boots moving up and down again

by xx_Mischief_xx

Summary:

Isla Zola, or Aria Davis?

At times, the girl standing in the mirror doesn't reflect the vision she sees. Most of the time, she doesn't understand what she sees - or, really, anything she feels.

One thing's for sure - HYDRA placing her deep undercover within the 107th might be their greatest mistake yet.

Chapter 1

June 18th, 1943: Dawn

A violent jolt of the ship in the night woke Isla from her rest.

Rest. Such a silly little word. She could not remember the last time she had felt well-rested after closing her eyes for a night of sleep. Sure, she had, over the years, managed to haul up in accommodations that were secure enough to allow for hours of uninterrupted slumber, but to actually rest? To feel as though those hours hadn’t been wasted on her whirling thoughts and swirling fears? She was not sure she would ever reach a state of such bliss again in her lifetime.

Stretching, and conveniently ignoring the creak in her shoulder, Isla blinked inertia away from her eyes. Judging from the lack of overbearing light bleeding into her room, it was not yet morning. Only the faintest golden rays had begun to peek beneath the crack in her door. The moment the sun finally yawned hello, she would already be well and truly out of her quarters, and in the mess hall. Watching, learning. Smiling, as though this war meant the same to her as it did to all of them. It was a hollow lie.

Motion beyond her doorway snagged her attention. Echoing footsteps, and their accompanying voices, told Isla that the soldiers within her steel prison were also stirring, waking up and beginning their movements across the ship. Even the very thought of throwing the covers from her body had her tensing in anticipation. And of course, ‘covers’ was a strong word for the army issued jacket she’d plucked from the chair of an unsuspecting soldier the night before their departure from the mainland of America.

With a sigh that rattled deep in her bones, Isla gingerly sat up to prop herself against the wall, casting the soldier’s old jacket to the side with barely a spared glance. It was her fourth night waking up on the ship, her third waking up in the small, abandoned storage quarter she’d managed to scope out for herself on the second night. It smelt like stale, human sweat, and she was sure that the damn air circulating within the pipes would build to damage in her lungs if she remained for too long, but it was better than sleeping in those shared quarters with everyone else.

A shiver wracked her spine at the thought. No, she’d had enough of the shared quarters in the Red Room. Rest was a luxury she no longer knew how to experience, but even sleep would be difficult to come by in a room where she felt so exposed.

More boots marched down the hallway, casting shadows against the frame of the door. With a sigh, she stood. Tucking her blonde hair into a tight knot, she forced a practiced smile. Slowly, her fingers wrapped around the cold metal handle. It was time to go.

Today, she promised herself. Today would be the day she became Aria Davis. The day that Isla grew to a distant shadow in her memory. Today would be the day she would run.

Stifling yet another heavy sigh, she opened the door, sliding between the slivered crack before she knew it would creek against the strain of the metal. Using the palms of her hands, she smoothed her uniform before falling into step behind a pair of soldiers. She presumed, at least, that they were infantry men from the 107th. They certainly looked young enough to have remained idealistic about the war they were shipping off to fight. Certainly not harrowed by the horrors they would soon face – not just Nazi Germany, but HYDRA.

She shivered. She didn’t want to think about HYDRA. Not whilst they couldn’t touch her on this ship. Isla’s first task aboard had been to ensure that a handler had not followed her into this. She’d checked every occupant of the ship three times before she’d been relatively satisfied that she was alone and left to her own devices. This, coupled with the fact that she was expected to share her bunking quarters, had meant she hadn’t slept the first night. Hadn’t wanted to, and certainly, hadn’t needed to.

Isla rounded the corner of the hallway, and the sprawling walls opened into a space of conversation and laughter. As she had been trained to do, her eyes scanned the room immediately, glancing over thousands of morsels of information too fast for her to consciously process. It had been apparent to her from the first day that the mess hall remained entirely segregated by gender and speciality. Those within the infantry sat together, sat in their battalion too, further separating them from the others. Superior’s often huddled together in the outskirts of the room, too engrossed in their conversations about strategy to spare her a glance. Too disinterested in her presence all together to change their subject matter. She’d gleaned a lot regarding allied tactics from their conversations and had filed the information away within her mind for safe keeping. Schmidt would want to see progress, of course, and intel from army generals would certainly allow her to keep her limited freedom all the while longer.

She shook her head. She didn’t want to think about Schmidt, she reminded herself. She didn’t want to think about HYDRA. But they were a parasite in her mind, growing in her thoughts as though they were a rooted weed. No matter how many times she plucked them away, the thoughts returned.

Much like the other groups, combat nurses tended to segregate themselves together aboard the ship, too. It was this group Isla joined now, sliding in alongside two she’d collected were named Betty and Alma respectively. Betty, with her bushy, mousy-brown hair and pale skin, had been the first to introduce herself to Isla. Betty introduced herself to Alma too, the only African American woman present aboard the ship. Isla had smiled, twinkles in her eyes as she gave her name as “Arianne Davis, but it would please me if you called me just Aria.”

Alma had attached herself to the two girls ever since, likely, Isla suspected, recognising that neither held any ill will towards her due to the colour of her skin. Isla had bemused that it was such a strange concept to be enraptured by – she could manipulate a man white of skin just as easily as she could fool a man with a darker complexion. She knew too, that she should have remained quiet when it was suggested that Alma remain only to care for the “negro” population of the encampment. Isla had found herself calling out the preposterous idea before it had even finished leaving the mouth of the elderly nurse in front of her. She’d seemed disgusted by the thought of such an occurrence, but one sentence about the realities of war had the older woman silencing her disagreements behind tightly pursed lips. Years of brutal training had hidden Isla’s own smug expression.

Across the table, the final two nurses who rounded her outfit sat, quietly conversing with one another. Mary was the eldest of their nursing unit – and though she was equal to them in title, Isla suspected her age alone would make her de facto leader, a fact that suited her just fine. Alice, on the other hand was young – a golden cross hanging around her neck and perfectly manicured nails dancing across the table. Unlike Alma and Betty, neither spared a glance to her arrival – likely, she suspected, gossiping about where she had managed to spend the night. It didn’t bother her that Mary and Alice believed her quick to lift her skirts for the first man to smile at her. It was a lie that was easy enough to perpetuate – a lingering glance towards a dark-eyed man in the corners of the ship, a gentle touch against another soldier as they received their rations for their evening meal. She knew better than to become emotionally attached to the barely disguised insults they hurtled between themselves. Especially when they weren’t the slightest bit true.

“Getting food?” Alma interrupted her thoughts.

Isla blinked, glancing around the hall until her eyes came to rest on the waiting trays. “Are you?” She countered, gesturing lightly to the empty space in front of Alma’s clasped hands. Those hands which now reached out to grip Isla’s own, a smile waiting on her face as she tugged Isla upwards and out of her seat once more.

Years of training had taught Isla the value of waiting before action. Unfortunately, years of training had also taught her the value of ensuring that her hands remained ready for combat at any time. The warring of her two mindsets meant that Isla could only be dumbly pulled along beside Alma without protest, Betty following behind with what she could only imagine was a sly grin on her face. Both girls wanted to ask where Isla spent her nights – both of them were desperate to know whose attention ‘Aria’ had caught aboard the ship, and how she had managed to do it so swiftly. Both were too polite to ask though.

She almost scoffed at the thought. As if sex was ever going to be anything other than a transactional model.

By the time the trio had returned to their unofficially designated seating area, the mess hall was almost overflowing with active service men of all ages. Isla scanned each and every one of them as she chewed absentmindedly on her second salted biscuit, having traded her portion of potatoes and mushy vegetables with Alma for the spare. Stashed in her storage room, Isla had plenty of nutrients to support her health and wellbeing. Betty and Alma, she mused, did not. Besides, she preferred the tang of the salt to the unappealing bowl of slop that the kitchen staff insisted were vegetables. Isla had seen greater nutritional value in garbage she’d been forced to search through when deep undercover.

As much as Isla wasn’t interested in forming lasting relationships with the men aboard the ship, she had to admit that she wasn’t blind to their looks. Nor was she blind to their personalities. After four days of watching every distinct regiment, she had concluded that the 107th had the best to offer, both in terms of ability, and in terms of her own personal attraction to the men.

Isla would be the first to admit that she had no desire to sleep with the commanding generals – though, she knew that if her options were limited, she could no longer afford to be picky. Instead, she far preferred the prospects of exchanging information with the brown haired, blue eyed American man who had captivated the attention of the entire 107th Regiment with stories of previous sexual escapades and squandered opportunities. He amused her greatly, though she imagined it was in the same vein as the way Schmidt tolerated the way she amused him.

Another voice echoed in the corners of her mind. Mramor, it snapped at her. Marble. The Red Room had insisted that she was made of marble, that she would not crack, even under exorbitant pressure. It had been her punishment for failure, with Erskine, with Stark, and with Erskine again. She’d wanted to break – but she’d wanted to survive more. And thus, she had become marble.

Schmidt was not necessary to her current objective; she reminded herself. She did not need to factor him into her analysis, not did she need to dedicate any further thought to him.

A sharp exhale brushed a stray blonde hair that had settled around her face. Her eyes steadied on her target; lips pursed as she surveyed his gravitational pull. Of course, the 107th Infantry was larger than the three men alone, but it was those three whom she’d heard Alice and Mary complain about the most. “Too loud,” they had whispered between one another the first night. “Too confident, too brash.” It was exactly the kind of man she needed on her side – exactly the kind of safeguard she wanted to exploit.

The muscles in her legs bunched as she swung them over the side of the chair without a second thought. Betty and Alma startled, the latter moving to lay a hand on top of Isla’s wrist as though she could stop the inevitable. But Isla swiftly turned to avoid it, throwing both girls a reassuring glance for good measure. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she reminded herself that it would have been better to announce her intentions to the two women, considering that she needed ‘friends’ if this outfit was to be successful, but she brushed it aside as she stalked closer to her objective.

He hadn’t caught sight of her yet, enraptured in tales shared between himself and two other men – Gabe Jones, and Tim Dugan, her memory supplied her. The men laughed loudly and drank from poorly disguised beer bottles although dawn had barely cracked the air. The sight sent a bolt of amusement twitching through her body – perhaps these men did understand the horrors of the war they were about to embark on.

In fact, the object of her attention only noticed her focused gaze when he was finished speaking, wrapping up his tale of sexual escapades in New York with a grin and a lazy smile. Isla studied it carefully. He oozed confidence with every syllable that fell from his mouth, purred every sentence as though it were his own seduction techniques. Trained as she was, she was not oblivious to the stirrings of desire within her own body. She’d merely learnt to ignore them in favour of something far more valuable.

“Long hair has disadvantages in combat, sure.” Isla agreed, tacking herself on to the end of his conversation. Her voice dropped into a seductive purr to match his own, hooded eyes fixating themselves on the blue steel of his gaze. “But for sex?” She wondered, purposefully reaching up to unclasp her bun, “It’s nothing but advantageous.”

Every word sauntered her closer to the table, confidence dripping in her smirk. Dugan and Jones stiffened in their chairs – as did, she suspected, the majority of the mess hall, turning to watch what was one of the most interesting inter-group interactions they’d encountered since the ship had left docking four days prior. She felt the eyes of the men rake her, trailing her top to bottom and following intently as she purposefully sank onto a nearby bench, close enough to him that she could feel his breath on her cheek as he craned his head to watch.

The pretty one. The one she wanted – the one that they called Bucky, matched her smirk. He captured her attention in turn as she swung his legs around the chair beside her. Swivelling to face her at eye level, he asked: “And what would a pretty dame like you know about sex?”

She fought the urge to grin toothily. “A lot more than you, I’d wager.” Her response was sinfully teasing.

Bucky gestured forward with an open palm. “Let’s hear about it then.”

Betty and Alma were boring holes in the back of her skin – Isla could feel it although she didn’t dare turn around to confirm her suspicions. Instead, she exhaled a light laugh, her perfectly manicured finger rising to tap the little American map on his nose. She watched his eyes cross in an effort to follow as she spoke, “Wouldn’t that ruin the surprise, Sergeant?”

Promise echoed in her tone. The rest of the room fell away as he captivated her close attention. “Besides,” she whispered, removing her finger and leaning forward, close enough to his skin to feel her own breath bounce back onto her face, “I prefer to show – not tell.” Sinfully close to his skin, she allowed her lips to brush lightly against the underside of his jaw – a featherlight promise of pleasure, before she retracted her body. Isla held his gaze without breaking it, searching as poorly hidden desire sparked in his depths. She knew that she’d hit her mark when Bucky was unable to say anything, seemingly rendered speechless.

Moving the same way she’d came; Isla slowly rose from the chair. As she suspected he might, he waited until she was almost out of reach before his hand flew out to grasp at her wrist. This time, she allowed it to happen, clamping down on the discomfort of once again having her hands blocked from use.

A small tug turned her back to face him once more. He was standing now – he was taller than her, she noticed immediately. Young in the face, but she suspected he was at least a couple of years older than her. Strong too, she felt it in the way that his hands continued to pin down her arm. She’d suspected as much – he may not have entirely filled out his uniform like others within the Regiment, but he’d walked with such quiet confidence that Isla had long since suspected he was stronger than he looked. Mentally and physically.

That familiar heat coiled in her again. Only a single thought of Schmidt was enough to snuff it out once more.

Mramor.

“What do they call you?” He asked her. Not to be outdone by her own flirtatious caresses, she wasn’t shocked when his thumb came to rest on her lips, lightly pulling them apart. Years of training couldn’t prevent her shiver at the touch – her body betraying her as her skin tingled under the pads of his fingers. He’d clearly adapted his approach when he’d recognised words alone were not going to be enough to see her break. She admired him for it.

“Arianne.” She whispered, flicking her eyes down his face to unabashedly rest on his lips for only a minute. “And you?”

“Arianne.” He drew out the syllables of her name, a grin forming over his mouth as he tested them against his tongue. “Too long. I think I’ll just call you Aria.”

A wry smiled bloomed across her face as she charmed her way into his mind. “And yours?” She dared to ask next, placing her other hand atop of his and lightly caressing his skin.

“Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes,” he smiled – and then, mimicking her move from mere moments ago, he brought his face closer to her cheek, “but you can call me Bucky, doll.” Lips pressed against the pulse point of her neck, and she felt his light stubble scratching against her throat before he eventually pulled away from her. Electricity crackled beneath their gazes.

Isla was seriously reconsidering her policies on sleeping with marks on the first meeting when a siren sounded overhead. The spell between the pair was immediately broken as any lust remaining on Barnes’ face slipped into grim seriousness. Almost apologetically, he dropped her arm, but not before he lightly squeezed her skin. Stepping past her, he followed the other marching boots down the hallway as they came to attention elsewhere on the ship. Surrounding her, the mess hall cleared until only the generals, unhurried to meet their charges, and her fellow nurses remained.

Ignoring the curling of her gut, Isla turned and walked until she had retaken her seat alongside Betty and Alma. Both were staring at her wide eyed. She wasn’t foolish enough to believe either girl prudish, or innocent, but she admitted internally that perhaps it had been a bit much for the mess hall.

On the other side of the table, Alice scoffed. Isla watched her flick her blonde hair over her shoulder carelessly, her nose upturned as she stared. Before she could scold Isla for what the girl suspected would be offending her religious prudish tendencies, Isla turned to give her full attention to Betty and Alma. She didn’t need to glance at Alice to know she was glaring from having been so plainly dismissed, but Isla didn’t care. Instead, she focused solely on the way that Alma’s lips begun to upturn in a smile. She didn’t ask her muscles to respond in kind, but she could feel them twitching all the same.

“Teach me how to do that.” Alma told her, Betty nodding her agreement enthusiastically.

For them, Isla realised she would oblige.

Notes:

i quite literally haven't written a fanfiction in years - and there's absolutely no guarantee this won't become an abandoned work. but fuck it, we ball i guess

Chapter 2

June 22nd, 1943: Evening

Isla did not have to wait long after disembarking to receive word from Schmidt requesting any information she’d managed to garner. Requesting, she scoffed. As though he were merely asking for the time, or the upcoming weather. She wasn’t foolish enough to think his wording was anything other than a polite demand, pleasantries that were required of him to maintain such a high-bearing position in the ranks of Nazi Germany.

No, she would be expected to provide the information she’d managed to uncover on the boat. Not that it was anything groundbreaking – but it was more than enough to ensure her continued existence and relative freedom.

It had been a surprise to her, when Schmidt had suddenly changed the missions parameters mere hours before she was set to complete her task: assassinate Abraham Erskine. A mission she had so spectacularly failed before, the man who had cost her innocence and led to the situation with which she now found herself: an ally of none, caught between two extremes with nary a clear path to determine her safety. As far as she could tell (and she could tell a lot), the Infantry Regiment’s she’d been tasked with shadowing over to Europe contained no valuable information, and no high-value targets for Nazi Germany, or the Reich. They were nothing more than ordinary men, enlisting in a war that they would soon find was neither righteous nor just. It was one thing to stand against Hitler, a bold, brave, action – it was another to fight other ordinary men who were tasked with defending their homeland. The American soldiers may have held moral justification – but they were not fighting Hitler at the end of the day, merely his lackeys.

She pondered this as she finished stitching her suture for a man whose name she had not cared to learn. Schmidt was likely able to continue his operations for HYDRA in relative bliss as long as the rest of the world remained concerned with fighting away Hitler. The SSR, of course, had become concerned – and their concerns were enough to lead for the order to remove both Howard Stark (her first failure) and Abraham Erskine from the equation. As far as Isla could tell, however, both men remained alive and well on a different continent, continuing to dedicate their brains to the destruction of a morally reprehensible villain.

Isla finished tying the bandage around his arm, noting in a perfected American accent that he should try to rest for at least the first twenty-four hours, to give his stitches the best chance at healing before he tore through them once again. His answering grunt signalled to Isla that he would do nothing of the sort, and she mentally resigned herself for his return to the infirmary the following day.

Perhaps a man would have fought Schmidt harder to remain by his side. She wasn’t blind to the realities of this work – it was a smokescreen. Schmidt wanted her out of the way for one reason or another. Perhaps there were bigger plans at play that he did not want to reveal to her until he was sure they would need to be enacted. More likely, she suspected he was intent on hiding her continued presence within his ranks from other members of the Reich. Isla had been trained as a spy since she was sixteen years old, first, with the Abwehr in Germany, and then again with the Red Room after Schmidt and Zola had combined to name her a failure. It made her stronger, of course, though she maintained that had she of wanted to kill Howard Stark that day, she would have.

“Aria?”

Betty’s soft, southern accent stole her from her thoughts. From where she had been hovering alongside the infantry soldier, Isla glanced up. Since disembarking the boat only twenty-four hours prior, the brown-haired girl was already looking worse for wear. In another life, Isla found she could have been amused about how quickly the liveliness had drained from the girls eyes. Now it merely left her feeling hollow – because it reflected how she felt.

She was a good spy, and she hadn’t allowed it manifest in her expression. Maybe that was why Betty and Alma seemed desperate to cling to her as though she was their life beacon in these horrors. They were not even in the depth of the encampment yet.

“Yes?” Isla answered her, neatly folding the remaining gauze into the pile beside the tray. She met Betty’s conspiratorial gaze.

“How is he?”

“Who?” Isla blinked, glancing around repeatedly as though the object of Betty’s questioning would make himself known. For a second, she frowned, staring down at the now abandoned sheets. Perhaps it would have been prudent to pay more attention to whom she’d been caring for, rather than getting lost in her thoughts.

“Bucky.”

Oh.

Isla allowed a small, conspiratorial smile to grace her face. “Good.” She answered slyly, giving nothing away.

There was, of course, nothing to give away. Bucky had attempted multiple times in the days following her initial introduction to speak with her. Isla had met all of his advances with calculating flirting of her own – always enticing him to return but never giving into his clear interest.

Betty blinked at her, opening her mouth to say more, but a sharp nudge from an entering Alma prevented the words. Isla took once glance at her and felt a frown forming on her lips. Unlike Betty and Isla, whom had been worked to the bone since being stationed but were handling themselves okay, Alma looked tired. Isla could see dark circles forming around her eyes, announcing their presence as though they had been invited. Alma didn’t stop to acknowledge her exhaustion to them, but it showed in her actions. Just this morning, she’d almost spilled their remaining supply of penicillin when she’d attempted to load the drug into a nearby syringe. Only Isla’s sharpened reflexes had snatched the glass bottle from the awaiting rocky floor. Alma hadn’t verbalised her thanks, but a shaking hand on Isla’s arm had been enough to know what the girl was thinking in that moment. Wisely, Isla thought it best not to comment.

Betty was deterred for only a moment. “Aria, you can’t deflect forever!”

Isla flinched as she was suddenly reminded of the other correspondence she’d received that morning. Not from HYDRA, but from Agent 13. Only three words had been contained in that envelope, and Isla knew not how they’d even managed to make their way to her given her new objective. But they sent a shiver down her spine.

Defection in perpetuity.

“I’m not deflecting.” She answered evenly, brushing down the sides of her nursing apron as though it would smooth her thoughts, and calm her pounding heart. “There’s nothing to tell.”

The urge to tell them more was difficult to fight. Somewhere, in the last week, Isla had learned that Alma and Betty were going to mean more to her than simple nurses with whom she worked. From what she could remember of her mother’s own friends, the pair seemed to demonstrate their tendencies. Conspiratorial smiles were swapped between meals, jokes were shared with words prompting a sly grin and a gentle chuckle, much like code words exchanged in the depths of espionage. The more time she spent with them, the more she wanted to be involved in their little glances, share in their conversations.

The same longing made her skin crawl. Attachments could and would be used against her. It had repeatedly told to her whilst she was in Germany, and it had been beaten into when she was in Russia. She supposed it should have been a lesson that she’d learnt through the aftermath of Erskine. Never the matter, Schmidt and her father had ensured she’d learnt it after the failure that was Howard Stark.

They’d hoped to beat her morality out of her. How unfortunate for them, that it seemed to be tied so distinctly to her will to live. Isla wanted to feel the sun on her skin and breathe air that wasn’t tinged with the distant tang of gunpowder and smoke. Even if a charge had not yet died in her care, eventually, given the horrors of war, the smell of death would cling to her skin as though it belonged to her. Schmidt had promised her safety whilst she remained loyal to his cause. The second she demonstrated any dissention, she knew that he would not hesitate to have her removed from the equation, daughter of his lead scientist or not. What terrified her, was that his perception of her loyalty seemed to fray by the day, even when she had done nothing beyond exist in his home.

“Aria.”

This time, Isla did startle, flinching as she recalled that Betty and Alma were both looking at her expectantly.

They’d been talking to her about Bucky. Right.

Schmidt was not necessary to this conversation; she scolded herself again. She seemed to be doing that a lot these days.

“Has he said something to you?” She willed her tone to be light, curious. She couldn’t have cared less what the Amerikanet had voiced to her fellow nurses. She should have cared – she should have kept trying to become close to him, give into his desires regarding her body in exchange for an added layer of security and control over her situation. But the further removed she became from Schmidt and Zola, the deeper her desire not to use her body in such a manner ran.

Alma answered this time, much more guarded than Betty had been. “He seemed concerned for you. Wanted to make sure you were holding up okay.”

Isla scoffed this time. “I am not the one carrying a gun in fear that some other man will use one on me first.” When she saw Betty flinch at her tone, she added: “I am fine.”

Unwilling to broach the doubt floating across both Betty and Alma’s expressions, Isla flipped the conversation by narrowing her gaze upon Alma. “And how of Gabe Jones?”

With no small amount of satisfaction, Isla watched as Alma’s cheeks heated, and she suddenly dropped her gaze. It seemed that she had been correct in her assumption that Alma’s growing, lingering looks in his direction had been accompanied by feelings of want and desire. She’d also, it seemed, been correct in her assumption that Alma would be too timid to act on such desires. If they were friends, Isla may have considered approaching Gabe Jones on her behalf. But as it stood, they were not friends. In reality, they were not even colleagues – Aria Davis was a smokescreen, and Isla Zola was merely trying to survive in a world that seemed to want her dead.

“I don’t want to talk about Gabe Jones.” Alma snapped back hotly.

Isla, unbothered, folded the sheets back on the infirmary bed. “Perhaps he wants to ensure that you’re holding up okay.”

“Aria…” Betty warned her, eyes widening at her tone. Alma looked affronted.

“Gabe Jones...” she stuttered over her words. “My personal life is not up for discussion.”

“Yet it is okay to discuss my own personal life?” Isla countered; harsher words primed on her tongue to be released.

For a moment, only the breeze lightly knocking the flaps against the walls of the tent was the only noise that echoed in their enclosed space. Alma seemed primed to size Isla up, glancing her up and down as though trying to find her measure. Isla didn’t allow herself to baulk under her gaze, only narrowing her eyes when Alma’s own came to rest. In a fight, she had no doubt that she would win. Whether that fight was verbal, mental, or physical, Isla wasn’t concerned about her chances.

“You know, I was married once.”

Isla didn’t think it was the appropriate time to state that she’d noticed – that the fading tan line on her left ring finger had given her away. Instead, she morphed her face into the picture of sympathy and understanding.

“A good man. A kind man. He left for the war to serve not as a soldier – but a nurse. Like us. He was killed in his second week of active duty, and I knew I couldn’t just sit at home and do nothing like so many others.”

Isla understood perfectly well. She’d hit her intended mark with the question of Gabe Jones – drawing out Alma’s feelings of guilt and isolation as another romantic entanglement in her life floated to the surface. She shouldn’t have felt guilty – just as she had wanted it to, it had prevented any further questions regarding Sergeant Barnes and his barely disguised interest in her. But with Alma’s teary-eyed expression staring her down pleadingly, Isla felt the stirrings of guilt in her blood.

“Oh Alma,” Betty sighed melodramatically as she threw her arms over the women, her own tears melting into Alma’s uniform. Isla was struck by the sudden notion of standing utterly still, being completely unsure. Abwehr had taught her how to subdue targets, the Red Room had taught her how to seduce. Navigating friendships were a new frontier all together. She knew she needed to say something – anything, in fact, to get them from her back. But nothing seemed to spring to the forefront of her mind.

How had the Red Room portrayed American friendships? Housewives who typically fronted with an adoring smile as they gossiped across tables with glasses of wine and bright red lips. Isla didn’t have wine, but scanning the room, her eyes rested on the next best available item.

Slowly reaching into her personal bag, she dug around until her fingers closed against the tinfoil packaging. Hiding her grin behind her tightened jaw, Isla fished the object of her attention out, before she trudged across to hand it to Alma. Alma looked perplexed until she saw the sparkling logo sprawled across the tip of the paper. Isla watched as Alma’s eyes flickered back to her, likely wondering if Isla was partaking in a form of joke. But Isla remained still, staring down at the parcel she had deposited in Alma’s hand with scarcely an interest in discussing the topic further.

“I can’t take this.” Alma shook her head, holding the chocolate bar back out to Isla.

Isla shrugged her shoulders nonchalantly. Her answering “I don’t like chocolate,” rang intoned with indifference, and perhaps a hint of sympathy.

That was a lie, of course. Chocolate was one of her favourite foods, and she was already mourning the loss of the sweet treat from her possession. But the need for Alma and Betty to remain her friends, to remain nonsuspicious of her actions and trusting of her decisions far outweighed the enjoyment she would receive from munching on the delicacy.

Alma studied her for a longer moment before eventually coming to the conclusion that she was serious. Tentatively, the woman before her unwrapped the foil, gingerly lifting to her mouth. Isla watched as she took a small bite, and another, savouring every morsel of the gift until there was nothing left in her hands. The sheepish grin that accompanied her realisation that she’d finished the entire bar left Isla almost smiling alongside her.

She was glad that Alma didn’t voice another thank you. She was glad that the woman seemed to recognise Isla didn’t want it. It was simpler that way – a transactional exchange, not a friendship. Isla had, with a single chocolate bar, ensured that she had a friend in both Alma and Betty for the few weeks to come, and perhaps the few weeks after that.

Smiling to herself at the thought of entrenching herself within the encampment, she ducked back through the flaps of the tent in order to escape the Infirmary for the moment. Standing immediately outside, she realised it was late at night. The moon was already beaming in the night sky, casting shadows on the world below. A shadow, she noted with some interest, that did not belong to her.

She glanced upwards, uncovering the owner of the bulky shadow the second he walked confidently into her view frame. Somewhere in her body, her heart stuttered as his steely blue gaze met her own. Instead of offering him words, she smiled politely and ducked back into the tent in order to give him the feigned privacy of four walls to reveal to her why he had come seeking her so late.

By the time he entered the tent, Alma and Betty had also gathered nearby, neatly returning their instruments to the correct places. Mary and Alice would be sure to let them know if any of their work had been sub-par, and Isla wasn’t exactly looking forward to a lecture from either of those women any time soon. Instead of joining their nightly routine, she instead turned her attention to James.

Scanning the features of those whom she spoke to regularly had long since become second nature. She knew enough about humans and their body languages to determine when someone was injured, and knew exactly how to exploit their weaknesses in order to win the battle. Any other option had been quickly trained out of her in Germany. Russia had only served to hone that skill, sharpening it until there was scarcely a chance of error.

But as it stood, Isla realised that she could not immediately determine the problem with James Barnes. He seemed to be carrying some sort of parcel – though Isla didn’t bother to pay it much mind. Instead, she searched for obvious scuffmarks on his clothing, missing threads, any hint that a bullet or knife had hit it’s mark against his skin. When that proved fruitless, she moved on to studying his forehead, searching for any trace of a fever. But his forehead was sweat free, if not slightly red from the chill of the wind outside. She had to have been looking at him for nearly a whole minute before she finally gave up and simply asked him what was troubling him.

“Are you injured?” Isla was startled that her voice carried a hint of worry. She hadn’t intended for that to be the case.

Luckily for her, James rapidly shook his head, overexaggerating his perfect bill of health by flexing his muscles. From the corner of her eye, she saw Betty twitch with the effort it took to hide her swoon, Alma covering her mouth with her hand to hide a distinctly blushing giggle. Isla only looked on, eyes narrowed, unimpressed. She fought hard to prevent her lips from twitching in amusement at his attempts to entice her.

“Actually,” after he’d finished showing off, Bucky had instead returned his attention to the parcel he had been carrying, “the Colonel asked me to personally deliver this to you. Nursing supplies, I presume.”

Isla eyed the bag warily. She had glossed over it in her haste to determine what might have been plaguing Bucky. It may not have had the HYDRA logo embroidered on the outskirts of the fabric, but she recognised the threads all the same. Her second delivery of the day, her second delivery since disembarking and trekking the short distance to their immediate base of operations. Isla fought the urge to run and hide away immediately. At the very least, it meant that a HYDRA Agent remained nearby – close enough to the base that they could easily deliver messages to her from Schmidt. At the worst, it meant that HYDRA had already deeply infiltrated the ranks of the American Army.

For a second as she reached out to take the bag from Bucky, Isla wondered which she feared more.

Before Bucky dropped the weight of the bag into her own waiting hands, he paused for a moment, gripping it tighter. With a narrow set gaze, he glanced outwards first, towards the two girls who were watching with scarcely a hint of shame. Isla didn’t have to glance in their direction to know that they’d scurried away – she instead heard their footsteps crunching against the dirt as they retreated.

“My favourite book is the Hobbit, by the way.”

She blanched, shoulders stiffening as she finally had the sense to snatch the bag from his outstretched hand. “The one about the little man in the Shire?” She wondered aloud, privately questioning how he’d made the logical leap to speaking to her regarding his favourite novel.

“Yes. Steve tells me that I should ask people questions – when I’m trying to get to know them.”

Isla didn’t know who Steve was. She found that she wanted to learn. Ignoring her curiosity for the moment, she turned to his initial statement. “The Hobbit. The one that teaches us any man can become a hero when they’re presented with a great enough challenge…”

Bucky nodded enthusiastically, sitting down on the infirmary bed. Mentally, Isla sighed, adding remaking the bed to her growing list of chores. Bucky must have felt her questioning gaze, for he spoke again without her prompting.

“Now it’s your turn,” he explained, “to tell me something you like. You know – that’s what people do when they’re trying to get to know each other. That’s what friends do.”

Friends. She knew the definition of the word. She’d seen the word in action, in interactions between Betty and Alma. Perhaps even when she was younger, other children her age would have referred to her in such a manner. Before her mother died, and her father ensured her schooling from a distance, and then her schooling in other ways in their little German town, she was certain she’d had friends. But she wasn’t quite sure she understood the meaning of the word.

Stumbling over her answer, she murmured, “I don’t think I have a favourite book.”

Bucky seemed to frown, but Isla continued, “Everything I’ve read was because someone wanted me to. Nothing I’ve actually wanted to read.”

Somehow, his frown deepened. The sad look gracing his eyes had her recoiling into the very depths of her training, desperately trying to regain her own control over her emotions and personality. Aria Davis, she reminded herself – but for a second, she wondered just whom she wanted to be. Isla Zola was a spy. She did not have an identity for herself because she moulded her identity to fit the boundaries placed upon her by other people. Aria Davis was her chance to be someone – to create the identity that she would have wanted for herself. Aria Davis could be her wants and hopes and dreams. She could thrive with her skills and rise from her failures without threat of permanent retribution. Aria Davis could simply live.

Bucky clearly didn’t know what to say to her statement. Instead, he only cleared his throat and offered her his hand. “Friends.” He told her, glancing down.

Isla held his gaze for a long moment, before she tested the words on her tongue. “Friends.”

His hand felt warm in her grasp. She watched the way his lips twitched into a satisfied smile and read the determination behind his gaze as clearly as it would have been had he voiced his thoughts.

It would be a few months before she realised why the word ‘friend’ sounded utterly wrong.

Chapter 3

March 4th, 1943: Afternoon

When Aria was 100, she would pause to reflect on this time and note with some level-headed certainty that the events on this day in question would categorically lead to the moment she met him.

Now, in the room itself, Aria doesn’t think of anything. Aria doesn’t think at all, because in the Red Room, there is only Isla Romanoff. Only the Red Viper.

She remembered her mother’s face. She had bright red hair, and freckles that lined either side of her nose, disappearing before her cheeks. Her eyes were a beautiful green – as deep as the forest, Isla had once written in a fourth-grade poem. Father used to always say that Isla reminded him of her – that she was the spitting image of his alyy, his scarlet.

Isla wondered how true that was – not that she looked like her mother of course, but that her father had ever seen soft enough to gift a precious name to another woman. It was true that she looked like her mother: she had her red hair, her green eyes, her tall body lined with impossible curves. It was easy for her father to see the menace that she could become with the proper training – how easy it would be, for her to befall an entire empire. And she had grown up longing to impress him, her papochka. He was all that she had left after all, ever since her mother passed when she was barely ten.

“Romanov!”

Isla grit her teeth against the authoritative tone. In the months following her failure, she’d been training under her mother’s maiden name. A Russian last name, to fit with the Russian Red Room. She looked up at her instructor – a balding Russian man, his face permanent etched into a scowl. He tapped his stick on the ground – once, twice, and glared up at the eldest student present.

“Again.” He growled – his English rough with disuse. Isla schooled her face to be the picture of neutrality, feeling her lips settle into position before she took another deep breath. She began the ballet steps for the hundredth time that afternoon.

En pointe, arabesque, adagio, sauté, pirouette, repeat – the en pointe and finish.

Isla repeated the steps inwardly, satisfied as her instructor made no further move to correct her, or force her to repeat. Like he had noticed the focus settling in over her, rather than her own personal thoughts. She was being trained not to think for herself – that was the end goal, and the mindless repetition of ballet had the benefit of allowing them to hone their bodies whilst also training their minds. She bowed lowly upon finishing the task, and though she did not expect to be struck with the stick he carried, she felt her muscles tense in anticipation of the blow.

If he noticed her muscles tensing, he would have hit her. She prayed that he didn’t as she peered through her eyelashes, awaiting his judgement.

“Dopustimyy.” Admissible. Clearly, he hadn’t noticed.

Isla didn’t speak – no matter how much she wanted to sigh in relief. But relief was for children, and she’d lost that childlike innocence long ago. Instead, she curtsied, raising her head to glance at her instructor only after she had risen from a bowed position as a sign of respect. Her instructor did not offer her the same reprieve, instead turning his back on her. She was expected to follow him, back to the bunks. This was their routine, and had been their routine ever since Schmidt and Zola had bargained with the Soviet Union for Isla to train in their division – their Black Widow program. Isla did not want to know what they had given in return, and she knew better than to ask anyone. Instead, she had taken to the knowledge that they had provided there over the course of the year – studying, learning from what her superior viewed as mistakes. Perfecting her accents, infiltrating, assassinating, extracting. She was a perfect student; though she knew they desperately longed to prove that she was not one of them.

Isla viewed every action through the lens of the program. Everything was a calculated manoeuvre, both within the Red Room and outside. Everything she learned strengthened her chances of survival – no matter what side of the war she found herself on come the end.

Typically, she was excited to rest and recuperate the energy that she had lost through the day, from the fighting and the ballet to the mind games and code breaking techniques. It was all a little much sometimes, and she could not remember the last time her sleep had not been interrupted. But this time, something was different. Her instructor had taken a different route back to her bed, and with it, her instinct heightened.

It was this exact thought that allowed Isla to neatly jump out of the way of the poised fist of another recruit – aimed directly for the side of her skull. Isla couldn’t help the grunt of surprise that escaped her mouth as she felt her entire body tense. The girl who swung could not have been older than sixteen – a senior in the Black Widow program, but young to the rest of the world. From the lack of reaction from their instructor, Isla knew that this had been planned for her. A test, then.

A cold, emotionless feeling pressed against her as she slipped into focus. She watched the girl prance around her as her name sprung to the forefront of her mind. Nadya. She was sixteen – and she had vocally expressed her dislike of Isla in the past. She had no doubt that this girl had jumped at the opportunity to hurt her, perhaps even kill her. Isla stood perfectly still; knees bent slightly to allow her the swift movement that she would soon need. She did not lower herself into a fighting stance, she did not bring her arms up to brace against another swing. She waited on balance for the girl to make the first move.

Just as she had expected, Nadya did, leaping forward on her nimble ballet toes to aim a solid punch directed to Isla’s ribcage. With cat-like reflexes, Isla was able to catch her hand and twist, yanking the girl off balance. But Nadya recovered quickly, swinging around her left leg to know Isla in the shoulder. Another grunt escaped Isla as she stumbled to the side, and narrowed her eyes.

Their instructor watched on with mild intrigue. He did not lift a finger to stop either girl from continuing.

“Inostrannaya suka,” Nadya spat. Foreign bitch.

Isla hissed through her teeth at the insult. “Ustupat,” she demanded. Yield.

Nadya came forward again – this time with a kick, but Isla again was quicker – ducking her body whilst swinging out with her own left leg to knock the blonde girl onto the floor. Nadya hit the ground with a harsh thud, a choked kind of sound coming from her as the air was knocked from her lungs. She wasn’t fast enough to scramble away as Isla threw herself on top of her. Nadya screamed – clawing at her, and Isla felt the sharp sting of her nails drawing blood against her face. But it wasn’t enough for Isla to loosen her grip. Isla was older – she had trained for longer, at different agencies. She was perhaps the greatest thing that the Abwehr had ever produced; and she had more than earned the nickname that followed her around. Nadya should have known better.

She glanced up at her instructor, just for a moment. Waiting for permission. There would be consequences if she killed the girl without permission. But the balding man offered her a small nod, and Nadya’s fate was sealed.

Isla didn’t feel anything as she snapped her neck. There was no guilt, no remorse. She looked into Nadya’s eyes as they silently pleaded for her life, and twisted her head backwards in a move that would kill her instantly. It was painless, in a way, and mercy, in another – but Nadya was like Isla. She wanted to survive. It was a shame that she’d made such a poor choice that would result in her end.

Isla allowed her body to fall to the floor, limp, and stood up quickly. There was a fine balance, between lingering on the kill, and running away from it. She made sure her movements looked mechanical, practiced. From the lack of anger on her instructors face – she had actively managed to impress him. When he turned his back again, to continue down the hallway, she knew that she had succeeded in whatever test he had presented for her. Lightly brushing down her clothes, she followed after him, leaving the girls lifeless body lying in the hallway.

“Ty gotov k vypusku.” The man spoke to her lowly, as they reached the bunks. You are ready for graduation.

Isla longed to glance around the room, to determine who was present. She longed to scan the room to discover the hidden dangers within, but with the instructor present, she couldn’t show such weakness, lest he test her again in ways that she would not be able to survive.

Instead, she only resigned herself to the conversation as she lowered herself into the bunks and lifted her hand to be cuffed to the bedframe. “Da.”

The handcuffs were a poor choice. It had taken Isla only the first night to learn how to slip them. None of the girls were held by them, either. It served to maintain the illusion of absolute control over their bodies. Sometimes, when the anger of the girls grew to be too much, they would slip their handcuffs and attack Isla in her bed whilst she slept. Only one girl had been stupid enough to try to kill her, and Isla had been more than capable of fighting her off.

Isla knew better than to kill her, though. Killing within their bunks was strictly forbidden, unless of course, an instructor was watching for a test. The girl who had tried upon her was brutally punished for her insolence the next day, considering that no instructor had sanctioned the attack. She had broken the week after, and her body had been buried in a shallow, unmarked grave just outside the city limits. Isla knew they’d paid special attention to her after recognising that she couldn’t be tamed through fear. They’d practically forced her to break to ensure that their perfect spies would remain just that. Perfect.

“Schmidt budet dovolen vashey rabotot.” Schmidt will be pleased with your work.

“My zdes’ ne razvodim neudach. Nashi vypuskniki vypolneny iz mramora. Vy nesokrushimy Romanov.” We do not breed failures here. Our graduates are made of marble. You are unbreakable, Romanov.

“Ya podchinyus.” I will comply. The response to his statement came immediately.

“Khorosho,” her instructor growled as he tightened the handcuffs for the final time. Good.

***

Isla shivered as the water cascaded down her back. The water in the Red Room never seemed to warm – even in the Russian summer. Briskly, she washed the blood from her hands, as her shoulders cracked with her steady movement. Another test had appeared for her in the early hours of the morning. She’d awoken from her chained slumber to find hands pressed around her throat. The bruises around her throat stung against the running water, and it hurt to breathe in. Her wrists too, ached from the force she had used to proper herself up and away from the girl trying to strangle her. It was sloppy, but upon recognising that Madame B was staring down at her, Isla knew she could kill the girl for her attempt upon her life. Using the handcuffs she had torn free of the bedframe; Isla wrapped them around the other girls throat.

She didn’t even remember the girls name. But the sound of her choking would remain in her mind forever.

“Mramor.” Madame B had reminded her, looking with disdain at the blood that dripped from Isla. Isla could see in her eyes that she had not impressed the mistress – the only other female instructor within the Red Room.

And how Madame B had wanted her to fail all along. A foreign woman – even if her mother was a pure-blooded Russian, had no place in the Red Room. Her blood had been tainted through her marriage to the Swiss man – Arnim Zola. But Schmidt was a powerful man who did not understand the word no; and despite all of Madame B’s complaints, dismissals, threats and tests, Isla had thrived under her supervision.

The water had turned icy by the time that Isla had closed the faucet. Another girl handed her a towel – a younger recruit, only in the earliest stages of her training. Isla did not thank her as she took towel, merely snatching it away and wrapping it around her body. She ran her fingers through her red hair, combing gently through the unruly knots and gently teasing it into her favoured position, before she pinned it out of her eyes. Hair in her face was a less than desirable outcome during a fight.

Then, she dressed herself. A long, black A-line skirt, a white blouse with a black collar, red heeled shoes which Isla refused to admit hurt to wear. Here, she had been taught that to admit to pain was to admit defeat.

With no possessions of her own to carry, she pressed her shoulders back and rose her chin as she began to walk back through the halls of the Red Room, no longer a recruit but a graduate. Around her, the other girls scorned her, turning their noses up at the very sight of her. A graduate with no graduation task, with no graduation ceremony. Madame B’s small victory – even if she left the Red Room alive, she had not been a true graduate of the program. She did not know their struggles.

Privately, it suited Isla just fine. Schmidt would not have been pleased to learn that his prized possession had undergone the graduation ceremony, and she was loathe to tell him what it entailed. It was better this way, for all parties involved.

At the door, she bowed lowly to her ballet instructor, and Madame B, who only stared blankly at her. She said nothing to the male servant who opened the door for her to leave the premises and gave no goodbyes or well wishes to any of the other girls in the facility. Instead, she listened to the clicking sound of her heels against the paved ground and breathed in the cool air of spring. She immediately spied the man in front of the black car and pursed her lips. Her handler, she presumed.

One foot in front of the other, she approached the man. “Ne mogli by vy udelit’ mne vremya?” Would you be so kind as to tell me the time?

She was sure that her face was the perfect picture of politeness. She’d learnt to mask her true feelings and wear the expressions of another woman. This too, was the most common of the callsigns she had learnt at HYDRA. Signs and countersigns – all agents were trained to remember them, to identify one another.

“Akh, no vremya – eto illyuziya!” Ah, but time is an illusion!

The unnamed agent smiled at her as he reached to open the door to the vehicle for her. Everything was a perfectly manicured expression of their reality as Isla smiled at him, their eyes meeting and sparking with what onlookers would assume was passion.

“Willkommen zu Hause, Frauline Isla.”

The German language felt unnatural to hear after being away from it for so many months. But her skills had been sharpened in the Red Room. She had learned to read, speak, write, and mimic the accent of several countries, not including those of which she already knew. Of course, that didn’t include English, nor the national languages of the Swiss people. All of those she’d learned in an effort to impress her father, though it hadn’t even cracked a smile in her favour.

The car was comfortable – more comfortable than Isla had experienced in a long while. She settled herself into the seat, sinking into the cushion and allowing herself a gentle sigh of relief. She wasn’t in the Red Room anymore; she could indulge. The building that she had spent her life in for the past year looked unassuming on the side of the road; a ballet dance studio who never took newcomers. Inconspicuous to the unwary traveller, dangerous and bold to those who knew what was bred behind the closed doors.

“Schmidt hat dich der amerkianischen Sache sugeordnet.” Schmidt has assigned you to the American cause.

Isla looked at the agent incredulously, not expecting this. “Kein Familientreffen?”

It was a joke, but there was no change on the agent’s face. There was to be no family reunion, she realised with a start. The HYDRA agent turned the keys in the ignition and set the car to drive before pulling off on the sidewalk and onto the gravel of the road.

“Schmidt…”

She didn’t want to hear about Johann fucking Schmidt.

“Du hast schon gesagt, was Schmidt will.” You’ve already told me what Schmdit wants.

“Sich selbst beweisen. Oder scheitern.” Prove yourself. Or Fail.

Isla shived at the blatant wording. That, she knew, had been a message directly from Schmidt himself.

Steeling herself, she dropped felt the same cold mask slip over her, as when she had fought Nadya only the day before. She needed to focus; she’d survived the Red Room; she had survived every other test that Schmidt had set for her over the years. She wouldn’t allow this hurdle to be the one to get her killed.

“Where do I start?”

Chapter 4

July 4th, 1943: Evening

Isla knew the fourth of July meant a great deal to the American soldiers. Bucky had explained as much to her in the hours they’d found a chance to spend talking. That, and he had taken the time to explain his next words of endearment towards her.

“A war-wife?” She’d echoed, perplexed by the term.

“Yes.” He answered steadily, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. “Stuck by my side here, for better or for worse, till death do us part – it really does fit the description.”

She’d hidden her answering smile behind the strands of her recently re-bleached blonde hair. The bag Bucky had handed to her just over a week prior had mostly contained medical supplies, though she found the hair products tucked away in the outskirts. It hadn’t looked conspicuous to the average person, so Isla had no doubt the US Army was none the wiser about her existence in their midst. She’d used the gift from HYDRA in the last few days, just as the roots of her red hair had begun to seep through where even a tight bun couldn’t hide their existence.

Now, as she found herself nestled between the shoulders of Bucky and Dugan, she learned that the fourth of July was just an excuse for the regiment to get drunk with whatever available liquor they’d been able to source and share stories over the fire they’d created and continued to let burn. Thus far, she’d been successful in refusing their requests for her to drink – mostly in the knowledge that she could drink them all under the table, and the questions that would arise based on such a feat. Regardless, she’d begrudgingly added her own stock of liquor to the shared pile; an action that had resulted in Dugan and Jones spinning her around for a brief dance.

Somewhere along the way, in these past few weeks, those men had begun to see her as a friend. She suspected it was likely Betty and Alma’s doing – they were far better at socialising. Bucky maintained his nightly visits to their infirmary, figuring this was the best time whilst the entrenched group remained further from the action of war. It made Isla’s skin prickle the closer they became to active zones. Her heart raced, and her cheeks flushed, and she knew that these were all signs that she was anxious, but simply identifying the feeling and understanding it were two entirely different battles.

“It’s my friend, Steve’s birthday today.”

Isla glanced up as Bucky began to speak, studying his face. He had mentioned Steve to her before, and Isla knew based on that only that he had been a friend to him. He didn’t seem sad – Isla couldn’t read sadness on his expression. But his tone seemed forlorn, a weight to his words. It took her a long moment to realise that he was missing his friend. They must have been close. She wondered what that felt like – both to feel and have felt about her.

That idea was utterly foreign. She couldn’t imagine that her father had missed her all too much, first, for her year long stint in the Red Room, and then now, as she embedded herself amongst the American Army. She struggled to believe she’d even crossed his mind, likely consumed with the work that Schmidt requested of him.

“Steve?” Across the firewood, Gabe Jones prompted him to continue. With some satisfaction, Isla noticed that Alma was drifting to sleep in a liquor induced haze, her head lightly resting on the American soldiers shoulder. Though she didn’t move her face, her eyes gleamed at the sight of her relaxed happiness.

“Steve.” Bucky repeated, a smile blooming on his cheeks. “All he wanted was to join the Army – to fight in this war.”

“Did he?” Alma spoke next, surprising Isla. She could hear the tension in her tone, the quiet worry that something irrevocable had happened to Steve like it had happened to her husband.

Bucky let a wry smile cross his expression. “He tried – but not. He couldn’t.”

“Why?”

“A whole lot of reasons.” Bucky admitted. “Steve… he wasn’t exactly built for war; despite what Sarah Rogers told him before she died. Asthma, scarlet fever, rheumatic fever, high blood pressure, heart trouble…”

“Jesus…” She heard Dugan mutter beside her. As subtly as she could, she elbowed him, sending a darkened glare in his direction for interrupting. Dugan gave his apology only in the softening of his gaze, and twitching lips dedicated to his amusement.

Isla returned her attention to Bucky, who hadn’t stopped speaking despite the interruption. “… still trying the night before we were all due to ship off. At the World Exposition of Tomorrow.”

Isla felt her breath catch in her throat as her mind whirled to catch up with that understanding. Her intelligence had long since suggested she would be able to find one Abraham Erskine at that very same expo – and had it of not been for the late minute orders demanding she board this ship bound for Europe in the dying hours, she would have attended that very same fair, in a very different manner.

Knowing her surprise was written plainly over her face, Isla asked: “Did you manage to see Stark’s flying car?”

She knew she’d succeeded in intoning her voice to include wonder when Bucky glanced down towards her with a small smile. “We did.” He confirmed with a chuckle, shaking his head as though casting away a memory. “Watched it explode right in front of our faces – right before Steve disappeared to apply for the army again.”

Isla nearly choked again.

Whilst she hadn’t immediately made the jump, it wasn’t illogical to assume that Abraham Erskine was present at the event searching for a particular set of skills. He’d said as much to her, when he’d been imprisoned – that it wasn’t the man of strength who would make the serum, but a man of honour and morality. The man that Bucky was describing – his small, sickly friend, who had everything to benefit from the serum but wanted nothing more than to serve his country for the righteousness of it all. She had a sickening feeling she knew exactly what had happened to Steve Rogers in the past few weeks.

It was invaluable intelligence to Schmidt. But it was almost entirely unfounded – she had no physical evidence that this ‘Steve’ had even continued with his application beyond what Bucky had managed to witness. Further, she hadn’t made it to the World Expo in order to confirm that Erskine was even in attendance at the event. Even her suspicion that Steve would have been a prime candidate for the serum relied heavily on the fact she’d spoken to Erskine previously – and she wasn’t entirely keen on the idea of revealing the depth of her connection to that man to Schmidt, lest her rescind her orders to blend in and send her on further unsavoury missions. She mulled over her intentions, fighting back a shiver of discontent as the conversation around her raged.

“I asked Mum to look in for him, but… I’m the only thing he has.” Bucky admitted with a sigh. Coming from anyone else, Isla would have thought the statement to sound conceited. But Bucky meant it genuinely, she could see it in the heavy shadow that seemed to settle over his shoulders. Some kind of haunted despair had entered his eyes, as though he was just now acknowledging the weight of the war in which he sought to enter.

Though she hesitated to do so, her hand gingerly reached out to rest across his thigh. She didn’t squeeze, and once it stilled against the fabric of his army issued combat pants, it didn’t deign move any further. But she still felt the warmth of his skin pressing against her through the fabric, and she felt every subtle movement of his muscles, especially as they tensed with the impulsive contact. She knew he was looking at her, but she stubbornly refused to meet his gaze, suddenly afraid of what she might find reflected there. Instead, she kept her eyes squarely focused on the ridges of her hand, unwilling to know what everyone else thought of the moment.

“I’m sure he’s doing just fine.” Betty offered – though Isla could hear in her tone that her interest had waned from the story itself and had focused squarely on the development between Bucky and Isla.

There was too much going on. Isla’s mind was working too fast. The physical connection she’d established with Bucky – for a reason she still didn’t understand herself, and the very real, very terrifying idea that she now had tangible intelligence to deliver to Schmidt was at war in her mind. The result of such tension manifested in her shaky breathing, a feature she desperately hoped looked as though she felt intimately for Bucky rather than terrified for reasons that she couldn’t hope to explain to anyone else.

James laughed at that point. “Steve? Oh, he’ll be fine. He was always a fighter – got beat up more times than I could count. But he never stopped, you know?” She could hear the pride in his voice, the want and the drive to be more like his friend through his actions. Perhaps that was even part of his motivation for joining the war in the first place. This belief that he had the ability to do something, so it was up to him to ensure that it was done. It made her heart ache in her chest.

“It’s late.” Isla shifted against the log where she’d been sitting, intending to dismiss herself for the American’s to enjoy the rest of their celebrations. She didn’t understand – not the conversation drifting to Steve. Not the fact that it was possible for a person who was not physical present to be missed. Not the idea that somehow, even though it was a huge logical jump, that Steve had gotten mixed up in Erskine’s formula. She needed to go back to her tent. She needed to have time to think, time to craft a message to Schmidt that wouldn’t alert him to her suspicions but gain more information about what exactly he intended for her to learn whilst stationed with this Regiment.

She had a feeling she’d just uncovered the latter question.

But Bucky rose with her. Quicker than her actions, he stood and offered her a hand – a gentlemanly gesture. Gently, she found herself slipping her hand in his own, marvelling internally at the way his hand was simply larger, and stronger. The thought of it sent electricity buzzing across her skin, and she immediately found herself biting down hard on the inside of her cheeks to prevent a blush from rising to her skin.

“I’ll walk you back.” He offered her after he’d helped her stand. She nodded her assentation; murmuring her goodbyes to the others who had gathered and refusing to look in the direction of Betty and Alma, who both looked incredibly interested at the development.

They’d set the fire up quite a walk away from their living quarters – though quarters were a generous word. It was scarcely more than a row of tents, each propped beside one another to protect from the wind and other elements. Just as she had done on the ship, Isla had been quick to ensure that she had a separate area to call her own. It had been relatively easy to trade her way up to a smaller tent, giving away chocolate and other smuggled goods not unlike the way that she had bribed Alma’s affections only a week prior. Now that she had her own private space, Isla had found that sleep was much easier to come by, even if it was only light.

In contrast, she knew Bucky would be returning to four fabric walls and cramped quarters. She’d heard other soldiers complain about the arrangement, verbalising their displeasure in front of their superior officers whom they often watched pampered in sprawling tents with ready access to hot meals and drinks. Bucky though, had never complained. He’d merely taken the accommodations in his stride. She suspected he had expected nothing less.

She knew she had a choice to make. She could return to her tent and immediately write to Schmidt of her suspicions. They would reach the head of the Nazi Science Division before the end of the week, and she would likely be greatly praised for her efforts. Perhaps she would even be invited to return home – not that she at all wanted that.

Or, she could scope out the length of what Schmidt knew. Try to determine his true reasoning behind sending her here to nest as the war waged on around them. She knew better than to presume it was a punishment – her punishment had come in the form of the Red Room, and her graduation, though not as extensive as true graduates of the program, had meant that Schmidt now placed renewed belief in her ability to complete tasks on his behalf. Her earlier failures with Stark and Erskine were not forgotten, exactly, but used as leverage to ensure that she would behave in future. She’d failed two times prior – he would ensure her third failure, no matter the form that it took, would be her last.

“What did Steve look like?”

It was a harmless question. A question that would mean nothing more to the man in front of her beyond a friend trying to get to know him better. But to Isla, it uncovered a world of possibilities, a world of intrigue and the possibility to perhaps even recognise him if it came to it. She didn’t want to serve Schmidt; she wanted to make her father proud. She didn’t want to die; but she wanted to know more about the man in front of her. Her life felt like a large, amalgamated mess.

They continued walking as Bucky reached into his pocket, pulling out scraps of paper. Curiously, Isla noticed that they were taken from the bin by the infirmary. For a second, it stung that he had not merely been visiting the space to see her, but she shrugged the feeling off as quickly as it had come, reminding herself that she was using him just as much as he was using her.

Carefully, Bucky unwrapped the papers in his hand, tracing his fingers over the charcoal covered drawings. Isla paused in her footsteps as she took them from him, glancing over the details with awe. Bucky was a marvellous artist, she realised with a start, as her eyes flickered between Steve’s features. Despite having never met him, she was sure he’d managed to capture Steve’s steadfast determination and morality, set in the shine of his eyes and perk of his lips.

“You can draw?”

“I went to art school.” Bucky admitted sheepishly, cheeks tinged as the unspoken complement settled into the air.

“Can you draw for me?”

She wasn’t sure where the request had come from. She wanted to take it back the second it had left her mouth – and she was sure that expression was showing on her face regardless of how hard she tried to hide the fact. There was something about this man that prevented her lies. Not that he knew how to read her, of course: if there was something she didn’t want him, or anyone to know, they would not know. But she often found herself comfortable around him. Comfort was a dangerous thing – it was going to get her killed if she wasn’t careful.

His answering smile almost took her breath away. “I could draw you.” He mused, with a faint lilt to his lips. “I don’t quite think I’d be able to capture your beauty, though.”

If Isla was an American woman, her cheeks might have flamed with the compliment. If she hadn’t had all emotion trained out of her, she might had even forgotten to stop breathing. But for all the training she’d undergone, every intelligence agency that had wanted to mould her into what she had become, nothing could have prepared her for the way her heart jumped. She could train the physical reactions from her body; she could disguise the tells of her lies. But her heart remained square her own.

Together, they paused at the crossways. Turning left would lead Isla to her residence, turning right would lead Barnes to his. She watched Bucky shift against the rocks of the ground, hesitant in a way he hadn’t been only moments earlier. She felt herself lock rigid in place – afraid that her movements would give away the conflict she was experiencing. When they finally locked eyes, Isla thought that she felt the moment time stopped. She was only conscious of the hulking man before her slowly drawing closer, until she could feel his breath against her skin. A few more seconds, and his lips would be pressed against hers – exactly as she had planned on the ship when she had begun her seductions. She would have successfully claimed her mark.

“It’s late.” She stated again, leaning back on her heels as Bucky’s face drew ever so closer to her lips. Even though her heart pounded in the chest she’d created for it, screaming to be free, and even though she felt her body flood with a want that she’d long since believed to have buried. He’d gotten so close to her that she’d been able to smell the tang of the alcohol he’d spent the night consuming. It had lowered his inhibitions enough embolden his actions. She wished she had the same excuse for allowing herself to become so close to failure. For it was one thing to succeed in enticing a mark – another for herself to want for it.

Mramor. Isla reminded herself. She was made of marble, and she could not break for one man.

“It’s late.” James echoed; an expression she found she could not read crossing his face before he stepped away from her. Offering her a small smile, and a whispered “Goodnight, Aria”, he turned to return to his own bed – but not before he cast a wanting glance in her direction. Isla felt her knees turn heavy and her lungs constrict.

It was a feeling that continued long after she’d crawled her way onto her dirt floor and soothed herself to sleep.

Chapter 5

July 9th, 1943: Dawn

Isla had written to Schmidt the morning of July 5th. She’d spent hours, in the early cracks of light, agonising over what to put in her report. Agonising over whether reporting on the information was even in her best interests. It was a problem that should have kept her up – but ruefully, her thoughts had been dedicated to the steely eyed American soldier who had utterly captured her attention.

In the end, she decided that the report was necessary: her prospective pardon from the SSR hinged on her ability to provide Agent 13 with accurate, relevant information – information that she could not gain if she were silent on the matter. Schmidt expected results, and he was not the kind of man to write in to her and gently remind her to do so. If he thought she needed to be pushed, he would instead likely send someone to test her skills, check if she lived up to the moniker she’d been designated in the Red Room: A Red Viper. Not the Black Widow, as so many within desired to be, but another entity entirely.

Privately, Isla thought it was simply another way for the women within to emphasise what she truly was. Inostrannaya suka.

Foreign bitch.

Besides – Isla didn’t need to go into great detail. For now, it was enough that she’d learned of the SSR’s continued efforts to bring forth a super soldier to win the war. Schmidt – and her father, too, if she was being honest with herself, would not appreciate the unresearched and likely misconceived ideas of Bucky’s friend being that super soldier test. It was unsubstantiated information, and it was better to keep it to herself until she’d either proven or disproven the lead.

Schmidt’s reply had predictably arrived in the evening of the previous night. Isla had been in the infirmary, taking stock of their supplies, treating the superficially wounded, coaxing the sick to sleep and tapping her fingers impatiently against the metal tray when the night surrounding her began to draw quiet. Since they’d landed, Bucky hadn’t missed a single meeting in the infirmary. He was always there, waiting for her work to slow and approaching her with smiles as he desperately tried to learn more about Aria Davis.

For him, Isla had lied endlessly, and she found that she liked it. She liked pretending to be the normal girl, in love with a handsome man she’d met on an adventure. She’d fabricated stories of grocery shopping for her sickly mother, of spending her days lazily wandering around parks in Ohio. Bucky had become incensed upon learning that despite her time spent in New York prior to the departure for Europe, Isla had never once visited Coney Island. It was a fact that he promised her they would rectify upon their return to the United States – after they’d won the war, of course. And though Isla knew that it could never eventuate, she found herself wistful over a memory she could never possess.

For now, all Isla had was a sack containing bleach, a missive from Schmidt, and hopefully, as she’d pleaded for, additional chocolate to continue bribing Alma and Betty’s good favour.

Because Bucky wasn’t there. Because Bucky had been sent out on an active-duty mission – an exercise that required him to be away from the base of their operations for a long stretch of time. And Isla hadn’t worried – because she had grown up around war and death and ruin, had experienced pain and suffering and knew what it was to strive towards a goal so much that it consumed your entire being. It was how she had survived the Red Room, how she had survived the Abwehr at only fifteen. She was a survivor.

So, as Betty and Alma had dismissed her for the night, content to watch over the soldiers present without her assistance, Isla had moved as was expected of her station as a combat nurse. She languidly strolled back to her tent, chocolate and other goodies hidden in the lining of her apron. Taking a moment, she undressed herself, allowing the contents of her apron to spill into a neat pile beside her sleeping bag where she could sort through the items at a leisurely place. It was only once Isla had taken the time to hide Schmidt’s gifts, that she turned to the letter that seemed to glare at her. She’d left it until the last, avoiding the speech she knew would be contained inside.

It was nothing more than paper, but it still burned her as she lifted it in her hands. Hesitation she had not felt since 1939 quaked in her blood, but it was not enough to prevent her from opening the message. Her eyes raked over the words contained within, feeling her heart pounding with every syllable.

He wasn’t pleased with her; she realised with a start. His words were sardonic, warnings etched in the very press of his ink to the page. He thought her foolish for ever suspecting that the SSR had ceased their efforts for a super soldier and reminded her at great length the strength of his own abilities given by the serum. Her failure to garner greater, more valuable information, he warned her, would have consequences. Isla could almost feel the ghost of his fingers digging against her hips as she finished the sentence.

Instinct pleaded with her to throw the letter away – set it aflame, in the same manner that the words were burning through her. Practiced pragmatism had her hands folding the letter neatly and scrawling her own encoded message in the margins of his words. Sealing it neatly back into the envelope it arrived it, Isla used her precious ink to trace a new name onto the directory – Agent 13. Tomorrow, when she woke, she could slip the letter into the pile of awaiting condolences due to depart the camp by the afternoon. Hopefully, the letter would prove useful to the SSR, given it only assured her certain destruction in that moment.

Without the distraction of Bucky to lull her to sleep, Isla found the tension in her body was unwilling to fade. Years ago, when she’d lived with her father, she’d felt this same pull – a tension that had thrived in the dark, waiting moments. In the moments when Schmidt and Zola could not see her. When Agent 13 had led Erskine to escape, that tension had burst like a dam, transforming into something dangerous: hope. Hope that she could act, that she could do something right when the world demanded service and obedience from her.

Erskine had been the first to show her a different path. Never outright, and never in ways that HYDRA would notice. But in quiet, careful words. Isla had not yet been an agent when Erskine arrived in her home – as a guest, her father had claimed. She had not been HYDRA – but she wanted to be, eager to please an absent father who valued science experiments over his own blood. It had been Erskine, not Zola, who had spoken to her of a world that could be better. It was Erskine, who had led her to the SSR, though he had never stated so outright. And it was his family she had been ordered to kill, when he continued to refuse Schmidt’s demands. She had granted death swiftly, but her own defiance came with a cost. Kindness and mercy had no place within the rankings of HYDRA, and a swift death, even for a mother and her children, was not becoming of her abilities.

Schmidt had not been kind in his reminder to her of that fact.

In turn, she had not spared details of her ordeal when she passed the stories on to Erskine – masquerading her trauma as though she had inflicted it on others, rather than it being inflicted upon her skin. In the dead of night, when her thoughts raced endlessly, Isla could still hear the way he screamed himself hoarse.

Isla was startled from her sleep before dawn as footsteps raced in the direction of her tent. Instinctively, the palms of her hands flew towards the gun pressed beneath her pillow, and the knife embedded in the dirt beside her strewn blankets. But as the sobs of Betty grew louder, and shrill, Isla felt her fingertips relax against the deadly metals, before her heart twisted into something painful. Betty was crying, and Betty was here for her – even if she hadn’t managed to say as much yet. Something was wrong.

Isla was already standing before Betty had managed to unzip her tent. Though she stood in nothing more than her shift, the moment that Betty’s tearstained eyes met Isla’s own, she was hurrying her step away from the tent, and in the direction of the infirmary. She could feel the eyes of the camp trailing them as they went, feel the knife she’d hastily strapped against her own leg scratching against her flesh as she ran. She had been careless in her application, but the sharp pain on her upper thigh was nothing compared to the fear that was encroaching on her heart.

It wasn’t a long walk to the infirmary. Isla knew they’d crossed the dusty pathway in a matter of minutes; far faster than she ever had before. But every second felt like it dragged, and time stopped all together as she came across the sight of Bucky, lying in a bed, blood drenching the fronts of Mary and Alma’s aprons.

Isla flew to his side, careless in her steps as she barrelled past Alice. The girl let out a squeal as she stumbled away, looking her footing against the floor, but Isla didn’t care. She just stared down at James, her heart pounding in her chest before she finally glimpsed the needle and thread in the hands of Mary.

Her palm facing upwards in front of the elder Nurse was her silent command. If they knew who she was, what she could do, she had little doubt they would have hesitated to hand over the materials necessary to stitch him up. As it was, these Amerikanet’s believed her to be nothing more than a combat nurse with a crush on a soldier. Because that’s who they believed Aria Davis to be.

“No, Aria.” Mary denied her, deftly sidestepping her to retake her place by the side of Barnes.

“Mary…” Isla interjected, doing her best not to completely lose her patience. The knife strapped to her thigh felt heavy against her skin.

“A flesh wound, girl.” Mary repeated sternly, glancing up from her work for the moment to glare at Isla before returning to the task. “It looks worse than it is.”

Isla bit down hard on the inside of her cheek to prevent the venomous response that ached to escape. Instead, she allowed her eyes to once again trail over James. He was asleep. Whether he had chosen to fall asleep; or had been forced asleep with the assistance of Betty and Alma, Isla did not know. A sheen of sweat coated his upper brow, eyelids creased in pain even though he was not conscious to the world. Whenever Mary pierced his skin with another stitch, Isla watched him flinch before lying still once more.

At some point, Betty came to Isla’s side to take her hand. Isla snatched it away from her before she could even think about the action. She didn’t bother shooting the idealistic girl an apology – despite Betty’s clear distress, Isla couldn’t fathom the idea that this was happening to anyone other than her.

“You should not have retrieved her, Betty.” Mary chastised after a period of silence.

Betty sniffled, both from Isla’s rejection and Mary’s disgruntlement. In the periphery of her vision, Isla watched Alma offer her small comfort. Somewhere in her mind, she knew that it was prudent to maintain the relationship she’d fostered with the two girls, but her body refused to move in line with the wisdom such a thought possessed. Instead, she settled on the idea that she would bribe Betty’s forgiveness with chocolate, or whatever else she could find. She could not care in this moment to make appearances for her actions.

“He’s going to be fine.” Mary finally announced to the gathered crowd, having suspected they’d worried for long enough. “He is not the only man who needs to be attended.”

In response, Isla merely dragged a chair from the outskirts of the room. Allowing it to rest by the side of Bucky, she sat down, never once glancing in the direction of Mary, Alice, Betty or Alma. She focused solely on the man before her, loosing herself in her thoughts. She forced herself to breathe in time with the rhythmic rise and fall of his own chest, forced herself to focus on the way that her own heart was still pumping blood around her body. She felt the metal of the chair pressing into her hands, she felt the uncomfortable thread of her night shift scratching at the underside of her legs. She smelt the antiseptic, she breathed in the dust, and she knew that she was alive – but she had never quite felt so much.

A gasped breath stole her lungs for the moment, and then she was heaving, as though she’d suddenly remembered that she needed air. Such was the power of her exhale that the candle beside Bucky’s bed flickered, threatening to extinguish. There were no tears coming to her eyes – no, Isla hadn’t cried since she was fifteen years old and learnt that it was only considered a weakness. She half expected Schmidt to appear now, and enact her personal brand of punishment upon her for daring get emotionally attached to a soldier from an opposing army.

“Aria.” Betty’s timid voice rang through the air. Broken from her spell, Isla finally turned to glance at her, watching the way the rest of the nurses had retreated from the area. Betty once again offered an outstretched hand, coaxing her to listen, to back away and to take a second to reassess. Isla stared at it for a long moment, her mind and body caught between her wants and her needs.

Her wants. That was new. The Red Room was supposed to train want from her blood. She was meant to be a husk, provided to serve a master. But Aria Davis had wants. She had desires, she had people that she liked, people that she wanted to protect. She needed Bucky, just as much as Isla Zola needed to survive.

She’d spent so long looking at the hand that it was no surprise to her when Betty retracted it, her face scrunched in watery dismissal. Only another gentle palm – this one belonging to Dugan, saved Isla from what she suspected was going to be a gross misunderstanding of the overall situation.

“I’ll sit with her.” He offered, dismissing Betty with a tight smile. Isla didn’t keep watch to find out how Betty reacted to the visit, or the kind release. She merely turned her attention back to Bucky, returning to cataloguing the rise and fall of his chest. When that didn’t satisfy her, she rose to retrieve bandages and began to methodically wrap the wound against James’ arm, despite its superficiality. She checked and rechecked every wrap of the bandage, as though she were assembling a weapon for warfare.

All throughout, Dugan did not protest. He merely watched over her efforts in relative silence, keeping vigil until she had long since fallen asleep with her forehead resting against the metal of the bedframe.

***

It was late afternoon, when Isla was startled awake by his voice.

“You seem pretty fond of me, you know. For a war-wife.”

She lifted her head to glance at him, eyes narrowed as she took in his appearance. His voice was raspy – and she could hear the twinge of pain associated with the wound. Mary had not given him painkillers since the initial incident; citing the very real truth that many other soldiers would be injured on this day, and many of them would carry greater wounds that James Buchanan Barnes. Pragmatically, Isla knew they had to save the medication for those who would die without it, but the selfish part of her body wanted nothing more than to hoard it for him, protect him when he couldn’t protect himself.

Bucky seemed to smile then, and she realised that she’d been staring at him, open mouthed.

“It’s okay.” He grinned, exhaustion pervading his tone ever as he laid back against the pillow and closed his eyes. Her eyes trailed him as his brown hair was strewn messily to the side, catching on the sight of the bandage but refusing to allow her eyes to linger. In the silence, she’d just about convinced herself that he had fallen asleep again – but then he spoke, so soft, she almost missed it.

“I like you too, Aria Davis.”

Isla blinked. For a moment, the world stilled – and even her heart ceased beating. But then the boots of the soldiers outside hit the ground from beyond the infirmary, and air continued to gently caress the walls of the medical tent. She could feel the edges of her lips curling into a smile as blood rushed through her body and sang a tune meant only for him.

“Ty mne tozhe nravish-sya, Ariya Devis.”

She tested the words against her tongue – and she decided that she too, liked the way they tasted.

Notes:

wew - i've actually written a fair bit ahead, so there's no reason that updates should abruptly cease.

as always, thank you so much for reading! comments and other feedback are always appreciated x

Chapter 6

July 11th, 1943: Midday

Bucky was to be relegated to bedrest for the rest of the week. Mary had ordered it, and though Mary did not outrank any general within the army, her deft tongue and sharper gaze had silenced any complaint wanting to escape her superior’s throat. She had handled Bucky’s own complaints with a glare of her own, and she delighted as the words had died on his tongue, mirth and amusement swirling in his blue gaze.

Aria had been thankful for Mary’s intervention. Though she had returned to work the following day – stubbornly refusing to apologise for her lack of decorum or politeness in the hours prior, James being confined to the infirmary meant that she could spend time between patients checking on him and ensuring that he wasn’t going to contract an infection that threatened his life. Bucky, of course, was amused with her constant fussing. In his mind, she suspected he was adding it to the evidence he had of her liking him. Ridiculous – she would never be so painfully obvious.

The second night after he’d awoken, Bucky had become bored and discontent with the idea of lounging in his hospital bed. Aria and Bucky had traded verbal blows over the idea that he was ready to return to the field. When Aria had suggested a simple arms wrestle to determine his fitness, Bucky had immediately jumped at the idea. He’d eagerly placed his palm in her own, a cocky smirk planted across his face as he believed he would be easily able to best her. In turn, it had taken her merely a second to slam his arm to the ground and grin in his place. He didn’t need to know that she’d been trained to kill a man since she was fifteen – he merely needed to be reminded that he was fallible, and she did not want to see him fall.

Instead, in an effort to combat what was likely Bucky experiencing an adulthood version of childhood boredom, Aria ensured that every friend Bucky had made within the 107th Regiment attended his bedside. As such, the infirmary was a revolving door of tired soldiers returning from active duty to check on their friend before returning, either to sleep, or the frontlines of battle. She found scrapped notes for Bucky to draw on, and often the pair sat in a peaceful silence, the only sound filling the air the scraping of graphite against paper.

Neither had spoken about their conversation from the night Bucky awoke. Aria had been too frightened to bring it up, if she was being honest with herself, and Bucky was content it seemed, to let her stew in its absence. Neither did he mention the fact that she hadn’t seemed to return to her own quarters since he’d been injured, instead preferring to fall asleep by his bed. On one occasion, he had subtly tried to speak about how the given chairs must have been uncomfortable, but Aria had shut down the line of questioning before he’d finished his sentence. Something in her tone must have warned him not to continue, for he hadn’t so much as glanced at the chair since, unless she herself was sitting in it.

Aria wondered if he saw her a frightened animal – someone who would run at the first sense that the relationship between them was fast becoming real. Aria, on the other hand, didn’t quite have the intelligence to explain to him the truth of her entire scenario. Now, she was Isla, and she was Aria, and they were both chaotically intertwined within one another – the girl she wanted to be and the truth of what she was. Each reared their head in different moments, poised to attack like the vipers that they were. She would have found it amusing if it wasn’t wreaking havoc on her ability to withstand her emotions.

Schmidt would kill her if he saw her now. She imagined he would make it slow – he would savour it, savour her once more, before he tossed her aside with a snapped neck and bruises littering her thighs. She was not meant for this, in his mind, nor her fathers. She was meant to be the hidden shadow of HYDRA, a spectre that enacted their will on the unsuspecting. She’d wanted that too, for a time when she was younger. When she’d equated her father’s love with his pride in her decisions. But HYDRA was not the crux of the world, and it certainly would not be the dictator of her world. Erskine had once taught her that love did not come from approval. Bucky, now, he was proving to her that relationships were not forged from praise.

Ogla Romanoff, who had been too proud to take Arnim’s last name, had often taught her that she needed to stand back up, no matter how hard she fell. It was a motto she carried with her when she was a child at ballet, and it was the motto that had forced her survival through the Red Room.

And in the Red Room, she’d seen it – examples of love, real, true love as depicted by the Amerikanet’s in their media. She’d consumed it all, readily, hungry, wanting for that knowledge, and at the time she had believed it served no purpose other than to solidify her ability to fade into the average lives of everyday citizens. Now, she saw the truth of it all: Isla Zola was a girl who had wanted so desperately she had shut herself away from the possibility, in order to prevent that pain. Aria Davis was the girl who could set them both free, who could live the life that they both desperately wanted to live. And together, they could survive the fall from HYDRA, because they knew how to stand back up again.

It was another truth that Aria had realised: she hadn’t been ready to defect from HYDRA until this moment. She’d been playing both sides, deftly providing information to Agent 13 whilst desperately attempting to maintain her ties to the HYDRA Order that often shunned her. Even if she had left in America, when she’d debated for that mere second to slip away rather than kill Erskine, she knew in her heart that she would have crawled her way back to her father on her knees, pleading for forgiveness. She would have worked for them until they worked her dead. Putting her in the 107th Regiment, allowing her to experience true freedom, it was the worst mistake they could have made. Because here, Aria found the chance to think, to breathe. To come to love and care for others in a way she never had before – and found that they had come to love and care for her too. She wanted, and to her overwhelming delight, the feeling was nice.

On the fourth night, Aria had managed to organise Dugan, Alma and Jones to attend all at once. She’d tried too, to convince Betty to attend alongside, but the idealistic girl had merely shrugged her off and murmured another time. Aria had felt her skin prickle then, with an emotion that she couldn’t find the words to describe. It had taken her a few moments to brush it aside, but it was buried by the time she returned to the infirmary, deck of cards in hand and a grin on her face.

Holding those same playing cards, Aria had gleefully explained to the group how to play durak, a popular Russian card game that her own mother had taught her before she passed. Alma had enthusiastically thrown herself into the game, and her enthusiasm had resulted in her ‘winning’ the first game of the evening. Though Aria wasn’t entirely sure that her group of soldiers understood the rules of the game, she was far more incensed by Dugan’s constant claiming that he had come ‘second’ in every match.

“Dugan,” She had chastised him, tone swelling with betrayed amusement, “there are no winners in the game of durak, much less ‘winning second,’ as you called it.”

“Nonsense.” Bucky had chuckled, voice rumbling from his chest. “The first to finish their hand is clearly the winner of the game.”

You Amerikanet’s and your desires to conquer, she had wanted to say to them. But she didn’t. Instead, she had only glanced at the man still confined to his bed, an overtly exaggerated look of exasperation painted on her expression. It had sent both Alma and Bucky into twin fits of giggles, which had evidently been contagious as both Dugan and Jones followed suit in their shared laughter.

Aria didn’t quite understand it. But she wanted to.

Mramor, that little voice reminded her again. She was meant to made of marble. She was meant to be made for more than one man. And yet, here one was. She was practically on her knees for him – would get on her knees for him, if he asked her to.

She shook those thoughts away, even as her Red Room training fought to the surface with a wry smile appearing on her face. “My people created this game,” she warned, tutting their continued laugher. “I am the one most suited to tell you the rules.”

“Your people?”

Bucky didn’t bother to disguise his curiosity. She knew it was rare for her to open up – truly open up, in a way that suited him. As Isla, masquerading as Aria, she’d answered every question he’d wanted to know – grocery trips and walks in parks and books and films alike, but she’d never openly revealed anything of herself. She was opening up to him.

Fighting her rising panic at the idea that she was going to inadvertently let information slip in such a state of bliss, Aria fought hard not to choke on her words. “My mother was Russian,” she coughed, reaching for the glass of water on Bucky’s bedside to disguise her unease as a sore throat. “My father was American.”

“Was?”

“Both dead.” She answered the unspoken question in such a way that it didn’t invite further comment. That suited her just fine; considering that she was balancing on the cusp of half-truths. Ogla Romanoff was staunchly, proudly Russian – but Arnim Zola would likely have rather died than be compared to the American men and women she now surrounded herself with.

Sometimes, Aria did not give James Barnes enough credit for his tact. But he displayed it now, as he deftly weaved the conversation away from discussion surrounding her family history and turned to discussion of upcoming troop movements as though the conversation had never happened at all. As they played durak for hours, and Aria vaguely listened to battle strategies regarding their upcoming attempt at sieging Azzano, she found herself falling into the rhythmic bliss that was Arianne Davis. It was a bliss that had comforted her that night when she fell asleep – once again in the chair by Bucky’s bedside and had later woken up with a blanket draped around her shoulders. Based on the gentle musky scent that accompanied it, Aria preened at the idea that it had been Bucky to place it there.

Now, it was the night before Bucky was due to return to active service. Dugan had visited earlier, and Aria had listened to Bucky’s gentle teasing of his friend, easily bantering over the ever-increasing length of Dugan’s moustache. Of course, Aria had pretended that she wasn’t listening – she was elsewhere in the infirmary, folding towels, washing linens, counting their available penicillin and praying that they could hold out until the next shipment was due to arrive. And whilst she was glad of the delay – no new shipment moving in meant that there was no possibility of intel arriving from Schmidt, it also meant that if her letter had reached Agent 13, she had no way of knowing. She hoped that it had, just as she hoped her warning of Erskine’s assassination had reached her ears before HYDRA made the move against him.

As Dugan left the infirmary for the night, dipping his head in slight acknowledgement to Aria as he passed, she in turn made her way to Bucky’s bedside, taking up her nightly vigil just as she had for the previous week. Now, when she came to sit, the blanket had already been laid out across the uncomfortable plastic chair, as though it would make it more homely for her to rest within. If she were a regular girl, Aria suspected the very sight would have brought a smile to her face.

Alice was nearby, completing her nightly check on Bucky’s stitches. Aria had watched intently as he seemed to wince every time Alice prodded his skin, but Alice had all but confirmed he was relatively healed and ready to return to the field. Bucky had refused to show his stiches to her himself – citing her coddling tendencies, and Aria, embarrassed by the very fact that he thought she was fussy. Alice would check on him again in the morning – likely, she suspected, issue some medication too to keep him alert in the field. But still, Aria resolved herself to check after he’d fallen asleep that night, wanting to confirm for herself.

Regardless, Aria would not properly settle into her chair until Alice left the room, which was proving to take longer than was typical. By the time Alice had finished her checks and confirmed her beliefs that Bucky would be cleared to return to his station tomorrow, the shadows had grown long outside, and the sun was dipping beneath the horizon. Sensing that she’d overstayed her welcome, Alice made her goodbyes, but not before throwing a curiously pursed look in Aria’s direction. Aria’s eyes were immediately drawn to that same golden cross around her neck that had been present in the mess hall of the ship. Faith was important to her, then – because Aria was sure she’d have traded that solid gold piece of jewellery for something far more useful given their circumstances.

Their differences solidified for Aria that they would never be friends. She was okay with that, and it seemed Alice didn’t like her all that much anyway.

She settled into the chair beside James, bringing her knees up to her chest as she watched him shift within the hospital bed. She took careful notice of the way his face winced as he pressed against the back of the bed, and she felt her heart leap in fear. He was quick to reassure her.

“I’m just stiff, Aria.” He murmured.

She trailed up and down his body, uncertain.

“It’s just my arm.” He reminded her when she didn’t respond to his attempt at placation.

“Your arm is a necessary part of your body.” She responded evenly, rising to move towards the offending wound. Before she could make it anywhere close, however, James grabbed her ties on the ends of her apron. Startled, she took a step backwards, only the railing of the bed stopping her from toppling over onto his body.

Whirling around, she glared at him. True to his nature, Bucky only looked amused at her expression. “My arm is fine.” He stressed, waving it around as though it would emphasise his point. “If you want proof of that, then come lay down.”

“Lay down?” She echoed, unsure.

Aria could read the hesitancy in his gaze. But before his bravado could disappear, she watched as he shuffled himself across on the mattress. The second he looked up again, and his hopeful blue eyes met her own, she knew she had no choice but to obey his spoken request.

Slowly, she reached behind her back to untie the standard issue apron. It fell to the ground with a light thump, and she didn’t bother with decorum as she kicked it further underneath the bedframe. Her shoes followed next; Aria using the front of her feet to kick her heel out of each shoe respectively. Like the apron, they hit the ground with a thud, but Aria didn’t bother to move these out of the way. Instead, she turned her face to hide her expression. She knew she wouldn’t be able to hide the anxieties stretched across her face as she lifted herself over the bedframe and swung herself onto the mattress beside him.

Immediately, she was met with the warmth of his chest, seeping through his clothing. Somewhere, something deep within her body settled, curling up and purring as though she were nothing more than a cat. And despite her anxiety still thrumming in her blood, she felt the moment her heart rate began to slow, and she closed her eyes to rest against the backrest.

When she’d settled, and felt as though she could speak without having the breath stolen from her lungs, she attempted to once again peer at his arm. But a piece of paper in Bucky’s grasp distracted her. With narrowed eyes, she glanced at it.

“What’s that?”

Almost sheepishly, he began to unravel it. Staring back at her, Aria was stunned by the image that he unravelled.

It was a beautiful drawing. It had captured the youth of the subject, the guarded happiness in their gaze. The sun must have been blaring through the light of the tent, because Aria could almost see it reflected into the enclosed room. The woman in question shone like a beacon of light, and though Aria knew that she was this woman’s twin, she also knew that the entire image was a lie.

She couldn’t tell James this. So instead, the only words that left her mouth were the truth that she had initially thought.

“It’s beautiful.”

“You’re beautiful.” He answered swiftly. Startled, she glanced up at him. Men had told her that before – marks, and those whom she had passed in her working hours. They had called her beautiful and hoped her charmed enough to slide into her skirts for a night of wonder. Never before had she heard a man speak those words to her as though he truly meant them – as though every syllable had been considered before it passed through his lips.

She stared at him for a moment, desperately trying to find the right words to say in response. She wanted to tell him that she thought he was beautiful, too. Krasivyy, or handsome, she supposed would be the better term. But the words didn’t come to her mind. Instead, the only action she’d seemed capable of, was the drifting of her eyes down his face, until they came to rest upon his lips.

She didn’t know who made the first move. Her glance towards him had been permission enough. The moment that she felt his soft lips against her own, a symphony of sound and sensation exploded against her. Heat rushed through her blood, and she had to clamp down on his shirt with her hand in order to ground herself against reality. It was merely a simple kiss – they did not explore one another, nor did either of them press for more. But it was still the greatest kiss Aria had experienced in her life.

When he finally pulled away from her, Aria was grinning. He matched her smile, and Aria delighted in the way that it creased against his eyes. When they creased, she knew that he was truly happy. He had made her truly happy – she hoped that he could see that, even if she wasn’t the best at being open. She hoped he knew how much she cared – because she didn’t know if she’d ever find the words to tell him herself.

Needing to fill the silence, and desperate in a way not to speak of their previous activity, Aria asked: “Can you draw something else for me?”

He hummed agreement to her words, content to allow her the reprieve from her emotional learnings. Leaning back into his chest, and closing her eyes, she explained how she wanted him to draw himself – something that she could keep, to always remind herself of him. Bucky had thought the request sweet, as evidenced by the gentle kiss he pressed into the strands of her hair, but in reality, Aria was being utterly pragmatic. One day, she would need something to remember him by: this beautiful man who had taught her so much in so little time.

They did not speak much after that. Occasionally, she would feel James hand beneath her jaw, beckoning her forward for a kiss. Sometimes, she would initiate the contact herself, cheeks flushed, and lips bruised by the time they had pulled away from one another. Aria hid her arousal well enough, despite her core tightening with every caress. James, unfortunately, did not have the same luck – though she didn’t comment on the growing mass situated by her back. The later into the evening they journeyed, the more they simply became content in the silence offered by one another, kisses melting away into the night like the shadows that had long since grown long.

She heard James fall asleep first, as evidenced by the heaviness in his breath. With his right arm locked around her, Aria had no choice but to remain pressed to his side, and making the best of her situation, she found herself snuggling into the crook of his shoulder.

By the time Aria fell asleep that night, she’d long forgotten to check the wound on his arm.

Notes:

as always, thank you so much for reading! comments and other feedback are always appreciated x

Chapter 7

July 14th, 1943: Afternoon

Since Aria was fifteen, all she had known was violence. When this world war started, she hadn’t been shocked by its cruelty. In a way, it had almost seemed comfortingly familiar. Exceedingly predictable in its actions and reactions, ebbing and flowing in the way that one might expect.

When Bucky returned to the field after recovering from his injury, Aria was fine. Much to the shock of Dugan, she barely batted an eyelid when she watched him march out of camp the following morning with the rest of his closeknit squad. Aria knew that he longed to ask her what was going on in her mind, but she was glad that he didn’t. How was she supposed to explain to him that she could not and would never truly fear a warzone. She had made the bloodlust of violence her constant companion, and it’s Bucky’s return into its haze felt like nothing other than a gentle caress against her skin.

“Aria!”

Startled from her thoughts, Aria glanced up, setting down the syringe she’d been planning on loading with penicillin. With active members of the Regiment in the field, Aria knew it would not be long before men returned with the wounded, or otherwise permanently incapacitated. She wanted to be prepared for that eventuality.

Betty raced towards her, carrying in her arms a large satchel. Aria felt the grin spread over her cheeks as she took in the familiar sack-like bag that often contained their medicines and her much needed supplies to continue forth with her masquerade. She’d taken the time to dye her hair that morning during Bucky’s final medical examination from the Regiment’s Doctor, and by the time she’d returned with her freshly bleached blonde hair, Bucky was dressing himself in preparation for active duty. She’d arrived with just enough time to straighten the collars on his jacket, sharing a look with him that she could not put to words just yet.

“Betty!” Aria greeted, just as the woman crossed the boundary into the infirmary. Betty was all smiles today, Aria noted as she scanned her appearance. Gone was the timid, upset girl who had refused to play durak with the rest of the group only a few days prior, and in her place a vibrant, jubilant joy had spread. Something about the change in her relieved Aria, soothing an ache.

Wordlessly, the brown-haired girl handed the sack over to Aria’s outstretched hands. Immediately, Aria dug through the contents of the bag,

“What do you think?” Betty asked, right as Aria’s hand traced the outskirts of a letter. Deftly, she slipped it up the sleeve of her uniform, pulling out another vial of penicillin to disguise her sleight of hand.

“It’s not enough.” Aria admitted. She’d laid out half the contents of the bag, and the reality of their limited supplies was looking rather grim. Gingerly, her hands skimmed against another sheet of paper. Nerves alight with curiosity, she slipped that into the same sleeve, shifting her arm until she was sure that the papers leaning against her forearm could not be heard crunching together. She would only ever admit to herself that deceiving her colleagues in this manner ignited a thrill within her body that thus far had only been matched by kissing James.

“What’s not enough?” Alma called, peering through a crack in the tent at the conversation. Aria gleamed at the way her eyes lit up upon noticing the delivery of fresh medication. Hungrily, Alma thumbed her fingers over a vial of morphine before casting her eyes towards Aria and Betty once more.

“Barbiturates?” She questioned.

“Tablets and liquidised formats.” Aria reported, finally satisfied that the sack was emptied of hidden missives. In an effort to speed up their cataloguing process, she gently tipped the sack until the few remaining vials and tablets spilled onto the waiting table. She hated the way that Betty and Alma’s expressions turned grim the further that they looked at the medication shortage. She could almost see them doing the calculations in their minds as though they were speaking aloud. No matter how many times they stretched the medication – no matter how many times they halved a dose, pleaded with a soldier to go without painkillers, withheld treatment for the walking dead despite the suffering it would cause them – it would never be enough.

Alice and Mary chose this moment to enter the sent, side by side. Glancing at the liquids and tablets, Aria watched them make the same calculations and come to the same conclusion. She couldn’t bear to see the defeat on their faces.

Turning away, she picked up her needle once more. “How many penicillin syringes do you need, Mary?”

Mary gave her answer, and Aria got to work ensuring that they would be ready for her, Alma, Alice and Betty coming to stand alongside her as they eagerly reached for the life-saving measures awarded.

Together, the four girls settled into their repetitive task, only occasionally broken by the odd soldier requesting help in another alcove of the camp. Almost every time, it was Mary who would volunteer to attend, the eldest nurse delegating the responsibilities of cataloguing to the younger generation who could accurately read what was contained on the vials. Betty had suggested fashioning Mary glasses the first time the older woman had admitted to struggling with the labels, but Aria knew that wouldn’t be necessary. Mary had proven to her time and time again that she was able to recognise the minute differences in weight between the drugs, a skill that could only be born of intense experience. Mary had merely politely shrugged off the suggestion, thanking Betty for her concern but assuring the sweet girl that she was just fine.

Alice has sequestered herself elsewhere – still in the same room but remaining separate from the other girls as though she remained superior to them. Aria hadn’t failed to notice that the girl had managed to keep her fingernails perfectly clean despite the general dirt and grime that surrounded them. Aria had never wanted more for a hot shower in her life – and this was by far the longest period of time she’d ever been absent from one.

“So, Aria – you and Bucky.”

Aria bit her cheek, hard. She wanted nothing more than to snarl at Alma regarding Gabe Jones as she had once before, but she suspected it wouldn’t quite have the same effect. She should have suspected the moment they were left alone that Alma would attempt to interrogate her for information.

As Isla, she’d survived interrogations from men and women far scarier that Alma. She’d been trained to do just that. But as Aria, she was finding it difficult not to instinctively shut down all manner of responses.

Likely, it was because she now had something she felt the need to protect.

“Bucky and I.” She finally mused as she laid down her last syringe of penicillin. A moment later, she threw the empty vial into the bin on the opposing side of the room, smiling gently when it landed inside the trash bag. Mockingly, Betty held up her fingers with what Aria recalled was some form of basketball term, but she couldn’t wrack her brain for the correct word.

“Tell us!” Alma squealed, and whilst Aria rejoiced on the fact that she wouldn’t be forced to reveal her less than satisfactory knowledge regarding the sports Amerikanet’s enjoyed, she wasn’t thrilled by the idea of letting anyone know about the night that she and James had shared.

She said as much. “There’s nothing to tell. It’s early. Nothing happened.”

Her nothing happened, evidently, was different to their definition.

“Nothing happened?” Betty mocked, scandalised. “The sight of you both asleep this morning in that very bed begs to differ.”

Aria flinched imperceptibly. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept so soundly that she hadn’t awoken to footsteps. The very thought of that frightened her far more than the idea that these women would find out about her affections for Barnes. “We just shared a bed – and a kiss, or two.” She decided to admit whilst stewing on her newly added worries. “Nothing more.”

