#romanian christmas carol

[we-got-that-power-power]

Alexandra Chira & Grupul SILVANIA - A venit și aici Crăciunul & O, ce v...

[sgiandubh]

From East...

It will soon be Christmas, for many of us. And for all of us who celebrate, this is about a renewed sense of Hope, Peace, Joy and, above all, Love. Every single one of them symbolizes the Advent candles we lit, all along this reflection and preparation time.

It's been a hell of a year, outside this particular bubble. So mixed up and fraught, that it wasn't always easy to keep the pace with this secret garden saga (itself mixed up to oblivion). But it is with a smile that I choose to welcome whatever is next in store for us.

It will soon be Christmas, and this very old Romanian carol immediately takes us to Bethlehem, where a very young woman is overwhelmed with worry for her newborn Child. She has nothing, we are being told, not even swaddling clothes. But the Star has already risen above the Manger, and so the humble Shepherds find her and tell her to stop crying: they will bring whatever they can to comfort this unusual Family. And so, this day's meaning is perhaps also about Kindness.

Be happy, be merry and be safe, dear friends, wherever you are. But above everything else, be kind. To yourself and to others. See you on the other side, a hot chocolate cup in hand, for even more hugs!

Because Christmas is about being together and here for each other, near and faraway alike. And about feeling this togetherness in our hearts:

[on-a-lucky-tide]

A soldier yearns for home as a pining pilot watches on.

cw: hints of a shitty ex, soldiers away for Christmas.

Nik hadn’t questioned the guitar that John had loaded onto the Black Hawk. He had transported more unusual things into the heart of eastern Europe, and would do so in the future at John's behest, no doubt. That hadn't stopped him inspecting it while John had been busy briefing the 141 and an attaché of mercenaries Laswell had sent to support.

The case was solid black plastic, chipped and dented, and littered with band stickers. Some had faded to white completely, while others had peeled in places. His eyes lingered over a few bands he'd never heard of - The Fratellis, The Wombats, The… Pigeon Detectives - and some he did. John had a rather broad musical palette.

The instrument itself was well loved too, with a chip out of the main body and more faded stickers across the back and front. The varnish had worn off the fretboard, but the strings were relatively fresh; Nik ran the pads of his fingers over them and they hummed out a warm note. The musical echo of John's smile, Nik thought fondly. He clipped the case closed and grabbed a ratchet strap from a shelf to keep it secure.

They made camp in an abandoned building in the suburbs outside Timișoara. Nik could think of worse places to spend Christmas than the City of Roses, but everyone else's spirits were low. It was Christmas Eve and every soldier huddled in that little building was yearning for hearth and home. Nik had spent so long without one that he had learned to find solace where he could, and if that was enjoying the philharmonic opera and a glass of Țuică in a beautiful Romanian city after the mission, then so be it.

As he walked the floors, he heard Gaz talking softly on his phone, Soap and Ghost too, with muted Scottish voices coming through from the otherside. The lieutenant had lost so much and the sergeant had taken to including him in his own family. One day they would make it official. Nik had already picked out his suit for the occasion.

The team had a limited amount of downtime before all boots hit the ground and they went dark, and every single one had searched out their loved ones in whatever way they could. Nik hadn't realised his own heart had done the same until he ended up outside John's door.

It was ajar and Nik could hear him moving around. He was about to knock when he caught sight of John sitting down in front of a laptop, and his hand hovered in midair. A hazy picture appeared on the screen, flickering once as John adjusted the antennae.

“C'n y’ear me, Carol?”

“Yeah, John. C'n ‘ear ya, la.”

“‘Ow ya keepin’?”

“Fine, it's… I wish y’were ‘ere. I'm… it's hard. Bizzies were round lookin’ fer ‘im, he's gone an' been a prick again.”

“I know, ‘m sorry, be home soon–ahh, there she is!”

Nik leaned in and saw a new face appear on the screen. Kimmy. She was a combination of John and his sister, without a single trade of her father, as far as Nik could tell; erratic brown hair that had fought a comb to the death, broad nose and distinguished forehead, and those blue eyes were clearly a Price birthright, because they gazed owlishly from the screen as she worked out who her mother was talking to and then squealed with delight.

