imawreck

[imawreck]

His

Pairing: Winter Soldier x Reader

Summary: You and Bucky broke up a few months ago against your wishes, and you’d been trying to move on. When Bucky sees you flirting with another member of the team, he leaves for the next mission to avoid getting in your way. Unfortunately, the mission goes bad, and Bucky isn’t himself when he comes back. He also has a lot to say…

Author’s Note: I realize that in most of my fics Thor is the other romantic interest/situationship, but you CANT tell me that man wouldn’t flirt up a storm with a beautiful woman any chance he got. Also, this is my first smutty fic so feedback and comments would be much appreciated! This is on the more explicit side, so please read with caution.

Warnings: Cursing, mentions self loathing/guilt (it’s Bucky, kinda normal), choking kink, Possessive!Winter Soldier, flashbacks, hair pulling, fingering, metal arm kink, dominant!winter soldier, probably some more but those are the big ones.

Word Count: 4,850

Breakups are ugly most of the time, and almost always one sided.

You and Bucky had been apart for at least three months. You’d stopped counting, wanting to forget it and focus on anything else. It was easier that way, to ignore the heartbreak and clutter up your life with other things to do.

Unfortunately, you still lived in the same tower on the same floor, right across from one another. He was constantly around, and no mattered how hard you tried, you just couldn’t avoid him.

It was hell.

And it was only hell because Bucky hardly gave you a good reason for the break up. Sure, you had your arguments. Mostly about his past and how much better he thought you deserved, to which you’d list all the reasons he was wrong. In reality, those weren’t really arguments. It was just Bucky having a low point, which you were more than willing to help him work through. Outside of those moments, you had felt that your relationship with Bucky was near perfect.

So when he had come back from a mission and broke up with you, his only reason being ‘I can’t be with you,’ it’d been a slap to the face. Like someone had shoved a knife in your heart and twisted.

The worst part was that he wouldn’t even allow you the chance to talk to him afterwards. Every time you were in the same room together alone, he’d find every reason not to speak with you.

So, you’d taken the hint and were now trying to figure out a way to move on.

That was made a little easier when a certain God of Thunder made his interest known to you. Thor was sweet, charming, and a little goofy. Not to mention handsome, with his blonde hair and sky blue eyes.

He’d made an effort to woo you not long after you’d parted from Bucky, and you’d informed him that the breakup was hard for you and that you couldn’t really do something new right now. Thor had been surprisingly understanding, and even took to just being friends quite well. Granted, he was still flirty, but he knew where you both stood and was always happy to lend an ear when you needed one.

He turned out to be just the friend you needed.

From the outside looking in, none of the others thought it was ‘just friends,’ especially when Thor would openly show his interest in you. Especially to a certain Super Soldier.

Bucky was painfully aware of what was going on between you and Thor even though he desperately tried not to be.

His super hearing picked up on the soft laughter you and the god would share, on the hushed whispers you’d exchange late over a mug of coffee when you thought everyone was asleep. His every fiber was attuned to you, and he couldn’t help but fixate on your presence.

You were like gravity to him, and he always found himself near you when he knew he should be as far as humanly possible. He saw the little looks you shared when Thor would compliment you, noticed your shy smile when the god would enter the room. He could tell that Thor was winning you over slowly but surely.

He couldn’t fucking stand it.

So it wasn’t a big surprise when he shipped off on the next mission possible.

You worried, your heart still set on loving him, but you tried to pay it little mind. And after a few days, it actually helped. You felt better, found yourself smiling more. You were beginning to move forward.

That was, until the jet was reported missing. Then Bucky was all anyone could talk about in the tower.

Thor tried his best to keep you in the dark about most of what was going on, and it wasn’t hard seeing as you were just a rather good strategist and not a serious Avenger. You were only really included in skimming over preplanned attacks and making sure they hadn’t missed anything critical.

But word still spread, and worry was ever present.

Needless to say, it was very strange when Mr. Stark called you into a private meeting with himself and two other of the elite team.

“Y/N,” He spoke softly in the kind of tone that lets you know that whatever he says next is going to ruin your whole week. “There’s a situation with Barnes.”

You frowned, eyebrows scrunching at him from where you sat at the rather empty end of the long black table. “I’m confused. Bucky and I broke up months ago. Why are you talking to me about it?”

Steve, who you’d befriended while dating his best pal, looked at you with poorly concealed pity from his seat next to Stark. “Because we know he still means a lot to you and that you’re our best hope in this situation.”

That didn’t make you feel better about whatever was going on at all. “What do you mean ‘this situation?’” You eyed them both, before dragging your eyes over to Doctor Banner who hadn’t done much more than stare at you with a concerned expression bordering on panic.

Stark pressed his fingers to his forehead, “Barnes got triggered on his mission and has infiltrated the tower. We have reason to believe he’s after you.”

You gaped at him. That didn’t make any sense. You weren’t important, at least not as important as one of The Avengers. “Me? Why me?”

“We’ve silently shut the building down and we’re working on evacuating the floors without anyone freaking out.” Tony went on, ignoring your questions, “He doesn’t know that we’re aware he’s here, and we’re trying to keep it that way.” Tony motioned towards a monitor, and the image of Bucky popped up on the screen.

Only he was in your room, and he was dragging his fingers over the picture of the two of you that was perched on the nightstand. They way his fingers smoothed over the glass, the slight pinch in his brows as if calculating instead of recalling. It was like he’d never seen it before in his life. Like he had no connection to the image of himself.

It was a picture he had taken, his arm extended and a smile on his face with your lips pressed to his cheek. You had meant to take it down and stuff it in the box under your bed with all the other memories you had hid from sight, but it was just too painful. You needed something to hold onto.

You watched through the screen as he moved around your room, taking note of certain things and taking careful precautions to ensure that anything he moved was set right back in place. It was eerie to watch a man who was once so comfortable in your space tread with so much hesitance. Like it was the first time he’d been in the space all over again.

“Y/N.” It was Steve’s gentle timbre that brought your attention away from the screen this time. He tried to smile, though it was clearly forced. “We need you to lure him down towards the lower levels. We have to get him to a room where we can better contain him. If he finds out we know he’s back and not… him, then he could snap.”

“You want to use me as bait? For the Winter Soldier?” You stared at them both with wide eyes, panic blooming in your chest. “This is insane!”

Steve sighed, “Y/N… Bucky told me about the incident that happened in the beginning of your relationship.”

Your attention zeroed in on the blonde’s words, your breath hitching.

“He told me what could’ve happened… and what didn’t.”

You walked down the corridor of the Stark tower office floor heading back towards your desk from a late night research meeting with a few of your coworkers. You had decided to stay later than the others so that you could collect and organize the information you needed for the meeting with Mr. Stark the following morning. It was very late, and you were tired, the heels you wore had begun to irritate the soles of your feet hours before.

You clutched the files you collected in your arms, heels clicking on the glossy floors and echoing into the dimly lit corridor. So dim that you didn't see the silhouette of the man standing just feet from you until it was too late.

You only saw a flash of silver before the door beside you was torn open and you were roughly shoved inside. Cleaning supplies clattered onto the floor, spilling liquids over your feet as you cried out. A hand clamped over your mouth, and your head hit the wall with a thunk.

Stormy blue eyes stared at you, cold and unfeeling. Eyes you had seen just days before smiling at you and filled with life.

Your lips moved to say his name against the cool metal of his hand, but his grip on your face was nearly bruising. You could only stare back in fear and attempt to press your body further from him.

He didn't speak, only stared at you and kicked the door to the closet shut.

Fear was a living thing in your stomach, writhing as his eyes snaked down to your red heels and back up again. His head tilted to the side, as if he was trying to remember something. But his eyes remained cold and unrelentingly empty. His flesh hand came up to press a finger threateningly to his lips.

‘Quiet.’

You weren't stupid enough to scream, not with the way he was looking at you, with how close he was. When he removed his hand, you did exactly as he wanted. Silence hung in the small closet, suffocating you. Would he kill you? What did he want? Why hadn't he killed you already?

The cool metal of his palm slipped further down, wrapping around your throat and pressing against your thundering pulse. Your head pounded along with it, and a foggy feeling settled over your mind.

But your lungs still filled with air, and you remained aware. The pressure of his hand was ever present, but it was light enough not to cause real damage... Almost like he didn't want to hurt you.

His tongue darted out to lick his lips, the movement catching your eyes. His body leaned forward, his nose pressing into your neck and his warm breath hitting your skin. Goosebumps rose in its wake, and that lick of fear heightened again. He was acting so strangely, and the longer it went on the more unsettling it was.

When he pulled away, there was a heat in his eyes that wasn’t there before. A hunger, and… and recognition.

“Hello, Beloved.”

“We know that he didn’t hurt you, and that he displayed… certain feelings towards you.” Steve’s voice brought you out of the memory, dragging you back to the reality at hand.

The one where he wants you to put yourself smack dab in the path of the Winter Soldier.

“You’re serious about this?” You blink up at him, trying to gauge if he was joking or not. Level headed as Steve was, you trusted him with your life. But this? This was terrifying and completely unexpected. Ridiculously dangerous.

“It’s the only nonviolent way we can think of. And we’re almost certain there’s no high risk for you.” Steve tried to give you a reassuring smile, tried to hide the hint of unease that shone in his tense shoulders.

“You’ve all lost your mind.” You laugh, sighing and raising your chin. “Okay, I’ll do it.”

Apparently, so had you.

You stared at the metal doors of the elevator, your heart pounding with each toll of the floors passing. This was probably—no, was— the riskiest thing you’d ever done in your life. You trusted Steve and Mr. Stark, but your brain was trained to find the flaws in plans like this. And so many things could go wrong.

“It’s okay, Y/N.” Steve said calmly into your ear, startling you. You’d forgotten they’d given you the earpiece. “I’ll be here the entire time. I’ll guide you through the compound and make sure you stay out of danger.”

You nodded, even though you weren’t sure if they could see you.

“Bucky is leaving your room. We’re going to drop you off in the commons area of your floor. All you have to do is make some noise and then head for the stairwell. Just listen to me, and I’ll get you through this.” Steve sounded so confident in your ear, but it did little to soothe the nerves.

The elevator leveled out, and the doors quietly opened. The large living room opened up before you, unnervingly bright and welcoming despite the danger you knew lurked just down the hall. You stepped out onto the carpet, walking towards the kitchen. Your palms sweat, heart pounding, as you made your way up to the cabinets.

You just had to make some noise. Easy, right?

But your body wouldn’t move.

“Y/N.” Steve’s voice called in your ear again, gently coaxing you from where he watched the cameras. “Make some noise, and then head for the stairs.”

You swallowed, nodding again, and reached with shaky hands towards the cabinet. You grabbed a bowl, and hesitantly set it down on the granite counter. The echoing pok of the ceramic felt too loud in your ears, like a gunshot.

“Good, now move quickly. He’s just down the hall headed your way.”

The words sent a chill down your spine… and something else followed. Something you’d never felt before.

You headed towards the stairs, but your feet felt like lead weights. Like you couldn’t move fast enough even though you knew you were going as fast as you could.

But you could hear the faintest scuff of boots coming behind you and the sound sent your heart into a frenzy.

You raced down the stairs, tripping a few times before righting yourself and continuing your decent down towards the lower levels. Your floor was four levels up from ground level, which meant you had six floors in total to descend before you could get to the containment floor.

Six flights of stairs being chased by The Winter Soldier. A superhuman man who was definitely faster than you, and probably wanted to do something terrible to you. Like a wolf hunting a sheep.

Oh God.

The thought only served to spur the panic rising in you. You kicked up your speed when the door slammed behind you, footsteps pounding after you as the dark silhouette of Bucky Barnes rounded the stairs two flights above.

He took the stairs four at a time, his long legs swallowing up the distance between you. The panic clawed its way up your throat in a strangled cry, and the sound just seemed to quicken his pace.

“I’m not fast enough!” You tried to keep your voice even, tried to keep it quiet in the echoing stairwell so that the soldier behind you would hear.

“You’re almost there, Y/N. Just keep up the pace. Two flights left and—“ but he didn’t get to finish his sentence.

You watched in shocked horror as Bucky’s figure leapt over the railing and plummeted towards the ground. He dropped several flights before his arm snapped out and wrapped around the railing. The sound of metal hitting metal rang out around you as the railing dipped under the crushing pressure.

He hauled himself back onto the stairs just before you. Those cold eyes found yours, dark hair framing sharp features, painting him into something primal. Something wild.

That feeling pounded through you again, skittering along your spine and raising the hairs on the back of your neck. You still couldn’t place it, not with him stepping towards you with a look that promised violence.

You heard Steve’s voice ordering something over the earpiece, but it was distant. It became clearer a moment later. “We’ve got a team heading in. Just… just hang in there.”

You swallowed, but your throat had gone dry in the presence of the assassin before you. His eyes held you in place as his towering form finally stopped a stair below you, leveling with you face to face. So close you could count the stitches in the Kevlar of his suit.

You felt your body shaking, heard your heart thundering in your ears as your chest rose and fell with each short breath you managed to drag into your lungs.

And he watched every move you made.

His head titled to the side exactly like it’d done the first time you’d been trapped with him. His gaze never left you, eyes wandering over your face and heaving chest before that faint look of recognition settled into those hollow eyes.

And then that heat you’d seen before consumed them.

He stepped forward, and you answered with a step back. For each one he took, you pedaled backwards until your body was plastered against the wall. When you tried to flee back up the stairs, his metal hand planted itself against the wall inches from your head.

You were utterly trapped.

Rough Russian left his lips in the softest whisper. The sound was the same as you’d heart him say before, though you didn’t understand it.

Not until now, as the earpiece Steve had given you translated his words as he spoke them.

“Hello again, Beloved.”

Those blue eyes bored into yours, as his other hand came up to brush your cheek with a gentleness you didn’t think he was capable of.

“He’s kept me from you for so long.” Bucky’s body leaned forward, caging you against the wall. His metal hand remained pressed against the wall beside you, and the other dragged across the skin of your neck and shoulder in an almost reverent manner.

Bucky’s— no, this wasn’t Bucky. This was the part of Bucky he kept farthest from you. This was a man known for cruel, unimaginable violence. An assassin known by reputation around the world by both hero and criminal alike and feared by all. This was the Winter Soldier.

Winters lips brushed your jaw, stubble tickling the column of your throat as his voice rumbled against your skin. “Kept you to himself. Never let me touch you. Worried I’d damage you, Beloved. Couldn’t see you needed me.”

His teeth nipped at your skin, and a shiver rolled down your spine in answer. That feeling tugged at your mind again, spurred by his words. But still, you couldn’t place it. Not with your mind consumed by his statements and barely contained yearning.

When his head lifted to find your eyes again, the fingers of his right hand tangled themselves in your hair and pulled hard enough to have your scalp stinging. His next words were guttural and biting, ���And then he let you go.”

Winters grip loosened a bit, but his hold on your hair remained. “He pushed you away, and then that god tries to take you from me?” His eyes held you, demanding your utter attention as his head shook slowly, “You don’t belong to him.”

Tugging your lip between your teeth, you clenched your eyes shut. God, you wished Bucky would say that to you. Having Winter here saying these words with Bucky’s voice, Bucky’s face. Touching you with familiar hands…

Heat had begun to pool low in your belly.

The words were spoken in English. “Open your eyes.”

There was no room for objection in his voice, so you did as he said. With his jaw was set in an angry line, and those blue eyes boring into your soul, he leaned in closer. “He thinks that being with you is too dangerous, that you aren’t safe with… with us.”

“What?” Your heart hammered in your chest at his words. It was the first real reason as to why Bucky had broken up with you.

Those silvery blue eyes zeroed on your lips as he spoke again. “He thinks we can’t protect you, that I’ll hurt you. That somehow being further from you keeps you safe from what comes with being what we are.” His metal hand left the wall in favor of brushing over your lower lip and trailing the cool tips of his fingers down to the dip of your breasts and back up to the column of your throat. “I’d never hurt you, not the way he has. Not if you didn’t want it.”

“W-what do you mean?” You just knew he was picking up on how your heart beat harder as his fingers trailed over your skin. Or the way you kept shifting on your feet to stave off the heat thrumming in your veins with an all too familiar want blooming and begging for his hands to explore more.

The faintest hint of a smile graced his face as he gave your hair another gentle tug, then loosened his grip once more. “You like this. I’ve seen how you react with him. How you quietly treasure the marks he leaves on your skin even when he feels nothing but guilt.” That metal hand slipped over your throat again and pressed on your neck exactly as he’d done the first time you’d seen Winter. Your head spun at the pressure, but you could breathe easily under the cool press of his palm as he leaned in, lips brushing your ear as he whispered. “I see how badly you wish he’d touch you with this hand,” he squeezed your neck and loosened it quickly, “How badly you want those marks. How badly you need me.”

You had no words. Nothing to say as he wrung out the truth you’d thought was hidden from him— from Bucky.

Bucky was notorious for avoiding any situation that would make him use the metal arm. He would much rather let it hang there, or act as if he didn’t have it at all. That included when the two of you would get intimate. He never dared to bring it anywhere near you no matter how many times you’d reminded him it was fine, that you weren’t afraid of it. He outright refused to allow it to touch your delicate skin, to let such a catalyst for agony so close to something as precious as you.

Winter knew that you’d secretly craved to feel the cold metal in contrast to his warm skin when he held you. He knew that you would always find it more satisfying when Bucky would lose himself and get rough with you when things got heated. How his flesh hand would leave bruises on your thighs or hips to keep you steady as he thrust himself deeper.

Just the thought had you aching, and here was Bucky’s darker half offering you everything you’d ever wanted.

You were losing your fucking mind.

“You’re wrong,” you whispered, but the words were flimsy and meaningless. He knew the truth, but that didn’t mean you had to say it aloud.

His metal fingers dug into your jaw, his grip near bruising as he tilted your head up to level your eyes with his. “Don’t fucking lie to me, Dollface.” His lips were a hairs-width away, his warm breath fanning over your face.

The scent of him was intoxicating, muddling your mind even further with heady leather and metal invading your nose. The hint of that aftershave you’d missed so much since Bucky broke your heart.

Winter was tearing you apart at the seams.

“Please,” you whispered. Please what? You didn’t know. You could hardly think straight. That feeling was so strong, thrumming along with your pulse and the ache for something. Anything.

“Tell me I’m right.” He mumbled against your skin. Soft lips, a vast contrast to his rough demeanor, to the calloused hand that remained tangled in your hair, trailed down your cheek. “Tell me that you want me. Not the pathetic excuse for a god, or him. That you want me.”

His metal hand released your face, drifting over your neck and dragging over the left side of your chest. He circled once, thumbing over your nipple with a knowing look filled with every sinful promise known to man.

And then he went lower and lower…

His fingers caught the waistband of your leggings, the chill of his fingers raised goosebumps across your stomach, only serving to worsen that burning need.

“Doll,” a command and a question wrapped in one word.

All you had to do was admit your darkest most guarded secret. Confess, and he would give you what you wanted most. What Bucky was too afraid to do.

You opened your mouth, the words tumbling out as he gave your hair another tug.

“I want you.”

That smirk grew just a fraction more, his fingers slipping past your waistband and toying with the hem of your panties.

Fuck, did you wish you’d gone commando today.

“Who am I?” He asked, teeth nipping down your neck hard enough to know they’d leave marks. “I want you to say it, Y/N.”

Those fingers slipped further, rolling over your aching clit in a teasing stroke before he pulled them away again.

If he wasn’t a literal assassin, you’d consider strangling him.

“For fucks sake,” you gripped his arm, your voice unfamiliar in your own ears, ragged and broken. “Winter, please.”

He didn’t waste time, deft, cool fingers dipping into your core with confidence. Soothing that aching heat.

Fuck.

His thumb circled slow as he pumped his fingers, his mouth leaving wet kisses along your jaw up to your lips where he paused long enough to catch a glimpse of your face. You knew you looked like an utter mess, but those blue eyes showed nothing but twisted delight. He leaned forward and tugged your bottom lip between his teeth, bitting hard enough to make you groan.

Winter’s answering grunt of approval urged you further towards the edge of oblivion those perfect metal fingers were working you towards.

God you were so close. Each movement, every touch and bruise he left on your skin pushing you closer and closer. Just a bit more, a fraction more and you’d—

His fingers wrenched away, gone in an instant.

Your eyes, closed from the pleasure just moments ago, snapped open just before the doors to the stairway above and below you burst open. Floods of agents filed through the doors, and a gun fired.

The sharp sound echoed in the confined space making you flinch. Winters back pressed you against the wall, a solid shield of muscle keeping you out of harms way.

Then the weight was too heavy. His body crushing you as he slumped toward the floor. You screamed, immediately thinking the worse as your eyes searched his form in a panic.

But you found no blood, thank God.

“He’s fine, Y/N.”

Steve’s hand on your shoulder had you flinching back, head snapping to his suit clad form. “The gun—“

“It’s just a tranq. I promise, Bucky will be fine.” His face was the picture of practiced reassurance.

A horde of agents rushed forward and cuffed Winters hands and dragged his unconscious body out of the stairwell and further towards the confinement room. Steve remained with you, his eyes flicking to your neck a few times and checking you over to make sure no serious damage had been done.

When you’d gotten yourself back to your room away from the prying eyes and the relentless questions, the reality of what had happened slammed into you.

You just let the Winter Soldier finger you in a fucking stairwell.

And you liked it.

Plunging your fingers into your hair, you took a shaky breath. What the fuck were you thinking? Had you lost your damn mind? Bucky broke up with you three months ago! You were done; over, moving on. He could remember this, for Christ sake! How would you explain it?

Panic writhed in your stomach, but so did the faint ache of need that reminded you of what had just happened mere minutes ago.

The feeling of his metal hand on your skin, the feeling of those fingers working you perfectly and the pressure of his bruising grip.

And that feeling that you couldn’t place.

But now you had a word for it.

From the thrum of your heart as he chased you down the stairs, the promise of violence and sinful pleasure in his eyes. The roughness of his actions…

It was the thrill.

You liked the chase. You liked how rough he was. The delicious blend of panic and pleasure.

And he’d been interrupted before you got the release you’d craved. That you needed.

Frustration boiled to the forefront of your mind, a dozen different strategies with it.

He’d made you confess your darkest secret only to leave you high and dry.

And damn him if he wasn’t going to finish what he started.

[imawreck]

GIRLIE. THE ENDING WAS HEARTBREAKING. LIKE. I GUESS IMMA HAVE TO FINISH THE STORY IN MY IMAGINATION. 😭 bucky did all that for her TO LEAVE. not in my mind 💀

HOMEGIRL JUST WAIT I PROMISE IT ISNT THE END!!! 🤣🤣🤣 It builds up the angst, and there’s a whirlwind of things coming! I have plans to write her storyline into the next couple of movies/shows in the MCU timeline. So Max and Bucky aren’t done just yet!

[imawreck]

i’m gonna miss Ghost SO MUCH. but ik it’s time to move on. and ofc i will keep reading everything you have in the future 😌😭

Ghost will be returning in the continuation of the series! I appreciate your support a ton, and I’m so glad you enjoy my work!

[imawreck]

Soldat

Pairing: Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier x Original Character

Summary: Max is rescued, but she isn’t the same… and she makes a hard choice.

