Exile

by RuralNorth

Summary:

The Winter Soldier is nothing more than a weapon. But when Elia is thrown into the soldier's realm, she starts to see a man under the killing machine.

As memories start breaking through Bucky's conditioning, he starts questioning what he's been trained to do. When he breaks free from HYDRA and takes Elia with him, they end up on the run together. And when the Avengers find them, they'll defend what the've found with each other.

Chapter 1

Prologue

 

 

           

            No thought could make it all the way through. Nothing made sense.

            His chest heaved with every breath. Every time he sucked in air it burned its way into his lungs, then rushed out before he could pull enough oxygen free.

            His hair, damp with sweat, hung in his eyes.

            The men who were supposed to tend him had mixed with the overwhelming…memories? Whatever it was, it only came to the surface of his mind before blurring and evaporating. Like trying to grab onto fog.

            One of the techs leaned in closer to repair his arm, a small sizzle of electricity as the wiring within the soldier’s arm was rewired. The shield had struck his arm, tearing through wiring and electronics.

            The sizzle and hiss, the smell of burning electricity mixed with memories of being strapped to a table, a bone saw slicing off what remained of a bone and flesh arm. Then a new metal arm.

            More recent memories of the crackling and snapping of lightning in the chair that erased memories.

            When the tech shifted slightly to adjust his view, the face in front of him mixed with the face from the past and the soldier threw all his weight into a deadly punch, launching the man across the room.

            The other attendants scrambled away, their feet clattering as metal tools clanged and crashed to the ground in the near silent room.

            It had been instinct to throw all his weight into a deadly punch and launch the man across the room. That made sense. That’s what he was trained to do.

            But the memories didn’t scatter the way the men around him did. The past still tangled with the man on the bridge. The one who had leveled the shield at him.

            “Mission report.”

            The soldier’s eyes didn’t see anything in front of him. There was no rhyme or reason to what he was seeing. He only saw the flashes of people. People he thought he was supposed to know.

            “Mission report. Now.”

            The strike came from nowhere. He didn’t care. He barely felt it. Not over the confusion twisting through him. But it dislodged one question

            “The man on the bridge. Who was he?” the soldier asked quietly.

            He didn’t know why he asked. He wasn’t supposed to ask. Asking meant thinking and he didn’t think. He was blank. A blank slate didn’t care.

            But his chest was burning, his mind was a noisy mess, and he just wanted to turn it all off. But…he wanted to know. He needed to know. Fragments—an image, a sound, not quite memories—were flooding over him and he needed to know something.

            “You met him earlier this week on another assignment,” Pierce said firmly.

            The soldier tried to turn that answer around in his deteriorating brain. “I knew him,” he said, trying out the words, seeing if that was an answer that made sense.

            “Is he…like me?” He didn’t know what he was. He was nothing more than a weapon. But…these thoughts. He was more than a weapon, or had been at one time. Was that man a weapon? Nothing but a means to an end for an organization? Was there someone like him? Someone who had been made into…whatever Bucky was.

            The soldier shook his head. His eyes were struggling to focus. The pain behind his eyes grew. The piercing ice pick of pain in his temple pounded sharper and harder the more he tried to think about the man he had seen. The man he had tried to kill. The man who knew him.

            Pierce was telling him he had shaped a century. That he was doing what the world needed, pushing the world toward the order it needed.

            The soldier knew that was more important than whatever his feelings were. Helping people, saving society. He tried to listen to what Pierce was saying.

            “But I knew him,” the soldier said quietly, more sure now that was the truth.

            “Get the girl in here,” Pierce said, not taking his eyes off the soldier.

            The soldier barely heard what his handler was saying. He barely registered one of the military men leaving the room and the door whooshing shut behind him.

            He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t know what to make of the information that had blindsided him. He was only given information specific to each mission. Not…anything extra.

            The door slid open again. The soldier kept trying to find one thought he could latch onto. Just one that made sense.

            A small whimper made its way through the whir of the machine behind him. He looked and saw her.      

            Her eyes were wide with fright. Every step the man holding her took, she winced with pain. And then she was handed off to Rumlow.

            The soldier pulled his thoughts together enough to watch the way she cowered when she was handed over to Rumlow. Rumlow’s dark eyes looked down on her and she bit her lip.

            “Fix him,” Rumlow said, jerking her forward.

            She fell forward, but his hold on her stopped her from crashing to the ground. She was physically weak compared to the men in the room. Her jaw was purple, a welt the shape of a fist there. She met the soldier’s eyes.

            He didn’t understand. Not the memories—shadows really—pushing forward in his head, and not the reaction he had to the fear in her eyes. But she had grown more familiar to him than the men in the room. In spite of the confusion roiling like thunderclouds in his head, he knew her. She was from this life, his time with HYDRA, not whatever dream was haunting him from the distant past.

            As soon as Rumlow released her arm and shoved the rolling stool forward for her, the terror in her eyes lessened.

            She swallowed hard, but picked up the supplies left on the tray table near him by the man the soldier had tossed across the room a short while ago. She ignored the soldering irons and equipment meant to repair his arm that had been strewn across the ground, and instead reached for the first aid supplies.

            She kept her head down as she worked. Her hands were just as sure as the scientist who worked on his vibranium arm, but her touch was lighter, gentler, on the overheated flesh of his other arm.

            His racing thoughts slowed enough for his eyes to stop darting around the room. His breathing eased some, less labored. She glanced at him and met his eyes.

            Few people actually looked him in the eye.

            His shoulders slumped forward, his head dropped.

            She finished cleaning the last of his cuts, checking for anything that was deep enough to need more than just a bandage. She was hauled away from him, knocking against the tray table with a loud clang.

            The soldier tensed, watched her get yanked back toward the wall, Rumlow keeping a firm grip on her arm.

            “Watch,” Rumlow said to her.

            Pierce stood to the side. The soldier dropped his eyes and stared blankly into space. It didn’t matter what thoughts and memories had been pushing into his head. They were about to be lost again.

            One of the men pushed a mouthpiece at the soldier. He opened his mouth and took it, anger at what he was doing, without knowing why he was doing it, making him snap his teeth down on the piece.

            The metal clamps came up over his arms, jerking him back against the chair. The circular headpiece orbited overhead, came down toward him, wrapped around his temples, one eye.

            He could hear the woman’s sharp intake of breath. Heard her soft whisper.

            “No.”

            He wrapped his fingers around the arm of the chair as the currents started vibrating against his temple, then through his skull.

            The screams were ripped from him as every memory was torn away. Again.

 

#

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 1

 

 

            Three months earlier

 

 

            The soldier strode down the hall of the facility with his handler and two other combatants. He didn’t review the mission. He knew what he was supposed to do, the target and how to take him out. His mind was empty, except for the mission.

            Breathing.

            His step didn’t falter, but he attuned his hearing to listen more closely.

            He could hear gasps for breath. A whimper.

            This facility wasn’t used for interrogations. It was used to house combatants, equipment and supplies, and to coordinate missions.

            Harsh lights lit the underground tunnels, adding no warmth to the cool air that was a constant.

            He turned the corner, on his way to the hangar and the jet they would take to the target.   

            A woman was being hauled down the corridor. Her breath came in frantic gasps, occasionally choking into a whimper.

            Brock Rumlow held one arm and another operative had hold of her other. Not that she looked strong enough to resist even one of them.

            The soldier watched dispassionately as she was dragged past him.

            Her dark eyes darted to his and he saw her recoil farther into her panicked fear at the sight of him.

            He took in a small frame, dark hair falling in her face. She wore civilian clothes, no sign of weapons on her.

            He didn’t know why they would be bringing a prisoner here, but he didn’t question. He wasn’t designed to question. He was created to serve the mission.

            He got into the jet with the pilot and the other three men. He buckled in, ignoring the wisecrack one of the men made to the other. The soldier didn’t engage in small talk, in humor.

            He was nothing more than the mission.

#

 

 

 

            Elia Anderson couldn’t fight. Even if she had been strong enough, she couldn’t get a movement coordinated. Not like this. Not when she had been drugged and dragged out of her apartment.

            But however sluggish the drug had made her movements, her mind was whirling.

            Her shoes scrabbled for purchase on the floor as one of the men pulled her from the vehicle in an underground garage.

            “I—please—what’s—” she didn’t even know what she was trying to say.

            His grip on her arm tightened and a small cry escaped.

            Her breath was coming too fast, her heart skipping around like it was going to leave her chest. Her limbs shook violently in the men’s grip. She couldn’t catch her breath. Her lungs pushed out another whimper.

            There were more men approaching. She had the irrational thought that maybe they would help her. She looked to them. The one in the center, long dark hair around his face. He was huge. Dominating the wide hallway just by walking down it.

            Her eyes darted from his silver arm to his eyes, above a black mask that covered the lower half of his face.

            Blank eyes.

            He quickly assessed her and then looked forward, passed her by.

            Relief flared in spite of the terror, relief that he had passed by. That man wasn’t someone who would help. And he was even more terrifying than the two men dragging her deeper into the building. Away from her home. Away from everything.

            She fought to keep her thoughts. Thoughts that always too easily got away from her, that overwhelmed her, made her lose sight of where she was. She couldn’t let that happen. Not now.

            “What are you doing?” she managed to gasp out a full thought.

            And just like when they had entered her apartment and injected her with whatever was numbing her movements, neither man answered. They dragged her until her arms felt like they were going to tear free from their sockets. The pain was dull, somewhere under the panic washing over her.

            They stopped in front of a door. One of the men pressed a finger to a keypad and a door unlatched with a sharp click. He pushed it open.

            They finally let go of her arms and she was sailing forward until she landed on cold tile, hitting her head with a sharp crack.

            The door closed and she was alone, the only sound her sharp breaths punctuating the silence of the room.

            The cell.

            Elia pushed up to sitting, her arms already aching, her shoulders burning. She looked around. A single cot. A sink. A toilet. One fluorescent light bright overhead.

            She had to—had to—to think—to keep her mind—keep it from—from being overrun—she had—had—to—

            Her lungs shoved air out in short puffs, dragged in too little air. Her heart hammered painfully against her sternum, echoing in her ears, pounding in her head. Her vision blurred…refocused…blurred…

            The panic took over.

 

#

 

 

 

 

 

            The soldier sat alone in a well-lit room far beneath the earth. They had returned in the early hours of the morning, their mission successful, another target neutralized.

            The higher ups were increasing the frequency of their attacks. S.H.I.E.L.D. was on the defense, always more than two steps behind them.

            He hunkered over his tray of food, eating methodically. Food was fuel for the mission.

            He was aware of the other tables in the room filled with people sitting in pairs, small groups. Quiet conversation, the occasional comment that brought quiet laughter. He was never at a table with another person. He would eat his meal in silence and leave the room, a hush falling over any table he passed by.

            He finished the high protein, high calorie meal and stood. He was expected in the training room. They had another mission tonight. The assassination of a high ranking member of Congress, followed by framing a member from the rival party. They were going to go over the layout of the building they needed to enter, make sure every member of the team knew their part.

            Their part was to clear an escape for the soldier.

            The two missions back to back meant he hadn’t had his mind wiped yet. The chair would most likely come when he returned tonight after he gave Pierce the mission report. Although, his time out of the chair, and out of cryofreeze, was lasting longer and longer as he was utilized more frequently during the escalating activity.

            The soldier scanned the hallways as he made his way to his required tactical meeting.

            He didn’t see anyone. At least, not a terrified woman with dark hair.

            He entered the training room, half the room an open floor covered with mats, the other half punching bags, weights, sparring weapons.

            The dark haired woman.

            The soldier eyed her without reaction, going to join Rumlow and the others on the mat.

            The woman was being held in place like she had been brought down the hallway yesterday, firm hands gripping her arm, keeping her upright.

            The soldier stood, a short distance from the other men, at rest, waiting. Waiting to be told what the expectation was, then to carry it out without question.

            The woman was pale, she was practically dangling from the hold the other two men had on her, not struggling like she had yesterday. Her head drooped and her face was hidden behind her long hair.

            “What’s she for?” one of the men asked.

            “Access,” Rumlow said succinctly. “Senator Fields’ home is a fortress. She has access to the location. Her retina scan.”

            The soldier looked at the woman. There was nothing remarkable about her that said she would have access to any high security location. He narrowed his eyes slightly when she lifted her head.

            She was drugged. That’s how they got her cooperation. Her eyes were hazy, blinking like she was trying to clear them.

            She didn’t look like the mistress of a leading official, but it was hard to see past her wrinkled clothing and tangled hair. She had a bruise on her forehead, dried blood from a cut there.

            Her head drooped forward again. The soldier turned his attention back to Rumlow. He listened to the plan, the contingency plan. He looked at the schematics of the home. His mind worked linearly, tracking everything he was expected to know, turning over angles that could be exploited by unexpected security, every exit plan.

            The plan solidified, Rumlow gave them a nod. The man holding the woman propelled her along with them out to the vehicles they would be taking. Weapons and equipment were already selected and stowed. The soldier took the back seat, nearest the assault rifles hidden beneath the seat that could be used if they were stopped while in the large Suburban.

            The handler shoved the woman into the back seat and closed the door.

            The soldier spared her another look. Her eyes closed and she lolled against the door, her head against the window.

            The soldier idly thought it was easier that she was drugged. If she knew the last step of the plan was a bullet to her head before they evacuated the target house, she wouldn’t be nearly as compliant.

            He turned his attention back to the guns.

 

#

 

 

 

            Elia couldn’t make out anything besides the hum of an engine. The quiet clicks and sharp noises that sounded almost like guns being loaded. Was there a movie playing? She had never seen a gun outside of movies and cop shows.

            She struggled to open her eyes, but couldn’t get them to cooperate. Her head rested against something cool. It was refreshing on skin that was overheated, flushed.

            Her eyes closed again and the sounds faded away.

 

#

 

 

            The soldier took the slight weight against him easily. He slung her over his shoulder, then picked up the rifle he needed.

            The rest of the team went silent, eyes alert. With nothing more than a quick motion of his hand, one of the men directed the others where to go to secure the perimeter. They couldn’t afford any unexpected interruptions.

            The soldier carried the woman towards a side door. He glanced up at the cameras, noting they didn’t follow his movements. They were offline.

            He lifted the woman’s head that rolled against her shoulder and held her face in front of the retina scanner. Her eyes blinked open groggily.

            The door unlocked with a soft click and he let her head drop again.

            He opened the door, stepped inside. It would be easier to dump her body near the door, but he couldn’t risk anyone seeing her and sounding an alert.

            He moved through the hall, to a kitchen. Through the kitchen, dining room, pausing when he heard footsteps, but they were overhead and soon stopped.

            He heard one of the men outside confirm in his earpiece a visual through the window that the senator was in his office.

            He went to the office.

            This time he did dump the woman’s body.

            “Elia?” the senator asked, jumping to his feet. “What are you…What’s going on?” Senator Fields demanded.

            The name filtered through the soldier’s mind. Elia.

            He hardened his gaze. Her name didn’t matter. It wasn’t important to the assignment.

            Senator Fields, an older man with a thick head of hair, darted his eyes between the woman on the floor and the soldier.

            “Is she…” He didn’t seem to be able to get the words out. He squared his shoulders and used a voice that was most likely used when he was demanding answers from an opponent on the senate floor. “What did you do to her? She’s my daughter’s nurse, she has nothing to do with politics.”

            Without speaking, the soldier strode toward Senator Fields. He didn’t reach for the gun strapped to his leg. Instead, he drew a knife from his vest, twirling it efficiently to flip the blade toward the man he approached.

            “I’m calling the police!” the senator declared, diving for the phone on his desk.

            The soldier took the phone, ripping the cord from the wall and tossing the phone across the room. He rounded the desk and grabbed the man.

            “No. No, don’t do this. Don’t!” The man abruptly reached for a desk drawer, pulling out a gun.

            The soldier reached for his hand, ready to slam the armed man’s hand against the desk and force him to drop the gun. But the man squeezed the trigger.

            Pain.

            But he wasn’t supposed to stop for pain. He was programmed to complete the mission.

            The soldier slammed the man’s hand against the edge of the desk with a sharp crack. The gun dropped to the floor.

            A sound of terror was silenced with the soldier’s knife, a clean slice across the throat, before his target could raise his voice any more and draw out the short struggle.

            The soldier knelt down next to the crumpled figure, avoiding the flow of blood from the slice, pressing his fingers to the target’s neck.

            No pulse. Mission complete.

            The soldier wiped his knife clean on the deceased’s shirt, then slipped it back into his vest. He pressed a hand to his side, the powder burn in his leather vest getting covered with the dark stickiness of blood. He shut out the pain. The mission wasn’t over yet.

            He rose and went back to the woman on the floor.

            She stirred slightly. The soldier pulled his gun, affixed the suppressor to muffle the blast.

            He aimed it at her.

            She has nothing to do with politics.

            The senator’s words echoed through his mind.

            The soldier blinked. That shouldn’t matter. It shouldn’t pause him. Collateral damage was expected. She was collateral damage.

            He pointed his gun at her.

            Her eyes fluttered. Dark lashes lifted and she looked at him groggily like she didn’t understand what was happening.

            The soldier stared at her.

            “The wife is on her way home. She’s two blocks away. Get moving.” A voice came through his earpiece.

            The soldier quickly holstered his gun. He grabbed the woman and slung her back over his shoulder, the movement pulling at the gunshot in his side. He moved silently through the house, out the door he had come in.

            The man standing watch at the door eyed the woman slung over his shoulder, but didn’t comment. He just started moving, leaving the darkened yard, making their way to the vehicle waiting for them.

            He shoved the woman in the Suburban and got in after her.

            They drove away into the dark night, no one speaking a word.

 

#

 

 

 

            Elia’s head throbbed. But the throbbing was muffled by the feeling of cotton stuffed in her head.

            She lifted a hand that felt leaden and rubbed at her forehead. She squinted her eyes open.

            She was back in the cell. The cell that she had been in for the last two days.

            But…she had been taken from the cell. One of the men—tall, dark eyes—who had taken her from her apartment the day before, had hauled her from the cell. And then…an injection? Had she been drugged? Again? This time it had dulled her thinking, made her eyes close and her body collapse like dead weight.

            Elia pushed herself up from the hard floor. Nothing in the sparse cell gave her any clue to what had happened.

            She tried to stand, her legs not cooperating. She clung to the edge of the cot and braced herself with trembling arms, and pulled herself to her knees, then forced herself to standing, swaying slightly. She looked down at the sleeve of her long sleeve t-shirt. Blood?

            She frantically pushed up her sleeve, but her arms were smooth, not even a scrape on them. She lifted the hem of her shirt, trying to twist to see her back, her stomach, figure out where the blood came from. But it wasn’t hers.

            What was going on? What had happened?

            Her head was too fuzzy to make sense of anything.

            A quiet beep, then a click sounded and she nearly lost her balance turning toward the door.

            A grim faced man in the black fatigues everyone in this place seemed to wear was at the door.

            Without a word, he entered the cell and took hold of her arm.

            Elie needed to get away from him. Her chest squeezed with panic, but she couldn’t coordinate her feet to do more than scramble to keep up with him.

            He propelled her down a hall, turned down another corridor that looked identical to every other one, and paused at a door guarded by two armed men.

            They nodded at her guard and stepped aside as the door opened.

            Elia was roughly shoved ahead of the man holding her arm and brought to stand near a rough looking man sitting on a bench, long stringy hair covering his profile.

            But she recognized the metal arm. The Soviet star on where a deltoid muscle should be. She had seen him in the hall yesterday. Just being in his vicinity was enough to start her hands to trembling.

            “You’re a nurse,” someone said to her.

            Elia hardly dared look away from the broad shouldered man with the metal arm. But he wasn’t giving any sign that he noticed her, so she risked looking to see who spoke.

            It was the same man who had taken her from her apartment. The man who had locked her in the cell.

            “I’m—I’m…” Her voice shook and her words were thready. She drew in what air she could manage and tried again. “I’m a pediatric nurse. Kids. Kids with—with cancer. I don’t…I’m not…I don’t know who you think I am, but—but I—I—I can’t—I’m not—” She couldn’t finish. The shaking moved from her words to her legs and she thought her knees might give out.

            But what she had said was true. She worked at the children’s hospital on the oncology floor. Sometimes she took on private clients, provided nursing care in their home so the kids didn’t have to stay in the hospital. She wore pale pink scrubs and comforted kids and their parents when they were in the worst pain of their lives. She didn’t even know anyone with a gun. She didn’t belong in some high tech prison with soldiers and—and…she couldn’t even list off what they might be. It was all too foreign to her.

            A man in a suit stepped forward. He was the first man who didn’t look like a soldier or an assassin.

            “Please,” Elia whispered. “I don’t know who you think I am, but—”

            The man didn’t acknowledge her words. He took a few steps toward her, his face impassive in the face of her fear.

            “You’re dispensable,” he said. “It doesn’t matter who you are. We’ve recently lost our doctor.” Elia followed his eyes to a broken body, slumped against the far wall. “And a medic.” Another body, this one face down with blood coming from his head on the far side of the room. “We have a valuable asset that needs to be taken care of. I’m not losing another highly trained operative or professional trying to do that. You’re expendable.”

            Elia shook her head slightly. That didn’t make sense. None of this made any sense.

            “Rumlow, if she doesn’t comply, kill her,” the man spoke quietly to her guard.

            “Yes, sir, Director Pierce,” the guard said.

            The director left the room and the door slid shut with a quiet hiss behind him.

            “Take care of him,” the guard, Rumlow, said, shoving her toward the man on the bench.

            Elia caught herself before she sprawled on the floor. The handful of armed men in the room took a step back when she entered the metal armed soldier’s space.

            “Let’s go,” she heard Rumlow say behind her. She hardly dared take her eyes of the still form on the bench in front of her as she listened to the heavy combat boots make their way to the door. The door slid open and closed again.

            The room was silent.

            The man seated in front of her didn’t move.

            It was only her and him…and two dead bodies in the room.

            Elia tried for a breath. Anything to ward off the tightness that was starting in her throat.

            Not now. She couldn’t have a panic attack now.

            She tried frantically to remember the steps a therapist had given her years ago when she knew the panic was setting in.

            Three things she could feel. Name three things she could feel.

            A cool draft coming from a vent. It was faint against her cheeks, but it was there. She rubbed her fingers against her pants, feeling the fabric against her fingertips. Her hair against her neck.

            Three things she could hear.

            The room was completely silent. The dead men didn’t make any noise.

            Wrong thing to think of. Her throat started to tighten, like a fist squeezing around her airway, threatening to close off any air.

            Three things, she mentally commanded herself desperately. Three things!

            The man in front of her was breathing. Quietly. Steadily. But she could hear his breaths.

            And she was supposed to…

            Elia forced herself to look at the man. There was a pool of blood on the floor near his feet.

            She felt her brow furrow as she looked to see where it came from.

            She heard the leather of his gloved hand creak as it curled around the edge of the bench and faltered back a step.

            Her heart thudded against her ribs, echoing in her ears.

            She thought of the men no doubt waiting outside the steel doors, ready to kill her if she didn’t do something for this man. Machine, she mentally corrected herself looking at the intimidating metal arm. But then the soldier shifted and lifted his head for the first time.

            His eyes were blue.

            He was human.

            “You—you’re bleeding,” she said timidly. Speaking to him felt like lighting a match near dynamite. She hoped she wasn’t about to set of an explosion.

            The man glanced down at his torso.

            Elia looked down. There was a hole in the leather vest he wore. Blood oozing from the wound.

            There was a toppled table nearby, gauze, needles, antiseptic scattered across the floor.

            Keeping her eye on the man, Elia edged away and righted the stainless steel tray. She carefully set the supplies on it.

            “I’m supposed to—to help you,” she said.

            The man stared at her.

            She tried not to think of the broken bodies on the floor behind her. Or the men outside the door, ready to kill her without a second thought. Or the cell she would be returned to.

            “Please,” she whispered. “If I don’t do this…”

            The man stared blankly at her. Elia didn’t dare move. Every muscle in her tensed, ready for whatever he had done to the doctor and the medic to happen to her.

            He shifted slightly and Elia reflexively flinched. But he only moved enough to unfasten his vest and reveal the bullet wound in his side.

            Elia took a shaky breath. She reached for a pair of gloves and pulled them on, something she had done thousands of times at the children’s hospital. She could do this. Even if she had no idea how to suture someone. She drew a shaky breath and reached for the antiseptic and gauze.

            He didn’t move when she cleaned the wound. Or when she dabbed away the fresh flow of blood. She swallowed hard. Every time she moved, she waited to send him into whatever sort of rage or killing spree that had done in the two men. But he didn’t move.

 

#

 

 

            The soldier listened to the unsteady breaths of the woman they had sent in to suture him. She was nothing like the doctor. The man who roughly shoved him into a seat and looked after whatever injuries he might come back from a mission with. Or the medic.

            He tried to remember what the mission was. He was supposed to take out the senator. He had taken him out. He was supposed to kill the woman. But he hadn’t.

            He looked at her.

            Her hands shook as she pushed the needle through his skin.

            The soldier could picture another woman. It was fuzzy. The same way these confusing thoughts always were. They came with a dull ache in his head. And then they would strap him into the chair and he would lose any of those hazy memories or pictures in the blinding pain of the memory suppression chair.

            He watched the woman’s head, bent over her work.

            Someone important to him. That’s who had dark hair like her.

            She worked quickly, a small line of uneven stitches where the bullet had grazed him.

            She tied the last suture securely and quickly ducked away from him.

            The soldier stared at her. She met his eyes uncertainly. Her dark hair was messy. Blood stained the arm of her shirt. He idly thought it must be his blood. Her arm had dangled down near his side when he slung her over his shoulder.

            She took off her gloves and deposited them on the table. She quickly backed away, towards the door.

            The soldier stared at her. He wished he knew who had dark hair and had looked at him with…something besides fear.

            The doors slid open and she immediately tensed. The soldier stood. Her eyes went wide, fear growing to terror.

            Five guns were trained on him through the door.

            The soldier stared at the hard eyes watching for his next move.

            He stared back at them.

            With deliberateness that showed them exactly how little he thought of their implied threat, he turned his back on them. He crossed the secure room to the chair and lowered himself into it.

            He didn’t move, waiting for the bands that would lock his arms in place to wrap in place and the memory suppression plates to form a vise around his head.

            He took the mouthguard and braced himself.

            He heard them escort the woman from the room, the door slide shut behind them, and then the sizzle of the electricity that would fry his brain. Again.

 

#

Chapter 2

Notes:

Thank you so, so much for reading! Thank you to those of you who left kudos. I really appreciate knowing someone is enjoying this story!

Chapter 2

 

 

 

            Elia jolted upright.

            The quiet beep that had alarmed her out of her restless sleep was followed by the click of her cell door unlocking and the door swinging open.

            She instinctively gripped at the blanket and pressed herself back against the concrete wall.

            The man at the door wasn’t one she recognized from the last two days. But, truthfully, they all mostly looked alike. Strong builds, black clothes, grim faces. Except for the metal armed soldier. He stood out, his build, his bearing. Everything about him was a threat that was unmatched by any of the other men at the facility.

            “Let’s go,” the man in her doorway said.

            This one had a thick accent. Russian or something similar.

            Elia had the split second thought of trying to run. Dart past him and out the door into the labyrinth of underground corridors.

            But then she thought of how casually Rumlow was instructed to kill her yesterday.

            She stood, the thought of what might be waiting for her outside the relative security of her cell making her throat pinch.

            The man grabbed her arm and took her from her room.

            The adrenaline surge overran any exhaustion she might have had from her lack of sleep the night before. Every time she had closed her eyes, she had seen those two dead men on the floor. Then she would think of the blank look on the metal-armed soldier’s face. The way he stared at her and then the light would leave his eyes and he would be looking right through her. She would feel the frantic uneasiness in her gut, sure he was going to send her body to join the broken ones on the floor.

            She couldn’t close her eyes without jerking awake with a gasp, sure the soldier was looming over her.

            Then his screams would echo through her memories. The way he had been willingly strapped down, metal bands around his arms and head. The tortured screams of agony she had heard, even through the door that had closed behind her. And she wasn’t entirely sure he wasn’t also a victim.

            She shook her head slightly, trying to shake loose a coherent thought. Nothing made sense.

            She let this soldier drag her down the hall to the gym. It looked vaguely familiar. Maybe she had been here? Yesterday, during the time that was hazy and then…black. Her head spun when she tried to remember anything that happened after they had injected her with something. But she had no idea. Nothing until they were bringing her back to her cell, then pulling her out again to stitch up the terrifying stoic soldier.

            The man that was escorting her gave her a hard shove in the small of her back. Elia stumbled forward a couple steps, but caught her balance.

            “Sit,” he ordered, giving her another shove.

            Elia crashed against a weight bench and quickly dropped onto it. She gripped the edge of the bench, like that would keep her from being grabbed and hauled anywhere else. She looked around the gym.

            Her mind reeled too quickly for her to try to come up with any sort of idea about what he could be doing with her, let alone any sort of coherent plan to get free. Confusion was as real as her fear.

            “I don’t know what you want with me,” she said. Maybe this man would be more willing to listen than the men who had taken her. Or the one who had ordered the guards to shoot her if she didn’t cooperate. “I’m nobody. I don’t know—”

            He glared at her and left the room without a word. The gym door closed behind him.

            Elia sat in the silence. The only sound was the buzzing of the overhead lights. She took a breath. There had been a therapist—one she had only seen for a couple visits—that had told her to take a breath and center herself.

            She didn’t feel any more centered. But she had focused on a door. Not the one she had been brought in through, but on the opposite end of the gym.

            She glanced toward the door the guard had exited. The overwhelming knowledge that she was going to end up dead, whether she obeyed whoever was issuing the orders or not, pressed down on her. Especially if they insisted on putting her in the same room as the man with the metal arm. The one with the blank eyes.

            Elia levered herself up from the bench. Her legs didn’t feel steady, but she focused on the door across the cinderblock room. She found her stride. Just like jogging after work, right?

            She made it to the door. Gripped the handle with numb fingers.

            The sound of the other door—the one she had been brought in—opening had her whirling around.

            The metal-armed soldier stood in the opposite doorway. His eyes flicked over her emotionlessly.

            Elia kept her hand on the door handle at her back. She tried to turn it in uselessly.

            It didn’t move under her hand. But the soldier moved. He crossed the gym toward her.

            Elia pressed back against the door. The handle dug into her lower back.

            The soldier didn’t come near her. He moved to one side of the gym, near an open area of concrete flooring. He stood there.

            Elia swallowed hard. She stayed against the door. The soldier stared straight ahead.

            She had no idea what he was waiting for.

            The door he had come through had closed behind him. Elia gave the handle at her back another futile jiggle.

            The other door opened again and Elia flinched.

            The man who seemed to be the leader, the one who had ordered the others to shoot her, came through the door first. Director Pierce, Elia silently reminded herself of his name. Rumlow behind him. Two other soldiers in black. A woman and a man in lab coats.

            Then a soldier in different uniform came in.

            Elia didn’t understand the change in the air when he entered.

            This soldier was huge. In a leather vest similar to the one the metal armed soldier wore.

            “Soldier,” Director Pierce spoke.

            The soldier with the silver arm turned his head to look at him. “Ready to comply,” he said evenly.

            It sent an icy chill up her spine.

            The director nodded toward the hulking man in leather. “Kill him,” he ordered.

            Elia flinched back at the command hard enough that the handle jabbed her spine painfully enough to leave a bruise.

            The soldier looked at his opponent without any flicker of emotion. The opponent moved closer, a grim smile on his face.

            The winter soldier started moving. A determined stride. When he got close enough, he struck out.

            Elia wanted to close her eyes. She didn’t want to watch whatever was about to happen. She didn’t understand why they had brought her here to watch this.

            The opponent dodged most of the force of the first kick. He retaliated with a blow that the metal arm easily blocked.

            Her eyes darted between them.

            The winter soldier fought brutally. The other man moved with lightning speed, light on his feet, striking hard enough to knock the winter soldier back sometimes. But the winter soldier landed every blow with enough force to visibly shake his enemy. He wasn’t light on his feet, he moved with strong determination, a ruthless mission playing out in every move. A killing machine.

            Elia almost missed the quiet conversation between Director Pierce and Rumlow.

            “This serum is different,” Pierce said. “The Winter Soldier is a relic from another era. None of the serum survived.”

            Elia strained to hear over the sound of flesh striking flesh, the occasional clang and whir of a metal arm.

            “This is the first time we’ve managed to produce a promising replica. The previous subjects…didn’t tolerate the injections.” The scientist’s brow furrowed as he watched the fight play out. He leaned over to the woman and murmured something to her. She nodded and lifted the electronic tablet in her hands and made a notation.

            The opponent grabbed the winter soldier in a choke hold. The soldier pulled at the arm around his neck. Veins in his forehead throbbed.

            “Do you think you can replicate this in other assets?” Pierce looked completely unconcerned that the winter soldier was about to be ended.

            Elia could only guess at what it would mean if this new killer managed to overtake the man who had killed a medic and doctor who had been trying to help him.

            With a sudden movement, the winter soldier dropped to his knees and powered the man behind him into the air and over his head.

            Elia sucked in a breath when he pulled a knife from his vest and twirled it deftly in his fingers as he closed the distance to the other man. But the opponent wasn’t done. He jumped back up, drawing his own knife.

            Elia bit her lips between her teeth, squeezing her eyes shut.

            “The only uncertainty is how he will respond to cryo,” a scientist was saying. “Which severely limits the usefulness of any asset. If they have to remain active between missions, it will greatly reduce their longevity.”

            Sudden silence rang through the gym.

            Elia didn’t want to look. She kept her eyes closed.

            “We’ll make adjustments to the formula,” the scientist finally said.

            Elia opened her eyes. The winter soldier was taking a step back from the motionless form on the floor.

            “Good work, Soldier,” Pierce said, no warmth in his voice.

            The winter soldier didn’t make any indication he heard the commendation. He wiped off his knife and tucked it back in his pocket with deft fingers.

            Pierce spoke to the soldiers who had followed him in. “Dispose of the body.” He turned his attention back to the scientists. “What adjustments can you make?”

            Elia didn’t hear their hushed answers as they headed for the door. The lifeless body on the floor was lifted and carried out after them.

            Rumlow scanned the room until he saw her. “Supplies are by the door,” he said to her, then followed the others from the gym.

            Elia frantically looked for what supplies he was talking about. Was she supposed to fight this soldier? Who had some sort of serum enhanced strength?

            She saw a red box, labeled First Aid.

            That’s why she was here. They had been serious about not risking any more of their own medics or doctors tending to this assassin.

            The winter soldier looked towards her. He moved to the weight bench she had sat on when she first came to the gym.

            He sat. No expression. No words. Just sat there.

            Elia stared at him. How could he have just killed someone and now sat there like his mind was blank? Like he had no emotion?

            The picture of the two men he had killed the day before, broken bodies on the floor after trying to suture him, filled her vision.

            Breathe. No, find 3 things she could feel. Or go for a run. That had been another suggestion, but it came from a web search, not a therapist. Or take a class. Take a class and gain some control. She had done that, even though she never went back to the therapist who suggested it.

            Ok, she needed to move. Not go over every coping mechanism that had ever failed her. She needed to focus.

            Elia hated to leave the security of the door at her back. But what if Rumlow or the others were waiting outside the gym, guns ready to shoot her if she didn’t help the soldier?

            She carefully crossed the gym. She faltered when she came to the blood smeared on the floor where the other man had been slain.

            She was going to—she couldn’t—

            Ellia clutched at her throat, willing herself to keep breathing.

            You can’t die from a panic attack.

            That’s what the doctor had said, the first time she had gone to the emergency room in high school, sure she was having a heart attack.

            Her heart fluttered like it was going to fast to actually beat now.

            She tried, she tried everything she could think of. Counting, focusing on a sound—

            She looked over at the soldier.

            The soldier didn’t move. His blue eyes watched her.

            She had to pull herself together. She had to—had to—she couldn’t—

            She bit the inside of her cheek until she tasted blood.

            The blood was what centered her. Reminded her of what she needed to do.

            She focused on the pain. Slowed her breathing. The man still sat, unmoving, watching her.

            With unsteady steps, Elia gave him wide berth and got to the first aid box. The metal box rattled when she picked it up, too loud in the silent room.

            Should she talk to him? Keep her mouth shut and hope he didn’t lash out?

            But he looked calm today. He didn’t have the edge of confusion stealing over his eyes. He was blank. Almost unresponsive.

            “You—you have a cut on your—on—” Elia motioned toward his left temple.

            She set the box on the bench next to him, trying to keep as much distance between them as she could.

            She opened it and rummaged through quickly with trembling fingers until she found gloves and antiseptic. She clumsily managed to get the gloves on.

            “Th—this will hurt,” she stammered, opening the antiseptic, then cringed. Not like it would hurt worse than the knife that had sliced at him. Or the super strength fists that had pummeled him.

            He didn’t move as she cleaned that cut. Found a cold pack she could pop a seal on and activate and press to his jaw.

            “I don’t think your jaw is broken,” she said. “I don’t—don’t know if they have an x-ray machine here.”

            But he had some super serum flowing through his blood. Maybe he would heal more quickly.

            She frowned when she noticed another cut, below his jaw. She started to reach to move his hair, then froze, remembering who—what—her patient was.

            “I need to—can I—your hair…”

            He barely flicked his eyes toward her, but moved his head so she could see the cut more easily.

            She needed to get this done as quickly as she could so she could get away from him.

            Every single muscle in her body was tensed, ready to leap away if he moved toward her at all. The uncertainty of when he would attack was enough to make her vision start to narrow, black creeping in around the edges. But she had to focus. Had to get through—

            She gripped the edge of the bench to keep from falling over as black spots danced in front of her vision. She lowered her head enough to take some deep breaths, but they didn’t help. Not when she was waiting for him to grab her at any second.

            OK, she had to do this. It was this or a gun that was most likely on the other side of the door.

            She straightened enough to get back to work, but acutely aware that she was about to collapse. With unsteady hands, she pushed his hair back and examined the cut there. She didn’t dare turn fully away from him. She spilled a box of bandaids across the floor and fumbled to pick them up.

            A larger hand landed next to hers and Elia scrambled backwards, a scream catching in her throat.

            The soldier glanced at her without emotion, then gathered the spilled mess and tossed it back into the first aid box. He pulled a larger bandage from the box and placed it over the cut that Elia thought might need butterfly strips.

            Without another look towards her, he stood and went to the door. It opened for him and he disappeared without a sound.

            Elia finally collapsed back, every limb weak now that she didn’t have to brace for a fight.

            The door opened again and the guard was back.

            Elia didn’t wait for him to grab her arm. She got to her feet and quickly followed after him back to her cell.

 

#

 

 

 

           

           

            “We don’t have any information on this operative.”

            Nick Fury’s voice was low with concern.

            Steve looked at the pictures, grainy stills from security cameras. The man in the pictures had the posture of a soldier—assurance and motive in every movement. But there was also a lack of reaction that wasn’t normal for a soldier.

            Steve leaned in closer to study the soldier. There wasn’t much to see. His eyes were covered with goggles, a mask over the bottom half of his face.

            “Soviet?” Steve asked, noting the red star on the man’s shoulder.

            “The Winter Soldier,” Natasha Romanoff said.

            Steve and Fury looked back at her.

            She came the rest of the way into the room behind them, her face neutral in the face of the killer Fury had been briefing Steve on.

            Her eyes studied the picture briefly, then turned back to Fury. “There were rumors. Back in Russia.”

            “What do you know about him?” Fury asked.

            Natasha perched on the arm of Steve’s chair. “Not much, no one does. The guy’s a ghost. They’ve been talking about him for decades.”

            “Decades?” Steve asked.

            She shrugged a shoulder. “Urban myths tend to linger. Especially if they come out of a country that thrives on suppressing the truth.”

            He slid a sheaf of papers across the low table between the armchairs in the corner of his office.

            Natasha leaned forward and picked them up. Steve had already seen the report. He and Fury waited while Natasha scanned it.

            She looked up, no change in her expression. Steve appreciated that not much rattled the agent, but he sometimes wished he could read her better.

            “So you don’t think this guy is responsible for all this?” Fury asked with a nod toward the papers.

            “Do you think he’s been operating for over seventy years?” Natasha countered.

            “That’s impossible,” Steve said. There was no way the guy in the pictures was ninety years old.

            Natasha and Fury both looked at him.

            Natasha cocked an eyebrow.

            Steve frowned. “I was in ice. Not a Soviet operative for the last seventy years.”

            Fury made a sound of agreement. “Rogers is right. HYDRA most likely has had a series of Winter Soldiers. All trained the same way, with the same weapons.”

            Steve leaned into the picture again. “And the same arm?”

            Fury took the papers back from Natasha. “It’s possible.”

            Steve didn’t like the idea that HYDRA had a way to replace this soldier if they took him down. But the thought of someone like him—someone from another era preserved into another time—was…not worth thinking about.

            He cleared his throat and focused on the information they did have.

            “Do we know anything about this current winter soldier?”

            “Only that he’s ruthless,” Fury said. “We think he’s the one who took out Senator Fields.”

            Steve knew activity at S.H.I.E.L.D. had been ramped up since the assassination two days before. Senator Fields had been heavily involved with S.H.I.E.L.D.’s activities- especially the counter espionage and security units.

            “We suspect HYDRA, but there are rumors underground that it was Senator Marks.”

            Natasha stood and bent over the profile of the potential instigator. Steve knew Senator Marks didn’t trust the Avengers Initiative. He had made no secret about his mission to hamstring the freedoms enhanced individuals had, especially the Avengers.

            “Nice guy,” Natasha said wryly, reading through the Senator’s quotes about the Avengers. “ ‘Freaks of nature who should be exterminated.’” She slid the paper away. “People voted for this guy?”

            “People fear what they don’t understand,” Fury said.

            Steve thought of the world he had left, the one that had been his last memory before being pulled from the ice. He had seen first hand what that kind of prejudice could lead to.

            “So what’s our plan?” he asked.

            “First, we find out if Marks has any ties to HYDRA. Then we find out how deep his involvement is with Project Insight.”

            “And then?” Steve asked.

            “Then we take care of the threat.”

            Steve didn’t want to think about what might happen if the threat proved to be less than cooperative. But he nodded once, showing he understood the serious risk S.H.I.E.L.D. was currently facing.

            “I’m going to look over the files Agent Romanoff was able to get from the ship’s computer. We’ll see if there’s anything to link Senator Marks to the project.”

            “And this guy?” Natasha asked, angling her head toward the picture of the soldier.

            “We’re going to hope we can face that guy and get him out of the picture,” Fury said, the simplicity of the plan not matching with all the pieces Steve knew would have to be involved.

            But Steve didn’t say that. He simply gave Fury a small tip of his head. “Sir,” he said in parting.

            Fury nodded back at him, releasing Steve from their briefing.

            Steve strode out of the office. Whatever HYDRA had done to train a Winter Soldier, Steve would have to be better trained. Stronger, faster.

 

#

 

 

 

            “Let’s go.”

            Elia jumped up at the order. She hadn’t moved quickly enough getting into her cell the day before and had an aching jaw and bruise to show for it. She didn’t want to earn another fist to her face.

            Rumlow was recognizable to her. Pleasure at her fast reaction was clear in his eyes. “Maybe we won’t have to drug you again,” he said.

            Elia didn’t want to know what they might be drugging her for again. But more than that, she didn’t want to be drugged. She didn’t want to wake up not knowing what had happened. She didn’t want the thudding in her head while she tried to clear her thoughts as she woke up. So she fell in step with him without hesitation.

            Rumlow went throught he winding corridors. The entered an elevator and he pushed a button, none of them were labeled.

            Elia forced herself not to back away from him. She stood next to him, denying every fiber of her being that wanted to shy away or fidget. She stood stock still. Anything to avoid an injection of that powerful sedative again. Not that she really wanted to remain conscious and watch a brutal fight to the death again, either.

            The elevator stopped, the doors sliding open nearly soundlessly.

            The doors opened directly into a garage.

            Two men in black stood near an oversized black SUV. A third man stood a short distance from them.

            He looked over when Rumlow and Elia stepped out of the elevator.

            Elia looked at his bruises, the cut on his jaw, from the fatal battle the day before. They were already noticeably healing.

            He kept watching her as they approached.

            “She’s awake,” one of the men said.

            “She’s compliant,” Rumlow responded. He handed a capped syringe to the winter soldier. “If that changes…”

            The soldier took the syringe without any change in expression, unzipping a pocket on his cargo pants and stowing the syringe away.

            Elia met his eyes, fear at the idea of being drugged unconscious again starting to claw at her chest. The idea of not knowing what these men were doing, why they needed her, was enough to build the clawing to a physical pain.

            “Let’s go,” one of the men said.

            Rumlow got in the front seat and a new hand clasped Elia’s arm.

            The soldier dispassionately moved her into the back seat. Elia didn’t resist, even as she struggled for every breath.

            The vehicle started and moved from the garage to a long ramp, headlights against rock walls the only lights.

            It was a slight incline climb until a gate opened at the end of the tunnel and the vehicle emerged into the woods.

            “Leaving the facility now,” the driver spoke into his earpiece.

            The gravel road was rough, but the driver went at a steady speed. Every bump jostled Elia, knocking her against the silent soldier beside her. She tried holding herself rigid, but fighting the uneven ride only meant she lurched against the man that much harder with every bump. He was solid. Unmoving.

            She breathed a sigh of relief when they turned out onto a highway, smooth road under their wheels.

            When they approached the outskirts of DC, Elia’s heart thudded against her ribcage. Her apartment wasn’t that far. Maybe she could…

            But the vehicle turned away, heading toward the prosperous neighborhood, a a gated community.

            Elia bit down hard on her lip. She knew this community. She had cared for two kids here. Grace Fields had been in remission from leukemia for almost four months now. Elia had spent her weekends off making extra money by caring for the preteen until recently. Adelaide Marks was younger, only five years old, but prone to pneumonia. Elia had been hired several times to care for her at home on oxygen to save the family a lengthy hospital stay.

            The suburban pulled off the road, into the cover of trees a short distance from the gate with a guardhouse.

            The doors opened, and the men got out. Elia stayed in her seat, frozen in place, not sure what was happening.

            Rumlow reached into the backseat and grabbed her arm, pulling her from the vehicle, dropping her unceremoniously on the ground. Before she could get her bearings, the soldier was hauling her to her feet.

            “This will be easier with her here,” one of the men commented in the quiet as they all started pulling guns from beneath the seats, checking that they were loaded, double checking the guns strapped to their legs.

            “It worked out in your favor that you didn’t shoot her like you were supposed to,” Rumlow said with a dark look at the soldier.

            Elia sucked in a breath so hard it knifed her lungs. She looked up at the soldier. His grip was steady on her arm and didn’t flinch with the underlying disapproval from Rumlow.

            “Yeah, well it saves us bypassing a whole security system,” one of the men said. “Besides, the wife came back early. It was probably easier to just get her out of there than risk her being alive and a witness when the lady came home and found her husband dead.”

