Part of keeping the Soviet kingdom in check was maintaining order over every country, province and town. Every inch of land we held dominion over had to be constantly intimidated, indoctrinated and integrated. Every country was a cog in a clock, and every country ticked differently - some cowered in their hovels devoutly swallowing every order whilst some had civil unrest, rejecting ever law, doctrine and courtesy.

Whole towns were burnt to the ground if they didn't obey.

It often occurred to me: how did people let this happen? I won't deny, as an empire, our arsenal of weaponry was enough to exterminate the entire face of the earth, our wealth was as bottomless as a pharaoh's and our legislation as harsh as Henry VII's. But we're just one web of countries, in an allegiance secured by fear; beyond us - surely people knew? Slaughters of citizens were a day to day thing for me, and it almost didn't bother me anymore.

Almost.

But beyond that Iron Curtain, the buffer countries that segregated us from Europe and Asia, why did no one infiltrate our borders? Why did no one step in? Why did no one stand up? Our people, the Soviet people, they were powerless. Subjugated, brutalised, extorted. Americans, they killed innocent civilians, they stole documents, they pointed weapons. Why didn't they aid uprisings?

And people look at me, look at James; they see us as the villains. We've just been branded with the same name, because we're - on the surface - allied with the government. Antagonists, that's what we are; those who oppose justice. Antagonised antagonists. No one has sympathy for the villain, sympathy for the devil. Nine times out of ten, I'm willing to bet you look at them, opposed from the second you clap eyes on them, and think: they deserve to die. Motive is a little acknowledged thing. Question villains, or those who you see as villains. Nothing is ever as it seems. Fallaces sunt rerum species.

On our way to another town burnt down to ashes as white as snow, it had occurred to me.

"Let me tell you a bit about myself," the luxuriated kingpin stated casually. A short glass of vodka sloshed in Lukin's hand as he spoke; in by far the nicest seat in the hellish clunking vehicle. The icecubes made a tuneful clinking noise against the glass.

Yelena, James and I turned our attention from the icy landscape in the windows to the man propped aloofly in the seat.

"This town you're about to visit, though we burn many ourselves - eradicating weak links in the chain - it wasn't us who burnt it to the ground. The Americans...President Nixon is interfering with our affairs. He's unhappy about Hungary and Czechoslovakia... Still, he's somewhat weaker than Kennedy. Thank you again Winter..." He raised his glass to my catatonic partner in crime and snapped him a wink. "Though you still haven't explained how you got that bullet to curve... Survivors is what you're looking for. And the pesky capitalists who have brought the Soviet wrath upon themselves..."

"But what has this to do with yourself, sir?" Yelena fluttered her eyelashes innocently and perched herself on the edge of her seat with attentiveness.

Aleksander gave a happy hum at her, and his foot snaked forwards across to her seat, the side of his shoe affectionately trailing up her ankle. "It was from similar circumstances I got to where I am today. During the Second World War we did nothing but help the Americans, but they never returned the favour. They let us suffer. The Nazis, The Red Skull and Hitler's men, they came through the singed my town to the ground..." He looked up at me, almost with understanding. "I watched my own parents burn to death. Captain America..." A snarl appeared on his face and then a scowl turned to James, who seemed to shiver at the name. "He stepped over them. Stepped over me. We meant nothing to the Americans, that much was clear. We were collateral damage; they marched straigh through. Vasily Karpov, god rest his nurturing soul-" I felt bile rise in the back of my throat. "He scooped me up from the ashes, he made something of me. When I was so sure I was going to die in the cold of the Siberian snow."

"Karpov was truly a great man..." Yelena whispered wistfully, downcast eyes and a crestfallen frown painted onto her features.

James and I held our peace. If we said anything we would've received a backlash of violence.

"And you should all be very grateful..." He retrieved a white silk hanky from his exterior breast pocket. Twisting it into a point, he dabbed away the one tear in his eye.

The car spluttered to a stop, harshly skidding on the ice at it broke. Through the like sprinkling of snow, the town was visible. Smoke twirled in tendrils, from flames dampened by the blizzard. Windows, smashed. Doors, bust down. Bricks, black with soot. And the bodies... The bodies... Young and old, a mutilated massacre and the blood stained the snow.

"We're here..." He seethed in a vulnerable breath. Then sat back in his seat, grappling with the neck of the vodka bottle.

"Ladies first..." James insisted, and of course Yelena sprung for the door.

We filed out less enthusiastically, evading the bite of the wind chill on our skin. We slipped into the snow from the four-by-four, our boots crunching through the ankle deep quilt of white.

The coldness of the snow punctured my heavy duty boots, and he weathering wind stabbed at my exposed skin. The black latex suit provided next to no thermal help.

"It's a simple patrol and report mission... I say we divide and conquer..." James directed, waving his metal hand around and pointing out the various deserted streets.

Yelena gave him a wicked smirk and nodded. "Yes, sir..." And traipsed away in her usual fashion. Something told me if that suggestion had come from me she would've completely ignored it.