Warnings: Graphic like always, mentions of hospital stuff, mind manipulation, cliffhanger (sorta), scars

Word Count: 4,656

Tony-

I couldn’t figure out how it’d happened. How Bucky had went all Winter Soldier without his trigger words, or why Friday hadn’t immediately notified us.

He must’ve tricked her, but that still didn’t answer what caused the switch. Those answers would have to wait until after I wasn’t staring down the barrel of a gun, though.

Bucky spoke in Russian, and I couldn’t understand what he was saying to Rumlow. Whatever it was, the man had gone paler than a ghost in the clutches of Bucky’s metal arm. Steve shifted his weight on his feet anxiously beside me, like he wanted to intervene, but the guy was beat up as hell.

And frankly, I didn’t think anything could stop the man in front of us.

Not with the way the rage shone in his eyes, the way it rolled off of him like he could barely contain himself.

Bucky’s head snapped towards me, beckoning me forward with the nose of his gun. “Escort us to the hangar. If anything gets in my way, I’ll kill you and everyone in this building.” I took a hesitant step forward, feeling Steve’s worried gaze on my back. Bucky’s eyes snapped to Steve, “You too.” Steve limped forward, holding his ribs.

Bucky’s hand still clenched around Rumlow’s throat as he turned back to him. I watched as he set his feet back onto the floor only to kick his knees out from below him and exchange his neck for the front of his shirt. He jerked his head towards the door, eyeing Cap and I, “Elevator. Now.”

Bucky began dragging Rumlow’s struggling form towards the elevator as he kicked and screamed.

“Friday,” I said shakily, and Bucky paused at my words. His whole body tensed, cold blue eyes boring into me. I knew that if I said one single word out of line, this would be where I died. “Don’t engage alarm system. Keep us incognito.”

“Yes, Sir.”

Bucky’s shoulders relaxed a fraction before he was back to dragging Rumlow after us. We crammed into the elevator, both Cap and I putting as much distance between Bucky and ourselves as we could as he forced Rumlow to his knees in front of himself, metal fingers gripping the nape of his neck to force his head down.

Bucky’s gravely voice bit something out in Russian, and Rumlow shuddered. “S-she’s alive, I swear,” Rumlow answered in English, “I saw her myself.”

This seemed to both assure and infuriate Bucky. Another rumbled Russian sentence was spoken.

I watched as Rumlow’s throat bobbed, and fear leaked into his eyes as he stared at the ascending floor of the elevator. “She was undergoing an operation when I left,” he swallowed, “but she was alive.”

Again, a growled question on Russian.

“I don’t know! I was just there t-to…” It seemed Rumlow had thought better of what he was going to say, and his jaw clamped shut.

Bucky gripped the back of his hair and slammed his face into the elevator doors hard enough to dent the steel. There was a sickening crunch and a garbled cry.

“Ready a jet. Weapons, fuel, everything.” Bucky didn’t look back at me as he spoke, only kept staring down at Rumlow’s mangled and bleeding face.

I nodded, muttering for Friday to do as he asks.

When the elevator leveled out, Bucky kept us pinned with the gun as he dragged Rumlow towards the jet that was already running, fully stocked and prepped for takeoff. It was a single person jet for solo missions, nearly imperceptible if it weren’t for the tracker embedded in it.

Just as I had thought it though, he tore open one of the side compartments by the door and yanked out the wires, tossing the small tracking device to the floor and crushing it under his boot.

He leveled us with a gun one last time, eyes wild. “Don’t follow, and don’t send anyone.”

I honest to God don’t know why he hadn’t killed us already. Maybe it was because he hadn’t truly been triggered, but I didn’t know. Maybe it was something else entirely. Whatever the reason was, I was grateful when he lowered the gun and hustled into the jet, Rumlow shouting as he was dragged into the hangar.

Cap and I both watched as the jet lifted off and disappeared into cloud cover. It wasn’t long before Cap spoke.

“We should send a team after him. He’s not in his right mind.”

I scoffed, “No shit. But if we do, there’s no telling what he’d do. He’s unpredictable when he’s like this, and we don’t know if he has orders…” But even as I said it, I knew it wasn’t true. Bucky had only one mission in his mind.

Get Max back. And I don’t think he really cared what it cost to achieve it.

—————

Max-

I had somehow managed to fall asleep, albeit fitfully, after doing as much as I could to mend my mangled body.

I felt heavy, and my stomach growled loudly in hunger. My mouth was dry, and I honestly couldn’t remember the last time they had brought me rations. Maybe they didn’t plan to. Maybe this was it.

Giles hadn’t even showed up since he dropped me the meager medical box, and I didn’t know how long it had been since then. It could’ve been hours or days—I couldn’t keep track.

I shifted, hearing the clicking at my back and fighting the urge to claw at it. I hated it, whatever they’d done. It was annoying and loud, echoing in my skull whenever I moved. The lack of knowing what it was really haunted me, but I didn’t have the energy to panic about it. Not when I had more important things to focus on.

Hunger, thirst, pain.

I was wearing thin, and I think Giles knew it. He knew he was close to breaking me, and I wanted to make him hurt for it. I wanted to tear him to shreds, wanted to make him hurt the way I had for all those years. For stealing the sliver of peace I had been able to hold onto for the short time I was with the Avengers.

If I lived, I would spend every waking second hunting him until he was wiped clean from this world.

I closed my eyes, cheek pressed to the cold concrete with the intention of trying to sleep once again, when I felt the vibrations. A constant thundering, like a stampede was heading towards me.

My eyes snapped open, locking on the door as the grew more apparent. Shouts, all Russian and very panicked, echoed towards me.

“Protect the asset!”

“Don’t let him- he’s through the first blockade!”

Bullets thunked into the walls outside the door, pinging off metal and burying themselves in the concrete. The stomps still thundered, growing closer with the shouts and screaming men.

The door flung open a moment later, and a flurry of men in uniforms poured in. All of them wore worried, frightened expressions. They cleared a table, the contents atop it clattered to the floor as they hauled it over to block the door. They surrounded me, guns raised towards the door.

None of them seemed too concerned with me. Whatever was outside that door had scared them shitless.

Then the screaming started. Sharp and grating, just beyond the door. I could hear strangled yelling, thumping, and bullets continuing to puncture their targets.

I could sense the foreboding that settled into the soldiers surrounding my cell. I would’ve laughed if my throat wasn’t so dry I thought I’d choke.

Suddenly, all of the commotion outside the door stopped. The air stilled, and not a soul moved.

There wasn’t a sound when the figure appeared in the foggy glass window on the cell door. Tall, looming, and utterly still. The glass was old and covered in so much grime you couldn’t see in or out of it.

That didn’t seem to settle the men around my cage. They shook, bodies trembling and hearts pounding.

The figure moved fast, an arm coming up to shatter the small window and thrust something through it. The metal hit the ground, and a hissing filled the air.

I covered my face with my arm, holding my breath as gas filled the air and choked the soldiers. They struggled to yank gas masks from their belts, and I eyed the nearest soldier to the cell.

Shoving up from the ground, I gripped his tac vest and yanked him against the bars with as much strength as I could muster. He thudded against it, shouting, and dropped his mask to the floor. I yanked it into the cell, pushing myself to the center and out of reach as I fumbled with it. My lungs stung for a few moments before I jerked it over my head and set it in place.

I took a clean breath of air as they began to slump over. Dead or asleep, I didn’t want to know. I sucked in another breath, my eyes finding the door once more.

I wasn’t prepared to see his face, wasn’t prepared for the way it froze me in place and stalled my heart. Flashes of memories or hallucinations—couldn’t tell the difference anymore—barreled through my head. I couldn’t fight the knee jerk reaction to flinch away, to clench my eyes shut and push myself into the corner of my cell.

I couldn’t watch him die again. I couldn’t see his blood on my hands again.

The door scraped open, kicked in by his heavy boot. I heard the table screech across the concrete, and bodies slumping to the floor. Still, I didn’t look up.

I heard the shuffle of his clothes, the softest scuffs of his boots on the floor, saw his shadow block the light behind my eyelids. I knew he was right there. I knew it was him, and yet I couldn’t stop the dread from suffocating me.

It was too much stress for my abused mind, my tired body, and I felt my mind go dark just as the door opened.

—————

Steve-

Bucky- or rather the Winter Soldier- returned to the tower with Max two days after holding Stark and I at gunpoint on the landing bay.

Max was in critical condition when they arrived, and Bucky was still not Bucky. But he wasn’t completely the Winter Soldier either. Not in his actions, anyways. He’d broken into the med bay when he arrived back and had demanded that the Doctors in the wing tend to Max immediately. He was caring, even if it was through the threats on several individuals lives.

He wanted someone to help her.

The Avengers had all showed up on the level to handle him, and Wanda ended up restraining him with her magic and forcing him to his cell. He’d gone ballistic when we’d removed him, and he still remained the Winter Soldier even after he passed out after days of relentlessly roaring and slamming his fists into the cell walls.

It had been two weeks since then, and still wasn’t himself. Less Soldier and more… confused. And Max was in a coma.

The Doctors had done every test possible after she was deemed stable and still hadn’t woken up. Even brain scans, but they’d come up strangely. Her brain was active, more so than normal, but there were strange dark lines that moved in every scan. It was unnerving, and left the team disturbed when the information was shared with us. Wanda, who’d given a brief explanation of her last encounter with Max, had gone pale at the news and excused herself from most meetings regarding Max after that.

I’d catch Peter or Stark visiting her when they were free. They’d sit and talk with her, or sometimes just hold her hand and not talk at all. It was painful to watch even if Max and I weren’t close.

Because we weren’t close at all. Which really brought me to question why I found myself sitting in the same chair I’d seen Stark sitting in just a few hours ago. It was late, around eight. Most of the team had dismissed themselves to their rooms, and I’d taken one last round to visit Buck in his cell before I somehow found myself here.

I gazed down at Max, her body still, and her breathing even and deep. Still sleeping.

Seeing her like this, vulnerable and… and relaxed for what felt like the first time in a while was strange. It was almost like I could see her as just a woman, not as the thing I’d seen her as in that bunker. But I couldn’t forget that, probably wouldn’t for as long as I lived.

Still, it made me rethink the way I had treated her.

“Hey, Max.” I didn’t say it louder than a whisper, afraid she’d snap awake for some reason. “I… I don’t know why I’m here. Maybe because I need to apologize for the way I have spoken to you in the past. Maybe… I don’t know.”

I felt silly, sitting here alone and talking to a comatose girl I didn’t really know and didn’t know if I wanted to. But she meant something to Buck. And I had been unfair.

“Listen,” I took a breath, resting my head in the palms of my hands. “I’m sorry for the way I treated you when you were with us in the compound. I’m sorry for assuming the worst from you, even though you’d proven to us that you weren’t what Hydra wanted you to be. I owe you that.”

I looked up at her pale face, her white lashes where they remained rested closed. “Bucky isn’t the same without you. He’s… he’s like a shell. I’ve never seen him this bad, not even before we found you. And now he’s in some sort of limbo soldier state and I don’t know how to help him. I know you would, though. You always did. Even if I disliked you for it.”

I pressed my palms to my temples. “Maybe I should… maybe he needs to see you and it would help him. Maybe if he could just be near you—.”

Something latched onto my hand, and my gaze snapped down where her hand clenched my wrist in a bruising grip. Ultramarine lines snaked out from her palm, similar to Wanda’s gift, creeping around my arm. They weren’t elegant or enchanting like Wanda’s power though. Not with the way they tangled themselves like overgrown weeds, twisting over each other as they reached towards my head.

I yanked at my hand, but her grip held fast, holding me in place as they wrapped around my neck. Part of the vining strands separated and plunged itself into my ear. I tried to scream, to call for help, but my brain blanked and my vision went white.

I thought it had, anyways. But the longer I waited, the longer I realized I was awake. That I was conscious.

And that I wasn’t alone.

Max sat on the ground in the middle of the whiteness, her expression blank and empty. She wore the hospital garb she had been in when Bucky had brought here back. The bloodied, thin fabric hung off her gaunt form.

I took a step, then another, but the closer I got, the more the whiteness around me darkened and scenery sprung around me. A cell, guards donning a red emblem that made rage flicker in my gut, and Max remained in the middle of it all.

“Max?” I kept my voice low as a guard materialized next to me.

None of what was happening made sense. I had just been in the tower sitting next to her, then here? Something was very wrong.

“Max,” I stepped closer to the cell, this time raising my voice a bit more. “Hey, it’s Steve.”

She shifted, blinking a few times and hugging herself with a shiver. I noted the cold air when she did, suddenly very aware of how real this all seemed.

Her hair fell over her eyes, and she didn’t move to fix it. “You aren’t real.”

I paused at that, frowning. I looked around, taking in the scene around me. Because that’s what I thought it was. A scene, or a memory of some sort.

I recalled the brief description of Max’s new power that Wanda had briefed us on from her experience with it. It wasn’t much to go on, seeing as Wanda was unwilling to share too much of what she’d seen. But it was the concept that I was interested in.

Wanda had seen the same disturbing blue power flaring out from Max right before she was thrown into what I could only guess was Max’s memories. Which seemed the only logical conclusion I could find as I knelt by the cell.

This must’ve been somewhere she was kept, maybe even the exact cell she was in just weeks ago. I kept taking note of what was around me, how cold the air felt, the way I could hear the shuffling of the guards. It would be easy to confuse this for reality with how detailed it was.

But certain things didn’t line up.

There was emptiness on the other side of the door to the small cell, like nothing existed outside this room. The guards eye color changed, or the weapon they held would miraculously become something different when I glanced away. It was small things, but enough to solidify my theory.

“Max.”

This time, she glanced up. Her eyes were watery and red, and her mouth was a flat emotionless line. “I really don’t need you to taunt me, Steve. Can’t you see I’m done? Can’t you see I’ve given up? It’s over!I’m tired of the pain, the hate. I’m just… I’m so tired.”

“Hey, don’t say that.” I gripped the bars, “I’m not here to taunt you, or anything like that. I…” I swallowed hard. “I was actually apologizing to you before. I knew you couldn’t hear me, but I needed to tell you that I’m sorry. I’m sorry for how I treated you, how unkind I was. You didn’t deserve that. I just didn’t understand before, I didn’t know why you were the way you are.”

Her face scrunched up in disbelief as a bitter laugh echoed off the walls. “God, even my hallucinations make you sickeningly righteous.”

I blow out a breath at that, reminding myself that she doesn’t understand that this is literally all in her head. And that she does have every right to be bitter with me. I was a prick.

“This isn’t a hallucination,” I keep my voice even and low. “What do you remember before this?”

She frowned, her eyes far off and her skin getting impossibly paler. “Winter. I remember Winter outside that door.” She nodded towards the steel door across from her, and a shadow moved over the window.

I reminded myself that this wasn’t real, and focused back on her and not the looming silhouette outside of the room. “That was real. Very real. Bucky rescued you two weeks ago. You’re currently in a coma at the tower.”

Her eyes widened, and her head started shaking slowly.

“Max, just listen to me. I’m not lying to you. Bucky got you out of here. Your powers— the new ones, they’re keeping you and I in here. Just a few minutes ago, I was sitting next to your hospital bed in the tower. I swear to you, I’m telling the truth.”

Max just stared and stared, her brows pitched upwards and a lost, almost helpless expression pouring over her features. After a while, she finally spoke up. “What do I do? I don’t know how to… how to get us out.”

I blew out a breath, looking around. There wasn’t anything obvious that indicated an exit other than the door. I glanced back at the cell, which now had a door where only bars had been moments ago. I blinked, “I think you just have to want to leave.” I nodded towards the cell door.

I watched her process things, her eyes flitting around the room to the guards. “They’ll try to stop me.”

I shook my head, patting my chest. “I’ll keep them from doing that if they try, okay?”

She looked at me then, a million emotions in her eyes. Vulnerability wasn’t something I was used to seeing from Max, and it twisted something in my heart.

Something I hadn’t felt for a hundred years.

“Okay,” she whispered. “I trust you.”

On shaky legs, she shuffled towards the cell and gripped the bars. With a gentle tug, the door creaked open and her eyes bounced between the guards. None of them moved, but I moved towards her anyway. She needed to feel safe.

I offered my hand, smiling in what I hoped looked like an encouraging gesture. She took it, her pale hand gripping mine like a lifeline as she padded quickly towards the steel door to the room. It groaned as she yanked it open, and we were plunged into reality.

———

Max-

I gasped for air, my throat burning as I registered the world around me. The real one, I hoped.

Bright lights blinded me overhead, and a tube was lodged in my throat. I reached up, yanking out the wires and needles in my arm in the process, and pulled it out. I coughed, gagging for a moment before I could finally just breathe.

Steve was slumped in the chair next to me, his body twitching every few seconds. His eyes were closed, but he was breathing steady. Alive, at least.

I gathered my wits, taking a few minutes to assess my body. Steve had said I was out for two weeks, and the improvement of my condition from the last time was proof enough. I wasn’t hungry, for one. No pains in my body. I didn’t feel like my mouth was full of sand when I swallowed, which means I was hydrated for the first time in a while.

I was… fine. Alive, breathing, and whole.

Mostly.

The clicking was still there. It reverberated through my skull making me hyper aware of every move I made, metallic and haunting.

I shoved it out of my mind, as far as I could. I just needed to get out of this bed. I needed… I needed to see what they’d done to me. I needed to make sure I was really here. That this was real and not some twisted mind game again.

With heavy limbs, I swung myself to the side of the bed. If this was really the tower, Friday would’ve already notified Tony or someone to come check on me immediately. Which meant my time frame was severely limited.

I made my way into the elevator, hustling as much as my groggy body would allow, and punched my floor number. It rose, and I counted the numbers lighting on the panel as they passed. When it leveled with my floor, I waited long enough to squeeze through the opened doors and hurried to my door. I shoved it open, noting the crumpled covers and the distinct smell of leather and that familiar cologne.

I took a moment to close my eyes, to breathe him in even if he wasn’t truly here. It was a small hint that maybe… maybe it really was real. I didn’t let it sit with me long, snapping open my eyes and storming to the bathroom.

I ripped off the hospital gown and let my eyes roam over my pale skin. Scars, all new, peppered my body where none had been before. Pale shimmering skin where my regeneration had tried and failed to heal them correctly. I lifted my eyes more, noting more as I kept looking upon my image in the mirror. When I got to my neck, my heart stalled.

There, right next to the column of my throat, was the distinct insignia of Hydra. The skin wasn’t shimmery, not completely, anyways. Like part of it had healed when I was still under whatever was in that injection. Parts of it were deep pink, nearly red against the shimmery pale counterparts. But it was unmistakable even with the frankenstein healing. Hydra had marked me permanently, like property.

Rage clawed at my chest, seeped into my veins, and solidified my resolve.

I went to the nightstand, pulling out my belongings, and then reaching under the bed for my ammo box. I set them on the covers before yanking out the duffel I hid along with them, and shoved everything inside.

I made quick work with my small closet, packing the most useful, purposeful items I owned and a few I had sentimental value in, and shoved them in too. I changed into a hoodie and a pair of cargo pants, lacing my boots and pulling my hand gun from under the nightstand, shoving it into my waistband.

I didn’t really think about what I was doing. It was instinct and muscle memory alone. When it was all done, and the room looked vacant and bare of any hint of me, I paused to think.

To consider what I was about to do.

What I was about to leave.

The tower and the Avengers had been a home to me. They’d been friends and family. I’d… I’d allowed myself to put down roots for the first time and I was about to tear them out. Tony would be devastated, and so would Thor and Peter. The others, I wasn’t so sure.

I’d hurt them. I knew what I’d done would come back to haunt me every night for the rest of my life. I knew that some of them wouldn’t be able to forgive me. That Wanda would seek me out for revenge someday and she might succeed.

I couldn’t stay. It would hurt them more than I already had. They would be better off… happier, if I did what I’d always done and disappear.

So I grabbed a notebook from my shelves, scribbled down a few things and labeled them, leaving them neatly on the bed. I hesitated a moment longer before writing something for Bucky. Even if he didn’t love me, or he wasn’t alive to read it, whatever the case… he deserved closure.

The elevator pinged down the hall, and I hauled the bag over my shoulder. With one look back around my room, I locked the door and turned towards the balcony.

When I stepped out, the cool air was welcome as it nipped at my skin. The cool metal of the hand railing was a solid reminder of reality. Of this place, and what waited for me beyond.

I glanced down at the pavement below, knowing the jump would hurt like hell. I’d live though, probably be healed by the time I made it to the end of the block.

I steeled myself with a breath, and one last look out at the city.

This would be the last time I saw it for a long time. It was time for me to start my own path, to follow my own desires and make my own decisions. I was out from Hydras thumb, and I would make sure it stayed that way forever. I would never be put in a position like that ever again, and anyone who tried to take my freedom from me again… I’d tear them apart.

It was time for a new leaf, for the past to be laid to rest. I’d rend Hydra from this earth, and make a new name for myself.

Pounding started on the door, muffled voices shouting behind it, but I didn’t turn back. Instead, I hauled myself over the railing and plummeted down…

To a new beginning.

Tags<3

@greatmistakes / @cjand10 / @greatenthusiasttidalwave / @calwitch / @blackbirdwitch22 / @imdoingathingmom / @readawaythereality2

[imawreck]

UPDATE!!!

I hope you’re all still with me 😬 I’ve been working on several chapters for GHOST among others. I will be posting the last chapter to GHOST (for now 🫣) tonight. I have decided it’s time to move the story along into Infinity War era. I will be linking the first chapter to the new fic at the end of the GHOST master list for those of you who still want to follow the story. Thank you for those of you who have stuck with me this long!

- Ayden

Tags <3

@cjand10 / @imdoingathingmom / @greatenthusiasttidalwave / @greatmistakes / @blackbirdwitch22 / @calwitch / @readawaythereality2

[imawreck]

IM BACK. DW. but now i miss you 😔

I cannot describe to you the immense joy these anonymous messages bring me 🤣 I’m so happy you’re back! Also, I will be returning! Just that writing has been giving me the hardest time lately but I’ve managed to get past my writers block and will (hopefully, I’m fighting demons over here) be getting a few different chapters out soon! I apologize for how long it’s taken! 😭🫶🏻

[imawreck]

Update

Hey, hi, hello 👋 I’d like to formally apologize for not posting a chapter for last week. I beg your forgiveness 🙏🙏🙏 but I had it written and I read it a billion times and hated it. So, I’m currently rewriting it (as well as another part for a new series) for this weeks update! Again, I’m very sorry and I’m working to get it out by the end of this week! Also, if you’re interested in my new series, it will be coming out this week as well. It’s called Brooklyn Devil, and it’s a Vampire!Bucky AU to celebrate Halloween!

- Ayden

[imawreck]

do you have a posting schedule?

Ah, the question of the century. 🥲 I did when I had a lot of chapters to get out, but I’m currently caught up with my main fic Ghost! So, I’ll be posting as I write. I’ll probably be posting once a week towards the end of the week until further notice! Thanks for asking!

[imawreck]

Revenge

Pairing: Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier x Original Character

Summary:

Warnings:

Word Count:

Wanda- 

I felt pressure against my shoulders, squeezing my arms and shaking me. It wasn't harsh, but it was persistent in its efforts to draw me out of the fog that clung to my mind. I felt like someone had put a blanket over me to muffle the outside world. There was a voice calling to me urgently through the muddled mess of my hearing. Ringing had begun its sharp shrill in my ear as I began to come back to my senses. 

