she’s thrown out the back doors of the van from the impact. In the midst of the smoke and dust and giant hole that’s risen from the blast of the gun, a weapon clearly made to kill the Winter Soldier (Kyungsoo), she can make out the looming muscular outline of Kyungsoo getting to his feet, a couple yards away from the van. Jaebum’s already stepping out, the blaster gun raised and ready. Youngjae has a net type of lasso in his hands radiating the same blue energy as the earlier blast, and she’s happy to see Jinyoung is dragging out a dazed but otherwise okay Yugyeom. Even if these men were clearly ordered to undermine her, she still doesn’t want to see any of them hurt. Technically, they’re still a part of her team and she is responsible for them. She groans at that thought because this is going to be a thousand times harder now.

Jiyoung locks eyes on Kyungsoo as the dust settles and she notices he isn’t wearing his mask. There’s a haggardness to him now, the purple under his eyes distinct even from this distance, and his gaze on her is relentless. He doesn’t even bother to acknowledge Jaebum, his team, nor his guns. There’s something there, in the way he takes slow steps towards her, raising his rifle as he goes, that’s mechanical to her, wrong. There’s something in his expression, the twist of his mouth, that makes her pause for just a moment.

She tightens her gloves as she says, “Minseok?”

“Jaebum and his team. Got it.”

“Thanks.”

“How about that guy from accounting? He even offered to do your taxes.”

“Min.”

“Okay, fine, later. Also, Chanyeol can help you. I’ve got this.”

She can hear the worry in Chanyeol’s tone, “You sure?”

“I can take out four men in my sleep, Chanyeol. I’m positive.”

Jiyoung watches as Minseok veers off in the direction of Jaebum and his team, strutting casually, both guns raised in the air. Jaebum is shouting and Minseok is smirking dangerously.

“Don’t engage until your suit shows up.” Jiyoung tells Chanyeol before she takes off in Kyungsoo’s direction. Jaebum shoots at Kyungsoo and her and she uses her gloves to smack the blast away. She catches sight of Minseok kicking one of the guns out of Yugyeom’s hand easily.

She notices that Kyungsoo’s metal arm is patched up, the fingers looking brand new. She wonders how. The arm is high tech, obviously not made of vibranium, but it’s strong. She faces him, and he doesn’t waste time to attack, metal arm swinging. She dodges each attack, but just barely, putting in hits of her own. A couple land, hitting him hard, but he seems to be driving forward persistently, unyielding in the strengths of his attacks. She hates how this reminds her of the times they used to spar during training and they’d always be equally matched. She figures, despite whatever has happened to him, they are still evenly matched. It’s a strange irony she isn’t sure she wants to find funny or terribly sad.

“Jiyoung.” Minseok shouts at her and she barely manages to register the net being thrown in their direction, blue energy running through the thin metal. She kicks Kyungsoo in the stomach, bouncing back and away, but surprisingly, Kyungsoo doesn’t move out of the way. Her eyes widen when the net falls on him and his body seizes as the net morphs from something huge, condensing until his body is tangled in it and blue electricity jumps off him, making him scream, the sound reminding her horribly of when she watched him fall to his death. His expression, however, though pained, is confused, hurt, his eyes wide as he looks at her. She can’t help it when she runs forward and tears at the net, grimacing at the trickles of electricity that jumps off the net and trails up her hands and straight through her. She manages to tear a part of it off, the part that’s confining his metal arm, and his glazed eyes seem to straighten, grow angry even.

His metal arm shoots out and grasps her by throat, tightening for a moment before it completely loosens. A million emotions trickle through his eyes and each and every one of them is jarring. Her eyes widen at the intensity trickling out from his gaze, the way his big eyes seem to become so utterly soft, gentle, sad, the same kind of eyes she remembers on her best friend, on Do Kyungsoo. It’s just a brief change, a brief moment where his whole expression twists up into the ghost of who he once was, and he whispers, low voice hoarse, “Jiyoung?”

Two syllables is all it takes for Jiyoung to flinch, pulling away from his loose grip, her heart slamming against her ribs. Then—then Kyungsoo is not exactly Kyungsoo anymore. He is not the Kyungsoo she remembers, her Kyungsoo. He is the Winter Soldier—he is their Kyungsoo, whoever the hell they are in the first place. He is years of separation and she is afraid that she will never see her Kyungsoo again. His gaze hardens, he tears at the net with his metal arm, gritting his teeth as he easily rips through it, undeterred by the electricity. She forces herself to pull it together, like she always does.

Instead, she steps back and watches Kyungsoo, watches the way his chest heaves and anger twists his expression into an ugly caricature of her Kyungsoo, and then she says, “You remember me.”