“Uncle John! You commin’ fer scran? Ma go’ pigs in blankets from down The Asda an’.. an’ that spotted dick wi’ custard, an’ an’...”

John chuckled. “Naw, love. Gotta sort out some bad men, then ‘ll be ‘ome, but ‘m gonna miss dinner.”

“Again?”

“Yeah, love, ‘m sorry. Ma got the clobber ya asked fer though.”

“Yeah…”

She didn't look convinced and Nik's heart ached for her.

“Bu’ listen, figured we could still do ar sing along at least. You ready?”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Eh, yeah! Wait, wait…”

She left the screen, returning moments later with what looked like an Action Man doll in a carrier vest, and plopped herself back down on her mother's lap.

“Ready!”

John tweaked the strings and played a few trial notes to test the tuning, before he opened up into the introduction. Nik had never heard him play before. Not in all the years they had known each other, and it felt strangely intimate now, John's full bicep sloped over the body of the guitar as he strummed through the chords, agile fingers moving across the frets. Nik wished he could see from the front. Imagined it so clearly in his mind’s eye.

And then John started singing and Nik had to place a hand on the wall to steady himself.

“I wanna thank the storm that brought the snow, and thanks to the string of lights that make it glow, but I wanna thank you, baby. You make it feel like Christmas.” His voice was rich, the auditory companion to the dark amber of the whiskey in his office, gravelly and a little rough from so many years smoking strong cigars, but he carried a note perfectly, even if he was keeping the volume low. Nik felt his heart trying to beat out of his chest, a little breathless as he drank in every word.

Despite the subtle crackle of the poor laptop speakers, Carol’s voice carried just as well, low and silky, as John played through her verse, his smile visible even at the sides through the perk of his round cheeks. “It barely took a breath to realise, we're gonna be a classic for all time. I wanna thank you, baby. You make it feel like Christmas.”

When they fell in together, Nik realised this wasn't a one-off. They harmonised perfectly, practised, John dropping his lower baritone to allow Carol's voice to carry over the top, and Kimmy’s delighted squeak made Nik grin so broadly his face hurt. “Sweet gingerbread made with molasses, my heart skipped and I reacted, can't believe that this is happenin’, like a present sent from God, sleigh bells singin’ Hallelujah, stars are shinin’ on us too, I wanna thank you, baby… you make it feel like Christmas.”

John leaned back, dipping his shoulders, chuckling as he played through another bar, before he carried the next verse with Carol humming and echoing beneath. “Thought I was done for, thought that love had died, but you came along, I swear you saved my life, and I wanna thank you, baby, ‘cause you make it feel like Christmas.”

It was as Carol squeezed Kimmy and pressed a kiss into her hair, the Action Man dancing across the screen in Kimmy's small hands, that Nik realised John was singing to his niece. Not some abstract lover provided by the song, but the little girl that beamed at him like he was a superhero, held by the sister he had raised himself. John had no wife, no children, but he did have a family. A family that loved him, missed him, looked at him like he hung the stars.

Nik dropped his eyes for a moment, but he couldn't look away for long. It was like staring into a bonfire in a snowstorm; the warmth on his skin warding off the bitter cold, but the intensity of the light hurting his eyes. He wanted it so ardently that his entire body ached.

“I never thought I'd find a love like this, but I found forever in that very first kiss, I wanna thank you, baby, you make it feel like Christmas.” Carol finished the lyrics and they harmonised through the last few bars as she kissed her daughter’s rosy cheeks, bouncing her on her lap as she giggled.

John struck the final note and rested his palm over the strings to bring their warm hum to an end.

“Ahh, ‘gain! Again!’

John chuckled, a sound even warmer than the one made by his guitar. “Naw, sweet’eart. S’time fer bed, or Santa ain't gonna visit."

“Yer Santa,” Kimmy said tartly. “An’ y’ain’ ‘ere.”

“Olrigh', smartarse, but if I ‘ave t’ get a flight back over ‘specially t’ rob yer presents back, I will.”

“You wouldn't."

