955/Soldier and Hunter

Soldier and Hunter
Date of Scene:	15 June 2017
Location:	Westchester County
Synopsis:	One of Sam Winchester's premonitions presents him with a choice: face the Winter Soldier alone, or allow a man to die by the grace of an assassin's bullet. He makes the only choice he can. Despite assistance from his strange and growing suite of unasked for powers, the assassin once again turns the young hunter into an unholy mess of quivering Sam beans...and might well have killed him, had the past itself not risen up to intrude.
Cast of Characters:	Winter Soldier, Sam Winchester
Tinyplot:	Tayaniye

---

Winter Soldier has posed:
Westchester County. The wealthy hat of New York City. Here are the stately homes of the elite, those who made enough wealth in the city to move themselves and their families out of it. Here, too, on this quiet evening, is a person who does not strictly belong. A person who's been perched atop a forested hill for the past day, hidden among the trees and heavy brush, a sniper rifle set up for a shot.

The identity of his target is probably not relevant. Not to a certain individual who may care about these proceedings. What is important is the fact that the Winter Soldier is here with intent to make a kill, still as death, and ready to deliver it with the pull of a trigger.

He seems to be lying in wait for his target to emerge into the backyard of the home below.

Sam Winchester has posed:
Under normal circumstances there is no way in Hell that Sam Winchester is a good enough Hunter-- of those either Supernatural or not-- to find and track the Winter Soldier here.

But the circumstances that have brought the young man to Westchester County tonight are not, in fact, normal. They began with a blinding headache that woke him from a sound sleep in the Belugi Motel, a motel that is in fact about as scuzzy as it probably sounds like it is. The sharp pain had soon faded into the soaring euphoria of one of his visions. A vision of death.

When the pain finally faded, he stared at the clock, and started rapidly assembling the clues. He'd tried to call Dean, but Dean is on his own hunt, in some area of New York where the cell phone was out of service.

He'd rapidly run down the list of everyone else he could call. Fred? Not fair to put her in that kind of danger. SHIELD? They were hardly going to move because he had a precognitive vision, surely, and truthfully he's not ready to reveal that yet. He hasn't even told Dean about it.

In the end, the choice was simple. Go alone, or let this go down.

He decided to go. He'd contemplated the best approach all the way up. His Dodge Charger is now parked several blocks away from the house in question. He's got a baseball cap on, sneakers, a pair of sweatpants, a t-shirt. He's jogging, like any suburbanite might, even as he scans the area, his eyes cutting this way and that for the markers he saw in the confused series of images, hoping he's made it here in time. These clothes are not ideal for hiding the Beretta 92 FS that he carries on his person, nor the Bowie knife concealed on his person. He's good enough to hide them from 99% of the world in spite of this, but...maybe not the prey he's decided he wants to interfere with today. He spots the right house and picks up speed, for all the world like a runner on his last leg. He approaches not from the back, but from the front, visible via sniper sight, since there is no way to make the back approach plausible. And, because much as he wants to hunt this assassin...

Saving the target has to come first.

Winter Soldier has posed:
The wraith Sam is here to hunt does in fact notice him. He looks up frequently from the scope just to avoid that kind of tunnel vision that would blind him to potential threats, and in one of those scnaning glances he picks up the movement of the man down the street, heading towards the home in question.

A cold blue eye lowers back to the scope, turning so he can appraise this unexpected sign of life up close. The disguise is not sufficient to hide his identity. The Winter Soldier recognizes him.

The Soldier thinks about this development a moment, and in that moment Sam moves out of line of sight, the body of the house between himself and the assassin's sniper rifle. Blue eyes narrow, and the Winter Soldier makes a swift decision.

He starts, rapidly, to pack up his weapon and to break down his hide.

The house itself seems quiet, like there's no one home, though it's hard to tell just from looking at the outside.

Sam Winchester has posed:
Sam Winchester pulls out a fake law enforcement badge and knocks rapidly on the door. He glances in the back yard. His vision swims for a moment. That was the tree from his vision.

He narrows his eyes. He's got to get through this quickly, and then he can commence with his hunt. An impatient look crosses his features. What if nobody //is// home? What if he's early? What if he's picked the wrong time? What if he brings about the vision faster because he is doing this wrong? He hardly has the hang of this yet. He looks up there again, looks back at the door, clearly indecisive.

What's not clear is whether or not he actually sees the Soldier working so hard to break down his hide in a timely fashion. He's certainly looking in that direction over and over again.