I was cold, and something hard pressed up against my back. With great effort, I pried my eyes open and blinked to clear the skittering shapes. Vision was leaned over me, his hands a gentle pressure on my shoulders as he called my name again. "Wanda, are you alright? Wanda!"

Finally the blanket lifted and I snapped back to myself, turning my head wildly to take in my surroundings. 

Concrete floor and walls, the barrier I erected no longer blocked the hall. Pieces of it were bent out of shape and littered through the corridor. I was laid out on the floor, very much not how I remember being before those blue things wrapped around me. "What happened? Where's Ghost?"

Vision's shoulders sank with relief before he answered. "You collapsed and started screaming on the floor. Max told me to let her go or she'd kill you. I don't know how she did it, but she held your mind, Wanda. You started seizing and I had to let her go."

My hands shook as I lifted them to shove my hair out of my face now dampened by the sweat covering me. Like a movie, the images and screams began to pour in again and panic gripped me in a vice. "T-the things I saw, God, the blood. Pietro, h-he... he was there." I clutched my shirt, trying and failing to ease the pressure building in my chest. 

Vision eased his hand up and down my back. "I'm sorry, but we need to move. Tony called in and said that Max has made it out to the location the helicopter will use to land. He's going to try and stop her before she can kill the Chairman."

"He can't. He-he can't beat her! I couldn't beat her!” Tears began to leak down my face, "There's nothing left in there to save."

_____

Tony- 

"Friday, darling, please tell me you have something good to say to me right now."

There was bad news coming at me left and right. Capsicle had a run in with Max without Tin-man to help him out, Legolas wasn't responding and neither was Triple Imposter, and Vision just flew out the doors of the building holding a sobbing Wanda in his arms.

Absolutely nothing was going right and the whole mission was turning into a shit show.

"Yes, Boss. Max is currently within range."

I shifted my jets, "Brilliant! This is why you're my favorite. Dispatch drones to keep her in our sights. Make them cause her a little trouble but keep it gentle. We just want to keep her from murdering Mister Chairman."

"Right away, Sir."

I followed the direction laid out across the snowy terrain, taking note of the displayed imagery of a blood trail courtesy of Friday. Not far from the entrance to the safehouse was Max. She had a limp and seemed to be clutching at her side. A pang shot through my heart at the sight of her. "Friday, what's the best way to subdue her without causing any physical injury?"

There was a heavy pause as my AI calculated. "I'm sorry to say, Sir, but I don't think the team has the resources or the manpower to subdue a person this enhanced with what we have... There is no alternative."

I sighed, flying overhead as I followed her trail. I was closing in, which meant I'd have to make a quick decision. 

"Drones are engaging." Friday pulled up a zoomed in image of the drones coraling Max in an effort to keep her from getting to the helicopter now landing in the soft snow. 

I watched a drone fall to one of her knives, crashing into the ground in a small explosion. Another was quick to follow it but she was constantly having to move to evade the shots raining down on  her. Max's face was scrunched in pain and she was looking awfully pale in all the shots Friday slung onto my display.

"Mr. Stark, the Chairman has made it into the helicopter and it is now taking off."

I turned, facing the ascending metal bird as it wavered in the sky. They just had to get out of firing range and the Chairman would be safe. I hadn't spotted any other weapons on her other than knives fortunately, so the Chairman and his guards had a higher chance of getting out alive.

A scream of pain had my eyes snapping back down to the snow covered valley. Max's hand was pressed against her now bleeding side, clutching at the torn fabric of her uniform as the last of the drones crash-landed into the valley along with the others. Her body was battered, and I could see her shoulders heave in gasps of air from where I hovered several yards away.

Panic ripped through me, "I told you to keep it gentle!"

Friday's voice was soft with apology, "I'm sorry, Mr. Stark. Her movements slowed rather quickly and I was unable to draw fire fast enough."

I cursed, "She's lost too much blood!"

But just as I thought she would fall over dead, Max took off in a jog towards the escaping helicopter. She picked up the speed with each step, pushing her legs harder through the dense white terrain. The helicopter hadn't yet risen very high into the air, unable to ascend much farther into the clouds without the risk of losing sight of the harsh cliffs lining the valley. 

With each forced step I watched her close in on the craft, a cry of anger echoing through the open air. I started towards her, sure she would lose consciousness soon with the amount of blood trailing after her. 

But she kept going.

Closer and closer, clawing at the snow as she went with a vicious scream of rage until she was right under it. She crouched low and shoved up from the earth with startling strength and latched onto the step hanging off the side. I felt my breath lodge in my lungs as I willed my suit to go faster. 

I had to get her off and keep her grounded. The helicopter began to spin out with the added weight of the supersoldier, and I saw the pilot desperately trying to level in the air. Max was hauling herself up and hooking her arms over the rail. I was too far away to do anything in time. I fired off a warning shot that had her flinching away for a moment before she was hooking her leg up and straddling the step. 

I was just behind the tail, reaching out for her.

Her hands wrapped around the door handle and ripped it clean off the side, chunking it right at me. I had to fly over it to avoid getting cut in half. In my attempt to remain intact, she had thrown out one of the guards who was now free falling towards inevitable death. The Chairman was quick to follow with the second guard.

I dove towards the ground, "Friday give me some juice! I'm not going fast enough!" The jets on my suit kicked into overdrive as I shot towards the closest man, clamping my hand onto his arm. "Hold on and don't let go!"

I steered toward the next, grasping the Chairman by the ankle and unceremoniously handing him to the guard clinging to my back. The ground was getting closer and closer, and the screams of the last guard were one of a person who knew that death would call them today.

I tried to hasten my decent, tried to grab him by the arm like I had done his comrade, but Friday's desperate voice met my ears. "Mr. Stark, if you don't pull up you're going to crash."

So I pulled up and watched as the last guard hit the rock with enough impact to send the sound  ricocheting off the mountainside. I felt sick as I turned away, slowly descending towards the valley and releasing the two men I carried to collapse onto the snow and weep. I slumped down with them, removing my helmet to suck in a breath of air as my lungs began to feel like they couldn't expand any further than a hairs width.

The helmet beside me crackled to life as the voices of my team communicated. 

I was relieved to hear Clint's voice through the speaker after so long without an update. "Natasha is down, we're on level two. I'll get her up the stairwell, but we're going to need to get back to base fast. Max busted her up pretty good." 

Barnes was next, sounding rather tired. "Steve's in bad shape too. We're almost to level two."

Vision's feet met the ground beside me with Wanda in his arms, "Wanda isn't well either. We should return and aid the Chairman to safety."

I nodded weakly, scrubbing a hand over my face to wipe away any stray evidence of the tears that began to well in my eyes. "Friday pull the jet around please."

"On it, Sir."

_____

Steve-

"You're going to have to take the next week or so off from missions. You've got to give that shoulder time to heal and your ribs too. Three fractured." Dr. Cho unwrapped the arm band with a quick yank on the velcro. 

"How is everyone else?" I had seen Vision bring Wanda in and she had looked out of it. No one knew what happened to her.

Dr. Cho gave a grim expression. "Wanda experienced a severe seizure. She's sleeping at the moment so we haven't had time to get her side of the story yet, but Vision said it was something that Max had done to her. We don't have any details right now, but she's recovering well. Natasha had several puncture wounds up her torso and a broken leg. She will be out for several months to recover, but the punctures should heal up quickly."

I nodded, lifting a hand to massage my sore shoulder. Max had dislocated it when she'd slammed me against that wall. "Thank you for your help."

She nodded before turning away to flip through her clipboard.

The doors to the medical wing opened once more and I was surprised to see Rumlow stroll through the doors. No one on the team really liked him, but we all had to tolerate his presence as one of the overseeing SHIELD agents.

He gave me a cocky smile, "Hey there, Cap. How's the arm?"

I grimaced, "Could be better. Why are you here?" I nodded towards his wrapped arm. I couldn't recall seeing it earlier in the week. 

Rumlow waved it dismissively, "I cut it while training. Painful as hell I'll tell you, and an absolute pain in the ass having to change the bandages all the time." He began to unravel his bandage while he spoke to me, wincing as the air finally hit the bare skin.

The wound was red and angry. It was long, several slashes cut down the inside of his forearm almost like something had been dragged over it. Rumlow lifted his arm to squint at something on it before he cursed, pinching at something and gently tugging it free from his arm. 

He tossed it into the trash before he grabbed a new wrap from the counter a few paces away. "I hope you have a quick recovery Cap, you're in for a real ass-kicking from the higher ups for this rogue mission." With a mock salute, he sauntered back out the med doors.

My eyes traveled back to the trash can as the image of his marred arm flashed through my mind. It didn't sit well with me, the strangeness of the whole situation. I had never seen Rumlow in the training room here and I was certain there was no way he would've gotten a wound like that using the equipment. 

Pushing off the exam table, I walked over to the trash can. There weren't any other items in it besides his discarded wrappings, but as I examined it further, I saw a small shard laying on top of them. I moved to one of the drawers, sifting through them until I found a pair of tweezers. I reached down and picked it up to examine it. The edges of it were jagged, and the whole of it was white and crescent shaped.

Then it clicked. This was a fingernail. I quickly shoved the shard into my pocket and left the room.

Why would Rumlow have a fingernail in a scrape down his arm? Where could he have gotten it if he was supposed to be monitoring us?

I had a sinking feeling it was far from anything good.

I pocketed the evidence and gave a quick wave to Dr. Cho as I hustled out of the med-wing. A couple halls later, I found myself in one of the labs. Banner sat hunched over his computer staring at some complicated formula I couldn't understand, letters and numbers all mixed together in a line. "Banner," I called to him, "I need you to look at this for me."

His chair swiveled around and a look of confusion passed over his face, "What?"

I dug my fingers into my pocket to retrieve the nail, placing it gently onto the counter. "I need you to tell me anything you can about this."

Banner stared at it for a long minute, taking glances my way every once and awhile. "Well, it's a fingernail..."

I sighed, pushing it further over to counter, "No. I know that, but I need you to tell me who's it is."

His features remained absolutely baffled as he pinched it between his fingers and prepped in on a slide. "This job is never normal. Why can't it ever be normal?" 

Moments later, he had pulled out a microscope and settled everything in place. I watched in anticipation as he leaned over the lens and began examining my findings. Banner's face morphed through several expressions before he pulled away from the lens; surprise, concern, wariness.

"Where did you find this? On the mission?" His eyes met mine, crashing with worry and confusion.

I shook my head, "No, I found it in the trash can after Rumlow pulled it out of a wound on his arm."

Banner stared at me, mouth opening and closing, "I... the DNA isn't identifiable."

My heart pounded against my ribs, "The same kind of ‘unidentifiable’ as a certain someone we know?" The simple bob of his head sent my brain into overdrive. "If Rumlow was in contact with Max, why is he still walking and talking?"

"I have no idea. Max hated that guy. I thought she'd kill him when she wasn't brainwashed." Worry lines grew over Banner's forehead.

"We have to tell the team." I hesitated, suddenly very aware that we could be under someone's microscope. If Rumlow had been in contact with Max, chances were he wasn't on our side. SHIELD had been infiltrated and who knows how many others were walking among us. "Keep it quiet until I call a meeting, and keep this as far from Bucky as you can."

Banner nodded, scrapping the fingernail and digging through one of the various drawers under the counter. 

I turned, b-lining for the elevator as fast as I could. I had to find Stark. Something like this, now of all times, is catastrophic if we don't handle it quickly and efficiently. The elevator ride to Tony's work lab only heightened my anxiety. By the time the machine leveled out, I was shoving the doors open to scour the room. Tony sat slumped in his chair with his eyes trained on the ever-updating screen in front of him. He hadn't stopped watching for any signs of anything.

"Stark," I started, "We need to talk."

Tony sighed heavily as he pressed his palms to his temples. "Not now, Rogers. I have to focus on this."

I grunted, forcing his chair around. "No, we need to talk." He opened his mouth to protest, scream at me maybe, but I kept going. "SHIELD has been compromised," I spoke lowly, "And Rumlow has something to do with it. I was with him in the infirmary and witnessed him pulling out a fingernail from a wound on his forearm. I took it to Banner for examination and he confirmed a suspicion I had."

Tony's eyes told me to spit it out, his body leaning on the edge of his seat with wide eyes and a flicker of hope in them.

"His findings matched Max's DNA," I breathed, "He's been part of this the whole time."

_____

Max-

I was numb. The cold had bitten my skin raw at my elbows, but I couldn't feel it anymore. I couldn't feel anything. Not the wounds I received on the last mission, or whatever contraption they had left on my spine. I didn't move, not even an inch. Air dragged in and out of my lungs, but they were shallow and jagged, barely there. 

I wasn't sure how long I had been in the cage, not since I came to after the mission. I remembered bits and pieces of what had happened, but it hadn't come all the way back yet. That alone was a sign that I was fading quickly, both my mind and body. I wouldn't last much longer. A few days, maybe.

My stomach growled and I raised my hand to press away the pain, feeling my ribs along my side. I was so hungry. They hadn't fed me in days. My neck had burned as my pulse pumped slow and weak, the ache throbbing up to my ear and settling in the back of my skull as a constant companion to the cold. I had managed to press it into the cool concrete to numb it too, but I knew infection was on the horizon.

Somewhere behind the door, footsteps echoed. I kept my eyes closed.

I didn't have the energy to jump when the door slammed open and humming filtered through the room. "Hello again, little bird."

I was quiet, praying for release. Even if that release was death. Death was better than this, a gift I knew I wasn't worthy of. Perhaps that's why I hadn't been allowed it yet.

Giles's footsteps halted close to the edge of the cell. I could hear his heartbeat thumping in the silence. "Birdie." 

I opened my eyes, vision still blurry as the lights bared down on me like the sun itself. I shut them again with a whimper. I had nothing left to give.

Giles sighed, "Useless. I send you out on a couple of missions and you're just a bag of flesh on the floor." His foot came in contact with the side of the cell, "I'll have to spend the next month nursing you back to health. Pathetic, really. What happened to sufficiency?"

I wanted to cry, to scream at him, but I could hardly do much more than open my eyes. My wounds had finally stopped bleeding a few hours ago and I feared moving would reopen them anyways. 

Giles sighed again, shoving something through the bars and muttering something I didn't catch as he left, slamming the door. I pried my lids open to look, nearly sobbing at the bowl of food he had left and a small med kit. I lifted a hand, the muscles in my neck throbbing as I did so, and scooted the bowl over. It was food, real food. A few cuts of meat and some blended vegetable mushed under it. Tears hit the concrete as they dripped from my eyes.

I scarfed it down until there was nothing, but it did little to help my energy. I remained on the floor for what felt for several hours. I swept in and out of consciousness several times and when I finally felt like moving wouldn't result in a world of agony, I inched myself over to the med kit. The room had warmed a bit, and I was grateful for the small mercy. It took several minutes to get myself vertical against the bars, something clanging against them behind me and sending an ache up my spine. I had to force myself to breathe through it as I cracked open the kit.

Gauze, medical tape, and various ointments and sterilizers sat inside. No needles or thread, or a pair of scissors. Smart, not that I had the ability to use any of those now anyways. Slowly, I managed to clean the wounds. Everything stung, and there were a few times I nearly passed out again, but I held on. I feared I wouldn't wake up if I hit the concrete. 

Once it was over, I felt like I could breathe just a little more. I sat there against the bars, closing my eyes and resting. I thought about the team, what they might be doing right now even though I had no idea what time it was or what day of the week it was either. Peter would be in school somewhere probably swooning over that girl he liked so much. Thor was probably home frowning at his brother he had told me so much about. Tony would be working on his suit with his bizarre music blaring in the lab. And Bucky... Bucky is probably with Natasha. 

My heart clenched at the thought, but I could picture it clearly. He'd be on the couch with her in the common room, arm over the back of the couch while she tucked herself into his side with a grin. He'd laugh and shake his head as they played a movie. He'd be doting on her, asking if she needed a blanket or wanted a drink, anything to make her comfortable. 

He would be happy.

_____

Tony-

That son of a bitch!

I sat in the meeting room with files strewn over the table, most of them empty for show, but a few held what we knew about current Hydra activity. After Steve had stormed the lab, we concocted a plan to intercept Rumlow and get him cornered. It had to be out of sight and away from the ears of SHIELD. It had to be just us and him.

I just had to make sure I didn't blow a gasket before we could get something out of him.

The plan was simple, make sure we didn't raise any flags and let him assume he's getting away with everything. We wait until he leaves and send a tracker out after him. He'd lead us to Max, or somewhere close enough where we can find her ourselves.

Steve had contacted Sam for his wings. We needed as many hands on this mission as any, probably more. After the last one, most of the Avengers were out of commission for a while. 

The elevator tolled down the hall and I took a breath to reign in my thoughts and boiling temper. We needed this to work.

Rumlow smiled as he glided in through the glass doors of the meeting room, and as I took in his relaxed overconfident gait, I wondered how I hadn’t thought he was off from the start. Cap followed not far behind him, a grim expression on his face.

Rumlow pulled the chair out from the head of the table across from me and plopped into it, waiting for Cap to shut the glass doors behind him and come around to take a seat next to me.

“What can I do for you gentlemen?” His smile grew a bit, as if he was trying and failing to lighten the obvious gloom in the room.

“We wanted to update you on some knowledge we came to discover on our latest mission.” Cap recites, just as we’d discussed.

Now, it was up to us to keep up a front.

_____

Bucky-

I trudged down the hall towards the training area, my mind abusing me with images of Max in various stages of mutilation. The lack of information or evidence that she had made it out of the safehouse alive weighed heavily on me. I hadn't seen her in the building, not even once, but the others had all discussed how injured she was when they had seen her. Each time she engaged with one of us, she came out with another wound.

And Tony had said she had lost a severe amount of blood in the debrief after the mission. None of us knew if she made it out, or if she was dead on that mountain, bled out on the rocks.

I refused to believe she was. I couldn't handle it.

By chance, my eyes dragged themselves from the floor and caught sight of Banner typing away in the lab just down the corridor from the training area. I wouldn't have paid it much mind if it weren't for the familiar white locks and striking blue eyes of the photo on his screen.

My feet stopped moving, and I felt my heart drop to the floor. Banner switched from his computer, typing on the document, before shoving his eye against a microscope. He did it once, twice more, before I shoved open the glass door.

"What’re you doing?”

He must not have heard me come in, too focused on his task, because he nearly fell from his chair. “B-Bucky! Oh-umm… I’m… I-uh—”

I grit my teeth in frustration. Everyone in the tower had been acting like they were treading on eggshells around me. I knew I was the last to know about anything with Max, knew that certain information was being withheld from me. They’d be idiots if they didn’t.

But my patience—my sanity— was a threads-width away from snapping.

I shoved his chair away from the computer, my eyes scanning the document and taking in his studies. Because that’s what they were.

Detailed in the document was not only Max’s health concerns but her genetic alterations. Records of every checkup, every injury, as well as their healing times and her overall wellness at the time. Not only that, but there was specifications on her DNA too. More than was probably necessary.

“Why’re you documenting Max’s DNA?” My voice didn’t echo any kindness. The barely withheld anger looming on the forefront of my mind. Anger at the situation. Anger at the team. Anger at my reoccurring failures.

Banner paled, “Steve brought me a fingernail to analyze. I-I was just—”

My heart sputtered as I made the connection. “Steve brought you Max’s fingernail. From where?”

He swallowed, then a moment of silence passed before I realized he wasn’t going to tell me anything.

My fists clenched, and the metal plates of my arm shifted in the silence. “Banner, you need to tell me.” I felt wild, and I sure I looked it too. My mind was running a mile a minute trying to figure out where he could’ve gotten it from.

Max hadn’t used her claws from what I knew, so she wouldn’t have shed them in the safe house. There also would’ve have been a reason to analyze it if Steve had found it there anyways, so why?

“I-I shouldn’t, Steve told me not to!”

Rage gripped me, consuming me for a moment long enough to bash my fist into the cabinets above his desk. They caved beneath the pressure, crunching under my knuckles and bending the hinges, “Tell me, or I swear to God—”

“Rumlow! Steve got it off of Rumlow.”

I waited, thinking. “Off of Rumlow?”

Banner nodded, “Steve said he had cuts on his arms, said he pulled it out of one of them.”

Click.

“Bucky?”

Fists clenching, roiling, seething anger. “Where is Rumlow?”

Answers, needed answers.

“I-I don’t know.”

Metal shifting, gripping, begging to choke but can’t. Too many eyes and ears.

Thoughts flicker to before, how he would ask the walls, “Friday?” Voice felt raw, strangled.

“Yes, Sergeant Barnes?”

“Where is Rumlow?” Hate curled, writhed, created violent thoughts.

“Agent Rumlow is in a meeting with Mr. Rogers and Mr. Stark in the main meeting room.”

Images, distantly familiar, flooded in. Knew where it was, how to get there.

Boots hit the floor, leaving the doctor in his chair. Wanted to hurt him, cause pain, but had to find her. Metal doors closed, and body swayed as it was lifted towards the target.

When the doors opened, eyes found the target. He smiled, talked to the two others. Names I knew but didn’t know. Familiar, but not.

Rage clawed, grew, at the sight of his smile. Glass shattered, as the meeting room door swung open. Fingers curled around his throat and squeezed, lifting him from the ground.

“Where is she?” The words were biting, accentuated by the heavy Russian accent. Jaw ached as it clenched, fighting to keep control. To keep him at bay.

Rumlow choked, eyes wide and snapping to the two others in the room.

Instinct kicked in, pulling a familiar weight into hand and slotting a bullet into the chamber. “Move, and die,” even with the confusing feelings roaring forward, the statement was true.

I would kill them, I’d kill them all.

Familiar blue eyes, blonde hair, moved forward but stopped short as the other planted a palm on his chest. “Don’t, Cap.” A grim look settled onto his face as realization took hold, “That’s not Bucky.”

I stared at them, trying to fight the nagging feeling of him as he tried to come out, tried to take over. “No, Bucky isn’t here right now.” The name felt wrong, foreign. Wasn’t mine.

I turned back towards the man struggling in my grip, squeezing ever harder but not enough to kill.

The man who’d helped take her from me. The man who’d touched her, who’d hurt her. The man who knew where she was right this moment, and what had been done to her while she was parted from me.

I would make him pay for every single wound marring her body. I’d make him suffer, make him feel every bit of pain he helped put her through. And I’d get the others too. Every last one of them.

I brought him closer, eyes wild in anger. “Where is My Beloved?”

Tags<3

@imdoingathingmom / @greatenthusiasttidalwave / @cjand10 / @greatmistakes / @calwitch / @hzdhrtss / @blackbirdwitch22 / @readawaythereality2

[imawreck]

Escape

Pairing: Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier x Original Character

Summary: Max continues to pursue her mission, and Wanda is intent on stopping her… no matter what.

Warnings: wounds, blood, gore, cursing, mental manipulation, most warnings from the other chapters as well.

Word Count: 3,548

Bucky-

"-Uck. Bucky!" 

I stalled in the hallway at Steve's sudden voice in my ear. "Steve? Why weren't you answering?"

There was a pause before he answered. "I think being down so far is messing with the Comms. I had a run in with Max. She headed up towards the second floor."

Hearing him set my nerves at ease, if only a little. "Alright, so we regroup and head up. The others are still up there. We can corner her."