            Elia’s breath came faster, but it didn’t reach her lungs. Where had she been? Who was dead?

            Her head spun and black spots danced in front of her eyes. The soldier looked at her, reading her growing panic.

            Elia thought for sure he was going to pull out the syringe.

            “Please don’t…” She couldn’t say the words, she wasn’t even sure she fully formed them, but the soldier watched her, not reaching for the syringe.

            Without a word, he put a hand over her mouth, his metal arm locking around her, picking her up until her feet cleared the ground.

            “Let’s go,” he said.

 

 

#

Chapter 3

Chapter 3

 

            Elia couldn’t breathe. Not with the metal arm locked across her chest, pinning her against the soldier.

            She couldn’t even struggle. Not with the way he had her locked against him. She could barely move her legs, there was no way to get enough leverage to fight against him.

            Her eyes darted around wildly. The group made their way through the gated neighborhood silently, staying in shadows, the wooded edges of the large lots.

            It was a familiar route to Elia. She had driven through here daily, having built trust among the elite power brokers who lived here. Word of her discretion spread along with her kindness towards their children and she had found regular side jobs that had paid well enough to take care of her student loans and buy a more reliable car.

            She didn’t know which house they were going to at first. But as they got closer, she renewed her efforts to find a way to free herself.

            Not Adelaide. They couldn’t be going to the sweet little girl’s home. Elia wouldn’t let them.

            But she couldn’t stop them. The men dispersed into the shadows that the security lighting didn’t reach. One of the men approached the electrical box on the side of the house and one by one the lights flicked off. When the back door was cloaked in darkness, the soldier hauled her to it. He pressed her face close to the retina scanner.

            Elia immediately squeezed her eyes shut. She wasn’t going to let these men anywhere near the fragile little girl or her family.

            The soldier gripped her chin and his fingers pressed against her jaw. Elia shook her head, silently defying him.

            “Use the syringe,” Rumlow said.

            In alarm, Elia tried to see where he was. A mistake. The soldier immediately turned her head and her open eye was caught by the scanner. She heard the click of the secure door unlocking.

            The soldier opened the door and slipped inside with her. One hand pinning her in place, the other over her mouth to keep her silent.

            She knew her way through the downstairs. The kitchen, the living room, the den. They were all familiar. When the soldier moved towards the stairs, she bucked against his hold, her cry was muffled. Adelaide would be sleeping in her bed. At the end of the hall he was steadily walking down.

            He stopped at the first door. Eased it open.

            Elia could barely make out the a form in the bed. But she knew it would be Adelaide’s father. Adelaide’s mother would be at her daughter’s bedside until the child drifted into a sound sleep. How many nights had Elia sat next to Adelaide, monitoring her breathing, her oxygen saturation, as Mrs. Marks perched on the edge of the bed, brushing her daughter’s hair back and singing a quiet lullaby? Senator Marks and his wife had been nothing but kind to her. They had even invited her to their family’s Fourth of July barbecue.

            Elia fought with everything she had, when the soldier released her mouth she drew a breath, ready to warn him.

            But a shot blasted before she could scream. The soldier did set her aside then. Elia’s legs nearly collapsed under her. Numbly she stood, staring.

            He moved toward the bed, methodically wiping the handle of the gun and positioning it in the senator’s limp hand. He pulled a folded piece of paper from his vest and set it on the nightstand. Elia blankly stared at the paper, the words she could see barely registering. A suicide note.

            A creak sounded from the hall.

            Elia’s muscles tightened, springs coiled too tight.

            The soldier turned from the nightstand and looked toward the door.

            “No,” Elia whispered. It was too late for screaming. Screaming would draw the little girl in here and Elia would never wish that on the child.

            The soldier ignored her and moved toward the door. Small footsteps came closer in the hallway, following after the quick adult footfalls outside the door.

            “Mommy?” came a small voice.

            Elia shifted, blocking the door. She quickly flipped the lock and turned back to the soldier. His eyes narrowed slightly. With grim determination, he moved toward the door. He moved to shove Elia out of the way.

            She wouldn’t let him get to Adelaide. She saw his arm coming toward her with enough force to toss her aside. It was instinct to grab his hand and wrist and step aside, letting his own power carry him past her and to the ground while Elia whirled away.

            Elia spun back, ready for him to come at her again. He laid on the floor, eyes dark and assessing her.

            “Oh crap,” Elia whispered, staring at his intense gaze.

            Five years of Judo. The classes were supposed to give her some feeling of control. An outlet for the panic attacks. And she had actually learned Judo during that time.

            But she had never actually used it. Not off the sparring mat. And even then only timidly.

            But she had just thrown the soldier to the ground.

            He was still staring at her. Not moving. His eyes…they weren’t blank. They moved over her, like he was trying to place her. Then he looked over at the bed. At the body.

            His eyes darkened, something going on behind them. When he looked at her again, he was anything but in control.

            He was going to kill her. Elia knew it.

 

 

#

 

 

            The soldier hadn’t even seen it coming. The woman had thrown him efficiently, his hand and wrist in a lock as soon as he was in her reach, in a grip so perfectly positioned, he couldn’t move his arm. He had been thrown to the floor with his own momentum. Enough force that his breath left his lungs.

            He looked at the woman. He could see fear in her eyes. But every line of her body also showed her determination to fight. It was…familiar.

            But that didn’t make sense.

            A shadow ghosted across some far corner of his mind.

            Some…kid? No. A man. A small man. Scrawny, like this woman was. But determined to fight. But the man didn’t fight him.

            The ghosts were chased in with emotion. A feeling of protectiveness that had him ready to move and act. Pride. But he didn’t have feelings. He existed to serve the mission. Bring order to the world.

            But the ghost didn’t evaporate. It also didn’t become any clearer. It stayed just out of reach, at the edge of his mind.

            He looked at the woman again. She was braced, ready for him. Ready to fight a bully in the alley.

            No. That wasn’t right. That didn’t make sense.

            Traces of panic kicked at the emotions. His heart started to pick up its pace.

            It was like a record played in his head. One that went around, circular, never ending. Bring order. Complete the mission. It was what he was trained for. His entire purpose. But now the needle didn’t glide smoothly over the vinyl. It skipped. There were scratches on the record, interrupting the instructions ingrained in him. Save the guy. Don’t let another bully take him down.

            No. There wasn’t a guy here. Just this woman. The one he was supposed to get back to the compound.

            Convinced he had it under control now, he stood.

            Voices sounded in the hallway, a hushed frantic woman’s voice and a child’s reedier answer.

            He took a step.

            She shifted slightly, countering the move. Her delicate jaw trembled, but she set it, clearly ready to fight him. He couldn’t fight her. He turned slightly, sure there was a bully, an oversized punk of a guy, ready to fight.

            Punk.

            Jerk.

            The voices blurred with the scratching record in his mind.

            He narrowed his eyes. Took the record off the player and shattered it. He moved toward her and she braced herself, her dark eyes clocking his every move, her hands moving slightly to match his movements. Her chest lifted and fell with breaths that came too fast. She was anything but a skilled combatant. But she had managed to throw him.

            He had completed his mission. They needed to get out of there. The door was the obvious choice. But not with her blocking it. He went toward her, but without momentum. She couldn’t use what he didn’t give her. He reached out and got a hold of her arm. She tried to step back, but she also wasn’t enhanced with serum. He kept his grip tight and pulled her along with him.

            Out the window. He ignored her gasp as they went out. He grabbed onto the window ledge with his metal arm, his grip digging into the wood and brick. He swung them over the ledge aware of her heart thudding against his chest where he held her against him. He ignored it.

            He let go and dropped the two stories to the grass, landing easily, hearing her grunt at the impact against his chest when he landed, still keeping her in his hold. He didn’t stop, but set out quickly, keeping to the shadows, threading through copses of trees until they exited the development and made it back to the SUV.

            He shoved her in and got in the seat with a quick scan to make sure no one had spotted them. The driver started the engine, the other men closed their doors behind them.

            The woman sat woodenly next to him. She stared blankly, straight ahead, her breathing no longer coming in sharp gasps, but slow shallow inhales. She didn’t move. She didn’t cry. She just stared blankly.

            The soldier put her defensive move, the way she had thrown him to the ground, from his mind. It had no bearing on the mission. And the mission was the only thing that mattered.

            He firmed his jaw and fought back the shadowy vapors of someone—undersized, outpowered, determined—finding fights and not backing down.

            That wasn’t reality. Bringing order to the world. That was reality. It was what he was called to do.

 

#

 

 

 

 

 

            Cold. She was cold. More than a chill. Numbing, endless cold.

            A hand on her shoulder forced her down.

            She sat with a dull thud.

            “You used the tranquilizer on her,” a voice commented. “Was she uncooperative?”

            “She cooperated.”

            That voice was familiar. She had only heard it say two words, but it was familiar. Let’s go. Go into Senator Marks’ home and shoot him. That’s what he had done. He had shot the man. Had been about to open the door and shoot his wife and child.

            “He never hurt anyone,” she murmured through stiff lips.

            The conversation next to her continued.

            “Mission report.”

            “Target terminated.”

            “He was trying to protect people,” Elia said to herself. “His work with S.H.I.E.L.D…it was undercover. No one knew…”

            The conversation around her stopped.

            “What did you say?”

            Elia stared blankly at the tile floor in front of her. But she kept seeing the way the body in the bed jolted when the bullet struck. The spray of blood.

            A sharp slap connected with her cheek.

            Elia blinked, hardly feeling it.

            “What was he doing?”

            It was the director. The director of what, Elia still didn’t know. Director Pierce. Her thoughts were sluggish. She wondered if they had drugged her. She was pretty sure the syringe had never left the Soldier’s pocket. Or was this shock? Is this what shock felt like?

            Director Pierce bent over so his face was level with hers. “What was the senator doing?”

            Elia thought of all the times she had been in his home. Adelaide had wanted to see her father and Elia had brought her to his office. She had stayed back, out of the way while the little girl ran to her father. Elia had thought of how different her life might have been if she had a father to run to, one who lit up when he saw her. Instead of one who could barely stand the sight of her.

            Fingers snapped in front of her face. “The senator,” Director Pierce reiterated, his voice sharp. “What was he doing?”

            Elia could see the papers on the desk. She was nothing more than the hired help. No one thought of her seeing anything. And she hadn’t cared. Hadn’t realized how much she actually saw until it all came forward now, mixed in with reliving the senator’s death happening in front of her.

            There had been video calls, too. She had overheard those. His office was off the kitchen where she fixed Adelaide’s snacks. Those calls had impressed her.

            “He was going to talk with someone named Fury,” she mumbled to herself. “He knew who had infiltrated the Senate. HYDRA. Who the agents were.” None of it had made sense, but she had picked up on his passion for clearing the highest level of government of those people. “He was a good man. He shouldn’t have to die.”

            She was barely aware of Pierce stepping away from her, talking to someone else. “He knew more than we realized. Framing him for Fields’ death will make him look like a traitor to S.H.I.E.L.D. Let’s work with that.”

            Footsteps started toward the door. Elia couldn’t lift her head to look and see if they were leaving her. She couldn’t move. She just kept replaying all the time she had spent at the Marks home. And her last visit there. To murder the man.

            “What about her?” another voice asked.

            There was a pause. Elia wondered who they were talking about.

            “She knows more than we realized. She can offer more than just access to homes. Keep her.”

            A grip on her arm. Elia distantly thought it was hard enough to be painful, but she didn’t feel anything.

            She was hauled to her feet.

            Without fighting, she let the man pull her toward the door.

            The winter soldier was still standing. His dark eyes on her.

            She glanced at him as she was pulled past. Confusion warred with some sort of…distress in his eyes.

            None of this made sense.

            None of it felt real.

            Her cell had grown familiar and she caught herself from falling when the man gave her a hard shove into the small room.

            She sank down onto the cot.

            Maybe none of this real.

            She closed her eyes.

            Please let none of this be real.

 

 

#

 

 

           

           

 

            Steve kept his head down, ball cap low over his eyes.

            The narrator’s voice came overhead, describing every part of the Smithsonian exhibit.

            Steve barely heard it. He wasn’t there to learn. He had lived it. But this was the closest he could come to where he belonged. The people he had lost.

            Steve drew up in front of a mural, a picture of himself at center, the Howling Commandos stretching out on either side of him.

            He would give anything to be with those guys now. He knew them. He trusted them.

            He didn’t understand S.H.I.E.L.D. Or this world he was in. Half the time he was lost, and the other half the time he wished he was.

            He moved away from the picture of the men who were no longer alive. But they had been, when he went into the ice. Or most of them.

            “Barnes is the only Howling Commando to give his life in service of his country.”

            Steve wanted to argue with the overhead narration. Bucky hadn’t given his life. He had lost it. Because of Steve. He hadn’t protected his friend. After all the times Bucky had his back, when it really mattered, Steve hadn’t had his.

            Steve had managed to find more scrapes than just about anyone in Brooklyn. He had found himself cornered in a diner, a bookstore, an alley… And Bucky had been there. When Steve wasn’t going to give up, and he was getting pounded, Bucky had been there. He had driven the bully away.

            Steve stared at the old video footage, Bucky smiling, laughing next to Steve. No idea what was coming. But even if he had known, he wouldn’t have changed a thing. But Steve would have.

            He’d give anything to talk to someone who would understand. Someone from his own time.

 

#

 

 

 

            The door to Elia’s cell opened.

            She tensed. She couldn’t go on another mission. Or face that soldier—the one with dead eyes who had killed without flinching.

            No one entered the cell.

            Elia didn’t move. She wasn’t about to risk it. Not knowing what might be coming next. It had been a long night, lying awake, frozen to her cot, not feeling, but replaying everything she had seen.

            Still no one came into her cell.

            Was this a trap? She knew what she was doing here, now. Her retinas had been used to access Senator Marks’ home and assassinate him. But did that mean she was useless to them now?

            There wasn’t any sound from the long, windowless hallway outside her cell.

            Elia stayed, unmoving.

            Seconds and minutes dragged by. But Elia refused to be lured out only to face whatever was out there. An isolated cell was safety. Out there was unknown.

            Nothing. Not even the sound of the fluorescent lights buzzing overhead. Silence. Complete and total silence.

            She wasn’t moving.

 

#

 

 

            “She’s compliant,” Pierce commented, watching the girl on the surveillance screen.

            She stared at the open door to her cell, but didn’t make any sign of even checking to see what may be on the other side of the door, including her freedom.

            Rumlow stood alongside him, the Winter Soldier on the other side.

            “She has more information than we realized. We had only searched as far as our first target and the access she had. We missed how deeply embedded she is in the security world.”

            “Her?” Rumlow asked, looking at the frail figure on the cot, her eyes blank.

            “She worked for a private nursing agency part time. She impressed patients and families with her discretion. Apparently, she was picking up more than anyone realized. We need to mine that information now.” Pierce turned to the Soldier. “Bring her to the procedure room.”

            The soldier moved without reaction. Pierce looked back at Rumlow. “I have to be at S.H.I.E.L.D. Find out what she knows about the members of the security council.”

            Rumlow nodded. He watched on the screen as the soldier approached the girl. She froze. She didn’t fight. She let him take her by the arm and lead her from the room.

            Convinced she wasn’t a problem, Rumlow left the surveillance room to meet them in the procedure room.

 

#

           

 

 

 

            The Soldier ignored the woman’s leaden footsteps. As if she was no longer present in her own body, she came along with him.

            The procedure room was as familiar as his own bunk. Or the cryo chamber. It was where they wiped his memory. Where they worked on his arm. Where she had stitched his side the first time they had pushed her to tend him.

            He thought of how gentle her hands had been. Unlike anything else in this place. But then thought of the surety and force she had thrown him to the ground with. He looked down at her.

            Her face was drawn, dark eyes hollow.

            He kept his steps steady. Pulled her to keep pace with him.

            The doors slid open in the procedure room. The chair was center, the room revolved around it.

            He kept her away from the chair and brought her to a plain chair at the side of the room. Rumlow came in shortly after them.

            He went without a word to the metal cabinet at the back of the room and pulled out a vial and syringe. The Soldier stayed at her side, preventing any movement from her.

            She stared at the syringe as Rumlow approached. The Soldier braced himself, ready for her to throw Rumlow, but she only sat like she had lost any will to fight.

            Rumlow stuck the syringe in her arm and pressed the plunger down.

            It only took a minute for her entire posture to change, her shoulders sagged, her head lolled slightly.

            “Name,” Rumlow said.

            Without hesitation she answered, her words soft, slightly slurred. “Elia Anderson.”

            Elia. The Soldier had only thought of her as the prisoner they needed for access to secure homes. He stared down at her. For the first time he realized she was young.

            “Who were your clients through the homecare agency?”

            So slowly, it didn’t seem like she was going to answer, she mumbled a list. “Adelaide Marks. Grace Fields. Jenna Hawley. Matthew Hawthorne. Liam Malick. Mai Li.”

            There were at least two family members of the security council members and one child who was a close acquaintance, also the child of the secretary to Hawley.

            “What do you know about Councilman Malick?” Rumlow asked.

            Groggily, her head drooped.

            Rumlow snapped his fingers in front of her face. “Councilman Malick,” he said sharply.

            “His nephew likes ice cream. Chocolate,” she mumbled.

            “Not his nephew,” Rumlow said. “The councilman.”

            “His wife left him,” she said almost too quietly to hear. “He lost money.”

            “Good,” Rumlow said. “How did he lose the money?”

            “I’m not supposed to know.” Her words came through lips that barely moved. Her head didn’t lift.

            “But you know,” Rumlow countered, not backing down.

            The Soldier made mental notes of the information. This was valuable. Priceless. They would finally be able to get the Security Council under their authority. Stop S.H.I.E.L.D. from the constant chaos they allowed in the world.

            “He has a mistress,” Eli’s words were faint, trailing off. Her head finally lowered all the way. “Marissa.” She started to collapse forward in the chair. The Soldier stopped her, her weight heavy against his hand.

            “Perfect.” Rumlow clearly had what he needed. “Bring her to the mess hall. She can eat there. Pierce wants her to be an asset. We’ll treat her like one.”

            No longer a prisoner. The Soldier eyed her dispassionately. She was part of the mission now. The same mission as him.

            Rumlow straightened and looked down at her. “She’s no threat to anyone here.”

            The Soldier thought back to her easily throwing him past her, his shoulder still aching where he had landed. She was hardly a couple inches over five feet tall. She wasn’t a threat.

            Without a word, he half lifted her from the chair. She moved willingly, no sign of the burst of fight he had displayed earlier.

            There wasn’t anyone else left in the room. He was used to the space. He worked missions with these men, nothing more. He wasn’t used to having someone at his side. Especially someone vulnerable.

            She didn’t offer any information now that Rumlow wasn’t questioning her. She just moved along wherever he moved her.

            The mess hall door was open. It only would close if they had to lock the underground facility down. The Soldier brought her in. The talk that always quieted when he entered stopped.

            The Soldier was aware of eyes on them. But it didn’t matter. These men were weak. They were disposable. Pierce rotated them through and treated them as such.

            He got the woman in a seat. His tray of food was waiting for him. He stood silently while the man behind the stainless steel counter dished up a second tray with smaller servings and slid it to him, avoiding his eyes.

            The Soldier took both trays to the table. He shoved her tray towards her. She would either eat it or pass out. It didn’t matter. She would get another chance to eat tomorrow.

            The Soldier focused on his food. She sat with a vacant look in her eyes. He ignored the quiet talk around them, some of it clearly about the girl. But there had been other assets brought in, some unwillingly at first, who had assimilated. The looks would die down and she would be nothing more than the information Pierce needed to mine from her.

 

#

Chapter 4

Chapter 4

 

 

 

            “Let’s go,” Rumlow said.

            Elia blinked at the words. That’s what the soldier had said before he had practically carried her into Senator Marks’ home. That much she remembered. There wasn’t much else she remembered since then. Just getting pulled into the procedure room and injected nearly daily. Everything before that and beyond that was just…blurry.

            Impatience crossed Rumlow’s face. He gripped her arm and pulled her along.

            Elia went with him without a fight. There wasn’t much to fight against. She wasn’t being taken out of the facility anymore. She was just injected. She had no idea what they were doing, but there was some tenuous relief that spread through her chest when she realized they didn’t seem intent on bringing her along on any more murders.

            And it wasn’t all that unpleasant to not have to be alert and thinking while she was being held against her will. At least it helped her forget for a little while what she had seen.

            She took the seat on the far side of the room. Rumlow went to the cabinet and prepped a syringe.

            “Where’s Pierce?” one of the other agents in the room asked.

            “S.H.I.E.L.D.” Rumlow said.

            “When are you heading back over there?” the agent asked.

            “After this,” Rumlow answered with a jerk of his chin toward Elia.

            “I wouldn’t mind being assigned over at the Triskelion,” the agent said. “My wife sure wouldn’t mind. Closer to home.” He headed toward the door.

            Rumlow didn’t respond. He approached Elia, syringe in hand.

            She lowered her head and waited for the familiar sting.

            “Your wife’s an idiot,” Rumlow muttered under his breath.

            Elia glanced at him. He was focused on injecting the solution into her arm. But Elia saw the look on his face.

            He had feelings for that agent’s wife. He was jealous.

            The solution spread through her deltoid, burning its way through her muscle until it burned away any conscious awareness in her mind.

 

#

 

 

 

One week later

 

 

Something was changing.

            Elia sat on the cot in her cell. Her head ached. Not so much ached as it buzzed. Her mind hummed. When whatever they last injected her with had started to wear off, it left a hive of bees vibrating in her head. It almost made her want them to inject her again.

            She watched as another agent hurried down the hallway. Then two more.

            She didn’t see the metal armed soldier. She hadn’t seen him for two days. She wondered if the controlled panic outside her door had anything to do with him being gone.

            Her vision blurred. Had they injected her yesterday? Or was it two days ago? The way her thoughts were jumbled, tumbling around without gravity, made her think it had been more than just a day.

            She squeezed her eyes shut. When she opened them, her vision was clearer. She pushed herself off her cot and slowly approached the door.

            More footsteps came hurrying down the hall and she ducked back instinctively. That agent went by without a glance into her cell.

            Elia ventured to the doorway. She didn’t see anyone immediately. She stepped out into the hall.

            She started in the direction of the procedure room. She didn’t know what else was housed in that wing, but she did know that most of the higher ups congregated down there.

            She passed one of the agents who had been with on the mission to kill Senator Marks. Her heart stuttered, but he walked by without a glance toward her.

            “Fury needs to be taken out,” a deep voice said. “Pierce is managing S.H.I.E.L.D. He won’t be here. Rumlow is organizing the operation, but he’ll have to report back to S.H.I.E.L.D soon.”

            Elia caught the conversation as she went past the doorway. She didn’t know who Fury was. And she didn’t understand how Pierce could be at S.H.I.E.L.D when he was also running this organization. Whatever this organization was.

            The next words trailed after her as she kept going down the hall. “Rumlow wants the girl mined. Find out what she knows about the Security Council and Congress, make sure we can get them on our side when Fury is taken out.”

            A strong grip wrapped around her arm.

            “Time to get to work,” an agent said.

            Elia sucked a breath in as his grip tightened. He pulled her past the room where the men were talking and pushed her ahead of him into the procedure room.

            There was already an agent there with a needle in hand, waiting for her.

            Elia didn’t fight. There was no point. She would lose. She would only end up bruised. And the injection would be an escape from the mixture of horror and boredom that captivity was. And maybe it would slow the painful vibration in her brain.

            The door to the procedure room slid open. The Soldier strode in. He went to the chair in the center of the room and sat, placing his metal arm out.

            The man in a white shirt who had come in with him carefully took a seat on a rolling stool near him, opening a case of tools.

            The technician studied the arm, selecting a small screwdriver to begin with. She heard him say something about making a small adjustment before the Soldier went to his mission.

            Before the injection seared its way through her, she saw the Soldier look at her, meet her eyes. His blue eyes watched her intently until the haze took over and she let her head fall forward, finally granted another reprieve from her new reality.

 

 

#

 

 

           

            His only thought was the mission. Distractions didn’t exist. Nothing existed in his world besides the mission. The dark haired woman, being injected in the procedure room near the chair he sat in to get his arm adjusted, wasn’t even a distraction. She was just another person at the facility who was in his periphery.

            She was the only other person at the facility who was having her mind worked over, though.

            He was silent on the drive into DC from the compound in the isolated woods of northern Virginia. Pierce had explained the importance of the mission. What they would be accomplishing. That was what mattered. He was ready. He wanted this battle.

            The SUV parked in a back alley at the planned location in DC. He made his way towards where they would take down Fury

            He stayed in the shadow between buildings, waiting for the target to be directed his way.

            There had been a second world war to rival the first Great War. Hitler’s rise to power, a force trying to dominate Europe, then spreading to the US through Pearl Harbor. Anything beyond the general overview of history was fuzzy. He had followed a calling, gone into battle. He didn’t remember the calling. He didn’t even remember the battles. Just that he had fought. And now he had been in battle for years. Decades. The enemy was S.H.I.E.L.D. Their unrelenting determination to cause upset and unrest worldwide at direct odds with Hydra’s mission to bring stability and order.

            The Winter Soldier wasn’t going to allow another world war. He would bring order to the chaos. Protect the world from people like Nick Fury.

            The sound of sirens and screeching tires reached his ears.

            The agents, disguised as police officers, would be bringing Fury this way.

            The Winter Soldier waited until the sounds drew closer, then stepped out from between the buildings, striding into the street. Ready to meet Fury head on. Ready to accomplish this mission.

            He stood, ready, powerful gun in a secure grip as the black SUV, battered with shattered windows, drove directly toward him. The soldier didn’t flinch. He stood, ready, waiting.

            The oversized black vehicle came, riddled with bullet holes, weaving through the regular traffic. He waited. When it was close enough, he lifted his gun, sighted. He fired.

            The grenade disc slid under the vehicle and attached to the undercarriage. The Soldier watched as it detonated, no reaction besides grim satisfaction when it launched the SUV into the air and flipped it.

            He slid to the side to avoid the vehicle careening through the air to land where he had stood, sliding on its roof down the street, black plumes of smoke obscuring his view. Shrapnel littered the ground around him. He could feel where some dug into his flesh, but that wasn’t a priority right now.

            He started striding toward the vehicle. Assuming the crash had killed the target would be foolish. He wanted to see Fury dead. Helpless and unable to do more damage.

            He used his titanium arm to tear the door off, toss it aside, anger making his movements sharper. Anger at this man who insisted on thwarting Hydra’s attempts to secure the world.

            He ducked down to look in the missing window, above the crumpled roof.

            Fury was gone.

 

 

#

 

 

 

 

 

            “…casualties…”

            “…major injuries…every medic needs to be…”

            “…inbound to headquarters…less than ten minutes…”

            Elia heard the words swirling around her, but she didn’t care. Whatever they injected her with stopped her from caring. It was a relief to not wonder where she was or who they were. Not to care.

            Someone gripped her arm. It hurt. But not something she cared about.

            A sharp jab in her arm had her looking at the syringe, the needle plunged into her muscle through her t-shirt. This syringe was filled with something green. Not what they usually gave her. This one didn’t burn. It was sharp. A sharp, knifing pain in her arm, running down to her fingers.

            Elia blinked, her head dropping forward. But then the groggy feeling started to sear away. She winced as the sharp pain pierced her head, her temples starting to throb. She blinked again, her vision blurring behind the pain.

            The needle wasn’t in her arm anymore, but her arm still radiated pain. She risked moving it anyway, needing to push her hands to her temples.

            “Move,” came the directive from the man who had held the needle.

            Elia tried to get to her feet, but they were still disconnected from her. She stumbled when he hauled her to her feet, but he didn’t slow.

            “Is she clear?”

            “The antidote is in. She’ll be useful in a minute.”

            Elia didn’t understand what they were saying, but the groggy detachment had faded under the pain. She hurt. Everywhere.

            Her knees buckled, but the man didn’t let her fall. He just kept going, dragging her along to another room.

            “Where’s the asset?” he asked.

            “He’s inbound. Less than a ten minutes out.”

            “And Pierce?” her escort asked, not seeming to notice she was nearly dangling by her arm from his tight hold.

            “He has to deal with the Council. He said to make sure the asset is assessed. Get her ready for him.”

            The asset. She recognized the term. It was how they referred to the Soldier.

            She was shoved toward the shelf with supplies.

            “Get ready,” the man ordered her. “The strike team has injuries. We need every medic ready.”

            Elia didn’t bother correcting him that she wasn’t a medic. She was a nurse. A pediatric nurse. Or she had been. Outside these walls. Weeks ago. A lifetime away. Now she was whatever they needed her to be.

            Voices sounded from the corridor. Someone gave directions. Another yelled out orders.

            The vise grip of pain was finally loosening on her head. Her arms were functioning again. But the confusion lingered. Elia fought to focus.

            The first man came in, holding a barely conscious strike team member upright.

            “Over there,” someone said.

            The injured man was deposited on the floor and a medic went to him.

            Another man came in, this one holding an arm that hung at an awkward angle. Three men with lacerations.

            Elia watched each one. Each one was tended by someone who shoved her aside to get supplies and hurry back to get to work. Elia stood, frozen in place. She didn’t know what she was supposed to do.

            “Ty, idi rabotya,” a man spat at her.

            Elia flinched back, looking up at his dark face. Both his dark faces. She closed her eyes, opened them again, trying to clear her vision. His faces melded together into a single face. She strained her eyes to keep it like that.

            “Ty tupoy?” he snapped.

            Elia had heard some of the men speak what sounded like Russian. Some spoke English. Some spoke both. But she only understood English. Not Russian or whatever language this man was getting angry in.

            The room was filled with groans from injured men. Urgent conversation among the men who weren’t injured and were tending them. More men had been brought in. The smell of blood filled the air. Blood and smoke.

            The man gave her a solid shove and Elia went to the ground, landing on knees that still hurt from the antidote spreading through her.

            She landed alongside a man who was bleeding from a head wound.

            A metal box clattered to the ground, tossed down next to her. Elia looked at it. A first aid kit.

            She looked up at the man who had shoved her.

            “Idi rabotya!” he said again, this time with a boot to her side.

            Elia’s breath left her with a wheeze at the solid hit to her ribs. But now she understood what he wanted.

            She opened the kit, struggling to get a breath. The supplies swam in front of her eyes. She grit her teeth.

            Gloves. She saw gloves and took those out first, pulling them on.

            She turned her attention to the man she was kneeling next to.

            His head lolled back against the wall and he opened one eye to look at her, before letting it fall closed again.

            Elia wished her thoughts would come faster. They were still sluggish. She struggled to focus, figure out what needed to be done.

            She started by tearing open a package of gauze and pulling out a bottle of saline, soaking the gauze. She got closer to the man and started cleaning the worst of his wounds.

            He sucked in a breath.

            “Sorry,” Elia whispered. She kept working. The men around her spoke of a mission gone wrong. Someone named Fury. He had fought back, something they had expected, but they hadn’t expected the level of damage they had sustained. And he had gotten away. None of it made sense. At least, not the way the words drifted around her and spun with the pain in her head. Had the Soldier been with them? She had seen him earlier, hadn’t she? When she was being shot with the regular injection they gave her.

            She finished applying butterfly strips to the cuts on the man’s face and took off her gloves, putting them aside with a growing pile of debris from the other medics. She picked up her first aid box and scanned the room. Another man was holding a piece of cloth to a wound in his shoulder. Blood soaked the cloth and ran down his arm.

            Elia went to him. The men around her talked about the asset. The Soldier. She looked around the room again. She didn’t see the Soldier.

            She put a pressure dressing on the man’s shoulder. He was going to need more than she could do for him.

            Another medic came and looked at what she had done. He nodded to Elia and helped the man to his feet.

            Someone shoved Elia toward another injured man. She obediently looked over his injuries and pulled on a clean pair of gloves. She scanned the room again. The men weren’t talking about the Soldier anymore. She didn’t see the Soldier. Hadn’t they said he was on his way in?

            She shook her head slightly, trying to shake loose stray thoughts and get her focus back on the task in front of her. She looked at the shrapnel embedded in this injured man’s face and arm. She pulled a pair of tweezers from the first aid kit and started to work.

            She was nearly done, the worst of the shrapnel cleaned up and finishing bandaging him when she heard the shift in the conversation around her.

            He came into the room. Striding in with that assured way he had. Like he never had to hesitate for anything.     

            Elia instinctively looked him over for injuries. He had dark goggles on his eyes, a mask over his lower face. It made her shrink back even though he was nowhere near her.

            He took off the goggles, pulled off the mask. He looked at her.

            Elia didn’t understand the breath that escaped when she saw him in one piece. He was a murderer. But a familiar face. The only consistency in this place.

            He glanced over the men being treated. His face flickered slightly at their pain, then it was blank again. No, not blank. Angry. His jaw was tight, his eyes hard.

            Elia swallowed hard. She didn’t want to get near him when he looked like that.

            “Soldat,” one of the handlers said.

            The Soldier looked at him.

            The handler said something in what sounded like Russian. The Soldier looked at Elia again.

            His eyes were blue. The thought came from nowhere. But blue eyes didn’t match the rest of him. He was darkness and anger and fight. Blue eyes were…human.

            More Russian instructions and the Soldier moved. He sat down. Waiting.

            The handler said something to Elia in Russian.

            The Soldier seemed to move easily between the two languages. The handler spoke to her more sharply. Elia shook her head slightly, but that brought the piercing pain back to her head. One arm moved without conscious thought, protecting her ribs against another blow. Whatever they had given her had taken away the dissociating buzz and made her hurt. She didn’t like it.

            “Ochisit’ yego ot oskolkov,” the handler snapped again.

            “Clean the shrapnel,” the Soldier said. He looked straight ahead. Waiting.

            “Right. Ok,” Elia nodded. With shaking hands, she pulled her first aid box toward her and straightened again. She stood in front of the Soldier. He was taller than her. A lot taller. And still angry.

            She looked at his metal arm. Then quickly looked away, back at his other arm.

            “Can you—can you sit?” Elia asked. He was too tall for her to get a good look at his shoulder or face.

            Without a word, he moved to the bench Elia sat on when they drugged her and questioned her.

            Elia quickly pulled shrapnel from his arm. There wasn’t much. But he had been near something that had exploded. Most were metal pieces, but there were a few shards of glass she pulled free.

            The Soldier sat without flinching, not complaining when she had to use tweezers to dig out a stubborn, jagged shard.

            “Sorry,” she whispered.

            He didn’t respond.

            “Mission report.”

            Elia was the one who flinched at the sudden command behind her.

            The man spoke sharply to the Soldier and waited.

            The Soldier’s jaw tightened. Elia saw a vein throbbing in his temple. The Soldier’s eyes flashed.

            “Eto byl proval,” the Soldier gritted out.

            “I know it was a failure,” this handler snapped back at him. “What happened?”

            The Soldier switched back to English. “Fury escaped.”

            Elia glanced at his face, then back to the shard of glass she was working on pulling from his arm.

            “I’ll find him,” the Soldier said.

            “You will,” the handler said. “Pierce said to let me know what you need. We’re surveilling the city. As soon as we have a location, you’ll be activated again. Get ready.”

            The Soldier gave one short nod and the handler moved to another man to question him.

            Elia kept her eyes trained on the blood coming from his cut. She was going to have to suture it.

            She prepared the sterile needle and vicryl with shaking hands. She took a shaky breath. She didn’t bother telling anyone she wasn’t trained for this. It wouldn’t matter. Besides, she had done this before with him. It wasn’t like it was the first time. She wondered how often he was injured. She looked at his profile, steely and staring straight ahead.

            The scent of car exhaust and smoke mixed. It burned her nostrils and made her stomach lurch nauseously.

            “Are you ok?” she asked. She didn’t know where the words came from. Why she was asking. But she could see how broken the entire team was and how angry he was. Something terrible must have happened.

            His eyes slid to her. He looked down at her shaking hands. Elia turned her focus back to stitching him up.

            “Soldier,” came a new voice.

            The Soldier looked up.

            “Get ready to go. We’re going to cast a wide net. Pierce wants you nearby when they’re ready for you to move.”

            The Soldier agreed with another single, short nod.

            “I’m almost done,” Elia said softly to him. She finished suturing him and straightened. With him seated, he was almost eye level with her.

            She met his eyes. He held her gaze. Something in his eyes flickered behind the raw anger and drive for the mission.

            “It’s probably going to be sore for awhile,” she whispered.

            He looked down at his upper arm, the neat line of sutures. Elia’s hand still resting there.    

            Elia quickly jerked her hand away. He wasn’t her patient. He definitely wasn’t some kid at the children’s hospital.

            Any hint of humanity in his eyes shuttered and he was entirely a soldier again. A weapon.

            Elia stepped back quickly. His attention was on the men gathering near the door, the handler.

            He stood and Elia stepped back further. The top of her head barely reached to his shoulders. He was a solid wall of muscle. Muscle that was used to kill.

            There was a flurry of instructions, discussion of strategy and areas to cover. Elia couldn’t make out much of it, not that she cared. Whoever they were after wouldn’t stand a chance. She had learned that much from her time with these men.

            Someone gave the signal to go. Elia watched the agents stride out, the Soldier with them, but not really a part of the group.

            She looked around the room, injured men still draped over the few seats and slumped on the floor. Actual medics were tending a few of them now. No one paid any attention to her.

            She knew what it was like to be set aside, not part of anyone or anything around you.

 

#

Chapter 5

Notes:

KnightOwlAstraea and starg_rl- Thank you so, so much for your comments! Thank you for taking the time to let me know what you think. It means so much to me. :)

Chapter 5

 

 

            The Soldier dropped down to the rooftop, landing on his feet with a solid thud. Something about his bone density. He had heard someone explaining it to a new handler once. The serum had built muscle, solidified his bones. Made him a killing machine. A weapon. Useful to the mission.

            He glanced up to make sure there was no sign left from the higher roof he had dropped down from, then his attention was back to what was in front of him. The mission.

            He set up his rifle, assembling it quickly. It was second nature, movements he could do as easily as breathing. Attach the scope, click the magazine into place.

            Fury was in the apartment in the building across from him. He lowered himself into position, the stock of the rifle solid and familiar. He looked through the scope. This was familiar in a way he never could explain. But he never bothered to try. It didn’t matter to the mission. But he knew how to hold the rifle, how to be a sniper, and the skill didn’t come from Hydra or the serum.

            A light flicked on in the apartment. It turned off.

            He applied the slightest pressure to the trigger, ready. In that brief moment when the light came on, he had seen the two silhouettes, identified Fury. He wasn’t going to give them a chance to move.

            He pulled the trigger. The blast mingled with glass shattering. He shot again. And again.

            He had hit the target. This time he hadn’t failed.

            He quickly stood. With mechanical precision, he dropped the rifle over the edge of the building. There was a clean up team below, ready to take any hint of evidence and clear the area.

            He looked again at the apartment. There was a third person in there now, he had heard the door break in and saw movement. But no sign of Fury. He wasn’t going to get back up.

            The Soldier turned and ran across the roof. He heard glass shatter below him. The man with Fury—the captain—had launched himself out a window and into the neighboring building. He sped up, knowing the pursuer was racing through the building below him. He jumped, easily making it the distance to the next roof, landing on his feet and keeping his pace.

            He heard the man behind him land on the roof, then a grunt and he sensed as much as he felt something coming toward him.

            He whirled, striking out his arm out, ready to block an attack, but the shield coming toward him had him quickly adjusting and catching it. The force of the shield struck hard, but his titanium arm absorbed the shock.

            He glared at the captain. He wanted him to know what was coming. That he was coming. He was going to take down S.H.I.E.L.D. no matter what it took. And anyone who stood in his way was going to be destroyed.

            The captain looked stunned. The Soldier saw him take in his metal arm.

            Before his opponent could move, he launched the shield back at him with all the power of his titanium arm and serum enhanced strength behind it.

            He didn’t wait to see if it leveled the man. While his enemy was taking the brunt of the shield coming at him, the Soldier ran to the edge of the building and dropped over it.

            There was an open window waiting for him to swing into, out of sight. There wouldn’t be any trail for anyone to follow. He would be what he had been for the past ninety years.

            A ghost.

 

 

#

 

 

 

           

            Elia leaned forward on her cot. She pressed her hands against her head, trying to press harder than the vise inside.

            Her stomach pitched and rolled. She squeezed her head harder, her fingers catching at her hair and pulling.

            Whatever they had given her to wake was worse than the sedative she had been living on. She had thought the pain would ease once she had treated the injured strike team and the drugs finished working their way through her system, but every single pain, every side effect just kept building.

            She was going to be sick.

            She tumbled off her cot, landing on her hands and knees. With excruciating effort that had every nerve ending burning, she made it over to the small toilet in the corner of her cell.

            She lost whatever lunch she had eaten. The memory of the food had been lost under the haze when she had eaten it, and now the food itself was lost to the commode.

            She dropped down on the tile floor and rested her head against the wall.

            She heard footsteps coming down the hall outside her open door. So loud they echoed in her head, piercing with every echo. She opened her eyes, squinting at the lights that glared in her eyes.

            The Soldier.

            He was striding past, clearly back from the mission he had been on earlier. When he swung his gaze into her cell, she recoiled instinctively.

            He wore his mask over the bottom half of his face. His hair was tangled, windblown, a stringy mess around his face. His eyes were smudged black. Elia could only assume it was to help him blend in with the shadows, but the main effect was to make him more threatening than he already was.

            He looked at her without any movement of his face.

            Elia squeezed her eyes shut. Against the pain. Against the threats. Against the intimidation of the soldier with a metal arm.

            When she opened them, she was left with only the pain. The hall outside her door was empty.

            Her stomach churned again and she forced stiff, aching muscles to comply and move her back toward the toilet to be sick.

 

 

#

 

 

 

            The Soldier entered the cafeteria.

            It had been a day since his mission. With Fury gone, Pierce was centralizing power. Moving to the next phase of the plan.

            He listened to the change of the conversation around him when he entered. It was expected and it didn’t matter to him.

            He got a tray, loaded it with food and moved to an empty table without speaking to anyone in the cafeteria.

            The table he usually occupied by himself was taken. A small form sat hunched over a tray. She didn’t look up, didn’t acknowledge anyone around her.

            He knew they had been keeping her under the influence of the necessary drugs. He had seen her when he returned from his mission the day before. The way she was curled up in pain on the floor in her cell. She wouldn’t give up her wealth of information about influential people willingly, so the daily injections were necessary. He also knew they had used other injections on her. Ones that would clear her mind quickly. They balanced the two depending on what they needed her for.

            Since she wasn’t clutching her head in pain, he knew which one she was currently under the influence of. She may as well be a piece of furniture so he set his tray down and took a chair at the table.

            He ate the food without tasting it. The food was fuel for missions. Nothing more. Protein to fuel his higher metabolism. His tray also held a handful of supplements that the other trays didn’t. It would make up for the time in cryo freeze when he didn’t have any nutrients.

            “That agent is having an affair.”

            The murmured words caught him off guard. He looked at her sharply.

            She was half nodding off over her tray, but she lifted groggy eyes. She looked past him, to an agent three tables over.

            “He’s having an affair with that one’s wife,” she said, her voice thick with the medication keeping it quiet.

            The Soldier didn’t care. He didn’t care about any of these men and he cared even less about their secrets and lives. But he did find it interesting that she seemed to be collecting Hydra’s secrets to add to her already impressive stockpile.

            “You can tell…” she started, then seemed about to doze off. She roused herself. “The way he acts…around…around…” Her train of thought apparently gone, she looked back down at her tray holding a meager amount of food.

            “And Rumlow…”

            At that, the Soldier gave her his attention.

            “He would have an affair. With Presley’s wife. If he could.” She spooned some food into her mouth and ate in silence, her eyes dull.

            “He doesn’t like you,” she broke the silence.

            The Soldier watched her. She didn’t even look like she knew what she was saying. She also wasn’t saying anything the Soldier didn’t know.

            “He…Rumlow…enhanced soldiers…” she murmured, her head bobbing like she was about to drift off. But then she continued. “He’s jealous. Of you. Captain America. He’s jealous,” she repeated.

            As long as Rumlow didn’t let it affect their work, the Soldier didn’t care.

            He finished his meal quickly, not speaking. She mumbled under her breath a few more times, but it was lost under the conversation around them.

            “Where are the non combatants?”

            The leader of their security forces strode to the middle of the room.

            Several medics stood. A couple of technicians who worked on his arm.

            “New orders,” the high ranking man said, his tone making it clear he wasn’t about to explain what the new orders were. “All non combatants report to the gym.”

            He scanned the cafeteria, stopping when he saw Elia half unconscious in her seat.

            “Bring her,” he ordered to no one in particular. He turned and strode out. Trays scraped across tables as the men gathered their things and emptied trays, no matter how much they had eaten or left.

            Two men were about to leave, when they turned back. They each took one of Elia’s arms and half lifted her from her chair. They hauled her toward the door with the other medics and technicians.

            The Soldier watched her go.

            He turned his attention back to his tray.

 

#

 

 

 

            The burning was agony. But it was only a hint of the pain to come.

            Elia braced herself for the burn that spread through her arm as the injected serum flowed through her, waking her up.

            This was a smaller dose. The pain didn’t black out her vision this time. Just piercing pain at her temples.

            “Things are evolving,” a man she knew as the leader of security was saying. The men around her stood. There was also a female physician and two female laboratory techs. They all stood at attention. Elia struggled to stay upright, but it became easier as the latest injection cleared the sedative. Or at least, it would be easier if the pain didn’t make her want to curl into a ball.

            “S.H.I.E.L.D. is falling. We’ll be taking over the void that’s left when they fall completely. But we’re not there yet.”

            Elia didn’t understand anything about the battles everyone was talking about. She didn’t know what their plan involved. She only knew they had killed Senator Marks and she had known him to be a good man. She quickly pushed that memory from her mind. She didn’t want to think about his murder.

            “S.H.I.E.L.D. agents may not comply. There’s going to be a remnant that’s dangerous. Captain America has already gone rogue. If he finds us, we need to be prepared.”

            Elia felt the men standing closest to her tense. She looked at them. Saw the fear on their faces until her vision blurred again.

            “We’re non combatants, sir,” said one of the medics nervously.

            “And now you’re our last line of defense,” the leader retorted. “You won’t be aggressors. But you’re going to be trained in defense. All of you.”

            Elia sank back against the wall. The last thing she wanted to do was fight. Fight anyone.

            The door to the gym opened and a few strike agents walked in. They glanced over at the knot of scientists and medics and one of them snickered, seeing what was going on.

            “We’ll start with basic defensive maneuvers. Judo techniques. Martial arts blocks. Line up.”

            Elia stayed against the wall, letting it support her as the others moved into a reluctant line. She ended up at the end of the line.

            “This is a basic throw,” the man was saying.

            Elia lifted her head enough to see him lining up against an opponent for a demonstration. Osoto Gari. She knew the throw. She had used it in a million sparring matches when she had taken lessons.