Winter Soldier has posed:
The long minutes stretch out. No one answers. Perhaps he is early, just a few seconds too soon. Perhaps his visions are not temporally precise. What if he's here trying to prevent something that will take place days, or weeks from now?

The Winter Soldier's position is chosen precisely so that no one near the house can readily see the spot. It's impossible to see whether the assassin is still there or not, or which direction he went in, if he's left.

Another pain threatens Sam's head. It's an echo of his vision from earlier, but different. Like the details of it are twisting in the fingers of mutable fate. Phantom pain itches his skin. He can suddenly smell blood.

Sam Winchester has posed:
"Ah! Ah!" Sam stumbles back from the front porch, clapping his hand to his head. He draws it away, looking for blood on his fingers, before he realizes...

Oh. Shit.

Long-honed instinct instilled in him from the time he was a very young boy is what sends him diving for cover all at once. All he's got is the fence and some garbage cans, but he starts there. He pulls the gun, eyes wide, panting. He swallows, rolling his eyes upward. He's smart enough to be afraid, even though he's stubborn enough to keep right at it. Backing down is nowhere in the young man's vocabulary.

But he has to admit, in this moment, that Dean had a point. He's read what little SHIELD would give him. Whomever this is seems to have been operating for decades without end. The man seems to have no weaknesses that anyone knows about. He has killed more people than Sam thinks he's //met// over the course of his 21 years.

In that moment, Sam wonders if he's bitten off a bit more than he can chew.

Winter Soldier has posed:
Warned by his sudden vision, Sam abruptly vacates the front porch, leaving it with sudden premonition-granted haste. He makes for cover, ducking behind the nearby fence, getting out of the open. Once he's somewhat safe, he looks up.

Gargoyled soundlessly on the overhang over the front door, holding a pistol he had been softly aiming downwards at Sam where he stood on the front step, is the mantled form of the Winter Soldier. He's clearly a bit surprised his prey seemed to anticipate his own danger that quickly, judging by the fact he's only just looking up to track Sam's sudden retreat.

His pistol shifts immediately towards Sam, but he doesn't immediately pull the trigger. He doesn't have too clear a shot given the other man's cover, at the moment.

"How did you follow me?" The voice is cold, harsh, and heavy with demand.

Sam Winchester has posed:
Sam raises his own pistol, features grim. He doesn't have a great shot either, not from this position. Both of them with terrible shots, though if he were to lay odds on which of them could make the most of their mutually crappy positions, he'd lay odds on the soldier.

But he is used to fighting things bigger, stronger, and more powerful than he is. Hazel eyes flare with rage. There he is, the man of his nightmares, hovering over him like a buzzard.

His head hurts though, the pressure shifting from some different location, some spot in his brain that has nothing to do with premonitions. He blinks the pain away.

His own voice is harsh, though young, betraying the hints of his fear as he says, "Hunting is what I do."

As if he did it all on his own. But if he is reluctant to tell his own brother about his sudden onset of abilities, he's surely not going to share with the man above him. "Maybe you're not as hard to find as everyone thinks."

Now //that// is just sheer bullshit bravado. Sam swallows, trying to edge deeper into cover.

Winter Soldier has posed:
Maybe you're not as hard to find as everyone thinks.

The Winter Soldier starts to do something truly alarming. He starts to laugh. It's a genuinely amused sound, though there's still something... off about it. It rings a little hollow at the center, as if the warm soul of true humor were scooped out, leaving only a cruel, cold derision.

He can plainly hear the fear behind the bravado.

"You think so?" he says lazily, swiveling where he perches, resting his elbows on his knees and letting his pistol dangle loosely in one careless hand. The insouciance in itself is an insult. "Then why don't you try your luck a second time?"

He twists and makes a leap from his perch. No human man can make a leap like that; it clears the roof, presumably dropping the Soldier on the other side of the house from where Sam crouches in cover. It is back in the direction of the forest beyond the backyard.

Sam Winchester has posed:
"Damn it!"

Sam pummels out of his cover, his long Moosey legs carrying him towards the woods. He doesn't try a direct chase. That would be ridiculous. Instead, he cuts towards the woods. Whether it's due to another fragment of vision on his part or his own instinct and guesses is unclear even to him. His adrenaline is high, and he's charging without thinking about the fact that the Soldier has just utterly changed the playing field in ways that may not be very favorable to the young Hunter if the man decides to shoot at him instead of running some more.

Backing down. Just not in his nature. No matter how foolhardy the chase.

He is, of course, only moving at human speed, but something perhaps unexpected happens. The pain in his head blossoms in his sudden murderous fury. It hurts, but not enough to stop him; tinged as it is with a strange euhporia, as if the pressure of pus and blood had suddenly been relieved from an ingrown toenail.