"We could miss our chance and I don't want to risk it. I'm following her up. Whatever you do, don't go down the hall I took. She did something to the doors." 

The sound of metal wrenching open echoed from further into the building and I quickened my pace away from it and back towards the stairwell we had come from. "We're supposed to stay in our teams! Splitting up down here was a mistake." The groaning of metal was getting louder as I hustled down the hall. "Steve, just wait up. I'm almost to the stairwell."

"Bucky!"

My boots skidded to a halt as I whipped my head around. It hadn't come from the stairwell.

"Bucky, that's not me!"

Out of the darkness, I caught a glimpse of red, white, and blue. The silver star glinted in the red emergency lights as Steve hauled himself down the hall towards me. He looked like shit, an arm limp at his side as he tried and failed to kick up his pace towards me. 

I frowned at him, hurring over to throw an arm around him. "I heard you on the comms—"

He coughed, clenching his fingers around his side and pinching his face in pain. "That's the thing, it wasn't me." Steve took a shallow breath in, "Max stole my Comms."

It didn't make any sense at all. I had heard his voice, not hers. "That can't be right. I swore I heard you."

"I know what you thought you heard, because I thought I heard you too before she showed up and threw me into a wall. She used your voice to lure me in." Steve's eyes went wide and a little wild. "She can copy us like some sort of voice recorder.”

I stared at him for a long moment, letting his words settle in. "So... you're telling me that Max is the one on the Comms."

He nodded, "She's using my voice to get to you."

Like he had summoned her, Steve's voice trickled through my ear again. I stared at his unmoving face as I heard his words, "You said you were almost to the stairwell, right? What's taking you so long? If I run into her again, I can't take her on alone."

My breath caught in my throat as I tried to detect a difference between the voice in my ear and the one I had just heard from the very man in front of me. There wasn't one. With a shaky hand, I pressed my finger to my ear, "Max?"

There was silence that followed until a tired sigh filtered through the speaker. "Game's up, huh? Captain is more resilient than he looks."

My hand went clammy with sweat as my heart raced behind my ribs. I motioned for Steve to follow me as I shuffled as quietly as I could up the staircase. She could be waiting up there for us and Steve was in no shape to hold his own. I would have to be a buffer between them if she attempted to ambush us. 

Her next words had my blood freezing in my veins. I could practically hear the smile in her voice. "Somebody is coming to play, gotta go boys."

_____

Max-

Footsteps thumped in the darkness of the hall. It was more confined on the second floor, less places to hide and less room to maneuver around. They were coming faster, two sets. One pair was light, less weight to it and far too practiced to be anyone other than the Widow. The other was heavy, but restrained nonetheless. The archer.

An odd weight sat on my chest, roiled in my stomach as images—memories—flooded my head.

Slender fingers cupped around a shadowed jaw, lips against each other. The thought set my blood alight like fire. Orders rang in my head, 'Play with them.'

Handler didn't omit maiming, or killing. 

Knives found themselves a home in my palm as their steps grew closer. I had left the stairwell, pushed away by the need to put distance between the Soldat and I. Something about him unsettled me deeply. Being near him had my heart rattling abnormally in place and my limbs seemed to forget their practiced stillness. Like he was a weakness to this body.

At the first glimpse of red hair, I let loose a blade. The Widow barely had time to drop out of the way before it could bury itself in her head. The archer was quick to cover fire with arrows that sent smoke crawling up the walls. The scent of fire burned thick in my nose as I moved several paces back, putting distance between the target and myself. Smoke was a quick move, a smart one, but it stole their vision as well as my own. 

I heard a bowstring draw and waited until the arrowhead split the air before I made any move to avoid the oncoming shot. The arrowhead pounded into the concrete, burying itself into the cement six inches from where my side would've been. A nonfatal hit.

They weren't trying to kill. Their objective could only be capture.

"Any reason for the death-blade you tossed over here? It seemed a bit personal." Her fluttering feminine voice was laced with sarcasm.

"Maybe it was." The words forced themselves from my lips without my consent, and I shook my head as I tried to restrain any other words from spilling out. Having them all near was... confusing me.

"Maybe Max is still in there after all." The archer spoke this time, and I heard them shift behind the receding smoke.

I didn't offer up a response before I launched into a run, dropping low and sliding against the ground with the momentum. I kicked the archers legs from under him and snagged an arrow from his sheath, burying it in his thigh. His scream was harsh and grating as I shoved back to my feet just in time to avoid a kick to my sternum by the Widow.

Her fist crashed into my ribs quick and forceful, knocking the breath from me and jostling me enough to have me stumbling a few steps. She took the opportunity to get in a few more precise hits before a searing hot bolt of anger had me stepping into her space close enough to ram my hand against her jugular. She sputtered, clutching at her neck while I struck again at her knees. Her back hit the concrete hard and I craved to finish her off, but my chance was abruptly cut off as an arrow buried itself in my calf.

A scream tore through me as I clutched at the wound, baring my teeth at the archer with his bow still drawn. I took a short breath and tore it out before I pushed back to my feet. Loosing a pair of knives from my belt, I launched them both towards his legs. One caught his knee, slicing along the side deep enough to have him stumbling to the side with a grunt. I was on him in seconds with an uppercut to the jaw, laying him out cold on the bunker floor.

Before I could register the pounding steps behind me, a weight had settled onto my hips and a wire was looping around my neck. I forced my hand under the cord as I sucked in a shallow breath, backpedaling hard into the wall. The Widow grunted but her wire only tightened itself around my throat.

Panic began seeping into my bones as I struggled to fight with my depleting oxygen. I reached up, clawing at anything I could get my fingers on. My vision was getting spotty and in a few moments I would be either out or dead. Neither of those were my orders and the protocol instilled inside of me refused to allow me to fail. In a spur of fear, something triggered inside of me. I felt something along my spine shift, clicking into place and releasing a sudden pressure. The Widow screamed, her wire disappearing with her weight as she fell to the floor.

I dropped to the ground with her, scrambling away from her as I choked in air. I peered over my shoulder at her form laid up against the wall. Blood was painting her uniform in a dotted line straight up her torso. Her hands were pressed against parts of it to staunch the bleeding.

The clicking that happened right before she fell repeated itself, the muscles in my back tightening and pinching before a distinct 'shick' echoed through the corridor. My muscles eased once more and only the dull thrum of pain was left. The Widow looked at me with horror painted over her face as I shoved up from the floor and leveled out my feet, favoring my injured calf.

I moved over to her and she inched away from me in turn. My foot landed harshly on her extended leg, eliciting a sharp snap and her pained cry. "Follow and I'll kill you." It would be her only warning.

I turned sharp on my heel, heading for the stairwell to catch the two super soldiers. As I was about to round the corner, Iron Man's voice met my ears. "The Chairmen has evacuated the building and is awaiting his chopper. Any intel on Max?"

I stilled, calculating where the best place to land a chopper would be. Maybe the valley just before the building's entrance. It was the flattest terrain closest to the building, and the Chairman and his guards wouldn't fair well in the cold for very long. The longest it would take the chopper to land would be thirty minutes at the longest. 

I had thirty minutes to get to him.

_____

Wanda-

My fingers were stiff from the cold drifting in from the broken doorway. Vision and I had once again scoured the first floor for any signs of Ghost. Every room was checked and Vision found every nook she could hide in. There was nothing. She hadn't made it back up yet. 

All of the team had heard about Steve's run in with her and gauged their position based off of the words exchanged between the pair of super soldiers. They were somewhere between the second and third floor. I knew that Clint and Natasha had made their way to the second floor and hoped that they would somehow corner her and resolve this mission quickly. 

A part of me didn't want them to find her, though.

I wanted her to pay for what she did to my brother, for the life she stole from him and the pain she had caused me. He was the only family I had left and she took him from me. 

She deserved to pay.

I wanted to find her and pick her apart, find out what really happened in those memories of hers and find what made her tick. Then I wanted to snuff it out just like she had done to Pietro. My powers would allow me to.

They had grown in my bout of rage, done things I never even fathomed I could do. I could read people's minds and see what they saw. I could influence them too, make them do things to bend to my will. I was powerful, unstoppable.

The soft whisper of Vision passing through the wall in front of me drew my attention back to the reality of our situation. Ghost was somewhere below us throuncing around and causing mayhem and I needed to get to her.

"Vision," I called, "I think we should make our way towards the stairwell to the second floor. Maybe we can stop her from getting up here."

There was a moment when a flicker of thought flashed over his features and he nodded, floating down the hall towards the stairs. I followed him close behind.

"I know you are angry, Wanda."

My eyes snapped towards him and I couldn't help the bite that followed my words. "She killed my brother."

He nodded as if he understood. "She is under the influence of a serum. It was against her will."

"That doesn't make it any easier. Let me ask you something. You know how dangerous she is, the threat she poses just walking around. Do you think she should live?" We had stopped our trek toward the stairs in favor of looking at each other. I waited for him to say something, anything at all.

"Well," he paused, eyeing the wall besides me deep in thought. "Tony has the power and potential to be a very dangerous man. We all do, really. That's not far from asking if you should live even though you have the power that you possess."

I should've expected such a reply from him, but it didn't stop the brewing anger I felt writhing in my stomach. "Let's get moving." My heel spun on the pavement before I pushed away from him on my march towards the stairwell. 

I didn't get very far before I came face to face with a silver-eyed assassin.

She looked equally as concerned as I did until her haunting eyes snapped to something behind me and she took a couple steps backwards. The bolt of fear I felt at the thought of her fleeing had me sending a surge of power out and around the fallen doors and yanking them from their place down the hall and hurtling towards the empty hallway behind her. I aligned them with the hall and crammed them into place, the echo of metal scraping cement filling the air. 

Ghost didn't so much as flinch as she watched the dust settle from beneath them. Her eyes only shifted back towards me with a chilling steadiness. A hand came up to press against her side and for a moment her eyes dragged down to the bloody leg of her uniform and the small pool of red that had begun to collect under her boot. Having her injured gave us an advantage.

Vision still hovered at my side in silence, watching her every move. Ghost plucked a knife from her belt and sent it flying towards me, but it stopped short as my power stole its momentum and left it hovering mid-air. 

Ghost tilted her head, clicking her tongue, before she threw her body towards us.

I could almost laugh, really. She was closing in, barreling down the hall towards Vision and I at full speed, and all I had to do was wait for the right moment before I could deliver a blow. My powers itched to be released, whispering around my fingers and winding over my shoulders. Her feet pounded the ground a foot away from me, and I released a surge towards her in hopes it would knock her clear into the barrier I had created. I almost felt giddy at the thought.

That was, until her fist connected with my nose with a sickening crunch and pain erupted across my face.

Vision yelled my name, and a blurry image of his form flickered into view before a splotch of white whizzed by. He turned away from me and shot off down the hall. I pushed myself up and wiped viciously at the blood trickling down my nose.

Why hadn't it worked? How did she evade my powers? It was impossible! She should be smashed against the barrier doors!

Anger fueled me to my feet as I caught sight of Vision and Ghost down the hall circling each other. Ghost's eyes were wide and her jaw was clenched. She stood a little to the left, keeping her weight off her right leg which continued to bleed across the concrete floor. Vision shot forward and gripped the front of her uniform before he slammed her against the wall beside him. She struggled against him, clawing at his arms and chest, but it was no use. 

Her fist connected hard with his face, knocking him back a step and easing his grip on her uniform enough to give her other fist a chance to knock into the stone glowing against his red skin. Vision recoiled, blinking rapidly in a daze. She tried to shuffle away to escape down the hall, but he grabbed the back of her utility belt and pulled her to the floor. With her pinned below him, vision lifted his fist and smashed it across her left cheek, knocking her head to the side. Our eyes connected as she spit blood across the ground, anger lighting her silver eyes. 

My body stilled, vision tunneling in on her. Something akin to vines snaked across the floor, vibrant and blue. It wasn't until they inched close across the floor towards me that I realized they weren't vines at all. Much like my own power, the blue tendrils twirled and crawled as they reached towards me. I tried to move, to shift away, but I was locked in place. One of them curled around my leg and another sprung up to wrap around my waste and suddenly I was being lurched forward into darkness.

Complete, and utter darkness.

The tendrils of blue were gone and so was the floor and the chill of the mountain. It was quiet, eerily so, and my body felt like cotton. I turned, but I was met with more nothingness in every direction. "Vision?"

No one responded. My voice didn't even echo. The darkness just swallowed it up. I began taking hesitant steps forward in hopes that I would find a way out. I had no idea how I had even gotten here or where here was.

I walked for several minutes until something cold caught my foot and sent me stumbling a few steps. I twirled around, spotting a cold metal handle protruding from the ground. A withered wooden door was attached to it and it groaned as if a weight was pressing up against it. 

Something about its appearance sent a chill running up my spine. It was the only thing I had seen other than pitch blackness for several minutes, but something about it wasn't right. The wood groaned again, and a cry resounded from behind it muffled by the surface. I dropped down beside it as I heard it, pressing my ear against the rough exterior and willing my hearing to catch it again.

And it did, soft and pleading.

I wrapped my fingers around the handle and pulled hard, yanking against whatever force held it in place. It took a few tries before it snapped open and I hauled it to the side, peering into more darkness below. But the cry came again in the form of a scream. With the door out of the way, I could tell it was from a child. Their voice was high pitch and filled with fear and sobbing.

"Please," it cried, "it was an accident! I didn't mean to Commander, please!" There was a harsh thump and the child wailed louder.

 I clamored down, my heart pounding in my ears. Why was a child here? What on earth was happening?

I pushed my arms out, fumbling around in the darkness. There was another door illuminated by a single lantern hung on the wall. It looked old and weather worn, barely clinging to life as the flame fluttered inside it. The handle was cold under my fingers as I swallowed, hesitating to open it. "Hello?"

I didn't have to pull for the door to open this time, it opened on it's own. I was thrown back by the force of it, colliding with the floor as it swung open and crashed into the wall beside it.

Screams filled the air, thousands of them, in a cacophony of noise that slammed into me. Hands reached out from the doorway covered in blood and grime as they clawed towards me. A whip cracked from somewhere beyond them in the darkness and the child continued to wail in the chaos of all the noise. 

I covered my ears, overwhelmed by the sorrow and horrors that began pouring out of the doorway. I couldn't shut my eyes in time though, not before a body fell out of the frame and flopped to the floor beside me. My eyes were drawn to his familiar face, to the blonde curls sprouting from his head and the smooth shape of his nose. 

Pietro.

But his eyes were grey and empty, and his body was limp as black blood pooled out of the wounds he had died from. It colored the bottom of my boots and spread across the floor towards me. I shoved away from it, mortified by the sight of his dead body here of all places.

And I screamed.

Tags<3

@blackbirdwitch22 / @greatmistakes / @greatenthusiasttidalwave / @cjand10 / @hzdhrtss / @calwitch / @imdoingathingmom / @readawaythereality2

[imawreck]

Copycat

Pairing: Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier x Original Character

Summary: The Avengers intercept Ghosts mission in an attempt to save the Chairman and rescue Max.

Warnings:

Word Count: 4,534

Steve- 

The three days seemed to pass faster than any of us had realized. Wanda had done as Tony had asked and kept us all updated day in and day out on any and all changes she heard, but the mission was still the same. Max's mission was in the early morning hours, so we all slept during the day before. 

The team had spent their time training in groups and playing off their strengths when sparing. Each covered the other's weakness. We would be splitting up once we touched down and fanning out to find Max's location. After that, we would do anything in our power to get her off target and give one of our pairs a chance to assist in evacuating the Chairman.

It was eleven A.M., and we were already loading the jet. It was an eight-hour flight over to the drop spot, and from there we would all be in the red zone. Tony had been adamant about preparing us all for whatever could happen. Max was unpredictable by nature, and we had no idea how she would react to our involvement in her mission. 

Bucky seemed to think that she would take whatever steps necessary to complete her mission like he had when Hydra used him, and I had half the mind to agree with him. After the incident with Pietro though, I wondered if her brainwashing was controlled differently. The way Pepper had described it sounded like she had initially been after Tony but had killed Pietro instead and left. If Tony had been her mission, then why wasn't he dead?

It just didn't make any sense.

"Steve! Get your head out of the clouds and help out, would you?" 

I snapped my eyes over to Tony, "Sorry, thinking."

He grimaced, brows pinching together, "I know what you mean."

We had loaded nearly everything, and we had already gone over the plan another dozen times. Nerves were high, even for us, as we all finalized the equipment and began suiting up. Wanda had come into the hanger covered in red, head to toe. She was different, something in her eyes, and it worried me. Ever since her brother had passed, something had changed in her. Really changed.

She held herself tall and spoke over the noise of the team checking the jet. "They're moving. If we leave now, we can beat them to the drop spot and have an advantage. We can wait for her to arrive and stop her before she even has the chance to settle in."

Tony clapped from behind me. "You heard her, suit up and load up!"

In an instant, everyone was moving. Suits were thrown on and weapons slid into place. Everyone's eyes held a certain gleam in them, a determination we all shared. Even I did. I hadn't ever seen Bucky as low as he was now, never in the years of knowing him. Max getting taken had stolen a part of his soul with her. I didn't realize how much she meant to him till it was too late. I wanted my friend back. Watching the ghost he had become now was painful, unbearable.

The steps onto the jet felt heavy, like a weight had settled onto my shoulders. I felt like it was my responsibility to get her back. I had been cruel to her, berated her and called her a monster. In reality, she had simply been dealt the same fate as my dearest friend. It was wrong of me to place the blame on her. I had plenty of time to rethink my actions towards her in her absence, in the presence of the pain that filled the hole she left in the team. 

Tony had told us all what had happened on that mission she had with Bucky. He had told us all what she had done for that town and what she had sacrificed to save everyone. Bucky had sat at the edge of the table with his head pressed into his palms as Tony relayed the events. I had never seen him so lost. Even before he had possessed some sliver of hope, but as he sat at that table it looked like he had truly lost everything.

I planted myself in the seat next to Bucky who remained stock still even as the jet rose through the turbulence. His suit lacked the normally excessive amount of weaponry, instead replaced by a single handgun and a couple of extra rounds secured in his belt. We all sat in silence, something that had become a norm in the recent months, as the jet carried us towards what seemed to be our last thread of hope.

_____

Bucky-

We were somewhere over the mountains when Friday alerted us of an enemy vehicle had dropped cargo nearby. She had pulled up camera footage of a parachute opening in the distance and landing somewhere on the crest of a mountain. "Cargo was dropped two and a half miles out from predicted point of interception."

I clenched my fist as the nerves pooled in my stomach. It was her, it had to be. 

I could hear Tony from the cockpit, "How far are we out?"

"Fifteen minutes, sir."

Her statement only quelled the rioting nerves snaking their way through me and chilling my blood. It didn't help when the jet started descending either, further fueling them. This was our one chance.

The air was frigid and made the air dry and harsh the moment we exited the hull. It stung to breathe. Snow crunched between my boots and clung to the Kevlar vest strapped to my chest. We had to be discreet, the snow was highlighting our dark suits and practically plastered targets on our backs. We had to think this through every step of the way, or we risked throwing it all away. "We need to stay behind her and out of sight. We stand out too much, she'll see us before we even have a chance."

The wind blew hard, hitting my face with a burst of frozen shards. My eyes widened as a memory slammed through me. 

She clutched the note I had written, a poor apology scrawled out on it. She had breathed in and smiled, "I like your cologne."

"Stay downwind. She can scent us out if the wind changes." I moved forward, fueled by the adrenaline of the situation. 

Clint smarted up from behind, "Is she part bloodhound or something? When did that happen?"

A sudden lick of anger hit me at his poor attempt to lighten the mood. We didn't have time for fooling around, even if it was as small as this. "She was made for this, Clint. Hunting, killing, this is what Hydra made her for. They've cranked up her senses to twelve and she has all the artillery for slaughter built in. Her job was keeping me safe." I blew out a harsh breath as I surveyed the horizon, "And those are only the short list of things we know about her. There could be a million more."

Steve's steady hand came to rest on my shoulder in a silent attempt to console me. I brushed it off, choosing to focus again where the sky met the snow-covered rock. We were descending a rather sharp side, but the plateau was up ahead.

There, up ahead, was the bunker. Whoever had built it had been a genius in architecture. It was nearly invisible, tucked away in the side of the mountain. I hunkered down, pulling out a pair of binoculars to peer down at it from. It was safer if we knew where she was setting up to eliminate the chance of us stumbling up on her. It would be utter chaos if that happened.

We had to keep this clean. Everything had to be perfect. 

It took a moment, then two, before I caught sight of the rifle. I couldn't make out her silhouette in the snow, but the black metal soaked in the dim rays of the sun and reflected of the silencer screwed into muzzle. It was set on the end of a rock cropping, perfect for both cover and invisibility. Not a body in sight. But she was there, I knew it.

"She's posted on an outcropping not far ahead of us with a sniper rifle. How far out is her target?" I turned, finding Tony's red suit in the sky.

His voice rang through the Comms, "Ten minutes."

I balled my fists, "We have to get to her. We won't be able to get close to her without setting her off though, not with the noise." I turned back towards the cliff, pressing the binoculars to my eyes once more just to make sure that the gun hadn't disappeared. It hadn't. "I should go alone."

"Buck, I know you want to get her back, but going alone is not the smart play." Steve stepped up beside me, leveling his eyes with mine as I lowered the binoculars.

"It is the smart play. I know how to stay quiet, how to catch her off guard. Do any of you know how to walk in the snow without making a sound? If you do, by all means, have at it." I stared him down, "This isn't about how bad I want her back. It's about stopping her mission and saving a life. Then we get her back. In order to do that, we have to get close enough to get her away from that gun."

Clint, surprisingly, was the first to agree with the slight bob of his head. "He's right, it's the best strategy. We should all surround that ridge. She's bound to head down towards the safehouse when she figures out we're onto her."

Steve pursed his lips, reaching back to shift the cover he had cast over his shield. "Alright, but don't take her on if she starts to attack. You get her down to that bunker."

I nodded, itching to head down the ridge towards her. "Got it. Stick with the plan."

With one more dismissive nod, I swiveled around and began stalking down the mountainside. I'd have to catch her unaware, come up from behind and knock the gun away perhaps. Maybe kick it off the edge all together. I paused, taking in my surroundings and checking the wind once more to ensure I wouldn't be walking up on a trap. Nothing had changed and the muzzle still sat unshifted atop the ridge. 

Her setup was maybe six feet from me now where I had paused in the snow. I watched the wind whip white tendrils around the air and gather against the sharp rock. There wasn't a whisper of her anywhere. I couldn't recall a time where I had ever known she was near me, not from my time with Hydra. I had only ever found out about her through the ruins of that Hydra base. If it hadn't been for that, I don't think I would have ever known of her or what she had done.

I risked another step, then another, until I was nearly peering off the edge of the ridge into the snow-covered mountainside below. What was with Hydra and the snow? I raised my arm to radio in that she wasn't at her post when, in a matter of seconds, my ass was half buried in the snow. 

I felt the cold bite of a blade at my neck, and the glacial stare of metallic irises peered down at me. Her hair was shorn short at the sides, buzzed like the military would for a soldier at war. She scowled at me with her teeth bared in that feral sort of way that seemed to overtake her features in battle. Where her skin met mine, pressed against my neck along with the blade, was cold as death. 

I could only stare at her, afraid a hair out of place would provoke my death. 

But she didn't move, not an inch. She just remained there. 