She doesn’t ask him. She states it. Kyungsoo growls, “I don’t. I don’t.” But there is confusion there, hidden in the anger, and she knows, right then and there, that her Kyungsoo is hidden beneath what he has become. She clings to that sliver of hope, even if it’s just her naivety at play. She knows there has to be more to the story of the Winter Soldier. She knows there is something wrong with Kyungsoo. He did not just become this way. Kyungsoo swings at her and the fury in his expression is unbridled, wild, so much more than it was before. He is acting the way a caged animal does when they are at the end of their line and they know it.

(It’s fear, she realizes, with a heavy heavy heart. He is afraid, panicked, and he is expressing it through anger and fury. He is confused and panicked. Her heart twists and twists.)

“You do.” She can’t help but keep at it. She can’t help it. “I used to pick fights with people much bigger than me. You’d show up sometimes to kick their asses before they could kick mine. You do.”

Kyungsoo metal fist falters, mid air, his sharp gaze locked on her, but then there’s a gun blast that lights up the air, the smell of burnt metal distinct. Kyungsoo’s eyes widen before he’s knocked sideways, his metal arm cracking under the heat and pressure of the blast. Jiyoung swivels on her heels, punches another blast straight out of the air before it can hit her, and she glares at Jaebum. Before she can do anything, Minseok catches him in a headlock and Chanyeol shouts, “Behind you!”

She’s not fast enough. Kyungsoo gets her in the back, her eyes widening, and she hears, “I have a mission to complete.”

She crumples to her knees, gasping in pain when he flips her over onto her back, his singed, blackened metal arm coming up. He wraps his fingers around and she tries to buck him off her, though it’s done in vain. He’s just as strong as her. They’re equally matched and, perhaps, he’s even stronger than her because he’s not hindered by emotional attachment. They used to harp on her about that during training pre-serum, but she’s always been bad at it. If she’s responsible for someone, if she’s loyal to someone, she’ll keep every promise she made to them, she will protect anyone she can, even if it kills her.

(Kyungsoo had asked her about it once, whispered to her on the night she decided she would find a way to fight back, the night when all her circumstances had accumulated, when she was teetering on homeless, her mother was on her deathbed, and a few of her friends had already been enlisted for the war effort—the sheer amount of anger and helplessness that had coursed through her at the announcement, at the whispered words of comfort women, had sent her reeling to this spot near the river and Kyungsoo had been there, waiting, eyes filled with concern and understanding, “Are you sure about this?”

“I—I have to. I promised I would—”

“There are some promises you don’t have to keep. She will understand, Ji.”

She shook her head, rapid and quick, and even though the anger and helplessness had settled into a stagnant puddle at the pit of her stomach, she knew she couldn’t step away from this. “I can’t just not do anything.”

“You can’t save everyone.”

“But I can damn well try.”

Kyungsoo’s gaze had softened exponentially at that. “Even if it kills you?”

“Yeah, even then.”)

“Then complete it.” She gasps out, voice raspy, breathless, her fingers loosening against his. Kyungsoo stills. She watches the anger in his expression freeze in place.

He opens his mouth, to say something, but his words seem to be stuck in his throat. She tries to breathe through her nose, watching his whole demeanor shift, watching him tilt on his axis, switching back and forth like a computer program glitching. And then there’s the train. It’s engine roars from the train tracks at the edge of the abandoned warehouse district, the gears clattering loud and the sound grinding. Kyungsoo’s head snaps to the side and she sees his expression fall away, a rigidity to his shoulders that worries her, more than anything. At that moment, with his big eyes and his loosening grip around , with the way his spine is tensed up and his half-crumpled half-stunned expression, he looks like a scared animal, the prey rather than the predator. She blinks, confused by his reaction, when she notices a movement at the corner of her vision.

Chanyeol comes swooping in, decked out in his falcon suit, kicking Kyungsoo off her easily.

“Great timing, huh?” Chanyeol says as he lands beside her, helping her to her feet.

She rubs her undoubtedly bruised neck. Kyungsoo is still sprawled across the floor, his fingers curling into fists so tight the knuckles are turning white. She stares at the train before it hits her, almost immediately.

She remembers that moment so clearly, when he had slipped out the freight car of a speeding train and presumably fell to his death. She had reached for him, but he had slipped through the cracks of her fingers, gunshot wound in his arm a bright, burning red, and she had cried out for him. Still did, even after she woke up from cryo-sleep seventy years later.

He's remembering things and it scares him, she realizes.

(She wonders, for a horrific moment, exactly what had happened to him after the train. What had turned him into this?)

“Where’s Jaebum and his team?” Jiyoung looks to the van. It’s empty and Jaebum, Jinyoung, Yugyeom, Youngae, and Minseok are all gone.