He said nothing, but Nik could picture the raised eyebrow, the stern set of his eyes and lips. Kimmy pouted and slid from her mother's lap, looking mischievous and reluctant, but complying because she knew there was no room for negotiation. Before she disappeared, she leaned in and the camera caught the top of her head as she kissed the screen.

“Love ya, Uncle John. See soon.”

“Sleep tight, ya little beast.”

She scurried away and Carol looked back at her brother, her eyes, just as blue as his, brimmed with anxiety. “You come back safe, y’ear? Safe. No heroics, ya get the job done, ya get yer arse t’ my dinner table before New Years.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She kissed her fingers and they covered the camera briefly. “Love you, big brother.”

She took one final look at him and then the camera went black. He stared at the screen and then let out a long, rattling sigh, his face falling to his palm. Nik’s heart caught in his throat and he was frozen between leaving John to his sadness or offering comfort and revealing he'd been hovering there the whole time, invading his privacy.

He didn't need to worry for long. John's phone rang and he snatched it from the nearby table, sliding his guitar behind him to hang down his back. “Price,” he said, a stern bark. Back to business; John tidied away into the recesses of his heart, Captain Price assuming his place. John listened intently, hand on his hip. “Copy. ETA?” Another pause. “Fuck, that's too soon, we’re… yeah, Rog, we’ll be ready. We’ve got Nik with us.”

Nik smiled, stepping back. He had barely retreated four paces down the hall before his phone buzzed in his back pocket. It was John: “need you, 5 mins”.

Nik ducked into a nearby room to wait out the time. If he appeared too quickly, John would know he had been lingering nearby. He had no right to have invaded that private moment, and John deserved to believe it had been all his. A quiet moment to himself before the clusterfuck to come.

As Nik waited in the dark for the minutes to tick by, he added two new people to his silent, unwavering commitment to John Price. Nikolai would personally return John to Carol and Kimmy, their hero, safe and sound. They would sing together at Carol’s dinner table by New Years, Nik would make sure of it.

Nik left the room and knocked on John's door. When he entered, he was greeted by a lopsided smirk as John looked up from checking his M1911. “Time to get evil, Comrade.”

Nik grinned back. “It would be my pleasure.”

[angel-dustspo]

Daily check in – Day 41!!

Workouts:

went caroling (yes it's a REAL workout I carried heavy bags for nearly 10km WHILE it was pouring and freezing cold outside)

walked a lot in my room after my meals (bad ed day) (ughh i hate christmas meals sm)

Steps: 23 125

Eating:

breakfast: 2 cabbage rolls (traditional romanian food) with yogurt, some of a cucumber, a mini pancake, a salted caramel candy

lunch: 3 meatballs with hot sauce, some salad with chickpeas, 2 soya schnitzels, a bit of pistachio chocolate, half of a choc brownie, a mini pancake with whipped cream + tried like half of 3 mini cakes that I got when caroling (i hated all of them tho)

dinner: 2 more cabbage rolls with greek yogurt, some red cabbage salad, a cucumber, a rogers coconut wafer, a bite of a tiramisu wafer, some hazelnuts, whipped cream

Water intake: 2.3 liters

Sleep: 5 hours (woke up at 4am)

Studying:

spent 2 hours on forest🎄

read 110 pages (finished Dune 2)

Screen time: low

(I also got a new tracker app, it's called Ascent, I find it very useful! Might post about it soon)

Self care:

Everything showerrrrr

Face mask + watching Dune 1 with my family (i love me a good sf movie)

Emotion log:

I had SUCH A GOOD DAY and it was so fun to go caroling, then I was really productive all day and I ate whatever I craved (besides hot choc I'm still working on that) and I'm so happy and grateful!!