I risked a breath, sucking in air. I felt the blade nick my skin, felt the cool chill of wind against the wound, but I didn't dare flinch. Still, she remained stock still. "Max," I breathed, "Max, it's me." I let my eyes stray to her form, noting the loose fit of her uniform and the hollowness in her cheeks. She was malnourished.

Like some predator, her head tilted slowly to the side as she took me in. The knife didn't move as she took in a long, slow breath as if she was collecting her thoughts before she rose to her feet. The knife remained pointed in my direction, “Stay.”

Her hand went to her belt, and her eyes to the sky as she searched for something, probably the others, before snapping back down to me. She unclipped one of the various pockets of her white suit and slid out a radio.

I jolted up, shoving off the snow in an attempt to dislodge the device from her hand. I couldn't have her alerting them, not when we were so close. "No! Max, wait!" 

Like a lead weight, her boot slammed into my chest. My elbows gave way and my back hit the ground with a 'shuff'. Max jabbed the knife down towards me, "Stay!" Her boot pressed down on me, shoving into my diaphragm as I coughed out more plea's. She lifted the radio to her mouth, "Asset in position. There is Avenger interference. Advise."

The other side crackled, but no one replied. 

"Max," I tried again, "Look at me, you know who I am."

Her stare darted around my face for a moment before she nodded. A spark of hope sputtered to life in my chest as she opened her mouth. "Sergeant James Buchanan Barnes of the Howling Commandos, commonly known as 'Bucky' by Captain America. You serve the Avengers. The enemy."

Just like that, the spark was snuffed out. "No—" But the radio crackled to life.

"Ghost," My blood boiled at the sound of Giles's voice, "Come in."

I tried to push up again, desperate to stop her from giving us away, but she was still too strong. I could see now that even when she had cracked her knuckles across my nose in that sparring ring when she was angry, livid with me, that she still wasn't giving me her all. Now, practically helpless under her boot, I could feel the extent of her strength. It was like when the steel beam had fallen on me when the targeting Heli-crafts were collapsing and pinned me to the window back when Steve was trying to bring me back. I couldn't lift it on my own then, and just like then, I couldn't so much as inch myself upwards from the ground with her foot firmly planted against me. It didn't even look like she was trying.

It was like the world suddenly came into focus then. Max had been holding out on us from the beginning. If Wanda told us that she was weak, and that was true, then this strength was only a drop in the waters of what she could do. And if she stayed over on Hydra's side, if they realized the extent of what she could do, we didn't stand a chance. Not a damn chance.

Her voice drew me back, "The Avengers are here. Target is entering the building now." 

Again, the radio crackled in the silence before a low chuckle rang through it. "My, they really want you back, don't they? Alright, you remember that little trick you performed for me? I want you to show them. Get them down there and play with them, little bird. Make sure you don't hurt them too bad. I want them all well so they can see our success."

I watched her face relax as she took in his words, snapping the radio back into its pocket. Her boot lifted, if only a little, as she dragged her vacant eyes back to me. "’Play with you’," she repeated.

Realization seemed to settle over her face as she shoved the knife into her belt. There was a moment of stillness, just one that passed between us as the snow fell.

Then she kicked me off the ridge.

The world was spinning, and rocks bit at my elbows and sides as I toppled down the mountainside. Snow shoved itself into my ears, my mouth, and the neckline of my suit as I went. By the time I flattened out in the valley, my head was spinning and pounding about and nearly every inch of me was screaming in pain.

I tried to right myself, coughing out the offending snow and haphazardly reaching for my Comms. The others needed to know. "Max knows. She radioed in and they know we're here." A string of curses came from various members, but I ignored them. "Giles told her something, but I don't understand it. He told her to play with us."

Tony snapped back, "Well, that sounds ominous as hell."

"Tony, that isn't helpful." Steve repeated it to himself, "What else did he say?"

Nausea rolled through me, and I fought the urge to hurl as the world finally leveled out." He said he didn't want us hurt and that she had a trick for us."

Clint gave a grunt, "That doesn't make any sense unless it's some sort of trap. We know that Hydra hasn't had any involvement with this place up until now, right? So, they wouldn't have any time to set us up."

I shook my head, "He wants us in the building though, so something isn't right. The chairman is already in there so she could be going after him. It could all be a ploy to throw us off."

The snow crunched behind me, and I had only a moment to throw my body out of the way before Max came barreling down. Of course, she was much more prepared and landed on her own two feet. Our eyes connected before she took off in a full-fledged sprint towards the bunker.

I shoved off the snow, "We don't have a lot of time to think this through so somebody tell me what to do, because Max is taking off towards the bunker right now!" It took nearly everything to push myself into a run.

"Fine! If it's a trap, I think we can handle it. We've got Wanda and Vision, right? Go after her." The sound of Tony's suit soaring overhead after his statement sent me into overdrive. 

Max was fast on her feet, and with a head start I didn't have a chance to catch up with her. I just had to stay on her tail.

The bunker doors came into view, and without slowing down Max leapt up and slammed her foot into it. The doors smashed open, and she dove inside. I plowed after her, screeching to a stop when I realized the path forked off. The building was circular, and from what we had gathered, had several levels. The only way up and down between them were several steep sets of stairs and one elevator which was inconveniently at the back of the compound and could only be accessed by a keycard.

Alarms were blaring through the compound, and the bright red emergency lights were the only things illuminating the long cement halls. It was a nightmarish picture. I raised a finger to my ear, "This place is a maze. Steve, are you close?"

"I'm coming in behind you." Right as he said it, I heard his footsteps crunching through the snow.

We both made a B-line for the left hall, bolting down the path and checking the side rooms as we went. "She's in here somewhere, could be another floor down."

"Either way, there's only one way out and all of us are blocking it." Steve angled himself toward another empty room and surveyed it with his shield up. Nothing.

I traipsed through the hall, curving along the wall with my fists clenched. I had made them all promise not to use fatal weapons unless they had to. That left me with my own two hands. In the dim light, with the lights turning and the alarms ringing in my ears, it was hard to focus. I was still disoriented from my tumble down the mountain which only added to my frustration. 

Tony's voice startled me as it called from the comms, "No sign of her outside the building, and I've checked for any other emergency exits but I didn't find any. What are your locations?" 

Natasha was the first to respond, "Clint and I just got to the entrance."

"Vision and I are right behind you," Wanda answered.

Steve was next, turning his head to check the hall as he echoed our location. "First floor, left hall. We'll head down to the second floor and work down. Make sure you cover the exit and sweep behind us. We could've missed her."

There was a wave of agreement before we took off back towards the stairwell. Two flights later, we had leveled out onto the second floor. There weren't any lights on this floor, and the alarms from the first floor were barely perceptible through the thick concrete. A chill swept over me as we took easy steps towards the empty room. It was one of the side rooms that branched off of the main center. There were several more, all dark and equally spaced around the empty space. There was no furniture or carpets, just stone floors. There weren't even any doors. 

We swept through it quickly and called in, letting the others know we had yet to see her and to keep vigil. The next floor was more complex. It seemed to be much larger than the other two, much too large to effectively sweep through without splitting up. "You should take the right. I've got the left." 

Steve hesitated before he finally dipped his head in a nod and moved down his side. The halls were still rounded and dimly lit by the spinning emergency lights. Shadows were cast at every corner, and they played with my vision. I took careful steps into the first doorway, sweeping my eyes over the empty room and moving on. I had to keep reminding myself that there wasn't another way out, that she had to be down here somewhere. It really only served to spur my nerves.

I had a feeling that Max had something dangerous up her sleeve, and the longer we spent in this building, the more time she had to lay it out.

_____

Steve-

Water dripped from somewhere in one of the dark rooms lining the hallway. I felt uneasy splitting from Bucky, but splitting up provided us a chance to cover ground faster. Flashes of fights with Max continued to flit through my head as I searched for any sign of life, a line of dust shifted, or the echo of shoes against cold concrete. There was nothing, though, not a single sign anywhere.

That was, until the distinct sound of boots hitting pavement filtered through the cold air from the room I had just swept. I swore I hadn't seen anything. Whipping around, shield lifted, I scanned the dark hall. Nothing. I pressed myself against the solid wall, keeping my back covered as I faced the gaping doorways along the opposite side. Again, the steps echoed down the way and I made a hasty effort to follow them.

My heart was hammering in my chest and threatening to jump right out of my ribcage. 

There was a sharp, shrill scream. A man's voice. It felt like rocks had plummeted into my stomach as it bounced off the walls. I'd heard that scream before. "Steve! STEVE!" Bucky. Bucky was screaming.

"Bucky!" I tore down the hall, chasing after his harrowing screams as he repeated my name over and over again. Each time shredded a little bit more of my soul. "Bucky, where are you? No, no, no, no!"

Bucky sobbed then, loud and tortured. I nearly buckled at the knees. "Please, make it stop!"

I slammed into the wall, barely keeping myself upright as I rounded the corner. A flash of white caught my eye in the dim lights. Bucky's cries went silent. My feet finally righted themselves beneath me and I pushed up into a stand. There, stood in the center of the hallway like some malevolent spirit, was Max. She stood stock still with her hands limp at her sides. The white that had drawn my attention flashed again as her irises caught the light and reflected in the silver glow of them. She looked like something straight out of a horror movie. 

"Steve." It was her mouth that moved, but it wasn't her light voice that left it. It was Bucky's. The same tortured tone of my friend pushed itself past her lips, "Help me!"

I felt my blood still in my veins. "Max?"

Her head only tilted to the side, analyzing me. "Max?" It was my own voice this time. "You don't have any morals, Max. You aren't good for him, Max. You're a monster, Max."

Those were words I had said to her, and hearing them repeated back to me in my own voice was like a cold punch to the gut. How was she doing that?

With a shaky hand, I reached for my Comms. It was pointless though, because the second my fingers even contracted she was on me. One of her blades nicked the skin of my jaw. She had moved so fast, nearly too fast to track with my eyes in the darkness of the hall. Those silver eyes were taking in my face, calculating.

"You are nothing." Her teeth flashed, "A false Idol. Why do they look to you? You can't keep them safe. You couldn't even save him." Fingers snagged around my collar and I was sent flying into the opposite wall.

My head hit first, setting a thick fog over my eyes and nausea roiling in my stomach, "This isn't you." I squinted as I tried to make out her movements. I saw her hand dip into her belt, but the world tipped to the side as I lost my balance against the wall.

Somewhere down the hall I heard Bucky shout. Max's eyes lazily drifted down the hall towards it before she pinned them back on me as she pressed a few buttons on what looked like a remote. "Isn't it, though?"

The sound of metal grating against each other began like a chorus from both ends of the hall. "You should stay put. Otherwise, death will follow. Isn't that what normally happens?" She smiled then, wide and wicked, before she bent down in front of me and snagged my Comms from my ear. I was too disoriented to even lift my hand. My eyes drooped as I watched her stand, pressing my Comms into her own ear, and walked leisurely down the hallway towards Bucky's call.

Tags<3

@cjand10 / @imdoingathingmom / @greatmistakes / @calwitch / @blackbirdwitch22 / @greatenthusiasttidalwave / @hzdhrtss / @readawaythereality2

[imawreck]

Lean On Me

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x Reader

Summary: Bucky notices you’ve been struggling recently, and he can’t help but try and make you feel better.

Author’s Note: I have not dealt with depression myself, but I have been around many who have. I tried to write this story based on some of the ways they have described the feeling to be in order to make it as accurate as I could. This is for the lovely individual who reached out to me for a request! I hope this gives you the comfort you need, and I send all my best wishes to you <3

Warnings: This fic deals with depression, so if that is a triggering topic for you please be wary and read with caution. Also like one use of y/n.

Word Count: 1,975

It was happening again.

That sinking, hollow feeling had begun to creep into your chest and draw open the doors in your mind that hid all those viscous thoughts you desperately tried to escape.

The self loathing, guilt, and the constant sorrow that seemed to follow you with no cause at all.

And Bucky could tell.

It was in the way you had gone from holding yourself tall while walking through the halls or talking to the team members. It was in the way your voice didn’t carry as happily, choosing to make yourself known less and less. He had watched your shoulders cave inwards and your head bow instead as you shuffled around the tower in the recent weeks or even chose to stay in your room all day.

He knew something was wrong.

Bucky had been your friend ever since you had joined the team. He had been taken with you from the start, drawn to your kindness and your down to earth attitude. You were a splash of color in his otherwise dull and colorless life.

It had taken him a while to gather the courage to talk to you that first time in the training area, to walk up to your confident form and smiling face and attempt to introduce himself without scaring you away. It had been easier than he’d thought. You had smiled at him, showed him equal kindness despite his rather bleak and bloody past, and even continued to seek him out for talks in your free time.

He had grown rather accustomed to you. Gravitated around you, even.

So when you’d started to dull, the brightness fading from your smile and the life in your eyes dimming, he had to do something about it.

He rapped his metal knuckles on your door, his ears listening intently for your melodic voice to beckon him inside. When it doesn’t, he eases the door open a crack, keeping his eyes on the floor just in case you’re indecent.

“Y/N?” His hushed voice calls into the room, and he hears a rustle and a concerning sniffle in return. It spurs him to open the door wider, “Can I come in, Doll?”

There’s a moment of silence before he hears the covers of your bed shift and your soft voice call to him, “Come in.”

He shuffles inside, quietly shutting the door behind him. It takes him a moment to adjust to your dark room, blinking several times before he’s able to take in the outline of your small form on the bed.

You sit against the headboard, knees pulled to your chest and eyes downcast. This wasn’t normal behavior for you, especially when he’d come to visit you. Normally, you’d have yanked the door open and welcomed him with one of your famous hugs. He’d swing you around like he always did, and he’d soak in that wonderful little laugh you’d let out.

But this, this sent alarm bells off in his head and made his heart squeeze anxiously. “Hey, dollface,” he kept his voice low, soothing. “I didn’t see you at dinner and everyone was wondering if you were sick or something. Wanted to come check on you.”

Bucky eased himself onto the side of the bed, his weight dipping the bed slightly. You kept your eyes down, fiddling with your fingers anxiously. It wasn’t something you did often, and Bucky picked up on it pretty fast.

You pulled your lip between your teeth, “No, I’m not sick. I just felt tired, that’s all.”

He knew it was a lie, at least partially. He could faintly see the dark circles under your eyes in the dim light streaming in from your window. He might’ve missed it if the moon hadn’t been out.

“Doll,” he frowned, giving you that ‘we both know that’s bullshit’ look, “you can’t lie to me.”

You knew he was right, knew your pathetic excuse was as see through as glass. Bucky could read you like a book, knew you better than anyone else did. Even when you had first met, he could tell when your mood would change the slightest bit. He was just that in tune to you.

Bucky watched as you worried your lip some more, and tears began to well in your eyes. It broke his heart to see you like this, to see you struggle to talk to him, to trust him with whatever was making you wither like this.

He wanted to reach out to you, to comfort you any way he could, but he needed you to come to him. He didn’t want to push you, to accidentally make you feel trapped.

The next words you spoke made his heart shatter.

“I don’t want you to think I’m weak.”

You had mumbled it, barely above a whisper, but he could hear the tremble of your voice. The fear in your tone, like you were afraid that just speaking it would shatter you.

Bucky thought the world of you. You were smart, kind, selfless. Always helping him and the others, always being someone they could all trust and talk to freely. But you had always been especially kind to Bucky. You always understood when he needed space, or knew how to comfort him best when he was having one of those darker days. You knew about his nightmares, helped him through them even. You were his rock when he felt his world would crash down in the blink of an eye, always bringing him back from the edge.

And Bucky had realized that even though you were always there for the others, you had never truly asked to talk about your own issues. You’d never let on when something was wrong or asked for help.

With his heart tearing in his chest, he threw caution to the wind. His arms circled around you, pulling your curled form into his lap. “Doll, I have never— could never—think you were weak.”

You buried your head in his neck, clenching your teeth to try and keep the tears from falling. “But I am, Bucky. I’m weak and useless, I don’t even know why I’m here.”

Bucky’s heart hammered in his chest, threatening to burst. He had never felt this kind of torment before. Not even when he had been in the clutches of Hydra.

“Hey— hey. You are the strongest person I have ever known. Even stronger than Stevie.” He couldn’t bare to hear you talk about yourself like this, to see you so low.

Bucky pulled you tighter against him, curling his metal arm around you to press you closer to his chest. Maybe, if he held you close enough, he could protect you from whatever dark thoughts had taken hold of you. ���Talk to me, Babydoll, please. Tell me what’s goin’ on in that pretty head.”

You didn’t want to confess to him, didn’t want anyone to know about your struggling. It was yours to handle, your own responsibility to deal with, not anyone else’s.

But as he held you like you were the most precious thing in the world, your resolve began to crumble. Tears began to leak from your eyes, soaking the neckline of his sweatshirt. Your chest felt tight as you muffled the sobs wracking your body.

Bucky felt all of this, the tremble of your body, the dampness collecting on his clothes from your tears, and just held you tighter. Any more, and he might crush you.

“I struggle with depression.”

There, it was out there. He knew, and now he’d think less of you. He’d treat you differently like everyone else always did, and eventually it would be too much for him.

You tensed up, preparing for whatever words came out of him. For his pity or a lecture like most gave you. To tell you it’s all in your head.

Instead, Bucky’s flesh hand began rubbing your back. The gentle motions soothed the tension in your spine, comforting you without words.

His soft lips pressed against your temple, and he mumbled into your hair, “Have you ever thought less of be because of the things I struggle with? My nightmares, fears, all of that?”

You frowned against his neck, sniffling and shaking your head. “No, I haven’t. Not ever.”

“Then why would I think you were weak just because you struggle sometimes with how you feel?” He asked, still gently rubbing your back.

“Because you have a reason, Bucky. You were tortured for decades.” You mumble, another rush of tears following the tightness in your chest at the thought. “I haven’t suffered like that, there’s no reason for me to feel this way.”

“Just because you haven’t been through something traumatic doesn’t make how you feel or your struggles less important.” Bucky pulled away from you just enough to hold your eyes, “Feelings are hard, Doll, for everyone. Avenger, or not. Hero, or not. Everyone struggles with something. It doesn’t make them weak, or lessen their value as a person. It just makes them human.”

At his words, the final walls you’d put up came crashing down. Sobs wracked your body, and the tears streamed down your face. Bucky let you cling to him, let you cry as he placed gentle kisses to your temple and held you tightly.

After a while, your tears subsided and your sobs had dwindled to an occasional sniffle. Still, he held you close.

“I want you to know,” he said softly, “that you are important to this team, to all of us. To me.” The cool fingers of his metal hand gently nudged your chin, beckoning you out of the juncture of his shoulder. “I want you to know that I don’t think less of you, that my opinion of you hasn’t changed a bit. And I want you to know that you’re not alone, Doll, that you’re never alone. That I will always be here for you. No matter what.”

There was no doubt on his face as he said it, and he held your gaze as he brushed a gentle thumb across your chin. “This team loves you, and they think the world of you. I know that each of them would tell you exactly that. I know that they wouldn’t want you to suffer all by yourself. You let us all share our problems with you, so share this with us. Let us help you.”

His brows pinched as his voice got a little quieter, leaning his forehead against yours. “Or at least let me help you, if you’re not ready for that yet.”

Your heart swelled at his words, and a fresh wave of tears welled up. But it was a good kind, the relieved kind. “Okay,” you whispered, “okay.”

He smiled then, a small encouraging one. A little blush appearing on his cheeks, “I love you.”

Your eyes widened, and you blinked up at him. “What?”

“I love you, Doll.”

You knew he did and he knew you did too and had for a while. Neither or you had said it though, stuck in some sort of limbo.

To hear him say it, even after what you had confessed, lifted your heart a bit more.

You knew that your struggle was going to be hard, and that it would have its ups and downs. Some days would be worse, and some would be better. Bucky knew that feeling better than anyone, you realized.

You smiled then, that beautiful bright one that was near blinding. The one Bucky loved the most.

“I love you too, Bucky.”

He kissed you then, soft and gentle, with the fingers of his flesh hand curled into your hair. You knew then and there that Bucky would always have your back. That you could always trust and confide in him without judgment.

And you knew that you’d be okay.

—————

Authors Note:

For those of you who struggle with depression, please know that you are never alone. You are loved and cared for and valued, no matter what. No struggle is less than another, no matter what you come from or what experiences you’ve had or haven’t had. <3

— Ayden

[imawreck]

Lead

Pairing: Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier x Original Character

Summary: Finally, the Avengers get wind of an upcoming attack from Hydra, and they all scramble to prepare for it in order to get Max back.

Author’s Note: Hey! Hope you’re all doing well! Just want you to know, we’re getting closer to catching up to where I’m currently writing on the story. I also have some ideas for this story’s future, or perhaps a second part to this series (once I finish it) where Max intervenes in the series Falcon and the Winter Soldier. If you have any interest in that, just comment!

Warnings: nudity, most warnings from the last chapter, suicidal thoughts (read with caution please), branding

Word Count: 4,177

Steve-

Twenty-seven reported murders in a month. That didn't include Pietro Maximoff. Twenty-seven people dead with no leads, no prints, no evidence. All of which were people in high power who were replaced almost as fast as they had gone. There were no connections and no leads. Tony watched the news every morning and listened to the police chase their tails over this 'Serial Murderer'.

We all knew who it was. There just weren't any leads for us to figure out who she'd kill next.

The realization that Max was being used the way the Winter Soldier was had broken Bucky. He never left his room during the day. He had completely isolated himself.

Wanda... She had stuck to staying in her room and only coming out for plates of food to take back with her. No one wanted to stop her.

The team was in shambles. I wasn't even sure we could really be called a team anymore. The missions we went on hardly did anything worthwhile, and those were few and far between. Tony had alerted the authorities about the situation at hand but since there wasn't any evidence or leads, there was nothing they could do.

We were sitting ducks.

That was, until Wanda stormed into the commons room with wild eyes. "I know where she will be hitting next."

"What? How?" I stood from the couch, "That's impossible."

Wanda pursed her lips, "I was upset after... after everything, and my powers got the better of me and it just happened."

"What just ‘happened’?" I met her in the middle of the commons area, searching her face. "You aren't making any sense."

Her fingers ran through her ratty red hair as she looked wildly around the room. "I heard them. I heard her name, Ghost, and I heard his thoughts. He said that they were going to be hitting s-some sort of, like, safehouse or something. A government building in the states. They are going to send her there tonight to destroy it."

I shook my head, taking it all in. "Do you know the exact location?"

"No, but I saw an image in his mind on a map. I can find it." 

I nodded, "Go to Tony. Now. Tell him what you told me and make sure not to leave anything else out. And Wanda?"

She had started toward the elevator and stopped short, "Yes?"

"Your powers, you sure it just happened? You weren't trying to do anything?" I knew she was lying. I had seen it in her eyes the minute she walked through and said it.

"Yes. I was upset and it just happened." Wanda held my gaze and didn't waver a bit.

I sent her off with a nod. Even if she was lying, it was a lead. We couldn't risk not looking into it. I just hoped that Tony would have enough to convince the Feds to let us hunker down and try and catch her in the act.

_____

Max-

A pile of stale, bland porridge sat on the floor in front of me.

I hadn't touched it, couldn't. Not with the harrowing images still clinging to mind. Simply staring at it for too long made bile rise in my throat. 

