aversion
(n.)
a strong dislike of deep seated inclination

•••

"i cannot make my anger beautiful. i cannot make my pain sweet."

•••

"Anthony, dear," an elder woman of 70 said as she poured a glass of water. She wet a folded rag. "Your parents will notice."

The young man of 21 that the woman was talking to scoffed, taking the glass of water. He's obviously hungover. "As if dad would notice. He cares for me about as far as he can throw me."

They were in a quaint, clean, fresh smelling kitchen that was obviously decorated decades ago. The young man, Anthony was sitting at a table.

"Oh, is that what it is this time?" asked the old, yet very well kept and regal seeming woman as she pressed the warm rag to the young mans face. "Last it was that your father was more prone to study you hard enough to find any and all defects and use them to your disadvantage for his enjoyment."

"Wait... yeah. That sounds about right. Sorry, Peggy," the man said sarcastically, rolling his eyes.

"That's Aunt Peggy to you, young man. Or Agent. It you really want to get that cold wit me."

The man look up at the older woman with sadness in his eyes. "Aunt Peggy..." he said in just more than a whisper, his voice laced in sadness.

She smiled, hiding her pain. "I'm sick, Tony. There's nothing we can do about that. My memories are fading away faster than I am."

Tony began to tear up a bit, looking at his "aunt" with an untouchable love. "Don't say that, please."

"But you know it. You know what's not fading away, dear?"

He looked up at her in curiousity.

"You, Tony. You are going nowhere. You are the strongest soul that I have ever known. And I knew Captain America pretty damn well."

Tony scoffed at the name.

Peggy sighed. "I know the name is cold to you. But that's no reason to hate your father. He is trying his best to raise you to be someone he never could be."

"Aunt Peggy, Dad hates me. He is not trying to 'better' me. He's trying to run me off."

"Trying to run you off, huh? Well if you hate him so much, why haven't you?"

Tony scowled. "I could never leave mom."

Peggy sighed and sat in the chair across from Tony. "Promise me, Anthony Howard Stark that you will grow up to be a handsome man do do some good with you father's company. That you will find a beautiful woman and have so many pretty boys that you will know exactly how your father feels. He is under so much stress. He knows things that would age you fifty years. And the sad thing about it is that..." she stoped for a moment, a tear appearing in her eye. She placed a hand on Tony's cheek. "That these things that he knows, he knows in the protection of you and this country. That I'm going to outlive him and I've got a terminal illness."

Tony's brows furrowed. "What do you mean?"

Peggy sighed and leaned back in her chair. "You know what I mean. You father is living out his last few days. And you are here at my home, hungover from an idiotic party and squabbling about how much you hate each other."

Tony looked down at his feet. A smile tugged at the corner of his lips. "I hate it when you talk sense into me."

Peggy smiled. "And I hate how I have to do it nearly every week. Tony, dear. I'm not going to be here very much longer to do this do you."

"I know, Aunt Peggy. Please stop reminding me."

"You need reminding. I can tell you don't believe it. You're in denial."

"I don't know if I can just stop hating the man who had beat me down and hated me for my entire life."

Peggy sighed and moved her hand form his cheek to his shoulder. "If you won't do it for me, do it for your mother."

"They aren't even home yet," Tony reminded Peggy.

A confused look crossed her face. "Where did they go?"

Anyone could visibly see Tony's heart shatter. He put his hand over his aunt's hand that was resting on his should and moved it to where he could hold her hand. "Aunt Peggy. Don't you remember? Dad's meeting with the colonel that's going to take the serum. Mom's shopping in London."

She smiled, a bit embarrassed. "Right. I'm sorry."

"You can't help it, Aunt Peggy."

She smiled sadly. "I'll mix up my magic hangover juice. You go take a shower."

"Do you remember the ingredients?"

Peggy scoffed. "Now that's just an insult to injury. Lemon juice, ginger, water, dandelion extract, and activated charcoal."

"Yes!" Tony celebrated. "The strangest, most ill tasting gobbledygook."

She smiled. "It works wonders though."

"You make me wonder what you did as young woman to know all these things."

Peggy shook her shoulders teasingly. "That's for me to know and for you to never find out."

"Tony could hold back a smile. "I love you."

