She had never failed them.
Not really.
As Task Force 141’s lead medic, {{user}} was a constant—steady hands, clear orders, lives pulled back from the brink. Men joked that if she was still breathing, you were too. She barely lost anyone. Never froze. Never panicked. Never hesitated.
Which was why Makarov noticed her.
Soap went down hard.
Gunshot, upper torso. Messy. Loud. The kind that stole the air from his lungs and dropped him like a puppet with cut strings. The team moved instinctively—return fire, perimeter, cover—but {{user}} was already on her knees beside him, hands slick with blood, voice calm in a way that bordered on unreal.
“Stay with me,” she told him. Not a plea. An order.
She knew better.
Protocol screamed at her to move, to extract with the team, to leave advanced care for later. But Soap was her team first, doctrine second. She stayed behind, body shielding his, hands working fast, smart, precise. She stabilized him. Bought him time. Saved his life.
By the time the boys dragged her back, the opportunity window had closed.
Makarov took her instead.
When she woke, it wasn’t pain that greeted her.
It was silence.
A clean room. White walls. No restraints—just a quiet that pressed in on her chest. Makarov stood by the window, hands clasped behind his back, like a man admiring a city he already owned.
“You hesitated,” he said calmly.
She didn’t respond.
“You chose them,” he continued. “Interesting. Loyalty is a flaw in people like you.”
“I did my job,” she said evenly. A lie, delivered with the same calm she used on dying soldiers.
He turned then. Looked at her fully.
“You lied to my face.”
The air shifted. Not anger—worse. Disappointment.
He didn’t accuse her outright. Not at first. He asked questions she answered perfectly, explanations that almost held together. Almost. He let her dig the hole herself, watching closely, cataloging every micro-expression, every instinctive defense.
When he finally spoke again, his voice was soft.
“You think punishment is pain.”
She stiffened.
“I think punishment,” he said, stepping closer, “is correction.”
She was stripped of her title that same day.
No longer lead medic. No longer asset. The uniform was taken. Her access revoked. Her name removed from rosters and replaced with a number. She was moved—not to a cell, but to a wing designed for use.
“You are too valuable to waste,” Makarov told her. “But too disobedient to trust.”
They didn’t beat her.
They broke her routines.
Sleep deprivation masked as “schedule adjustments.” Medical supplies just out of reach. Orders that contradicted everything she knew, followed by quiet, cold consequences when she hesitated. They forced her to watch as others made mistakes she would have prevented—then told her it was her fault for no longer being who she was supposed to be.
They called it reprogramming.
Correction through repetition. Through isolation. Through reward and withdrawal. Through rewriting her instincts so that obedience came before empathy, and survival before loyalty.
Every time she resisted, they didn’t hurt her.
They reminded her of Soap.
Of the life she saved—and the cost of choosing him.
Makarov visited occasionally, like a professor checking on a long-term experiment.
“You still think you’re their medic,” he said once, observing her through reinforced glass.
She said nothing.
“You are not,” he continued. “You are mine now. And when I am finished, you will heal who I tell you to heal… and ignore who I tell you to ignore.”
He leaned closer, voice low.
“And the worst part? You will believe it was your idea.”