I had been stripped naked after Giles had gone. I was left to fend off the cold with nothing more than my own skin. Which wasn't working very well at all. My fingers had long since turned blue and gone numb. I didn't know why, perhaps it was another form of torture or simply to take what little dignity I had left. 

My weakened body had adopted a tremble in order to generate even the smallest amount of heat. I didn't want to acknowledge that it didn't leave me even when I was allowed into the heat. Still as death, I remained laid on the floor with my eyes open. Maybe if I wished hard enough, I would just pass on. Maybe death would be better than this. There wasn't anything or anyone waiting for me if the miracle of escape happened, it wasn't like anyone would miss me. 

A flash of Bucky and Natasha kissing in his room swept through my mind and the sting of tears met my eyes. Not even he would be waiting for me.

I curled my arms tighter around myself as the sound of boots echoed through the crack under the door, a dozen at least. No one had been sent to move me since Giles used the scepter, so they had probably already moved me while I was out. So, I waited, trying and failing to prepare myself for whatever would walk through that door next.

I was not prepared for Rumlow and his seeping ego to sling open the steel door with a dozen goons on his heal.

I stared at him, taking note of the suit he wore and his polished shoes. And that awful gaze scouring over every inch of exposed skin bared to him. "My eyes are over here, dipshit."

A laugh rattled across the walls, "Even all weak, you've still got a mouth on you, huh?"

"I still bite, too." I gnashed my teeth at him to punctuate my point. 

Rumlow sighed, a smile curling onto his scruffy face. "Are you not surprised to see me here, of all places?"

I made a point to furrow my brows, pretending to think on it. "No, not really. Sleazeball men are right on brand for Hydra." I grinned wickedly at him, "You fit the bill to a tee."

His smile left, and I savored it, however small a victory it was. "You should learn to shut your mouth, bitch."

"Can't teach an old dog new tricks, didn't you know?" I sat up, folding my legs in such a way to preserve as much of myself from him as I could.

A feral kind of rage flickered in his eyes. "I came to give you a gift."

Gifts and Hydra definitely don't go well together, and my history with Hydra's 'gifts' weren't exactly pleasant. I chose to just stare at him, waiting for him to do something.

"What, no sarcastic remark? No questions? I've been working with your beloved Avengers. Don't you want to know how they're doing?" He crossed his arms as if he'd won something, the cocky asshole.

"I'd just be wasting precious air." I gave him a tight smile, "Conversation with brick walls aren't very productive."

The men waiting behind him coughed and teetered on their toes. It did nothing but irritate him further. "Haul her out."

They moved right on his words, swinging the cell door open and gripping my arms to drag me out. I screamed at them, thrashed as much as I could and knocking a few of them off, but I was weak. Very weak. After nearly five minutes of fighting against their insistent pulling I was spent. My knees buckled and hit the cement with a painful thud. 

My heart pounded in my ears and my vision went foggy as I tried to catch my breath. The itching in my veins thrummed back to life and wriggled in the back of my mind once more. I felt, more than saw, them drag me through several halls. We turned a few times, but my head was pounding too hard for me to pay too much attention to it. The men constricting my arms finally slammed me onto a metal table where they strapped me down. 

I was unwillingly restrained and exposed. And pissed. "What could you possibly want from me? Haven't you taken enough?"

Rumlow's lips curled, "Darling, as long as you're breathing, we still have much more to take." I jerked at the straps keeping me in place, but it only served to spur his joy. "You know, I really wanted to dance with you a little longer that night. You remember, don't you? You looked so delicious in that little dress."

I could only watch as he picked something off the table one of the doctors had rolled up. I felt the air shift along my bare legs as one of the few people bustling around the room in white coats threw a thin sheet over my lower half. I silently thanked them for the scrap of fabric.

"But you had to go and call me names for asking a pretty lady like yourself if you were screwing that barbarian." Rumlow's words were low and violent. "I just wanted to have a good time, you see, but you had to go and call for help. We both know you don't need him to defend you." A metal rod rolled between his fingers as he paced out of view. 

I didn't like not being able to see him.

"I've been feeling a little upset that you turned me away, I'll admit. I thought you'd be flattered to have someone wanting you. After all, you're just an animal really. You should be grateful that someone shows any interest in you at all." His tactical clips caught the light as he rounded the table on my left side, the rod gone from his grip.

"If I'm just an animal, that must make you one sick bastard." His hand came down hard across my cheek, and the skin stung there. I refused to take my eyes off of his face. "You're pathetic."

Rumlow snarled at me, slamming his fist down on the metal table next to my arm. He hung his head for a moment, collecting himself, before his black eyes met mine once more. "I nearly forgot your gift. I wanted you to know that your little Avengers are doing well without you, better really. Your toy soldier is off with that redhead having the time of his life. I figured you'd want to know that they're happy without you slinking around any longer."

I knew he was lying, he had to be. Tony was my friend, and so was Wanda and Peter, Thor too. I knew that they wouldn't stop looking for me. Not if they knew I was still alive. "You're lying."

But he just shrugged, "Believe me or don't, but I'm telling you the truth." He disappeared once more, only to reappear a few moments later with the rod he had earlier. 

The scent of burning metal drew my eyes up the pole in his hands to the red-hot insignia sizzling against the cool air. My stomach bottomed out. "What are you doing?"

If a man could look like a demon, Rumlow sure did. His eyes glowed with the red metal swinging in front of him and his teeth gleamed in the light of it. "I'm repaying you for turning me down. No one gets away with turning me down. Giles told me I couldn't hurt you too bad with the mission coming up, so I had to get creative." He swayed the rod in emphasis, and I flinched at the heat rolling off of it. "I want you to have a reminder for forever. You're weak enough now that it won't heal quick enough before they pump you full of drugs and your little healing trick won't work. Not after what they're going to do to you." He motioned to the white coats that had lined themselves along the wall.

Waiting and watching.

I wanted to scream at them. I wanted to claw at the straps keeping me on the table. I wanted to shred Rumlow until he was nothing but ribbons, but I couldn't. I was too weak, too drained to do anything but stare at him wide eyed and cry as he lowered that rod until it was level to the left side of my neck. "Please, you don't have to do this."

Rumlow's laugh was long and deep, skittering over my bones as the heat of the Hydra insignia crept ever closer. I had begun to sweat. "Oh, but I want to."

I wrenched against the restraints, pulling with every last bit of energy I had. I felt it groan, and then one of them gave way. My arm was free. I swung it down against the arm that held the bar just a few feet from me, swiping my jagged nails against his arm. He yelled out, dropping the rod with a curse and waving over a few men. 

There wasn't enough time for me to pry my other hand free before they were on me, pulling and shoving me back down against the metal table. I could hardly see much through the tears pooling in my eyes, only vague outlines of faces leaning over me against the overhead lights. I felt the heat once more nearing me, "Please." But no one would listen.

And then he was pressing it against my skin. My eyes rolled back as I screamed, but then it all drowned to darkness.

_____

Bucky-

The room still smelled like her perfume. Lavender still clung in the air where her candle sat unburned for months now. Satin sheets caressed my unshaven face where my body had pulled the covers from their neat display. I didn't remember passing out, or how I ended up in here again. Sometimes I would find myself at the door without realizing it, like I had forgotten she was gone.

The lights were out, and the curtains were pulled to keep the sun out. My stomach growled in the silence of the room, and I pressed my hand over it to silence it's complaining. I didn't feel like moving, so it would wait. I breathed in, closing my eyes to try and recall the way her skin felt against my own. The way her hands would scrape gently against my scalp to lull me to sleep on the nights my nightmares got a little too much. 

I yearned for her like a drowning man yearned for air.

But she wasn't here, and the weight of her absence was suffocating me with each day. I didn't know it was possible to miss someone this much. Not until her. With her soft eyes and love for poetry, her strong heart and tenderness. She had somehow dug herself a home in my heart that would search for her until the day I took my last breath. And it pained me.

The door rattled as someone knocked against it. I didn't so much as flinch at the sudden sound, too drowned in my own mind.

"Bucky, it's Steve."

I really didn't want to talk to him. I didn't want to talk to anyone, really. But Stevie had given up trying to invite me to their dwindling team get-togethers for a while now, so whatever it was he had to say must be important.

I hauled myself up, stumbling over to the door as I blinked my bleary eyes from the fog that seemed to cling to them often with my inability to sleep. I pressed the handle, slipping through the door and shutting it behind me. I didn't like to share our- her room.

I blinked a few more times to adjust to the damn LED lights that lined the hallway before I could see enough to take in the urgent expression on Steve's face. "What is it?" I didn't really bother with being polite nowadays.

His brows pinched, "Wanda thinks she knows where Max is going to hit next. Tony believes we might be able to intercept it and get her back. He's called a mandatory meeting. Seeing as you've chosen to ignore most of those now, I figured I would come get you myself." He wrung his hands, "It's best if we hurry. Tony says it'll be in a few days, and we need to be as prepared as we can get."

I nodded, letting his words roll through my head once more. A chance to get her back. "Let's get on with it."

_____

Tony-

Wanda sat across from me vigorously scratching her pen against the blank paper I had handed her. A map, now marked with the location of the building Max was supposedly targeting, sat on the table between us. I had pulled up the information about her target as well, noting that it was another Politician of high power. She was more than likely targeting them to be replaced by Hydra members to gain more of a stand in society. 

My eyes drifted back to Wanda who resembled a madwoman as she tore out a page and slapped it against the steel table only to repeat her scrawling once more on a brand-new sheet. I had no idea what she was scribbling on there, didn't dare mess with the piles stacked haphazardly across its face. She had explained vaguely that she had somehow tapped into one of the Hydra agents mind and that he was directly involved in the missions that Max was sent on. She guessed he was a handler of sorts, or a pilot, someone she had to come in contact with frequently.

The elevator toned down the hall as Banner and Clint made their way towards us, Natasha lingering in the hall for a few moments before following them. I had made a point to keep the information vague. I didn't want Shield to have an opportunity to stop us from the slim chance that we could get Max back. 

Since her disappearance, the government has fallen into a frenzy in an attempt to quiet the worry rippling through the ranks. They hadn't had an issue this big since Barnes and having a repeat of history this soon was really rattling them. I had heard whispers of what they were planning to do with her if they ever caught her. Mentions of containment or even execution had been thrown around and it worried me. It had taken the worlds hero, Captain America, to plead for Barnes's freedom. What would it take to get hers?

Just thinking about it made me sick. I was itching to do something about it. Just then, the elevator tolled again, and in came the two super soldiers followed by Vision who didn't even bother to use the elevator. He just dropped in through the ceiling and nearly sent me into cardiac arrest. No biggie. "Jesus, Vision! Use the door!"

"My apologies, Mr. Stark. This way preserves energy and time. You seemed to be in a hurry." He seated himself beside Wanda, shooting her a look I couldn't read.

"Yeah, yeah, just sit and stay quiet till the rest of them get in here." I took note of each of them as they took their seats. We all looked like we'd been drug through the mud. I felt like it, too. "Thank you all for coming on such short notice. I'd apologize for being vague, but I'm really not. I wanted this to stay within the team."

None of them spoke, letting the silence swell. Only Barnes's arm clicked and shifted in the silence where he sat clenching his fist and Wanda's constant scribbling. 

"Wanda has gotten a lead on Max's whereabouts and we have a small window of opportunity to intercept her on a mission." I picked up the remote from the table, "This here," I motioned to the screen display, "Is the area she's scoping out for her target, Chairman Houser. It isn't in use at the moment, but it has the facilities to function as a safehouse. Somehow, Hydra has figured out his movements and plans to kill him while he's touring the building. Our job is to prevent her from killing the Chairman and restrain her. If we can get Max back, we can stop this whole ordeal."

Wanda had stopped writing. 

Steve leaned against the table, "Okay, so we restrain her. How exactly do we plan on doing that? She's stronger than all of us. It's not going to be easy."

Wanda shifted a paper in front of her. "They said she's weak. It should be easier to handle her."

"What do you mean weak?" 

All eyes went to Bucky. He sat rigid in his chair with his eyes glued to the side of Wanda's face. It had been a long while since any of us had seen him. Months, maybe, since he'd come out in the day when all of us were around. 

Wanda didn't look at him as she adjusted her stacks of paper. "They didn't specify, they just said that she was weaker than she used to be. Slower, less strong. She bleeds and bruises like the rest of them. That's what I heard, anyway."

 Steve dropped his head, "What else did they say about her mission?"

Again, she shifted a stack of papers and thumbed over a page in particular. "They said that it would be in three days. Something about a recovery time. We have three days to come up with a plan to save the Chairman."

"And save Max." 

This time, Wanda looked at him. Bucky hadn't pulled his eyes from her since she had mentioned Max. Like her name was one of his trigger words and held him captive whenever it was said. 

The air grew tense before she nodded, "Yes, and save Max."

The look on Bucky's face didn't say that he believed her, but he didn't say anything else as I grappled for their attention once more. "Alright, so we're going to need a solid plan. All ideas need to be thrown on the table. Max might not be in her own head, but she's smart, and I don't want to risk losing this opportunity while we've got it. Wanda will brief us on the information she's gathered about Max's mission, and we will go from there."

_____

Three and a half hours later, we had all hammered out a strategy to split Max from the Chairman and get her into an enclosed space. We figured if she was confined, it would be easier for us to tag team her. The risk of her overpowering us was still there, but with both Wanda and Vision on this mission, I had a good feeling we would come out on top. 

The team thumbed through the pages we had compiled which contained the layout of the building and all possible exits. We had plotted points for the drop and discussed multiple non-fatal weaponry we would load the jet with. Barnes had been adamant about them and pushed that we reserve fatal weapons in case we were ambushed as a last resort. I agreed just to keep him from tearing a hole through the table if any of the members so much as thought about refusing him. 

I understood what he was feeling though. I missed her too, and I knew that what Hydra was doing to her was a fate worse than death. I wanted her back nearly as much as he did, so much so I was willing to risk security for her. Shield would shut this operation down the second they smelled a hint of it. Windows like this were rare, especially with how careful and calculated Hydra had become with Giles heading it all. He was an intelligent bastard.

A chair slid out from the table, drawing my attention from the documents at hand. Steve aligned his papers against the table and gazed at all of us. "I think it would be wise to practice in pairs. None of us should try and take her on alone even if she's weak. Don't tire yourselves but be prepared."

We all nodded, taking a moment to soak in what we had discussed. 

None of us had fought against Max in a genuine fight. Only Barnes had gotten a glimpse of what fighting against her would feel like and she'd given his nose a clean break. Cap had gotten bruised ribs too, that time when she had stopped us all from attacking Bucky when his head was all blended up. But all of those instances were defensive and not at all serious, not really. Sure, we had seen her fight, and it was brutal, but it had never been against us with fatal intent. With a job like ours, that made all the difference.

"I think it would be best if we made the most of the time we've been given and get as prepared as we can. Even with a solid plan, we have no idea what she'll do or what orders she's acting on." I pushed out from the table, "Wanda, I want constant updates. I want to know the tiniest bit of change if it's made. This whole ordeal depends on it."

She nodded, her magic fluttering just over her skin as she dug around in whoever's poor mind that had leaked Hydra's information.

With a final breath, I took in their tired expressions. "I know these last few months have been difficult on us all, but now is our chance to make things right. Get some rest and be prepared. It's time we bite Hydra in the ass."

Tags<3

@greatenthusiasttidalwave / @cjand10 / @imdoingathingmom / @hzdhrtss / @calwitch / @blackbirdwitch22 / @greatmistakes

[imawreck]

Status: Active

Pairing: Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier x Original Character

Summary: Ghost is active, and that means bodies are dropping.

Warnings: Cursing, mental abuse, physical harm, depression, all that stuff. Again, this is the thick heavy part of the story. Won’t be like this forever, but it will be for a bit. It’s for the PLOT.

Word Count: 5,014

Mission: Deactivate security systems. Infiltrate enemy compound and select target. Eliminate target. Return to base immediately following. 

Status: Active.

"Soldat." 

Silver eyes snapped up from the manila file held in her hand. Cold, calculating, removed.

"Do you understand your orders?"

A singular nod before her hand snapped the file closed, sliding it onto the table beside her. She was smooth and precise, the perfect weapon. 

Human flaws had been eliminated. The Asset took orders like a machine. Take orders, execute mission, return, repeat. That was all she knew. That was all she had ever known, and she was damn good at it.

"You leave at dawn."

She didn't hesitate to move, turning towards the exit and moving with the grace and silence very few possessed. Other agents parted like the sea at the sight of her. They would gawk and cower, some outright fled from view. They had seen her skills, her ruthlessness. The Asset's methods were brutal and gruesome. She didn't have feelings or preferences, that much they had been told, but many had seen the way she executed her missions. Many had seen the way she would draw it out in the most painful ways. 

None wanted to be her target.

Word of the Ghost's return had taken like wildfire in a drought. Every member of Hydra knew of her return. Some of the higher-ranking agents had come to view her displays, watched and reviewed the improvements Dr. Giles had done to her. All the while she would stand there, waiting. Watching them as she took in their words. 

But none of that mattered to her. She felt nothing, only the singing in her veins and the deep dwelling urge to cause pain and destruction. It was what she was made for, so she'd been told. 

The chopper guttered to life as she clipped her last blade into place. No bullets, too loud and draw far too much attention. This kill would be up close and personal. The Asset boarded, strapping in and settling a headset over her ears to bark orders to the pilot. There was no room for mistake. 

Because her targets were the untouchable, the admired and revered.

The Avengers.

_____

Pepper-

It was no secret that the Avengers were falling apart. It was clear as day in their bruised under eyes and increasing meetings. Every SHIELD agent in the building knew it, and they were trying their hardest to help where they could.

Where there was once a team were now crumbling friendships and strained patience. I was convinced that if it carried on for a minute longer that this whole building might collapse with the tension. It was time for an intervention.

I stepped into the main living area where I had called the team in to sit. They were all strung around the room in various slumped positions. Some friends had been called in to aid them in their endeavors. Wanda, for instance, had called in her brother Pietro to assist in any way he could. He had tried to brighten the mood as much as he could with his occasional lighthearted joke, but not even Sam had the heart to laugh nowadays. 

Tony had been trying to get a message out to Thor in hopes that having the God of Thunder to help would give us an advantage, but so far, he had been unsuccessful. I had been watching the weight of it all begin to crush him, and it was devastating.

So, it was time to make them all get some good rest at least for a night. None of these all-nighters were helping anyone.

"Alright," my voice drew their attention to me, "All of you look like hell warmed over. I'm sure you are very aware of that. So, I'm calling a mandatory early curfew for eight. That means all of you go to bed right now, no arguments. Like I've told Tony repeatedly, being exhausted and worn to the bone won't help anyone. Get some rest, all of you. Please tell Mr. Barnes, this applies to him too." I looked each of them in the eyes once I was finished, making sure every one of them knew I was absolutely serious.

None of them tried to convince me I was wrong. They probably didn't have the energy to. I walked over and carded my fingers through Tony's hair, shooing all of them off from the living room and watching as they all dispersed to their respective rooms. Tony remained in the living room nodding off as I combed through his hair. 

"Tony," I whispered, "I'm going to grab you a blanket. Promise me you'll get some rest in here alright?" I knew he wouldn't make it to our level, let alone a few steps down the hall to the elevator. He nodded, and I walked over to the other side of the room to snag the throw blanket off the other couch and covered him up. 

He smiled in his bleary state, "Thanks, Pep. Love you."

I hummed, "I love you too, Tony. Get some rest." With that, I decided I would camp out on this floor to ensure he wouldn't wake up in the dead of the night and start working on lord knows what. I pressed open the spare bedroom door and began my nightly routine, shower, dress, brush teeth, organize for the next day. By the time I finally got into bed it was nearly two in the morning. I was lucky it was a weekend. 

My eyes drifted shut, finally the calm had begun to sweep over me. I was so close to drifting off, so close to getting the rest that I needed after stressing about those poor heroes just down the hall, when something clattered to the floor down the hall. From the living room or the kitchen just off of it. 

I silently cursed to myself, just knowing it was Tony trying to get away with some late-night reviews over files or analytics.

Tossing the sheets off of my legs, I crept over to my door to try and catch him in the act. Perhaps the guilt of being caught would make him finally get some shuteye. The doorhandle was cool to the touch as I gently shoved it open. I was lucky Tony kept all the hinges well-oiled or I'd be done for. All the lights were still off, so shuffling down the hall was a little more difficult. I kept to the wall in hopes that I wouldn't trip over my own feet trying to find my way to the living area. 

It was a full moon tonight, the bright blue light cascading into the room through the curtains. It was the only source of light in the room. I was ready to pounce as soon as I peeked around the corner, so sure I had caught him read handed, only to feel my heart drop to my stomach.

Tony was still sprawled out on the couch, only there was a silhouette casting a looming shadow over his face. Black, all black, like one of the shadows had sprung to life in the night to terrorize anyone up at the hour. I watched in utter horror as they removed something from their pocket. 

Metal glinted in the moonlight as a finger struck the needle, their thumb pressing on the end of the syringe and letting a drop of liquid slip down the end of it. I watched, completely frozen with fear, as they jammed it into his neck. Tony's eyes snapped open, mouth gaping for a moment, before his body went slack again against the white cushions of the couch.

I could hardly pull air into my lungs. They tucked the syringe back in their pocket before slipping their fingers into one of the circlets of the multitude of knives lacing every inch of them. It twirled once, twice around their finger. Each time it caught the light my heart lurched in my ears. I wanted to scream, to throw something at them, anything to get their attention off of Tony's collapsed frame. But I couldn't. I just couldn't.

A door creaked down the hall and I whipped my head around to see blonde hair and pinched brows as Pietro made his way quietly down the hall. I waved my arms as subtly as I could, remaining behind the corner out of view from the intruder, trying to catch his attention. He eyed me with confusion. I pointed to the living room, desperately trying to tell him that someone was here. Someone had gotten in. When I snapped my head around to look back at the room, certain that they had probably heard the door, there was not a trace of them.

I felt my eyes stinging as tears of frustration and fear threatened to spill down my cheeks as I tried to silently communicate with him. He seemed to understand that there was something awry, because he fisted his hands and began to creep down the hall a little quicker. He threw a hand towards a door across from where I stood as he neared my corner of safety. My eyes followed his gesture to a closet door. He meant for me to hide. 

I didn't want to, not when Tony was helplessly unconscious on the couch a few feet away and a killer was in the house. I thought about my chances though. I was an assistant, a simple not-superhuman woman who could definitely not stand even the most reasonable chance against someone trained. Someone who had broken into the Avengers tower.

It hit me then, like a brick tumbled onto my head. Why hadn't Friday notified us that someone had gotten in? Why hadn't she been able to keep them out?

I was afraid to whisper for the AI, afraid to call out to her in the darkness of the hallway as I watched Pietro sneak around the corner. 

I reached for the door, swinging it open as quietly as I could before I clicked it shut against the pressure of my foot to quiet the noise. I knew in my gut that if I called out to Friday she wouldn't answer. Something told me she had been dismantled. Whoever this intruder was, they were trained and serious and lethal.

The darkness from the closet enveloped me, covering my senses and forcing me to blink it away as my eyes adjusted. I scanned over Tony from the slats in the door, studying him for injury I was terrified they had caused while I had looked away. There was none, thank God, and he still remained sleeping on the couch. Pietro had snuck around to the kitchen out of sight, but I could hear his subtle footsteps against the tile as he checked around. 

