Cupboards and Cryogenics

Chapter 8

The Asset carries his sleeping mini-handler, the bags of food and his backpack, with only his prosthetic arm. He could still use his flesh arm, and ignore the pain- he's good at that, and he's worked through pain worse than his current gunshot wound- but using the injured arm will slow down its healing, and at the moment, there is no need to use it.

This vast, open countryside is both advantageous and disadvantageous. There are currently no people around to spot him here, but it is a lot harder to avoid detection. There would be more places to conceal oneself in a city, but there would be more people who could potentially be HYDRA agents looking for him.

He keeps walking away from the road, and uses the hills to conceal him as much as possible. Only two cars have driven by in the past 25 minutes. Both times, he wondered if they were HYDRA, but the cars drove by without slowing down and so far, nobody has come after him. Still, the Asset will not let his guard down.

The Asset can move at least 1.5 times faster than the non-enhanced human, but he walks instead of jogs, since the boy had thrown up last time the Soldier had jogged while carrying the child, and would likely regurgitate again.

He would be able to cover even more ground if he had a car, but he had to leave both the car he stole and the agents' car at the lodge. The authorities are looking for the one he stole- which was almost out of gas anyways- and the agents' car could have one, or several, tracking devices in it.

They are looking for him, and have a way to track him down. The agents let that slip.

Remove the tracker.

The Soldier does not yet have permission from his handler to do so. He increases his pace slightly. HYDRA is surely looking for him, and most likely already sent more agents now that the ones the Soldier left in the lodge are unresponsive.

The mini-handler is wriggling around in the Soldier's grip 56 minutes later. "Puh-ease, no..." The child cries even as his face is buried against the Soldier's neck. "Hurts."

The Asset looks down at his prosthetic hand to make sure he is not gripping his new handler too tightly. His prosthesis is strong enough that it could crush the boy's bones.

He realizes that his handler is still asleep, meaning the words are most likely not directed at him. Still, he loosens his grip so that he's only exerting enough pressure to keep the boy from falling, and he's careful to avoid touching any of the boy's injuries.

"No more... p'ease stop, Uncle Vernon..." Potter begs in his sleep, confirming the theory that the boy is not actually addressing the Soldier. The Soldier scowls as he remembers watching the boy being beaten and starved by his relatives.

Anyone who tries beating his handler now will find the Soldier's fist in their face. For some reason, his mind conjures images of various alleyways, similar to the vision from before of that unidentified skinny blond person bruised in an alleyway.

"...'m s-sorry." The boy squirms in his sleep, and some sort of unseen force explodes outward from Potter, trying to force him away from Potter.

Something in the Soldier's prosthetic arm gives a sputtering beep, and he tightens his hold to keep his handler from tumbling out of his arms to the ground.

MAINTENANCE REQUIRED.

The mini-handler wakes with a cry of pain when the metal hand squeezes his fragile body too tightly. He trembles in the Soldier's arms with ragged breaths, letting out little whimpers of pain. The boy immediately presses his knuckles to his mouth to stifle his sobs, looking around fearfully.

The Soldier is never permitted to silence its handlers, although its handlers often enforce the Soldier's silence by making it wear a mask on the lower half of its face, like a dog with a muzzle.