“That’s disgusting.” Alice piped up from where she’d been segregating herself in the corner, concentrating solely on organising the barbiturates whilst Alma, Betty and Aria had worked on the vials and syringes. “God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral – Hebrews, 13:4? I will pray that it is not you, Aria”

She heard Betty hide her laugh behind a cough. Placatingly, Aria glanced up, meeting Alice’s incensed gaze. Her eyes dropped down to the golden cross, and long practiced patience hid her sigh.

“Surely God see’s love as beyond punishment, Alice.” She finally dismissed evenly, careful not to insult her directly. “ It should not be restricted or confined. It just is.”

Besides – if there was a God, they had long since turned their back upon her.

Her attempt as soothing the situation didn’t work, Alice still scoffed, but she turned back to focus on her work all the same. She saw Betty roll her eyes, and Alma gearing up to open her mouth, but a gentle hand on Alma’s forearm paused her. When their eyes met, Aria only shook her head, trying to convey that she wasn’t bothered by Alice’s disgust in her. Trying desperately to convey too, that everyone deserved a chance to change their mind – deserved a chance to learn that through experience, or being shown a better way. Alma acquiesced at Aria’s silent request, of course, but Aria couldn’t help but doubt she’d understood the magnitude of what she was begging her to perceive.

***

The infirmary faded into night as darkness fell upon the encampment, and Aria retreated to her quarters, letters still hidden in the sleeves of her coat. She had not seen Bucky, but as she reminded herself, she had not yet seen any of the soldiers in the 107th returning to their campsite for the night, so it was not yet cause to worry. Not that she was worried – she had been trained better than that.

She peeled the coat of her body as quickly as she could, grimacing at the sheen layer of swear that had coated her forearms after hours of work in the infirmary. Settling herself against her belongings, Aria glanced between the two letters that had been delivered for her that morning. This had been the first chance she’d received all day to read them – and with them returning to her sight, she felt her anxieties return. Aria had only written a single letter – addressed not to Johann Schmidt, but to Agent 13. She was sure Agent 13 had written back; Aria could recognise her scrawled handwriting. But the perfectly manicured script belonged to only one man, and Aria suspected he was less than pleased with her lack of correspondence. He was not a patient man, and a cold sense of dread filled her as she reached for his letter first.

Opening it, her eyes danced across the cursive script. She noticed her hands beginning to shake the deeper into the message she became, as her fear became palpable. Ghostly nails pricked the sides of her hips as her breathing drew shallow. This was beyond simple instructions, or notations on upcoming strategies for HYDRA. This was outright dismissal of her efforts, demands that she return to the German warfront in order to be reassigned elsewhere after proving ‘less than fruitful’ in her mission. It also, she noted with some level of disdain, directly called to attention her efforts in seducing the Amerikanet soldiers – but suggested that she diversify her efforts rather than intensely focusing on a single man.

Her blood boiled at the idea that Schmidt knew about Bucky. She didn’t like that – not one bit. And when her initial anger faded, she realised that it was giving way into a terrible, palpable fear. Because Schmidt still phrased every word as though he owned her and her body. As though it was his decision to manoeuvre her. It was a chilling reminder, something that she had desperately been trying to forget during her time with the 107th. But it wasn’t going away. He wasn’t going away.

Aria stared at the words on that page long after she’d finished comprehending them. She felt the bile rising in her throat in response to the intense fear that had wrapped her in it’s cold embrace. By the time that she managed to discard the letter – haphazardly throwing it under her pillows, she was sure she’d departed the infirmary almost an hour prior.

The second letter, in the handwriting she did not recognise, filled her with a different avenue of fear. Agent 13, evidently, had received her communication – and though the words on the page suggested that she was grateful for the knowledge, Aria knew the woman was impatiently waiting for tangible intelligence that would allow them to move against Schmidt.

Aria could feel the walls of her predicament closing in around her. She had already worked out Schmidt’s intentions for sending her to the American Regiment – his desire to determine if they’d succeeded in the creation of a super soldier. Even if he had dismissed her previously crafted intel outright, she knew that the information it contained was valuable. But with lack of further evidence appearing, and Aria’s general apathy towards sending him any information at all, Schmidt was clearly growing impatient. She didn’t want to go back to Germany and find out what he had in store for her body; especially knowing that her perceived failure would only bring unimaginable pain.

But Agent 13’s letter did not present to her a clear alternative. Not once had the woman reminded her of her promise of a pardon, and the tone of the letter had been exceedingly polite – demeaning. It was a staunch reality that these people only saw morality in shades of black and white – they knew nothing of what Aria had been through, what Isla had overcome in order to even consider terminating her allegiance to HYDRA in the first place. It had never been about shared ideals; it had always been about survival. Why couldn’t they understand that?

These were the questions that haunted her as she laid down against her pillow, eyes wide open as sleep never came for her that night.

***

It was in the early hours of the morning when Aria once again heard the telltale signs of footsteps approaching her sleeping tent. Based on the stride, she knew that they did not belong to Betty – and the tears that typically accompanied her visits were nowhere to be seen either. But still, Aria could hear the hesitation in them, the unsurety of the movement.

Her visitor didn’t announce his presence, he merely unzipped the tent. Aria spied his shadow leaching the light of the moon, and relaxed upon recognising the figure as a friend, not an entity near to permanently end her.

“Tim?” Aria yawned, stretching to keep up the charade of exhaustion. “What’s happened – do you need painkillers?

“Aria.”

His tone had her snapping to attention. Suddenly, her every sense was alert. She suspected the words that were going to fall from his lips before they actually came but hearing them did nothing to ease the intense fear that flowed within her at the sound.

“He never made the rendezvous point.”

Timothy Dugan did not elaborate on the who in question, because Aria instinctive knew whom he met. And his tone suggested he was all but resigned to the idea that Bucky Barnes had been taken out by enemy artillery, but Aria knew him better. He was hers – and she would not be as foolish as to choose someone who got taken out before they could understand the violence of war. A violence that could only be understood in completing violent actions for oneself, not merely having these violent actions thrust upon them.

“Where was he meant to be?” She demanded, stepping closer into Dugan’s personal space. Some buried instinct within her smirked proudly as Dugan took a step away from her, eyes flashing in alarm as the soft, level-headed woman he’d come to know seemed to disappear behind another mask. And whilst she wasn’t too proud to admit that she was satisfied that she had managed to frighten him, she desperately needed him to concentrate. “Dugan!”

“South. Perched on a rock – the big rock that juts out so far you can see it from the entrance of the nursing station.” He paused, glancing up at her as the worry etched out his voice. “Aria, are you okay? Bucky – I know he was important to you… Shit, I’m so sorry…”

Aria blinked, mentally drawing up a map in her mind.

“Landmines?” She questioned.

Dugan rubbed a forefinger against his temple, as his eyes darted around her fluid figure. She hadn’t ceased motion since the moment he had arrived. Fluid – but her words were so calm, calculated. It was as if she was considering…

“Aria, don’t…”

“Fuck, Dugan concentrate – are there landmines?” She ignored his concern. Still, he didn’t answer her question, and Aria bit down hard on her cheek. Perhaps her colourful language had silenced him with shock – though Aria doubted that would be the case.

Without any level of denial, Aria would have no choice but to assume that there was, which meant that the entire operation would take longer. If she wanted any chance for Bucky’s survival, they needed to make it down the mountain before dawn broke over the hills, and Bucky’s figure could be spotted by enemy forces.

No. He had to tell her, she needed to know – Bucky would surely die without the information; might still die if the answer was a resolute yes.

“No.”

She breathed out in relief, running her fingers through the tips of her hair. The Red Room had pointed out that such an action was a nervous tick and had spent hours beating it from her. It had returned with a vengeance, as Aria wanted nothing more for the moment than to continue raking her fingers down her bleached scalp as she desperately attempted to work out some form of plan.

“Okay. No landmines, but likely barbed wire – possibly enemy soldiers, but I doubt they’d venture so close to our own encampment…”

“What are you going to do?”

Aria looked down upon him, breaking away from her mental notes to give him her attention. “Find him, of course. Treat him – and then bring him back here.”

“Aria, you’re a nurse.” He sounded utterly exasperated by the idea of it all. “You have no training… and you’re not even frightened!”

Aria couldn’t help the snort that escaped her. She had played her part here well. Dugan was not a foolish man – he was sharp, able to discern strategies and learn techniques quickly. She had surmised that about him long before they’d played durak together in the infirmary, but that had proven her findings.

War was her home. She had no care to be frightened by it. And allowing her fear for Bucky would not aid her in this situation.

It made her appreciate the graduation ceremony at the Red Room, even just a little bit. Not that Schmidt had allowed her to undergo it.

“I’m coming with you.” Dugan continued – and she was glad that he recognised that arguing the point with her over this matter would be fruitless. And whilst Aria knew that she could use an ally in the endeavour – an ally would only ask questions of her, questions that she was not ready to divulge the answer to. As she finished brushing clean the small trinket box which housed her personal weaponry, Aria turned to face Dugan, delighting in the way that his moustache seemed to twitch in permanent annoyance at her actions. He stepped in front of her then, as though physically blocking her way through the tent.

“You are not coming.” Aria told him bluntly, brushing past him and allowing her fingers to deftly press against the plunger of the syringe. He didn’t even flinch as the needle entered his skin. She watched Tim open his mouth to argue, likely attempting to remind her of his own skill with a gun, and then she watched him freeze as he seemed to notice his legs drawing heavier. An accusatory glance fell upon her body, and Aria felt the syringe in her hand burn hotter as he seemed to realise what she had done. Still, she found that despite the guilty action, she did not feel at all guilty for having undertaken it.

Given Bucky’s general like of Tim Dugan, Aria was gentle as she manoeuvred his body into a comfortable position on her mattress. She watched his drooping eyelids and bemoaned the fact that this would be a mess for her to clean up later for only a moment before she once again called attention to herself, smoothing out her shift as she felt her objective settle over her.

Mramor. Mramor, Mramor, Mramor. She was made of marble – and in her mission to save Bucky Barnes, she was not going to break.

Notes:

as always, thank you so much for reading! comments and other feedback are always appreciated x

Chapter 8

July 15th, 1943: Dawn

It took Aria Davis five hours to locate Bucky Barnes. He was exactly where Dugan had described him – the trek had taken the most of her precious time, and she’d slowed upon ascending the hill, struggling to locate Barnes in the scrub of the landscape. Any other time, she’d have bemused that his uniform was acting intently as designed. Now, she found it little more than a nuisance, hindering her from her own lifesaving measures.

By the time she had returned to camp, dawn was breaking. Dugan – no longer drugged, was staring, blatantly open-mouthed at the sight of her return. And she was sure that she was a sight. Half dressed, apron tugging behind her in a makeshift sled; dragging the body of a man who in truth towered over her. She was sure her face was covered in dirt, smeared with the elements, hair strewn about, lips permanently set in a scowl. But she’d already broken her cover in front of Dugan – and he would be useful to her now, in getting Bucky into the medical tent.

“Lift him. Now.” She had commanded him the second they drew closer.

Dugan had tried to warn her then. He had started to speak, but in her strict demand to keep the conversation centred around James’ wellbeing, she had ignored him, opting only to repeat her statement – a threat tensing the edges of her words.

He had sighed, and listened to her, but not before his moustache began to twitch in blatant agitation.

By the time they had together brought James Buchanan Barnes to the infirmary – the soldier knocked out, but breathing steadily, Aria had come to recognise what Dugan had been trying to tell her.

They were not alone in the infirmary. She hadn’t expected they would be alone, but with Dugan standing by herself, Aria could feign innocence, perhaps happening upon them once she awoke in the morning and demanding that they were brought here at once. But the infirmary had been cleared of the nightly staff. There was a man - and only a single woman attending the tent when Aria arrived. An older man, dressed in a deep green military coat, with wrinkles demonstrating his age and expertise in his position even before she’d noted the stars crossed against his shirt. The woman, on the other hand; hair curled into a bob; had no discernible stars. In fact, she was only distinguishable by the small badge pinned to either side of her collar, labelling her as a member of the SSR. With perky red lips, and a carefully neutral expression despite the circumstances, it could not be anyone other than her lovely lettered pen pal. It was with displeasure and frustration that Aria realised her chances of remaining embedded within the 107th were dropping by the second.

That brought her ever closer to a return to Schmidt.

Schmidt was not necessary to her current objective. She chanted that ancient manta in her mind, desperate to remind herself. She had not factored him into her analysis when making the decision to retrieve Bucky, and he certainly didn’t need to inform her choices now. She could afford to dedicate no further thought to the fear that coursed through her at his name, or the very real bruising hands that always seemed to rest on her hip bones when she felt his presence snaking up her spine.

Bucky needed her.

Taking a deep breath, she strode past Agent 13, instead speaking only to Dugan as she requested Bucky be placed on the bed. Though Dugan threw a look of questioning in Carter’s direction, her quick assent towards the action ensured that Barnes was settled mattress within a few moments.

“Miss Zola, I’d like you to meet Colonel Phillips.”

Aria ignored the woman, instead trailing her fingers up James’ arm until she found his wrist. Ignoring Dugan’s protests, she pressed two fingers into his pulse point and counted the beats until she was confident he was stable, even if his skin was flushed and his breathing was shallow. Diagnosing the trauma he’d suffered in the field had been difficult. She’d only assessed that there was no active wound she could stitch before she’d made the decision to bring him back to the encampment where she would have further access to medication. And, access to Doctors and Nurses who could administer treatments alongside her. She didn’t like the idea of allowing him visitation in such a weakened state, but if she needed the help, she would gladly acquiesce.

“Zola?” Dugan wondered behind her, and she heard confusion confronting realisation and accusation within his tone.

Phillips tried speaking to her then, but Aria tuned out his statement. Instead, she began to unbutton the lines of Bucky’s uniform, growing impatient by the last three and merely ripping them apart with her hands. She heard Phillips’ sentence die in his throat as buttons threw themselves across the room. Grunting with her inability to continue racing to and fro the bed, she jumped onto the mattress, swinging her legs until they were placed on either side of Bucky’s body. She heard Dugan cough uncomfortable – might have even heard Phillips swear, but she continued to ignore any rational thought or response as she shrugged Bucky’s body out of his jacket, eyes zeroing in on their target. Bucky’s stitches.

She glanced at the skin which surrounded the tiny black lines. It was red and swollen – though, she noted with a small amount of disdain that this was typical of an injury that required stitches. There was no clear sign of pus, or discharge that would immediately indicate something was amiss. But he had complained of pain last night, even if he’d attempted to brush it off as merely being stiff from lying in bed all too often. And, she noted with some disdain, the wound had taken abnormally long to heal. Typically, they would have only kept him for a couple of days. Alice had only cleared him for service after five days in the infirmary.

“It’s infected…”

Dugan confirmed her suspicions by giving voice to them. She knew what she needed to do.

“Bring me the medical kit. I’ll need penicillin – see if there’s any tetanus.”

It was a command, but it was not phrased as harshly as her initial interactions with Dugan upon her return. Still, he did not move to do as she asked.

“Dugan. Now.” She repeated, throwing her head back over her shoulder and shooting him what she hoped would be a vaguely threatening glare. She wasn’t sure just how terrifying she looked straddling a soldier whilst simultaneously fighting for his continued survival, but she was hoping that it was enough to at least convince Dugan to act for a little while longer.

But Dugan still did not move. She watched his eyes dart up to the Colonel, his superior looking utterly unsure. Aria had to bite down on her cheek to prevent the slew of insults that longed to escape from her. In any other situation, Dugan wouldn’t war with her over her demands, no matter how confused he was as to the change in temperament. But with a powerful man standing in the room, watching over every action they made, she suspected he was concerned they would be tarred and feathered.

“Where’s Carter?” She reframed her line of questioning, quick to notice that the other woman in the room had now departed. Neither of them answered, content to let her stew in the silence. Frustrated, she grunted as she once again swung herself off of the bed, heading directly towards the stocked medication. She watched Dugan flinch in the corner of her eye, and she felt her nose twitch in slight amusement. He was likely worried she’d drug him again. She wouldn’t – it had been necessary at the time, but she quite liked the moustached Amerikanet soldier.

She’d just picked up the syringe loaded with medication when she heard twin sets of footsteps approaching. One was caked in surety, the other, hesitant and lethargic.

“Put the syringe down, Isla.”

She didn’t need to turn around to know who had spoken, or who had returned. She felt heat rising to her cheeks as her frustration grew. For a moment, she only breathed, taking a second to weigh up every option in the room. She could probably incapacitate everyone – but where would that leave her after the fact? It would be a foolish, short-sighted movement. Especially when for the moment, they likely served the same goal. She just needed to make them see. Her grip tightened against the syringe.

“It’s penicillin.” She refused the action, desperately meeting the eyes of Peggy. But Peggy didn’t look sympathetic to her plight. “It’s penicillin, he needs penicillin.” Aria’s voice wavered, shivering.

“And Mary will give it to him.” Agent 13 jutted her head in the older woman’s direction. She was bleary with sleep, shadows stretching under her eyes. Aria suspected she had only just been able to fall asleep when the woman had stormed into her quarters. And though Aria did not drop the syringe as she had been asked to do, she did not stop Mary from coming towards the medical supplies and lifting her own instruments to conduct her own investigation.

Agent 13 seemed to relax as the closer that Mary came to James’ body. When it became clear that the other combat nurse in the room wasn’t going to attack her for treating the patient, she began to work on him. Aria watched every movement she made with intense detail. Every flutter of Mary’s palms, every swipe at her brow to brush off sweat, every sharp intake of breath when she seemed to recognise that a typical method of combatting James’ illness would not take. It was all she herself could do, to breathe in through her mouth and out through her nose, in time with the beat of her heart. She couldn’t afford her control to slip, not when he needed her so desperately. Despite the violence in her bones begging to be released.

She understood now. Why the Madame in the Red Room had insisted they become marble. Unbreakable, unbendable for anyone or anything. She had bent in every which way for the man now lying prone on the hospital bed, and she had enjoyed every second of it, up until now. She could fight a dozen enemies on her own, she could snipe a target from hundreds of miles in the distance. She could infiltrate, assassinate and investigate better than she suspected the majority of members of every intelligence agency. And yet, she couldn’t help this man fight off this infection. It was beyond her.

“Aria.”

Aria ignored her once more. Arms crossed, she stared only at Bucky and Mary as the latter continued to work. Anxiety filtered through Mary’s every action, mirroring the feelings that Aria felt swirling within her. She didn’t want to go back to HYDRA, she didn’t want to see this man die, she didn’t know who she was, but she was learning, and he was teaching her – and after everything, why didn’t she deserve that chance?

Tears pricked at the back of her eyes. A sob tried to escape her throat, but she clamped down on it. She hadn’t cried since she was fifteen years old, and she wasn’t about to start now.

Phillips, Peggy and Dugan continued to quietly converse behind her. Later, retreating footsteps informed her that Dugan had left the tent – likely dismissed by the Colonel to return to his active duties. He wasn’t needed for the moment, though she knew better than to assume they wouldn’t be curiously questioning his involvement in her life following the events of this day. She knew they were wondering what to do with her, knew that they were likely communicating non-verbally about the best manner to subdue her. A HYDRA Agent in their midst, they couldn’t allow this opportunity to go to waste.

But they didn’t need to use force. Aria saw it happen – the first time that Mary sighed, and the weight within her shoulders sagged, not from grief, but from relief. She turned her attention to the rise and fall of Bucky’s chest, still weak, but stronger than it had been. He was no longer sweating; his brows were no longer creased in pain. Whatever Mary had done, Aria suspected it had likely saved his life, and he was going to be okay.

“Spasibo.” She whispered, though Mary likely didn’t understand what it meant.

Then, she turned to Phillips and Carter. Raising her palms in the universal sign of surrender, she waited patiently for them to tell her where to go.

***

They chained her ankles to the floor first. She felt the heavy metal shackles settling over her body as they clicked into place. Though they were cold against her bare skin, she hid her discomfort well.

Next came the handcuffs. She resisted the urge to inform them that she was more than capable of escaping such restraints, only acquiescing the very moment they gestured for control of her hands. Now, they rested behind her body, tied, and she rolled her shoulders as best as she could. To Peggy and Phillips, who were staring at her, it would read like a sign of discomfort. To Aria, it meant that she was merely testing her range of movement; and they had given her too much.

She wouldn’t admit her true discomfort – Colonel Phillips. Aria was at least familiar with Agent 13, knew that Peggy Carter could and would relinquish control to allow her to speak her truth – and what a rather large truth she had. But Colonel was an unknown entity, an undetermined factor in her ability to talk. It made her want to close her mouth and take her secrets to the shallow grave she was sure they were debating digging.

Hatred bloomed in that man’s eyes, a hatred that was not mirrored in Carter’s. She wondered, for a moment, if Erskine had ever revealed the truth of what had happened to his wife and children. Judging by Phillips’ expression, he’d heard the story echoed on the wind, but the wind was notorious for changing tune to suit the songbird. And Aria Davis sure did know how to sing.

As it was, Phillips took his lunch. She suspected, likely in a way that was meant to intimidate her.

She only asked him: “What’s the cut of your steak?”

He hadn’t liked that question. His eyes had narrowed, and he’d barely hidden the growl of his tone. No matter they had her physically incapacitated, they needed the information she had. She did not wish for them to believe that they were in control of the narrative of this room. She watched his fingers turn white, tightening around the fork he held. Her mouth quirked immediately at the sight, only serving to further his wrecked emotional state.

“So,” Peggy interjected before Phillip’s could grow angrier at her disobedience, “I’m curious. Why is Arnim Zola’s daughter – the shadow of HYDRA, stationed in a non-critical army located deep within the European Front?”

Phillips chewed on his steak.

Aria only shrugged. “I don’t see why it’s of any importance to you. You have received my missives – my intelligence. It does not cease no matter the location that HYDRA sends me too.”

“She doesn’t look like much.” Phillip’s quiet comment to Peggy was meant to unsettle her. Pride only bloomed in her chest.

Her simple, quipped response to his statement came quickly. “I know.”

Sensing that they were once again heading off track, Peggy interjected again, throwing a glare towards Phillips as she did so. “My colleague and I – Colonel Phillips, as I stated – we just want to know how… involved you were, in the events of New York.”

“You would know well that I shipped off from New York with the 107th on June 15th. So, if the events you are referring to occur after that date, I do not see what this has to do with me.” She maintained her air of confidence, though she had a sinking feeling that she knew exactly the event that they were referring too.

“Assassinations rarely take place without forward planning.”

Making the logical leap and ignoring the way that her heart pounded in genuine distress at the inferred news, she spoke. “I warned you of the hit months in advance.” Shifting in her chair, she transferred her weight from one side to the other, feeling the way that her ankle chains scraped along the floor at the movement. Simultaneously, she flexed her fingers behind her back – the loud noise from the floor successfully disguising her movement. It was stupid – not to have someone sitting on the other side of her, in a tent which had no windows. A few more uninterrupted seconds, and her wrist would be free of her shackles. Not that she would run – she merely needed to prove a point.

“We didn’t need your information to know that HYDRA wanted that man’s blood.”

“What you choose to listen to in my intelligence is of no concern to me, dorogoya. I provide the information; I do not dictate how you act upon it.”

She felt her hand slip free of the metal chain. A simple, swift action had her catching the handcuffs before they could clang and alert the two agents in the room as to her deception. Aria couldn’t help the smirk that bloomed then, across her face. Even as Phillips and Peggy continued to eye her warily.

Dramatically sighing, she said: “I’d drink a toast to his memory, but…” In her hands, she shook the handcuffs, releasing the dissonance of clashing metal. Her very own victory bell.

Settling again, she added, “I haven’t stopped giving information to the SSR regarding HYDRA – and I did my best to prevent Erskine’s assassination. Everything I was aware of – even my plans for getting it done, were acquiesced to you before I boarded the ship to take me to Europe. It is unfortunate, of course, that you were not able to intercept the HYDRA Agent that was sent, but it should not be a factor in what you are clearly hoping is my downfall.” Seeing them still blankly staring at her, she continued. “You weren’t there, Colonel Phillips, and Agent Carter, you seem to have forgotten – I was instrumental in allowing Abraham Erskine’s escape from HYDRA in the first place. He would still be there if it weren’t for my actions.”

“His wife and children would still be alive if it weren’t for your actions.” Colonel Phillips snapped in reply. Peggy openly glared at him then – silencing any other disparaging quip he wished to level at her.

Aria was glad of it. Talk of Erskine’s family make her skin crawl, and bile rise to her throat. She didn’t want to feel the fingertips of Schmidt against her skin – the feeling of it all as he threw her into the back of his car, and…

Schmidt is not here. Do not think of him again.

“Get me a map.” She said instead, pointedly steering the conversation away from discussing Erskine. “Get me a map, and I will provide for you the location of my next dead drop. They have been coming to me regularly via the infirmary supplies – but I know there to be a set rendezvous point only an hours walk from this location. It should contain bleach and chocolate – perhaps some Amerikanet magazines if I am to be so lucky. A letter from Schmidt is already beneath the pillow of my bed – but I suspect you’ve already found that one.”

As long as they didn’t find her uniform. She planned on holding tightly to that.

“Go and get a map.” She repeated.

“You don’t give me orders.” Colonel Phillips snapped back, but he rose from his chair all the same. Aria bit down hard on her tongue to prevent the sassy remark that would only serve to anger the man, instead, allowing her eyes to trail him as he walked from the room. She turned to Carter, hands still gripping against the cuffs.

“Are we alone now, Agent 13?” She wondered aloud, mere moments after the tent flap blew closed on the retreating Colonel.

“In this tent it’s just you and I.” Peggy agreed.

Aria craned her neck to study the shadows lining the ground outside. “Behind the fabric, then.” She mused.

Peggy nodded, sliding three fingers forward on the table to confirm Aria’s suspicions.

Aria did not speak again until Phillips returned an hour later, carrying with him the items that she’d requested – her drop, a map, and the letters that had been haphazardly strewn beneath her pillow. She raked her eyes over the contents of the dead drop: the hair dye, the chocolate, the makeup and the newly delivered letter from Schmidt. She could see from the tear in the paper that it had already been read, but Aria suspected she didn’t need to know what it said. It would contain no information as to the truth of her current objective, and likely continued musing about how simple it would be for Schmidt to order her death.

Regardless, Phillips placed the letter in front of her, writing facing up so that she could read it. A quick scan of the words confirmed the majority of her suspicions – though she did find herself surprised that Schmidt referred to the presence of a super soldier within the US Army so blatantly. He’d previously scolded her for the act of attempting to find them, and now he was growing angry over her lack of ability to do so.

Despite knowing better, Aria spoke next. She’d grown too uncomfortable in the silence that stretched across the room.

“There are two reasons I have not yet seen a super soldier in the Allied Forces,” she mused, leaning back on her chair and mentally debating the best way to slip her ankle chains. “One – you do not have one.”

She watched as Peggy and Phillips both struggled not to react outwardly. Even their own personal training – years of good, expert training, could not hide the subtle deviations of their face, the flush to their cheeks, or the crinkle in their eyes that gave them away. Aria watched as Phillips gave the faintest hint of an eyebrow raise – teasing his wrinkled forehead.

“Two,” she continued, as though she did not already have her answer, “he’s not in the army.”

“Who said it was a he?” Peggy quipped. Aria couldn’t fight the grin that spread across her face. Someone like her? How exciting.

Crossing her arms in front of her chest and relishing in the surprised expression of Phillips and Carter as they realised, she’d long since slipped the chains of her wrist, Aria’s grin grew to level the Cheshire Cat. “I shall have to meet her one day.”

Notes:

getting ever so closer to the events of the first avenger now!

as always, thank you so much for reading! comments and other feedback are always appreciated x

Chapter 9

July 18th, 1943: Midday

They kept Aria in the interrogation room for three days.

For those three days, Aria remained bound to the chair via the shackles surrounding her ankles, as Phillips and Carter heavily debated what would be the best course of action. She longed to know of Bucky’s condition, but pride kept her from asking that question. Asking felt akin to standing on mountain top and screaming her devotion to the man. She was prepared to privately admit to herself she cared for him, and she knew that her actions had demonstrated the strength of her commitment, but speaking them aloud gave new life to them. She wasn’t ready for that.

She’d remained mostly alone in the tent over the course of those three days. Only once had someone other than Peggy and Colonel Phillips entered – two young men, no doubt looking to cement themselves in the order of the SSR. It hadn’t taken long for her to recognise their purpose in the room, and she hadn’t fought their movements as they threw her unceremoniously onto the ground. Though she suspected they had entered her room with the intent of discovering information from her, the gag they placed in her mouth prevented her from speaking.

Soon, it became torture for the sake of torture. Perhaps in a misguided attempt of vengeance for their fallen comrade, Erskine. The pain started sharp, but it didn’t take long for Aria to feel it melting together, pooling into hurt that radiated across her entire body. For a while, it felt like her veins were on fire, that her skin was being peeled away, flayed, and she was to be left bare as an example of what happened to HYDRA Agents who attempted a new life for themselves. But her training kicked in eventually, allowing her to sink into repetitive poetry meant for nothing else other than a distraction. She was sure she was bruised and beaten – but as with every man who seemed to lust for her blood, they did not touch her face. She suspected they didn’t want to see the pain radiating in her eyes. It was the one true place training could never completely stamp away – not for her, or anyone else.

As it so happened, being tortured for information she’d already freely given did have its benefits. When Phillips had arrived at the scene of her, on the ground, with two men towering over her body, he’d quickly relented on her continued stay in interrogation. He became forthcoming with information – though, Aria suspected it was likely a rouse, as he informed her that she would be released sometime in the following day.

When Phillips and Carter returned that morning, their first action was unshackling her ankles from the chains which bound them. Stiffly, Aria rose, ignoring the sharp pain in all of her joints. It would fade with time – and she suspected that the majority of it came from stiffness, rather than the two soldiers who tortured her. They didn’t offer her conversation, so Aria continued to slink towards the edges of the tent, almost making it beyond the boundary when the sudden thought occurred to her. She knew that she should have waited to press the issue, lest she reveal the knowledge contained within those pages, but this wasn’t about HYDRA’s secrets. There was no information contained within that journal that would aid the SSR in their search for HYDRA – only information that, when correctly decoded would mean the disruption of a carefully fabricated lie.

Dramatically, she paused. Throwing her hair over her shoulder as she turned back to glance at the waiting superiors, she began to hum in thought. “Hm. My gift for Erskine – I’d love to see it again.”

She watched a glare entrench itself across Phillips’ brows. “Typically, gifts do not acquiesce when the owner passes.”

“It is mine.” It came out harsher than she had intended for it too, and she felt her eyes twitch with the realisation. Peggy was too perceptive to miss such an obvious tell, and she didn’t particularly want to elaborate on her desperation for its retrieval.

“It is the property of the SSR.” Peggy replied, though it seemed that the spy was decent enough to offer what she probably believed was a reprieve. “At least, until our codebreakers can decipher it.”

Aria felt the corners of her mouth curling into an unsettling spy – even if she couldn’t have the journal, it was enough to satisfy her that they’d never managed to break her encoding. She knew they would be unsuccessful in their endeavour, especially now that Erskine had passed. There was just one more question she had to ask. She had to be sure.

“Erskine never told you?” She kept her tone carefully curious, as though flicking through the pages of a comic.

“Whatever was in that journal, he took that to his grave.” Peggy confirmed.

Relief flowed through her body. Her secrets were safe, and once again, she knew that she had Abraham Erskine to thank for everything.

“And the HYDRA Agent, who killed Erskine?”

She surprised herself with the question, having never intended to ask. But she found that she desperately needed to know the answer.

Peggy was suddenly serious. “Dead.”

Aria’s mouth twitched as she fought off a pleased smile. “Shame,” she instead mused, “I would have made it hurt.”

She would have left then, but it seemed Phillips was discontent with allowing her to have the last word. This was still an interrogation; she reminded herself bluntly. They still did not trust her, and she had to dance to their song for as long as it took to ensure her safety.

“Miss Zola.”

“Davis.” She correctly sharply, unable to disguise the warning in her tone.

“Davis…” Phillips repeated the syllables of her name slowly, contempt dripping from his vapid tone. “You are simply a rat in a cage.”

If he was attempting to insult her, he was going to be disappointed with her response. She didn’t say anything, merely raising her eyebrows and gesturing for him to continue.

“I am interested in what happens to you – the rat – when we apply a little heat.”

Aria sat in silence for a moment, mulling over the threat. Flexing her fingers, she debated her response internally before it came to her.

“In the Middle Ages, rats were placed on the bodies of their victims in a cage,” she sounded as though she was reciting from the pages of a textbook. “When the cage was heated to unbearable temperatures, the rats used to burrow through the only available path – all of that skin, blood, bone. They’d chew through it all in order to survive the ordeal and make their escape. All that only to be killed anyway.”

“I don’t need a history lesson.” Phillips interjected, suddenly annoyed – and losing his sense of control over the conversation. She ignored him, moving closer to the tent’s flap and beginning to lift it.

“You seem to imply that you’re putting my under pressure.” Aria noted, rolling her aching shoulders. “You forget Colonel, that we are in Europe, in the middle of the 20th century, and I am not a rat.” Turning to Phillips and Peggy, she hoped her expression was every bit as threatening as she intended for it to be. “I am a viper.”

With that, she turned her back and walked from the room.

***

Aria wasted no time returning to the infirmary. She could feel the weight of Mary and Dugan’s stares upon her as she trudged her way across the dirt track, but she didn’t spare them a glance. She didn’t want to look in their direction and see the questions that were blooming in their eyes. She didn’t want to see the genuine fear that she knew would now overshadow every future interaction. It had been easy, when she looked to them, nothing but a combat nurse. It had been easy for them to accept her as weak and pliable – the latter, of course, was circumstantial. But now, they suspected she could hurt them. That she had been trained to infiltrate and hurt them. No matter what Phillips and Carter had told them, no matter the bargains they’d struck, the agreement they’d made to speak nothing of the events of the previous few nights, they would be scared of her. And she hated it.

She needed something to temper her body. Something to bring it to heel, to end the restlessness that she was beginning to experience. In the past, she’d been able to request a mission. But this was not HYDRA – and it was not as simple as announcing to Agent Carter that she needed to assassinate another to feel something. Agent Carter’s already poor perception of her would not improve with such an announcement.

She stepped into the infirmary – but was immediately incensed by the sight of Alice standing at the foot of Bucky’s bed, puckering her lips and smiling at the conversation that was flowing between them. Aria knew she was experiencing jealousy in that minute – but she also knew that she had another, very real reason to be infuriated with the other nurse. It had been her fault that Bucky had been cleared to engage in combat despite an infected bullet wound, and it had therefore been her fault that everything had gone so wrong.

“What are you doing?” Aria snarled the second she got close enough to the scene. She didn’t bother with fake niceties, or curiosity that would typically accompany her foray into the nursing tent. She watched as Alice jumped into the air, clutching her clipboard in fright and staring at Aria with widened eyes. Alice didn’t know what had happened over the past few days, but Aria’s tone was enough to inspire fear within her body.

For a moment, Alice struggled to find any words. Aria watched her fingertips tense against the paper, her mouth opening and closing as words she thought she could say came forth but died before they could live. For the moment, it satiated Aria’s drive to act, to do something after being confined to a chair for the last three days. For the other half of her, that longed for more… well, she had a plan for that too. She just needed Alice to leave.

“Aria, it’s okay…”

“She could have killed you!” Aria turned to him, pleading. She watched him sober, soften as he took in her expression. I could have lost you; she wanted to scream at him. But she didn’t, hoping that he would infer it from her expression alone. It seemed that he could.

“Alice, can you…?”

She heard Alice’s footsteps scurrying from the room without having to turn around – followed by the murmurs of other nurses walking further from the tent. Until the only sound left in the tent was the sound of their shared breaths, Bucky’s stronger – he was strong, she realised with a start. Her eyes raked over every inch of his body. There was no flush to his cheeks, no sweat on his brow. Even the stitches from his arm had disappeared, and the resulting scar it left behind leaving nothing more than a scabbed line that would soon turn silver. He was okay.

Something settled in her stomach – a relief she hadn’t felt since Dugan had arrived in her tent and given her the news that he was missing. There had been a very real chance that he was dead. She hadn’t acknowledged that fact before now.

War was her home. She’d grown from child to adult in it and had bathed in its horrors. But war wasn’t Bucky’s home. Not yet, and as comfortable as was with the idea of soldiers fighting, and soldiers dying, and assassinations and espionage and everything it entailed, suddenly she was no longer okay with the idea that he would be involved in any which way. She wanted to protect him, and she couldn’t protect him whilst he was out there, and she was stuck in here.

“How are you feeling?” She started, knowing that one of them needed to speak beyond simply staring at one another.

“I’m okay,” he started, and then added as though he knew she would ask, “it’s not like last time. I am okay. I’m not feeling hot; there’s no pain in my arm. Aria, I promise. I’m okay.” He paused for a moment, as though debating his words, before he outright asked: “Where were you?”

He sounded hurt. Aria bit the inside of her cheek as she fought the truth from revealing itself. Instead, she wove a lie.

“The SSR arrived – while you were out. It was actually one of their soldiers, who found you,” Peggy had been so kind as to reveal their planted story on the second day of her interrogation, though Aria was sure that she hadn’t meant to tell her so early. She could use it to her advantage now. “They had another soldier though. He was injured – and they asked if I could assist them. Obviously, I agreed, but if I had of known that you were ill…” she trailed off, hesitant. “I didn’t want to leave you.”

That was the whole truth. She didn’t want to leave him, she had been forced elsewhere due to her circumstance, and the very idea killed her. She should have been the one beside him when she woke up, she should have been the one nursing him back to health. Instead, Alice has twirled her hair and laughed at his jokes and probably made him feel special in all the ways that she wanted to be the only one to do that all the way into their shared future, however long that might be.

“My war-wife, treating a special guest?”

Aria startled. Perhaps he wasn’t as annoyed with her as she had suspected. Curiously, she watched him, but no anger lingered in his eyes.

“I understand.” He merely added to her curious, confused glance. “You had your orders; you followed your orders. You’re a good soldier, Aria Davis.”

Aria didn’t have the emotional capacity for the moment to unpack that statement. As it stood, she had barely slept in the past four nights, and her body simultaneously ached for sleep and something greater.

“Do you remember what happened?” she asked when the conversation had settled again.

He shook his head. “Nothing beyond waking up here.”

It was all she needed to know. She didn’t want to hear any more of the pain and suffering that had led him to this bed, the pain and suffering that she’d endured over the previous four days to make her way back to him. No, she wanted to feel him – every part of him, in a way that she had been foolishly denying herself ever since she recognised that she was attracted to him all the way back on that ship.

“What are you thinking about doll?” He seemed to sense that her mind was turning in over itself.

She smiled gently. “Just you.” It was the simplest admission she could think of; two words which held so much weight.

“Hm. Well, I’m thinking about how much I could go for a cigarette right about now.” He responded cheekily.

Without skipping a beat, Aria jumped onto the bed much in the same manner as she had when she was initially treating him. She watched Bucky’s eyes dance across her figure, especially as she began to slowly unbutton her uniform. Aria ignored any of his protests – or even attempts to help her, making sure to take her time slowly and sensually ensuring that her buttons popped one by one.

“Once upon a time, I told you that long hair was advantageous for a man’s more… intimate encounters.” She purred, stroking a fingertip up the line of his raggedy hospital clothing. Bucky swallowed, eyes trailing after every inch of that finger until it had reached his chin. Gently, she pushed his head up until his eyes met her own. They reflected her image, her lust, in beautiful blue orbs.

“Care to discover what I mean?” She whispered sinfully, before dipping to place her lips upon his in a featherlight kiss.

He groaned into her, thighs grinding against the bed frame. Breaking away, he murmured, “Careful, doll. You keep going, and I just might not be able to stop.”

Aria only blinked, her gaze sensual and seductive as she took in this man. Her man.

“That’s the plan, krasivvy.”

Slowly, she began to strip herself of her clothing, allowing everything to fall to the ground in an unceremonious heap before she turned her attention to him. He scarcely noticed as she peeled the uniform from his skin, enraptured by the swell of her breasts, the peaks of her nipples. She almost paused as he took the time to slide an exploratory thumb across them. When he pinched, she could have sworn the world exploded around her in a kaleidoscope of colours.

For a moment, she took a second to admire him. The curves of his muscles stood out starkly against the white linen of the hospital bed, every curve and ridge sculpted to fit her own mould. The further down she trailed, her breath hitched in anticipation of what awaited her. A pleased smile came over her the second she spied it – the same smile sending her cheeks into a bright red blush. He was thick – thicker than she’d suspected, if she was being honest; and long. She knew she would love the stretch that would accompany taking him within her.

She watched his blue eyes turn dark as she slipped a hand between her own heat, pleasantly surprised to find that she was already soaking for him. He had barely touched her, and yet, her body had reacted to him. She had never wanted like this before. He was igniting every sense within her body, every instinct that she had been taught to bury and disregard – first, as a woman, and second, as a weapon. She was still learning that she could be both and still take the pleasure that she deserved.

“Aria…” He grunted, pleading, but he couldn’t finish his sentence before she used the palm of her hand to press over his mouth. His blue eyes looked at her, desperate and curious as to her motives. She bit her lip as she shifted her hips across the length of him, stifling her own wanton moan of pleasure. Using the hand covered in her slick, she reached down to palm at him, delighting as he bucked unbidden into her hand. Lazily, her thumb caressed the head of his cock as he grunted into her hand, finally growing impatient enough to nip gently at her skin. It was enough to entice her, lining him up with her entrance. She barely clamped down on her own moan as she began to sink onto him, tensing as every inch of his length invaded her walls.

Once she was fully seated, she stilled, biting her lip. When she was finally sure that the words would come out softly – and not as desperately as she had meant them, she spoke. “I know, James, I know how you feel – but we have to be quiet.” She gave a testing grind of her hips, and he immediately responded by grunting into her hand again. It only earned him a glare from her face.

“If we get caught, we’ll never get to do this again.” She warned him.

That thought seemed to sober him. She felt his own hand rising, to rest beside her own. Gently, she felt every ridge of his skin as he brought up above her hand, and finally, lifted her palm off of his mouth. With his free hand, he seemed to gesture in the cocky manner she had grown to love from him. It seemed to state that she had promised him pleasure, and he was more than happy to oblige in his obligation to do nothing.

Moving both of her hands to the centre of his chest, Aria placed as little pressure on him as she could. Leveraging herself against her greater strength, she began to move, sliding back and forth across him and feeling her insides coil with the pleasure that erupted from her core. She watched him lean back against the pillow, unable to hold his head up as he fell into the same waves of pleasure. As she found her rhythm, she relished in the silent expressions she was able to draw from his expression – everything from the open mouth breathlessness to the creases in his brows as he struggled to contain his vow of silence. When she began to use her nails against the centre of his chest, he responded only with a sharp jut of his hips, sending his length impossibly deep.

She was unable to stop her own sinful moan in time. It escaped the corners of her mouth, and she felt her cheeks flushing with embarrassment in the moment.

“I thought you said silence.” He may have been teasing her, but his eyes with dark with lust, just as she’s sure hers were too.

Her only response was to lean across and capture his lips in a kiss, allowing him the opportunity to taste her breathless pleasure. He met her lips greedily, and she felt his hands come up to cup either side of her cheeks. All while, she continued rolling her hips backwards, walls fluttering every time she managed to sink onto him with such an angle that it sent shockwaves of pleasure deep into her body. When he jerked upwards into her again, this time without any sense of rhythm, she slowed her movements despite her desire otherwise.

Panting, Bucky glanced at her, eyes narrowed in question. Almost teasingly, she continued to roll her hips as she leaned down to whisper in his ear.

“As much as I would love for you to um,” she blushed, suddenly shy, “cum, inside me James… I don’t think it’s a great idea given our current circumstance.”

She didn’t elaborate. The smells and sound of the camp around them would do that for her. She watched instead, as his cheeks tinted pink, all the way up to the tips of his ears. When he nodded his agreement with a gentle cough, she slipped off of him, almost crying at the immediate loss of pleasant fullness.

Before he even had the chance to breath, Aria had shimmed down the bed until her mouth was level with his thigh. She watched him shiver and placed only a single kiss to the right side of his hip before she took him in her mouth, tongue swirling over the head of his cock, intending on finishing the job. She could taste her sweetness on him, and the salty tang that accompanied it. She couldn’t put a name to a flavour in particular, but she was surprised in some manner to learn that it wasn’t all too unpleasant.

“Aria…” he grunted, and she knew he was speaking only because he wanted to warn her.

She had no intention of relenting. Instead, she bobbed her head up and down faster, right hand pinning down the backs of his hip as he became unable to control his shifting. He was panting beneath her, pleading, desperate.

And when he came down the back of her throat, she swallowed every last drop.

Notes:

:)

well, they're happy. for now, at least.

Chapter 10

July 19th, 1943: Dawn

Aria slept in Bucky’s arms that night.

She had vague memories of collecting her clothing from the floor and redressing herself to maintain an air of modesty within the open infirmary – though, she wouldn’t have cared had they slept naked together, and she suspected that James’ only problem would have been with other eyes upon her. She hadn’t seen evidence of it – but she suspected he would be possessive of what was his.

She remembered too, helping James slip back into his hospital gown, before the pair of them laid back down on the bed together. James had tried to offer his services of pleasure, but Aria had brushed him aside. There would be plenty of time later, she explained, for him to show just how much she meant to him. But this night was all about him. She didn’t do it for their mutual pleasure, she did it because she wanted him to know how much she cared.

It was almost an admission of love, though she did not dare speak the words.

She’d been pleased too, that the nursing staff had mostly left her alone following her spat with Alice. Only Alma and Betty had come – once, in the dying hours of that day, simply to check that they were both alright. Bucky had been asleep beneath her, and Aria had spoken with the pair in hushed tones before shooing them back to their own quarters. Betty had been starry eyed and relieved, but the ever-practical Alma had looked more thoughtful. When she asked if the pair had been careful, Aria had nodded once, affirming her care to ensure they wouldn’t be welcoming a child anytime soon. Betty had remained starry eyed at the entire exchange, ever the romantic poised between two realists.

Bucky awoke before her that morning. She was stirred awake by his fingers on her bare stomach from where her uniform had ridden up. Gently, he was tracing patterns against her skin, lazily delighting in the feel of her body against the pads of his fingers. When she shifted slightly upon waking, she felt his fingers dig into her hips to pull her closer. Previously, that same feeling had meant nothing but pain and hurt from a particular source, or man. Today, it meant nothing other than the gentle love that Bucky wanted to give her, the care that he wanted her to know and experience.

She didn’t know what she had done to deserve this unbridled devotion. But for once, she was allowing herself this fantasy, to believe that she did. That she was Aria Davis, and this was all her life was made for – being in his arms, serving the Allies, making the world a greater place. She wished it could be that simple.

He broke the silence that morning. She’d been content to lay in his arms forever, without another word spoken between them.

“You know – at the end of all of this, I’m going to have to take you on a proper date.”

She feigned innocence. “A date.”

Bucky’s response that was simply to tickle the underside of her ribs, delighting when a chuckle erupted from her mouth. “A date.” He confirmed, when her giggles had subsided. “Like dancing.”

“Dancing?” She echoed. A faint memory of the Red Room flashed across her vision – all of the girls, lined up, synchronising their pirouettes. As though she was back in that room, the corner of her eyes snagged on the girl to her left, lagging behind. Such behaviour had earned the girl – and she couldn’t have been older than twelve – thirteen lashes. One for every beat that she missed.

Aria had been good at ballet. With a pang, she found that she actively missed ballet. Perhaps one day she would show James what true dancing was. For now, she suspected he meant a different kind.

“Dancing. You, and me – and we’ll find a girl for Steve, too.”

“Steve.” She sounded ridiculous, repeating every word that Bucky said. She knew she did, but he’d stunned her with the thought of dancing, and now her mind was churning through memories of that awful place that she’d worked so hard to suppress. In being marble, she’d learnt to hide them behind a locked box, buried deep in her subconscious. Now that she had Bucky, and that box had been broken open, the contents of her memories were spilling out, playing as though they were a film reel.

“I want to meet him some day.” She added, because she felt like it was the right thing to say. And because she needed to say something to make it seem like she was listening. She was trying to listen; she was trying to be Aria Davis.

“He would love you, doll.” Bucky murmured, pressing a kiss to her forehead, and Aria believed that he was telling the truth.

And though her skin was still crawling with memories of that horrible place, and though she felt like the lines between the identity she wanted and the identity that she had were blurring horrifically, she still found the space to ask him: “Tell me about him.”

Bucky, it seemed, didn’t need an opportunity. “We met when we were kids,” he admitted, “some punks were trying to take his lunch money… Steve, I told you, I think, he’s not very tall, or strong.”

“Strength doesn’t make a man.” Aria answered evenly, urging him to move on. If her suspicions on the SSR’s super soldier were correct; Steve Rogers had more than proven himself a man in ways other than stature and strength.

“There was this time,” Bucky continued, “when we were younger. We went to Coney Island – and Steve decided he wanted to spend our train money on hotdogs.” He chuckled to himself at the story. “We had to sneak onto the tail of a freezer truck to make it home before our parents noticed.”

Aria’s lips quirked upwards. She settled deeper into his chest, content to listen to him tell her more stories.

“I think that same day; I spent three dollars trying to win a stuffed bear for this girl named Delores. Dot – I called her. Didn’t win it; and I didn’t hear from her after that day too – though I don’t really mind the second part. Steve thought it was funny, to watch me chase after all the girls. I think he was just laughing, trying to hide how it hurt him, though. Women look at him – well, they look right through him, you know? Shallow, they don’t really see how good of a man he is.”

“Sometimes,” Aria agreed, “you have to look beyond the obvious, It’s not about the first impression – it’s about their actions, their grit.”

They sat comfortably in the silence for a while, before James broke it again. “I want you to meet my family too.”

Now, she couldn’t help but stiffen. “Your family?”

“My sisters. My Ro.” He answered calmly, though she knew that he had felt her hesitation the section that her muscles had tightened against his grip. Carefully, he added: “You don’t need to, I...”

“It’s not your family.” She interjected before he could incorrectly attribute her discomfort. “It’s mine. My father…”

What could she say about her father? Her mother was dead – Aria herself only had vague memories of her, memories that she had contained within the journal she gifted to Erskine. Now the SSR had it, but they hadn’t decrypted it. She was glad; Aria’s musings about the woman who had given birth to her had often been unkind and uncaring, blatantly wondering why she chose to lay with a man such as her father. The older she got, the more she understood the illusion of choice in the matter. She had married and lain with Zola of desperation, Aria assumed – and she had been the product. Whether her mother had loved her or not was a null point, because she was not here, and she was not capable of protecting her. Aria – as Isla, had learnt to protect herself.

But her father. Schmidt’s righthand man. Everyone incorrectly assumed that he was in HYDRA because of his love of the science. That he stood steadfastly behind Johann Schmidt, because Schmidt would allow him to continue with his research and discovery – research and discover that would take years elsewhere, that would not be approved elsewhere. Clearly, everyone was blind.

Her father was not a HYDRA fanatic, she would admit that much. But one had to be partially in line with HYDRA’s values in order to be so deeply ingrained within the structure. HYDRA had given Arnim Zola everything he’d ever wanted and more. In return, Zola had given them free reign over his daughter – whom he claimed looked exactly like her mother. A beautiful Russian woman, with startling red hair and green eyes. He hadn’t even blinked when Schmidt had violently violated her for failing to enact just punishment upon Erskine’s wife and children.

Aria promised herself never to be foolish enough to believe that her father had changed.

“It’s complicated. And he’s dead, anyway” She finished lamely, unable to come up with a suitable excuse. One day, she would tell him the truth. One day, very far into the future, when this war was behind them, and Schmidt was long dead. Where he could no longer hurt her or claim her as his own.

She should have had her own stories to tell, about friends that she had made, or experiences that she’d had. She wanted to share with him her life, but the life she had portrayed to him was nothing of the sort. This was a relationship – this was getting to know someone, knowing their past to forge a future together. But Aria hadn’t told Bucky about her past – and if she did, in this juncture, Aria knew she would lose him. She would lose him, and she would either crawl straight back to HYDRA, or she would lay out in the scrub and allow the elements to take her.

She knew how to lie, how to fabricate her past. But every lie told to the man she was currently snuggled closely beside grated at her heart. She didn’t want to lie to him anymore – but it remained necessary. Until Peggy and Phillips confirmed her pardon, her hands were figuratively tied – and there would be no escaping these cuffs.

Bucky was perceptive. He didn’t press her about her family, though Aria could feel his curiosity thrumming in his muscles as clearly as if he had said it himself. Sometimes too, she would catch him glancing at her for too long, as though she were a puzzle that he could not yet solve. Instead of acting on these thoughts, however, he continued tracing patterns against her bare hip well into the morning, where neither of them was disturbed by the other nurses within the infirmary.

***

Bucky was cleared to return to his room by that same afternoon. Aria was pleased by the development – given that it allowed her the chance to return to her own sleeping quarters, if only for a moment. She wasn’t surprised to find that her things were strewn about in various directions. She could see imprints in the ground, both from Dugan’s size 9 shoes, and Peggy’s smaller, lither feet. She was delighted to find that her suit was in the same place that she had left it, seemingly untouched by either of her thieves in their desperate quest to discover more about what she had been hiding.

She didn’t want to think about what she was hiding for the moment. Soon, her lies would catch up with her, her deceit would serve only to destroy her. She should have been planning for it, for a way to continue the lie even in the face of absolute danger – but she didn’t want to. She wanted to run away from her problems, even just for a moment. To be Aria Davis, the girl who wanted for simple things, like comfort, and cleaning, and sweet foods and kisses before sunset and at midnight. She wanted.

Briefly, Aria sniffed herself before immediately making a face at the scent which emanated from her body. Quickly, she began stuffing an old medical bag with supplies to bathe in a nearby stream, intending to scrub the dirt and grime from her features. They’d caked up in the past week, especially from her efforts to find Bucky in the first place. She was surprised he’d said nothing about them – hadn’t even complained of her smell as they’d slept together. She’d been just about to step from her tent when footsteps approached. She recognised them immediately, and stuck her head out before he could greet her.

“Dugan?”

“Aria.”

She gestured for him to come inside, though she wasn’t surprised when he chose to maintain his stance outside, looking weary. Aria felt the sudden need to apologise to him. But that was ridiculous – drugging him had been necessary to ensure James’ survival, and Dugan understood that.

“Does Bucky know?”

She didn’t need him to elaborate on the ‘know’ he was asking about. “No.” She answered, before she realised that Peggy and Phillips had never informed her of the debrief, they gave to Dugan and Mary. Dugan’s, she imagined, would need to be more intensive. He’d been directly involved in her deceit, betrayed perhaps, in a way. Mary had merely arrived towards the end to find Aria behaving erratically. An action that could be explained away by stress and exhaustion.

“What do you know?”

Dugan hesitated, glancing around warily at the others present. But Aria wouldn’t have asked him to reveal his information if they had been surrounded by others. In fact, Aria had set up her quarters on the outskirts of the camp – a strange move, if anyone stopped to momentarily analyse it considering her perceived lack of combat skills, but a move that made sense on the surface level. Aria Davis had been incredibly private upon arrival, and it had taken a while to convince her to take part in festivities.

“Not much.” He admitted. “The Colonel didn’t seem to want to tell me anything, but that woman… Agent, she insisted that I had a right to know. About you – your name, who you are.”

“And?” Aria breathed. Suddenly, she couldn’t run from her problems anymore. They were standing in front of her. Here was a man who knew her secret – who had been told, not from her lips, but from the lips of another. And he was still standing, still speaking with her. There was fear in his eyes – she wasn’t shocked to see that, but it seemed to stem more from the discomfort of the conversation rather than the true unbridled fear she occasionally saw in her opponents.

“And I can’t say I would have made the same choices as you,” Dugan admitted, “but I also can’t say that I know what any of those choices felt like.”

Aria’s breath caught in her throat. She stared at him dumbly, unable to find the words to interject. Luckily, it seemed that he was not done.

“I guess… I forgive you for drugging me – though, you really should have just told me.”

“You wouldn’t have believed me.” She quipped immediately, before running her hands through her hair. She was uncomfortable again, though it was a reprieve that Dugan hadn’t yet noticed her tell.

“You’re right – I wouldn’t have. But the truth is better.”

Aria shivered, thinking about the truth of Erskine’s wife and children. Schmidt’s fingers on her hips, a violent growl, and a sobbing man who would later come to understand that it had been a punishment for her, not for him. “Not always.”

Dugan closed his mouth. Aria took in his appearance again. His shifting feet, his twitching moustache. He didn’t want to be uncomfortable, but he was. As she had feared – he was now afraid of her. She wasn’t surprised, but she felt something inside of her break all the same. It was lonely, when everyone discovered who she was. She didn’t want to be lonely. But perhaps it was all that she deserved.

“For what it’s worth, I am sorry about… well, you know.”

“You’re not.” Dugan responded flatly, and Aria did flinch at the tone, and the conviction with which he said it. “You’re not sorry – and that’s okay. It was a shitty thing to do, and I deserve an apology, of course, but you don’t believe in apologising for an action that ended up saving his life.”

“I do not regret the outcome.” Aria confirmed. “But the actions that led to that outcome – whilst I believe they were unavoidable, they were… unpleasant.”

They stood in the shared, awkward silence a while, neither having anything to say. It was Dugan who broke it, noting the basket of materials that Aria carried. “Heading to the stream?”

He was trying to maintain an air of normalcy for them. Aria didn’t know whether she appreciated the effort, or was frustrated by it, given it would have never been a conversation they’d shared together in the past. Despite her misgivings, however, she decided that it would be better to engage in the conversation alongside him. She didn’t wish to antagonise him, given everything he could reveal about her to those that she’d unfortunately come to care about.

“Yes. I smell pretty bad.”

Dugan made a face that caused his moustache to climb his cheeks.

“Well,” he continued awkwardly, coughing to hide his discomfort, “I think the Colonel is going to speak to the Regiment later today, to announce our plans moving forward.”

That caught her attention. “The plans have changed?”

“Yes. Something about new intelligence.”

Her heart seized. They were using the information that she had provided for them. The maps that she’d marked, the facilities that she had argued were weakened. He was going to listen to her. She was working with the SSR, she was going to get her pardon. Heart pounding, she suspected that Dugan understood it was her information that was leading this change, but instead, the only thing she managed to reply to him was: “I shall look forward to it.”

She would.

Notes:

T-two chapters until TFA!

As always, comments and feedback are appreciated <3

Chapter 11

October 11th, 1943: Afternoon

If Aria had known that the month of July was the last time she would see Barnes for weeks, she would have held him closer to her. She hadn’t though as much when he had left – naïvely presuming that he would return quickly, as he had throughout every other mission. In her deepest fantasies, perhaps she would have even whispered the truth of her existence to him after hours of falling into the pleasurable curves of his body. She certainly wouldn’t have allowed him to go without giving her a final goodbye beneath the covers – he was now an ache she could not quench by herself.

At the very least, she had managed to overcome her discomfort with such a public relationship in order to give Bucky a public goodbye. She was not overly pleased with the idea of him returning to combat so soon after his near-death experience, but Bucky had accepted the orders without question.

She had tried to argue the point with Mary – that Bucky wasn’t ready to return, that he was still recovering, but Mary shook her head. The elder nurse was wide eyed with fear as she apologised profusely and explained that the orders for Bucky to return had come from above her, and that she had no choice but to comply with their requested sign off on his health. Aria was bright enough to recognise that this was the ‘heat’ from her metaphor. If it hadn’t of been Bucky, she almost would have been amused he’d taken what she’d said to heart.

When they’d stood on the edge of the encampment, as the rest of the 107th marched around them, he had looked almost reluctant to leave her behind. Nearby, Aria pretended not to notice Alma and Gabe having a similarly tearful farewell. Looking back, Aria should have recognised why this moment felt different to all the other times they had gone before. That this mission was far more serious, that there were stakes involved here.

Perhaps her familiarity with war was skewing her perception.

She must have looked worried with the way that Bucky turned to her and pressed his forehead close. The words he spoke were so quiet, barely audible over the drizzling summer rains, as he told her: “What kind of husband would I be, if I left my war-wife all alone in this world.”

Aria hadn’t been as amused with his line of speaking. “A dead one”

As it happened, she saw nothing strange with the plan that Colonel Phillips had laid out before the troops. Logically, it was an excellent move, pressing forward with an attack on German forces in Azzano would force Schmidt’s HYDRA to stifle their efforts and production and turn around to help their brethren. Failing to do so would put him under pressure with the Fuhrer, and as Aria had already explained to Carter and Phillips, the Fuhrer was growing tired with funding Schmidt’s increasingly outlandish proposals for scientific breakthroughs.

That wasn’t to say that she didn’t believe her father was capable of it. She had discussed with Phillips and Carter, following the brutal torture from those two Amerikanet soldiers who had mysteriously disappeared just days following the attack, that Schmidt was obsessed with legend. He believed that Erskine’s serum had made him a god, and that there, he deserved a weapon that would be worthy of his palms. A girl, that would be worthy of his child. She’d said the last one as plainly as she had been able to manage, but she was sure that Peggy caught the disdain attached to it.

Phillips was displeased with Aria’s lack of knowledge in the subject area – until Aria pointed out, furiously, that much of the planning for this investigation had taken place whilst she was in the Red Room, punished for the very mission that had ensured the safety and escape of both Abraham Erskine, and Margaret Carter. Unwilling to have the Colonel think that she was emotionally involved, she went on to detail in full how she had managed to deceive HYDRA in that regard, providing excruciatingly close attention to how it felt to break the bones in her wrist by slamming them between a heavy metal door. Carter had looked rather green by the end of her explanation, and even the typically stoic, uncaring Phillips had stopped looking her in the eye, as if unable to associate his sympathy towards her, with the face of the enemy. She presumed he had found it much easier to hear this report from Carter – without the ability to put a face to the name.

When, in the initial weeks since their departure from the base camp, it became clear that Bucky was not returning anytime soon, Aria began to gather information on troop movement. Both HYDRA and Nazi Germany alike – she studied their patterns, their weaponry, the men she knew to be commanding the units from the other side of the war. Despite carefully crafted return messages to Schmidt, undertaken with the watchful gazes of Phillips and Carter, Aria had yet to receive a response from her former commander with regards to their upcoming plans. It made her nervous – the lack of response meant they were planning something that needed to be perfect, and any intelligence leak would jeopardise the mission.

The weeks dragged on, and the 107th’s target became clear: fighting to overcome the Wehrmacht forces in Azzano, Italy. Based on the rate of return for the injured, Aria knew that it was a bloodied battle. She’d barely been sleeping, between caring for the injured soldiers that were returning, and conducting her own investigation on Schmidt and Zola. Her bones ached with tiredness, and every morning a darker shadow seemed to appear under her eyes when she caught her reflection in a rain puddle.

The problem came for her in September – when finally, Aria received correspondence from Schmidt in a typically vague missive. Contained in the sack of her medical supplies, as most other letters had come, she didn’t even dismiss herself from duty before she was running across the camp, back to her tent, boots slapping in the mud as she went. Unlike the last time she’d read Schmidt’s words, and shook over their interpreted meaning, she raced through this letter with fever, desperate to uncover any hint of what HYDRA had planned for Azzano.

Agent Carter – having heard of her abrupt departure from her workstation, arrived in her tent just as Aria had finished reading the letter. Without even requesting the letter, Aria had already passed it across to her as her mind whirled through the details contained. Schmidt was angry – but in a strange twist, he was no longer infuriated with her. Within the pages – and there were pages, this was arguably a rant rather than a letter – Schmidt informed her of their foray into Norway in search of the hand of the Norse God Odin and continued with his current disdain of Nazi Germany. The letter ended with the ominous statement that Hitler would soon be sending to his facilities members of his Reich, to check on the development of weaponry with the end of the war in sight. Aria had a sinking feeling that she knew exactly what Schmidt planned for them.

She’d said as much to Peggy before she’d risen suddenly and strode from her tent. Peggy had followed behind her, letter clutched in hand, and warning echoing in her voice that Aria was not going to like the Colonel’s response to her haste. But Aria didn’t care.

Interrupted a strategic meeting wasn’t the brightest idea – though, Aria knew she had a flair for the dramatics as she strode straight through the middle of who were likely relatively important men to the war effort, until she settled directly in front of Phillips’ face. He took his time to glance up at her, mouth twitching in annoyance before it turned to anger upon meeting the non-apologetic gaze of Peggy. It wasn’t long before he’d dismissed the men in the room in favour of speaking with the two women before him.

“Agent Carter, I’d remind you that…”

Aria cut off his posturing, annoyed. “Schmidt plans to attack German forces directly.”

It successfully ended his sentence, but the Colonel didn’t look convinced. “And he said this to you, did he?”

“Not in as many words.” She admitted, glancing towards Carter for help. But the woman was also staring at her sceptically. “Look, Schmidt, he’s egotistical, alright? The serum heightens your personality, and whilst you have both been relying on reports to tell you who he is and what he’s going to do, I have real, first-hand experience with that man. This is not a letter, Phillips – it’s a goddamn rant, the maniacal ravings of a lunatic who thinks he is the most powerful man in Germany.”

“Aria…”

“You must bring the 107th back.” She demanded, cutting him off again. “They are in danger.”

“You are not commander of this army, Miss Zola…”

She slammed her hands down on the table, the force of her hit splintering some of the wood. “Call me Zola again.”

Silence met her words. Perhaps even barely disguised shock – they were surprised she’d let her anger take hold of her. She watched as Phillips leaned back on his chair, watched as Peggy’s hand hesitated, as though it wanted to come up and touch her, comfort her, before it remained steadfastly by her side. It was a brutal reminder that she had no friends in this camp, no powerful allies. The one man she cared for was in Azzano, and he was in danger, and they were going to do nothing.

She could see it on Phillips’ face.

“I cannot trust you.” He remarked, after a second. “Unless Schmidt wrote in that letter his clear intentions for Azzano, then I have no reason to trust your interpretation of his strategy.”

“You’re going to get them killed.”

“Only if you’re right.” It was the first time that Peggy had spoken since entering the tent. Aria had levelled her gaze at her then, meeting her as an equal and not the submissive they so desperately wished for her to be. She knew she was right. She didn’t want to wait for Schmidt’s actions to prove it. Sensing that she wouldn’t settle for this, Peggy then added: “The information will be tabled before the commanding officials at the next strategic opportunity.”

It was a dismissal, if she’d ever heard one. Aria left that tent feeling as though she’d failed in her mission – a strange, unfamiliar feeling. Even when she’d changed the boundaries of her missions to ensure that her targets would survive, to ensure that she would be on the brutal end of a punishment for the hope of Howard Stark, or Abraham Erskine’s life, she had always succeeded. Acting outside the scope of her role had prevented death before – and she knew that if they would just listen to her now, it would do it again.

It was a conversation they would rue in a few weeks’ time.

***

The bodies began to arrive from Azzano two weeks after Aria’s interpretation of Schmidt’s missive. On the sight of the first ambulance arriving, Aria had frozen – even if only for a second, before she’d managed to force her movements once more. Many of the men that were brought to her in the infirmary were simply waiting to die. On more than one occasion, she’d considered the mercy of merely snapping their necks to quickly get the pain over and done with. She saw it reflected in her fellow nurses’ eyes, too. This was the worst battle that the regiment had been involved in. The missing limbs that they had tended to, the burn marks that would never heal. Voices that had been eroded away from the chemical weaponry that had been levelled at these men. It was inhumane in a way that war was meant to prevent, horrific in its scope and devastation. Aria had grown up around it, but she found herself wanting to protect Alma and Betty from it all the same.

Even Alice, for all her religious faith, was struggling to maintain that sense of poise and pompousness she’d effortlessly displayed in the weeks before. Aria had even heard her muttering to herself one night, when the four of them had been needed to treat a single case of a man with numerous, horrific injuries. Alice had wondered why her God had forsaken this man. She had wondered what he had done to deserve such suffering. Alma had responded with the tried phrase: “God doesn’t give us more than we can handle.”

Aria had wanted to chime in too. To say that this had nothing to do with God, that this man was simply a byproduct of war, of powerful men with rampant ego’s. But she didn’t – she merely silently wrapped the wounds and pretended that the man in front of her was going to survive his injuries.

He passed during the night, and Aria had heard Alice’s quiet sobs. The only comfort she’d been capable of offering at the time, was a glass of clean water. And when Alice took it, she thought that the pair had likely come to a new understanding of one another.

With every ambulance that came, Aria expected one to contain the body of James Buchanan Barnes. Alma too, quirked her head every time she heard the rumblings of a car engine in the distance. Through this, the girls were bonded, always fearing the worst for the men that they had come to care for deeply. She wondered if Alma felt a twinge of guilt like she did, every time they loaded a man onto their bed, and did not recognise the features of Bucky, or Gabe. She wondered if she felt the guilt that pulsed in tune with the aching relief. It made Aria’s toes curl against the boots that she wore, as she forced herself to remain planted against the ground.

Aria had taken to watching the ambulances, even when she was not required to work. She sat in the grass along the path and watched them unload the bodies before returning to the scene of the battle. Sometimes, Alma joined her in her vigil, and other times, Peggy tried to inform her that she needed to rest. To sleep or to eat or do something to ensure that she was safe. Only one time had Peggy coaxed her into movement with a private spar between the pair. Aria had found such actions were the only thing that had managed thus far to break her from her melancholy – but the bruises that she’d left behind on Peggy’s skin ensured that their matches would be far and few in between.

It was, however, during one of these pilgrimages to stand by the side of the ambulances returning that Aria finally managed to pick up on some intelligence she’d been sorely missing over the past few days. The two men, who unloaded the body – body, because he’d died on transport, and began to pack up to return, had begun recounting to each other the horrific details that the soldier had revealed before he died. That the 107th Regiment had managed to entrench themselves between HYDRA and the German forces. How, that very same night, the HYDRA forces had turned their weapons – not on the Allies, but on Nazi Germany. How that very weaponry had vapourised every man who had been hit. They were discussing if the soldier had been delusional in his last moments, but Aria knew that his words were true.

By the time she made it to Phillips with her findings, it became clear to her that the man before her had already known.

“What remains of the 107th surrendered to HYDRA’s forces in the hours following their attack on Nazi Germany.”

Aria took a long second to process the information. She could feel sweat beading at the top of her forehead with the effort it took not to outright kill the man in front of her. She had every right to blame him for this – he’d been too proud to listen to her, unable to separate her from her birth father. Unable to determine whether her actions were her own or the desires of HYDRA themselves.

Bucky was in the hands of HYDRA. If anyone put together the information – Schmidt had already revealed he knew she’d taken lover – if they knew that man was Bucky, he would be in danger.

“What’s the plan for extraction?”

“Winning the war.” Phillips deadpanned. She shook her head.

“They’ll be dead before that.” It was the grim reality. But Aria knew she could do it – she knew exactly how she would do it. “Let me go. Let me get in there, let me extract them, bring them back home to their families.”

“Let you run back to HYDRA after they’ve won a victory?”

“I would never run back to Schmidt.”

It was the first time that she’d said so aloud. It was the first time she’d acknowledged what she’d already known to be true. That Bucky had changed her. Irreversibly, irrevocably, she was ruined for any other man. He had shown her what it was like to live a life that was full of choice and wonder. She couldn’t give that up now, to return to Schmidt. Survival at all costs was still the bane of her existence, and she knew she would still fight to ensure that she lived above all other costs – but perhaps it was not enough to simply be alive. She needed to live.

“No.”

Her fragile patience snapped like a rubber band. Every emotion she’d learnt to control broke against the dam in her mind, cascading downwards as it flew out of her mouth.

“James Buchanan Barnes never should have been cleared for active combat. He was sick, and injured, and you decided that the life of that man was not as important as demonstrating your control over me. Now, you won’t even let me get in there and save them? You’re no better than the men I am fighting to escape, Chester Phillips.”

She’d caught his attention now, as he leaned forward to look at her for the first time throughout their entire discussion. “Love does not win wars, Miss Zola.” He placed the files down in front of him. “And you are but one woman.”

The pen he had been using rolled from his grasp, and onto the dirt below. The pile of his signatures rose high above the table, stacked with condolences and apologies and thanks. Hollow words from a hollow man.

Aria raised her chin as her fury began to settle deep within her gut. She locked it away, tightly – someday, it would come in useful. She didn’t bother to correct him this time, over her name. It seemed trivial in the face of the other problems. And if he thought her Zola – then perhaps she could call upon that. Isla Zola did not fear anything, even a single man. She always completed her objectives. Isla Zola would not hesitate to extract Bucky – but she wouldn’t do it casually. No, Isla Zola would first ensure she had the perfect plan. Isla Zola would save their lives.

The room span with the weight of her knowledge, vision pulsing in time with her chest. To Phillips, when she spoke again, her voice shook with the latent emotion. “Anyone can change the outcome of this war, Colonel. If only we are brave enough to make the right choice.”

She was gone from his tent before he could find anything else to throw back in her face.

Notes:

our girl is not live laugh loving rn, is she?

as always, feedback and other comments are always appreciated!

Chapter 12

November 3rd, 1943: Afternoon

Alma missed Gabe Jones dearly. Aria didn’t need to be a spy to recognise that. The girl made it obvious – occasionally, she would trail off in the middle of her sentences, and Aria knew that she had spent many nights crying in the arms of Betty. Betty had probably stroked her hair and whispered comforting words, all whilst ignoring the grim reality that both the men Alma had loved throughout the war had been cruelly taken by it.

Since Aria had received news of James’ capture, she hadn’t sought the comfort of others. She understood the urge now, that she had seen replicated in the reels and comics contained in the Red Room. Women falling into the arms of other men, ready to forget all the pain and suffering that had brought them there. But doing so would mean admitting that she believed James to be dead – and she wasn’t quite ready to face that reality, however cynical she knew herself to be.

Aria wouldn’t believe he was dead until she saw proof. Until she heard from someone that she trusted that his body was cold and gone, she would hold onto hope that he had somehow managed to survive. Given that she didn’t trust anyone, she was going to have to retrieve that information for herself, against the orders of Colonel Phillips.

It had taken her close to a month, but, with meticulous planning, and a little bit of luck, Aria knew the day was fast approaching where she would be able to depart on her personal mission. The first hurdle came, of course, with sneaking away from the SSR. Running from the military camp with the SSR in attendance would not only cause them to believe she had returned to her handlers – it also had the added problem of alerting HYDRA to her desertion of her orders. It made her window of opportunity almost non-existent. She didn’t have contacts to rely on who would be able to provide her with an aircraft, so driving and walking were her to two most likely options. It meant that she needed to provide herself with as much time as possible – to make it there, and out, before the information could travel.

She needed something that would capture the attention of those within the camp. Something that men and women alike – even Phillips and Carter, would be hard pressed to ignore. Something that would give her enough time to steal their equipment and be halfway across the continent before they noticed her absence. Initially, she had been desperately trying to think about how she would cause such a distraction – but she found herself growing increasingly uncomfortable with the thought of inadvertently causing death to those within the camp who had already suffered so much loss.

No. The more she thought about it, the further the truth became clear to her: she had to wait for a natural distraction. She had to be ready to disappear at any time. The issue, of course, came with the time she was wasting in waiting for such a moment. Phillips hadn’t been delicate in his desires for her to shipped back to the mainland of America where she could comb through intercepted data transmissions and reveal the secrets contained within those words. He had subtly implied too, that her cooperation in such a task would see him sanction a mission to save the members of the 107th. But Aria wasn’t fool enough to believe him. Winning the war would save the 107th, he’d told her – and interpreting those codes would lead to that victory. He was merely hoping she was not bright enough to catch his skewed logic.

It was nearing a month since she learned that James had been taken prisoner, when that opportunity finally came in the form of a travelling, dancing band of girls – and a singular front man whom Aria had yet to see be replicated on any of the posters passed around. Likely for the best, she had thought at the time. The men within this camp were vulgar towards women at the best of times – she of course, had been able to tie herself to Bucky relatively quickly, preventing much of the unwanted attention. She knew from overheard conversations between Alice and Mary, however, that it had made the younger Catholic girl rather uncomfortable.

Regardless, the distraction would be perfect. The men would be entertained by the chorus girls – their first hint of sensual, bared in skin in months – and the women would no doubt be looking for anything to distract them from the horrors they’d seen contained within the infirmary. It was just the distraction that she’d needed and brought with her the added benefit of being able to appropriate their car for use, rather than one of the SSR’s. It would take them longer to notice that it was missing, More time for her to make her way to Austria and rescue the 107th.

It was why she was in the showgirl’s station now – slipping through the racks of clothing like a shadow, carefully searching for anything and everything that could help her. She’d already pocketed some discarded loose change – likely tips that the girls had received from other wanting members of the public. She didn’t know what would come in handy for her on her mission; but she knew that she was woefully underprepared, even with the month of planning.

Her fingers had just settled upon the keys to their vehicle when a sharp voice cut through the air.

“Rogers!”

And then another – this time female, and musical. “You’ll be great, Steve.”

Aria’s hand froze against the keychain. It was almost too much of a coincidence; it was almost ridiculous the chance that this would be. But Aria had learned long ago that it was dangerous to ignore patterns, to ignore chance and luck when it stretched out it’s hand towards you. She felt her eyes moving around the room, desperate to find some other strand of proof – until they came to rest on a poster. This one different to the colourful printing she’d seen distributed to the soldiers in the previous nights. This one featuring the saluting figure of a man, dressed in an outfit meant to emulate the American flag.

Aria couldn’t see the colour of his hair. The colour of his eyes too, was hard to determine with the grading of the poster. But she’d seen that bone structure reflected before, in the drawings that Bucky had given her.

She scrambled for them now, desperately searching the pockets of her combat pants until she managed to pull them clean. Holding the two images side by side, Aria stifled a gasp. The Steve Rogers that Bucky had drawn for her had been scrawny. But Aria could see that same shine in his eyes, and perk in his lips that Barnes has managed to capture so perfectly the first time he’d shown her the image.

She’d been right. Steve Rogers, James Barnes’ best friend, had been administered the super soldier serum. He had been Erskine’s preferred, perfect subject – a man chosen not because he would make a good soldier, but because he was already a good man.

Aria felt the keys slip from her grasp before she’d even consciously made the decision. She knew what she had to do.

***

Aria couldn’t sit still throughout the importance. Her leg twitched impatiently, so much so that Alma had taken to resting her arm against her knee to prevent it from continually bouncing up and down. Aria hadn’t so much as offered the woman an apologetic glance. Every word that Steve spoke on stage was grating against her already frayed patience, and whilst Aria knew that the soldiers were disgruntled for other reasons, she couldn’t help but agree with them as they voiced their desires for Steve to leave the stage. Though, she did screw up her nose in distaste upon viewing a man that she’d nursed back from the brink of death only a few weeks prior choosing to pull down his pants; shining his bare cheeks to the stage as he demanded: “Captain America! Sign this!”

Sensing that he’d overstayed his welcome, of course, the chorus girls fluttered back onto the stage, skirts lifting upwards in the air as they hurried to take their positions. Steve made a quick exit, and Aria stood suddenly in tune with his motion, knocking Alma’s arm off of her. Alma hissed in surprise, and Betty snatched at her ankle, snarling “Where are you going?” Aria didn’t pay them any mind as she shrugged the grip of the woman from her leg, and strode after the Captain

It was not terribly surprising that ‘Captain America’ was not in a great mood as Aria approached him. She took the time to pause for a moment, mulling over what she might say. He’d removed his headpiece – and swapped the outfit for a longline coat, though Aria suspected he merely placed that over the top to hide his shame at being dressed so ostentatiously. It suited him, she noticed with a start. The army green jacket, the blonde hair – he looked as though he had been born for war. Perhaps in a way, she mused, he had been born into war just as much as she had grown up through it.

He was drawing, she realised with a start as she came closer to him. It was yet another thing that confirmed for her that she had found the right man. Bucky had known to draw – he’d gone to art school with Steve. It was in art school that the pair had learned the US had even joined the war, when the radio station they’d been listening to in class informed them that the Japanese had chosen to bomb Pearl Harbour in December of 1941. Like Bucky, Aria could clearly see that Steve had retained the skills he had learnt from the class. He was clearly quite good.

“Steve Rogers?” She kept her tone light and inquisitive. But she could hear the hope that was threatening at the edges of her tone. Clutching the various drawings of Bucky, she walked closer to him. Madame B would have thought her pathetic.

The blonde man looked up, a frustrated gleam in his eye as the pencil stilled in his hand. “Ma’am, if you’re looking for an autograph, I…”

Aria didn’t give him the space to finish. “Steve Rogers,” she repeated, interjecting. His frown deepened, and then his eyes widened as he finally turned to look at her completely. Aria was used to the initial glance that men gave her, the way that they trailed over her entire body before meeting her eyes, usually struggling to disguise their lust for her body. Steve was different, she realised with a pleased smirk. He met her eyes evenly, before he trailed the rest of her body, and looked to what she was clutching in her hands. The same drawings from earlier, the ones that she’d used to confirm that the man she was looking at was the reflection of the artwork that had been drawn months prior, on his birthday. Gently, she placed the items she was carrying atop of his own art folder, wincing when she’d noticed her tight grip had made indentations in the paper. Her control was slipping – she normally wouldn’t be so uncareful.

“These drawings…” he trailed off as he looked at them, eyes coming to rest on the scratches of graphite located against the pages. There were several – each depicting a different scene. Some of himself, some drawn of Aria, her eyes glancing off somewhere into the distance. Some too, an imagining of what she looked like, entangled in the arms of Barnes as they laid together, content and happy. Slowly, she watched as his mind whirred, and he brought his hand up to the papers to caress them, almost confused.

Agent Carter wandered between them then. Aria didn’t bother to look up at her, merely gracing her presence with a nod. Carter’s eyes were narrowed, and her shoulders were set back in alarm, but they almost relaxed upon seeing Aria’s lack of nerves – or perhaps, her desperation. Aria wasn’t there to hurt the only super soldier that Abraham Erskine had been able to produce.

For the first time – Aria realised that Carter trusted her. Perhaps more than she wanted Phillips to know, and perhaps more than she thought was wise. But it was a start. Carter would be an ally, in what she wanted to do now.

“Where did you get these?” Steve’s tone dissuaded any introductions or discussions between the pair.

Aria didn’t bother answering his question; for she felt that it was obvious. Instead, she allowed the blossom of a smile to form against her cheeks, feeling them flush pink with the weight of her memories. “He told me that you used to wear newspapers in your shoes. You could never find shoes small enough to fit your feet. I guess you don’t have that problem now.”

Steve blushed bright red to match her own amusement. His eyes flickered to Peggy momentarily, before fluttering back to the drawings before him. But Peggy was far too intently focused on Aria, surprised in a way that Aria was sure she had not been in quite a while. Aria didn’t allow it to phase her – she had thought her companionship with Barnes had been obvious. Perhaps Peggy was only now realising that it hadn’t been a ruse. That it had been the first true companionship that Aria had experienced.

“What happened?” Steve asked, his hand momentarily tightening around the drawings before he handed them back to Aria. Aria safely tucked them away back inside her pockets, wincing as she realised that as he wasn’t blood family, Steve likely hadn’t been informed of the tragedy that had befallen the 107th.

Peggy took Aria’s hesitation as her cue to explain. “These men have been through hell,” she admitted, “HYDRA - Johann Schmidt moved a force through Azzano. Intelligence we received suggested that there would be mass casualties, but… We weren’t sure if we could trust the source.” She blinked, looking at Aria apologetically, and Aria knew this was the closest thing she was ever going to get to an apology from the woman. “Two hundred men came up against HYDRA, and less than fifty of them came back. You’re looking at all that remains of the 107th. The rest were either killed or captured.”

“The 107th?” Steve startled, turning to look at Aria. Aria only nodded grimly, confirming his suspicions.

“Go and ask him.” She gestured towards Phillip’s tent as she rose too. “When you have your answer – come and find me. I know how to find them.”

She knew Steve was curious – and she knew that Peggy was now glancing at her with pursed lips. Hoping that she’d intrigued him enough to return; she turned to run back to her own quarters.

Aria had been preparing for this mission for a month. As such, her room had been meticulously organised with everything that she needed in the event that an opportunity would arise. She’d prepared to leave at a moment’s notice – but that had been before she was to be accompanied by an ally. Where everything had been set out and prepared for her to undertake a solo mission, she now scrambled through her clothing, searching for weaponry that she would gladly acquiesce to Steve if it meant that they were working towards saving Bucky’s life.

In a matter of seconds, her pristine quarters were strewn with clothes and other items. By the time that Peggy and Steve had returned from their overly brief discussion with Phillips, Aria was zipping up the back of her catsuit. The black item of clothing sat tight against her skin, compressing her body into its mould. Covering every inch of skin from her ankles to her wrists, and neck; it did not break colour except for the two, twirling vipers that met at heads behind her back. Their red bodies continued down her arms, the tails disappearing beneath her armpit.

It was a long-known feature of her skills that she preferred fighting in skin-tight clothing. Whilst it had definite downsides – it also meant that her armour was transportable and easily hidden in the linings of her sleeping bag. It had been why Peggy, Phillips and Dugan all hadn’t managed to find it, despite, she assumed, their best efforts.

When she glanced towards the open tent flap again, Steve was blushing brighter than the colour of his uniform. Grunting in slight frustration – but also, conceding, she bent down to pick up her discarded combat pants, hiding some of her figure behind their bulkiness. She wasn’t comfortable – but as she tied up the laces of her HYDRA issued combat boots; she realised that this would have to do.

“Who are you?” Steve’s voice held an edge, as his eyes raked across her suit. She didn’t allow it to bother her, even as Peggy bit her lip from behind where he stood.

“Aria Davis.” She answered, surely. But knowing it wouldn’t be enough, she decided to offer him the truth, too. “But that’s not the name that I was born to. My father, his name is Isla Zola, and he is…”

“The right-hand man of Johann Schmidt.” Steve realised with a start, his eyes narrowing upon her. She watched the way that his jaw clenched, as he reckoned with the fact that the very organisation she came from had been responsible for the death of Erskine. She wondered if he’d ever been warned about her. She suspected that he had – the SSR knew that she was the likely assassin they would send to destroy their symbol of America.

She didn’t voice any of these thoughts. Aria only hummed in agreement, dropping his gaze to ensure that had correctly strapped her knifes to the sides of her thighs. The last thing she wanted was to slit a hole in the stitching of her overly complex suit, lined with steel and other reinforceable materials. Good for heavy impacts such as bullets, but knives had been known to slash at them when they were presented on the correct angle.

“And does he know?” The disdain hadn’t escaped his tone. The thought that she could care for Bucky, and simultaneously be lying to him about almost everything, it didn’t sit right with him.

She didn’t bother to hide her flinch. “He will soon.” She’d been reckoning with the consequences of her duplicitous identity long before Steve had arrived to Italy, and she would likely continue to do so well into her old age, if it ever came.

Steve didn’t mention her father again. Aria didn’t know if it was out of kindness, or out of disgust.

She found herself too, not wanting to know the answer.

“Are you ready? It’s an eight-hour drive – at least.” She instead asked him, lifting up a bag containing weaponry for the pair of them. Steve nodded, gesturing for her to lead them out of the cabin.

Peggy was none too pleased with their silent agreement to undertake an unsanctioned cover-ops mission. She followed them as they both hurried across the camp – Aria cloaked in her nursing jacket to disguise her true suit. They’d barely made it into the side of the car when Peggy slammed her hands down against the door and looked between the pair of them, as though mulling something over in her mind. Briefly, Aria debated killing her. If she got in her way, if she prevented her ability to save Bucky’s life, she realised that she wouldn’t feel remorse. That, she presumed, was what the Red Room had been trying to teach her about all missions. A pity that such training had rebounded onto the affections of a man.

“The Colonel is devising a strategy, you know…”

Aria and Steve interjected at the same time.

“His strategy, as he told me, is winning the war.”

“By the time he’s done with that, it could already be too late.” Steve met her gaze with a start as he realised, she’d begged on Bucky’s behalf before. She found that she couldn’t hold his gaze for long, with the weight of the emotions that swirled within them.

“You told me you thought I was meant for more than this. Did you mean that?” Steve wasn’t asking her – she realised. He was staring directly at Peggy, who’s eyes gleamed with barely disgusted interest. Aria felt her lips twitched as she recognised the expression on the woman’s face. It was an expression she’d been struggling to hide around Bucky since she’d met him.

“Every word.” Peggy confirmed, the weight of her conviction sliding over them. “Both of you.” She added, leading Aria to flick her gaze back over, narrowed. Peggy had only said that to her once – as she’d dragged Erskine from the facility in HYDRA, and as she’d watched the then Isla slam a closing door into her hands repeatedly to create a fracture. Isla hadn’t even as much flinched as the pain bloomed through her – though, her eyes did spring with tears in an autonomic reaction she could not mask or control. Peggy had told her that she was more than this – better than this. She had asked her to come with her. But Isla had been too weak then.

Aria Davis wasn’t weak. She would do what needed to be done.

“You have to let us go.” Steve answered her, turning the ignition of the car. But Peggy, again, placed her hands on the wheel.

“I can do more than that.”

Notes:

we have arrived at the first avenger!

Chapter 13

November 3rd, 1943: Dusk

The first time Aria had purposefully botched her assassination of Howard Stark, she had presumed that in the future, their paths would inevitably cross again. Howard Stark was too powerful to be left to his own devices by HYDRA for too long, and Aria remained HYDRA’s shadow, and therefore, the most likely person to be given the task of taking him down.

She had never presumed that she would be meeting him as an ally. That he would be invaluable in her plans to save Barnes, and that he would currently be flying the plane that was speeding them across Europe, all whilst quipping back and forth with Carter as though the two had an exceedingly close relationship. She could almost see Steve’s eyes twitching every time Peggy smiled at something Stark said to her, could see the jealousy exploding across his cheeks as clearly as if he’d stated it aloud himself. It amused her to no end – though, she still spent the time loading and unloading her gun. Just to keep her hands busy with a task that was mechanical and familiar.

Howard had taken little time to get to them in Italy. Aria hadn’t bothered to hide her discomfort – remarking rather bluntly of the time she had been contracted to kill him. She knew it had bothered her newly found allies when she nonchalantly continued with the tale, stating that her punishment for this failure was two broken wrists. She knew they were disturbed by the lack of emotion leeching against her tone, the way she informed them of it as though she was merely recounting the weather of the day. It had made them both uneasy – uneasy enough that Steve had spoken.

“Why would you ever stay?”

She hadn’t meant to get so angry, so quickly. But she resented the question. With a scowl on her face, she answered with a snarl: “Not all of us are so lucky to be born in the land of the free and home of the brave.”

When Steve had flinched, Peggy had glared at her. She knew that staying in that tent to wait with them for Stark would only lead to more arguments, so she had dismissed herself for some air. It was outside in the pouring rain, that she’d found Alma, crying, and running towards her.

Aria was surprised to learn that Alma had suspected Aria was not whom she claimed to be – though Aria knew that the girl didn’t have the full details. She didn’t have time to debate much else, however, as Alma’s body had slammed into hers. Aria stumbled with the effort it took to keep the two of them standing, preventing them from falling into the mud. Alma had sobbed for what felt like hours, trying to reign in her thoughts and statements before she’d eventually turned to Aria, a carefully pleading look on her face. She begged her to find Gabe Jones. To bring them all home – not just Bucky. But every member of the 107th that was still alive.

It weighed on her now, as she sat on the plane Howard flew. She’d never had anyone believe in her before – beyond her ability to assassinate and infiltrate. These were people that were placing their trust in her – not because it was a mission that would guarantee their success in future, but because she was going to do something good. She was going to save lives, rather than take them – though she wasn’t foolish enough to presume there wouldn’t be blood on her hands by the end of this mission. For once in her life, she was doing something because it was the right thing to do, because it would make people happy, and she was startled to learn how good that felt.

Once Steve was distracted by Howard’s own chatter towards him, Peggy turned to Aria. The latter suspected they were barely an hour away from their intended drop zone.

“You shouldn’t be rude to him, you know. He’s an ally.”

“Is he?” Aria muttered, shrugging her shoulders. She knew that in a manner of speaking, Peggy was right, but she’d always struggled to work with anyone else, even at HYDRA. She’d wanted to complete this mission with Steve – but completing a mission together did not mean they needed to form a friendship outside of the boundaries of it. She was happy relegating Steve to merely holding a relationship with Bucky, not with her as well. She knew there were already far too many people relying on her to add yet another to the hold.

“I don’t know him.” She filled the silence, when Peggy looked frustrated. “I don’t know who he is beyond the words that Bucky has said to me. Bucky trusts him – and that is enough for me, for now – but I have never had the luxury of trusting the men that I meet, even when I have heard promising things.”

Trust was dangerous, and words of praise whispered on the lips of others even more so. She’d heard promising things about Johann Schmidt once, from her father. The way he’d touched her, in the years that he’d known her…

She shivered, a sudden chill catching her breath.

Schmidt is not necessary to your current objective. Cast him aside.

The age-old adage echoed in her mind, like the beat of a drum. She couldn’t escape him. Even her actions now, they’d been puppeteered by his hand – even if he was no longer holding her strings.

“On some level Aria, you know that Steve is a good man,” Peggy tried again, sucking in a breath as she likely prepared herself for Aria’s ire. Aria, in turn, crossed her arms over her chest, not bothering to hide the disdain present in the curl of her lips. Beside her, Steve’s conversation with Howard had ceased, and he was doing his best to act interested in the trees beneath the plane.

Amerikanets, she thought with an eye roll.

Peggy continued incessantly, “You know you understand Erskine’s formula. Whatever judgement he possessed, I know he spoke of it with you for great lengths.”

She could hear the careful curiosity on her tone. Peggy still could not understand why Erskine would share his secrets with the woman that he believed had brutally tortured, raped and killed his family. Aria didn’t bother to correct that narrative – given it was a secret that Erskine himself had taken to the grave on her behalf. Despite Peggy’s clear knowledge that something was amiss in the truth of the tale, Aria refused to confirm it for her.

Instead, she stared blankly ahead at the British spy. Steve had stiffened beside her at the mere mention of Erskine and now seemed intent on actively listening rather than pretending that he wasn’t. She supposed that he was only now learning she’d ever met Erskine in the first place.

“Good men…” She lifted her left hand into the air, a flat palm to the sky. “Bad men…” Her right hand rose in turn, the twin to her left. “Good and bad are not opposite sides, as Erskine believed.” Slowly, she lifted each hand and dropped them interchangeably as though there were weights being added and removed at will. The scales bobbled in either direction, before coming to rest in the centre as they had begun. “No man is either good or bad. We are all a mix, with good and bad fighting for dominance like dogs.”

Peggy didn’t talk to her much after that. It suited Aria just fine – she didn’t want to be distracted by trivial matters.

Still, sensing Carter’s discomfort, she found herself wandering to the frontside of the plane where Howard still sat, piloting with relative expertise. It didn’t take him long to glance in her direction with a disgruntled look plastered across his face.

“I heard you tried to kill me.”

She snorted. “Tried being the operative word? Clearly, I should have tried harder.”

Behind her, she heard Steve cough as though trying to hide his reaction. She wondered if he had ever met someone like her before – a women so painfully aware of her standing within the world, and so triumphantly against everything the ideal American woman had come to be known as. She may have dressed the part of a combat nurse for the last four months – and she might have fit in as well as she could have, but it wasn’t her. She knew that.

She glanced out at the mountain ranges, frowning. “You are pitching too low,” she noted, shaking her head. “HYDRA had anti-aircraft guns located within these hills; we’ll be shot out of the sky before we make our intended location.”

“And if I pitch any higher; I’ll lose sight of the target.”

She sorted. “I know the location of the target better than any of your little maps.”

“I would expect nothing less from Zola’s daughter.”

“A world of insults and you settle for that?” She shot back, unwilling to admit that of all things, it was the aspect of herself she was unsure about. Some aching desperately longed for her father to love her, for him to relish the attention that she’d dedicated towards making him proud. Even now, as she knew she was doing the right thing, she was mourning the loss of someone who had once clothed and fed her. Who had cared for her when she was vulnerable. She’d always assumed Howard was good for his technological brain – but perhaps he saw more of her than she realised.