“Under control.” Minseok’s voice crackles in her ear through the headset.

Chanyeol meets Jiyoung’s gaze, his big eyes flickering to Kyungsoo. “What are you planning?” Chanyeol asks, tone wary.

The train’s grinding gears fade into the distance and Kyungsoo shoves himself to his feet, his expression now filled with absolute rage and confusion. He drags a hand through his long hair, gripping his head, while his other hand remains curled up into a tight fist. “What the are you doing to me?” He grits out.

Her chest feels tight the same way it does when she sees Joohyun and she doesn’t recognize her or when she wakes up from nightmares in the middle of the night. She shakes her head, “Nothing. I’m not going to hurt you.”

Kyungsoo’s body is stiff, on high alert, his face screwed up in pain and confusion. He doesn’t believe her.

~.~.~.~.~

“This is the plan.” Chanyeol stares at her, incredulous.

“Do you have a better one?” She asks.

Chanyeol doesn’t so he crosses his arms over his chest and looks on disapprovingly.

She turns to Kyungsoo. She managed to knock him out (an easy feat when he’s clearly in pain from whatever’s going on in his head) and they had dragged him into one of the warehouses. Then, Jiyoung had taken the abandoned scrap metal—fortunately some of these warehouses used to be manufacturing warehouses and junkyards—and wound as many pieces of heavy metal together as possible before pinning Kyungsoo’s metal arm down while Kyungsoo kneels beside the pile of hastily put together metal.

“Jongin texted and said he’s found some documents. He’s sending them over. Also—” There’s a grunt over the headsets and a chuckle from Minseok that sounds ridiculously amused, “—Jaebum here seems to know more than he should. I’ll ring in with an update soon.”

Kyungsoo stirs, lifting his head and blinking blearily at the two of them.

Chanyeol’s staring at him, wary and distrustful. Jiyoung doesn’t blame him, Kyungsoo nearly ripped off his wings, last time. It takes a moment for Kyungsoo to take in his surroundings, but when he finally does, his spine goes rigid and his eyes find Jiyoung, his gaze soul-piercing. The way he looks at her is disconcerting.

“Jiyoung.” The way he says her name, with a slight lilt at the end, an old-fashioned accent from her childhood that she doesn’t hear anymore, has her blinking rapidly, emotions both bad and good bubbling up in her stomach and crawling into for a moment, making it hard to respond right away.

She’s missed him. She’s missed him.

“You remember.” She can hear the relief in her voice.

She can sense Chanyeol’s worry from beside her.

“I don’t.” He says it so very easily and the relief is gone as quickly as it came, leaving a sour taste in . “I’m not the person you think I am.”

“Jiyoung…” Minseok’s voice echoes between Chanyeol and her headsets, loud in the silence that follows Kyungsoo’s words. There’s a sense of horror in his tone that sends her on high alert. “Jiyoung, this is…this is a lot.”

She doesn't resepond to Minseok, too intent on Kyungsoo and his expression, his demeanor. 

“What happened to you?” She whispers, her hands dropping from her chest.

Kyungsoo mouth twists into a wry, bitter smile. He opens his mouth to reply, “My mission—”

He never gets to finish his sentence. He’s cut off by a whirring sound that grows louder by the millisecond. Minseok shouts no, no, no through the headset, suddenly desperate, breathless. Kyungsoo’s wry smile grows. She hates it. The ground trembles beneath her feet and the metal wrapped around Kyungsoo’s arm rattles.

Chanyeol’s eyes are wide, distant, stuck in memories from the past that he’s only mentioned snippets of, as he gasps out, “Bombs.”

Her heart drops. Kyungsoo’s dark, bitter gaze remains fixed on her while the whole world is set aflame.

~.~.~.~.~

“Cap? Captain? Jiyoung!”

She slows to a stop. The thoughts in her head are running at full speed and it hurts, it hurts. She can feel the pain, the twinges from the burns, because even a genetically enhanced human being can feel pain. And the pain is unbearable. It is concentrated in her chest, where the panic has built up into this painful knot that makes it hard to breathe. She thinks there might be smoke in her lungs, too.

She spins. Chanyeol has his hands up in the air, his big eyes unwavering, glistening with unshed tears that are for her, she later realizes, because he feels everything the rest of them refuse to feel. Soot streaks his face and she unconsciously catalogs him for injuries. He’s okay. Still, she feels sick, her empty stomach heaving. Chanyeol looks strange, doused in the remnants of fire flickering from the abandoned warehouse district they’ve left behind. She doesn’t remember what exactly happened. There was fire and there was a screeching sound of metal. The building collapsed in on itself. Kyungsoo’s eyes remained pinned on her and she doesn’t want that to haunt her for the rest of her days, but it will, he will.