            She ignored the instruction, instead trying to fight against the pain searing through her head. The muscle spasms taking hold of every limb.

            She had to fight with every fiber of her being to stay standing. To pretend she was listening.

            “Now do it,” came the command.

            One by one the reluctant line of Hydra personnel took their turn attempting the defensive throw.

            When it was Elia’s turn, she started to reach out automatically, ready to do a move ingrained in her. She caught herself. She moved her hand into the wrong position, took hold of her mock attacker wrongly, put her wrong foot forward, her alignment off.

            Somewhere under the drugs and the confusion—the pain—she knew she couldn’t let them know she could defend herself. It was her only chance at protecting herself. Them being kept unaware. That secret was the only thing left that belonged solely to her.

            The leader made a sound of disgust at her ineptitude and dismissed her to the end of the line curtly.

            Elia went to the end of the line, keeping one hand on her forehead to push back against the pressure building there.

            “Again,” snapped the strike team member training them. The line of medical and tech personnel began to move through the exercise again.

            Elia stayed against the wall with her eyes closed until one of the medics gave her arm a sharp nudge. She opened her eyes. The gym swam in front of her and she blinked furiously, trying to see straight. But it didn’t matter. She was dragged to the trainer and he stepped toward her, giving her a chance to block him. She again put her wrong foot towards him and grabbed with the wrong hand. Not that it mattered. The trainer in front of her split into two, blurring and separating in her vision, and she chose the wrong one. She moved toward air, falling forward onto the mat with a thump.

            The trainer made a disgusted noise and mumbled something to the leader of the security team about a hopeless task.

            She tried to push to stand, but the pain searing through her arms had her gasping for breath and dropping back to the mat.

            The trainer said something about throwing punches and the group moved to the far end of the gym, toward the punching bags and sparring equipment.

            Elia closed her eyes, the mat cool against her flushed cheek. The pain thudding in her head made it feel like her head was bouncing against the mat.

            She stayed there, too miserable to move, listening to the sounds around her, echoing through her head, making her grit her teeth.

            Little by little, the sounds dissipated. Just one thwack. Again. And again.

            Elia lifted her head, instantly regretting the move when sharp pains laced around the vertebrae of her neck. She let her head rest back on the mat, but this time facing toward the noise.

            Across the gym was the Soldier.

            He pulled a knife out of his vest, deftly swirling it then flinging it at a target. Another knife. Another. Five knives thrown with brutal force and every one found its mark.

            He walked towards the target, a solid twenty feet from him and pulled each knife, every one going back in to a pocket or sheath on him. He turned and started to walk back to his starting point.

            His eyes, fixed on the target, then on his return to the line he was throwing from, fell Elia’s direction.

            Reflexively, Elia’s fingers curled against the mat, but there was nothing to hold on to. She just laid there, seared by the pain and by those hard blue eyes staring at her.

            He didn’t move for a beat. Just kept his eyes on her.

            Then he spun a knife in his hand and put it back in a pocket. He turned back to his target. Elia let herself sink more heavily onto the mat. She kept her eyes on him, but he didn’t look at her again. Until he had thrown all his knives. He looked at her then, still with no reaction, and returned to throw again.

            The pain in her head finally started to ebb as she listened to the rhythmic thumps of the knives stabbing, his footsteps going to retrieve them, and another round of throwing. She closed her eyes and let the sounds fill her mind, instead of excruciating throbbing and the knowledge she’d be drugged into the other direction soon enough and someone would be digging around in her memories.

 

#

 

 

            Steve had walked the halls of S.H.I.E.L.D. hundreds of times since his return from the ice. It had been familiar enough. The general setting, if not the Triskelion, was where he had spent his life after being chosen as America’s super soldier. His life was military hallways, rank and file, duty, and missions. But nothing felt familiar now. Everything was slightly off. His duty was to protecting people, his country. And Fury had just blown a giant hole right into that mission.

            Agent 13, the woman who he now knew as Agent 13, thanked Pierce. “Captain Rogers,” she said as she passed Steve. As if she hadn’t lied to him repeatedly. Had him thinking of following Natasha’s advice and thinking of her as someone to ask on a date.

            Betrayal wasn’t something Steve expected from the agency he had devoted his life to serving.

            “Neighbor,” he said, unable to keep the coldness from his tone. Not that he really tried.

            He focused on Pierce. On this meeting. Knowing what Fury had warned him of, knowing he couldn’t trust anyone, his entire world had shifted. It was like waking up from the ice a second time. Finding that he didn’t understand the world he once had.

            He listened to what Pierce said, his welcoming tone. But he also was acutely aware of the warning beneath Pierce’s words. If Steve chose the wrong side, Pierce wasn’t going to call in any favors for him. He went into the meeting knowing that. But he had known that when Fury was in charge.

            He looked at the pictures in Pierce’s office. Ones that told of trust and brotherhood. Pictures could be deceiving.

            He was mostly a tool to the higher ups. He always had been. Propoganda and then missions. Whatever the country needed him for.

            But he had never felt torn in his loyalty.

            “Captain.”

            Steve stopped, turning to look at Pierce. Ready for whatever he was about to say.

            “Somebody murdered my friend and I’m gonna find out why. Anyone gets in my way and they’re going to regret it. Anyone.”

            Steve hadn’t really expected Pierce to be so direct. But Pierce was clearly not telling the truth about everything he knew, and that made his threat even more dangerous.

            “Understood.” Steve understood. He understood exactly how expendable he was to Pierce.

            He would do what Fury had failed at. Watch his back.

 

#

 

 

 

           

            “Keep her awake.”

            Elia kept her head down so no one would see her grimace. It wasn’t a new reflex to Hydra, but one she had learned growing up. It was too easy to offend someone in power with unpleasant reactions or emotions. Hiding them had been easier. Safer. Kept her dad’s anger from her.

            Someone grabbed at her long hair and yanked her head back. Stars burst in front of her eyes and her stomach pitched violently at the movement. She took a slow breath through her nose, willing the contents of her stomach to stay down.

            “You need to know the truth,” the man said.

            Elia gave a slight nod against the pressure of the hand holding her hair. She would listen to whatever they wanted her to.

            “You’ve been fed lies your entire life.”

            She recognized this voice. She turned her head slightly. Rumlow fixed her with a hard stare. “S.H.I.E.L.D. claimed the Avengers. They claimed they’re protecting society. Do you want to know what they really do?”

            She didn’t. She didn’t want any part of this.

            “This is what they do,” Rumlow said between clenched teeth.

            Elia looked at him. His face was bruised. A cut split his cheekbone. She didn’t say anything.

            “Captain America,” he nearly spat the words. “America’s hero. Does this look like something a hero would do?”

            Elia shook her head slightly. It didn’t. But she also didn’t trust Rumlow. Maybe he had done something to earn the beating.

            “Hydra is going to save the world. Protect people. Would you rather protect people or hurt them?”

            Elia didn’t want to hurt anyone.

            “Well?” Rumlow demanded.

            “Protect people,” she whispered.

            Rumlow straightened, getting out of her face. “Then you chose the right side.”

            Elia’s head was fuzzy with confusion. What he said seemed so clear. But she had seen what the metal armed soldier did. How ruthless he was. They had kidnapped her. That wasn’t protecting people.

            “Dose her,” Rumlow directed. “I have to find Captain America.”

            The derision in his voice was louder than anything he had actually said to her. And she saw the twitch in his jaw when he spoke of Captain America attacking him. She could see what he didn’t say. He wanted the power Captain America had. He wanted to be the one who could lay someone out with a punch and get them to bend to his will.

            Elia dropped her head again. She hoped she would keep that knowledge to herself when the drugs seeped into her brain and her mind was turned over to the handler.

            It wouldn’t end well if anyone knew what she really thought.

 

 

#

Chapter 6

Notes:

Starg_rl and NightOwl Astraea- I owe you both messages, but wanted to be sure to give you a huge thank you here as well for your incredible comments! Thank you so, so much for reading and taking the time to share you feedback and support. It means so much!

Chapter 6

 

 

            Steve ducked under a branch, Natasha’s weight in his arms reassuring, even if it did make obstacles in the woods slightly more difficult to maneuver. They had both made it out.

            But that didn’t mean much right now.

            He ducked again, under another branch. The army base in New Jersey was surrounded by woods. The trees were bigger, the undergrowth heavier, denser, than when he had trained here ninety years ago. He felt a bush snag at his pants, cut through to the skin, but he kept up his pace. It was faster than anyone else—anyone else without super soldier serum changing their biological makeup—would be able to run, even while carrying another person. It was nothing like being that scrawny kid, trying to complete a basic training run with a pack on his back.

            Natasha shifted slightly in his arms.

            Steve dodged more overgrowth as the terrain started to slope downhill.

            The hill at least provided some sort of coverage. He made it to the bottom and stopped. Listening.

            The entire building had just blown up. Exploded, collapsed. Right on top of him and Natasha. And it had been at the hand of S.H.I.E.L.D. He could still hear the distant rumble of the rubble settling.

            But he didn’t hear any of those agents following after them.

            With a small moan, Natasha moved again. This time her eyes blinked open. Unfocused, then she went still, cautious. Steve watched as she took in her surroundings. When her eyes landed on him, she spoke, her words were groggy. “S.H.I.E.L.D.?”

            “Fired on us,” he confirmed.

            Natasha’s jaw firmed at that, her lips thinning slightly. “Did they get us?” she asked wryly.

            “We seem to be in one piece.”

            Natasha shifted then, in earnest, and Steve carefully lowered her to her feet. He kept a hand on her.

            He watched her move her limbs, roll her neck, carefully, feeling for injuries from the explosion.

            “You good?” he asked.

            She gave him a look. “Aside from the agency we work for trying to eliminate us, I’m great.”

            Yeah. Besides that.

            “We need to keep moving,” he said.

            She gave nodded and started walking. Steve watched to make sure she was really ok, then picked up the pace.

            She kept up effortlessly, though he did notice her occasionally rolling her right shoulder like she was trying to loosen it.

            “So, you knew him? The mad scientist back there?”

            “Yeah,” Steve answered, looking back to the woods in front of him so she didn’t notice him watching her favor her shoulder.

            They continued on, the only sound their quick steps rustling dried leaves underfoot.

            “Care to elaborate?” Natasha asked.

            Steve thought back, past the room filled with computers and Arnim Zola’s stored intellect they had just discovered and was now destroyed. He thought back to before he captured Zola. When he first became aware of Zola.

            “He experimented on people.” Steve could still see Bucky, strapped down on the metal table behind enemy lines, a captive of Red Skull. It may have been ninety years ago, but seeing your best friend like that wasn’t a horror that dulled with time.

            Neither did losing that friend.

            Too many memories. A lifetime of them before he had even turned thirty. Or ninety-five. Whatever he was. He tried to shut down all the other memories of Bucky, but the memory of the torture Zola had put him through kept replaying. It was enough to remember Bucky, out of it and making it through by just reciting his name, rank, and serial number.

            “James Buchanan Barnes. Sargent. 32557038. James Buchanan Barnes…”

            He didn’t have any sympathy for Arnim Zola. And even less for S.H.I.E.L.D. How could they recruit that monster to their side? After what he had tried to do to Bucky? After what he had actually done to others?

            “Hey,” Natasha’s voice broke into the memories that were as real as if they had happened yesterday. “You still with me?”

            Steve shook himself out of it. “Yeah.”

            “Where are we going?” Natasha asked.

            “Not back to S.H.I.E.L.D.,” he said without hesitation. Not that he had to tell Natasha that. They had both seen Fury die on the operating table. She knew what Fury had warned Steve of-that S.H.I.E.L.D. was compromised, not to trust anyone. And now they both knew what S.H.I.E.L.D. had been working on for decades. What the secret parasite, Hydra, inside of S.H.I.E.L.D. had been working on.

            Project Insight. A set up that amounted to holding a gun to the world’s head, threatening good behavior into existence by force. Not freedom.

            “I figured that much,” Natasha said grimly. She deftly jumped over a fallen log and kept pace with him.

            “I know a place,” Steve said. “As long as he lets us in.”

            Natasha didn’t ask anything else. They continued on, a brisk hike. They crossed two highways, pausing to get their bearings at each. Natasha nodded in the general direction they needed to go to return. After the second highway, they paralleled it, sticking to the woods, but following the general direction.

            “We need another vehicle,” Steve said.

            The truck they had…borrowed…to get to New Jersey was back at the abandoned army base, no doubt surrounded by the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents who followed the missile.

            “You going to borrow another truck?” Natasha asked.

            “Maybe a car. Better gas mileage,” Steve said.

            Natasha let out a quiet sound that might have been close to humor. They fell back into silence.

            Steve determinedly kept his thoughts from straying to the past again.

            “What else did you learn in Nazi Germany?” Natasha asked, clearly unable to read his thoughts and his struggle to avoid thinking about his history. “Besides stealing cars.”

            “Borrowing,” Steve automatically corrected her. But at least her question was an easy one. One that brought him out of the darker shadows of his memories. “I learned the jitterbug.”

            “The what?” she asked.

            “The jitterbug. The dance.”

            She slid a glance toward him. “You dance.”

            “Bucky did.” The shadows returned, but they kept to the edges, a warmth at the memories of the good times keeping the darkness from taking over. “He didn’t love dancing, but he liked women. So he’d dance.”

            A smile curved his lips. “He’d dance and then he’d buy them drinks. A malt. Whatever they wanted. But he didn’t have to. Women loved him.”

            “And I suppose they didn’t give Captain America the time of day,” she said, dry humor taking the edges from her sarcasm.

            “I wasn’t always Captain America.” He went with the memories that went back farther than the war. Before his entire life changed. “Women didn’t give me much of a look. But Bucky…” he couldn’t hold back his laugh. “He had charm. Looks. Knew how to sweet talk anyone. If we were out and a girl caught his eye, he wouldn’t make a move unless she had a friend for me.”

            “Sounds like he was a good friend,” Natasha said.

            “He was loyal,” Steve said. “Always there.” Until he wasn’t. And now Bucky was gone forever. His broken body somewhere under the train bridge he had fallen when they were trying to capture Zola.

            Arnim Zola. The man had destroyed Bucky. Steve couldn’t work up any grief over the scientist, or what had remained of him, being destroyed by S.H.I.E.L.D.’s missile.

            “There,” Steve said with a nod of his head.

            Through the trees a roadside café was visible. With a parking lot full of cars. One of those cars would be what they took back to D.C.

            He and Natasha moved through the woods to the far side of the café before edging toward a small sedan at the edge of the gravel lot.

            Natasha scanned the lot while Steve knelt down next to the car.

            He got the door open quickly and pulled off the cover of the steering column. The car started.

            Steve unlocked the passenger door and Natasha hurried around and slid in.

            He didn’t say anything as he pulled out onto the highway. But the memories filling his mind more than filled the silence.

            Natasha wasn’t any more talkative than he was. He wasn’t sure if it was because her shoulder was bothering her, or she was reading his mood. What had she asked when they were driving into New Jersey? She had asked who he wanted her to be.

            He glanced over at her. She was rolling with the punches. Giving him room to accommodate his dark thoughts. Then he looked more closely at her before turning his attention back to the road. S.H.I.E.L.D. had been her home, too. Her life. And they had turned on her just as easily as they had on him.

            He blew out a breath.

            Right now, they just needed to get somewhere safe. Not easy when they couldn’t trust anyone.

            He kept to the side streets when they reached D.C. He pulled the car into a busy parking lot and parked it, carefully looking around the lot as he got out.

            When he locked the doors, Natasha raised her eyebrows at him over the roof of the car.

            “I don’t want someone stealing it,” he explained.

            “Very considerate of you,” she said.

            Steve frowned at her. He had only borrowed the car, and the truck. They would both get back, in perfect condition, to the rightful owners.

            “Come on,” he said.

            He wasn’t as familiar with this side of the city, but it was laid out on a grid that made it easy to navigate. He and Natasha kept their heads low, their pace even. Once they interlinked hands to give the appearance of being a couple. He tried to keep from looking over his shoulder. He saw Natasha stop once and motion slightly with her head to a traffic camera ahead. Without a word, they adjusted their course to avoid the camera.

            Four more blocks, and then they turned onto the street they needed to be on. Steve put a hand on Natasha’s elbow and guided her into an alley.

            Steve finally did look over his shoulder when they left the alley to go into a backyard. He wasn’t going to risk leading anyone to someone who didn’t ask for a fight.

            Natasha stood next to him on the steps at the back of the house, keeping an eye out for anyone while Steve knocked firmly on the door.

            “Hey man,” Sam said, sliding the door open. His brow creased in concern, a question on his face, though he didn’t ask it. Steve assumed he looked at rough as Natasha did next to him, her face covered in grime, a hunted look in her eyes.

            “I’m sorry about this,” Steve said, cutting past any greeting. “We need a place to lay low.”

            “Everyone we know is trying to kill us,” Natasha chimed in. Steve inwardly winced at her blunt summary. It did bring Sam up to speed, though.

            Sam hesitated, looking between the two of them. Steve stayed still, ready to accept whatever Sam decided.

            “Not everyone,” Sam finally said, stepping to the side.

            Steve didn’t hesitate, but let Natasha go through the door first, not wasting any time getting into safety.

            Sam scanned the yard behind them before closing the door and pulling the shade.

            “You guys can clean up over here,” Sam said, leading them to a sparse bedroom, clearly a second bedroom and not his.

            “Thanks, man,” Steve said.

            Sam’s face said he had no shortage of questions, but he didn’t ask anything. “Take your time,” Sam said, showing them a bathroom connected to the bedroom. He glanced between them one more time before stepping from the room.

            “Go ahead,” Steve said to Natasha. He stopped himself from saying ‘ladies first’, knowing that wouldn’t be appreciated by the agent.

            She gave him a curt nod and went into the bathroom, closing the door behind her with a soft click of the latch.

            When he heard the shower turn on he finally let out a breath. For now they were safe. Who knew how long that would last.

            He moved alongside the window, peering out between the closed blinds. There wasn’t any movement on this side of the house.

            He stayed there, keeping watch until he heard the shower turn off. A short while later Natasha came out, her hair damp, back in her dark clothes, but minus the sweatshirt she had worn.

            Steve passed her on his way into the bathroom. He didn’t head to the shower, instead pulling off his sweatshirt and t-shirt, draping them on the edge of the tub. He kept he door open, needing the line of sight to make sure Natasha was ok, keeping an ear open for anything coming from Sam in the other part of the home.

            He washed up at the sink quickly, keeping an eye on Natasha. She dried her hair methodically, seated on the edge of the bed.

            Steve rolled his shoulders, trying to shake off the memories that had been chasing him throughout the day. They had enough to run from in the present.

           

           

 

#

           

 

 

 

            The Soldier approached the back of the house silently. He scanned the darkening yard. At the door he didn’t knock. He looked at the security system. It was hidden, discrete. It was also similar to Hydra’s systems. He easily bypassed it, slipping into the house.

            He had been called here. He moved through the spacious kitchen, leaving the lights off, not announcing himself.

            He slipped the gun he kept strapped to his side on missions from its holster and set it on the table. He rested his titanium arm alongside it. A deeply ingrained move, preparing himself for any threat at any moment. Ready to protect Hydra. It didn’t matter that Pierce wasn’t a threat. He was only trained—programmed—to respond to threats. To be a threat.

            Threats were the entirety of his world.

            He didn’t settle into his chair, instead sitting in it alert and ready when Pierce came into the kitchen. He waited silently while Pierce opened the fridge, the light from the appliance cutting through the darkness until he closed it and shadows fell again.

            Pierce startled when he saw him. His posture showed his heightened awareness, even when he called to a woman—a housekeeper maybe—with a tone of forced casualness.

            “Good night,” he called to the other room, keeping his attention on the Soldier. He waited until the front door opened and closed before he spoke again. He eyed the Soldier. “Want some milk?”

            The soldier didn’t respond. He had been called here. Activated. And not to come and have a drink of milk in the director’s kitchen.

            “The timetable has moved. Our window is limited.”

            That didn’t matter. The Soldier had been ready for what was asked. Ready to comply. He could adjust to a shortened timetable.

            “Two targets. Level six.”

            Only two. He didn’t bother to respond to the threat level attached to the targets. Higher value targets only increased his determination. Level six meant they were more valuable to S.H.I.E.L.D. and it was that much more essential to stop them. He didn’t move, taking in what Pierce told him and mentally preparing for the next steps.

            “They already cost me Zola. I want confirmed death in ten hours.”

            Ten hours. It was doable. He didn’t need to hear who the targets were. He would take them out no matter who they were.

            “Sorry, Mr. Pierce, I…I forgot my phone.” The housekeeper hesitated on the threshold to the kitchen, her words trailing into uncertainty as her eyes landed on the Soldier.

            The Soldier stared back at her without reaction. He was aware of the gun on the table. Aware that she was someone who couldn’t know about Hydra. Any of it. And that included him.

            “Oh, Renata. I wish you would have knocked.” Pierce sounded sincerely remorseful.

            The Soldier expected the blasts and light from the handgun discharging. He waited until the woman hit the floor, then looked back to Pierce. Pierce laid the gun on the table, closer to the Soldier so he could take it back with him.

            “We have several teams locating the targets. Be ready.”

            The Soldier gave a slight movement of his head to indicate he heard.

            “Good. Then…” Pierce pushed his chair back and looked back toward the body with a slight grimace. “The agents who came with you. Are they in the vehicle?”

            The Soldier stood as well, giving the body a quick glance to confirm it wasn’t moving. He gave another small nod of assent.

            “Send them in to deal with this,” Pierce said. He moved to bring his empty glass to the sink, veering away from the deceased.

            The Soldier exited the way he came. He would pass on the message. Then he would wait until the targets were found.

 

#

 

 

 

            Elia walked down the hall. She still hadn’t learned the twists and turns of the lair. It was difficult to track her location and remember the layout when she was drugged into near oblivion half the time and every nerve ending was shrieking in pain the other half.

            Right now she was in a rare state of relief. Her mind was fuzzy, but working, her vision only slightly blurred. Her hands tingled, but they didn’t ache.

            She was fairly certain the hall that led past the—the treatment room or whatever it was called where she got injected—led to the gym. She was expected at the gym for another round of learning basic defensive moves.

            She turned a corner, then stopped. Wrong hallway. She blinked to clear her eyes slightly. She turned around and went back the way she came and found the hall that would lead past the treatment room.

            She felt the breath still in her lungs when she went neared the treatment room. The injections she got in there. The way they pried into her mind, rooting around in her memories. It all had her holding her breath when she saw the door was open. She told herself there was no light coming from the room. She would walk past it and not be pulled in for an injection.

            She forced her sluggish feet to move faster as she got closer to the room, needing to get past it so she could breathe again.

            She barely glanced in as she went past, needing the reassurance of seeing the darkened room sitting empty.

            Her feet shuffled to a stop and her breath stayed in lungs.

            The Soldier was there.

            Elia immediately scanned the rest of the room, looking for a tech working on his arm or some sort of handler. But it was just the Soldier. Alone in the dark. His face was hard, his eyes fixed on something she couldn’t see. She glanced around the room. Something that wasn’t there. He was just…staring. A few machines hummed in the background, but none were currently in use.

            Elia hovered in the doorway, keeping the doorframe as a sort of shield. She watched him, but he didn’t move. He sat in the chair they seated him in for working on his arm, but she wasn’t sure he even knew who he was in that moment. He was blank. A violent, blank slate.

            “Are you…are you…?” Elia didn’t know what she wanted to ask. But he didn’t look at her. He kept staring at something in the mid distance, his eyes hard, his jaw set.

            She had seen the other agents and the techs when they didn’t have duties to tend to. She had seen them in the gym, blowing off steam with sparring matches, and in the cafeteria between meals playing cards or working on crossword puzzles. But this soldier was never with anyone else. And she had never seen him do anything besides train. And now stare. He just stared.

            Elia wasn’t sure if it was the drugs or the Soldier that kept her feet rooted to the spot, but either way they didn’t move. She watched him. Watched the way his breaths moved with an almost reptilian slowness. He didn’t move a muscle. He barely blinked. His long hair hung around his face in strings, but not enough to block the hollowness of his eyes from her.

            That hollowness carved at a pit in her stomach. He was nothing more than a cold blooded killer. Everyone here was. And those who weren’t—the techs, the medics, her—they were determined to turn into killers.

            She needed to get out of this place. She turned her back on him and managed to get a couple shuffling steps before a hand took hold of her shoulder. She gasped out a breath, sure the Soldier was coming for her.

            “You’re supposed to be in the gym.”

            Muscles that were vibrating between tensed and hypotonic with the mix of drugs in her system fell farther with relief that it was one of the handlers, not the Soldier. Until he spoke again.

            “You’re too slow. We’ll wake you up for your training.”

            Elia moved her lips, trying to get them to form the words she needed to come faster than she could muster. “N—no,” she finally managed as he dragged her into the procedure room.

            The Soldier didn’t look toward them, still in his own head or wherever he had gone.

            “I don’t—don’t…” Elia struggled to get her mind to speed up, her lips to cooperate with the thoughts. She didn’t want an injection. She didn’t want more pain.

            But it didn’t matter what she wanted. She was shoved down onto the bench. The syringe was filled with liquid and then the needle jabbed into her arm.

            Elia couldn’t hold back the groan that tore from deep within. The pain was familiar. But that only made it worse. Because she knew what came next. The pain that would feel like her muscles were going to be torn from her bones, and the headache that would keep her from sleeping for the next two days.

            It didn’t matter what she did. The hand on her shoulder held her down until the pain did the job for the handler and kept her from moving on her own.

            She barely felt him drag her up from the bench. The pain flooding her body covered the movement. She didn’t make any effort to track the path to the gym. He hauled her into the gym and half tossed her toward the group gathered on the mats.

            Elia hit the wall at the edge of the mats. She couldn’t get her legs under her and fell to the floor. The ache taking over her entire body blocked out whatever was happening around her. Until someone grabbed her by the arm and pulled her to her feet.

            Her legs nearly seized under her, but she managed to stay upright, gasping for air with lungs that burned.

            The strike team leader who was leading the training for this round pushed a gun into her hand.

            Elia instinctively recoiled. She had never handled a gun and the thought of holding one terrified her. She squeezed her eyes shut and grit her teeth. She had to pull it together if she had a gun in her hand.

            “It’s not loaded. Yet. Everyone study your weapon. We’ll go over the parts.”

            Elia’s fingers curled around the gun. Not because she was trying for a safer grip, but because her muscles were cramping. She wasn’t going to be able to adjust her grip no matter how she tried.

            The rest of the group learned how to hold the gun, shooting stances, and how to safely handle the weapon. Elia tried to uncurl her fingers from around the gun and to keep from landing on the ground again.

            The lesson moved from handguns to basic defensive throws. A strike team member collected the guns. He pried the gun roughly from her hand, one of her fingers cracking when he roughly tore it out of his way. Elia barely registered the pain over the ringing in her ears.

            The group lined up. When one of the medics gave her a sharp elbow to her back, Elia made her way to the end of the line on unsteady legs. She tried to listen to what the instructions were.

            A sharp crack nearly burst her eardrums.

            She blinked to clear her vision. A handler with a dark frown stood in front of her. When she didn’t say anything, he snapped his fingers in her face. The second crack of noise had her rocking backwards.

            “Pierce needs information,” he said to the instructors. “She’s coming with me.”

            She wasn’t even sure the last injection to bring back her consciousness had taken full effect and now they wanted to inject her again to sedate her.

            She couldn’t draw a breath. But there wasn’t any air in her lungs.

            No.

            She struggled for a breath. Her heart pounded too heavily to allow anything else into her chest, it beat away any chance of her lungs expanding.

            She hadn’t had a panic attack. Not since they first brought her here.

            They were going through the unadorned corridors now. She was going to—her heart—it was going to explode.

            She reached a hand to her chest, but her fingers were numb. She didn’t know if she was grabbing at her shirt or her chest. Her feet dragged along the floor as the handler mercilessly lugged her through the halls.

            Relief. When they got to the procedure room she finally felt relief. They could fill her veins with whatever it was that made her nothing more than a sleepwalker and then she would be able to breathe.

            “What’s wrong with her?”

            She barely heard the question. Not that it mattered. No one talked to her. Not unless they needed information. She didn’t even know what information she gave them. But she knew it was better than being awake in this place where she was a captive. Better than feeling like her heart was going to climb up her throat and choke her.

            “Who knows?” came the answer.

            Elia fought for breath. She wanted them to just give her the injection already. Before her heart burst. The pressure was leaving her gasping for breath. It didn’t matter if she told herself it was only a panic attack. Part of her still thought it might be enough to kill her. A heart attack. Lack of oxygen. It definitely felt like that, every single time.

            A sharp jab broke through the haze of panic. Elia tried to count to thirty. Or ten. Her mind couldn’t grab onto a number. She knew she would feel better as soon as the drug took hold. But counting down to that relief wasn’t happening.

            She felt the fuzziness. It started in her chest. Slowed her rapidly thudding heart. Opened up her lungs. It would spread to her limbs next, weighing them down. Then her mind, dulling her senses and taking any memory of what they were doing, leaving only a shadow of a ghost talking to her.

            She took a long breath. Finally.

            She looked at her handler, her vision clearing for the brief moment before the hazy curtain of the drug dropped over her. He was one she recognized from another time. Maybe. It was hard to tell for sure. He spoke to the man who had given her the shot in her arm.

            “It’s like he puts himself in cryo,” he snorted.

            Elia followed the nod of his head. The Soldier was still sitting there.

            “If there ain’t no work to be done, he goes somewhere else in his head,” the medic who injected her said.

            Elia looked at the Soldier. She didn’t think he had moved since she had passed by on her way to the gym.

            “Only problem with that theory is there’s nowhere to go in there,” the handler said, a dark chuckle punctuating his words. “Not with the way they fry his brain.”

            Elia blinked against the drug flowing through her, trying to see the Soldier clearly. They fried his brain? In spite of all she knew about the man, her heart twisted at the thought of that kind of cruelty against anyone. She tried to look at him again. She couldn’t see him anymore. Not with the fog entering her brain.

            The medic laughed in return. “Makes you glad you can take a vacation, don’t it? Pretty sorry sight seeing him ready for a mission or shutting everything off.”

            “Not as sorry as her,” the handler said.

            Elia clenched her jaw. Or tried to. But her muscles were no longer cooperating. She wasn’t sorry. She wasn’t. She told herself that, but the thought swirled around until she couldn’t remember what exactly the man had said and why she was supposed to be offended.

            Her head was too heavy to hold up. It rolled over to her shoulder and she let her eyes fall closed.

            “Let’s get started,” the handler said to her. “Your clients, the ones with ties to politics. Did any of them talk about Project Insight?”

 

#

Chapter 7

Notes:

This chapter was a lot to wrangle, ha! I was trying to stay as true to the movie scenes as possible, since these were two of my favorite scenes of the movie. :) Thanks for the kudos, I am thrilled people are reading this story. :)

Chapter 8

 

 

            Elia rolled over. The firm cot—more of a bench with a thin mat on it—wasn’t comfortable. Or, at least she didn’t think it was. It was hard to remember what she had thought of it when she was first brought here. Now she lived in a constant state of being drugged and it was hard to tell if the pain came from trying to sleep on the cot, or from the injections.

            She let the concrete block wall in front of her face blur. How long had she been here? There were…she squinted, fighting against the haze that was her constant battle…two? three? weeks when she had first been captured that she had been used to access…Her mind trailed off again and she struggled to recapture the thought. Weeks of being sedated and dragged on missions. Then weeks of being drugged, her mind invaded. Months? Had she been here months?

            Focus, she commanded herself. She wasn’t going to let them take over her mind completely. She fought through blurred images, hazy memories, back to the beginning. The first days here. They had brought her along to kill her after they had killed their target.

            No, that wasn’t right. Not ‘they’. The Soldier.

            Her fingers fumbled for the utilitarian blanket. She drew it up over her shoulders, gripping as much as medicated muscles would allow.

            The Soldier. He was almost terrifying. Almost. Elia could see those hard eyes, staring straight at her. But then…

            She squinted, trying to grasp at the memory that was too fleeting. She had seen him, when he wasn’t focused on killing. Focused on a target. And those times…he was almost blank.

            Elia gripped the blanket tighter. She could see something. Something in the Soldier. In the way the others treated him.

            Her mind spun and the cinder blocks swam in front of her eyes. She struggled to get her thoughts back. The Soldier…he… She squeezed her eyes shut, closing out the extra senses that were draining her focus. He was…there was something…a victim. She finally gripped onto the word that was spinning away from her, just out of reach.

            A victim. There was something that had her convinced the Soldier was…wasn’t…wasn’t…was…

            She couldn’t fight for the thoughts anymore. She shook her head slightly, but she couldn’t get a coherent thought back. She let the wisp of memories evaporate, too exhausted to grab for them anymore.

            She sank into the thin mattress and relished the sleep that would give her a reprieve. At least until tomorrow.

 

 

#

 

 

            Elia woke, her hair in her face, her throat scratchy, her bones aching. But at least she had slept. The sedative they gave her daily was starting to wear off. She hoped they planned to give her more soon.

            Footsteps sounded in the hall. They were running.

            She stumbled from her cot and went to the doorway. She opened her cell door and gripped the doorframe.

            Two agents came hurrying down the hall, carrying large boxes. Another came, pushing a cart full of supplies.

            Elia ducked back into her cell.

            She kept the door open. The steady flow of traffic past her door continued. Everyone was focused, urgency driving every movement. She listened for some hint of what was happening.

            She saw the looks on the agents’ faces, but they didn’t mean anything. Just focused determination, a task that looked like it was taking the entire compound to complete.

            Rumlow came to her door. Elia stumbled back. She had been so focused on the commotion down the hall, she hadn’t heard him approach. Or it was the drugs dulling senses.

            “She goes to the new location,” Rumlow said.

            Elia hadn’t noticed the man next to him. She squeezed her eyes shut, hoping she could gain better control of her senses. Both men blurred before her.

            The man gripped her arm.

            “I’m getting the strike team prepped. We found the targets,” Rumlow said to the man with the iron grip on her arm. “Get her there, keep her alert enough for triage and whatever else we need after the asset and the team engage.”

            Elia tried to understand anything of what he was saying. But then he was walking away, the opposite direction, and she was being pulled down the hall to the garage.

           

 

 

#

 

            “They have Sitwell,” Rumlow briefed the strike team. “We’re tracking them. The asset will extricate him.”

            The Soldier knew that meant dead or alive. They couldn’t risk Sitwell being taken by S.H.I.E.L.D. and revealing anything he knew.

            “The targets are these two,” Rumlow said, gesturing toward a screen, displaying two photographs. “S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. Or they were.”

            The Soldier dispassionately eyed the targets. A blond man and red haired woman.

            “These two need to be eliminated,” Rumlow said. He looked at the Soldier. “Anything less is a failure.”

            The Soldier nodded slightly.

            Rumlow switched the screen over to a map of the city, a tracker moving along the streets. The Soldier studied the route they had taken, looking to see where they could be headed, taking in landmarks, extraction points, lines of sight.

            “Gear up,” Rumlow said.

            The Soldier moved with the strike team from the briefing room to the armory.

            The other men spoke minimally, none of them spoke to him. This team was mostly Soviet. Some of them, the more experienced ones, had been in Siberia with him, a few years before. But that didn’t make them teammates. He was nothing more than a weapon to be used. He didn’t care. A weapon could get the job done.

            The armory was attached to a gun range on one side and the gym on the other. Each of the men went through the stock of rifles, pistols, automatic weapons. The Soldier started with the wall of knives. He chose the ones he knew were well balanced, checking each blade for sharpness before stowing it on his dark uniform. Then he turned to the guns. A semi automatic strapped to his back and two rifles to carry to the vehicle.

            “Gotovyy?” the leader of the strike team asked.

            He was ready. The Soldier gave a single nod. “Gotov podchinit’sya.” Ready to comply. The words were familiar. When nothing else was familiar, those words always brought him back to what he was trained for. What he had been created to do.

            Comply.

            He moved with the team through the tunnels toward the garage.

            “The rendezvous point will be the new location. Pierce wants us closer to S.H.I.E.L.D. for the next phase,” Rumlow said.

            The Soldier had received the coordinates of their new location along with everyone else. He had seen the organized frenzy of moving supplies and documents.

            He got into the back seat of the SUV. The new location blended with the targets he was focused on, the weapons he was mentally cataloguing, what he needed to accomplish.

            He went into his mental fortress during the drive. Somewhere nothing else could break in unless he let it. It was a way of passing the time without any static frying through his brain. He could avoid any headache that way.

            “Tseli v pole zreniya,” the team leader said. The targets were in sight. It was what the Soldier had been waiting to hear.

            He focused his gaze, looking at the car they were bearing down on.

            It was an unassuming sedan. No hint that it was carrying fugitives and a captive Hydra agent down the beltway.

            The Soldier rolled down his window. The dark SUV didn’t slow as he climbed out, holding to the side of the vehicle. When they were close enough to the sedan, he launched himself onto the roof, smashing out the back window as soon as he landed. In a single motion, he pulled Sitwell from the backseat and flung him out, over the several lanes of traffic and off the bridge.

            One threat neutralized. He could only hope Sitwell hadn’t disclosed any sensitive information yet. His team opened fire on the car. He didn’t expect it to be that easy and when the car slammed to a stop, throwing him from the roof, he adapted, easily rolling onto the asphalt and digging titanium fingers into the road. His fingers screeched as they dragged down the roadway, slowing the momentum that would have had him rolling down the road.

            When he stopped, he released the road, his arm adjusting and recalibrating after the torque. He stood, gaze on the occupants of the car. His targets. His mission.

            Traffic, not quite yet to rush hour, flowed around him and the stopped car. The three targets in the car stared at him. Their expressions were somewhere between stunned horror and shock. The Soldier waited.

            With a shattering of glass and tearing of metal, the Hydra SUV rammed the back of the sedan. The Soldier held his ground until the bumper was a whisper from his legs and jumped, flipping onto the roof of the car.

            The man behind the wheel was clearly still fighting as if they had a chance, brakes squealing and sparks flying from beneath the car. The Soldier would take away his control—little that was left. He punched through the windshield, not caring if the shower of glass sliced any of the occupants—even hoping it would. Traitors and enemies didn’t deserve mercy.

            He wrapped his fingers around the steering wheel and tore it free, flinging it aside, after the direction he had thrown Sitwell.

            One of the occupants opened fire and the Soldier leaped away from the bullets, onto the hood of the Hydra SUV, still propelling the car along until the car broke free.

            The Soldier braced himself for impact when the engine beneath him revved, roaring toward the car. It took one solid slam for the smaller car to lose control.

            He watched as the car went airborne, one door flying off and then three forms, gripped together flew free until they landed with a hard skid across the lanes of traffic, debris from the wrecked car scattering in every direction.

            Finally. A clear shot.

            While the targets got to their feet, one of the strike team handed the Soldier the largest rifle. The Soldier took it, the weight and shape comfortable in his hands. In a world where nothing was familiar, this was.

            He looked at the man behind the shield. The man who was the primary target.

            He lifted the rifle without hesitation, not giving the target time to react other than to shove the female target out of the way and crouch behind the shield.

            The shield was no match for the power of the bullet. It launched the man backwards and off the opposite side of the overpass that Sitwell had ended up on.

            The strike team laid cover fire from his flanks as they moved toward the target still on the bridge. He waited until she rose from behind a car to raise his gun, take aim, and fire at her. She was fast. He could give her credit for that. The team chased her with imprecise fire, keeping her on the move. He took another shot, landing it on a car. Flames exploded from the car, covering her escape. He waited until he caught sight of her again. This time, he aimed for the car she took cover behind. When it exploded, she moved with the momentum of the blast and used it to launch off the overpass.

            The Soldier needed something with more precision. He handed off his gun to a team member and took the assault rifle the man held. He scanned the road below him, looking for any movement, waiting for the best moment to squeeze the trigger. He was a sniper. He wasn’t sure how he knew that, but he knew he was a sniper. He could wait. He liked the height from his current vantage point. He finally lifted the rifle to sight it, but smaller caliber shots fired from below.

            His head jerked back at a hit against his goggles.

            He sank down quickly, his back to the concrete safety barrier of the bridge. He pulled his goggles off. Annoyance grew to anger. He shouldn’t have been hit. He was trained—created—to take down these lesser targets.

            He stood and rained down fire on her. He swept his bullets across the roadway, taking cover when she fired back, then back to merciless firing.

            He was frustrated, his aim affected. He forced himself to take his finger from the trigger. He watched her run.

            Pulling his emotions back under control, he spoke to the strike agent next to him.

            “Ona moya. Nayti yevo.” He would take her out. The team could find the other target.

            Then he would end both of the targets.

 

#

 

 

           

            Elia drew her lip between her teeth. She watched the video feed in front of her.

            One of the strike team agents on the video feed said something in Russian. A man near the front of the room, watching the feed, pressed a button and answered.

            They had brought her to an abandoned bank. Through the upstairs with empty teller stations, cardboard blocking out any light from the windows, and to this back room. A conference room where some board of trustees should be meeting, not a nefarious group dressed in black watching a live stream of a coordinated attack.

            Elia hadn’t realized who they were attacking at first. She and the rest of the medics had been shuttled to the back of the room to watch and wait for the injured to be brought to them.

            She had watched the Soldier demolish a small car. The video was jerky, uneven, coming from what seemed to be a body cam. Occasionally the man at the front of the room would say something to one of the other men operating the electronics and the feed would change to something from a surveillance camera on the street.

            She had flinched when the Soldier had taken fire, her heart lodged in her throat until she saw him remove his goggles. He was ok.

            Then quiet discussion around her in the room as the Soldier tracked a woman in black. Elia didn’t know who she was, but she hoped the Soldier failed.

            Her breath wrapped around her throat, suffocating her, when the Soldier steadily followed the woman, firing a shot directly into the woman’s shoulder. The woman hid behind a car. Without seeing her face, Elia could read the fear, bordering on controlled panic, in the woman’s body language as she hid. But Elia could see her. Which mean the Soldier could.

            The Soldier spoke quietly into his comms piece and the man with the radio pressed the button again. He gave what sounded like a kill order.

            “No,” Elia gasped out through the invisible noose choking her slowly.

            One of the men next to her let out a curse and Elia looked at the new camera angle, one that looked like it was coming from above a traffic light.

            A man ran, faster than Elia had ever seen someone run, across the street, past the abandoned cars, practically flying. The Soldier turned just in time to swing a heavy armed blow that the man blocked with a shield.

            The shield.

            Elia knew who the Soldier was fighting.

            She had watched—with the rest of the world—when Captain America had been reintroduced to the nation after decades in the ice. ‘America’s Super Soldier’. There had been news specials, parades, dozens of events welcoming the original American hero home.

            But while the rest of the world had cheered, patriotism reinvigorated, Elia hadn’t been able to shake the sorrow that had lodged in her chest.

            Whenever she had seen him on a television screen, her heart broke for him. Behind the dutiful smile, and not entirely hidden in the shadow of billowing flags, there was something in his eyes, or a small muscle twitch at the corner of his mouth, that convinced her he wasn’t as thrilled as those around him. He was grieving. Didn’t anyone realize he had lost everyone? Every person he had known had to be dead or dying by now. And they just trotted him out like a long lost trophy.

            Elia had to start turning off the television when his face came on, the grief she was sure she saw there burrowing too deeply into her own heart for her to bear it.

            And that was who these men were trying to kill. Who the Soldier was trying to kill.

            “No,” she said again, emotion building and adding volume to the word. She flinched with every blow the Soldier landed, recoiled when he took possession of the shield and threw it hard enough to imbed in the back of a van.

            But when he pulled a knife, deftly spinning it with agile fingers, she couldn’t stop herself. She lurched forward, as if she could get to the screen and stop him. She had seen him practice with those knives. She knew how brutal he was.

            “He can’t—you can’t—” Elia stammered out, her heart racing and chopping up her words. She fought for a full thought. Panic warred with the drugs in her system. “You can’t do this!” She pushed past one of the medics near her. She almost tripped over her own feet getting to the front of the room.

            “NO!” she finally got control of her voice, the scream ripping from her as the men on the screen fought viciously. “You can’t do this! You can’t hurt him! Don’t kill him!” They couldn’t kill Captain America.

            “Subdue her,” the man in charge said, glancing at her, then back to the screen.

            A sharp blow snapped her head back. Blackness dropped over her vision. Hands wrapped around her arms, finding the bruises that were there from the earlier grip on them. But the pain only blended with the constant ache of her bones.

            Elia shook her head slightly, her jaw already aching fiercely, but her vision cleared.

            Captain America threw the Soldier, the Soldier rolled. His mask fell behind him on the ground.

            Elia looked for any hint that he might show mercy. That he might take Captain America alive.

            Captain America’s arms fell to his sides. His fighting posture fell away and he stood. Even on the grainy video from a traffic camera, his confusion, bewilderment, was obvious. She didn’t understand the curses that came from the men at the front of the room. Something was wrong with Captain America seeing the Soldier without his mask. But then the Soldier was drawing his gun.

            Then it was explosions and a man with wings flying in, the video feed was lost.

            When they had pulled up a new feed, strike agents surrounded Captain America and the two others with him. Elia didn’t see the Soldier anywhere. Relief flowed through her that the Soldier hadn’t succeeded. But then she saw. It was Rumlow. Guns were trained on Captain America. Rumlow was barking orders.

            Rumlow wasn’t a good guy. That wasn’t the side that should be winning.

            The feed cut out.

            “Get to the procedure room,” the man near the screen said. The medics started moving. Elia kept staring at the blank screen, her mind not making sense of what she had just seen. Captain America had lost.

            “The procedure room,” he snapped again. This time hands shoved Elia between her shoulder blades, knocking her breath from her. Elia moved because she didn’t know what else to do. She was too stunned by the sight of Captain America, on his knees surrendering. Surrendering to men she knew weren’t on the right side.

            Her jaw ached from the blow she had just taken. She lifted a hand to probe at the welt she felt forming there and quickly withdrew. It was too tender to touch.

            The procedure room in this new location was behind a brass grate. And then another one. Elia took in the drawers lining the wall, safety deposit boxes. This room was secure, but it was anything but safe.

            Several techs in white shirts filed in behind her. One of them set a tray of tools on a table and began organizing them.

            Elia hadn’t been entirely sure of where this new fortress was, but she had recognized the streets of DC that the Soldier had been fighting on, and the way the men around her were hurrying, she assumed that meant the fight had been nearby.

            “Out of the way,” one of the techs snapped at her. Elia took a couple steps back.

            She looked around at the bench she had been seated on for injections in the compound. It was here now. The chair with the spider arms looming over it that she had seen the Soldier seated in for work on his arm. Where she had sutured him more than once.

            She had just seen him try to kill Captain America. And now he was coming here.

            She had hazy memories of him killing others. People that she knew.

            He was a killer.

            The doors slid open and she braced herself to see him, his eyes dark, his dark leather uniform adding to his bulk.

            But the soldier who walked through the door wasn’t that man.