“What would you like me to call you?” He responded, never taking his eyes off of the horizon. For a moment, Aria thought that she detected a faint sense of flirting within his tone, but it was gone before she could concretely identify it. “Isla? The Red Viper? Johann Schmidt’s whor…”

She saw Peggy’s eyes widen – saw the moment that the truth clicked. The silence that settled across the airplane was broken only by the sounds of wind hurtling past the wings at speed as they descended closer to their target. She thought too, that she saw cheeks ears turn red with the thought of the language that had been about to be hurled in her direction. She felt herself making a marked effort not to react – not even to flinch, to move, to breathe at the words he’d thrown in her face.

The ghost of those familiar fingertips pressed into her hips, tearing at her skin as she kicked him with as much force as she could muster. She remembered how it had hurt – how kicking him had felt like kicking against an iron door. How it had barely shifted his weight from her body as he towered over him. She didn’t want to think about him anymore. She’d already cast him aside once on this night.

With the turbulence on the flight grounding her, it took all of her mental fortitude to cast him aside again.

“If I wanted you dead, solnyshko, you would be dead, and we would no longer be having this trying conversation”

It wasn’t snapped or snarled. It was said with precision, with a slicing quality that prevented a quipped return. She saw the moment that Stark finally paled under her gaze – as though he was finally seeing her for the threat that she was for the first time. She knew too, that as much as she had tried to fight her own bodily reactions to his words, her muscles were still twitching in the anticipation of a fight. The way her fingers were flexing too, against her side – looked as though she was gearing up for battle.

She knew better than to think she could take Steve in a fair fight – she hadn’t been successful in fighting Schmidt off, and she’d been terrified for her life in those moments. Howard and Peggy would be easy enough; though she’d never attack them merely for honour and words alone. Stark could have his verbal quips. She’d prove him wrong when she returned with the 107th alive and safe.

Sometime later, Peggy gestured for her as they came dangerously close to their destination. Map in her hand, she began gesturing towards it as Steve nervously buckled his helmet. Aria resigned herself to listen; to watch as Steve took in the information. He was strong now, yes, and fast – she knew that much. But she also knew that this was going to be his first mission. Catching the man who had assassinated Abraham Erskine, as Peggy had informed her when they first boarded the flight, could hardly be counted as an active mission. Reactive, perhaps.

“The HYDRA camp is in Krausberg, tucked between two mountain ranges. It’s a factory of some kind…”

“Weaponry.” Aria confirmed when Peggy trained off, looking to her for further information. “My father – he works on weapons for Schmidt. In some of my latest correspondence, Schmidt said they had journeyed to Norway in order to find something left behind by the Gods. I don’t know what they found – if anything, but I’m sure my father would have used it to create something destructive.”

Steve blinked, taking in the information. For the first time, Aria thought she saw something akin to respect gleaming in his eyes. It wasn’t trust – she didn’t trust him, and she knew it had to be a struggle for him to trust her, with his strict morality, but it was a solid foundation for a shared goal.

“We should be able to drop you right on the doorstep.”

Aria resisted the urge to remind Howard Stark that the anti-aircraft guns were ready and waiting for their arrival.

“Just get us as close as you can.” Steve stated in response, cutting in before Aria could make a comment as though he could sense the tension escalating once more. To Peggy, he added: “You know, you’re both going to be in a lot of trouble when we land.”

He didn’t bother to state the obvious: Aria would be lucky to keep her head when they returned to the SSR. For Peggy and Howard, it would be a reprimand at worst – likely nothing for Howard in reality, given how rich and essential he was to the ability of the United States government to create weaponry that would win them the war. But Aria was an unknown quantity, a turned spy whose motives remained relatively unclear to the SSR. Peggy could vouch for her all she wanted – if Colonel Phillips decided that he wanted her head, Peggy wouldn’t be able to prevent that. Only Aria could prevent that, by running away once again.

She didn’t want to run away. She was burning her bridge with HYDRA. She would have nowhere to go, and despite having all of the skills in the world to make sure she would be safe, nothing terrified her more than the thought of having no place to call home.

“And you’re not?” Peggy asked him, sounding exasperated.

“Where I’m going, if anyone yells at me, I can just shoot them.”

Despite herself, Aria chuckled quietly, winking at Rogers when he threw her a questioning glance. A shaky smile appeared on his lips.

“They will undoubtedly shoot back.” The female agent reminded them carefully.

Steve only responded by tapping the metal of his shield, a grin on his face as he exclaimed: “It’s got to be good for something.”

They grew closer and closer to their drop point. Aria’s fingers continued to take apart the gun in her hands and reassemble it without even looking down at the weapon. The skill, she knew, unnerved Peggy and Steve. She found that it was keeping her calm, so she wasn’t concerned with stopping due to their discomfort. She’d rather they were uncomfortable, than she was unprepared and deep within thought when they landed.

“Agent Carter! If we’re not in too much of a hurry, I thought we’d stop in Lucerne for a late-night fondue.”

Howard didn’t even turn around as he voiced his offer. Aria watched Steve’s cheeks heat with embarrassment, and perhaps even anger and jealousy, as he processed Howard’s statement. Aria had half a mind to stand and cuff him on the back of the head for even suggesting such a thing.

“Stark is the best civilian pilot I’ve ever seen, and mad enough to brave this airspace.” Peggy eventually sighed, though, she too, looked frustrated. “We’re lucky to have him.”

Aria was sure that the second half of her statement was directed at her. A silent, subtle plea for Aria not to involve herself in any further discussions with Howard Stark. Crossing her arms over her chest and raising a single eyebrow at the British Agent, Aria agreed to her request.

“Do you… are you two, fondue?”

Without years of training, Aria would have laughed. Even now, she barely managed to supress a snort. It escaped her in a small cough, as she studied the window of the plane, locating themselves immediately. They were almost at the drop point.

“Take this transponder. Activate it when you’re ready and the signal will lead us right to you.”

Aria ignored the conversation taking place around her as she checked her parachute on her back. The fabric of the bag felt rough to her touch, and she momentarily relished the different feeling of the texture on her skin. She used the environment to once again ground her – the smells within the plane, of circulating air and metal. The sounds of the plane, the wind, the engine, the different instruments that Howard was pushing back and forth to keep them steady through the air. Peggy and Steve’s breathing, Steve’s curiosity and anger, Peggy’s embarrassment and endearment for the man flying the jet.

She lurched with the momentum of the plane as they were attacked by the very same gunfire that Aria had warned them about merely an hour prior. Though Peggy was thrown, Aria managed to maintain her balance – and as Steve leapt up, shield in hand, she followed suit, tapping the sides of her pants once more to ensure that she had armed herself to the teeth. Steve opened the door, despite Peggy’s protests that they weren’t close enough to the camp.

“As soon as I’m clear, you turn this thing around and get the hell out of here!” He shouted at her, voice getting lost amongst the wind.

“You can’t give me orders!” Peggy sounded exasperated, but Aria could hear the fondness.

“The hell I can’t.” Steve quipped, bracing himself. “I’m a Captain!”

A second later, Aria watched as his body dropped from the plane. She readied herself, standing at the edge of the door. No fear washed over her. She felt nothing as she stared out the side of the plane. The fear of heights had been trained out of her a long time ago, and Aria trusted the equipment that she had against her back – because she had been the one to design it. Aria knew better than to believe she could make mistakes.

“Good luck.”

The words from Peggy sounded hollow. Instead of smiling, or grimacing, Aria only offered her what she knew the Agent wanted to hear.

“I’ll make sure he comes back.”

She didn’t pause to take in Peggy’s expression of genuine surprise before she allowed the weight of her body to fall forward. A second later, the open air greeted her, and for a brief moment; Aria Davis was reminded what it was like to be truly free. A small smile graced her face. In the middle of the air, with no one around her, she could allow herself this much.

When she pulled the parachute, and the mission settled over her, she felt it drop from her cheeks. Now – it was time to find Barnes.

Notes:

i will be heading off to europe on a holiday for around about a month. i've written far enough ahead that i have heaps to post, but it may not be as frequent given that i'll probably be a bit busy!

as always, if you have any comments or feedback, please feel free to share them x

Chapter 14

November 3rd, 1943: Night

Aria landed against the ground with a thud, feeling the moment that her boots sank into the soft earth beneath her. It had been raining here, as it had been raining in Italy, and the squelching of water beneath her toes made every step she took squeak. Despite knowing that it was unlikely for a patrol to approach them - they were, after all, deep in the outskirts of the facility, her heart still pounded every time she shifted, and the movement caused the ground to echo around her. Too loud, like a war drum announcing their presence. A few steps away, Steve was pulling off his parachute, grimacing every time his movements made a similar noise. He was larger than her - and with his added weight, he didn’t have a chance of stifling the sounds of his movements.

Aria shimmied out of her parachute, as quietly and as quickly as she could muster. Coming to stand beside Steve, she was glad when they moved onto the gravelled road - it offered less cover; but their movements would not be as loud. He met her gaze surprisingly evenly, gesturing for her to lead. Aria gave a nod, acknowledging his instruction as she began to lead him forward, demonstrating how to walk quietly against the rocks when Steve’s feet landed heavily against the ground. She was pleased to note that he was a quick learner; he copied the movement that she demonstrated with ease, watching almost eagerly as the knowledge washed over him. It forced her to hide the beginning of her smile behind wisps of her blonde hair, unwilling to divulge how much such a kindness was foreign to her.

The gravel road they were following would continue until it met the doors of the facility. If they wanted, Aria knew they could take the path all the way there, weaving in and out of the road in rhythmic beating with the supply trucks that would surely arrive in the night. But such an action would be slow - and it would waste their already precious time. Howard Stark’s favour of an airplane ride had been instrumental for Aria - it no longer meant she was concerned that her departure from the campsite would reach the ears of Schmidt before she had the chance to act. But simply because they’d arrived sooner, did not mean they could take more time in other aspects of their quest.

When she noticed the grass beside the gravel growing drier, she reached a hand behind her to pause Steve’s movements. She heard him settle, brushing only a small stone as he stilled - but it was enough for the sound to echo in the quiet forest. She was silent as she turned to look at him - pointing to the grass land. Then, demonstrating as she had with her footsteps, she crept over towards the grass, and perched low, until she was almost invisible safe for the blonde strands of her hair. Steve followed suit - and as he crouched, she decided they were clear enough for any oncoming patrols to give him some quick information.

“Soon, trucks will come down this pathway - carrying either supplies, or soldiers. If we jump onto the last cart in the convey; we can remove the obstacles and continue onto the facility. It should save us over an hour of travel.”

“Risks?” Steve whispered, wondering.
“Hm. No more than three officers in one truck at a time. More if we get caught, of course - but we run the risk of being sighted walking along the road just as much as taking this chance with the truck. The storage compartment does not connect to the driver; so, there’s no chance they will be alerted when we make our move.”

She heard the rumblings of a truck in the distance. If she concentrated, she thought she could feel the vibrations in the Earth. Glancing to the side, she gestured for Steve to remain low, noticing his head popping out of the grass. He followed immediately, and Aria noticed he looked a little bit sheepish. “Your call, Captain.” She acquiesced. She needed him to trust her, if this was going to work. She also needed him to be confident. The blush tinting his cheeks right now was evidence of his embarrassment. Embarrassment would only distract him on the mission.

The heavy-set determination that ticked in his jaw was confirmation enough that they were going to attack the third truck.

When it came around the corner, Aria’s lips quirked upon recognising the simple, three-truck convey that HYDRA always employed to transport their weaponry. This would not be a patrol; searching for unwanted guests, but rather, a delivery likely meant for the workers. Three trucks, she mused, was unusual for this facility. Typically, facilities on the outskirts such as this one produced weapons technology lethargically. Though, she supposed with the influx of prisoners who no doubt would have been forced into labour to earn their fill, she shouldn’t have doubted that the facility would increase production in line with the added bodies.

She hoped that didn’t mean that Schmidt and Zola had also relocated temporarily, to oversee the task. She wasn’t entirely ready for a family reunion; however much she’d wanted one after leaving the Red Room. Two years since she’d seen Zola, since she’d seen Schmidt, and they still hovered over her, bearing their weight and will down upon her. If they were here tonight – she was terrified of what they would say. If they even knew the words that would finally break her.

She shivered. Steve noticed; casting a curious glance towards her. He thought she was nervous.

She was. But not about the task in front of her.

Aria moved first. She pounced from the grass like a predator, footsteps bouncing against the gravel until she reached the metal grates of the truck. Hauling herself upwards with little effort, a second later she was brushing aside the light fabric covering the weaponry from prying eyes and smiled at the waiting bodies of three HYDRA officers. She couldn’t see their expressions - but she knew they were more than a little stunned based on the way that their immediate reaction was to stiffen and not throw a punch in her direction. They recognised her; but it took them too long to recognise the threat of her movements.

“Hey soldier.” She purred, amusement bouncing off of the walls of the truck as she leapt forward. Steve landed in the back of the van a moment later, with a thud. She heard him grunt as two HYDRA Agents dedicated their attention to him. The last remained solely her problem, and whilst he reached for his gun - Aria was quicker.

The knife strapped by her thigh left its halter, and embedded itself within the other Agent’s wrist before he could lock his hands around the cold metal of his pistol. Expecting the scream of pain that would accompany such an injury - and knowing that such a noise would likely draw the attention of the driver, Aria already had her palm against his throat before he could shout out. A second later, she was twisting his head violently, until she heard the tell-tale sign of a crack. With a snapped neck, his body fell to the ground unceremoniously, and Aria, unfeeling, reached for her knife - minutely annoyed when his blood dripped over her hands.

Steve, on the other hand, had knocked out and thrown his assailants from the back of the truck. As he settled into his seat, shield in hand, Aria noticed his expression catching on the body that remained on the floor - neck pointed at an awkward angle. Aria glanced down, thoughtful, but determined they were too close to the facility now, to throw him from the truck. He would have to stay alongside them, an unpleasant, but necessary factor. It bothered Steve far more than it bothered her.

Grimacing as she wiped the soldiers blood away from her wrist, she fixed a look on Steve. “It doesn’t do well to dwell on these matters.”

“These matters?” He echoed, sounding a little stunned. “You snapped their necks.” She may have detected awe in his tone. She was sure it wasn’t meant to be a compliment.

With a shrug, she answered: “You hit them with your shield. You are a super soldier - they will die too.” Seeing Steve’s continued distress, she softened, adding: “You may keep yourself sane through that plausible deniability, Rogers; I’ll keep myself safe through the knowledge that he isn’t going to come back to hurt me.”

It wasn’t satisfactory for him. She could see that in the set of his shoulders. But Aria knew they couldn’t afford to have those men alert Schmidt to their presence before they’d gathered the imprisoned soldiers. Aria could always fall back into the footsteps of Isla, sway her fate by feigning that the mission had drawn her to return to Azzano; and from Azzano, this facility. But Steve Rogers was not a spy. Perhaps one day, he could learn to take the easier fight, the fight with words rather than with fists. But she did not have the time to teach him everything that she knew this night.

Placing her finger over her lips to prevent him from speaking again, Aria listened carefully as the truck rocked from side to side. Signing to Steve, holding up a single finger, she warned him to get ready to exit the truck, their chance coming as she felt them stop, and change direction – reversing until they were lined up with the door of the storage facility. As the HYDRA Agent approached, Aria felt her muscles tense – but Steve’s shield quickly dealt with their curious inquiries as to the weaponry in the truck.

Steve jumped out first, and she was somewhat surprised to see him wait for her to land on the ground before he attempted to enter the storage room. With a shake of her own head, she pulled him back – inclining her head towards the clearing where tens of cars and tanks were parked, ready to be manoeuvred at moment’s notice. Without argument, Steve changed course, nodding once to show his asset before he moved on.

With the gentle thrum of voices and machinery around them, they began to run through the fields, their footsteps disguised in the swell of the white noise. Aria led the way, eventually coming to stand beside a tank parked close enough to a wall that it would mean they could climb atop of it. She jumped first, nimbly manoeuvring her hands and feet into the small diverts created by the metalwork. By the time she’d made it onto the roof, she turned around to watch Steve complete the task in a single jump.

She wasn’t sure what expression was written across her face. She knew she wasn’t hiding it – but whatever it was, it made Steve break into an amused smile for only a second. Immediately, she realised he’d been showing off, discontent with allowing her to demonstrate her own abilities without proving his own.

She found that she wanted to react by shoving his shoulder. Not violently – no, but a friendly jab. Perhaps it was something she had witnessed in a film, or on the streets of New York, or perhaps, even within the 107th itself. It was a gesture seen between friends; and she didn’t know Steve well enough yet to consider him that.

But was that true? Bucky had spent hours speaking of this man, an important part of his life. Someone that he considered his brother, whom he wanted her to meet. Whom he worried for, and cherished, and wanted to protect above all else. She felt like she knew him – it was why it had been so easy to approach him and speak the right words to grab his attention. It was not chatting up a mark – it was desperately reaching out to a friend.

Bucky’s friend. She reminded herself. She had admitted she cared about Bucky. She wasn’t quite ready to widen her circle of trust. Bucky was enough pain and suffering to deal with – he’d already been injured thrice since the war began. She didn’t think she needed to add more names to that list. She wasn’t sure she’d survive it.

They took a moment to survey their surroundings. Glowing the dim light, Aria noticed that it seemed as though every agent standing in the fields had been issued new weaponry. She could see the dim light that emanated from their guns and noticed Steve glancing at it with undisguised curiosity as well. She shook her head before he could even ask her the question: it wasn’t something she recognised – but, as she pulled him towards a fire escape, she knew they didn’t have time to debate it either.

“I have code – but it’s linked to me. They won’t notice I’ve used it immediately. But they will notice. It means we have a time limit.”

Steve nodded. He gestured for her to enter it. With a deep breath, she felt her fingers punching the code into the metal grate, ears twitching with every low beep of an accepted code. When the door opened, and creaked, she winced, pushing Steve inside before they both hurried to close it as quietly and as quickly as possible.

They were greeted with only a narrow, spiral metal staircase, leading down to the ground floor of the facility. Aria nodded for Steve to go first, and she followed him down, each step bringing her closer to James, but increasing her sinking feeling as she went. The amount of weaponry that was featured here – it likely meant that Zola had visited. If he was still nearby…

Halfway down the centre of the stairs, she paused. Steve realised quickly that there were no longer two sets of footsteps echoing, and he turned to look at her with a frown across his face.

“If…” She trailed off, trying to figure out what to say, that wouldn’t make it sound as though she was terrified. When being terrified was the truth of it all. “My… Zola, he had offices here. I think we should split up – you go to the office, see if there’s any information on the weapons that they’re carrying.”

Steve was perceptive enough to read the lie – but kind enough not to call attention to it. When he replied asking where her Zola’s office was located; an apparent acceptance of his changed roll, Aria could have sighed with relief. Steve had no reason to trust her – he was relying solely on her word, solely on his belief that people were inherently good, and that she was one of those people. She was more than capable of manipulating every action, reaction, emotion, word that she’d spoken to him over the past few hours, to lead to this outcome, to simply lead him into a trap. He knew that too – and he was trusting her anyway.

Her eyes welled with tears, and she found that she had to look away as she explained that Zola’s office was located on another floor – across a catwalk. She detailed directions, rapidly explaining likely patrol routes and guard numbers as she went, knowing that with the serum, and Steve’s own personal desires for war that predated his testing, he would be more than capable of recalling the information when he needed it. Steve listened to everything she said, and she could almost see the gears in his mind working as he took it on board. When she was done, he nodded his assent.

“Where will you go?”

“The cells.” She answered immediately. “There will be more guards around there – I can slip in, unlock the door – and then we will have strength in numbers.”

It was a good plan – if mostly designed as such due to her avoidance of Doctor Zola.

They came to the steel door which, once opened, would fork their shared path. Meeting the gaze of the other, neither spoke, but Aria could feel his well wishes as clearly as if he had spoken of them aloud.

He tapped at the door, dropping her gaze. As a HYDRA Agent came to unlock it, Aria was impressed to watch his brute strength. It was almost mesmerising, the way that his muscles rippled, even beneath his weighty army jacket. The way that he expended barely any of his energy as he crushed the Agent’s head into the doorway, repeatedly slamming the metal door until he was sure the man was out cold.

Aria hid her urge to snap his neck for good measure. She wasn’t sure Steve would appreciate her killing a disarmed, non-combatant man, no matter the stakes involved. Despite her best instincts, she stepped over his body. Nodding to Steve, she sprinted off in the other direction, pleased when, despite her speed, her footsteps barely sounded against the concrete floor. It had been months since she’d needed to utilise her espionage training, and at the back of her mind, she’d always feared that it would mean that she had lost her skills. This was proving that she had merely been exercising another part of her body, being with the 107th. And whilst she could feel that she was not as fit as she had been in the Red Room – it had taken her a less than desirable amount of time to scramble across the tank outside – she knew that she was still more than capable of fighting off everyone in this building.

She drew closer to the cells, slinking in-between the shadows created by the gates. Beneath her, prisoners spoke in hushed tones, loud enough to be heard, but quiet enough not to draw the attention or ire of the guards. Littered across the bodies of some, she could see marks from where their flesh had been marred – likely punishment from not working fast, or hard enough. Some were coughing, their skinny bones rattling against their desperate lungs as they fought for air that would not come to them. Many of the men below desperately needed medical attention. Some, she presumed, were dead.

Finally, a guard drew her attention. Still carrying that same blue stick, Aria suspected that she didn’t want to find out what kind of firepower it contained. Stealth was her friend as she descended upon her target, landing on his body with a grunt as she wrapped her legs around his head. He choked with the impact, startled – but just as she had the man within the truck, his death prevented any further argument. Body dropped unceremoniously to the floor, she landed beside him – conveniently above the cell of Dugan, and Jones.

Jones, she mused. Alma will be pleased.

Scrounging through his pockets and ignoring the somewhat stunned faces of those whom she did not recognise from the 107th, Aria snagged the guards keys before she too, dropped from the sides and landed swiftly on her feet on the bottom floor. Once there, it didn’t take her long to open every cage containing the men, no longer flinching at the sound the crates made as they opened. She had the numbers now – even if they didn’t have weapons, it wouldn’t be long before they acquired some.

Finally, she made her way back to Dugan’s cage, desperately opening it to look inside. She felt her heart drop as she searched through the face of every man standing before her, every man that she’d freed. She saw the dumbfounded look that graced Gabe Jones – the almost arrogant acceptance of her appearance that graced Dugan, but none of it made her feel better.

None of it hid the fact that James Buchanan Barnes was nowhere to be seen.

Jones spared her the desperate question. “There’s an isolation ward in the factory. No one has ever come back from it.”

She froze. Her hands began to shake by her sides.

“With a man?” Her voice was quiet, chipped. “With glasses – Swiss.”

Dugan nodded his agreement. Aria bit her lip hard enough to draw blood. In fact, she tasted the tang now – distracting her from her spiralling thoughts. Zola, he was here, in the facility. He was experimenting on humans – he was experimenting on soldiers, to perfect Erskine’s formula, his prized work which he no doubt intended for her to consume once ready.

She wanted to cry.

Her father had Barnes.

Chapter 15

November 3rd, 1943: Night

Aria was ashamed to admit how long it had taken her to recover from shock.

Longer than her training had determined was necessary, that was sure. Even now, she could steadily hear the sound of wood cracking against her skin long ago, with Madame B reminding her over and over again of what she was meant to become. Mramor.

She wasn’t made to be broken by one man. Her senses were not designed to be overrun in fear for one man, and yet here she was, overtly terrified by the idea of having lost him before she’d even had the chance to know him. Before he had truly had the chance to know her.

“Aria!”

It had been Dugan who had snapped her from her stupor – his harsh voice snarling at her as he raised a hand to slap her. She caught the flicker of movement, even through her lack of concentration, and was able to catch the palm of his hand before it could collide with her skin. For a moment, they had both blinked at each other – Dugan, paling as he seemed to once against reconcile her small figure with her large abilities, and Aria as the action returned coherent thoughts to her brain. She grounded herself against the feeling of Dugan’s skin. Grimy and calloused as it was, it was something that didn’t belong to her body. Something that she could hold and touch and feel that wouldn’t disappear.

Taking a deep breath, she knew she sounded choked when she began to speak again, but she couldn’t find the will to care. “The tree line’s northwest, about eighty yards from the gate. From there, just follow the creek bed.” She brushed down her suit, once again checking for her weaponry. Despite knowing that the men before her likely needed it, long ingrained survival instincts had her refusing to give it up. “If you turn left outside this hall, there is likely a storage closet filled with weaponry. Take what you can carry; and follow that pathway until you find an exit. They will find you – they will shoot you. Give them hell.”

She turned to glance back down the hallway. In that direction, down the deep, darkened corridor, she would find her father’s offices. Where he experimented, now not only with mechanical weapons, but with the idea of enhancing one’s own biology. Schmidt had always called himself the world’s greatest weapon – she presumed that her father would believe himself a God if he managed to recreate such technology.

“I’ll meet you in the clearing with anyone I find inside.” She stated, footsteps starting against the ground as she began to walk from the cells.

“You’re not coming with us?” Jones called after her.

Aria didn’t bother to turn around.

“I have to find him.” She answered simply. She would find him – or die trying. She wouldn’t acknowledge he was dead until he was dead in her arms – or she was told otherwise, by someone she trusted. Given she trusted few, she doubted that would happen. She was surprised when footsteps sounded after her, and almost startled when Dugan grabbed at her arm.

“This isn’t like the time you found him on the hill.” He warned her quietly, his voice low. “This isn’t going to be like that. There are enemies here, real, true enemies.”

Aria ripped her arm away from him. Dugan towered over her, his moustache twitching. She knew he was only concerned for her, but it ignited deeply seated rage within her that she was being doubted for her abilities at all – given what he had witnessed when she returned Bucky from otherwise certain death all those months ago.

Snarling, she answered: “Of course there are enemies, here; durak, what do you think I am trying to save him from?”

“Enemies with guns.” Dugan stumbled over her return, frowning when he didn’t catch her complete sentence.

“I have a gun too. I will shoot first, dorogoy. Don’t worry your pretty head about me.”

She didn’t wait for his response before she leapt forward, catching the corner of the iron prison bars. Using her strength, she hoisted herself up above until she was scaling closer and closer to the roof – closer and closer to an air vent that would allow her slip faster onto the second floor, that would allow her to find Barnes and hopefully Rogers faster. She made quick work of the metal grates holding the vent in place and happened to catch Dugan’s face as she tossed the metal aside.

Smugness rushed through her as she noted his stunned expression. Awe too, but this time, filled with wonder where Steve had been full of horror and sadness. She wished she could have savoured it for longer, but she was already moving through the vent before she’d entirely processed her own emotions.

Being in the vent, alone, gave her a moment to think. She knew it was unlikely she’d be spotted here – Schmidt and Zola had, at once stage, thought it best to place cameras within the facilities vents, but Aria remembered that she’d pointed out that they would be of little use, considering the dimly lit corners they wanted to scan. It was a rare occasion that Schmidt and Zola had seen the sense in her argument, one of the rare occasions she’d caught her father’s eyes, and he’d gleamed at her with almost a pleased look in his eyes. At the time, she’d been thrilled – pleasure blooming in her stomach. She’d always loved when he looked at her as such.

Now, it seemed so trivial. She liked when Bucky looked at her like that – like she was the sun and the moon and the stars, and he was nothing but an atom desperate to remain in her orbit. She had used planets and stars to describe men before – but for Bucky, only a single nickname ever came to the forefront of her mind. The one that she’d bestowed upon him the night they’d slept together, in that infirmary tent.

Krasivvy. Handsome.

She’d called men handsome before. She’d never meant it before Bucky. She’d never loved hearing it come out of her mouth, before Bucky.

Maybe she loved him.

Mramor. She reminded herself gently. She could unravel her thoughts later, when she wasn’t a single mistake away from destroying hundreds of lives, including her own.

An alarm sounded overhead, reminding her of the danger she’d put herself in. Every beat of the sound added to her urgency. Schmidt always set self-destruct timers at seven minutes. She had seven minutes to find Rogers, Bucky, and for the three of them to make their way out of the building before they were all blown to hell.

Moving into position on her back, she realised it had been stupid not to warn Steve of the cameras, she realised as her thoughts flickered back to the mission. Nebrezhnyy. Sloppy. She was sure they still hadn’t discovered the use of her codes atop of the facility at the fire escape, but Steve’s hulking figure lurking around the corners would not be missed. He looked nothing like a HYDRA Agent, standing out completely in his army green jacket against their uniform, sleek black suits. Schmidt already knew. It was why the alarm was sounding. She was out of time.

Kicking upwards, her foot crashed through the ceiling with a grunt. Her toes hurt from the point of impact, and it took her a few tries to break her way through the solid plaster sheets, but eventually, she had created a great enough opening to shimmy her body through the small hole. A long hallway greeted her, and she found herself squinting against the sudden light, especially as two figures moved in her direction, one supporting the other. With a start, she realised they weren’t dressed in black, and she found herself nearly stumbling when she recognised the figure that Steve was holding.

“James!”

Her legs carried her across the concrete as she slid towards him, ignorant of the way the sudden drop to the ground slammed against her knees. Weakened – but not dead, Bucky glanced up at her. Blue eyes that had dulled from extended periods of pain seemed to widen as he took in her expression.

“Aria?” He wondered aloud. She could hear the desperate marrying of desperation and confusion within his voice.

“Ty glupyy chelovek.” She muttered, checking him up and down for any obvious injuries despite knowing Steve would have already done so. “Ty krasivyy, glupyy chelovek.”

And then she kissed him. Only for a second, only long enough that she was able to satisfy some deep-seated longing in her soul for the feel of him against her, before she pulled away. She couldn’t bear to hold his gaze for long – even the smallest glimpse had shown her the questions that were igniting in his gaze. She felt his moment tilt, rather than saw it. She knew instinctively that he was peering at her suit. Casting a critical eye upon her, where he never once had before. It was only for the briefest moment that she was glad she’d never opted to adorn it with the HYDRA insignia. She had thought the international moniker she’d been designated had been obvious enough.

Looking at Steve was almost worst. It was the opposite – where he had only been exposed to her quips, her anger, her snarling responses and her general inability to trust or form relationships, he now saw the space in her heart that she had carved especially for Barnes. He looked at her strangely too – but now it was because he saw her as she was.

“We have to move. We have five minutes before the facility goes up.”

“How do you know?” Bucky wondered. She could hear the accusation on his tone, and it made her heart seize. Every word in that tone would be a slice to her chest.

She didn’t care. She couldn’t care – not now. They had to get out alive, or this would all be for nothing. All of her secrets, revealing her identity, destroying Isla Zola once and for all. It had to mean something. It would only mean something if they all made it out of there.

“Because Schmidt always sets his timer to seven minutes. It’s been two. We have to hurry.”

Steve lifted Bucky again, dragging him towards the hallway. Aria didn’t look back at them as she led the way. Subtly was foregone in preference of speed, Steve’s super strength easily hoisting Bucky along as Aria twisted and turned through corridors. She knew her familiarity with the building was on display – but with four minutes now, until it exploded and rained fire around them, she found that she was struggling to care to hide who she was any longer.

They made it to the edge of the metal runway. As their footsteps clanged, she noticed Barnes was no longer being supported by Steve. It was the last thought she had before fire began to explode around her, and winced, glancing down on all the weaponry being destroyed. She almost slapped herself then, too. It had been foolish of her, not to take a sample, to give to the SSR. They would likely have her hanged for this.

“Keep moving.” She snapped at the two men, beginning to climb the stairs. Her steady, unyielding footsteps led the way, cracking against the cold metal. They never faltered.

Until she caught sight of Schmidt and Zola, standing on the opposite side of the hall.

They spotted her, first. She saw the moment that Schmidt’s eyes narrowed in recognition, saw the moment that pure, unfiltered disappointment flashed across her fathers. Almost desperately, she glanced around for something solid to hide behind, something to keep her from their glances – something to keep Schmidt’s eyes from raking over her body.

Her chest heaved with the effort that it took her to remember to breathe. Horror was plastered across her face, though she fought it off as Bucky and Steve rounded the staircase. She hoped, as they came to stand beside her, that her face was the perfect picture of neutrality.

“Captain America! I am a great fan of your films.” Schmidt called across the gap, delighted at the presence. He handed the parcel he’d been holding across to Zola, who took it, his gaze never once leaving his daughter. Steve, she noticed, stepped onto the grate to meet Schmidt as his equal. Aria found that her feet would not move, not even her mouth, as much as she willed it to warn Steve, to call him back. But this was the man who danced in her nightmares, the man whose fingertips still traced her brutalised skin.

“So, Doctor Erskine managed it after all.” Schmidt mused as he drew closer. “Not exactly an improvement, but still impressive.” Turning, he added, “Zola – your daughter did pass on the correct information after all.”

Aria hid her flinch well. She’d expected him to leverage her dual allegiances. Steve had seen enough evidence of her working with Carter to hopefully stay his hand on her execution.

Steve threw a punch then, startling her as his fist connected against Schmidt’s face with a crack. Schmidt grunted as he stepped back with the force, and the sound of it almost sent Isla spiralling back into yet another unwanted memory. She fought it, hand desperately grasping at the metal poll in front of her. It was cold – her hand was cold. She was here; she wasn’t there.

MRAMOR.

“Haven’t I?”

She broke out of her stupor just in time to watch Steve block a punch from Schmidt’s hand. The fist imprinted against the shield, and Steve stumbled with the force of it, enough that Schmidt was able to whack him across the face with his pistol. Aria was relieved when the pistol went tumbling off the edge of the grate, and her relief only grew when Steve kicked up; pushing Schmidt back and away from his little group he so desperately wanted to protect.

Schmidt landed on the grate with a thud. Evidently, it was enough of a concern for her father, that he pulled the level to separate the few men.

“No matter what lies Erskine told you, you see I was his greatest success!”

She had to turn away as she watched him grab for the mask. More than anything, she felt the desperate need to press her face against Bucky’s chest, acquiesce into his care. Accept defeat. She’d promised herself that she would be better, following the Red Room. That the sight of Schmidt without his mask wouldn’t terrify her so. Evidently, she’d been lying to herself.

She knew the mask was gone when Bucky asked: “You don’t have one of those, do you?”

“It is good to see, you still know your place, frälein.”

Aria didn’t bother to hide her audible whimper as that voice turned to her, knees quaking as they fought to hold her weight steady. Finally, she turned to look at him. Taking in his appearance, the hollow set of his nose, the sculpted cheeks, the razor-sharp bone structure. Her face might have remained neutral, schooled as it had been. But her body was betraying her terror. It was hard, to look upon that face – his true, red face, the way he had looked when he had… And not react.

“Isla.”

Bucky glanced to his side. He didn’t bother to hide his confusion, especially as he noticed her flinch at the name. But Aria still refused to move. She refused to acknowledge it. She wasn’t Isla anymore – he hadn’t hurt her; he hadn’t touched her as Aria. That name held power; not the one that she’d given up.

But she didn’t think that. She couldn’t think of anything besides the pounding in her heart, and the tightness in her throat.

“Du bist ein Fehler.” You are a failure.

The urge to flinch again scratched at her skin. How many times had she been warned, across HYDRA, across the Red Room, that failure was met with termination. That weakness was answered with shows of strength. She couldn’t be weak now, as much as she wanted to continue cowering.

It was careful, measured words that she answered with. Words that sounded as though they didn’t belong to her, words that shook despite the care she took to say them.

“Ja.” Yes. Somehow, her soft voice was louder than the explosions echoing around them. “Von Entwurf.” By design.

Schmidt, it seemed, didn’t deign speak to her any longer. Turning his attention back to Steve, the object of his attention, he stated: “You are deluded Captain. You pretend to be a simple soldier, but in reality, you are just afraid to admit that we have left humanity behind. Unlike you, I embrace it proudly. Without fear”

“Then how come you’re running?” Steve snapped in return. Schmidt only answered with a smile as the elevator doors closed around himself and Zola.

Not once did her father speak to her. It bothered her – almost as much as seeing Schmidt without his mask so suddenly had violently shaken her. Bucky turned to look at her, and she was sure that he was going to speak to her, when an explosion rattled the building once again. Despite his anger with her, it pleased her to no end that his first instinct was to shelter her head, only pulling back when the banging sounds had ceased for the moment.

“Come on.” Steve muttered, brushing past them as he headed towards the stairs. “We need to go up.”

Aria glanced up, noting the beam he spoke of. She bit her lip – unsure. It would support her weight; she knew that from practice. But in a building that was already structurally weakened from explosion, the metal likely already slipping and sweating from the intense heat of the building, she had her doubts as to the successfulness of this plan. But glancing around, she realised that they had little other choice available to them.

They came to rest in front of the beam. Aria watched, momentarily distracted, as embers from the fire briefly illuminated her blonde hair.

An explosion echoed below them again. She felt Steve’s hands at the small of her back, guiding her onto the beam.

“One at a time.” He informed them carefully. “Aria, you’re the lightest – you go first.”

Though Aria’s instinct was to allow Bucky to go first, she nodded along with Steve’s orders. It made sense – she was the lightest, the nimblest. She was the least likely to set the beam off course. With practiced ease, Aria found herself bounding across the beam, the metal scarcely even swaying as she made her way across. She settled herself on the other side, turning just as Bucky began his own crossing.

It wasn’t a shock to her when the metal began to give way. As Bucky stopped caring about light movements, sprinting, she found herself leaning over the grate. He would have made it without her help – but she knew that he appreciated the hand that she threw out to grab him, even if he didn’t verbally state it.

It only left Steve, still standing on the other side and now with no visible way across.

“There’s gotta be a rope or something” Bucky called, desperate. Aria shook her head, confirming what Steve already knew to be true.

“Just go! Get out of here – both you!” He shouted, waving his arms wildly from the other side.

“No! Not without you!”

It was said with as much conviction from Bucky as she’d ever heard before. She almost took a step back with the force of it. Never again would she hear him speak about her so resolutely. It was why she had to do something.

“Steve, you jumped the height of a tank to get into this building!” She screamed across the gap, hands coming to rest on the metal. “Jump – you only have to make it as far as we can reach – the two of us will be able to pull you up.”

She very much doubted that Bucky would be able to handle his weight, but she suspected Steve wouldn’t need the assistance. She’d seen the power of his muscles. She’d been noting them the entire time that they had fought their way through the building together, as she’d taught him how to walk, and as she had doubted he could do it. She wasn’t doubting him now. He excelled in strength – it would be more than enough to complete this task.

“Jump the gap.” She stated again, as clearly as she could.

She watched Steve take in her words and bend the metal back. Taking a few steps back to give himself momentum, she saw every emotion as a kaleidoscope across his face as he mentally prepared himself for the leap.

She was pleased to note, as he flew through the air, that she was right.

***

The trek back to camp in Italy took over a week. For over a week, Bucky didn’t speak to her. For over a week, she felt the eyes of the 107th, and the other rescued soldiers, ogling her as she tried to sleep. For over a week, Dugan, Steve and Jones alike grilled her on her overall knowledge of HYDRA, proclaiming how the knowledge she carried would help them win the war. And as they walked into camp, Aria realised that her only chance at normalcy had died the moment she’d decided to get into Howard Stark’s plane.

She’d rattled off the numbers of the men, the catalogue of their weaponry, the stock of the ammunition that they’d managed to grab the whole way back to Italy. She needed every piece of information she’d muster, for the scrutiny she was bound to face from Phillips. As they drew closer, the numbers became less of a lullaby for sleep; morphing into a looming monster that shared the red skull of Johann Schmidt.

They made it back to Italy exactly a week after they had left – arriving in the middle of the day after a week of hard walking. Around her, the camp exploded in cheers for Captain America; and the saved men. But Aria continued trudging along the gravel road. Finding a familiar tent, and then a familiar room within that tent, she sat down and grabbed the metal protruding from the floor. With practiced, mechanical movements, she tightened the cuffs around her ankles, before leaning back into the chair, and closing her eyes, allowing her emotions to take her.

Notes:

thanks for reading! as always, comments and feedback are very appreciated <3

Chapter 16

November 10th, 1943: Dusk

Aria was exhausted by the time that Colonel Phillips entered the interrogation room she had relegated herself too. She watched as his eyes immediately caught against the metal cuffs locked tight around her ankles; intrigue sparkling in his gaze as he settled into his waiting desk, steak in hand.

She noted, with some disdain, that it was an effective interrogation technique. Her stomach squeezed in her belly, reminding her that she had forgone rations in favour of ensuring the weakest could eat. A small meal a day was all she had eaten in a week – enough to keep her alive, but not enough that it was able to keep her satiated. It was fact she’d kept quiet from the others – they wouldn’t have allowed it had they suspected she was practically starving herself. That, and the fact that she wasn’t sleeping, either.

There were too many unknown factors around her, to sleep. Too many possible dangers, people who would want to hurt her, not for who she was but what she represented. It hadn’t taken long for the rumours to spread around the liberated soldiers of whom had been involved in their rescue – who had unlocked the gates to their prisons. Though some of the rumours about her were outlandish; some were a little too close to the truth for her liking.

Her exhaustion and her hunger were marring her ability to be effectively interrogated. Instead, the only thing she had was her anger, and it roared like a beast inside of her, desperate to be unleashed.

“How many men are outside the tent today?” She tried. Peggy had been kind enough once, to slip her an answer in the count of her fingers.

Phillips was not a kind man. He merely cut a bite of his perfectly seared steak and plopped it in his mouth. Her jaw clenched at the action, before she found herself taking the time to forcibly relax it. Anger would get her nowhere in this situation. She wasn’t trusted by this man, and the allies she had made did not trust her still, despite having warmed to her. The one man she knew had trusted her, had learned she had been lying to him for months. In this room, as with all things in her life, she could truly rely on no one other than herself.

With a white cloth that Aria noticed was still grimy from use, she watched as Phillips dabbed at his mouth with precision before turning to the file in front of him. In her focus on the food, she hadn’t noticed him bring it in – that was sloppy of her. With a start, she realised too, that it was her file. It was large, spilling at the edges with encoded missives she’d sent Peggy, surveillance photos of her that she hadn’t known to exist. Even photos of her entering the Red Room, arm clenched tight in the hand of Johann Schmidt.

That one sent a chill through her. She was glad when Phillips instead flicked to another image – of her in New York, at nineteen. When she’d been tasked with tailing and assassinating one….

“Howard Stark – 1937. Unsuccessful” Phillips began to list off, each successive name bringing forth another image. “Abraham Erskine, 1943. Unsuccessful – though, I doubt you tried there.” She flinched as he threw the next three images onto the table “Greta, Marlene and Klaus Erskine – 1935… Successful.”

Judging from the disdain echoing in his voice, Peggy hadn’t revealed the truth of what she’d come to know about that night. Perhaps she wasn’t sure. Aria wasn’t about to confirm it for her.

She remained silent, even as the man in front of her brought another piece of steak to his waiting jaw. He was waiting for her to speak, and Aria knew that she had to. She had to defend herself in some way.

“Unsuccessful, as you say. I did not want to kill, Colonel; it is just not until I met Erskine that I realised it more than the illusion of choice – that I had a choice.”

Phillips looked unsympathetic, polishing off the last piece of his steak, and chewing throughout the words that he spoke. “Hm. Pity you didn’t realise before you brutalised his family.”

“I was a child too.” It was meant to be biting – her victorious statement. It came out pitifully, and she hated herself all the more for it. She hadn’t had a childhood. She couldn’t remember playing in the park with children her age – though she knew her memories of such events had to be buried somewhere. She could barely even remember her mother’s smile, despite Zola’s insistence that she looked just like her. She could only remember violence and pain – being taught that the culling the weak was a mercy, especially if it broke someone into giving up something that you wanted. Zola had begun the process of moulding her into a weapon; but Schmidt had honed her into something deadly and wielded it with precision. She was better and worse for it.

It was enough to give Phillips pause, as the knife and fork settled by the sides of his plate. The fact that her hands remained unbound demonstrated his utter control over the situation. She could reach for the knife – threaten him to get what she wanted. But it would get her nowhere. This man had already made up his mind about her, and whilst she suspected she was never going to be able to change it, she still had the chance of forging a path here. If not as a friend, then as a weapon herself. She could be what she was made to be – just working for the side that she believed in, not the side of her circumstances.

“I paid for every attempt with my blood, and my bones. Whether you think that’s enough… it’s not what we’re here to discuss, given that the pardon I was offered from the SSR stated ‘Defection in perpetuity.’ I have accomplished that, have I not?”

She reached over and shut her file. Phillips allowed her to do so, mildly intrigued as she twisted to lean back in her chair, the metal creaking as she did so. Positioning herself into a relaxed posture, she crossed her arms over her chest, hoping she at least looked somewhat nonchalant in the conversation. She knew Phillips was frustrated when his jaw ticked, just as hers had earlier. He wasn’t a fan of the pardon – but given it had come from higher command; he was obligated to honour it.

“I could not have signalled to Schmidt my true intentions any clearer than I have in the past week – and if you continue to doubt that, Sir, you doubt that to your own detriment. The information I hold, the skills that I possess. They are worthwhile assets for Strategic Scientific Reserve. You have wished to utilise my skills in the past, and now at the opportunity to hold them unequivocally you turn your nose up. Why? Is it because I am a woman?”

“It had nothing to do with your gender…” He tried to cut in, managing to look annoyed and flustered at the same time.

“It has everything to do with my gender.” She snarled, sitting up, refusing to let him take her narrative. “It always comes down to the fact that I am a woman. It’s the same reason Agent Carter has to fight so hard to speak in the same sentences, at the same war meetings – despite the fact, I’m sure, that she’d a greater agent than the majority on your roster. It’s the same reason you don’t trust me now: because you don’t understand me, just as you don’t understand her. And that makes you scared. I was designed, to make you scared, Colonel. And if I’m not doing that intentionally, to you now – imagine how HYDRA feels. Knowing I’m gone?”

Silence met her words. As it stretched into minutes, Aria knew that Phillips was conceding, even if he couldn’t bring himself to say the words. With a smirk, she spoke for him once more.

“You told me that love does not win wars.”

The anger had leeched from her tone. She merely recounted the words he’d once thrown in her face, picking at the dead skin beneath her nails.

“I did.” He confirmed, voice rough and frustrated.

“Perhaps you are correct. We shall see” She shrugged, glancing towards the opening of the tent where she knew a group had quietly gathered to listen, before adding: “But it saved hundreds of good men on this day.”

This time, Phillips conceded with a statement: “Defecting has lost us our only active inside link into HYDRA.”

Aria uncrossed her arms, leaning forward into the table. “Well, I suspect you always wanted my defection to be public. A rat in a cage, and all that.”

Phillips acknowledged the truth with a grunt in her direction. She noticed that he didn’t seem pleased that she’d managed to read him so easily. Now that they were on the same side of the war, she wondered if he would ever request techniques from her. She suspected it would not do her much good to offer her expertise. He was already a stubborn man who didn’t like her.

“Regardless,” she sighed, shaking away her internal thoughts before they threatened to take over the groove she’d settled in, “even with my defection I maintain my knowledge of security, of weaponry, of entrances and exits and blind spots. Steve will be able to give you locations, of course – but I have trained in those buildings. I know their points of weakness, and I can help you exploit them.”

“Stop posturing.” Phillips brushed her off. “Get to the point.”

“I want concessions.” The truth flew from her mouth before she’d even registered it. But she knew it was true. “I have a pardon – but I want assurances that I won’t be drawn and quartered by the United States government… Or the British, actually.” She noted, her eyes catching against the flapping tent opening. Peggy’s brown loafers had been visible, for just a second. It confirmed for her that there were people outside, listening. Not that she’d expected anything less.

“Your unconditional pardon was just that, Miss Zola. Unconditional. What Erskine translated from your little red book assured us of that – though of course, we would not be terribly troubled to hear it from your lips, too.”

“Davis.” She corrected, though it didn’t contain her usual bite. She was glad when Phillips didn’t feel the need to challenge her on that. “And perhaps one day, after the war, I will share it. As such, it contains no relevant information to the current activities of HYDRA, or Nazi Germany, and does not need to be scrounged from whatever storage facility it has landed in.”

Phillips nodded once, affirming that he understood.

“Is there anything else I can help you with?” She couldn’t help the cheeky smile that bloomed across her face. Phillips didn’t appreciate it as much, though he didn’t comment.

“No, Miss Davis,” she preened as he finally correctly repeated her name, “everything else you give us, whilst useful, it merely window dressing.”

He stood then, bending over to unlock the cuffs still stationed around her ankle. Despite having put them on herself, a part of her still relaxed as the weight left her aching muscles. Captivity that she brought upon herself was still captivity.

As the second chain hit the floor, she turned to look at him. She watched him fight his instincts to rear back, having suddenly found her face achingly close to his own, but Aria didn’t flinch. She merely noted: “I want it back one day, you know. That journal?”

“Win the war first, Miss Davis. Then it’s all yours.”

He left the room quickly after that, keys from the ankle cuffs jingling in his pocket as he walked away, her file tightly locked in his hand.

Aria took a moment to ground herself before she followed him. She placed her hands against the knife he’d left behind – tracing her fingers against the sharpened edge despite the traces of meat still coating the blade. The tingle against her skin reminded her of where she was – the smells of the camp, the gentle breeze causing the tent to flap and sway, all of it combined into a symphony of noise that told her she was okay. She was safe, back in the encampment – not trapped in the endless cycle of HYDRA.

She dropped the knife against the table, hearing it clatter, and she stood up, and walked confidently from the tent. Five bodies stood outside, all staring at her, and waiting for her departure. She didn’t spare them any mind – only noted internally that it was Steve, Peggy, Howard, Dugan and Bucky – Bucky, before she continued walking back to her tent.

Peggy could likely read the way that her back had stiffened. She assumed that was why the agent didn’t follow her – despite, she thought, desperately wanting to discuss what Aria had said to Phillips. Wanting to ask if Aria believed it true. She was glad of it – Aria didn’t want to discuss it now. She wanted to crawl into her sleeping bag, and let the darkness take her before she was inevitably called to service come the dawn. Dugan, Howard and Rogers would have no reason to follow her. What could they possibly say? They were learning of her in the unravelling of her, watching her slow descent into something that was chaotic – broken, and healing, and then broken again, only for the pieces to be picked up once more, in a different way. She was always remaking herself. She’d remade herself into Aria Davis, the combat nurse. Now, she needed to remake herself completely – into Aria Davis, the SSR spy.

Bucky was the only one who would dare follow her, and as she heard his footsteps crunching in the gravel behind her, she had half a mind to turn and shout at him to head to the infirmary. They didn’t know what her father had done to him – Bucky hadn’t told her himself, but she’d gleaned it from conversations had around her, by Dugan and Jones and Rogers. They didn’t know; and whilst he seemed fine, they should have been making sure.

“Aria...”

“I’m tired.” She snapped back harshly before anything remotely accusing could fall from his lips, her steps continuing towards her tent.

She hadn’t expected him to grab at her. When she felt his hands close around her wrist, enveloping her completely, she swung so violently it send the two of them tumbling to the ground. Seemingly understanding he’d made a mistake, he backed off, hands up in a placating gesture. She only glared at him, before glancing around at the members of the encampment that were busy pretending not to watch. She didn’t want to do this where there were ears listening, and eyes watching.

“I’m sorry.” Bucky stated bluntly, as if acknowledging her discomfort. “But I have to know.”

“Have to know what?” Her voice was livid. The anger she’d been desperately holding back, that she’d utilised in her interrogation with Phillips – it was spilling. She had no emotional tie to Phillips, it had been easy to weaponize her emotions against him, supressing the true hurt in turn for the rage that would aid her interrogation. But with Bucky, she felt for him. Her emotions were true, and weaponizing them would only lead to her breaking.

“Why did you do it? Assassinate, steal, all of it? Why for HYDRA?”

She almost wanted to laugh at the absurdity of him asking such a loaded question as though she could give him a straight answer. “What would you have done?”

They stood in the open, but the camp seemed so quiet around them. She knew they were all listening, all desperate to hear what the Red Viper could possibly say to the man that she had slept with and lied to all in the span of three months. The man that she’d chosen as her target, the man that she had used to cement herself first as a trusted member of the 107th, and second as a trusted member of the SSR. They didn’t know the truth – they didn’t believe the truth. How much she cared for him.

She couldn’t hide anymore. Her truth was as much a mask as the lies she told anyway.

“I would never have fought on behalf of the ‘bad guys’.” James’ reply was coated in venom, hostile fire spreading through his gaze as she refused to give him a straight answer.

He probably expected her to flinch. But Aria just cackled, a deep foreboding chuckle rattling her chest, and making her lungs hurt.

“The bad guys?” She sneered through bared teeth, almost relishing in the surprise that flew across his face before it settled into anger once more. “Oh dorogoy, it must be so easy for you, in that little mind of yours, to see in black and white.

“My father was the man who experimented on you.” She watched Bucky freeze, unsure. “My papochka, convinced me that his love was dependant on my devotion to HYDRA.” Her voice was growing shrill. Was she about to cry? Even now, she could feel her desperation rising every moment that Bucky stared at her with such disdain across his face.

“I would have died, I would have…” She trailed off, taking a deep breath to compose herself.

After a brief moment, she spoke again, her voice regaining its steady and strong intone. “Lucky for you, you’ll never need to know what you would have done. Because you will never be forced into a decision like that.”

Any argument James had been ready to level at her died on his tongue. For a moment, they just stopped and stared at one another. She wished she could walk away. She wanted nothing more than to turn tail, for her boots to crunch and take her all the way home – where she could lie naked in her body as much as she felt in her spirit and let the events of the previous week wash away from her. Where she could rebuild her frayed walls in the peace and sanctity of her own space, with no interruptions. But she couldn’t. Because despite everything she had been taught, she cared about this man – and it hurt her to think that he thought her irredeemable.

“I’m not HYDRA.” She insisted through the silence. “Perhaps I was once – but… no. I’ve never been HYDRA. Not since Erskine stumbled into my life and taught me what love… true love, should feel like. But you see me now, and all you think is ‘that woman lied to me.’ Do you realise how ridiculous it is? You are angry over a spy who lied to you. That’s what spying is.”

“Aria…”

She didn’t let him interject. “Did you know I was the one that dragged you back? From your snipers perch that night. I’m the reason you’re alive, James Buchanan Barnes. If I didn’t care – if you meant nothing to me beyond the mission, I would have left you there to die. But I didn’t.”

“Why didn’t you?” He cut in. Blue eyes sparkling in the dim light of the camp, Aria found herself startled enough to pause.

Her mouth clamped closed, a familiar panic igniting in her blood. It rose every time she attempted to make sense of her feelings for him. She stared like a deer in headlights, thrown from her train of thought, thrown from her desperation to make him see the truth, see her, as he asked for her ultimate truth.

“I… you know why.” She stammered lamely, her nerves overtaking her in the moment. The silence they’d found for themselves felt like it was closing in around her, choking her, burying her alive.

“Say it.” He demanded harshly, unyielding.

She openly flinched. It had been a long while since she had accepted the truth – but speaking it aloud was breathing fresh life into it. The words, once spoken, could never be taken back. They were a weakness – regardless of the strength behind them. They were something for her to hold onto, to nurture, to protect and keep. If she offered this to him, this part of herself, she would have to trust him not to break her. To rely on him for something that she could no longer sustain on her own.

It went against every moment of her training. Everything she’d ever learned across Germany, across Russia, even within the 107th. Against instinct, and against logic. But it remained the truth. She knew Bucky was it. He was the first man she’d ever willingly slept with; the first man she’d ever wanted to have a relationship with. The only man now, whom she held dear enough and close enough to her. But thinking this, it wasn’t going to be enough.

“SAY IT!” He roared, and Aria took a step forward to meet him.

“You want to hear the words, because somehow it makes it more official?” She snapped, fury igniting in her blood. She saw him hesitate suddenly, moving to step backwards, but her arm flew outwards to prevent it before he could. “I love you, ty amerikanskiy durak, is that what you wanted to hear?”

The words left her, and she was breathless, heaving with the effort.

She expected him to be angry. She expected him to rear up in the fight, to meet her as the equal, and battle it out with her until they were both exhausted. But Bucky only paused for a long moment. He stared too, and then, without warning, his face morphed into a grin, spreading across his cheeks from ear to ear.

Eyes sparkling, he asked: “Did you just call me an American fool?”

Aria didn’t bother to answer, knuckles turning white with the force of her grip as she brought his lips down to meet her own in a kiss.

He tasted just as sweet as she remembered.

Notes:

thanks as always for taking the time to read my little story!

Chapter 17

Notes:

sorry all! friends got married, and updating on holiday has been surprisingly challenging. heading home in a few days so updates will be more frequent then.

 

it also means that I haven’t had the chance to see thunderbolts yet :(

November 10th, 1943: Night

He followed her back to her tent. Aria didn’t drop his hand the entire way. It was probably improper – the way they kept having to pause as he nipped at her neck, and she relinquished her carefully built control, allowing it to escape in a breathless moan – but she found she didn’t care. She was beyond caring; now desperate for something only the man before her could provide.

She’d barely even finished zipping up the tent before Bucky had placed his hands over her suit, gently cupping the swell of her breasts as his lips came to rest on the pulse point of her neck. A strangled gasp flew from her body as he licked and sucked just enough to tease, in time with the gentle pinching of her nipples through the skintight fabric of her suit. Her suit protected her from feeling that delicious pain; leaving her body caught between desperately pressing into his body or guiding his hands further down, where her heat had been left ignored and wanting.

Her knees almost gave out when she felt him grasping the zipper to her suit between his teeth, using the grip to pull it down. Her body quivered with wanton desire as his hot breath trailed down her back in line with the position of the zip, until it ran out of space and came to rest on the small of her back. Her eyes closed as she felt his lips place a gentle kiss there, eyes welling with tears as the intimacy of the moment smacked her clean across the face. The first time she’d lain with Bucky, she had insisted it be about his pleasure, as it had been for every many she’d been with before. This time, it seemed, it would be different.

She tugged at the sleeves of her catsuit, nails edging beneath the tight surface to pull the fabric from her body. Bucky’s hands covered her own, before she could act.

“No,” he murmured, his breathy voice hot against her ear, “let me do it.”

She obliged him, allowing herself to pull away from the fabric. He kissed her ear once, another gentle flutter that sent fireworks exploding across her skin. Every fingertip that traced the edges of her suit, that teased the surface of her skin, felt like molten lava. She was sure that she had died in that facility – this was almost too much for her to handle.

One by one, her arms slipped free of the suit, and the top half followed suit, leaving her standing bare before him. He still stood behind her, so she craned her neck back to see him, stretching until the stubble of his beard scratched against the corners of her forehead. The sensation, combined with his hand returning attentions to her nipple, had her breathless and moaning.

“Bucky…” she whispered, and he pinched her in tune, a reward for her avid devotion.

Suddenly, his mouth on her neck and hands on her nipples were not enough. She needed all of him, every inch of him – she wanted to touch him, to feel him quiver beneath her just as she had felt herself unravelling. She wanted to watch him come apart beneath fingertips, watched to watch his eyes roll back as they fought to close against the rolling waves of her pleasure.

She turned to face him, her body screeching from the loss of contact with Bucky’s ministrations. Meeting his gaze, she briefly paused her intended mission, taking the time to pepper lightning quick kisses against the matching pulse point he’d ravished on her neck, trailing a line up to the corners of his mouth before taking his lip between her teeth, just as he had her zipper. Bucky grunted against her, jutting. The movement served to inform her that she had gotten him worked up in response to her body alone, without any attention from her hand.

“Hm.” She whispered against his teeth as she dropped her tongue. “I don’t believe this is quite fair. Here I am, standing half naked – and you still have all your clothes on. What are we to do about that?”

Never once breaking his gaze, she allowed a single, long finger to trail from the centre of his chest, diagonally down the line of his body until she found herself tracking into the divert of his hips. Bucky exhaled as she hooked her finger beneath, and retracted her steps, bringing the shirt up above his head. He helped her lift it before she could struggle against his height on the tips of her toes – tossing the shirt aside before her captured her mouth in against.

His bare chest bared against her own was a new sensation. She was enraptured by the movements of his tongue against hers, desperate to win their ongoing battle, but the steady feeling of his heart hammering into his ribcage as he attempted to seize her control threatened to overwhelm her with the intimacy of the moment once more. She was sure she’d never felt so much, such love, such care, such pleasure, such desperation. It warred within her, desperate to escape in a cry of submission to his exploratory attention. When he used his free hand to reach down and cup her clothed sex, it escaped her, despite her best attempts to keep it locked in.

The sound broke her from his lips, and for a moment, she felt her cheeks tinting red from embarrassment of the sound. It made her want to bury her head in his chest and ignore the way that her ears were turning pick. Never before had such a sound escaped her, that hadn’t been entirely controlled. She had often given men what they desired when they saw her – but never had the sounds been coaxed out of her so spectacularly.

“Please,” she pleaded, though for what, she wasn’t sure. “Bucky, please.”

He seemed equally stunned at her submission, though with a smirk, he recovered quickly. Lowly rumbling something that sounded like a compliment, he placed a quick peck to her lips before both his hand trailed either side of her catsuit. Unlike her arms, there was no sensational care involved in him ripping it from her legs. She even squealed when he picked her up, turning them both so that they landed against the ground, flush with her sleeping bag.

Flat on her back, Aria felt her hair spilling around her. She had the sudden urge to cover herself – which was ridiculous, she’d had sex with him before and shed known that she’d enjoyed his company then. But it was before she’d admitted that she loved him. This felt more real, and she knew that he could feel it too.

“Ya tebya lyublyu.” She whispered, running her hands through his hair as he paused for the minute. It was different, saying it softly. Where it had come in a moment of anger before, it now passed from her lips so naturally. Public as their love might have been – this softness, it was only for him.

He didn’t ask her to translate. The words had been said with such care, that he knew what she was again admitting to, this time without any of the anger that had accompanied it before. And for the first time, he spoke the words back to her.

“I love you too, krasivyy.”

She wasn’t sure how he knew the word meant beautiful. Perhaps she’d said it one too many times for it not to have been obvious. He'd clearly garnered it from her speech alone - the words informal in her direction, meant for that of a male to ponder. Either way, she had to close her eyes to hide the tears that were welling. She hadn’t cried since she was fifteen, and this man was going to bring her to tears with his words alone.

She hadn’t known how much the absence of those three words had ever affected her until this moment. Now, she couldn’t imagine living here life without hearing them echoing in the chambers of her heart, calling her home. He was her home – she would always follow him home.

Bucky didn’t linger on them, sensing her reluctance to sit with her emotions lest they overcome her. Anticipation thrummed in her blood as slowly, James lowered his body until his head came to rest between her thighs. Nerves took hold of her then, and she felt her legs seizing in an effort to close; though he held them open with a hand. A gentle kiss to each thigh forced her to relax, watching as his mouth trailed closer and closer to her slickness.

The first flick of his tongue over her entrance had her twitching against him. When he trailed up, and rolled his tongue of her clit, she bucked so hard had had to place his other arm across her stomach to hold her steady, tutting with warning as she moved against him. Aria didn’t bother to stifle any of her pleasure as she cried out, pleading for more, even as he kept his movement languid against her. The pleasure was simultaneously overwhelming, and not enough, and she tried to express her gratitude by running her nails through the strands of his brown hair. She loved watching the way that his muscles rippled beneath his skin following any touch of her hand, be it rough or gentle, and stroking his hair was no exception.

He rewarded her attention towards him by trailing his hand down the sides of her thighs. She was already a quivering, desperate mess when his fingers entered her – first one, then two, pumping in an out of her at a steady pace. The stretch burned against her. She mewed urgently, griding against his face, searching for any further friction he could provide.

When he added a third finger, Aria cried out as her walls swallowed him hungrily. Delightfully full, she panted as he began to increase his pace, fingers scissoring in and out as his tongue returned with renewed attention to her bud of nerves.

Stars danced beyond her vision as her white-hot edge drew painfully near.

“Bucky, please – wait… oh God.” Her voice sounded sinful, gone to the lust that had overwhelmed her every sense.

“It’s okay.” He drew away from her, for only a second, and their eyes locked. Not once did he stop the movements, of his fingers, but Aria languished the loss of his tongue anyway. “It’s okay Aria, let go.”

The heat of his tongue returned to her core. A simple flick was enough to send her spiralling.

She let go.

What had been a slow build up came crashing over her, walls fluttering and squeezing around his fingertips as she found her peak. She tumbled over the edge, desperately fighting for air in her lungs as her entire body wracked with pleasure. Not once did Bucky relent in the pursuit of her high, chasing every ounce of her pleasure as she gifted him a symphony of moaning praise to deities she didn’t believe in, through his name. His fingers continued pumping in and out of her, his mouth continued caressing her sex, until she whimpered; overstimulated and exhausted from the crash.

When he finally pulled away, and she spied the hairs on his chin still wet with her sex, she almost came again.

Instead of allowing herself to sink into the fatigue that so desperately wanted to take her, she pulled him closer, hands snatching around his hair and pulling his lips up to hers. She tasted herself on his tongue – sweet and salty – as he reached down to palm him through the fabric of his pants. He hissed into her mouth at the contact; and wasted little time in assisting her to remove them from his body. The moment his cock sprung free of its holding’s, she dropped both of her hands toward him, breaking the hold against his hair to concentrate on his previously neglected member.

He grunted, breaking the kiss as her hands settled around him, pumping up and down at the same pace he’d once pumped in and out of her. Feeling particularly bold, she even reached down towards her own heat; lubricating her fingers in her own sleekness before she brought them back up to coat the length of him. She felt him twitch against her fingertips, and watched his powerful muscles quake at the touch.

Leaning closer, her offered her another kiss before he gently took himself from her hands, She whimpered; this time in pleasure, as he gently coated the head in her wet, lining up at her entrance; but not pressing into her just yet.

“One day,” he grunted next to her ear, voice dark and thready, “I’d like to do this without pulling out.”

She clenched her legs at the thought, and she knew that he’d noticed based on the gleam of triumphant pride that shone against his blue eyes. Without pausing to think deeply about all it revealed for their future, she hungrily took his lips between her own again.

When she finally pulled away, she was smirking. Tone daring, she told him plainly: “Then win the war for me, krasivvy.”

He pushed in then, grunting – and her soft whines resounded in rhythm with his own. In between kisses peppered against her cheek, he leaned in close to her skin. “You feel so good around me, doll. So tight. Your body… it was made for me.”

She whimpered to his words, feeling her walls squeeze with desperate want.

Bucky would bring her to orgasm again and again that night; and by the time he reached his own peak, she was sure that she’d never been more satisfied in her life.

With the light gone from the sky outside the home that she’d made for them, she preened at the thought of being able to keep Bucky in her bed for the night – especially as he settled deeper beneath the blanket, seemingly with no desire to move. He fell asleep after than her – she could hear the soft sound of his snores against her ear, and the sound of them was vibrating against her back. But as she settled into his chest for the night, she was glad when his arms wrapped around her tightly and pulled her close. As though they would never dare let go again.

***

Aria was still asleep in Bucky’s chest when a man’s voice startled her awake. A hulking shadow was the first thing she saw in the dim light, her eyes struggling to adjust as she was thrust from what had been a needed, restful sleep.

She jumped, hand scrambling for the knife under her blanket as she readied to hurl it towards the intruder in her home. All warmth of Bucky’s chest suddenly forgotten, she had just felt the knife’s handle settle in her fingertips when Steve’s voice once again echoed through the tent, wind howling as he desperately reached for the zip; wanting to get as far away from the naked couple as possible.

“Sorry! Sorry…”

When he deemed that the zip was stuck; and it became clear that with his strength, he turned back to look at the pair, sheepishly.

“Hasn’t anyone ever told you to knock?”

James’ attempt at a joke was weak and coated with the awkwardness of the moment that he was feeling.

Aria threw her head back in frustration, ignoring for the moment the way that the two men in the room were seemingly embarrassed with the precarious situation that they had found themselves in. The knife slid from her grasp, landing in the dirt with a gentle thud – and Aria ignored Bucky’s sharp protest as she herself stood. The temperature skyrocketed in the room as both men averted their gazes from her naked body; long enough for her to find the shirt and sweats an SSR Agent had ruffled through in an attempt to learn of her location whilst on mission with Steve.

“Amerikanets.” She muttered under her breath as the pants settled against her hips. She was halfway through tightening the strings when both seemed to determine she was decent, turning to look at her again with bright red, rosy cheeks and unsure glances.

She knew that explaining to them that she was comfortable with her naked body would only give them more questions. She didn’t want to explain why she was so comfortable with their gazes upon her, so unbothered by the thought of having men oogle at her. She was sure that they’d already come to their own conclusions by now, given her line of work. They were too polite to ask, and Aria wasn’t particularly well known for being forthcoming with information.

No matter. She was sure she’d tell Bucky the truth eventually. He, of all people, had a right to know.

“How many languages?”

“Excuse me?” She glanced up at Steve’s question, not following.

He blushed again, but continued: “How many languages can you speak?”

Her lips quirked as she realised, he was attempting to ease the tension in the room. She wondered too, if this was his sly way of offering her an apology that she would insist was unnecessary. He’d chosen his question well – not personal, in his curiosity, but useful information for himself as a soldier. She could see why he had been Abraham Erskine’s choice for the serum. He was a good soldier, yes. But he was a good man first.

“Hm.” She wondered, turning her gaze to Bucky. He was still shirtless – and naked, she supposed, between the sleeping back that covered his modesty. But he was gazing at her too, with unmatched curiosity. She decided to indulge them. “I’ve spoken Russian, French, Romansh, German and Italian since I was born. English, I learned training with the Abwehr. Hm, then came the languages in the Red Room, I suppose. Uh, Mandarin, Japanese, Latvian, Urdu…”

“Does the list end?” Steve cut in, joking.

She laughed and heard Bucky shift behind her at the sound. She’d never laughed before – giggled, chuckled, yes. But a full belly laugh, the one that was exploding from her mouth now must have seemed foreign to him. She wondered for a moment, if she was meant to be embarrassed by the joke – if it was a joke at her expense, not for her enjoyment.

Glancing back in concern for a moment, she saw that it had brought a grin to his face. Her relief must have been obvious, because it morphed almost immediately into a reassuring smile. She was allowed to laugh – he didn’t care if she laughed, if she sang, cried, yelled, danced. She was allowed to do what she wanted.

What did that feel like?

“What about accents?” Perceptive enough to see her spiralling into her own thoughts, and likely keen on keeping the pleasantries they’d established ongoing, Bucky asked: “How many accents?”

Aria rolled her eyes as she placed her hand on the zip of tent, manoeuvring it carefully until it came free under her grasp and swung open in the wind. As she stepped outside, she could hear the hushed voice of Steve scolding Bucky for driving her away from them, but the sound only served to make her smile grow wider.

Mon dieu.

Notes:

as always, thanks for taking the time to read my little story

Chapter 18

Notes:

finally home from europe! excited to get back to regular updates x

November 12th, 1943: Morning

The Allied Forces had evacuated the 107th from Italy the following morning. Whilst Aria, Bucky and Steve had been deemed important enough to ride across on Howard Starks’ personal Lockheed Electra, the other members of the force had been ferried across of multiple chartered passenger flights. Aria was sure they weren’t as comfortable – but they would get them all back to London safely.

Alma herself had looked concerned with the occurrence. Whilst she shared with Aria that she was grateful beyond belief that the Aria had returned Gabe Jones to her arms, she whispered her worries regarding the disbandment of the regiment. She didn’t state it plainly, but Aria knew she was wondering what would happen to her, what would happen to Gabe - they’d managed to carve a hole of belonging, where they weren’t judged for being who they were. Aria knew all too well, that Alma was terrified it was going to be snatched from her.

It was a feeling that Aria was learning to live with.

Returning to the infirmary had left Aria with a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach. It had been where her feet had naturally taken her following her rude awakening via Steve, as though she was merely headed to another day of being a combat nurse. She didn’t need to pretend anymore, she knew that, but it still felt in some way, like it was the place that she belonged.

Upon arrival, it hadn’t taken much for Alice to screw her nose up merely at the sight of her. Aria had expected as much – the woman was far too entrenched in her ways to be able to distinguish with any success the moral ambiguity that Aria thrived within. She turned her back before Aria could say anything, a move she recognised was a statement in itself. Mary, in turn, had watched the exchange closely, but only offered Aria a nod. It wasn’t an outright rejection – but it was enough that Aria understood Mary was firmly placing a boundary upon her. She was not a nurse now, to be ordered around. She was something different, something other. And whilst she would not argue with how it had come to pass, she would not offer her judgement, either. She would merely cast her aside to somewhere else.

It suited her just fine.

What had stung, however, was Betty. Betty had entered the infirmary after Aria’s arrival, and upon noticing her, the girl had promptly left the tent again. Aria had felt her mouth opening and closing like her fish, eyebrows narrowing as she watched the shadow of her body retreat further and further from the tent, discontent growing within her. Only when the shadow had completely disappeared from view, did Aria cast her eyes upon Alma, confused – and surprisingly, she realised, almost a little desperate to understand what was going on.

Alma smiled almost pityingly. “She’s upset, Aria.”

Aria wanted to tell Alma that she could see that – but she thought it was a moot point. It had been obvious Betty was upset; she had read the emotion on her face. But she didn’t quite understand why she was upset.

Alma continued, “She’s upset because you didn’t tell us about… well.”

She gestured to the whole of Aria’s body. Aria continued to frown as the truth dawned upon her.

“She’s upset I didn’t tell her… that I was a spy?”

It sounded ridiculous coming from her mouth. She knew it sounded ridiculous to Alma too, given that the girl winced with the bluntness of Aria’s statement.

“Well… Yes. I suppose she isn’t quite sure what to say to you. She doesn’t really know who you are anymore.”

“That’s ridiculous.” Aria shook her head crossly. “How could I possibly tell her that I was a spy – spying is inherently a lie.” Then, for good measure, when she realised the second half of Alma’s sentence, she added: “And I am Aria.”

“I know that.” The woman soothed, a gentle hand coming to rest on Aria’s shoulder. It was nice, she realised, to be offered that comfort. She’d grounded herself against the hands of another before – Dugan within the cells of the HYDRA facility, for one – but it had never been offered to her freely. Alma seemed to think that the warmth of her hand would soothe something within her, and Aria was shocked to find that the woman had been right.

She settled into her touch, lips twitching as Alma continued.

“I know who you are, Aria. But Betty… She see’s everything so plainly.”

At least Aria could understand that. Betty had always been the romantic of the group. She’d been so desperate to push Aria closer to Bucky, so pleased when Alma had fallen in step with Gabe, that she hadn’t considered the consequences of the action for either woman. Alma, who was still grieving over the loss of a man she loved – and likely, Aria presumed, feeling guilty for coming to love another. Aria, who didn’t even know she was capable of love when Betty had begun tossing the word around.

Perhaps Betty was more perceptive than Aria gave her credit for. She had known that Aria would one day come to love Bucky – had seen it before the girl had even considered it.

“Just give her some time.” Alma had finished, encouragingly. “She’ll come around eventually – and if not, given we’re all about to be split up, you’ll never have to see us again.”

The thought panged through Aria with a jolt. She suddenly realised that she didn’t want to be separated from these women. They may have been nurses – and she was no longer a nurse, but it didn’t mean that she wanted to take the time to learn the intricacies of someone new. She wanted her team, her familiar faces, those that she had come to know better than the palm of her hand. Alice and her predictable straightness, Mary’s steadfast and cool head, Betty’s optimism and Alma’s realism. It made them who they were, and Aria wasn’t ready to say goodbye to them.

“Give me some time, too.” She’d told Alma then, stepping out of the comfort of her hand. Alma had looked at her strangely, clearly confused, but Aria wasn’t ready to elaborate. Not until she was sure that her plan was going to work.

She knew how dangerous false hope could be.

Aria considered her plan of attack the entire way across the English Channel. Conversation stirred around her, quips shared between Peggy and Howard as the latter threw the plane. Stark had, in fact, only spoken to her once – a clipped comment about his flying ability when he’d noticed her abnormal silence. She’d glared at him in response, but no insult came immediately to her mind whilst it continued to work through the current conundrum.

By the time they’d landed in London, England, a plan had already materialised to visit the Whip and Fiddle Bar – an apparent favourite of those within the SSR whom had visited the British shores. Aria found herself in muted agreement with their assessment as the relaxed atmosphere of the building settled into her bones. Around her, men and women alike laughed and danced with one another, drinks pouring freely from the tap as parched lips greeted them eagerly. Aria herself hadn’t gone too long before she’d found herself being handed a beer by Dugan, a glint in his eyes as he told her to enjoy.

Dressed in the same outfit she’d worn to save Bucky; she promised him that she would – lifting the stein to her lips and relishing the moment that the taste infiltrated her senses. It had been too long since she’d had a drink – too long since she’d allowed herself to relish in the taste of it all. Schmidt and Zola had often purchased expensive bottles of liquor; bottles that she’d had no moral qualms about indulging in alongside them when the moment had called for it. Back in her home; within the HYDRA Headquarters of the Swiss Alps, Aria knew she would still find multiple unopened bottles of expensive wine stashed by her bedside. Gifts from Nazi Officers who had been hoping to win her favour.

She’d accepted the gifts with a smile, and hadn’t flinched as nearly every man who offered them was systematically eliminated by Schmidt. Schmidt, of course, didn’t like the thought of someone else laying claim to his property.

Dugan cheered for her as she drank the last drop of the beer, loudly calling for another to the barkeep. The man indulged in his request, and Aria was handed another stein before she had the chance to refuse. Understanding that remaining beside Dugan for the night would be a surefire way to leave the building drunk, she dismissed herself from his company; instead relegating to the edges of the room, hunkered against the wall.

She was alone but not lonely in a room full of people that she knew. Casually sipping on the bubbling liquor, she watched the way that the nurses interacted with one another. All still dressed in their uniforms, she was amused as she noticed Alice attempt a dance, with a slinky hand placed on the shoulders of a soldier Aria didn’t recognise. She was sure that the blonde hadn’t intended for the move to look so awkward, but even from a distance, her movements seemed stiff and unsure. Nearby, watching the scene, Betty and Alma were giggling at the sight, failing to look inconspicuous.

It made Aria smile, to watch them. But something still seized in her heart. Even in a room so full of life, she found herself caressing the embroidered viper against her shoulder blades, the touch of the fabric reminding her of reality. She could be two things: she could be the Red Viper, the thing that she had been made to be, that men had been made to fear – and she could be in this room right now. They didn’t have to be mutually exclusive anymore; they were proving to be harder to marry together than she had thought.

No, not marry together. She understood well that she could be violent and caring, vicious and adorning. She was just struggling to reconcile the idea that the image she was seeing before her was real. Even now, as she stood in a room that was so full of life, and laughter, and love, she could feel it slipping beneath her fingers like the grains of sand from an hourglass. She kept expecting to wake up, locked in the vice-grip of Schmidt, with his red face peering down upon her. As he took from her body, again and again, until she gave him what he most desperately desired. He would take until there was nothing left of her – where all she had left was her imagination, to imagine things such as the scene before her.

Bucky stumbled into her view then. She suspected he was looking around for her, based on the way his eyes were scanning every surface. She watched as he became the target of Dugan’s attention, alcohol thrust into his hand before he could refuse the offer, just as had happened to her only minutes ago. She watched the creases of his blue eyes as he threw back the drink, watched the way his short brown hair bounced with the movement of his head.

She couldn’t be dreaming, she surmised. This couldn’t be her imagination. Even her imagination could not make a man that was as perfect as James Buchanan Barnes.

Sliding off the wall, Aria made her way over to the pair. Bucky magnetised to her gaze immediately, as though she’d shouted her presence across the room. She noticed the way his eyes trailed over her suit; but where he’d initially gazed upon it with confusion, suspicion, and later – anger, now all she could see was lust reflecting in his eyes.

She’d designed it with that intent and purpose. Skin-tight clothing aided her in a fight, adding to her agility. But it had the added bonus of being wilfully distracting for her targets, and it was that fact alone that had saved her life on more than one occasion. Perhaps she’d tell him one day, when he was peeling it from her body. Perhaps he would like to know more about her life.

She’d reached their side. Bucky only offered her a squeeze on the forearm before his hands trailed back to his sides. He was confident, steady in the movements, and she found herself grateful that he realised she didn’t need to be owned like that in public.

Still, knowing that it would likely please Bucky, she reminded herself to hold his hand at some point. Perhaps even emulate all the activities she’s seen through the comics in the Red Room. She was sure that Bucky would appreciate her efforts to understand his American culture. Though, she wasn’t sure that she was entirely keen on the thought of introducing him to her heritage. That path forward seemed fraught with danger.

“You look like you need a new drink.” Dugan slurred, handing over his beer with chagrin. She took it from his outstretched hands, grateful when he swapped her for the empty stein and placed it on the table where he was standing.

“You should show Bucky your party trick.”

She assumed that he meant finishing the beer in a single breath; as he’d witnessed her do barely a few minutes prior. But she only shrugged, coy. “Hm. Perhaps another time.”

“Aria!”

She turned her head at the sound of her name, taking in the clean and proper appearance of Steve. She’d missed him at the bar – noticing that when they’d landed, he’d turned for the SSR alongside Carter, Stark and Phillips rather than joining the rest of them on their pilgrimage towards liquor. She felt her gaze dragging up and down his unform, catching on the primness of the tie, the buttons, everything. For a moment, her mouth twitched as she struggled to reconcile this with the man whom she had seen fighting. This was not the skin he was meant to be wearing.

She didn’t voice any of this aloud. “Steve?”

He gestured for her to come closer. Beer tucked in her hands, she followed after him as he led her to a table, just beyond the bustling crowd. By the fireplace, she settled into the chair, noticing too late that Bucky hadn’t followed her for this conversation. She suspected it was because he already knew what Steve was about to say.

Fresh anxiety bloomed in her chest, and she felt her knuckles turn white against the handle of the stein. Against her suit, and under the table, her left fingertips danced in anticipation.

Steve opened the conversation in his usual relaxed manner. “Beer?”

Aria chuckled. “It is not my drink of choice,” she admitted, taking a swig of the bitter alcohol, “but it will do.” Sensing Steve’s next question, she added: “A pure scotch whiskey is the best drink for a lonely night, Steve Rogers. Perhaps one day, before the war is done, we might have the discomfort of sharing in one together.”

Steve smiled, but it didn’t meet his eyes. He didn’t share her ease of amusement regarding the brutalities of war. It was innocent, in a way that Aria hadn’t been in quite a long while. Certainly, she hadn’t been innocent since before she’d been gifted to the Abwehr. They’d snuffed it from her before they’d event taken the first strands of her personality. Who would she be, without their input.

She brushed the thought aside. It didn’t matter now.

“Whiskey? Strong drink.”

“Don’t you worry,” she grimaced, drinking the remainder of her stein, “I can handle my liquor.”

He didn’t doubt that she could. “You know – you’re the first person I picked for my new team to take down Schmidt.”

The suddenness of his statement – the statement itself. It combined to catch her off-guard, so much that she couldn’t catch her cough as it spilled her surprise. Steve watched her with amusement; but she watched him in turn, desperately trying to determine if he was lying to her. She’d assumed that she would be relegated to being a mere puppet of Phillips, missions delivered only through his mouth and completed on his orders. Kept at an arm’s length, because whilst he knew that he could use her, he suspected that he couldn’t trust her. It was a reasonable call – one that she could respect him for making. She’d been prepared to offer herself to it, as well; if it meant that he would keep the combat nurses with whatever unit Steve started up.

Aria being involved in the unit itself hadn’t even crossed into her mind as a possibility.

“Does Phillips know what you’re asking me?” She wondered, doubtful.

Now, Steve threw her a sheepish glance. Hesitating before he answered, he said “I told him that I was going to put together a team of the best people. The best people, Aria, includes you.”

“I want concessions.”

It was the same statement she’d made to Phillips, in the hours after rescuing the 107th. Just as Phillips had, Steve reared back in muted shock. He looked almost affronted, tongued-tied over the thought of her demanding things from him, before she began to speak.

“The combat nurses,” she watched the way whatever he’d been intending to say to her died on his lips. “Those nurses – they know the men in that unit; or at least, the men I suspect you’re going to ask. They’re going to be split from them.” She turned her head back towards the hustle and bustle of the bar, just in time to watch Gabe Jones and Alma, locked in a lovers embrace beside the piano. “They know them by name. They know their stories – their pain. What they can handle, when the need to take a break. They’ll be all the stronger for it.”

She turned back to glance at Steve again. She thought, for a moment, she saw a newfound respect for her dancing within his eyes. “I’ll make sure Phillips knows.” He promised her.

But word was not enough for her. Holding out her palm, she waited until he had placed his own within her grip. Momentarily marvelling at the strength of his grip, she shook his hand to solidify the deal. As they dropped one another’s grasp, Steve looked to her with a grin plastered across his face.

“Aria Davis; welcome to the Howling Commandos.”

Chapter 19

Notes:

Please check the notes at the end of the chapter for specific content warnings - light spoilers apply.

November 12th, 1943: Night

The Whip and Fiddle Bar remained lively long into the night.

On the outskirts of the bar, she had watched as Dugan, Jones and the men that they’d met throughout their internment in HYDRA celebrated their release from the Army. She had watched too, as Steve invited them to join him on his missions. When Dugan had glanced carefully in her way, Aria hadn’t needed to read his lips to know he was asking of her. When she watched his face break into a slow, deliberate smile that twitched his moustache, she learned that he was pleased by the prospect of working alongside her.

She’d never worked in a team before. Wasn’t sure that she would excel in one, in all truth. But she suspected that Steve would be a good Captain. Perhaps he would know how to utilise her better than she at times knew herself. He could wield her as a weapon of the night, just as HYDRA had wanted – only this time, she did not have to supress her own morality for the mission. Violence and bloodshed would find a home with her, but so too, could justice, and mercy. Compassion. All things that had given her broken bones and bruises, amongst other things under Schmidt’s rule.

It was approaching midnight when Aria ceased her self-indulgent punishment, and came to stand beside both Steve, and Bucky. The latter was staring into the distance; a departing figure holding his attention until his noticed her slotting into his side, unsteady on her feet. Eyes slightly hazy, she closed her eyes as he felt his hand come to steady against the small of her back.

“That Agent Carter of yours…” Bucky commented to Aria.

“Not mine.” She acquiesced, looking pointedly at Steve. The soldier did nothing to hide the sly smirk that graced his cheekbones – though Aria saw the flush of his neck which he could not hide. He could play coy all he wanted; she could see the signs of his flushed embarrassment. Given his inability to speak to her on the flight to HYDRA’s Austrian Facility, she supposed it was obvious he was interested.

She found she didn’t mind teasing him all too much. He had, after all, not bothered to announce his presence before entering their tent the other day. Perhaps some good-natured revenge was necessary. Banter, she thought she’d heard it called before.

Content to sit in the shared silence they’d created, Aria was startled out of her stupor by Bucky’s fingertips running across her hair. Supressing a shiver, she opened her eyes, raising an eyebrow at the action. He was drunk too, she noticed. His usually clear blue eyes were mystified as he thumbed the blonde strands of her hair, seemingly coming to a conclusion in a matter of seconds.

“You’re not naturally blonde?”

She blinked, realising she hadn’t told him. “Oh. No.”

Her old nervous tick reappeared. Running her hands through her hair, and dislodging Bucky’s fingers, she explained: “HYDRA thought to model me after one of those…” she searched for the word… “Um, pin-up models?” When Bucky and Steve nodded their understanding, she continued. “Most of the culture I’ve seen referenced them as blonde, so a decision was made. Red hair tends to stand out in a crowd – and I wasn’t trying to draw attention to myself. I needed to look ordinary.”

Bucky snorted. “Ordinary.” He repeated, incredulously. “You introduced yourself to me by bragging about your knowledge of sex.”

She shrugged unapologetically. “You intrigued me. I decided to align you with my goals.”

The other part of her statement went unspoken. I’m glad that I did.

“Align him with your goals?” Steve echoed. He sounded unimpressed by the sentiment. Aria had figured he would be, but she wasn’t necessarily fussed on explaining herself to anyone other than Bucky. The Captain had a strong moral compass, and she had a feeling it was almost unbreakable, save for the safety of his friend. Steve wanted to trust her; and to a degree, she knew that he did. At the very least, he trusted that she cared for Bucky. Suggesting that he had initially been a means to an end was not something that was likely to go unnoticed by him.

She was glad of the bustling sound then, as she divulged a slew of her buried secrets. The alcohol, it seemed, was making it easier to talk about who she had been. When she woke the following morning, she hoped that she would feel closer to the Aria Davis that she idealised in her head.

“Schmidt tasked me with tailing the 107th Regiment. To what end – he didn’t state initially, but I later learned it was because he was searching for you. Being send on a mission to the army…” She trailed off, wondering how to explain it. Figuring that there was no easy way to describe it, she continued factually. “I was tasked with shadowing your Regiment. That meant learning your secrets. Sleeping with a superior officer would have been the quickest way towards this goal, but I decided I liked the look of you. You decided you liked the look of me too. Usually that means men take the offer immediately. But I was surprised when you wanted to be my friend first.”

They remained silent. In fact, she’d noticed they’d barely moved, save for Steve clenching and unclenching his jaw as she continued to speak. He could not decide if he was furious with the thought of her, or if he pitied her. Given that his jaw was unclenched, and he was waiting for her to continue, she suspected he was leaning towards pity. Bucky, in turn, stood stoically – though she suspected a single sentence would change the emotion on his face. Knowing what she needed – that she needed him not to react – did not mean that he had the training necessary to do so.

“I’ve made a lot of marks. Not one had ever tried to get to know me. I…” She couldn’t keep looking at the compassionate look on their faces, so she looked elsewhere – her half empty cup; the USO Tour Poster with Steve’s face, the piano, still playing a soulful tune. “I didn’t know what to say to you; because I didn’t know who Aria Davis was yet.”

“But you do now.” Bucky nodded.

“But I do now.” She echoed her agreement.

Steve hummed, placing his empty glass on the sidebar. “I’m glad you’re here with us now.” He offered.

“I’m glad you’re keeping the costume, polosy,” she answered evenly. Aria didn’t tell him that his words sounded hollow. She suspected he already knew that – and if he didn’t, it was being made clear by the glare that Bucky was throwing in his direction. She didn’t want to speak to this anymore. She’d already unravelled enough demons from her past, and she wouldn’t take too kindly to more appearing to haunt her. She could feel her thoughts racing around her, wanting to spill free in a release of everything she had come to know about the world. But they didn’t – she was too trained for that.

Deciding that she too, was unprepared to deal with the tension brewing between Steve and Bucky on the account of her story, she merely offered her palm to Barnes. “A dance?” She queried, keeping her voice purposefully light.

It wasn’t just for their sake. In fact, it was almost selfish, in a way. She needed to move, to be in continuous motion, if only to keep the thoughts in her mind at bay. Dredging up her past, however small, was always overwhelming. Especially when she was surrounded by people who would try to understand, but they could not possibly get it.

Bucky accepted her offer with his own open palm. Smiling goodbye to Steve, he led her to the side of the piano, where they swayed in tune with the gentle melodic symphony. For those minutes, with her head against his chest, she allowed him to lead the way, falling in step by step as he guided her across the dancefloor. But as the music began to not only be heard, as she began to feel it within her bones.

In a matter of minutes, she’d turned to leading Bucky, spinning on her feet as she elegantly moved into a twirl. There was barely any room to manoeuvre her body, but Aria managed, pointed toes and directed limbs existing within the limited gaps, effortlessly demonstrating her skill and control over the movement of her body. She spun herself in and out of Bucky’s outstretched arms with ease. He was content to watch her move, enraptured by the push and pull of her body as she surrendered herself to a force he could not see. It was the first time that he ever saw freedom across her face.

Later that night, as they walked back to the British Army Base they’d been stationed to whilst on Allied Land, Bucky had asked her where she had learned to dance like that. At any other time, Aria wouldn’t have been drunk enough to admit to the truth. But, riding the emotional high of letting herself go, and feeling safe, holding the hand of the man that she loved, she decided he deserved the answer. Even if her elation had dropped with the very utterance of the question.

Bucky, to his credit, seemed to sober when he realised that he had perhaps asked a question that was too deep. Perhaps he recognised the pain on her face. Or, perhaps he recognised he’d opened a door to her memories that was not so easily closed. But she couldn’t blame him. She’d opened it herself the moment she’d allowed herself to experience such freedom.

“Dancing was a part of the training.” She murmured quietly. Her voice carried in the wind of London, devoid of anything. “Training to be a Widow.”

“But you’re not a Widow.” He pointed out. Aria did not know where he had learned the term – but she suspected he had been talking to Carter. She was grateful, not to have to explain it to him. What it entailed to become one.

“I was reminded of that every time I fought in that facility. Inostrannaya suka. Foreign bitch.” She shivered, rolling her shoulders in the same motion to disguise the involuntary reaction. “Schmidt sent me there. After, after…” She tried desperately to tell him the truth, tried to allow the story of her life to manifest; but it wouldn’t break free of her voice. She wanted him to know – but she wasn’t ready for him, yet.

A shaky breath later, she, changed course, admitting: “When they attacked me… I had to kill them. Or I would die too.”

Bucky said nothing beyond the squeeze of her hand, and a gentle tug as he pushed her to walk faster through the cold London air. She knew he was curious as to what she’d opted not to speak of. But he would not ask.

And Aria thought she had never been more grateful for him, than in that moment.

***

Howard Stark was a genius. Aria had known that when she’d been assigned to assassinate him – but there was a difference between reading about it in a mission briefing and seeing the results of his work firsthand. She was sure that he was posturing in some way. There wasn’t an immediate need for her to see the weaponry being developed and produced en-masse, though she assumed that it didn’t hurt his ego to see others wandering past with awe on their faces.

Aria refused to give him the satisfaction, clutching her suit closer to her chest as he weaved through the weaponry, leading her towards the armour. Her nose twitched at the sight of the bulky metal before her.

“I’m not wearing that.” She stated bluntly.

Howard looked back then, straight-faced. She realised that he’d been preparing for this eventual argument. “I heard you’re pretty attached to it.”

She only gripped it tighter. “It’s my suit.”

He hummed in response, turning to look at the metalwork scattered across the table. “The situations you’re going to get yourself into, as a soldier – you’re going to need more than that fabric to protect you. It looks like it’s about ready to give up.”

“You’re a genius, Howard Stark,” she rolled her eyes, “but HYDRA has always been ahead in terms of armour. This can withstand the shot of a bolt-action sniper from a thousand yards away. I am not concerned for my safety when I wear this – I will continue to wear this.”

“You’re not in HYDRA anymore.”

“I am not.” She confirmed, sighing with frustration. “That does not mean that I have to cease being the Red Viper. I am still what they made me to be.”

“And if I think I can make it better.”

She hoped that she hid her hesitation as she held out the suit to him. “By all means, then, Mr Stark, take the suit, and make it better. Just don’t change the design.”

He took it from her outstretched hands, thumbing over the fabric in curiosity. She saw the moment that the gears began turning in his head, rapidly filling with ideas for upgrades and other technology. It was almost interesting, to see the man’s mind at work. She suspected that if she so wanted, she would be able to sit and watch him for a long while. Perhaps if they had of met in another life, they could have been friends. He had the temperament to match her quipped remarks, and a mind that suited her own nicely.

It was an interesting thought she was still mulling over as he spoke to her again, glancing upwards. “And if I liked the way you called me Mr Stark?”

Aria rolled her eyes. There was no venom in her response, but it was lightning fast when she said: “I’d tell you that I very much am not interested in being your trophy wife, thank you very much.”

“Skipping a few steps there, are we? Miss Zola.”

“On the contrary, Stark – haven’t you heard I’m attracted to the men I’ve been assigned to kill?”

