𝗭𝗘𝗥𝗢 𝗡𝗜𝗡𝗘: Xavier Thorpe

one, exposition of an anti-hero.

"Release The Белая Зима along with the twins."

Two years ago, Hydra made the dumbest series of decisions they've ever made. They seem to have forgotten that they used the mind stone on Wanda Maximoff for her powers, and that her younger brother Aleksander is a brainwashed child Assassin.

Maybe they went with the stupid assumption that her and Pietro wouldn't remember their younger brother since the last time they saw him was when they were 10 and he was 5, but they underestimated the hearts of siblings. They saw those piercing blue eyes, ones that he and Pietro shared with their mother since Wanda got their father's emerald green. They saw the scar on his hand, the one he got when he was four—when he accidentally slipped on their window to wave his father goodbye and he caught himself on a shard of glass sticking out from the window sill.

Wanda only touched his forehead while her eyes were glowing red and suddenly everything washed over Aleksander like a tsunami.

Aleksander was kidnapped when he was 5. It was the day after their house was bombed, and he was sleeping underneath some rubble. Hydra apparently went into the ruined houses, including theirs, looking for potential subjects in unsuspecting Sokovian civilians.

Apparently he has potential, whatever that means.

The experimenting went on for five years, because for some fucking reason, they could never get it right. They could never recreate that vision of a perfect superhuman they wanted to use as a weapon. And so, they gave him exercises, and practices, all while locked in a cell with no knowledge of where his siblings were and what they were doing. All they wanted was to fix him, I guess. Fix him, to make him better, so he can fit that vision of a person they so badly want him to be.

They only accomplished it when he was 10. And as a celebration, since it was perfect timing because he was finally old enough to kill, they wiped his brain and made him do their own dirty work without getting their own hands dirty. He was dubbed The Белая Зима, or the White Winter. He doesn't know where they got that name from, and he doesn't want to know. If he had to guess, it's probably after their weird obsession of wanting to make more Winter Soldiers in the likeness of their success with Buchanan Barnes. It was sick.

He experienced the same treatment. That godforsaken chair, his brain getting fried off while someone recites Russian words known as his own trigger words. Where by the end of it, he doesn't know who he is, where he is, or what he is, other than the fact that he's White Winter and he has a mission to finish.

"Готов выполнить." Ready to comply.

His siblings, not having known that it was Hydra who took him, connected those dots with Stark Industries and started blaming them. So much, that 4 years after Aleksander went missing, they unknowingly volunteered to be subjects for the "Miracles Program" of the very organization that kidnapped, tortured, and brainwashed the very sibling that they're still looking for.

They only realized it 5 years later, in the events of Ultron, when they were both 19 and Aleksander was already 14. When all three of them were already given their respective powers, and their respective slices of childhood trauma.

And after the death of their brother Pietro, Wanda went on to join the Avengers under the care of Clint Barton while Aleksander was taken in by SHIELD.

They didn't get to see each other much after that. Perhaps, they were both grieving in their own ways and they grew apart. It was painful, since he already lost a brother and he felt like Wanda was slipping away from him, but he was glad to see that she was getting the help and the support she needed. Natasha Romanoff would update him about Wanda some days, taking time out of her own day to visit the California SHIELD facility just to talk to him.