It's not precisely human, the way the Winter Soldier's gun suddenly whips from his hand; the butt of it slamming towards his face as if an invisible hand were holding it with particular viciousness.

Winter Soldier has posed:
The elusive form of the Winter Soldier is just melting into the tree-line, when Sam catches up enough to regain line of sight. That is enough for Sam's frustration, his fear, and his rage to come to a head, and for something... unexpected to rise up suddenly and acquire a lock-on.

The Winter Soldier vanishes among the trees, altering the playing field to his own advantage, as he has done many times before. He is not terribly concerned. His intention, cool and predatory and rote after decades of trapping impetuous prey, is to give himself the perfect conditions for an ambush upon the young hunter being drawn into his kill zone.

In all those decades, however, it's rare that his gun ever attained a life of his own. He does not expect it. At all.

The weapon leaps from his grasp and cannons towards his face. He jerks backwards in pure reflex, and the heavy metal whips him across the jaw. His left hand snaps forwards and tries to seize it -- or at least, to hit the mag release lever and defang the weapon that has turned against him.

Sam Winchester has posed:
He'll be able to defang it or seize it as he sees fit, because the control isn't there. The gun is already dropping to the ground, lifeless once more.

Even Sam isn't sure what just happened, other than it came from him. He'd worry about it, but he's trying to line up a shot, his eyes dark with anger given a legitimate target. The anger that is always with him, the anger that never leaves him, ever, though he tries so hard to control it, to be polite, kind, to exercise the empathy that also lives inside of him. Now he can just be furious. Now he can give way to something darker inside of his blood, let his unclean shadow take hold.

Last time he shot for the back, and that didn't fly. He clicks the safety off, the sound ringing through the forest. He raises the gun and he aims for the Winter Soldier's head. He squeezes the trigger without a moment's worth of hesitation, taking what might be the only shot that he has now that whatever is inside him has provided him with this new and unexpected boon.

It's a measure of the respect that he has for his foe that he doesn't wait around to see if it hits though, doesn't stand there triumphantly like an idiot who is sure of himself. He's seen the Winter Soldier move. He takes cover again behind a tree the moment he fires. If he hit, after all, the man won't be any less dead for a moment spent with the sheltering solidity of an oak tree behind his back. If he's missed, if the soldier dodges his fire, then he, Sam, will have a much better chance of staying a lot less dead for that moment spent. Someone has trained him well; he fights, shoots, and thinks like a soldier himself, and one with experience.

Winter Soldier has posed:
The Winter Soldier has not gotten as much distance as he would prefer, but that doesn't mean he's in easy sight. He is a phantom among the tree trunks, in the darkness under the thick foliage, moving in a wide circle whose center is obviously Sam Winchester.

At the least, he is no longer mocking. Sam has no more control over that weapon, but the Winter Soldier does not know that -- he keeps it unloaded and holstered, lest it turn on him again.

Finally, there is a moment where cover fails the Soldier, where he is briefly exposed, and Sam takes the shot. But the Soldier's eyes flare at the lift of the pistol -- he was baiting it out -- and his left arm swipes up, deflecting the bullet with inhuman precision.

He rebounds it straight back towards Sam. If the hunter hadn't immediately sought cover, he would be shot through the face. As it is, the bullet buries with a thunk into the tough oak.

There is no sound to give warning for the Soldier's subsequent attack. Not until the last moment, when the muted hum of steel and titanium heralds the Winter Soldier is right on the other side of his refuge oak. He comes around its right side, leading with his left arm, the knife in his right making quite plain his intentions.

Sam Winchester has posed:
That //arm//. He'd forgotten about the metal arm, though he hadn't really processed it fully given the Winter Soldier had already gifted him with a different knife by that point in their swiftly aborted first dance.

Sam bares his teeth, hearing the deflection more than seeing it, aware that his duck to cover just saved his life. What he's not ready for is for the man to suddenly leap at him like the phantom the files named him to be.

"Guh!"

He steps forward and blocks the Winter Soldier's knife arm with his own right arm, his training taking over. The gun goes off reflexively in his right hand, but the bullet simply flies off to disturb a passle of birds out of their nests, sending them spiralling off into the sky with a series of disturbed caws. He might have shot the soldier had the soldier been a little slower and he a little faster, but instead blocked with the only arm positioned to do so. The block leaves him sadly vulnerable to Bucky's cold metallic arm, but it is the only thing that saves him from getting skewered. He's still holding his own gun, useless as it is for this second in time.