"What do you say, you and me team up?" James whispered to me, poignant blue eyes piercing mine.

"Sounds like a plan," I breathed back, my words vaporising before my very eyes.

The snowfall was light, like the snowflakes were being sieved from the heavens onto the ground. Occasional clumps of conjoined snowflakes would glide past and dance to the ground, whereas others were magnetized to the warmth of my body; and would melt into crystals of water at contact, that would glisten on my skin and thread into my auburn ribbons of hair.

The snow brought an eerie silence, muffling every sound - almost censoring the immediate vicinity. My footsteps, though they crunched, didn't carry. My voice, was caught up in the snow and discarded. My breaths twirled before my eyes and my words danced in the open air.

The blackness of the wartorn hamlet against the purity of the snow was stark. Beyond the small collection of streets and alleys was a ring of forest, alpine trees, thick with their green fur. Though it looked like a mesh of comfort from a distance, the green needles would spine any trespassers if they tried to invade the brush.

The town was lifeless. Deserted. The soul ripped out of it by the people. But still the residents remained, in tableaux of their last moments, frozen forever in their fear. I stepped over body after body, avoiding stray disembodied limb or bashed in skull. We were the only movement within the stillness.

"There was a time I loved the snow..." I looked to the brooding man beside me, trying to avoiding meeting eyes with the dead.

"Yeah?" He cocked his head at me, somewhat surprised at the personal sentiment.

I trudged through the red coloured mush, warmed by the residual embers of the fire and the occupants, still quivering with heat.

"I grew up in this town... Uh," I dug through some of the boggier memories. "Volgograd..." Fleeting images of that past life cascaded before my very eyes. "In south-west Russia... It's on the banks of the biggest River in Europe, the Volga... They call it Stalingrad now, after the obvious..." James looked fascinated, doting upon my every word, no regard for the hands and feet he was rambling over. "And it used to get freezing in the Winter... It was beautiful. Everything would be decorated with white... and my foster father; he'd scold me, for staying awake... For watching the snow in the orange city lights. The snowflakes, they reminded me of ballerinas..." I gave a ridiculed laugh at my own immature imagination. "Pathetic right?"

"No..." He discarded his gun into the corpses at our feet, singed and fleshy like a cut of meat, and took my shivering bony fingers in his warm hand. "That's... That's wonderful..."

"But now..." I stared at our bleak surroundings, the bland white with splashes of red and black. "I can never think of it in such a pure way. The snow is where I work, do my harm..." I combed the damp strands of my hair out of my eyes with my hand. "It's not the same-"

I saw a shifty movement, behind a decrepit burnt out grocery store: the sign mostly eroded by the flames: big black potholes in it.

"There... Someone's there..." I stopped abruptly.

I saw a pair of green eyes, like a cat's, in a petrified young face. The shells of her ears were flushed, her nose pink and her eyes raw. I calculated my surroundings, and with no one but James to be seen, I timidly padded over.

They shrunk away into the shadows, trying to meld with the fire smudged wall. I tore my weapons from my belt, unbuckling them and disregarding them into the snow. Such tainted instruments used to orchestrate anguish were not needed in the sensitive situation.

I crouched down as I reached her hiding place, her silhouette still visible through the gloom and the snow. "Hey..." I extended my hand to her, asking her to lend her trust to me. "Sweetie please, I'm not going to hurt you..." And out of the darkness, into the whiteness, a trembling hand the size of a pixie's reached.

And as James rattled up behind me, still clothed in varied cruel devices, the hand retreated.

"Hey, it's okay... James won't hurt you either..." I shuffled forwards, low to the slushy ground. "But I'm afraid there's people here who might-" The child sprung at me like a spider-monkey, arms thrown around my neck and legs curled around my hip. She must've been all but five years old. Her white nightdress flapped around her ankles and bunched in the wind.

I was nearly knocked to the floor. The child was sobbing, her wet ebony hair stringy and mud-covered. "My mummy and daddy... They killed my mummy and daddy!" She burbled into my torso.

I struggled to my feet, holding the child to me. "I'm sorry, kid... I'm so sorry... But you need to get out of here... Bad people are here, and we're not the good people..." I told her.

I knew, with sweet ponderous eyes like hers, with willingness to submit like hers, with innocence like hers, they'd take her and they'd change her. Lukin would use her, like Karpov used me. He'd abuse her, take her for the cause, remove any chance of a life for her.

"What's beyond these woods?" I asked, jogging her up and down to soothe her. "Hey? What's beyond these woods?" I briskly strolled along, taking the alleys to get her away from the centre of the village. James trailed behind me, a soppy sympathetic smile on his face. "Is there another town? Is there another town beyond these woods?"

I finally managed to coax some sense out of the child hugging me desperately. She nodded, whilst rubbing the heels of her hands at her eyes.

"Good... Good... Do you know how to get there..? Tell me you know how to get there." I repetitively carded a hand through her hair and rubbed her back in oval shapes, calming the hiccups being wrenched out of her.

"Yes..." She mewed into my shoulder, tears smearing against my neck, harshening the cold.

