The Red Soldier: Origins of the Red Soldier

ISSUE #12

Mabel (L/N) stood at entrance to the train station, anxiously waiting for her son to pass by the officers. She read over the letter he had sent her two weeks ago, scanning the date and time over and over again, just to make sure she had been correct and was not in fact waiting for no reason. She breathed out a sigh of relief when her son rounded the corner, dressed in his crumpled uniform and a jacket which did not fit him. (Y/N)'s hair had grown, and his cheeks were no longer smooth, but he was still, without a doubt, her boy. She ran at him, wrapping him in her arms and resting her forehead in the crook of his neck.

'Let's get you home,' she smiled, rubbing his shoulder, and linking her arm with his, 'Violet came home yesterday, she's dying to see you.' Her niece had not stopped talking about (Y/N), she was desperate to ask her older cousin all about the war, and 'Captain America'.

'Not yet,' (Y/N) shook his head, 'please not yet.' His nostrils began to flare as his eyes darted around the station, searching desperately for something to concentrate on. She recognised the weak voice of her son, and the strange expression he displayed; it was the same one she had seen when her husband had died, and she'd met him from university to tell him the bad news. 'Anywhere but home yet...'

Mabel nodded, tightening the grip her arm had on her son, leading him out of the train station and sharing her Woodbines with him. 'What about a pint?' she asked him, it was only ten o'clock in the morning, but she knew her son would appreciate a drink. He nodded his head, as she'd expected, and so she led him down the street towards a quiet Irish pub which had just recently come back into business since the victory.

Mabel ordered herself and her son a pint of their city's brown ale and took her seat opposite him in a corner booth. She placed her carton of cigarettes in the centre of the table, along with her leaf of matches and the ashtray, ensuring (Y/N) had all the poison he needed to tell her why he was in such a state. When he didn't say anything though, she made the first move. 'That's a bonnie jacket,' she complimented, 'although it's a little big, perhaps Grandma will take it in for you.' (Y/N) simply pulled it closer into him, revealing the name stitched on the left pocket. He held his head in his hands as he sobbed quietly, his shoulders quivering.

'Sergeant Barnes?' Mabel (L/N) asked, fearing the worse. She had never seen (Y/N) so open, or happy, with someone before. The friends he'd made whilst studying had always been friendly enough, but her son was hardly an open book, and he rarely showed much emotion with any of them. (Y/N) had laughed with James Barnes though, he'd never laughed with any of his friends from the city.

(Y/N) lit a cigarette, sucking on it twice and blowing out a large plume of smoke before responding to her. 'HYDRA killed him,' his eyes flashed towards anything that wasn't in her direction as his nostrils dilated and collapsed in rhythm with his blinks.

She held his arm tightly, squeezing it repeatedly until his breathing began to calm and he allowed the tears to fall freely from his eyes. 'I tried everything I could to avenge him. I abandoned my position, searched for who killed him, but when I did, I was talked out of it.'

'Whoever stopped you is a true friend,' Mabel told him, glad he still had at least one friend. 'Why don't you write to them?'

'Steve stopped me,' he replied, almost angrily, 'he stopped me, and he died because I let him! I could have killed Red Skull and survived, but I let Steve talk me out of it! I let him go without me.' He was choking on his words now, hyperventilating.

Mabel had read the reports on Captain America, but she hadn't thought a soldier such as that would be capable of such compassion. 'Oh, (Y/N),' she sighed, resting her face in her palms, and wiping away the tears in her own eyes. 'I'm happy your friend, Capt – Steve, was there,' she said, 'anger and hatred doesn't suit you, and I don't know what I would do if I lost you to it.'