He laughed then, breaking their harmless flirtation with the sound. Aria almost felt her mouth quirking up in tune, but she forced it to lay flat. She wasn’t quite sure if she was ever going to be okay with freely showing emotion. She had learned to treat it like currency, to hoard it in times of stress. So far, her entire life had been stressful – even the moments when she had found pockets of freedom were always tinged with the idea that they would be taken away.

“Alright, Davis – I’ll improve your armour.” He acquiesced, gesturing for her to sit in the chairs beside the station. “What do you want to be able to carry?”

Gracefully sitting down beside him, she crossed her legs, one over the other, as she studied him. The suspenders that he wore whilst working suited him, she realised quite quickly, though, she would never admit it to him. A moustache lined his face – a new addition, since she’d tried to assassinate him, and he’d trimmed his hair since then as well. All factors which increased his level of attractiveness, though Aria knew that had been his intention. She’d never thought him ugly. In fact, there was a time where she probably would have been interested – if not just for the thrill of hitting her mark, then for the experience that she was sure he would be able to utilise on her. But now, there was only one man who invaded her thoughts in that manner. Her throat ran dry, as she wondered the kind of missions that Steve would send her on. She wondered if he would ever ask that of her.

“Knives.” She replied, upon seeing he was waiting for her. “Guns, something hidden in the boning – you know, usual weaponry.”

“Are you familiar?” A loaded question, though Aria was sure he didn’t know the extent of her training in the Red Room. He could guess, but guessing would only take him so far.

“I’ve taken apart and put more weapons back together than I can count.” She admitted, neglecting to add that she would have been beaten, or refused food had she of been unable to do so within a certain timeframe. Beatings, starvation – it was all a manner of control. Trying to weed the weak from the strong; for those who were weak, and starving were easier targets to terminate. It had been her experience in the beginning – but she hadn’t allowed it to be the reason her life was forfeit. She was too much of a survivor for that.

“Alright.” Howard agreed, placing the suit along the table and running his fingers across it as he continued his thoughts. “What’s this?”

Aria peered down. She noticed where his fingers had caught – a small bump near her where her chest would sit, imperceptible to the naked eye but easy felt by roaming fingers. It had no discernible markings, nothing to indicate what it was, or what it contained, but Aria knew.

“Oh. It’s a cyanide pill. All HYDRA Agents are given one for easy access, in case we are captured and interrogated. Typically; it’s a capsule within a false tooth. But given my line of specialised questioning, Schmidt decided it was too risky; in case a target was too rough with me.”

Aria didn’t deign inform him she suspected Schmidt feared accidently poisoning himself by placing it within her mouth. It would provide for him far too many answers to questions he hadn’t yet thought to ask.

She watched him blanch. “Alright. Well, you don’t need that anymore.”

Her hand slapped down across his as he began to reach into the pocket to draw it out. Startled, he reared back on his chair, but Howard Stark, as quick as he may be, was no match for her reactions. Her hand seized around his wrist, preventing his escape as her eyes locked upon his brown eyes. She hadn’t thought about the pill in a long time – it hadn’t even crossed her mind when she’d put the suit on to rescue Barnes. But before she’d even processed it, her body had decided it was not an option to be parted from it.

“You’re safe here.”

She sneered, lips curling back in the beginning of a snarl. “I’m safe when I say that I am safe.”

She didn’t need Howard to lecture her about her role in the SSR. She didn’t want him to placate her mood or give her a misguided speech about how life was always worth living. He had seen the pill, seen her reaction, and he was wildly off base. It wasn’t that she wanted to die – no, Aria had decided from a young age that she wanted to be alive, and was willing to do horrible, terrible things to ensure that she came out on top. That pill wasn’t a sign of her depression, it was…

“I just mean,” Howard continued, as though she wasn’t looking at him murderously, “that you’ve escaped HYDRA – there’s no need for the pill, because you won’t be going back there. We won’t control you here.”

Alright, so Howard was smarter than she’d given him credit for. But in some ways, so utterly unfamiliar with the truth of the world, and the brutality that she had witnessed. She almost pitied him, in a way. So intelligent, and yet so unfamiliar with the truth of human behaviour. They were all animals – it was all a matter of whom could supress their most violent urges to conform to societies whims and wishes.

“You won’t control me.” She corrected, retracting her hand and offering a reprieve from her dangerous melancholy. “Phillip’s wanted to – but he won’t now, that Steve had asked for me. Peggy would never do it, and Bucky…” She trailed off. “Bucky would rather die than see me controlled. But is that not what I am, Howard Stark? I am a body that exists to be used as a tool, I have been honed into a sharp point, and I am to be wielded like a weapon. Perhaps I am deluding myself into this idea that I have a choice in the matter – because I want to join the SSR, because I am good at what I do. But either way, I am exactly what they made me to be, and I am being used. If and when I decide that I do not want to be used anymore – if there is a mission I cannot come back from – I want that option to be available to me. I am asking you, not just as the army’s weapons contractor – but as an intelligent man: do not take one of the only choices I’ve ever had away from my grasp.”

Howard didn’t agree with her. She could see it across his face. But whether he agreed was not what she was asking of him.

It didn’t matter. She knew it was over when his fingers drew away from the offending pocket – and knew too, that he wouldn’t tell anyone what he had learned when he gave her a shallow nod. Dismissing her with an explanation of when she could expect her upgraded gear, Aria heard the metal chairs squeaking as she stood up to walk away, heart heavier than she had felt in months.

Notes:

CW - Discussions of suicide.

Chapter 20

December 13th, 1943: Afternoon

After consultation with Aria, Phillips, Stark and Carter; Steve had decided the best place to move forward with the dismantlement of HYDRA was France.

The facility in Bouzonville was situated on the border of France and Germany, a small little unassuming village. If members of the town looked just beyond the flat plains of their surroundings and journeyed to the base of the hills which stood in the distance, they would find a small facility, tucked away, unassuming. It was Schmidt’s smallest facility in Europe – used merely to ferry materials acquired from Allied Forces over the border into Nazi territory where he could continue with the production of weapons and otherwise. It had been Aria’s first choice for attack – and she’d stated as much when asked.

It was manned, yes, with HYDRA Agent who fiercely believed in the future that Schmidt wanted to create. Though it was smaller than other facilities, and that in itself meant there was less danger involved in the battle, it didn’t mean that meticulous planning wasn’t required by those involved. Aria had provided every ounce of information she could wrack her brain for – the layout of the facility, how many men she suspected were posted there, the type of weaponry she suspected they would be carrying. Phillips grilled her for information day in, and day out.

She wouldn’t admit that she was exhausted, but she was. If she wasn’t sequestered in the bowels of the SSR with the Howling Commandos, running through strategies, techniques and operations, she was training with the very same men in rooms that had been designed to mimic the darkened hallways of HYDRA facilities. As the leading figure within the team on strategies HYDRA would likely use, she ran the team through hundreds of scenarios; putting their mind, bodies and overall ability to the test.

The unfamiliar men of the Howling Commandos – those who Bucky had been imprisoned with and knew her only as the nurse that he was sweet on – struggled to reconcile the figure from their imagination with the woman they were seeing. The woman before them was frighteningly precise with her movements, and did not pull her punches when she swung for them, often knocking the wind out of them. The first time she’d clipped Dugan with a punch in the jaw, the moustached soldier had sworn at her; and launched for her in a moment of anger. It had been easy enough to dodge, and she was almost glad of the moment when she’d pinned him to ground, knee in his back with arms held down.

“Don’t get angry.” She snapped, knowing the other soldiers were listening intently. “Don’t let your emotion overwhelm you in a fight. Emotions have no place in a fight. Emotions don’t know your skill. They don’t know your ability. They know only your rage. And your rage doesn’t care for you.”

By the time she’d climbed off of Dugan’s back, the curious expressions gracing the Howling Commando’s had been replaced by what she suspected was budding respect. And a healthy dose of fear. Steve was certainly considering her; likely, she suspected, analysing the best way to defeat her. Bucky, on the other hand, was clearly considering something else – she’d noticed the lust gracing his expression.

Aria didn’t divulge that she’d seen any of it – allowing none of their praise, or otherwise, to distract her. She merely continued with the session.

Training, and meetings, had blurred into the weeks as they passed, only broken by the occasions when Aria managed to sequester herself away from everyone for a moment of peace. Her days were monotonous and repetitive; until Howard returned her suit. He’d listed the improvements he’d made as though he were merely informing her of the weather, before noting in a quieter tone, that he’d made an upgrade to her ‘personal’ pocket, too. Designed to be removed by her teeth, he warned her that the mechanism was only good for a single chance. He didn’t say, but she presumed it was the only manner with which he could ease his consciousness – knowing that she had been sure of her decision in the end.

The issue only came, with the very same wrist that was annoying her now. A modification Howard hadn’t warned her about, because he seemed to know she would have been infuriated by it. And she was. She hadn’t agreed to having an Allied flag embroidered on her wrist, and though she knew they’d conceded in some way; by placing it on the inner lining, it didn’t make her feel better about its presence. She debated it ripping it clean with her teeth – but she suspected that Howard wouldn’t appreciate the damage to his hard work. She suspected too, the decision hadn’t come from him, but rather, Phillips. His reminder that even if she’d been given freedom; she was still tied to the SSR, and the rope would only stretch so far before it snapped.

She was trying not to let herself be bothered by the implication.

As the date set for the infiltration of that small, French base came, Aria was surprised when, for the first time, she woke up with a strange feeling in the pit of her stomach. This feeling had made her sit up straight in bed for a while, thoughts racing as she tried to determine the source of her discomfort. When it didn’t ease over breakfast; she presumed that it was food.

Saying goodbye to Bucky that morning had only made the feeling grow. Previously, when he had left for Azzano, he hadn’t come back to her immediately – a fact that was she was sorely reminded of now. She was considering running a full medical on herself using Howard’s equipment when Peggy had found her and led her to a room where men in suits with stars adorning them sat, crowded around a war table. Briefly, Aria had glimpsed the map, watching the way that Phillips, at the head of the crowd, pushed the group of figures meant to represent Steve and his Howling Commando’s closer to the intended target of Bouzonville, announcing that the team was expected to make contact in early hours of that very same evening.

Peggy hadn’t allowed her to linger around the table, instead drawing her attention to a much smaller, more intimate group that had formed between herself, and Howard.

Aria chose to sit in the chair beside the genius. He had greeted her with a smile; noting quickly that she’d chosen to dress in her suit for the occasion despite not being necessary for the current operation. Aria didn’t feel the need to explain herself to him. She noted with some intrigue, that his normal business attire had been swapped for something far more casual – as though he was here on his day off. Perhaps he was; though, with the way he mentioned he had spontaneously chosen to drop in on his way to New Mexico, Aria instead suspected it had more to do with his destination than anything else.

“You must be nervous.” Howard had commented once she seemed settled into the spot.

Nervous. Aria was nervous.

Her surprise must have shown, because he chuckled, the movement creasing lines against his face. “What, is that foreign to you?”

“Yes.” She choked out, not seeing the need to lie. Surprise stuttered across his face. Evidently, it had been just the statement to shut him up as he peered at her with narrowed eyes.

“Just what did they do to you in that place...” He muttered, turning away and not entirely asking her in the midst of his pity. She didn’t grace him with an answer, instead, turning to focus on her thoughts.

Logically speaking, it made perfect sense. The last time Bucky had left on a mission, he had not returned for months, instead becoming a Prisoner of War whom her father had experimented on – an experience that he still hadn’t shared with her, for fear of upsetting her. She hadn’t pried, either; he’d been kind enough not to interrogate her for her own past and figured that he would come to tell her when he felt the time was right.

But Aria wasn’t meant to get nervous. Emotions could never be fully trained away from a person, of course – they were expected to be shoved aside, until they were no longer considered in the forefront of their actions. But this cramping in her stomach wouldn’t abate, no matter how many times she tried to shove it aside. In fact, thinking about it going away only made it grew larger, until she was bouncing her leg up and down, moving with boundless energy.

A palm came down flat over her knee. She blinked, alarmed when she realised it belonged to Peggy. The woman was giving her a soft, pitying expression, and Aria hated it.

“I don’t need your sympathy.” She’d snarled before she’d processed that she was speaking.

But Peggy didn’t react to the harshness of her tone, or the promised threat of violence. She merely took her palm off of Aria’s hand and nonchalantly commented: “So I hear Jones and Alma have decided to get engaged.”

It hadn’t at all been what she’d expected her to say.

“What?” Aria blinked, startled.

Jones hadn’t mentioned anything to her in training; though, she supposed, she hadn’t exactly given him the time. And Alma… Well, Alma had been thankful, of course, when she’d learned that Aria had played a large role in ensuring that the nurses remained alongside the Howling Commando’s. But seeing that Aria’s role within the SSR had dramatically changed, she hadn’t had the chance to happen across Alma naturally in weeks. As it was, Alma was busy, supporting Betty who still hadn’t spoken to Aria. Still furious over aspects of her life that she hadn’t been able to control.

Aria ran her fingers through her hair.

Peggy continued: “Yes, well, I suspect they don’t want to wait. Courthouse wedding, Jones tells me. A big, proper wedding when they make it back from the war. Just in case something happens.”

Beside her, Stark leaned back in his chair. Her eyes caught on the movement as his posture relaxed against the metal. It squealed beneath his weight, aging rapidly through the realities of war. “Never understood that.” He had screwed up in his nose with Peggy’s announcement. “Marriage – especially a quick marriage… usually that ends in disaster.” He inclined his head towards her, “Aria?”

She narrowed her eyes as she thought through the question. Marriage was inevitably a social contract, and had she of remained in HYDRA, she was sure to have been sold to the highest bidder should Schmidt had tired of her. She was the prized mule of the starving farmer; and in her violent little world, it made perfect sense. But here, in the West; where everything was idealised and romantic, marriage was… different? It was still a binding social contract, but the emphasis was on the love that was shared between partners, not the benefits that one could reap from their shared matrimony.

“Not everything has to be analysed, you know.” Howard nudged her then, and she realised she’d been thinking for longer than was necessary.

How strange. She could effortlessly pretend to be someone else. Conversations would flow around her, and she would be able to insert herself without a care. But being asked for her opinion; wondering what she thought to be true… It took her a while, to come up with what was her truth, and not the truth that had been ingrained into her. She hated that it was expected she would have an answer for everything she was feeling immediately. It made her want to flinch, expecting a harsh blow from an unseen hand as they warned her that she needed to be better if she wanted to survive.

“I think it’s nice.” She finally said, ignoring Howard’s pointed exasperation when she finally managed to find her words, “It’s nice for her, given what happened to her previous husband. I’m glad that she feels safe enough to move on.”

Peggy smiled, likely pleased with Aria’s answer. “Quite.”

“She’d love to hear that from you.”

Aria glanced up, looking at the figure who had appeared behind them. With some vexation, she noticed that Howard too, had sat up straighter in his chair as he beheld the sight. Betty hadn’t changed much in the month that Aria hadn’t seen her, beyond the fact that she had managed to tame her unruly hair into some kind of braid that hung over her shoulder. She looked well enough, full-set cheeks, gentle muscles gracing her curves from living and working alongside soldiers. It seemed that she had picked up the determination of the 107th alongside their muscles, because she was clearly here doing something that made her nervous.

“Hello, Aria.”

Aria didn’t grace her with a response. She didn’t have one. Betty hadn’t been willing to speak with her when she’d arrived back in Italy after saving Bucky’s life. It had been over a month since that day, and Aria didn’t feel the need to communicate with her regarding the event as she once had. That brief moment of unrest upon learning that Betty was at all disappointed with her, had grown into a raging beast in the month that they’d been apart.

“Give her some time.” Alma had begged of her when it happened.

Aria had given her some time. She’d done nothing – and now, a month later, she likely expected to stand in front of her as though nothing had changed. It was exactly the action she’d expected from the romantic, starry-eyed nurse who had pushed her towards Barnes before Aria herself had even known she was interested in him. This nurse thought she knew what it was to feel guilty, to have regrets. But what did Betty know of true regret, of truly feeling guilty over actions she couldn’t even control. She’d made her choice to ignore Aria – and the very thought that she could be regretting a freely-willed action was sending Aria into a tailspin.

“Can we…” Betty trailed off, glancing nervously between Peggy and Howard. They likely hadn’t had much interaction, and in Betty’s small mind, they were huge, towering statues of greatness. Figures to be gawked at, not spoken to as regular human beings simply utilising their ability to do something for the war effort, the same as they had.

“Whatever you want to say to me can be said here.” Aria bluntly interjected. She knew she was being harsh; she’d known that even before she noticed the glare that Peggy threw towards her, but she found that she didn’t care all too much.

Betty shifted on the balls of her feet uncomfortably. Aria felt her annoyance rising as Peggy gestured lightly to Howard for the pair to move away, at least for the moment. Her eyes trailed them as they found another spot in the corner of the room, Howard unabashedly looking back in her direction, seemingly interested in the conversation – until, Peggy clicked her fingers in front of his face to bring him to heel.

It amused Aria, but she didn’t let it show on her face, instead turning her blank stare back to Betty. “What do you want?”

Betty winced. “I deserve that. I think – I mean…” The girl took a deep breath. “You’re right in what you said, you know. That it was ridiculous that I was mad, that you didn’t tell me you were a spy.”

“Alma told you.” Aria’s voice was flat. She didn’t know how she felt about that. Her arms crossed in front of her chest as she viewed the younger girl with a frown. Everything about this conversation was trite and unappealing. Especially when she was surrounded by people that she did not wish to speak to, converse with. There was only a single man she enjoyed spending her time with, and he was currently unavailable to her. And she was nervous about that and still trying to understand why.

“She did.” Betty confirmed. “She said you needed time – I wanted to apologise, well… weeks ago, but I wasn’t sure you’d be receptive.”

Aria hadn’t slept properly in days. She’d continued with the motions of her training, she’d aided with the mission, and she was here to complete the mission in her limited capacity. She’d known something was wrong, and she had been working through the process when Betty picked now of all times to attempt this conversation. But Aria didn’t need this conversation. Didn’t want it. She didn’t know what she needed.

“And what makes you think I want an apology?” Aria hadn’t even recognised her anger was reaching a peak until it exploded out of her. She couldn’t even find the words to describe what was making her so angry in the first place. She couldn’t make sense of anything for the minute, it was cascading around her in colours and sounds and feelings that she was sure she’d never experienced before, and it was all too much. “What makes you think that I need one?”

“You are hurt…” The girl winced, “Aria, I am so so...”

“Why do you get to presume you know how I’m feeling?” Aria stood abruptly, drawing the attention of the rest of the room as her chair scraped against the floor. She felt the eyes of tens of people rake across her back, their curiosity burning into her skin. It was unlike her, to make such an abrupt movement, with no grace of poise behind it. She even noticed Howard throwing her an exasperated glance much like the one he’d worn when she took too long to answer. This time, she had a feeling it had more to do with the fact that she didn’t entirely understand how to speak to people. Beside him, Peggy didn’t take her eyes from her, and Aria was far too trained not to notice the way that her hand edged closer to the pistol hidden beneath her skirts. Just in case it got out of hand – the situation would be over before it could even begin.

Taking a deep breath, Aria snarled: “Don’t come baring apologies to me again. I don’t need them – I certainly don’t deserve them. You were angry with me – own it and move on. Don’t try and make yourself feel better on account of my forgiveness.”

And then she was striding from the room, the Howling Commando’s mission long forgotten as she searched for the only place that might offer her some comfort now.

***

It was late when Bucky returned from France. Their mission had been successful; no casualties had been experienced, and their only injury came from a ricocheted bullet – Falsworth had been the unfortunate recipient of that pain. Steve had offered to bring him to the infirmary, despite Falsworth’s insistence that he could walk; and that the bullet has scarcely brushed him. Bucky had his own advice to offer the man then, given his own brush with death from a stray bullet. Steve had looked startled by the admission – questions dancing in his blue eyes, which Bucky promised him he would answer later. But for Falsworth, it had worked. The man had accompanied Steve towards the waiting nurses without further argument.

He flicked the light switch to his room, though, he immediately startled upon noticing a figure pressed between the sheets. He’d opened his mouth to shout a curse before he’d realised that he recognised the curve of that particular spine and was suddenly glad that there had been no opportunity for sound to escape.

She looked peaceful, he noted. Her face was turned away from the door, and she had buried herself between his sheets – had thrashed around too, likely in an effort to find sleep. She was naked too, her bare skin disappearing into the sheets beneath. Something warm and primal settled over him then, a rush of cardinal pleasure of he spied the roots of her red hair fading into her washed blonde dye. She was beautiful, deadly, and she was his. Not through force – but because she had chosen to be. She hadn’t had much choice in this life, but she had chosen him, and that fact washed through Bucky like a drug.

He didn’t wake her as he slipped into bed beside her. But Aria shifted anyway, her fingertips moving to grip the sheets with intensity, knuckles turning white from the force. The moment was brief, and she let go after seconds, but it was enough for Bucky to understand the unrest she was feeling in the small moments she slipped. His heart pounded in turn with her own as he used the heat of her body to lull himself into a deep sleep, settling when he felt her embrace him in her slumber.

As he fell asleep, he remembered thinking that there was nothing in this world that would ever keep her from him. Not HYDRA, not her past – and not his future. She would be wholly his forever.

Notes:

heading off to see thunderbolts* for the second time today, so as always, thanks for taking the time to read my little story!

Chapter 21

Notes:

Please check the notes at the end of the chapter for specific content warnings - light spoilers apply.

December 25th, 1943: Morning

Aria had never experienced a Western Christmas.

If she was being honest with herself – which had seldom been allowed - she would have admitted that she hadn’t experienced a true Christmas since she was a child, and her mother was still alive. It had been simple – an exchange of gifts in a cold home, a clinical setting where Aria didn’t quite understand why she was receiving a present, and it hadn’t been explained. She’d watched her parents too, exchange gifts as though they were ships passing in the night and not married to one another. Their cold exchanges had permeated every Christmas Aria had lived through therein after – her knowledge that it was not a time of joy, but rather, a forced rest where humans interacted out of necessity.

Christmas in the West seemed different. She’d been startled awake at dawn, from the sounds of voices raised in tune to a hymn, as the religious of the SSR practiced on one of their most important holidays. She knew that Bucky and Steve had both chosen to attend the early morning mass, but she had gently refused their offer to join, remarking that she had no place within a building so holy. It had taken her a moment upon waking to remember that this was the reason for the noise – and not an invasion of their base. The cold metal that had made its way into her hand fell away then, replaced by a strange feeling of calm.

She wandered outside her rooms, dressed in her army regulated sweatpants and shirt – surprised to note that everyone had dolled themselves up for the occasion. Had Aria understood the significance, she suspected she’d been embarrassed, but as it stood, she didn’t entirely understand the holiday she was approaching.

Mass, it seemed, had just ended when she ran into Bucky and Steve. Both of them looked jubilant, a pleased light in their eyes that Aria was glad to see returned after their fight in France. Bucky had insisted to her that it hadn’t been as violent as they’d thought, but he’d stilled carried himself with the weight of a soldier following the mission. She hadn’t pressed, afraid of dredging any buried ghosts. It was not easy to take a man’s life – she knew that fact well, and though she had grown used to the feeling of blood and bone, it was still a foreign entity to those before her. She feared soon, it would not be so startling to release them to death.

Aria had expected this to be the end of festivities. But Steve had insisted on a breakfast featuring the Howling Commandos, and the wider 107th unit. She’d obliged the request if only because she felt it was necessary to show she was making an effort with Steve, despite their obvious differences. She wanted Bucky to know that she was trying. They’d entered the mess hall to twinkling lights, and green trees encased in brightly coloured spheres – likely, Aria suspected, the work of Alice and Mary. An angel had been placed at the tip of the tree, lopsided, but somehow, still proud. Perfectly wrapped boxes wrapped around the edge of the tree. A soft tune filtered through the air, the sounds of Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters – music that Aria knew was popular in the States due to the Red Room. It was poorly tuned, and cutting out every few moments, but that didn’t seem to bother the men and women who surrounded it, singing out of tune and sharing in the moment together.

It smelt different in the mess hall today, too. The SSR was bound by the same war rations of the era, but someone had certainly managed to sneak cinnamon and nutmeg into the base, making the air smell spiced and warmer somehow.

The difficulty had come; when Aria noticed that the men and women surrounding her were exchanging those gifts. She’d noticed Alma had entered the mess hall; a modest, but gleaming ring encircled around her finger. Gabe Jones, nearby, could be overheard explaining that the ring had been the couples shared Christmas gift. Even nearby, Alice was positively beaming after receiving a bag of homemade sweets from Mary, the older woman clearly relaxing into the motherly figure that Alice so desperately needed.

When Bucky nudged her gently, a box in hand, she felt her mouth run dry.

“What’s this?”

“A gift.” Bucky deadpanned,

“But I didn’t get you anything…” She trailed off, unsure. For a moment, she was almost afraid to look in his eyes. She didn’t want to see disappointment reflected within them. Her father had always looked at her with such disappointment. She was terrified of the day she saw it reflected across Bucky’s face.

“It’s a gift every time you find your way to my bed, doll. I don’t need anything else from you.”

Aria actually blushed. Bucky had given her flushed, rosy cheeks before, but only in private moments. Red tinging her cheeks in public was strange – something that hadn’t happened to her in a long time if it had ever happened at all. She coughed slight, hoping to disguise some of her embarrassment, but Steve and Bucky were already smiling from having noticed it so plainly.

She was becoming soft. Mentally, she noted that she would head into the gym later – to hold a training session for herself. It wouldn’t do well to lessen the skills she’d learned over the years, and hiding her emotions was arguably the most important.

The Captain beside them had been watching their exchange with interest, a lazy, amusing glint in his eyes. “You know,” Steve grinned as he glanced between the two of them, distracting Aria for her thoughts, “I actually lost my virginity whilst you were off with the 107th."

It hadn’t been what Aria was suspecting he’d say. Thoughts of how she could potentially strengthen her mind dissipated from her immediately, as she fixed the blonde beside her with a look. Given that Bucky had practically spat his drink out in the shock of it, she determined he hadn’t been expecting such a statement, either.

“What?” The man beside her coughed, chest heaving as he fought for breath. “You…”

“On the USO Tour.” Steve confirmed, a wistful looking appearing over his face even whilst his cheeks reddened to a blush. “You know, you get these fans…”

“Oh, do you?” Bucky teased, amused. “I can’t imagine what that would be like.”

Steve shoved him then, a light, friendly bump against his shoulder. “Darcy. She was interested – and I was curious.” He shook his head as though trying to banish the memories. “She was nice, but obviously neither of us were really looking for a relationship. I skipped town soon after.”

That amused Aria. “You, Steve Rogers? Skipping town on a nice dame? Look at what you’ve become.” She tutted, and Steve had the sense to blush at her teasing.

Wanting to change the subject, he turned his attention to Bucky. “Yours was…”

“Coney Island,” Bucky mused, lips pursed in thought. “I won her one of those stuffed animals in the fair games – a lion, I think she chose. She was real sweet. Not the most romantic of experiences, but… it was nice.” He exhaled, eyes flicking down briefly. “I think she was married. Missing her husband, off fighting for the war. I didn’t ask – it seemed better if I didn’t know.”

The musing between the pair of old friends ceased as they turned to look at her. Aria felt almost naked beneath their stares, her skin crawling as she desperately fought to think of an answer, they would find acceptable. But how could she explain the truth without it shattering the peace that they’d found? There had never been the illusion of choice.

It had been her first task in the Abwehr. Swift, clinical. It wasn’t expected to be pleasurable, merely a hurdle to overcome, to see if she could be moulded into the weapon, they wished her to be. Fear of failure had coerced her to continue; and fear of death had driven her to look as though she was enjoying herself. But she knew the truth – those pleasurable moans that had sounded as though they were escaping her, were cries of mourning for her former self, for the child that she had been, desperate to prove herself and grow. She had cried that day – the last time she’d cried in her life; and she’d been a good enough liar to pass them off as tears of overwhelming pleasure. But she knew the truth.

“A German man.” She finally answered when the silence had stretched on too long. “It was quick – efficient. Nothing special.” The art of lying was about knowing when to stop speaking. But the art of telling the truth – even if it was the truth – remained foreign to her. She was meant to know how to effortlessly weave lies within the truth, building a tapestry that her target would not be able to unravel. But all of that seemed to disappear when it was her history, and her experience. She didn’t know where she wanted the lie to begin, if she wanted to lie at all to the men in front of her. They were so different from her, and yet, they wanted to know her.

It was almost better if they didn’t.

She was afraid of seeing disappointment in their eyes. But the understanding that entered their gaze, the fact that neither of them wanted to know more… She had a feeling that they’d uncovered more than what she was trying to say. It was evident in the way that Steve’s face had morphed to sympathy, the way that Bucky was shifting uncomfortably as he was once again reminded of who she had been prior to becoming Aria.

It made her want to run. She felt her knee beginning to bounce up and down, underneath the table, as her breath caught in her throat.

She was startled when she realised that she wanted to dance ballet. It was a thought she’d had before, but missing something, and actively wanting to participate were two separate things. Even in the Red Room, under the strict eye of that balding man, she had often enjoyed the relentless structure that ballet could provide. It allowed her to turn off her mind and simply lose herself within the motions. There was only ever a single correct answer – a routine that had to be met and perfected. Nothing to analyse, or interpret, or weave between in order to form the correct answer. She could simply be.

“Open your gift, war-wife.”

James’ voice startled her from her spiralling thoughts. Brown hair, and blue eyes looked upon her with such patience and care. The general hustle and bustle of the mess hall faded away as she stared into his gaze.

Her fingers began moving against the box of their own accord. It was not a large box; she could cover it with the palm of her hand from outside eyes. Nor was the box particularly heavy, but that didn’t make the moment feel any smaller. As her skin caressed the cardboard, she felt only a small moment of hesitation before she lifted the lid of the box, curiosity warring with the fear of what she would find inside.

She was met with the sight of a folded slip of paper. Heart pounding, she lifted it from the box, carefully unravelling it to reveal another drawing – this one of Bucky and Aria, wrapped in each other’s arms. Aria had never seen herself look so relaxed, or calm as she lounged against him, eyes closed in what could only be described as bliss. And Bucky was looking down on her with an expression that Aria could only describe as love.

“I had Steve draw it.” Bucky admitted quietly. “He was always the better drawer.”

She could feel tears welling in her eyes. She was going to cry. Utterly overwhelmed, she turned away from the two men beside her, unable to look. It was too much – this was too much, she was too much.

Her vision began to blur. She could almost feel the sweat beading against her forehead as her panic spread across her body. Every sense, everybody reaction was in overdrive, announcing to the wider world that she was experiencing emotion – announcing to the entire world that she wasn’t the stole-hearted assassin that they had all believed her to be. Her walls were breaking down, she was becoming something other – something unsafe for her to contain, something that she didn’t understand, and she was scared.

“Thank you.” Aria managed to choke out, swallowing what she felt was a sob in the back of her throat. Standing up, her legs moved over their own accord as she stumbled her way from the room. Hurryingly making her escape, she saw Steve shift in motion as though he was going to rush after her, to make sure that she alright – but Bucky placed his hand against his friends knee. From the cursory glance Aria caught, Bucky was concerned – but knew what she needed now was peace.

And suddenly, Aria knew what she needed to do.

***

Bucky waited for Aria to come to him that night. He didn’t press for her attention, instead preferring to allow her the opportunity to process her emotions in a safe, secure environment. Surrounded by the four walls of her room in the SSR base, Aria did just that, sequestering herself beneath the covers of her bed, and closing her eyes as she waited for the emotions she was feeling to subside. The drawing of herself and Bucky had not left her hands since she’s received it, and she was struggling with the idea of ever putting it down.

It was late, when she convinced herself to speak to James. She had ignored every attempt of the Howling Commando’s, nurses, - even Phillips, to grab her attention as she walked to his room. He’d answered her melodic knock almost instantly and had agreed to her suggestion of a walk outside without much discussion. It was how they found themselves in the open night air of London – close to the base, but far enough away that some of the tension in Aria’s shoulder had released, and the pair relaxed in each other’s company.

It was cold outside. Aria hadn’t bothered to change out of her sweats, but they were doing nothing to protect her from the howling wind. The streets too, were quieter than the sensory overload of the mess hall but provided a gentle hum that served to soothe her aching anxiety. The lights from Christmas parties drawing to a close for the evening lit the normally dim streets. Bucky’s hand occasionally brushed against hers, but he did not settle in her hands until she reached out, and initiated the contact.

When they made it to the safety of the trees, Aria finally began to speak.

“James, I didn’t get you a Christmas gift.”

“I know.” He sighed. “Aria, I don’t care – it’s just a gift, and…”

“No.” She shook her head. “No, it’s not good enough. Just because I don’t understand, it doesn’t mean that you should settle for less. It was… inadequate of me, and I’m sorry, but I think I know what I can give you.”

He paused, looking at her with narrowed eyes. As seriously as she had ever heard him speak, he stated: “I don’t want you to sell your body to me as a gift, Arianne.”

He made her heart pound with the sincerity of his statement, but she was already shaking her head before he’d finished it. “It’s not sex, James – I promise. I want to give you the truth. Of…” She took a deep breath, closing her eyes before she continued. The last time she had tried to tell him, she had been drunk, skipping through the streets of London. She had felt cold, exposed, and overwhelmed. Here, wrapped in his covers, enclosed in the four walls of his quarters, and steadied by the warmth of his arms, tucked around her waist, she knew that it would be different this time.

“I want to tell you the truth about Erskine.”

He didn’t respond then, his mouth closing.

“I know… I know Steve has told you what he has heard – the rumours, the…”

“You don’t have to justify yourself to me, you know.”

“It’s not that.” Aria shook her head, willing herself desperately to find the words to explain to him her decision. “I know – I’ve never felt the need to justify myself to anyone - nor do I care if they misunderstand. I don’t care if the rest of the world thinks of me as a monster – I just... I want you to know.” She trailed off lamely, hoping that he understood.

He did not think different of her now, despite the rumours that had floated surrounding her encounter with Erskine prior to his escape with the SSR. He did not want her to have to justify the pain and suffering that he believed she had caused. She loved him for it – but she wouldn’t settle for the idea that he was merely telling her what she wanted to hear. Somewhere inside of him, he burned with morbid curiosity. He wanted to know why she made those decisions – likely, she suspected, wanted to know why he loved a woman who had been so horrible to another.

“Okay.” He said, squeezing her hand. Tell me, it said as it pulsed against her palm.

In earnest, she began to explain the story of 1935.

“I was fifteen, in the Abwehr. An early start in some respects, but I certainly wasn’t the youngest one there – and it wasn’t the first foray into espionage that I’d experienced.” Their steps stilled to a leisurely, slow pace, until Aria found them stopping all together, beside the largest tree in the park. “That was where I lost my virginity.”

Bucky flinched, but didn’t interrupt her, recalling their conversation from earlier. Aria suspected he’d already guessed as much, but hearing it confirmed for him wouldn’t have helped much.

Brushing aside her stray thoughts, she continued. “At the time, Erskine had just been taken by Schmidt after refusing Hitler’s polite offers of ‘working together’ with the German people. Schmidt was trying to encourage him to work on the serum, but what he tried wasn’t working. Erskine’s family thus far, had managed to evade capture – and Schmidt saw use of my newfound skillset in finding them. My father, of course, was all too happy to oblige the request, given the scientific breakthrough that would come about because of it. And I was… excited. I think – I don’t remember. I wanted to please my father. That was the main thought on my mind.”

Her voice wavered slightly, but she pressed forward. “I was tasked with locating them – and bringing them in. It wasn’t hard to find them, but bringing them in… I couldn’t do it. They were so very young.”

“So, what did you do?”

Aria dropped his hand, pressing her nails into the palms of her skin. Crescent moon crevices began to well with blood as she fought to hold herself together through the truth that she’d never spoken aloud before.

“I let them go – at first. But they were captured by regular Nazi forces. Not understanding who they were, they were going to send them to a concentration camp. It would have been a horrific, slow death. And his children… they were children, Bucky. A year or two younger than me, but young.”

He stood patiently, waiting for her to explain. The words tumbled from her mouth.

“I killed them that night. Quietly; silently. I thought it would save them some suffering. Some of the hurt. Because their lives were always marked for death, but this was quicker. Painless, in a way.”

She couldn’t bear to look at him, and she was eternally grateful when he chose to move on from the event. “What happened next?” It was a soft question, but it grated against her being.

“Schmidt knew.” She spat darkly. “That’s what happened. He knew that I let them go – he knew that I killed them. His leverage. He was… displeased. But he knew that there was something to be gained from my failure. My fear."

"Your fear?"

“He wanted to make it so that I would never be able to cross him again. That I’d be too terrified to. So, he took me to his car. And…”

Bucky’s hand returned to her now. He looked disturbed, but almost placating in some manner. Like he was telling her that she didn’t have to say it if she didn’t want to say it. But the words were coming now, and she didn’t entirely want them to stop It was almost cathartic in a way that she could not hope to describe. Something she’d only experienced every time she’d danced.

“He raped me, James.” She finally said. “For hours. It hurt, and I didn’t want it, and then it was done.”

She didn’t know how she wanted him to react to the words. She couldn’t look at him. The only thing for her to do, was to keep speaking.

“Schmidt… He suggested that Erskine would suffer, from word of what had happened to his wife and children. I… I used what he did to me – to tell him. To break him, to force him into submission, for what Schmidt wanted from him. So, I told him – but when he left HYDRA, I also gave him the truth. He had to decode it, of course – and I know he’s never told anyone the truth, but… That was the last time I cried.”

“Why would you want them to believe all those horrible things, Aria?” Bucky sounded distraught. She flinched at the look in his gaze, recoiling suddenly from his hand, which only served to grip her tighter. He wasn’t going to let her run from this conversation – he needed to know as much as she needed to be able to tell him the truth.

“Because it keeps me safe.” She admitted, shivering. “Because it makes people think twice, before facing me. Before trying to kill me. Their hesitation – it keeps me alive. And their anger, sometimes, too. It’s like I told Dugan: emotions don’t know your skill, and rage doesn’t care for your life. Before, when most SSR Agent’s sighted me, they were reacting with anger – not poise. I suspect if they hadn’t; I wouldn’t be alive.”

“That’s not anyway to live, Aria.”

“It’s a way to survive, krasivvy.” She sighed deeply. “I haven’t had the luxury of living without it.”

“You will with me.” He sounded so sure, and Aria wanted desperate to believe him. Wanted to always know that she’d be safe whilst he was here, that he would keep her safe forever. But the aspects of their lives, and everything around them were so far out of their control.

On this one night, on Christmas though, she could let it be true. Smiling in acceptance, she squeezed his hand, feeling him lightly squeeze back with as much reassurance as he could muster. She let herself carry that small embrace for the rest of the night, tucking it against her heart as though it was armour that could protect her. Even though she knew it wouldn’t.

Notes:

CW - discussion of past sexual abuse

Chapter 22

May 31st, 1944: Evening

In the months that followed, Captain America and his Howling commandos struck HYDRA strongholds in Belgium, Czechoslovakia, and the Danish Straits – each mission a resounding success. Aria had heard whispers of Schmidt’s growing fury in the shadows. When she had shared the news with Colonel Phillips, she was sure that it was the first time that the older man had ever smiled at her. She startled upon first seeing it – and had looked to Peggy and Howard for reassurance.

With the passing of the months so too came the passing of time. Having elected not to continue bleaching her hair blonde; faded platinum locks now mixed with the growing red strands sprouting from the crown of her head. Bucky had mourned the loss of her blonde hair, but Aria had noticed he’d secretly taken note of the shade of red, remarking on more than one occasion that it suited her more than he suspected it would.

Phillips, of course, was not the only man in the SSR who was learning to work alongside Aria’s particular set of skills and personality. Aria had been pleased to learn that she and Steve had managed to find ways to work together on missions, despite their largely different skill sets.

Their first test together had come in March. HYDRA spies had managed to infiltrate the SSR and steal vital documents, it had been the two of them that were tasked with the retrieval. Phillips had been the one to deliver the news – Peggy, who’d fought them head on, was being treated by Alma for a concussion, but it didn’t stop the fiery woman from sitting in and offering her expertise. Aria hadn’t listened for long, remarking to both of them that time was of the essence with such a brazen attack. Steve hung around for a moment, likely, she suspected, asking what the documents contained. The answer to that question wasn’t of importance to her. She’d find out later.

Steve had disappeared atop of his motorcycle in the immediate aftermath of their orders. But Aria wasn’t dressed for a motorcycle ride – heels, skirt and blouse all making her frown with the very thought of clambering on the back of Steve’s bike. Instead, Aria thought logically – with all that she knew of HYDRA and their technology, she knew that it was unlikely they would escape in any other way besides a submarine. It was with this knowledge that she was sprinting through the city streets of London in stiletto heels, ignoring the feeling of knives pinching her toes every time her feet hit the ground.

She had arrived mere seconds after the vehicle, and its occupants, had escaped into the bowels of London’s Underground system. Steve had already entered the building, and she followed suit – now taking care to remove her shoes which would only cause knowledge of her location with her clicking heels.

As she walked deeper, she noticed that the HYDRA Agent – a blonde German man that she didn’t recognise, had taken a little boy hostage. Steve was watching the situation, shield raised in front of his body, a deep frown settling on his face as he rapidly churned through strategies on what to do. Evidently, he hadn’t seen or heard her entry – and given that she was now married to the shadows as though she were one herself, she doubted he would see her scaling the column that would give her leverage to descend from above.

Keeping her eyes on the boy – a little blonde child, scarcely half the man’s height, who was shaking like a leaf, Aria refused to be distracted by his commentary, even as Steve himself began to speak in response.

“High marks for showmanship, but you still get a fail grade, Yankee Doodle.” The heavy German accent accompanying the man made the terminology sound strange. Aria suddenly understood why she had been beaten senseless until she had perfected the American accent. “You will let me walk out of here with those files. That’s the only way that this lad ever walks again.”

Aria narrowed her eyes, looking for an opening. She needed to wait until the man moved the gun away from the child’s head – she couldn’t risk him accidently pulling the trigger when her weight landed on him. If it fired upon Steve, he was smart enough to block the blow with his shield and ensure that it ricocheted away from the others watching the unfolding scene in the makeshift bomb shelter. As it was, there were hundreds standing around, all sheltering from the London Blitz. Men, women and children alike, all of whom wanted to survive. Aria knew the feeling well.

“Are we, as they say, seeing eye to eye?”

“I’ll tell you what I see.” Steve responded, shifting so that the shield was no longer covering his chest. He looked strong and proud in the armour Howard had fitted for him, all of the colours and symbols of the man that he had become – first in a lab, then through Hollywood, and now; the Captain America who was sending HYDRA running. Momentarily, a rush of pride and sadness flashed through her, even as the mission remained at the forefront of her mind. Erskine deserved to see this, but that wasn’t possible now.

“I see a scared, desperate man who’s playing his last card instead of his best one. Maybe you’ll get away, for now. But I know a woman who will never stop hunting you. One that lives in the shadows. She, and the millions like her, who saw a need in this world and changed.”

He was talking about her; she realised with a start.

Aria had realised their relationship had grown in the past few months, from one of mutual connection to Bucky – to one of avid respect for the other’s talents. But Aria knew from experience that it was not what people said to your face that mattered – it was what they thought of you when they believed you were not there. When they thought you weren’t listening. Steve had no way of knowing that he was present, and yet here he was, trusting her ability and her skills wholeheartedly.

She almost smiled then, but the mission remained paramount. She could feel her muscles bunching, tense with the weight of supporting her body.

“You and your HYDRA buddies, you’re not just facing me in this war. You’re facing her – and everyone like her. People who believe in an ideal, people who believe that everyone deserves to be free. And you cannot kill an idea with bullets or smother it with bombs.” Steve continued.

Aria saw the moment it happened – the moment that the sweat on the HYDRA Agent’s brow turned from sweat of fear to infuriation, where he decided that it was in his best interests to take his shot at the man – at the symbol who was destroying HYDRA. The moment the gun moved away from the forehead of the child; Aria’s fingertips released their grip against the concrete. She felt herself fly through the air; but she’d long learned how to be precise with her body. Legs landing around the HYDRA Agent’s neck, she drew him off balance and slammed to the ground – hard enough to knock him out, but not hard enough to kill him. Steve had wrapped the kid in a tight embrace, protecting him with his body before Aria had noticed he was missing from her view, attention wrapped on simultaneously tearing the cyanide pill from his teeth whilst also ensuring that she had the SSR documents safely secured in her waiting grasp.

After recognising that the scene was clear of hostiles, Steve had turned to her abruptly. She’d been startled for a moment as he’d told her plainly; “I had the situation handled.”

It took her a while to understand that he was joking with her. “I handled it better,” she replied with, “and faster.”

That was the first day that she understood she’d made friends within the SSR, beyond her relationship with Bucky. There was Alma and Betty – the latter of whom was electing to ignore Aria’s anger with her, a fact Aria largely respected her for. There was also Peggy and Howard, though Howard’s visits to the SSR were far and few in-between as he saw himself working on a project for the American’s – the Manhattan Project, though Aria suspected she wasn’t meant to know what it was called. She was curious of it, of course, but she didn’t overtly snoop into the files, figuring that the information would come to her naturally over the course of the war.

Even the Howling Commando’s had become her friends, in a way. Being in a team had a way of doing that – even if Aria still hadn’t completely found herself comfortable with the idea of working with others. She had to admit that their missions in Czechoslovakia and Belgium had been successful, even if Aria spent half of her time checking over her shoulder for Schmidt to appear and take from her the small slice of happiness, she’d managed to acquire.

She’d yelled at Bucky too, for the first time in one of those missions. When she’d noticed that targets around her were dropping at a rate faster than the targets around the other Howling Commando’s. Pulling him aside after the mission, she was adamant in reminding him that their relationship couldn’t interfere with the war.

“If you cannot separate your feelings for me, from the heat of the battle – this isn’t going to work. I don’t need you to coddle me, Barnes. I know what I am doing.”

Bucky had only grinned – because she’d called it a relationship.

Now, in May; Bucky and Aria had both been left behind from the latest Howling Commandos mission, and Bucky had determined it was the perfect opportunity to take Aria on a stereotypical American date.

It was how she found herself, seated across the table from him at the Whip and Fiddle Bar, drink in her hand, listening intently as he described for her his life amongst his sisters with joy. The bar was stereotypically lively – a piano player tapping away at keys, releasing upbeat tunes into the atmosphere, the sticky feeling of beer beneath her fingers, the bustling crowd that frequented such a place despite the horrors that were ongoing around them. Even by the bar, men were drinking alongside women they were sweet on, occasionally checking their watches and keeping their eyes squarely within the bar, and not on the horrors which laid outside those doors.

Bucky had convinced her to dance earlier in the night along to song she now knew to be Easy Living; a Billie Holiday classic, he had called it. She’d loathe to admit it out loud, but swaying with her body in his arms whilst the tune attested the simplicity of life alongside a partner in love felt like the crux of her entire life. She was sure that this was the happiest she’d ever been, and though it frightened her, she told him as much when she sat down.

He'd looked at her seriously, then – her Bucky; framed perfectly against the dim light of the bar. Squeezing her hand, in broken Russian, but Russian all the same, he remarked: “Ya tebya lyublyu.”

Her skin flushed warm at the first utterance of that phrase; her cheeks still rosy as the darkness grew around them.

She was content to remain in that silence until the pair stumbled their way back into the SSR – and they had begun to make their exit when the first pierce of warning sliced through the night air.

A siren; though, given the German’s insistence on bombing London, the patrons of the bar didn’t react with audible fear. Maybe a mistimed cue against the melody of the song, but it wasn’t until the clearer sounds of screams outside – and anti-aircraft machinery whirring to life in the distance, that Aria recognised the problem was closer than the patrons of the bar had expected.

She grabbed his hand before he had even realised what was going on – Bucky spilling his beer as she began pulling him towards the exit in her single-minded focus. She heard him mutter an expletive under his breath, before a new siren tore through the sounds of the bar; this one closer, and more desperate. If the first had been a warning – this was a death knoll.

Around them, the bar exploded into chaos. Aria barely had time to shove Bucky clear of the doorway before she was overrun The final notes of a piano reverberated in the chaos as patrons of the once lively bar now flew towards the doors in fear. Tables and chairs were being overturned in peoples desperate haste to exit the building, bartenders climbing over the tops of bars to escape their possible prisons. A general sense of terror filled the air, and not for the first time, Aria could admit that she was glad of her training. Fear was secondary to action – and the only action she needed to take right now was ensuring that Bucky was safe.

This wasn’t like the time she had run after Steve, desperate to retrieve those documents. This was a real danger – a danger that presented a threat to herself and to Bucky. The ground lurched suddenly as the first explosion rippled down the street. She couldn’t help but watch in awestruck horror as glass cascaded from the tops of the buildings, light catching against the fire started by the weaponry. Heat licked at her exposed skin as her ears rang with the noise of the blast – and the increased noise of screaming filling the open night air. This time, it was Bucky who tugged on her hand, urging her further down the street until he managed to pry open a hidden bunker, designated for SSR workers. Large enough to fit two people comfortable, he held it open as Aria slip inside, and allowed it to slam shut behind him, ensuring that it locked before he turned to face her again.

Aria’s breathing was ragged as she fought to process the evening – how it had gone wrong so quickly. Her hands flew up her sides, desperate to claw off any of her clothing that wasn’t immediately necessary. Her oversized coat went first, followed next by her shoes as she used her hands to rub soothing patterns up and down her sides, gentle pressure against pulse points reminding her that she was safe, and alive. Bucky aided in the endeavour; settling beside her as he began to rub elongated circles around her back.

The contact awoke a beast within her. Faster than her thoughts could process, she turned to him, lips hungrily meeting his own as she kissed him. Driven purely by her survival instincts, her body reacted in turn; straddling him before she could stop to think about their actions. She found though, that even in thinking about them, she didn’t care. She wanted him.

He grunted against her, pulling away for a moment as he searched her gaze imploringly. “Aria…”

Bucky’s grip tightened on her waist, hesitation flickering across his face before he pulled her closer. She knew he’d seen her like this before – her need to feel something to ground herself in his touch, rather than her fear. But this was different to that. Sex was a way that she remained tethered to the world around her, a reminder that she was alive to experience the full spectrum of human emotion, of pain and of pleasure. If she grounded herself in moments on mission through the touch of fabric or the feeling of another’s skin against her own, sex was almost simply another version of that. Being with Bucky was her victory cry – her rally against the forces that constantly tried to tear their apart that they hadn’t yet won the day. She was alive, and she deserved to feel – though, she was still working through the second half of that.

“Shh…” she finally hushed him, pecking either side of his lips. She watched him shiver at the action – gooseflesh rising across the ridges of the arms. Despite his hesitation, he held her close to his chest; clutching her like a lifeline. She knew he wanted to ask more – but he wouldn’t. He knew her too well to ask anything at all, so she answered his unspoken question for him. “We’re alive, James.”

It was all she needed to say. Suddenly, his attention returned to her lips; pecking either side just as she had done to him only mere moments prior, before they pressed against one another. If this was how she needed, to prove that she was alive, he would gladly acquiesce to her wishes Tasting her, exploring with the languidness of his tongue, Aria barely noticed as one of his hands left the comfort of her skin to undo his belt buckle. She was momentarily surprised when his cock came free of its cage; a shivered in turn, when that same hand returned to her skin – only this time it pulled at the undergarments beneath her skirts. This wasn’t to be the sex they’d had before – the gentle worshipping of their bodies over promises and kisses to forever. There would be no lounging naked in shared bliss, there would only be the brutal, primal joining to remind them that they lived.

His breath hitched as her body lightly brushed against his hardening member. She felt his fingers clutching at the clothing on her back as a strangled gasp flew free. This was her coping mechanism, but it seemed he was intent on enjoying himself. He was becoming utterly lost in her, just as she had already lost herself in him.

Aria didn’t hesitate as she spat on her hand, wiping that same slick up and down the length of him. Not once did she drop his gaze, watching his eyes roll back with ecstasy at the action. She continued shifting her weight against him, grinding, desperate to quell the keening ache in her core. Sensing her desperation; she felt his fingers drop lower until they teased her folds, tentatively brushing the sensitive nub at her peak. She moaned into their shared kiss, lifting her hips higher to make it easier for him.

He slipped in easily, as though he had been made especially for her. Reluctantly pulling away from his lips for the moment, she found herself looking down – they were both still relatively clothes, considering the circumstances. His pants had found their way to his ankles, her skirts hitched high against her hips with her panties discarded long ago. It was sinful, the heat that had been shared between them, the way that they both chased their end with the other in mind.

James hadn’t given her a moment to accommodate to his size, but she was almost glad of it as his hips began snapping up into her. Impossibly deep, impossibly full, she cried out into his shoulder, quivering as he drew her closer to her edge with his movements alone. She felt him nip against her ear – teasing, but somehow full of such love and affection.

“Aria, I…”

“It’s okay.” She whispered, angling her head to pepper kisses against his jawline in her own affirmations of love. “I trust you.”

He shivered against her; but she felt his fingers find the pulse against her legs again, this time with renewed fever. Stubborn man – he wasn’t going to let himself experience this pleasure without her. The snapping of his hips and the circles her rubbed against her clit were achieving their desired purpose; and she all but collapsed against him as her end built up, hot and desperate very near.

“Come on, Aria.” He whispered, his own voice tight with his pending release. “Let go for me.”

She did, feeling her walls quake and flutter against him. Quicker than she could recognise, she also felt the second he used the strength of his biceps to lift her up, his own release spilling against her thighs as he pumped himself, grunting and moaning. She was glad that he was holding her upright – her arms felt like they had been sucked of energy, and she had no strength left to call upon in her body. When he finally set her down, she found the only thing she wanted to do was tuck herself against his arms. She was glad when he didn’t move to deny her, only wrapping his arms around her body and pulling her close. Content for now, to ignore the sticky mess between her thighs, she felt her eyelids drooping closed as she curled into the crook of his next, spent and content.

Notes:

getting closer to the inevitable here, folks. we are well and truely in the calm before the storm (or snow, i guess)

Chapter 23

September 23rd, 1944: Evening

The base was quieter without her in it.

Overall, of course, it remained the same. The general hustle and bustle of the SSR, the intelligence that they gathered regarding HYDRA and the way that they utilised that information did not change much without the presence of Aria. Bucky knew that. But the colours around him almost seemed duller, the sounds sharper in pitch and harsh in their tone. He knew that he was missing her in the halls – not her quiet laughter, that was reserved for him, in his rooms when she found her way there. But he missed her stoic presence, her sharp wit, her intense gaze and resounding understanding of everyone around her. She was quick with her quips, and even quicker with the punches she threw when she trained – reminding him that she was a trained killer, even if it was a fact that he sometimes fought to forget.

He loved her – he wouldn’t deny that to himself, or her, if she asked. But it didn’t stop him from questioning sometimes why he loved a woman that had done such horrible things. A woman who had such horrible things done to her, in turn. What did it say of him?

“Don’t think too hard.” Steve’s voice startled him from his thoughts, against his bed. “Remember, you took all the stupid with you – you’ll probably self-destruct if you keep going like that.”

“Yeah, well – I’m not the one who did something stupid.” Bucky quipped in turn, though in reality, he thought that Steve had made nothing but the correct decisions since he’d left him to join the war effort in 1943. It was Bucky that was the one questioning his path now. Not his friend.

Steve settled beside him, body sinking into the brown leather couch. As much as he’d come to know Steve in this new body over the past year, Bucky still struggled sometimes, to reconcile this man with the young boy from Brooklyn who had always stood up for others. It was just what he was doing now, only on a larger scale. He’d seen for himself, through action, how Steve’s muscles had grown, the strength that he now possessed and the brain that now was dedicated to nothing other than battle strategies and techniques. He was the only one in their small regiment that had been able to consistently take down Aria in training – though Bucky often noticed that Steve was breathing heavy after every fight. She had a way of manoeuvring her body, getting under his skin, using his strength and speed against him. It hurt his head to think about – the pain and trauma that had made her into who she was. He would do anything to take it from her.

But then she wouldn’t be Aria, anymore. She’d probably still be Isla – stuck with HYDRA, destined to be given to Johann Schmidt as a gift for winning the war.

“What’s on your mind?” Steve gently asked when it became clear that Bucky was wallowing in his own thoughts.

“Just…” Bucky twiddled with his thumbs, searching for the words. “Where do we go from here? When the war is over – does she come back to the US? Does she want to go home to Europe?”

Steve didn’t bother to ask him who he was speaking about. “Have you asked her?” He responded evenly.

“I can’t ask her to stop.” Bucky shook his head, rapidly, hair falling over his eyes. It wasn’t the question Steve was posing, but he knew it was the correct answer. “I can’t ask her to stop being who she is – what they made her to be; even if I don’t like it.”

“You are overthinking things.” Steve shook his head, patting his oldest friend on the back. “You do like her, or quite honestly, you’d probably be dead. She’s too perceptive to be with a man who isn’t interested in her.”

“You didn’t see her, when the bombs fell on the Whip and Fiddle. The way that she looked, when the street was on fire, and the glass was shattering, and everyone was running scared. The look in her eyes, when she turned – they were sparkling, she was unyielding. It’s like... It’s like she was home, you know. It was breathtaking, but it was…”

“Terrifying?”

“I love her Steve.” He stated bluntly, not wanting his thoughts to be misconstrued. “But I don’t love everything about her.”

A heavy sigh left the Captain then, as he brought his hands in front of him to clasp. Together, they sat in silence, Bucky’s thoughts refusing to rest despite the general quiet of the room around them. They were alone, on the couch, in the rest room. He assumed that the other Howling Commandos had found a bar to terrorise, likely led by Dugan. Perhaps Gabe Jones was stealing a private moment away with Alma, and the other combat nurses. He seemed to enjoy spending time around all of them, even though his attention was squarely enraptured with his beloved.

When Aria had left this time, she’d known she would be gone for a while, and she hadn’t been able to tell him for how long. Instead, they’d spent the time that they’d had wrapped in the arms of one another, quiet and breathless pleas against their breaths and they chased comfort and release. She’d fallen asleep in his arms, bare skin cool to his touch, but warm where it pressed against his chest. And he had felt content, then. He’d felt content that morning too, when she’d dressed in her black suit, a red snake adorning either shoulder. He was content when she kissed his jaw, then the corner of his lips, and then his lips – before she pulled away, and whispered something in Russian that he hadn’t caught. She’d been smiling then, eyes twinkling, and so completely and utterly in love with him that he had decided it didn’t matter for him to understand in this moment. Then she had disappeared down the hallways of the SSR, off on her mission, and he’d watched her go, until she turned the corner and was no longer in his sights.

It had taken days for these thoughts to settle in his mind – but now that they were here, they were not so easy to discard. What if this time, she wasn’t coming back? Could he live like this? In this constant fear that she would disappear – whether by choice or otherwise? He would always worry about her, no matter how good she was.

And as much as he didn’t want to admit it, there were other thoughts there too. What was she doing, to get this information that they so desperately needed? She had defined their shared relationship herself – he hadn’t pushed her to do so, but it had come naturally to her. He wondered though, in her absence, if she was forced to return to using her body like a weapon, honing it to acquire much needed information. He wasn’t naïve. He knew what spies did, what Aria had done before. It was as much a tool within her arsenal as a gun was to him. But the thought of her in another man’s arms – even for a mission – made his stomach churn uncomfortably. It was irrational – but it was real. He’d never expressed his discomfort with it, however. Afraid of caging her, when she’d lived in a cage her entire life.

“You know more about her than I do.” Steve broke the silence. “I know she’s told you more about her past than she’s told anyone. I don’t think that’s easy for her to do, you know. Given her training.”

“She’s told me about her training.” Bucky confirmed shortly. Aria’s secrets were her own; even if he knew Steve was curious, he wouldn’t divulge them. Even though it would make some of her actions make sense – the way that she had reacted to Schmidt and Zola almost a year ago, the way that she still seemed to flinch every time they approached a HYDRA facility on a mission, as though she was expecting the Red Skull to snatch her away. On multiple occasions, he had caught her rubbing at her chest; the left side, straight above her heart. It pained his heart whenever he saw it, the idea that she was still suffering from events that had happened to her when she was a child. The fact that those events would never leave her, not completely. He would do anything to protect her from her own thoughts.

“Want to know what I think?”

Bucky waved his hand, urging him to continue.

“You’re scared.” Steve was blunt, and the harshness in his tone had Bucky turning away from his wringing hands and looking his friend in his eyes. The flecks of hazel against the blue stood out to him, even now. “You know what comes next, and you’re scared to admit it. Whether that’s because this isn’t the life that you imagined for yourself, or because you had this idea of a life with her, before you knew her, I don’t know – and I can’t answer that for you. But in reality, Buck, it doesn’t matter.”

“Of course it matters…” he attempted to interject, but Steve kept talking.

“You love her, don’t you?”

Bucky nodded his assent.

“She loves you. She loves you enough to defect from the only love she’s ever known – love in a dangerous sense, yes – but love all the same. She left all of it, not just for the war, but for you. She risked her life to save you, she defied the orders of multiple governments to save your life, knowing that it would put her own at risk.

“What if she decides, at the end of it all, that I’m not the one she wants. That she wants to go and experience her life – separate from me, the life that she never got to have, before she settles down?”

Again, Steve shook his head. “You know that she won’t. I don’t think ‘settling down’ is the right term to use here, because I’ve never seen either of you rest in the time that I’ve known you, but you know that she isn’t going to run away.”

“How can I know that?” His frustration was reaching a fever. He missed her – and missing her came with thinking about her, and thinking about her came with overthinking. He would only ever be Bucky Barnes – a member of the squad of the Howling Commandos, yes, but still just Bucky. She was an enigmatic figure, infamous amongst intelligence communities and revered among colleagues and foes alike. Every name she went by; whether it was her birth name, her chosen name; or that moniker, the Red Viper – it sent fear pulsing through adversaries. When she was gone, he felt her physical absence, who she was. But the longer she was away, the more that her name echoed in the halls, and she started to feel less like his, and more like she belonged to the world. He didn’t know if he could contain that. He didn’t want to contain her.

Steve looked at him wryly. “She keeps coming back, right? If she’s as good as they say she is, and I suspect she is, based on what I’ve seen here and in the field, she could simply run away, and start over elsewhere. I don’t understand her at all – nor do I think that I want to, but I know this is true. Aria keeps coming back for you, Barnes. So, what do you want to do next?”

“Marry her.”

He hadn’t expected to say that. His hands even paused in their movements as that thought rushed over him. He felt his eyes widening, his lips parting as the reality of the truth rushed over him. Steve, it seemed, was amused – and eyes twinkling, Bucky realised it was because his friend already knew what he wanted. He just needed to speak about it.

“I want to marry her.” He said again, this time confidently.

And he did. His fears came from the thoughts that she would not want this. That this would be containing her when she was meant to be great. That he would be resigning himself to a life of being the husband of the Red Viper – rather than James Buchanan Barnes. But he was his own person, and she deserved to love and be loved, regardless of what she could do. She would come home to him, because she loved him.

Steve reached into his pocket. Bucky was surprised when he pulled a notebook, and a pen clean from his pocket. Handing it to the man beside him, Steve explained: “Your mother always said you’d need some help when it came time to asking for a girl to marry you. I suspect she’ll want to know, want to hear it from you – before you ask Aria anything.”

Bucky clutched the paper tighter. Mulling the words over in his head, he nodded to Steve. “Thanks.”

Steve shook his head, clapping him on the back as he rose from the chair. “I’ll leave you to your stupid, then.”

***

Aria was tired.

It had been months since she’d left the SSR base in London – months since she’d known the comfort and warmth of another. Of course, in her search for information regarding her father’s whereabouts, the opportunity had presented itself more than once. But at every opportunity, she’d felt herself recoil somewhere in disgust, the idea of betraying Bucky in such a manner warring with her need to get the job done. It had meant that she’d been gone for longer – had meant, at times, that she’d gotten herself into far more danger searching for the information, than if she had just used her body to retrieve the knowledge. But refusing to so had kept her other skills sharp, and ensured that she was loyal to her relationship.

She was glad that it was nearly done. The file on the desk inside this building had been the last piece of the puzzle – the secret to decoding the missives transferred between Arnim Zola and Johann Schmidt. Just as her weakness had become love, it was also HYDRA’s – a flame of one of the soldiers holding in her hands the key to the encryption, simply so she could receive messages from her husband, long gone to the realities of war.

It was a luxury she hadn’t allowed herself for the same reason. Speaking with Bucky, however much she wanted to – however much she desperately craved his touch, would only have served to place her in danger, and likely, prevent her success. It had meant she’d gone months now without so much as hearing his voice, or feeling his skin, but she knew that every moment away was bringing her closer to their inevitable reunion.

Entering the building had been easy. Aria had spent months crafting this identity – Wilma Dunnell, a quiet, brown haired British woman who had moved to the suburbs of England following the repeated bombings of her home streets in London. Aria hadn’t needed to create an entirely fake story for this alias, preferring instead to describe the events of the Whip and Fiddle bar each time she was asked. She kept the end of that night with Bucky to herself – it was private, and solely hers, but the realities of the Blitz were not something she needed to lie about.

If anything, the fact that she was uncovering this information in the suburban streets of England was proof as to how much HYDRA had managed to grow throughout Europe. They spread themselves thin, like a weed – and though this woman who would ensure their downfall in this manner certainly wasn’t the worst of them, she was still a cog in the wheel. Loving HYDRA, in her mind, was almost as bad as being HYDRA. She struggled to see the difference.

It didn’t matter, she decided as she began climbing the staircase to the second floor. She needed this missive – this letter from a HYDRA soldier, likely unaware of the consequences of his actions. She needed it to decode the messages she’d intercepted from her father and learn his location. Only then could they find Zola – only then could they put a stop to the manufacturing of new weaponry for HYDRA. Only then, with his right-hand man gone, did they stand a chance at ending Schmidt, permanently. Then Aria could rest – because she would be safe.

She prayed, as her hand closed around the folder containing the letters, that everything she was saying remained true.

Notes:

chapter twenty-three! two months ago when i started this, i was worried i wouldn't make it past five :')

thank you for taking the time and sticking with this, it's been a really fun experience for me so i'm glad that it's providing others with joy as well.

(this sounds like it's nearly over - i swear it's like not even a quarter of the way through)

as always, comments questions and feedback are always appreciated <3

Chapter 24

January 8th, 1945: Dawn

Light was barely piercing through the night sky when Aria’s footsteps finally took her to the doors of the Strategic Scientific Reserve. She didn’t know when she had started referring to the building as her home, but she found as she stared at the brown door, waiting to be checked over by the various points of security – that it was her home.

She was bouncing on the balls of her feet with nervous anticipation, information clutched squarely in her grasp. It had been too dangerous to send what she had discovered over the airways; afraid of the information becoming entangled and interpreted much in the same way that she’d managed to find the tools to decode their missives in the first place. It had taken her a further two weeks since that day to ensure she wasn’t being followed on her way back to the SSR. HYDRA, of course, already knew where they were located, but hadn’t attempted to steal documents since their catastrophic failure in March the last year. But Aria was aware of the shifting political landscape of the world, and she suspected it was not just HYDRA who wanted to know the secrets that were contained within her place of work. The secrets that she could spill, if she was captured and interrogated within the right manner.

An untrained spy might allow themselves a moment of respite – a slight lean against the doorframe, to give themselves the strength to continue forward with the day. Aria did not give herself the satisfaction as she squared her shoulders. Despite her exhaustion, she found that she had no desire to rest: beyond these worn, wooden doors, she would find the smell of coffee, the distant hum of a radio, and excited chattering between friends bonded by war. Her first home had been cold, uninviting and clinical. This home would be warm and comforting, and she would be surrounded by men and women who truly cared about her existence. That in itself was more than had ever been available to her at HYDRA.

She shivered as the door to the facility finally opened, and she was greeted by the two guards. They relaxed upon seeing her waiting face – recognising her immediately, even though the roots of her red hair were far more prominent than they had been in the months since she’d left. She was glad that the blonde she’d clung to for safety in the early days of knowing Bucky could soon be sheared from her shoulders without sacrificing her preferred length of hair.

Aria entered the facility, flanked by one guard. The other, she presumed, had rushed away to find Phillips and Peggy, intent on getting the information to him as quickly as it had been acquired.

Such was the haste of the guarding soldier, that by the time Aria entered the war chambers, Phillips and Peggy were already waiting for her, the latter with a steaming cup of coffee grasped in her fingertips. She looked bleary eyed and clearly annoyed with the interruption of her sleep, but Aria did note with some pleasure that upon spotting her, her frown morphed into a smile.

Aria greeted it with one of her own, surprised when it sprung naturally to her lips. That was, however, the extent of her pleasantries, as she sank into the uncomfortable wooden chairs that surrounded the large, central table. Glancing over it, she was pleased to note that the map had been updated in her absence, now focusing solely on the very few remaining branches of HYDRA. Soon, they would be able to call their operation a resounding success. Capturing her father was going to aid in that greatly.

She launched into her explanation of the acquisition of information, skipping over the unnecessary details but adding that the alibi of Wilma Dunnell had been protected – and should be preserved in case of future use. By the time she’d spun her tale, taking careful note of the way that Peggy and Phillips reacted to the reason for her elongated departure from base, she realised that they’d been speaking of this for almost an hour. They were shifting from reconnaissance to planning.

“Steve should be involved in this discussion.” Peggy noted quietly, as she evidently realised that same thing.

Aria eyed the British spy dangerously. “Steve doesn’t learn about this until Bucky knows I’m home.” She warned evenly. She was already conceding by allowing herself to be pulled into this meeting before she spoke with him – felt him against her. She wouldn’t betray that by allowing his best friend to know before he did. Even if his best friend was integral to this conversation.

“The plans we are discussing require his…”

“And the plans we are discussing will not come to fruition until February – even if that is early February. We have weeks of planning to partake in, Agent 13. I have been away from this base for four months, and I am asking for a simple favour.” Aria interjected, but Peggy seemed unmoved, until Aria added her final word: “Please.”

For a long moment, the two most powerful women of the SSR stared at one another. Aria saw the moment that Peggy, however, relented in her stance – weight shifting from the tips of her toes to the balls of her feet as she relaxed against the idea. Turning back to Phillips, the Brit shrugged her shoulders, remarking: “February 1st does seem like the ideal time to strike.”

Aria nodded, reaching over the table to point at the map. “Zola will travel through the Central Eastern Alps, alongside the Danube River. The snow should provide enough cover for a small extraction team to zip-line across and enter the moving train before they are noticed. If one team fights through the train as a distraction – and a separate, smaller team, makes their way across the top – it should be enough of a distraction that Zola will not see it coming.”

“They won’t have cameras on the tops of the train?” Phillips grunted, though he didn’t seem opposed to the plan overall.

“They’re too scrambled.” Aria shook her head. “Even if they do – they won’t think to check them when the threat of Captain America is barrelling down the centrefold. My father is a brilliant man; but he fears physical violence. He is a scholar, not a warrior.”

“Even so – a smaller group should keep watch from the mountainside. Just in case.” Peggy noted. Aria narrowed her eyes as the absence of Howard Stark became known to her. She’d of course noticed that he hadn’t been called into the meeting, merely assumed that he would make an appearance halfway through, as he typically enjoyed. But he was truly gone; likely, she suspected, in New Mexico with other scientists, coming ever closer to the realisation of years of work that would change the world forever.

“You’re right, of course.” Aria acknowledged, gently moving a few of the spare pieces on the map to make her point. “A small group on the hill, a small group within the walls of the train itself – led by Steve – and a group; even one person, running along the top to capture Zola when he least suspects it.”

“It can’t be you.” Phillips muttered.

She blinked, squaring her shoulders indignantly as the words washed over her. “Why ever not?”

“Because he’s your…”

“I don’t recognise him as such.” She bluntly interjected – though she knew that wasn’t entirely the truth. Pride prevented her from admitting that, however, as she stared defiantly at the Colonel.

“What you choose to recognise, and the realities of your birth are not mutually exclusive, Isla Zola,” Phillips continued, and Aria felt a snarl leave her lips as the utterance of a name she hadn’t heard directed towards herself in over a year, “You are still that man’s child, and it makes you a liability no matter how many times you have proven your trust.”

The wooden marker Aria had been holding in her hands splintered in the force of her grip as she momentarily debated the benefits of severely injuring the man in front of her. She’d likely be on the run for the rest of her life, and it would mean she’s never see Bucky again, but for a second, the thought of his pain had seemed like a relatively even trade.

“Leave the team to Steve then, Phillips.” Carter soothed the flaring tempers within the room. “He knows the team better than we do, and he will choose the best for the task.”

Aria’s mouth twitched as Phillip’s scathing retort died on his tongue, and he instead nodded to the wisdom present within the other woman’s argument. Aria bit her own lip hard too, to prevent an unnecessary comment that would only serve to once again heighten hostilities. It was not that she didn’t respect the Colonel – he was an incredibly intelligent man, and his efforts towards the war effort, especially within the SSR, were likely half the reason that they were as well off as they were. But Colonel Phillips was a soldier first and foremost, which meant that he fundamentally did not understand Aria, and the way that she operated. She was unused to being told she could not – and Phillips was unused to soldiers denying their direct orders. It often led to situations like this, where Peggy was forced to interject.

Or Howard. It was a strange feeling, to realise that she missed the eccentric businessman. She desperately wanted to know which women he had managed to bed in the previous few months. How they’d taken the news that he wasn’t planning on spending the rest of his life with them, through the deliverance of a diamond bracelet. When he’d first told Aria and Bucky of the nature of their dismissals, Aria had giggled with amusement. Barnes, on the other hand, had looked utterly horrified. He’d even as much as tried to offer Howard tips on letting women down gently, but the businessman had blushed and said that the mornings were not his strong suit. The conversation had been left there.

Aria stood suddenly, her wooden chair scraping against the tiled ground. “Will that be all?”

It was the politest thing she could think of to say, even if she didn’t wait for a response before, she strode from the room, doors slamming open and closed in her wake. They had kept her from Bucky for long enough – and she had a feeling that the meeting no longer required her presence.

She was walking down the hallway to start, but she found that it was taking her too long. The hallways were almost paradoxical in nature – she knew that she was moving along it, but every step felt like it was taking her further away from her intended destination. She suspected she looked a mess – she’d travelled all night in order to make it to the base by dawn, and she had done so in regular civilian clothing, despite the danger that came alongside wearing such limited armour. But she was desperate to come home, to come home and see his face.

By the time she rounded the corner into the section of the SSR which contained the personal quarters of all active servicemen, she was practically sprinting. Heels clacking against the tiled ground, she slid to a halt in front of his door, heels almost slipping given their lack of grip. She’d been ready to raise her hand in a knock when the door swung open, and the man of her thoughts pulled her inside without a second thought, the door slamming closed behind them.

For a minute, they just looked at each other. Aria took note of the length of his hair first, noticing that in the months she had been grown, it had grown an inch or two. She wondered if he was doing the same, noticing the red of her head now that it stood prominently against her skin. She trailed her eyes across his body, instinctively searching for injuries, but catching herself staring instead at the pulsing of his muscles, the veins that ran across his wrists and up his arms. By the time she made it back to his eyes, she noticed that they were already darkened with lust.

“Hello.” She whispered, because she didn’t know what else to say.

“Hello.” He responded evenly, a cheeky, lazy smile appearing across his face. She felt her knees wobble with the care within them. “Aria, there’s something I want to…” He hesitated, as if he wanted to get it exactly right. “There’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while, and I…”

“Shh…” She hushed him, standing on her toes to place a kiss to his lips. “Talk later – need you now.”

He didn’t need to be asked twice. Nodding as though reassuring himself, she felt his fingers trailing down the front of her chest as he began to work through the buttons keeping her chest from him. She giggled at the ticklish feeling of his skin lightly brushing her own, their breaths intermingling as Aria found herself playing with the drawstring of his pants. When she felt cool air pressing over her stomach; a surefire sign that Barnes had succeeded in his quest to rid her of her bothersome top layer, she used her hands to pull down his pants and undergarments.

Her eyes gleamed as his glistening length came into the forefront of her vision, but before she dedicated her attention to it completely, she turned her head up to look at his face.

With as much seriousness as she had ever mustered, she stared into his eyes. “I love you, Bucky.”

She watched his reaction – the way that his cheeks creased in a smile, the way that his eyes welled with tears at the simpleness of the statement. It was, perhaps, the only thing in this world that she knew to be true, without an ounce of uncertainty. She loved him beyond all else.

He traced her face, dropping the grip that he’d kept on her clothes, and allowing them to spill to the floor. “I missed you.” He answered simply, as though it explained everything.

For a moment, there was no sound in the room other than the shared echo of their laboured breathing. She found herself utterly lost within him, and the feeling of him against her. He made her whole – he made her feel things that she had only ever heard described in film, or in comics. Things she never believed that she would experience.

When he kissed her again, she shivered violently with the feeling of it all. Matching her desperation – not from lust, but from devoted love, she felt the moment that he unclasped her bra, felt the moment that his hands came to cup at her breasts without ever losing the attention that her lips had against his mouth. She whimpered when he pulled away from the kiss – and her whimpers grew louder when he replaced his hands with the pull of his teeth, and the sloppy ministrations of his tongue against the nipple. Still fully clothed below her stomach, she was desperate for any kind of friction, anything that he could give her.

He trailed his mouth lower then, and she felt the second that the peaks of her nipples met the cool morning air. Bucky didn’t waste his time as he pressed lips to her stomach and used his fingers to pull down her pants. Instead of remaining upright at the movement, she met him on the floor, so that they were both kneeling together. With her pants discarded, the only clothing remaining between them was Bucky’s top, and she made quick work of throwing it from his body, delighting when it messed up his hair after passing over his head.

For another moment, they stopped, taking each other in. She allowed herself the pleasure of gazing up and down his body, allowed herself the joy of watching the way that his muscles rippled in anticipation, the way that his cock twitched against his stomach as it prepared itself for what it would soon experience.

She found that she didn’t want to wait through the foreplay. She knew he could touch her and bring her to endless orgasm over and over again, with his fingers, with his tongue – God, he had done it once before by simply allowing her the opportunity to grind against his muscular thigh. But she didn’t want any of that now. She wanted to feel him inside of her, to know that they were connected in the most intimate way.

Gently, she felt him push against her. So many times before, when they’d slept together, she had been the one to climb atop of him, to chase their shared release as she would lift and lower herself against him in tune to the grunts and moans that would both escape them. This time, she allowed her skin to touch the bare floor, shivering in anticipation as the cold leeched into her skin.

She wasn’t cold for long, especially not when she felt him pressing at her entrance. A simple kiss to her forehead later, and he was pushing inside. She quivered and moaned, unwilling to silence herself in the expressions of her love, and he met her in tune, grunting with the feeling of her walls enveloping him. Closing around him, pulling him tighter against her. Slowly, gently, he pressed deeper inside, until he was fully sheathed, and Aria knew no matter how she moved, she would feel the way that he filled her so wholly. Perfectly.

Tears sprung to her eyes at the beauty of it all, but she did not allow them to fall as her eyelids pressed closed.

“I want to see you.” Bucky murmured when he noticed they were closed. “I want to see all of you.”

When her green eyes opened again, they were met with his own, blue and vibrant and otherworldly. They shared in that connection, that shared look for the rest of the morning, even as Bucky’s hips began to move against her core, and his fingers cascaded down her body – one placed behind her head to hold himself upright over her body, the other finding her most sensitive spot. When she came around him, she would swear for the rest of her life that it was the greatest pleasure she’d ever felt – and when he came inside of her, with a resounding roar against her chest, she found herself drifting with a gentle smile against her face.

***

Sometime later, Aria had awoken from where she had dozed against his arms. It was the middle of the day, but he felt no urgency to move, knowing that she was back where she belonged. That she had returned to him, just as she had promised that she would. In his bedside table, he knew that the box containing the encompassment of their love sat – a gift from his mother, sent across the ocean when he had first written to her with knowledge of decision. Winnifred Barnes had responded only with avid joy, repeating her earlier assertion that she wanted desperately to meet the woman who had captured her sons heart. Bucky, writing back, had promised she would after the war.

Aria had interrupted his proposal in her haste to feel him against her, and after months without her, he found himself desperate to oblige her wishes. He had missed her too. He had missed the feeling of her against him, the way she seemed to fit so perfectly in the crook of his neck. The little kisses that she constantly peppered against his jaw were her own brand of affection, one that made his heart swell and pump just that little bit faster. He loved her, and he wanted her to know that.

He'd been about to ask then, about to finalise his decision to be with her forever, when she spoke.

“We’re ready to move on Zola.”

Any question that Bucky had been about to ask her died in his throat. Peering down, he noticed her conflicting expression – her fury, her distress, everything warring together within her to create discontent. He’d never known her to wear an expression like that, never known her to be so unsure of anything that she did. But this was her father. Her father who had sold her to Schmidt in a way, who had allowed his daughter to become a monstrous thing, and have monstrous things done onto her in the pursuit of science. It was the same man who had experimented on him – thought Bucky was glad that he couldn’t entirely remember the extent of it.

She’d never asked him. He suspected, because she was terrified of the knowledge that her father had hurt him. He wouldn’t have told her the truth, if she’d asked. He didn’t want to hurt her – but she would have been able to tell that he was lying. He suspected that was why she didn’t ask: she’d known the truth whether he wanted her to know, or not. It was something that was better left unsaid.

“That was the information I received. First – it was about finally decoding HYDRA’s radio communications. They branched away from the German’s after they attacked them in Azzano, and I never learned their updated encoding as I wasn’t present within the base at that time. It took me a few months to find a weak spot. I didn’t…” She hesitated then, as though she unsure, before he watched the walls rebuild in her head as she steeled herself against the statement she wanted to make. “I didn’t want to sleep with anyone, to get the information. It felt like I was betraying you, in a way. And I knew I could get it elsewhere. It just meant that it took longer.”

Bucky pressed his lips to her forehead then. A gentle thank you, as he realised that his worries about her over the past few months were unfounded. She had felt the same way, and more importantly she had known how he would feel about it and relented. Even though it had kept her from him for longer, even though he suspected it added an element of danger that wouldn’t have presented itself in her other options, she had done it for him, and he was grateful for her.

“I…” She hesitated to speak again, and Bucky felt himself rubbing his hands across her stomach soothingly before he even recognised he’d started the action. “Phillips doesn’t want me to go. On the mission, to retrieve him.”

“Maybe he’s right.”

“But isn’t it my responsibility?” She asked him then, and he heard the quiet ache in her voice as she wondered. “He’s my father.”

“None of this is your fault, Aria.” He warned her quietly. “You were a victim in all of this. No one expects you to fix it.”

“But I’ve done such horrible things…” She trailed off, shifting against him uncomfortably. For a brief moment, Bucky wondered if she was ever going to be prepared to allow herself to be truly happy.

“You have.” He responded evenly, knowing that she wouldn’t appreciate him lying to her face. “But they were not your choice. You were a weapon to be wielded, at fear of your life – and I for one don’t regret the things that you’ve had to do. They’ve led you to here, to now – and we are winning this war because of the decisions you’ve made, the defection that was your choice. You have changed this war for the better, Aria Davis. Allowing others to capture your father, it doesn’t mean that you’re giving up. You’re just recognising that this might require a different skill set. Someone who is…”

“Less involved.” She finished, as though she’d come to the same conclusion. He hummed his agreement.

She continued shifting against him, and he knew that she was uncomfortable. But she didn’t speak of it again, seemingly content with the words that he had given her. And by the time that he heard the soft heaviness of her uneven breath in sleep, he knew that the time to propose would come after Zola.

Soon, would ask her to be his wife. But they would deal with her father first.

Notes:

deep breaths everyone...

(apologies for the re-upload. it's the same chapter, the formatting just looked strange on my end!)

Chapter 25

February 1st, 1945: Night

On the 31st of January, Captain America and the Howling Commandos – including James Buchanan Barnes, had left enroute to their mission in the Eastern Alps. Aria’s work decoding the radio signals of HYDRA transmissions had proved pivotal, once again, as they managed to confirm Zola’s date of travel. The mission had been agonised over; not only by Steve, but with Aria’s scrutinising gaze too. She had been utterly determined that everything on this day would go exactly right, especially since both Steve and Bucky had joined together in convincing her that they had this handled without her help.

She suspected they were trying to save her from the pain of having to capture her own father. It was kind of them, but she wasn’t ready to admit that it was exactly what she needed.

Regardless, she had awoken early on that morning to see them off. She was awake anyway – Barnes dressing in the room that she was now prepared to admit that they shared had ensured that. She had watched with bated breath as he had tied every loose string of his clothing, until she had finally come to rue the distance between them. It was Aria that had tightened the final two buckles against his jacket, smoothing over the fabric and squeezing his muscles as she went. If only to reassure herself.

When they’d departed, she’d thrown a cheeky salute in Steve’s direction, as well. He had chuckled at her – given that she’d never once acknowledged his authority in such a manner before, and she had laughed alongside him. Bucky had winked at her too, and it had sent heat rushing to her core despite the gravity of the moment. She had smiled – genuinely smiled at every member of the Howling Commandos as she wished them farewell, but not luck. Luck, she had told Jones drunk one evening, had no place on a battlefield. It was skill that would determine if you returned home. Not luck.

Then, as quickly as they had been in the base, they were gone, and the SSR felt all the quieter without them.

Betty and Alma had flocked to her then, like mother hens searching for their young chick. She suspected that Steve had asked them to keep an eye on her, in his absence, and in the reality of what they were about to attempt over the coming day. He needn’t have asked – she was going to be fine. There was no reason, with the attention to detail and the planning that they’d undertaken, for anything to go wrong on this mission. It would be a simple catch and recover, where she would finally be face to face with her father after absconding from HYDRA in such dramatic fashion years prior.

That, Aria could admit, she was nervous for.

It seemed that they had even convinced Howard to return from his time in New Mexico, to watch over her. It made her feel coddled in a way that she’d never felt before, overwhelmed too. She was almost certain that this was what they had been trying to avoid, and it was learned politeness that had her forcing herself through the motions of socialising, until it became too grating against her wider senses.

She had managed to make it through the last day of January with this in mind. She had gossiped with the combat nurses, harmlessly flirted with Howard Stark, and taken dinner in the mess hall with Peggy – the only one of all who had accompanied her throughout the day that understood she would have preferred silence. It was why she’d remained with Peggy even when the general hustle and bustle of the mess hall quietened, and they remained the only pair there. The silence in the room was the only thing that allowed her the peace to carefully work through her thoughts and emotions.

It had gotten easier, learning to live without the boundaries that had been imposed upon her. But it still took time, to work through the bigger emotions that she had seldom experienced in her life before. Capturing her father – her partner being heavily involved in that, and being left behind, it was dredging some heavy emotions from the depths of her psyche. She needed time to work through them, and Peggy’s silence helped her achieve that.

Only once had it been broken, as Peggy’s eyes narrowed against a term she’d noticed in an intercepted missive. She’d passed the note to Aria with scarcely a seconds’ thought, Aria glancing down at the words with a frown.

“Do you know what this is?”

Aria wondered how much she could reveal, without spilling all of her secrets. It took her a moment to find her words. “Schmidt is looking for a bride – you can’t read it, because it’s encoded in Russian.”

Peggy shivered. “I can’t imagine that would be a happy marriage bed.”

Aria flinched then – imperceptible as it was, Peggy noticed it too. But the woman was too polite to question it further, even if it gave further credence to the knowledge that Peggy had long since suspected. That Aria had been the original desire – the beautiful Russian spy, trained in multiple elite programs. She wondered if Peggy knew that she hadn’t undergone the traditional graduation of the Red Room.

Instead, Peggy had allowed Aria to pass the note back to her grasp, returning scribbling notes in the margins as the gentle silence once again fell between them. Aria relished in that silence for the rest of the night.

It meant that when she woke up the next morning, Aria had felt calm enough to avoid the mess hall, despite the knowledge that it would distress Peggy and Howard and everyone else who had come to view her as a friend. Instead, she had headed for the training hall, setting herself slow, intermittent goals that she hoped to achieve throughout the day. Sometime after lunch, Peggy had arrived with food for her to consume – but even as they approached the evening, Aria had left it untouched where the woman had set it down for her. She wasn’t hungry – and she wasn’t going to force herself to eat when training had allowed her mind and emotions to quiet for the first time since they’d departed on their mission.

She was expecting news soon. Of their success, of their return to base.

In retrospect, Aria should have suspected something was wrong when no one came to check on her throughout the afternoon. Even Howard, absent as he was from the base nowadays, typically would have stuck his nose in with a comment about her training once being used in an attempt upon his life. The fact that he hadn’t appeared at all should have been her first sign.

The fact too, that Peggy hadn’t returned to insist she eat something. Peggy understood that she needed silence, but she was also a pragmatist and would have insisted that Aria eat something in order to keep her strength. They would have engaged in a back and forth; bantering until Aria eventually gave into her demands, knowing that the British spy was entirely right in her assessment that Aria should have eaten. The fact that she hadn’t appeared since lunch, should have been her second sign.

The lack of the combat nurses, Alma’s gentle understanding and Betty’s wide-eyed optimism, were her third and fourth. With something being so utterly wrong, they wouldn’t have been able to keep the truth from their gaze. Looking back, she knew it was why she hadn’t seen them – it wasn’t because they hadn’t known what to say, it was because they didn’t want to be the ones to say it to her.

Steve was her fifth and final warning.

His presence loomed over her in the training room, his hulking figure casting a harsh shadow against the bright lights of the room. She felt his footsteps as he entered the gym, the heavy weight of his body crunching against the solid ground even if there was nothing uneven to crunch in his wake. It reverberated through her body, and she immediately stopped herself in her movements, turning to look at him.

Harrowed. He was harrowed – there was a haunted look in his eyes that she could not contribute to the mission. There was nothing present on this mission that should have been so frightening, nothing that should have left him with such an empty look in his eyes. They were not rescuing prisoners of war, and this train did not contain the possibility of Johann Schmidt’s second choice bride, as much as Peggy had implied that the search for such a woman was ongoing. He grew closer and closer to her, and she felt the instinctual need to take a backwards step. She couldn’t remember the last time that she had run from a conversation – even when she had wanted to, she had faced them head on.

The dread in her body grew. She could feel it in the way that her heart pumped against her chest, desperate to escape it’s cage. She could feel it in the nervous tingling of energy that sprouted from her fingers, her desperate need to keep moving, even as the thoughts in her mind began to swirl around with such desperation to be free.

When Steve’s blue eyes finally met her own, and she saw the flecks of green in his eyes. She whimpered once – the only sound of weakness she thought she had ever allowed in her life.

“Don’t.” She pleaded breathlessly. She wasn’t to delay the inevitable, pretend that it wasn’t happening, live a moment longer in the happiness that she had found. She was terrified that she would never be as happy again, never find this peace. She knew she’d never be Aria Davis again – not as she’d made her to be. Aria would forever be tainted by this moment, forever be defined by the way in which she learned of this harsh truth.

Steve didn’t listen to her quiet pleas for mercy. It was as if he needed to say it to believe it himself. He likely knew that she wouldn’t believe it, unless she heard it from his own lips. She’d said that once before, hadn’t she? That Aria wouldn’t believe he was dead until she saw proof – or she heard from someone that she trusted that he was gone. She needed to hear this too, lest she hold onto some forsaken hope that he had survived the fall.

“We were on the train.” Steve stared bluntly, his voice catching as he began to speak. The walls within Aria’s soul began to rebuild brick by brick, as the emotion that threatened to bubble over cracked against them. “The weaponry that your father designed – it blew a hole in the side of the carriage.”

She closed her eyes, unable to watch him deliver the news. As it would put a barrier between them and protect her from what was coming. Every ounce of her focus was dedicated to her emotions. Dedicated to pushing them down, preventing her explosion. She needed to be calm. She needed to react calmly. It would not bode well for the Red Viper to destroy the base of the SSR when they were so close to the end of Schmidt and his goals. She kept pushing them down, as Steve’s words continued to push them back up her throat.

“Bucky… he got blown, out of the side of the train. The railing he was holding onto… It snapped before I could reach him, and he fell.” Steve continued. His voice cracked on every syllable, words fighting against his desire to divulge into tears. But he was a determined man, determined to do this for her, even though it would hurt her.

“He fell.” She heard her voice echo – as though she needed to say it to, to confirm it. Her mind ran the numbers – but she knew without even beginning the process that what Steve was saying was a death sentence. Bucky had fallen from the tops of the Alps, the tips of some of the harshest terrain in Europe. There was not a single chance that he had managed to survive the fall – she wasn’t even sure if Steve, with his enhanced strength, speed and healing could have survived it.

“Did you get to him?” She wanted to say goodbye. Properly.

But Steve thought she didn't understand. The bluntness that followed his sharp intake of breath hurt her more than any knife, wielded by any enemy could. “He died, Aria. In the mountains – there is no body to recover, and we had to finish the mission.”

She flinched then, her eyes remaining closed as she rapidly worked through the events of the evening. Like a broadcast, they played in his mind in sequential order. Steve had entered. Steve had told her Bucky was dead. Steve had told her they didn’t have the chance to return with his body. That he was relegated to the cold, mountainside grave of the Alps. That she wouldn’t get to say goodbye to him, because they had lost him. Every statement of truth led her to an ever increasing feeling of panic. 

Her mind caught on a detail, and her body reacted by freezing. Even her nervous energy stopped it’s relentless pursuit of her muscles as she mulled over everything that Steve had told her, confirming that he hadn’t mentioned his name. Not even once.

It meant that the mission had been successful. That they had her father.

She felt her nails pressing into the palms of her hands. She felt them drawing blood against her, felt that pain against her skin like it was a lifeline. It was that pain that was keeping her grounded for the moment. But it wouldn’t be enough. Nothing could contain her.

“Where is he?”

She watched him flinch at the darkness in her voice. At the tone that escaped her. If Bucky was alive, she knew she would have cared. She had spent her entirely life, every waking minute over the past few years, making herself into a better person. To be worthy of him. All in service of the life that they would build together. But with that life shattered, with the memories that they shared in ashes, she saw no reason to pretend that she wasn’t every bit the monster that her father had made her.

Panic could come later. Grieving could come later. Now, there was a beast inside of her that could no longer be leashed, if it ever had. It was prowling, and it was waiting, and she wouldn't let anyone stand in her way. 

“Aria…” He tried to step in front of her then, body blocking her exit from the room. But she was quick, and agile – and he was a grieving man, where she had supressed everything she’d ever thought about the man who had died. She loved him, and now he was gone, and the only thing she could do in the face of that, was make the guilty pay. Not just for his death, but for the horrors they had unleashed upon her.

She didn’t listen to his order. She didn’t even hear it. She was already halfway down the hallway, knife in her hand, shoulders squared back, stalking to the one place that she knew they would be holding Arnim Zola.

Notes:

... and we're here.

i honestly have debated what to write in this author note. every edit i've made just sounds over-explanatory, so here's the initial draft i had below:

okay, so, with that comes the canon-typical death of our favourite howling commando.

this is, and will remain, primarily a bucky/ofc story - but we have a long while to go before they’ll be meeting up again. writing fanfiction, i really enjoy moulding characters who fit into existing canon and exploring how i can bend (and sometimes break!) them. aria has been so fun to explore because she is completely planned (i’m talking like, 160+ page word doc), but writing her has taken her in so many new directions, and given me so many new ideas.

anyway, i can see that i’m rambling a little bit. i just wanted to forewarn that whilst this is obviously not the last we’ve seen of bucky; aria has a lot of life left to lead before we see him again. hopefully you find that interesting enough to keep reading!

thank you all for being here (for me, and for our girl).

Chapter 26

February 1st, 1945: Evening

The halls of the SSR were quiet.

Not because it was night, but because there was a predator in their midst.

The Red Viper felt the stares of the SSR on her back as she stalked down the hallway. She watched the way that friend and foe alike averted their gaze, their body language betraying how deeply uncomfortable they were with the sight of her expression. Some primal instinct inside of her relished the idea of everyone turning away in fear. Fear was good – fear of her made her feel like she was the one in control. Like she hadn’t just had the ground ripped from underneath her.