She smiled. "You are the closest thing I've ever had to a child of my own. And I love you like my own. But you do have parents. Parents who won't be with you for very much longer. You mother should be home today. Go meet her at the airport. Take her out to dinner. Give her a necklace."

Tony smiled sadly. "I will after you've served my that gobbledygook. I promise."

"Gobbledygook?" she asked, confused again.

"Hangover juice, Peg."

"Right. Go take that shower. And when your father comes home... build something with him. Go golfing. Crack some jokes that aren't sarcastic and offensive."

Tony smiled and stood up to go take his shower. Aunt Peggy may have come down with Alzheimer's, but he was sure she was going to last nearly thirty more years. She was the strongest woman he had ever met in his entire life. And he loved her so fiercely. Even if she would forget him in 10 years. Even if she would have to be put in a retirement home.

She was and amazing person and no matter how much he hated his father, he had to thank him for knowing this woman. And no matter how much The name Captain America made his stomach turn, he had to feel bad for him missing out on his soulmate. Yet he was just as angry at the man for leaving such a perfect lady.

Across the world in the icy jaws of Siberia, Russia where the people were colder that the snow, Colonel Vasily Karpov arrived from the capital in order to visit his last enchanted individual he had left. He had a mission for him. He knew this was his chance to seize the world in the name of Hydra and Russia.

The cold never bothered the guy. He could care less. He kept his asset in an inescapable prison with walls thicker that the earth's crust. Within a room the was constantly guarded with four highly trained men. He and only he had access. Not even the leader of Russia could go in there.

The howling of the snowy wind could be heard from within the prison as Colonel Karpov puched a secret code into a number pad on a wall never to a sliding guarded self. The light above the pad flashed green signifying that he was in. The small sliding door disappeared into the top, revealing a red, almost untouched book with a lone black star in the center.

The instruction manual to the ominous Winter Soldier.

<Bring him out,> ordered Karpov to one of the guards.

It didn't take too long. Karpov order to get him out quickly, so they brought him into the debriefing chamber halfway thawed—and awake, poor man.

He legs were more
numb than they'd be if they weren't there. His guts felt compressed. He hair was frozen, wet, and bunches up in her eyes. His eyelids were so heavy. He hadn't slept right in years. His eyelashes were frozen together to where he couldn't open his eyes if he tried.

The guards treated him so roughly. They didn't realize that it was human being that they were handling. They didn't care. But was he? Was the Winter Soldier still human?

They threw the large man onto the wiping machine and let the metal holders wrap themselves violently around the tender, nearly frozen man.

Vasily Karpov entered. <Go on and begin wiping him. We aren't losing another one.>

The Winter Soldier almost didn't care anymore. He knew it was coming. He was used to it. But that was never going to stop the pain. It was never going to stop him from screaming. The ear piercing scream that could he hear from miles around if it weren't for the sound absorbers that lined the walls.

They had to be installed when Russian hunters began to tell stories about ghosts and banshees living in the woods.

As soon as the procedure was over, not waiting a single moment, Karpov open the book and read out ten words as the Winter Soldier writhed and withered under the pain.

<Longing.

Rusted.

Seventeen.

Daybreak.

Furnace.

Nine.

Benign.

Homecoming.

One.

Freight car.>

Karpov hadn't given the Winter Soldier any time breathe before he subjected him to the strange mind-controlling technique.

The Soldier, still panting wildly, was greeted so calmly and quietly as if he wasn't a dull peice of meat for Karpov to chop up and cook whenever he was hungry.

<Good morning, Soldier,> he said.

But the Winter Soldier couldn't process that. He only understood the words after, I have a mission for you.

Otherwise, he would only respond, <Ready to comply.>

But Karpov wasn't here to mess around. <I have a mission for you.>

Something in the Winter Soldier's eyes changed. He was ready for command. All the past aversion towards his commanders was gone. It was lost. It wasn't there for him to remember.

The Soldier was taken off the machine. He had screamed and sweated enough to where the heat of his body had finished thawing out from the ice. He stood before the attentants with nothing happening behind his eyes as that dressed him and geared him up so roughly and tightly. The top piece was like a straight jacket. The mask was a muzzle.

The threw him before his commander.

<Sanction and extract. No witnesses,> he ordered. The Winter Soldier took it with a nod.

James Buchanan Barnes was more lost to the world than he had ever been.

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