            He didn’t have his mask, or the goggles. His eyes weren’t smudged with black. One of the strike team members pushed him toward the chair. This soldier let them shove him into the seat. He didn’t respond when they said something to him in Russian.

            Elia tried to get her vision to clear, sure the drugs that lived in her system were messing with what she saw.

            When the Soldier didn’t respond, the handler yanked at the straps on the leather vest and roughly removed it, tossing it aside. Elia’s eyes immediately when to the scars along his prosthetic arm. But then back to him. He sat in the chair. He wasn’t blank. He looked…lost.

            Elia shouldn’t feel sympathy for him. Not after what he had done. What he had tried to do.

            But his eyes were focused on something that wasn’t in the room. When the first tech approached his arm, the Soldier quickly turned to look at his arm, his eyes moving like someone was talking to him.

            His hair was damp with sweat, hanging in his face, but that wasn’t what he saw.

            This wasn’t a killer. Whoever he was, he wasn’t the killer that had just faced off against Captain America.

            Nothing had made sense since she had been taken hostage and brought to be used by these men.

            She watched the Soldier’s eyes moving, looking for something she was sure wasn’t really there. His chest started moving, every breath looking like it was something he had to fight for.

            He whipped his head around, his eyes growing wild. He moved his head, listening intently to whatever he was hearing that no one else did.

            No one spoke to him. No one asked if he was alright. One of the techs moved closer, bending over the soldering work he was doing on the electronics of the Soldier’s metal arm. Elia watched the Soldier retreat farther and farther into his mind. His expression changing from lost to frustrated. The tech shifted slightly to better tend the arm.

            The explosion came without warning. The Soldier launched himself upright in the chair, winding an arm back and leveling the tech with one hit.

            Elia bit back a scream when tech slid across the floor. Guns she hadn’t registered were cocked with steady clicks, raised and trained on the Soldier.

            The Soldier didn’t move. He stayed seated in the chair, holding his fighting posture. But it wasn’t aggression. The line of his shoulders, the tilt of his head. It was defense. He was trying to protect himself.

            “Move,” one of the handlers ordered, jabbing Elia with bony fingers.

            Elia forced her attention away from the Soldier and to the man moving her from the room. He steered her roughly toward the door, keeping behind the guns trained on the Soldier.

            He kept pushing her along until she was in a hallway outside of both layers of security from the procedure room.

            She watched as men hurried toward the room, doors sliding forward to admit more men with guns. Men positioned themselves outside the door, at guard. The techs were brought from the room.

            No one spoke. Elia tried to see in the room every time the doors opened, but there was nothing to see, no sound came from within.

            The sharp click of shoes on tiles approached.

            The techs waiting outside the gates turned to the approaching director. Elia shrank back at the approach.

            “Sir? He’s—he’s unstable,” the tech spoke. “Erratic.”

            The director didn’t look at any of them gathered in the hall, he kept going without acknowledging them.

            The drugs that numbed emotion couldn’t cover the ire that started simmering in her gut at the sight of that man striding past them. That man was the one who made the decisions. Anger churned, rising as she thought of all she had lost since being brought here. But then the doors slid shut behind him and she was left with nothing but frustration coursing through her and no relief for it.

            The quiet conversation of the techs filtered over to her.

            “He’s practically an animal,” one murmured.

            “Keeping him out of cryo just endangers all of us.”

            Elia dropped her eyes when one of them glanced over his shoulder at her. “At least that one doesn’t think for herself. I’d be the first one to stick her in cryo if we had to deal with another one like him.”

            Elia’s hands curled into fists. Did they think she wanted to be here?

            By the time the doors slid open again, the techs had stopped talking and Elia was shaking.

            “Bring her in,” a man’s voice ordered.

            Elia was ready for the shove against her back.

            When she got into the room, she bit back a whimper. She took in the men, the guns. The director.

            She winced with pain as she was handed off to Rumlow.

            Rumlow.

            He had just arrested Captain America.

            She drew back when Rumlow took hold of her arm, but his iron hold wasn’t letting her move anywhere.

            She bit her lip to keep from crying.

            “Fix him,” Rumlow ordered, yanking her forward.

            Elia stumbled a step before he stopped her. She lifted her eyes. She was directly in front of the Soldier.

            He met her eyes. She held them. The two of them were being used. She didn’t understand a lot of what was going on with this group or agency or whatever it was, but when she looked at him, she knew that much. They were nothing to these men. Nothing but a means to an end.

            Relief flooded her when Rumlow let go of her and took a step back.

            Elia swallowed hard, but she didn’t stop to take stock of the confusing thoughts muddling her mind. She knew the men keeping her in line didn’t have patience. She looked at the first aid supplies on a table, along with the equipment meant to repair electronics in his arm.

            She focused on her assigned task. Washing scrapes, evaluating cuts, checking for gunshots or other wounds. She worked quickly.

            She listened to his breathing, ready for any shift that would warn of him throwing her across the room. But his breathing slowed. His flesh nearly burned her fingers, but the clamminess eased.

            She risked another look at him. This time his eyes were clear. Whatever he had been seeing and hearing wasn’t there anymore. There was nothing there but loss.

            His head dropped forward, breaking the contact.

            Elia slowed her work, wanting to reassure him that whatever haunted him wasn’t there. But then she was aware of the men around the perimeter of the room and knew that wasn’t true.         

            When she finished taping down the last bandage, a hand curled around her arm again and yanked her back. Her feet knocked against the tray table, the loud clang bringing the Soldier’s posture upright again. His jaw firmed as he stared at her and Rumlow.

            “Watch,” Rumlow said to her.

            “Prep him,” Director Pierce said shortly.

            “But he’s been out of cryofreeze for too long,” a tech protested.

            “Then wipe him and start over.” There was no mercy in the director’s voice. Elia started to shake.

            Whatever was about to happen, the Soldier knew what it was. Elia watched him drop his eyes from her and the more familiar blank look came over his face.

            The techs shoved him back against the chair, nothing in their touch to show they thought of him as anything but a machine to deal with.

            A man shoved a mouth guard into the Soldier’s mouth. The Soldier clenched it angrily between his teeth, clearly knowing what was about to happen.

            Metal clamps snaked over his arms, pinning him to the chair with a rough jolt.

            His entire chest heaved, every breath sucked in through the mouth guard, his entire body braced for whatever it was that was coming.

            The entire chair buzzed to life, the arachnid arms coming down, electricity sparking and snapping from plates before wrapping his head between the layer of metal, one eye obscured.

            “No,” Elia whispered. She didn’t know what this was, but she didn’t want to watch. She didn’t want to see what these—these monsters were about to do.     

            He screamed.

            Elia bit her lips, clenched her fists.

            He screamed again. And again. Tears welled in her eyes. She was powerless to help.

            The director strode away without a backward glance, Rumlow and a guard going with him.

            Elia wanted to close her eyes, but forced herself to stay there. She wouldn’t back away from his pain, ignore it.

 

#

Chapter 8

Notes:

This chapter was a really tough one to figure out. So many people doing so many things as Hydra finally takes over S.H.I.E.L.D. in the movie, so it took me awhile. And ended up quite a bit longer. Sorry about the wait- it was entirely because I was struggling to try to get everything into the chapter. :) I hope you enjoy it!

starg_rl, maxien87, RoRo15656- thank you SO, SO much for leaving comments! It is the nicest thing to get a comment on anything I write (and does wonders for my mental health, lol). You guys are so kind!

Chapter 8

 

           

 

 

            Steve had kept an arm on Natasha, not enough to hold her up because he knew she would never allow that, not until the blood loss actually landed her on the ground. But he had kept a hand on her back. A show of support, but also keeping him close enough in case she actually did collapse from the blood seeping from her shoulder wound. The gunshot that Bucky had inflicted.

            Whatever had just happened wasn’t making sense. But Steve had seen him with his own eyes. Called him by name. Fought him.

            Natasha was pale beneath the dirt and soot on her face and Steve had hurried behind Agent Hill as she led them to safety.

            “Have you seen the new girl at the coffee shop?” Natasha had asked, her words uneven with pain, one hand pressed against the wound in her shoulder.

            “What?” Steve asked. He had looked down at her, worried her injury was affecting her enough to make her confused.

            “The girl at…the coffee shop. By the Triskelion. The one with the…the flower tattoo on her wrist.” Natasha was short of breath, her injury clearly catching up with her.

            “Is she Hydra?” Steve asked. How much damage had been done that they didn’t even know about?

            “She’s cute,” Natasha said.

            He looked down at her.

            “I bet she’d be a fun date.”

            It was the first relief he had felt since Sitwell had been pulled from the car and they had started fighting for their lives.

            “I don’t think ‘fun’ is in the cards right now,” he said.

            Natasha’s lips moved in the slightest hint of humor, but then she grimaced and shifted her shoulder slightly. He kept them moving, Sam with them.

            The cavern Hill led them into was dimly lit, the air damp and cool. Natasha shivered slightly and Steve pushed their pace a little faster. She needed medical attention. The cave was a complete headquarters. For what, Steve didn’t know. But there was a doctor, supplies…and Nick Fury.

            His mind was racing to catch up to what was happening- Hill helping them escape from Rumlow and the execution he had clearly planned for them, Natasha’s injury, taking on the Winter Solider—Bucky—and now Director Fury alive and well and briefing them on what he knew. Apparently Bucky wasn’t the only one who wasn’t dead.

            Fury faced them, just as alive as Bucky.

            It was facing Fury that finally had Natasha faltering. Not enough for anyone to see, but Steve was close enough to pick up on the pause in her step, the way her hand fell slightly away from her wound finally letting the doctor look at it while her entire attention was on the former director of S.H.I.E.L.D.

            It was a load off Steve’s shoulders when Natasha finally took a seat, listening to Fury, while her wound was taken care of. Steve kept Natasha in his periphery while he listened to Fury. Sam was guarded, Hill and Fury unknown entities to him. Steve would have ordinarily put him at ease, but the truth was, it was getting hard to know who to trust anymore. He watched the doctor suture the wound on Natasha’s shoulder, silently wishing Natasha would have agreed to some sort of pain medication every time the needle pierced through her flesh.

            Steve stood while Fury spoke, unable to take a seat and sit around the table like they were discussing a standard operation. Nothing about this was standard. His muscles were too tense to do anything but stand, as if he was a guard watching over his people. And maybe he was.

            His mind kept going back to the Winter Soldier turning, Bucky facing him. He forced his thoughts back to what Fury was saying. The sound of water dripping somewhere in the distance echoed when Fury paused. He opened a case, showing them microchips. Three of them.

            Hill spoke up, “Once the helicarriers reach three thousand feet, they’ll triangulate with Insight satellites becoming fully weaponized.”

            And then guns would be trained on the population, eliminating anyone Hydra saw as a threat. Eliminating millions of people.

            Fury nodded toward the microchips. “We need to breach those carriers and replace their targeting blades with our own.”

            Steve had been listening without reaction until Fury explained what he wanted to accomplish. They could take control of the carriers and use them for S.H.I.E.L.D. Salvage what Hydra was taking from S.H.I.E.L.D.

            “We’re not salvaging anything,” Steve spoke up sharply. In the silence of the cave, his words rang with anger. Anger at what Fury was suggesting—that they would somehow protect whatever remnant of S.H.I.E.L.D. remained—had him glaring at the director. “We’re not just taking down the carriers, Nick, we’re taking down S.H.I.E.L.D.”

            Fury protested, “S.H.I.E.L.D. had nothing to do with it.”

            Steve didn’t want excuses. He wasn’t taking orders. Not from the man who had inadvertently allowed Hydra inside S.H.I.E.L.D. and hadn’t noticed. Not from anyone within the organization. “Hydra grew right under your nose and nobody noticed.”

            “Why do you think we’re meeting in this cave?” Fury asked. “I noticed.”

            But Steve was beyond excuses. Excuses led to compromises. And compromises led to innocent lives being ruined. His shoulders stiffened. “And how many paid the price before you did?” The thought of what he had been supporting by serving S.H.I.E.L.D. meant he was to blame, too.

            Fury’s defenses lagged. He looked to Natasha, then Hill before dropping his eyes briefly. “Look, I didn’t know about Barnes.” There was an apology in his demeanor, but he wasn’t surrendering.

            Steve didn’t care. He didn’t care about apologies that were too late for Bucky. Too late for the victims of whatever Bucky had done. He was done taking orders. Done trusting. He had seen what happened in wars when leaders were willing to cut losses and sacrifice, and he wasn’t doing that anymore.

            “S.H.I.E.L.D., Hydra, it all goes,” Steve said. The announcement was a courtesy to Fury. He wasn’t asking permission. He was letting him know what he was going to do, with or without Fury.

            He had disobeyed orders before to save Bucky. Crossed enemy lines and brought back Bucky and his unit from Zola when Captain America was supposed to be nothing more than a monkey dancing to an organ grinder to rally crowds.

            “Well,” Fury said. The atmosphere that had been charged with them at odds shifted, settled. “Looks like you’re giving the orders now, Captain.”

            He didn’t want to give the orders. This wasn’t a battle he wanted to lead. Not against Bucky.

            He held Fury’s look, not backing down. Accepting what was being handed to him. His jaw clenched as he gave a slight nod. He saw Natasha’s grim understanding and looked away.

            He needed air. He strode from the dim room, through the damp cavernous tunnels.

            The back entrance of the cave led out onto a bridge, high above water. The mist from the water below the bridge cooled his overheated skin. But it didn’t do anything for the memories that burned through him.

            The day he had buried his mom. Bucky had been there.

            “Thank you, Buck, but I can get by on my own.”

            “The thing is, you don’t have to. I’m with you to the end of the line, pal.”

            When he had no one, he had Bucky. He wasn’t leaving him on his own. Even it meant the end of the line.

            Sam approached. Steve heard him, but didn’t turn. He already knew what Sam was going to say.

            “He’s gonna be there, you know.”

            He had seen Sam’s compassion counseling soldiers. But also the unwavering commitment to hard truths people needed to hear.

            When Steve didn’t answer, Sam continued. “Look, whoever he used to be, the guy he is now, I don’t think he’s the kind you save. He’s the kind you stop.”

            Sam wasn’t telling him anything he didn’t already know. He tried to ignore the sick feeling at the thought of what Bucky would try to push him to do.

            “I don’t know if I can do that.” It was only fair that the people willing to follow him into battle know what Steve was capable of. Or not capable of.

            “Well, he might not give you a choice. He doesn’t know you.”

            “He will.” Steve didn’t know if he believed the words or not. But he did know he would do whatever it took to give Bucky the chance to remember him.

            Pushing back the lifetime of memories, he centered his thoughts on the task at hand. “Gear up,” Steve said. However he felt about Bucky, there wasn’t time to dwell on that. Millions of lives were dependent on them stopping Hydra. He started walking back into the makeshift base Fury and Hill had set up in the hillside.

            “Steve,” Natasha said, stepping from the shadowy entrance to the cave.

            Steve looked down at the bullet hole in her jacket. He could see the white of the bandage beneath it, but no blood seeping through now.

            “It’s nothing,” Natasha said.

            Steve had seen the two units of blood Fury’s doctor had given her. And the gaping hole before it had been sutured shut. Natasha hadn’t complained. Hadn’t done more than grow quieter than usual.

            “Besides, it’s not like I haven’t been shot by him before,” she said wryly.

            Steve winced.

            “It’s a joke, Steve. I healed then, I’ll heal now.”

            “That’s not him,” Steve said. “Bucky wouldn’t do that. Not the Bucky I know.” He was defending him without thinking. Because that’s what he and Bucky had always done. They defended each other.

            To the end of the line.

            Natasha didn’t point out the obvious, that Bucky did do it and she had the bullet hole to prove it.

            “I’m sorry,” Steve said quietly. He met Natasha’s eyes.

            “You didn’t pull the trigger,” she reminded him. “You didn’t even know he was alive.”

            That was where he had really failed. Not that he hadn’t kept Bucky from Hydra. But that he hadn’t even known Bucky was alive. All these years, Bucky had been alive. And when Steve had been pulled from the ice, he hadn’t known. Hadn’t had any idea that Bucky was still out there somewhere.

            “You couldn’t have known,” Natasha said. Her low alto was calm, reserved. But firm. “You didn’t have any way of knowing.”

            He clenched his fists. He wasn’t interested in excuses for his failings.

            “Steve,” she said. She waited until he looked down and met her eyes again. “You couldn’t have known.” Her fingers brushed against him arm briefly.

            Steve shook his head slightly. He pulled away from her. “That doesn’t change what Bucky’s been through.” He pulled in a long breath. “Let’s go.”

            Go fight the one person who had always been there for him.

 

 

#

 

 

            The Soldier stood against a wall in the corner of the makeshift gym. He kept his eyes up, but let what was happening in front of him dull, fade to the background. This used to be some sort of a break room in the bank. Now it had mats on the floor.

            “We don’t have time for weakness. When the enemy finds this place, they’re going to capture you. All of you. Or kill you. This is your only defense. You defend your life, you defend Hydra. Today is the day. ”

            He let the words become a white noise in the background. They didn’t matter to him. His mission wasn’t defense. It was ushering in the next phase for the world.

            He was in the gym waiting. Waiting to be activated again. Waiting for the director to say they were ready for the next steps. The steady thud of bodies falling to the mats wove with his thoughts.

            He had chosen his weapons from the small armory in the corner of the gym, now he stayed there, letting his mind fade towards the mission.

            “Good. Throw him. Don’t let him take you without a fight,” the trainer said.

            The Soldier mentally reviewed the blueprints of the carriers. Every entrance point. The weak spots.

            “Next. Come on.”

            “I—I can’t—I don’t—I…”

            The sound of the woman’s voice drew the Soldier’s attention. While every other noncombatant had gone through the line and completed the drill without comment, she hesitated.

            The Soldier watched dispassionately as she shook her head slightly, drawing back from the trainer. She had a dark purple welt on her jaw, but the rest of her skin was pale. Her dark hair hung halfway down her back in a loose braid. Her frame looked frail in the standard uniform of black cargo pants and black t-shirt Hydra supplied.

            But he knew she could easily do what the instructor was asking. He had been thrown by her. That was why she drew his attention.

            The trainer ignored her shaky protests and stepped toward her. The Soldier watched as she instinctively took a defensive posture, before catching herself and stumbling out of it. When the trainer got close enough, she took an awkward hold on him—a wrong hold the Soldier noted was deliberate—and tugged uselessly in a parody of an attempt at a defensive throw.

            The attempt earned her a sound of disgust and a shove away from the trainer.

            The Soldier watched the way she made herself stay upright and go to the end of the line.

            He studied her. She wasn’t strong, anyone could see that. And no one seemed to look past that with her. It was a smart move when surrounded by people who wanted to use whatever strengths you had.

            The Soldier continued to watch her. Just because no one else considered her a threat, didn’t mean she wasn’t.

            But she wasn’t just a threat. Something prodded at the edges of his consciousness. He looked at her hands. Trembling. Small, pale under the fluorescent lighting. He could feel them on his arm, warm. Her eyes were on the floor now, but he knew they were dark. She had looked at him with those eyes. Really looked at him. Saw him. Sympathy.

            He almost got hold of the thought before it faded away under the directive of the mission.

            Ready to comply.

            “It’s time.”

            Rumlow’s decree rang with finality. The Soldier felt it. Everyone else in the gym felt it, judging by the way they stilled. The air filled with tension.

            “Get her,” Rumlow ordered the Soldier with a jerk of his chin in the direction of the line of techs and medics.

            The woman’s eyes blew wide when she saw the Soldier striding toward her. For a split second, he thought she may try to throw him if he grabbed her. But then she just stiffened and let him take her arm, though the way her jaw firmed up, he could tell she wanted no part of the mission.

            He didn’t care. The mission mattered more than any one person or their feelings.

            She didn’t look at him with anger. It was pity. That didn’t make sense.

            He kept a firm grip on her and led her from the gym. The way she pulled back slightly on her arm, even thought it wasn’t quite enough to count as resistance, let him know how much she wasn’t a willing participant. That would change soon enough.

            “I don’t want anyone to die.” Her words were urgent.

            He looked down at her while he kept pulling her along. Her dark eyes were pleading with him. He turned his gaze forward again.

            “You don’t have to do this,” she said. Her free hand came up and he thought she was going to take hold of his hand. He didn’t know what to do if she did. But then she lowered her hand and spoke again. “I don’t think this is who you are.”

            He stopped at the exit. The rest of the strike team was approaching, along with another handler. The handler barely glanced at him.

            “Hold her still,” he said to the Soldier.

            As much as she seemed to want no part in the mission, she looked almost relieved to get the injection.

            The handler jabbed the needle into her upper arm, withdrawing it and covering the needle. “Bring her to Pierce when you get there,” he said to the strike team.

            Firm nods acknowledged the directive.

            The abandoned bank was attached to a parking garage. Black SUVs were the only vehicles in there.

            By the time they got to the vehicle, another team taking the vehicle next to theirs, her steps were dragging, her arm a dead weight in his hand. She was mostly able to get herself into the oversized vehicle, needing only a firm shove to get her to move over.

            The SUVs pulled out of the parking ramp, pulling out onto the DC streets, heading toward the river that sliced along the edge of the capital.

            Grim determination rather than conversation filled the vehicle on the way to the Triskelion.

            The cylindrical tower rose ahead of them, surrounded by gray water. A strip of road was the only direct approach, but the S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters wasn’t on lockdown yet.

            A weight brushed the Soldier’s shoulder. He looked away from their destination looming ahead and down at the woman. Her head rested against his shoulder. Her eyes were open, but unfocused.

            He didn’t know what her part of the plan was, but he couldn’t imagine how she was supposed to carry it out like this.

            “He never liked me.”

            The words were so quiet, the Soldier only heard them because of how close she was to him.

            “I deserved it,” she mumbled, her head rolling forward slightly. She slumped more heavily against him.

            The Soldier had no idea who she was talking about. Hydra wasn’t given to relationships. To people liking one another or caring about anyone. She wasn’t talking about someone from Hydra.

            “Doesn’t care,” she breathed out through lips that sounded numb. “Easier for him to not care. Like you.”

            Caring wasn’t part of his programming. Not because it was easier. Because it wasn’t necessary.

            The SUV pulled to a stop alongside the tall building, the other team right behind them.

            “Rogers, Romanoff, and Wilson have breached the building,” the man in the front seat informed them.

            Rumlow let out a low curse. “This changes nothing. We knew they’d try something. Everyone to positions. Hancock, take the girl to Pierce.”

            The vehicle doors closed with definitive slams.

            The Soldier separated from the group. While they made their way to the floors utilized by teams of S.H.I.E.L.D agents, he broke away toward the aircraft runways to complete his mission. Get the helicarriers in the sky so they could protect the world. Stop anyone who interfered with that.

 

#

 

 

 

            Elia was being dragged down another hallway, another strike agent moving quickly along with them. The linoleum tiles under her feet blurred together. She couldn’t tell if they were the same as Hydra’s underground compound. Were they back there? Or was this the bank, the new headquarters?

            “Move faster,” the strike agent behind her snapped at her, prodding her with the barrel of his gun.

            No, this was somewhere else.

            “Attention all S.H.I.E.L.D. agents. This is Steve Rogers.”

            He was ok. The thought floated around with the loose, unassociated memories that filled her mind when she was sedated. Captain America was safe. She couldn’t remember why she had been worried about him, but the relief that sank into her skin let her know something had been wrong. But he was safe. And here?

            “I think it’s time you know the truth. S.H.I.E.L.D is not what we thought it was. It’s been taken over by Hydra.”

            Elia couldn’t follow what he was saying, but it was enough to anger the man pulling her through long corridors and up flights of stairs. His anger had his footsteps hitting the tiles harder, his fingers curling deeper into her arm. The Soldier hadn’t been angry.

            Another thought dancing with the memories in her brain. She tried to grab onto it. When the Soldier had pulled her out to the vehicle, he hadn’t been angry. His grip firm, determined, but it was nothing personal. It didn’t hurt. Did it? Did what hurt?

            She lost whatever thought she had found.

            Doors slid open and she thought they were in the clouds. No, that didn’t make sense. They were inside. In a building. What building? They were on a top floor, a wall made of glass in front of her. They weren’t in the clouds. Just above the city in a building.

            “”I guess I’ve got the floor,” Pierce said, a small smile of contented irony on his face.

            Elia instinctively recoiled at the sight of the director as the agent let go of her and trained his gun on the men and woman standing with Pierce. Elia caught her balance before she fell.

            She swayed on her feet, struggling to follow what Pierce was saying. She glanced toward the bank of windows. Water. There was water all around the building beneath them. Like a moat. She wondered if there was a white knight somewhere in this castle. Captain America. He was safe. He was here.

            Her own thoughts were confusing her, everything blurring in front of her.

            The water far below the windows started churning. Dragons. Did dragons live in moats? Canon blasts shot fiery shots into the sky. Or dragons breathing fire.

            “…and you knew they were gonna drag your daughters into a soccer stadium for execution? And you could stop it with the flick of the switch. Wouldn’t you? Wouldn’t you all?” Pierce asked, making conversation like he was hosting a cocktail party.

            Smoke billowed in the air outside the windows, rising and filling the sky. Was someone being executed?

            “Not if it was your switch,” one of the men said, disgust evident in his tight words.

            Elia looked away from the bewildering amount of smoke and flames below and back toward the men. One of the strike agents held a gun out for Pierce to take.

            “That won’t be necessary,” Pierce said. He motioned to Elia.

            Elia blinked. He wasn’t one of the good guys. That much was a consistent thought in her muddled brain.

            When she didn’t move, one of the agents grabbed her and tugged her over toward Pierce.

            “Have you had the pleasure of meeting Miss Anderson?” Pierce asked.

            Elia tried to look at the men and woman facing off against him. Or women? The figures broke apart, distorted, and joined back together. Woman. Just one of her. But she didn’t look like the others. The others were guarded, on edge…scared. Their posture was defensive. But the woman in the blue suit….

            Elia tried to figure out what was different. The middle aged woman with the harsh bob and blunt bangs wasn’t scared. She was…waiting? Biding her time for something.

            “What can you tell us about Mr. Singh?”

            The director spoke to her, drawing her divided attention back. Mr. Singh. She knew that name.

            “He could lose everything,” Elia said, her voice somehow cooperating with a stray thought that shook loose from the mess in her head.

            The man facing Pierce made a sound of protest and stepped forward, but a gun cocking sounded like a bullet and had Elia wincing.

            “What could he lose?” Pierce asked.

            “His money. His…his…everything…” she trailed off, losing the thought momentarily until a jab in her side brought it back. “He…extortion…he took Daniel Biar’s banking company…laundered money…”

            “I’ll spare you the details,” Pierce said. “But she’s been delightfully helpful in sketching a picture of how you made your money, and just how you secured your place on the council.”

            “So you own him now,” a defiant voice spoke up. “You can’t stand against all of us.”

            “Mr. Yen,” Pierce said amiably. “Let’s share what Congressman Whittaker accidentally shared with this Pandora’s box I’ve been interviewing over the past few months. Go ahead,” he instructed her.

            Yen. That name was familiar. Her hands were icy. Her fingers starting to numb. Another jab in the back brought her attention back. “You got…a pardon…records sealed…it was a manslaughter…manslaughter case…because of the affair.” She was so tired. She couldn’t keep her eyes open. She wanted to sleep.

            “But it wasn’t manslaughter, was it?” Pierce asked.

            “Third degree murder,” Elia murmured.

            “Third degree murder,” Pierce tsked. “Well that sounds bad, doesn’t it? And money laundering. Really, Singh? I have all your secrets. Secrets that could destroy your lives. Tear your families apart. I think you’ll find cooperation is in everyone’s best interest.”

            The woman in the blue suit eyed Pierce as he took the gun that had been offered and leveled it at Singh.

            The movement was so sudden, Elia didn’t know who had moved, but Singh was suddenly crashing into her and the woman in the suit was spinning toward Pierce, taking his gun.

            Elia’s head was already spinning, her vision blurring, she couldn’t tell who the woman hit first. Who she kicked. There was the sizzle of electricity when she flicked an electrode onto one of them, sending the strike agent into spasms. The woman took both strike agents to the ground.

            Elia took a step back, but her back hit something. The glass. She looked out the window. No, not that way. Stairs. She needed stairs.

            The woman in the suit’s face blurred, then turned to younger features. She pulled the blunt cut wig from her head. “I’m sorry. Not everyone,” the redhead said.

           

 

 

 

#

 

 

           

            The Soldier let the man with the wing pack and the guards distract one another outside on the runways. Hydra launched smaller aircraft, moving to the offensive.

            Helicarrier 1 was airborne. He had seen the man with the shield make it onto it. The Soldier moved along the perimeter of the launchpad. The man with wings made it onto Helicarrier 2.

            Helicarrier 3 was a line they weren’t going to cross. That was where he kept his attention.

            A group of S.H.I.E.L.D. pilots started to move down the runway. This was the boundary that wouldn’t be breached. He lifted his gun toward one of the jets. It didn’t matter if it was Hydra piloting it, collateral damage was inevitable in a battle. He aimed and fired.

            The jet spun out of the sky, flames shooting from it before it crashed, flames exploding then. A makeshift bomb to take out S.H.I.E.L.D pilots and aircraft alike.

            The Soldier didn’t let the smoke or flames slow him. S.H.I.E.L.D operatives ran in a panic. He kept up a steady stride through the debris. He fired at them. No one was going to stop the helicarriers from taking flight and linking. It was a protection system for the world. The world needed it. It was his mission.

            A man on the runway fired at him. The Soldier lifted his titanium arm and deflected the shot, not stopping in his approach to the man. He struck out with his foot, a thudding sternal blow that sent the man flying into the fire of a downed jet.

            It was a methodical process to find pilots and put a bullet through them. In the cockpit of a jet. On the runway trying to get to a jet.

            He tore off the glass of a cockpit and swung inside. The controls were familiar enough. He had been trained to pilot planes, helicopters, whatever the mission may call for.

            Every slow, steady thud of his heart directed him to finish this mission. Nothing existed besides the mission.

            The plane lifted off. He was going to get to the third carrier and defend it. His mission.

           

 

 

#

 

 

            Elia just wanted to get away. None of this made any sense. She wanted to—she just needed—

            She willed her feet to move. The floor tilted under them.

            “She’s disabling security protocols and dumping all the secrets onto the internet.”

            Elia didn’t listen to Pierce. Whatever was happening, she wasn’t a part of it.

            “Including Hydra’s,” the redheaded woman said. She worked at the computer with hardly a glance at Director Pierce.

            Secrets. Elia knew people’s secrets, didn’t she? Had she just told some?

            She ignored what they were saying, it was making her head spin. She stumbled toward the door. Out the door. There was a stairwell. She needed to go down. Out of the sky. Back to solid ground.

            Clinging to the railing, she tried to control her steps, stumbling, sliding, making her way down the stairwell, every time she fell a step echoing in the empty stairwell.

            She could hear gunshots, footsteps. Every floor she passed sounded like chaos. She didn’t want chaos anymore. She wanted…

            Home. She needed to get home.

 

 

 

#

 

 

 

            The man wearing the wing pack was easy. The Soldier had only had to wait for the two adversaries to land on the helicarrier, then shove the man with the shield off the edge. When the man with the wings tried to go after him, it was only a matter of grabbing him and bringing him to the ground, tearing a wing off. That threat was out of commission.

            He had known the one with the shield would be more difficult.

            He went into the helicarrier, climbing to the level he knew the man would have to get to if he wanted to stop the program. The carrier was silent except for the distant hum of engines, the fight below silenced by the walls. He positioned himself so the man would have to go through him to disable the carrier.

            No one got through him.

            When the man made it onto the catwalk, the Soldier was ready. He stared down the man. Waiting. Ready.

            “People are gonna die, Buck.” The man faced him on the catwalk. There was no fear in his posture. Only regret heavy in his words. “I can’t let that happen.”

            The Soldier didn’t make conversation—he attacked and he killed. So he stood silently, waiting for the inevitable move this man was going to make.

            “Please don’t make me do this.”

            The plea didn’t reach through his conditioning. Emotion was meaningless. For the weak. He thought briefly of the woman.

            I don’t want anyone to die. You don’t have to do this.

            When the man launched the shield, the Soldier flashed his arm out and sent it ricocheting back off to the enemy. He pulled his gun and fired. The man deflected bullets with the shield. His gun versus that man’s shield. It was an even match. He switched to a knife, deftly twirling it with skilled fingers as he pulled it.

            He didn’t feel any fear getting closer to the enemy. He needed to get closer to end him. The man managed to ward off every blow, landing a few against the Soldier.

            Frustration grew when the man wouldn’t quit. The Soldier launched himself into the man with a roar, knowing where the trajectory was launching them. They both flew over the railing. The landing didn’t slow either one of them.

            The microchip that would unlink the helicarriers, disabling them, fell and the Soldier kept up his attack, anything to keep the opponent from picking up the chip.

            He could tell the other man was holding back. Doing only as much as necessary to avoid him. Weak.

            But then the man slid down the angled ramp they fought on and grabbed the chip. The Soldier slid after him, managing to get possession. Until the enemy kicked him and the chip dropped.

            Both men went over the drop off, after the chip.

            The Soldier increased his attacks. Bullets, blows, using the man’s own shield against him, he would use whatever he had.

            The Soldier sank his knife into the man’s shoulder, eliciting a cry of pain. He earned solid blows to his head in return.

            For a moment, he held the microchip. The other man grabbed hold of the Soldier. With an iron grip, he pinned him half on the ground, holding his flesh and bone arm at an angle to subdue him.

            “Drop it!” the man ordered, his voice right in the Soldier’s ear.

            The Soldier only took orders from Hydra.

            “Drop it!” the man yelled.

            He wasn’t going to drop it while he was alive.

            He tightened his fingers around the chip.

            The man wrenched his arm, a brutal crack of bones breaking a shout of pain free from him.

            The man pulled him up and over, down with him, a solid arm around his neck. The Soldier swung his metal arm up, the man met it by pinning it at his side.

            The Soldier strained against the hold. He wasn’t going to lose this fight. The other man had to know that. He didn’t know why the other man restrained him instead of killing him.

            The vise around his neck tightened. Blackness closed in.

 

#

 

 

            Everyone was running. Panic. Chaos. Fear.

            Elia needed to get away. She couldn’t see straight, everything swam in front of her eyes. She collided with the people running across the lobby. She barely registered the jolts, her entire body numbed by the sedation. There was daylight ahead. She wouldn’t let herself get knocked down. Not before she got out the doors.

            Someone crashed her from behind and she lurched forward unsteadily. She caught herself against another person, grasping for purchase with fingers that wouldn’t cooperate, but they pushed her off and kept running for the exit.

            The exit. That’s where she was heading. Outside. Away from all this.

            When she made it through the doors, the sunlight burned her eyes. She let out a cry of pain, her hands reaching up to cover her eyes.

            The light was too much. Tears welled, an automatic reaction to the sting. She kept moving, hands over her eyes, landing against solid bodies that were running. Screaming.

            Smoke hung in the air, making every breath burn.

            She needed to open her eyes, see where she was going. She forced herself to lower her hands. See through her watering eyes.

            She was heading back toward the building. She had gotten turned around. Away. She was going away. Wasn’t she?

            She awkwardly turned, nearly falling over with how the movement made her head spin. She managed again to stay on her feet. She kept stumbling, tripping. Moving. She would crawl if she had to.

 

 

 

#

           

 

 

            He blinked his eyes open. Cleared his vision.

            He turned his head, but didn’t see anyone.

            The mission wasn’t over.

            He got to his feet unsteadily. Stalked with uneven steps across the platform to locate his target.

            The man wasn’t slowing down. He was climbing toward the controls of the helicarrier.

            The Soldier lifted his gun, still uneven and getting his full vision back after the blackness. He fired off a shot at the man who was climbing to reach the centralized computer of the helicarrier.

            He missed and staggered slightly. He blinked to clear his vision, drew a breath to steady his feet.

            He lifted his gun again. This time the shot didn’t push him off balance. The slug went straight into the man in the back of his thigh.

            The man finally stumbled for the first time, his leg giving out under him. But he caught himself. Limped to the computer, dragging himself forward with the railing surrounding it.

            The Soldier lifted his gun again, taking care to aim. This blast caught the man in the torso, twisting him slightly before he dropped to the ground with a grunt.

            He had stopped him.

            He started toward the man. He could admire the fight the other man had put up. But that didn’t mean he was going to let him live.

            Sudden blasts came from the gun deck. The entire carrier lurched.

            Below them, more firing. Glass shattered somewhere in the carrier as it took fire. The carrier was firing and taking blasts.

            The Soldier moved toward the wall of glass, ready to break through before he was blown up with the carrier. His target could go down with the aircraft.

            A metal beam struck his shoulder, sending dull pain vibrating through his torso. He turned, trying to stop it with his stronger arm, but it wasn’t enough to break the momentum of the beam. He was pushed to the floor. The beam pinned him brutally.

            He pushed at it. The weight across his chest made every breath agony. The carrier listed, the beams still standing groaned with movement.

            He had to get it off. His breath came in heavy gasps as he fought the crushing weight. He grunted, straining at it. It didn’t move.

            The carrier was still moving, but not flying. It was falling. The beam shifted more heavily onto him when the carrier crashed into something, metal and glass and brick all crushing into a sound of destruction. Flames were licking at the windows.

            He struggled, fighting more desperately to free himself.

            The man he had fought made it to him. The Soldier looked for a weapon in his hand. He didn’t know why the man was going to end him now instead of letting the carrier crash do the job. Why the man didn’t get off the carrier instead of bleeding to death alongside him.

            The man braced himself and lifted against the beam. His neck corded with the effort.

            It shifted just enough for the Soldier to slide out, his broken arm useless at his side, radiating pain. He gathered his strength, determined to push up from the ground. Get away.

            The other man’s breaths were labored from exertion, matching his.

            “You know me,” the man said determinedly.

            “No, I don’t,” the Soldier raged, swinging at the man, but off balance with his injured arm tucked against his side. He still managed to knock the man down. He didn’t want any part in whatever this man was doing. He knew how to fight, how to take out a target. Why didn’t this man do that? Why had he saved him?

            Weak.

            “Bucky,” the man said.

            Bucky. It rang against something. Something underneath what he was.

            “You’ve known me your whole life.”

            The Soldier’s next swing was pure frustration. Anything to stop what the man was saying.

            His whole life? His whole life was Hydra. Hydra, that was burning down around them. He didn’t know this man.

            “Your name is James Buchanan Barnes—”

            “SHUT UP!” It was a desperate scream as he swung against him, pushing him away again.

            The man staggered to his feet. His mask had come off.

            He was supposed to know him. He knew that he was supposed to know him.

            “I’m not going to fight you.” The man dropped his shield. It silently fell through the flames and smoke growing around them, beneath them. “You’re my friend.”

            No. No. He wasn’t letting this man into his head. Bucky. James. Zola. A train. Brooklyn. It all pressed at the edges of his mind, trying to push through. Dozens of assassinations. Innocent people. Ruthless kills.

            He had to stop what threatened to consume him.

            He hurled himself at the man. Knocking him onto his back.

            “You’re my mission,” he said ruthlessly. A mission. That was what made sense.

            Finish the mission.

            He landed a blow to the man’s face. Another. Again.

            “You’re!” A solid hit. “My!” Level the enemy. “Mission!”

            He drew his arm—the arm Zola had given him, the one that had been used to kill—back, ready to land one last blow and end this. Silence the demons gnawing to get in.

            “Then finish it,” the man said through swollen, cut lips. “Because I’m with you to the end of the line.”

            No.

            No.

            Steve.

            Until the end of the line.

            Horrors rushed in around him, through him, over him. With a groan, the carrier broke apart, but it didn’t move as much as the foundation that was being torn away from the Soldier.

            Bucky.

            Steve started sliding, the side of the carrier no longer there.

            Bucky watched him fall. Debris, flames, it all fell towards the water below.

            Until the end of the line.

            He launched himself off the carrier, but the memories chased him.

            He hit the water with enough force to force a grunt of pain when it jostled his broken arm.

            He kept his eyes open.

            There.

            He kicked his legs, swimming deeper until he got hold of Steve’s uniform.

            Holding nothing but the uniform, he dragged him to the surface, the water churning around them as more pieces of the carrier landed and disappeared.

            Until the end of the line.

            He didn’t know if Steve was alive when they broke the surface. The water was shallower now. They had made it close enough to shore that Bucky could stand. He pushed his way through the water, every step methodical, unyielding. He kept his grip on Steve, finding a strap on his shoulder to haul him with.

            He dragged him to a sandy shoreline and unceremoniously dropped him to the sand.

            He stood over him.

            Until the end of the line.

            Steve was breathing. He moved slightly.

            The Soldier wasn’t breathing. He was warring with Bucky. With the memories.

            With one last look at the Triskelion burning across the water, helicarriers falling from the sky, Bucky turned.

            Broken arm guarded at his side, he started walking.

            Away.

 

#

Chapter 9

Notes:

Thank you so much, maxien87 and MultiMuu, for leaving reviews. I can't begin to tell you how much it means when someone comments on my stories. And thanks to everyone who's bookmarked or left kudos. I appreciate it so much!

The plan has always been to write Bucky on the run. And Elia ;) So I've been SO EXCITED to write this chapter (hence me not being able to wait and getting this chapter out faster than normal). I really hope you enjoy it! And thanks for reading, commenting, leaving kudos.

Chapter 9

 

 

            The Soldier.

            Bucky.

            Bucky—that was familiar. That rang true. Or it had. Somewhere in his memories it rang out. But it was drowned out by all the other memories. Too many memories. Every memory.

            Every kill, every mission. Family who loved him—who he had loved. Guns and war. Choking, strangling people to death. Not people, just targets. Stabbing. A scrawny kid he loved like a brother. Trains, bridges. Pain.

            Every single memory came with piercing pain.

            Bucky kept walking. One foot in front of the other. His arm throbbed with every step, but his head pounded. Away from the river bank. The road that was on the other side of the dense forest would be a direct route back to Hydra, the abandoned bank they had taken. He stepped into the woods, the dank coolness a relief from the sun outside the woods, but it didn’t ease the pain.

            His steps slowed.

            He stopped completely, looking around the forest around him. He could still hear the rumbles behind him of the building collapsing.

            He wasn’t going back. Not to any of it.

            He adjusted his steps, away from the road through the woods. His arm hurt, but it was nothing compared to the pain shooting through his head, throbbing and burning at once.

            He slid into a quiet recess in his mind, like he would if he was preparing for a mission, blocking out any extra noise. The pain faded slightly as the memories were pushed away.

            He kept his injured arm tucked against his side, continuing on the path he had chosen. He would figure out where he was going. Right now his mission was to get away.

            The sounds coming from the falling building were mixed with the screams of people running for safety. He didn’t want to be near them. He changed course again.

            Staying to the edge of the tree line, it took all his attention to keep his mind under control. To not let the memories in. His hands shook with the effort and he clenched his fists. The pain in his flesh and bone arm fought against him, driving back the pain in his head further.

            Every footstep was muffled, his boots sinking slightly in the muddy ground. He kept a steady pace until he heard other footsteps. Ones that didn’t match his stride.

            He slowed, cocking his head slightly to listen. Shuffling steps. Uneven.

            He didn’t have many of his weapons left, but there was still a smaller handgun at his hip. He drew it and slowed his steps farther. He used the trees as camouflage, looking toward the road and the sounds.

            The footsteps slowed. Stopped.

            He waited, but there were no other sounds. He tightened his fingers around the grip, listening.

            “Bucky! Be nice!”

            The childish feminine voice rang through his head.

            “You’re going to give me a hard time because Peter Adams wants to take me to Coney Island? How many girls have you kissed on the ferris wheel there?”

            “None of them was my sister.”

            “You’re not the boss of me!”

            “No, just your big brother.”

            The trees in front of him blurred with a face he should recognize. Blue eyes, pursed lips looking at him with frustration.

            “You know what? Coney Island sounds fun. Steve and I will meet you there. Introduce ourselves to this Peter guy. Make sure you don’t ride the ferris wheel.”

            A small moan sounded.

            Bucky clenched his jaw, willing the memories—the pain—away.

            His vision blurred. Then cleared. He took a silent step forward, scanning for what he was hearing.

            He almost missed the figure—all in black—on her knees in the ditch along the road.

            He surveyed their surroundings quickly, seeing no immediate threat he approached her. Cautiously. She may have convinced strike agents and handlers she wasn’t a threat, but he had seen what she could do if she was threatened.

            A scrawny kid in an alley, refusing to back down from a fight.

            He grit his teeth. He felt a muscle pull in his jaw. Focus.

            The woman put a hand out and braced herself against the ground, then pushed up before falling back to the ground.

            Bucky recognized her. Everything he knew about her came rushing in, but it brought other memories with. Ones he didn’t want in his head. Kills he had made. She had tried to stop him.

            “Please don’t…”

            “Let’s go.” He hadn’t hesitated. Grabbed her and taken her with to use her to access the senator.

            The woman got to her feet, the knees of her pants damp with mud, the palm of her hand coated with dirt and fallen leaves. She didn’t seem to notice, taking a lurching step and continuing forward.

            Bucky looked back toward the frantic crowd in the distance. They were aimlessly milling, none coming this way. Emergency vehicles were starting to arrive.

            He could assume a manhunt would be following shortly—whether it would be for all Hydra assets, or only Pierce and Rumlow, he wasn’t going to take any chances. He wasn’t going into captivity again—no matter who the captor was.

            “You can’t stay here,” he said to the woman, letting her know he was approaching. She needed to get moving. She had been used by Hydra, the same as him. They could be coming for her, too.

            “Home,” she murmured. “I’m going home.” Her words slurred. “1512 United Parkway. Apartment…” her words trailed off.

            1512 United Parkway was as good a destination as any. He holstered his gun. Maybe she had people to get back to. He could get her there, get some supplies for himself, a change of clothes. He was too exposed like this.

            He looked down at his arm, the setting sun glinting off the metal. At the woman in what looked like black fatigues. They didn’t exactly look like they belonged on the streets of DC. Not if they didn’t want to be brought in by Homeland Security.

            He took her by the arm. She didn’t look like she registered his grasp at all, still mumbling something about home. He tugged her along.

            “Please. Please don’t.” A woman’s green eyes met his, wide with terror. Pleading. “Please don—”

            Her words were silenced when he gripped her neck. His hand clamped. He pushed her back slightly, tightening his fingers, the mechanical whir of the metal arm drowned out by her desperate choking. Her eyes bulged, her sounds silenced—

            Bucky dropped the woman’s arm. He wasn’t going to drag her along.

            “This way,” he said, willing her to follow him.

            She kept unfocused eyes on the ground, but tripped along with him. He slowed his steps slightly to accommodate her slower pace, but he didn’t stop scanning their surroundings. He mentally catalogued every weapon he still had left. Listened to the chaos they were leaving behind.

            Hearing something, he slowed, holding a hand out toward her without touching her. He made sure she was following before he veered toward a privacy fence at the edge of the trees.