She concentrated on their reactions as she walked. She concentrated on the clicking of her shoes against the hallway – kept her pace ahead of Steve, though she knew that he stalked behind her. If he so wanted, he could catch up to her. If he wanted to, he could hold her down with his superior strength – but Aria suspected that there was a small part of him, a terrible, selfish part, that wanted to know what she would do to her father. He wanted that satisfaction too, the satisfaction that he could not provide for himself, but could be provided for him by another source.

The Red Viper turned the corner that would lead her to the room where Phillips would no doubt be inside, chewing on a steak. Much in the manner that he had, every time that he had previously interrogated her. Peggy and Howard, as it turned out, were present outside, watching with muted interest. Peggy had been crying – Aria spotted that first against her face. Tears had fallen for her friend, for Bucky, and she had been too much of a coward to come and let Aria know the news herself. Instead, she relinquished that duty to the Captain.

Perhaps she understood that Steve was the only one who could stop her, if she decided to kill everyone in the building in the midst of her devastation and rage.

Howard hadn’t cried, but she could see that he shared Peggy’s distress from the set of his shoulders. As the clacking of her heels echoed through the hallway, she watched them both turn to face her. Aria didn’t look at either of their expressions. She didn’t want to see the pity that would be reflected there. She watched instead, as their bodies moved of their own accord, likely without any input from their mind. They stepped out of her way, parting like the waves of the sea as she reached for the door handle and allowed herself entry to the interrogation room. Further footsteps echoed in the hallway behind her, and Aria knew that the Howling Commandos had come to watch the interrogation. It was a spectacle – to see her fall so spectacularly apart.

She caught the eyes of her father the second she entered the room. Her first thought was that he looked small, but every thought after that was destroyed in the pressure gauge that was her mind. It felt like there were waves, repeatedly crashing against the shoreline, destroying everything that she had tried to build. Everything that had made her Aria was being washed away in the swash, the stormfront bringing with it a return to something that was purely nasty – something that existed only in the Red Room. A figure that wanted violence, that wanted to kill. That wanted the satisfying crunch of blood and bone in her hand, to feel the life train from a targets body.

Phillips, it seemed, was not bothered by her arrival. She realised instantly that he was waiting for her to arrive. It was a small act of kindness given the overall storm that was brewing in her mind, the one thing that he could offer her that she could possibly want. After everything that she had done for them. She had held onto her rage long enough – in the face of her father, he was giving her the opportunity to allow it to explode.

She watched him cut into his steak. The moment that his knife hit the ceramic of his plate, the sound echoing in the room around them, she felt her footsteps stride forward. It was only three steps before she picked up her father by the scruff of his shirt, slamming him with some force against the wall and holding him upright so that his feet did not touch the ground. She relished as his glasses fell free from his person, leaving him unable to see the world around him. Every minute expression of fear that crossed over his body sent a thrill through her body. The knife at her side sat heavy as she debated using it immediately. But that would not be what was best for the SSR.

The thought crossed her mind then. Bucky had died for this mission – he had died for the information that Zola possessed. He would want the mission finished; he would want HYDRA destroyed.

She promised herself then: she would hold herself together, as long as it took to destroy Johann Schmidt and HYDRA. Then, she swore that she could surrender herself to the abyss of her mind. Then she could allow herself the peace of knowing the end.

“Mein Vater.”

The words tasted foreign on her tongue. The German felt like an insult to the person that she had become, but it was the only language he would understand her hatred through. English was not enough for her rage. Translating it was akin to an act of betrayal. The simple act of referring to him as her father was enough of a disgusting pledge to her ongoing battle against HYDRA.

Zola struggled to find her without his glasses, his eyes spinning around the sides of her face until they eventually rested on her eyes. She watched as narrowed in disgust at what he saw reflected there – but it couldn’t quite hide the terror that still emanated from his body.

“Ein Blutverräter.” He responded in kind. Blood traitor.

Aria grinned coldly. Using only one arm to support his weight, the other found its way to her thigh, where the cold knife she’d carried into the room now pressed against his thigh. She was sure it felt like a claw, slowly leeching into his skin and drawing blood. Her father was a smart man – and given his experience with human experimentation, she knew he understood she was pressing femoral artery. If she decided to press a little deeper – if she decided to slice it clear through, he would be dead before they could seek a medic for him. It was a fact that had him audibly swallowing as blood began to weep from the wound. She relished every second of it, the predator inside of her preening at the thought of watching his death.

Phillips seemed to recognise it too, however. A short tap of the table was the only reprimand he gave her – a clear warning not to kill the only HYDRA operative they knew did not possess a cyanide pill.

Heeding the warning with a dramatic sigh, she allowed her father to drop to the ground. Her long legs stepped over him as he unceremoniously crumpled, merely an ant beneath her feet. Making her way back to Phillips, she noticed the documents that were laid out on the table. Phillips nudged them towards her, and despite her overwhelming desire to continue tormenting her father, she reached for them.

Her eyes danced across the page, rapidly taking in the information the letter contained. She read it aloud too, knowing that it would make her father squirm, and reaffirm their control over the room.

“Given the valuable information he has provided, and in exchange for his full cooperation, Doctor Zola is being remanded to Switzerland.” She didn’t bother to keep her disdain from her tone – but Phillips knew that she had pieced it together based on the way that her rage did not immediately overcome her. It was not a reward for her father, but a threat. Aria could hurt him here; but of all people, Zola was the most frightened by the idea of disappointing Schmidt. Allowing him to be relinquished out of their care, to fend for himself outside, he wouldn’t last long.

“Sent that to DC this morning.” Phillips was difficult to understand as he chewed through his steak. It was tougher than the last time he’d had one, Aria assumed, he’d probably overcooked it in his grief and distress. Even if he wouldn’t show it like the others, Aria knew him too well to assume he hadn’t been affected by Barnes’ death. Bucky was a good man; and they’d lost far too many good men to this war.

She shook her head, unwilling to focus on the loss of Barnes for now. She couldn’t, or she’d fall apart, and she’d promised herself, and him, that she would see this through first. “Encode the message?” She wondered aloud, placing the documents back against the table. They’d served their purpose.

“Of course.”

“Shame.” Aria sighed, tapping her fingers against her thigh almost thoughtfully. “If only someone had broken those codes.”

“Schmidt will know this is a lie.” Zola interjected helplessly, having backed himself against the wall. Aria didn’t bother to comment, allowing Phillips to lead in the interrogation, if only for a moment.

“He’s still gonna kill you. You’re a liability, Doc. Second to her,” he gestured haphazardly to Aria, “you know more about Schmidt than anyone.” Quieter now, he looked at Zola, almost gently. Aria knew it was a false pretence. “The last man you cost us, was James Barnes. I don’t know if the name is familiar to you, Doc – but he was Captain Roger’s best friend; and your daughters...” Phillips trailed off then, allowing the implication to hang in the air.

“Now, she might kill you,” Aria watched her father flinch at the thought, “or she may not. I don’t know how much fatherly affection she has left in her. But I doubt that Schmidt is the forgiving type – and you won’t make it very far if you leave this building. Unfortunately for you, you were an absent father.”

“Pity.” Aria mused darkly as she flicked at the dirt beneath her fingernails. “If he had of been there during my training, perhaps he would have learned something.”

Zola glanced between them, desperately looking for a way out. But his path was blocked, and he knew it. Aria knew that the information regarding Barnes had interested him – if only for a moment. That it confirmed for him that Aria had fallen in love, that the training he’d desperately sought for her hadn’t worked despite his greatest efforts. Two rounds, with the Germans first, and then with Russians, and he hadn’t managed to break her spirit. Being raped by Schmidt hadn’t managed to break her spirit. But this death would break her – she could feel it. She just needed to hold herself together until the end of the mission. She just had to put one foot in front of the other for a little while longer.

“By the time you act, it will be too late. Schmidt believes he walks in the footsteps of Gods.”

“Fanatic.” Aria muttered under her breath. Zola ignored her.

“Only the world will satisfy him now.”

“Huh.” Phillips muttered, dropping the knife against the table as he glanced at her father. “You do realise that’s nuts – don’t you?”

“The sanity of his plan is of little consequence.”

Aria was quick enough to hide her flinch. She heard the understated meaning there, the truth that she had known all along – he saw her not as his daughter, but as another cog in his wheel, a piece on his board to manoeuvre. Gifting her to Schmidt as a bride would have tied the pair together for eternity; children born of the matrimony would have born Schmidt’s name, but his blood.

She violently shivered, ever as the conversation around her continued.

“And why’s that?” The Colonel had asked him.

“Because he can do it.” Zola sounded so sure. It made Aria feel queasy.

“Where’s his target?”

Aria didn’t wait for her father to answer that one. She knew Schmidt well enough to understand what he would want. “Everywhere.” She sighed, closing her eyes. “We don’t have much time, Colonel.”

“She’s right.”

A snarl ripped free of Aria just as her father finished the statement. He didn’t get to stand, or rather, sit beside her and claim that he knew her. Not when he was the very reason, she was who she was. When she was a monster that some girls whispered in between the cracks of their bedframes – of the time a foreign woman, with bright red hair, came to stay, and killed half their ranks. Of the time when she’d killed Erskine’s family of mercy, and it had been turned into something so horrific she could barely speak of it to this day. She wanted to speak of it now – and she realised with a start, that her emotions were breaking against the walls she had painstakingly built for herself. She wanted to ask her father why.

Zola seemed to recognise the pain within her well. He had never been a sympathetic father – and it made sense, of course, that he wouldn’t start now. Instead, he offered her this advice: “Alles, was Sie jetzt fühlen, ist nur eine Strafe dafür, dass Sie sich für die amerikanische Sache prostituiert haben.”

Everything you feel now, is just punishment for whoring yourself to the American cause.

No one in the room, or outside, had time to process Aria’s actions. Even Aria herself moved on instinct alone. Some honed instinct within her body calculated the exact distance from where she stood, to the wall where her father sat, pressed against it, refusing to move. The knife that Aria had been in the process of holstering left her grip in such a swift motion that Phillips – as trained as he was, with instincts that were sharp despite his old age, had no chance to stop her.

The knife hit true, exactly where Aria had intended for it to land. Embedded in the wall beside her father, centimetres away from his eye, but close enough to shave his skin and draw blood. A sigh of avid relief left Phillips, though Aria was sure that he didn’t understand what had been said. She watched as the crimson liquid dribbled down her father’s cheek, watched the way that it dropped and pooled on the floor beneath him. A steady stream, enough to sting, but not nearly enough to kill him. For a moment, she even saw the shock in her father’s eyes. Not that she had managed to hit the target – no, but that she had managed to wield it against him. She was sure that this was the closest he had come to experiencing death in his life.

The dam within her cracked, as years of trauma came pulsing from her lips in a single, Russian sentence. “Ty prodala menya Shmidtu. Ty pozvolila yemu iznasilovat' menya. Eto ty dolzhna stradat'.”

You sold me to Schmidt. You let him rape me. You’re the one who should suffer.

Her breathing was ragged, bouncing off the brick walls in the room. It was closing in on her, she realised. She needed to get out of there. Stumbling backwards, she reached for the door handle, relieved when it swung open, having not been locked from the other side. She refused to look at anyone as she tore down the hallway, her steps bleeding into one another in the speed in which she ran. She knew there was too much emotion on her face, too much pain bleeding into her expression, echoing in her thoughts and beating against her heart like a drum. She didn’t want anyone to see her fall apart, she didn’t want to fall apart so spectacularly, so publicly. The confession alone was enough to spin her mind around, even if she knew they could not readily understand it.

She ran until she was outside – in the hopes that the fresh air would allow air to enter her lungs. When that didn’t work, she found that her feet would not stop. Even as her chest heaved, and her eyes begged to release long held tears, Aria did not stop until she stumbled into the ruined remains of the Whip and Fiddle Bar. The door opened without protest, even as it grunted from disuse.

And there she stood awhile, happy memories of a kinder time warring with the reality of her life. Warring with the reality that the one good thing she had carved for herself, that she had made – that had been made for her, as a result of her circumstances, had been torn from her grasp. If she concentrated, she thought she could hear his laughter, echoing in this tomb of a building. She thought that she could hear him tell her that he loved her, in between the chorus and verse of the jazzy songs which so often played in the bar. If she concentrated, she could feel the skin of his hand as he swayed her in time with the music, looking pleased every time she giggled, and rewarding his little successes with kisses peppered upon her skin.

Aria moved. She shoved tables out of the way, she threw the wood which covered the floor on top of those tables. She heaved and winced as splinters tore into her soft flesh, but she refused to stop until she had created for herself, the smallest inch of space. Kicking her shoes off, she came to stand in the middle of it all, her heart slowing to a steady rhythm as she drew herself back to that place where she had known no emotion at all. Only the cold sequential steps of ballet, and the cold, hard pain that would follow with getting them wrong.

En pointe, arabesque, she chanted to herself. Adagio, sauté, pirouette, repeat – the en pointe and finish.

“Nebrezhnyy.” She hissed – only once, when she managed to find the only piece of protruding wood and stumbled. The jagged edges emerged from the floor, and she took a second to rebalance herself before she began again. Sloppy.

She sank into the dance. And Aria Davis wondered what it meant to understand she wanted to be in the Red Room. To understand that she wanted to have someone standing over her, shouting at her, snarling at her to do better, and beating her senseless when she did not. She wanted to remember how it felt, to shut off emotionally – to be completely unattached from the tethers of the world. She wanted it more than anything – because she understood now. Why they taught that emotion was a weakness, why they taught her that she should never become involved in the lives of others. That she should watch, only as a spectator, never as a participant. That she was better than all of them – that being separate allowed her to reach a higher level of being: because this pain was unimaginable. And she could not imagine it passing.

Aria continued her ballet steps long into the night – never once stopping. Not when her feet bled, not when she caught herself against a nail, and certainly not when she collapsed against the ground, exhausted and starving from having not consumed food throughout the day. She only picked herself up, to go again. To be better.

She spent that evening relearning what it was to feel nothing at all.

Chapter 27

February 2nd, 1945: Dawn

Aria had collapsed for the last time, sometime after midnight. With her feet raw, bleeding and aching from the feeling of splintered wood and nails crushing into them, she’d accepted defeat and had crawled her way towards the back of the room, leaning against the bar. It was in this small alcove, that she had managed to locate an unopened bottle of whiskey, and it was with this by her side, a glass drink in hand, that Steve had found her.

She had thought he would insist on her receiving immediate medical attention for her feet. Instead, he had sat down beside her, a frown on his features, and heart heavy as he held out his hand for the bottle. Aria had gladly obliged him – and it was how she found herself now, utterly drunk alongside the Captain whilst he was forced to sit in the cold, sober pain of reality. Such was the extent of Erskine’s success – he could no longer get drunk. He would feel every minute of this pain. She didn’t envy him.

She was grateful that he didn’t comment on the state of her. She was grateful that he didn’t foolishly attempt to tell her stories of Bucky that had the sole intended purpose of making himself feel better. She didn’t want to hear about the man that he had been – she had her own memories which described the man that he had been to her. She wanted to sit in the quiet and sink deeper into this feeling of nothing. Everything that she had learned to be throughout the previous few years was a distant memory.

She wondered if this pain was worth the brief flash of happiness, she had the opportunity to experience. But that thought didn’t last long, and she cursed herself for ever thinking that a second spent alongside him hadn’t between worth it.

With the help of Steve, the grieving pair finished the bottle of whiskey. In another life, Aria could feel herself making a joke. If she concentrated, she could almost be transported back to that time, when the atmosphere had been lively, the drinks had been flowing, and she’d been given a beer to keep her warm throughout the night. Where the words she’d shared had been words passed between friends, even if she didn’t understand that yet.

“A pure scotch whiskey is the best drink for a lonely night, Steve Rogers. Perhaps one day, before the war is done, we might have the discomfort of sharing in one together.”

The glass she’d been drinking from flew across the room, shattering into thousands of tiny pieces. Steve glanced up then, eyes narrowed – and a question on the tip of his tongue. Aria dared him to say something. She could feel her muscles rippling against her skin with the idea that she could take a fight – desperate to move, despite the pain in her feet, and the exhaustion in her limbs. She wanted desperately to fight something, to scream – she didn’t know. But she didn’t move, only watching the pieces of glass as they spread themselves out and across the floor. More pieces for her to cut herself on, she mused. Whenever she next decided to dance.

She hated herself for jesting in such a fashion. How dare she suggest, with amusement, that she and Steve would share in a drink of mourning. She had reaped what she had sown, the words that she had put into the universe returning to her in the most awful of circumstances. It was another reminder that she was every bit the monster that HYDRA had made her out to be, even if she believed that she had changed.

It was these disparaging thoughts that had led to her opening the second bottle, and though she saw Steve’s eyes narrow further at the sight, he didn’t comment. It was for the best – she wasn’t sure he would like the comments she wanted to hurl at him. To hurt him, just as much as she was hurting now.

She figured she didn’t need to do that. He’d known Bucky for longer than her, considered the man a brother. He was grieving fine without her vitriol.

The door opening distracted her from her thoughts.

Cast against the dim light of the street, Agent Carter looked effervescent in the warm glow. Aria took a second to mull over her thoughts – the idea that the woman was a good spy had never been lost upon her. She wondered if it would be Agent Carter’s responsibility, to put a bullet in her. If she couldn’t be controlled now.

She had no doubts as to the reason for this visit. To check on Steve – though that, she suspected was secondary to her primary mission. To ascertain Aria’s mental status. Wondering desperately if the assassin they’d kept leashed for the past year was going to be tethered to the string she was bound to, or if she was going to break. Her fingers twitched, ready against the bottle as though she could use it as a weapon if Carter decided to end her permanently.

She was surprised when Peggy didn’t immediately move to speak. In fact, Aria noticed that she moved with none of her usual grace as she came to stand inside the room, only glancing over Steve briefly before she settled on Aria. She was tense, of course – and Aria could see the same fear reflecting in her eyes that had been so present throughout the halls of the SSR. The once preening predator within her wailed at the sight. Peggy was meant to trust her – she had trusted her, up until this point. None of this had been as a result of Aria’s actions; rather, her inaction.

“You should have let me come with you.” She slurred; her voice quiet. It broke the silence that had settled – the first words that Steve and Aria had spoken to one another since he’d arrived to tell her the news. She turned her accusatory gaze towards Peggy then, too. “You should have told me he was dead. You shouldn’t have left me to wait.”

“And what good would it have done?” Peggy answered before Steve could – reason pleading in the crack of her voice. “What would it have changed? He would still be dead.”

Aria flinched. She knew that – of course she understood that, but perhaps if she had learned earlier, it wouldn’t have hurt so much. A ridiculous notion, but the alcohol was making her thoughts spiral into uncomfortable territory.

“I should have been there.” She whispered, her voice cracking under the strain of it all.

“It wouldn’t have made a difference.” Steve muttered. “He wouldn’t have let you board that train – and if you had of done so anyway, he would have died anyway. He would have been distracted by you – he would have wanted to make sure you were safe.”

“He was distracted anyway.” She craned her head to the super soldier. “Of course he was distracted. This was my father, he knew what it meant that he was bringing him in. That I had trusted him, to bring him in. He said that Phillips was right – I was too close to the mission. That it would need someone less involved. How pathetic of me, to think that he was less involved than I.” She sucked in a breath, feeling her rant cascading down an uncertain path. “How much of a fucking idiot am I? Isla Zola – a graduate of the Red Room, the greatest spy to exit the Abwehr, the Red Viper of Johann Schmidt. I am meant to be above emotions – and yet I fell in love,” she could barely get the words out now, gasping for air as they exited her throat. “I am meant to be above emotions – but I couldn’t put them aside for this mission. Now he’s dead; and I am not.”

She didn’t think they’d appreciate hearing how much she wished she could join him in that blissful darkness. Judging by the way that Carter’s eyes focused intently on the bottle of alcohol, the woman had already assumed as much.

“Would Barnes want this for you?” She asked her.

Aria snorted harshly, taking another drink of whiskey, now straight from the bottle. “Dead men do not want for anything, dorogoya.”

“Even so.” Peggy seemed determined, squaring her shoulders. “He had believed in this mission, Aria. He died believing that the work he was doing was going to make the world batter. You’re not going to just let that fall away; Davis.”

Peggy hadn’t expected her to laugh. Neither, she suspected had Steve. Both flinched at the sound, Steve’s hands settling over his remaining glass of whiskey as though he was a man frozen in time. He looked haunted by the echo of noise, by the bitterness and anger – and sadness and regret that lingered within her laughter. She suspected it would linger in his nightmares for years to come.

“Aria Davis.” She chucked bitterly. “How foolish was I, to believe I deserved to live another life? I will never be anything other than what they made me. Eine hure.”

Peggy shook her head then, lips pursed. Aria watched her step carefully over the shattered glass, pointedly ignoring the clear signs that Aria had made the mess recently. In fact, Aria watched Peggy walk straight towards her, never once faltering in her movements. Until the spy stopped in front of her, suddenly looking as serious as she had ever seen her.

“I think you’ve had quite enough of that.” She told Aria. Aria was sure that it was meant to be a gentle dismissal of her drinking. She was sure that it was the whore comment that had done it, the reminder for Peggy that even if she didn’t know for sure – even if Aria would never confirm it to her, horrible things had happened within the walls of HYDRA. The fact that Aria was so close to confirming them now, when she had previously barely even alluded to the events, surely meant that she was spiralling out of control.

Peggy’s hands reached out for the bottle as Aria’s thoughts continued. The SSR spy was right to do so – Aria had no intentions of allowing her to take the one item giving her solace on this night. But even with her reflexed slowed by the sluggish effects of alcohol, the Red Viper was far too quick to allow another to take such a precious asset from her grasp.

“A glass with alcohol should never be placed atop a table when one is drinking.” She cited – then flinched, because those words alone came with pain she wasn’t ready to acknowledge. They were her mother’s words.

Peggy regarded her carefully, as Steve rose too, coming to stand over her seated position. Aria suddenly felt crowded – and she was sure her body language reflected it, as she backed further into the wall. She wanted to disappear – whether it was because she believed Peggy would kill her in this moment, her drunken thoughts would not reveal. But there was nowhere to go, the solid wood simply would not disappear.

“Aria,” Carter told her then. “This is a bottle, not a glass.”

Aria only responded by clutching the bottle closer to her chest. “It is considered bad luck.” She insisted. “Bozhe moy.”

She could see the way that the pair were now exchanging glances. Steve and Peggy, worried about her. Aria longed to tell them that she was fine. She longed to lie to their faces, and tell them that she would be fine come the morning. That she would be able to put this aside, and continue for the sake of the mission. She was meant to be a good liar – she was meant to be able to compartmentalise. But she needed more time.

One night would not make her an alcoholic. One death would not break her – as much as she wanted to slip away into the dark of the night and never be seen by another soul again. How peaceful, she thought fleetingly, to be nameless and forgotten in history. She’d etched her name across history books in bizarre, scrawling fashion, appearing and disappearing at whim. Her fingerprints would be difficult to erase. Unfortunately for her, she would never be no one again. She would never feel nothing again, and she was doomed to live a long life that proved just that.

Mramor, the voice of Madame B echoed in her mind. You are made of marble.

No, Madame B, she replied internally, her voice feeble and afraid. I am not.

Chapter 28

Notes:

your friendly neighbourhood spiderman dropping in to inform you that this specific chapter contains trigger warnings! as always, check the tags (!!) or notes at the end of the chapter for specifics x

February 28th, 1945: Evening

It took Aria a week to remember how to pretend to be human.

A week of sitting inside the Whip and Fiddle at every opportunity, in between strategy meetings and training sessions. Sessions where she knew she wasn’t pulling her punches as much as she should have, and the Howling Commandos were leaving with bruises littering their skin. She justified it in her mind as wanting them to be better prepared for the final mission. If she was being truthful, it was just because she wanted someone to hurt as much as she herself hurt.

The following three weeks came easier. It was as though the sun had broken through the dawn, shining as a gentle reminder of light. She’d seen some joy return to Steve’s eyes in these weeks too, as he surrounded himself with Carter and the other Commandos. Never her, though. She figured she was too sharp a reminder of what had been lost in the Eastern Alps. Aria was glad of it. Steve would have wanted to speak to her about Bucky, and she didn’t think she was ready for that.

Somewhere in her mind, she knew she wasn’t okay. That she was still grieving – and had merely returned to burying her emotions as she had learned in the Red Room. It had taken some time for the training to return, but now that it was, she found that she could bury almost every emotion. The emotions she couldn’t – the nights when she remembered how it had felt to have his hot breath against her skin, so alive and so gentle – she instead turned to forgetting through the aid of a bottle. No longer in the Whip and Fiddle bar; Peggy and Steve would have put a swift end to it if they had known.

Aria hadn’t gone through years of brutal training to forget how to hide when she was in pain. She treated her morning headaches and nausea as a cruel reminder that she was alive. The taste of the liquor in her throat was proof that she was still breathing.

She’d reached for the bottle of whiskey tonight. Tomorrow would be the final battle, the storming of Schmidt’s facility in the Alps, five hundred feet below the surface of the world. It had been everything Bucky had been working towards, and it had been what he died for in the end. Aria would see it through – and what came after, she decided that she didn’t much care for that.

She sat on her back, bottle of whiskey in her hand, tapping against the glass as her legs bounced up and down with relentless energy. The harsh liquor in her hand wasn’t working tonight. There were too many thoughts, too many possibilities that she couldn’t control. Too many variables, too many chances for more people to die. Bucky had been enough; and it was nearly killing her. She wasn’t sure that she could handle another.

Leaving the bottle behind, she opened the door to the hallway. Turning left at the end would bring her to Bucky’s old rooms, and she would likely loose herself within those sheets, sobbing where she hadn’t cried in years. But if she turned right, if she let her bare feet run against the tiled floor, she might find her way to a man that held all of the answers, no matter how much she suspected she didn’t want to hear what he had to say.

She turned right, the haze of her drunken mind making her decision for her as she walked down the hallway. Even stumbling as she was, Aria knew she was moving with better grace than the majority of the SSR. It was why no one questioned her journey, why no one paused to wonder what she was doing wandering the hallways of the prison cells so late into the evening. She moved with purpose, and as much as the men and women of the SSR didn’t want to admit it – they were still afraid of her. Because they saw her as the monster, she knew herself to be.

The door to her father’s interrogation room wasn’t locked. Aria hadn’t suspected that it would be. For his full cooperation with Colonel Phillips, her father had been given the illusion of a choice. There was no choice in the options that were presented to him: stay, and the SSR would ensure his relative safety. Leave, and he would be at the mercy of Johann Schmidt.

He’d chosen the former option. The interrogation cell now resembled a room – fitted with an uncomfortable lumpy mattress, and mismatched blankets for his comfort. She could see now that Phillips had neglected to provide Zola with a pillow, given that her father seemed to have screwed his spare clothing into a ball where he could rest his head. If Aria was happy, she would have smiled at the sight – a small vengeance for the pain that the main had bestowed upon the group. Or, it was an interrogation tactic: Zola could have a pillow when he relinquished his knowledge of Schmidt’s plans. Something which thus far, he had only fed to Phillips in drabs.

She wasn’t surprised to see her father was awake. Sitting against his bed, he looked half the figure she had once built him to be in her mind. Even from a distance, she could see the cracks that had formed in his glasses, and the bruises which littered his skin despite his comfortable accommodations. She suspected the SSR had treated him just as kindly as they had treated her upon her first arrival. The only difference being that her father squealed.

“Isla.”

Aria thought she would flinch at the sound of her own name coming from her father’s lips. But she didn’t. She found that she felt nothing at all when he spoke to her. She was almost sure that was worse.

“Father.” She sighed and decided to settle on the mattress beside him. All of a sudden, she felt like a small girl again, seeking solstice in the arms of her parents after a nightmare. She could vaguely remember a time when her mother would have swept her into her waiting arms and brushed her hair backwards. Together, they would have exchanged careful words in Russian, words that her father struggled to understand even after years of practice. When Ogla Romanoff had died, the young girl that Aria had been knew better than to seek comfort in the arms of her father. She would be left wanting.

It wasn’t as though she were a child in this bed. She’d experienced the full spectrum of life – the anger, the hatred, the desperation to be better, to strive towards something she’d realised hadn’t been a goal of hers, but the goal of her father. All in a desperate attempt to please him. Only to disappoint him in the end, by falling in love with an American man.

“Why?”

She wasn’t entirely sure what she was asking. What answer she wanted to hear – if there was even an answer to the question, she posed at all. But it escaped her desperately, caught somewhere between a desperate cry and a sob.

Her father didn’t answer her immediately. He merely sat in the silence that was offered, watching the way that her legs bounced up and down.

“Your mother was a Black Widow, too.”

Her leg stopped moving immediately as her breath caught in her throat. Every interaction she’d ever had with her mother. She began to scan through it, desperately trying to determine if her father was speaking the truth. His motivations came to mind – what cause could he possibly have for providing her information that was so clearly a lie?

“What?” She whispered and then shook her head rapidly. “My mother was Widow – so in some mind, I was destined to become one as well? Did she die on a mission – not just because she was sick, as I was told?”

“She was sick, Isla – I do not wish that sickness upon you, if it is hereditary.” Zola sounded clinical. “She always intended for you to train as a Widow; it was Schmidt who requested you begin within the Abwehr. My decision to follow Schmidt was of no consequence to your life. You were always meant to become this.”

Aria flinched, but Zola didn’t allow her an opportunity to interject.

“But it was your mother who made you weak.” He sneered finally; his voice somehow still soft despite the manner of his speaking.“ Ogla, who taught you the value of love – despite knowing in turn it would be taken from you. Who taught you what it was to care about the world around you. And look at you now.” Zola continued, looking her up and down, and her heart pounded with the disappointment that was displayed on his face. “Your mother corrupted you, my daughter – and she is the source of your pain now.”

“I don’t understand.” She replied, voice thready as she faced him. “Why make me into this creature, this monsters, this thing. I barely even know how to breath, I…”

“I did not make you into anything.” He replied. “You chose to survive, Red Viper. You made yourself. Where you fall apart, my daughter – is falling in love with an American man. I have tried to teach you that attachments are weakness. That affection is temporary, that love is for children. But you did not learn, and thus you suffer the consequences. Bucky? You know that you were made for more than that.”

Aria didn’t make the conscious decision to slap him. It did not cross her mind. But it was her hand that raised above her head and connected with the side of his face. She felt the pain in her own palm from the frames of his glasses before her ears registered the sound of their skin colliding, and the wince of her father as he shared in the sharp sting of pain.

Her hand was shaking as she withdrew it from the side of his face. She could see the imprint of her fingers against his skin, she could almost feel the way his blood throbbed beneath his skin, pooling and addressing the bruise that would surely form. But Zola said nothing – he did nothing in response. As though she had merely confirmed for him what he already knew to be true. It made her hate him even more.

The words came pouring out then: “You are the only source of my pain. You – you sold me… You served me to Schmidt, you wanted him to choose me, bed me, wed me, create an heir with me.” The ache she’d lived with since she was a child seemed determined to make itself known. Her abuse at the hands of the Red Skull, it was a secret she’d told only to Bucky in the dead of night, and she had been terrified to do so. Now she knew that she would wield it like a weapon, take part some of its power. Perhaps because it was no longer the worst day of her life – and thus, it could not hold her anymore.

“Did you even blink when you found out he raped me? Or did you recommend it as a course of action.” She saw her father flinch. Immediately understanding that she’d located a nerve, she pressed harder, a sneer appearing on her face. “Did you enjoy it? Hearing about what he did to me, in the back of his car? Have you thought about it since? Every time you’ve sat in it since, do you think about my face? My tears? When I told Bucky, he was horrified. You sit here and you sit in silence, and you say nothing. Mein Vader…” her voice trailed off there as her breaths came shallow and fast, almost exhausted from sharing her truth. Zola searched her face, and she knew there was something akin to desperation there, a search for a missing piece of information. Perhaps she was missing something.

But there was nothing else she wanted to say to the man in front of her. Nothing that would solve decades of hurt and pain and trauma. Nothing that would make her feel better.

Instead, she shifted off the bed, stumbling as her feet tried to find balance against the ground. She felt some of her father’s blankets come with her, dropping from the bed to the floor, but she didn’t bother to turn and pick them up.

She walked towards the door, though her hands hesitated on the handle. Shaking her head back and forth as she fought for the words to rise to her lips, she finally said: “I do not recognise you as my father,” before she opened the door, and slipped out before it could close on her back.

***

It was far past the time that Steve should have been asleep.

Tomorrow was the day that he, and the other Howling Commandos had worked towards for years. Storming the HYDRA Facility, taking down Johann Schmidt, it would all happen tomorrow. He knew that he was doing himself a disservice in the way that he continued to walk the halls of the SSR, but he also knew that going to lying in his bed would serve no one.

His feet had led him first, to following Aria down the hallway. Steve wasn’t a spy; and he had felt inherently bad about listening in on the conversation she’d had with her father, but it wasn’t enough to prevent himself from standing in front of the interrogation room that had become Zola’s home. With every word that broke from her mouth, every unravelling of her being, Steve knew that the conversation was not meant for him. He wasn’t even sure Aria had meant to break down so spectacularly in front of her father, but here she was.

Learning what Schmidt had done to her – it made his skin crawl. The fact that Bucky had known; the fact that he was determined to love her, the fact that he was prepared to teach her how to feel, and how to experience. Everything that she’d lost hit him, just as hard as every punch she’d thrown at him in training over the last few weeks. He’d known that she loved Bucky – for the assassin that she was, she struggled to hide it from her face. But the depths of it, the hurdles she’d had to overcome…

He'd left then, unable to listen to more, tears leaking down his face as he paced towards Bucky’s room.

Steve knew, that at some point, someone would have to walk into Bucky’s rooms. He’d so far avoided the task, perhaps even part of him leaving the role for Aria, in case she wanted to take that final step and confirm for herself that he was never coming home. But as the weeks dragged on, and it came closer to a month, it was clear that the girl was never going to be able to do it. She was a shell of the person that he had seen her become in the past year – a wreck. Every punch she had thrown in training had been thrown with the weight of a woman who did not want to exist within the SSR; and Steve had no doubts that the only reason she remained with them was a desire to see Bucky’s mission through.

He opened the door to Bucky’s room without progress. His friend had never bothered to lock it – especially on missions. Not since the first time he’d privately revealed to Steve that sometimes, his girl liked to come and lay in his bed. Bucky had admitted to Steve he knew Aria had chosen him forever when he found her in his bed after their first mission away from her. He hadn’t said it then, but Steve knew how much it had meant to his friend. Her first choice in the world, the first thing she had ever been able to take for herself, and she had chosen him.

The door clicked softly closed behind him, and Steve flicked the light on. His room was messy; every sign pointing towards the idea that Bucky had no idea he would not return from the mission. His bed had been made, Steve mused that had been the voice of Winnifred Barnes echoing in his mind, threatening retribution if he did not clean his room before heading off for the day.

Steve’s eye caught on the drawer. Unable to help himself, he leaned over to look inside and recoiled upon feeling the familiar curve of a box.

It didn’t take a genius to understand the purpose of the box, but Steve found himself opening it anyway. He was met with a glinting Edwardian ring, a green stone in the centre that had belonged to Buck’s grandmother; encrusted in diamonds that had surely been taken from his mother’s ring. It was a testament to Aria’s joining of the family, stones that were passed from generation to generation, all with the express purpose of belonging to her.

She would never get to wear it.

Steve decided then, too. She could never know. He couldn’t let her. It would break her.

The super soldier shook his head, placing the box in his pocket. Tomorrow, he would take the fight to HYDRA. He would destroy Johann Schmidt and their vision of a terrible, unjust world. Tonight? He would return to the Whip and Fiddle and try his hardest to get drunk. Just to feel nothing at all.

“Steve?”

He startled as the door closed behind him and was met with the face of Howard Stark. For a moment, the men looked at each other in the hallway. Steve thought too, that Howard might comment on the fact that he should have been resting, just as Erskine had once warned him before his procedure. But Stark said nothing, and Steve noticed for the first time that he was uncharacteristically bouncing on the balls of his feet.

He realised with a start that Howard was nervous. He opened his mouth to make a comment, but Howard seemingly beat him to it.

“There’s something I have to tell you about Aria.”

Steve’s eyes narrowed. “I know enough about her.” He tried to dismiss. He didn’t want to hear about Aria’s life before the SSR. He was beginning to understand that everything he had placed upon her, his distrust of her in some respects, had been unfair. He was unsure what he would have done, in her circumstances. It was exactly the point that she had once made to James.

“It’s not about her.” Howard shook his head back and forth, and Steve flinched as the genuine concern entered his eyes. “It’s about her suit.”

Steve paused; eyes narrowed at the seriousness in the normally aloof millionaires tone. “Tell me.” He demanded.

Howard did.

Notes:

CW - discussion of past sexual abuse

Chapter 29

March 1st, 1945: Dawn

Aria hadn’t slept well. When her eyes opened in the morning, they opened with the distinct ache of exhaustion, with tears that she had hadn’t allowed to be shed. Her body was stiff, and every muscle ached against her movement. It was with a general, wincing protest that she managed to pull herself out of the bed, her headache exploding in her mind as blood rushed to the flow of gravity. For a moment, she had to squeeze her eyes tight and shut – too harsh was the artificial light within her room.

Once she was sure she had regained control of her senses, her feet took her towards the door, and from there, down the corridor into the mess hall. Only Howard Stark had come to the floor at this hour, and Aria could see the dark circles pressing around his eyes. He hadn’t slept either, and for some reason, it eased the pain in her heart, even if only slightly.

She sank into the seat beside him without grabbing food, her arms immediately folding in and around herself as Stark turned to look at her. She watched the way that he glanced at her, his eyes raking up and down her person before they eventually fell back on the task in front of him – final intelligence, she presumed. Something that Zola had given him in the last few days, likely, she suspected, about the designs of the weapons technology that had been created for Schmidt.

Aria couldn’t bear the silence. For the first time in a month, she opened the conversation.

“Couldn’t sleep?”

Howard wasn’t quick enough to smooth the shock that covered his features, but she appreciated that he tried. “No. Could you?”

She snorted in amusement. “No. I can’t remember the last time I’ve slept well.”

They remained like that for a moment, the silence settling again, and Aria’s leg bouncing in tune with it. She wracked her brain for something to speak of, something that she would have said to him, when Bucky was still alive. But all of her thoughts were muddled, and messy. When she had first met him, she found that she didn’t know who Aria Davis was. Without him, she wasn’t quite sure who Aria Davis was, either.

It probably wasn’t healthy. To only view one’s psyche within the constraints of a relationship. But Aria had never thought he would die so soon. She thought they would have the chance to grow together.

“The mission looks sound.” Howard commented, though Aria thought that he was trying to convince himself rather than her. “It was good of you too – to listen to Steve when he asked you remain alongside the Howling Commandos.”

Privately, Aria thought that Howard had misconstrued Steve’s orders. Remaining by Dugan’s side was not a reflection of their own abilities – but rather, her ability not to lose control. Somehow, after years at war, the Captain still clung to the idea that her brutalised violence was somehow worse than a single man pointing a gun. She was loathe to tell him that it wouldn’t matter on this night – her vengeance would be satiated one way or another. She was just glad he was going to be preoccupied with his own mission, and too far away to see what she would become.

She hadn’t wanted Bucky to see the violence that she could produce. She had told him, of course, but somewhere along the line, she had made a promise to be better for him. To kill cleaner, empathetically, if that was even possible. Without him there, she didn’t have to pretend for anyone. She could be what she made herself to be.

“How is New Mexico?” She asked instead, mildly curious. “Had Oppie finished his work?”

Howard blanched then, looking to her with such alarm that she was almost amusement. In fact, she thought she heard a chuckle briefly escape her lips before she managed to reel it back in.

“You’re not meant to know about that.”

“It’s my job to know the things I’m not meant to know.” She responded evenly, amusement leaking into her tone. Seeing that Stark was still spinning from her announcement, however, she sighed. “Relax, Stark. That project is America’s worst kept secret. And I know that it wouldn’t have been possible without your expertise. You’re too smart to be kept from a project like that.”

Howard’s mouth twitched, but she watched as she successfully placated him with her words. Alone in the mess hall, he didn’t see the harm in telling her: “The test is in a few months’ time.”

Aria hummed in acknowledgement. “Germany seems fairly close to admitting defeat,” she mused. “I doubt that Hitler will last the year at the helm, and I suspect when he falls the army will fall soon after. Perhaps it will be an unnecessary evil.”

“You don’t believe that.”

“Of course I don’t.” She rolled her eyes. “There is always another war, Howard. There is always another enemy. Still – I’d like to see it. The test, that is. I’m sure that amount of radioactive power will be…” Aria trailed off, unable to find the words. Howard smiled loosely at her, but he didn’t bother to finish her sentence. Likely, she suspected, still uncomfortable with the idea that she knew at all. “Is it still likely to ignite the entire atmosphere?”

“The possibility is close to zero.” He answered immediately, though he looked away whilst doing it.

Her mouth twitched. Close to zero – but not quite zero. There was a chance, during that test, that they destroyed the entire world. She shouldn’t have been amused – that much power should have terrified her. But it was hard to sit in a room, so removed from the danger, so removed from the project itself, and her own ability to interpret danger so skewed from the life that she had lived. She suspected that she would no longer flinch in the face of a predator – a venomous snake, of course, would barely cause her heart to race. But it was a normal fear to have, and she should have been scared of it.

She didn’t want to dwell on what it might mean that she wasn’t.

Instead, Aria watched him turn his attention to his letters, no longer entertaining the conversation about the Manhattan Project. He’d divulged more than Aria had suspected he would – her guess that there was a chance the project could ignite the atmosphere was, of course, a guess based on the information and calculations she’d privately conducted. The fact that Howard had answered her so steadily, meant that it was a factor still on his mind.

They would leave in an hour, for the Alps. It was approaching rapidly, and yet everything in the past month had felt like she was crawling to the end. She knew the role that she had been designated to play, after hours of agonising over plans with Steve, Peggy and Colonel Phillips. She’d been quick to shut down any suggestion she shouldn’t be involved in this final assault – and Peggy had been quick to de-escalate her temper when she realised Aria was not above firing back with a comment about Barnes’ death. Even now, that insult hung at the back of her throat, caught there, desperate to be unleashed.

She’d thought for a while, that she hated Steve. For insisting that she remain in London whilst they fought to capture her father. It had taken her a week to determine that she was merely disgusted with herself.

Her thoughts were spiralling again – and though the headache in her skull continued to beat against a broken drum, she felt the distinct need to reach for a bottle. On every other day, she would have already relinquished her limited control and given into that desire. But this was the final mission – the mission that Bucky died for. She didn’t want any of her senses to be dulled by the cool brown liquor, even if it would dull her pain, too.

“Are you alright?”

Aria startled, her mind coming back to her. She glanced down at her hands – realising suddenly that she had been digging her hands into the wooden table. Such was the force of her scratch, that she’d begun to leave gouge marks in the grooves of the wood. She couldn’t bring herself to look at Howard, couldn’t bear to see the disturbed glint of his eyes,

But when he spoke again, he was sympathetic. Kind. “Aria, are you okay?”

She wasn’t – but admitting that would get her kicked off the mission, and that had been her purpose for waking up in the morning for the last month. Without answering the businessman immediately, she cracked her neck from side to side; letting the rolling motion of her head moving ground her in the sense of reality that she’d managed to carve for herself that morning.

Finally, she looked up at him – startled initially by the concern within his eyes. “I’m alright,” she promised. But it was a lie. He knew it too, but she appreciated him when he didn’t press her to speak.

Instead, he only gathered the papers that had been strewn across the table. Neatly, she watched him fold them all back into place, back into the file they’d come from, before he closed it shut. Then, with a smile she was sure had charmed the pants off of hundreds of girls, he murmured his goodbyes to her, casting excuses about needing to finalise some plans before the Howling Commandos and their chief in command Captain America turned their sights upon Schmidt that day. She smiled at him, not seeing the need to voice a goodbye – thought she could feel her skin crawling with the idea of remaining alone in the mess hall. It would be too quiet in here. She would be too alone with her thoughts.

“Oh.” Howard turned suddenly, tossing the words over his shoulder before his body had managed to spin around. “I stitched up your suit, too. Should be in the armoury.” He said it so casually, calmly. “You better get moving – if you want to make the rendezvous.”

Aria wracked her brain. But she couldn’t recall the last time she’d worn her suit, let alone given it to Howard to fix. Aware that it could have been something she’d achieved whilst in the midst of a drunken haze, she merely smiled at him. “Thanks, Howard. My hero.”

She was surprised when he actually blushed, ducking his head with tinged pink cheeks before he turned away and left the mess hall. Aria didn’t think any further of it.

***

Aria was the last to the armoury. It didn’t surprise her, given the number of buckles that needed to be placed across the Howling Commandos’ suits in order to ensure they didn’t come untied at inopportune moments. She knew the ties to their uniforms well.

Howard had been right – her suit was left exactly where he had said it would be, looking freshly washed of blood and arguably newer than when she had first given it to him to upgrade. Scanning her eyes over it, she found that she could not determine the changes that he had made on her behalf – though her eyes kept catching against the two vipers, meeting in anger at the back of her shoulders. She couldn’t tear her eyes away, lost in the image of their rage and vengeance. She felt it was over her, too. The anger that she couldn’t hope to control – the desperate need to do something about Bucky’s death, when the reality was that she had been forced to sit still in the SSR for months.

Mramor, she snarled at herself and was pleased when she felt her body immediately snapping back to attention. Her fist closed around the fabric, and she felt the threads embed into her skin – kicking off her combat boots to begin to dress. It was nothing the Howling Commandos’ hadn’t seen before; and she was grateful they paid her no mind as she stripped bare to her skin, stepping into the suit that had been made especially for her. Even now, it closed around her body, embracing her with a lovers touch, compressing all the right areas of her skin so that she would remain grounded in every action that she took. She had designed it with that in mind – that in the event she could not find something to hold, she would be able to feel it pressing against her skin, and she would know that she was alive.

Tonight, she suspected the suit would serve it’s other purpose: keeping her alive long enough to destroy everything in her path – including herself, when it came time to do so.

The Howling Commandos had greeted her warmly when they had noticed her entrance, but Aria saw the wariness in their gazes. They were right to be afraid – tonight she would show them how she earned the nickname the Red Viper.

Footsteps approached the armoury, growing louder as the hulking figure turned inside. “Aria.”

It seemed that everyone wanted her attention. Turning her green eyes towards Steve, she sighed at the concern she saw laden within.

“If you’re about to ask me if I’m okay; or request for whatever reason that I’m not on this mission, Rogers, I’ll consider killing you myself just to get to Schmidt.”

It was meant to be a joke but based on the way that everyone in the room tensed, she suspected that not a soul there had found it remotely funny. Wincing, she shook her head to clear her thoughts, and flashed Rogers a smile that had previously sent men to their knees in front of her.

“Steve, I’m alright.” She soothed, brushing her hair to the front of her face. It was almost entirely red now – gone were the days of dying her hair blonde to fit in with the other American girls. She wasn’t an American girl anymore – she never had been in the first place. She was something else entirely. Besides, in the end, Bucky was adamant that he loved the way her red hair framed her ass. He’d mentioned it once or twice.

“You don’t have to do this you know. If you think it might be too much. I know that there’s… history, there.”

She narrowed her eyes in suspicion, and warning laced the edges of her tone when she next spoke. “You don’t know the history that’s there, Rogers – and even if you did, it’s not exactly any of your business.”

“Given that you’re under my command, it’s my concern.” Then, softer, he added. “I just want you to make it to the other side of this mission, Davis.”

She almost growled than. But the voice in the back of her mind reminded her that she only needed to last a few more hours. A few more hours of pretending that she was human. A few more hours of pretending that she was capable of following orders. Then this would all be over. Instead, she merely turned her back to him, dismissing him whilst simultaneously making him useful. “Zip up my suit, won’t you?”

She knew she’d disarmed him from his thoughts when the gentle feeling of his fingers pressed into her back. She almost disarmed herself – it was the first time she’d allowed someone to touch her since he’d died; and it was certainly the first time that she allowed someone to place their bare skin against her own. She couldn’t help the shiver that erupted from her body, the gentle acknowledgement of something soft and warm pressing against her and reminding her of what she had lost.

Mramor.

Just as Steve’s fingers reached the apex of her suit, she found herself turning around to face him. Close enough to feel his breath against her face, Aria tried to smile, but she knew it looked weak. What had she told herself before? The best lies always had some truth mixed into them. It was what made them strong, like a tapestry. She could tell the truth now: a simple truth that he would know in his heart to be genuine.

“I miss him.”

It hurt her to say, and she felt the knife slicing across her breastbone as she did. She watched Steve’s breath catch; she watched the way the other Howling Commandos in the room instinctively fell silent at her words. She knew they’d been waiting for this – the first verbal acknowledgement from her person that James Buchanan Barnes had meant something to her. All they had seen, up to this point, was a violent, angry girl. Or a drunk. Or someone who did not long for conversation. They hadn’t seen her honesty, because she hadn’t wanted to show it. She was only divulging it now, out of necessity. But it was enough.

“I miss him more than I can explain,” she continued, when the room seemed to be waiting for her to speak. “But just because I miss him, doesn’t mean that I get to sit on my ass, and watch others do the job for me. I made you, the SSR… I made him a promise, that I would try to be better. That I would try to do good, make good in the world like that good that I saw in him. And yes, I am still grieving, and yes, I don’t suspect that will ever end, but it does not mean that I get to do any less than any of you. We are all of us grieving. But we are all of us going to win today. Because that’s what he would want. That’s what Bucky would want for us.”

She met their gazes individually. Gabe Jones. Jim Morita. James Montgomery Falsworth. Jacques Dernier. Timothy Dugan. They all nodded to her words, and she saved her glance to Steve for last. Searching his eyes, she realised that he had bought the words she had woven into a tapestry. He believed her lies.

Grinning with relief – and triumph, she uttered: “Let’s cut off the last head,” to the sound of cheers.

Notes:

nearing the end of the first avenger!

in terms of the way i have this plotted out - i've written the entire next 'part' of her story (so post tfa) and am moving onto writing the third part now. she's been so fun to write so i'm glad that i have others that are equally enjoying her journey!

Chapter 30

March 1st, 1945: Midday

It was barely past midday when Captain America had been taken prisoner by HYDRA forces, just outside of Johann Schmidt’s final base. Given that he had stormed himself into the centre of the field, motorcycle and shield in hand, it was only a matter of time before he was overwhelmed. Just as Aria had suspected, he had been captured alive and taken to the Red Skull himself. Aria had told Steve as much – he was a man that wouldn’t have been able to resist having him in his grasp. It would give him the opportunity to have the final word. The entire basis of their plan had relied on this fact, and she had been pleased, even briefly, to learn that it had gone accordingly.

As Steve had requested, Dugan had acted as her babysitter throughout the entire experience. A job that she suspected he resented – but not because of her. Because Bucky should have been alive, to keep an eye on her. Because she was Bucky’s to handle – because Bucky knew how to handle her. With that no longer being an option, the task had fallen to him. From the point where they were standing on the Alps, red hair tied back to prevent strays in her eyes, to when they had ziplined across the strait, Aria knew that the moustached Commando had never once taken his eyes from her, loyal to his Captain’s orders. Aria would have been infuriated, if she had been actively trying to escape.

Dugan and Rogers were fools if they thought they could actively keep a tail on her. The building they were attacking – Aria had grown up in it. They may have needed her father’s information for accurate counts of soldiers, to attempt to understand the tech that Schmidt had acquired – but the reality was, she knew these walls perhaps better than anyone. In these walls, she learned how to become a monster; and though she had tamed the beast for a time at the SSR, she knew it was right to bide her time. The opportunity would present itself in due course, and she could unleash the rage she’d kept leashed.

She’d taken that opportunity as it rose – only mere moments after they’d landed in the base. Schmidt had run upon learning of the troops, and Steve had followed. Aria had barely a second of time to follow after them before Dugan would turn to look upon her and prevent an escape. But she was faster than that second, and she knew she was long gone before he’d realised he had even taken his eyes off of her.

The black suit stood out against the snow; but inside the walls of HYDRA, she looked and moved like a shadow. Only the faintest blur of red was a hint to her presence as she glided along the floor, her body instinctively moving against the curves of the walls, and the soldiers that she knew to be approaching her position. She paid them no mind for the moment – she needed to ensure that Schmidt would face his retribution in the hands of the only man who could possibly offer it to her.

For as much as Aria wanted to kill Schmidt for what had done to her, what he had done to Bucky – she knew too, that she was beneath him. He was a god amongst men, and she was a mere mortal in his presence. She had felt the strength encased in his body the first time he had held her down; and if she was being honest, she was terrified that he would simply return to what he had started if she were to meet him in battle again. She knew it was cowardly of her, but she elected to ignore that in favour of strategy. At least – she claimed it was strategy.

Everything she’d ever learnt – every combat skill, every strategy, every way she knew to kill a man, came down to the moment she entered Schmidt’s warehouse, and saw the Red Skull enter the bowels of his plan. When the engine sequence began moments later, and Steve sprinted down the runway, she knew that they were running out of time.

It was in that moment too, that Phillips and Carter arrived alongside her. In a car that she knew all too well. She suspected that she looked green as she stared at it – haunted, terrified and frightened. She had not seen it since he had raped her there.

“Get in.” Peggy had snarled at her, but Aria was shaking, and she couldn’t do it.

“I’ll keep them off your tail.” She had offered in return. Phillips had looked at her like she was an idiot, and she suspected that his next sentence would have stated as much – but Peggy merely grimaced. She watched the SSR spy unhook the weapon she strapped against herself – a gun that HYDRA had used throughout the assault. It would kill a man on impact, sending their body to ash and dust. It was the kind of weapon that Aria would need; if she chose to stay.

And she had chosen to stay. She had no qualms about losing her life in this battle. She had no qualms about living beyond this day, if she somehow happened to survive this moment. She could feel now, pressed against her chest, the weight of the small solace that had still been offered to her. Stark’s small mercy. It called to her, and once Aria was sure that they were successful in their mission; she planned to answer it’s song.

“Good luck, Davis.” Carter had said then. Aria barely had time to nod before the car was speeding off down the runway after Steve – hoping to catch up with him, and Schmidt, before the plane managed to take off into the air.

It left Aria alone, with tens of HYDRA soldiers. All of them running towards her – some, she could see, wearing masks of confusion. They could not tell if she was the enemy, or the friend that they had known their lives.

It was something else she had suspected would happen. Schmidt was too proud to admit that she had been lost to the Allied cause. Those closest; those who held the secrets, they would have been informed of her betrayal. Warned of any potential threats to their communicative systems. But the low-ranking HYDRA soldiers could not be told of her defection. They could not think that defection and life was a remotely related cause, lest they attempt it themselves. They could not know that she had found a way out of their shared torment, for it would mean the end of his army.

Steve wasn’t here to question her actions. If he was, Aria suspected he would have tried to rouse them to her side – based solely on the way they were looking at her now. But Aria had spent a month staring at the images of HYDRA in her nightmares. She had seen the face of Johann Schmidt killing the love of her life in her waking day; and she had spent hours drinking that pain away through the burn of whiskey. As far as Aria was concerned – if they wore the red symbol of Johann Schmidt’s HYDRA on their shoulders, they were as good as dead.

She wasn’t sure who fired the first shot. She suspected that she did, based on the way the crowd reared backwards in fear. She was a ghost within the shadows of intelligence agencies – but she was a legend within these walls, and she was pleased when almost immediately – three of the men who had been running for her dropped their weapons and sprinted away from the fight. With their backs turned, and making no effort to fight her, it made firing the HYDRA weapon upon them all the easier.

She must have looked a sight – a black whisp, phasing through the room with agile speed, simultaneously dodging blows while aiming her own fatal shots. Shots they fired at her, with their own weaponry – she could feel it whizzing past her ear. The adrenaline in her body pumped fresh feeling into her limbs, her heart pounding in tune with the steps of her feet. For the first time in months, she felt like she was alive, she felt as though she had a purpose. She had become the Red Viper, within the halls of HYDRA, just as Johann Schmidt had always wanted for her. He simply had not wished her to wield her talents against his men.

There were no bodies to be found amongst the fallen. Her use of HYDRA’s own weaponry had ensured that. When only a few men remained surrounding her – the few that had managed to shield themselves from the blows or cower against their brethren; she paused for a moment, as did they.

“We both know that you could use that weapon – and take us out without blinking. How about we make it an even fight?” The man – the bravest among them, spoke with a thick German accent. She suspected that it had been a long time since he’d practiced his knowledge of the English language; and she found it strange that he would even default to it at all. Her father had warned her, that she had become an American whore, she simply did not pay him any mind. Perhaps she should have.

Aria grinned, every single one of her teeth showing against the backdrop of her smile. “A challenge?” She purred, throwing the weapon behind her feet. She watched the other eight men standing straighten then. With the hopes that they could stand a chance against her.

Aria felt the knife press deeper into her leg, begging to be unleashed. She could feel her muscles tensing and bunching with anticipation, preparing for the fight. She had been afraid before – she had been afraid as Aria Davis. That the violence she was born too would eventually be enough to send Bucky away. That he would run from her brutality – that he would run from her. For his love, she had hidden the violence that consumed her. But it was her, and she was violence. Her father had been right: she had chosen to survive. She had made herself, not solely out of necessity but because there was some vicious part of her that wanted this. There was no Aria Davis in this room: there was only the Red Viper, and her desire to kill.

When the first soldier moved, the knife swung free of its binds against her leg. He was upon her quicker than she expected, and she felt her body crumble under the full force of his weight. It sent them both tumbling backwards, and Aria could almost hear the disjointed laughter of her Red Room instructors as they watched her lose the fight. It had been what they wanted, after all. To see her fail so spectacularly.

Even if they weren’t beside her now, she wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.

Her knife moved in the palm of her hand, like an extension of her arm. She felt the moment that it tasted flesh, felt the moment that the knife kissed his skin, and this warm blood came loose from his body. It dripped down upon her, and he howled in pain, almost immediately losing his grip on her person. The window of opportunity was all she needed to trail the knife up his body, until it embedded in his neck.

She didn’t bother to waste time on him after that – even if he didn’t die from the wound immediately, he would be dead; and he was no longer a concern for her.

She stared down the remaining men in their suits, and she heard the moment an animalistic growl left her throat. There would be no mercy for these soldiers. It had been too long since she’d indulged in the sweet satisfaction of the hunt, of the kill. At her heart, she was a predator – and the men before her were her prey. Something inside of her had broken irreparably – she would never again capture the happiness she had experienced with Bucky. But in this moment, she was a survivor.

Men continued to drop around her. It did not matter if they attacked her in a pack, or if they chose to confront her in single combat. She was too strong, too fast, too trained to fall to their blows; even if these men were the survivors of Johann Schmidt’s forces. They too had trained under threat of death, but they had not known the suffering that she had. They had not known how it had felt to fight with both of their limbs broken, they had not known how it had felt to be violated so spectacularly and effortlessly by a man whom they could not hope to fight off.

Until now – she was their reckoning. She was the one they could not kill. Even when they managed to clip her, breaking her arm, and even when one man landed a particularly precise punch to her ribs, she did not falter. She was the nightmare they had grown up with, the woman who had been forged into a weapon of destruction; a sleeper cell that could destroy countries overnight.

When only one man remained, she felt the moment that he pressed his gun into the back of her temple. Not a HYDRA gun – she could feel the difference in the temperature and weight of the steel, but it was a gun, nevertheless.

And she laughed. Maniacally, not the kind of laugh which anyone would find reassuring, but it escaped from her still. A cackle, she laughed until she found it hard to breathe, until tears sprung to her eyes. She laughed until she could feel the weapon shaking in the hands of the man who held it against her – fear of pulling the trigger, and fear of her warring with one another. She suspected he’d never had the opportunity to kill a person before. That he was young, and unhardened. That he was new to the rules of warfare.

She was still laughing when she shifted, bringing her body weight behind him. The gun went off, and she felt it pierce her shoulder, but she didn’t care. Using her weight and strength, she snapped his neck. She saw the light disappear from his eyes, saw the acceptance that he had been bested by a greater power. The smile never dropped from her face, even as his body crumbled unceremoniously to the floor. The blood pooled around her, seeping into her shoes and wetting the hems of her suit, but she stood there, an unmovable object. Staring at it, she felt a strange rush of power. This was everything Schmidt had ever wanted to be.

She could not bring herself to move. Not until she felt the gentle press of another against the palm of her hand. Dugan, she realised, when she glanced up at him. She read the horror etched into his brow quickly, the sadness that leeched into his eyes quicker. But it didn’t phase her. Something had finally snapped – something was gone from her person, something that meant she could no longer feel. Only the sound of wind roared in her head, the absence of everything making itself known.

“Aria… Your arm…”

She heard Dugan’s voice say her name – and she knew that it had been said with care that she didn’t deserve. Instead, she elected to ignore it. The knife in her hand twisted in her gasp, and she heard Dugan’s strangled cry, especially when it began to rest against the stitching of her catsuit. She knew she probably looked a sight. Her arm was bent at an awkward angle, but she’d spent so long as a child training with broken limbs that she no longer recognised the pain. Her breaths were coming in short, shallow gasps, too. Somewhere, her survival instincts cried out for help. But she shoved them down. They didn’t matter to her now. His voice didn’t matter to her now. There was only one man who could pull her back from this.

And he had died.

Somewhere, she heard a car approaching with speed. She didn’t need to turn around to understand that it contained Carter and Phillips. Her darkest nightmares had embedded the sound of the engine into the core of her memory. For that reason, Aria didn’t flinch when the car screeched to a halt alongside her, nor did she flinch when Peggy Carter leaped from inside, barely sparing her a second glance before she travelled deeper into the halls of HYDRA. She would be looking for a way to communicate with Steve, Aria presumed. Some way to confirm that the super soldier had been successful in his mission to destroy the last remaining head of HYDRA.

She had not doubted that Steve would be able to do it. As soon as it was confirmed, then Aria could finally rest.

Looking at Phillips though, who was casting a critical eye at the surrounding bodies on the floor; she knew that there was something she had to do first.

Taking the sharp tip of the knife, she pierced fabric of her suit. Dugan may have leaped for her then – but Phillips was faster, holding out a hand to give the American soldier pause. She didn’t need to look to know that Dugan’s moustache would be twitching in frustration, but Aria knew that Phillips understood what she was doing in this moment.

With practiced, perfected precision, Aria sliced through the Allied Flag contained within the stitching on her wrist. The image that had only been included under the insistence of Phillips, the cold reminder that she had merely swapped one master for another. For a time, it could have been different. With Bucky; she truly believed that she had a place in the halls of the SSR, making a name for herself that was kind, and sweet, and utterly different from the life that she had been trained for.

It wasn’t who she was. And she couldn’t stand the thought of being owned again.

The fabric came clean with a final tear of the stitch. She had avoided cutting her skin; but the flag was still covered in blood as she turned to Phillips. She couldn’t read the emotions swirling within her, she could only feel the finality of it all. The crescendo, the closing act of the person she had been pretending to be.

When she pressed the flag into chest, and a look crossed between them, Aria knew it was over.

Notes:

thanks everyone for all of your kind words and feedback! writing this story has been such a privilege. we're just about wrapped up with the first avenger, but there's a long while to go yet :)

any comments or feedback you want to give as always, feel free to send them through x

Chapter 31

Notes:

Please check the notes at the end of the chapter for specific content warnings - light spoilers apply.

March 1st, 1945: Evening

Steve was dead.

Peggy hadn’t told her as much – but Aria had seen her tear-stained cheeks when she entered the control room. The typically composed, immovable Margaret Carter was crying where she sat, still at her station. Aria was struck by the sudden realisation then, that this woman was beautiful even when she cried. Still stoic, and strong – and utterly devastated by the emotion that wracked through her body. She was sure the sound of quiet sobbing was reverberating through her microphone, across the radio that was no longer connected to another end. Perhaps even vibrations, from the way that her hands were still shaking, though Aria was sure the call had ended long ago. It was just another stark reminder that the men they had both come to love were never coming home.

The other thought that crossed her mind was far less kind. The monster that she had become, that she had been made to be, was gleaming. Pleased. Good, it screamed. Now Peggy would understand the hurt.

The loss of Steve Rogers made the wound in her shoulder throb, as her heart desperately fought to maintain blood flow around her body. These were wounds she would survive from, if she would simply allow herself the time to be weakened, and the time to heal from that weakness. Her wrist, the ribs, the bullet – it would all disappear with the sands of time. What she had survived had taught her as much.

But the emotion that was involved with losing a man – with now, losing two good men in war. She’d once told Rogers that it did not do well, to dwell on matters of the dead. But those had been faceless men, soldiers committed to a cause she sought to destroy. The men she had lost, her friends, she had known their faces. Their loss was not so easy to overcome, to replace with another time, another mission. She would never get over Bucky – it was a fact she’d known since Steve had first informed her of his death. She’d promised herself she’d see the mission through; and now that it was done, she was left such a distinct feeling of peace and acceptance. She would be joining him in nothing, soon.

She’d told him once before that she didn’t believe in an afterlife; when he and Steve had asked her to join them for Christmas mass. She’d told him then, that she had no place in a holy chapel, and whilst that remained true, she knew it was also because she could not bring herself to believe that there was a God. The idea that there was a higher being, who loved you eternally, but did not have the power nor will, to save you, was impossible to reconcile in her mind. The idea that he did not give more than one could handle. She had never been religious; had never been brought up in faith, but it had taken her first night at the Abwehr, her first time sleeping with a man, when she had realised her truth. That there was no God, because no God would dare put her through such pain.

Bucky had died and returned to nothing. It was in this state of nothing that she would soon join him – free from the pain of this life, free from the trauma and the suffering. She would free others, too, of the reign of terror that she could unleash upon them.

So, she had left Peggy to cry, barely even offering the grieving woman a glance as she left the communications chamber. Whether Peggy had even noticed her entrance, Aria would never know – nor would she ever have the chance to ask. Instead, she allowed her footsteps to carry her across the HYDRA facility. The facility she’d grown up with had aged with time – she could see the cracks that were appearing in the concrete, the chipped paint that tainted the once pristine walls. Only the HYDRA logo, still red and proud, had remained untouched throughout the years she’d been away. In another life, she would have laughed. Didn’t that mirror her own existence? She could pretend to be different, she could pretend to be human, but in the end, she would only be what they made her to be.

Her room was on the lowest levels of the building, deep within the bowels of the mountain. It had been made especially from her, and she had lived it in since she was a girl. Before she’d even understood that there was good in the bad in the world; when her only sense of morality had come from the teachings of her father. As she entered, she was reminded of the way that she viewed her early life: mechanical, clinic, devoid of love. The room reflected it – dark colours painted the walls; dark sheets covered her bed. Warm, but not inviting.

Everything in the room served a purpose. The paper and pens beside her bed had been used to write missives, or letters of seduction to men within Hitler’s inner circle, desperate to garner further favour of Schmidt. The candles by her bed too, had once been lit with such express purpose in mind. It was true that in this room she had lain with men who made her skin crawl, whose breath smelled like ash and who’s bodies should have decayed alongside the empty cavity that was their heart. Every fake moan of pleasure that had left her in these chambers had shattered her in some manner, and now, inside the room once more, they crashed over her again like a wave. She had been younger than eighteen when she had been tasked with servicing these men in the name of HYDRA, and now, her body would never be the same again.

She’d allowed herself to pretend, for a while. When Bucky touched her, when he made her shatter between the sheets with his fingers, and his tongue, she had allowed herself to forget the men that has violated her body. Instead, she replaced the memories of Schmidt’s red fingertips holding her down with the image of Bucky, panting and desperate above her. Their shared thready breaths, and desperate pleas echoed louder than her quiet whimpering alongside Schmidt, and it had been enough whilst he was alive. Now that he was gone, the memory of him was tainted, and there was nothing left to push away the demons which longed to claim her. She figured she would belong to them soon.

The door clicked closed behind her figure, and she startled at the sound. She was alone with her thoughts, in a room that had once been hers. Breathing came shallow, and she could feel the way that her chest squeezed against her broken ribs. The walls were closing in on her, the hourglass was running thin. She was out of time.

Settling onto her bed, she found herself gingerly reaching for the subtle zip in front of her left chest. Her hand lingered for a moment as though there was doubt left in her mind to the action. But where her hand may have stuttered, her mind did not, and she pressed forward with unclasping the zip.

She was expecting a small round pill. It would contain enough cyanide to make her death quick, but not painless. She thought it was exactly what she deserved.

She was surprised instead, when her fingers closed not around a round item, but something rough; and papery. A sudden sense of foreboding overtook her, a fear of which she hadn’t experienced in a long while. Though her shoulder ached at the movement, she scrambled desperately to strip out of her suit, practically tearing the fabric apart as she desperately looked for the item that would offer her a sweet release. But it was gone – and in it’s place, a folded, sturdy paper. Aria knew it would be a photograph.

She whimpered, staring at it. Shaking hands made it difficult, and she thought her vision was suddenly going blurry from the loss of blood she’d experienced. She hadn’t though it necessary to seek medical help, because she believed that her suffering had been over soon. But there was to be no quick release with a poison pill. That choice had been ripped away from her, likely by the man who had designed her suit in the first place. She wanted to hate him for it – she thought that she did, in a way. But the hatred didn’t manifest in her body, and she didn’t feel the familiar cold kiss of rage that so often coated her need for vengeance.

She only felt fear. Fear at what that photograph contained, fear that there were still people within the SSR who cared enough for her, that they didn’t want her to succumb to this. Fear that she had led these people down, when she had acted as the monster, she knew herself to be. There was no longer an option to be better for Bucky. She didn’t want to be better, for anyone besides Bucky.

Heart hammering in her chest, she slowly began to unravel the photograph.

Her lips clamped down hard on her lips, to prevent any noise from escaping. Somewhere, the girl that she has used to be warned her that it was okay to cry; that she could shed a tear in this moment, but it was lost to the void of memory that photograph took her to. The moment in time where she hadn’t been Isla Zola, or the Red Viper. She had just been Aria, and he had just been Bucky, and they had been so breathtakingly happy. She could see the creases in his eyes, the happiness that reflected when he looked down at her, and she could see the way the girl in the image had flowered under his glowing praise. Who was she? Aria longed to recognise her in herself.

She couldn’t bring herself to look away. She couldn’t tear her gaze from the person in the image. What had she done in her life to deserve such happiness? She knew what she had done to have it taken so violently out of her hands, but to deserve even a sliver of it in the first place? The edges of the photograph frayed under the strength of her grasp as she fought to hold onto it – fought to hold onto her feeling of self.

Aria felt the absence of the cyanide pill then. But the weight of something greater too. Bucky would be horrified at the shell of the person he knew. He would be horrified that it was his death alone that had turned her into this waking monster. She was spinning, and she was falling, because there was nothing or no one to ground her. But she had felt that before – the first time she killed another, the first time she slept with a man, killing Erskine’s family, Schmidt raping her, joining the Red Room, even for a short time… All of this had made her who she was.

A survivor, a monster. A woman who had loved and had been loved, a woman whose choices had been ripped from her, time and time again. Even the simple act of taking her own life had been denied. She had told Bucky once, that she wasn’t Isla Zola. She wasn’t Aria Davis, either – not anymore. But somewhere, some sliver within her desperately wanted to be.

Bringing her knees to her chest, Aria began to suck in deep, shallow breaths. Her ribcage was on fire, and whilst the blood on her shoulder had begun to scab and cake, she knew that it needed attention. Still, she could not bring herself to move from this bed. Instead, through her knees, she began to glance around the room, almost desperately, looking for something that she could do to fill the silence; the void that had begun to swirl in her mind.

Her eyes came to rest on the bottle of schnapps; resting against her bedside table, where it had been left almost nine years prior. Already ancient when she had received it, dust had begun to cake along the sides, cascading down in a timeless waterfall. If she focused, she could almost see the particles of dust moving through the dim light; occasionally refracting against her vision. She stared at it a while, trying to ignore the ache in her stomach as she thought of downing the bottle of schnapps. She knew, consciously, that her fingers were trailing closer and closer to the bottle the further she fell into her hypnotised spell of watching. She heard too, when they managed to remove the lip, unsealing hundreds of years of liquor and allowing the fruity scent to dissipate throughout the air.

Inhaling deeply – and ignoring the twinge in her lungs as she did so, Aria felt the viper inside of her relax at the scent. Tipping the bottle back, she felt the moment the liquor poured into her throat, even coughing slightly as the burn took her by surprise. Just as the dust had served it’s use in igniting her focus, even for a moment, now the alcohol took control of that aspect of her being. She used the burn in her throat to centre herself in the room, relishing in the way the room began to spin the more the liquor disappeared from the bottle. At some point, she no longer felt the ache in her ribs, or the bullet wound in her shoulder. She simply existed as she was, and the bottle of schnapps, half empty; slipped from her grasp and landed against the floor with a thud. She blinked haze out of her eyes as somewhere, a spare thought reminded her that the bottle had likely smashed. She didn’t care though.

She didn’t care about anything – not until Howard Stark opened the door.

His presence bathed the room in silence. Even her breathing, shallow as it had become, seemed to quieten against the weighted stare he had thrown in her direction. She hadn’t been expecting him. She had assumed that he would remain in London, far from the action – where it was safe for him to reside. He would hear of the results of the battle, and he would celebrate, and then he would return to New Mexico; and his tenure with the SSR would be all but forgotten.

But no. Had he come back for her? She didn’t think that possible. More likely, she presumed he came to investigate the weapons technology of her father, determine if there was anything that he could learn, and bring back to Project Manhattan. Perhaps even the glowing blue cube that Zola had used to make his weapons after their foray into Norway.

She hoped he had come for the weapons. She wasn’t quite ready to reconcile the fact that he cared enough about her to check. Her eyes lingered against the broken bottle of schnapps, not yet ready to acknowledge his present within the room. She cast her eyes against the date, catalogued the way that the label was lifting from the shattered glass, somehow, only slightly – and continued to do so, until her memories had brought her back to the reason that she received such a gift in the first place. Servicing Hitler’s men. Her body wracked with a violent shiver as she forced her gaze away – back to Howard.

“You’re still here…” He commented in the silence, when it had stretched for too long. Aria realised that he looked uncomfortable. Squinting in the light, it was hard to see him. Her vision was spinning; and she was teetering on the edge of consciousness. She doubted that it was recommended to drink after receiving wounds in a physical battle.

“You took away my choice.” She wanted to sound angry. In fact, she wanted to scream at him. But the only words that escaped her were a statement of fact. Cold and clinical, like the room in which they sat.

“I took away your ability to hurt yourself.” Howard corrected her, eyes narrowed. “There’s no choice in what you wanted to do, Aria. There is only an end.”

“A means to my end.” She replied; but this time, she didn’t bother to attempt fury.

Howard shook his head so violently that she thought it might come lose from his body. “I have to believe you were created for more than this.”

She snorted. “You. Who called me Schmidt’s whore.”

“That’s before I knew…”

“And what do you know.” She snarled. “What do you know about me; that makes me so redeemable? What do you think can be saved about me?”

Howard winced then. She watched him as he took a tentative step closer to the bed. He was treating her like a caged, cornered and wounded animal. Perhaps in a way, she was. She felt like her moniker – like she was a snake coiled, searching for the perfect time to strike.

“Saved…” He chuckled, as he brought himself to perch on the edge of the mattress. “I don’t think anyone is saving you Aria. That would imply you need to be saved.”

She shook her head. “You don’t know the things I’ve done.” She insisted. “You don’t know – Bucky knew, Bucky knew, and he…”

“And he loved you, even then?”

Her breathing came fast and shallow. The photograph, somehow, still clutched tightly in her left hand, was brought back in front of her face. Somehow, in-between her fading black vision, she saw herself. She saw herself smiling, and happy – and she saw him. Looking down on her with such love. Like she deserved it.

Something wet hit the page. Something overwhelming, and foreign rushed through her. Then a second drop, and suddenly, she was heaving with the force of it. She whimpered once; kicking her legs away from her body as though she was physically fighting away the emotion – and then the gates were opened. Harsh, awful sobs wracked through her entire body. Screaming whirred in her ears – though she was positive that she wasn’t making a sound. She felt it when Howard’s arms came to wrap around her – her bare shoulders, her body covered only by her bra and undergarments, having discarded the suit in her desperation to die.

His skin was warm against her body, and she felt herself relax into his touch as her body shook; as her lungs heaved, as everything became too much all at once. The thoughts she had pushed down for months leapt to the forefront of her mind. She couldn’t hear anything within the room – her senses were failing her, because all she could feel was the crushing weight of her grief.

“It’s okay,” she could feel him stroking her hair, trying to soothe her. “It’s okay. It’s okay, Aria. You’re safe now”

She only cried harder.

Notes:

CW - attempted suicide
*to be clear, I think it's debatable whether she would have done it when faced with that absolute choice.

Alright, and with that comes the end of the First Avenger in my planning! I think it goes without saying that mentally, she's not in a great place. As always, any comments, feedback, or just general notes are always welcome.

Chapter 32

Notes:

just a gentle reminder to check the permanent tags - we're moving into a darker portion of the story regarding Aria's mental health and wellbeing; obviously i want you guys to make sure you are looking after yourselves first and foremost!

The Lost Days

Sometime, in the months that she had been away, the Whip and Fiddle bar had finally been repaired.

Gone were any traces of the bombing that had once blown doors from their hinges. No longer were there scorch marks lining the wooden floorboards, or shards of shattered glass embedded in the walls from the force of the blow. Everything had been resealed with a fresh coat of paint, right colours livening the atmosphere as though it could force everyone to forget that they had ever been at war in the first place.

It was a ridiculous notion. The idea that man could simply forget a war was what had arguably led to the beginnings of this one. They were, as a species, doomed to repeat the events of history that they did not understand. And history would always be shaped by the actions of mad men.

Aria stood in front of the double glass doors – an upgrade, from the usual dingy wood that had graced the front of the building previously. It meant that she could see inside the building, meant that the noise wasn’t muffled as well as it had been previously. The air inside, she knew, would be jubilant; drinks would be flowing, and voices would be raised in celebration for the end of the war. The men who had managed to survive, who had returned home to their loved ones following months of violence and conquest could celebrate with comfort, though Aria knew better than to presume that the horrors of war would ever leave their side.

She longed to step inside the building. She should have already stepped inside the building, to celebrate the end. She knew that would have been the socially acceptable action, the direction she was meant to take. Because this was a victory for her, too. She had managed to overcome HYDRA. She had fought alongside the Allies despite great personal cost, and she’d continued to do so even when she wished for the sweet embrace of death. But she could not bring herself to move beyond the doorway. Soldiers around her, spilling in from celebrations on the streets, did not share in her hesitation. With every man who entered the room; every woman who attached themselves to another stepping through the threshold, Aria felt that the goal was unobtainable.

Perhaps it was the memories, that were tied to this building. Perhaps it was because the last time she’d stepped within this bar, she had been sick with despair, desperate to move and dance away the demons that threatened to overwhelm her. She hadn’t danced since that night – but she had wanted to. Dancing gave her control; dancing allowed her body to move only in the way that she allowed it to, allowed her to feel only the sensations that she allowed herself to feel.

Unconsciously, her feet began to tap across the ground. She willed herself to step through the door; but she felt her body turn in the opposite direction. Turning away from the Whip and Fiddle, where the rest of the Howling Commandos were likely toasting to the memory of Rogers and Barnes. Where the war was a distant memory despite maintaining momentum in the Pacific. She didn’t belong in that room. The memories contained in the bar were of a happier time.

She would find another bar. One that didn’t have these memories. Where she could be alone with her thoughts.

***

“Are you sure this is what you want?”

No.

Aria didn’t know what she wanted anymore.

Chester Phillips sat in front of her. Dressed in his uniform, he was every bit the decorated Colonel that Aria knew him to be. Surrounded too, by men in suits that Aria did not recognise, nor did she care too. She suspected they were here solely for the formal aspect of the meeting – the recognition that she had earned the promised pardon from the Allied Forces, thanks to the defeat of Johann Schmidt and HYDRA through her willing hand.

It was a hollow victory without Bucky.

To the waiting faces – blank, expressionless, and mildly curious, Aria merely smiled. The picture of perfect politeness. “I’m sure.”

He didn’t agree with her decision. She could see it on his face. She could see him debating her request in his mind; debating every angle, every outcome. Wondering what purpose she could possibly have, to wish for this course of action.

In truth, she hadn’t thought about this aspect of fighting for the Allies, until Howard Stark saw fit to place that photograph in her chest pocket. Looking at Bucky, looking at the love that they shared between each other… Aria had concluded that she couldn’t bear the thought of such a memory belonging to the world. She was private by trade; and as much as Phillips had promised to keep her true identity secrets – as much as the Strategic Scientific Reserve had insisted that they would be able to continue the charade that she was a merely a combat nurse, Aria had refused. The love that they shared belonged to no one other than them; and hiding her existence from the Howling Commandos, even World War II – it meant that she could keep it close. It could be something that was solely hers. She didn’t have many things that were solely hers, anymore.

Let the world believe that the Red Viper was no longer active. Let intelligence agencies around the world breathe that relieved sigh.

When Phillips eyes widened, and Aria saw pity beginning to pool in his gaze, she knew that he had concluded it was grief. She wasn’t sure how to feel about that.

“The world will not know your name.” He finally told her, acceptance in his words. The file – her file, everything the SSR had managed to glean about her life, was closed, and slipped towards her. Aria’s fingers lightly traced the top, kissing the scratches of her old name. Isla Zola. It felt like a lifetime ago now, and the paper itself reflected it. The ink had been smudged with some, and for a moment, she felt her thumb pressing against it. As though she could erase the remainder of that black mark. But it stuck firm, a permanent reminder of whom she had been born to be.

Pulling her attention away, she was curious when Phillips produced another file from his pocket. This one, she noticed as it landed in front of her lap; had a different name etched into the paper. Aria Davis. Not for the first time, she didn’t know how to feel about being confronted with that name. Unlike Isla, however, she wasn’t opposed to her curiosity overtaking her wariness. The yellow-paper cover opened in her fingertips, and she noted with immediate interest the documents contained inside. A passport, a birth certificate, a social security number, and numerous other documents spilled from the pages. A new identity – a real Aria Davis.

“If the world knows my name, I did a bad job.” Aria agreed, measured in her response when it came. Her head was throbbing in the light of day; the taste of last night’s bar still fresh on her tongue. Closing the clasps of her file, she met Phillip’s gaze once more. It was easier, in this moment, to pretend. That she wasn’t falling apart, that she had a plan. Still, she wondered if she looked to him as tired as she felt.

“It would be best if I was excluded from the history books.”

Phillips grunted his agreement. “And your tenure with the SSR?”

Aria shook her head. She thought she had made herself startlingly clear, when she ripped that flag from her body. To ensure there was no confusion with Phillips, she merely replied: “Consider it terminated.”

***

Aria first registered the punch when it connected with her skin. She first felt the impression of her blood pooling at the wound, desperate to heal the microscopic fractures that had formed. Next, she felt the surefire sting of pain – followed by the dull ache of a continuous throbbing that reminded her that the bruise was fresh, and ginger. Vaguely, she registered the sensation of blood dribbling down her cheek and onto the floor, tickling her.

Grimacing against the wound; she raised her chin to the man in front of her. A burly man; a soldier, returning from war. He’d been her target from the moment she’d stepped foot into the grungy bar; and she was pleased to note that her characterisation had been correct. Short tempered, overtly masculine, wounded from the horrors of the war; he would not take too kindly to a woman imposing judgment upon him for his actions. Certainly not as she had dressed herself to look that morning – proper, poised, and unaffected by the brutalities of war. It was a mask she wore now. To exude control over herself, and her surroundings. If she painted herself in a certain manner, then she could not be touched again by the realities of her experiences.

If she purposefully started fights with men in bars, she could test her skills. First, interrogation, second, goading, third – seeing if she was still able to dodge a punch, even whilst horrifically drunk.

Sometimes, like today, she even allowed herself to be hit. Just to remind her that there was still pain in this world, and it could override the emptiness within her heart. Sometimes, she could still feel her ribcage squeezing in protest when she bore the brunt of a brutal kick, or even her muscles tensing, her movements slowing after days of searching for a fight. There was something exhilarating about dodging the punch – something that she relished every time she managed to outmanoeuvre her opponents, untrained as they may be. But there was something sinfully pleasurable about allowing herself to be hit in the first place. The idea that she wasn’t infallible. That she could break, and bend. That she wasn’t made of marble. Not anymore.

“Know your place, bitch.” The man snarled at her, wringing his hand from the force of his blow. But Aria could see the confusion in his movements. She should have fallen over. She shouldn’t have been able to withstand the punch that he had thrown. Even if she was bleeding and bruised – it would have been enough to knock a regular woman out.

Aria was no regular woman.

Cracking her neck from side to side, she let the false pretences of her terrified expression from her mouth as her nose upturned in a sneer. Something flickered in the man’s eyes then – fear. She knew fear, she’d been friends with fear her whole life, and she had learned how to exploit it in others before she had learned to bury it within herself.

Rolling her shoulders, she threw a charming smile at the man. “I already do.”

He didn’t have time to move before she’d thrown her first punch of the evening.

***

Agent Margaret Carter had been known by many names in this life. Peggy, primarily, and preferred, but for a time; to a girl called Isla Zola, she had been known only as Agent 13.

Isla Zola, of course, no longer existed. Peggy had watched that identity fade; not simply over time, but officially, too. She had been standing alongside Phillips when he had burnt the copies of her file, leaving only a single remaining yellow folder that Peggy knew had been gifted to the girl during her debrief. Whatever Aria did with that information was entirely her prerogative, and Peggy suspected that frightened her, though she would never admit it.

In reality, Peggy wasn’t entirely sure who Aria was anymore. She had thought for a time, that they could be friends. Had the war of ended differently, she was sure that their lives would remain intertwined through their respective relationships – but then again, Peggy was struggling to imagine Aria as a housewife.

One thing remained true of her; both as Isla and as Aria: she did not know how to rest. She was a being in perpetual motion, unable to stop or slow, desperate to move, to feel, to fight, to experience pain and pleasure and everything in between. For a woman who had trained to be an assassin since she was barely more than a girl, she felt startlingly deeply. Perhaps Peggy was simply perceptive, but she’d always noticed the years of hurt that the Russian woman had been unable to hide.

It was why she hadn’t been surprised, when Aria had broken down so spectacularly after Bucky’s death. Why she hadn’t flinched, when Aria had taken a week to return to normal. Why she was worried – but not overly concerned, when Aria refused to return to the SSR. Phillips had privately worried to her about the girls mental stability. Peggy had hummed agreement – Phillips was right, of course, she was not mentally stable – but she’d also noted that Aria would be alright, in the end. If anything, she had proven herself to be a survivor.

Peggy was a survivor too. It was why she had been so adamant that Steve’s rooms within the SSR would remain untouched, until such time that she was prepared to enter them. It had taken her months – and a few lousy attempts, before she’d been able to walk through that door.

Ther room was untouched, unmoored against the backdrop of what Peggy knew to be true. The bed had been neatly kept, the clothes; neatly folded. A desk contained papers and pencils; Peggy suspected if she cracked the drawer open, she would find hundreds of drawings that Steve had conducted over his time with the SSR. She’d known he had continued – it was something that allowed him to relax after his missions. Especially in the aftermath of Bucky, when he had felt that he had no one. She suspected he had drawn a lot, then. At least, when he wasn’t drinking his sorrows away alongside Aria.

It was with a deep sigh that she set the cardboard box down against his mattress, disturbing the perfectly smoothed fabric.

It was to Steve’s desk that she headed first; deciding that the drawings were as good of a place to start as any. Cracking the drawer, she began to lift the piles of pages from the drawer, occasionally allowing her fingers to graze the images that had been traced into the pages. Reflecting at her, she had seen the smiling faces of Bucky and Aria; from a happier time. Steve had a gift, Peggy knew this – but there was something to be said about the way he could capture Aria against a page. He would never have understood her; this was a fact that Peggy knew well, but somehow, he knew enough about her to capture her essence against the page.

Hand disappearing back into the drawer, she felt her eyebrows frown in confusion when her fingers brushed against something harder than paper, and certainly bigger. Avidly curious, she peered down, severing her gaze with the sketching’s until her eyes rested upon a little black box.

Peggy felt her heart drop to her stomach. She had been engaged before; once, to a nice man, but that life hadn’t been the one that she needed. Hadn’t been the one that she deserved, and she had called it off before the wedding. She knew what the box of an engagement ring looked like, she knew especially, when an engagement ring had been picked with explicit attention to detail.

The ring was too noisy for Steve. She suspected had he of had the chance, Captain Rogers would have chosen something simple, and elegant. This ring was ornate in its spacing between the stones, the care that had been taken to lay them into a pattern resembling a flower. In the centre, sat not a diamond, but a beautiful green emerald; a gleaming stone that perfectly matched Aria’s coloured eyes.

Her heart pained against her chest, thumping uncomfortably with the reminder of what had been lost to them. Alongside the ring, she found an envelope, addressed to Bucky from Winnifred Barnes; a woman Peggy quickly realised was his mother. She didn’t read the letter; that felt like she was overstepping her bounds. Still, she found that she could not place it in the box alongside Steve’s other belongings. Not yet.

Taking a spare piece of paper, and a pencil laying by the desk, Peggy took the chance to scribble down the faded address of Winnifred Barnes. Once she was done, she gathered all the remaining materials, everything that remained on the desk and in the drawer, neatly placing them inside the box until it was almost overflowing at the brim. She didn’t hesitate to add the ring to the top of that box, face set in a frown.

The address of Bucky’s mother. That she could give to Aria; hoping to seal a wound that was shared between the two strangers. But the ring…

Peggy wasn’t convinced Aria would ever recover from that knowledge.

Chapter 33

The Lost Days

The cold, compressed ice wrapped in cloth landed in her lap with a dull thud. She felt the familiar sting of the temperature as she gripped it in her hands; only managing to slacken when she pressed it against the site of her bruise. It settled there gently, and she felt the rest of her body relax in turn with the sensation. The cold meant she was home. The cold meant that the fight was over.

“You can’t keep doing this to yourself.”

Of course – this time, she hadn’t been granted the pleasure of arriving to her apartment alone. She did not know how Howard Stark had managed to find her; she had spent a lot of time ensuring that she wasn’t being followed by men and women from the SSR. She suspected that Phillips had never dropped her surveillance detail, and though she didn’t resent him for the move, she wished that she would be allowed even the slightest sliver of peace and trust within the world. It made sense, that after his business with the atomic weapon had finished, Stark had found his way back to her side. The war in the pacific ended quite quickly after the introduction of that terror.

“Doing what?” She snapped back, glaring up at the businessman. With his hands on his hips, and his face set in a familiar anger, Aria thought he looked almost comical. But it would be a mistake to laugh in this moment. She wouldn’t laugh in the face of this man: he had been the one to hold onto her as she had fallen apart.

“One day, you’re going to pick a fight with the wrong man. He will know some of the wrong people, and you will meet the wrong end of a gunshot.”

Aria almost snorted with the absurdity of dying to a second-rate New York gangster, given the horrors that she had faced in her life.

“Do you doubt my abilities?” There was a dangerous lilt to her voice.

Howard met the challenge. “Never. I doubt your ability to stop.”

That silenced her. Because he was right, and they both knew it.

She had to look away then. Down at the documents which were scattered across her table – the identity that had been formed for her by the SSR, likely with the hopes that she would integrate into American society as a valued member. She had taken to looking at them sometimes, when she stumbled in late from a night at a bar. Staring at the face she had once had – the face of Aria Davis, with her blonde hair and pristine smile. Every bit the American pin-up model that she had been designed to become. Sometimes, Aria thought about it so much that it made her physically wretch.

Though, that could have been the alcohol, too.

“Arianne Rose Davis?” Howard muttered, glancing over her documents. “Flowers are not the first thing I would think to compare you to.” Aria suspected the joke was his attempt at making peace.

She decided to accept it, if only tentatively. “Yes. I suspect Phillips had thought it amusing. You know the quote? ‘What’s in a name? That which we call a rose…’”

“By any other name would smell as sweet.” Howard nodded, understanding. “Hm. I wasn’t aware the man knew his Shakespeare.”

Aria didn’t bother to respond. Instead, she found herself curling in against the couch, bringing her knees to her chest as she peered at Howard across the tops. It seemed as though he had never stopped looking at her, that same curious glint remaining in his eyes. She knew instinctively that he was trying to understand her. That he was trying to figure her out, as though she were a puzzle that he needed to solve. She couldn’t tell if she admired him or hated him for it.

“Alma and Gabe called me about their wedding today.” He added, when the silence grew too loud.

They had called Aria too. She had been close to allowing the phone to ring out, picking up at the last dial. The relief in Alma’s voice had been palpable. How many months had it been, since they had spoken to one another?

“It’s in six or so months. They wanted to know if I’d be there.”

“Will you?” She found herself asking, mildly curious.

“Yes.” He said the answer simply, as though there was not another option available to him. “Will you?”

She opened her mouth to say no – just as she had told Alma on that dreaded phone call, but they did not come out. They stuck in her throat, like the lie that they were. The lie that she kept telling herself – that she didn’t need to form connections with others. That she was going to be okay, on her own.

Aria didn’t want to go to the wedding. She didn’t want to surround herself with people who weren’t merely pretending to live, but who were actually succeeding. Their happiness, it would bleed against her sadness, and she would stain them. She knew it to be true, like a prophecy. Her presence would only cast grey skies over a day meant to be held against sunshine and happiness.

But for her friend, she would try.

***

Peggy had given her this address months ago.

When she’d first knocked on her door, carrying with her the slip of paper baring his mother’s name, Aria had half a mind to slam the door in her face. But she had seen the way the scene would play out before the action – Peggy, wedging her foot within the door, refusing to leave until the pair had spoken. Aria, soft and stubborn and emotionally taut, pleading with everything but words for the woman to simply leave her alone.

It was better, and easier, to simply take the slip of paper from her hands; the scrawled address of a woman who had never met her and heard of her only in passing. She’d stared at it for a minute, before she’d opened her mouth, and invited Agent Carter inside for tea.

Peggy had agreed to the request for company, as was polite. They were merely two women, playing at niceties, pretending that they could be friends in the world that they had shaped. Aria had served Peggy her steaming cup and spiked her own with a liquor. She figured she would need it to aid her throughout what was sure to be a trying conversation. They had chatted idly about information Aria had no care to learn. She knew Peggy longed to see her return to the SSR, she didn’t even entertain the idea enough to feign interest in Peggy’s current investigations.

When it had no longer been polite for Carter to remain inside the apartment, she had wished Aria a kind farewell. Aria had watched her leave, listening to her footsteps clacking down the pathway as she stepped into the rain, utterly unbothered.

Aria had been bothered, though. She had spent the remainder of that evening, staring at that slip of paper, and enjoying the burn of a fresh bottle of whiskey. She’d passed out with the address in her hand, having forgotten her earlier plans of losing herself in the haze of a drunken fight.

It had taken Aria two months to write to Winnifred Barnes. By the time that she had agreed to meet, autumn leaves had stopped crunching beneath her feet and were instead soaked with freshly fallen rain. It was a short jaunt across the city, she would only have to venture into a neighbouring New York borough, but every step that had taken her closer to Bucky’s childhood home felt like there had been weights attached to her ankles. It was cold in New York, leading into Winter. The rain seemed to have dissipated since Peggy had departed her apartment. Despite that, Aria still felt as though she were drowning in an endless ocean.

Winnifred Barnes had been the one to open the door. Aria had recognised Bucky immediately, in her movements, her mannerisms. Her brown hair was fading to a steady grey, and wrinkles were heavy set around her eyes, but none of this could disguise the confidence with which she moved. She was a steady drumbeat, an immovable object inside a hurricane, just as she had raised her son to be.