He is gone.

She woke up and she searched and searched. She’s still searching.

“Zero Division’s sending a helicarrier to pick us up.” Minseok had whispered at some point.

Her heart is pumping hard in her chest and she feels the way she did before the super serum, when she was weak and could barely run properly. When she was tiny and weak, helpless, and Kyungsoo would always tell her everything would be okay in that gentle voice of his.

“He’s gone, Jiyoung.” Chanyeol murmurs, voice soft, careful, forlorn. “He’s gone.”

She just stares back at him, eyes wide, chest heaving, her eyes prickling with the urge to cry.

She doesn’t though. Chanyeol holds out his hand and she takes it.

~.~.~.~.~

Kyungsoo disappears off the face of the Earth.

A part of her is glad, another part is upset.

Jaebum is staring at her as he says, resignation coloring his tone, “What am I supposed to report back to Mr. Park? We failed our mission.”

She feels bad for him because Jaebum and his team were just following orders. They shouldn’t be punished for her misdeeds. She looks him in the eye, “I’m the team lead. I’ll talk to him and I’ll take whatever punishment he decides to give.”

Jaebum keeps staring at her and she wonders if he knows just how disconcerting his stoic expressions are. Finally, he says, “We still have to give a separate mission report.”

“I’m not going to ask you to lie. Do what you need to do.”

A small smile graces Jaebum’s lips, “You really are as kind as the media makes you out to be. It’s infuriating.”

She can’t help but smile, too, just a little, “I wouldn't call me kind.”

“It’s still infuriating.”

She laughs a little and so does he.

~.~.~.~.~

She stares and stares at the files Jongin had unearthed and sent to Minseok. Minseok hovers near her and there is a fire in his eyes that Jiyoung has never seen before. She peruses through file after file on the plane back home and she can barely make sense of the words.

She reads super soldier serum and experiment number four. She reads Sergeant Do Kyungsoo, looks at his photograph, so clearly him that it hurts, it hurts so much. She reads of what happened to Leeteuk after he was fired, how he took his experiments up North, like Joohyun said, how the occupations began shortly after, the United States occupying the South and the Soviets occupying the North. Kyungsoo was brought there, to that facility in North Korea that was then overrun and occupied by the Soviets. Leeteuk wasn’t allowed back to the South, to where his wife and son was, unless he left the instructions to make the super soldier serum behind. He did. She reads of electrocution, of hypnosis, of sleeper agents, of brainwashing, of putting The Winter Soldier under cryo-sleep and only waking him up for special missions. Her eyes flicker over HYDRA and assassinations.

She imagines Kyungsoo near death at the base of the mountain she had thought he died at. She imagines them operating on him, replacing his arm with a metal one, and then—and then they ruined him, turned him into a soldier, the ultimate soldier, and they passed him between organizations, used him and ruined him, broke him and turned him into a caricature of himself, an ugly caricature of a human being, and—

“Jiyoung.”

Her heart is breaking into a million and one pieces.

“I’m so sorry.”

She can’t help but wonder what his life would have been like if she hadn’t decided to run that plane of explosives into the ocean, if she decided to live and look for his body. She can’t help but think she is partially to blame.

Tears prickle at her eyes and a mixture of rage and grief and self-hatred churns at the pit of her stomach, morphing into a monster that rears its head and roars and roars, tells her to do something.

She tears her gaze off the papers, off of the headshot of Kyungsoo smiling up at her, her Kyungsoo, the Kyungsoo that deserves justice. She looks at Minseok.

There is a fire in his eyes as Minseok says, “Jaebum said the bombs were a last resort. Sent by—by the current administration. We had a time limit. That’s why Jaebum was trying so hard to kill him.”

Chanyeol has his arms crossed over his chest as he leans back in his seat across from them. He speaks slowly, weighing each of his words heavily before he speaks, “Do you think that’s why the kill order was sent? To cover up the fact that Leeteuk basically created the Winter Soldier?”

“If our allies ever found out, especially the U.S., it’d ruin Choi’s chance for reelection. It'd ruin everything in terms of diplomacy.” Minseok says.

Then Jiyoung adds, twisting into a scowl, “Maybe it’s more than that. Maybe Choi used—hired Kyungsoo, too. Maybe he even colluded with HYDRA.”

“It’d explain how badly they want him dead.” Chanyeol murmurs, sighing.

Minseok’s jaw clenches as he turns to Jiyoung, says, very seriously, “Do you really want to go back there?”

