The Ghost [Marvel | Steve Rogers]

Chapter 12

Russia

Winter 1996/97

With a final, spinning move, Nadya ducked beneath Katerina's guard and overturned the other girl with a calculated twist to slam her hard into the packed snow beneath their feet, cracking the layer of ice that lay hidden beneath the frigid white blanket. A hollow cry wheezed from Katerina as the wind was knocked out of her, a puff of breath condensing in a thick mist as it gusted past her pale lips. Nadya's own breath panted out in thick, misty clouds in the subzero temperatures of the Russian winter.

Around them, lips were beginning to turn blue and shivers were being suppressed as the other girls stood around observing, their own matches having been completed. Their endurance and resilience in harsh conditions was merely one other facet of their training. Nadya didn't quite feel the cold the same way as the others anymore, but even she was beginning to suffer from the chill despite her physical exertions and enhanced metabolism helping to keep her warm.

Katerina glared up at her, her expression bordering on murderous at being beaten. Once it was hard for Nadya to beat the last remaining girl from her group, Katerina being the best of their group at hand-to-hand combat and ruthless and underhanded to a degree Nadya and the others couldn't quite match. Nadya glared back, knowing her eyes would be cold and hard as they stared down at her groupmate. She would be well within her rights to kill the other girl. She glanced toward Madame B.

The Training Mistress stood just as motionless and emotionless as usual, seemingly unperturbed by the cold that gusted over the roof of the Red Room's mansion. She gave no indication, though, of instruction. But the look in the older woman's eyes, even veiled as they were, had Nadya wary. There was no trace of approval anymore. Had Katerina managed to beat Nadya, it was evident that Madame B wouldn't have batted an eye.

And that Katerina would have received a slight, minute nod.

No, had she not won the match, it would have been the end of Nadya.

She turned from her winded groupmate. Just beyond the gathered girls, a handful of men were approaching, the Winter Soldier among them. Nadya withheld a groan. She was starting to wonder if Madame B really was just trying to kill them all. Surely they had all had enough for today. Already a few of the other girls were beginning to show signs of hypothermic reactions to the cold. And their Training Mistress wanted them to keep training?

As the girls all looked on with varying degrees of visible trepidation, the Winter Soldier's primary handler strode forward to speak with Madame B, his voice low enough that it was stolen by the wind before it could reach anyone save the Training Mistress. But whatever he said, she was having none of it. Looking rather displeased at her immovability, the handler, Karpov, nevertheless turned and gestured sharply. This time Nadya actually groaned, guessing what it meant.

Yet, despite anticipating it, she was just barely able to evade the Winter Soldier's first lightning fast blow, but wasn't quite quick enough to dodge the second, grunting in pain as his elbow caught her side as she dove in for the attack.

She was beginning to get really tired of Madame B subjecting her to becoming this man's punching bag in the name of training...

Eventually, though, it always ended the same way. With a hard thud, a crunching of snow and ice and an angry cry that was forced from Nadya's throat, he had her slamming into the frozen surface of the roof they used for training that day, pinning her on her back, one arm twisted behind her, the other crushed beneath his as he braced his arm across her chest, keeping her immobilized.

Knowing she was beaten, Nadya let her body go loose, indicating she yielded as best she was able with the arm his hand was closed around even as she still glared up at him. But he didn't let her up right away.