            Three cop cars went by, lights and sirens blaring.

            “Take cover!”

            The entire building shook.

            “We’re taking enemy fire. Sound the sirens!” Sirens took over the air.

            “C’mon, Buck!” A tall man in a blue mask with a shield motioned to him. “We’re not letting Nazi scum take out an entire barracks while we do nothing.”

            Steve.

            His eyes felt like a metal spike was being driven through them. He started to lift his hand to press against his forehead, but the pain in his arm stopped him.

            He gathered his reserves, fighting against the memories. The pain. He had to pull it together. He wasn’t getting caught. No one was going to bring him in.

            He drew a long breath, getting the memories under control again. The emergency vehicles long past, he made another survey of their surroundings. The girl wasn’t there anymore.

            Damn it.

            He started to walk in the direction they had been heading. He rounded the corner of the privacy fence and saw her, half slumped against the wood slats, eyes closed.

            “We need to keep moving,” he said.

            She didn’t move.

            He glanced over his shoulder. The street they were following was empty for now.

            “Come on,” he said.

            She blinked up at him.

            “No,” she said, squinting at him. She started to topple over and caught herself against the fence.

            “We don’t have time for this,” he said, hearing how gruff his voice was. He didn’t used to sound like that, did he? He looked over his shoulder, making sure they were still safe.

            “I’m not…” her voice trailed off and she blinked. Her hair was a tangled mess, half covering her face where it had come free from the braid it had been in earlier. “I’m not helping you…helping you kill anyone.” She wove unsteadily on her feet.

            His jaw clenched painfully. “We’re not killing anyone,” he spoke through gritted teeth.

            “Please. Please don’t!”

            He shoved the memory back. He looked over his shoulder again. Two figures in black were in the distance. Strike agents?

            “We have to go,” he said, it coming out like an order.

            The woman looked at him, her brows knitting slightly like she couldn’t figure out who he was.

            That made two of them.

            “Come on,” he said. This time when he took her arm, he was ready to fight back any memories that threatened. He held on just long enough to get her moving before dropping her arm.

            They turned a corner and started crossing a park. The few people that still remained in the park were running, a desperate sprint away from the chaos behind them.

            “Wait,” Bucky said. Another blunt command. But she listened.

            A small kiosk of souvenirs was tipped, all the wares scattered across the grass. Bucky grabbed a small t-shirt and tossed it at her. She stared blankly at it, making no effort catch it. It fell to the ground and she looked down at it without moving.

            Bucky grabbed a black hoodie. He held back a grunt of pain when he maneuvered his broken arm into a sleeve before pulling the other sleeve on and zipping it. Nothing he could do about his silver hand, but at least his arm wasn’t a signal to anyone looking for him. He pulled the hood up over his head.

            The woman was still staring blankly at the pale green sweatshirt on the ground in front of her like it held answers.

            There were no answers for any of this.

            Bucky grabbed it and thrust it at her. “Put it on.”

            She stared at him.

            A frustrated sigh burst from him. He tugged it over her head awkwardly with one hand. Thankfully she started moving, automatically slipping her arms through the sleeves.

            He scanned the merchandize again and pulled hat from the mess, pressing it into her hands. She looked slightly less like a drugged enemy of the state and more like a disheveled tourist when she put it on.

            “Keep moving,” he said. That was their only objective right now. Keep moving until they got to her apartment.

 

#

 

 

            Home.

            She was home.

            Too numbed to feel the relief at that knowledge, Elia followed along on wooden feet.

            “1512 United Parkway,” she mumbled. “Apartment 4A.”

            The man in front of her opened the door to the small foyer and said something. She didn’t understand, his words floating past her.

            She was home. She looked at the plain carpeting of the foyer. The glass door that opened into the first floor hallway. She pushed against the door. Her hands didn’t cooperate. Someone next to her got the door open and she staggered through.

            It had been a hard shift at work. She had lost a patient. Those were the worst shifts. The pain of losing a child, of holding grieving parents, would stay with her for weeks afterward. Longer than weeks. Months.

            Heavy boots sounded alongside her as she went down the hall. She wasn’t coming home from work. She had been a prisoner. But she was home now. Wasn’t she?

            It was automatic to go to the stairwell. The elevator was at the far end of the hall and she just wanted to get to her apartment. The stairs were quicker. But nothing was moving quickly. Her legs were heavy. Every step was like walking through water, a current pushing against her.

            The first flight of stairs took a year. Or maybe a minute. The bootsteps stayed near her. Someone was with her.

            The second flight took just as long. She was halfway up the third flight when something sounded in the distance, echoing through the stairwell. The Triskelion stairwell. She had to get down the stairs. Away from Pierce and the guns. Down the stairs.

            A rough voice spoke near her. “Keep going up.”

            Elia blinked. Up the stairs. She needed to keep going up the stairs.

            A door opened into the stairwell and suddenly there was a man in front of her, a black hoodie zipped up, hood obscuring most of his face. He nudged her into a corner of the stairwell and angled himself between her and whoever had come onto the landing. He kept his back toward the other person, but she could see him watching from the corner of his eye, over his shoulder. Elia sagged against the wall behind her, letting it do the work of keeping her upright.

            Footsteps rang out as the person jogged down the stairs. When another door opened and closed, leaving the stairwell silent, the man stepped away from her.

            Elia stared up at him. His face blurred. Under the hood she could see the set of his jaw. His eyes avoiding hers. He was the Soldier. Why was the Soldier at her home? Was he hurt? Was she supposed to help him? That was what she was supposed to do, wasn’t it? Had he been shot?

            He took another step away from her and opened the door onto the fourth floor hallway, looking around quickly before holding the door for her to go through.

            Elia took stumbling steps through. Her apartment was the first one by the stairwell. She looked at the door. Pressed her palm to it. She was home. Where had she been? She shook her head slightly. Numb fingers brushed against her pocket for a key. It wasn’t there. Where was her key?

            The man next to her glanced around them, then put something in the lock. With a dull click the lock tripped. He did the same with the deadbolt. He pushed the door open.

            Her apartment was cold. Musty smelling.

            Elia made it inside. She was home.

 

#

 

 

            “Is he alive?”

            “Get medics over here!”

            Steve struggled to open his eyes. Someone was hurt. He needed to help.

            “He’s breathing.”

            “Captain, don’t move. We’re getting you help.”

            “Bucky,” he said. He had to get to Bucky. Make him remember.

            “You found Steve?”

            Steve recognized Sam’s voice joining the fray. He got his eyes open.

            Sam leaned over him.

            “Sam,” Steve said.

            “Just hold still. They got medics coming,” Sam said.

            Steve could tell how bad his injuries were from the way Sam looked at him. He had to ask what had happened to Bucky. Had Bucky made it out? He tried to ask Sam, but he was too short of breath. It hurt to breathe. He tried to move a hand toward one of the gunshot wounds, see if he was still bleeding. He couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. He fought to keep his eyes open, but the blackness at the edge of his vision started closing in.

           

 

 

#

 

 

 

            Bucky listened for any sound coming from the apartment. It was silent. Dark and closed up. There was no one here.

            Relieved he wouldn’t have to deal with anyone, Bucky quickly closed the door behind them. He flipped the locks and left the lights off. If this woman had been missing for months, anyone who knew that and saw lights come on may come to investigate.

            The woman swayed on her feet as she looked around the dark apartment. Her eyelids fluttered. She turned and looked at Bucky, confusion marring her face.

            “I need…” she blinked. “I’m home.” She stumbled to a door off a short hallway and went through it.

            Bucky moved quickly. Just because he hadn’t heard anyone, it didn’t mean the entire apartment was clear.

            She was just falling face first onto a bed when he got in the room. Bucky made a quick pass of the room to ensure it was empty.

            She was completely asleep, one arm flung out at her side, the other curled under her cheek, when he looked at her again.

            He left the room quietly, closing the door behind him.

            Now that they were off the street, he needed to do something about his injured arm. For the first time, he paid attention to the lack of movement. He grimaced as he tried moving it at the elbow. He didn’t think it was broken. But it was dislocated.

            He needed the joint back in place, that would help the pain. And make his arm functional again. There was a light throw on the back of the couch. Some pastel colored blanket. He took it, twisting it into a thick make-shift rope. He tied the ends together and stuck them in the door of the bathroom, pulling the door closed to hold the loop in place.

            He stuck his forearm into the loop. He gritted his teeth. He had been shot. Stabbed. Any number of injuries over the years. They all started flooding his mind. No. Focus on this one now.

            He clenched his jaw. Braced himself. Pulled against the traction on his arm.

            He bit down hard, holding back any shout that would draw attention to the dark apartment. His chest heaved, beads of cold sweat dotting his forehead.

            With a pop and a quick burst of searing pain, his elbow moved.

            “Ugh!” He couldn’t hold back the cry of pain, but quickly bit it back. He fell back against the wall opposite the door. A picture fell from the wall with a muted thud into the plush carpet.

            He looked down at it. It was a picture of the woman. Her in pink scrubs, smiling with several other women, also in scrubs. He absently moved his arm, testing its movement while he moved down the hall, looking at pictures. A picture of a cat, sleeping on a couch. One of the woman, this time in a jean skirt and sweater, with some of the same women from the first picture. An elderly couple with a little girl. No pictures of her with anyone that looked like parents or siblings.

            He moved to the living room, this time taking in his surroundings, not just looking for threats. Not much for personal items. A couple pictures of her with kids. Pink throw pillows on the couch.

            Outside the faint thumping of a helicopter’s engine sounded. It drew closer.

            Bucky went to the window. The blinds were down. He carefully looked around the edge of them, without moving them.

            A military helicopter flew low, but didn’t pause near the apartment building. It continued on in the direction of the Triskelion.

            He needed to get out of here. Sirens sounded, growing louder, then fading, as they went in the direction of the helicopter.

            He looked around the edges of the blinds again. No one moved out on the street. He wondered if the city was locked down.

            He shifted his shoulders, moved his titanium arm before he caught himself. He wasn’t going to fight his way out of the city. He was done killing.

            Killing. “You don’t have to kill me,” the young man pleaded. “You don’t have—” Blood flowed crimson from his chest, his words silenced with the gunshot.

            He squeezed his eyes shut, stepping back from the window. He didn’t want to think about that. Didn’t want to relive every kill.

            His breath grated with every inhale. He had to stop the thoughts. Stop remembering.

            He braced a hand against the wall, the sharp knife daggering every part of his brain at once. He had to get control. Get out of here.

            Footsteps sounded in the hall. He straightened, pulled a gun, a familiar weight in his hand.

            The footsteps went past without pausing at the apartment door.

            He kept hold of his gun, waiting for another threat.

            There wasn’t a threat. That thought shook free. No one knew he was here. The girl—

            The girl. He tried to shove the memories back to the past, where they belonged. Tried to take over his own mind again. It was enough to dull the pain to a burning ache. He could at least move down the hall.

            He went back to the bedroom and looked at her. She was sleeping. Sort of. Her breaths were shallow, one of her legs twitching violently.

            “Soldat, ty podchinish’sya.” Soldier, you will comply.

            “Bucky, you’ve known me your entire life.”

            He didn’t know what he was. Who he was.

            He watched her leg, the movements uneven, until they slowed. When there was nothing more than the rise and fall of her back with every breath, he stepped back out the door.

            He couldn’t leave her here. Neither one of them could leave this apartment while the entire military was mobilizing against Hydra.

            His boots didn’t make much noise across the carpeting. He positioned himself at the start of the short hallway, lines of sight to the bedroom and the door out of the apartment.

            Relieved to have a mission—a duty—he settled his thoughts. His posture fell into something familiar, a soldier on guard. He let his conditioning take over, do what didn’t require thought. What came on instinct.

            He watched, and he waited.

        

           

 

#

Chapter 10

Notes:

Thank you so much to everyone who is reading this story. The comments have been beyond amazing and have blown me away. I wanted to get you all a Christmas present, but couldn't figure out how to get you all some homemade cookies, so a new chapter is the best I could do. I hope you enjoy it.

Thank you mischieflover, Starg_rl, and Maxien87 for your really, really, REALLY nice comments on the last chapter.

Chapter 10

 

 

            Natasha shifted slightly. The hospital issued scrubs were at least more comfortable than the blue skirt and suit jacket she had worn at the Triskelion. And definitely better than the heels.

            “He’ll be ok.”

            Natasha didn’t look at Sam. She didn’t believe him.

            “Did the doctor tell you that?” she asked, challenging his optimism.

            There was a pause. Natasha figured that was her answer.

            “He’s not going to…He’ll be ok,” Sam said again.

            “You keep telling yourself that.” She hadn’t meant for the words to come out so harshly. But she was hurting. The gunshot that hadn’t yet healed burned through her shoulder. Her entire body ached from throwing herself from a burning and collapsing building. The doctor had declared her still in one piece, the nurse had given her clean scrubs and a pair of tennis shoes she had found somewhere, and Natasha had pulled her hair back with a tie. But it wasn’t enough of a change. All her secrets were out there now and people would know who—what—she was.

            And none of that mattered. Not really. Not when Steve was in surgery and no one could tell her or Sam what was happening. Natasha figured they had already gotten lucky with Fury surviving. And luck wasn’t something that came around more than once in her life.

            There were S.H.I.E.L.D. agents down the hall. Watching her. She met their gaze evenly. They looked away.

            “What did the doctor really say?” Natasha asked. She turned slightly to face Sam, lifting her chin slightly.

            Sam didn’t flinch. He hadn’t flinched once, not in the entire time since she and Steve had showed up at his door. She waited.

            He sighed slightly and for the first time she saw a break in his military posture. “It’s not good. Facial fractures, two gunshots, broken ribs, a collapsed lung, internal bleeding. That’s the short list.”

            “He has the serum.” Natasha said the words. She knew better than to try to give herself some pitiful amount of hope. She told herself she was saying it to reassure Sam.        

            “The serum makes surgery tricky,” Sam said, a frown pulling at his features.

            “The serum makes him heal,” she snapped before she caught herself. She cut off anything else that may slip out and took a slow breath.

            Two men in scrubs hurried past them and Sam took a step back to give them space to pass.

            “The serum makes it hard to treat him,” Sam said quietly. Natasha hated the sympathy for her on his face. “The medications they need don’t work like they would on you or me.”

            She could tell he was choosing his words carefully. She squared her shoulders, let him see she wasn’t fragile.

            “Pain meds, they aren’t going to work on him. They’re not even sure about the anesthesia for surgery. He’s going to metabolize right through normal doses.”

            Anger at the country they both served flashed through her. That’s who had really done this to Steve. The government had pushed the serum through him, only thinking of the soldier they were creating, not what it would mean for his life. That wasn’t any different from how the Red Room operated.

            Her phone buzzed in the pocket of her scrubs. It saved her from trying to temper her response to Sam. She stepped away from him. Once she was in a quiet hallway, she looked at the phone.

            Are you safe?

            She finally let her guarded expression fall. She closed her eyes. She could picture Clint at home seeing whatever the news was showing about the Triskelion collapsing.

            For now, she texted back to him. She didn’t need him leaving Laura and the kids to come looking for her.

            Stay that way, came his response. She waited a beat, then the next text came through. Laura said our door’s open. Any time. Her lips twitched slightly before she slid the phone back in her pocket.

            But then she started walking back to the waiting room where Sam was and her face tightened into a mask again. It was better than letting anyone see what she was thinking…feeling.

            She didn’t want to feel. Not this anger. Not this regret. Not this…worry about Steve. Steve didn’t deserve to be the one in surgery while she and Sam sat out here with nothing more than bruises. He was a good man. How many times was S.H.I.E.L.D. expecting him to sacrifice himself for the greater good?

            She felt eyes on her and saw Sam watching her. She looked down at her hands, curled into fists and forced them to relax. She moved to a chair some distance from Sam and took a seat. She would sit there and will Steve to survive surgery. Her hands curled into fists again.

 

#

 

 

            Bucky hadn’t heard helicopters for awhile. The night had passed with the occasional distant sound of military planes and helicopters, but none had come near the apartment building. The distant drone of helicopters had merged with the painful vibration in his head every time a memory threatened. His shirt beneath the leather vest and sweatshirt stuck to his back, sweat breaking out with the effort it took to press back the memories.

            He curled his hand more tightly around the handle of his knife. He looked down at it. When had he pulled it? He didn’t remember taking it from the sheath on his leg.

            He forced his fingers to loosen their grip. Gave the knife a light twirl. Something familiar. Not a memory. He tucked the knife back against his leg. His hands free, he kept them loosely at his sides. Ready to fight.

            Gray light started to come through the closed blinds. He needed to get moving before daylight.

            He looked toward the bedroom. With another glance at the entry door, he moved to the bedroom and looked in at the young woman sprawled face down on the bed. Her dirty black fatigues were a stark contrast to the billowy white comforter. She hadn’t moved all night. Other than breathing that changed from deep to shallow and irregular, nothing had happened. Her breathing was slow and regular now. He could leave her here. She was off the street. She would wake up and turn on the TV. Then it would be up to her to figure out her next move. His next move was decided for him. They would be coming for him, he needed to run.

            He needed a change of clothes. Something less conspicuous. Judging by the photos in her apartment, there wasn’t a man in her life who would have anything he could use.

            Pulling the hood over his head again, Bucky tucked his metal hand into his pocket and slipped out the door. Watching for anyone, he went back to the stairwell, this time taking it down past the first floor, to the basement. He had studied floor plans of apartment buildings, hotels, anywhere a target was suspected to be, and the laundry was most often in the basement.

            The corridor wasn’t well lit when he stepped into the basement. But there was bright light coming from an open doorway. He made his way there.

            Bucky glanced in. Washers and dryers lined the walls. He didn’t see anyone, so he went into the laundry room.

            Several washers were running, clothes sloshing around with suds. Just as many dryers hummed, tumbling clean loads.

            He opened one dryer, ignoring the ache in his elbow, radiating up his arm. It was better than before he had reduced the dislocation.

            The dryer had kids’ clothes. A couple blankets. A set of sheets with Captain America’s shield patterning the set.

            The universe had a sense of humor even after everything that had happened yesterday.

            He shoved the sheets back in the dryer and moved to the next one. This one had jeans, t-shirts, a jacket. They were close enough to his size. He pulled out what he needed and closed the dryer, making sure to restart it. Anyone that came down here would wouldn’t know he had opened their dryer. Not until they noticed the missing clothes.

            Back up the stairs, ducking out of the stairwell once on the second floor when someone came down the stairs.

            In the apartment, he went to the bedroom and looked through the door. The woman was still asleep. Her respirations were slower now, long pauses between every breath. He watched, making sure she was breathing. Whatever Hydra had given her, he hoped her sleep was dreamless.

            He quickly changed his clothes. The jeans felt foreign. The t-shirt comfortable enough, but unlike the leather vests he had worn for missions. He pulled the black hoodie back on, camouflaging what he could of his arm. Bucky kicked his cargo pants and vest aside. He needed to find a bag. He wasn’t leaving without his guns. The knives he would strap on under the clothes.

            He went to a closet in the hallway. He opened it, but before he could look for anything, a sound came from the bedroom. He moved quickly, silently to look in.

            The sound came again. The woman moved violently, her entire body jerking with uncontrolled movement.

            He started to her side.

            “I’m not a medic,” Bucky laughed. “I’m a sniper.”

            “All soldiers are taking the first aid training before they ship overseas,” the unamused lieutenant said.

            “Do the nurses teach it?” Bucky asked. “There’s a blonde one—“

            He was at her side. She was still moving like a ragdoll someone shook. His vision blurred, he could see the nurse in Jersey smiling at him while she taught the first aid class.

            His hands shook as he reached out for the woman who was actually in front of him. First aid lessons from 1942 were hazy in his jumbled thoughts. He had to keep her from biting her tongue.

            “Don’t speak.” He’d cut the man’s tongue out if he had to. A warning to the others if they made a noise. He couldn’t kill them, Hydra needed them and the information they had. But he could get them to cooperate.

            Sweat beaded on his face. He needed to control the thoughts. Keep the memories out of his head.

            The woman was choking. A strangled sound came from her.

            Bucky turned her on her side, trying to keep her breathing.

            The movements slowed. Stopped.

            He quickly let her go. She fell over onto her back. Not moving.

            He watched until he saw her chest rise…fall…rise…fall.

            He stepped back from the bed. One hand went to his hair, shoving it back from his face while he watched her.

            Her eyes opened slightly and she mumbled something incoherent. He watched her eyes fall closed again.

            Right now the biggest threat was whatever was happening to her. Whatever those injections Hydra had given her were doing. Not anything coming down the hallway. So he positioned himself in her room.

            “If my dad finds you here, you’re dead. You know that, right?”

            “Doll, if your dad finds me here, I’ll die a happy man.”

            Pain like a vise squeezed his head from every side—front, back, sides, underneath. He wasn’t remembering. He was going to stand guard. That was his mission. Memories had no place in his mission.

 

#

 

 

           

            This hurt worse than a gunshot.

            Steve fought against the pain in his leg. But it was his torso that hurt the worst. Like he was being cut open. He struggled to open his eyes. Pressure built in his abdomen. Something was warm. Like blood. All over his torso.

            He gagged against whatever was jammed down his throat.

            “He’s waking. Increase the anesthesia.”

            “This should be enough propofol to kill him.”

            “I have him cut wide open, give him however much it takes.”

            Steve managed to get his eyes open. He made a strangled sound. His side felt like it was being sliced in two. There was a man, masked, surgical cap over his hair, scalpel in hand.

            His breath caught in his throat and he fought again against the breathing tube they had placed there.

            He tried to lift his head, but his muscles were sluggish. He got his head up, but couldn’t break free of the hands on his shoulders, struggling to hold him down on the table. He looked down, trying to see what was wrong.

            The entire side of his abdomen was slashed open, blood being blotted away by someone in a gown and gloves, their eyes hidden behind the glare of the overhead lights against their glasses.

            “You’re ok, Captain Rogers,” the man with the scalpel said. “Calm down.”

            Steve grunted again. Everything in him struggled to move. To get free. He didn’t understand what was happening. Where was he? He had been fighting Bucky, then…

            Then warmth started to flow through him. His struggle slowed. His tight muscles relaxed. His eyes got heavy. The sounds faded.

            Everything went dark again.

 

 

 

 

 

#

 

 

           

            Bucky tried to keep the pain from taking over. His head hurt with every flash of light that exploded through it. Every flash of light brought another memory back.

            Sweat trickled down his back. He had to focus. He had to stay focused. They could be coming.

            His hands shook and he fisted them. Focus.

            The girl on the bed let out a groan. It was the first sound she had made since her seizure. Bucky squinted at her, trying to see past the memories, the faces from the past, that were filling his mind.

            Her dark hair was damp, half in her face. She struggled to push up from where she was lying on her stomach. Her arms quaked and she collapsed down, her face smashed into the bedspread. She didn’t lift her head again, but she half rolled, half fell from the bed, landing with a soft thud in a graceless heap on the carpeting.

            Bucky started toward her. She made an effort again to push up with trembling arms. She groaned again, her eyes half closed. She made it to her knees and started to inch her way across the room.

            Bucky made it to her side. He grit his teeth against the chisel being driven through his skull. She stopped her pathetic crawl and swallowed hard.

            “I…need…sick…”

            She started to collapse forward. Bucky grabbed her by the arm and hauled her to her feet.

            “Please. Please let go of me. I promise I’ll cooperate.” The older woman’s gray eyes said she was telling the truth. The Soldier didn’t care.

            Bucky grit his teeth and forced himself to see the apartment in front of him, not the memories consuming his mind. His hand completely encircled the girl’s upper arm. She wasn’t doing much to move forward. He pulled her along to the bathroom. As soon as she was in front of the toilet, he let go of her arm. She started to pitch forward. He grabbed her again and stopped her fall. He got her on the floor.

            The man laid on the bathroom floor, blood flowing from the knife slash across his throat. His eyes stared unseeing at the ceiling.

            Bucky released her and jerked away, crashing into the wall at his back.

            She clutched at the sides of the toilet and leaned her head over the bowl, retching and gagging.

            He let the wall hold him up while he tried to figure out where he was. Not on a mission for Hydra. Not with Hydra.

            He slid down the wall until he was sitting on the floor. Not with the Army. Not home.

            “I think…” the girl mumbled. Bucky looked at her. She was seated, leaning back against the vanity cabinet, slumping like she might slide all the way to the floor. Her eyes were still barely open, unfocused. “I need my phone,” she slurred.

            Bucky squinted through the dim room at her.

            “I need…to…to…call in sick. I can’t…” Her words trailed off and her head lolled to the side.

            He watched her slide down the side of the cabinet farther. She roused enough to speak again. “I can’t work…today.”

            Suddenly she was reeling forward toward the toilet again, heaving whatever pitiful amount might be left in her stomach.

            Bucky drew in breaths through his nose. A sound in the hall outside the apartment drew his attention. He listened. Footsteps came closer to the door. He waited, every muscle fiber completely still. Waiting. The steps didn’t slow, they kept going and faded. His enhanced hearing tuned, he waited until he heard a door farther down the hall open and close.

            “I wish…my grandma…”

            He looked back at her. She was laying on the floor, eyes closed.

            Her lips barely moved as she murmured the words. “My grandma…she always took care of me.” She was so still he waited to see if her chest rose with another breath. It finally did and she spoke again. “I miss her.” The words were so quiet he wasn’t sure if he heard the words or just saw them formed on her lips.

            A hundred memories of a smiling woman, face creased with laugh lines, flooded him.

            “I miss mine,” he heard himself say. His grandma, just a block away from the brick apartment building he and his sisters lived in with their mom, in a tidy little house, always ready to listen or scold, whatever he deserved that day.

            The girl’s lashes fluttered and her eyes opened just enough to look at him through dark lashes.

            He met her gaze. Then her eyes closed again and she stilled, except for the shallow rise and fall of her chest.

            Bucky let the slow rhythm of her breaths be his focus instead of memories and nightmares wreaking chaos in his mind. He kept some attention on the door, the only way to reach them in the bathroom. He catalogued his weapons again. He sat on the bathroom floor while she laid, passed out on the floor, as the sun rose high enough outside the windows inside the apartment to cast a feeble light through the drawn shades.

 

 

#

           

           

           

            “You really are a mess,” Natasha said.

            She stood next to the hospital bed. She stared down at Steve. He didn’t move.

            “Was this your plan?” she asked. Too much. There was too much emotion in her voice. She pressed her lips together. When she spoke again, she was steady. In control. “Because getting beat and shot is a crappy plan.” She glanced at the monitors. Then the IV pumps, the tubes going into his arms.

            “I don’t think this was his plan,” Sam said.

            Natasha didn’t turn as he entered the room. “Sacrificing himself to save the day? It sounds exactly like the kind of plan he’d be enough of an idiot to try.”

            Sam’s shoes made soft sounds across the linoleum until he was standing alongside her, looking down at the unconscious super soldier.

            They stood in silence.

            “Have they found his…” she didn’t know what to call that man. That demon. The assassin Steve thought was still his friend under the menacing surface. “The soldier?”

            “Nothing yet,” Sam said. “It’s going to be awhile before they get into the building and start identifying bodies.”

            Natasha thought of the young woman working with Pierce. The one spilling everyone’s secrets. She had been off. On drugs maybe? If Hydra gained compliance by getting its operatives hooked on heroin or some other drug, it wouldn’t surprise her. But it didn’t inspire confidence that the woman had made it out of the building alive.

            One less Hydra asset.

            The thought startled her. She wrapped her hands around the side rail of Steve’s bed. She shouldn’t be thinking so callously about the loss of life. Steve would never think that way.

            “He can’t keep thinking the best about people,” she said. From the other side of the bed, Sam looked at her. She felt his eyes on her, but kept looking at Steve. His high cheekbones. The no nonsense line of his brow. “It’s going to get him killed.”

            She shouldn’t have said it so starkly. But Sam didn’t flinch. Just kept that even gaze on her. She stared back at him, silently challenging him to dare argue with her. They both knew it was true.

            “He’s not the kind of guy who’s going to try halfway with someone.”

            She scowled at Sam’s quiet assessment.

            She didn’t say anything more. Sam knew better. But he was too willing to just accept Steve’s naïve optimism in people to agree with her.

            “He doesn’t have any pain meds, you know,” she said.

            What was wrong with her? She wasn’t usually so dour. She accepted the facts and moved on. She didn’t keep pointing out injustices.

            “Serum doesn’t let pain killers work,” Sam said, repeating what he had informed her of earlier, when Steve had still been in surgery. “Something about his ramped up metabolism.”

            She tightened her grip on the bed rail.

            “You should take a break. Get some air,” Sam said. He didn’t mention she had sat at rigid attention for the several hours his surgery took, but Natasha knew he was glancing at the clock to see how long they had actually been at the hospital.

            “You’ve been here just as long as I have.”

            Sam lifted an eyebrow, but didn’t argue. Instead, he moved back around the bed to her side and took one of the uncomfortable looking visitor’s chairs. He pushed the other one closer to her with his foot.

            Natasha sat in the chair.

            They sat in silence, watching a man who didn’t deserve the broken bones or bullet wounds.

 

#

 

 

 

 

            The girl started to twitch. Bucky was aware of the movement through the haze dropping down on his mind. He tried to come up for air, but was mired with memories, too many memories coming all at once. He fought for a breath, tried to see what was really in front of him.

            He could hear the girl, a light scuff against the tile bathroom floor, as she moved. But he could only see the dim light of the cryo suspension unit. Where he had spent years. Decades.

            The noise grew louder, picked up in tempo and urgency. Bucky planted a hand against the icy metal of the cryo tank.

            No. Tile. It was tile under his fingers. He was in an apartment. Wasn’t he?

            He grit his teeth and fought harder to gain control over his mind.

            He could hear someone crying. A woman. He had killed her husband.

            No. It wasn’t crying. It was choking.

            He cursed and clawed his way out of the sinkhole of memories.

            The girl was choking. She was seizing again.

            He lurched forward on his knees, his movements disjointed, still unsure of what was real and what was in his head. He grasped at her shirt and pulled her across the tile enough to get her head away from the cabinet it threatened to crash against with every tonic movement.

            As soon as he got her out of range, he released her. Her head was jolting against the hard tile.

            He let out another curse and grabbed a towel from the towel bar. He wadded it up and shoved it under her head.

            He wanted to restrain her. Make her just…stop. But he wasn’t about to lay his hands on her.

            Her frenetic movements kept up, but at least she wasn’t cracking her skull against anything. He watched until her limbs dropped to the floor, every bit of taut seizing drained from them. Her head lolled against the towel. Her chest moving again in that too slow rhythm.

            He couldn’t leave her on the floor if she was going to keep having seizures.

            He wished he knew what Hydra had been injecting into her to keep her from falling apart.

            No. He wasn’t Hydra anymore. He didn’t want any part in anything they did.

            He slid his arms under her, ignoring the sharp ache in his right elbow from moving the bone back into place the day before.

            He hauled her back to the bed and unceremoniously dumped her there. Far enough from the edges she wouldn’t flail off with the next seizure.

            He checked that the window was locked, the shades blocking any view in and headed back out to the dim living room. He needed to get away from here. Away from everything linked to Hydra.

            Outside a helicopter sounded. He wasn’t sure when the last one had passed by. What had been in his mind and what was outside the building. But this one was real. At least he thought it was.

            Now wasn’t the time to leave. He gathered his weapons. A couple guns and three knives. He paced to the windows, checking the security and privacy, before taking a seat on the couch where he could see both the windows and the door. He arranged his weapons in front of him, laying them out on the coffee table.

            This was familiar. Waiting. Watching.

 

#

Chapter 11

Notes:

Starg_rl- Thank you so, so much for leaving a comment on the last chapter! I owe you a response and I'm so sorry it's taken me this long! I can't tell you how much I appreciate your comments. And I appreciate everyone who reads, leaves kudos, bookmarks, etc, etc, etc. It really makes writing this so worth it and so much more fun! I hope you enjoy!

Chapter 11

 

 

 

            Elia tried to open her eyes.

            She blinked.

            Tried again.

            Her eyes were open. But she couldn’t see.

            Her breath caught in her throat. She almost choked.

            Where was she? What was happening?

            She struggled to move.

            She blinked her eyes more frantically, struggled to move muscles that weren’t cooperating.

            She was captive. They were drugging her. Again.

            She fought harder then realized she could see. But the room was dark. She paused, waiting for eyes to adjust to the room. The familiar room. She was…home?

            She managed to get her arms and legs moving in an uncoordinated fashion. She half dragged herself to the edge of her bed, then couldn’t work out how to get out of the bed.

            Was she home? Or imagining this? She still felt drugged. Had they given her something different? Something making her hallucinate?

            She tried to grip the blanket with her fingers, but they were numb. She couldn’t even feel the blanket, even as she watched her fingers brush against it with movements she could barely control.

            Her breath came with more force, panic pushing air from her lungs. She couldn’t get a full breath.

            She looked around, trying to make sense of the dark surroundings.

            A shadow filled the doorway.

            Rumlow. He was going to inject her again.

            “No,” she said. “No.” She couldn’t do this anymore. She needed to get away.

            “I…no.” She tried to get some firmness behind the refusal, but it sounded like nothing more than a whisper in her ears. She struggled towards the edge of the bed. Why weren’t her arms working? She started to tumble headfirst, and then strong hands had her.

            “Let me go,” she insisted. “I’m not fighting. Not for Hydra.” Why were her words slurring? She hadn’t even been injected yet.

            The hands got her back on the bed with little gentleness. She looked up, but the face in front of her blurred.

            Whatever Hydra operative this was, he wasn’t taking her to the gym to force her to learn to be a combatant.

            He quickly released her and backed away.

            Elia looked around. The room around her was blurry, but she thought it was her room. In her own apartment. Right? Not a hallucination. She looked again to the Hydra agent, but the room started spinning and she closed her eyes.

            Then the darkness was tugging at her, pulling her back under.

 

#

 

 

            Steve tried to move.

            Everything hurt. Violently.

            “He looks awful.”

            “You fight your best friend who’s been freakishly enhanced and see how you look.”

            “He looks like he’s going to die.”

            “He’s not going to die.”

            Steve didn’t know what was happening, but he was glad to hear Sam didn’t think he was going to die. He tried to ask Sam about that, but his muscles weren’t cooperating.

            “He’s almost died how many times, Sam? He’s going to die at some point.”

            In spite of the pain, he could feel his lips threatening to curve in a smile at Natasha’s dour tone. This got his muscles to actually move. Or at least until it pulled at the cut he could feel on his lip. He stopped, then tried to speak.

            “But not today,” he croaked out. He managed to open his eyes. Natasha was leaning over him, a frown on her face.

            He didn’t think he imagined the sheer relief that crossed her face when he spoke. But then she schooled her expression. “You look like crap.”

            “That’s about how I feel,” he groaned out, his words muffled to his ears.

            His vision started to clear and he looked around, cautiously moving his head. He was in a hospital room.

            “Morning, Sleeping Beauty,” Sam said from his seat in a chair.

            He struggled to turn his head in the direction he had heard Sam’s voice. He hurt everywhere. He wasn’t sure there was any inch of him not covered in bruises.

            He tried to speak again, ask them what had happened, but the murky darkness was falling over him again and he was taken under before he could.

 

#

 

 

            Bucky could hear her moving again. He felt his hands curl into fists. The last time he had gone in there, he had to half carry her to the bathroom so she could be sick. Again. She had been frail in his arms, and all he could think of was how easily he could have hurt her—killed her—even a few days ago if that had been his mission. He had deposited her back on her bed. She still didn’t seem to know who he was. She alternated between thinking he was a handler from Hydra or someone at the hospital she apparently worked at. Either way, he was much worse than anything she was hallucinating.

            He needed to get out of here. Out of the city. Get moving.

            There was a thud. She had fallen off the bed again. He couldn’t leave her just flailing around. Especially if she was going to have another seizure.

            “You can’t keep a girl waiting,” he had said, exasperation blowing the words out on a sigh.

            “Buck, I don’t need a girl. I need to serve my country.”

            Bucky had looked at his friend, too scrawny to serve, but too stubborn to accept that.

            “The medical board will still be ready to crush your hopes tomorrow, Steve. Right now, we’ve got two dames expecting us to show them a good time.”

            Not Steve. He wasn’t in Brooklyn. It wasn’t 1942. It was…he didn’t know what year it was. But not 1942.

            His head was speared with pain.

            Were they putting the plates on him, ready to wipe his memories?

            No. He wasn’t with Hydra. His arms were free, not strapped to the chair. He moved his arms, clutched his pounding head with his hands. Squeezing, digging his fingers against his skull.

            “Is your head hurting?”

            The quiet voice was barely audible over the screams in his head. Bucky looked up. The girl was standing there, weaving on her feet, eyes bleary, but concern clear on her face.

            He didn’t answer.

            “I can call the on call doctor, get something for the pain.”

            She thought she was at work again. Better than dry heaving on the bathroom floor at least.

            He tried to shake his head, send her away, but then there was a light brush against his forehead. He jerked away.

            She paused, fingers still outstretched like she was planning to soothe his pain with a touch.

            “There’s Tylenol in the med room.” She turned away and Bucky’s chest hollowed out with relief to have some distance.

            He forced himself to stand from the couch. He was here. In her apartment. His mission was to keep them safe.

            The overwhelming noise in his head started to quiet. The pain ebbed.

            There was a thud in the kitchen. He looked over there.

            She was struggling with a cabinet. Bucky watched as she attempted to get hold of the handle, missing, her fingers not moving with the attempt. She tried again and then her hand seized up, fingers curling into claws.

            She let out a small cry of pain and drew her hands in closer to her chest. Her hands trembled, the movement spreading to her arms, then her entire body started to shake.

            Bucky moved.

            He caught her before she landed on the floor. The violent jerking built, fighting against the hold he had on her.

            Noise started again, but this time it wasn’t in his head. It was outside. The helicopters were back. He needed to get out of here. It wouldn’t take much for S.H.I.E.L.D. to link this girl to Hydra, then search out her apartment.

            She was limp. He carried her to the couch, dumped her there. He stepped back, rolling his shoulders slightly with the relief of breaking contact with her.

            He started holstering his weapons again, not the same places as he had on missions. These jeans and his newly acquired jacket didn’t allow for that. He listened to the helicopter come closer. It hovered nearby.

            He went to the closet in the hall. He needed a bag. He rummaged through. Nothing but linens. He glanced back. The girl was unconscious on the couch, she wasn’t about to move.

            He went to her room. There was a small prick at a long suppressed conscience when he opened the closet in there. Did he want to ignore the hint of guilt, however small, at invading her privacy? Claiming that emotion would bring him a step closer to the humanity Hydra had ripped from him. But that emotion would interfere with getting out of here.

            The screams started in a distant corner of his mind again. The pain intruded with them.

            He yanked the closet door open. It broke free from the hinges.

            He didn’t have time for this. He had already spent too long in one place. He wasn’t going into captivity again. Ever.

            The top shelf of the closet had a black backpack. He grabbed that. He would get whatever supplies he could find in the apartment and clear out. Food, cash, anything that would get him out of the city. He grabbed his discarded black fatigues and shoved them to the bottom of the bag.

            He went to the cabinets, not sure what she would have in there, and what would be edible after months away. There was a box of granola bars, he tossed that into the bag. A water bottle he filled at the tap.

            “Did Grandma forget to get groceries?”

            Bucky swung around, hand raised against the threat.

            The girl swayed unsteadily on her feet. She looked at his titanium arm, the hand open and ready to grab her throat.

            Bucky froze.

            What was he doing?

            The noise in his head grew louder. It had already drowned out her approach, now he couldn’t hear the helicopter outside.

            She blinked and slumped over toward the counter next to her, catching herself on it for a minute before she slid to the floor.

            Bucky turned his back on her. He would have killed her. Reacted to her as a threat. Everything was a threat.

            He needed to get out of here.

            He went back to the cabinets, added a few more food items.

            He stepped around her. How many seizures had she had? What would happen if she was left alone in the apartment?

            Not his problem. He told himself that. Fought through the pain making him want to close his eyes and kept moving.

            But he went to the dresser in her room and grabbed a change of clothes for her. Found a jewelry box and dumped the contents into the bag. She could pawn them for cash. There was purse on the floor next to the dresser. He opened it and found a wallet. There was at least some cash. He tossed it into the bag.

            Back in the hallway, he paused by the pictures he had knocked off the wall when they first made it to the apartment. He picked up the one of her with the two elderly people. He took the back off the frame and removed the picture. Memories mattered.

            He zipped the bag up and strode to the kitchen. Slinging the bag over his shoulders he hesitated before getting his hands under her and getting her to her feet.

            “You need to walk.” He pulled away from her as soon as she was stable.

            She didn’t argue; he hadn’t expected her to. She started to put one foot in front of the other. Steady enough, but not fast.

            Abruptly, Bucky blocked her forward path with his arm in front of her. Footsteps. But they weren’t the footsteps of someone coming home from work. It was boots. Lots of them.

            “This way,” Bucky said.

            She followed along willingly.

            At the window, Bucky risked moving the shade for the first time. The helicopter was circling on the other side of the building. He didn’t see any sort of perimeter set up on this side. No doubt they didn’t consider her much of a flight risk.

            He unlocked the window and shoved the sash up. He looked again. No movement below. He got out onto the fire escape and turned back to her.

            She didn’t ask questions. Just clumsily made her way out the window, falling to her knees with a dull clang on the iron landing.

            Bucky reached inside to pull the shade closed, then the window, covering their exit. He started down the ladder.

            The girl tried. But her hands wouldn’t grip the rungs and she fell, her knee banging against the rung before Bucky caught her.

            This wasn’t going to work. She couldn’t climb down four stories. Not quickly enough. And not safely.

            Bucky heard the muffled sounds from inside the apartment building. They were at her door.

            He looked at the parking lot below. There were a couple dumpsters below the fire escape on one side, nothing but pavement on the other.

            They didn’t have a lot of options.

            Gritting his teeth, he got a firm hold of her.

            “That’s a long way down.”

            “You scared?”

            Bucky gave Dum Dum Dugan a look that said he wasn’t scared of anything. But he wasn’t stupid.

            Dugan grinned under his wide mustache. “Then you better not fall.”

            Bucky grunted and set out across the precarious bridge. The Howling Commandos needed him to get across and to the higher elevation to take his sniper position. It would be the only cover fire the other men would have. They were depending on Bucky.

            Bucky squeezed his eyes closed. He didn’t have a sniper rifle. That wasn’t real. Not anymore.

            He opened them to see the nondescript parking lot below. Hear the door to the apartment inside opening.

            With one arm, he tightened his hold around the girl. He made sure she was secure against him. With his free arm, he levered them over the railing.

            He got his other arm around her as they plummeted through the air. The ground approached quickly. He braced himself, making sure she was held against his chest, shielded from the coming landing.

            He landed on his feet, bending his knees to take the jolt. He felt, as much as he heard, the air escape her lungs at the impact. He didn’t have time to make sure she was ok. They had to move.

            He kept close to the side of the building until the last minute. Then they went through the parking lot. He chose a nondescript silver sedan. A broken window would draw too much attention so he curled his fingers around the handle and pried to the door open, bending any lock out of the way with a creak of metal.

            He pushed the button to release the rest of the locks and shuffled her around to the passenger seat. He half shoved the girl into the car, where she slumped over.

            He closed the door on her and took the driver’s seat. He and Steve had learned to hotwire cars in Nazi Germany. The movements were as familiar as if he had done it last week.

            The car came to life and Bucky pulled out slowly. Every move was calculated to avoid attention. He glanced in the passenger seat. She didn’t move.

            A plain black ball cap was tossed on the dash. He grabbed it and yanked it low over his face.

            They pulled out the back entrance of the parking lot without fanfare and turned onto the streets of DC.

            Bucky didn’t know where to go. But he wasn’t stopping. He wasn’t surrendering.

 

#

 

 

            “On your left.”

            Steve got the words out past the ache in his ribs. He watched Sam look up from his magazine.

            There was that relief on Sam’s face again. Same as when he had managed to regain consciousness before. That told him how serious his injuries were.

            “That bad, huh?” Steve asked, his words rasping past a dry throat.

            “You’ve looked better,” Sam said.

            Steve looked around the room.

            “Natasha went to connect with Fury. I think the walls were starting to close in on her.”

            Steve could imagine. He didn’t think keeping vigil at someone’s bedside was on her list of favorite activities.

            “How…” Steve licked dry lips and tried again. “How long…”

            “Three days,” Sam answered.

            Steve took that in. Three days. He shifted experimentally. Everything hurt. He didn’t feel like there was an inch of him not covered with bruises.

            Bucky had done a number on him.

            Bucky.

            Had Bucky survived the helicarrier crashing into the river? Had they found Bucky yet? He looked at Sam.

            “They didn’t find a body,” Sam said, clearly anticipating the question.

            That was good. It meant Bucky was alive.

            “That’s all we know,” Sam said.

            Steve’s mind was sluggish, the wheels turning slowly. Bucky wasn’t dead. “We have to find him,” he said.

            Sam stood and picked up a cup on the table next to the bed. “You need to rest.” He held the cup toward Steve.

            Steve tried lifting a hand. The pain in his ribs was nothing compared to the pain across his abdomen.

            He paused. He had seen them working on him—during surgery. His abdomen had been cut open. The memory turned his stomach, set his heart to pounding a little faster. He swallowed hard against his dry throat and turned his attention back to the cup.

            He managed to hold it weakly and spoon a couple ice chips into his mouth. The cold brought him away from the memories. Back to the here and now.

            “I saw him,” Steve said, letting Sam take the cup back from his hands. “The real him. He’s in there. Under whatever Hydra did to him.”

            Sam didn’t say anything right away. He set the cup aside. “He still managed to almost kill you.”

            Steve looked up at the ceiling. Bucky had shot him. Beat him. Fought against him and tried to kill him. But he had seen the break. Seen the confusion and terror in Bucky’s eyes when he started remembering.

            “Yeah, well he didn’t.” Steve moved his arm again, ready for the pain this time and prodded at his tender side.

            “Broken ribs, collapsed lung, internal bleeding, facial fractures, concussion… You want the rest of the list?”

            “I get the picture,” Steve said. He wondered how long it would take him to heal. “S.H.I.E.L.D.?” he asked next.

            “Another casualty,” Sam answered. “Hydra was inside, S.H.I.E.L.D. went down with it.”

            “Good,” Steve said under his breath. But it didn’t feel good. S.H.I.E.L.D. had been the legacy of Peggy and Howard. But not what S.H.I.E.L.D. had become. That wouldn’t have been what they wanted. “Anything else I missed?” he asked.

            Sam moved over to his phone, playing music quietly. “I think it’s time we covered Marvin Gaye.”

 

#

 

 

 

            North. Bucky kept the car heading north. He didn’t know why north, but the internal pressure to move, to escape, kept him heading in that direction.

            The beltway was busy. He had seen it like that before, hadn’t he? On a mission? The one that was supposed to neutralize Captain Am—Steve.