His eyes are filled with sympathy for her. Jiyoung feels warmth in her chest, for a moment, because Minseok and Chanyeol are her friends and they really truly care about her more than she ever thought they would. Slowly, thoughtfully, she nods, “Yes.” Chanyeol opens his mouth to protest, but Jiyoung presses on, “Zero Division has the best resources to find him. We can use that.”

“He’s the Winter Soldier. If he doesn’t want to be found, then that’s it.”

“I never looked for him last time.”

Chanyeol murmurs, tone gentle, “That wasn’t your fault.”

Jiyoung nods, smiling reassuringly, despite how she feels, “I know, I know. But, waiting for him is the least I can do for him.”

~.~.~.~.~

“Jaebum told me you tried to stop the Winter Soldier, but he overpowered even you.” Leeteuk’s son raises a brow and the way his eyes glint tells her he doesn’t fully believe that. She hides her surprise at Jaebum’s blatant lie. She wasn’t expecting that from him and it’s nice to hear, despite everything. “And then the bombs went off, no doubt set off by that terrorist and whoever he’s working with, and he escaped.”

She watches him lean back, too comfortable in Changmin’s chair, and she says, tone casual, void of any and all respect she might have used before this mission, before she found out everything, “That sounds about right.”

He narrows his eyes at her, “This is the second time you’ve failed. I’m taking you off the mission.”

She watches the smirk drip from his lips and she replies, shrugging, hiding her amusement at the anger glinting in his eyes at her actions, “Fine.”

“Fine.” He mocks, waving his hand, “And Captain?”

She raises a brow at him.

“I really hope you tried your best out there. If I find out you let him go because of past…relationships, you will be severely reprimanded.”

There’s an implication in his tone, a hand over a button, and she wonders if he really truly thinks her to be that stupid or easily manipulated. She stares at him, puts on her best no-bull expression, stern and terrifying enough that the man’s smirk falters and slips. She says, each syllable clear, ringing through his office, “I’ll be waiting patiently, then, for that reprimanding.”

She matches his smirk, brows still raised in challenge, before she spins on her heels and strides out of the office, anger churning in her stomach.

~.~.~.~.~

Minseok is dressed to the nines, impeccably handsome in his pressed suit and tie, his usual tight leather gone for the day.

“You look good.” She says, grinning.

“You don’t.” Minseok replies, a glint of concern flickering through his gaze. She knows she looks like a mess. She hasn’t been able to sleep properly since they returned and Joohyun doesn’t remember her at all and her heart feels so heavy. She wakes up to nightmares of the people she loves dying more often than ever. She’s exhausted.

Still, Jiyoung puts on a smile and says, “It’s fine, I’m fine.” She looks him over once again and adds, “You sure you want to do this?”

“Changmin tried to talk me out of this, too.”

Changmin sighs from where he’s seated in his hospital bed, his eyes pinned on Minseok. “Everything will be out there, Minseok. Budapest, Osaka, the Children’s Ward. Are you sure you want the whole world to see you as you truly are?”

Minseok’s constant confident smile falters a bit at that. He straightens his tie, looking past Changmin, his gaze distant, stuck somewhere far away. “Yixing and I discussed all our options, and this has the highest success rate. The Choi administration is involved in bad things, with HYDRA, and the public should know.”

Jiyoung is the one to speak then, her voice quiet. She’s worried, then, for Minseok and how the world will see him. He’s so used to his masks and she doesn’t know how he will fare without them. She can’t imagine such a vulnerable Minseok, “You don’t have to do this, Min.”

Minseok smiles then, a genuine smile and not one of his usual dangerous smirks, “I do. I want to.”

“Okay.” Jiyoung looks between Minseok and Changmin. Then she settles her gaze on Minseok and makes sure Minseok can hear the sincerity, “Thank you.”

“You don’t need to thank me, Cap. We’re a team.”

~.~.~.~.~

She can’t sleep all night anymore. She has recurring nightmares of Kyungsoo being tortured, brainwashed, forced to kill people, a stateless entity with no home, a true ghost walking the Earth, in hiding forever.

The day Minseok leaks the files to the internet, Naver blows up. It even hits international news outlets and the Choi administration crumbles in on itself. Leeteuk’s son cries upon arrest and she doesn’t even feel bad. It’s a miracle in and of itself, however, the act of revenge, of justice, doesn’t make her feel any better. She wishes it would. That’s what her entire persona, the public version of her everyone knows, is built on: justice and freedom, however, as days turn to weeks turn to months, she feels like a fraud. Panic and nightmares seep into her dreams, her very bones, her essence, and keeps her awake almost every night. She finds solace in the facility gym. Sometimes, Chanyeol joins her when he can’t sleep.

(Most of the time, Chanyeol hands her tea sets and long boring books and promises they will help. He is trying. He is trying and she is always so utterly grateful for him.)