He fights like a cornered demon though, all the same. His left knee rises towards the Winter Soldier's gut. His head snaps forward in an attempt to headbutt the man. He snaps his foot out towards Bucky's own knee a second later, not to snap it but to hook around to the weak point, the natural bend, hoping to stagger him, screw him up a little more, anything to help him survive the sudden close-combat fight he knows instinctively is quite beyond him.

Winter Soldier has posed:
The Winter Soldier can smell he will be stronger and faster in close combat. That is why he's forced it. A gun fight might be too even, but in close quarters?

In close quarters he moves in with tigerish ferocity, knife flashing to attack. Sam blocks -- and will find a strength behind that knife beyond human, a strength that bears down with brutal force and a potential to break bone. The only thing that stops that is the sudden report of gunfire, the sound balking him back slightly off his offensive.

His left arm whirs with clear menace, but Sam goes on the attack himself, preventing the Soldier from immediately using it. Each of those hits strikes home, winding him, dazing him, but hitting the Winter Soldier is like hitting concrete. There's simply way less yield to him than there should be, and he doesn't stay staggered nearly as long as he should, either.

There is a brief moment where the Winter Soldier stares Sam in the face. A small cut above his brow bleeds fitfully. He doesn't seem to notice. There's a murderous grinning in those blue eyes, as if mid-combat is the only time this creature comes to life.

The quiet hum of mechanisms and servos heralds the Soldier bringing his left arm to bear, in an attempt to seize Sam-- by the throat, the shirtfront, whatever he can catch hold of-- and to hurl him at least twenty feet distant into the trunk of a tree.

Sam Winchester has posed:
Sammy Winchester has hit things this hard before, but he can feel his own knuckles going bloody as he tries. "What //are// you?" he demands, even as metal fingers curve cold around his throat.

He goes flying. He hits the tree hard. Branches cushion him in just the right way to prevent his back from being broken, but he's got bruises aplenty, bruises that will be felt for days. He falls to his hands and knees, and notes, distantly, that somewhere in there his gun went flying too. It's somewhere in the underbrush, long gone.

He draws what's left. The knife. Panting. Ready to defend himself.

He did something before. Can he force it? Can he make it happen on purpose?

His left hand raises. His face takes on a look of grim viciousness. His mouth twists as he concentrates.

What he's after is the soldier's //knife//. Maybe he can bury it in the man's eye.

What his fledgling power takes away from that is 'something something, face, something.' The power decides to yank at the Winter Soldier's //mask// instead. Which is pretty useless in terms of keeping the youngest Winchester alive. And Sam doesn't even seem to realize he's misaiming.

Winter Soldier has posed:
What are you? Sam asks. The Winter Soldier does not reply. Not verbally. He answers with the savagery of his left arm's strength, using it to hurl Sam Winchester from him into the bole of a tree twenty feet distant.

He is not even breathing hard, afterwards.

He hesitates visibly, however, when Sam starts to try to do -- something. Something he does not recognize. He is remembering the way the gun leapt in his hand earlier, bracing for something similar, but this time -- instead --

-- his mask is torn free. The features of the Winter Soldier, never seen except by the authorized and those who are about to die, are laid bare. His exposed expression is shocked.

And then angry.

The act is not only useless in terms of keeping Sam Winchester alive, it actively pisses the Winter Soldier off. Because now, /now/, Sam Winchester has seen his FACE.

The playfulness, the toying-- they evaporate instantly. The Soldier closes the distance in a blink, blade in hand, and immediately attempts to kill Sam Winchester dead. When blocked, he tries again. And again. Each stroke a killing blow. His assault is not just with the blade, either, attempts made to break the spine, crush the trachea, collapse the ribcage in on his heart. He uses his left arm, always the left arm.

Sam Winchester has posed:
Sam breaks his own arm, blocking. The knife falls from nerveless fingers.

Distantly, he thinks: //Dean is going to lose his shit.//

But there's no more time for thought. He's dodging, wild eyed, dodging again and again. Usually not fast enough to keep from being hit at all, though the movements spare his spine. The Winter Soldier is faster, with a face that is...

(Familiar? Why?)

contorted in a killing rage. The dodging serves to turn killing blows into bruising blows or breaking blows instead. His cap flies off. He finds himself coughing, wheezing, as metal slams into his trachea. He spins as his ribs are pummeled.

He is driven back. And back. And back.

He doesn't remember the moment where his heels hit the rotten log. He crashes through it, old loam and bugs and moss cushioning the fall of his broken body, saving him from a blow from that metal arm that surely would have killed him had he not flailed and fumbled.