I dashed her to the edge of the forest, framed by the canopy of the trees. I set her down, her flaccid leak-sprung shoes sopping wet in the snow. I smoothed down her dark hair.

"Look, if you want to be safe, you need to get to the next town... If you so much as see or hear anyone, run... Don't stop..."

I felt a tap on my shoulder and then a flop of material as James's top leather jacket was thrown onto my back.

"For her..." James instructed.

I draped it around the child's shoulders, guided her arms through the sleeves and zipped it up. It was as long and encasing as a cape. "That should keep you warm... Be careful." I mopped up the last of her tears with my sleeve, rumpled in my hand. I gave her a sunny smile and stroked her cheek.

Still sniffling, she turned and darted away into the forest like red riding hood. I watched her prance over the molehills and dodge badger holes until she wasn't visible in the evergreen forest.

I felt James's hand squeeze my shoulder as I rose up to my full height. "It's a shame they took motherhood away from you..." His metal hand fondly traced the line indented into my pale stomach, the gnarled flesh protruding under my thin catsuit.

"Who'd ever want to have my kids?" I rolled my eyes at him and removed his hand from tracing my maimed tummy, disgusted myself by the scar that sat just clear of my pant line.

He hugged me from behind, arms snaring my around my waist, nuzzling close behind my ear. His lips gently brushed the indent below my ear, tracing it only for a second, but making my pulse skip a beat. "Mm... I'm sure plenty of people would..." He hummed, the vibrations of his voice making my spine rumble and my whole body was awash with the tide of his baritone words.

My head lulled back onto his shoulder and my eyes slipped shut with resignation. "Imagine how fucked up they'd be... I'm glad I can't. I don't deserve it. They wouldn't deserve it..." A singular tear wormed from my eye and wriggled down my face.

"Don't do this to yourself, Natalia... Just the way you interacted with her, your kids would be well loved. Nourished. Beautiful..."

I gave a staggered laugh between the choking sobs caught in my throat. "Nothing about me is beautiful..." I tried to unwrap myself from his arms and stride away, but the pinching clasp of his hands on my hips steadied me.

"Natalia..." His sensuous voice siphoned all sense out of me, and my eyes relinquished their blindness to the surroundings. I looked up into his stormy silver blue eyes, endearment written all over his face. He gave a disheartened sigh. "Never, ever, say that about yourself." He untangled some of the interwoven strands stuck to my snow-chilled face. "Not in front of me... Natalia, you're so beautiful... How you can't see it is truly tragic..."

My cheeks started to glow with humiliation, the intensity of his affections, the sincerity in his voice; it was all too much. My heart was pounding, every beat like the proud thump of a timpani. "James, I-"

"Shh..." He ceased the commotion I was about to commence. His feather-weight finger drooped to my lips, cutting me off and making my breath hitch.

Head still tilted back onto his shoulder, his silencing finger traced my lips. My eyes rolled back into my skull, focusing entirely on the love he was lavishing on my lips. My knees went weak and the icy cold temperature my body had been rife with, changed into burning heat. He toyed with the rump flesh of the bottom lip, letting it stretch as he trailed his finger down, and ping back into place as he let it be. He fingered the arches of my Cupid's bow, paying his respect with the languidity of his movements.

All I could hear was the thrumming of my heart in my ears, and the vague hiss of my breaths. The clouds of sticky breath spewed from my lips, and tumbled into his face like cigarette smoke. The clouds of respiration rolling from his mouth intermingled with my own, and he tilted his head towards me.

His lips ghosted over mine, I could feel the warmth radiating off them; even through the fog of his breath and the iciness of the blizzard. I could feel the tickle of his paced breaths. His thumb tipped my head up towards his, my head thrown back, snowflakes kissing my skin.

"Hey!"

Like a needle through a bubble, the intimacy was popped. Slashed in two, was our moment and he unleashed me from his hold. I was quick to remove myself from his arms and turn to face the voice with him.

"Lukin says it's time to go!" Yelena roared, her voice pranging off the walls of the close-knit abandoned town.

We separated fast and as Yelena turned her back, I stole his hand.

There was a resonance in his eyes, something akin to worship, but then loss. He didn't have to say anything, he didn't have to explain his actions, but from that second, the dynamic shifted. I felt like the tilt of the earth had changed, the taste of the air had changed and the eyes I saw through had changed.

We took our time, aimlessly meandering back. She held the door open for us as we went to climb back into the vehicle. And as I waltzed past, she snagged me by the collar and whispered: "I know what you're doing, Natalia - and you're not going to get away with it. Just because the men don't see it; don't think I don't." And released me an instant later.

A/N - Romance is budding between James and Natalia, but it seems Yelena isn't happy. Lukin appears to have got drunk enough on the car journey to spill his guts about how he came to be the man he was. Exposing a weakness that could be exploited. Natalia is coming clean about her past too; or what she can remember; wise choice?

Dedication goes to Penderruth for following me - also 'Deleted' was one of the first stories I read on here; and it's so rad that she's reading some of my work now! x