Minseok is internationally infamous and he’s taking it better than she thought he would. Still, he drags her out to secluded mountain trails for day long hikes too often and she figures he’s better at hiding how he’s feeling than she is. He even starts spending more time with Jongin, watching him work in his lab.

Minseok still tries to set her up on dates. She tries to take him up on one of her offers.

It doesn’t work.

She thinks maybe she’s stuck. Everyone’s moved on, even Kyungsoo has disappeared completely, moving along faster and better than she could have ever done, and she is always stuck in the past, stuck looking for him.

Joohyun’s memory fades for much longer these days, but some days, Joohyun remembers Jiyoung and she holds Jiyoung’s hand and says, “You’re not stuck. You’re hurt. You’re grieving.”

She doesn’t know what to do with that information.

~.~.~.~.~

Months turn into a year and a half.

She spends more nights asleep than awake. It’s better. It’s getting better.

Tonight is one of those nights where she can’t sleep properly, where she wakes up in cold sweat with a metal hand wrapped around and face burnt beyond recognition telling her it’s all her fault. She steps out the elevator into her hallway, cold from her post-workout shower, tired but unfortunately wide awake, wired from the exercise and the insomnia.

She trudges down the hall to her apartment, fumbling for her keys. She wraps her hand around the doorknob when she notices something is off, the hairs at the back of her neck standing end.

She’s on high alert, right then, as she slowly shoulders her workout bag off and grips it, ready to throw it.

She takes a deep breath before she throws her door open and whips the duffel bag up, poised, ready to strik—

She freezes, her grip on the duffel bag tightening and her entire body tensing at the sight before her. Her chest tightens the same way it does whenever she wakes up in her bed from her nightmares. Her breathing grows a bit shallow.

“Ky—Kyungsoo.”

She hates how she stutters.

He’s sitting there, at her little dining room table, arms resting on the table. There’s a black cap settled in front of his folded hands and his hair is even longer. His clothes are dirty and ripped, but his long hair is pulled back into a ponytail. His big eyes are dark, intense, and his lips are pulled taut into a tight line.

The longer he just sits there, staring at her, the more tension fills the room. She can’t help but scan him for injuries, cataloging every visible cut on his face (there’s one on his cheek) and whether anything’s broken (nothing is broken).

Slowly, painfully so, she drops her arm and shuts the door behind her.

She says, “What are you doing here?”

He sits there, at her dining table, and exists the way a ghost would, just lingering, watching. The silence draws on and on and her insides churn with anxiety, unsure of what he will do, unsure of what they are, of who he has become.

Finally, finally, he speaks up, his tone low, smooth, reminding her distinctly of the Kyungsoo that riddles her childhood memories, the one she had grieved for. “Tell me about him.”

She blinks, “Who?”

He speaks in short, clipped sentences, his eyes boring into her soul, “Do Kyungsoo.”

He says his own name with a sense of longing, confusion and loss that makes her soften, her stiff muscles relaxing even under his deep scrutiny.

It takes a moment to get the words out. They stick to and she has to clear it several times, a lump forming in that makes it hard to speak clearly, but she does it. She tells him about Do Kyungsoo.

Her best friend. The boy who had helped her out of all the stupid fights she’d get herself into. The boy who held her hand and told her it was okay to cry when her mother finally died. The boy who was everything she found good about the world. The boy who would set her up on double dates with a grin on his face and she wouldn’t be able to do anything but grin back, who was enlisted long before she signed up and would always tell her be careful, idiot before he’d have to go back to the base with those soft eyes and tiny smiles, who’d throw his pencils at her head during class to get her attention, who she’d help sneak out of his house at night so they could go to illegal parties after curfew and drink away their problems, who’d—

Her voice catches as she tries to formulate more words, spell out every single detail of their childhood, even the little things, the way he’d speak up when someone would scowl at her and tell her she’s too old to be running around outside with so many boys, who had told her everything would be okay when she realized she liked girls too, maybe even loved a girl at that moment and is it bad, am I disgusting and horrible and—he had shook his head, whispered, no, no, no, you’re not, you’re not, and let her cry, the way she had hugged him so tightly the day he got his enlistment letter, told him everything will be okay, you’ll be okay and the way he’d always try to hold back his tears around her, so as not to worry her, she wants to tell him everything about Do Kyungsoo, every tiny minuscule detail about who he was—is.

She tries to speak but it’s hard. Her chest rises and falls as she looks at Kyungsoo and he continues staring, his brows scrunching together, his dark eyes filled with an unreadable emotion. Everything about him is unreadable to her now, despite back then when she could read him like a book.