She found it difficult to lie to herself, about that visit within the house. The entire day – meeting Bucky’s mother. Meeting Bucky’s sisters. She had seen his childhood bedroom, and taken a physical step back into the part of her life that she had once thought was buried forever. She was exhausted by it; and she had departed from their small home trembling as the feeling seeped into her bones. Aria had compared herself to a grain of sand, stuck at the top of an hourglass, slowly waiting for gravity to allow her to fall. It never did.

Winnifred Barnes had been more than accommodation to her grief – but Aria had sold her a lie. To this woman, she wasn’t Isla Zola, the Red Viper – the internationally renowned spy. She was simply Aria Davis, a nice combat nurse that Bucky had met during his tenure with the 107th, who had followed him over to the SSR when duty had called him there. She was merely a figurine in his story of greatness; and he deserved to be great without her input.

She added to his stories of greatness in every way that she could. She reinterpreted Howling Commandos’ stories with intensity and fervour, dramatically re-enacting their shared experiencing at the bombing of the Whip and Fiddle Bar. All the while, she had kept a close eye on Bucky’s younger sisters – Rebecca, Charlotte, and Catherine – to ensure that she wasn’t scaring them. But they had hung off her every word, and for a moment, Aria had been able to pretend that this was normal.

She knew she’d made an impression, when Lottie had begged her to take them all to Coney Island the following day.

Aria had felt her heart stutter with the question – with the genuine want that had oozed in the girls voice. Aria could not remember how it felt to be that young, how it felt to be that innocent and trusting of strangers that she had just met. But this young girl, likely no older than twelve, with beautiful ocean blue eyes that were the twin to Bucky’s, had attached herself to her, and in that moment, Aria hadn’t been able to say no.

Aria was pleased that it had been a sunny day, when she woke up. The liquor bottle beside her bed had desperately fought for her attention in the early waking hours, and Aria had been tempted to answer its call. But she didn’t want to disappoint him; even though she knew it was foolish. He was dead, and she was alive, and dead men could not be disappointed in anyone.

Still, she had left the liquor bottle untouched; taking the same stretch of path to the Barnes’ house, where the three girls and their mother had been eagerly waiting. Aria had taken the time to notice them then: Lottie, and her hair pulled into a bun, little pink backpack strapped over her shoulders. Catherine, the youngest of them all, still clutching a teddy bear – Aria vaguely remembered Bucky telling her that it had been his gift to her when she was born. Becky, the eldest – cynical and distrusting of Aria where the others had been accommodating.

She likely thought Aria was going to run. Aria had been pleased to note, that upon appearing at the Barnes’ house, the girl had warmed to her.

She was loathe to admit that it had been a pleasant day. But it had. She had heard stories of Bucky that she was sure he never would have shared himself, too embarrassed. She had listened to the siblings individually remark about how they missed him. Hidden her distraught face in her sleeve, when Catherine admitted she barely remembered him. These three young girls, everything that she had never had the chance to be, they were disarming her with their brutal honesty.

Aria hadn’t been surprised when she murmured the need to take a break on the bench for a while. Physically, Aria knew she could outlast them all. But she knew she was mentally at the end of her rope. It was too much for one day – too much emotion she had desperately tried to forget that she was capable of. She was losing control.

She was allowed a few minutes of solace, before his mother turned to join her solitude.

“I see him in everything, you know.” Winnifred murmured as they sat together on the bench, watching the three girls poorly attempt to win a prize at the fair. Aria had brought her knees to her head and was peering over them. She’d noticed that in the months since the war had ended, it had become a habit of hers. Like she could block the words, thoughts; everything, from entering her body and harming her.

“I see him in my three girls – I know you’ve noticed they share the same eyes; I saw you startle with Lottie yesterday.”

Aria couldn’t bring herself to look at Winnifred. She was afraid the older woman would see everything she was written plainly across her face.

Winnifred only continued as though she understood Aria was not yet ready to speak.

“I hear him, in the wind song through the trees. In the laughter my girls have. In you too. The way you speak – I know why he loved you.”

“I miss him.” She finally offered, and she was surprised when she heard the crack in her steady voice. She was speaking the truth.

Winnifred startled her then. Aria felt all of her muscles tense as the older woman threw her arms around her, gripping her tightly as she began to sob into her shoulder. She knew that the woman could feel the way that her body had tightened, the unassuming strength that she hid behind her womanly clothing and feminine appearance, but it seemed that for now, Winnifred was only interested in sharing in the comfort of losing a shared loved one.

Aria didn’t know how to do that. She didn’t know how to open herself up to someone she did not know.

But she held Winnifred Barnes until she stopped crying anyway.

***

“Absolutely not.”

Aria’s voice was shrill and loud. She could feel her hands pressing into the glass cup she held. Any more pressure against it, and it would surely shatter in her fingertips. She had to consciously remind herself that she didn’t want to break the glass, that she didn’t want to cause herself pain, even as her fingers pressed against the delicate substance.

“Aria…” Peggy sounded patient, like she had expected this argument. It only infuriated Aria more – and she knew that she had to put the glass down before she smashed it against a wall. She hadn’t thrown something in anger since Christmas. She was getting better. She was living – she was trying, and this wasn’t helping her. “The Distinguished Service Cross isn’t something to turn your nose up at.”

“If I had of wished for notoriety, Agent Carter, I would have killed Howard Stark the first time I was sent to assassinate him.”

Peggy flinched then. Aria suspected she hadn’t been expecting such an overt reference to her previous allegiance. Aria couldn’t bring herself to feel remorse for it.

To his credit, Howard didn’t baulk at her statement. In fact, she was surprised by the genuine grin he was throwing in her direction. As though it was exactly what he had expected her to say.

“Chipper this morning, are we?” He commented.

Aria stared pointedly at him, letting her gaze drag back down to her glass before returning her sights to his eyes. The threat was clear; but Howard maintained the same cocky smirk all the while. Not for the first time, she realised how much she appreciated his steady friendship. His understanding of who she was, even if he didn’t understand her himself.

Ignoring his statement, she reiterated. “I chose to leave the SSR, because I wanted to leave that part of my life behind. Accepting that medal – it would mean stepping right back in. I don’t want that.”

At least, she didn’t want that with the SSR. She was ready to admit that she was growing bored seeking fights with men in bars. There was only so many times she could allow herself to be hit before every fight she took felt tedious. There was no thrill of the hunt, no joy in the limited interrogation she gave her subjects. The answers they gave were typical, and the punches they threw carried no weight beyond the initial hit. She wanted a challenge – she wanted to be challenged.

Peggy settled into the chair. Aria knew then that this was not going to be a simple conversation.

“You know as well as I do, that the US Government is offering this to you because they’ve noticed your…” Peggy trailed off, lips twitching as she struggled to put to words the manner with which Aria had conducted herself over the past few months. “Regardless – your efforts in the war, you deserve to be known for what you did to aid us. Your information is the reason that New York is not a smouldering crater. But Aria, you have ignored attempts by Dugan, Jones, Alma – everyone, to reach out to you, besides myself or Howard. We cannot always be here, to make excuses for you.”

“Don’t put that on me.” Aria snapped in return. “I have never asked you to make excuses for me, dorogoya, and I don’t wish for you to start now.”

“What you ask from us, and what happens, Aria – they are mutually exclusive. Just because you say something does not will it so.”

Aria scoffed. Peggy continued as though she hadn’t been interrupted.

“They’re warning you, Aria. Fall in line – or they will make you.”

The sound of a chair scraping against the ground filled the air as Aria stood suddenly. The room quietened then – the sound of the radio becoming distant as blood roared in her ears, and her desperation rose to her throat.

“Fall in line?” Somewhere, she knew she sounded hysterical. She knew too, that Howard’s eyes had now creased in concern. It meant that she was acting erratically, straying from her established norm of anger and nothingness that had been her entire being for the past year. “I have fallen in line all my life, Peggy – look at where it got me.”

Peggy opened her mouth to interject, but Aria wouldn’t let her.

“I don’t want the medal, just like I don’t want to work for the SSR. Either of those options – it makes me a puppet of another government, with motivations beyond out of my control. Having been under the control of a foreign body my entire life, I thought that I’d earned the scope to make some decisions, to have some agency over what I do with my life.”

“What you do with your life?” She was sure that it was the first time she had ever heard Peggy raise her voice at her. “Tell me, where did you get those bruises on your face?”

Peggy had known her question would land as the insult that it was. Aria didn’t bother to hide her flinch. She just continued to stare down the woman seated in the chair in front of her, shoulders squared and fingers twitching by her side. Somewhere in the back of her mind, the monster that she had caged reminded her that Peggy would be a good and decent fight, that she might finally feel challenged. Suspecting, however, that would lead only to the loss of relationships Aria desperately needed, she elected to ignore that voice, if only for the moment.

“It’s not you concern.” She shook her head. “I want to be able to choose the missions I go on; I want to be able to understand the motivations of those who send me. I’m not a leader, dorogoya, I’ll give you that much, but I am too much to simply exist as a cog inside a wheel. I won’t be a stringed toy for them to manoeuvre as they please anymore. I can’t.”

No noise echoed within the room, beyond the sound of Aria’s laboured breathing. She couldn’t bear to look at Howard – she knew his face would reflect only the pity that he now felt for her. But Peggy wasn’t much better, her expression smoothing as though she were fighting an internal battle as well. Aria suspected it was because for the first time, perhaps the woman understood what Aria was trying to say. What Aria had been saying for a long time, even when she was under the command of Phillips.

“Working for the US wouldn’t define you, Aria.” Howard murmured in the silence.

Aria shook her head rapidly, but it was Peggy that spoke next.

“I don’t trust them either – the SSR, it isn’t what it was during the war. But what choice do I have? If I want to make the world a better place. If the SSR isn’t the answer, then what is?” She cast a critical eye upon her then, and Aria was struck by the feeling that Peggy should have been older than her. She was wiser, somehow. More mature; untouched by the horrors that Aria had been brutalised by. It made Peggy stronger, better.

“I want to make the world a better place too,” Aria finally admitted with a sigh, allowing her body to fall back against the couch. Memories of Johann Schmidt’s phantom touch echoed against her hips, a reminder of everything she had given, had lost in her lifetime. As much as she wanted the world to be safe; as much as she wanted to protect the innocent – and if she was being honest with herself, she did - she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t risk it.

She had spent years obeying Schmidt’s orders. Seeking her father’s love and acceptance. She had allowed herself to do brutal, awful things, and she had enjoyed revelling in the violent, bloodied mess that she had made. But it wasn’t who she wanted to be anymore.

Her voice cracked when she spoke again; but there was an air of finality to her tone. “But I can’t. Not without control.”

***

On the 10th of February 1946; Arianne Rose Davis celebrated her twenty-seventh birthday alone. Thoughts of her spiralling control, and her inability to rest, and the fact that she wanted to be meant for something more spent the day crashing into her, and she desperately attempted not to drown beneath the weight of her own expectations and wants.

She had turned to the bottle by her bedside before the evening had begun. It dulled her senses, if only slightly – but she found that every sip only increased her fury. Fury not towards anyone else other than herself. For what she had allowed herself to become. Truth came to her in waves – she needed control. She needed structure.

By candlelight, with a full glass of neat whiskey, the ink of her pen drafted her thoughts of the new world.

Notes:

fun fact! my favourite sentence i've ever written about aria (thus far) is in this chapter. i think holding bucky's mother despite not understanding how, or necessarily why, is pretty much the thesis of her character.

anyways, thank you all for stopping by!

Chapter 34

The Wedding of Gabe and Alma: Midday

She didn’t recognise the woman staring back at her in the mirror.

The woman in the mirror had lost all traces of the blonde dye from her hair. Now, it reflected back a startling red shade of brown. Full, and healthy without the dye that previously affected it, but far too bright for the way that she felt. Scissors sat in her bathroom drawer, teasing her with the idea of hacking it away, but she resisted, at least for the moment.

Bucky had always loved her hair – when he had realised it was red.

Next came her eyes. They were the same shade of emerald-green that they had always been; but they no longer glowed with the mischievous pleasure that came with knowing they were fooling everyone. Instead, there was a dullness to them, an ache born from the loss of everything that she had once held dear.

She hoped that they would spark tonight, at the wedding. She thought Alma deserved that much, at least.

Aria tried to ignore the hollowness that had settled in her cheeks. There seemed to be a permanent colouring to her face now, red blotches that did not fade in the cold of winter. She wondered if they were permanent. If they were a sign that she was getting older, and that time was passing. She had tried to ignore time passing for so long. She used to look in the mirror and see the image of a girl too young to understand the horrors that had happened to her. Too little to process the trauma, the hurt, the pain. Who only knew how to put one foot in front of the other and continue; for the other option was grim.

Now she saw a girl who understood too much. Who had seen, heard, experienced the horrors that the world had to offer. Who had lived, who was broken, who didn’t know how to fix herself, who didn’t want to ask for help in fixing herself. She couldn’t decide if she wanted to be left alone to shrivel and die – or if she wanted someone to hold her hand through the monsters. She had thought, once, she wanted the latter. But those monsters had been nothing but trees casting shadows. These monsters, she knew all too well, they were real.

She didn’t know where that left her. She knew she wanted to reach for the bottle of alcohol she’d stashed in the bathroom drawer. Or grab the flask she’d left by the kitchen sink. She could hide it in her garter strapped to her thigh, the knife that she went nowhere without. It would be hidden by the lengths of her royal blue dress; and Aria knew the art of subtly well enough to quench her parched lips. It would be no trouble at all. But it wouldn’t be the right thing to do.

But she wanted to be better for this night. For Alma, she would try.

***

Howard had been her lift to the wedding. Peggy had met them both there. She looked beautiful, in the same red dress that she’d worn the first night at the Whip and Fiddle. Aria thought that it had been made for her. She was pleased to note that she had been correct in her assessment. Heads turned as they made their entrance into the chapel, surrounded by the adorning faces of those Aria could name, and those whom she assumed were family.

In the end, Howard and Peggy led her to the side pews. Aria tried not to pay attention to the overwhelming draw of white that coated the room, that soaked into the atmosphere. She tried to ignore the general sense of happiness that permeated the hall. The white of the room stood stark against the soft glow of candles, against the warm wooden floors. The heat of hundreds of bodies warmed the air, and the murmur of laughter permeated the silence. It should have been comforting – but it wasn’t.

Once, she would have been good enough to simply smile patiently, to hide her true thoughts from others in the room. But what purpose would that serve? Once, she had trusted these people. She trusted them enough still, to see her true face.

Aria wanted to be happy. She could feel the end of her patience slipping – and it was frayed beyond recognition by the time Alma began to walk down the hall, in search of her husband. Aria could see the pure joy on her friends face, she could see the love and the care that they had for one another. She could see that they deserved each other, in this life and the next. And she wanted so desperately – if not even to happy herself, then at least be happy for them. But she couldn’t bring herself to feel anything at all.

Besides envy.

A green emotion – it snuck up on her just as Gabe and Alma Jones shared their first kiss as husband and wife. It began in her stomach, coiling uncomfortably as cheers erupted around the room, men and women alike jumping to their feet in jubilant celebration. Howard had stopped to pull Aria up, so she realised she was standing too, right as she and Alma locked eyes. She tried to smile – but she was sure that it looked just as fake as she felt.

Something was breaking in her, again. She would never get this moment, standing alongside her friends, celebrating in the love she had for another. That chance had died in the snowy mountain alps, and she had died alongside it. Something had survived, of course – but it was not a vessel through which that life could hope to be experienced. She passed through time, rather than time passing through her. She existed, and she grew older, and she survived – but she did not live. Bucky would have told her to live.

Alma had never asked her to be a bridesmaid. Falsely smiling at her, Aria understood why. She could lie to herself and pretend that it was because she was still grieving Bucky’s death. In some respects, that was true. Aria was a shell of the formidable woman that she’d once been under the SSR. But the reality was this: she had not bothered to speak to these people since the end of the war. She’d ignored their attempts to reach her, save the few, rare circumstances when her conscience won out. She wondered, if at any stage, they’d considered leave her off the guest list.

Standing in those church pews, looking at the evidence of their love, she almost wished that they had.

***

Somehow, she had made it to the reception.

Howard had peeled her from the Church, and it had been his words that had coaxed her into the hall housing the reception.

Aria had nothing left to give.

If Howard recognised that, she didn’t know. He’d disappeared into the throws of the party, effortlessly charming men and women with tales and explanations of the inventions he would create. Aria admired his brilliance, and somewhere, in the back of her mind, she noted that he would be the perfect man to help bring to fruition her thoughts. If she ever designed to tell him of them.

Aria hadn’t realised that Gabe and Alma were opening the bar for the event. The moment she had been handed a sparkling glass of champagne on arrival; the girl hadn’t been able to say no. Since then, it had been constant trips to the side of the bar, effortlessly charming the young bar staff with a purposeful smile, and fleeting glance. It was not what her skills had been made for, of course, but Aria appreciated them in the moment all the same.

She found herself lingering on the outskirts of the hall, never mingling in the shared celebrations of the moment. She didn’t want too – afraid that the depths of her sadness would drag everyone at the event down alongside her. She sipped her whiskey quietly and observed the crowd much like she had watched Bucky in the mess hall of their ship to France.

Alma and Gabe had spent their night surrounded by their loving friends and family. People that Aria did not know had flocked to their side, leaving them little time to rest and enjoy the moment. She watched Betty, flouncing alongside with purpose, quick to move the couple along to other groups in the room. Her brown hair stood out starkly against the teal dress she wore alongside Alma’s sisters, pinned perfectly in a bun that Aria could never hope to emulate without help.

The Howling Commandos had sequestered themselves into their own corner. Dugan, Falsworth, Montgomery and Morita had gathered, beer in hand, standing nearby the piano that had never stopped sounding jovial tunes since they’d arrived at the hall. Jones’ brothers had played the part of groomsmen, so Aria’s former squadron had been free to wander the halls. She could almost smell the alcohol that laced their breaths from the distance away that she stood, such was their shared revelry. Once, she could have belonged to that joy.

She took another sip of her own glass, the burn of the liquid soothing the thoughts that swirled in her mind.

Howard had wandered back into her field of view, she noticed. Throwing his arms around the shoulders of Dugan, Aria noticed that he looked genuinely happy. That was almost enough to cast a smile over her face. She liked it when he was happy.

And Peggy… Well, Agent 13 was headed in her direction. Aria could recognise that she wasn’t happy. The frown on her face, and the disapproval in her step told her that. Even from a distance, she could see that Peggy’s eyes had narrowed in on the drink in Aria’s hand, likely a sharp insult prepared on her tongue for the moment that she stepped within earshot. Aria thought she ought to have been commended for lasting as long as she had without falling victim to the vice.

You were meant to be better, a voice in the back of her mind reminded her. Mocking her.

“You need to slow down.” Peggy warned her as she reached her side. She sounded exactly like the voice in her mind. Always telling her what she needed to do, never giving her the tools to achieve it. Though, Aria noted that she didn’t attempt to take the glass from her hands. Perhaps she suspected Aria would make a scene of it, if she tried.

What I need, dorogoya…

Her thoughts trailed off in her mind, unable to determine the truth. Aria cast them away quickly; fearing that lingering on that particular topic would only lead to a further descent into madness.

She shook her head rapidly. “I need another drink,” she muttered, to no one utter than herself, but Peggy looked aghast at the suggestion.

She was stayed only by the outreached hand of Howard Stark; who had seemingly noticed the conversation. Pulling Peggy aside, smiling brightly and interjecting into the conversation, Aria suspected he knew exactly what he had interrupted. Signalling the barkeep; watching subtly at the way Howard’s eyes kept darting back towards her twisted posture across the bar, Aria promised herself that she would find a way to make it up to him. She promised she’d make it up to Betty too, when she noticed the other combat nurse frowning at her across the room. Soon, she’d have made a false promise to the entire guest list.

Fresh drink in hand, Aria found herself walking deeper into the pit of the hall, somewhat desperate in her desire to move away from Carter before she could excuse herself from Stark’s company. Around her, dancers expertly parted to allow her crossing, agilely avoiding stepping on their partner’s tones as they effortlessly paced to the tempo of the music. In this hall; with beautiful candlelight and expressions of happiness, Aria could feel longing building within her soul. Some part of her wanted to dance. Dancing brought control – but she had not danced since the night had learned he had died.

Her foot moved in time with the music, unbidden. She felt it point sharp; felt her hand rising from her side as her posture stiffened into that of a ballerina. Something in her soul settled, even when her heart began to beat erratically. She hadn’t known she was to make this decision – she could feel the emotion building within her to a crescendo. She wasn’t prepared for this, she was going to break down, she…

“Aria!”

Dugan startled her from her thoughts. The whiskey in her hands spilled over her fingertips as she leapt away from his outstretched arms, grimacing at sticky feeling it left behind. Plastering a smile across her face that surely looked false, she greeted him, eyes darting back and forth from his figure to the space on the floor that she had carved for herself to dance. The desperation she’d felt only moments prior began to seep from her body.

She bought the drink she held closer to her lips, hoping that the action would hide the fact that her hands were shaking uncontrollably.

Dugan wasn’t alone. He was joined by Alma and Gabe – both looked wary, but there was a determination in her friends face that she had come to know all too well. Alma was perceptive, she was methodical, careful. A realist where Betty had been a dreamer – and Aria had been a cynic. They had complimented each other well, once. Up close, Aria could see the details imprinted on her gown, the lacework and beading that had surely taken an artist hours of their time. She suspected Howard had been the one to pay for the gift.

“Congratulations.” Aria said, because it felt like the right thing to say. She felt her grip on her glass tighten with the words.

Her friends were trying. She could see the way that they longed to touch one another, to relish in the presence of another; but they weren’t, knowing her pain. Alma deserved this – she deserved to be happy; she’d suffered the loss of a man that she loved before, and she deserved to experience it again. Aria knew that was true – but she also knew that she couldn’t help the way that she felt. Green with jealousy, emboldened by the alcohol that she had promised herself she wouldn’t touch.

“It means a lot that you came.” Gabe Jones offered her in return, because Alma looked as though she was struggling to speak.

Aria’s words felt like a lie; entrapped in a truth she didn’t want to admit. “I wouldn’t have missed it!”

Where else would I have gone.

“You look beautiful.” She offered to Alma, instead of her disparaging thoughts.

Alma offered her a real, true smile. It wrinkled the corners of her eyes. “Thanks, Aria. You do, as well – but you’ve always looked beautiful.”

Aria’s chest felt tight; her smile pained. The happiness on her friends face, the love that they so clearly shared and wanted to admit to the world. All of it was too much. She wanted this – she had wanted to proclaim how much she’d loved Bucky before the masses, and now she was never going to get the chance to do so. The happiness her friends exuded – the happiness of everyone in the room. It grated at her, scrubbed at her skin and made her feel raw and naked before the masses.

She couldn’t stand here and pretend. Mumbling a poor excuse, she stepped away from their company, heading back to the only area of the entire reception that had offered her any comfort. Filling her drink, she relished in the feeling of weight the glass now held. Cold, heavy; she used it to steady herself in the moment. Remind her that she was real, the events of the day were real, even as the room was beginning to spill around her.

“You shouldn’t have walked away.” Betty startled her. Aria hadn’t seen her approach, hadn’t noticed her dismissing the other groups of the room in order to make her way over to the Russian, unimpeded.

Aria didn’t bother to hide her jump, staring at her friend. She wanted her to leave. She wanted to be left alone, to suffer in her silence, to watch the happiness in the room, but never participate. But that would be too much for Betty – the starry-eyed nurse who still seemed untouched by the war despite living through it.

“I couldn’t be there.” She offered simply, struggling to find anything else to say. What was the point in lying, when her truth was written across her face?

It didn’t satisfy Betty. “Alma… She wants you to be better. She misses you, and this… This is her wedding.”

Aria felt the heat in her body begin to rise alongside her annoyance. “And I am at Alma’s wedding.” She shook her head. “Just because everyone else is happy, dorogoya, doesn’t mean that I need to be. Stop being so naive. I have all of the friends that I need, right here.” She raised her glass with the action, drink sloshing around inside. She was careful enough to ensure this time, that none of the precious liquor spilled from the wanting edge.

Betty, however, didn’t seem content with her answer. “You are bitter.” The words were meant to slice through her, but Aria knew that they were only the truth. “And a drunk. A bitter drunk.”

Perhaps she had been wrong to assume that the war hadn’t changed Betty. She certainly never would have spoken to her in such a manner prior to their shared deployment. She was much too innocent, too soft. This was the same girl who had been upset that Aria hadn’t shared she was a spy. A ridiculous notion; one that somehow still grated on her. To call her a bitter drunk? No. Betty didn’t get to hold that over her. Betty who had been a nurse in the war, yes, but had been sheltered. Who didn’t know what it was like to face trauma, real trauma. Now she was standing in front of Aria, dictating how she ought to live her life?

“How long did Steve, or Bucky’s happiness last?”

The comment was meant to be low. It was meant to be quiet, and biting. It had been meant to be the final word, an end to their argument – a comment so directed, and so beneath her, that Betty would leave her company, no longer bothering with attempting to reach through to her. But Aria hadn’t accounted for Betty’s own fury making her relentless. She didn’t understand that Betty wouldn’t simply walk away from the argument, and ignore her, like she had once before.

She didn’t understand that Betty had changed, just as much as she had.

Betty surged forward, grabbing her wrist. Aria felt the glass slip from her fingers, as her other hand flew to the woman’s grip, immediately attempting to wrench her nails free. The glass shattered against the ground, but Aria didn’t care – suddenly caught in a panic that she had allowed another to get so close to her, to hold her without her will. Caught between the fact that if she wanted to, she could get out of her grip; but it would hurt her if she tried. She didn’t want to hurt Betty. She didn’t want to hurt her friends.

Betty’s voice was shrill, loud and raised when it finally exploded across the reception. “You, Aria Davis, are an awful woman. You destroy everything that you touch.”

Around her, Aria heard the silence of the room. The band had stopped playing; likely, she suspected, in the midst of switching between a song. The sounds of feet against the floor had stopped in time with the music, and Betty’s voice had risen above the conversations of the evening. Every person in the room had heard her comment, and every eye now turned to them. Those who did not know them, she could see, were perplexed. But those who knew Aria – who knew who she was, what she was, what she had done… They looked at her with pity.

Too much. It was all too much.

Blood rushed to her cheeks. Her eyes never dropped from Betty as the girl’s face fell, perhaps recognising that the comment had been too far. She even felt her fingertips against her wrist loosen their grip. But Aria couldn’t say anything. She could feel her lung desperately seizing for air that would not come. Her breath had been stolen from her.

Wrenching her hands free of the grasp, Aria felt her own fingertips lingering against her wrist. Caressing, reminding herself that she was free – even if she could never be free. It was the lie that reverberated in her skull as she stalked towards the exit of the room, never once looking back at the people she was leaving behind.

She was a monster – she had known it for years. Now, they could all see it too.

Chapter 35

Notes:

sorry y'all, the great ao3 outage got me and i haven't had the chance to update since :(

The Wedding of Gabe and Alma: Evening

Howard Stark had followed her from the reception.

Aria shouldn’t have been surprised. Since she’d left the SSR behind, he had been the only one who seemed to dare speak with her consistently. The only one who seemed prepared to level her anger and throw it back in her face when she needed it. He had told her once, that he never doubted her – only her ability to stop.

She had thought herself imperceptible to the world, now that Bucky was gone. Howard had a way of disarming her. Of reminding her that even if she wished so desperately to be invisible to the naked eye, he would always see her. That the world would never turn a blind eye to her, even if she wished it so.

Howard hadn’t spoken a word as he opened the door to his car for her. Her footsteps had naturally taken her here, swaying on her feet as she was. Like she’d known that he would come for her. She’d slipped inside her vehicle too, without offering him as much as a smile. When she felt the keys turn in the ignition, and the engine roar to life beneath her, it was the first time that she allowed herself to relax since she’d begun to get dressed that morning. Perhaps it was the soothing vibrations of the car itself, but she wasn’t surprised when a single tear slipped from her eyes.

There was likely something to be said about the fact she remained comfortable enough to cry in front of Stark. She was glad he never once tried to talk to her about the state he’d found her in, inside of her rooms in Switzerland. She had broken down earnestly, and without remorse; and of all the people that could have walked into the room, she was glad that it had been Howard.

Howard turned the corner into her borough of New York. Even with her eyes closed, Aria knew the street well. She rode every bump of the road, familiar with the ebb and flow of the laneways, and the general sounds that filled the area. She was pleased that he had chosen to take her home. A new environment; she only would have spiralled further – lost herself in the swell of his riches and assets, allowed her mind to be overcome with the allure of his inventions. She needed comfort, stability, familiarity. She needed to be in a place where she knew she was capable of regaining control; where her curiosity was not pressed, where she was expected to be nothing other than herself, whoever that was.

He stopped the car in the backstreets by her apartment. She climbed out and found herself surprised when he also exited the car. Saying nothing, she merely led him up the steps to her door. By the time he entered behind her, she’d already stripped, peeling the dress she’d worn from the evening off of her body and leaving her in nothing other than the slip she wore beneath for modesty. It was nothing Howard hadn’t seen before.

He watched her from the doorway, the sound of it closing shut behind him echoing through the room. She settled into the couch, bringing her knees in front of her face. She suspected this conversation was going to be uncomfortable.

For a while, the silence was heavy, and uncomfortable. She liked to imagine that he was mulling over the thoughts he wanted to say in his mind, desperate to find a way to release them without it being condescending. Without her wanting to run away from them. She didn’t know how to tell him that she couldn’t run from him. That he’d seen too much of her, that everything he knew was raw.

But Howard surprised her, when he merely said: “The SSR and I… We found the blue cube your father used, last month. At the bottom of the ocean – it must have fallen there, before Roger’s brought the plane down.”

She hadn’t even known that they had been looking for it. “Why?”

She knew why. She knew that the SSR wanted to emulate the same weaponry that her father has been able to create with use of that glowing cube. With no regard for how it may come to harm the future of humankind. The United States had solidified their position at the forefront of destructive weapons technology with the development of the first atomic weapon; uranium-235. Aria suspected that the glowing item would firmly solidify the ability of the US to defend itself, and their supposed free world.

Her mouth twitched as she determined that in some respects, they had every reason to be worried. She had seen first-hand, experienced the training that soldiers and spies within the USSR underwent. It was one thing to have a weapon of mass destruction – a button that signalled finality. It was something else, of course, to infiltrate silently, to topple governments overnight. It was something she knew she was capable of – and it was, therefore, only a matter of time before they had someone ready to do it, too.

“I wasn’t looking for the cube.” Howard admitted, surprising her as he moved from the doorway to the couch. He settled into the couch beside her, placing her bare feet across his lap before he sat, as not to change her comfortable position. He didn’t hesitate with the motion, as though it was second nature for him to do so. “I was looking for Steve – and looking for the energy signal of the cube, seemed a good place to start.”

Her mouth twitched. “I didn’t know you were looking for Steve.”

“You didn’t ask.” He answered immediately. From anyone else, it would have sounded accusatory. Howard meant it in no other way other than the simple admission of a truth they both knew.

“And did you find him?”

She hated the hope that leeched into her voice. What life would it be, even if Steve was found? He had surely perished in the plane crash, and Aria couldn’t imagine that the United States government would allow his body to rest, even in his death as a war hero. He would be dissected, his blood would be drained, they would do everything in their power to ensure that they could find a way to recreate Erskine’s serum.

She admired the old German scientist then, for never revealing that information to anyone. He had taken the knowledge of his serum’s creation to his early grave, just as he had taken Aria’s secrets. He was a better man than she could ever hope to be – whatever he’d seen in her that allowed him to forgive her.

“No.” Howard answered shortly. Aria didn’t bother to ask him the other question she wanted to know – had he ever searched for Bucky? Was it safe to search for Bucky?

Did she want to search for Bucky?

There was always the chance that her father’s experiments on him in the HYDRA facility had taken to his body. There was always the chance that he had survived the fall, regardless of how unrealistic such a thought was. But there was no chance the man her survived his exposure to the elements, and Aria could not bear the thought of finding his body only to learn that there had been a chance, however small, that he could have been saved.

If she had learned that to be the truth, Aria was sure that she wouldn’t have survived the year.

The silence was stretching across the room now. In his lap, Howard lightly traced her bare skin, deep in thought. She wasn’t even sure that he was doing it – but she certainly could feel the way that it sent blood pooling in her skin. Her body, already warm from the alcohol she’d consumed, was flushing in tune with his ministrations.

A long-buried part of her woke up, roaring to life inside her belly. She clamped down on it desperately, biting her cheek so hard that she knew she was drawing blood. But she needed to focus on something, anything, other than that desperate rising need. Even if she knew that the action would give her control.

Howard was always the first to speak, in their elongated silences. Aria could sit in them for hours; she could relish the quiet and the peace that it brought. It was no different tonight.

“Aria.” She heard the tone switch up in his voice then. The transition from the casual, affluent man into the man who actually cared for her, despite all of her insistence that he should not. It terrified her, the idea that despite everything, someone could care for her so deeply. It left her open, and vulnerable, and it meant that someday, she would lose him too.

“Aria, I need to know – what do you need?” He wanted to help her. Despite everything she had put him through, despite everything she had put her friends through, they were determined to see her happy, and healthy. She didn’t deserve it. She didn’t want for anything from them. She wanted to get through this by herself.

It was why she was so shocked when the words left her mouth – the cold utter truth, as blunt and brutal as the weapon she had made herself to be.

“I think…” She paused as the weight of them settled across her. “I need you…” Unsure, she trailed off, words coming breathless and tense. But when she pouted at him, round eyes pleading, there could be no mistaking what she desired.

Howard’s body reacted first. She could feel the way that his fingers suddenly stopped moving against her skin but still rested against her. They felt like fire against her skin. She watched him exhale, long and slow. Processing her words, ensuring that he had heard her correctly.

“What?” His voice sounded raspy. She was sure that the words had caught in his throat. But every second only led to her cold acceptance that this was exactly what she needed. That this would be the best way to regain control, to take back agency over herself. She hadn’t slept with anyone since Bucky had died. She needed it to be with someone she trusted, rather than a mark; or a night of passion.

She needed Howard.

Aria didn’t answer him with words. She moved her legs slowly, allowing them to swing under her body as she began to crawl towards him slowly, against the couch. Her movements were deliberate, a predator stalking – but the hesitance in her posture gave Howard every chance to stop her. But he didn’t move, captivated by her eyes.

It was slow, when she lowered her body onto his. She felt him bracing himself against the couch, a hand propping up as her weight settled above him. A single, final look passed between them, searching; before Aria felt him make his final decision. The moment his lips pressed against hers, the moment she felt the warmth of another against her skin so intimately, Aria knew that this was exactly what she needed.

He did not spend long, focusing on her lips. In fact, the kiss was over before it had truly, begun; as Howard used his mouth to trail hot fire down the side of her neck. She shifted against him, knowing her slip was riding up and exposing the intricate lace of her underclothes. Such a fact hadn’t gone unnoticed by Howard – she felt his hands reach down, pressing against her ass cheeks to pull her body even closer to his own. He focused intently on the pulse point of her neck – rewarding her with gentle nipping against her skin every time her patience frayed, and she rewarded his efforts with a strangled moan.

A sudden thought occurred to her. “Tell me, Howard Stark – do you have a girlfriend?”

He paused. She felt his lips place another kiss, featherlight, against her pulse point before his head lifted. She was sure that there would be a freshly bloomed bruise on her skin come the morning.

“Would it matter if I did?” He asked her.

She pursed her lips, thinking for a moment, before she shook her head. If she were a better person; it would. But she was never meant to be anything other than what they had made her.

“It would not,” she confirmed, leaning forward to once against seize his lips within her own. He met her hungrily, his fingers moving beneath her deftly as they hooked themselves beneath the elastics of her panties. Expertly, and without disrupting their shared, kiss, she felt him manoeuvring them down her thighs, her core becoming exposed to the chill of her apartment. She would have considered herself impressed, if she knew he hadn’t used the movie on nearly every woman that he’s been with.

“I bet you do that to all the girls,” she teased lightly, pulling away as he returned focus to the top half of her body, tugging on the two, thin straps that covered the rest of her body. She took mercy on him then, using her own slender fingers to bring the slip down, so that it was now bunched against her stomach. Her chest bared to him, she watched his eyes trail hungrily over her entire body; and shivered when he placed a firm kiss between her best bone.

In his eyes, she looked to be as picturesque as the Statue of Davis, moulded by the gods especially for him.

“That was slow,” he teased her, tongue lightly flicking over her exposed nipple. “Next time, I’ll show you just how impressive I can be.”

It was a promise. Something inside of her cringed at shrivelled at his words, but she clamped down on it. She would deal with that statement later.

For now, she frowned, looking at his still clothed body. It was not in her nature to pass control, so, she wasn’t surprised when she demanded he strip before her. Seemingly, he had been waiting for the opportunity. She watched him rip his clothes from his body, no sense of sensuality about him as he bared her skin to her. When he remained closed only in his briefs, Aria found her hands slowly trailing up his thigh, until she hooked her own fingers against his briefs.

Their positions swapped. Where Howard had been standing in front of her, Aria stood up, pushing him down onto the couch. She must have looked a sight, the way that she immediately sank low on her knees before him. She watched the way that his eyes darkened, the way that he couldn’t resist the draw to bite his lip as he looked down at the sight in front of him. Peering up at him through her eyelashes, she wasted no time in pulling them down, flinging them somewhere across the room. The cock that sprang free was different to Bucky’s. Where Bucky had been girthy, Howard instead was long. She felt her thighs quake with the mere thought of the spots he could reach within her.

Their eyes met, and Aria felt the electricity crackle between them. Somewhere inside of her, she recognised that this was not a simple grasp at control – that this would be something longer, something more complicated, something she didn’t want to admit was real. Something she suspected she would never, ever admit was real. It scared her, and she wanted to run from it.

You trust Howard, she reminded herself. He seemed keen to remind her of that too, as she felt his fingers lightly brushing the base of her neck. It caused her to shiver, and for a moment, she imagined what it would be like to close her eyes and lean back into his touch.

There was no further room for debate as she wrapped her lips around the length of him. Her reward came in the form of a sinful moan that travelled straight to her core. She could almost feel herself growing slicker at the sound, and a part of her longed to forego his own pleasure in favour of seeking her own release through the draw of her fingertips. She suspected, given how worked up she had become, she would not last very long.

Disciplined as ever, she hollowed out her cheeks as her mouth continued to bob up and down gently. Not wanting him to lose control quite so quickly, she kept her speed leisurely – enough to work him up, enough to make him feel pleasurable, and desperate; but not enough that she would forego the chance to feel him inside of her.

“You’re perfect, Aria.” Howard murmured, hands curling in her hair as she continued. She could feel the strain in his voice, the pleasure that oozed from the words. The truth too, that he was carrying within them.

Aria didn’t acknowledge it. She knew that she was far from perfect, and the sentiment was too much for this moment. Releasing him with a loud pop, Aria only turned to pecking kisses up his chest, focusing intently for a moment on his abs before she took her turn on the pulse point against his neck – smiling into her work when she felt Howard begin to twitch beneath her with desperation. She was glad, that after a year, she still knew how to make men fall apart beneath her.

Howard, however, wasn’t willing to be undone. As quickly as she had noticed his slipping control; he had wrapped his arms around her and twisted so that she was now the one lying flush with her back on the couch. Above her, she could appreciate the make of him more – those toned muscles from his mechanical meanderings, the clever intelligence that brewed behind his eyes.

She was sure she saw stars flash before her eyes when she felt his fingers caressing her folds. She heard the whimper escape from her, but it almost sounded as though it had come from another body. Someone who was happy, someone who was safe – something who had wants, and desires. It had been so long since she had been that person.

She ignored her spiralling thoughts in favour of the heat pooling between her thighs. Using her legs to lock around Howard’s middle, she pushed him closer to her.

He understood what she wanted. Fingers still caressing her clit, she did squeal when he entered inside her, not bothering to slow down in his efforts. He allowed her scarcely a moment of reprieve before he was moving inside of her; gently at first, but it was only a few seconds or so before he began to pound into her with reckless abandon. She gasped against him, words forming in her mouth that she was sure belonged to no language. Prayers to a god that would go unanswered left his mouth; and she joined him in his praise.

“Howard…” She felt herself moaning in between gasps. He swallowed her voice in a kiss, grunting desperately.

And when she came apart with him still inside of her, Aria remembered what it felt like to be alive.

Notes:

oop, we've arrived at the howard/aria portion of this story...

Chapter 36

March 10th, 1946: Dawn

Aria woke up with the sun the next morning.

Outside her window, she could hear the morning song of the birds echoing against her window. She could feel, even without opening her eyes, that she was still naked between the sheets. Where her bare back was uncovered, her skin was kissed by the fresh morning air. Opening her eyes, she blinked as she adjusted to the light of the new day.

The dip in the mattress alerted her to the fact that she wasn’t alone; but Aria would recognise the feel of Howard beside her even if she hadn’t already spotted his familiar dark hair against his head. He was still asleep. She could hear the sighs leaving his breath as he continued to sleep, likely worn out from the events of last night. Aria could admit in the light of day that she was pleasantly sore, that last night had been something she desperately needed. The idea that she could still assert that level of control over her body was something she had sorely missed over the past year, or two. She didn’t know how long it had been, if she was being honest with herself. It had passed her by in a haze.

She was drifting back to sleep, lost in her thoughts when she felt the bed shift with presence of Howard. His breathing hitched, as he took in the unfamiliar surroundings.

Aria was struck by the sudden thought, that she did not want him to leave her.

“I have an idea.” She whispered to him then.

It cut through the silence. The simple admission, that she had been thinking at all over the past year, she was sure that it was enough to shock him. She was sure that every time he had seen her, he had thought very little of the woman she’d become. Even if maintained that he always believed in her. She’d never doubted his long-seated belief in her.

Aria heard him rise from the bed. The sound of his pants buckling was the next thing she heard, before she heard him settle into the dark wooden desk at the end of her bedroom. She knew by now, he had spotted the hundreds of scrawled papers she had strewn across her table, the ramblings of a woman who wanted so desperately to be good but didn’t have the tools to achieve it.

“SHIELD?” Howard murmured, glancing back towards her. He looked handsome in the dim light, a stray thought noted. Like he had been made for the space in her room.

Ignoring the thought, she sat upright in her bed, pulling her white sheets up with her to maintain a sense of modesty. “The Strategic Hazard Intervention Espionage and Logistics Directorate.”

Howard screwed up his nose, his moustache twitching with the movement. “A bit long, don’t you think?”

She resisted the childish urge to poke her tongue out at him. “What would you name it?”

“The Strategic Homeland Intervention, Enforcement and Logistics Division.”

She frowned at him then. “That’s practically the same name.”

“I know.” He was grinning. “The acronym – it’s a good acronym.”

Rolling her eyes, she waited patiently as Howard sorted through the documents. Subtle muscles rippled along his back every time he picked up her notes to read closely. There must have been hundreds against the desk, hundreds of words that she had written regarding SHIELD since her birthday. Consciously, she knew that some would sound only like the ravings of a drunk lunatic. Some, however, she knew had merit. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have brought this idea up.

She could feel her heart racing the longer that he took to speak. When it grew too long for the silence, when she felt like her heart was going to beat free from the cage in her chest, the words leapt from her mouth.

“The SSR is so focused on the scientific outcomes of what Schmidt was able to achieve. None of us here, are focused on the espionage. On the intelligence communities that are being built up, across Russia, across the world. The United States is dangerously behind in that regard, and as much as I maintain that I don’t want to belong to a single country; I would prefer to remain in this one than be forced back to my homeland.”

“The States have their own intelligence systems…” Howard interjected slowly, piecing together her entire argument before she could even get to the point. He was smart like that – she knew he was smart like that. But right now, she needed him to listen.

She cut him off before he could defend his country more. “Not like the USSR. You don’t know what the Red Room is like. You don’t know the threat that they pose. And the Red Room isn’t the only organisation in the world that seeks to do the free world harm.” Howard was looking at her now, his incredulousness turning into something that almost resembled understanding.

She pushed harder. “The SSR is based on the whims and wishes of fickle men formed by the will of a single government. It is men in suits who do not understand the world that they live in, dictating what should be done to protect them – not the masses, but those in power. You’ve heard of Peggy’s experiences in the SSR. You know the way that they treat her there, because of who she is. Steve’s girlfriend. As if it’s an insult. She’s better than every single man in that building, but they will never, ever allow her to reach her full potential. Don’t you see? We need a hand on the wheel. We need to be able to steer the ship.”

He was silent. Any attention he’d once given to her notes had fallen away, in favour of facing her.

She continued, “You’d be involved, of course. And Phillips – the man is a master strategist, and a complete hard ass. But Peggy, she’d be in charge. The four of us, Howard. Can’t you imagine it? Steering the world in a better direction. Watching from the shadows. In complete control.”

“You hate someone being in control of you.” He pointed out. “What’s to say that SHIELD wouldn’t become the same thing? What’s to say that they send you somewhere you don’t want to go, make you do something that you don’t want to do.”

“Peggy wouldn’t.” Aria was surprised when her voice didn’t waver. She was surprised, because it confirmed for her that despite everything, she trusted Agent Carter absolutely. “And, if the time comes that I should outlive Agent 13; well, I have years to find a successor, don’t I?”

Howard pursed his lips. “Espionage is inherently political in its nature, Aria.”

“The four of us in charge, no ties to a government…”

“You know as well as I do that such a course of action is naïve. We can trust Carter all we want – and believe me, I do. But there’s no guarantee that the higher powers of the United States wouldn’t want to get their hands on something like this. The greatest scientific minds, the greatest strategists, all working together towards world peace… Aria – this sounds like a beautiful dream. But especially for you – the realist, the cynic that you are… it seems short sighted.”

“Does it?” She challenged, shifting from the bed. She knew now that she was naked before him. But he didn’t seem notice either, focusing solely on the light behind her eyes as she continued to explain her idea. “I was naïve once – I worked for a man I didn’t trust, in a government I didn’t want to work for. I managed to ensure I never undertook a mission I didn’t want to undertake. SHIELD… It means protecting everyone. Even if it falls apart, and I know, I understand that people with motives will try and take this from us…”

She took a deep breath, trying to steady her thoughts. Trying to prove that she had thought this through, that she had weighed the pros and cons – that she was still cynical, yes – but that she believed this was their was their best chance at peace. “Even if it grows into a beast beyond what I need it to be, Howard… At least I will have tried to wash my sins clean.”

Howard peered at her for a moment. She noticed him watching her, the way that he trailed his eyes up and down her body. She wondered if he was subtly scanning for any evidence that she had been drinking. But Aria couldn’t remember the last time she had felt so settled in her skin, with or without the crux of whiskey. For the first time in a year, she had a goal, she had direction, and she had the means of achieving it.

If Howard recognised that in her, he didn’t yet say. Instead, he only responded: “Protecting everyone except the USSR – like you just said.”

She gritted her teeth, poking him in the chest as she stalked closer to him. “You know as well as I do that the USSR had spies within the atomic program. You know that Project Manhattan had a leak; you know this because Stalin barely flinched when Truman formally warned them of the weapon. The United States government suspects that the Soviet Union is tens of years behind in that technology. At best, I suspect you have five years.”

“You don’t know that.”

“You’ve never been there.” There was that warning that laced her tone. The fear, the desperation, the pain that she had learned thrived in the Red Room. Something that couldn’t be viewed from afar, something that had to be experienced first-hand. “You cannot understand the Soviet Union, because you have never experienced it, and solnyshko, I never want you to.”

She must have jumped in the air when she felt him place a hand against her wrist. Raw memories of the previous night flashed to the front of her mind; the way that Betty’s palm had enveloped the curve of her wrist, the way that the pressure she held her with had been enough to cause the beginnings of her fight response. The way that she had to verbally remind herself not to lash out, had to remind herself that Betty was a friend.

Glancing into Howard’s eyes, meeting his gaze, she was surprised when she realised, she didn’t have to do any of that for him. Her body startled with the contact, yes. But it did not naturally lend itself into the idea of danger; in fact, it almost relaxed into his touch. As though he was a comfort she needed but, could not yet seek.

“You’d need to secure a base for it. I assume you’ve thought of that?” He took a second to glance back at the notes on her table. “You really have thought about this, you know.”

Aria only shrugged. The fact his hand remained on her wrist remaining a poignant fact between them. But she could hear the beginnings of acceptance in his voice. Howard was like her, in a way. He craved control – and the fact that she was offering him a solution, where he would the man at the helm of an intelligence agency, it was far too interesting for him to pass over the opportunity.

Not that she would have done with without him. As much as she wasn’t ready to admit it, she needed him.

“You know,” he murmured, once he was sure that she was calm enough to handle his words. “You don’t have to do anything alone. This idea… You should have come to me with it months ago. Properly,” He added, when he saw her mouth open to remind him that she’d spoken of the beginnings of the idea sometime months prior. “I can help you with it, Aria.”

Her mouth perked into an almost crooked smile. Her voice cracked when she spoke next, weighted by the emotion which coated it. “Are you sure? You’re not gonna give me one of those ‘Stark Special Bracelets’ and run away, are you?”

She delighted in the blush that bloomed on his cheeks. But the answer that he gave made her own body flush in tune. “I would never do that to you.”

Pulling her wrist free, she turned away from his gaze, and around to her wardrobe. Recognising that the situation was no longer served by her lack of adequate dress, she only returned to Howard’s side when she had covered her body in modest, baggy sweats hailing from her days within the SSR. She saw Howard glance over them once; something akin to appreciation and softness in his eyes, but she was far more interested in the words that he was now writing against her notes.

“RUSHMORE?” Her fingers traced the name.

“For the founders.” Howard noted. “Washington for Phillips, because he’s an old bastard, Lincoln for Carter, you can be Jefferson, and I’ll be Roosevelt. If we want to get things moving, I’ll need to issue funding, and I don’t want to attach anything to our names until I’m sure that this can work. It might take a while – but I think it’s a good idea, Aria. Even if some of your argument doesn’t make sense.”

She sat down at the edge of the bed, watching as he continued to pour over her notes with interest. Some, he lingered on – like her ramblings about destroying the Red Room, shutting the program down with the resources she could funnel from SHIELD. Others, he barely passed over – like her own notes about wishing to find Steve’s body, wanting to find Bucky’s. There were names carved from ink of men and women Aria desperately wished to include within the agency – the names of the men and women who had once served in and with the 107th. The Howling Commandos. It would begin as a facility of people that Aria could trust – and when it grew beyond that, Aria was sure that perceptive Peggy Carter would be capable of holding control.

Beyond that, it wouldn’t matter.

But the interim. The now. Aria had spent so long, wandering aimlessly, unaware of time passing her by that the thought of returning to such a spiral was grim. Before she even realised, she was doing it, she had run her right hand through the top of her hair. Her old nervous tell, from HYDRA.

“Come and live with me.”

She choked, startling as she looked up at him.

“Aria, come and live with me. This apartment – it’s not good for you. Being alone, as much as you want to be alone, you can’t stop.”

“I don’t want a relationship, Howard.” She interjected, her voice wavering. The sex had been nice; she had desperately needed the sex, and if she was going to be honest with herself, she wouldn’t have been opposed to it happening again. But the idea of committing herself to him, where she had once been committed to Bucky… This man would want a wife. This man would want children, he would want someone who was capable of giving him an heir to his empire, of ensuring his legacy would outlast him.

Aria didn’t think she could be that person. She certainly didn’t want to be. She only had dreams of being the wife of one man; and now, that would never happen.

“Not as a relationship.” Howard corrected softly, when she was sure her fear became palpable. He remained where he was seated, body still as though his words were meant to coax a frightened animal from their cage. “I don’t want a relationship,” he blushed then, eyes flickering between her rushed outfit and his bare chest but recovered quickly. “You look like you could use a friend. An ally. I could use a friend, and ally too.”

She pondered his words for a moment. She was hesitantly ready to accept, when another question seemingly sprang to the forefront of his mind.

“What if you lose control of it? SHIELD? What if it becomes more than you can handle – a dog that cannot be tamed.”

“Then I shut it down.” She answered immediately, as though it were the simplest thing in the world. Her voice did not waver as she continued, “I’ll end it. I’ll end SHIELD.”

And she would. She would hold no sentiment for this agency, even if it was to be her creation. The moment that she felt it was moving beyond the scope of what she had wished for it to be, she would shut it down. She had been designed to destroy governments; topple empires. Surely the destruction of her spy agency – the one she created, the one she would have in steering – would be easier than that.

Howard held out his hand then. A peace offering, a handshake, a signal of something more. She stared at it for a long minute; feeling her heart palpitate at the sight. This was a chance to move forward. This was a chance to do something with the skills that they had forced her to have. This was her chance to remember how to be human.

His hand felt warm and sturdy when she gripped it with her own, and Aria knew, together, they would start something great.

Chapter 37

August 13th, 1949: Midday

Aria was loathe to admit she was happy.

Admitting she was happy would also be the admission that she had something to lose. Admitting that she was no longer determined to drink herself into oblivion would be to acknowledge that she had found something worth her time, something that could be snatched away from her by other interested parties.

It was a thought she had first had years ago; when she and Howard had first determined their working idea for SHIELD. Howard had been quick to turn to Carter as their leading woman, and Aria – who had always intended for Peggy to lead the organisation – was quick to agree. He had told her alongside Aria from their vacation in Monaco – Dugan sitting in the lounge chair opposing them. Aria had heard such joy in Howard’s voice, when he first revealed the news to Peggy’s superior.

She had enjoyed her time in Monaco. The sun had been against her skin, and it had flushed her with warmth that she hadn’t felt due to the cooler months in New York. Howard had remained by her side throughout their entire trip, and it was simple enough for her to lightly graze a hand up and down his arm. He knew what it meant – he knew what she was asking for, every time that she touched him.

He never could say no to her. He had taken her against every wall on that trip, thrown her across every countertop, used his fingers, his mouth, his body to coax pleasure from every inch of her being. He was insatiable for her, and she knew her glowing skin was enough of a review for his talents.

Their coupling had been obvious. Aria had heard Dugan, on occasion, remarking to Howard that he must think her beautiful. A comment which Howard always agreed too and dismissed, despite Dugan’s imploring tone. The former soldier of the 107th had thought this was a mistake, from the beginning. Likely, Aria suspected, he had begun to notice the longing in Howard’s gaze that she worked hard to ignore. Because Dugan knew a truth – and in reality, Howard knew it too: even if Howard was interested in more than sex, she would never be able to let go of Bucky.

Despite Howard’s knowledge, Aria was sure Dugan had warned him, later that same week.

“Aria Davis isn’t a woman you fall in love with, Stark.” She was sure he had said. “Her thorns are too sharp for you – she won’t let you in.”

She presumed that Howard would have answered in his typically dismissive nonchalant way. Likely, she suspected, something about gifting her the same diamond bracelet he had given to all of his previous flings.

A fling was meant to be short term. It was meant to be a release of a build-up of passion, perhaps over a few weeks, or months, but never spanning into years. It had been years for Aria and Howard. She could admit to herself privately, that she cared about him. She acknowledged that her life was better for having him in it. But no matter how many times he had asked her in the years since, no matter how many times he had almost begged for her to simply agree to a formal relationship with him, she had refused.

If alcohol was her vice, she had become his. Through relationships, and espionage, and all of Aria’s missions where she would disappear for months at a time, their habits continued. She was the one constant in his life; the one, despite his joke with Dugan, that he had never been able to give a farewell gift. Because he never wanted to say goodbye.

It had taken a few years, for SHIELD to become the organisation that Aria wished for it to be. In many respects, it was still in its infancy. Of course, they had been slowed down by Howard’s inevitable entanglement with a woman from the Red Room – that, of course, had sent vindication swirling in her blood when she learned that he had been bested by her. Her cackling had been loud, when he’d informed her that he’d attempted to have JARVIS give the woman a diamond bracelet for her troubles. Naked in bed together, Aria was amused by the prospect of Howard collecting female assassins.

Her stomach had fluttered with nerves when he’d replied by remarking the only assassin that he wanted in his bed was her. She had smiled plainly at him and refused to acknowledge the statement for what it was. Perceptive of her, as always, he didn’t bring it up for the remainder of the night.

She was glad he didn’t. She was glad, that in some way, he recognised that she could never commit to him. He would always ask – she knew it was in his nature to press and investigate. To solve her, as though she were a puzzle. He would never grow tired of her, and he would never resent her choice. It was something she loved about him, even if she could never love him.

Today though, she didn’t seek him out for a lovers gentle touch. Today, when she stalked through the halls of what she had been told was once Steve Roger’s training ground – where he had learned to become Captain America – she wasn’t feeling at all righteous. Emotional was bubbling under her blood, a fury that she had managed to internalise in the last few years at SHIELD. But her fragile control was fraying – all because of a passing comment that Aria hadn’t been meant to overhear.

Zola.

For a second, she felt her stomach drop. She felt buried panic clawing through her body, reaching her throat, before the logical part of her mind caught up with her searing emotions.

They weren’t talking about her. She knew they weren’t talking about her, because she had been utterly careful to ensure that her files had been kept from SHIELD’s internal systems and cabinets. The name Isla Zola belonged solely to her, what had happened to Isla Zola was a secret she would take with her to her grave. It meant that there was another Zola on their minds, however, and given the reverence with which they spoke about him, the excitement in their tones, Aria knew that it could only mean one thing.

The Command Room of SHIELD was devoid of most when she entered. Only Phillips, Stark and Carter sat around the centre table, each of them deeply involved in their current discussion. Screens around them sorted through the faces of hundreds of men; some of whom Aria could say with certainty she had met in another life. She, she realised as their faces flashed briefly before her eyes, she could say that she had serviced.

She wasn’t here to talk about her past, even if the dimly lit room had been designed without light for that intended purpose. Aria had always felt it was easier to share information, when half of ones face was cloaked in shadow. It felt more like an exchange that way – not the release of information that would keep her alive.

Now she almost wished she’d made the SHIELD logo red – to match the rage that burned within her.

They looked up at the sound of her heels clicking against the tiled floor. Stark, she noticed, paled at the fury embedded on her face. She didn’t bother to hide it – not in front of these people. But Peggy and Phillips remained as stoic as ever, as though they had planned for and expected this outcome. Of course, they would have. Not telling her had been a choice, and now, she was determined to find out why.

“Aria.” Peggy greeted her evenly, gesturing for her to take a seat. Aria refused, only resting her hands against the backrest.

The room was silent, waiting for someone to speak first. Aria would do it. She would do it with pleasure.

“You know, I was walking in the halls this afternoon when I heard a funny story.” She chuckled, relishing in the tension that immediately filled the room. Gone was the Aria whom occasionally poured coffee for these people, who acquired information, who worked hard to achieve her goals, who did everything to put the organisation that she had created first. That Aria hadn’t been slighted by the very people she’d chosen to lead. “That funny story. My father, well, he’s out of prison! Imagine my surprise when I learn he’s been requested, by name, for transfer to this exact facility.”

Howard crossed his arms over his chest. Aria watched the move with narrowed eyes. She knew him intimately enough to understand it was something he did when he was uncomfortable. He had plenty of opportunities to provide her with this intel whenever they were entangled in the sheets together, and he had not bothered. For some reason, that betrayal alone boiled her blood.

“You were too close to the situation.” Phillips answered, steadfast and even. Always the plainly spoken man of the situation, always the man that implored her to see reason. They should have known that she could not be reasoned with on such an argument.

Of course, that was why they hadn’t asked her in the first place. It wasn’t that she didn’t deserve to know – looking at their faces, the guilt that they were all struggling to hide, including Phillips – they all accepted that she deserved to know. But they didn’t trust her to be able to make a decision that wasn’t biased. It was smart.

But Aria wasn’t biased when she began to shake her head.

You can’t trust him.”

She meant every word. She’d once told Bucky that her father was not a HYDRA fanatic. That much, she suspected, remained true. But what also remained true, was the idea that one needed to somewhat agree with their ideals, with their mission, to continuously justify the loss of life. Her father was a scientist, first and foremost. Progress for the sake of progress alone, regardless of the cost, was in his nature. He would stop at nothing to achieve his goals – and even if it was a small possibility, even if she was being paranoid – there was always the chance his goal was to reinvigorate HYDRA from within SHIELD. Destroy everything she had come to love.

“Of course we can’t trust him.” Peggy placated. “We don’t trust him. But Zola was never an active combatant in HYDRA. He never raised a gun to another, even if he was the man who had created them. He wouldn’t be free here – he would be just as much of a prisoner within these walls. But we need his knowledge – and to get his knowledge, we need to give him access to our tech. He worked with the cube for years – that weaponry, we need to be able to utilise it ourselves. To protect the world.”

“You should have left that cube at the bottom of the ocean.” She fired back, fingers gripping deeply into the back of the chair. Her nails were leaving gouge marks in the wood, and she could almost feel the splintered wood pressing into her thumbs. The sting reminded her of the moment. It served to ground her, when she threw her spiteful look in the direction of Howard. He had found the blue cube. He had indirectly led to this moment, even if it hadn’t of been his intent. And he hadn’t thought to tell her.

“SHIELD was my idea.” She shook her head.

“And you trusted me to lead it.” Peggy’s patience was wearing thin. “You can’t turn your nose up every time you disagree with a decision.”

“You can’t cry emotion every time I disagree with something you say!” Aria interrupted, but the comment was ignored.

“This is the very essence of an intelligence agency – we compartmentalise, so nobody knows everything that’s going on. You were too close to this, like Phillips said. You were blinded by your familial ties. That meant I couldn’t tell you. I couldn’t trust you to be partial.”

This would be a thankless, winless fight, Aria recognised in that moment. The Director of SHIELD had already made up her mind, and this argumentative conversation was merely a curtesy to her friend. Howard’s lies of omission had been a favour to Peggy, a betrayal to her, and they grated against her skin.

“Don’t you understand, dorogoya? I am the only one who could be partial on this – I am the only one who lived and worked and breathed at HYDRA! I need to know everything that’s going on!” It was screamed, and Aria knew in that instant that she was giving too much away. The room settled into the silence that followed it. Aria noticed everything – the way that Peggy and Howard exchanged glances, the way that Phillips hand twitched ever so slightly lower, towards his belt where she knew he always kept a loaded gun. For a moment, she thought she even caught a flicker of a looming red shadow – his angled jaw and hollow-set eyes sending a deep chill down the back of her spine.

An old mantra bloomed in her mind at that moment, even as the feeling of his fingertips against her hip resurfaced.

Schmidt is not necessary to your current objective. Cast him aside.

When she spoke next, her voice was softer. “You don’t know my father like I do.” She attempted to explain, smothering her voice in a pleading tone. “You don’t know who he is – you think you do, because you interrogated him once. Because he cooperated with you, in the aftermath of…” she couldn’t say the words. Approaching five years of passing time, and the wounds of that day were still raw to the touch. But she could still hit Peggy where it would hurt her. “This man is the reason that Steve Rogers is dead.”

She watched Peggy flinch then. Cool satisfaction greeted the action. She was pleased to see her pain mirrored in the woman, the same as she had been pleased years ago when she had known the pain of losing a lover. It was selfish, and cruel; but it was who she was.

“He cooperated that day because we had you.” Howard seemed to understand that she’d momentarily stunned Peggy into silence. When she met his eyes, the rest of the room faded away. She didn’t bother to disguise her hurt – and she knew that he had seen it, based on the way his grip on the pen tightened. The way that his eyes turned downwards, how he struggled to keep her gaze, as much as he wanted to. Her pain mirrored into him, making him feel every ounce of it.

Good.

“What makes you so sure I want to see him?” She snapped back.

She didn’t. She would have lived comfortably with the knowledge that her father was sequestered in a United States prison for the rest of his life, doomed to rot amongst the men that he so despised. She would not feel a shred of guilt for that. She would not have shed a tear, upon learning of his death. He who had made her the monster that she was. He who had broken her so thoroughly she was still learning how to put herself back together. He who had taken so much from her, that she would never be whole again.

“Aria,” Howard continued, though she noted his voice was cracking now under the strain, the pressure, “I know you.” She flinched at the intimacy within his tone – and now it was her who couldn’t look him in his honey brown eyes. “I know you can’t stop – you don’t know how to stop. Not speaking to your father… that would mean that you did, and I don’t think you know how to handle that.”

She was loathe to admit that Howard had a point. She wasn’t ready to stop, she needed this to keep her mind fresh, to keep active, to stop herself from sinking back into her thoughts. SHIELD and the missions she was required to complete gave her the opportunity to turn her mind off, to focus on nothing other than the task at hand, the goal that had been set for her. But this… Her father, who, despite all of his preaching, had sold her Schmidt, had sold her to the Abwehr, had sold her to the Red Room.

“He’s scared of me.” Aria muttered under her breath as she realised what they were implying. “He didn’t cooperate because you had me – he cooperated because I was with you. Of all people alive, he is the only one to know intimately what they made me to be, what I can do, and that frightens him.”

“Yes.” Howard nodded.

She shook her head. “You think I can control him.”

“Yes.” Phillips nodded this time.

The image of Schmidt appeared again. This time, behind Peggy’s shoulder. She felt herself flinch in fear as the figure settled upon her, breathing and moving in the space. It was as though he was there, alive, across from her. Watching her every move and waiting for her to make a fatal mistake. She suspected this was the beginnings of one.

She loosened her grip against the chair. It was a concession, even if she didn’t allow the words to leave her lips. Phillips relaxed immediately, his hand returning to clasp the other in front of him. Peggy relaxed too – she watched the way that her shoulders slumped into the back of the chair. As if the verbal spar had stolen her energy from her. Aria despised her for it, eyes narrowing at the sight – this wasn’t happening to Peggy; it was happening to her.

She didn’t spare Howard a glance as she dismissed herself from the room. Only the fact that she stumbled over her feet, hinted to her true distress.

***

Her fury with Howard lasted a single day and a night. Come the first light of Monday morning, Aria had awoken in Howard’s white sheets, naked, sore, and sorely satisfied. She could feel the warmth of his palm around her hip, tracing light patterns even as they dosed.

“I wanted to tell you.” He murmured to her in the quiet. “I knew you would be angry.”

She didn’t begrudge him withholding the information – as much as it infuriated her. She wouldn’t admit it, even to herself, but a part of her was relieved. If he had told her… It would have made whatever they were doing with one another real. It was already bordering on too much; a four-year love affair. The worst kept secret within SHIELD, one that neither of them tried to hide. Intersecting their personal and professional lives would have crossed a boundary that only one of them seemed determined to keep.

She would rather he expressed his guilt now, in the cold morning light. Rather than publicly. A confessional, between the two of them. It was all she needed to hear.

“I am angry.” She corrected him, lest he think she had forgiven him solely because she desired his company. “I told you that if I lost control of SHIELD, if it became a rabid dog, I would shut it down.”

His fingers paused their actions. She felt them tighten against her hip, and for the briefest moment, her heart leapt to her chest as she thought she spied a red tinge to them. Blinking, it was gone before she could recognise it, and she dismissed it from her mind before the fear could linger.

“You told me that you trust Peggy.”

“I do.” Aria did.

They didn’t see eye to eye on most things. Peggy still thought her violent, and temperamental. Aria didn’t function well in a team, she liked to ignore direct instructions, and she took her own missions whenever she determined that it was more interesting, or important, than what she had been sent on. But Peggy gave her the freedom to do that. She understood that sometimes, Aria needed to operate outside the boundaries of what she deemed necessary, in order to keep them safe. Peggy did not ask how the information was acquired, she merely thanked Aria for her work. It was exactly what Aria had hoped Peggy would be, when she’d chosen her to lead. They trusted each other intimately; and Aria knew that Peggy was a friend – even if they did not love one another.

“Then trust that she’s making the right decision here.”

Aria wouldn’t. She would never trust her father.

But Howard was asking her. And for Howard, she would pretend. Even just for now.

“Alright.”

Notes:

as always, thanks for taking the time to read my little story!

Chapter 38

Notes:

Please check the notes at the end of the chapter for specific content warnings - light spoilers apply.

August 20th, 1949: Midday

“You know, I tried to use that cyanide pill.”

Aria couldn’t have predicted the first words she said to her father. She couldn’t have predicted the way she would have felt when they left her mouth. An admission of her state of mind, she had expected it to leave her feeling raw, damaged. She expected the rush of blood to her head, the memory of her wounds, the ribs, the wrist, the bullet wound in her shoulder. But all she felt, standing in front of her father, in the small lab he had been gifted, was power.

Arnim Zola had not changed in the five years since Aria had seen him. He was still the same short statured, pudgy man that Aria had buried deep within her memories. The only hint as to the passing of time came not through the wrinkles on his face, but the change in his glasses. Such was obvious – she had noticed they were cracked the last time that she had spoken to him.

It had taken her a week to journey to her father’s laboratory. A week of inhabiting the same space as him, a week of trying to pretend that everything was normal, and that nothing had changed. A week of pretending that her anxiety hadn’t been rising, that she had been able to sleep at night. She had wandered past the laboratory on occasion, stewing internally at the newly minted equipment brought especially for him and his work. Stepping into the laboratory, she’d momentarily found herself struggling to think, or speak, when he caught her eye. Aria was coy enough to play it off as disinterest, but the truth was, she hadn’t been able to form a sentence at her lips, even though the words reverberated in her mind.

She didn’t know what she was hoping for, in meeting him. She didn’t know if there was anything that he could say, that would make it better for her. She didn’t even know why she was trying. It was why her first sentence had burst from her so violently, for both herself, and him. A brutal reminder of what she had tried to do.

“I wanted to die.” She continued, when she realised the silence had grown. “Your decisions made me want to die.”

“They made you stronger.” He corrected, but Aria could hear the waver in his tone. “There is no one alive who can do what you can do.”

“And you think that justifies the pain and suffering I went through?”

“And you don’t?” He challenged her immediately, and Aria was struck by the reminder that he was her father. This tone, this domineering echo, she had heard it before. Even if he didn’t move, suddenly, she was transported to Germany; he was standing over her, and she was desperate to please. “What about the pain and suffering you can now prevent.”

The statement pulled her from her memories as she scoffed, crossing her arms over her chest. “Don’t play saviour, Dad. It doesn’t suit you. You don’t care for the events of the world unless they drive your inventions forward.”

Zola shrugged nonchalantly. He did not deny her accusation. Suddenly, she was reminded of how deeply she despised him, how desperately her heart and her head warred with one another; her father, her trauma. “It is as I taught you, Isla Zola, there will always be another war.”

A laugh escaped her. “All I have done in my life, is prepare for, and fight in the wars of men too short-sighted to see the outcome of their actions. SHIELD was meant to be different, SHIELD…” She trailed off, slurring her words in the moment. Catching a reflection of a red face in the computer screen, she blinked, looking up to match the direction of her vision. But nothing was there, and she shook her head to clear it. “I was meant to be able to control this.”

Her father glanced at her strangely, lips pursed. “When was the last time you’ve slept?”

She ignored the question; though internally, she registered that it was spoken with urgency, with worry. Instead, she slammed her hands down in front of her, the sound reverberating around the room. It was in that movement that she saw it; the fear that Howard had promised her. He had been correct – her father, for all that he made her, now feared what she could do.

“Whatever you said to Carter – she trusts you enough, to let you have this space. To let you have this lab. But I know better.” She shook her head. “I know you’re not that man. I know you’ve not changed – I know that you believed in Schmidt beyond his ability to provide for you. So, I am giving you this one chance, this one warning: if I suspect you will betray me. If I suspect you to be working with nefarious purpose; I will not hesitate. You made me to the be the Red Viper, father; and trust me, ty nikodda ne uvidish’, kak ya pridu.”

You will never see me coming.

***

There was something to be said about Howard Stark’s ability to set her senses alight.

After Bucky, Aria had been so certain that she would never know this type of pleasure again. That there would never be a man who could command her body with the mere flick of his tongue, or a swipe of his fingertips. Bucky had been made for her; she was still certain of his fact. But Howard Stark had been learning the quirks of her body for years. He seemed to know now, the sounds that she would make just before her pleasure had spiked, and Aria knew he took great pride in his ability to hold her just against that edge. She’d seen the grin he wore on his face; every time he glimpsed the tears of frustration in her eyes; her peak just beyond reach.

Aria knew that he had taken lovers in the interim. She too, had utilised the tools of her body when the mission called for it. Never once had she felt the same drive, to protect their relationship in the same way that she had felt the need to protect Bucky. She had never felt that jealousy, the idea that she should be in any way threatened by the women Howard spoke to.

Sometimes, she wondered if it was because she knew he would always come home to her. It was a thought that she often had, when his head was pressed between her thighs. He had found his home there, welcoming and inviting as she often desperately ground herself, searching for pressure to send her tumbling over. She was not embarrassed of the moans that he managed to coax free from her body – especially not when the shooting sparks of her orgasm raced through her system.

There were some nights, like this one, where Howard took no pleasure in holding her close to her edge. Instead, he challenged himself to see how far he could make her fall. Over and over again, she was merciless to the movements of his body, whether it was the caress of her thighs, or the snap his hips into her own body, he seemed to discover new ways to have her screaming his name. And what a beautiful sound it was – even if sometimes, she could almost picture him as someone else.

When she fell asleep that night, she did so in his arms. Just as she had promised herself that she never would. It was not a relationship, she reminded herself. He was not something that she could lose.

***

She woke up screaming. Thrashing. Panic tore at her throat as white sheets remained entangled around her legs, preventing her from rising out of the bed.

Vaguely, she registered Howard’s body hitting the ground with a thud. In the moment, it was not her concern. She wrenched her arms free of the blankets, only to bring them up to her neck; clawing at her throat in search of the hands that were binding her lungs. Her fingers closed around thin air as their target vanished into the night, a ghost of a memory. But even if Aria could understand that there was no one there – even if the logical part of her brown had now acknowledged it had been nothing but a nightmare – her body wasn’t quite ready to accept the truth.

Tears sprang to her eyes as she struggled to breathe air into her lungs. It was dark in the room – dark enough that she could only make out the silhouette of the man now standing outside of the bed. Her mind filled in the blanks for what she couldn’t see – a tall man, a German man, a man with a sharp jaw, hollow-set eyes and red skin. A man who was more skull than human, who could hold her down, who had held her down, who could kill her if he so designed to.

A thousand possibilities raced through her brain, though none of them remained long enough to make sense of it. The only thought in her mind remained that she didn’t want to die. She had to kill him first.

Her left hand slammed down against the knife by her bedside. She heard Howard breathe sharply then, his own survival instincts dictating he move out of her direct line of sight. She was glad he did, when the knife she’d managed to grab hold of pinned itself to the windowsill beside him. It would have embedded itself into his eye, had he of not moved.

“It’s a nightmare!” She heard him shout, but it didn’t help. She continued to scramble for another weapon, desperate to find anything within her reach she could use to defend herself. Nothing helped; until the lights turned on, and she too, spilled from the mattress – catching sight of his tussled brown hair in the movement.

The Red Skull didn’t have hair. The Red Skull wasn’t here.

Heaving so much she was sure she was going to throw up, Aria first coherent thought was the understanding that she was no longer safely wrapped in Howard’s arms. She could feel the strange, uncomfortable fabric of the carpet pressing into her palms, shooting bolts of latent static electricity against her skin at every point they touched. She was naked too, save for the sheet that had fallen from the bed alongside her, wrapped around her body, tangled in her limbs.

Howard swore under his breath. His hand extended into her periphery, hovering just at the edges of her skin. She could see the debate in his mind through the shake of his hand, the desperate question as to if it was a good idea to reach out and touch her.

“Don’t.” She snarled when he seemed to make the decision to touch her. She watched him retract the hand as though he’d been burned, face wide-eyed. He was breathing heavy to match her own, she realised – and though she suspected he was trying not to show it, she could see the fear in his eyes which came only from the idea that he had very nearly met his end. She had nearly killed him.

Her arms gave out beneath her. Crashing to the ground in a heap, her body trembled as the adrenaline in her body surged. She felt her senses return – felt the racing of her heart, the sweating against her skin, her dry mouth. The room began to spin beneath her, and she closed her eyes to maintain her grip on reality. A moment later, she rolled onto her back and stared up at the ceiling. Howard hovered over her, confused and unsure; though, he did not ask until she had managed to pull herself into a seated position, sheets wrapped around her body.

“What time is it?” She whispered, clutching her head as the felt the beginnings of a tension headache blooming.

“Barely past four am.” He answered her; and a part of her was relieved when he came to settle on the floor beside her. For a moment, they sat in silence, backs flush against the walls of SHIELD, each processing the events of the evening. Aria’s thoughts swam within her mind to a depth she was not sure that she could comprehend. Aria had experienced nightmares before. The man in red had featured frequently within them. But this wasn’t a nightmare. This was something beyond that.

“It felt real.” She admitted, illuminated only by the soft glow of the lamp. It framed Howard’s features, reflected in his pupils and back into her eyes.

Howard exhaled, a hand coming forward to brush his hair back from his face. It fell in front of his eyes, anyway. “Who did you see?”

She had to look away, then. For as much as she trusted Stark, she had never once informed him of the truth of the Red Skull, the truth of what he had done to her. He was smart, and she was sure that he had inferred as much; especially if Peggy had managed it. But the truth had never escaped her lips in reference to him, and she did not plan on whispering her darkest secrets on the wind of this night.

But the truth could be wrapped in a lie. Johann Schmidt was the man who raped her, but the name he went by, the moniker he designated for himself would still drive fear into the hearts of most men.

“I saw him.” She answered. “I saw the Red Skull. He had his hands around my throat – and, well, in the darkness, I thought you were him.”

Howard didn’t look all too convinced. She was almost positive that he was going to point out their physical differences. But he surprised her by remaining silent. It was almost worse.

“When was the last time you had a nightmare?”

For the first time, she was struck with the impossibility of answering such a question. Offering the truth – that it had been mere days since she’d been struck down with a nightmare, would have alarmed him. Lying, and proclaiming that she’d never once had one before, almost seemed worse. Briefly, she wondered if she had gone so used to mistruth that she no longer knew when it was best to speak honestly.

She decided to avoid the question all together.

“I wasn’t expecting my father to join SHIELD.”

It was a deflection; they both knew it – but it was encased so tightly within an honest truth that Howard let his question go.

“We should have told you.”

She hummed agreement, smoothing her hands against the white fabric of her sheets. “You should have. But you didn’t – and now here we are.”

He didn’t speak, but the fact that he looked towards the knife embedded in the wall was more than enough. She allowed her eyes to trail over it, if only for a moment. The blade was embedded into the wall; the hilt remaining the only thing visible. Not even a glint of silver in the morning light hinted as to the deadly weapon on the other side. If it had hit him, he would have been dead before he could hit the floor.

Another shiver wracked her body as she tore her gaze away, desperately reminding herself that Howard was not something she could lose. That they weren’t in a relationship, that she didn’t want to be in a relationship.

“Aria…” Howard sounded hesitant. She suspected what he was about to say. “Maybe you should get some help. Speak to some of the Doctors’, the…”

“Don’t say psychologist.” She pleaded.

“…psychologist.” He finished, and she closed her eyes. Her limbs felt heavy against her body; and though her breathing had slowed as her sense returned to her, every breath still felt a struggle. She knew she was breathing – but the air would not fill her lungs. The room felt too warm for the cold night air.

“It was a nightmare, Howard. A single nightmare.”

The fact that there was a knife currently embedded in the wall of her bedroom suggested that it had been more than a nightmare, and Howard looked ready to state as much. Aria, however, was quickly running out of patience.

From where she sat beside him, she gathered the white sheets in the fists of her hands. When her shaking legs rose from the floor, they did so behind the cover of the blankets. Without saying a word, Aria stepped methodically over to the light switch, never once dropping her gaze from Howard as she pressed against it with her elbow. The room plunged into darkness, and Aria’s eyes adjusted, focusing until they rested squarely on her bed. With that same, slow movement, she sank herself back into her mattress, allowing the sheets to fall away from her fists once she felt her body settle into the plush warmth that it provided.

“I am going back to sleep.” She announced, though from her actions, that much had been clear. It was a dismissal of their conversation – but not a dismissal of Howard. She felt his hesitation in the draw of his breath, the lack of movement in his body. There was more that he needed to say, more that needed to be said. If he had the courage to do so.

Moments later, she felt his body crawl into bed beside her. He had given her a reprieve – if only for the night. The warmth of his body radiated beside her skin, and though he did not lay his arms on her body again, she felt his presence there all the same. Watching over her, caring for her.

But only from the distance that she would allow.

Notes:

CW - mention of past sexual abuse and suicide

Chapter 39

September 13th, 1949: Midday

“Are you drinking again?”

Sprawled against the floor, hands flat behind her back, Aria peered up at the woman who had just bested her. Peggy was critical, her eyes narrow-set and frustrated as she peered down at the red-haired woman.

Based on the information that Peggy had before her, Aria knew that it was a reasonable assumption for the woman to make. Her movements had been slow, her once calculated precision off and she practically stumbled across the training mat. Her mind had been sluggish, unable to keep up with Peggy. The Agent had bested her before, but never as quickly. Never without a semblance of competition. Aria had never been twisted at an uncomfortable angle on the floor before; down because she did not have the energy or strength to rise.

Regardless, a fire burned through her at the words. She resented it – resented the very thought that Peggy felt she had the right to ask her at all.

“Aria!”

She blinked as the lights of the training room came back into focus. How long had she been standing there, lost in her own thoughts? She scrambled through her mind, trying to regain sense of the time, and answer the question Peggy had posed.

“No.” She ground out, though her argument wasn’t helped when she stumbled to her feet. Had she of been alone, she would have sworn at herself. Her body had been honed into the perfect weapon, and yet, it was beginning to refuse her movements. She had known that she was aging; had noticed wrinkles appearing in the corners of her eyes the moment that she had turned thirty-years old. She had thought, however, she’d have tens of years left before her body began to fail her.

It was because she wasn’t sleeping well, she reminded herself. It had to be.

Peggy, who of course, didn’t know any of this, was utterly unconvinced. “You know, Aria. If you’re drinking – we can’t send you on missions.”

Her heart hammered in her chest as her frustration grew; both with Peggy and herself. “I haven’t had a drink in years, Carter. I am just tired.”

And she was tired. Sleep had not come easy for her, not since the night of the first nightmare with Howard. She hadn’t been able to coax herself back to sleep in the early hours of that morning, even as she’d heard Howard drift off behind her. That night, when she laid in the comforts of her mattress alone, it had taken hours for sleep to overcome her being. Every night was the same – it was getting later and later, and Aria’s patience was wearing thin. Especially when her dreams were often interrupted with visions of Schmidt, body towering over her in the backseat of his car.

They weren’t the worst nightmares, though. Worse was when Schmidt’s face morphed from the Red Skull she had learned to fear; to the face of the man who had taught her to love. Red Skull startled her awake, with screams. Seeing the face of Bucky in her nightmares, however; only pressed a weight against her chest. She felt every pressure point of his fingertips as they dug into her neck. In the worst nightmares, he would blame her for his death, ask her why she had listened to orders to remain behind, claim that she could have prevented the horror that came for him in the Alps. The hands around her throat would turn as cold as ice, the wind would howl against her ears, and she would almost feel as though she was falling alongside him. When she would wake, gasping for air, eyes swollen with tears that she had shed in her sleep – and it would take painstakingly patient minutes for her body to come too, and relax.

It made her resent sleep, more so than before. The idea that in sleep, even her memories of Bucky could be tainted by the horrors of her mind was not a comfortable thought. He had often remained the last memory on her mind before she drifted each night, but now, it was always tinged with the fear that she would see him in a different light.

“Howard told me that you’ve been having nightmares.”

Aria grunted then, looking around the room as though she would be able to see the billionaire. Conveniently, he was nowhere to be seen, and Aria began to wonder if Peggy had set this meeting up for the sole purpose of confronting her for this mood.

“And you thought that I had resorted to drinking in order to rid myself of them?”

Peggy remained silent, and Aria felt a heavy sigh escape her. She wasn’t in the mood to argue with Carter today. She didn’t have the energy to verbally spar, to quarrel and return quips as they had become used to over the years. Peggy would best her on this day; and having already lost physically, her pride wasn’t prepared to be wounded by a second defeat.

“Everybody has nightmares from the war.” Aria dismissed, speaking again if only to move the conversation along.

“Of course.” Peggy nodded, but suddenly, her eyes turned downcast. Her head began to shake back and forth, lips pursed as she continued by saying: “But Aria, this isn’t normal. The stumbling, the slurred words, tripping over your own sentences – sometimes, I’m not even sure if you remember where you are.”

It made Aria’s heart race. They’d noticed the change in her temperament, just as she had. She would have to be more careful in future, she surmised. To hide the true state of her being. She thought she had been careful. Even the missions she’d been taking recently, required only limited use of her skills. Close to home reconnaissance; or the retrieval of intelligence from trusted sources. Operations that did not require a fight that she was no longer sure she could win.

Peggy was right. Peggy had always been able to see right through her, and right now, when she couldn’t trust her own mind, it terrified her.

She couldn’t admit that, though. She wasn’t ready to admit that there was something wrong beyond the lack of sleep. It was just sleep deprivation. Nothing more.

“Take me off missions.” Aria waved her hand in front of her body to emphasise her point. She watched Peggy’s eyebrows raise in surprise – as though she hadn’t been expecting the action, but Aria realised immediately that it was the right course of action to take. It would give her some time to sort this out – to sleep, and rest, and come back better and stronger. It would give her the control that she had so desperately lacked in the past few weeks. “I can rest – and I’ll come back, and I’ll be better.”

“Aria, this… Even drunk, you were a better fighter than this. I’ve seen you take down hundreds of men, alone. You are a shadow of yourself.”

“A few weeks of rest.” Aria repeated, refusing to acknowledge Carter’s words. The desperation that surged in her blood was hidden in the tone of her voice; but manifested in the impatient tapping of her feet.

The two women stared at one another. Aria felt naked under the weight of Peggy’s scrutinising stare. Suddenly, this was no longer the friend that Aria came to spar with, but the Director of SHIELD, measuring her asset. It made her want to run and hide, made it feel as though there were bugs crawling in and around her skin. Peggy was always so perceptive.

So, Aria was surprised when she merely nodded her agreement. “Alright.”

She didn’t believe her. But it seemed she would give Aria time. She hoped that time was all she needed.

***

“Alice?”

She was surprised to hear the voice at the other end of the call. Distorted as it was, she recognised the woman’s southern drawl, the air of purpose from which she spoke. Self-importance hadn’t disappeared from her tone, even after the years they’d been apart. Aria hadn’t been shocked when Alice had remained embedded within the United States Military – she hadn’t bothered to offer her a position within SHIELD in the same manner she had Alma and Betty. She didn’t think the woman would return her calls; didn’t think that the woman would ever be suited to the fluid environment of their agency. The military retained the sense of order and obedience that she knew Alice thrived within. Aria hadn’t bothered to call her since their shared days in the SSR.

She was surprised Alice was even able to find her number.

“Aria.” She sounded relieved to have found her.

Aria couldn’t help but feel her suspicions rising immediately. “Why are you calling?”

In truth, she knew that of all people Howard and Peggy could have asked to stage an intervention for her, Alice would not have been likely. But the though uncomfortably echoed in the back of her mind, refusing to be shoved away.

Alice sounded hesitant on the other end of the line. “I know you don’t work for the SSR anymore… Honestly, the last that I had heard, you were a drunken mess, but…”

Aria growled into the phone, a low, keen sound as her blood boiled beneath her skin at the reminder. If she was being honest, there was a little bit of shame, too. “Get to the point.”

Apparently, with time, she’d lost the ability to be patient with Alice’s insulting ad-libs.

“Sorry!” She heard the squeak on the other end of the line, and then the whisper. “Well, I transferred. From the SSR, back to the United States Military. If there’s a way you can get into contact with Carter? Or Phillips – or God I suppose even that ridiculous billionaire, I think they may want to know…”

“Know what Alice?”

“Well… They’re working on the super soldier serum. The US. They started human trials this week – and I… It looks like it’s working. God forgive me, I shouldn’t be telling you this. They could lock me up…”

Aria flinched. She shouldn’t have been shocked – it was the logical next step for the United States to take, now that they were close to achieving their hydrogen bomb. Having expanded as forward as science was able to take them for the moment, it was obvious that they would return to science they had seen, but not yet been able to replicate. The super soldier serum was exactly that.

Peggy and Howard needed to know – but Aria couldn’t escape the feeling of paranoia that came with the words. Her father was here now. Her father was at SHIELD, and she knew that he had never held qualms against human experimentation in order to find the most agreeable outcome. The idea that he would likely turn to working on a super soldier serum…

“Aria?”

She wondered how long Alice had been waiting on the other end of the line. How many times had she called her name, to sound so annoyed.

“Sorry.” Aria murmured; and then flinched, because apologising was atypical of her. She couldn’t remember the last time that word had ever escaped her mouth. Maybe she had directed it towards Bucky.

“Can you help?”

She pursed her lips at Alice’s hope, crackling on the other end of the line. “I can inform Peggy and Howard.” She’d only made the decision to do so as the words had left her lips. She would tell them of this conversation. She would have to – SHIELD couldn’t afford to be behind on this technology, even if Aria personally struggled to stomach the idea of her father having anything to do with it.

Five years on, Bucky was dead – but Aria still felt every torturous decision that her father had impacted upon his body in pursuit of greatness.

“Will you?” Alice sounded hopeful on the other end of the line – even as her whispered voice suggested she was terrified of the repercussions.

“I will.” Aria promised.

She’d forgotten her promise by that afternoon.

***

The hallway was quiet and eerie when Aria’s feet turned down the corridor.

Her bare feet padded against the cold concrete, and she could feel every slight indentation, every small imperfection in the stone as it impressed itself upon her soles. Occasionally, she would find purchase against a small stone, and a sting of pain would race across her nerves, from the bottoms of her toes all the way to the tips of her fingertips, like a bolt of lightning. It did nothing to stop her relentless pursuit of the dark figure through the halls.

Something was in her home. Something had infiltrated the SHIELD base – a man in a dark cloak, a face that was obstructed from her. She suspected that she knew him. She suspected that when she caught up to him, it would reveal the face of the Red Skull – sunken, bloodied with the lives that he had taken, harsh against the light of the day. He had followed her here; he had haunted her dreams and now he haunted her waking moments. Her mission was to find him. To destroy him, to rid him from the earth and bathe in the bloodied victory of his death.

She turned the corner, momentarily stumbling when her body crashed into another hard form. But nothing appeared before her vision – nothing, saved for the cloak that disappeared into a room further down.

Something tugged at her arm; at first light, then insistent in its pressure. Aria registered the feeling of nails scratching at her skin as she ripped her arm free. She recognised the feeling of blood spiking, bubbling from where the nails had cut the skin. It was visceral for a dream. The feeling of the wound, itching against her skin. She could almost feel it dribbling down her arm as she continued to stalk her target, continued to move her bare feet against the concrete floor with purpose.

She thought that someone may have said her name then. Thought that maybe, she heard the musical syllables escaping from the back of someone’s throat. But she ignored it, in favour of the sudden realisation that she was holding something.

Peering down at her hand; she noticed for the first time that she was carrying a blade. The knife was long and proud in her hand, the same knife that she’d embedded in the wall of her room after waking from the haze of her nightmare alongside Howard. She couldn’t remember ever utilising her strength to pull it from the wall – content to leave it there as a brutal reminder she needed to get a hold of herself, and quickly.

Her eyes caught against the red blood that dripped from the end of the blade. The blade was not coated, but it was enough for Aria to notice it; prominent against the sharp silver glint. Had she already stabbed him? That didn’t make sense. She still had to walk into the room. The door was still a few paces from her. The fact that there was warm, sticky blood now coating the blade – it didn’t make sense. She had to ignore it. She had to finish her mission.

Another voice sounded her name. It sounded distorted, and wrong. Her grip tightened against the blade as she pressed forward, ignoring the desperation in that unrecognisable tone. Her feet carried her through the door of the room.

He was waiting for her, she realised as she turned the corner into the room. He had not run from her, like he had run through these hallways. Instead, he stood, like a prized mule, in the centre of the room blocked only by a table. It would be simple enough for her to vault over the top, to embed the knife in his throat and put an end to the pain and suffering that he had caused for everyone. Something inside her body rejoiced at the thought of it all. At the thought of it ended.

She felt her body move before she’d registered the reaction. Somewhere, she heard him yelp in fright; heard him call her name. It didn’t sound how she remembered – the Red Skull’s voice was deep, but this voice was feathery, knowledgeable. She could hear the fear that echoed deep within it, vibrating her bones. She had never known the Red Skull to show fear.

Perhaps he did, in his final moments.

“Aria!” The voice behind her was clearer now. No longer distorted. But she couldn’t listen to it. She had to finish her mission.

The knife in her hands pressed against the figures side. Right by his vital organs, it would be so simply to plunge it beyond the skin. So why was she hesitating?

The man in front of her didn’t. She watched him reach for the knife beside his hand. She watched him plunge it into her own skin. She had expected the Red Skull to be stronger – but this… It felt like he struggled to push beyond her tense muscles.

She registered the sharp stab of pain as the blade embedded itself within her forearm, but it was not that which snapped her out of her stupor. Instead, Aria could only watch in horror as the cackling, gleeful face of the Red Skull, morphed in the tortured, beautiful face of the man that she had loved. The man that she still loved.

“Aria?” She heard him whisper – horrified, and heartbroken. His voice was every bit as smooth as she remembered, it carried every sense of the love that they had shared. She could almost feel his heartbeat pounding against her skin, pressed against her in the bed that they had once shared.

This couldn’t be real – she realised with a sense of horror. This man was dead; it was the only thing she was sure of.

Her grip on the knife slipped from her hands, clattering to the floor. She stumbled away, crashing to the floor in a heap by test tubes which followed her down, and shattered. Breath would not enter her lungs as she scrambled against the cold tile, desperate to find purchase with anything to lift herself to her feet, regardless of the sharps of glass now embedding themselves into her hands. For a moment, she took her eyes off of Bucky, to find something to grab hold of.

When she turned her gaze back, only Arnim Zola remained. Stoic as ever, composed, despite the knife she’d just levelled on him. She swallowed the urge to whisper and apology – though it sprung to the forefront of her mind. He didn’t deserve it.

For a long moment, they stared at one another. Aria sucked air into her lungs desperately. She wanted to squeeze her eyes closed and pretend that this had been a bad dream. But that was exactly the problem – this was a dream. She no longer understood when she was awake. Her eyes flickered downward as she noted the blood caking her arm. Deep, gouging scratches littered her skin; blood oozing from the wounds that had not yet begun to heal. Everything that had happened…

“Trakhni menya.” Fuck me.

“Isla.” Her father called.

“Don’t call me that!” She snarled, but it contained none of her usual bite. Gingerly, she pulled herself up off of the floor. Her eyes flickered towards the door, but she knew she couldn’t leave. There was too much knowledge contained in her father’s eyes – too much resembling genuine fear, genuine care of her. It terrified her.

“When was the last time you’ve slept?”

It was the same question he’d asked her a few weeks prior. She hadn’t been ready to answer it then, and she wasn’t going to give him the pleasure of the answer now.

“What’s happening to me?” She could hear the fear in her tone. The time for lies, for deception, was gone. All that stood before them was the cold truth of the day.

He grimaced, looking as serious as she had ever seen him. “You’re sick, Isla. You’re dying.”

The world she’d built came crashing down around her.

Notes:

oof :)

Chapter 40

September 21st, 1949: Evening

Aria’s entire body felt numb.

Once, she would have insisted her father call her by the name she had chosen by herself. Arianne Rose – when she was anything but a flower. In the reality of the moment, it seemed too simple a request for a man who had just delivered such debilitating news.

Normally careful with her words, she could only say: “What?”

Aria struggled to read him. He seemed small behind his glasses, still pudgy, but there was a gentleness to him that she hadn’t witnessed since she was a child. She may not have shared his eye colour – her green eyes, her red hair, it all came from her mother. But Aria knew they looked remarkably similar, especially in their ability to say so much with their eyes, but nothing aloud.