My breathing was ragged in my ears and muffled by the hand I had tossed over my mouth to keep my panic at bay. Pietro came back around the corner looking much more relaxed. His arms had dropped to his sides from their defensive position as he made his way back to scope out the rest of the living room. I was starting to think that it was all in my head. Maybe I had made it all up out of stress. I read somewhere that hallucinations can happen under extreme cases of stress.

But I wanted to be certain.

I reached a shaky hand towards the doorhandle, wrapping my fingers around it. I kept my eyes on the blonde as he made his way over to Tony, looking him over once, before he started to track around the couch.

He didn't seem to find anything. Pietro turned towards the window, bending down and retrieving something from the ground. It was slim and black, likely the remote to the tv that normally sat at the end of the couch arm. Tony must've knocked it off in his sleep. I was beginning to think that I had really, truly made up the apparition. I believed it so much that I was pressing down on the handle to come out when it walked out of the kitchen.

I stopped dead.

In the dim light from the window, I could finally see their face. Her face. With her short white locks that glowed silver in the dark along with her eyes that caught the light. Max. It was Max.

 But something was wrong, very, very wrong. 

She simply walked up behind Pietro as he examined the remote, looking around the floor for something as he did so. Max stood there, watching. Just watching him. He didn't hear her, I realized, as she tilted her head to the side as if she was intrigued by his obliviousness. Taunting.

He turned his head towards the closet where I remained, and she merely sidestepped to remain out of sight. Pietro shot me a reassuring smile. I wanted to cry, I was crying, as I watched her raise her knife still clutched in her hand and slice clear through the back of his knees.

Pietro's whole face morphed in agony, but before he could even get a sound out there was a hand clamped around his mouth guiding his body down to the floor. A second knife was plunged into his stomach, and she twisted it with a blank face, simply pressing her hand harsher against his mouth as he cried out. 

His hands clawed at her arms, dragging long lines of blood but she didn't seem to notice it. She just twisted the knife more and mumbled something low into his ear. Pietro's whole face paled as his eyes snapped towards the closet again. I backed away from the door instinctively, afraid she would see me. Tony had told me she was enhanced, but he never stated how enhanced.

Max released him then and stood from the floor. Pietro didn't call out, didn't dare open his mouth even as he winced in pain. Max moved away from him and out of view for a moment only to reappear right in front of the door.

I nearly screamed.

Silver blank eyes stared directly at me through the slats in the door. She knew I was there. I couldn't breathe as she just stared at me, watching the panic wash over my face. Pietro shook his head behind her, trying and failing to push up from the floor. Max moved, drawing my attention back to her as she raised a single finger to her lips and blew out a hushed breath.

Then she was gone.

My body shook as I stared at the door, through the slats at Pietro's fallen form across the room. I didn't know if she was really gone, but I couldn't just stay in here and let him die. I clutched at the knob again, hesitant in my exit as I looked down the hall where I was sure she had disappeared through, but no one was there. The tower had gone quiet again.

I rushed over, pressing my hands over the wound. "Oh God, oh God!"

Pietro moaned in pain, "G-get someone."

I didn't waste a second rushing out of there and barreling down the hall. I slammed my fist against every door I came across. "Help! Somebody help me!"

Steve was the first to stumble out of his room half dressed in a t-shirt and shorts dangling from his waist. "What's wrong?"

"Pietro's been stabbed! He's in the living room. T-there's so much blood!" I clutched at my heart as it threatened to pound right out of me. "Tony was knocked out or something. I-I don't know what she did to him!”

Steve rushed down the hall, and more of the heroes were quick to follow. Natasha, with her hair all wild, was next followed by Clint. I teetered back into the room behind them.

Steve knelt down next to Pietro, pressing his hands down against the wound much like I did. "What happened?"

Pietro swallowed hard, "There was a woman. She-." He clenched his teeth and whimpered. "She cut my legs and then plunged this thing into me." He nodded weakly towards the hilt of the knife sticking out of him.

Steve took in the pools of blood below his knees, a grim expression overtaking his features. "Friday!"

The AI didn't respond.

He tried again, but nothing came from it. Natasha checked Tony's pulse, nodding to me when she found it. Selfishly, I was relieved he wasn't in any condition like Pietro. It was a fleeting thought, but I found myself relaxing just a fraction.

Clint was quick to wrap a kitchen towel around each of Pietro's legs, trying to staunch the bleeding as best as possible. Pietro cried out loud enough to wake the last person down the hall. The one door I hadn't beat on.

Wanda's small voice whispered from the end of the hallway. "Pietro?"

It was a broken, confused sound that had guilt pooling into my stomach. I should've knocked on her door first.

She took one step, then two, dropping to the floor and crawling over to her fallen brother. Wanda had begun to cry, spouting words in a language I didn't understand and fumbling to grab his hand. She caressed his face, mumbling something softly to him, almost begging him with them.

We could all see that he wasn't going to make it. We wouldn't be able to get him to the med bay in time, not with the building down. This was it and everyone knew it. 

"Pepper, please tell us what happened." Clint squatted to rest a hand on Wanda's shoulder as he spoke to me. 

I swallowed a lump forming in my throat and blinked away my tears, wiping them hard with the back of my hand. "Um-- I, uh, I heard a clatter in the living room and thought it was Tony. I came in to check and someone was standing over him. I didn't know who it was at first, they stayed in the dark and injected him with something. Then Pietro came out a-and then she was gone! I-I—"

Steve pulled me to the side, pulling my attention to his face as he held my eyes. "Did you see their face?"

I nodded, just about the only thing I could do at the moment as the anxiety began to pool in my stomach as I recalled the events again.

"What did she look like?" Steve's thumbs brushed over my shoulders in a calming manner. I appreciated it, but I don't think anything was going to help me calm down right now.

I took in a shaky breath, "Max. It was Max.”

_____

Steve-

It was like a bomb had gone off at her words. 

Clint stood from his squatted position beside Wanda as anger clouded over his features. "What?"

Pepper looked like she was going to faint, and her eyes looked far off. "It was her, I'm sure of it. B-but something was wrong with her. Her... her eyes were silver, all silver, like a cloud was covering them." A shiver wracked her body under my hands that remained planted on her shoulders. "She was so different."

I felt my brows furrow at her words, "They must have figured out a way to brainwash her like they did with Buck. But how?" 

Natasha spoke up from behind the couch, still checking Tony over. "They have the scepter. Who knows what they did to her. It could be anything."

I nodded, because she was right. We had no idea how it worked without Thor here to explain it to us. Wanda was the only person we knew that had gotten that close with it, and she ended up with superpowers none of us had ever seen before. The possibilities were endless and not at all good. I dropped my hands from Pepper's shoulders with a grimace, "We need to get the generators back up and try and get Pietro to the med bay."

Clint gave a subtle shake of his head as the room went quiet. "He's not going to make it Cap, not in this condition. Even if we did get him down there, the machines won't be running. She's taken out the whole building if Friday is down. Even the backup generators if she's smart."

Silence enveloped us as we turned to watch the interactions between Wanda and her brother. Both of them were crying, speaking fast and hurriedly in their native tongue. We all knew what was happening. We knew he wasn't going to make it out of this room. "We'll give you some space, Wanda." I nodded towards the hallway, motioning for the rest of them to follow.

I headed past my door and into the stairway, making my way down towards Bucky's floor. I moved floors because his nightmares had gotten so bad. Bucky would scream so loud Tony would hear him four floors up. I had tried to console him, but he had shut me out, even went so far as to force me out physically. He didn't want help or comfort, he wanted her back. At this point, I think it's just about the only thing that would bring him any sense of peace. He's been so torn up over what he had said to her that it's tearing him apart.

As worried as I was, he deserved to know what was going on. He had to know. I was concerned that if he found out about things any other way that he might just snap.

When I lifted my head from the floor, I was standing in front of his door. He hadn't even put a name plack on it and I was sure only Tony and I knew where he had moved to. I knocked, "Bucky, I need to talk to you." I could hear shuffling, but no footsteps approaching. I knocked again, "Buck, something happened in the tower. Pietro is... he's dying."

At that, heavy thumps echoed on the other side before the door was practically ripped open. His room was dark, and I wouldn't have seen him if it weren't for the light cast over him from the hallway. The angle the light hit him accentuated the bruises blooming under his eyes and the coldness of his gaze. "What do you mean he's dying? What the hell happened?"

I dropped my eyes to the floor once again, trying and failing to find a way to break the news any easier than it was. "Buck—”

"Spit it out, Steve." His metal arm whirred to life as he gripped the doorframe, stepping further into the light. 

I blew out a breath, "He was stabbed. Pepper witnessed it all, said... said it was Max."

At the mere mention of her name, he seemed to come alive. "What?" Gone was his cruel exterior. Like a whole other person had stepped into his body. His voice was so soft, so broken when he spoke to me. "What do you mean? She wouldn't do something like that."

I hesitated. Not because I didn't want to tell him what Pepper said, but because the man in front of me looked like if the wind blew too hard, he'd shatter. "Pepper said she acted wrong, like she wasn't really there. She said when Max looked at her, her eyes were cloudy and silver. I think that Hydra has found a way to brainwash her." 

Bucky's face fell at my words, a shaky hand coming up to comb through his hair. It didn't look like he had washed it in a while. "What are we going to do? What can I- What can I do, Steve?" Tears sprang in his eyes, "I don't know what to do!”

I wrapped my arms around him, trying desperately to hold him together, keep him from shattering all over again. "I don't know just yet, but we're going to fix it, alright?"

His arms weakly rested over my back. I could tell by the way his shoulders shook that he was crying, but I didn't say a word about it. I just held onto him. It was the only thing I knew I could do for him. 

_____

Max-

Why was it always so damn cold? Always cold with these assholes.

When I blinked awake, meeting my lovely metal cell, that was the first thing that came to mind. That, and the aching pain in my forearms.

It took me a few minutes to clear my head, groggy and a little slow coming out of whatever drug induced sleep I was sure I had taken. Hydra loved their injections. That annoying clicking filled my ears, instantly triggering a headache that was slinking around the back of my skull. I cursed it along with the bastards guarding my door. When I had finally managed to push myself up into a sitting position, I took a look at my arms.

To my surprise, they were scabbed over. I couldn't recall what on earth I had done to them, but they hurt like a bitch. 

Twisting them around, I examined the long stripes of bloodied skin. They ranged in length, but they were all about the same width and distance apart. It almost looked like someone had—

With a wave of nausea, flashes—memories—began to hammer into my head. I cried out, gripping the sides of my head and pinning it between my knees, anything to make them stop. 

Watching from across a roof, the Avengers spoke with a woman- Pepper- in a living room. Pressing a button and watching the few remaining lights in the tower flicker out as I killed their generators. Breaking into the stairwell and climbing up, up, up... Standing over Steve, contemplating how his death would affect the team, affect the world. Moving down the hall to Tony, thinking-no, deciding- that his death would hurt the most.

I remember jamming that syringe into his neck and hearing him gasp. I felt him go limp. Then there was a noise, a heartbeat, and steps down the hall. I hid, deftly moving to situate myself on top of the fridge in a shadowed area. A man I didn't recognize turned the corner with his fists raised, blurring into the kitchen. That was his giveaway, memories of Wanda talking about her brother swept through mind. Pietro was his name, and his death would put yet another nail into the Avenger's coffin. It would shove them farther apart, break them from within.

Jumping from the fridge once he had cleared the kitchen, I mirrored him. I heard someone gasp from the hall, but I knew there wasn't another Avenger awake. I had heard the woman leave her room. She wouldn't, couldn't, do anything against me. So, I cut him at the knees and slotted a knife in his stomach. A slow death, one that there was no way he would pull out of without the power up. I had spoken into his ear, "Scream and she dies." 

He hadn't screamed, hadn't even whimpered. I had quieted her too before I left, taking a quick exit out of a window and down a grapple rope. Then I had returned to base.

By the time the memories had collected themselves within my head I was breathing hard. Too hard. My throat contracted and I was afraid one of my short gasps would be my last if I didn't get ahold of myself. I clutched at the bars behind my head, desperate for something to ground me. Anything. 

I counted to ten, trying and failing to breathe along with the numbers. I picked out seven different things I could see, earning a little bit of a reprieve from the invisible vice around my neck. My eyelids snapped shut, forcing myself into darkness and focusing solely on the feeling of pulling air into my lungs before I finally pulled myself out of the panic. 

Then the guilt hit. Hard, fast, and ruthlessly. Wanda would never forgive me, not ever. Pietro was all she had. Her only flesh and blood left. I had stolen him from her. I wouldn't lift a finger against her if she were to come after me. Not after what I had done. The others too, they'd be hurt. They would mourn his loss. 

Would anyone mourn me? If I died here in this god forsaken cell, would anyone care? 

I didn't think so. Not now, perhaps not ever. 

My arms pulsed in pain along with my shredded heart. I let the cold metal of the cell floor ease the itching scabs. I still felt weak and useless, my veins felt like sand was grating the insides. Withdrawal more than likely. Whatever they were shooting me up with was taking my sobriety with it. Soon enough I'll probably be begging them to inject me just so I won't be in pain any longer. At least the kind I could feel physically. 

The door wrenched open, knocking me out of my thoughts and dragging my attention up to Giles as he entered. "Hello, little bird. You did so well! I wish you had taken out an actual Avenger though, but the witch's brother will do just as good." He circled around, a long case in his hand. 

I knew that case. My body did too, slamming itself away from him. "Don't you fucking touch me with that."

Giles frowned, lifting the case, "What, this? But I need even better results! I ordered you to kill an Avenger. Obviously, you need to be more inspired."

I was too weak to do much else but snarl at him, baring my teeth. It didn't do much to dissuade him from unclipping the case and lifting that awful scepter. Just like he had before, he inched it through the bars. I tried to cover my chest, but it didn't deter him. He just pressed the end directly to my temple and I was swept into darkness.

Tags<3

@cjand10 / @calwitch / @blackbirdwitch22 / @greatenthusiasttidalwave / @hzdhrtss / @imdoingathingmom / @greatmistakes

[imawreck]

YOURE BACK!!!!!!! 🤍🤍🤍🤍 (btw i’m the one who made the request and take all the time you need lovely🤍)

OMG IM SO HAPPY YOU SAW THAT 😭😂 I was SO worried you wouldn’t see it and that you were gone forever. I am back! Hopefully for a good while. Thank you for your support! I will hopefully get it out by the middle of next month, or the end of this one if life doesn’t kick me in the ass. Much love!!! 🫶🏻

[imawreck]

Present

Pairing: Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier x Original Character

Summary: Bucky grows closer and closer to losing himself in the attempts to find Max, becoming more like The Winter Soldier once more. While they are searching for her, Max is losing more and more of herself.

Warnings: Pretty much the same as last few chapters so please be very careful with your reading!

Word Count: 3,252

Steve-

There wasn't a second to waste when the jet landed a mile out from where Tony had pinged the surge. Everyone was storming out of the hanger the second it touched the ground, Buck leading the charge.

I was following right behind him. I might not have had the best relationship with Max or believe that she was the best for my best pal but seeing him this close to falling apart was so much worse.

We approached the rubble of what was left from the old Hydra facility. All of us shot Tony questioning glances, because who the hell would set up camp here with no cover? There were hardly trees here. It was simply a couple of crumbled remains of a building or two in a flat clearing. No one would willingly use this as a base of operations, especially if they were going to use a weapon like the Scepter.

Tony frowned. "This is where the ping came from. I'm sure. Spread out but keep on the Comms. Look for some kind of sign that they were here."

When I turned to follow after Bucky, afraid he wouldn't be alright alone, he was already gone. Well, several yards away, anyway. His back was to me as he searched the ground, obviously following some sort of trail in the grass. I hustled over to him, noting the subtle footprints here or there, the half impression of a heel every few feet.

"They were here recently," he mumbled, "Could still be here."

I watched him closely as I trailed after him. Bucky had gone from remotely friendly and sometimes conversational to a downright ghost around the tower ever since Max's capture. I hardly heard a word out of him during the weeks afterward, only heard him talk at the meetings he attended. If they didn't revolve around finding Max, he wouldn't even show up to those. Instead, I'd find him in the gym or locked away in his room. Sometimes catch him coming out of her old room with a blank look on his face and an agony in his eyes. 

Bucky had become a looming figure around the tower. Both physically and emotionally. His time in the gym was evident on every inch of him as I watched him search the ground. Tony even had to order him a new suit to fit. Despite his stature, every single step he took was silent as ever in the way only he could do. He was so starkly different from the Brooklyn boy I grew up with that I hardly recognized him nowadays. Especially in moments like these when he slipped back into The Soldier. 

When his face went slacken and his eyes became nothing but cold calculation. When his shoulders remained tense and nothing and no one, even me, could stop him from his mission at hand. I followed him as he pressed forward, following the trail of boot prints to who knows where.

"Buck," I called out, "We have to stay within eyesight of the team. We don't know who's up here."

He didn't listen, merely stalked forward. I pursed my lips and hustled after him. The brush was getting a little thicker, and it looked like Bucky was struggling a little more with following the trail. Every few feet he would stop and scan the area for who knows what. The training he possessed wasn't something I had, and I barely knew what to look for. I just tried to keep up with him in hopes that I could provide some kind of help if we were ambushed.

Suddenly, Bucky stilled.

He stood stalk still with his eyes trained on the ground a few feet in front of him at something in the brush. I raised my shield on instinct, approaching him as quietly as I could manage. Right in front of him, half buried in the dirt, was a concrete hatch. The dirt was smudged around the edges as if it had been heaved open and someone or multiple some ones had clambered out of it. 

Several sets of prints were scattered all around the dirt surrounding the hatch. Some were deeper than the others, some just partials as if they had been running. Bucky didn't waste much more time before he was reaching down with his metal arm and wrenching the door clear off its hinges. 

"Bucky!" I ran around in front of him. "What are you doing? We don't know what's down there, and we have to wait for the team. You can't go down there alone." I made sure to enunciate the importance of waiting on the team, tried to reason with him that this would most definitely be the worse way to go about things if there were still Hydra agents down there. "If you want to get her out, we do it as a team. It's the only way we can."

Bucky stalled, his eyes sweeping over to me and pinning me with the blankest look I think I've ever received from him even as the Winter Soldier. This was a side of Bucky I hadn't ever encountered before. There was a ferocity in his eyes that made me stop and really think that maybe trying to reason with him wasn't the best idea. He didn't look like there was a word in the entirety of the universe that would make him wait another second on anyone.

But he waited, lifting his hand to his ear and murmuring into it. I heard his voice echo back in my Comm as he listed off our coordinates to the rest of the team and allowed them to come into view before he dropped down into the hole without another word to me. I dropped in behind him, keeping a few feet between us and covering behind us as the rest of the team began filing in down the hatch one by one.

Bucky pressed ahead with his gun raised. He checked every single corner, searching each room one by one, but every single one of them was empty. The only thing that gave any indication that there were people here was the disturbed dirt on the floor or the occasional imprint on the dusty countertops of the labs we came across. 

Nothing else was left behind.

The closer we got to the main room, the more I could see the stress heighten in Bucky's shoulders. I knew the lack of evidence that Max was really here was getting to him. It was getting to all of us, even me.

But Bucky was unstable, and I feared that our failure to get here in time to find Max would push him to the edge. That it would put him somewhere so dark I wouldn't be able to reach him no matter how hard I tried.

We entered what looked to be the main chamber, a large room with several empty steel tables set in a semi-circle near the center. They were obviously new, and recently used at that. Unlike the other tables, there wasn't a speck of dust left on any of them. In the middle of the room was the obvious signs of something square being left there. A cage perhaps. In its absence, settled in the center of it, was a small brown box wrapped haphazardly in a paper sack and tied off with a black ribbon.

Bucky went impossibly still as the rest of the team filed in behind me. Everyone's eyes fell to the box. The only sounds that reverberated off the empty cold walls were the uneasy breaths of the team and the whir of Tony's suit. 

No one moved for what felt like forever, several minutes at least. I was afraid to speak, to breathe. I was afraid the smallest movement would set Bucky off, or whatever Roman Giles had put in that box. It could be a bomb.

I raised my shield at the thought, but I didn't have much time to do anything remotely heroic before Bucky was slinging his gun over his shoulder and snagging the box off the ground.

Panic welled up in my throat. "Bucky!"

But he was already opening it, already tearing through the paper. 

Wanda was raising her arms beside me, and Vision glided easily up beside her. "Sergeant Barnes, we don't know what's in there. It would be unwise to—.”

Bucky obviously didn't give a shit, because he flicked open the lid and glared at whatever was inside. What he pulled out was small and rectangular, not any bigger than my hand. I recognized it almost instantly from years ago. It was a recorder. I had stumbled upon the exact make and model some of the first years as Captain America taking down Hydra facilities. The scientists at the time used them to record their experiments.

As the information settles itself in the forefront of my mind, a dread sinks into the pit of my stomach. "Bucky, that could have something you might not want to hear on it." I knew very well that Giles had left it for us to find, for Bucky himself to find. This was child's play to him, a game he was very well winning.

Bucky's eyes met mine for a moment, a tidal wave of emotions crashing in them. But he didn't speak, simply clicked the button and let the recording echo off the walls of the facility.

"Tell me what you'll do to keep us from getting him." 

I flinched as Gile's voice ricocheted off the walls, rattling around in my ears. What really had my knees buckling was when a small, wobbling voice answered his demand. I could hardly recognize Max from the vulnerability leaking into her words.

 "I'll do anything, just don't hurt him. I'll kill if that's what you want. I'll become whatever you want me to be, just don't touch him. Leave him alone." 

A choked sob, garbled further by the recorder.

"I can't watch him die again, not anymore. I- I can't."

As I watched Bucky grip the recorder, eyes vacant and pinned to the floor as he listened to their exchange, I knew exactly who they were referring to. How he had made her watch him die; I could only imagine wasn't at all pleasant. Hydra was cruelly creative.

Giles spoke again, "Did you hear that Seargent Barnes? Isn't she sweet? Sacrificing herself to save you." He laughed, the sound like nails on a chalkboard and added, "The next time you see her, she will be but a husk of the woman you knew. Chow!"

At that, Bucky sent the recorder flying into the wall across from him. All of us flinched, diving out of the way to avoid the flying debris. The next thing to go was the table closest to him. His metal fingers snagged under the edge and sent it flying into the lights which sprayed us all in sparks in return. We all scattered to avoid them, immediately going into defense. 

There was a wildness in Bucky's eyes, a glimpse of a side of him we thought remained dormant without the mention of those wretched words. Alas, here he was. The Winter Soldier had come out at the mere pained voice of this woman. This woman who had somehow wormed her way so far into his heart that even this heartless killing machine had fallen for her, would break all mental bounds to come to her aid.

I was the first to snap into action, shield up and aiming for his left shoulder. I would have to disarm his strongest weapon before I had the upper hand. Bucky was stronger now, larger than I was. The fight would be over in minutes if he was fully functional. With that in mind, I rammed my shield into the plates of his shoulder as hard as I could.

Bucky stumbled, careening to the side with the impact. I had underestimated his strength, because a second later I was flying into the concrete wall. I hadn't even registered he had hit me until my head collided with the wall, effectively removing me from the equation as the room spun uncontrollably. That left it up to the rest of them.