The silence doesn’t draw out nearly as long as before. Kyungsoo says, with a clinical sort of understand, “You love him, don’t you?”

She doesn’t need to think when she responds, “Yeah.”

(It’s not a shock, to realize that that’s what it is. She loves him. She knows that she would do anything to protect him and when she looks at him, she has an overwhelming sense of fondness and adoration clinging to every fiber of her being. She loves him. She has always loved him. She’s never known a time when she hasn’t loved him. Whether it’s just wholly platonic or something a bit romantic, she isn’t sure. She doesn’t think she will ever be sure, now, due to the circumstances of what they’ve become, but she knows he is her best friend and she loves him so very much.)

He says, “He’s dead, you know.”

She shakes her head, gaze steely as she says, confidently, “He’s not. You’re not.”

“I’ve spent months trying to find him. I tried—” His whole body goes tense, that same look, the look of a caged animal, crossing his features. His fingers curl around the edge of the table, tightening and tightening as he whispers, his voice jilted, a rugged staccato that has Jiyoung stepping closer, “Dead—gone—a dead man walking.”

A crack echoes through the apartment and she and Kyungsoo both stare at Kyungsoo’s metal arm, at the way he’s crushed the wooden dining table between his metal fingers. The tension from Kyungsoo’s shoulders dissipates then, ebbing out of him as quickly as it came, and he slumps forward.

He whispers I’m sorry, I’m sorry and it’s so ing broken, so pained, that she finds herself shaking her head, quickly, reassuringly.

“It’s not... it’s fine, Soo.”

There’s a boom of thunder from outside, sudden and loud. Kyungsoo jumps, grows rigid, tensed as if he’s prepared to get attacked. It feels as if someone has a hand in her chest and is attempting to rip it out while wearing a pair of steel spiked gloves.

She doesn’t know what to do, for just a moment, she is stunned, overwhelmed, way in over her head.

But Kyungsoo is jumpy and he is broken, ruined, and he is trying to find himself again.

The least she can do is help him keep himself together.

She steps forward, slowly, one step at a time, and his head snaps to the side, his wild eyes darting over her face.

“I’m not going to hurt you.”

“That’s what you said last time.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize. Don’t look at me like that. I’m not him.”

It’s the most she’s heard him talk, so far. It pierces straight through her. He is taking in all of her reactions. Something in his eyes soften and there is an inkling of guilt there.

He says, slow, jilted, off kilter, “I’m sorry I’m not him.”

“You are.” She repeats, a little too forceful this time.

He just stares at her with big wide eyes, expression grave. He doesn’t say anything to contradict her. He doesn’t say anything at all, fingers still curled into fists.

She takes a deep, deep breath then, and the backs of her eyes prickle with pain, with the urge to cry. She can’t quite stop it and she has to brush away at the tears before they come. Kyungsoo just watches this, just stares and stares, and it should be unsettling. Yet, it’s somehow reassuring. It reminds her that he is here, at least, different but still Kyungsoo. He is here and, maybe, he is trying. There’s a look in his eyes, a tightness in his jaw, as if he’s trying so hard it’ll break him even more than he already is.

“You should take a shower.” She murmurs.

He shakes his head.

“At least change, then?”

She is surprised when he nods, slowly, carefully.

She leaves the room, rummages through her clothes until she finds her biggest pair of sweatpants and a sweatshirt, and as she walks back to the dining-room-slash-kitchen she half expects him to be long gone. She expects him to be exactly what he’s always been, a ghost story, destined to wander the Earth for the rest of his life.

But, he’s still there. He’s still there and she hands him the clothes and turns away. She can hear the rustling of his clothes and she turns back when she hears the chair scrape across the floor again, a loud sound that makes her wince.

He’s still looking at her, but he looks better now with fresh clothes. Cleaner. Less like a drifter and more like himself, softer.

After a moment, she tells him, “You can stay here, Kyungsoo. As long as you want.”

He shakes his head, a slow, cautious thing.

She looks away, upwards, blinking away her emotions, her dissent. She can’t tell him what to do; he’s spent decades being told what to do and she will respect his choices. Instead, she murmurs, “Okay.”

He doesn’t leave, though.

There’s something there, in his expression, something that dredges up old memories.

He stays until she goes to bed and then she hears him slip out the window.

She doesn’t expect him to come back, but he does, and each time he returns with more questions. Each time, he waits until she’s succumbing to sleep before he slips out the window. Sometimes he breaks things by accident and she has to reassure him that everything’s okay. Sometimes he hears distant noises and he disappears into his head. Sometimes he doesn’t say a word the whole time. He truly is a ghost, on those days.

This becomes a thing.

He asks her to tell him about someone or something. She does exactly that. He apologizes. Her heart breaks.