“What did you say?” She heard Peggy behind her, but Aria didn’t turn to face her. The logical part of her brain began to fill the gaps in her memory – the unidentified figure who scratched her, the distorted voice calling to her. It had to have been Peggy in the hallway. Peggy who noticed a dazed look in her eyes, laced with the determination that came from following a ghost story across the floors of SHIELD.

A violent shiver wracked Aria’s body. Suddenly, she was cold, despite the beads of sweat that were forming across her forehead. She felt her legs quake beneath her, and her hand launched out to steady herself against the laboratory table. It was cool beneath her fingers, smooth and untouched other equipment. Everything in this room was sterile, and new, and stank with the fresh smell of disinfectant and bleach. She hadn’t taken the time to properly appreciate it for what it was, when she’d first confronted her father. She hadn’t taken the time to consider a lot of things, in truth.

“Dying.” Zola said again, and Aria noticed his confidence returning slightly; based only on the fact that he pushed his glasses up with the tips of his fingers. “The same way her mother did.”

She choked, her response catching in her throat. “Mother?”

The word sounded foreign on her tongue. Ogla Romanoff had died when she was ten years old – and her father had ensured that she had not known the warm touch of her mother long before that. Traces of her mother’s touch against her skin was all she had, the mere fleeting thought of a memory like a whisper against a gentle breeze. She could not remember her mother; but she saw her reflection every time she glanced in a mirror. Saw the colour of her eyes.

“I told you once, that your mother corrupted you. That she was the source of your pain then. Isla – she is the source of your pain now, because this disease, it can only be inherited.”

“Stop it.” She shook her head back and forth, trying to shake the words off of her skin. “You’ve never wanted anything for me other than the use of my body for your own benefit. Your goals.”

“I didn’t want this for you, kleiens rotes.”

Aria heard Peggy scoff behind her, but she didn’t need the Director of SHIELD to fight her battles for her.

“You didn’t want this for me?” She chuckled darkly. “You were overjoyed when I became the Red Viper – when I chose the nickname to suit me, based on your term of endearment for me. Little Red, you called me then. You called me it just now. Why?”

“Who do you think suggested the Red Room to Schmidt?”

Pure silence encased the laboratory. Even the whirring of machines ceased, as though paying reverence to the words which rushed through the open space. Aria had experienced this feeling once before – this overwhelming feeling to run, to punch, to hit. It had been after Bucky had died, and she had been desperate to make the man in front of her pay. Those she had walked past that day, on her pilgrimage to her father’s cell, had been silent in her wake. Terrified of what she could do to them – would do to them, if they disturbed her from her quest.

This wasn’t the same. She didn’t have bloodlust on her mind; she was facing the overwhelming truth of her mortality. And, somehow, the overbearing shock that after all of these years, her father still found avenues to disappoint her. She could feel her nails pressing into her palm, drawing blood from crescent-moon scars that had made themselves permanent on her skin.

She didn’t allow herself to speak this time, even though Peggy heels tapped in impatient protest. Fleetingly, Aria allowed the thought to cross her mind – did Peggy regret bringing her father into SHIELD?

She doubted it.

“Your mother spoke to me of the training involved in the Red Room. She detailed the brutality, the rigor, the structure and the non-allowance for failures. All of this, Aria, you already knew; for she trained it into you. You were trained for the Red Room without ever knowing of its existence.”

She’d figured as much, but she didn’t give her father the satisfaction of a verbal answer. Instead, she only craned her head forward, encouraging him to continue. She was surprised when his expression turned somewhat sheepish the longer that the conversation lingered.

“I was familiar with the graduation program integrated by the program following your mother’s dismissal from the studio. And, kleines rotes, like it or not, I was familiar with Johann Schmidt’s intentions for you.”

Aria didn’t bother to hide her shiver. Her voice was dangerously spiteful when she said, “You aided Johann Schmidt in his pursuit of me.”

“I saved you.” Zola shook his head. “You are short-sighted, daughter mine. The graduation ceremony of the Red Room would have prevented Schmidt’s final use for you. You would have been the perfect soldier, the perfect assassin, bound not by the ridiculous notion of caring for one’s offspring…”

Her eyes widened as his words rattled around her skull. Faster than she could comprehend, they formed together to create the truth she had never known.

Aria cut him off with the sudden realisation, “You think I’m your weakness?” It escaped her as a maniacal, incredulous laugh.

Zola blinked, momentarily startled. He wasn’t a spy; and Aria immediately recognised that he had never meant to speak such a thought aloud. He had never meant to admit that he cared beyond the pride it bought him, to be the father of the Red Viper.

Hysteria. She was hysterical – the very idea that her father cared about her so much that he perceived it to be illogical was the universe’s idea of a perfect joke. Here was the man standing before her; her father, with glasses and a scientists build. Here was a man who had imposed terrible suffering upon her, in the name of science and progress. She had long believed she was nothing but a nuisance to his plans, a tool to be utilised when the situation required it. To learn that in some twisted manner, he believed her to be his greatest creation – not because he had a hand in creating her in the literal sense, but because his decisions had moulded her into the being that she had become. The monster that she could be, in the right circumstances.

“It is a natural biological instinct.” Zola attempted to dismiss. “To care for the young of your creation. I am just as slave to my machinations as you are.”

Peggy hadn’t moved behind her. Aria wondered if she was seeing it now – seeing the reason why she had been so utterly disturbed when SHIELD had brought her father into the fold without so much of a warning sent in her direction. Just because her father hadn’t actively picked up a gun in favour of HYDRA, did not mean he did not share their brutal tendencies. He had been every bit as cruel to her, as Schmidt – only his torture had been of a different kind.

“You told me the sanity of the man was of little consequence. You would have gifted me to him, had he of asked.”

Zola didn’t deny it. He only said: “I did everything in my power to prevent that outcome.”

“By selling me to another program.”

“By making you stronger.” He corrected. “I gave you opportunities, fräulein, but you reached out for them. Affection is temporary, love is for children. Have you learned that by now? You would have been bound by the offspring of any coupling with Schmidt, reduced to nothing beyond a brood mare. You do not know how to rest, daughter. It would have been a torturous existence for you. So I tried to remove the possibility of it. Schmidt was, of course, ahead of me in that regard. But he never would has suspected I sent you there to prevent his future plans.” He peered down at her then, through the rims of his glasses. “I would not have wished that upon you.”

“You do not know anything about me.” She tried to deny, but the words sounded weak against her tongue. Howard had said the same thing to her – and Howard knew her better than any man alive.

“I know everything about you.”

A single, demanding heel against the tile signalled to Aria that Peggy had finally had enough of the squabbling between father and daughter. “None of this has anything to do with the very real fact your efforts to protect her will have been for naught if you do not know how to save her.”

Aria wanted to turn around and glare at Peggy, for even acknowledging his skewed frame of mind. But she couldn’t as her anger washed away in favour of the very real reminder that she was a mortal being. That she was dying, just as every ordinary man and woman who had come before her. The familiar sting of survival raced in her heart. She had done so much to survive, enacted so much horror upon the world. It was all going to be for naught, if she died at such a young age. She was suddenly struck by the very real fact that Aria Davis had barely begun to live. She didn’t yet want to die.

“It’s a genetic mutation. It’s a disease that does not have a name, because it inhabits so few. All I understand, is that it is caused by a mutation in the human genome, I believe, which codes for the prion protein. The mutation leads to abnormal folding of the prion protein, which causes brain cell damage, particularly in areas involved in regulating sleep, such as the thalamus.”

Aria blinked at him. Behind her, she could hear the Director of SHIELD’s breaths coming in impatient huffs.

“Simplify it.” Peggy barked. Aria heard the strain in her voice then, too. She was upset; and it sent a pang to her heart.

“I do not have a cure.” He acquiesced, actually looking apologetically towards his daughter. Her green eyes couldn’t hold his gaze for more than a moment.

Aria didn’t have anything to say to that. She didn’t have anything left to say to either person remaining in the room. Instead, she only inclined her head once, signalling her goodbye before her feet had even carried her from the room.

***

En pointe, arabesque, adagio, sauté, pirouette, repeat.

En pointe, arabesque, adagio, sauté, pirouette, repeat.

Aria could feel the soles of her shoes hitting the ground. They clunked in step with her movements, the sound disjoined with the fluidity of what was meant to be ballet. She’d wanted to practice without her shoes. In her socks, she could reach the points of her toes; her form sparking jealousy in even the most talent prima ballerina. But she’d been too afraid of her balance failing her. She’d be sent sprawling to the ground, and it would only serve as a reminder of the news that her father had delivered.

En pointe, arabesque, adagio, sauté, pirouette, repeat.

It echoed in the mind, like the word marble had once become her mantra. She was desperate to prove to someone, perhaps even herself, that this was not real. That she was still the same girl that she’d always been, that she couldn’t have inherited the disease that killed her mother. But even her greatest efforts couldn’t disguise the sluggish movements of her steps, or the inelegance of her pointed feet. She had been better than this – and she could no longer pretend to herself that only age was to blame.

It wasn’t just her body, though. She could see Bucky standing there, in the corner of the room. His arms were crossed in front of his chest as he leaned black against the glass plane, quietly assessing her actions. If she watched him for too long, she would notice his unnatural stillness. The way that he did not need to breathe, the way that he did not blink. His head was angled almost too sharply in the way it looked towards her. He looked beautiful, yes – but in an inhuman sort of way.

“I’m here for you.” She’d heard him whisper as she entered the doorway. It made her skin crawl. No longer were they words of comfort – now they were literal truth.

Bucky was here to take her to whatever was next.

She felt her toes crumpling beneath the weight of her body. Her reactions, honed as they were, became barely enough to prevent her from crumpling to the floor. Instead of the steady ballet movements she had practiced for hours; now, her legs only trembled with exhaustion. The fear that flowed through her bloodstream was the same fear that had carried her survival through the Red Room, through the Abwehr. She had been able to rely on her body, to get her through then.

What was she to do, now that her body didn’t work? Her father – the same man who claimed that everything he did, was on her behalf; he didn’t have a cure for her.

She was going to die.

The thought clanged through her, and she felt herself gasp for breath. Everything felt strangled – her limbs felt as though they were being pulled in every which direction by ropes invisible to the naked eye. There was a hand on her chest, holding her down, allowing her to drown, and all the while, the man that she loved the most stood by the door and watched, without a hint of remorse.

“Aria.”

Her focus steadied, if only for the moment, as Howard breezed into the room. She watched in wonder as he passed Bucky – and the premonition of her dead lover frowner; jealous from beyond the grave.

Aria struggled to push the thought from her mind. She could hear Howard’s distress, and when he reached her side, he didn’t hesitate to pull her into a crashing hug. Something cracked inside of her then. Something that she hadn’t even known was so fragile. Howard, who had often hesitated with his care, afraid of her – afraid of what she would do; was terrified by the thought of losing her. So much that it halted any of his natural instincts, any of his reminders that she was dangers.

Her heart pounded. She knew Howard could feel it through his own skin, it’s thumping beating hard against her chest. She closed her eyes, allowing her body to relax into his arms. He held her as she shook, though no words of comfort passed from his lips. This was already too much – this total release of her being into his body. He knew that she could not handle more. She had to come to terms with it on her own.

But she needed to know.

“How much have you learned?” She whispered into his chest.

He didn’t let her go as he answered. “Enough.”

She was silent for a long minute, recalling the events of the day. Nearly killing her father; envisioning him at the Red Skull. Seeing Bucky’s face then – seeing Bucky’s face now. Learning how her mother had died. Learning that she would die the same way.

“I’m going to die, Howard.”

She needed to say it aloud. She had to say it with the finality that it deserved. She knew she did not deserve a painless death – that this was just punishment for the hurt and suffering that she had caused in her life. But she knew she deserved this acknowledgement of the fact. She deserved to live in truth for her final days.

She felt Howard turn rigid. In his grasp, she peered up to look at him, suddenly struck by the cold determination in his eyes. When he glanced down at her, his brown orbs held nothing but promise.

“You won’t die, Arianne.” He promised swiftly. “I will save your life.”

Notes:

seeing fantastic four tomorrow! let me tell you, i am more than excited to witness pedro pascal on the screen in front of me once more...

Chapter 41

September 23rd, 1949: Dawn

Aria didn’t bother to leave her bed the next day. She was glad too, when Carter and Stark seemed content to leave her alone to her thoughts.

Wrapped in the sheets, dressed in old SSR sweats she knew had once belonged to Bucky, she comforted herself with nothing other than the sweet relief of being alone. Soft music echoed in the room occasionally, the sparkling notes of jazz filling in the silence. Occasionally, she almost felt as if her body was swaying to the music, though she knew in reality she never bothered to crawl from mattress. Sometimes, she got so dizzy from the feeling that she had to squeeze her eyes closed; and pinch her skin. If only to remind herself that she was steady on the ground.

It was funny – how confirming that there was something desperately, truly wrong with you, made the feeling worse. Her symptoms had exacerbated over the past day, though Aria was sure that her heightened anxiety was playing a rather large role in that regard. She’d had to dim the lights to ensure that her headache wouldn’t progress to a migraine; but in the privacy of her room, she also hadn’t bothered to hide her tears. They were what had given her the headache in the first place.

It had been a struggle to sleep that night. She hadn’t returned to her father to learn the depth of her symptoms, but she suspected that the inability to sleep was one of them. Coupled with her other symptoms – the hallucinations; both auditory and visual, the lack of coordination, slurring her words, and most recently, forgetting conversations, Aria supposed it was a wonder that she had managed to survive so long at all.

When sleep did not come for her, she had tried to be useful in her restlessness. It was a slow process, methodically combing through every inch of her room in order to identify the weaponry stowed within there, necessary all the same. If she could no longer trust her own mind to tell her the truth, she could no longer be trusted with blades. She could kill – and she had killed for less.

Aria suspected she scarcely got an hour of rest. Her eyes struggled to adjust in the morning light – the headache she’d nursed returning in full force with the blaring sun. She cursed herself for forgetting to close the window shades, and desperately tried to ignore the fact that sometimes, in her periphery, she could see Johann Schmidt watching her. Waiting for her. Reminding herself that he wasn’t real, over and over again, like the mantra she’d once held close to her heart.

Schmidt is not necessary to your current objective. Cast him aside.

But she didn’t have an objective anymore. There was no physical fight. There was no mission. There was only her body; the one thing she had learned to rely on, the one thing that she knew intimately, and perfectly. The only thing that had never once failed her before, and it was failing her now.

By the time Aria had walked from her room, she had plastered a mask of indifference across her face. She was as poised as ever, walking through the walls of SHIELD, and smiling at those who glanced haphazardly in her direction. A shadow, they’d referred to her as. None were quite sure what she did – just as she had intended to exist within the organisation. She would meet with Howard, Peggy and Phillips, receive her orders, and disappear to see them done.

Now, however, her feet took her on a different path. The walls inside the base were warm; likely to stave off the chill that would soon arrive on the back of Winter’s approach. It made the air feel heavy as she travelled closer to her destination. For a moment, she was almost tempted to reach out and run her fingers through the grouting cracks of the tiled wall. It would feel like she was a child again, desperate to feel the different textures, desperate to ground herself in a reality that was so quickly slipping from her grasp.

She didn’t reach out though. She wasn’t a child anymore, and that innocent wonder had long since been beaten from her skin.

Her footsteps carried her into her father’s lab. He was alone in there, save for the instruments and equipment that would serve him well. She watched him glance up at the sound of her footsteps and noted with curiosity the expression on his face. There was no surprise – he had to have known, of course, that at some point she would return to him. But with no small amount of satisfaction, she noted too that there was also fear. It thrilled her, even if she had far bigger things to worry about.

“Kleines rotes.” He greeted. The words slithered through the air, snaking beneath her skin.

She almost missed him calling her Isla.

“What do you know about it. The disease?”

Aria didn’t bother greeting him. Anything other than the shared drive to depart information upon one another would be precious time wasted. She had a feeling that she was going to need all the time she could get – especially whilst she was coherent enough to make sense of the world around her. If the hallucinations were the threat of what was to come; and they were already debilitating in their current form, Aria suspected she did not have long left.

“It killed your mother,” he began, and she glared, because she already knew that. “It started innocuously enough. She couldn’t sleep – but in your profession, sleeping is a luxury, not a given.”

Aria didn’t bother to mention she couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept soundly. She suspected he wouldn’t feel sympathetic to her plight. She could already hear his dismissal – her ordeal had made her all the stronger.

Instead, she only waved him on when he paused, waiting for her interjection.

“Next came the auditory hallucinations. She was hearing voices in the midst of the day that were not there. She suspected it was ‘war neurosis’ or what the Amerikanet’s call ‘shellshock.’ I wasn’t convinced, and when she held a gun to your head whilst you slept, Isla, I knew it was something more.”

Aria flinched, feeling the blood rush to her cheeks. She’d had a gun held to her head before, she had learned to be comfortable in the face of such a gun, metal weapon; but to learn that her own mother had once done so in the midst of an hallucination?

She scolded herself then. Her father had sold her to the Red Room – it was a fools dream to believe that her mother could be any different. It took her longer than she wanted to admit, but she felt the moment that her heart rate levelled in her chest. Even if the shaking in her hands didn’t cease, or the sweat beading on her forehead continued to threaten her face.

“Schmidt wanted her killed.”

She paused then, her stomach twisting uncomfortably. “I thought you didn’t know Schmidt yet.”

Zola only responded by rolling his eyes. “I’ve known Johann Schmidt longer than you’ve been alive. There was simply never a reason to work together prior to 1934. As I was saying, Schmidt wanted her killed – I wanted to study her. I suspected that the disease would be hereditary, and here I am now, twenty years later, proven correct.”

“Twenty years.” Aria mused. “Surely you have some ideas, then.”

“One.” Zola nodded. She watched her father as he paced closed to her, removing his laboratory coat as he walked. Aria tried hard not to stare at the clothing now marking his body, embroidered with the logo of SHIELD. She almost longed to rip it free from his clothing – the same way that she had once painstakingly torn every stitch from the Allied Flag once bared against her body. The fact that he was here still felt like a bad dream – one that she couldn’t wake up from. He reached her side, and she felt her skin itching uncomfortably with his proximity. How ironic that this man was her father, and she could barely bear to stand in the same room as him.

“I can do nothing without the serum. I suspect the SSR would have a vial of Steve Rogers’ blood stored, no?”

Aria’s blood ran cold. Somewhere in the back of her mind, a memory desperately tried to surface. But it was washed away beneath the sound of her father’s accent, sure and steadfast in its assertion.

“No.” The refusal escaped her mouth before she could bother thinking through the consequences. It was outright confirmation that her father had been right, that they did have access to the final vial of Steve’s blood, that Peggy had held it close and tight, and thus far, she’d revealed to none that she even held it. It was only Aria, perceptive as she was, whose job it was to know all things, who had managed to glean the information. From small, short tells that Peggy Carter wasn’t even aware that she had. Howard and Phillips had long believed the vial gone. Aria had never questioned it, allowing the Director of SHIELD to hold tightly to the secret of its whereabouts. The less people that knew, she figured, the better.

“But you do have a vial?”

“I didn’t say that.” She dismissed; but as great a liar she was, it sounded clipped on her tongue. They both knew she’d reacted too harshly, too quickly for the answer to be anything other than the truth. Anything other than a blatant refusal to use it. “And if I did have the vial – which I do not, I would never trust it in your hands.”

“Even if they could save you?”

“You experimented on him.” She had meant to sound exasperated; tired of speaking in circles around the argument. But it came out pitiful, sad – and she could see Bucky, directly behind her father, matching her grim expression. It was hard to ignore him, every time she caught him in her periphery. She wished more than anything that he was real. That she could run into his arms, speak to him about her day, listen to him prattle about activities that she would likely find menial and fruitless. But he would be alive; and they would be together.

Her father saw right through her. “Even now, Isla, you do not know yourself. You have pretended in this Amerikanet body for so long that you do not even know who you are. You would have bored yourself with that little man; he was far too small for you.”

“Don’t insult him.” She snarled, if only because she saw Bucky’s frown as clear as though he was standing in front of her.

“Look at that,” she could almost hear him whisper. “My war-wife is defending me now.”

She thought she would have hit him in return.

“I do not insult him.” Zola placated. She returned her attention towards him with a frown set against her face. “I praise you. He is but a stain on your ledger, a stain that you have every opportunity to erase, if you provide for me the tools that I need to save your life.”

“And what then?” She challenged, almost desperately. Searching his gaze, searching his body language, she looked for anything to indicate that her father was a changed man. That he did not believe the words of HYDRA, if he ever had. That he wouldn’t use what he discovered in the course of saving her to irrevocably alter the course of history. That his pursuit of science was not for science’s sake, but because he truly wanted to save her life.

But he did not have an answer for her. He merely stared at her, as though his words promising salvation would be enough for her. Isla Zola, if she was still that girl, would have relented. She would have stopped at nothing for survival, no matter the cost to others. But Isla Zola was dead; she had died when Johann Schmidt had ordered her journey to the 107th, and Arianne Rose Davis had been born in her place. Full of thorns, emotionally stunted, but trying to be better. Trying to do better.

He recognised that his silence wasn’t enough, when her shoulders tensed, and her muscles bunched in her legs to carry her from the room. “It would all be for you.”

She only levelled him with an assessing, cool stare. “I don’t believe you.”

***

“Director Carter.”

Peggy glanced up from her office table, surprise momentarily flashing across her features before she could school them to say otherwise. It was not often that Aria arrived with formalities – she normally didn’t bother to announce her presence when entering a room, allowing the atmosphere to do it for her. But Aria had been able to rely on her body carrying her weight then. Now, it was different.

“Aria?”

Aria didn’t wait for a further invitation. She set a brisk pace as she stalked across the room, coming to sit in the chair immediately in front of the woman. Carter, dressed casually, Aria realised after a moment, studied her intently. Aria could almost see the red ridges around her eyes that she’d attempted to blot over with makeup. For any other person, any other woman, Aria would have found the tears meaningless. They unsettled her as they were – a reminder that death did not merely affect the dying. But Aria understood Margaret Carter. She was a woman who also did not know how to rest. Her tears, soon enough, would turn to action.

That was what she was here to avoid.

“Do not cry for me, dorogoya. For the moment, I am still here and able.”

Peggy shook her head. “You’ll be here ready and able for a long time to come, Davis. Your father, and Howard – they’re going to work on a cure.” She sounded certain. Aria admired her faith in the men; though it was faith she shared. With the correct tools, Howard Stark and Arnim Zola would be formidable in finding some way to fix her.

But Aria shook her head back at forth rapidly. She could feel the emotion beginning to choke in her throat, the weight of the request she was about to request from her friend. “No, they’re not.”

Peggy looked at her curiously, momentarily stunned, but Aria knew she needed to continue before she lost her nerve. “They believe the only way to stop this; is to give me the super soldier serum, because it worked to curing all of Steve’s ailments. Except, they don’t know how to create the serum, because Erskine was secretive, and for good reason.

“You’ve held onto that blood, I know, for years. You have kept it from Stark; you told him you poured it from the side of the Brooklyn Bridge, but I know you. I know you plan for every contingency – we are the same, in that regard.”

She paused, watching Peggy’s expression. But the practiced Director of SHIELD gave nothing away. Her lips remained closed; her eyes steady as they fixed on Aria.

“You kept it from Howard, I presume, because you knew he would use it for monetary gain. He is, after all, a businessman.”

“Aria, that man loves you.”

Aria felt her body recoil, even sitting in the chair. She knew that – but to hear it confirmed so plainly, so resolutely by another was never easy. Especially when she could never allow herself to love him like such in return. They were doomed to orbit one another, unable to escape the gravitational pull. Perhaps in another life, things would have been different. In her ideal life, she’d have spent her nights wrapped in the arm of Barnes. But people didn’t always get what they wanted.

“I know he loves me.” Aria dismissed, crossing her arms over her chest. She wasn’t here to talk about Howard, however intwined their lives had become over the years. It was a sure tell as to how uncomfortable the statement had made her, but she saw no use in lying to Peggy. “That’s precisely why he’s going to come to you. And beg you for it. And I’m asking you to say no. I’m asking you to let me die, Carter. Give me the choice that I had taken from me five years ago, in the Swiss Alps. Allow me the dignity of choosing my own death.”

“I’ve taken you off of missions.”

Aria blinked, momentarily loosing track of the conversation. For a second, she looked around the room, attempting to steady herself within time. Had she missed something? She felt her own anxiety rising in turn as she realised it was entirely a possibility that she had missed something. That Peggy had been speaking for the past few minutes, and she’d been utterly ignorant of the fact.

“What?” She answered dumbly, dragging her gaze back onto the Director of SHIELD. It was then that she noticed the guilt. Noticed the way that Peggy was chewing against her lip, an unconscious habit, even if she’d long been taught how to hide them from prying eyes. Her stiffened posture, the fact that her legs were crossed one over the other – they were all signs that Peggy was uncomfortable with something.

That Peggy was changing the topic intentionally. Utilising her confusion against her. Weaponizing her gradual mental decline. It was smart – if a bit cruel. She almost admired her for it.

“Take me off missions,” Aria dismissed, if only because she wanted that portion of the conversation to be over. “Peggy, when Howard asks if there’s anything you can do – you have to tell him no. Please – it has nothing to do with Howard, and his money and his desire to create millions. It has everything to do with the fact that I do not trust my father and that I do not want my father to be the reason I live. Peggy, please.”

But Peggy only shook her head. Aria noticed for the first time that she’d been crying. Perhaps it had only just begun, but the single tear that streamed down her face looked as though it was going to give way to a floor.

“I’ve already given Howard Steve’s blood, Aria. It’s far too late for this conversation.”

She closed her eyes. Resignation filled her body, a deep tiredness born not solely from her illness. Her body – it had always been her body, but she could not remember the last time that any of this had been her choice.

It made sense then. Why her father hadn’t pushed her harder for the vial, once he’d confirmed she’d had it. He was merely testing to see how truthful she was, how reliable of a source of information she would be for him in future. He was testing to see if there remained any part of her being that trusted him. Now, perhaps it was confirmed for him, that his daughter was lost forever. It was a timely reminder that despite Peggy’s insistence of reliability, Aria could never again trust Arnim Zola.

Peggy, it seemed, couldn’t bear to sit in the silence with her. She heard her hesitancy echoing in her voice when she spoke next. “Testing started this morning. Howard is confident they will have the cure within a few months.”

She didn’t stop to consider Aria’s position. She merely assumed that the girl who had always fought so hard to survive, would jump at the chance to ensure it. In their line of work, assumptions typically saved their life. For the person it affected, however, it was not uncommon to doom them to a fate they did not wish.

All of this, it meant that her father had won – he had gotten what he had wanted. Not for the first time, Aria Davis had begged the universe to allow her to embrace death with open arms. And the universe in turn, had laughed at her. She could hear it cackling now. She would be forced to live in this word, every painstaking moment – in penance for her actions before SHIELD.

Isla Zola would have rejoined, for the girl would have understood that she would survive this too.

But Aria Davis only cried for what she had lost – and what she was still yet to lose.

Notes:

feeling very deep in my pedro pascal era rn... really loved his reed richards!

Chapter 42

Notes:

Please check the notes at the end of the chapter for specific content warnings - light spoilers apply.

???

Isla Romanoff didn’t remember stepping into the hospital.

She didn’t remember being dressed in the white gown that currently covered her skin. It was itchy, uncomfortable, and barely covered her legs. It did nothing to protect her against the cold, sterile environment of the medical suite, and she found herself hugging her arms around her body, taking every effort possible to remain warm.

It had to have been the middle of winter. She had to have been in Russia; it was the only thing that made sense in her mind. It was the only reason she could simultaneously feel so hot and cold to the touch, the only reason why she would be dripping with sweat when the air outside was like ice against her palms. The tiled room was reminiscent of her time in the academy, the way that the grout of the floor felt against the balls of her feet was achingly familiar. There was a part of her that wanted desperately to rise to the occasion, to take up position; to flow with unheard music and produce what onlookers would call a masterpiece of ballet.

But something held her back. It couldn’t have been fear of failure – that was impossible. Her body was a honed weapon, trained for years to meet every single demand she placed upon it. No, her inability to dance had something to do with the room that she was in.

She tried to move – and suddenly, she wasn’t standing anymore. Instead, she was chained to a bed; wrists bound to shackles by her side. Intense fear clawed at her heart as she pulled and yanked at the chains holding her down, hiding her wince when she felt them tearing at her skin. Where the cuffs met her wrist, it already felt raw and painful. She had tried this before.

She yanked again, harder this time, and was met with frustration when her wrist did not move. There was likely something to be said, about trying the same thing over and over again but expecting a different result. From the angle she could perceive, Isla struggled to glance over the shackles. Without getting her eyes on them, it made it difficult to determine what was holding her down.

It made the degree of escape harder. Still, she wasn’t concerned – getting out of handcuffs was a skill her mother had taught to her, before she’d passed. Just in case, Ogla Romanoff had told her. It was a skill Isla had used many times in the years since.

Bracing herself, she flexed her fingers, ignoring the phantom pains travelling up her arm from the movement. If she could just dislocate her wrist – it would create enough distance between the restraint and her skin to slip free. One had free was more than enough to deal with the rest of the restraints finding her body. It would not take her long to brandish a weapon, to find the girls who had decided to tie her to this room. They likely wanted to torture her. Inostrannaya suka. Foreign bitch, as she was.

“I wouldn’t do that, if I were you. We wouldn’t want you to break your wrist.”

If she wasn’t tied to the bed, Isla was sure she would have jumped into the air in fright. When had this man arrived? It wasn’t like her, to miss someone entering the room. But he had merely appeared, in the frayed edges of her vision. Tussled brown hair stared back at her, matching brown eyes blinking against the harsh lights of the room.

Isla ignored him; her body shying away from the side of the bed he inhabited. She flicked her wrist harshly, gritting her teeth when she felt a jab of pain emanating from her wrist. It wasn’t dislocated, not yet, but if she did it again, it was sure to work.

“Aria.”

The name gave her pause. Her fingers flexed again, but this time, it was as she processed the word leaving his lip. The sound he made, her heart longed to answer to it. She longed to reply in a way that made sense, but there were no words available to her.

“Aria?” She echoed, testing the name against her tongue. It tasted familiar to her, like it was something she had spoken before. But nothing sprang to the forefront of her mind, no memories that she could call upon. “Who is Aria?”

The tussled man looked sad then, something akin to heartache stretching across his face. Isla had the unbearable urge to help him, to do everything in her power to take that pain away. She attempted to glance down at his name badge; trying to ascertain his name. But her eyes would not focus on the small letters, and he would not draw any closer to her, for her to read them. Smart, she surmised after a moment. He knew she what she was capable of, even with her wrists bound. He was smart to keep his distance.

She watched him search her for a minute, as though desperately looking for something. Isla could feel the way that her body reacted too, to his searching gaze. Something uncomfortably hot coiled in her stomach, even as the rest of her body shivered. It was as though he could see through the hospital gown, could peer at the skin that was held beneath the thin fabric cover. Under his gaze, her modesty vanished, and she found that some small part of her desperately wanted him to remove the covering entirely.

Her fingers flexed again, locked by her side, and she was finally reminded of the restraints ensuring she would not move. Right.

He did not find what he was looking for, across her body. Isla could tell, by the way that his eyes set heavy across his face, twitching in avid frustration as he turned his attention back to his notes. Isla took use of his momentary distraction – flexing the fingers on her left hand. If she could break her left wrist, and slip out of those handcuffs, he would be less likely to notice, and she could be in the wind before he’d recognised that she’d escaped.

“The procedure is almost ready.” Another voice called.

There were two men in the room. When had these two men arrived? She should have heard the other footsteps, should have heard him stepping around the room as he prepared for her procedure.

“What procedure?” She asked desperately, as his words caught up with her. They had to have drugged her; that’s why her mind wasn’t working. She should have realised that she was tied to this bed, in this medical department, in preparation for them altering her in some manner. Foregoing any attempt at subtly as dread overran her blood, she began to desperately yank against her restraints, crying out when they would not move. Pleading, whispering with a god that she knew would not answer her, to help her in the situation. When nothing worked, she found her voice again, shrill with desperation. “What procedure!”

“Hush, Aria…” The brown-haired man soothed again, looking up from his notes once again. His voice was warped when he spoke next, the accent not quite matching the frame of his lips. “The ceremony is necessary. For you to regain your sense of the world.”

Isla’s body turned rigid against the mattress. Her mind fought to piece together the information that she had. She was in the Red Room – she could tell; even if the men who were speaking were German and American respectively, there was no reason for her to be anywhere other than this. She was in a hospital; and she was shackled. She had thought it was a cruel joke, from her year-mates in the Red Room. But if this was the hospital, and they were getting ready for a procedure…

“No…” A strangled gasp came out of her throat as she realised, horrified. “No… I don’t want it. I don’t want the graduation ceremony.”

The brown-eyed man paused, narrowing his eyes before turning to the other Doctor Isla could not see. “Graduation ceremony?” He echoed, phrasing his mocking words like a question, to continue her torment.

“Please!” She begged, shaking her wrists against the restraints. Her chest pounded with desperation, her eyes filling with tears. She’d be reprimanded for this later, if she couldn’t get out of the restraints, if she couldn’t convince them to stop. She needed to convince them to stop.

“Her heart rate is spiking, Stark.” The German voice called again,

Stark? Where did she know that name?

“Well, then increase the drugs, Doctor!” The American man sounded exasperated. She flinched when he dropped the notebook he’d been carrying, hearing it clatter to the ground beneath the tile. She watched him use those hands to instead lay them flat across her head, massaging her scalp as though he cared for her. She recoiled from the action; but getting away was useless, and if she was being honest with herself, his fingertips felt nice against her hair.

“I’m sorry, Aria.”

She still didn’t know who Aria was. She tried desperately to remember, even as she began to drift out of consciousness.

***

Darkness greeted her, when she next remembered herself.

The only light emanating was provided in the cracks of the door, the light from the hallway which spilled into the room. It was barely enough to illuminate the figure at the end of her bed. But Aria would know his body anywhere. She was sure that she could recognise him on the sounds of his breath alone.

He was as beautiful as he had ever been, her Bucky. The light framed him like a painting, his silhouette moulded especially to bring joy to her life. She wanted him to come closer, she wanted to trace every inch of his skin, with her fingers, with her tongue. She wanted to feel his skin pressing against her own, melding into her curves until they were practically one being.

She had never wanted a man as much, as she wanted James Buchanan Barnes.

“Ya tebya lyublyu.”

She could have exploded from those words alone, echoing on his breath in Russian. The first time he had said them, they had sounded so foreign in his American accent, but they had been no less meaningful. The fact that he had bothered to learn her language, to speak words of affirmation in the vernacular that she cherished. It had meant more to her that she thought she would ever be able to describe.

“I love you too.” She murmured in response, eyes darkening as he began to draw closer to the bed. A few more seconds, and he would be lying beside her. They could spend the night together, blissfully ignorant of the war outside of their walls.

A noise grabbed Bucky’s attention. She watched his head turn, watched the way that his shoulders stiffened. When he took a step towards the door, Aria realised that something was wrong.

“Bucky?” She whispered, terror rising in her chest. She was right to worry; for when the man looked upon her again, she was no longer greeted with the fresh face of her lover. Instead, the Red Skull stared back at her. Hollow, unforgiving, unyielding in his gaze. His dark eyes swallowed her whole, her heart pounded out of sync with the time of the room. Everything that had been so pristine, so beautiful, began to evaporate before her eyes. Where once, Bucky had been framed in a golden glow; the Red Skull’s imposing presence seemed to engulf the light of the room, preventing it from reaching her. His mere presence cast a shadow over her body, and she couldn’t help the violent shiver that began to stir in her hands.

She watched him smirk. She watched him draw closer, shedding his overbearing cloak.

“Doctor Zola believes himself clever; banishing you to the Red Room in penance for your actions; in the hopes you undergo the graduation ceremony. Do not fret, my krasnaya gadyuka. I would never let them take you from me.”

A whimper escaped her mouth. Desperate for words she knew she would never find, Isla only resolved to closing her eyes. She felt his skin, harsh as it was, against her own. His cold hands contrasted deeply with the colour of his flesh, but they were not instruments that would bring her comfort on this night. He pressed his body closer to her, chasing the relief she could provide.

Isla only closed her eyes, desperate for the end.

***

Aria was back in the hospital. But looking down at her gloved hands, she realised that today, she was not going to be the patient.

It took a moment for the hospital room to focus in her field of vision. The typically bright lights of the surgical rooms momentarily blinded her, preventing her from making out any of the features before her. For a while, Aria could only focus on the way that she felt placed within the room. She recognised her bare feet against the tile first, and briefly, thought that this was strange. But as she next felt the synthetic rubber pressing against her skin, the stray thought left her mind, ephemeral in its presence.

The rubber felt strange against her skin. A vague memory pressed to her mind, a memory of the last time she had worn gloves, but that was a terrible memory, of a terrible time. She did not want to recall the nightmare that was the death of Erskine’s children, she did not want to recall the horrors that had followed her refusal of Schmidt’s orders.

When her eyes eventually adjusted to the light, the first thing that she noticed was the blueness of her globes. They reached down her forearm, all the way to the peak of her elbow. For a moment, she allowed herself to be captivated by them, allowed herself to focus on the feeling of synthetics against her skin. They were almost too blue, they almost looked unreal in the light of the day.

“We’re ready for you, Doctor.”

Doctor? She had to be in the midst of a mission, then. It was the only possible explanation, of why she would be standing in a hospital, dressed in anything other than a hospital gown. Desperately, she wracked her mind for any hint as to the purpose of her mission but rued herself when she came up empty. Forgetting was entirely unlike her, and she felt her palms begin to sweat with nervous tension. Something was very, desperately wrong.

She glanced towards the previously empty bed, startled to notice that a figure was now lain across it. Shackled down, she felt her apprehension rising with every step that drew her closer to the man’s side.

It was a man. She could tell that much from the shape of his muscles. Her fingers rose, unbidden, as she realised, she wanted to trace the shape of his body.

When she reached his side, she understood why.

The brilliant blue eyes of Bucky Barnes stared back at her, filled with terror and trepidation. Her heart pounded against her chest as she beheld the fear in his eyes. The way that he watched her hands, the way that her hands moved without her express command, picking up the scalpel by the bedside.

What was she doing? She didn’t want to hurt him. She didn’t want to experiment on him – why was she experimenting on the man she loved?

“Please don’t do this!” Bucky whimpered to her, but her scalpel pierced the skin anyway. She watched the blood bubbling beneath the blade, a thin red line trailing down the side of his stomach as she continued to slice through him without pause. Even as tears sprang to her eyes, at the pain within his voice, even as she desperately willed herself to stop. She wasn’t in control of her actions; her body was moving as though she were merely a puppet controlled.

I’m sorry, she tried to tell him, but the words would not escape her. She wanted him to know that she was sorry that she couldn’t save him. She wanted him to desperately know how much she missed him, how much she wished that he was here, how much she truly believed that she could not live this life without him. But the words would not come to her mind.

Instead, only a startled scream left her throat when he broke through the restraints, and grabbed against her arm.

“Why didn’t you save me, Aria?” He hissed, and she felt the scalpel clatter from her hands, and onto the floor. Suddenly, she was no longer in a hospital. Suddenly, she was in a training room, and she was pressed against a wall, and Bucky was holding her there, a hand on her arm, an elbow in her throat. “You could have saved me. You let me die. Why did you let me die?”

She didn’t know the answer. Only sobs left her throat, raw and ugly and choking, until she couldn’t breathe.

Desperate for air, she clawed against his arm, but he refused to loosen his grip. Spots appeared in her vision, black and wanting for nothing. And despite the violence, despite the horror, Aria drifted into the black, comforted by the fact the last thing she saw was the blue colour of his eyes.

***

Howard had barely slept. Every waking moment, since he’d learned of her diagnosis, he had spent pouring over available research, scanning her brain, scanning every aspect of her body to attempt to find a cure. When his eyes could no longer focus on the words in front of him, he instead took vigil beside her bed, knees pressed in close to his body to lie his head against them, when the urge for sleep overtook him.

Tonight, he would not sleep. Tonight, he would watch her.

She was shivering, sweating. Every twitch of her muscles manifested as though she were fighting an invisible enemy. Even like this, even weakened, and unconscious, and desperately in need of support, Arianne Davis was still the most beautiful creature he had ever lain his eyes upon.

“Howard.”

He didn’t look up at the sound of Agent Carter’s voice. He didn’t want to see the sympathy in her eyes, the trepidation that he knew he would find there. Everyone had warned him, over the years. That this woman would never love him the way that he wanted to her too. Howard wasn’t an idiot – he understood that. He understood that, and he crawled back to her anyway. She had never once pretended to be anything other than what she claimed; and yet, he always felt as though he could change her.

It didn’t matter now. Not when she was dying. Not when he was desperate to save her.

Peggy didn’t voice her concerns on this night, as she had so many times before. “How is she?”

There was concern in her tone. The Director of SHIELD did not enjoy her venture to this laboratory where they had encased Aria in eternal unconsciousness. She had become too violent, too unstable in the past few months. It became a danger to them, to allow her to run loose in the halls of SHIELD, where she could access technology that would surely kill hundreds of people. Howard was sure that Peggy had doubted their choices more than once. Had wondered if Aria was right, when she proclaimed her death would be the only acceptable answer.

Howard had refused to accept that. He was glad that Carter had too, when she gave him the vial of Steve’s blood.

“Her nightmares have gotten worse.”

As if in answer, Aria moaned in her rest. “Please, don’t do this…”

Whatever came next was inaudible, but it made him wince all the same. Peggy, beside him now, had closed her eyes.

“How close are you to a cure?”

He didn’t know. He hated not knowing – but Arnim had sworn they were witnessing promising results in their current phase of testing. He hoped that meant it would be safe to inject into her soon. He did not know how much time she had left, before the effects of the disease were irreversible.

Unable to put those thoughts into words, he only shrugged to Peggy’s question.

The Director of SHIELD placed a hand on Aria’s arm then. Howard watched as Aria shied away from the touch, the expression on her face momentarily warping into horror before it relaxed against her features. Briefly, Howard wondered what was going on in her mind, to make her react so to such a gentle touch.

Evidently, Peggy wondered the same. “Do you ever think we made the wrong decision?”

Howard knew what she wanted him to say. Knew that Peggy wanted him to acknowledge that he too, had doubts. Especially when Aria had been so clear in her wishes. But he could not lie, not about this.

He had no remorse when he shook his head. “No.”

Because Aria Davis deserved to live, and he was going to do everything in his power to ensure she outlasted him yet.

Notes:

CW - discussion of past sexual abuse/reliving trauma in a dream/fugue state (if you want to skip; it is the second flashback sequence, located between the first and second scene break: ***)

Chapter 43

???

There was blue, liquid fire in her veins.

Something cold slithered across her body, snaking its way through her bloodstream and leaving a trail of pain in its wake. Sparking energy zapped across every nerve it inhabited, twitching muscles that Aria had forgotten she’d had in the first place. It had begun in her forearm, she thought – though the pain was blending, and it was becoming harder to identify individual aspects of her body.

She struggled to open her eyes, weight pressing against them.

When she eventually managed, she noticed that she was standing. More feeling came to her then; sensations in her toes, the coldness of the balls of her feet against the tiled floor. This wasn’t the hospital she had dreamed of, this wasn’t the Red Room, nor was it where she had been forced to experiment on Bucky. This room was nothingness incarnate – a black hallway, with nothing in front of her, behind her, or to either side. It seemed to be illuminated in a white glow that came from above, but Aria could not make out a single object in her vicinity.

Until the figure in front of her began to draw closer.

There was still pain in Aria’s limbs. Even as she fought her instincts, her muscles still clenched in anticipation, sending another wave of fiery agony through her body. They bunched with her desire to run, but even that warred with her greater instincts. There was nowhere in this room to hide behind, nowhere in this room to climb, or seek shelter. Whatever was coming had to be faced on her skill alone.

She came into view slowly. As though they light dissipated from her silhouette, shrouding her in mystery. Aria could tell that she was a woman, that she was slightly taller than average, and that she was athletic. That was all she could garner in the limited light of the room, until she drew closer still. Red hair was the next aspect that Aria noticed, pinned behind her ears, bright and flaming red. Her face, as it came into focus, had an angular quality; an assessing sharpness. Aria was sure that there was not much that this woman missed, and she felt almost naked beneath her gaze, as it raked over her. Emerald green eyes that seemed to know too much, that had seen too much, setting her senses alight.

Her brain stopped, only for a moment. She knew those eyes; she knew that hair. It stared at her in the mirror, mocking her, reminding her of who she was meant to be every time she caught her reflection. She had been describing herself. As she had been, the famed Isla Zola of HYDRA, the weapon of Johann Schmidt’s dreams, and the SSR’s nightmares. Her spine stiffened against her back; her shoulders became rigid as their hairs on her arms began to lift.

Aria tipped her head to the right, and the figure before her would follow suit. So exact was the movement, so poised in its action, that Aria began to wonder if she was, in fact, looking in a mirror. But when the figure before her began to smile, Aria had the feeling that she would in fact not enjoy the retribution that had arrived for her.

“You don’t look like much.”

Isla Zola was echoing the first words that Colonel Phillips had ever levied in her direction. The immediate respond came to Aria’s lips before she could question the words.

“I know.”

The woman who had replied with that, she had been from a different time. She hadn’t been touched by the burdens of love, hadn’t been shackled with the promise of a future only to watch it fade from her eyes. The woman who had claimed to know the world had instead been faced with the reality that the world was almost beyond her understanding. That the cruelty she had faced, paled in comparison to the cruelty that would come for her.

But the woman in front of her didn’t know what it was to love another. She hadn’t learned that skill, not at this stage of her life. This was Isla Zola as she had been designed, the perfect weapon, the unfathomable reckoning. Just as Schmidt had wanted, just as her father had dreamed her to be.

Isla stalked closer, and Aria remained deathly still, even as the woman began to pace around her in a perfect circle. The weight of her judgement loomed over her shoulders, the pressure to hold her gaze warring with her desperation to look in every other direction. Isla was the primary threat in the room, she was the only thing that could endanger her in this abyss.

“What have we become?” Isla muttered, failing to keep any of the sneer from her tone. Aria figured that she likely did not see the point, in hiding from the person who was meant to be herself. It would not do her good to lie.

Better, Aria longed to say, but she didn’t know how that could be true. Aria’s choices had led her towards nothing but destruction, of a failed attempt at survival. Everything Isla had fought for, everything she’d worked for, that she’d killed for, was about to be destroyed in the face of this disease. And perhaps it would have happened anyway – but Aria suspected that the way she treated her body in the wake of his death certainly hadn’t helped her case.

So, she said nothing. If the woman in front of her wanted to interrogate her, she was going to have to try harder than that.

A cruel smirk enveloped Isla’s features. Aria watched in muted curiosity, the way with which the lines of her eyes creased across her face. Somehow, her green eyes seemed to absorb the blackness of the room, darkening in colour as the level of her threat rose alongside her frustration. Aria’s eyes flickered towards movement, as Isla’s fingers flexed by her side – a clear tell that she was thinking.

Her only advantage was that she knew this woman – because this woman was her. But Aria was weak, she was out of practice, and she certainly no longer desired to be the deadly machine that they had made her to be. It put her at a disadvantage, in the fight that was surely coming.

“Weak.” Isla answered her own question, and Aria knew in a way, that she was right. As the same person, they were the same height, but Aria felt small beneath her gaze. “You were meant to be made of marble, you were meant to acquire greatness alongside HYDRA, you were meant to be the best of us.”

The sound of trickling liquid caught her attention, momentarily distracting her from Isla’s disdain. She found herself entranced by it, curiosity and questions rising to the tip of her tongue.

Aria didn’t know where the water had come from. A moment ago, the room had been black, and nothing – and now, she could feel it beginning to creep up her calves. Looking down, she noticed that everything beneath her was disappearing beneath the swelling waves – not a speck of her feet to be seen beneath the churning water. She was surprised when the feeling against her skin wasn’t unwelcome, or unpleasant. She felt as though she were being embraced, welcomed home in a way.

She was unprepared for the figure before her to move. She was unprepared for hands to seize around her neck, to push her down, pressure abiding her spine until her entire face became submerged beneath the water. There was nothingness there, there was bliss, and quiet.

And Isla Zola began to drown her, holding her head beneath the water.

For a moment, Aria wondered what it would be like, if she simply allowed this to happen. Was this the famed bright white light? Had hell come for her in the form of eternal darkness and torment, was she to be dragged through the gates only after damnation for all of her past crimes and identities?

If it was, it surely meant that she would never see Bucky again. There was no way that a soul as pure as his own could have ended up in a place such as this. And more than anything else in this world, Aria desired to see him again.

Bucky. She chanted his name as she drew the last fragments of her strength to her arms. Bucky. She would see him again, in the next life. She had to; and if she atoned for the sins of this life now… She had a choice. She could do nothing, just as she had when she was Isla. As she had turned a blind eye to the suffering before her, the suffering that they desired for her to cause. Or she could be better. She could be the Aria Davis that Bucky had seen in her, the woman who changed the course of the war through love alone.

She refused to let Isla Zola define her anymore.

Rearing up, she used every muscle in her body to throw Isla from her balance. Where previously, her muscles had been relaxed as she succumb to the other woman’s violence, now, they were flexed and prepared. Isla hadn’t been expected it, and it was to her detriment, when Aria began to pull the other woman beneath the waves alongside her. Isla’s terrified expression caught her gaze, only once, as she fell beneath the water.

Aria could hear her choked shouts, muffled in the water, but echoing in her ears all the same. There was fear in the face of her twin, a genuine terror that was born out of a lifetime of trying to survive. Isla’s nails scratched at her skin, drawing blood; increasing the feeling of fire that floated beneath her skin, but Aria did not let go. Not even as she felt Isla relax beneath her fingertips, not even as she watched the breath leave her body, the gasp as she swallowed the water that so desperately begged to take her. There was no pity that filled her, no emotions that swam within her as she watched the girl drown. There was only cool acceptance.

Aria waited until she was sure that the girl before her was dead. She waited until she was sure that Isla Zola could no longer harm her, could no longer harm the world. And then she too, took her final breath. They would meet their end together.

***

The first gasp of air sent shockwaves through her body.

She felt her lungs inflate with the fresh oxygen that filled them, felt the way that they heaved with the added load. It was paradoxical, how simultaneously it felt like it was not enough, when it was already too much.

Next came the sensations in her fingers. She was able to twitch them first, and slowly, as she commanded them to rise, the rest of her limbs followed. Moving them was the first step, feeling the fabric pressed against her skin was the next – the restraints which held her wrists, the hospital gown which cloaked her modesty.

The fabric itched at her skin. She had felt this before, in her dreams. But they had been of a different time, of a different era. It hadn’t been real.

Her vision was the last thing to return to her. It took her a long moment, to adjust to the light within the room, when everything had once been so dim. The hospital floor contrasted the bleakness of her memories in every way. She came to realise too, that the water she’d been feeling had simply been her skin expelling sweat in some sort of misguided effort to keep her cool. Her smell returned too, sending with it the scent of bleach and other medical devices.

“Aria!”

She hadn’t seen Howard in the room – where he’d taken up a vigil on the left-hand side of her bed. She did, however, feel him when he practically jumped atop of her, crushing her beneath his weight. Her lungs constricted beneath his weight, and she grunted without realising that the sound had escaped her. She could feel the way that his heart pounded against her chest, beating fast. He was relieved to see her, to hear from her.

Something dreadful began to stir inside of her.

“You’re crushing her, Mr Stark.” Came the next voice in her room. Aria recognised it as the voice of her father, though she wished that she hadn’t. Her eyes barely caught the flicker of his movement, glasses falling down his nose as he glanced upon her with curiosity. She found that she couldn’t stop looking in his direction, not especially as her memories of the past few months began to return to her.

Her arms moved to shove Stark off of her body before she could recognise the action. A grave, disgusted feeling began to creep forward from her chest, a shiver wracking down her spine as she processed the truth. She remembered who she was. She remembered what her father had told her. The disease, her mother, the sleepless nights, the visions. They roared into her memories like a beast, refusing to be silenced.

“I should be dead.” She whispered as Stark stiffened straight beside her, now standing of his own volition,

Aria watched as he flinched. She didn’t know if it was because of the dark look that crossed her face, or the way that her eyes had presumably darkened with the knowledge. No longer did he wear the face of the cocksure billionaire that that she knew him to be. Instead, in the face of her words, he looked almost unsure.

“We saved your life.” He whispered eventually when it became clear she was not going to speak.

He did. He had saved her life, and Isla Zola would have fallen to her knees in thanks. But she wasn’t Isla Zola anymore. She wasn’t even sure she was Aria Davis – she was something in between. Whatever that meant for her now.

“Who did you save it for?” She wondered. He flinched immediately, and Aria had her answer.

“Pulse is steady at 63 beats per minute, blood oxygen rates all reading as normal – combined with the brain scans, I would note that this is a resounding success.”

Aria felt something uncomfortable coiling in her stomach. Something uncomfortable, and violent and desperate as she turned her gaze between Howard and her father. Her boy was desperate for her to at, desperate to do something to write the wrong. She wasn’t meant to survive this, she wasn’t meant to live, she was meant to see Bucky again.

The blue fire in her vein, the dreams of the Red Room, and doctors, and pleading endlessly to be left alone to die. It had been real, just not in the way she had perceived. She had begged Howard; she had begged her father to simply let her die. And that had not listened to her. They had not heeded what she wanted to be her final wish.

“You’ve suffered so much in your life,” Howard began, face set in a frown. “It seemed cruel to me, that the very thing you’d always been able to rely on, was what was going to kill you in the end.”

“Cruel or profitable?” She countered with a frown.

“Cruel.” Howard insisted stubbornly, fixing her with what she presumed was meant to be a fearsome look. But Aria had never known herself to be afraid of the man in front of her, especially not now, when she carried the knowledge that he would do everything in his power to keep her safe, and keep her happy. It terrified her.

“Destroy it, then.” It was a command. There was no room for argument in her tone. It carried with it the swift promise of a threat, of retribution.

“Aria… We couldn't... We didn't even replicate the serum.”

She sucked in a deep breath. Something settled in her blood, something cruel and desperate that she had not been able to name. The serum. She’d begged Peggy not to let Howard have it, and Peggy had ignored her wishes. Howard hadn’t used it? It seemed the obvious solution.

“What?”

She didn’t believe him. She watched the way that his nose scrunched in tune with his words, watched his eyes creased, watched his gaze overt. She had every reason to suspect a lie within his words.

“The cure – what we did for you. It’s not Erskine’s serum; it wasn’t developed from Steve’s blood.” He almost looked sheepish. "We're actually not entirely sure what worked in the end... We weren't expecting you to wake up."

She watched her father’s nose crease, and she realised that Howard was not lying to her. Her heart stumbled in her chest. Zola listened to her, at least, when she had begged him not to trust her father. She couldn’t say the same for everyone else in the building.

But Aria couldn’t decide if that comforted her, or made it worse, in a way. At least with the serum, she would have understood the ramifications that came for her. Whatever Stark and Zola had done to her, it was untested. They would be discovering the side effects of the experiment together.

For now, Aria Davis was alive. And she wasn’t quite sure how she felt about that.

Notes:

as always, thanks for taking the time to read my little story!

Chapter 44

February 4th, 1950: Midday

They let Aria rest for a few days. They did not draw her blood, nor did they ask her to perform tests that would measure her level of cognition, or strength. They simply asked her to lie in bed and get some sleep. She was grateful for this. She hoped that it meant Howard had been truthful – that whatever cure he and her father had procured for her, it was entirely separate from the super soldier serum. She had seen what the serum had done to Schmidt; had seen the monster that it had made him – though she was sure he had been a monster long before he’d injected himself with the blue liquid. She did not have strength to find out what it would make of her.

No matter how hard Aria tried, however, sleep would not come for her. She closed her eyes, and she counted sheep; but dreams always remained a wisp away from her, like words on the tip of her tongue that she could no longer reach. She had felt every one of those waking minutes, every second of her mind working overtime, filing thoughts and distinguishing between her true memories of life, and the visions she had been subjected to in the throes of her illness.

Because of her lack of rest, Aria had expected her body to become sluggish in the day following. There was fear too; that her father, that Stark hadn’t managed to cure her in the way that they thought they had been successful. A hallmark of her condition, of the disease he’d coined as Fatal Familial Insomnia, was the fact that she was no longer capable of sleeping. What was she to think, when upon being informed she was ‘cured’, that despite the reassurances that she was okay – her main symptom continued to persist?

She tried to brush it off. Sure, she was having trouble sleeping – but all of the other symptoms had disappeared. She no longer spied Bucky leaning by the door, arms crossed, smirking with the knowledge of something she didn’t know. She no longer caught the reflection of red skin in the window, no longer felt the presence of that shadow alongside her heart. Her delusions had disappeared, the weakness in her muscles had abated, but still sleep would not come for her.

She wondered when she would begin to miss the illusion of the soldier she had loved.

It was on the third night without sleep, without feeling tired, that Aria came to the startling realisation that she was going to be alone with her thoughts for the rest of her life. There was no off switch for her mind anymore, no chance to succumb to the abyss of the night and lay to rest the questions of the day. She was forever doomed to recount her waking actions. Cursed to remember every aspect of her life in startling detail, in order to recall it when the moon and the stars were high in the sky.

It meant that everything was uncomfortable. The hospital bed, well, it had never been comfortable, but after hours upon hours lying there, she was beginning to entrench every lump into her memory. She was sure after a few more hours, her skin would mould itself around the fabric. Her thoughts only cascaded from there – from the mattress to the feeling of her too-itchy hospital gown, to the feeling of her hair against her face. The sweat against her forehead. The smell of the disinfectant. The dim light from the hallway. It was all too much, it was far too much, and Aria came to the sudden realisation that she wasn’t coping well with the fact that she had managed to live. She didn’t deserve to.

Her father did not allow her to wallow in her thoughts for long. She imagined that he had come to release her to her own rooms, invigorated with the idea that she was for all intents and purposes, alive and healthy.

“I can’t sleep.”

Arnim Zola had barely even crossed the doorway into his laboratory when Aria decided to speak. She hadn’t even been aware she was going to – her skin felt hot and clammy against the announcement, a familiar fear taking hold in her blood. She watched her father almost stumble through the doorway in surprise, glasses tilting further down his nose as his eyes immediately rested upon her own. It wasn’t often that she spoke to him evenly. She couldn’t remember the last time she hadn’t yelled at him, abused him upon speaking to him.

But her voice when she had spoken. He’d clearly heard it – the childlike fear that coated it, the desperate need to be comforted by a father who had always been too far from her reach. He’d once told her that he was a slave to his machinations, to his biological instincts that urged him to protect her – that had driven him to improve her in every which way. She wondered if the slicing terror in her tone grated against his skin, scratched and clawed at him, a seeping wound he would need to somehow fix.

“You can’t sleep?” He repeated – and she was glad when she heard the concern in his tone. Buried beneath his own scientific curiosities, but she heard it, nevertheless.

“I haven’t slept.” She clarified before he could bother asking about nightmares, or dreams, or fear. “I have not slept since I woke from my…”

She didn’t know what to call it. It was not a nightmare, and she felt crazy for referring to it as a vision. Isla Zola and Aria Davis, meeting as one, dying together. She was trying hard not think about the meaning of that.

“I have not slept.” She repeated weakly, when a suitable explanation did not come to mind.

Her father merely hummed thoughtfully, drawing closer to her. Aria felt her nails begin to press into the palm of her hand as she fought her immediate urge to recoil. Some buried part of her memory pressed into her, reminding her of her hallucinations, of the way that she had found herself operating on the man that she loved. Just as her father had done.

But Aria was too trained to flinch when her father laid the back of his hand across her forehead. Taking her temperature, just as he had done when she was a child. When he had still pretended to care for her wellbeing.

“I don’t feel tired,” she added, when his fingers trailed down to her neck. Pressing into her pulse point, she continued, even with her voice slightly distorted from the pressure. “I haven’t slept in three nights, and I don’t feel the need to sleep, even though I desperately, desperately want to. Something is wrong.”

It was the only explanation, of course. The logical part of her brain desperately reminded her that she had been sick with a previously incurable illness. As smart as her father was, as smart as Howard Stark was, there was a possibility that they had missed something. There was a possibility that they had not cured her, and they had merely delayed the inevitable.

“Nothing is wrong.” Zola muttered as he removed his fingers. She noticed they shared a mannerism them, as he smoothed the front of his coat carefully before he began to step away. Perhaps she had learned to ground herself against the tangible from him. Perhaps it was a quirk that he had passed onto his only child.

“Nothing is wrong?” She echoed, perplexed when her mind allowed her focus to return to the question. “I can’t sleep.”

If she was an open, honest person, she would be able to detail why that was such a problem. She would be able to admit that she was terrified that she was still dying, that she was still that girl who had fought, starved, killed to survive. That she wanted to survive more than anything else in the world, because that was the crux of who she was

If she was an honest person, she’d even be able to admit that she was terrified of the idea she would never be able to sleep again. That her thoughts drew her into dark corners, where shadows grew to monsters, and she could no longer see the light. Her thoughts were the least favourite part of her entire being, and if she could no longer sleep, she would never be without them again.

“There was always a chance such a side effect could occur.” Zola admitted.

She felt her breathing hitch, her heartrate leap, and then pause, before it started again, anew. “What?”

“The cure we gave you; it had to repair the damaged prions in your brain. Howard believed that it would merely recreate healthy prions, or…” He trailed off, likely noticing the glazed, desperate look in his daughter’s eyes. She had never much cared for the scientific explanations of his experiments. Aria Davis could pull apart a weapon and put it back together. She understood the how, and she never much cared for the why of the matter. “If your brain reconstructed incorrectly, there was a chance you could lose memories. Or something else. Losing the ability to sleep, well… It’s almost a blessing, kleines rotes.”

“That’s not my name.” She answered immediately. Keeping her alive did not give him purchase to once again begin acting as a parental figure within her life. The fact that he thought this was a blessing for her… Well, she’d have laughed if she had any reason to find any of this experience funny. But it hadn’t been. Certainly not when she had been prepared to die, in order to prevent him from getting his hands on that final vial of Steve’s blood. A vial she now had no other choice than to presume Howard kept on his person.

She’d speak to Howard about it later.

“Isla Arianne.”

That caught her attention. She couldn’t remember the last time he’d ever bothered to remind her of her full name. Had almost forgotten that Arianne had formed her identity long before she’d landed on the shores of America in 1944. Such was the surprise across her face that she thought she’d practically flinched with the force of his verbal blow. She’d thought she’d never hear him say it again – thought he believed it to be too close to the woman that she was pretending to be.

“You would be dead.” He stated simply. “You would be in the ground, unmoving, if we did nothing. Not sleeping, it is a small price to pay for the greatness that you can offer the world.”

“Your idea of greatness was quite different to the idea of mine.” She snapped in reply.

“But, daughter mine – we are of the same side now. You are as free as you have ever been, kleines rotes.”

She wanted to argue with him. Wanted to say that after her experience with HYDRA, she would never trust him again. But even though he’d practically confirmed she would no longer be able to sleep, even though she knew that the thought of exhaustion in it’s true sense was going to fade to a dull, vague memory, she still felt tired. Perhaps this argument was not worth the words it would require spilling her anger, paint her ache. Perhaps it simply was.

He was a part of SHIELD, and she would have to accept that, as she had accepted every other decision made for her. But she did not have to continue speaking to him. She had the agency to leave. She was, as he said, as free as she had ever been.

“We are.” She finally agreed. “We are.”

***

Aria hadn’t planned on heading to Howard Stark’s room that night.

She didn’t want to be here. Or she did. She wasn’t quite sure, but it was where her feet had carried her anyway. It seemed that he was as much of a vice to her, as she had become to him. He was her comfort, and he was her curse.

Zola had dismissed her from his care around midday. She had not lingered in his laboratory, the sterile nature of the room suddenly filling her with dread. There was something about the quiet joy that lingered within her father that she wasn’t quite ready to unpack. She couldn’t quite marry the idea that the man who had once sold her to the Red Room, sold her to Johann Schmidt, seemed to have some lingering care left for her. Allowing him to care for her seemed a bridge too far for the moment. She was sure it would haunt her thoughts in the long nights to come.

Aria had not bothered with shoes. The soles of her feet against the floor had allowed the cool tile to seep into her skin. She relished the feeling as she moved through the halls of Camp Lehigh, the halls of SHIELD. She’d gone to her own rooms to change out of the hospital gown, but her clothes no longer felt like her own. She would have once donned Bucky’s old SSR sweats, but they felt tainted by her hand. Tainted by the blood, and the scalpel.

Of all of her nightmares, all of her fears, she had never believed her mind would be cruel enough to show her that.

Howard was awake when she entered without knocking. He didn’t even glance in the direction of the doorway when her footsteps carried her inside. Instead, he kept his eyes focused squarely on the papers before his desk, clearly deep in thought. It gave Aria a moment to glance around the room.

Howard had long since made an office for himself in the halls of Camp Lehigh. SHIELD was Aria’s home – and though she had a permanent bedroom in Howard’s extravagant household, she had always preferred to remain alongside her work. Ready to answer the call to action at a moment’s notice, never allowing it to grow beyond her reach. Howard had always maintained a room here too, making their late-night rendezvous simple and accessible. But he had never allowed the space to grow beyond a bed and a drawer. It was, for all intents and purposes, nothing other than a room where he wished to use her body, and she acquiesced at the chance for him to do so.

The room that she’d stepped into was not the room from her memories. The chest of drawers remained, the bed remained, but it seemed to be bathed in a soft, ethereal glow. Golden candles with heated flames flickered in the light, illuminating the space just barely enough for Howard’s eyes to adjust, and be able to read the plans before him. Occasionally, she saw his brown eyes illuminate to honey, when the light caught them at a certain angle. Somehow, it made his face look sharper.

She knew Howard Stark was conventionally handsome. She knew, in a way, that he was her greatest friend. But everything across his person tonight reminded her of the man that she had lost. Howard had brown eyes – but she preferred blue, like crashing ocean waves. Howard still wore a moustache proudly, but she preferred light stubble; a shadow that caressed the face. Howard Stark was a good man, but he wasn’t her man.

The door clicked closed behind her with a sharp snap. Her toes curled against the ground – carpet now, and foreign to her feet so used to hard surfaces. Howard still did not glance up from his work. It unnerved her.

“I’m still here.” She murmured, though she wasn’t sure if she had meant it to reassure him, or herself. It was words he’d echoed to her, once. In the bowels of the Swiss Mountains, in her rooms where she had drunk herself into a stupor. She wondered if he remembered them.

“I took away your choice.” Howard answered in reply, sounding particularly sullen.

He remembered the conversation well, then.

Aria couldn’t help the flinch that came along with his words. That conversation, five years prior… It was not one that she often loved to recall. She was sure that it was to be one that her memories would deign necessary for her to relive. The bittersweet taste of the schnaps as it poured down her throat, the way that her throat had closed, and her lungs has seized when she realised, she could still cry. When her emotions, buried for over ten years, finally broke free of the surface she had drowned them in.

“You did.” She managed to say, before that same emotion could break free from her now. She did not want to dwell on the choices that he’d made on her behalf. She was sure she would reckon with them alone, for the years to come.

Her curiosity burned through her. She had to know.

“Why did you do it?”

Aria wasn’t sure that Howard was going to have an answer for her. He still hadn’t looked in her direction, since she’d travelled into the room. There seemed to be a distance between them, a bridge that he had become wary of crossing. She could feel her skin cracking, her heart pumping louder she drew conclusions in her mind. He had seen her at her weakest – was he now running from her? Did he no longer find her to be the epitome of creation? That would be a blessing.

It was almost better if he told her that he saved her, because he merely wished to discover if he could. Because he wanted to see if he could commercialise a cure for such a debilitating illness. Because he wanted to make money. She didn’t want the reason to be about his obvious affections for her person, the fact that he truly loved her, in a way she knew that she could never return.

So, when he answered, “Because I care about you,” she had to pinch her skin between the tips of her fingers to prevent an obvious recoil.

“Howard…” She sighed, words failing her as he turned to look at her then. There was such emotion in his eyes – emotion that she couldn’t find the words to explain. Deep longing, desperate affection, bleeding love, it poured from every pore in his body, filling the space between them. The strength of it almost choked her, squeezing her throat and her lungs and forcing itself to be known in the air between them. She watched as his honey brown eyes trailed up and down her body, as though he was admiring his own handiwork. She supposed, in a way, he was.

He had been the one to promise to save her. As always, he delivered on his promises.

She knew a simple truth, then: Howard Stark loved her. But she couldn’t ever be sure, that he didn’t love her in the same way that he loved his creations. In some ways, Howard Stark now owned her, owned the control and use of her body in a way that had once been exclusively reserved for HYDRA.

He would never force her into anything she didn’t want to do. But she was his, in every sense of the word. Not for the love of it, but for the possession of it all. Even if he never voiced such thoughts allowed, she would remember this to the end of their days. He had saved her life – and now, she owed him. She would enjoy their time together, she would enjoy the feeling of his skin upon hers, of his mouth, and fire-driven passion, and heat. But it would always be tainted with this knowledge.

So, when Aria Davis fell into bed with Howard Stark that night, she did so with the understanding that she was resigned to this fate forever.

Chapter 45

March 1st, 1950: Dawn

En pointe, arabesque, adagio, sauté, pirouette, repeat.

There had always been something methodically beautiful about dancing. A pristine emotion or feeling – something she couldn’t quite describe that she felt every time her feet padded against the ground, or her legs lifted in triumph. The Red Room had honed her skill, but it had been Ogla who had birthed it upon her. Lessons from when she was a child, that Aria now knew were always meant to lead to something greater. Somehow, it had not managed to taint the memory.

It could have been the rigid structure of the movement. There was perfect, and there was not. Aria always had to be perfect – her movements had to be exact, her toes had to be sharply pointed, her muscles had to flex in tune with the hum of the orchestra. She would not accept anything for herself other than outright perfection. The masters of the Red Room would have had her beaten for anything less, of course – but it was not the fear of pain that had motivated her to keep spinning. It was the drive to do better, to be better. To survive, as her father had so succinctly put it. She wanted to survive above all else, whether she wanted to admit that to the world or not.

It was why she returned to it now, almost desperately. A month since she’d woken from her sickness, a month where she learned she would never sleep again. A month where she subjected herself to testing from her father, marvelling from Howard, fear and perhaps deadly awe from Carter. She bore the brunt of all of their thoughts, all of their wonders – they all wore them plainly across their face, whether they had meant to or not. Never once did Aria falter. Never once did she crawl into bed at the end of a long day and close her eyes. Sleep was a distant memory, and she would never be embraced by its loving arms again.

She was trying not to think about it. Sleep was the only time her thoughts could ever be truly silenced. Without it – she would never again have a break from the person who she knew herself to be.

Except for ballet. It had been the only thing she’d found helped over the month, the only thing that allowed her to truly clear her mind and stop the barrage of thoughts which longed to enter. Perhaps it was a remanent of the Red Room, and perhaps that should have frightened her. But when she thought about it, the only emotion she could conjure was relief. Relief that she at least had something.

It was dawn when the Director of SHIELD entered the room.

Aria heard the door snap open and closed in quick succession. She waited a moment to hear the footsteps of the approaching figure, measuring their weight in the sound of heels clicking against the floor. Heavier footsteps would have suggested Howard, or Phillips. Lighter footsteps, as these were, led her to believe that that they belong to Peggy.

Aria didn’t cease her movements for the woman’s arrival. She merely continued in her spin, spine stiffening as she fought to maintain her posture against the gruelling demand of the movement. When she held it for long enough to feel the strain not only in her back, but against her calves – and the tension headache forming in her skull – Aria slowly began to lower herself to the floor. Once she was settled, once the threads of imaginary music faded from her mind, and the ballet studio she’d imagined for herself faded away into the reality of the training hall, did Aria glance in Peggy’s direction.

The Director of SHIELD had become far more difficult to read in the years following the war. Their profession demanded it of them, and Aria had taken the liberty to correct Carter on more than a few occasions when she noticed the woman slipping. It was never appreciated for the manner with which it was suggested. Sometimes, Aria did not know whether she was friends with the woman in front of her. She trusted her implicitly, but she’d learned in her life that having friends was a danger unto itself. Peggy challenged her, and in turn, she challenged Peggy. Whatever relationship they’d forged, it had been earned.

It was why Aria was shocked when she could see the concern written plainly across the woman’s face.

“What?” She found herself asking, muscles tensing as the air of the room suddenly became thick with tension.

But Peggy only shook her head. “I don’t understand it.” She offered, gesturing to the room, to Aria herself. “The dancing – I know, in the Red Room, they expect it of you.”

“They do.” Aria hummed her agreement, tilting her head as she wondered where Peggy was heading with the conversation.

Peggy looked troubled. “I suppose I just never expected you to want to return to it.”

“This is what I know.” Aria offered plainly. It only led to Peggy’s flinch, a haunted kind of expression falling across her that Aria longed to wipe clear from her face. It wasn’t like Peggy to so openly grieve the wounds that had been inflicted upon others – though, she supposed that given the date, the woman was likely feeling raw.

“I was only in the Red Room for a few years.” Aria dismissed, hoping to ease Peggy’s discomfort. She hoped that it would end the conversation, the line of questioning. Instead, it only narrowed Peggy’s gaze further, as something troubled brewed within them.

“The girls that come out of those rooms…” The woman in front of her trailed off, eyes glancing around the room. Aria supposed it looked rather morbid, in a way. The bare bones of a dance studio, mirrors reflecting her every movement as her body carried her across the wooden floors. Rhymical and musical to her ears as her footsteps were, the truth behind them carried trauma and pain. She found her strength within those strides, but Aria understood why Peggy could only view the horror.

“You were lucky – Aria. You held onto some shred of humanity. Perhaps because you were older. Perhaps because you are good. But you held onto it. The girls who I have seen, who I have faced… They have nothing left inside of them. They are moulded clay, a sculpture…”

“Marble.” Aria offered, surprised when her voice didn’t waver at the world. “The girls are made of marble.”

She had been made of marble, too. She still was – for as many times as she had thought herself to be broken beyond repair, for as many times as she had believed herself to be destroyed, here she stood.

“It’s barbaric.” Peggy finished, nodding to her words. “And cruel.”

Aria wasn’t sure she thought so. Somewhere, in the back of her mind, she thought the Red Room to have been necessary for her survival. But simply because it was necessary for her, did not excuse it’s cruelty.

“Then give me leave to destroy it.”

She watched as Peggy’s eyes widened in alarm.

Aria felt the cold nature of her declaration wash over her, the surety that accompanied such a blunt statement. She felt the blood in her body freeze for a moment, ice filling her veins as her thoughts caught up to her words. She’d never had the thought before, she’d never contemplated the infiltration and destruction of the heinous organisation, but now that she’d breathed fresh life to the idea…

“Everywhere in the world they hurt little girls.” She continued, reaching forward to grasp at Carter’s hand. The Director allowed her too, glancing down only once at their joined skin before looking up again at Aria. “They hurt little girls like me. I could stop it. I could stop them.”

There was doubt entering Carter’s expression now. And something else – something Aria felt like she knew, but did not want to give a name. Naming it would make it real, naming it would draw attention to it.

“I can’t let you do that.” Peggy shook her head. Aria could feel the sound of the woman who’d approached her with warmth fading away, the methodical and pragmatic sound of the Director of SHIELD returning in force. Peggy had come to her for comfort, to be reminded over Steve, exactly five years after he had driven the plane into the snow, or sea. Somewhere to prevent the bombs of destruction from setting off in New York. Aria was the only woman alive who could share in her grief, who could share in the knowledge that HYDRA had taken away more than a good man. That HYDRA had taken away their future.

But Aria didn’t want for comfort. She had enough comfort in the arms of Howard Stark – their destructive gravitational pull was enough for her. Aria longed for action.

“Why?” She pressed, pulling her hands away so suddenly that she watched Peggy flinch.

The two women sized each other up. Gone was her friend who had entered the room. In her place stood the ever-calculating Director of SHIELD – hand-picked by Aria with an understanding that she would allow Aria the reign to conduct herself on missions as she pleased. And now she was saying no to her. They looked the scene: Peggy, wearing heels, maintained the advantage of height. Aria refused to allow herself to believe it meant she was looking down upon her.

“Aria, you haven’t been on a mission in months…”

She scoffed, interrupting. “I’m still the sharpest shot in your arsenal. All of your agents, you know that you’d be hard pressed to find someone better than me. You’ve tried.”

Carter shook her head. “It has nothing to do with your level of skill.”

“You just said that I haven’t been on a mission in months…”

“Yes, and things have changed, since the last time you went on a mission. You’ve changed.”

Aria paused, the frown gracing her face deepening. “What do you mean, I’ve changed?”

There was a dangerous lilt to her voice that forced a wince from Peggy’s voice. Aria couldn’t bring herself to feel any sympathy for the woman standing before her. There was a tone in Peggy’s phrase, the way that she had said it… It made her stomach twist and rumble with discomfort. With the same feeling she’d spent years of her life running from under the thumb of her father. That feeling of judgement, coming from someone that she cared about. Someone who, despite everything, she remained desperate to impress.

“I just mean…” And it continued, as Peggy hesitated to give her thoughts. “The cure… They used Steve’s blood.”

“They didn’t.” Aria interjected hotly, but it did not register with Carter. Not for the moment.

“If you are captured. If you are caught. They could use you – study you. I do not wish for that fate to befall you. I’m sure that it has befallen other men. Great men.”

“What makes you so sure I would be captured alive?”

Peggy didn’t have an answer for her. Aria felt tears burning behind her eyelids, desperate and hot and furious. She was sure her voice carried the weight of a thousand suns as she spoke next.

“I was prepared to die. In the Alps. I wanted to die in the Alps. I begged for you to let me die in the months prior to Howard and my father’s intercession on my behalf. I have embraced death openly for years. I have been defied of it, for years. Rest assured, dorogoya, if the time comes for my life to mean a zero sum, I shall take it.”

Mentally, she reminded herself to fix the pocket on her suit with another cyanide pill – discretely, and without Howard’s knowledge. It would be simple enough, she was sure, to sew the fabric back in such a manner that the reappearance of the pill would not be noticed by his keen eyes. In reality, the only times which he had lain eyes upon her suit in recent memory had come only mere moments before he had begun his task of peeling it from her person. She was sure, in those moments, there were other features of her body that he was far more attentive to.

“No.”

There was such finality within her tone. Desperation rose inside Aria, hungry and overwhelming in its need to escape her.

“Margaret, I…” She began to plead.

“I won’t send you on a singular mission that is sure to dominate the rest of your life.” Peggy interjected before she could argue. “That doesn’t mean that I am benching you forever – it just means that your priority, in this moment, cannot be the destruction of the Red Room. I have other uses for you, other missions and work that are just as important. For instance, the discovery of the Winter Sol…”

Aria ignored Peggy entirely. “If you are about to suggest to me a desk job, I…”

“I have another mission for you.”

Aria pursed her lips, momentarily silenced. Her eyebrow twitched with constrained frustration. She was not used to being silenced, not used to be interrupted when she was ready to state her case. But Peggy had never been one to back down from a challenge, and as much as Aria was frustrated by it in the moment, she knew some aching part of her had settled with the action. Peggy wouldn’t hold her to a different standard, simply because of her brush with death. To Peggy, Aria would remain Aria – a tortured spy, a creature of terrifying make through no fault of her own. A survivor.

“Aria Davis, you are here by assigned to advance reconnaissance and destabilisation operations in and around the Korean Peninsula, as the intelligence we have received from the United States Government indicates a sharp increase in Soviet and Chinese advisor activity. We cannot allow the continued support of such a regime. You will travel to the Yokota Air Base in Japan, acting under the guise of a humanitarian attaché. Primarily, you must confirm whether Soviet rocket deployments are drawing from stolen Stark tech prototypes”

It was then Peggy paused, as though debating her words. When they came, Aria understood immediately that they were a concession on her behalf.

“Should you encounter any Agents from the Red Room, I give you authorised leave to investigate and eliminate hostile cells within your environment.”

Aria felt her lips curling up in the beginning of a smile. Fresh air pressed against the inside of her gums, her grin exploding across her face. Other Agents would have been unnerved. But Peggy Carter merely returning the grin, something deadly igniting in her gaze.

“When do I start?”

Notes:

thanks for reading! as always, comments and feedback are very appreciated <3

Chapter 46

February 10th, 1953: Midday

Aria had been hunting Dottie Underwood for three years.

Three years since the sanctity of sleep had been replaced by the booming silence of her mind. Three years, since Peggy had sent her on course to the Korean War. Three years too, since Aria had managed to confirm Howard’s fears – that the Soviet designed rockets leading opposing forces to victory had been in part inspired by stolen schematics Stark Industries had never approved for widespread distribution. Three years since Aria had painstakingly travelled across Europe, deep into the countryside of Latvia, where she rooted every weed, turned every stone until she had found the man responsible. Gustov, a remaining remnant of HYDRA; he’d cursed her betrayal of their values up until his very last breath. His heart had given out sometime between the fourth and fifth hour of her questioning; though, she suspected that he hadn’t been intent on levelling the remainder of his organisations secrets.

But someone had been smiling down upon her that day. Mercifully, before she’d disposed of his body, she’d managed to uncover a name. Scrawled only in hurried correspondence, Aria recognised the letters pressed against the page as though they had been spoken aloud. The man had once been her ballet trainer, in the Red Room. A balding man, a strict man who indulged on the pain of the young girls. The thrill in his eyes every time a girl broke before him had been burned into her memory. The pleasure he received from their pain, from their failure, from disposing of them. She’d promised herself that she would never become one of his failures. She had perfected every move, expertly concealed every slight stumble of her balance. Madame B had thought her to be marble. This man expected her to be of the highest elegance.

Peggy had given her leave to intercept and destroy any aspects of the Red Room Aria encountered throughout her time within the confines of the Korean War. Aria, of course, suspected Carter had only meant Agent’s that were directly involved within the theatre itself. Gustov was meant to be the neat bow tied at the end of successful infiltration and completion of her duties. She would return to the Americas and celebrate her successes under the watchful eyes of Director Carter, to seek pleasure in the arms of the man she could never quite bring herself to love. But Aria had been true in her desire, to seek out and destroy the Red Room. And though she was sure that Peggy would disapprove of the vengeance currently thrumming against her ribcage, she was sure the Director of SHIELD was more than familiar with the idea of avenging a fallen friend.

For Isla. Aria would do this for the girl that she had never had the chance to become.

Finding her old master had been simple enough. The correspondence that she’d found had suggested as much. Sloppy handwriting and desperate prose bled through the ink and into her mind. Even if the ballet master was not yet desperate enough to overly plead, she could almost hear him begging for aid.

Her fingers flexed as her mind began to imagine placing him under the same strict routine she had learned to endure. A gentle hum sounded in her heart with the thought of him recoiling in pain, or fear. With breaking him.

A shudder wracked her then. She was meant to be better than them – but sometimes, she was reminded that she was every bit the monster that they had made her to be.

Her ballet master had secluded himself not within Soviet territory; nor within Europe at all. Instead, Aria found him close to the home she’d found in Camp Lehigh, merely an hour’s drive from the army barracks that now housed SHIELD. Scoping out his house had proven only that he was a paranoid, aging man; with little money and little support from those whom he once served faithfully.

Reckless abandon drove her to kick through his door in the middle of the day. She heard the wings of a startled bird flapping rapidly away from the scene, but nothing could distract her as she caught her first glimpse of the man she’d agonised over for years. He was not the same proud instructor who had barked orders and beaten her until she had complied. That man had been balding and aging, yes, but his still stood with an air of authority that could not be faked. The man before her had weakened with time, reduced to a shadow of his former self living in the squalor and darkness of his safehouse. Begging for scraps from a non-gracious lord in Madame B.

“Romanov.”

She hadn’t heard that name in a long time.

Grey eyes momentarily flickered away from her, downcast and desperately searching. She wasn’t surprised when he reached for the weapon placed metres in front of him, by the table. Aria was faster. Her gun was drawn and fired before he’d managed to clasp the cold metal between his fingers. A shout of pain accompanied the sting of her bullet, the force of the impact knocking him from his intended trajectory and straight onto the rotting wooden floors beneath him.

He watched her every move as she deliberately made her way towards him. Aria felt her toes pointing inside of her shoes, unbidden and unordered.

“My Black Widow.”

“Inostrannaya suka.” Aria answered immediately, the Russian words tasting delightful on her tongue despite her memories associated with them. “They called me inostrannaya suka."

“Jealousy.” He wheezed out, though the bullet had collided with his thigh, and not his throat. “They could not move like you. Graceful. Elegant. Perfect. It was meant to be you.”

He sounded in awe. She ignored his sentiment in favour of a far more pressing matter.

“Who did become the Black Widow, Nikolai?”

When he offered no answer, she dug her left foot into the wound on his thigh. His screaming filled the room, and she did wince then, ears twitching and cracking against the unpleasant sound. Somewhere outside, a dog began barking. Mentally, Aria began counting down in her mind.

There would be no repercussions for killing this man, Aria knew as much. But dealing with the fallout of being caught would be relatively unpleasant. It was better for everyone if she made him talk soon.

“Marvelous, you were marvellous – you are marvellous, my dancer, my Black Widow.” His voice strained against the pain of his wound. Mumbling and gurgling, the English words sounded strange against his Russian accent. But Aria did not miss the hint of insanity in his tone. She supressed her shiver. She did not want to be idolised by this man. She did not want to be idolised for her time in the Red Room.

She cocked the gun again. All of her weight now pressing against his thigh, she leaned forward until the barrel of her gun was kissing the sweat across his forehead. Pained screams turned to terrified whimpers in an instant, and in that moment, Aria learned something new: she was a survivor, yes. But she’d learned to survive from survivors themselves. From people who did not want to die, who were determined to outlast the world. This man was one such mentor.

“Nikolai…” She tutted when he still didn’t speak. “I have at least six bullets in my chamber. Now, I’m sure you’re counting, so that’s at least four more bullets of precisely placed pain before I would grant you your long-held desire to end this miserable existence…” She trailed off, eyes resting against the blood that trailed against the floor. It dribbled and pooled into the cracks of the tiles, turning the grimy white stone a crimson shade.

His whimper called her back to attention. With added pressure against his wound, she shoved the gun harder into his forehead. “Or, we can make this simple, and you can tell me what I want to know now, before I decide to skin you.”

“Greatness, my greatest creation – my Chernaya Vdova.”

Her finger pressed against the trigger. A sharp jerk of her arm had the bullet firing into the tile beside his head. His answering squeal was delightful to her senses. Only the barking dog reminded her that she had limited time remaining to extract her confession and depart.

“Nikolai…” She pressed her foot sharper into his wound.

“I’ll tell you! I swear, I promise, I’ll…”

“I’m waiting, then.” She interjected, lazily twirling the gun in her fingertips. The fear igniting in his eyes sent a thrill through her bloodstream, a smirk playing lazily at her lips.

“Dottie Underwood!”

Aria’s eyes narrowed.

“She was a child when I was in the Red Room.”

“She was nothing compared to you.” Nikolai agreed, and Aria didn’t have time to supress her cringe. “A serviceable pirouette, if that.”

She ignored his ravings. “Does she still work for the Red Room?”

Silence followed her question. In response, Aria fired at his other leg. The sickening squelch that followed the moment of metal piercing layers of skin and bone; as well as the harrowing scream that left her former ballet master would have sent lesser men running for the hills.

“She does!” His cries disrupted her rolling train of thought. “Our girls never leave the Red Room! They always come back. They always come home.”

“I left.” The snarl left her before she could stop herself. “I escaped.”

“And yet you have come home.” He sounded so pleased. “Daughter of a Widow, HYDRA’s krasnaya gadyuka, the red-haired whore of the Red Sk…”

She fired the shot through his skull before he could finish his sentence.

It didn’t matter.

His name echoed around her skull anyway.

***

Aria’s search for Dottie Underwood had begun in earnest. Merely a days trip away from Camp Lehigh, she returned in the midst of the night, shrouded in the cover of darkness, back to her rooms where she scrawled the name into every corner of her notes. Her presence was not announced by fanfare, or reckoning, but somehow, Howard knew.

He always knew when she came home.

“How was Korea? Goyang? You look the same as when you left.”

Sometimes, Aria wondered if he hoped to startle her. If he hoped that his questions from nowhere would shock her system, would leave her desperate to be touched by him. She wondered if he missed her whilst she was away, was in turn desperate to be touched by her. She wondered too, if he realised how much she still thought about the man who died all those years ago in the Swiss Alps, if he realised that she still hadn’t forgiven herself for listening to Steve when he convinced her not to capture her own father.

“Uneventful.” Aria shrugged. “You’ve already read my report for your tech, and I spent much of my time largely avoiding soldiers the US Military deployed.”

“Hm.” Howard grunted, non-committal in his words as he edged closer and closer to her desk, and therefore, her. “Did you find the leak?”

She shrugged. “Gustov may be dead, Howard, but those schematics are out there now. It is too late to close that door.”

His hand grasped against her shoulder. Even as something inside of her stomach cringed deeply, she felt her body relax into the heat of his touch. It had been months since she’d been held, months since another person had wanted to place their hands upon her in comfort rather than pain. No matter how much she wanted to turn to him, and express otherwise, she knew herself. She knew that in the end, she would always be selfish for what he could offer her.

So, when he placed a kiss into the crown of her head, and she heard herself sigh with some deeply held relief, she hated herself all the more for it. Because she wasn’t sure she deserved this, after what she had done. But it was exactly what she needed, even if it was selfish to take from something that would never be hers to enjoy.

Reverently, clothes were peeled from her skin, cool air kissing the surface of her body as she found herself once again lain bare before him. She knew how the night would continue – he would whisper affirmations of love and care; he would tell her that she was beautiful. That there was no one else alive who could possibly compare to her, not only in body, but in mind and soul. She wished she could have let herself love him. Her life would have been easier if she could.

Aria wished that she had been a better person that night. She wished that she’d told him that she was tired and needed to rest her eyes – even if they both knew sleep would never again come for her. She wished that she had instead told him that what they had was fleeting, and fun, but it would never be the commitment that he wished for her to make.

Instead, she only felt his soft sighs beside her as he drifted in and out of sleep. Bare, and pressed against her, she felt her skin moulding against him as though they had been made for one another.

Evidently, it was on his mind as well.

“Do you ever think about, what we could have been? If we had of met first?”

She listened carefully to the way that he seemed to stop breathing, waiting for an answer. Every other action that continued – the gentle tapping of his fingertips against her arm, the crooked smile he wore on his face, it was meant to show that he was unbothered. Casual. His breathing, however, gave him away. Gave away how much he cared.

He meant too much to her to hurt so blatantly. “Of course.” She replied calmly, her tone steady and unyielding. “But we didn’t.”

He hummed agreement, and she could hear the hurt echoing in his tone. The tapping against her skin continued, desperately fuelled by something more. Every slight scratch of his nails against her felt like a burn, deepening into her skin. A permanent mark of something greater, something she wasn’t sure that she wanted.

“Howard, I…” She tried to start, but he spoke at the same moment.

“Every time you come home. I will be waiting for you. Every time.”

She couldn’t give him the answer he wanted to hear. She couldn’t give it to herself. “Sleep well, Howard.”

It was a dismissal, and he took it as such. When she heard his soft snores bouncing against her back only a few minutes later, she knew that he had fallen into an easy, dream filled sleep.

She wondered if it was filled with images of her. Of the future they would never share together.

Aria debated that thought long after he fell asleep, until the points of her toes ached with the pressure of her demands. Until she forgot what it was to be Aria Davis and instead turned to the one thing in her life that had never let her down. Not herself, but her ballet.

Graceful. Nikolai would have told her. Elegant.

Alive, she told herself once again. She had survived.

***

For three years, Howard asked her about the ‘Dottie Underwood’ she had scrawled into the margins of every notebook she owned. For three years, Aria refused to explain beyond confirmation that it was a woman from her past. When, in the third year, Howard finally caught sight of her image, and recognition shone in his gaze, Aria conceded that it had been foolish of her to not mention her to Howard in the first place. Of course, she was the Widow whom Howard had fallen victim too, of course she was the Widow who had charmed him into bed, who had extracted secrets, who had encountered, defeated, and been defeated by Peggy Carter herself.

Telling Howard about her had felt freeing. But she didn’t bother to explain why she felt the need to chase after her. She figured that he could come to the conclusion on his own terms.

The world around her kept changing, growing and festering with violence and peace, wrapped in the guise of mercy for the innocent. For three years, Aria Davis travelled across the globe, chasing down cold leads from the Red Room, desperate to catch up with Dottie Underwood. In between, she celebrated her birthday: first, alone with Howard, second, a quiet, intimate dinner amongst her closest friends and allies – and her third, to her dismay, was to be lavish, grand affair paid for and organised by Stark himself.

She’d fixed her hair in front of the mirror as her last task before leaving that room. Every strand had been perfectly and expertly moulded into place. Not a single hair upon her head had faded in colour over her years, every fibre stark red against the paleness of her skin. Her father had been grey by now, he’d informed her casually one day almost a week ago. Her mother; she hadn’t lived long enough to find out.

Not a grey hair. Not a sign that she was aging. Perfect, pristine, elegant and graceful.

Howard came to her door and took her hand. He smiled, he called her beautiful, and graceful – but the second word didn’t bring forth the same feeling of comfort that she was sure he was hoping it would bring. Instead, she focused on the fine lines and wrinkles that now littered his skin. They caught against her gaze with ferocity, a blinding light in her eyes as she noticed them for the first time. Prominent, where perhaps they had once been subtle markers of the time that had passed between them. The years that had grown long in their relationship. He looked handsome – beautiful, in some respects. An unobtainable magic that she could only grasp at. But he was aging. He was growing older, as was she, even if she didn’t feel it.

Howard would dance with her on this night. They would talk about the future – the future that they would never hope to share together. Aria would laugh. She would play nice with the executives; she would flirt harmlessly with the upcoming agents of SHIELD who surely wanted nothing more than to leech off of her closeness to Stark. Who did not want to know her because of who she was, because she had been so careful as to not allow anyone that knowledge. To them, she was merely Howard’s long-term situation, his lover, paramour; everything besides the word partner.

It didn’t matter what they thought of her. It didn’t even matter what she thought of herself. Nothing could ever hide from Aria the fact that the world was turning around her, and yet she felt as though she was standing utterly still.

Chapter 47

June 2nd, 1954: Morning

By all accounts, the 31st of May was a beautiful day in New Jersey. The final day of spring brought with it clear, sunny skies and a temperate breeze drifting through the air. In the sun, families would have enjoyed picnics and celebrations that marked the very last day of spring, before the coming of summer days. She had assumed that Howard had spent his day hunched over his desk, fingers expertly weaving wires into a work of mechanical genius. All while she continued her hunt for Dottie, in an abandoned army base-turned dive bar on the outskirts of a European town she hadn’t bothered to learn the name of.

All to gather information on her target. Every action she took was for the mission – the calculated lift of her drink, her purposeful careless movements of her feet against the dancefloor, her slurred words to the bartender when she was sure she was more alert than he could ever be. A perfect performance.

There was a shift in the music then. A piano note played slightly off key, out of rhythm with the rest of the music. From behind her glass, her eyes had sharpened, immediately locating the eyes that had come to rest upon her. A man, walking in her direction, casual but set in his direction. Blonde, blue-eyed, and familiar in the way that he carried himself. She did not know his name, but she had seen the likes of him before. In passing, through the halls of Camp Lehigh. Not a recruit that she trained – training recruits was far beneath her abilities. It was one that she recognised all the same.

“There’s been an incident that requires your attention at home.” He had whispered to her, after confirming callsigns and finding a secluded corner of the room for their discussion.

Aria’s hand did not leave the side of her thigh. It looked a drunken action; a sloppy caress of her clothing to ground herself in reality. Rather, she was merely reminding herself of the exact location of her weapon.