Might still. Because he can't get up.

He's left panting, wild eyed. And defiant.

He is 21 years old. About the age of any soldier who might have been in the trenches in a long-ago war. Older than many, younger than some. He has the look of a soldier now, one who has fought a private war, but a war nonetheless. A man who knows he is about to die, and intends to face his death defiant, with his eyes open and his teeth bared.

He stares into the Winter Soldier's eyes, forcing himself to meet them. A worthy foe. And one he had to face, unless he wanted to let someone die today.

He saved a life today. At least for a little while. Maybe all the gunshots will make it too hot for the Winter Soldier to finish the job. Maybe it will warn the man's prey. That was always his fate, wasn't it? To die, saving someone else? It is no Hunter's fate, really, to live. They're all on borrowed time. Nobody gets out. No Hunter dies happy in his bed, surrounded by loved ones. Sam tried to get out, and the price was his beloved pinned and bleeding on the ceiling, bursting into flames.

'Do it then,' his eyes say, like the eyes of a thousand young soldiers before him. 'This is a good day to die.'

Winter Soldier has posed:
There is nothing in the Winter Soldier's conditioned mind save the frenzied need to kill. It's seen his face. It needs to die. He does his damndest to make it dead.

That Sam survives as long as he does is a credit to him, because the Winter Soldier is not holding back in the least. He feels bones break and doesn't care. He watches blood fly, and doesn't care. He hears the desperate panting and coughing of a winded, wounded animal driven into a fatal corner, and he does not care. The only thing he cares about is that Sam is STILL BREATHING--

Finally, Sam Winchester goes down. Down, but still defiant. He looks up, meeting the Winter Soldier's eyes, his own an echo of so many young soldiers before him that chose to lay down their lives for a cause. That died still fighting, if only with the fierce spirit still burning in their gaze.

It would only take one blow to end it. But that blow does not come. The Winter Soldier is as frozen as his namesake, staring, seeing something that isn't Sam Winchester.

Seeing a distant shore, after a great battle, with the wounded laid out in rows as far as the eye can see. Few sights can stir such fierce pity and fierce hate as the sight of young boys and young men dying under the unremitting sun, dying in a war they did not choose to start, dying silently before the medics can ever reach them. Dying, with no eulogy but a quiet voice that says, "Think about this, whenever you wonder about the worth of a life."

The Winter Soldier recoils. His hands clutch his hair in sudden agony. It is not a physical agony. It is the mental torment of a mind left in a broken state, pieces scattered willy-nilly, because the process to gather and box them up was never /finished/. "Shut up," he hisses, and not at Sam Winchester. There is a voice in his head, and he cannot bear to hear it.

Suddenly, wild-eyed and confused, the assassin whirls and just... takes off. As quickly as this entire encounter started, it abruptly ends.

Sam Winchester has posed:
Sam Winchester is giving the panting breaths of extreme agony when some switch flips inside the Winter Soldier's mind. As his face contorts. As he recoils and clutches at his head. As he spares his life, speaking to another voice. Just one month ago, Sam would have assumed possession. And though he has no idea what he's seeing, what replaces the fear, and the defiance, and the agony, for one moment, is a look of profound empathy as his erstwhile killer flees.

Something. Is not right.

A new objective drives itself into his shuddering soul, even as his pain-wracked, sweat, and bloodstained body shakes in the cradling embrace of the dead tree. He licks his lips. He has to understand. He has to understand, and he has to help.

The uncleanliness inside him has retreated at last, leaving the angels of his better nature, his agony, and the knowledge that the bared face of the man who nearly ended him looked familiar. Not like a man he knew personally, but still like someone he has seen.

But he can do little about it here. He's feeling really cold, and it's not a cold day. That's not a good thing.

His hand drops to his pocket. He withdraws his phone. The screen is cracked, but it's still working. His shaking finger scrolls through the contacts. There are not many.

It hovers over Dean's name. But he couldn't reach Dean a few hours ago, and the truth is, he's not ready for the inevitable confrontation with his brother over the shit he's just pulled. Past the Ds. Es. His finger lands on the F. On the single name there. A man's name, were any to look, but it's not going to be a man at the end of it. It's a woman, one whose company and help he finds himself inexplicably wanting as he lays there, one holy fuckbeans mess, courtesy of one Winter Soldier.

He selects it. He dials. He brings the phone up to his ear.

And when she answers, he says her name. He says it in a whisper.

The whisper of the bleeding soldier, spared by grace alone.