Months pass, months of Minseok eyeing her strangely, Chanyeol asking her if she’s okay, and even Junmyeon telling her he’s worried about her in his own convoluted way, before Kyungsoo says, “Tell me about home.”

She’s silent for a long time after he asks that. He waits, patiently. He’s always been good at that: patience.

“It was wherever my mom was. And then she died, and it became you. Then Joohyun, too.” She pauses, peers around her apartment, “Now, it’s this place and the friends I’ve made here.”

He blinks around the apartment as well, longing filling his dark eyes. There is both longing and apprehension there and she wants to reach out and wrap her arms around him, tell him it’s okay.

Instead, she says, “This can be your home, too, you know.”

Kyungsoo’s eyes snap sideways to meet hers. There is a hidden softness there, a softness that has been growing over the months. He looks around again, taking in each nook and cranny, memorizing everything in a way that makes her uneasy.

Then, he shakes his head and he says, words clipped as always, as if he’s picking each word carefully and letting them loose at an uneven pace. Sometimes, he even accidentally speaks in Russian and she chalks it up to sentences being too hard for him, sometimes, especially Korean sentences. “I can’t do that. I’m sorry.”

She blinks at him, at the finality there, hidden in his disjointed words. “Is that it then? You’ll just show up to ask questions and then disappear?”

Kyungsoo’s eyes are glassy, but his expression is blank, careful, “He loved you, too, Jiyoung.”

She stares and stares, “Not he. You, Kyungsoo, you did.”

Kyungsoo doesn’t say anything, doesn’t even move, even as she steps forward with each word.

There’s a feeling of desperation deep in her chest and it hurts, the way he refuses to stay, the way he looks at her. Maybe, he is trying, but she wants him to try harder. It’s selfish to ask him that. It’s selfish, she’s being selfish.

“If you stay, I can help you. We can take you to therapy. Chanyeol’s really good with that. We can—we can—this can be your home now, Soo. You can have a home here. You can rest. You won’t have to fight anymore.”

Her voice cracks at her words and she can’t help the way her hands tremble.

She doesn’t expect the gentleness from Kyungsoo. She never expected it, though it’s always been obvious. He’s always been carefully gentle in her apartment, taking care to speak quietly, to apologize as often as he can. She never expects it, she doesn’t want it, but he is that way with her and it makes everything worse, somehow. She is being selfish, after months of trying not to be, and he is still maintaining his walls, his boundaries, his carefulness.

Kyungsoo holds out a hand and says, “Thank you, but I’m sorry.”

Kyungsoo’s eyes are wet with tears and it surprises her, it makes the anger and irritation, the hurt, subside immediately, trickling out into a defeated resignation, an age-old exhaustion that has her reaching forward unthinkingly and wrapping her arms around him, embracing him tightly. He stiffens in her arms, no doubt surprised, and she’s probably lucky he hadn’t thrown her through a wall the minute she got into his personal space. He stiffens, his muscles tense under her, but she breathes in his scent—the same as her body wash since he’s finally taken her up on her offers for a shower—and blinks away tears. After a long moment, he returns the hug, his hands landing tentatively, surprisingly gentle, at her back. She smiles a little, despite everything, despite the finality in his tone and the way he keeps referring to Kyungsoo as a separate entity. Still, she leans away first, and his arms fall away. His big eyes are just that, big and shining wet.

She reaches out and wraps a hand around his trembling fingers, “Come home when you’re ready, then.”

The tears spill from his eyes and he doesn’t seem to know what to do with them. He rubs at his cheeks, his eyes wide, brows furrowed in confusion. She helps him, blinking away her own tears, while she brushes at his cheeks with the pads of her thumbs. He murmurs, voice low as he nods mechanically, “Okay.”

She lets him go and she watches as he climbs out the window and into the early morning. He looks back once before he disappears.

He doesn’t return. It’s the last time she ever sees him.

(At least until the U.N. holds a conference in Vienna regarding a treaty involving limiting the power of the Avengers (she’s against it and Junmyeon is for it), a bomb goes off, killing too many people including the King of Wakanda, and Do Kyungsoo is declared the prime suspect of the bombing.)

---

a/n: jskfndkjs it's done! it feels a little rushed near the end and idk how I feel about this, overall. it turned out a lot less romance focused and more friendship heavy. I missed the deadline for the contest (because a bee stung my hand lmao rip), but also I was going to get disqualified anyway because I broke half the (sorta ridiculous) rules without realizing at first sooooo yolo lmao.

thank you everyone SO MUCH for the support before this, I really hope I did this justice because there was so much pressure to write this well and i'm still not completely satisfied still fjnkjdnsdjn thank you!

xoxo