            He hissed out a breath at the way the memories threatened to overwhelm his brain with that name. He looked around again. On missions he hadn’t looked—hadn’t really seen anything. The traffic heading out of the city, the advertisments on huge billboards, the people talking on phones in their cars…It wasn’t the world he had known. Something the car kept pointing out to him.

            “In 200 feet, turn left.”

            The car wouldn’t stop talking to him.

            The computer screen on the dash of the car insisted on giving him directions to some fish market they had long since passed, and had been trying to get him to turn around for the last hundred miles. He jabbed at some buttons again, but all it did was change the voice to a British male instructing him.

            The girl was in the passenger seat, slumped against the door and sleeping. At least she had started taking regular breaths, no longer going lengthy seconds without breathing.

            She stirred slightly when the British voice insisted again that he take the next left to turn around.

            She blinked. Her skin was almost golden with the light the setting sun cast across it. This was the first time since they had left her apartment that she was actually lifting her head. She blinked again at him. Bucky braced himself for whatever was coming.

            Her head thunked back against the window and her eyes closed, but she spoke, her voice groggy. “Are we going back to Hydra? Are we helping them some more?”

            It was the most coherent thing she had said since the Triskelion fell, and the most alarming.

            “I’m done with Hydra,” he said in a low voice. The steering wheel started to bend under his grip and he forced his hands to ease up.

            “Good,” she breathed. “You…they…they were cruel. Cruel to you.”

            He cut his eyes to her. Hydra hadn’t done anything worse than the acts he himself had performed. There was no cruelty he hadn’t ended up deserving.

            Her breathing slowed to even breaths again and he thought she was asleep. But then she spoke. “I don’t want to…to help them anymore.”

            Bucky’s gut clenched at the thought of what they had done to her. The drugs were clearly still causing damage. Not to mention how they had used her to eliminate targets. Targets who had been people she knew. He had killed people she knew and cared about.

            “They’re not getting you,” he said, surprised at the venom in his voice as much as the promise as it came out. But he meant it. He would get her somewhere safe. Somewhere Hydra, or S.H.I.E.L.D., or government agencies couldn’t reach her.

            She didn’t show any sign she heard, her eyelashes fluttering slightly and the fine tremor in her hands growing to spasms, her hands clenching with a gasp for breath, then easing and her breathing evening out again.

            Bucky turned his eyes back to the road. The highway signs were announcing another hundred and twelve miles to New York City. Hopefully she would be alert enough by then, because him lugging her around everywhere was going to draw attention.

            He didn’t have a plan, or destination. Just the driving force somewhere under the memories. New York would be crowded, easier for them to blend into a crowd.

            He winced as the vise that never fully released its grip on his head pinched tighter. He flexed and released his metal fingers, eyeing them. The girl gasped again and her hands curled into claws. She twitched in her sleep.

            Sure. They’d blend right in.

            A sound came from the passenger seat again. He looked over and saw her hands clenching again. They were held rigidly for at least a minute until they finally fell limp in her lap. It was better than a seizure at least. She let out a low sound, like she was in pain, and opened her eyes again.

            “At the next turn, reverse direction,” the British voice came through the speakers.

            “Please turn the car around. Please turn the car around.”

            The girl’s eyes fluttered open. “Do you need to turn around?” she mumbled.

            Bucky felt his lips press into a thin line. “The car wants us to.” He had started hating this car talking to him over a lifetime ago.

            The girl pushed herself up from the door she was leaning against. She half lurched forward, nearly bashing her face into the dash, but caught herself before Bucky had to grab the back of her shirt and hold her back. She awkwardly poked at the screen in front of them. Her fingers were mostly useless. She squinted, lifted her hand with a parody of extreme control and moved the tremulous fingers toward the screen again. This time she must have hit the right place on the screen because the screen went black and the car blissfully silent.

            She looked to him questioningly.

            “That’s better,” he said gruffly.

            She gave a nod and fell back in her seat. But she didn’t close her eyes again. She looked out the window in confusion. She didn’t ask any questions and he wondered how much she understood of what was going on. However little she understood, she was at least out of it enough to not seem too concerned about it. As long as she knew she wasn’t going back to Hydra.

            She stayed awake and Bucky found it easy enough to ignore her. She didn’t say anything. Just looked. Watched. Sometimes stared blankly at him. That was unnerving.

            Without the car barking orders at him, his thoughts slowed. He guided the car east. Towards the river.

            Without reaction, his silent passenger looked out the window as they crossed the bridge.

            Welcome to Brooklyn.

            He slowed, driving through crowded streets, slowing when he saw a parking lot. He turned in.

            He made sure his sleeves were down over his arms, his hat low over his eyes. He opened the back door and got the backpack out. With that on his back, he opened the passenger door, carefully since she was leaning against it again.

            She tumbled out, but again caught herself before landing face first. She stood unsteadily, blinking at their surroundings. She looked like an ungainly fawn facing the world for the first time.

            Vulnerable and waiting for a predator.

            He had been a predator. Hunting targets and eliminating them. Killing them.

            Blood was warm. Whether it splattered back from a gunshot, or flowed from a knife wound, it was warm when it flowed from his prey. Until there was no more to seep from a wound. Then the body would grow cold. But he would be long gone by then. Back to his handlers. Getting his muzzle back in place and loaded into the cryo chamber. The door sealing on him, everything fading away—

            A car alarm sounded, jolting him.

            Bucky looked around at the parking lot. In a city. In the US. He wasn’t going into suspension in Siberia. He was—he was…he struggled to connect his thoughts.

            Getting to safety. He was getting away.

            He saw a couple security cameras, but they were trained on the entrances to the building at the far end of the lot. It was ingrained in him to clock any presence of security guards or police, blind spots to get around the cameras in the lot.

            Memories roared in his ears and he fought to hear what was actually around him. Determine the threat. Who was around him.

            Someone was missing.

            He kept his hands tucked in his pockets, his metallic hand out of sight, but they fisted. He was missing someone.

            Steve?

            He started to look behind him, see how they had got separated, before he saw her. Not Steve.

            She was staggering slightly.

            The girl. She was supposed to be with him.

            Bucky quickly crossed the three rows of cars in time to grab her arm as she started to collapse toward the ground.

            She didn’t fight against him. She didn’t even react when his hand wrapped around her arm.

            Bucky was ready this time for the flood of memories—of missions—that came roaring over his vision as soon as he made contact with her. Disjointed sights and sounds—the war, a home with laughing sisters, a best friend he always counted on, torture, pain…

            He kept walking. Kept pulling her along with him. Three blocks. Cross the street. Turn left. Two more blocks. He had to get home before dark or his mom would be furious.

            “I’m going to be late for class,” the girl mumbled next to him.

            He squeezed his eyes shut. She wasn’t going to class. And he…he wasn’t going home. He opened them again.

            They were standing in front of a five story brick building. Bucky stared at it.

            This was home. It had been.

            “Is this the dorm?” the girl asked.

            “No,” he rasped out. And it wasn’t home, either. This was where he had lived with his mom, his sisters. It was where Bucky had lived. But he wasn’t Bucky anymore. He was someone else. Something else.

            Staring at the building that was entirely different, but still looked like one of his sisters would come skipping out the door any minute, had him reeling. Movement to his left had him turning quickly, a hand going for where a knife should be. But his jeans didn’t have the same pockets as his Hydra fatigues.

            The elderly woman didn’t glance at him or the girl, just kept walking, leaning heavily on a cane.

            Bucky sucked in a breath. He avoided looking at the building again.

            “Did you buy the meal tickets this semester?” the girl asked. “The food’s not bad.”

            What were they doing? Neither one of them had any sort of grip on reality.

            His stomach turned violently at the thought of that building filled with people he didn’t know. His family gone.

            He started moving again. The girl followed along without him having to drag her. She couldn’t keep up with her sluggish movements and he slowed enough so she didn’t get lost.

            He scanned buildings that were too familiar for comfort. He could see the ghosts of people he knew in them.

            He felt, more than saw, when the girl left his side. He stopped abruptly and turned back.

            She sank onto a crumbling concrete stoop.

            “I hope we get paid overtime for this,” she said, sounding winded.

            He looked at her for the first time. Her face was ashen, dark shadows under her eyes, stringy hair hanging under her souvenir baseball hat. Her hands were shaking again.

            Bucky scanned the street. It was mostly empty. He looked at the building she sat in front of. This one he didn’t recognize. There was a notice posted on the door, warning that the building had been condemned.

            Perfect.

            “Come on,” he said gruffly. He tried to ignore the way her face pinched in pain when she moved. But she got obediently to her feet and followed after him.

            He led her around the corner of the building. The ground floor windows were boarded up. He found one that didn’t have any sight lines to the buildings around it and pulled at the plywood. It gave way with a creak.

            Bucky held it aside and jerked his head for her to go through the window. Her eyes were closed and she was murmuring to herself.

            “Get inside,” he said.

            “Yeah, we should get out of this rain,” she agreed.

            The sky above them was clear.

            “Sure,” he said. “Get out of the rain.”

            She finally moved toward the window. She stumbled, her shoulder knocking into his stomach. She managed to awkwardly slide in and drop the to the floor. He grimaced at the grunt of pain when she landed. He went in after her, sliding the wood back in place over the window.

            Without a light, they had to feel their way through the ground floor. Well, he did. He moved, trying to find a stairway. She followed, an occasional thud when she walked into a wall, followed by a mumbled apology to the wall. He’d double back, get her on track again, and keep moving. She’d crash again, and he’d get her again. It was the most tedious progress he’d ever made.

            Finally a sliver of light ahead had him making a more determined path. She managed to follow without incident.

            The light was from an unbroken window near the front door. It cast light down the stairs into the basement level they were in. He started up the stairs. Then paused to wait for the girl. She was staring at her hand. With a look of confusion, she set her hand on the railing and watched it rest there. She looked like she was trying to grip the railing, but her fingers weren’t cooperating. Then down at her feet. Her legs were starting to shake.

            Bucky cast an uneasy look toward that window facing the street. They didn’t have time for this.

            He swept her up in his arms. She flailed, clipping him on the chin with her arm.

            “Stop moving,” he commanded.

            She didn’t, but it was a short walk and only two more hits to his face before they got to the second floor. This would give them better coverage. And a better vantage point to survey any approach.

            He dumped her on the floor and dropped the backpack next to her. She slid over, resting her head on the bag. Then closed her eyes and apparently fell asleep. Or passed out.

            Either way, it had Bucky finally releasing a breath. They were safe. For now.

            He needed food, but exhaustion was setting in. He had been awake for…two…three?...days straight? He positioned himself between the window and the girl, leaning back against the wall, stretching his legs out in front of him. He heard a scurrying in the far corner. Hopefully she wasn’t scared of rats.

            He let his eyes close and finally slept. And the nightmares came.

 

#

Chapter 12

Notes:

Maxien87, MultiMuu, Loulabelle25, mischieflover, TRIPLELLL, thank you all so, so, so much for the comments on the last chapter! This story is one of the best to update because you guys are such nice readers. I get so excited by every comment! Sorry for the pause between updates, I started getting too in my head and questioning everything I was writing. But I went back and read the chapter I was hesitating to post and decided to go ahead and post. :) Thank you for making it so much fun to write this story and for easing the nerves when I do post, lol.

Chapter 12

 

 

 

            Elia’s heart thudded. It physically hurt the inside of her chest, the way it pounded. She hurt. Everywhere. Her muscles screamed in pain when she shifted.

            She opened her eyes.

            She had no idea where she was.

            It wasn’t her apartment. It wasn’t her cell.

            Movement jolted her. Her heart sped up. She wasn’t alone. She swung her eyes around the dim room until she saw him. The Soldier.

            Her breath caught painfully, snagging in her throat. The Soldier’s eyes were closed. He was wearing street clothes. A black hooded sweatshirt and jacket. Jeans. He didn’t look any less terrifying, but he looked more…human. His long hair falling across his face in his sleep, a stubble of a beard starting.

            Were they on a mission? Was she supposed to help him kill someone?

            Her breath finally freed from her throat unevenly. The only sound was the gasps of her ragged breathing echoing in her ringing ears.

            She had to get out of here. She blinked against the dizziness and tried to move. Her muscles cooperated painfully and slowly. She slid back slightly, getting distance between her and the Soldier.

            He moved again, his heavy boots scraping on the dusty floor. She froze, watching.

            He twitched, a dark expression on his face, even in sleep. One of his hands curled, metal fingers gripping something that wasn’t there.

            Elia watched those fingers. They could kill. She had seen it.

            He jolted. His hair in his face almost hid his eyes flying open.

            Elia pulled back, hitting the wall behind her, a dull ache spreading between her shoulder blades with the impact. She tried to still herself, be invisible. She bit back a whimper.

 

 

#

 

            Bucky woke with a jolt, gasping for breath.

            He looked around wildly, heart pulsing blood through his chest, roaring in his ears.

            He could still feel the metal grips wrapped over his forearms, pinning him to the chair. The plates circling his head, then the sharp and agonizing fire of electricity moving through his brain, wiping any shadow of a memory.

            He moved his arms. They weren’t restrained. The musty smell around him wasn’t anything like the cold snow of Siberia or the sterile clinical scent of the Hydra base outside DC.

            He was in a house. Sitting on a gritty, dusty floor. He fought to slow his breathing. Looked at what was really in front of him, not the nightmares coursing through his brain.

            The girl.

            She was pressed back against the wall opposite him, dark eyes wide in terror.

            Bucky looked around them.

            No Hydra.

            Memories filtered in the spaces between the nightmare. The Triskelion. Blood and smoke. A feminine apartment. Government agents.

            He tried to sort out what was real. What was current. Or at least from this century.

            Falling from a…a train?

            He could feel the wind rushing past him, hear his shout, see the outstretched hand clawing for his through empty air.

            He launched himself to his feet, like he could prevent the impact, distance himself from the ground.

            Rapid breaths sounded like gunshots and he instinctively reached for his gun before he realized what the sound was.

            He swung around to look down at the girl.

           She pressed farther away from him, a pulse in her throat fluttering rapidly. Every breath burst from her.

            His own breathing matched hers, his chest heaving with the effort to draw in air.

            He had to pull it together. He looked around, orienting himself to what was real.

            They had made it away from Hydra. The girl was a liability. But he hadn’t left her behind. She was proof of whatever humanity he had once had.

            He searched for the bag. Focus on this. One task at a time. Like preparing for a mission. He let that thought settle the jagged edges of memories that sliced at him, shielding him from the intrusion.

            He unzipped the bag and pulled out the water bottles. He tossed her one. She lifted her hands to shield herself like he had launched a grenade at her, but her movements were delayed and the water bottle hit the wall lightly next to her.

            She choked out a cry and turned terrified eyes to him.

           

            His head ached. He needed space. Bucky took a step back. Then another. Until he was on the opposite side of the room from her. Giving her space.

            She looked around the room. Gaining distance from the nightmares that had entangled him, the recent memories straightened out into a clearer picture. She had been having seizures. He kept his eyes on her. But she didn’t look the same as she had in her apartment, or the car here.

            In spite of the panic keeping her eyes blown wide, they were clear, the drug-induced haze gone. Her movements were uncoordinated, but not sluggish. And the tremor in her hands wasn’t the jerking of a seizure.

            Seeing her falling apart without the benefit of the drugs to hold her together made him think maybe Hydra had done her a favor, keeping her sedated.

            Her breath came faster, something he didn’t think possible. She reached a hand toward her throat, like she was going to try to claw the air free.

            “Drink,” he said. The word came out low, his voice raspy from lack of use.

            She didn’t look like she heard.

            She looked like she was about thirty seconds from running screaming out into the street. Something that would be more exposure than either one of them could afford.

            He crossed to the water bottle, picking it up. This time, he handed it to her.

            His proximity seemed to cause her to freeze. Better than the frantic movements of a minute ago. He pushed it toward her hands. It fell in her lap, but the touch of plastic seemed to draw her attention. She blinked down at it.

            He watched as she closed her eyes and made an effort to draw a normal breath. She tried again. Opened her eyes and fixed her gaze on the water. He could see her lips moving. Hear a trembling whisper as she commanded herself to not panic. Counting to ten, her breath slowing more as she did.

            He stepped away from her. Went and got his own bottle of water, twisting the cap off.

            She kept an eye on him and awkwardly picked up the bottle in her lap. She frowned as fingers that refused to bend enough to grip the cap couldn’t open it. She darted a look toward him.

            Bucky approached. She shrank back. But she didn’t look like she was trying to disappear into the wall this time. He took the bottle from her, twisted off the cap and handed it back.

            Some water sloshed over the side as her hold faltered. She eventually got it gripped between both hands and lifted it to her lips.

            She gulped some water, some spilling on the front of her shirt.

            Bucky moved to a window, careful to stay in shadows, and surveyed the street below.

            The water seemed to bring the girl back to something closer to sane. Her breathing sounded less hysterical.

            “What—what are we—?” a disjointed sentence finally faltered out of her.

            He eyed her. We?

            Her eyes darted around the room. “I can’t—Hydra…”

            Bucky felt his frown deepen. He was Hydra. Had she forgotten that? Had those drugs Hydra shot through her fried her brain? His own head ached, a dull pounding between his temples and at the base of his neck. That would make two of them with fried brain cells. It would be helpful if at least one of them knew what was going on.

            “Have they brought you here before?” she whispered. “Hydra? Have they—do they—are they going to hurt you here?”

            Bucky stared at her. Her hair was a mess, falling over her shoulders and down her back in dark strands. Her face was pale in the dim light, her lips dry and cracked. The water bottle set aside with some effort, she cradled useless, trembling hands in her lap. And she was checking to see if he was ok.

            “Hydra’s gone,” he spoke. She deserved to know what was happening. What he thought was happening. Pain burned farther through his brain.

            Her eyes flared brightly for a second, before she spoke uncertainly. “Gone? We’re…we’re safe?”

            He didn’t know why she kept doing that. Irritation grated at her words. We. She kept speaking like they were together. A team. As if he wasn’t Hydra. One of the killers who had kept her captive.

            “You need to eat,” he said. It had been days. Days of her getting sick, having seizures. It was some sort of miracle she was still alive. But good people deserved miracles.

            Bucky thought of Steve. Steve was alive. Somehow alive and a hundred years old, but he didn’t look any older than Bucky. He had seen him. More than once. He had tried to kill him.

            Bucky reached out for the backpack at his feet. She flinched back at his movement. He looked at her. So she did know who—what—he was.

            She watched his movements as he drew the bag over to him and reached into it again. He pulled out a granola bar and tossed it toward her. She might have tried to catch it, but her hands only twitched off her lap, not fast enough to get the bar.

            “Thank you,” she said, her polite etiquette at odds with the guns he felt resting against his hip in holsters and the condemned building they sat in.

            She looked down at the granola bar. Lines of concentration formed between her eyes. Shaky hands struggled and managed to hold the bar. Her fingers grazed the wrapper. She frowned slightly and tried again.

            She couldn’t open it.

            Bucky reached over. She jerked back. He stopped. Met her eyes. Saw the fear. She held her breath while he finished reaching over and took the granola bar from her. He opened it and handed it back to her.

            “Thank you,” she said again, moving wary eyes from him to the food. Her lips puckered in concentration and she managed to grasp it.

            Bucky moved the water bottle so it wasn’t resting precariously against a stack of old magazines, moved it in easier reach. Another thank you.

            He was hiding out in a safe house with Emily Post.

            He tore open the wrapper of his own granola bar. He had eaten a couple on the drive, downed some water. But it wasn’t enough. They needed more food.

            They ate in silence. Bucky listened to the sounds outside. He had heard these sounds before. A neighborhood outside a window.

            “What happened?” the girl asked hesitantly.

            Bucky looked at the half eaten granola bar. She gave up on holding it and set it in her lap.

            He looked at her. What happened to take him from a kid in a neighborhood in Brooklyn to the monster in front of her? He had no idea.

            “With Hydra,” she said cautiously when he didn’t answer. “How…what…?”

            “The Triskelion,” he answered, hoping it would spark a memory and he wouldn’t have to explain more.

            She frowned in concentration. “We went there,” she said slowly.

            She went there. He had been on a helicarrier. Fighting Steve. Shooting Steve. His hands curled into fists.

            “I was…was supposed to help Director Pierce,” she said uncertainly.

            Bucky figured they could skip to the grand finale. “The Triskelion’s rubble. Hydra’s buried under it.”

            She sat silently, absorbing the information. Her dark eyes looked at him and he saw a subtle flash of humor. He couldn’t imagine what she found funny about any of this.

            The corner of her mouth lifted in a tentative hint of a smile. “And you got a souvenir while you were there?”

            He followed her eyes to the dark hooded sweatshirt he wore. The one he had taken from the overturned kiosk during their escape. A picture and the word ‘Triskelion’ were emblazoned on the chest.

            Her mouth curved a little more. He saw her try to bite back the smile, pressing her lips between her teeth.

            “Guess they were having a fire sale.” He had no idea where the attempt at humor came from. It was like some long buried other person he used to be said it. Not him.

            Her brow lifted in surprise at his words and her small smile returned.

            “We need food,” Bucky said, closing the door on whatever that other person might have said.

            Her face grew serious and she nodded.

            “Stay here,” he ordered.

            Confusion, then fear. She nodded slightly, but he saw the way she drew her hands in closer to her, a protective move. Her eyes slid toward the shadows around them in the room.

            He moved the backpack closer to her, aware she probably wouldn’t be able to open any more granola bars until he got back. He pulled out the cash he had taken from her wallet. He would eventually get money from somewhere and pay her back.

            He tried to think if he was a thief. A murderer, he knew he was. There had been documents. Serum. He had taken the serum from…the trunk of the car.

            Yeah, he was a thief as well as a murderer. There probably wasn’t a sin he hadn’t committed.

            He pocketed the money. Picked up the ball cap from the floor and pulled it down low over her face.

            There would be some sort of market nearby. He started down the stairs. His eyes adjusted to the darker stairwell and then the boarded up ground level. He moved quickly, silently. Moving through the shadows was familiar.

 

#

 

            Elia listened to the Soldier’s footsteps head down stairs. She looked around the dim room. A half collapsed sofa was on the far side, an old mattress leaned against a wall.

            Scurrying sounded behind the mattress. Her breath caught in her chest.

            The shadows were menacing. Every sound outside sounded like Rumlow leading a strike team to come find her.

            A shadow moved from behind the mattress.

            Elia choked on a scream and scrambled to her feet. She followed the path the Soldier had taken, stumbling on the top step and falling a few stairs before catching herself against a railing, taking a bruising hit into her side.

            “What are you doing?” the Soldier asked, climbing the steps toward her .

            Elia shrank back. In the shadows she could only see his hard eyes. She remembered when all she could see was shadowed eyes over a black mask. But then there had been Hydra handlers to keep him under control.

            She heard the scurrying upstairs again.

            Here it was just her and him. And the rats.

            “There were rats,” Elia said. “And it’s—it’s dark.”

            He stared at her without expression.

            “You’re—you’re probably not scared of the dark,” Elia said.

            He stared.

            What was she saying? “I just…I can’t—I can’t stay here. Not alone.” The vise that had eased started clamping around her chest again. Her throat tightened. She couldn’t do this. Not now. Not another panic attack. She clung awkwardly to the railing, like she was going to be pulled under and this was her life preserver.

            The Soldier finally spoke. “I would choose the dark,” he said. “It’s safer than me.”

            Elia hesitated. He turned and went down the stairs.

            Elia fought for a breath. She looked around her wildly. She stumbled down the stairs after him. She made it to the lower level just in time to see him go out through a boarded up window. She made it through, though she couldn’t adjust the board back in place. Not with hands that wouldn’t cooperate.

            She tried to move her fingers. They were tingling uncomfortably. She’d never had that happen with panic attacks before. Especially fingers that wouldn’t cooperate.

            She gave her hands a shake and gave up on replacing the plywood. She stumbled slightly, trying to catch up to him as he disappeared around a corner.

            She rounded the corner after him.

            “What are you doing?”

            Elia wheezed in a gasp at the sudden demand.

            The Soldier looked over his shoulder behind him, then stepped back into the darker space between buildings with her.

            “Please,” she said, hearing the shaking in her voice. “I don’t…Hydra, they left me there alone. Locked in my cell. And then they’d come and just—just take me. I never knew when.”

            Something flickered in his expression. Is that how it had been for him? Locked up alone until they decided to use him?

            Elia felt that same unexpected sympathy for him, the same conviction she had at Hydra that they were both victims. The Soldier wasn’t the same as Hydra. Not really.

            “I don’t want to be alone,” she finished in a whisper.

            He stared down at her. His expression closed off, back to the Soldier. Then it wavered into something more approachable. Confusion shadowed his expression and then he took a step back.

            “Keep your head down,” he said. “We don’t know who’s looking for me. Or you.”

            Elia’s breath fell from her in relief. She tried to keep up with him as he strode towards the sidewalk in the front of the building.

            When he stopped suddenly, she nearly crashed into his broad back. She looked down the street, lit only with streetlights and whatever light spilled out of windows into the dusk. The Soldier didn’t move.

            Elia tried to see what the threat was. Fear sent ice into her back. Did he see something? Recognize someone from Hydra?

            She waited, needing him to tell her if they should run. Was he going to fight? She thought of the knives and guns he had on him whenever she had seen him with Hydra.

            “Is there something….” Her quiet question died on her lips when she moved to see his face.

            He looked lost. His eyes were looking around the street. A slight furrow between his eyes. Any aggression or sign of being a killer in control was stripped away.

            She opened her mouth, wanting to comfort him, then realized she didn’t know what to call him.

            “Soldier?” she asked softly, then winced. It was what Hydra called him.

            He looked down at her, confusion clouding his eyes. He looked down the block again. “Bucky,” he mumbled. “I’m Bucky.”

            “Bucky,” she said. He had a name. He was more than a soldier. She risked a gentle brush of her fingers against his arm. She could barely feel the fabric of his jacket against her mostly numb fingers, but it seemed to be enough to draw something from him.

            “I used to live here,” he murmured under his breath. “Near here.” He looked around again. “There’s a store. I can pick up some groceries for my mom and sisters.”

            Concern edged toward uneasiness. Elia took a slow breath. “You—you need to get groceries for your family?”

            He started walking.

            Elia hurried to keep up with him. The sudden movement spun her head.

            She blinked rapidly. The lights overhead swam. Did he actually have a family?

            She tried to bring him into focus. He was looking around the street, the strange expression of bafflement nothing like what he looked like with Hydra when his eyes were smudged dark over the top of a black mask.

            He slowed to a stop, looking at a building more closely. He mumbled to himself.

            He must have a family somewhere. People didn’t just—just hatch from eggs or crawl out from under a rock.

            She wished her head would stop spinning. It was making her nauseous. She got close enough to him that she hoped he would hear her through his confusion.

            “Where is your family?” she asked gently.

            His jaw worked. He looked at the apartment building in front of them.

            “They used to live…” he stopped and looked around them. His eyes landed on her. She watched the confusion clear, settle into something more like grim determination.

            He was back to the Soldier.

            He turned away from the building.

            Moving again so suddenly made the ground tilt under her. She reached out a hand to grip onto something to keep from falling. She couldn’t tell if her fingers were grabbing onto something, but she wasn’t tipping anymore.

            The Soldier—Bucky—pulled away from her, looking down at her hands, now reaching for air since he pulled his arm free from her.

            “Sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

            His eyes darted around like a threat was closing in, then darkened like he saw a target.

            “Bucky?” she asked.

            He startled at the sound of his name and looked back to her.

            She watched the darkness slowly roll across his face, shrinking back slightly.

            “Food,” he said, his expression clearing slightly, though his jaw was still tight. He looked like he was just noticing her for the first time. “We’re getting food.”

            He started moving again. She tried not to let the panic creep in. She could barely keep the images in front of her straight, she couldn’t feel her hands, her legs felt like they might give out, and she had no idea what was going on in his head. If Hydra or S.H.I.E.L.D. was after them, there was no way they were going to make it. They were going to be captured.

            She took a stumbling step and got her legs working.

            They turned a corner and he went decisively toward a small bodega.

            She followed him through the door and winced. The sudden fluorescent lights piercing her eyes. Her balance was thrown off and she knocked into a shelf of bottled water.

            The Soldier grabbed two of them before they hit the ground and steadied them on the shelf. He jerked his head for her to follow him.

            Her stomach clenched at the look on his face. She was clearly annoying him. And if he decided he wasn’t going to slow down enough for her, she would be on her own. In a body that barely felt like her own anymore. With who knew what agency hunting her.

            She doubled her efforts to walk in a straight line behind him. She didn’t know if she could trust him. If she should trust him. But he was the only person in the world who was in the same boat as her.

            He tossed her a loaf of bread. It fell through numb hands.

            “Sorry,” she whispered, bending over to get it. It threw her balance off and she started going toward the floor head first.

            An iron grip took hold of her arm and hauled her upright. His metal hand was wrapped around her bicep. He got her steady on her feet and tucked that hand back into his jacket pocket. He picked up the bread and tucked it under his arm. He didn’t try to hand her anything as he got a jar of peanut butter, a pack of protein bars, a bag of apples.

            Elia tilted toward a shelf as they turned a corner, the edge of the shelf jabbing into her shoulder painfully. She bit her lips together.

            Bucky turned back to look at her. He was wincing like the lights were hurting his eyes, too.

            Distracted by the look of pain on his face, she stumbled forward, knocking cereal boxes to the ground.

            The sound of the boxes clattering to the floor had him jerking to attention, his face immediately hard, alert to any threat.

            Elia rubbed at her shoulder with unfeeling fingers as she staggered slightly, trying to stay upright.

            “Bucky,” she said, trying to bring him back from the look of the Soldier on his face. The look that scared her.

            “Hey,” the owner called to them.

            She saw Bucky reach for a gun holstered under his jacket.

            “No,” she whispered under her breath. She moved toward him, terrified he was going to pull the gun on the man behind the counter. But she fell forward into him, thudding against his torso.

            He jerked away from her, looking around like there was an enemy she was blocking him from.

            Elia scrabbled for something to cling to as she lost her balance and dragged down a stand with reusable shopping bags to the floor with her.

            The owner strode toward them. “I don’t know what you’re on, but I don’t need this,” he said in heavily accented English. “Get out.”

            Elia felt her cheeks burn. She looked like a drunk or worse. She pushed herself off the floor.

            Bucky looked at the food he had dropped. He looked at Elia. She gave him a pleading look. Please just pull it together long enough for us not to be arrested.

            “Lo siento,” he said, turning to the owner. “Solo necesitamos comestibles.”

            The owner paused at the fluent Spanish.

            “Pagaremos y nose iremos,” Bucky said quietly. He started to gather the dropped groceries.

            Elia attempted to help, but at Bucky’s warning look when she dropped the bread, she stepped back.

            “Alright. Pay and get out of here,” the owner agreed, looking at them with a deep frown.

            Bucky did that, Elia holding her breath, watching the way he kept his metal hand beneath the counter or in his pocket, but nowhere near a weapon.

            Taking the two plastic bags in his right hand, Bucky started toward the door.

            They didn’t talk on the way back to the condemned house. Elia focused on one foot in front of the other and she had no idea what the Soldier was focused on.

 

#

 

 

            “Are you sure you want to see this?”

            Steve met Natasha’s eyes evenly. “I have to.”

            He stood solidly, ready for whatever she was going to hand him. It was bad enough they were standing in a cemetery, in front of Fury’s tombstone, what he had asked Natasha to find was worse than everything that had just happened.

            It didn’t matter that Fury was still alive. Steve wasn’t going to be seeing him any time soon. Fury was going to pretend he had gone down with the Triskelion, when he was shot by The Winter Soldier, whatever people wanted to believe. One more person Steve wouldn’t be seeing again. Sam was next to him, Natasha standing there, watching him take the folder. They would both be parting ways, too.

            Steve forced himself to look down at the folder. It was a manila folder. Cyrillic writing on the front. Thick enough to cover whatever Steve wanted—or didn’t want to—know. But not thick enough to be filled with 90 years of a man’s life.

            The papers weighed heavily in his hand.

            “You don’t have to look at it,” Sam said.

            Steve knew he had to.

            “It didn’t look like you earned any friends on Capitol Hill,” Steve said to Nat, giving himself some space from the file.

            “Good thing I don’t need friends,” she said, the familiar cocky lift of her full lips matching her tone.

            “Even if you don’t need them, you still have at least one,” he said, unable to let her comment slide. Everyone needed someone. He had been with Nat through too much to let her think she was on her own now.

            “Yeah, well, it’s going to be a long distance friendship,” she said. Steve could almost see her mentally putting distance between them. He wanted to argue. And he realized it wasn’t just because he didn’t want to lose another person. He didn’t want her to have to lose another person.

            “Where will you go?” he asked.

            Natasha smiled slightly. He could see the tightness in her expression that belied the move. “I blew all my covers. I gotta go figure out a new one.”

            “That might take awhile,” he said.

            Now her grin was slightly more sincere. “I’m counting on it.”

            It was clear she liked the idea of the disappearing from the mess of Hydra and S.H.I.E.L.D., figuring out who she was without an agency backing her…or controlling her. Steve knew the feeling.

            Disappearing was what Bucky had done. Steve would be off the radar just enough to find him. Starting now.

            He took a breath. Opened the cover of the folder.

            There was Bucky. The Bucky he remembered. A square photograph was paperclipped to the bottom corner of the pages. Bucky in his service uniform. The way Steve had last seen him. Seen the Bucky he had served with. A larger, color photograph of Bucky in some sort of suspension unit overshadowed the smaller sepia toned photo.

            This was who Bucky was now.

            “Thanks for this,” Steve said. He closed the folder, both images of Bucky imprinted in his brain.

            Natasha’s face grew serious. “Be careful, Steve. You might not want to pull on that thread.”

            They both knew there was no way Steve could not pull on the thread, undo everything that led to Bucky.

            “Nat,” Steve called after her as she turned to go. “Don’t go looking too hard for a new version of yourself.”

            She cocked her head slightly.

            “I kind of like the one I got to know.”

            He could see the small huff of a humorless laugh move her chest. “Take care of yourself,” she said.

            “You too.”

            He watched her walk away, across the sunny cemetery. He hoped she found a life for herself without S.H.I.E.L.D. Without Congress breathing down her neck, judging her without ever knowing what she had lived through.

            “You’re going after him,” Sam said. It wasn’t a question.

            “You don’t have to come with me,” Steve said.

            “I know.” Sam spoke without any hint of uncertainty. “When do we start?”

            Steve looked at the folder in his hand. The first link to Bucky. “Now,” he said. “We need to see what information we have.”

            “You want to do that here? Or head to my place? Since I actually still have a home.”

            Steve appreciated Sam’s dry humor. No point in dancing around the fact that his apartment—funded by S.H.I.E.L.D—was no longer his.

            “We should get some food,” Steve said. This wasn’t going to be a short project. There was no telling where Bucky could be. He could be halfway around the world by now.

 

#

 

Chapter 13

Chapter 13

 

 

           

            Bucky didn’t know what she was thinking. The girl was barely able to stay upright, and she had insisted on coming with him. She had thought he was safer to be with than the shadows and rats.

            She was wrong.

            The memories kept coming. Like a nightmare, but he was awake. The images took over until that was all he could see. All he could hear, feel. Reliving what he had done. Hazy images of who he had been before Hydra. But it was hard to make sense of all the disjointed memories.

            The girl was sitting in the dimly lit room in the safe house. He had spread jelly on the bread, handed some over to her.

            She had made an effort to eat some, then set it aside. He had opened a water bottle for her again, set it next to her.

            “You speak Spanish,” she finally spoke.

            Bucky looked at her. She squinted at him like her head hurt. That made two of them.

            “I…” he trailed off. He must speak it. He had spoken Spanish to the store owner.

            The lapsed back into silence. He spoke Spanish. He had spoken it when he went into Columbia. Memories came to him. He worked alongside a cartel in order to upend the government.

            “I don’t think I’ve spoken it since the 70s.” What year was it?

            Her brow furrowed, her delicate eyebrows drawing together. Everything about her was delicate. Breakable.

            “The…1970s?” she asked warily. Like he was crazy. And maybe he was. Who knew what was real, which of his memories were true?

            “I…they kept me…I was frozen.” Frozen in time until they needed him. He would be dragged out, half conscious, not even sure where he was or who he was until they stuck him in the chair. That chair wasn’t a phantom memory. It was real. They had locked him down and sent volts of electricity through his brain to ‘reset’ him.

            “For how long?” she asked quietly. There was mostly concern on her face. Like she was worried about him.

            “I don’t—I don’t know,” he said. “Since the war.” That was something he kept seeing. The second great war. He had been a soldier. “I was born in 1917,” he said, a vague impression of a childhood, a childhood in this neighborhood, coming to him. “What year is it?”

            “2014,” she whispered.

            “I’m not…I don’t know what happened.” He made the confession through gritted teeth.

            His shoulder ached, rivaling the pain in his head. He rubbed absently at the pain, feeling the ridges of scar tissue through his shirt where his shoulder was attached to his metal arm.

            She studied him. Her dark eyes were glinting with pain in the dim light, and she leaned her head back against the wall, shifting slightly so she could keep an eye on him.

            He drew one of his guns, a smaller caliber pistol.

            Her eyes flew open and she braced herself against the wall.

            Bucky flipped the pistol around, taking the barrel in his hand. He held the grip out to her.

            She stared at it like it might bite. Or he might bite.

            Bucky motioned with the gun for her to take it. She just stared.

            He set the pistol on the floor and slid it toward her.

            “Use it,” he said.

            “What?” she gasped.

            “If you need to. Use it.”

            “Against who?” she wheezed out. As if the idea of using a weapon was completely inconceivable. Bucky tried not to think of how many times he had taken a life with a weapon. Or with his bare hands.

            He could see flashes of faces. A spiral of people that he lost sight of just before getting a clear view. Every single kill.

            “Bucky?”

            The quiet voice cut through the terror of the memories. He dragged himself back to…whatever the present was.

            “What?” What had they been saying? He had lost track of what they were talking about. Lost track of her, sitting there watching him.

            He looked down at the gun, pointed toward him where it lay untouched on the floor. “If I do anything. Use it.”

            Horror pulled at her face. She pressed against the wall at her back like she was putting as much distance as she could between her and the gun.

            Bucky stood.

            She couldn’t possibly flatten herself anymore against the wall. Her eyes widened.

            He took a step toward her. She didn’t reach for the gun, just stared at him, fear in the throbbing of her pulse in her neck.

            He grabbed his abandoned jacket and spread it roughly on the floor by her. From the backpack he pulled a sweatshirt of hers and balled it up into a pillow, set it on the makeshift jacket-bed. He went toward the gun and lightly kicked it with his boot. It slid across the floor and stopped next to the jacket.

            He crossed back to his space and sat down heavily. He leaned back against the wall, bone weary exhaustion overtaking him. He closed his eyes. He listened to her move to the bed, aware it couldn’t be that comfortable. He could hear her lay down, shift slightly, but not enough to sound like she was making much effort to find a comfortable position.

            He opened his eyes to see her curled in a ball, her hands fisted against her chest. He watched the jerky movements of her fingers. Spasms, like she couldn’t control the movement.

            She didn’t say anything. She didn’t move, didn’t reach for the gun.

            He watched until her eyes finally closed, the movement in her hands easing. He risked closing his own eyes, knowing the nightmares that awaited him.

 

#

            “You plannin’ on sleeping at some point?”

            Steve looked up, blinking at the light Sam turned on. The dim light over the kitchen sink had been enough for him to continue reading through Bucky’s file after the sun went down. The overhead light Sam had flooded the kitchen with brought Steve back to the kitchen in DC, out of the horrors of Soviet era spies and cryo chambers.

            “What they did to him, Sam…” Steve said. He didn’t know how to carry everything he had read. The experiments. The surgeries. “He didn’t stand a chance.” Bucky was going to become a monster, no matter how hard he may have tried to fight it. Anyone would have.

            “And now he’s out there somewhere,” Sam said, his sympathy clearly with potential victims of Bucky.

            Steve looked back over the list of places Bucky had confirmed kills. Almost every continent. Multiple countries. He could be anywhere.

            Or…

            Steve pulled the papers towards him again. He shuffled through the sickening pages of “training” Bucky had been put through. Past the early missions and all the lists of places where Bucky was. There was one outlier. One mission that was all about where Bucky wasn’t.

            “Here,” he said. He read the paper again, then slid it to Sam. He waited for Sam to read the summary of the mission and the ensuing search.

            “This doesn’t say anything.”

            “Exactly,” Steve said. “Every other mission, Bucky was accounted for. They knew where he was, he reported back. Every mission except this one.” He tapped a finger on the paper.

            Sam looked at the paper again. “They lost him.”

            “He went AWOL.” Steve looked at the picture attached. Bucky in the 1980s. Hair long, but not as long as it was now. Cold, unfeeling stare. The Winter Soldier.

            “So where did he go?” Sam asked.

            Steve forced himself to look away from the face in the picture that was familiar, and at the same time not anyone he had ever known. “It was his only mission on US soil,” Steve said.

            “And he completed it,” Sam said, skimming over the details, turning to the next page. “He killed the senator.”

            “Then disappeared.” The only evidence of Bucky or the mission was a gun found dumped in a trash can at Dulles airport. Hydra had burned assets left and right trying to find Bucky. It had been weeks before Bucky had showed up. No one ever found where he had been.

            “So where did he go?”

            Steve had a suspicion. “Home.”

 

#

 

 

            Elia opened her eyes.

            It hurt.

            It hurt to open her eyes without drugs.

            She closed her eyes, but the pain in her head, in her hands, it didn’t fade. Was this what every morning was going to be like now? She tried to rub her hands, but they were seized up and didn’t cooperate with the movement.

            She gave up on that and opened her eyes again. The condemned house was dim. She saw Bucky. He was awake, staring blankly. She followed his gaze over to see an empty wall. He was unmoving, withdrawn somewhere in the recesses of his mind.

            She shifted slightly and saw the gun on the floor by her head.

            She wanted to vomit.

            She was going to vomit.

            Elia scrambled to her feet. Was there a bathroom in this place? She let out a squeak when she saw something too big to be a mouse scurry back into the shadows. But she continued on, her stomach churning, her hands burning with pain, and desperate to not be sick on the floor.

            The first door she came to had a bathroom. She ignored the mold inside the toilet bowl and lost whatever she had managed to stomach the night before.

            She heaved a sigh of relief when her empty stomach felt better.

            She risked an attempt at turning the faucet on. It took several tries to grip the handle. With a squeak, it spluttered. Rust colored water came out and she rinsed her hands. She flushed the toilet. Clearly someone was at least keeping the water on in this house.

            She made her way back to the other room.

            Bucky was still sitting there. She thought he was in his own thoughts still, but he looked up when she came in.

            “There’s water,” she said.

            His eyes dropped to her hands. Her fingers were still bent at an unnatural angle, the muscles tightened and flexed with no relief.

            “Why didn’t you leave?” he asked.

            Elia blinked at him. Her vision blurred, then cleared. “What?”

            “When you woke up yesterday. Today. Why don’t you run?”

            She slowly lowered herself back onto the pallet he had spread out for her the evening before. Everything still hurt. “Run?”

            “Get away from me.”

            He said the words so starkly that it made it sound like it was the sensible choice.

            Everything in her rebelled at the thought. “That would leave you alone. With Hydra.”

            She knew Hydra wasn’t there. It had collapsed. But it was alive and real in his mind. And in her pain. She wasn’t going to leave him with Hydra. She had been there with him, seen what they did to him, lived through what they did to her.

            “Are you remembering more?” she asked softly. His eyes were shadowed this morning.

            He was quiet long enough that she thought he wasn’t going to answer. “Steve,” he finally said.

            “Steve?” she asked.

            “Steve. My…he was my friend. I think.” Bucky’s brow wrinkled.

            “Your friend from…before?” she asked, not sure what she was referring to as before. Before the Triskelion fell? Before he had started working for Hydra?

            Bucky was silent again. One side of his mouth lifted. “He wanted to enlist. He couldn’t. He was too small.” A humorless laugh. “He wanted a fight. And I’m the one the one who couldn’t get away from the fighting.”

            Wait. She paused rubbing hands that were finally loosening up slightly. Something was familiar about this. Like she knew this story. “Steve Rogers?” she asked.

            Bucky’s eyes lifted to her. “You know him?”

            “I…no.” Asking if she knew Steve Rogers was like asking if she knew the queen of England. Or Brad Pitt. But she knew who he was. Everyone did. “He’s famous. Captain America.”

            Some of the shadows cleared, like Bucky was remembering. “Captain America,” he said to himself.

            And then more of Captain America’s story came back to her. The exhibits at the Smithsonian she had toured with a couple friends from work. Steve Rogers serving in World War 2. The Howling Commandoes. His best friend who lost his life.

            “James.” She whispered the name when it came to her.

            His head jerked and his eyes locked on her.

            “James Barnes. Is that…is that you?”

            Bucky flinched like she had struck him with the name. “James Buchanan Barnes,” he whispered hoarsely. “I think that’s…” He looked down at the floor, brow furrowing deeper. “That’s me.” He lifted his eyes to her. “I think.”

            Her heart twisted painfully. He had served his country. Right alongside Steve. She tried to remember what she knew about him. He had died. A fall from a train. But clearly that wasn’t what had really happened.

            “There’s a museum display. All about you,” she said.

            He stared at her.

            “In DC. About who you were. Are.” She didn’t know which was right. “And about Steve. The Howling Commandos.”

            Something that looked a lot like wistfulness pulled at his face.

            He deserved to know who he was. He deserved to know his name. Hydra might have taken everything from him, his entire life, but he deserved to have his own memories. She didn’t understand what had happened with him and Hydra, but she knew what she had seen. She had seen the mask breaking and them locking into that chair to gain his compliance again.

            She shuddered involuntarily at the memories of what she had seen with Hydra. She squinted, her vision blurring again. She blinked forcefully and it cleared, seeing him looking unlike the killer she had watched him be with Hydra.

            “We can go there…to the museum,” she said, uncertain if that was true. Would they—whoever they were—still be hunting DC for the two of them?

            His expression was still clearing. Back to human and less of the soldier. Less of the lost and nameless person Hydra had used.

            “In DC?” he asked.

            She nodded.

            He pulled the backpack closer to him. Rummaged through it and pulled out clothes. Tossed them her direction. “I’ll find a car.”

            “No,” she said quickly, pushing to her feet, missing the ground with her unfeeling hands the first try, but then making it to standing.

            He looked at her.

            “There’s a train. Don’t take someone’s car.”

            He nodded, but his face was already settling into the hard lines of the Soldier. Getting ready for the mission.

            Elia drew back slightly at the shift.

            She took the change of clothes and went back to the bathroom. She was still in the black cargo pants and dark shirt Hydra had provided. The clothes in her hands were familiar. They were hers. How did he have her clothes?

            She shook her head. That was the least important question of the day.

            She traded the Hydra fatigues for the soft jeans and t-shirt. They were big on her. She only had hazy memories of a cafeteria and food at Hydra’s base. She wasn’t sure how often she had actually eaten there.