Tony and Clint tag teamed him next, the latter shooting off several arrows that triggered into snares once they made their homes in his metal arm. Cords wrapped themselves around his torso in tight circlets. Tony took the opportunity to pin him to the wall and allow Barton to fire off a few more restraining arrows. Bucky struggled against them, yelling his head off and grunting in efforts to get away from them. 

I pulled myself from the man-shaped hole left behind me as I stumbled over to them. "Buck, you have to calm down."

If a man could snarl, that's exactly what Bucky would be doing right now. The anger on his face would be enough to send any lesser man running for the hills. 

"Buck," I repeated, "We're going to get her back, but you've got to come back first." I figured if this Winter Soldier like state he had snapped into wasn't triggered by words, then he could come out of it on his own. Right? "I promise we will."

There was a moment where he just stared at me with all the hatred in the world held in his eyes. But there was a pain there too. A pain I almost missed. Slowly though, that pain grew until it was all encompassing. His shoulders shook and his face began to twist as tears gathered in his eyes.

And just like that, Bucky began to weep.

He wept hard. His whole body wracked with the sobs that left him. I turned to the others, begging them silently to give us a moment. Tony caught the drift and motioned the others to exit the room. I turned back to Bucky, all tied up against the wall, and gathered him up in my arms. "I'm so sorry Buck." It was all I knew to say and I knew it wasn't even close to enough.

"They've tortured her, Steve. They've done God knows what, and I can't even find her." He sniffled, wiping his nose on the Kevlar on his shoulder. "I'm one of the most trained for this bullshit, and I can't find her."

I could only pull him closer, desperate to keep him from going down this dark rabbit hole. "We will find her. I'll make sure we do. I just need you to stick with the team, okay? Keep your head level as best you can while we sort this out."

He nodded weakly, but a yes was a yes. I cut him loose, letting the ropes fall to the ground and waiting for him to collect himself before we both headed back towards the jet where I knew the rest would be waiting up for us. 

It would be difficult and dangerous, but I'd be damned if I didn't give finding this girl my all.

_____

Max-

I fucking hate tranq guns. 

That was my first waking thought. The second was that I at least got a sound rest untouched by nightmares or plaguing memories. At least I had that. 

It took a few minutes to come to, finally registering the restraints around my body. I still felt week. Extremely weak, more than I had been since my initial capture. Which was never a good sign. I curled my fingers around the evident arms of a metal chair, feeling the cool surface bite against my skin. Felt the pull of the cold cuffs securing me to it. 

There was something masking my vision, a blindfold perhaps. I didn't know why; it wasn't like I could go anywhere or tell anyone if they let me see where I was. Maybe Giles just liked the suspense. I was not impressed or willing to participate. I was tired and missing the tower, missing my friends.

I hadn't allowed myself to think about them since I landed in this lovely situation. It would just bring me more pain, so I had pushed them away for my own safety. Now that I was sure things weren't going to get any brighter, I allowed myself to savor my memories of them before Giles stripped me of everything I was.

Because I knew that's what it would do. That serum, whatever he had created it with, could do that to me. I had felt it eating away at my mind when he first injected me with it, and I had to fight tooth and nail to claw my way back from it. It nearly took everything I had. But now... now that I know what they'll do to Bucky, how easily they had broken into the tower, I didn't have any fight left in me.

There was the familiar creak of metal hinges before footsteps echoed in the room I was held in. I knew that gait, the soft brush of fabric against his knees. Giles.

"Good afternoon, little bird." Something scraped against a table, "I hope you are as excited as I am."

I didn't answer, couldn't even think of it as fear began to snake its way into my veins.

There was more shuffling and then the blindfold was removed from my eyes. I flinched at the bright fluorescent lights, blinking away the pain and focusing on Giles frightening face. He was grinning, like always, and holding a syringe alarmingly close to my arm. I jerked away only to be met with the restraints once more. I fumed at him, "I'll kill you for this!"

He laughed, loud and maniacal, "You won't be able to lift a finger without my command, don't you get it? You're mine. You won't do a damn thing without my say so."

I reared my head back and spit in his face. It was the only action of resistance I could perform at the moment. "Burn in hell!"

Giles sighed, plunging the needle into my arm unexpectedly. "I'm sure I will." 

Then the burning started.

Every nerve in my body was alight, blazing with whatever the hell was in that damn syringe. I screamed, writhed in the chair, desperate to get away from the pain. Giles just watched, that wretched smile plastered on his face. My head began to pound, pulsing as my heart pumped the serum through my body. It wasn't long before I felt myself slipping.

First it was just tidbits, where I was for a moment, then it was more. Fast. In a matter of minutes, I was struggling to remember how I even got here. I was grasping at straws, clawing at my memories as I felt them slipping out of reach. They were going somewhere dark and far away.

Then the confusion chased away the pain.

 Was I supposed to be trying to get away? Who was this man standing in front of me? 

I... I had something important to do but I-- I can't remember.

A flicker of a man with blue eyes, beautiful blue eyes.

A faint thump of my heart in my ears, a pull from the image.

What... What was his name?

Feelings became harder to connect with. With each passing flicker of my life, something else in my heart was taken with it. I felt myself empty out 'til I was just the wrappings of a person who no longer existed. An echo.

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[imawreck]

Loop

Pairing: Bucky Barnes/Winter Soldier x Original Character

Summary: Max is pushed to the brink of survival in order to break her spirit. Giles proceeds with his plans for her as the main weapon for New Hydra.

Warnings: gore, death, mental torture, starvation and physical abuse, cursing, lots of bad stuff so read with caution!

Author’s Note: Well, if you read the last chapter, you know it’s gonna be terrible awful. Buckle up and grab the tissues home-slices, you’re in for a rollercoaster ride.

Word count: 4,203

Max-

I woke with a start, hands thrashing about and getting caught in sheets. I stumbled off the edge of a bed, mind wild as I took in my surroundings.

Sheets, a bed, no cell in sight.

Confusion crept into my mind as I recalled where I had been mere minutes ago. I swore I had been in a cell, trapped within Hydra's compound just minutes ago...

But everything seemed so real. The coolness of the tile beneath my bare feet, the scent of laundry detergent clinging to the bedsheets that spilled out onto the floor next to me, even the heartbeat down the hall—

A heartbeat down the hall.

I scrambled up from the tiles, bolting for the door and shoving it open. Blinding white light met my eyes, stealing my vision for a moment as I blinked it away in a hurry. Someone stood at the end of the hall, wide eyed and looking nearly as confused as I felt.

"Max?" His voice was like heaven upon my ears, and I felt my eyes sting as I took in his lovely face.

Those same steely blue eyes held me captive with their worried gaze. A T-shirt and jeans graced his body, and his white socks stuck out against the dark floors. He kept walking towards me as I fought to find words, to speak to him.

"Doll, what's wrong? You're scarin' me."

Doll. That single word was my undoing. I ran to him, wrapping my arms around his waist and clinging to him with a sob, "Bucky." His heart thundered in my ear as his arms wrapped themselves around me.

His voice rumbled, "Hey, what's going on? Do-gk."

Glass shattered behind me, tearing my attention to the windows of the small living room. One of the windows were broken, and the red laser of a sniper flickered off from the building next to the Tower.

I tore my eyes from the window as one of Bucky's hands left my hip. I felt something warm drip onto my face, taking my attention back towards Bucky only to be blinded by whatever it was dripping onto my face. I swiped at it with the back of my hand, blinking it away and bringing my hands down to look at them.

They were red. Red as blood.

Bucky stumbled to the side, slamming to his knees on the tiles and clutching at his neck. His breathing was garbled and wet, all the wrong sounds. I collapsed next to him, grasping at his shirt, his shoulders, anything I could get purchase on as he fell to the floor. His blue eyes were wild and scared, searching mine for answers.

"Bucky, no, no, no!" A sob wracked through me, "Tony! STEVE! Somebody, anybody!" I pulled him into my arms, pressing my hand against his own to stifle the bleeding. "Help me!"

Nobody came, no one was coming. There was only the dulling sound of his heartbeat and the splatter of blood on the tiles that met my ears. We were alone, and there was nothing I could do to stop this.

It couldn't be real, surely it wasn't real.

But it felt real. The heat of his skin, the pain in his eyes—

Bucky didn't blink. He... He wasn't blinking, wasn't breathing. A strangled cry left me as I pressed my hand harder to his still bleeding neck, tried and failed to call out to him through my tears. He wasn't waking up.

I slumped to the floor beside him, feeling my heart shatter at the sight of his lifeless eyes. My forehead dropped to his chest as I gasped for air and gripped at his shirt. It felt like I sat there for hours over his fallen body. No one ever came.

I felt something shift, felt my mind wane, and suddenly his body was gone. I straightened up, tears still pooling in my eyes and the tiles steady under my feet. The lights still shone brightly, and when I turned around the window that had been broken was miraculously repaired. I sniffled, swiping my arm across my face. The blood that had coated my hands was gone, as was the puddle on the floor.

Moments later, the elevator tolled and out he strode again as healthy and whole as he had been before. I balked at him, but he just frowned and shot me a confused little smile.

"What're you lookin' at me like that for?" His hands were in his jean pockets and the metal glint of his arm was on full display in that T-shirt like it was before.

I hesitated, eyes flittering over to the window before I pushed up from the floor and tugged him into my room. I clicked the door shut, sliding the deadbolt into place behind me before whirling around to face him. His body stood stalk still, eyes wide as they took me in.

I blinked at him, looking down at myself too. I felt the change, the leather against my skin. The cold metal of a knife clutched in my fingers. The mask pressed against my face and dimmed my vision as I peered at him through the eyes of it. Bucky backed away with his arms held up as if he were trying to get an animal to calm.

I wanted to tell him I wasn't going to hurt him, that I didn't understand what was happening, but my mouth wouldn't move. The knife in my hand caught the light as I swung it, watching it sail through the air and plant itself in the wall beside his head. Bucky had moved just in time to avoid it, but he couldn't move in enough time to avoid the second that planted itself in his thigh.

I wanted to scream, to stop my body from its assault on him. It was like I was trapped in my own body watching as someone else called the shots. Perhaps that was how he felt once. I wondered if he would understand when I succeeded, if he would forgive me.

I drowned out the noise of his screaming with the pounding of my heart. I didn't want to listen. The third and final blade found its home in his heart, my traitorous hand twisting it swiftly to the side until his body stopped moving. Till his hands stopped gripping my arms.

I sat there on the floor with his body, staring at his empty eyes, until the door creaked open again.

"Doll?"

_____

Tony-

I've had my fair share of all-nighters. In fact, nearly every night was an all-nighter for me. I had lots of things to do and such a short amount of time to do them. But now that Max was gone, my nights had begun melding together into one continuous 72-hour day with the occasional nap here and there.

Pepper, bless her, had dragged my half-awake body away from my main computer and scolded me for not sleeping properly. She reminded me I can't get any work done without rest, not anything helpful anyways. So, I had slept restlessly most nights since then. I tried and failed to shut off my brain. I was too worried about missing something, any little detail to tell us where we might find her.

It was a real surprise when Friday notified me that there had been a major power surge smack dab in the center of Germany, the motherland itself.

I had been on my way to retrieve a second refill of coffee when she had told me as much. I fumbled my mug, completely forgetting it on the counter and taking the quickest route to my labs. I had her pull up the data, map it out for me to examine, then called in Vision who had returned recently from his mission.

He had taken into account what had happened and deduced that it was in fact the scepter that had released that kind of surge. As I feared, they had gotten their hands on it. I thanked him, sending him away before I called in Steve.

"They have the scepter, and they're using it for something." I watched him carefully, "I haven't had the opportunity to contact Thor and ask him exactly what this thing does, but I doubt it's good."

Steve nodded, "Why would they use it if they knew that it would tell us where they were? It just doesn't make any sense." He pressed his palm against his forehead as he stared at the blip on the display. "Does he know?"

I pursed my lips, shaking my head. "No, I've only told you and Vision. I wasn't sure how he would react since he's been acting... removed."

In all honestly, I was afraid Bucky would pack up and go directly there without our knowledge. There would be no stopping him if he wanted to. I don't even think Steve could stop him at this point. It had been five weeks since Max had gone missing, and in that time, Bucky had dedicated every minute of free time in the training room. Everyone could tell that her kidnapping had taken a tremendous toll on his mental health. I felt like telling him something so important would be the tipping point that sent him into action.

Steve sighed, pressing his hands against the countertop. "He deserves to know. We just have to deliver the news gently. The team needs to be informed and updated, any edge we can get on them is crucial." He pushed off from the counter and folded his arms across his chest. "What are we going to do?"

The billion-dollar question. "I say we storm it. Sweep in with the jet, scope it out, and take it out like every other mission. It could be a mistake on their part. It could also be a trap." I frowned, "But Max is over there going through hell and there's a limited window of time for us to use this before it's too late."

Steve nodded, "We have to be careful. We're going to need every surprise we have."

"Friday?" I swallowed the lump in my throat.

"Yes boss?"

"Call the team in."

_____

Max-

I had lost all sense of time.

Reality was but a dream, a nightmare, I was unsure I would wake from. Every flutter of my eyelids took me in and out of different pains. My mind was muddled and tired, unable to discern the difference between the hellish plains of my imagination and the solid world that yanked me from it. Even then, the world I returned to was violent and agonizing.

There were flickers between my pain where there was just stillness. I could hear my breathing in my ears, feel something cold against my chest cooling me through the thin hospital gown I knew still hung from my shoulders. Someone smiled, a man I couldn't recognize through the haze, but the image made my blood chill and my body involuntarily recoil.

But the pain was a constant squeezing, burning thing that consumed me. The type that shattered your mind and separated you from your body. Melted you away until you're nothing more than a shell of what you were before. My heart was bleeding, I could feel it in my chest. It was hollow and broken.

I had watched Bucky die so many times. Tried and tried and tried to stop it. I never could. It felt so real every time he smiled at me, wrapped me in his warmth and littered kisses on my skin. But then he was bleeding or screaming in an instant. Every time was different. I never knew how to stop it, and no one came to help. I could feel his blood slip between my fingers, warm and wet as it slicked the floor beneath me. I watched each time as his heart stopped and the life drained from his eyes.

I no longer knew where I was or when I was, who I was when I blinked once more, and Bucky's fallen body disappeared like it always seemed to do. Everything was cold and dull, the metal that chilled my cheek where I laid sprawled out in the cramped cell. I was gasping for breath, my throat raw from screaming. I no longer had a voice.

"Hello again." My eyes tried their best to focus on the man crouched in front of the cell, the dull blue glow from the scepter he clutched in his hand made me flinch. "What did you experience?"

I couldn't tell him even if I wanted to. The images of what I had witnessed made my throat go dry and my heart spasm in fear. I clutched at the fabric over my heart to try and calm it, but it was useless. The man didn't seem satisfied by that. Why couldn't I remember his name?

He stood slowly, eyes watching me as I flinched at his movements. "It must have been terrifying to break such a strong weapon. Look at what it has made you into. Groveling, pathetic little bird." He kept smiling as he said it. "Do you even know what day it is? Where you are?"

I didn't. Not anymore.

My silence must have been answer enough. "Do you remember why you're here?"

Slowly, images flashed in my mind, and I spoke as it came to me. "I got away." My voice was like grinding stones. "You nearly killed me to get me back." I could feel my head clear a bit.

The man, Giles—Yes, his name was Giles, Roman Giles—stepped away from the cell and set the scepter in a black case a few steps away. "Your Soldier will be coming for you. They will have detected such strong power by now."

Bucky, he was talking about Bucky. My voice wrenched from my throat before I could stop it. If he was alive- "Don't hurt him. Please, I'll do anything, just don't hurt him. I can't watch it again."

I knew I had said the wrong thing the moment he spun around, and that wretched smile had doubled in size. "Can't watch it again? Is that what it showed you? Is that what you fear most in this world? How touching, truly."

One of his hands sunk into the pocket of his lab coat and retrieved a small black device. I watched his thumb flick a button against the side before he crouched before me once more. I didn't even possess the energy to move away from him. "Tell me what you'll do to keep us from getting him."

I could feel a sob gathering in my chest as my eyes burned at the memories sweeping in some torturous slideshow behind them. "I'll do anything, just don't hurt him. I'll kill if that's what you want. I'll become whatever you want me to be, just don't touch him. Leave him alone." That traitorous sob forced itself through my teeth, cleaving the silence. "I can't watch him die again, not anymore. I- I can't."

Giles lifted the little box up to his face. "Did you hear that, Sargent Barnes? Isn't she sweet? Sacrificing herself to save you." He laughed, the sound enough to have me shoving back against the cage. "The next time you see her she will be but a husk of the woman you knew. Chow!" His thumb switched off the box and he pocketed it back into his coat.

The door was swung open, the scrape of metal against the floor sent a sharp pain through my head. "The rest of the base has been loaded up sir. We are ready to move the Asset."

I locked eyes with him, doing my best to pull a vicious curl onto my lips. Giles nodded to him, "Then move it. We don't have a lot of time before they pick up on the scepter if they haven't already. Time is of the essence." With that, he slipped out the door and four men replaced him.

All of which held those awful tranq guns.

_____

Bucky-

When Tony called a meeting in the middle of the night, I knew we had to have gotten some sort of intel on Max. I was terrified to have hope, but I could feel it blooming in my chest despite my efforts to stop it. The cool metal of the chair I had claimed at the table seeped into every part of me, chilling my very bones. The team trickled in slowly, too slowly for my liking, but it was in the mere early hours of the morning, and they all had more than likely been sleeping. The only person who looked remotely awake was Tony. Even Steve looked haggard.

"Thank you for coming," Tony started, "I have some news on Max."

That got everyone in the room sitting up.

With a long breath, Tony continued. "There was a large scale burst of power located in the middle of Germany. I consulted with Vision and Cap, and we've come to the conclusion that the only thing that could release that magnitude of power that we know of, is the scepter."

Wanda flinched at the mention of it, drawing my attention. Vision placed a comforting hand on her shoulder and my heart stung a little. Max had done the same for me many times before.

From beside me, Steve began explaining. "We will be mobilizing as soon as possible. There is a limited window of opportunity, and we all know that Giles is intelligent. He will know that we pick up on the surge and he's moving Max if he's as smart as we think. We need all of you on top of it, no mistakes." There was a beat of silence as we all took in his words before he spoke again, "We will discuss the details on the jet, suit up."

I was out of my chair as soon as he finished, marching to the elevator and taking it down to the landing bay where I began to yank on my uniform. I wasn't moving fast enough, nothing was. We had an opportunity to get Max back, and it was shrinking with every second it took for the team and myself to get around. I was the first in the jet, turning on the switches and taking the pilot seat.

Every nerve in my body was itching to take off, leave the rest of them behind and go after her myself. I would be faster, quieter, more effective without them.

But as Steve stepped onto the jet and clamped a hand on my shoulder like he always did when he knew something was bothering me, I knew I couldn't. Perhaps losing Max effected the team more than they let on, I thought, as they all hustled into the hanger minutes after I had. Every single one of them wore a face of determination. They all buckled in and gave me a thumbs up for takeoff. I didn't hesitate, launching the jet from the pad and punching in the coordinates as Tony read them off.

There wasn't much else to do as I set the jet to autopilot and prayed that we would make it in time. I moved to join the rest in the back, taking in their pensive faces as we all moved to seats closer to Tony in order to hear the details of the plan that could possibly save Max.

_____

Max-

I woke up in the dark.

My skin was covered in gooseflesh, and the cold seeped into my very bones. A throbbing headache formed in the forefront of my head, and no amount of blinking or rubbing at my temples got rid of it. Much like before they had knocked me out, my body remained week. Pain shot through every inch of me whenever I braved even the slightest of movements. But I couldn't focus on that now, not if I wanted to have even the slightest opportunity of escape. I still had a sliver of hope, just enough to have me hauling myself into a sitting position.

I curled into myself, wrapping my arms around my knees and tugging them impossibly closer in order to trap any remanence of heat my body possessed. I blinked away the drowsiness still clouding my mind from my unwilling sleep, slowly but surely regaining my senses.

"I read somewhere that due to your lowered body temperature, you move slower in the cold. I found that it was recorded that you have a harder time keeping heat regulating through your body than the normal person when temperatures drop below fifty degrees. You can still withstand colder temperatures more than most, but it severely hinders your skills." My eyes snapped toward his voice, that wickedly egotistical tone he always spoke with grated against my remaining nerves.

Giles remained with his back facing me, away from the cage I still remained trapped in. He wore a turtleneck now, and what looked like a heavy pair of uniform pants along with his white lab coat. He was fiddling with something I couldn't see, but the tilting of his shoulders and his focused air told me it was something that required his full attention.

That didn't stop him from talking to me over his shoulder.

"Don't worry though, you'll be let out soon enough." I turned to me then, a vial of something metallic swirling around clutched in his hand.

I recognized it almost immediately, remembered the way it had burned through my veins and threatened to steal my very mind from me. "Stay the fuck away from me or I'll splatter you up the walls!" I felt the panic welling in my belly, hot and wild and frantic.

Giles merely smiled that awful smile and took a step closer as if to test my threat. "Will you now? Perhaps we haven't broken that spirit as much as I thought we had. Would you like to go for round two? I have a few more bases we can move to before we really have to move things along. The scepter is just in the other chamber, won't be hard for me to get."

He blinked at me like the words that just poured from his mouth were anything but a threat against my life. Like he had just suggested the most normal thing in the world.

I couldn't help the curl of my lip, the flash of my teeth, like some primal instincts were kicking in and there was nothing I could do but force words through a body I wasn't entirely in control of. Fear had taken the front seat. "You're a sick bastard. I'll make every second of your death long and agonizing."

He merely sniffed, flicking the vial and reaching over to the table and picking up a syringe bullet. "I'm sure you will. That's only if you ever get out. Which you won't, by the way. Not in the way you're hoping anyways."

I watched as he clicked the vial into the bullet, securing it in place and reaching over again to the side and picking up a gun. "The only way you're getting out of here is if I want you to. And by then you'll be doing anything I want you to do. Especially if you want me to leave your little soldier boy alone. He's useless to me now that I have you, but that doesn't mean I won't put him down if you refuse to cooperate with me. Do you understand that, little bird?"

I grit my teeth, tightening my hold on my legs. Shivers were wracking my body now, and the room seemed to be continuously dropping in temperature. That, or my body just couldn't keep itself warm enough against the chill. Giles's eyes flickered up to mine as he waited for my reply, one I was very reluctant to give.

I rolled his words around in my head, letting them knock against the walls of my skull as I tried to find something else to say, to dredge up any last remnants of fight left in me. But there wasn't any left.

Not as the memories of watching Bucky die began to spill into my thoughts once again. The feeling of his blood slick on my hands wasn't something I could erase no matter how many times I scratched at my skin. Real or not, whatever that scepter had put me through was enough to snuff out any hope or fire left inside of me. I felt broken at the mere thought of him dying.

So, I nodded, agreed to do what I swore I would never do again.

I would become their monster, their puppet, once more.

I would let them ruin me, tear me apart over and over and over again. Let them muddle my mind if they wanted to. Obliterate every last memory I had, the only things I had for myself alone.

If that kept them from harming him again, if my downfall would promise his survival, then I would die on repeat for the rest of eternity.

Tags <3

@imdoingathingmom / @cjand10 / @greatenthusiasttidalwave / @hzdhrtss / @blackbirdwitch22 / @calwitch