“I don’t have a home.” She answered him. They both knew that wasn’t true, but the agent before her would not be brave enough to state it.

He only uncrossed his arms from his chest. Reaching forward to take her drink, and sip from it, Aria felt the beginnings of dread crawling up her spine.

“It’s about Washington.”

She snorted. “I’m sure Carter can handle Eisenhower. She doesn’t need my help with politics – in fact, on multiple occasions she has expressly warned me not to interfere. Says that I’m too intimidating. I think I’m just too foreign.” She snatched back her drink from his hands, taking a sip before she continued; “And if Stark thinks that he can parade me over his shoulder whilst he schmoozes with the rich and elite…”

“Not that Washington.”

Her breath caught in her throat as her mind rapidly filled information into the blanks. The gentle movements of her fingers by her thigh ceased, as her hand instead creeped forward until it was resting against the skin of the man in front of her. Well-trained, he didn’t flinch when he felt the sharp edges of her concealed blade pressing against his artery, close enough to feel the sting of pain but not yet deep enough to send him to an early grave.

“If you’re lying – if you’re…”

“Director Carter has ordered your immediate return to Camp Lehigh.” He interrupted her.

Aria searched his gaze desperately. But she found no hint of a lie. In fact, the only thing she could feel at all was the swirling in her stomach, the constant reminder that she had felt nauseous over these past few days. Slowly, the knife edged its way back into her holster, and her fingers moved away from her gun.

***

To her knowledge, Colonel Chester Phillips died peacefully in his sleep on the Monday of May 31st. Friends would proclaim that his last words, whilst private, had solidified his involvement in the creation of America’s greatest hero. Aria would listen to this story told time and time again as she made her way back to New Jersey, thoughts of Dottie Underwood abandoned for at least the minute. Her nausea had not abated throughout the journey, even growing stronger in her belly as she caught sight of her reflection in the mirror after expelling her lunch. Not a wrinkle in sight across her face, not a grey thread in the sheen of her red hair.

Camp Lehigh had become a hall of mourning, she realised as she had arrived. Stifling grief choked through the air, an endless void of longing and desperation crawled up her skin as she made her way to her own rooms. She was glad that she did not meet anyone on her path, but she was not surprised to find Howard waiting for her, safely wrapped in the blankets of her bed. The lights were off in the room, but the shadowy chamber could not conceal from her the redness which surrounded his eyes, or the tear tracks that stained his cheeks. Her heart ached with the sight of it, and every footstep echoed around the room as she slowly edged closer towards him.

They did not share words, but she felt the moment that he collapsed into her waiting arms, hard sobs wracking his body. Her mouth twitched as she processed the action – she could not recall Howard’s grief for Steve, or Bucky in the same manner; but then again, she hadn’t perceived much of that evening with a steady mind. Only a burning hatred for everyone and everything, most of all herself.

“When is the funeral?” She asked him, when she could no longer bare to be still in the silence.

“In the coming days.” Howard pulled away from her then, furiously rubbing at his eyes to clear them of water. She pointedly ignored that it only inflamed his skin and made his sadness clear to the world. “He refused a state funeral – he made that abundantly clear. They won’t drag it out.”

She swallowed the saliva that had gathered in the back of her throat. It had been years, since someone involved in those early days of SHIELD had passed on. Aria could not remember the last funeral she had attended; the last body she had actually taken the time to mourn. Death was a constant in her life, and in some ways, a comfort that had been stolen from her. Yet, she was all the sadder for Phillips’ passing. For the knowledge that she would never again hear his complaints in the hallway, that he would never again push her to be better – never again doubt her loyalties, never again force her to prove herself. He was a hard man; but that had made him good.

Queasy when she next spoke, Aria knew her voice sounded choked. “He wasn’t so old, Howard. He was barely seventy.”

“I know.”

She sighed, and this time, it was her that pressed her forehead into the crook of his neck. Seeking the warmth and comfort that he could offer to her. “Do you ever think that we can stop?”

Howard only met her question with a snort. “I’ve never known you to take a day of rest in your life.”

“I mean it.”

She wanted to mean it. She wanted it to sound as though she meant it, as though she wanted nothing other than to curl up against her bed, under the blankets, and finally close her eyes. But the words sounded hollow in her throat, a lie even to the most oblivious of ears. The Aria Davis that she had made herself to be was many things. But she did not know how to rest.

Gently, Aria found herself reaching forward to brush a stray hair from Howard’s face. His eyes followed the action, momentarily distracted from his sadness as her fingers curled around the strands. She found her lips pressing together as she stared at the grey reflecting back, noting once again the passing of time. The wrinkles she’d caught herself on scarcely a year prior now seemed imprinted in his skin, a traceable story within his life that she knew she could unravel if she so desired.

“When did you start going grey?”

She watched as Howard narrowed his eyes. His shoulders caught him, stiffening and locking together as his breathing turned defensive.

“Does it matter?”

Aria suspected that it did – but not at all for the reasons that he was implying. “I don’t care.” She soothed, brushing his hair back into place on his forehead. She wouldn’t tell him that he remained beautiful. She wasn’t sure she’d ever told him she thought him handsome. Almost as though it crossed the line in her mind that she had drawn for their relationship. If she did not compliment him; they could not call this a relationship.

Shaking her head to banish her thoughts, she forced herself to look into his eyes. She wanted him to answer the question – needed him to answer the question, she realised. There were pieces of a puzzle she was not even sure she was completing slowly coming together in her mind, desperate to weave themselves into a discernible image. Into something that she could understand.

“Howard.” She pressed, and she heard his sigh wrack his bones.

“I noticed it myself only a few days ago.” He admitted. “Pretended that I hadn’t, though.”

Aria tried not to let the implication settle over her. She felt her mind whirring against the information, against the conclusion it was trying to draw.

Her fingers tapped impatiently against the side of her thigh, and Aria knew with the action that she had made up her mind. This was no longer an aspect of her life she could willingly ignore; though the thought of confronting this truth sent her abdomen somersaulting in her body. If she wanted answers, there was only one man who could provide them for her. Unfortunately, that man was also her father – and, she suspected, the reason for her knots tightening in her stomach.

If she wanted the truth, she would have to see Zola.

But none of this showed, when she next voiced her thoughts to Howard. Instead, she only dropped the topic, dismissing it with a simple statement: “We’re getting older, too.”

He didn’t reply beyond the slump of his shoulders, and the tightening of his grip around her forearm. She let him hold her as though she were the only thing keeping him tethered to the world.

Notes:

a shorter chapter, gearing up for a few revelations in the next few!

Chapter 48

Notes:

Please check the notes at the end of the chapter for specific content warnings - light spoilers apply.

June 2nd, 1954: Afternoon

Arnim Zola had thrived within the walls of SHIELD. Not that Aria had seen it; she had done everything in her power to avoid speaking with her father since he’d worked closely with Stark to save her life. But her eyes were not the only senses privy to information passed within the walls of SHIELD. Aria was not foolish enough to pretend that she didn’t benefit from her father’s technology. She was sure that more than once, she had used one of his designs to save her life. Likely, it was his work with the very object she swore he would never again see that had contributed to her ability to live.

If nothing else, Arnim Zola was the very reason that she had survived long enough to be burdened with laying her eyes upon him once more.

If Aria closed her eyes, she was sure that she could recreate his laboratory perfectly. She knew where everything was placed, she knew the items that he kept by his hands, ready at any moment to intercede and invent, to create and destroy. She had spent painstaking weeks in the bed by his monitors, begging for the release of death that had been denied to her. It was for this reason that Aria knew her skin was crawling, that saliva was building in her mouth as her heart pounded and dropped into her stomach. She was recalling what it felt like, to be close to death. That had to be the explanation.

Her footsteps announced her arrival into the room, purposefully loud as to not startle the man before her. She watched him look up from his work; goggles covering his glasses and forcing the little hair that remained on his head to stick up at strange angles. A thrill ran through her as she noticed the second her father’s shoulders tensed; before he visibly forced himself to relax.

“Malen'kiy krasnyy,” he greeted her, and Aria wondered for a moment when he had bothered to learn the Russian that she avidly preferred to speak. It sounded wrong from his tongue.

“Father.” She inclined her head and moved closer. Aria knew she was studying every movement that he made – the way that his wrinkled skin reached forward to seize the covering of his head, revealing the glasses that she had once broken in her anger.

“Why have you come?”

She almost snorted. His tone inspired no amount of love for her, and the question was only born of desperate curiosity. She did not make her way towards him unless there was an absolute necessity for her to do so – and she certainly did not approach him in his workspaces, where she knew he had the upper hand. In reality, if Aria was going to be honest, she made Howard speak to her father on her behalf, often for the simplest requests. Anything she could do to avoid this man, she had.

“Your… cure.” She answered, hesitating over the world when it felt inadequate to describe what he had done. “When you spoke of it – that, and my sleep – you said you knew it could have some side effects.”

The latent curiosity from his tone burned through into his muscles. Aria watched his eyes twitch, his mouth curl into a grin of desperation, hungry for the knowledge she could provide.

“Not being able to sleep, yes. I suggested that would be a side effect.” Her father was not a spy, and in these moments, it showed. Desperately, she could see him attempting to come across as nonchalant, trying to act as though he didn’t care for the knowledge that she was clutching close to her chest. But he was almost sweating with desperation, calloused and wrinkled fingers twitching against the urge to grasp at her and demand.

She held him on that edge a moment longer. Savoured the look of hunger in his eyes, the look of pleading, before she finally spoke again. “What were the other side effects?”

If he wanted more information – he was going to have to press her for it. She wouldn’t allow anything to slip free until she was sure that he could be of use to her now.

“Isla,” Zola scolded, “if you are not forthcoming with your symptoms, how could I possibly hope to make a diagnosis.”

A sudden fear leapt at her heart. She fought to keep her expression neutral as she asked; “Could something be wrong, then?”

Zola only shrugged. “Stark and I’s cure was not an exact science. We did not much consider the how of our operations in the moment of the task. I dislike the American agenda – of course, you of all people already know that kleiens rotes…”

Aria wasn’t quick enough to hide her flinch at the returning term. Deep in his monologue, she was glad that her father seemed to miss it.

“…but Stark was… beneficial to your survival, and my research. You, my daughter, were living on borrowed time from the moment the illness made itself apparent in your body. Consideration of the after was not of consequence to our pursuits of prolonging your life.”

“And just how long have you prolonged it for?”

Her father grinned. “You’ve noticed, then.”

Silence met his words. The only tell that Aria had heard them was the steady tapping of her fingertips against her thigh. A measured response; she was desperately crying to wrestle control over her wayward emotions. But the thought that her father had noticed before her sent a fresh wave of nausea rolling across her body – so strong that Aria almost gagged.

She swallowed painfully. “What does it mean?” She asked instead of voicing her anger.

Somewhere, in the course of this conversation, Aria had lost control. No longer did she feel as though she was leading the charge against her father. Instead, she felt like a child again, hiding in the skirts of her mother as her father towered across her. As he told her who she would one day be, as he explained how he was going to make that happen. Once, Aria had promised herself that she would do everything in her power to make her father proud of her. That he was the only person who truly loved her. She’d learnt since that he did not know the true meaning of love; not as a father.

But he was not viewing her as a daughter anymore – no matter the words he spoke. He was her creation, just as she was Howard’s creation. She was a thing to be made, a design to be tinkered with, and tested.

As if confirming her thoughts, Zola noted: “I’ll need a vial of your blood to be sure.”

He had meant through a needle. But Aria did not allow him the satisfaction, as she pulled a knife from her suit and sliced the palm of her hand against it. Noticing the small vial by his right hand, she refused to break eye contact with her father as she stalked closer to the tube – never once breaking that contact as she brought that vial to the cut on her palm. Instead, she listened intently for the sound of her blood dripping into the tube, listening until she was sure that there was enough to test before she handed it back to him. Only then did she glance down at the cut across her palm, noting with some disdain that it would take more than a few days to heal.

“When should I expect the results, Zola?”

She’d expected him to say a few days. She hadn’t expected him to be crouched over his table quite so quickly, goggles back over his head from where they had once been discarded.

“Take a seat.” He merely stated, waving a hand nonchalantly in the direction of the bed she’d once spent a lifetime in. She only had to glance in its direction for a moment before she could feel the sweat pooling at the base of her spine. There was something about that bed that still terrified her, something about the thought of touching her that rendered her powerless, and close to death.

She didn’t verbalise it, but her father understood her choice when he did not hear her footsteps echoing towards the bed. He did not hear them retreating from the room, either.

He seemed deep into his work. Forehead pressed into the microscope; it was almost as though he was gone to the pleasures of scientific discovery. Despite his age, his body seemed to move with a gentle hum, an excitement she could only equate to the feeling she received after a particularly brutal battle. The feeling within her bloodstream to keep moving at all costs. To not be in constant motion, but to become motion itself. In these moments, she could almost see their similarities – beyond the bridge of her nose, or the shape of her eyes.

It was why it was so disarming when he spoke.

“When were you going to tell me that you’re pregnant?”

Aria felt her fingers curl inward first. Her nails pressed into the wound drawn only minutes ago by the knife – but even the resounding sting of the action did not break her away from her shock. A highly trained voice, deep within her mind, ordered her to breathe – and so she did. In and out, the air came evenly, but she remained breathless.

“What?”

“You’re pregnant.” Zola repeated, finally glancing away from the microscope. It was instinctual for her to avert her gaze, to hide from him. But she forced herself to keep looking at him. She forced herself to face his words. Even as she could feel the vibrations rising in her body. Even as her hands began to shake by her sides.

“You can see that from my blood?” She didn’t bother disguising the panic in her voice. The queasiness she’d dismissed as a side effect of grief was a red herring. She’d been nauseous for weeks, not merely in the wake of Phillips’ death. But like every other scrap of pain that had ever befallen her body, she’d cast it away, determined not to allow it a moment to bother her. The Red Room taught her that pain was the enemy. That it would only serve as a distraction. But illness – it was often the bodies way of speaking to the mind. Her body had been trying to tell her for weeks, and she had been determined not to listen.

And yet she had known. She had felt this foreign entity within her, this seed taking root in her body. Something other.

“I can see that in the way you walk.” Zola corrected; nose turned up at her. But by the look on his face, he had turned green too. The fact that she wasn’t denying the possibility had all but confirmed the truth for him. “As much as you try to run from me, kleins rotes, you are still my daughter.”

She bit her tongue hard to avoid the scathing comment she wished she could make. It would only add to his belief that she was panicking.

Aria was panicking.

She’d come here with a purpose. She’d come to her father only to determine if she was correct in her assumption that she was no longer aging. She wanted beyond anything to believe that she wasn’t stuck in this body for the rest of her living life. That she would grow old – that she would have the chance to experience what it was to grow old. That she would one day die. She’d spent her entire night with Howard, whilst he softly snored beside her, preparing for the very real possibility that she would never know that joy. That she could never age – for what they had done to her. Had talked herself into forgiving Howard for a crime against her he did not yet know that he had committed.

This was not meant to be her life. She had torn down every inch of Isla Zola, she had destroyed it before it had the chance to destroy her. She’d remade herself again and again – from the iron-willed nurse Aria Davis, who would have married a war-hero; to the Aria Davis who ran inside SHIELD from the shadows, who terrified hundreds of operatives tasked with hunting the story of viper shaped like a shadow. Falling into bed with Howard was meant to be a release, not a shackle. She was never meant to become a vessel in this life.

Suddenly, their relationship felt all too real.

“You should terminate.”

Zola’s words sliced through the silence, and then through her. Not the content of the words themselves, but the fear with which they were said. Aria found herself momentarily dumbfounded as she turned back to her father, her own shock fading in the face of his emotion. The expression on his face – the creased eyebrows, the downcast eyelashes; he was scared for her.

She tipped her head to the side. Her mouth opened, and she wanted the words to be spoken – but they did not come. They stuck to her throat, choking her. All that sounded from her was a poorly disguised cough.

“I warned you once before, that the men you line your sheets with are beneath you.” Zola muttered, shaking his head through his disappointment. “They make you smaller – the American from the train…”

“Don’t you dare speak of him like that…”

“….Stark, now. You were not made to be their wife. You were not made to coddle their children.”

It silenced her, slicing through the protests that were primed against her tongue. Aria knew he was right, in some twisted way.

That despite everything, her father knew her better than she ever wanted to admit.

But she could not give him the satisfaction of that knowledge.

So, she waited for the silence to settled uncomfortably against the room. Waited until she was sure that she had seen him shift hesitantly against his own toes, unnerved against the weight of it all. Then finally, she asked; "And what was I made for, father?” 

He only returned an unnerving, toothy grin. It reminded her of everything she had fought so hard to forget.

“Byt' chem-to velikim.”

To be something great.

***

Howard had been right – Colonel Phillips funeral was a swift affair. Taking place mere days after his death had been announced, Aria had been surprised by the tears shed from gathered mourners. Many soldiers and nurses alike she knew from her days within the World War had returned to pay their respects to the great Colonel. The muscles in her face felt sore with the effort it took to remain pleasant as she greeted old friends and acquaintances alike. She thought she even noticed Alice lurking around the edges of the gathered group alongside a man that was surely her husband. Aria was glad when she noticed Betty and Alma moving to stand alongside her, greeting her with smiles and well wishes. She would thank the pair of them later, privately, when the moment next arose.

Strangely, Aria felt at peace in the halls of the funeral. It was simple enough to pretend that she was an ancient associate from the war; an easy lie to return to, that she’d lost the love of her life on mission with the Howling Commandos. The public did not suspect they conversed with the Red Viper herself, and Aria did not desire to make it well known. Instead, she smiled patiently to old stories, laughed when appropriate, and even shed a tear of mourning when she noticed other eyes within the audience beginning to well with water. The only hint to her growing distress was the very fact that she had avoided interactions with Howard throughout the service. She’d refused to sit with him, she’d swerved around him in the wake, and now, she was planning her silent exit without notifying him of her departure. All because seeing him would remind her of a fact that she was not entirely ready to face.

Even now, there was a hand that still ghosted over the small of her stomach. There was no bump – she was not going to delude herself into a false panic that her pregnancy was obvious to the naked eye – but knowing that she was pregnant had indeed changed her in a way she was not able to fully describe. Her body no longer felt like her own; she felt a prisoner within its shell.

She had to get out of this building.

Eyes catching on the double doors, Aria’s feet moved of their own accord as they slunk their way towards the exit. Passing a table, she did not stop in her motion as she gently placed her unfinished glass of sparkling wine. Instead, every ounce of her training kept her light on her feet as she weaved her way through crowds, until she was eventually greeted by the temperateness of an orange summer sunset.

For a moment, she stood in the heat. She relished as it pressed featherlight kisses of warmth against her skin, peppering her with pleasure. A child-like part of her wanted to lie back into the grass, sink into it for a moment, and be still amongst the greenery. The woman that she was, however, reminded her that it was prudent to move in line with her escape. That her departure would be noticed soon – and that there was always one man who sought her in every crowd. He would not allow her to disappear so cleanly.

Stepping back into her room, however, Aria understood that she had been wrong, in some respects. Howard sought her, yes – but he knew her too well to accost her publicly. It was why when she opened the door, she found him sitting on her bed, eyes closed, and arms crossed in contemplation. He was seeking the comfort of her touch; but Aria only felt her hackles raise at the intrusion.

Every ounce of training went into evening her tone as she stared at him on her mattress. “Howard?”

He looked up at the sound of her voice, though she knew that he’d heard her entry.

For a long moment, neither of them spoke. For a long moment, Aria debated if she should tell him the truth that she had come to know. She hadn’t told him – she wasn’t sure that she wanted to tell him. Because that truth, she knew, could only lead to pain. Telling him would lead to an acceptance that she would bare this child. That this child would share his name, and his features, and whether Aria wanted it to or not, a burden would be placed upon them. To achieve what their parents could not achieve, to in some respects, become greater as the sum of the whole. It was far too much to place upon a child not even formed in her womb, and far too great an ask for her.

Howard spoke first.

“You know, the funny thing about funerals, is they get you thinking about the time that you have left.”

Aria tilted her head to the side, studying him. She wondered if her father had mentioned their shared hypothesis to the man standing before her.

“They do.” Aria hummed agreement, instead of voicing her thoughts. Pressing him to keep talking, to discuss what was on his mind.

“They get you thinking about what you want from life, as well.”

A sudden dread began to form in her stomach. Coupled with the fact that carrying a child within her had already made her queasy, Aria felt the room spin as she fought to stay in control of her swaying reactions. She felt her nails dig into her palm again, straight over the spot she had sliced in the days prior, in the conversation with her father, which had led to this mess in the first place.

The words of placation she’d spoken before rested readily on her tongue. “Howard, I…”

“Marry me, Aria.”

For the second time in the past few days, Aria felt her heart stop. She felt her body manually resetting itself, reminding her to breath, reminding her to school her features, reminding her that whether or not she believed she was amongst friends, the entire world was an interrogation against her being.

He seemed to recognise that he stunned her. How could he not? Of every person living, Howard was the only one who knew her intimately. He was the only one that she had returned to, he was the only one that she had shared her secrets, her life with, since Barnes had died. He was the relationship that she refused to acknowledge, that she had refused to define, never wanted to define. And here he was, trying to define it.

“Aria – I care about you.” He continued, “In some respects, I probably love you – and I think that we would work well together, and…”

He was rambling. Aria desperately needed him to stop. She needed the silence. She needed to be able to think, to process, to breath in a space that was inhabited by someone else. She desperately needed to regain control, if not over her body than over the events that were happening in and around her. She needed to feel like she was leading her life, rather than her life leading her.

“…we could be happy together.”

“For a time.” She agreed with a sigh, already shaking her head.

“So then marry me, Aria. Allow yourself to be happy. You know that you would be – why can’t you just allow yourself that chance?”

“No, Howard.” She cut him off again, surprised by the anger in her tone. The steadiness with which she spoke. He stared back at her, and she could see the hurt beginning to reflect in his shoulders. The fight that was beginning to rise in the curve of his spine. But she could not bend to his wishes. She could not become what her father had fought so hard to protect her from – though, in service to a different man.

Aria’s voice did not waver, and she felt nothing other than relief as the word left her lips again. “No.”

***

Arnim Zola did not look surprised, when the heeled footsteps of Aria Davis wandered back into his laboratory in the early hours of that June morning. He’d only glanced up, sleep threatening in the creases of his eyes as he glanced over the form of his daughter. Searching for an answer that she would never allow to show on her person.

But Aria was tired. He did not need to be a spy to discern that from the shape of her body. He simply needed to be her father.

And when she opened her mouth to speak, a cold satisfaction washed over him.

“You were right.”

Notes:

CW - Pregnancy & Abortion

Chapter 49

Notes:

Please check the notes at the end of the chapter for specific content warnings - light spoilers apply.

June 5th, 1954: Evening

When Aria walked away from Howard’s proposal, she was struck with the very real realisation that she had nowhere to turn. For as much as she wanted to rest – as much as she wanted to lie in her bed with her eyes closed, pretending that sleep would come for her, she could not. Because Howard remained in her room, and that meant she could not return.

Her father, then, had been the obvious avenue. She was almost grateful, in a way, that Howard asked her in that moment. It had announced with startling clarity the direction through which her life should take. Gone was any speculation or debate within herself that she could be prepared – that she would be prepared to mother a child that she was not entirely sure that she wished to carry. She’d felt the burden of being an unwanted child. She’d felt the chiselling of a mould coming down upon her for her entire life. It was the last thing that she wanted for a child of her own – and a child of her own would know no peace whilst she existed within the confines of these halls.

The procedure had been startlingly efficient. Aria had felt no pain – only the sense of relief that came with the understanding the ordeal was over. Neither of them had spoken the truth aloud, and Aria suspected her father would be discrete enough with his notes, if he wrote any at all. He’d also provided for her proof of the other fear she’d come forth with: she was not aging. She would not age, and, as far as he could tell, she was to live an immortal existence.

Given all of the excitement of the week, Aria hadn’t begun to understand what that could mean. Eventually, she was sure that the idea of an immortal existence would eat away at her brain. It was almost cruel, in a way. She’d fought for so long to survive, to wake up every morning simply for the right of being able to take a breath. Aging was the one thing that she could never outrun – and in a way, she had made peace with the beauty of that. Sleep had been taken from her first, and though she hadn’t known it at the time, so too had her ability been lost to ever grow a grey hair. Never would she experience a wrinkle. She was a body in stasis, suspended in time.

A resounding sigh left her as she ran a hand through the strands of her hair. She couldn’t count on her hands how many times she’d found herself seeking the comfort of a steaming hot shower over the past few days. As though it would wash away her sins. As though anything could erase the damage that she’d done to this world.

Her hand closed around the tap, tightening until she felt the water cease dripping on her body. For a moment, she felt her forehead leaning, until it pressed against the cool tile. Eyes closed; she focused only on the way that she was breathing. She focused only on the way the air entered her lungs and filled them like a balloon. She held it there, and she released, reminding herself that she was still present.

Until she heard breathing in the room that wasn’t her own.

Her eyes flickered open. In the reflection of water pooling at her feet, Aria could see that the figure approaching her, thankfully, was not Stark. Turning around, Aria frowned at the sight of the woman in her room.

“Three days without visiting his room.” Peggy mused, leaning against the doorframe. Unlike Steve, Aria noted that she hadn’t bothered to avert her gaze. Aria too, made no attempt to cover herself. Peggy had wandered in the room knowing well Aria was likely disrobed – she could deal with any discomfort that came from viewing her in such a state. Aria refused to be ashamed by that.

She also wouldn’t yet rise to Peggy’s unspoken question. The Director of SHIELD would have to work harder than that. Even if she’d only come because no one else would.

“I’m impressed,” she continued, when that had become clear, “but of course, your partner is beside himself with worry.” A smirk played on the corner of her lips. “Should I tell Howard to expect you soon?”

“I’m having a shower.” Aria replied flatly, unamused. She hoped that Peggy hadn’t noted the way that her spine stiffened at the mere mention of his name. If she had, Aria hoped that the woman before her hadn’t mistaken the movement for arousal.

“You’ve had your shower.” Peggy corrected her, stepping back into the bedroom as though she hadn’t just trespassed. Aria watched her as she settled against the mattress, perching elegantly and pointedly waiting for the woman in the bathroom to dress.

Unamused, Aria’s lips twitched as she stalked through the open doorway to join her. Too proud to concede what she believed to be her superior standing, Aria found herself curling into the mattress unclothed, her knees up against her chest. Everything within this room was already a grand performance. A bed that would forever remain unslept in, a diary which could never be filled with her thoughts. Her nudity joined the spectacle, a purposeful rejection of a boundary Peggy had likely hoped to set.

Finally settling, through eyelashes Aria took the time to peer at the Director of SHIELD.

How long, since Aria had taken the time to notice the fine features of Margaret Carter? How long, since Aria had bothered to sit alongside her, and converse with her in anything other than a professional manner? Aria didn’t know how to call anyone friends – she thought that perhaps, she’d made some during the war. But friends were able to share secrets, and tales, and they were able to do it without hesitation, or fear. Aria had never experienced that. She’d never known what it was like for others, to share without worry that their secrets would return in heinous fashion, to know that their souls wouldn’t be bared on trial before the masses.

Speaking to Peggy now, felt akin to being skinned. Every layer of defence was bubbling away from her, like sand trickling down an hourglass. And with every wrinkle that she began to notice pressed into the forehead of her chosen leader of SHIELD, Aria could feel her defences fraying despite her attempt to wrap them tight against her body.

“Aria, you and Howard, I…”

“Have you ever heard the tale of the Kolobok?”

Somewhere, since sitting on the bed, since staring at Peggy, Aria’s indignation had risen. She hadn’t noticed – it had coiled within her like a viper, but with the sound of Peggy’s voice, it had erupted. She could feel her fingers begging to flex by her sides, pleading with her to move to expel some of the energy that suddenly seemed to thrum and spill from the edges of her control. But Aria did not allow it to move. She allowed herself nothing beyond the focus of the brown-haired woman sitting before her with her brow furrowed in confusion. She would not allow herself to be interrogated.

“You don’t need to speak in fables, Aria. You chose me for this role because you trusted me.” The woman finally returned. Aria could hear the hurt in her voice. She felt that hurt slice across her heart, and she felt herself squash it down until it was barely a speck in her mind. Lingering on her hurt would only bring her further harm.

Ignoring Peggy, she continued, “It’s Russian – but I suspect you know that. Something I learnt of in the Red Room. A tale to soothe the little ones to sleep at night.”

“Aria…” Peggy warned, but Aria refused to be silenced. She felt herself leaning forward, closer to Peggy, as she continued.

“There was an old couple, you see. A lovely wife, who wanted to bake for her husband, so she baked him a small bun – a kolobok. She barely had enough flour for the pastry, and as with all the best laid plans, the pastry did not long remain in the kitchen. Instead, it rolled into the forest, you see, where it was met by a bear, a wolf, and a rabbit. All of these animals, it managed to outwit. All of these animals fell victim to its sweet song, disguising its escape amongst the leaves. Until it met the fox.”

Peggy remained quiet, staring. Aria felt her eyes close tight. She could almost picture the story in her mind – the vividness of the forest; the desperation of the pastry to survive, the frustration and curiosity of those desperate to benefit from the misfortune of its daring kitchen escape. She could almost smell the scent of freshly fallen rain; she could relish the feeling of the dappled sunlight against her skin. It would be lush, and green, and fresh – but teeming with danger lurking just beyond the greenery.

“The fox was smart, you see. It listened to the kolobok’s song, for a time. Until the kolobok was asked to sing upon its nose. The fox did not allow the kolobok to live long after that. The song of deception died with him.”

Silence encased the room. For a moment, the two women did nothing other than breath in their shared space. Watching each other, waiting for the smallest hint of a crack, or concession. Of an emotional thread that they could grasp at, cling to, to remind themselves that they were not alone in a system that had never been built for them to manoeuvre and control.

It was Peggy who would concede to Aria’s will. “You are the pastry. Howard is the fox?”

Aria was grateful she was trying to understand. But it was enough, and it was too much, all at once. She was almost feverish when she spoke again, desperate for Peggy to not understand – but for something she couldn’t describe. Desperate for some, release, a catharsis. Anything.

“This, is the fox.” Aria answered, gesturing around her room. “This building. This facility. This program. Me.”

“You made SHIELD.” Peggy reminded her.

“I know.” Aria conceded, and she felt herself lean back in turn. “I know I did. And it was what I needed at the time.”

Peggy hummed her agreement, watching as Aria rose from the bed. Gooseflesh peppered her arm as she reached towards her gown, tugging it across her shoulders before a shiver could wrack her body. With her back turned to Peggy, she shook her head once. Droplets of water spilled free from her still wet hair, but Aria did not focus on them.

“I could not say yes to Howard. I do not want to marry him.”

And she didn’t. She had thought that she had been utterly clear with the technological billionaire that she had no desire for a relationship. That he was important to her, yes. But also, that she could never fulfill the role that he desperately wished for her to have. She would not be owned by him – and she was under no illusion that a life with him would be anything other than a glorified housewife.

“He loves you.” Peggy responded, as though it answered everything.

Aria didn’t know what to reply. She didn’t have the words, nor the patience to unravel how that statement made her feel. Instead, she only settled back down on the bed, close enough to Peggy that she could lay her head on her shoulder. The choice she’d made with her father had been her choice – and it would become her secret to hold and to keep. What had spurred her violent reaction, Peggy would never know. But it did not mean that Aria could not acknowledge her words for what they were.

Sighing, Aria murmured, “I know, dorogoya. I know he does. But he loves the idea of owning me more.”

Peggy did not reply with words. But Aria felt her acceptance of the truth when her head came to rest against her own, sharing in perhaps the only comfort they knew how to provide one another. A language that they could share that did not involve deceptive words, or twisted fairytales. The language of touch, or presence, of being there for someone when they were desperately needed. Peggy, despite everything, had never once allowed Aria to drift into the abyss alone. Aria admired that about her.

“What will you do?” The quiet question came later, after the foreboding silence had settled into something other. Something Aria could feel embracing her.

“Go hunting.” Aria answered immediately. Steady. “Dottie Underwood – I think you know her. She works for the Red Room; again. I want to find her, and through her, find the Red Room. And…” She hesitated over the next words, almost chewing on her lip as she debated her tone and phrasing. “… I need to do it without SHIELD.”

Silence again enveloped the room. Aria ran her hands against the ribbed grain of her dressing gown, relishing the feeling of her fingertips against the strange material. She used it to ground herself against the moment; rather than fall into her melancholy.

“And when you find what you’re looking for?”

Aria moved then, somewhat startled. Peggy was almost breathless in her tone, a wavering quality to her voice. A concession, a fear held deep against her. But she was not fighting Aria on this fact anymore. She was not questioning Aria on what she felt she needed to do. She was slackening the noose. She was letting her go.

So, Aria made her a promise too, as plainly as she could speak. “Then, I’ll come home.”

Notes:

CW - Pregnancy & Abortion

Next chapter... the return of someone... :)

Chapter 50

Notes:

apologies for the long authors note at the end here - apparently i have quite a bit to say!

March 10th, 1957: Afternoon

It had been a few years since Betty had walked the halls of Camp Lehigh.

The choice to leave SHIELD had not come easy to her. The ability to leave, too, had almost been snatched away. Her work here felt unfinished, and she knew when she stepped out those doors, that she was leaving a part of herself behind here. But it had been time to move on, and her decision had well been respected by Carter, who merely wished her well.

It had been harder to say goodbye to Aria. Even if the girl had known, logically, that this was the best move for Betty, she knew that Aria would always have a voice in her mind suggesting that it was because of her. That everyone she cared about would leave her forever.

These white tiled halls were memories of a happy time – but a darker time in her life, too. Her work here had been important, in some respects, Betty knew that. But sometimes, it was difficult to marry the horrors with the silver lining they would bring. It hadn’t been the only reason she’d made the decision to leave, but it had certainly been a contributing factor. Anything to protect her peace. Aria had taught her that.

Betty grasped at the cold metal handle that led her into the meeting room. No one glanced in her direction as she stepped through the door, though she was momentarily startled by the dim light. Inside, she had to wait a moment for her eyes to adjust to the low light before she could make out the objects of the room. A simple, round table sat in the centre of the room, a projector sitting atop, pointed at a screen. She noted with some interest that the paused footage featured a year, 1951. She couldn’t place that year. She couldn’t place the missions that Aria had undertaken, couldn’t remember cleaning any of her scrapes and bruises.

A small cough distracted her. She broke her contact with the screen to instead focus on the other individuals in the room. Howard and Peggy looked at her expectantly, the latter gesturing once to the remaining seat available.

Betty heard every clack of her heel as she crossed the ground to settle into her seat. Nerves jumped into her throat as she felt the leather chair pressing into uncovered areas of her skin. She knew she was not the same wide-eyed girl who’d joined the army in search of something greater, but beneath the thumb of these giants, she was suddenly reminded how small and insignificant she truly was.

“Thank you for coming.” Peggy began, a false smile upon her teeth.

Betty mirrored the smile. “Pleasure.” She replied tightly.

“Mustn’t be easy to come back after so long.” Howard mused absently, twirling a pen between his index finger and thumb. “Will you be stopping in, to say hello to anyone?”

He was testing her. Betty narrowed her eyes, shoulders stiffening against her body. “No one is meant to know that I’m here.”

“Quite.” Howard agreed, and he returned to looking at his notes, distinctly bored. Betty wondered why Aria had put up with him for so long. Perhaps he had become a bigger ass in her absence. He didn’t look up as he addressed Carter, remarking, “I still believe we should have asked Jones’ wife.”

“Then why did you ask for me specifically?” Betty shot back at the billionaire, nose twitching in annoyance. “And Alma has a name, you ass.” She was beginning to remember why she had left in the first place.

“Alma still works for SHIELD in an official capacity.” Peggy interceded, throwing a glare in Howard’s direction before his lack of tact could get him into trouble. “You don’t.”

Betty flinched and crossed her arms over her chest. Defensively, she replied, “I left SHIELD. It was what I needed at the time.”

She didn’t quite understand the understanding reflecting in the Directors eyes, but given that no questions came forth, she elected not to question it further. Instead, she watched as Peggy leaned back into the chair, dismissive and contemplative. Howard seemed to glance between them repeatedly, waiting for someone to speak.

Betty wasn’t a spy by any means. Aria had been clear too, when she asked her to join SHIELD, that she would never have to be. But being involved in intelligence, being friends with a spy – as much as Aria allowed for friends, it meant that Betty had learned a thing or two about reading people. Peggy was a spy herself, so Betty couldn’t entirely read the guarded emotions across her face, but she could read Howard. The way his eyes were darting, the way that his fingers were tapping impatiently against the table, the way that he was leaning back on his chair… He was nervous about something. This was not a conversation that he was looking forward to. His abruptness, his rudeness towards her was not grounded in his inherent dislike – though Aria suspected it formed part of his worldview. He was desperately trying to hide something. To delay it – to never see it be spoken of.

Aria had taught her a lot of things, Betty was coming to realise as she sat at this black table. Whether or not she knew it, she’d individually trained her for every conversation at SHIELD, now or in the future. She’d taught her how to control the conversation, to get what she wanted. Betty knew her movements looked mechanical, but it didn’t stop her from leaning forward on the table, hands clasped in front of her. “What was so important that it had to be me, then?”

Peggy sighed deeply. “Because you don’t work for SHIELD anymore. Because you want what’s best for Aria. That’s two things that we,” she gestured between herself and Howard, “may not be unbiased by.”

Betty held her gaze for a moment, debating. She rolled her shoulders against her body, uncomfortable with the tension that seemed to be building in the room. She’d never expected a friendly visit – visiting SHIELD was scarcely an enjoyable process, even whilst she worked for them. But this hadn’t been the welcome that she was prepared for.

Somehow, it always came back to Aria. To that unassuming pin-up beauty that had captured the attention of the entire 107th all the way back in World War II. Did Aria know how much she haunted the narrative of these walls? Or was she too caught up in her own head? Betty suspected the latter.

“What’s the footage then?” She asked, jerking her head towards the projection. Peggy inclined her head towards it, and for a moment, Betty watched the way that her features were momentarily encased by the black and white glow of the tape.

The date reflected against her forehead, like the light from a snipers target, before she moved out of its sheen.

“We’ll get to that.” Peggy said. “For now – what do you remember of Alice Johnson?”

“The nurse in our unit?” Betty frowned, eyes twitching. “Not much – I know she wasn’t offered a job here. I know that was likely Aria’s call, but I haven’t thought about her in years.”

“Well, she’s thought of Aria.” Howard sighed, closing the pages of his notebook suddenly. “Peggy, why are we even entertaining this conversation? We know what the right thing to do is here.”

Peggy ignored his interruption, a grimace on her face as she continued. “Aria was sick.”

“And then she got better.” Betty replied. “That was before 1951.”

“Carter, I really think…”

Peggy interrupted Howard once more. “All you need to know, Betty, is that Alice leaked confidential United States intelligence to Aria in the weeks prior to Aria’s diagnosis. Aria, as a result of her illness, has forgotten – but SHIELD investigated. And…”

“And you want to know whether or not you should tell Aria she forgot the information?” Betty wondered, tilting her head to the side. She couldn’t imagine that the information Alice had provided would have had much to do with the former Russian super-spy. Aria had been relatively clear towards her dislike of the institution; Betty could remember the bloodied, tattered remnants of the flag that had once been stitched to the inside of her suit.

“No. We followed the lead, profiled the individuals involved. To our knowledge, only a single man ever survived the trial; and given he was a member of the United States military, we did not see fit to intervene in their own testing.”

Betty frowned. “Aria would have hated that.” She rolled her shoulders. “Is that why you’ve called me here? To ask if you made the right decision all those years ago, before you tell her?” She didn’t think she was entirely equipped to offer any moral judgments.

Peggy sighed. “Watch the footage, Betty.”

Betty held her gaze for a moment, before she turned her attention back to the projector screen. For a long moment, the footage held on the date – no longer stagnant but blinking in the dim light. In her peripheral vision, she saw Howard’s fingers curl in annoyance as he reached forth to play the clip, crossing his arms over his chest as the vision finally rolled onto the screen.

It was blurry and dark. Colourless, it was difficult for Betty to make out what she was seeing. It was a great effort for her mind to begin to fill the blanks, to understand what was being shown to her. The first thing she was able to make out was a beer bottle, resting against the table. Slowly, the room began to fill out – a barstool, once obscured by the abyss, materialised into place. People too, and their gentle movements, came to life within the room, laughing in the joyous atmosphere.

Betty almost startled when she spotted a familiar figure by the doorway, exiting. “That’s Aria!” She exclaimed, looking away from the footage, towards Howard and Peggy for confirmation.

Peggy inclined her head once in agreement. “It is.”

Betty glanced at the woman in the footage again, eyes narrowed. She watched Aria linger by the doorway for a moment, eyes catching on something deeper into the bar. She was not dressed as she would at SHIELD, and somehow, she was something more than she had ever been within the army. If Betty did not know her intimately, if Betty had not seen the cogs, the workings of her, she would not have recognised her. The girl in the image was an illusion, a perfectly established trick, sculpted with care and perfection. She was a fabrication and a lie, and she blended so well into the atmosphere of the bar that for a moment, Betty wondered if they had all been mistaken in identifying her.

“She doesn’t look real.” She hadn’t meant to speak aloud, but she meant the words all the same.

Silence greeted her words. They did not speak again – not as the man entrapped in Aria’s false affections returned to her side, and Betty watched her eyes gleaming as he held the door for her. She was not subtle in the way that she swayed her hips from side to side upon exit, hair flowing behind her in a trail before she disappeared from the sight of the camera.

Then, there was nothing but the bar that remained. An ordinary bar – clearly not American, but typical, nevertheless.

“Did I miss it?” She wondered aloud.

“During the Korean War, we sent Aria to Goyang to investigate the possible sale of classified intelligence documents from Stark Industries. What you’ve just watched, is Aria’s exit from the bar where she found, and neutralised, the man responsible for the leak.”

Betty tilted her head to the side, fixing her twinkling eyes upon the Director of SHIELD. “I do not follow,” she warned as the lively bar continued to bustle in the moving image behind Peggy’s head.

There was nothing in the video that would suggest anything other than a perfect mark by Aria. Nothing to suggest that she was instead responsible for a heinous crime, nothing to suggest that SHIELD was in fact investigating this woman for any misconduct, or wrongdoing.

“It’s not what happened with Aria that concerns us.” Peggy shook her head. “It’s what comes after.”

Betty glanced up again. For the first time, emerging from the shadows, she could see the shape of a man beginning to form. He seemed to peer up towards the camera, noticing it first before the other men in the room, and Betty found that she wasn’t surprised when he chose to make his way towards it, both curiously, and with the mark of a man that was forming a plan in his mind. But as he drew closer towards it, as he began to materialise, Betty could almost feel the way that her heart was beginning to stutter in her chest. Especially as the shape of his face morphed into one that she recognised well.

“But that’s impossible…” Betty breathed, rising as the image became clearer on the screen. The closer the man in the image came to the camera, the closer Betty in turn walked towards the projection, as though she could reach out and touch him herself. At some point, Margaret Carter paused the frame, but it didn’t stop Betty from staring at the still-life reflected there.

His hair was longer now, than it had been during the war. He was looking older – not much, but he certainly was not the idealised American soldier that he had been. And there was a muscle to him now, that he hadn’t grown throughout the times with his beloved Howling Commandos, or in scrappy fights with his love.

But that was James Buchanan Barnes. Down to the crinkles in his eyes, and the sharpness of his jaw.

“We suspect he’s been… brainwashed, for lack of a better term. Something far more permanent than the suggestive schooling Aria underwent as a child. We’ve been calling him ‘The Winter Soldier,’ because, well, Phillips suggested it in the weeks prior to his death.”

“You’ve known about this for three years?”

“Yes.”

Betty turned her head back to Peggy sharply. “And you haven’t told her.” The accusation grated against her tone.

Now, the Director of SHIELD winced. “No.”

Betty had half a mind to slap her. She’d tried to slap Aria once. At the last second then, she’d hesitated and grabbed her wrist – and by the panic in Aria’s eyes, she was almost glad she’d decided to do so. She did not want to imagine what Aria could be capable of when she felt threatened by another.

“And we don’t know if we should.” Howard added, if only to remind Betty that he was in the room.

“Why ever not?”

“Because if it isn’t him?” Peggy challenged, gesturing to the footage. “James Barnes fell from a high-speed train travelling within the Swiss Alps; some of the harshest terrain in the world. He would have to be superhuman to survive the fall, and…”

“And Zola experimented on Bucky.” Betty interjected. “What if it worked? What if it worked and we just never realised?”

“Aria would have known.” Peggy insisted. “She loved that man more than anything else,” Betty didn’t miss the way that Howard flinched and looked away, “but she was not blind to him.”

“Just enough to survive then. A chance – it’s not completely preposterous, Peggy.”

“So, we give her false hope, and we send her hunting ghost stories?” Howard snickered, rolling his eyes. “Leave the man to his rest, Betty.” His tone was heartless, Betty realised. But for all of the emotional withdrawal he could have only learnt from Aria; he never quite learned how to lie as she had.

She rounded on Howard then, a scathing sneer across her face that her friend would have been proud of. “You were warned years ago that she would never love you the same way that she loved,” Betty turned to point at the screen, “that man. You were warned, and your pursued her anyway.”

“You learned that from a man who you no longer speak with.” Howard countered, but Betty wasn’t done.

“She ran away, when you proposed to her!” Indignation was rising with every breath.

To think that she’d once idolised the man in front of her! That had been before she knew him as she did now.

“Yes, and you have experience with that too, don’t you? Leaving poor Dugan…”

“Their relationship isn’t up for discussion, Howard.” Betty didn’t know when Peggy had stood, but the woman made her intentions clear as she moved between the two of them. Blocked by Peggy’s figure, Betty had no choice but to lose sight of the errant billionaire, instead forcing herself to meet Peggy evenly. She studied the expression across her face, noted the fine lines that were etching themselves onto her skin. Noted the grey that was beginning to mottle within the shades of brown, much the same as Howard.

“You have to tell her.” Betty insisted, almost pleading.

For the first time since she had walked into the room, Betty was reminded that above all else, Agent Carter was human. It was reflected in the way that she now chewed on her lip and glanced between Betty and the screen. Almost lost within the image, she was shaking her head before she could reply. “I’m sorry, Betty. This was a mistake. I bought you here, and now you too, must hold such a large secret from her.” Turning to Howard, there was almost an apology on her face as she viewed the billionaire. “It will kill her – and it will kill him, too. She can’t know.”

“She’s a spy. And she's good at it too. They will find each other again.”

“And we can cross that problem when we come to it. But you cannot tell her, Betty.”

“Then why did you bring me here?” She pleaded again, the same question that she’d begged Peggy to answer the moment that she’d walked through that bifold door. Scarcely tens of minutes ago, the round table she’d sat at seemed intimidating; a fake show of equality when she knew who truly held the power in the room. Now it felt scarred and scratched under the weight she’d heaved upon it. The emotional burden it had toiled through.

“I needed to know that I was sure.”

Betty took a single, calming breath. She glanced between the two members of SHIELD, the remaining founders of SHIELD whom had not died, or run from the building in terror. She hoped that every ounce of disgust and horror was impressed upon her face, she hoped that they felt the weight of every emotion she could throw at them in their bones. She hoped that they quaked with the force of it. She hoped that they would toss and turn at night, wondering if it was right to hold such information over Aria’s head. She found that she did not have anything more to say to them. She had left SHIELD because she had refused to play a role in the games of the organisation, and she had refused to tie herself down against a man – much like, she suspected, Aria had in refusing Howard.

She’d made it to the threshold of the door when a sudden thought struck her. It was not practiced cruelty that Betty wore, when she turned around. It was ugly and born of spiteful hatred – but it was learnt. And she had learnt from the greatest there was.

“I hope Steve is proud of you, Peggy.” She murmured quietly.

Peggy’s sharp inhale was the only sound that echoed in the room. That, and the scraping of Howard’s chair as he moved from the very force of the words. She knew if she lingered, more words would be exchanged. Debates would be held, pleas would be made, and Betty would fall back into the lyrical maze they’d once ordered her to run.

But then the bifold doors closed, and Betty left SHIELD forever.

Notes:

watching ‘what if’, there is one very brief scene in s2e02 (what if peter quill attacked earth’s mightiest heroes?) there is a small scene where it’s implied that peggy and howard had heard rumours regarding the winter soldier’s supposed identity but never apparently looked into the notion deeply. it’s a fairly small, mostly innocuous scene, but it honestly inspired this entire chapter.

“i’d heard the rumours, but even if they’re true, the man we knew is long gone, peg.” (howard)

howard and aria are clearly toxic for one another in ways that i don’t think either of them entirely broach just yet. but, the complicated kaleidoscope from which aria views him still places him upon a pedestal in her mind, in a way. originally, i planned for this scene to contain no one other that peggy and howard; but bringing back betty, even for a relatively short time, helps to offer another perspective surrounding what howard and aria are doing to one another. and, it offers peggy the chance for deeper internal conflict - the knowledge that an intelligence agency rests upon her shoulders (bestowed upon her by aria), and the fact that withholding this knowledge actively hurts her.

it also gives aria the chance to haunt the narrative in a way; and confirms for us that one of aria’s deepest fears remains true to this day: she is still not entirely in control of her actions, because she doesn’t have all available information.

all of this to say, howard and peggy make the conscious choice to lie to aria here - likely saving themselves from the attention of hydra early (remember, still the 1950’s) but also, condemning their lover/friend to remaining caught in the unknown.

-

but besides this; i do want to take a second to genuinely thank everyone who’s taken the time to read this little (well, not so little anymore) story. this girl has been in my head for the past ten years, but it’s taken a long time to find the courage to write her into something tangible. (seriously; the last fanfiction i wrote out was when i was twelve; called my sister, about louis tomlinson on quotev. what a time!).

reaching 50 chapters is something i have wanted but haven’t quite believed that i could do until it has happened. so, again, thank you.

Chapter 51

April 3rd, 1957: Night

For a further three years, Aria Davis hunted Dottie Underwood.

Chasing her, akin to a game of cat and mouse, had taken Aria across the globe. For three years, Dottie had managed to allude her. Whether it was unfortunate timing, or Aria’s hesitancy to allow others to become harmed in pursuit of her goal, Dottie was too difficult to pin down for long stretches of time.

Aria found that it didn’t bother her. The time away from SHIELD allowed her to gather her thoughts, which had been spiralling well before Howard had ever suggested they marry one another. She had promised Peggy that she would return to the United States when she was finished, and that remained true. But she had not given her a time frame on how long it would take to find Dottie, and if she was being honest, she hadn’t been particularly harsh on herself for failing to find her quickly. She needed this time away, away from SHIELD, away from her father, away from Peggy – but most importantly, away from Howard.

She needed the chance to discover what it meant to be Aria Davis, the immortal, without the influence of those who loved her. They would want the best, she knew that. But only she could decide her fate.

She supposed it was fitting, then, that chasing Dottie Underwood had led her back to the place that her life had begun. Not the Red Room, not Russia, and certainly not the place that she had been born. Germany had been her first home, her first taste of blood and death and ruin. She’d learned how to seduce and slay in the same breath, walking the cobbled streets of every town in Munich. But it was Munich now, where she found Dottie Underwood. Nor was it Berlin, or even Hamburg or Frankfurt. It was instead, a small island located in East Germany, where the only land pathway was a single motorway Aria had surveyed the area with the very same technology Stark had insisted that she employ during the Korean War.

Dottie Underwood was crafty. She hadn’t been named the Black Widow of the Red Room for her looks alone. But Aria knew she was better – and she had ensured that there would be no easy avenue of escape for Dottie. She had her now. Dottie Underwood wouldn’t be able to leave until Aria learned the truth.

It was already dark, when Dottie Underwood entered the atmospheric Lotus Restaurant in the centre of the island town. Aria, from her apartment perched across the street, didn’t need binoculars to make her out. There was a certain stance, worn only by girls who had experienced the Red Room. Aria couldn’t describe it, but she knew it was something that Peggy had recognised within her. Perhaps it was through their rigorous ballet training, the way that they learned that their spines could never be slackened, or that their guard could never come down.

It was a pity then, that Dottie Underwood had agreed to this meeting. For when Aria entered the building only ten minutes later, and Dottie Underwood met her gaze evenly, the brown-haired Black Widow knew that the suave businessman she’d expected was not coming. Aria could see the moment that recognition dawned in her eyes, the moment that latent fear managed to creep into her body language. It was brutally trained by Madame B, that they were not to react to situations where fear could overrun them, that they were to hide their emotions – that they were to feel nothing at all. But fear was human, and the Red Room had not quite yet learned how to erase that humanity. The makeup on her face that hid the wrinkles of age could not possibly hope to hide that from Aria.

Dottie was likely watching her, too. Right about now, Aria suspected that she was studying her reactions. Was she seeing surprise? Was Dottie herself surprised? Aria knew she looked almost identical to the day she’d left the Red Room, back when Dottie was only sixteen. Time had not provided for Aria a single wrinkle, or a grey hair. She had learned to live with her own immortality over these last three years, though it had taken time. Leaving her targets off guard had been an unexpected bonus to the overwhelming knowledge that she would never take her last breath. It must have been disconcerting; to look upon a face you knew was years younger than yours – and still see the beauty of youth reflected plainly. Especially when Dottie was beginning to show signs of age herself.

Though the room was filled with the sound of laughter, and the gentle clanging of metal utensils against ceramic plates, Aria felt the noise fade into silence as she came closer and closer to her table. The two assassins wore matching serpentine smiles as they greeted one another, Aria settling into the table and crossing her knees over her body as she sank into the seat.

“So good to see you, Miss Underwood.” She purred in practiced German as she produced a bottle of wine from the inner sleeve of her coat.

Dottie didn’t speak as Aria uncorked the bottle and poured a glass for each of them. She gently pushed the waiting glass towards Underwood, but she was scarcely surprised when the Widow didn’t bother to bring it to her lips. Poison had of course, been one of the first lessons they’d learnt within the halls of the Red Room – how to use it, and how it could be used against you.

It was a shame though, she mused as she sipped from her own glass of merlot, it really was good wine.

“The years have been kind to you, Dottie.” Aria continued, complimenting her as the glass of wine settled back against the table, the sloshing eventually coming to rest. “You look just as beautiful as the day I left.”

Dottie snorted, and Aria watched with curiosity as she lifted the glass – not of wine, but of water, to her lips. “Cut the shit, Isla. I look older. You don’t.” Dottie’s German was just as practiced, but she’d never had the benefit of living within the country. She didn’t have the same grunt, the same vigour that the people spoke with. Dottie didn’t know this country like she did.

Aria smiled toothily, flipping her hair over her shoulder as she spoke. “I’m glad you’ve noticed.”

A waiter glanced in their direction curiously. A slight shake of Aria’s head was all it took for the young boy to scuttle in the other direction, tail between his legs. He would return soon enough, or someone else would arrive to take their order. Aria suspected that the pair would be long gone, however, before they made it to the table. They were not long for this building.

Dottie’s nose twitched as the silence stretched between them. With her arms crossed over the chest, she asked Aria; “So, are you here to simply kill me? You had to have known I’d never drink that glass of wine. That was too…”

“What of the glass of water you just drank?” Aria interrupted, jerking her head towards the cup. She watched Dottie uncross her arms and lean forward; likely in surprise. Trying to get closer to the conversation when in truth, it was likely she wanted nothing more than to turn tail and run. “Simply because I didn’t pour the glass does not mean that it wasn’t laced, Dottie. Surely you know that by now.”

“What of the wine glass you sipped from?” Dottie questioned in return; eyebrows raised as she swirled the glass of merlot thoughtfully. She chuckled as she added, “You don’t think I didn’t have a plot of my own?”

“What, the scopolamine?” Aria snickered in return, rolling her eyes. “Please, Miss Underwood. The benzodiazepines I needed to combat that were in my wine.”

Aria watched the girl before her pause for a moment. She witnessed the way that the saliva in her throat gathered and swallowed as she processed her words. She relished too, at the fury in Dottie Underwood’s eyes, when she lifted the glass of red merlot to her lips once again, and took one nice, long sip. Unbothered, and entirely in control, Aria finished the glass of wine before she placed it back on the table, licking the corners of her hips to remove the stain from the sides.

Dottie Underwood leaned back against her chair, and Aria knew, that in a small way, she had won.

“Not what you were expecting?” She questioned, a smirk playing across her lips.

“You, Miss Romanov, are neither male, nor a businessman.” Dottie rolled her eyes. “You’ve been chasing me for a few years. I knew that sooner or later, you’d catch up to me. It’s always time, that makes it easier to forget the village that raised you. But I don’t have what you’re looking for, Isla. None of us do.”

Aria shrugged her shoulders, through her mouth twitched as Dottie called her Isla once more. She was no longer used to hearing the name in reference to herself. Patiently, she quipped; “You still work for the Red Room, that makes you exponentially more equipped to answer my questions than anyone at SHIELD.”

“I may still work for the Red Room,” Dottie agreed, “but he doesn’t. He’s a ghost, much like you.”

He. Aria forced her body to remain still, even as confused raced through her body. For all of her planning, everything she knew, there was nothing in her recent memory that she could recall that would lead to such a statement. In fact, the only man that Aria could recall of any importance from the Red Room had been their cruel ballet instructor, but Aria had dealt with him years ago. Back before she’d even realised that she couldn’t age.

“He? Dottie, Nikolai is dead. I killed him years ago.”

Aria felt the tension in the room shift immediately at her confusion. She saw the way that her eyes begun to sparkle, as she leaned forth in her chair. Her brown hair bounced in tune with the movement, and Aria knew that in this moment, the ticking threat of the poison invading her body had long been forgotten. Her own heart rate began to quicken in panic.

And then the woman in front of her started to laugh. It started small, a little chortle, but Aria watched with growing tension as it escalated into a bellowing laugh. Tears of laughter began to pearl in her eyes, and Aria couldn’t help but glance around the restaurant as others within the room began to notice. Her back began to tingle uncomfortably, spiders crawling up and down her spine. When the manager of the building began to look in their direction, Aria knew they had a matter of moments before they were once again accosted.

“Dorothy!” Aria hissed, feeling her hands creeping ever closer to the bread knife resting against the table. Her toes curled in her heels, as every muscle of her body began to prepare itself for a fight.

But Dottie surprised her, when through her tears of laughter, she reached for the glass of water once more, and too, drank until she’d polished the glass. Levelling her eyes upon Aria, the red head suddenly knew that she was no longer the woman in charge of the conversation. As swiftly as she had held the threat of death above Dottie’s head, superiority had been pulled from beneath her. In its wake, was the simple truth of knowledge – knowledge that Aria did not have, that Dottie possessed.

“All this time,” Dottie breathed, “I thought you were chasing me for him. For knowledge I did not have. I knew you’d find me, I knew you’d kill me – but this? My death will be for nothing, Isla.”

Aria shook her head, resisting the urge to surge across the table and snatch at the older woman’s arms. It would do nothing beyond antagonise her, even if Aria wanted nothing more than to beat her into some form of submission.

“You don’t have to die.” She warned the woman instead. “I have the cure; I can give it to you – if you tell me.”

“You think the cure saves my life?” Dottie rolled her eyes. “Naivnaya devushka. You would merely be prolonging my suffering.”

“Naïve?” Aria grumbled. “You talk as if you have no choice, dorogoya. I got out – you can, too.”

“Did you?”

Neither assassin blinked. Silence encased their words, even though the restaurant continued in their revelry. Prying eyes that had once glanced in their direction with such curiosity and accusation now seemed to forget about their presence all together, lost in their meaningless conversations about their lives, their jobs, their love and their happiness. They did not pay any mind to the two, highly trained individuals exchanging barbs over a table that would never serve them dinner. They did not know that by the end of the night, only one of the women seated would be alive.

To compare SHIELD to the Red Room – it had Aria sharply intaking her breath. Three years she had spent away, three years, she had debated that very person. When she created SHIELD, was she merely exchanging one overlord for another, in Peggy? To say she hadn’t thought about it would be a lie. To say, however, that she thought it the truth, would be incorrect. For the Red Room served only themselves, and the greed that the cultivated. Peggy, whether or not Aria agreed with her methods, always wanted to do what she thought was best for the world. It was why she was chosen, and it was why Aria continued to trust in her.

They would get nowhere sitting in this restaurant. It was too crowded, too exposed. It was not the place to share secrets between old training rivals. It was not the place that Dottie Underwood deserved to die.

“Let us walk, Miss Underwood.” Aria suggested, rising from the table. Without taking her eyes from Dottie, she began to take measured steps towards the door of the restaurant, pausing only once to collect the coat that she knew belonged to the Black Widow across from her. “We can talk in the fresh air. Clear our minds – perhaps gain a different perspective.”

Only once she was by the door, did Aria Davis turn her back on Dottie Underwood. She heard the clicking of her heels against the cobbled ground, as she turned down the alleyway close by. The only hint as to her path remained the coat of the other woman, discarded at the entrance to the walkway. Rather than announce her presence, Aria secluded herself in the shadows and readied herself with mantras. When Dottie Underwood turned the corner to follow her into the dark, however, Aria realised that there was no fight to be had.

“I suspect the poison will be painful?” The Russian woman called into the darkness. Aria knew that she could not yet make out the shape of her in the shadows. She was calling into the void, hoping that in return a shadow would answer back.

“Quite.” Aria agreed quietly, allowing her voice to carry on the wind. She hadn’t much considered the experience of Dottie when selecting her poison – only the length of time that she required for the interrogation to be completed.

Dottie continued to walk deeper into the alleyway. “And if I tell you what I know,” she heard the brown-haired woman’s voice shaking, “will you make it quick? Painless?”

Aria blinked for a minute. She analysed the words over in her mind, more times than she could comprehend in the span of a second. But there was nothing in those words that hinted to a betrayal. There was only a careful sort of begging, a desperation for the end that Aria had not come to expect. Peggy had told her this woman was formidable. This was the woman who had once slept with Howard. This was the woman who Peggy had struggled to pin down. This was the woman who had been chosen to become the Black Widow of the Red Room, and here she was, begging for the opportunity for Aria to kill her.

“You could kill yourself at any time. Why me – why now?”

Dottie’s footsteps stopped, just behind the only illuminated patch of moonlight in the alleyway. “Pride, I suppose. I’ve tried to do it – but the survival reflex we have… I couldn’t. I’m asking you for a favour.”

“And in return?”

She heard the moment that Dottie crouched before the jacket, discarded on the ground. She heard her rustling inside the pockets, searching, until her hands seized on something that jangled against one another like chains. She listened as the fabric of the jacket moved against the will of Dottie’s hand, until she heard the item spring free from its hold. It was not a gun that Dottie was holding. The sound alone had told her as much, and the nervous breaths coming from Underwood led Aria to believe that she was scared of something. But not her.

Curiosity overcame her. Again, her heels crackled against the cobblestone. But they silenced upon the sight of Dottie’s hands. Wrapped around them, dangling, Aria peered forth at the necklace. As her eyes drifted lower, to the apex, she stopped breathing all together.

Sweat began to bead at her forehead, as hundreds of thoughts raced to the forefront of her mind. She could almost see Steve, picture him the moment that he had arrived, to tell her what she feared the most had become her reality. But there was no sound that came forth as she stared at the dog tags being held by the Black Widow. In her mind, came only the sound of howling wind, and the feeling of being battered against a beaten shore. She did not need to see the name written against the metal to know what Dottie Underwood was implying.

“Where did you find those?” Any kindness had drained from her voice, and in the back of her mind, Aria understood Dottie’s fear and hesitation. The worry that the woman before her would not offer a kind, painless death, in the wake of the information that she was about to reveal. Dottie Underwood need not worry, however, about the death that would come for her. As long as she cooperated, Aria would make it swift, and painless. As long as Dottie Underwood told her everything.

“A mission. We encountered a soldier. A metal arm – stronger than he should have been. Faster. I barely escaped with my life,” she shook the tags in her fist, “and these were all I had to show for it.”

“And who do they belong to?”

Aria knew. She knew who they belonged to. She didn’t need to see the name on the tag. But she needed to hear it from the lips of another. She needed to know that she wasn’t crazy, or insane. She needed to know that this was her reality – a reality not forged by her mind, but happening in time, in the space between her. She needed to feel it.

And Dottie seemed to understand that. The brown-haired woman met her gaze evenly. Aria watched her square her shoulders. She watched her intake breath, and she watched the moment that the syllables left her lips. “James Buchanan Barnes.”

The wind stopped howling. The waves silenced themselves, the water becoming still. Dangerously so. She felt her eyes close, if only to prevent the tears from falling freely to the ground. The world fell silent in the gravitas of the name, and Aria’s world crashed alongside it.

She could feel the senses in her body firing desperately, urging her to do something, anything, about the information she’d just received. But she was almost paralysed by the weight of it all. Not once, in any of her years, has she suspected that Barnes would be alive. Not once had she looked for him. Howard had – and he had done it for her, but she had not asked him to. Asking him to do so, was admitting that it hurt every year he failed to find him. Asking him to do so meant that she wasn’t pretending to move on, even though she knew she never could.

She had stopped looking for him. In return, he had been alive. A soldier; working against her. Working against everything that she had built.

“They call him the Winter Soldier. Soviet, I think” Dottie whispered in the silence. Aria glanced up at her now, surprised to see her pain reflected vividly in the woman’s before her. “He won’t remember you, Aria. Your father, he…”

“My father?” Aria whispered, running her fingers through her hair. He’d experimented on Bucky. Perhaps what he had done to Bucky after Azzano had allowed him to survive the fall from the Alps. Perhaps her father had perfected the super soldier serum, all the way back in 1943. Not the completed product, she was sure. But enough that he was alive.

He was alive, and she had never once searched for him. Hers. Krasivyy. The thoughts choked her up, wire seizing around her ribcage, until she could no longer breath. Her father thought Barnes too small for the weight of her. But he had guided her every decision, whilst he had lived. How many hours had she agonised over his death? How many days had she pleaded for things to be different? Her decisions, even now, were still guided by his memory. Her want to do better, if only for him.

She shook her head. Mentioning Zola now, was too much if he had only been involved in Bucky’s initial survival. Her father was involved now – she was sure of it. She should have known it from the moment that he’d bothered to learn how to speak Russian – not as a slight against her as she’d presumed, but to work alongside the men that had enslaved the love of her life.

She had warned Peggy, warned Howard, that he could never be trusted within the walls of SHIELD. She too, had become blind to him over the years. For this – she would kill him. She would kill him slowly, and intimately. She’d skin him alive; she’d ensure that he endured every ounce of pain that he ever put her through. And only when she was satisfied, would she even consider allowing him the pleasure of eternal rest – a pleasure that he had long since confiscated from her.

“How do I find him?” Aria demanded. But Dottie only shook her head.

“He’s a ghost, Aria. Just like you.” She repeated.

“Tell me.” Aria snarled, taking a single step closer to the woman. But there was almost a smile on her face as she spoke again.

“I’ve given you what you wanted.” Dottie insisted. Aria blinked at her, flexing her fingers against her sides. She searched her up and down, looking for any hint that there was more information to find, something else to learn about this. But there was nothing other than the truth reflecting in her eyes as they glistened in the dim light. The Russian was almost pleading, “Now give me what I’m asking for… And,” she added, after a moment of hesitation, “…one day, promise me you’ll save the rest of them, too.”

Minutes later, Aria would depart the alleyway – Bucky’s dog tags in hand, and Dottie Underwood’s corpse left to be still in the single patch of moonlight reserved for her.

Notes:

so, betty was right.

Chapter 52

April 6th, 1957: Dawn

Aria had once told Margaret Carter that she would come home when she found what she was looking for.

She hadn’t said so at the time, but it had been obvious SHIELD had become home. Because as much as Aria felt the need to run from this place, she also had the impossible urge to return. She had missed the barren halls over the past few years, she had missed the easy, casual banter of the workers housed within. SHIELD was a prison of her own making, yes, but she had provided the warden in Peggy – who gave her direction, who knew what she could handle. She could readily admit that she had missed the British spy; and had missed the spotted billionaire too, even though admitting such a thing was fraught with dangerous memories.

She had also reckoned with the fact that she had missed her father. Aria Davis did not long for Arnim Zola’s company, nor did she seek it out without purpose. But, if she was being honest with herself, it was nice to experience Zola as a constant presence in her life. She had seldom experienced that from a parent before. She’d known the relationship had been purely transactional, conditional. At some point, she’d forgotten, however, that hope was dangerous, to be snuffed at all costs. Her father had helped her once, and suddenly, she was again that small girl, trying desperately to impress him.

Peggy would not like the woman that she had become. It had not been a gradual transition; it had not been a slow drip feed as she gave into her violence tendencies. Her vengeance had come with a revelation, a snap. And for this, Aria thought she might finally have the strength to kill her father.

It was why, instead of rushing back to New Jersey, Aria had been slow and methodical in her movements. A train here, a walk elsewhere – everything perfectly planned as not to arouse suspicion of her location or whereabouts. She was not sprinting back to SHIELD, she was prowling, the target in her sights one a familiar man. The longer it took, the longer her anger had the chance to bubble within her. She knew how it would reach a crescendo, upon simply viewing his face, but for now, it continued to boil inside of her gut, carefully pressed into a cauldron of rage, hurt and anger. She’d once told Dugan that emotional had no place on a battlefield – and that remained true. But when it came to hurting others, when it came to ensuring they felt the depths of the hurt that she was experiencing, Aria knew anger would serve her well.

Aria arrived back to SHIELD during the witching hours of the night. She was silent as she moved throughout the halls, or perhaps, the halls were silent in reverence of her. It was inhuman, the way she contorted her body, impressed silence upon the tiled floors. Moved in the shadows of a white hallway, a wisp where she should have been bright and prominent.

Her father would be in his lab. He was always in his lab. She had no purpose other than his interrogation, and subsequent destruction. He had once said that Bucky had been too small for her. That she would grow bored, making herself small to merely exist in the same space. But now, her father had made Barnes into a ghost, apparently, into a legend larger than life that had infiltrated the names of spy agencies around the world with fear. Somehow, her father had made Barnes her equal in that regard. It was everything he would never want for himself, and Aria was all the sadder for it.

Her father was crouching over an examination table when she entered. Her senses ignited with the smell of sterilization, the bleach which filled the air. So too, the lights were bright, almost blinding in her wake. This was the first time she had seen him in three years, and she noted with some disdain that he did not seem to be growing smaller. He loomed, ever a figure in her periphery, ever strong in her fight against him.

“Mein Vater.”

Just as they had years ago, the German words tasted foreign on her tongue. They scratched at her, and she withheld the desire to rip her mouth to shreds for bothering to speak such a forbidden language. Such forbidden words.

She watched Zola pause, almost in fright. She hadn’t made a noise, as she’d entered the room. Her tone when she spoke had been anything but friendly. When he finally glanced in her direction, Aria noticed that he never once dropped the scalpel he held for his examinations. Her toes curled in her shoes as she noticed his eyes twitching nervously, between her, and the door. But never panic – only carefully planned actions that screamed to his fear.

She was struck with the sudden realisation that he had seemingly prepared for this day. Her rage grew carnivorous within her.

“Malen'kiy krasnyy,” He greeted her. She seethed.

“I should have known.” She shook her head. “I should have known the second that you spoke a lick of Russian, that something was amiss. I should have realised you’d never learn the language merely to spite me, but for another purpose all together.”

Zola watched her carefully. Aria watched him take a step forward. She took one in tune, as they slowly began to cross towards the centre of the lab. Where she would tower over him, her old man, the man who had given her life. Who had sought to take it away, who had taken away everything she loved.

She reached into her pocket, feeling desperately for the metal necklace. The dog tags that held a simple truth, she latched onto them like a lifeline, pulling them free. The moment they breathed in the crisp air of the lab was the moment that her father’s eyes narrowed upon them; an emotion she found she could not decipher buried within his gaze. She only continued to hold the dog tags against her hand, hard enough to imprint the punched metal letters into her own skin.

“Dottie Underwood told me a story.” She began, placing the dog tags against the laboratory table. “Of a man. A ghost. Unkillable, a man so impossibly strong, and fast, that she barely escaped with her life. That she was only to escape holding that necklace.” She shook her head desperately. “I didn’t search for him; I had no idea what she was speaking of, until she produced these, and mentioned your name.”

“Isla…”

“James Buchanan Barnes.” She scoffed. “Did you know who he was, when you began to experiment on him after Azzano? Did he tell you of the American girl he was sweet on, back in the camp?” Her voice grew shrill as she continued. “Did he speak of me when you found him, in the snow?”

“I did not find him.” Zola dismissed, as though it absolved him of sin. The lack of emotion on his face, his lack of care, the callousness. It only cracked something in her heart further, deepened her drive to see him hurt. She was surprised then, when her father dropped her gaze, and instead gestured to a file, placed neatly on the table before him. Aria followed his direction, walking closer until she finally came to pause in front of it. A brown file perched atop the clinical setting; the title scrawled in Russian she presumed her father had written. The syntax and spelling were incorrect; but the message remained clear: James Barnes, military record of maintenance, deployment and experimentation for the KGB.

She traced the letters, much like she had once traced her own file, before she pulled the cover open. All the training in the world could never have prevented the stifled gasp that escaped her lips upon seeing his imagine reflected. His hair had grown longer – and his eyes were closed, preventing her from seeing the brown that she loved so much. They had not bothered to shave him, and instead, he maintained scruff and stubble against his chin. She remembered what it had felt like, to have that brushing up against her skin.

“What have you done to him?” She whimpered, eyes catching on the image reflected. Poor quality, hazy around the details, a lesser man would not have recognised the image of a war hero reflected at them. But Aria knew James Barnes’ body well. She knew the curves of his head, the outline of his abdomen. She had spent countless hours tracing the angled shape of his jaw, using her mouth to outline the length of his spine.

“I have made him into a fist, where he was once nothing more than an ant.”

She didn’t order her fingers to lift from her sides and trace the outline of his face. But they did anyway. They traced the fullness of his lips, caressed the edges of his closed eyes. In another life, he almost looked peaceful, at rest. It had been so long since she had seen him. It had been so long since she’d had hope. Her fingers curled at the edge of the paper, the torn surface crinkling and crackling beneath her touch.

“His arm…” Tears sprang to her eyes as she lifted the page. There was nothing that remained of his flesh and bone left arm. Instead, it had been replaced by a glinting, silver wonder. A mechanical marvel, she was sure. But she was not struck by the technology of it. Nor did she bother to do anything but merely glance over the painted star signifying his newly found allegiance. Instead, her eyes focused entirely on the angry lines surrounding the point where his skin connected to the metal. The scarring from the botched procedure, likely completed in haste, and in the bowels of a secret facility. Lines travelled up and down his left shoulder, permanently imprinted into his skin. Wet, sticky tears gathered in her eyes at the sight of them. He would have been in so much pain…

“Lost in the fall.” Zola answered her unspoken question.

“All this time, you’ve known… You found him, you knew. How could you?” Her fist closed and unclosed as she fought to maintain calm. She could not hurt her father yet. Not until she knew more. Not until she understood how to find him – how to save him.

But her father refused to take ownership, instead insisting, “Soviet forces located the asset. I merely became the beneficiary of his survival.”

“When did you start working for the Soviets?” She heard her voice crack then, as she finally dropped her eyes away from the still image of the man she wanted, encased in frozen ice. Her voice could be the only hint she could give as to the magnitude of his betrayal. Whether or not she’d admitted it; she desperately sought her father’s love. She’d desperately sought his approval. And she’d known, she’d warned, that SHIELD would only be a front for him. But to have all hope crashing down spectacularly around her… She was struggling to breathe. It did not enter her lungs, a pitiful wheeze instead sounding from her throat.

And her father only laughed. Zola only laughed, taking another step towards her as he spoke plainly. “The USSR is involved, yes. But this is not the USSR, daughter. This is HYDRA. A beautiful parasite of my own making, in the organisation sworn to defeat it.”

“HYDRA died with Schmidt.” She shook her head desperately. “Steve killed Schmidt – he’s dead.”

She felt the ghosts of old fingers clawing at her sides, a touch she had not thought about in nearly a decade. Pained tears sprang to her eyes as she desperately fought them away, as she tried to recall her old mantra.

Schmidt is not necessary to your objective, she chanted, cast him aside.

“You know this, my daughter.” His voice took on a soothing quality. “You cannot kill an idea – not once it has taken root in your mind. I have merely allowed it to bloom.”

She sniffled, and she felt the tears fall then. A slow trickle against her face, they were turning to a dangerous flood on her cheeks. The first tears she had not managed to stop since Alma’s funeral, eleven years in the past. Furious, she asked: “Where is he?”

“Safe.” Zola shook his head. “You’ll be safe, too. You do not understand it now, malen'kiy krasnyy. But you will, in time.”

“He would never have agreed to this.” Aria shook her head from side to side.

“Subjects do not need to be willing. Only able.”

“What does that even mean!” Finally, her temper slipped. Her shout reverberated across the room, bouncing off of the walls and sending smaller critters housed in the laboratory scuttling into their hidden dens. She wanted her father to fear her. She wanted Zola to run, with his tail between his legs. So that she could chase him down, and extract the information, perhaps a finger at a time. But he did not move.

“Memory conditioning, targeting the limbic system, his hippocampus. Until he forgot everything – even you.”

She snarled then, especially as he took another step towards her. “I will kill you.” She promised lowly. “I will make you suffer for this.”

“Your reaction, kleins rotes, is fascinating. Unfortunately, this conversation cannot continue.”

So angry with her father, Aria cursed herself when she realised, he had not been stepping closer to placate verbally, but rather, subdue. She was faster than her father – her movements were much more practiced, and clean, but Zola did not have to be perfect to inject her with a syringe, and he did not have to aim perfectly to ensure that the sedative reached her bloodstream. She knew, the second that she felt the needle prick her skin, that he’d accomplished his intended goal, and though the sedative was quick to send her spiralling to the floor, she was pleased when she managed to land a single punch against his jaw.

She heard the crack of his bone echo just as she herself smacked against the cold tile floor. The edges of her vision crackled and blurred, just as the movement of her body became sluggish against her.

“Otets, chto…” she tried to bring a question to her lips, but halfway through, her voice refused to cooperate. All that left her was a desperate plea, confusion and fury rife within her.

She could see clearly enough, when Zola placed a tentative hand against his cheek. When he wiped away the speck of blood there, and winced at the touch of his skin where a bruise would surely form. She could see too, when he came to crouch beside her, a contemplative expression on his usually serious, scientific face. Desperately, she tried to look elsewhere in the room. She wished that she could see the face of the man she loved, even encased in ice as he was. She thought it may have offered her some comfort. Instead, she could only see the outline of his dog tags, still resting upon the upon the table where she placed them.

“You do not know your own strength.” He murmured, shaking his head. Aria thought she noticed a fresh crack in his glasses, but it was the last thing she could see before her vision blurred completely. Instead, all that replaced it was the feeling of the cold tile, burrowing into her bones. The sound of his voice as he continued grating at her skin, tearing at her heart. “You have never known. I have always kept you safe, kleines rotes, most of all, from yourself. When you wake up, I promise you will feel better.”

She could have sworn, the last thing she heard, was a small, unassuming chuckle. “You won’t remember a thing at all.”

Notes:

president of the never letting her catch a break fanclub

Chapter 53

April 14th, 1957: Dawn

Aria recognised the feel of the mattress. She recognised the itchy feeling of hospital clothes against her skin. She knew, before she opened her eyes, where she was. The smell was all too familiar, the bleach, the disinfectant. The sterilisation and the sounds of whirring machines and squeaking creatures. It was her touch, and her smell, and her hearing; that was what came back to her first. Slowly, and then all at once, the room exploded into a symphony of information, a sensory overload that she struggled to process as her mind began to awaken.

Awaken.

That very thought forced her eyes open. The bright, white walls of her father’s laboratory were blinding. She felt her arm raise to her head before she gave the distinct thought to do so, desperate to block some of the glare as her eyes began to adjust. She shouldn’t have been awakening. She hadn’t awoken in nearly seven years, not since her father and Howard had experimented on her. Not since they’d fundamentally changed the course of her existence forever.

Bile began to rise in her throat as she realised sleep was not the only strange thing. She could not quite remember how she had made it back to SHIELD. She remembered tracking Dottie Underwood for years, all across Europe and Asia. She remembered too, finally managing to corner the elusive Black Widow in the small German coastal town, ensuring that she would only have one entry, and exit point. And she could remember leaving her body in the centre of the back-alleyway, with little to no regard for who came across her. But she could not remember why she had done it. She could not remember the anger that had prefaced such a kill, nor could she remember if she had learned anything, extracted any information, before she had snapped the woman’s neck cleanly.

She sat bolt upright in her bed as the truth of the matter dawned upon her: she did not know how she came to be back at SHIELD, nor did she even know if she was ready to be here. Being here meant facing so many things. It meant confronting past demons, soothing wounds that had barely begun to scab. It meant speaking to people whom she no longer knew how to speak to. It meant wearing the mask of Aria Davis, even if she wasn’t sure that idealised version of Aria even existed within her.

“You’re awake? Good.”

The voice of her father startled her. So sharp was her incline towards him, that her neck cracked with the force. She winced at the pull of her muscles, even as the frame of him came into her vision. He looked the same as always; a white coat, glasses, hunched over his workbench as though it were the most important thing in his life. She’d expected him to be looking at his artefacts, focused entirely on the information they could provide, rather than his daughter in an infirmary bed. To her surprise, however, she’d captured his attention. He seemed to be studying her, watching her intently. It made her skin crawl with apprehension, and something else.

It was strange though – there seemed to be a fresh crack in his glasses. Her eyes caught against it as the fracture glinted against the harsh, exposed light.

“Awake?” She echoed perplexed, when the word settled in her mind. Awake didn’t make sense. She had been told, that asleep and awake were no longer possibilities. She did not exist in a plane where she could tire or grow old. She simply existed, as a clump of cells or atoms determined to never exchange energy again.

Zola nodded once, glancing down to collect a clipboard from his table. “You were out for quite some time, malen'kiy krasnyy. It is your birthday.”

Something about the Russian sounded wrong coming from his lips. Something about those words grated at her. But they could not be her concern for the moment.

“It’s the 10th of February?” She startled, eyes widening as she glanced desperately around the room for an anchor. There was no calendar, no tick of a clock to anchor herself against. There was only the gentle echo of machinery, and the rhymical beat of her heart as it was continually monitored by the clip pressed against her finger. She grounded herself against it – grounded herself against the expectation of a spike in speed every time she wondered what had happened to her that she could not remember.

Zola only chuckled. “No, Isla. Your real birthday. Not the one the Amerikanet’s made for you.”

She paused, her mouth falling into a gentle circle as she considered the words. It had been a long time since she’d accurately celebrated the date of her birth. It had been easier to assimilate into Aria, to become her wholly, to recognise a different day of celebration. One that wasn’t fraught with painful memories of paternity. Of a mother who had died and left her a legacy coated in blood. She had not celebrated the date because it had been a reminder of the family she had been born to, a family she did not trust.

And yet she was here, in her father’s laboratory. She had seemingly come here, needing help. Or he had found her. She didn’t know.

“Why can’t I remember?” She muttered, clutching at her head. She had meant it as a question for herself, but she had also known that her father wouldn’t be able to resist answering her.

“Likely due to the poison in your system.” Zola answered. She noted him scribbling notes against his page with muted curiosity but bit her tongue against asking for them. Her father was already aware of the power he was wielding in this room – she would not allow him the satisfaction of knowing she had noticed. “When you met your target – Dottie Underwood, from what I could gather, you did not account for the poison she slipped into your wine. Killing her quickly had been smart in the moment, but unfortunately, dead women do not reveal antidotes easily.”

Aria clicked her tongue in her mouth. Missing poison seemed too simple an answer. Something that she would not have overlooked so easily. She didn’t understand. “But why would I come all the way here? Why would I come to you.”

To that, her father only seemed to shrug nonchalantly. “Sentiment?”

She tilted her head to the side, staring at him incredulously. Was he making a joke? Was she dreaming? She had never heard her father speak in anything other than calculated riddles, or complicated equations. He was a scientist, though, and he was of HYDRA, whether or not he had admitted that to Phillips, Carter and Stark when they had hired him. The way he was acting was almost too human. It was performative.

Her eyes narrowed as she studied him closer. Again, she fixated on the broken glasses. It was unlike him, to allow such an object of his to remain damaged, for a long period of time. She could not imagine that he had been so intensely involved with her care that he had not bothered to have them fixed by one of their many optometrists. Or, rather, fixed them himself, with his mechanical prowess. It would not have been difficult.

So too, was the fact that everything seemed to be perfectly in place within his laboratory. If she had, indeed immediately arrived from ill-fated conversation with Dottie, she could not imagine that news of her reappearance within New Jersey hadn’t spread to others within the compound. She may not have loved the attention, but that did not mean that her name alone wouldn’t have brought a host of men and women who were desperate to view her with their own two eyes. To marvel upon her, and scan her, and see for themselves that she was okay, alive, and breathing. Her father’s office should have been littered with bodies, or at the very least, armchairs and coats discarded.

Perhaps she was placing too much importance on herself. Perhaps all the talk of her father, of her being bigger than the men who sought to own her, was beginning to delude her. Her skills were better, she would not deny that. But it did not mean she was any more important than anyone else in the building.

She hadn’t been trained in the Red Room for nothing. She hadn’t learned from master spies within the Abwehr for nothing other than the loss of her innocence. If she wanted to know, she knew she merely needed to ask.

“Father, I…”

“Aria?”

Her entire body recoiled at the sound of her name.

Gone was her sense of bravado. The intentions she’d had, of interrogating her father died with the first syllable of her name. With the second, came an overwhelming feeling of dread, and panic. Her spine had become rigid in her back, a rod sticking firmly against the mattress as time seemed to slow around her. Her father, wisely it seemed, had averted his gaze back to his clipboard. She was sure he was waiting for an opportune moment to scurry from the room. She presumed that he would not be desperate to hear this reckoning.

Aria waited until her heartbeat levelled. Until the sound no longer spiked in intensity, or speed. She waited until it was rhymical, and steady, and then she turned her head to look at the man standing in the doorway. She heard it spike the second that her green eyes met his brown, the second that she began to study the increasing number of silver hairs upon his aging head. He was still handsome, yes. Just older now, where she wasn’t.

“Howard.” She greeted evenly. Every breath felt like a moving chess piece against an invisible board. Everywhere she chose to look was a minefield fraught with danger. Even settling her gaze into his eyes was only heightening the danger. Neither was prepared to speak, neither prepared to relinquish the ground that had grown between them over the years. Aria wondered if Howard ever regretted asking her. If he wondered if things could have been different, if they had continued as they were. If they could have even become the partnership that he so desperately wished for them to be. Aria wondered if he would have swallowed her by now. If he would have consumed her, left nothing of her soul; until she was the Aria Davis that he saw reflected in the mirror.

It was a question, she supposed, that was better left unanswered. Much like the questions she had for her father, that would likely be forgotten in the gravity of this conversation.

“Did you find what you were looking for?” He finally asked her, when he had grown uncomfortable in the silence.

Aria didn’t know. She couldn’t remember. But she wasn’t about to readily admit that to anyone in the room.

So, she did as she had learned to do her whole life. She lied.

“I did.”

***

Human psychology was a fickle thing.

Aria was sure it meant something heinous, that she sought comfort in the activities that had served to offer nothing more than pain and poise. It had disgusted Peggy, many years ago, when she’d found Aria balancing on point perfectly in tune with sorrowful violins and cellos. The fact that she had dismissed herself from the care of her father, and turned tail into the ballet studio, surely said much about her psyche. But Zola had not forbidden the action, and Howard had not bothered to follow her as she traversed the familiar pathway to the room inhabited only by her. Perhaps the pleasure came from the fact that it was all she knew she was good at. The only thing she had ever loved, that had never hurt anyone other than herself.

It was no small amount of pleasure to notice that not a single item had been changed in her absence. So thick was the coating of dust present within the chamber, that disturbing the formed layer had spiralled her into a fit of coughing. It did not stop her from changing into the correct shoes and preparing the needle against the vinyl. When Aria did not know what to do, she danced until she did. Today, she had decided, would be no exception to the rule. She would be the ballerina that she had once wanted to be.

It did not surprise her then, when Margaret Carter entered the room just as the music was approaching a crescendo. Aria did not stop her twirl for the Director – she merely used the shape of her as a spotting tool as she span in place. Around and around, she circled, not one breaking her contact with Peggy.

By the time the staticky end of the record signalled the finale of her routine, Peggy was already striding forth.

The Director of SHIELD was quick to yank at her clothing and pull her into a tight hug. Even in heels, even wearing her business attire as was typically required of her, Aria stood above her, green eyes level with the mass of curled hair sitting atop Peggy’s crown. And thought it took Aria a moment to relax, she felt the tension oozing from her skin for the longer that the woman held her in that ballet studio.

“I knew I would find you here.” Peggy murmured, as she pulled away from the hug.

Aria only blinked at her. She did not bother to plaster a pretending smile against her face. She only sighed. “Zola told you?”

“Stark, actually.”

Aria winced. She should have expected that.

“He missed you, while you were away.” Peggy added, when Aria didn’t speak immediately. Aria noted the way that she swung on the heels of her feet, body language betraying her nerves, and her relief.

Aria had thought about him too. She thought that she had missed him, but it was easy to hold these thoughts close. But when the nights drew long and lonely, and she desired the comfort of another, he was not the face she pictured. It was not his body, towering over hers, that she wanted to trace with her hands, her tongue. There was always his ghost. He who reminded her that opening herself up to that level of commitment would only result in pain and suffering. Especially when she was destined to live; and the rest of the world was destined to pass along long before she met her end. How could she begin a relationship where she already knew the end was withering with nothing other than pain?

Instead, Aria offered the most non-committal answer that she could muster. “I came home.”

The smile Peggy returned, the wide-eyed grin that met her eyes, melted the last of Aria’s fraying resolve. It was all she could do, to guide the Director towards the dimly let rest area, before her knees gave from underneath her.

“You look tired, Aria.” Peggy commented then, as they settled into the chairs. “Are you well?”

She was tired. She was tired and lonely and desperately confused on the events of the past few weeks. But these comments would serve only to worry the Director, and Aria quite thought that Peggy probably had enough to deal with for the moment. So she smiled and agreed with Peggy when she suggested that she was tired, and in return, provided for her the slightest fragment of truth that would erase her thoughts.

“It’s my birthday, today.” She murmured. “Not Aria’s – Isla’s.”

She heard Peggy intake sharply. It was rare for her, she knew, to speak of the name that had once been her own. The name that her mother and father had chosen for her, that she had willingly left behind in search of something other. She had desperately wanted to become Aria. She had wanted to be that idealised version of herself. The United States, the SSR, SHIELD, they’d given her everything she needed to be that person. And she had fought to be that person. What did it say about her, that she felt as though she had failed them?

What was she missing? Why couldn’t she remember?

“April 7th.” Peggy mused absentmindedly. “Unassuming.”

“Aries.” Aria responded. “A constellation, ruled by Mars – the Roman God of War. Named in tune with the Greek God of War.” She shook her head to clear her thoughts, chuckling under her breath. “How ironic – I was born into this violence before I even knew what it was.”

The statement settled in the air. Peggy was sitting on her hands, but Aria had to imagine that if they were free, they would be waving in the air, desperate to silence such a statement. The Director of SHIELD should have been well used to her melancholy. She’d survived the worst of it following the war; and periods of change always brought forth the uncertainty that reigned in her mind. Peggy did not know how to quiet those thoughts; and neither did Howard, but one certainly had a greater strategy.

“You certainly don’t put much stock in that belief.” Peggy commented, tone light and airy.

Aria decided, in that moment, it was not worth dwelling on her sadness with perhaps her oldest friend. “Betty did.” She instead corrected her lightly. “Alma did. They taught me – everyone needs something to believe in, dorogoya. To make the long nights easier.”

She’d missed them, whilst she was gone. She’d missed everyone, if she was being honest. The Red Room had never managed to bleed her sentimentality, and the absence had only made her heart fonder. She wondered if they had thought of her, as often as she had thought of them. If they had wondered when she was spending her nights. If she was alright.

“And your nights are long.”

“Longer than most.” Aria agreed factually. As though she was merely reciting the weather, and not yet another aspect of her life which set her apart from the rest. Which othered her.

She was not forty, yet. She had not reached that milestone, be it Aria’s birthday, or Isla’s. But she had lived a thousand nights, led a thousand lives. In these moments of quiet and rest, she felt ancient and lonely. She was so very alone; both in body, and in mind. With nothing to spend her days doing, other than thinking through the terrible things she had done. The lives that she had taken. The lives that she had lost. It felt like there was something missing from her.

She wanted a drink. She wished alcohol still worked on her body. Perhaps the burn would still feel the same. She was spiralling.

“Be well, Aria.” Peggy told her then, reaching forward to cup her hands tightly. She must have freed her hands from their entrapment; and though the movement didn’t startle her, she found that she was not as comfortable with the contact as she had been only minutes ago. It wasn’t the hands of the one she wanted.

Aria didn’t know if she could. She didn’t know if she knew how to rest. But she smiled and agreed anyway.

***

Aria hadn’t bothered to check the clocks when she left her room in Howard’s apartment. The damp, spring chill in the air, the kind that even a millionaire could not erase, had imbedded itself within the walls. No one had questioned her choice of location, her choice to return to the home of the man she had done nothing other than hurt. And Aria had not desired to make her presence well known. To Edwin Jarvis, of course, she wished a lovely evening upon noticing his frame in the kitchen, but these were the only words she had uttered since her arrival.

She had not bothered to speak to Howard. She suspected that he would be hearing from her soon enough anyway.

Aria could traverse the hallways of this apartment with her eyes closed. So often, however, she had instead been leaving his rooms, to return to her own. This time, it was she who sought him out, in the dead of night. When dancing was too much, and not enough. When she had no one else to turn to, she always knew of the hands that would welcome her into his bed.

Her fist wrapped against the door before she could consider the consequences of the action. Each pound of her hand echoed in the room, like the shell of a bomb exploding in the night.

She opened the door moments later, when the lampshade inside his room flickered on. Lit dimly, Aria could make out the outline of his body against the pure, white sheets of his bed. Blinking sleep out of his eyes, Aria knew that she had woken him up. But she could not bring herself to care, as she shivered. Cold air met her bare skin, gooseflesh became rigid on her arm, and for a moment, she and Howard did nothing but stare at one another.

Until he broke the silence. “Come here.” He murmured, and she knew that she had come here of her own volition. But it felt like an order to be obeyed anyway.

Regardless, her bare feet padded towards the bed. Her slip, red and silky, billowed in the open windows of his room, eventually moulding themselves against the white sheet as she settled into the mattress. First beside him, then falling into his chest when they shifted in sync with one another, back against the pillows. Aria did not glance up towards his face. But she did catch sight of her dress against the white of the bed. She looked as though she was lying in a pool of blood. His blood.

“Rest.” Howard whispered, a faint hand stroking at her spine. “Rest your mind; I am here.”

What had she done, to deserve this? What was she doing to him? It was not fair to crawl back to his embrace after rushing from his touch so spectacularly in the years past. After refusing to bend to the idea of a family, after ridding them of the chance, whether he knew it or not. She was a coward, and a monster – but not in the ways she had been designed to be. She had murdered, and tortured, extorted and blackmailed. And yet somehow, she knew that her worst crimes would be committed in this very bed. Both in the past, and in the years yet to come.

In the morning, Aria was sure, they would sleep together once more. And she was sure that she would enjoy herself. But for now, in his arms, Howard’s snores wrapped themselves around her neck like a noose.

And Aria Davis felt the tears spilling down her face, in tracks that would become untraceable by dawn.

Notes:

i flip between aria and howard being toxic for one another (and they so are) but just kinda... deserving each other, in a way. kinda love them, though.

as always, feel free to tell me what you think! about this, and anything and everything else xoxo