            She struggled to get her fingers to cooperate with the zipper and button on her jeans. Cold sweat dripped down her back from the effort by the time she managed to get it fastened. She got her shoes back on, oddly thankful for the slip on boots from Hydra that didn’t require tying laces.

            When she was back out in the other room, Bucky was waiting. He had the backpack over his shoulders, weapons stowed out of sight. A black ball cap was pulled low over his eyes. He took the Hydra clothes from her and stuffed them in the bag, then put it on his back again. She saw knives under his jacket when he moved.

            “I’m not sure where the nearest train station is—” she started, but he broke in.

            “Pennsylvania Station,” he answered automatically.

            She waited to see if he was going to lead them there. She had no idea where that was.

            Instead of going to the stairs, he approached her. His expression vacillated between the hardened Soldier and a younger, innocent man she didn’t know.

            He had a ball cap in his hand. He started to hold it out to her. Elia lifted shaking hands to try to take it, unsure if she’d be able to get her fingers to cooperate. He saw the tremors and stopped. He put it on her head, tugging it down to shield her face.

            “Keep your head down. Cameras will be everywhere when we get to the station.”

            She nodded, not taking her eyes from his. The wall that was up when he was on a mission fell away for a minute and his blue eyes were… he was present.

            And then he was gone again, turning, focused on their mission.

            She hurried to keep up with him.

            They made their way across the neighborhood. He seemed less disoriented, which Elia hoped was a good thing, since the trade off seemed to be the return of the Soldier.

            It took two buses and a longer walk than Elia was in shape for to make it to Penn Station.

            “Head down,” Bucky said under his breath to her when they approached the building.

            She tilted her head down, letting the hat cover her face from any security cameras.

            This wasn’t who she was.

            The stray thought came to her with a fierceness that caught her off guard. She wasn’t someone who had to hide. She wasn’t a criminal. Maybe she could go to…to whoever they were hiding from. The police or army or whoever it was searching for them.

            Bucky turned, apparently realizing she wasn’t walking with him anymore. He strode back to her, glancing around at the weekday crowd trying to get around her stopped form in the middle of sidewalk.

            “Maybe I can explain to them,” she said. She was aware of the way Bucky shifted when she lifted her face to look up at him, blocking her from being picked up on camera. “Tell them I didn’t mean to help Hydra. That I didn’t want to be there.”

            His face hardened. “No one’s going to care what you wanted.”

            The firm resolution in his voice was enough to make her heart break a little more for him. For what he had been through.

            “But if I told them—”

            “And if they don’t believe you, or don’t care, you’ll be thrown in a cell. Just like Hydra already did to you.”

            The thought of another cell, being locked up, away from anything and everything, had her heart lodging in her throat.

            “I can’t do that again.” She could barely force the words out, the thought of being locked up again squeezing her lungs.

            The harsh line of his jaw softened slightly. “You won’t. They’re not getting you. They’re not getting anyone.”

            Elia took in a long breath. Anything to remind herself she could breathe. She wasn’t in a cell now. She was free.

            He was waiting for her to say something, she realized. So she gave him a nod. A silent confirmation that she wasn’t turning herself in.

            He took a step back and scanned the station from underneath his hat.

            “This way,” he said.

            Elia didn’t question him avoiding the main entrance. She followed after him. She stayed still when he stopped, followed quickly when they moved.

            They got inside the station and she didn’t question him avoiding the ticket counter.

            He looked over the departures and started moving again.

            They got on the train to DC and he found seats for them. “We switch cars often,” he said. “They won’t check for tickets.”

            Elia nodded, sinking into the seat.

            She used to be able to work a 12 hour shift at the hospital and then go home and have energy left for cleaning her apartment, or taking a walk, sometimes even a Judo class.

            The short walk from the bus station to the train had completely drained her.

            Her hands shook more violently and she tried to clasp them together. Her vision blurred, so she closed her eyes. Darkness stole over her and she took a long breath as she settled into sleep.

            There was a nudge against her side that woke her.

            Union Station in DC. They had made it back to DC.

 

#

 

 

 

            Bucky had been to DC before. He had…there was a mission. A kill. And he had taken out the target.

            The memories swam in his head, making his vision hazy. He wasn’t on that mission now. He had a new mission.

            His vision came into focus, the girl next to him walking away from the train station.

            When she had started talking about turning herself in, everything in him had rebelled. If she contacted anyone, it could lead to them finding him. He wasn’t being taken in.

            He forced his fists to uncurl.

            He had stowed the backpack in a locker at the train station, unwilling to risk it being searched at the museum. He wasn’t risking losing the gun stowed in there.

            The girl bumped into someone and apologized, then continued on. Her long hair hung down her back, the hat pulled low over her face. She blinked and looked around, then blinked again, like she was trying to clear her own vision. But she seemed like she knew where to go.

            However much he wanted to avoid Hydra and S.H.I.E.L.D., she deserved their attention turned on her less than anyone did. He stared at her as they made their way away from the train station.

            He felt his hands curl into fists again. What would he do if he had to stop her from drawing the enemy toward them?

            He abruptly jerked his thoughts to anything else. What was he thinking? She wasn’t a target.

            She hadn’t wanted to fight. He was sure he remembered that. A muscle in his arm twitched. He could feel her hands on him. Throwing him. That didn’t make sense. He drew his attention to the memory.

            She had thrown him. Defended someone from him. He looked down at her again. She barely came up to his chest. And she had thrown him without hesitation.

            “It’s only a mile or so this way,” she said.

            Bucky scanned for any cameras that may pick them up. Any sign of someone who may recognize them. But the streets were filled with tourists and a few government workers. No one looking at Bucky or the girl.

            He noticed her rubbing her hands together lightly and wincing. They must still be hurting.

            Ahead of them, he saw a man in black. Military posture.

            Bucky reached out a hand and grabbed her arm, stopping her movement.

            She sucked in a breath, but didn’t fight his hold. He was aware of her lifting big eyes to him, fear across her face.

            His grip circled her arm.

            His hand circled the man’s neck. A man he used to know. But now the man was his mission.

            He quickly dropped her arm. He looked again.

            Not a military man. Not even in black. Just a navy blue sweatshirt and jeans.

            “Keep moving,” he said. It sounded like an order.

            She looked uneasy, but started walking again.

            She had said there was an exhibit. About Steve. About him. He could see who he was.

            The long white building stretched in front of them. She paused before the few steps leading to the entrance.

            “I hope you find some answers,” she said earnestly.

            He felt his jaw work.

            He started inside.

            The crowd of people made his skin crawl. It had been bad enough outside, but in this enclosed space—no matter how cavernous—it was overwhelming.

            He kept his head down, hands in his pocket.

            The girl was standing in front of a directory. He looked at it.

            Captain America.

            He read the words. Seeing them, not just hearing them or thinking them, pushed the memories to the front again. Steve. His uniform. Fighting for their country.

            The waves of memories—sounds, pictures, smells—it all crashed over him, disorienting him. It was like when the waves had knocked him down at Coney Island. How old was he? Five? Six? The power of that wall of water had slammed into him and dragged him, scraping bare skin against sand. And then another wave had crashed over him, pinning him down, suffocating him. A third wave of pure power so he couldn’t catch his breath. And then a hand had grabbed him and pulled him up. Above the water. Let him draw in fresh air and get his bearings.

            A soft touch to his arm drew him up from the memories and had him returning to the building echoing with the voices of tourists and school groups.

            “You’re ok,” she said softly to him. Those dark eyes steadied him, even as her touch unnerved him and comforted at the same time.

            He wasn’t, but she didn’t need to know that. He looked away from her, back at the directory. The Captain America exhibit was a special display. It was on the second floor.

            He started moving, making sure she followed.

            He kept his head down, shielded by the brim of his hat, aware of every security camera. He kept his left hand tucked in his jacket pocket.

            He could hear the narration before they reached the exhibit.

            “A symbol to the nation. A hero to the world. The story of Captain America is one of honor, bravery, and sacrifice.”

            Steve. That was Steve. The memories were disjointed, unlinked, but he knew that much. Steve had been willing to sacrifice. He was a hero.

            His mouth was dry as they entered the hall that told the story of America’s superhero.

            He recognized his friend. First the scrawny kid from Brooklyn who wouldn’t back down from a fight, then the serum enhanced super soldier who would save the world. Save him.

            Hydra.

            Hydra had strapped him to a table and started experimenting on him. Bucky wasn’t sure if the memories were hazy because of his wrecked mind, or because he never had fully been able to remember what they had done, but he remembered getting away from them. Steve had come for him.

            He stood in front of the life size picture of Steve, but he didn’t need it. He had faced Steve in person only days earlier. He had tried to kill him.

            He ground his molars and turned quickly from that display, only to be faced with a full wall plastered with a picture of the Howling Commandoes. A picture of himself.

            “Bucky Barnes and Steven Rogers were inseparable…”

            This was…this was him? Bucky Barnes?

            “Barnes is the only Howling Commando to give his life in service of his country.”

            No. That wasn’t him. He…

            He was falling. Steve was grabbing for him, yelling for him. But he was freefalling, through space, nothing to land on.

            Bucky stared at the picture of himself, an old black and white photo of a younger James Buchanan Barnes, a wall of text extolling his virtue and sacrifice.

            Not anymore. The answer was clear, even if he couldn’t get the words out. That wasn’t him anymore.

            He couldn’t get any words out, unable to look away from the picture. He stood there, lost in memories that didn’t make sense. Him fighting alongside the men in the pictures around him. Him killing men who got in Hydra’s way. Protecting Steve in an alley from a bully he wouldn’t back down from. Trying to destroy Steve on a quinjet.

            A cold sweat broke out on his back. He had to get out of here.

 

#

 

 

            Elia’s head hurt. Her hands cramped, her breathing still burned with deep breaths. But it was nothing compared to her heart. Watching the Soldier. Seeing him take in the pictures from the past—from his past—it made her heart ache for him.

            She hadn’t paid much attention to the parts of the display about the Howling Commandoes and Bucky when she had come to the exhibit before. It had hurt to see it then and know that Captain America was back, but this was all he had lost.

            She looked up at the Soldier—Bucky. He was staring at the picture of himself, guilt and pain warring with horror in his expression. She looked over to the video of him laughing next to Captain America. Heard the narrator on the overhead speaker say he had given his life for his country.

            Sudden fury at Hydra seized her stronger than the cramping in her hands. Stronger than any anger she had felt before. Hydra had taken everything from her, but they hadn’t taken her identity. That smiling, laughing man in the video, going off to war to serve his country? He didn’t deserve whatever Hydra had done to him. What they had somehow made him do.

            Her breath came faster as her blood pounded in her temples, anger pushing it. Her vision blurred and she closed her eyes, trying to keep her balance. When she opened them she was looking at the picture of Bucky again. Not smiling, but his face wasn’t lined with the heaviness it was now. Pain etched in every line with confusion as he stood in the middle of the exhibit. He didn’t even know his name. He deserved a name.

            Under the picture of all the Howling Commandoes was a line of mannequins, each one dressed in a uniform. She saw the one that matched what Bucky wore in his photograph. She ducked her head like the Soldier had told her to. She approached the mannequin, ignoring the buzzing in her ears. Her only focus was on getting Bucky what was his.

            She stumbled slightly as she got close to the display, knocking into a woman and her daughter.

            Elia shifted as they went down in a tangle, the woman’s leg catching the mannequin and her daughter’s shoulder knocking another mannequin on top of them. Elia knocked against the teenage daughter, keeping the girl from taking any of the mannequin’s weight when in landed.

            A security guard hurried toward them, even as a man reached down to help the woman up. Another set of hands helped Elia.

            Elia reached for the mannequin while she was in the midst of the press of people. She begged her hand to cooperate as she brushed it past the mannequin and into her pocket.

            “I’m alright, I’m sorry,” she said. She had made sure she took the brunt of their hard landing on the ground. The woman and her daughter looked unscathed. “I’m so sorry,” she mumbled.

            The security guard was righting the mannequins, most of the attention on the woman and her daughter, so Elia backed away from the commotion.

            Another hand gripped her arm and pulled her quickly along. As soon as she was moving in the same direction as him, away from the exhibit, he dropped her arm like it burned him.

            “That wasn’t flying under the radar,” Bucky muttered.

            Elia didn’t answer. She hurried alongside him until they were outside. He kept them moving, away from the museum.

            Her vision blurred again and she worked to keep track of obstacles around them.

            He finally slowed when they reached the train station. He went to the locker for the backpack and shouldered it again.

            It was easier getting on a train this time, now that they knew how to avoid detection. But he didn’t look like it was easier. He looked hunted.

            Elia slid into the seat next to him and closed her eyes. It was less nauseating than the way her eyes slipped in and out of focus when they were open.

            When the train started moving, she slipped her hand into her pocket. Her fingers didn’t have much sensation, but she could still feel when they brushed the metal. She couldn’t wrap the object in her grip, but managed to loop the chain over her hand, like she had in the museum.

            She slipped it out of her pocket and dropped it onto his jean clad thigh.

            He looked down and then jerked his head toward her.

            “Those are yours,” she said, feeling irrational annoyance that they had been sitting on a mannequin in a museum like an artifact from a long gone person from the past. As if Bucky was gone. “Not some museum’s. They belong to you.”

            He picked up the dog tags.

            “James B. Barnes,” he said, his voice raspy. “32557038.”

            He stared at the tags, then dropped the chain over his head and tucked the tags under his shirt. The movement was seamless, like he had done it a hundred times before. She realized he probably had. In another time.

            The train rocked slightly and Elia sat back in her seat, letting her muscles relax slightly, now that they were on their way away from DC.

            “Thank you,” Bucky said without looking at her.

            She rolled her head against the seat back to look at him, suddenly exhausted. Lifting her head was too much effort. “You should know who you are.”

            He tensed, but didn’t say anything more. They rode in silence the rest of the trip back to New York.

 

#

Chapter 14

Notes:

I'm seriouslyyyyyyyyy behind on replying to comments (I don't have wifi at home, and that makes it hard. It's also why updates are sometimes stalled). But I want to thank everyone who comments. I can't tell you how much I appreciate hearing feedback (and how many times I read and re-read every comment). You all are the nicest people and it means the world to me!

Chapter 14

 

 

            Steve didn’t love Brooklyn. Not anymore. Or at least, he hadn’t when he had first woke up from the ice. It had been jarring to see a shadow of the world he remembered. Buildings had changed, neighborhoods were different, but there were still echoes of the place he had grown up. But seeing those places without any of the people he had known had been a raw wound.

            Now, he had new people around him. New faces and even some friends. He thought of Nat. He hoped she was ok. That thought had him almost smiling. If anyone was ok, it was Natasha. She knew how to take care of herself. She would be offended at Steve even wondering if she was ok.

            But Bucky wasn’t ok. Steve brought his thoughts back to why he was here, in Brooklyn. His friend was on the run. And, based on the Hydra files, had no idea who he was.

            “Where would he be?” Sam asked.

            Steve took a breath and looked around. The file hadn’t said where Bucky had disappeared to when he fell off the grid decades ago. Steve was only guessing. But a guess shouldn’t feel so certain. Bucky would try to go home.

            He didn’t want to think of what would happen when Bucky realized it wasn’t home anymore.

            “I don’t know,” Steve said. He had thought about it on the drive up to New York from DC. Where would Bucky go? “Let’s start at his apartment—the building he used to live in,” he corrected himself.

            He had to find Bucky before any of the government agencies did. It was the only way he could protect him. Save him.

            “This way,” Steve said, moving without hesitation.

 

#

 

 

            The dog tags around his neck were a familiar feel. Bucky figured he must have worn them for years to bring back the feeling of them so easily.

            He looked down at the tags. James B. Barnes.

            He reminded himself again that’s who he was.

            Dog tags were supposed to identify a body, let the chain of command know who they had lost. But these kept reminding him of who he was.

            He looked over at the girl, walking alongside him. He had thought she was a liability when she careened into those people at the museum, causing a scene. But she had been getting his dog tags. Giving him something he could look down at as proof of who he was. Something that was his. Proof he still existed.

            She had been quiet on the train ride back. Dozing off and on. Rubbing her hands like they hurt. And he had gotten lost somewhere in his mind for a good part of the trip. But they were off the train and safely lost in the crowds of New York now.

            James Buchanan Barnes. It felt like a piece of himself could maybe come back every time he said the name to himself.

            The girl was lagging behind again and he slowed his steps. The girl. She probably had a name. Did he know it? Had he heard it when they were at Hydra together?

            He searched the disjointed recollections and half-formed memories. She had been there when they strapped him into the chair, hadn’t she?

            The chair. They would restrain him because he knew what was coming. He knew how much it would hurt. But knowing he was going to lose any sense of himself when they burned away his memories…that was the cruel part. Every time. Every time he would start to feel things, even before he got to remembering, they would destroy him. Take him down to nothing and build him into what they needed. Again and again and again.

            “Bucky?”

            Bucky reflexively jerked to attention. The city was loud around him. People moving past him without looking, car horns blaring.

            The girl was standing next to him, no impatience showing at however long he had been standing there, lost in time again.

            He needed to ask her name. Wasn’t that what he had been about to do? Find out who she was? Who they both were?

            He opened his mouth to ask and froze.

            He recognized the building at the end of the block. He hadn’t been walking to the condemned house. He had walked to the apartment building he had lived in.

            He could almost see his sisters running toward the door of the building, squealing at each other as they jostled to win the race. Steve standing in front of the building, waiting for him.

            Steve.

            Steve wasn’t a memory.

            That was Steve. Standing in front of the building. Now.

            Everything in Bucky hardened into one thought. Attack.

            There was a threat. It had to be neutralized.

            He reached for the knife, hidden at his hip.

            The brush of a light touch against his sleeve stilled his hand. He looked down. The girl was looking up at him in confusion. She hadn’t seen the threat.

            Retreat.

            They weren’t in an offensive position. Not with her barely steady on her feet and the crowds around him. Steve may have snipers or a perimeter set up. They needed to get out of here.

            “Move,” he said to the girl.

            “What?” she asked.

            “Now,” he ordered harshly. He started moving, watching for anyone who was with the enemy. Moving away from Steve.

            He had made the kill. Ditched the gun at Dulles. And then…things were too familiar. The language, the city. He knew this place. America. D.C. New York.

            New York. He started making his way towards the city. Flashes of a past life, one with family and security and…warmth. It all kept pushing forward, edging out training and programming. It came with pain. Physical pain. Sharp pains that shot through his head, ebbing and flowing, but never gone. He had gone to where those memories called from. Brooklyn.

            No. That wasn’t now. That was years ago. Now, he had to get away from New York. Out of this city.

            “This way,” he said.

            “What’s happening?” The girl sounded out of breath, but Bucky wasn’t slowing. Not for anything. They weren’t being taken captive again.

            He would kill before that happened. No. He didn’t want to kill. He just wanted to be free.

            He had to get away from the threat.

 

#

 

 

            The sounds of the city all blurred together as Elia struggled to keep up with Bucky. She looked up at him. His face was set, eyes dark. Not Bucky. The Soldier. This man with the hard face and the expression that responded to nothing wasn’t Bucky. This was the killer Hydra had used and tortured and nearly destroyed.

            She wanted to ask what he had seen, but all her efforts had to go to staying near him. Whatever had him running, she didn’t want to be left on her own to face it.

            Her head spun, her hands stung, and she kept moving.

            He led them away from the busier streets, down an alley and back out onto a crowded street. She saw the way he kept his head low, letting the hat hide his face. She tried to remember to copy the posture. She couldn’t go back to Hydra. To captivity.

            Her chest tightened at the memory of the cell. The injections.

            She couldn’t catch her breath. She couldn’t—couldn’t breathe.

            It wasn’t the exertion.

            The edges of her vision blurred, darkened.

            She had to stop. Her heart thudded, a painful beat against her ribcage. She moved a hand there, like she could press her heart back into her chest, but she couldn’t feel anything. Her hand had no sensation. She couldn’t hear anything around her. The only sound was the thrumming of her blood in her ears.

            “Keep moving,” ordered Bucky—the Soldier.

            “I—I can’t,” she gasped between panicked breaths.

            The Soldier glared at her darkly and grabbed hold of the sleeve of her sweatshirt. Her feet skidded along the sidewalk as he dragged her along with him.

            What was she doing, going along with him? She fought for every breath and tried to clear her vision. His profile above her was granite, fierce determination in every line on his face. She knew where he had every weapon stowed on him, what he carried in the backpack on his back. Was he any safer than Hydra or S.H.I.E.L.D.?

            He pulled her along through an alley. Then another. He stopped, looking around before exiting the alley.

            Her vision blurred, but she tried to study him, see what had happened. Why they were running.

            This wasn’t the same Soldier from her time with Hydra. There were cracks in the exterior. Confusion softening the edges. She couldn’t leave him. Not if it meant being picked up and caged again. And not if it meant leaving him on his own. What would happen if he got lost in the past, in the confusion, and couldn’t find his way back to who he was? Never mind all the people he might hurt—or worse.

            Her breathing was getting tight. She squeezed her eyes shut and focused on drawing a breath.

            Bucky started to move again, but she couldn’t get her feet to cooperate.

            “What’s wrong with you?” he asked.

            Elia had no idea. She never had. She wished she did. Or at least wished she could blame Hydra. Either way, his harsh question stung. “I have…” She stopped. Tried to steady her voice. Get herself under control. Her heart only pounded faster and she pressed an unfeeling hand harder to her chest. “Panic attacks,” she said. Her voice shook. She couldn’t give into it.

            “What?” he asked, narrowing his eyes, like she was threatening him.

            “Panic attacks,” she fought to get the words out again. She needed to sit down. Try to focus on something besides her heart trying to pummel its way out of her chest and the oxygen she couldn’t get. She hated the spinning, but the feeling like her heart was going to beat out of her chest, just beat hard enough to break her ribs, was even worse.

            “Tell me it’s not a heart attack,” she gasped, reaching out to feel the building next to her. Her hand pressed against it, but she couldn’t feel it. Her fingers would sometimes tingle during a panic attack, but she could still feel. Maybe this really was a heart attack. She wasn’t going to survive it. She leaned more heavily against the building.

            “What?” the Soldier asked again, face darkening.

            “Just tell me it’s a panic attack. I know…I know what it is, but I—I can’t…I need someone to say it. Please,” she pleaded. She was going to collapse. She fought against uncooperative fingers, trying to get a hold of something.

            He was silent so long, she didn’t think he would help her. Then…

            “It’s a panic attack,” he said without much conviction.

            She didn’t care how much emphasis he got behind the words. Just hearing someone tell her that it was a panic attack helped. Brought her racing thoughts back to reality.

            She nodded, like he hadn’t been instructed to tell her that.

            “It’s—It’s not a heart attack,” she said. She tried willing her breathing to slow. Her breathing to steady.

            “It’s not a heart attack,” he said with no more enthusiasm than the rote repetition he had the first time.

            Not a heart attack. She would be fine. She repeated that to herself. Like she had a hundred times before.

            And like a hundred times before, her heart eventually slowed it’s thunderous pace. It still pounded, but it settled into a pace slower than a gallop. The black dots dancing in front of her blurred vision receded.

            “Just a panic attack,” she murmured to herself. “It won’t last.” She repeated the words, finding comfort in the repetition.

            Cold sweat dripped down her back in the aftermath and the feeling coming back to her hands only revealed cold, clammy palms.

            She drew in a long breaths through her nose. Controlled the exhale out her mouth. Again and again until she could finally let go of the building.

            “Move,” the Soldier said.

            This time, Elia could comply. She did everything she could to keep up with his long stride.

            “Thank you,” she said as they moved through a crowded street.

            The harsh mask of his face flickered and he slid his eyes toward her before looking ahead again, scanning the street.

            “For helping me,” she continued. “Thank you, Bucky.”

            He didn’t react and she wondered if he knew who he was right now. What they were running from. Where they were. Or was he lost in some other time and place?

            He moved like he had a plan, though. And as long as that plan didn’t include being captured by Hydra, or arrested by S.H.I.E.L.D., it was a plan Elia would go along with.

            He stopped abruptly.

            Elia tried not to double over to catch her breath. It felt like they had been walking for hours. Maybe they had been. She looked up at him again. He was watching. Clocking the movements of people.

            Her vision blurred, everything moving out of focus. But her heart rate didn’t change. This wasn’t a panic attack. She squeezed her eyes shut and opened them, but nothing had changed. It was nothing but a swirl of colors.

            She reached out for Bucky’s arm, scared he would start moving and she wouldn’t see it.

            He jerked his arm away and whirled toward her. Elia couldn’t see his face clearly enough to read what he was feeling. Only his military, defensive posture.

            “Bucky,” she said, trying for a calm tone, but her voice shook in the face of his frame towering over her. “I just…I can’t see well.”

            He didn’t move. She blinked frantically, needing to be able to see, to know what was happening. She strained, trying to get her eyes to focus.

            His features slowly took form. He was staring at her. But the relief at being able to see again was lost under the uneasiness of who was looking at her. The Soldier.

 

#

 

 

            Bucky’s arm stung from her touch. It had been gentle and he didn’t know what gentle felt like anymore. It registered as a scorching, uncomfortable feel. He stared down at her. He had almost forgotten she was with him.

            He couldn’t be distracted. Not with a present threat.

            He turned back to the bus depot across the street. He watched people, tracked what they were doing.

            When he had seen enough, he started moving.

            There were a few cars parked in a drop off zone, but no one looked over at them as they wove between the vehicles.

            He kept his head low to avoid security cameras when they entered the building.

            He picked up a brochure with a schedule and scanned it quickly, seeing bus numbers, departure times, and prices. He ignored the prices. They couldn’t throw away limited money on tickets.

            “Come on,” he whispered harshly.

            She followed along. Bucky had a moment of thankfulness for the drugs, or their after effects, that were keeping her compliant. A sharp tide of self-disgust followed quickly after the thought. He was no better than Hydra, wanting her submissive.

            No better than Hydra? He was Hydra.

            The vise started at his temples.

            He was in a tank. Muzzled, kept suspended until they needed him. A weapon.

            No. He couldn’t let the memory overtake him. Not now.

            The pain didn’t subside, but the memory at least only moved around him like a shadow. It was better than taking over his entire awareness.

            Shadows.

            He shoved his way past a Hydra handler. Or maybe he was only a traveler in the bus station. It didn’t matter. He had to keep enough focus to get them toward a bus without lifting his face toward a camera. And the girl. He couldn’t lose the girl in the crowd.

            At the far end of the depot there were buses pulled up to the curb.

            He eyed the people at the doors, lining up to get on their buses.

            He bumped into another man, this one feeling very real as he let out a breath of air in Bucky’s face and nearly lost his balance.

            Bucky grabbed one arm to keep him upright.

            He grabbed the man to pull him from the car. Sitwell. He was a traitor and wouldn’t be shown mercy. The car careened as The Soldier hauled Sitwell out—

            He quickly let go of the man. The man frowned at him and got some distance, muttering something to himself.

            His neck felt like it was on fire, the pain from his temples migrating across his head, radiating into his neck.

            Focus.

            He turned to the girl and moved his head enough to motion her toward the line of people boarding a bus. She went with him, following his lead in cutting into line in front of a lady looking down at her phone, not noticing them sliding into place.

            When the bus door opened, Bucky gave the girl a nudge to get her moving. He kept a firm grip on the tickets that had been in the man’s pocket when Bucky bumped into him. It had been easy enough to get the two tickets sticking out of the back pocket of his jeans while his attention was on the strong clasp on his arm. The man and his friend were well behind them in line.

            Bucky willed her to take the steps of the bus without incident. She stumbled once, but made it onto the bus. Bucky quickly handed the two tickets to the driver. He needed to get her in a seat before anyone questioned her drugged movements. She moved like her hands and feet weren’t entirely hers.

            He got her into a seat by the window towards the back of the bus, as far from other passengers as they could make it. He took the seat next to her, stowing the bag at his feet.

            By the time the line of people had boarded, and the last man in line was agitatedly patting down his pockets for his missing tickets, it was two minutes past the scheduled departure time. The driver said something sharply to the man and ordered him from the bus.

            The man and his friend went down the steps, arguing with one another as the door closed on them.

            When the bus let out a long sigh and pulled away from the curb, Bucky finally unclenched his fists. The girl let her head fall against the window with a dull thud. Bucky kept scanning the bus, watching every movement the other passengers made, unable to be anything but a soldier on a mission.

 

#

 

 

            Steve moved through the neighborhood that had once been familiar. He was so sure that Bucky would have come back here. He knew Bucky had come here when he fell off the grid with Hydra in the 70s. He might not know The Winter Soldier, but he knew his friend. And the Bucky he knew—the friend he had to believe was under all the programming and torture—would have come back to something familiar.

            “Anything?” Sam asked.

            Steve shook his head. There wasn’t any sign of Bucky. They had moved along the streets, looking over buildings, seeing if any looked like somewhere Bucky could lay low.

            All Steve could see, though, wasn’t the neighborhood. It was Bucky, looming over him, ready to strike him with a final fatal blow. And then the horror on his face when Steve told him he was with him to the end of the line. That moment in the helicarrier…Steve had thought it saved Bucky. But now he was starting to think it might have destroyed him. How was Bucky supposed to reconcile who he was 90 years ago with what Hydra had made him?

            “Over there,” Sam said quietly.

            A three story house with a sign on the door stating it was condemned stood sandwiched between other houses that weren’t in much better shape, but looked to be occupied.

            Steve glanced around to make sure no one would be paying attention and approached the house.

            The front door was locked. He glanced in the windows and didn’t see anything on the ground level.

            He jogged back down the steps and ducked between houses. The windows on this side were boarded up. But there was a loose one, on the back side. He pulled it to the side and looked in.

            He climbed through, waited for Sam.

            His eyes adjusted to the dark and he looked around. Nothing on the ground floor stood out to him. He climbed the stairs.

            The second floor had an open doorway. This room’s windows weren’t entirely boarded up and light came in. An empty water bottle and a couple granola bar wrappers littered the floor.

            It could have been any number of homeless drifters or squatters who had left the detritus behind. He knew that. But something told him it was Bucky. This is where Bucky would have gone.

            Steve looked around, searching for any sign that would tell him Bucky was still here, or coming back.

            Nothing in the wrappers or bottle hinted at anything.

            This was pointless. They were in a city of millions of people, looking for one man who had been trained to disappear.

            He hated the thought of Bucky on the run, confused if he was still in the shape Steve had last seen him. But, worse than that, he hated thinking of Bucky alone.

           

           

 

 

#

 

 

 

            Bucky looked at the girl. She was still sleeping. Whatever Hydra had done to her was still affecting her. Or she was catching up after being malnourished and exhausted…at least he thought that’s what had happened. She had been with him, hadn’t she? He had seen her at Hydra. He…he thought he had…

            He stared at her. Her sharp jawline and high cheekbones. Long dark hair.

            She wasn’t going back to Hydra.

            He wasn’t being taken back. Not alive.

            His thoughts back on track, he felt his focus shift, clear. They had to get to safety.

            The bus was pulling into a station. They were across the border, out of the States. Canada.

            Hydra had reach here. No doubt S.H.I.E.L.D did, too. But maybe no one was looking this far yet.

            They had to keep moving.

            “Wake up,” he said in a low voice. He avoided touching her.

            She stirred groggily. He looked to the front of the bus as soon as he knew she was alert enough and getting to her feet.

            He started down the aisle of the bus. The rest of the passengers were filing into the depot. There would be a customs counter there, where they would have to show ID to enter the country.

            He made sure they were angled away from cameras. He kept his head down. When he veered away from the line moving towards the counter, and agents there, the girl followed.

            He positioned himself so she blocked anyone’s view of his hand, then reached up and pulled the fire alarm on the wall.

            She jolted at the sound and looked around.

            “Head down,” he said sharply. “Move.”

            They fell in with the flow of people heading toward the exits. He made sure they were among the first out of the depot, and kept walking. Away from the building, away from the other bus passengers who still needed to make it through customs. Into Canada.

 

#

 

            Elia was exhausted. And alone. Even with Bucky next to her, she was alone. Because it was the Soldier leading them though Canada. Wary of everyone, one triggering word or move from attacking, pushing on. Constantly moving.

            Elia blinked back tears. Her hands hurt. They ached all the way to the bone and wouldn’t stop seizing up. But she had to keep moving. If she didn’t, she would be left behind and on her own.

            She pushed harder to keep up with his fast stride. The ever present backpack on his back held whatever food he had picked up when they had found a grocery store upon their arrival in Winnipeg. Now they were in a different town. He had made sure she had her hat pulled low over her face, then directed her to keep up.

            She had no idea where they were going. He had been taking a course that had them blending into crowded cities, then out on the fringes of the wilderness where there were no signs of life.

            “There,” he said. He nodded toward a motel. They had stayed in an abandoned car in a junkyard last night, him in the driver’s seat, where she was sure he hadn’t actually slept, and her curled up in the backseat where she had dozed fitfully until he had woke her by opening the door and announcing it was time to move.

            After two days of making their way across southern Canada, sleeping on buses, the idea of having a door to close on the outside world was a comfort she hadn’t realized was a luxury.

            Bucky pulled the backpack off his back. He looked at the cash they had. “Go pay for a room,” he said. “Say it’s just you staying here.”

            She looked up at him in alarm. He was leaving her here? He was intimidating— scary even— when he was in Soldier mode like this, focused on a mission and nothing else, but he was still familiar. And a protection against Hydra or S.H.I.E.L.D. or whoever it was they were running from.

            “You’re leaving?” she asked. Her mind spun, trying to figure out what she was supposed to do from here.

            He stared at her without emotion. “If they’re tracking two Hydra fugitives, it’s smarter to not register together.”

            Her breath eased out of her tight chest. That made sense. She nodded, then his words struck her. Fugitives. She was a criminal?

            Bucky looked around them. “Go pay,” he said.

            Elia nodded.

            This didn’t look like a motel that would have security cameras, but she tried to shield her face from any angle they may be capturing images from anyway.

            The desk clerk didn’t look like he cared who was staying in the building as long as they paid.

            He took the cash Elia handed him, Canadian dollars Bucky had changed somewhere yesterday, and handed her a key card. He didn’t say anything and turned back to the talk show on the small television behind him.

            Elia took the key card, then paused. One key. But then she shook herself. They had stayed in the junkyard car and a condemned house together. A motel was no different. And she was guessing they had to guard their dwindling supply of cash.

            Outside, Bucky was at the edge of the parking lot. He saw her and moved between the few parked cars to her.

            Her hand didn’t want to cooperate, so she held the key card awkwardly between bent fingers. She handed it to him.

            “Room five,” she said.

            He strode off in that direction.

            When they got to the room, he opened the door and went in, one hand poised near his gun, scanning the room before he went in further and looked behind furniture, opening the closet door and bathroom before his posture relaxed slightly.

            Elia went in after him. She sank onto the edge of the bed. It was a strange kind of bliss to not have to fight anymore against muscles that didn’t want to cooperate.

            Bucky didn’t sit. He stood in the corner of the room. It was a posture she had seen him take back when they had been prisoners. When he had been on guard.

            Her hands seized up again. She hissed her breath in between her teeth and willed the muscles to relax. They didn’t. Tears pricked her eyes.

            She looked again to Bucky. He didn’t move. He was the soldier she had been trapped with at Hydra.

            She blinked quickly, trying to hold back the tears that threatened. She sniffled quietly. She wanted to go home. She wanted her life back like it was before. Before she had been taken by Hydra. Before they had injected her full of drugs and left her with intractable pain and muscle spasms.

            There was no box of tissues in this motel room. Nothing but dingy carpeting and worn curtains. She wiped her nose on her sleeve and another tear spilled. Her hands seized up, muscles contracting tightly. She couldn’t stop the quiet crying that started, overflowing from days—weeks—months—of confusion and loneliness and fear.

            The sound of water running in the bathroom startled her. She looked and Bucky wasn’t in his guard position anymore.

            He came out of the open bathroom door, water still running.

            He stared at her without reaction to her tears. She sniffled again and brought her hands in protectively closer to her.

            “Hot water,” he said.

            “What?” she asked.

            “Your hands. Hot water.”

            Elia eyed him uncertainly. He moved to the side, like he was clearing space for her to go through the bathroom door.

            Elia kept an eye on him as she stood, wincing at the extra pain the movement brought. She edged past him to the bathroom.

            Hot water poured out of the bathtub faucet, the tub filling with steaming water.

            A hot bath.

            If she had thought being inside, in a room that isolated the world outside the door was a luxury, the idea of a hot bath was heaven.

            She looked back over her shoulder at Bucky. The Soldier stood in the corner of the room again.     

            She closed the bathroom door.

            The air was starting to fill with steam. She wiped at her tears. Ripped a piece of toilet paper from the roll and blew her nose.

            When the tub was nearly full, she struggled to turn off the flow of water. Getting it turned off, she shucked her clothing, letting it fall in a pile on the floor.

            She stepped into the tub. She couldn’t hold back a groan of pure relief as she sank down into the hot water.

            She let her hands fall into the heat and immediately the pain started to release its grip.

            She let her head fall back against the back of the tub and closed her eyes. Tears leaked out from under her closed lids. She swallowed hard against the knot in her throat.

            She wanted to go home. That’s all she wanted.

            She sniffed again. Tried to bite back the tears.

            She squeezed her eyes shut tighter. She listened to the sounds outside the motel room.

            It wasn’t like the sounds outside her Hydra cell. She wasn’t there anymore. She had to remember that. Remember that this could be so, so much worse.

            She tried to focus on that. Focus on the edges of her pain finally dulling. The way her fingers finally cooperated with movement.

            She couldn’t look back or she’d never stop crying.

 

#

 

 

            Steve picked up speed. The steady pounding of his feet on the pavement was in a rhythm with his breath. He didn’t notice the fall colors around the Mall.

            His ribs hurt, his head throbbed. This was too much after his run in with Bucky. He wasn’t fully healed. But he needed to move.

            He hadn’t found Bucky. Not that he had expected to find him so easily. But he had been so sure that if Bucky was going to ground, it would be back home. Back where they both were from.

            He pushed himself harder, ignoring the pain that shot down his leg every time he landed on it.

            He had made his peace with being in the wrong time. With not looking back. But that had been when he thought everyone from the past had lived a full life, moved on without him, and been ok.

            Bucky had been anything but OK.

            He had to find him. He had no idea if Bucky knew where he was. If Bucky knew who he was.

            He kept seeing those pictures. Replaying the stories he had read in the file.

            The Bucky he knew would never have done that. Any of that. And the Bucky he knew wouldn’t be able to forgive himself once he knew what he had done.

            He stopped, doubling over, hands on his knees. He had to catch his breath.

            His shirt stuck to his back, the cool fall air welcome as it blew over him.

            He had to figure out where Bucky would go. Find someone who had seen him.

            He had abandoned Bucky once. It didn’t matter that he hadn’t known Bucky had survived the fall from the train—he hadn’t been there to save Bucky when he needed it.

            He wasn’t going to make that mistake again.

 

 

#

 

 

            Elia stayed in the water until it cooled. And until her tears were under control, pushed down and out of the way with her grief.

            She stepped from the water and pulled a thin towel from the towel bar. Her fingers worked better, allowing her to keep from dropping it.

            She dried off and pulled her same clothes back on. The only spare set of clothes she had were the fatigues from Hydra. She wasn’t putting those on.

            She toweled her hair and made an effort to comb it with fingers that were slightly more cooperative.

            Feeling almost human for the first time in days…no, in months. She hadn’t felt human since Rumlow had taken her.

            She opened the bathroom door. The Soldier wasn’t standing guard in the corner. Instead, he was sitting on the edge of the bed.

            He didn’t move at the door opening. No response to Elia moving slowly into the room.

            She looked at him closely. He wasn’t on guard. He was just not there.

            Bucky’s eyes were empty.

            She had seen this version of him, too. For all the times she had seen him standing guard, she had also seen him waiting. Blank, motionless. Withdrawn into himself until a handler came to activate him.

            She worked at the zipper on the backpack until she got it open. She dropped the half used bottles of shampoo, conditioner, lotion into the bag. Closing the bag again, she hesitantly approached the bed.

            “Thank you,” she said. He didn’t respond. “The heat helped.”

            Still no response. No movement.

            She wondered if he was trapped in his head. If he really was as checked out as he looked, or if he was fighting battles in his mind. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have silence in her brain. She hoped he had that reprieve.

            The sun was already set, the room cast in shadows.

            She went to the bed, the side he wasn’t sitting on. Her hands fumbled with the polyester spread, but it was still easier to grip it than it would have been before the hot shower.

            She slid beneath the sheets. The bed mattress wasn’t high quality, but it was softer than the floor she had slept on in New York and the bus seats since. Definitely softer than the hard cot in her Hydra cell.

            She squeezed her eyes shut against the memories of Hydra.

            The sound of traffic outside was a distant hum. Nearer she could hear Bucky’s steady breaths. Slow and even.

            She wasn’t alone in a cell. She reminded herself of that.

            No, she wasn’t alone in a cell. She was on the run with a trained assassin. She was a fugitive.

            She tossed over to her other side. Why was this mattress so hard to get comfortable on? She thought after months without a mattress, even a bargain motel mattress should feel like sleeping on a cloud.

            She shifted again.

            Were they just going to keep moving? From motel to motel? Forever?

            The mattress springs squeaked under her and she made an effort to stop fidgeting.

            She opened her eyes and saw Bucky’s still form on the edge of the bed. Still motionless.

            She tried again to get comfortable, but it was hopeless.

            Finally, she pushed off the covers and got out of bed. No reaction from Bucky. There was an extra blanket folded on the top shelf of the closet. She got that and took one of the thin pillows from the bed.

            She stretched out on the floor with a sigh of relief. The unyielding surface was familiar. And that made it comfortable.

            She pulled the blanket over her and closed her eyes to the sound of Bucky’s constant steady breaths.

 

#

Chapter 15

Chapter 15

 

 

            Bucky didn’t open his eyes immediately. It was ingrained in him to hold still, listen to his surroundings first. Clock any threats before he let on that he was alert.

            Breathing. There was breathing. Someone was with him.

            He opened his eyes slowly. He didn’t see anyone, just heard the soft breathing.

            Careful to not draw too much attention to himself, he pushed up to sitting from where he had slept on the floor. He looked over the motel room.

            There. Blankets around the corner of the bed, on the floor.

            Had they assigned someone else to this mission with him?

            He pulled the gun out from under his pillow, holstering it, then got up, surveying the room. He moved slowly until he saw who it was.

            The girl. He knew her. They were both with Hydra.

            He shook his head, trying to shake aside the memories and voices and thoughts that pressed in.

            Focus on the mission.

            That bought him some space. Leveled out thoughts that started drifting towards chaos.

            He studied the girl. Her face was peaceful in sleep. Long dark hair tangled down her back, over her shoulders. She shifted, her hands fisting, her brow furrowing, before relaxing again.

            She didn’t look like the other Hydra operatives. She looked…young. Innocent.

            Sirens sounded outside in the distance. His hand went to the gun he had kept in its holster until they faded away again.

            He looked at the girl again.

            “We need to move,” he said.

            Her eyes opened and she looked around wildly for a moment before she saw him. She didn’t move, staring at him looming over her.

            Bucky looked over his shoulder, reassuring himself no one was coming to the door. “We need to move,” he said again.

            She nodded, pushing up to sitting, wincing slightly.

            He looked over the room. They couldn’t risk leaving any sign of who had been here.

            He picked up the backpack and shouldered it. The girl had slept in her clothes. She made an effort at pulling her hair back and drew a ball cap down low over her face.

            Bucky pulled on his own black ball cap.

            Move west. Move north. It was an internal drive. Had he been programmed for this mission?

            He left the key to the room on the bed and made sure the door was closed tight behind them.

            Move. Move west. Move north.

 

#

 

 

            It felt like they had been on the road for months. Elia knew it had only been days, but she still wasn’t sure she could take another second on a bus. She stood from her seat, and tried to stretch her legs, almost numb after nearly ten hours of travel.

            She drew a sigh of relief when they got off the bus. Bucky didn’t show any sign of feeling relief at being able to stretch his legs, or move freely. Just got off the bus and looked around the terminal.

            This bus station was busy. Everything in her hoped they weren’t just transferring to another bus. Bucky strode through the depot, broad shoulders clearing a path and she trailed after in his wake.

            He moved like he knew where they were going. Like they had a destination, not just an attempt to put distance between them and DC. Elia really hoped he did. That he wasn’t just lost in the Soldier’s mind somewhere on a mission.

            He exited the building and she followed, the fresh air a relief, as much as the knowledge they weren’t getting on another bus. Without the constant drone of tires under them, voices echoing in a building, all her senses got some relief outside.

            Outside, he kept up his pace. They stepped out onto a street. In the distance the street was flanked by quaint brick buildings and a road that headed toward snow capped mountains. Not exactly where she had pictured the Soldier taking them.

            Signs welcoming visitors to Banff, featuring smiling couples in hot tubs, families on ski slopes, caught her attention. The Soldier was striding through the cheerful vacationers in the parking lot outside the bus station without a look.

            Elia managed to keep pace with him. She tried to remember to keep her head down in case there were cameras, trying to see the mountains dominating the horizon through lowered eyes.

            They moved away from the depot parking lot. It was cold, colder than DC, colder than New York. She shivered, but worked at keeping up with him.

            He turned a corner and went to a carpool lot.

            She wanted to tell him not to. They couldn’t steal a car again. But before she could repeat what she had already told him days earlier, he stopped next to a small SUV. He knelt down next to it, reached a hand under and retrieved a small magnetic box.

            “What…?” Elia started, but Bucky was already standing and removing the key from the box. He unlocked the vehicle.

            “Get in.”

            Elia hesitated. But he had the key. How did he know this car would have a hidden key?

            She got in.

            Bucky backed out of the parking space. He started driving. Again, like he knew where he was going.

            The town was crowded, fall colors were just losing their full bloom, snow was moving in, and the number of tourists reflected that.

            Elia looked at Bucky. The soldier. His face was blank. Driven. On a mission.

            He drove to the edge of town. Past picturesque cabins. Log homes. None of it fit with the trained killer driving the car.

            It was a solid hour, with turns down multiple highways and dirt roads, before he slowed.

            Elia straightened in her seat. He knew where they were going, that was clear. She looked at his profile. His face was impassive.

            The road narrowed, winding deeper into the woods.

            Her gut clenched. What was in these woods?

            “Bucky?” she asked.

            No response.

            The sun had set some time after they left the highway and the only light was from the headlights.

            He slowed more, then turned. The headlights swung over a narrower road and he eased the car down it carefully.

            The farther down this road they got, the harder the lines in his face grew. The less he looked like Bucky.

            Elia shifted uneasily. She had seen what the Soldier was trained to do. What he did.

            She drew in a long breath through her nose, willing her heart to slow its erratic thumping. The Jeep jostled over deep ruts on the overgrown trail. She rubbed at hands that were stiff and tingling, unease growing.

            And then there was a clearing. Hardly a clearing, just enough room in the trees for a small cabin and a shed. It was almost hard to tell which building was the shed.

            Bucky put the Jeep in park and turned it off. He didn’t move immediately. He studied the buildings, looked over the woods around them. Elia tried to see into the shadows, see what he might be seeing.

            Then he opened the door. He glanced her way and spoke. “Pdozhdi zdes’,” he said in a low voice.

            “I—I—” she stammered, but he was getting out of the jeep. “Bucky,” she said, desperately trying to figure out what was going on. “I don’t speak Russian!” she whispered desperately through the darkness after him.

            But he didn’t look back. He pulled his gun from the holster beneath his sweatshirt and jacket and started toward the smaller of the two small buildings.

            She opened her mouth to call after him, but cut off her cry. The way he was moving made it clear he was checking to see if anyone was inside.

            What if someone was inside? Her thoughts tumbled over one another, trying to make sense of where they were now, what he was doing.

            The shed apparently clear, he moved to the cabin. He opened the door and went in.

            Elia sat in the SUV, the only sound her own breaths coming in sharp bursts. She curled her fingers around the seat under her, unable to get a strong enough hold to ground herself. Her muscles tensed, ready to flinch at the sound of gunfire.

            She cut her eyes to the keys, still in the ignition. She could leave. But…she couldn’t do that. Not to Bucky. Not even to the Soldier. It wasn’t his fault he was like this.

            She couldn’t leave him. He hadn’t left her.

            The night around her closed in on her, only her harsh gasps for air cutting through the oppressive silence.

            And then he was coming out of the unassuming cabin, gun back in his holster.

            He opened the back door of the vehicle and pulled out their backpack.

            “It’s clear,” he said.

            Relieved to hear him speak English, she fumbled with the door handle. Getting it open, she followed him yet again.

            The cabin was as cold as the outdoors, especially after the warmth in the car.

            Bucky set the bag on a plain wooden table. He pulled a lantern down from a shelf and a box of matches with it.

            The lantern glow didn’t extend out through the room, shadows lingered in every corner.

            He moved to the far end of the single room that seemed to be the sum of the cabin. He knelt down in front of the fireplace. Instead of finding a match again, he took the couple logs out of the stone fireplace. He set them aside. He brushed the ash to the side and studied the stones underneath.

            He grew more still the longer he looked at the stones. Unmoving.

            Elia cautiously moved closer. He still didn’t move. His shoulders were squared, but only rose and fell with each slow breath.

            And then she saw his eyes. He wasn’t looking at the fireplace anymore. She wasn’t sure he was looking at anything. He had gone somewhere in his mind again.

            “Bucky?” she ventured.

            He blinked. His brow furrowed at the stones in front of him. He looked around the cabin, squinting at their surroundings.

            He was lost.

            He looked at her. Elia had no idea what to say to him. “We got off the bus in Banff,” she offered.

            Her heart ached as she watched him try to make sense of where they were. She needed him to make sense of it, because she sure had no clue. But it was painful to see the man who looked like he could handle anything, at a loss.

            “Banff,” he repeated. Then he looked around them again. “This is a Hydra stash house,” he said.

            At the mention of Hydra, her stomach lurched. “This is Hydra’s?” she asked, her voice high and reedy. Her hands started to shake.

            Bucky shook his head. “Not anymore. Hydra’s gone…right?” He looked to her like he had no idea what had happened over the past week.

            “They’re gone.” She said it as much to reassure herself as him.

            He nodded. He turned back to the fireplace. He studied it again. He pulled a knife from his pocket, giving it an absentminded twirl as he kept looking at the stones.

            With a sudden movement, he stuck the blade between two stones. The sudden clank of the metal against stone struck against Elia’s already frayed nerves.

            Bucky levered one of the stones up.

            Elia moved closer, trying to see what he had found.

            He pulled out a bag. Setting it aside, he laid the stone back in place, putting the logs back in the fireplace. He brought the bag back over to the table, setting it next to the black backpack.

            Elia wasn’t sure what she expected, but not the stacks of cash, bundled together with rubber bands. Several passports for different countries. Bucky didn’t open them, just set them aside. Maps and a handful of burner phones came out next. Bucky looked at the array.

            Elia waited to see if he would say something, if he remembered something. Clearly he had remembered this house. The way he had been driven to get here, like it was ingrained in him.

            Abruptly Bucky gathered everything and stuffed it in the blackpack.

            “I’ll get food in town tomorrow,” he said. “With the money.”

            He zipped the bag shut, and Elia got the feeling he was trying to zip the memories away, too.

            “We should get some sleep,” she suggested. He needed a break. They both did. This day—the last week—sleep would give them a reprieve.

            Bucky nodded. He went to the single bed in the corner of the room. Reaching underneath, he pulled out a box. He took a couple blankets from it and moved to the kitchen area, spreading out the blanket.

            Elia wasn’t about to try a mattress again and spend the first part of the night tossing because the softness was no longer familiar to her body. She pulled the blankets from the narrow bed and made her own bed on the rough hewn wood floor next to the bed.

            Exhaustion wanted to overtake her fatigued muscles and racing mind and she willingly let it.

 

#

           

           

 

 

            Bucky hadn’t fallen asleep until the early morning. But when he had finally fallen asleep, he had relived memories of Hydra through the few hours he got.

            When he opened his eyes, it was only a continuation of the dream. He was in a Hydra safe house.

            His heart jolted, and he jerked upright, the blanket he had pulled over himself falling off. Alarm ran through his veins like ice creeping in. He looked around the house he had been to. Had been instructed to go to after bombing the Canadian Parliament. And again, while he waited for the right date for the prime minister to travel through Banff. Everything he thought had happened—running from Hydra, breaking free, the girl—was that the dream? None of that had been real?

            And then he heard movement. He looked over and didn’t see a Hydra handler, or another operative. He saw the girl.

            She was real. This was real. He had done this yesterday, watched her wake on the floor of a motel room.

            She stirred slightly and he saw the now-familiar movement of her clenching her hands, fingers twitching.

            They weren’t with Hydra.

            She was also on the floor, just a blanket pulled over her, in clothes that looked worse for wear.

            Bucky blinked, rubbed his hand over his face. His hand was trembling as his blood started to warm again, the ice receding for now.

            The past days came back to him. He had started to run, to go to ground…do what he was trained to do.

            He had fallen back on his Hydra programming and he had dragged her right along.

            He had brought her to a Hydra encampment.

            What was wrong with him?

            “Good morning,” she said softly.

            She was sitting up now, rubbing her hands together lightly, fingers still twitching sporadically.

            “Bucky?” she asked when he didn’t say anything.

            Soldat. That’s what they had called him. He didn’t have a name, just Soldat. A soldier. Nothing more than a weapon to be used.

            Bucky shook his head. He had to stay in the present.

            The girl was watching him, dark eyes gentle with concern.

            Abruptly, he stood. She squinted, like the sudden movement strained her eyes to watch. He turned away from her.

            He shouldn’t be around her. Not with her gentle words, and soft voice. Her kind eyes. Soothing touches to his arm.

            He was a weapon. A machine. And he had proven that. Doing what he was programmed to do—return to Hydra. Become The Soldier and return to Hydra. And he had brought her along.

            It didn’t matter that Hydra had been blown to pieces with the Triskelion. He had brought her right back to Hydra the first chance he had.

            “Bucky?” she asked.

            He was walking toward the cabin door. “I’m getting some air,” he said.

            But even as he said that, he knew it wasn’t true. He would leave her the backpack. She may need the gun in it. The keys to the Hydra vehicle were still in the ignition. She could stay in this cabin indefinitely. Take the vehicle to get food in town. Use the cash in the backpack.

            Bucky went to the chimney at the side of the house. He ran his hand over the cold bricks of the chimney until he felt the slight difference in one. He hit it with the palm of his hand until it worked free. Then he took the waterproof pouch out and slid the brick back in place, hitting it until was lodged back in line, like it had never been removed.

            She may find the other stash locations in the house eventually, but if she didn’t, this would be enough. He knew there were several thousand dollars in this envelope, in addition to what he had removed from the fireplace.

            He opened the car door and tossed the pouch on the driver’s seat for her to find.

            And then he started walking.

 

#

 

 

 

 

            Steve turned the phone around in his hand. He hadn’t slept well. Not since he had seen the files, learned what had been done to Bucky. Not when he knew Bucky was still out there somewhere.

            He couldn’t stay with Sam forever, sleeping in his spare room. He would have to…do something. Go somewhere.

            He hadn’t felt this alone since he had first woken up from the ice.

            He looked down at the phone. Most of the numbers would be defunct now. S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, and offices that no longer existed.

            The phone was heavy in his hand.

            The house was silent. Sam was out at one of the support groups he ran for veterans. Steve should be looking through Bucky’s file again, trying to find something that could lead him to his friend. But he couldn’t bring himself to look at it again. See Bucky as a killer.

            He turned the phone over and turned it on. He scrolled through the numbers programmed in. All work related.

            He chose one and pushed the button.

            It rang and he wondered if it would be answered.

            There was a click and then he had his answer. “Hey,” came a low voice with the hint of a smile. “Miss me already?”

            “Not as much as congress is,” Steve said, feeling an answering smile form.

            Natasha’s quiet laugh came through the line. “Someone needed to tell them the truth for once.”

            She had done that. She had faced the congressional hearing committee, even knowing that her entire past was known, and then walked out when she was done with saying her piece.

            “How are you, Nat?” he asked.

            There was silence on the other end of the line.

            “Yeah,” he said, when the silence stretched on. “Me too.”

            He didn’t know how to do this. How to be a soldier without an army. How to just…be a person. He wondered if that’s how Nat felt, too.

            “How’s your project going?” she asked.

            Now it was his turn to hesitate. It wasn’t like he had thought he’d find Bucky immediately, he reminded himself. “It’s at a standstill for now,” he said.

            “I’m sorry, Steve,” she said.

            He had missed her. He hadn’t realized how much until he was listening to her voice, picturing her eyebrows lowering with sympathy, or her lips lifting with a small hint of humor.

            He couldn’t hold back the sigh of loneliness that escaped.

            “Yeah,” she said quietly. “Me too.”

 

#

 

 

            Elia didn’t hear Bucky. She didn’t hear anything. This cabin was far from anything. The only sound around her was the rush of wind in the pine trees that crept in close to the back of the cabin.

            She rubbed at the ache in her hands absently. Her vision was blurring. She couldn’t see the details of the cabin anymore. A large lump where the couch was, but now she couldn’t make out the orange and brown plaid. She knew the cabinets were dark brown, along one wall, but their edges were indistinguishable from the walls. The sun was rising, it should be brightening the single room.

            She squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again. It only made the black at the edges of her vision creep in to cover more of the vague shapes she could see.

            She went to where she knew the cabinets were. When she got close enough, she could still make out their shape. She needed water. She just needed a drink of water.

            The cabinets blurred, then darkened. She ran her hands across the door, feeling for a handle. The first one had plates. She felt her way across the cabinet fronts to another and this time she found a few glasses and mugs. She set the mugs on the counter to get them out of the way and pulled down a glass. They were lighter than the heavy ceramic mugs that she struggled to hold in a grip.

            Focus on a drink of water, she kept repeating to herself. Don’t think of the way the room was disappearing around her.

            She couldn’t find the faucet.

            She felt for a counter and set the glass down. Gripped at the edge of the counter, anything to steady herself.

            Her hands struggled to get the grip and she abruptly pushed away.

            Her foot hit the corner of something. The lower cabinets? She couldn’t move without banging into something, the way the haze was pressing in on her eyes.

            She tried to remember what the cabin looked like. Focus on what she knew was around her instead of what she couldn’t see.

            A low double bed with a shabby blanket. A small kitchen area with a propane powered fridge. She had seen an outhouse when they had pulled up last night, but wondered if there was any kind of bathroom in the cabin. Maybe it was the door that she had seen on the far wall.

            She started moving toward the remembered door on the wall opposite the entry door. Her shin banged into something sharp and she sucked in a harsh breath. Tears immediately sprang to her eyes.

            She reached down to rub at her throbbing shin with one hand. With the other, she stretched her fingers out, trying to feel what she had hit. A low table. There had been a table in front of the couch.

            How was she already over near the couch?

            The black shifted like smoke over her sight, taking more details from what she could see.

            “Bucky?” she finally ventured. Her words were too loud in the silence of the cabin. “Bucky?” she tried again.

            Was he still outside?

            Her heart had started beating harder with the sudden jolt of pain, but now it picked up pace, thudding painfully against her chest.

            Had he gone back to the town to get something? She hadn’t heard the car leave.

            She shuffled forward more cautiously, trying to feel for obstacles. “Bucky?” Her toe jammed against something and she bit back a cry. Fingers traced over the edge of the fireplace. And she realized she couldn’t see at all anymore. She couldn’t see anything.

            The black cloud had turned to an opaque ink. She couldn’t see light. She couldn’t make out blurry impressions of anything. Her vision was gone.

            And so was Bucky.

            Her shin and toe both throbbed. And her heart pounded.

            She put out her hands, not even sure where she was going, but desperately trying to move, to feel her way around the cabin. Her hands shook violently as she moved, no way of knowing where she was anymore. No idea which direction she was facing, which way she was headed.

            She was alone. She was completely and totally alone and blind.

           

 

#

 

 

            He was doing the right thing. Bucky told himself that with every step. Leaving the girl—getting himself away from her—was the right thing. He couldn’t be trusted. He didn’t even know what was real. He had brought her to a Hydra base. She was better off without him.

            But every time he repeated the words, he felt his chest hollow out more.

            He wasn’t better off without her.

            He slammed the door on that thought before it could fully form. Because he was better off without anyone. He was a monster and deserved to be alone.

            But the girl didn’t.

            He could easily see the way her hands bothered her. She couldn’t open her own food or water bottle half the time.

            His steps slowed.

            And without her hands, could she defend herself, even with a gun?

            He cursed himself. He had brought her to a Hydra location. What if he hadn’t been the only one who had the idea to go there for the money? And he had left her on her own.

            He was worse than a monster. He was an idiot.

            How was she going to stay off the radar? He was sure she had no idea how to move between safe houses without attracting attention. And there was no way she had contacts, or knew how to find them, to get any sort of forged passports or documents.

            With a huff of frustration, he swung around and started back the direction he had come.

            He jogged down the wooded road, finding the dirt road he had turned off. With every step, he found a new name to call himself. It passed the time.

            The dirt road changed to a little traveled track. The track narrowed. And then the cabin came into view.

            He was almost to the door when he heard glass shatter.

            His hand went to his knife the same time his other hand went to the door.

            He opened the door and quickly slipped inside, looking around immediately to place the threat. But all he saw was the girl. Just the girl.

            She must have heard him, because she swung in his direction. Her arm hit a mug, knocking it from the counter to join the shards of glass already shattered across the floor, and she stepped across it, letting out a pained yelp when she stepped on it in her bare feet.

            He started toward her and her eyes kept darting around, not landing on him. Her face was pale.

            “Who’s there?” she asked in a wavering voice, her words shaking, breath coming in sharp staccato bursts.

            She didn’t recognize him? Had the drugs wrecked her memory, too?

            He slowed his steps. Watched her.

            “Who’s there?” she said more forcefully. She reached a hand out for the counter and he watched her feel along it until her fingers hit a mug. She awkwardly worked to get hold of it and then held it up, wielding it like a weapon. She turned slightly away from him and brandished it towards the empty side of the room.

            She couldn’t see.

            He had known her vision was bothering her, but it had seemed like nothing compared to her hands.

            “Stay back,” she said. The command would have held more weight if she was facing him—if she was actually talking to anyone in front of her. And if her voice wasn’t shaking like it was about to shatter like the glass underfoot.

            “It’s me,” he said.

            The mug slipped from her fingers to crack against the wood floor, and she whirled toward his voice.

            “Bucky?”

            “Yeah.” He didn’t know what else to say.

            “Bucky?” she asked again, taking a shaky step toward him, hands out like she was feeling for something…looking for him.

            He forced himself to approach her, though he couldn’t imagine being close to him bringing any sort of comfort to anyone, and her outstretched fingers brushed against his shirt, felt along his chest and rested there. He could feel them trembling, cold even through his shirt. Her touch, it hurt him. It hurt to be touched like a person and not a weapon to be wielded.

            “I—I can’t see,” she said. Her words were breathy, like she couldn’t get enough air.

            He didn’t know what he was supposed to say. Tell her it was ok? Because this sure didn’t feel ok. None of this was ok.

            “I can’t—I can’t—can’t breathe…” she was saying between sharp gasps for breath. “I can’t see and—and I can’t breathe.”

            She had said this before. Without him searching for it, a memory came forward. A more recent memory. Something she had said to him. When he was blurring the line between being Bucky or the Soldier. When he was focused on getting them out of New York.

            “It’s a panic attack,” he said.

            Her eyes jerked up toward him. They gazed unseeing, past his forehead, but her brows were lifted like she needed what he was saying.

            “A panic attack,” he said. “It’s just a panic attack.”

            Her fingers twitched against his chest. She tried to take a breath in. He could see her struggling to hold it before she let it out.

            “You’re ok,” he said, even though it was a lie. She was blind. Hydra had destroyed her. She was anything but ok.

            “I’m ok,” she repeated after him.

            “Just a panic attack,” he said. The words she had told him she needed to hear when she had a panic attack.

            “A panic attack,” she echoed.

            There was silence and he could only hear her ragged breathing, feel her fingers gripping at him. He forced himself not to pull away.

            “Glaza napugany, no ruki delayut eto.” The Russian came without thinking.

            Her brow furrowed, but she didn’t back away. “What does that mean?” she whispered.

            He didn’t need to think to translate it, but he had to sift through the memories attached to it. He felt his jaw tighten.

            “The eyes are scared, but the hands are doing it.”

            Her eyelids fluttered like she was taking it in, thinking about it.

            “You think I’m…I’m doing it?” she asked. “I’m not drowning?”

            He didn’t even have to think. “You’ve been doing it every step of the way. With Hydra. After Hydra.”

            She frowned slightly, her brow wrinkling more. Her unfocused eyes drifting down. She shook her head.

            “Glaza napugany, no ruki delaut eto,” he repeated. It was something he would hear the operatives saying to one another. When they were preparing for a mission that they knew not everyone would come back from. No one said it to him, they didn’t speak to him. He was on his own, no room for feelings. Just a weapon. A machine. But he remembered hearing the Russian proverb often.

            “Just a panic attack,” she said, her breath noticeably slower. She nodded to herself. “Glaza napoo…” she looked in his direction again.

            He said the proverb again and she repeated it in broken, English-accented Russian.

            Her hands pressing against his chest lightened their touch. Color returned to her cheeks, more color than she had started with.

            “Sorry,” she said, pulling her hands back, biting her lip, cheeks flushed pink. She took a step away and gasped, flinching off her foot.

            He looked down. There were drops of blood trailing from the broken glass to where she stood.

            “You stepped in glass,” he said.

            “It hurts,” she muttered to herself with a frown. She reached out a hand and swung it in front of her as she turned from him, trying to inch her way towards a chair he assumed.

            She was heading toward the door.

            “This way,” he said gruffly.

            She turned and took a couple limping steps, making her way blindly toward the fireplace this time.

            “Here,” he said, reaching for her.

            He reached for the man trying to block his target. He grabbed him and flung him aside—

            Her hand found his arm, her touch featherlight, drawing him back to the present.

            He gripped the dog tags around his neck with his free hand.

            James Buchanan Barnes. Sargent. 32557038. He repeated it to himself.

            As solidly as he could get into the present for now, he released the tags and reached for her.

            She took another painful looking step and then gave in and leaned heavily against him.

            He got her over to the couch and helped her down. The morning light coming in through the few small windows was getting brighter and it reflected off tear tracks on her cheeks.

            “Sit,” he said, wincing when it came out like an order.

            She didn’t flinch away from the harsh directive. She felt behind her for the couch and lowered herself down. “Is there…is there a bowl? With some water?”

            He looked at her. Was she planning to clean the cuts herself? Find any small shards of glass and pull them out by feel?

            He went to the wall of the single room that was the designated kitchen area and found a large bowl in a cabinet. He got a worn towel and washcloth from a drawer.

            He had to go under the sink and turn the water back on to the sink before he got the faucet to work. It sputtered then let out a stream of rust colored water. When it ran clear, he filled the bowl.

            She was waiting on the couch, shaking hands pressed to her eyes. She lifted her head when she heard him.

            “Thank you,” she said, her hands moving in his general direction like she would take the bowl from him.

            He didn’t comment, but sat on the low table in front of the couch and dipped the rag in the bowl.

            He hesitated before reaching for her. “Your foot,” he said. Another order. She let him lift her foot over the bowl.

            She flinched when he squeezed the water out over the sole of her foot, letting it run into the bowl under it, but didn’t say anything. He repeated the process, watching for any bits of glass to dislodge.

            “What am I going to do?” she asked, breaking the silence of just dripping water and him swishing the rag in the bowl.

            He glanced away from his task to look at her.

            Her eyes were open, moving around like she was trying to see something.

            “I can’t see. I’m…I can’t see anything…” Her voice wobbled, and he noticed she avoided saying she was blind.

            He didn’t have an answer. But he thought of how her hands seized up some days, then she would be able to use them again when the spasms passed. Maybe it was the same with her eyes.

            She breathed out a shaky breath and let her head fall back against the couch cushions, closing her eyes.

            He looked for any hint of glass still in her foot. He lowered her foot to rest on his thigh and looked at her again.

            “What’s your name?” he asked.

            She blinked her eyes open and looked aimlessly in his direction before letting them fall closed again. “Elia.” She spoke quietly. Her brow creased. “My name was Elia Anderson.” She lapsed into silence. Bucky didn’t move. “I don’t know who I am anymore. After…after everything…with Hydra. What they did…”

            Here was one other person in the world who could understand what it was like to be used, to be turned into something other than who you thought you were, by that organization.

            He gently lowered her foot to the towel on the ground and stood. He went to the kitchen drawers again, rummaging through them until he found a ball of string. He broke off a piece and went back to her.

            His dog tags were warm from resting against his skin.

            James Buchanan Barnes. Sargent. 32557038

            He slid them over his head and unfastened the chain, sliding one tag free. He slid it onto the string, tying a knot to loop the string.

            He pressed it into her hands, then dropped the remaining tag over his head again.

            She frowned slightly, her fingers moving stiffly and awkwardly over the dog tag and string.

            “You’re still you,” he said. “We still have our names.”

            Her fingers curled around the tags and she swallowed hard. She nodded slightly.

            Elia. He said the name to himself.

            Elia.

 

#

 

 

            Elia couldn’t tell what Bucky was thinking. Without seeing him, reading his expressions, watching the way he moved, she felt worse than blind. She was lost. Completely without her bearings. She hated feeling vulnerable, not knowing the emotions of the person near her.

            Emotions could change on a whim. And if the emotion was frustration, disgust, anger…

            She gripped the single dog tag in her hands.

            “You still have glass in your foot,” he said.

            His voice was low. Not much emotion there. Was he annoyed he had to take care of her?

            “There should be a first aid kit,” he muttered to himself. She felt the shift when he moved away from her. She listened to him rummaging around the cabin.

            Her fingers were cold against the metal of the dog tag. She knew it didn’t say her name. But it was a reminder that she had a name. She was still Elia Anderson. Whatever that meant anymore.

            She could hear Bucky’s footsteps coming back. His steps were uneven, like the weight of his metal arm pulled him into his left foot a little more. She tried to hear if his steps gave any hint of the emotion she couldn’t see.

            She heard him sit on the low table in front of the couch again. The wood creaked under his weight. She felt him pull her foot into one hand. She could feel the difference in his two hands. But the metal one moved as easily as his flesh and bone hand.

            “This might hurt,” he said.

            It couldn’t hurt worse than anything Hydra had done. “Glaza napugan…” she started, trying to remember the words. She tried again. “Glaza napugany…”

            “Glaza napugany, no ruki delayut eto.” The Russian rumbled out of Bucky quietly.

            Elia repeated the words to herself. She focused on the words, on the quiet Russian Bucky had spoken, as he held her foot firmly and the tweezers scraped against her skin while probing for shards of glass and everything around her was pitch black darkness.

            The eyes are scared, but the hands are doing it.

 

#

Chapter 16

Chapter 16

 

 

            Elia couldn’t sleep. It should have been a relief to close her eyes and have darkness be normal. But it only affirmed that there was no difference between having her eyes open or closed.

            In the darkness, she pushed herself up to sitting, the few blankets under her rumpled from her attempts to settle in to sleep.

            She had no idea what time it was. The entire day had been disorienting. She had no idea where the sun was in the sky, she never knew which way she was facing until she bumped into something.

            Her hands trembled. She wasn’t sure what she hated more— the feeling of the tremors shaking her hands, or the sharp pains that ran along her fingers sporadically.

            She pushed her rough blanket aside and went to stand. The blanket was still wrapped around her feet and she stumbled slightly. Her hands groped helplessly through the darkness in front of her, but only sliced through the air. She was left to fight for balance in the darkness.

            She caught herself finally, getting her feet under her. She blew out a breath.

            She tried to listen, to sense, or feel what direction she was facing. She had no idea.

            She shuffled her feet along, needing to move, to get out of her bed on the floor. She couldn’t lie there anymore, thinking of everything she had lost, everything that would be so much harder now without her sight.

            Her heart thudded in her chest and her eyes stung—not from the blindness, but from tears that threatened.

            She kept scuffing her bare feet along the wood floor. The cuts from the glass earlier still stung, but she figured that was the least of her problems.

            Her feet struck something on the floor.

            “Oof!”

            “Sorry!” Elia exclaimed, retreating back a couple steps. “Are you ok?” she asked.

            “Fine,” Bucky grunted somewhere in the dark.

            If Bucky was sleeping in the same place he had last night, he was on the floor near the bed and she had veered to the left. She shuffled her feet forward, away from Bucky.

            “Ouch!”

            “Sorry!” she said again, stepping back. How had she gotten turned around again? Her foot throbbed where it had collided with Bucky’s solid form. She tried again to find her way away from him. This time her upper body collided with something solid and she lost her balance backwards, arms windmilling through space.

            Hands gripped her upper arms and kept her upright.   

            Elia tried to hear his breathing, gauge the tension in his hands. Something to tell her what he was thinking.

            But his hands released her once she was solidly upright.

            “What are you doing?” he asked.

            Elia shook her head. She had no idea. “I can’t sleep.”

            “Yeah,” he said drily. “Me neither.”

            “I’m sorry,” she apologized again.

            She heard Bucky’s long inhale and then exhale. She tensed. He was losing patience with her, that’s the only thing she could think the breath meant.

            “You didn’t eat much today,” he said.

            It was on the tip of her tongue to apologize again, but then he was moving, his voice farther from her.

            “I’ll make something.”

            Elia automatically tried to follow him, not wanting to be left alone in the darkness her eyes created.

            She jumped when she felt a hand on her arm again. But Bucky’s touch was hesitant.

            “Over here.”

            She let him guide her, exhausted from trying to navigate the space on her own, but also trying to intuit anything she could from the touch. Was he Bucky? Or the Soldier? Was he frustrated with her helplessness, annoyed with being woken by her tripping over him?

            “Sit,” he said. A chair bumped up to the back of her legs.

            Elia sat, moving her hands until she felt the table in front of her, running her fingers over it, getting her bearings.

            She heard cabinet doors opening and closing. The scratch of a match, then the smell of gas and a quiet whoosh as the stove was lit.

            Bucky had offered her granola bars earlier in the day. Opened them and pressed them into her hands. And then he had gone quiet. She had whispered his name, with no answer. She had no idea how long he had gone silent. It had felt like hours. But she could picture what was happening. He was lost in the shadows of his mind again.

            But now he was rattling around in the kitchen.

            She sat, visualizing pictures to go with what she heard. Bucky putting a pot on the stove, looking down at it with his usual grim expression. It almost brought a smile to her lips to picture him staring down whatever he was making like it was an enemy he was facing off with.

            “Did…did you cook much?” she asked. “I mean, before…”

            There was silence except for a can being opened and something being dumped into a pot. The scrape of a spoon as he stirred it.

            “My mom did,” he said.

            “Yeah?” Elia asked. Normalcy. Everything in her reached for the mundane, something safe and secure.

            There was silence again.

            “My mom made the best roast every Sunday,” Bucky said quietly.

            The only sound was the spoon in the pot as he stirred something.

            “What about your mom?” he asked. “Did she cook?”

            Elia’s shoulders reflexively tightened. “I don’t know,” she said. “She left when I was two.”

            She hated saying it. Hated thinking about it. She had spent her entire life trying to put distance between herself and her childhood.

            “She left you?”

            Elia curled her fingers into the fabric of her pants. “She left my dad,” she said, as if the distinction mattered. “He…he wasn’t a nice guy…” her voice trailed off.

            Silence again.

            Then the sounds changed to cabinet doors opening again and the clink of dishes.

            “That’s rough,” Bucky said.

            Elia couldn’t do this. She couldn’t get into those memories in the middle of what they were dealing with right now. She pressed her lips together and forced back any sort of memories that threatened to surface.

            She sensed, as much as she heard, him coming towards her. The scrape of a dish on the table.

            “It’s soup,” he said. “From a can.”

            Old memories still pressed forward and she tried to shove them aside.

            “It’s in front of you,” Bucky added. “And there’s a spoon…” He paused, then Elia felt something pressing into her hand. “There.”

            She really wished she could see him. Get a read on his expression. “Thank you,” she said. “Thanks for making it.”

            “It was better than laying on the floor, getting run over again,” Bucky said.

            Elia’s stomach bottomed out. She tried to look in his direction. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.” She pulled her bottom lip in between teeth.

            “It was…a joke,” he said dully.

            “Oh. Yeah.”

            She heard another dish set on the table and the chair legs dragging along the floor before she heard the creak of the wooden chair when she assumed Bucky sat down in it.

            She held the spoon in one hand and felt with her free hand for the bowl. When her fingers found it, she aimed the spoon towards the bowl. She assumed she scooped up some soup, but when she got the spoon to her lips, it was empty—the soup spilled off. She tried again. On the third try, after moving the spoon with painful precision toward her mouth, she finally got a taste. Chicken noodle.

            She was only on her second taste when the tension in her fingers started to take a toll. The ache in her hands built, the muscles twitched. Her spoon clattered to the table, clanking against the bowl.

            She heard Bucky’s chair slide back and squeezed her eyes shut. Was he going to storm out? Come pick up the spoon for her? She had no way of knowing, no way to read his expression while she sat in her dark solitude.

            A lump burned painfully in her throat and she squeezed her eyes tighter to hold back tears.

            She rubbed her hands together, trying to get relief from the bone deep ache.

            “Here.”

            She jumped at Bucky’s voice near her.

            She looked toward the sound of his voice instinctively before remembering it didn’t matter, she couldn’t see him.

            “Are you angry?” Elia asked before she caught herself. But she was desperate to know. To find out what she couldn’t see for herself.

            “Angry?” he asked, sounding…not happy, at the very least. But had she ever heard him happy?

            “I can’t see your face,” she said, then winced. It was ridiculous to tell him something he already knew. “I can’t see your expression.”

            “You think I’m mad?” he asked.

            She searched for words to explain. “It was…it was hard to…my dad had a temper,” she finally landed on the root of everything. Everything in her that was always failing, fearful…panicking. “I could…sometimes…if I could see he was getting angry, I could try to calm him down. Before he got too angry.” Before he would take it out on her.

            “So you started reading people,” Bucky said.

            Elia lifted a shoulder. That pretty much summed it up. But now… “I don’t know how to do this,” she whispered. “Any of this.” She figured that encompassed being on the run, dodging agents looking for them, living in a dark world she couldn’t see.

            There was silence for a beat, then she heard dishes again. Him lifting her bowl, pouring. Setting something on the table.

            “Glaza napugany, no ruki delayut eto,” Bucky said. That low rumble of Russian soothed over frayed nerves. She was doing it. She was scared—terrified—but she was still doing it.

            Then he pressed something into her hands. A mug.

            Elia forced stiff fingers that were reluctant to cooperate around the mug. She got it to her lips. It was her soup. She didn’t need to fight with a spoon. Not tonight, at least.

            They ate in silence. Elia hadn’t noticed she was hungry until she finally didn’t have to struggle to eat. When it was easy to drink the soup, to get her fill, she realized how hungry she had been.

            But once she was satisfied, and set her cup on the table, the darkness started to close in again.

            She rubbed her hands together. She could feel her heartbeat starting to pick up.

            “Can you say something in Russian?” she asked, anxiety building.

            “Russian?” he asked.

            “Anything,” she said. The pulse in her throat was hammering out against her skin, she pressed an unfeeling hand against it.

            A pause, and then, “Menya zovut James Buchanan Barnes. Seriynyy nomer tri dva pyat’ pyat’ sem’ nol’ tri vosem’…”

            She didn’t need to focus on words she couldn’t understand anyway.

She could just let the deep timbre of his voice block out memories and worries.

 

#

 

 

            The girl’s hands stopped trembling as he spoke. Bucky didn’t know what she expected him to say. He fell back on the one thing that offered him any kind of comfort. His name and serial number. After he said that a few times, he moved onto a mission report. An old mission, one that had sent him into Paris. There hadn’t been a kill. Just a stolen briefcase from a high security safe.

            He watched Elia’s breathing calm before it built to a panic attack. Her shoulders relaxed down from where they had been hunched up near her ears. She lowered her hand from where she was clutching at her throat.

            He wasn’t sure why listening to him describe his past crimes in Russian soothed her, but it was a relief that it worked. The Russian came to him easily. He didn’t want to say another mission report, didn’t want to invite any more of those memories in. No, that wasn’t right. They were already there, in him. Or bring them to the surface.

            He moved on to telling her the plot of The Hobbit. He had liked that book. His sister had tried to read it, then tossed it aside in favor of Gone With the Wind. He wondered if Elia had heard of either one of those books.

            When she looked somewhat closer to calm, he paused.

            She took a breath. “Thank you,” she said, looking somewhere to the left of him, clearly guessing his position wrong.

            “That something you learned in therapy?” he asked, remembering her saying something about a therapist before.

            “Have a fellow hostage speak Russian to me?” she asked. Her lips curved slightly in humor and he found himself unable to look away. “No. It just…it worked. When you were saying the proverb to me before. It…it’s like white noise. It drowns out…all of it.”

            He nodded, then remembered she couldn’t see his response. But not sure what to say to that.

            “I think I’ll try to sleep now,” she said. She pushed her chair back. He watched her stop and her brow furrow. He imagined her trying to mentally picture the layout of the cabin. Then she took halting steps toward where she had spread out blankets on the floor, one hand in front of her, feeling for obstacles before she crashed.

            With a few fumbling wrong steps, she made it.

            Bucky left the dishes on the table. It looked so normal. Two place settings, even if one was only a mug and a discarded bowl, the spoon still on the floor. But it looked like a table two vacationers had sat at, enjoying their trip to a mountain cabin. Not a trained assassin and a formerly drugged hostage having canned soup at one in the morning because they couldn’t sleep.

            He moved to his own blankets on the floor. He held back a groan as he lowered himself down. His shoulder ached. He couldn’t remember if the cold had bothered it before. Maybe his age was catching up with him. Or maybe it was the quiet. The first time he had been allowed to stop and feel.

            He laid back on the blanket covered hardwood and rubbed at the scars on his shoulder.

 

#

 

 

           

            Steve kept running.

            He had easily run ten miles already. Sam had logged a few miles, then waved to him, heading back home. And Steve just kept running. He had nothing else to do. No leads on finding Bucky. No agency to work for. Nowhere else to be.

            He had stopped counting how many laps he had made around the Washington Mall, the changing color of leaves reflecting in the still water.

            He heard an engine buzzing up behind him on the road. He ignored it until it slowed to keep pace with him.

            “Hey Cap,” came the familiar voice.

            Steve looked down at the low slung sports car. The tinted passenger window rolled down, Tony Stark leaning across from the driver’s seat to see him.

            “Tony,” Steve nodded.

            “I heard there’s a job coach over at the homeless shelter today. Kill two birds with one stone—a roof over your head and a job.”

            Steve kept jogging. “I’m good.”

            “Yeah, I bet you are. Sleeping over on some guy’s couch and nothing to do but run in circles around DC. Sounds like a dream.”

            “Did you need something?” Steve asked. He wasn’t really planning to listen to Tony’s answer.

            “I was thinking about getting the band back together. Know anyone who might be interested? We’re looking for someone tall, all-American. Maybe he can carry some sort of disk shaped object? He’d have to be ok with a little bit of spandex, though.”

            Steve’s steps slowed. He looked down to judge what Tony was really offering.

            “Who’s in?” he asked, drawing to a stop.

            “Clint. Thor. Bruce is waffling, but you know he’s going to come around.”

            No mention of Natasha. He wondered if Tony had been able to reach her. And what her answer would be.

            “It comes with housing, full benefits. The dental plan is top of the line,” Tony continued.

            Steve finally felt a small smile break.

            “The movers already picked up your furniture and things from your apartment. S.H.I.E.L.D. sure wasn’t wasting money on housing. You’re making the right choice. Huge upgrade.”

            A laugh huffed out of Steve. It barely nudged against his healing ribs. That was an improvement.

            “Pizza’s going to be delivered at six,” Tony said, rolling up the window of his car. “If you’re late, Thor’s not going to save any.”

            Pizza at six. And a place to…maybe call home. For now. It wasn’t a bad deal.

            It didn’t take long for Steve to make his way to Sam’s. Sam was at one of the therapy groups he ran. Steve left him a note. It wasn’t enough to thank Sam. Steve scrawled an invitation to the tower across the bottom, promising pizza if Thor didn’t get to it first.

            He only had a few items of clothing to put in a bag before he gathered up the file folders. The original folder Natasha had given him, and two more that had filled his own notes and research. He hesitated, opening up one of the folders.

            Brooklyn had been a dead end. Steve had thought he had a lead on Bucky in Ontario, Canada, but that had been a false alarm; just some guy traveling with a woman, not a lone man on the run. Same dead ends with Mexico City and Sao Paolo.

            He took a steadying breath and closed the folder. He slid them into his bag.

            He was pulling out his phone to call for a taxi—an Uber, he silently reminded himself—to the train station. Sam had helped him load the app on his phone weeks ago, though he hadn’t used it yet—when a dark car with tinted windows pulled up.

            “Captain Rogers?” the man asked, getting out of the driver’s seat.

            Steve was careful to keep his stance relaxed, even as his guard went up.

            “That’s me.”

            The driver opened the back door. “With compliments from Mr. Stark.”

            Steve looked over the car. His phone was still in his hand. He set down his bag to text, but there was already a text waiting for him to read.

            We really need to talk about your trust issues.

            Tony.

            He wasn’t wrong. Steve lifted his bag again, but the driver took it from him and carried it to the waiting car.

            Steve got in the backseat and settled back for the four hour drive to New York.

 

 

#

 

            “I can help,” Elia said.

            She was pretty sure it was late afternoon. Bucky had left her alone in the cabin, but had dialed a number on a burner phone that had been stashed in the cabin, said it went to his burner, and made sure she could find the redial button.

            She had sat in the silent cabin, phone in hand, for…she had no idea how long it had actually been. Long enough for him to go into Banff and get supplies.

            “They had pizza,” Bucky said. “There’s one on the counter at your three o’clock.”

            Elia felt along the counter until she felt the frozen pizza.

            She heard Bucky approach, and then heard what sounded like him unsheathing a knife. She could picture him twirling it lightly to match the sounds she listened for before he pressed the handle into her palm.

            The thought of the Winter Soldier twirling a knife casually to cut open frozen pizza had her brow wrinkling, even as she felt a smile tugging at her lips.

            “What do you need?” he asked.

            Elia turned toward him. She needed a lot. Her vision back for starters. “Need?” she asked.

            “To make a pizza.”

            She felt her brow wrinkling again. She moved her fingers over the boxed pizza, working awkwardly to cut away the plastic. She could feel the frozen round shape, shredded cheese and pepperoni maybe on top of it, but her fingers were still a little numb most of the time, so she couldn’t be sure.

            “It’s all here, I think,” she said.

            Bucky’s shoulder brushed against hers, like he was leaning in to study the pizza.

            “What do you do with it?” he asked.

            “You’ve never had a frozen pizza?” she asked.

            His shoulder leaned against hers and she could smell the slight scent of smoke in his hair as he leaned in front of her. “I’ve never cooked anything from a box,” he said. “But the grocer had three aisles of freezers.”

            “You’re in for a treat,” she said. “Maybe not with frozen pizza. But we’ll get good pizza sometime. Deep dish, or stuffed crust. It will change your life.”

            She spoke automatically, said what came naturally to say, without thinking.

            Bucky’s silence was loaded.

            Right. They weren’t going to be going out to eat, just casually strolling out on the town like—like a couple of tourists. Why had she said that? She opened her mouth to apologize, when Bucky broke the silence.

            “I’d like that.”

            She ducked her head and worked at removing the pizza from the plastic wrap. “Do you have a pizza pan?”

            “What does a pizza pan look like?” he asked.

            “A cookie sheet would work.”

            Bucky’s warmth left her side and she could hear him rummaging through a cabinet, metal clanking.

            When he clanked the pan down next to her, saying, “Ten o’clock,” Elia felt for the tray in that location. She slid the pizza from the cardboard to the tray.

            She listened to him open an oven door, felt a gust of heat towards her. She turned toward the oven. And then there was a change. Briefly, for hardly a second. A lightening in the heavy darkness that surrounded her.

            She stayed still, not daring to move. Or even to blink. Terrified of believing what she had seen, but just as terrified of accidentally chasing it away.

            Again. A lightening, but this time it didn’t fade back to darkness.

            “What?” Bucky asked. “Don’t worry about the pizza. It’s in the oven.”

            “Bucky,” she whispered. As if speaking too loudly would scare away the light. “There’s a window in front of me, right?”

            “Yeah. Over the sink.”

            “I think…I think I can see it.”

            “The window?” he asked. Then she felt movement in front of her face. She flinched away from whatever it was that she couldn’t see. “Sorry,” he said. “That was just my hand.”

            “I can’t see see,” she clarified. “But…the light. I can tell there’s light over there.” Her voice shook with the possibility.

            Silence, and she didn’t know what Bucky might be thinking. Maybe that he wouldn’t have to drag her along helplessly anymore.

            And then the light flickered out.

            “Do you see anything else?” he asked.

            Elia turned her head. Where had the light gone? It hadn’t really been light, but a brighter darkness. It had been in front of her. Now it was the same blackness as all around her. No. The sudden shock of hope being jerked away just as quickly as it had appeared had her scrambling.

            Maybe the sun had moved. She tried to remember where the windows were. But she had only had one dimly lit evening in the cabin before her sight had shuttered.

            She whirled to the right, thinking maybe there had been a larger window at the front of the cabin. Something clotheslined her across her midsection and she fell forward, the air shoved out of her.

            She shoved the chair back out of her middle and wheeled backwards a few steps. Trying again, she cracked her shin on something and a cry of pain escaped before she spun to the left and tried again.           

            This time it was a solid wall in front of her. A solid wall holding onto her arms.

            “You’re hurting yourself,” Bucky said.

            “I need a window. The light. I can see the light again if I get to a window,” Elia’s words tumbled out of her.

            She felt Bucky guide her. They bypassed obstacles and he stopped her after a few feet.

            “Where’s the window?” Elia asked. “Which way do I face?”

            A pause, then, “You’re facing it.”

            Her heart skipped nervously. She forced herself to stay calm, not panic. “Did the—the sun set?”

            The silence lengthened. Her hands shook when she realized the silence was her answer. But then Bucky’s low voice rasped out.

            “No.”

            No. The sun hadn’t set. The light was right in front of her, and she couldn’t see it.

            The hope that had been unfurling died a quick death.

            Elia closed her eyes. It made no difference. The darkness was the same.

            Bucky didn’t say anything, but she could feel him at her side. He had released her, but his warmth was still next to her. She could hear his slow breaths and tried to match them. Tried to do something besides cave in with despair.

            She hadn’t realized how long they had stood there, her mind racing down hopeless paths, him unmoving, until she smelled the pizza.

            “We need to check the food,” she said. Life kept moving forward, no matter what Hydra had done. No matter how they kept hurting her.

            Without thinking, she reached for Bucky’s arm. The metal was unyielding under his long sleeve shirt, and even though she couldn’t feel tension in muscles, she could feel it in the way he walked. She let go as soon as he had guided her to the table.

            “You said stuffed crust,” Bucky said.

            Elia lifted her eyebrows in question.

            “Stuffed crust and deep dish pizza. What do they stuff in the crust?”

            Letting the grief of her dark world get buried under the distraction, she answered. While Bucky cut them slices of pizza, she told him about pizza delivery and fast food and microwave meals.

 

#

 

 

            “Steve Rogers!”

            Steve didn’t need to see who bellowed out the greeting. “Thor,” he returned the greeting, not needing to fake the warmth in his voice.

            “It is good to see you,” Thor said, giving Steve a solid thwack on his back that may have sent an ordinary man stumbling forward off-balance.

            Steve stayed steady and returned the clap on Thor’s back. “You too.”

            “We have much to discuss. But tonight, we drink!”

            “Slow down there, God of Hops,” Tony said. “Let Rogers at least drop his bags before you ply him with drinks.”

            He approached Steve, then held out his hand. Steve clasped it.

            “Good to have you here, Cap.”

            “Good to be here,” he said honestly. He looked over to see Bruce at the table with pizza boxes. He nodded a greeting and Bruce returned it.

            “Come on, I’ll show you your room.” Tony strode back down the hallway Steve had come in. Steve shouldered his single duffel bag and followed after him.

            “The gym is two floors down, shooting range is in the basement. There’s a pool—indoor and out—and a garage for your bike. I have someone picking it up and driving it up here. Kitchen and housing is this floor.”

            “You’ve thought of everything.”

            “Not everything,” Tony said. “Thor’s requested a horse racing track outside. And a chariot.”

            Steve smiled.

            Tony came to a door at the end of the hall and it slid open. “It’s not much, but we call it home,” he said.

            They were on the top floor of the tower. The windows looked out over the grounds far below them.

            “The kitchen is stocked, let Jarvis know if you have any requests.”

            Steve nodded and set his bag on the queen size bed.

            Tony turned to leave, but stopped and turned back. “You know, you were Captain America long before S.H.I.E.L.D. They didn’t make you who you are.”

            Steve let the words soak in. A balm to the rough and restless places he hadn’t been able to acknowledge since the organization he had been serving had fallen.

            “Thanks, Tony,” he said. He meant more than just the place to stay.

            Tony gave him a half hearted salute over his shoulder on the way out.

 

#

Notes:

As always, I'm super nervous about posting a new story, but even more so about posting in a new fandom. I have a plot planned for this story, but am always open to suggestions and requests!

This story won't be following canon exactly, but will be loosely in and out of events through Captain America: The Winter Soldier and Captain America: Civil War.

Thanks for reading and leave a comment!