Thoughts for tomorrow:

I REALLY WANT A HOT CHOCOLATE TMRW, FEAR FOODS ARE CRAZY I HAVEN'T HAD ONE SINCE 2 YEARS AGO, I REALLY WANT ONE BUT I CAN'T PHYSICALLY MAKE IT

Merry Christmas guys, I hope you enjoy this special time, I love all of you <33

[shslbunnylover]

★★★𝘾𝙤𝙤𝙠𝙞𝙚𝙨 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙘𝙤𝙣𝙛𝙚𝙨𝙨𝙞𝙤𝙣𝙨 (12 𝙙𝙖𝙮𝙨 𝙤𝙛 𝙁𝙡𝙪𝙛𝙛𝙢𝙖𝙨 𝘿𝙖𝙮 5: 𝘾𝙤𝙤𝙠𝙞𝙚 𝙗𝙖𝙠𝙞𝙣𝙜)★★★

Character: Alcina Dimitrescu

Taglist: @inlovewithgreta @lilfartbox1 (Message me to be a part of the taglist until I get a page set up!!)

Trigger warnings (DL, DI): N/a

Genre: Fluff

A/n: Day 5 people, I'm not feeling too good but didn't wanna get too much behind, I'll post two tomorrow hopefully.

Word count: 1.2k

...

...

The cold winter months were always depressing around Castle Dimitrescu. The women of the household didn't celebrate Christmas, and the girls couldn't leave the house due to the cold. But after two years of working as a maiden, you were determined to achieve the hallmark Christmas you felt the girls you loved deserved.

You had joined the "family" after your 21st birthday after hearing all of the benefits such as a place to stay and a buttload of cash, but a certain someone was the main reason you stayed.

The lady of the house, Alcina Dimetrescu. Her golden eyes complemented her luscious black locks that would lay softly on her shoulders and bounce slightly every time you or one of the girls made her laugh. Her sweet Romanian accent. Her incredibly seductive body and voice. Her half-transformed form with her tentacles and wings. Everything about the older woman had you in a glue trap, leaving you stuck to writhe around in your own sticky feelings.

Her Romanian nicknames would always leave a dusting of pink across your face as soft as the snow that fell on the castle during the short winter days, and the way her arm would snake around your waist whenever you were standing next to her while she was reading.

You loved the woman and you wanted to be with her for the rest of your life. But you weren't even sure how to express a single percent of your love.

But one thing you did know was what Alcina loved more than anything: her daughters. And making them happy would make her happy, which was your way of flirting with the vampire.

Whenever you'd look at the older woman, you'd wonder what could happen if you just did it. If you just confessed, what would happen?

If you just stood up and made a silent confession, would she even look at you the same?

That's all you could think about as you stood in the large kitchen that had been left alone by all of Alcina's chefs who had gone home for Christmas break. You shuffled through all of the ingredients that rested in the large pantry to find every single ingredient for the chocolate chip cookies you were about to make.

"One O'clock..." You muttered, lifting your head softly to look at the large grandfather clock near the exit of the room you were in before looking at the darkness outside caused by the night, smiling in determination before getting to work.

Your brain was all over the place, and your heart rate was higher than normal due to how quickly you were trying to make the Christmas desserts for your favorite girls.

Swiftly hiking up your Colette dress, you got to work mixing each ingredient in the silver bowls in your hands, laughing each time flour or sugar would fly up into your face. But unbeknownst to you, Alcina was just as awake as you, listening to your heartbeat with her enhanced hearing.

Minutes passed as you busied yourself by finishing off the dough. Using a nearby cookie scoop to place each ball on the parchment paper, you hummed your favorite Christmas carol to yourself, still unaware of the woman listening in.

"What on earth is she doing?" The golden-eyed woman asked out loud, standing up and wrapping a silk black robe slightly against her underwear-clothed frame.

Alcina moved slowly through the castle, checking up on each of her daughters before finally walking towards the kitchen where she heard your heartbeat and other movements.

"What is that smell?" She whispered to herself, pausing in her tracks once she saw you in the kitchen, taking the cookies off of the tray and putting them on a large plate before writing a note next to it.

Standing there, you smiled softly yet proudly as you placed the now empty tray in the marble sink, your eyebrows furrowing once you felt an overwhelming presence behind you.

"Draga mea?" Alcina finally asked you, her tone questioning rather than upset, sharply watching every one of your movements.

You immediately froze up, your eyes shooting wide open.

"My lady- I-" You blushed, turning around, pulling down the skirt of your uniform. "I'm so sorry I just- Please forgive me!" You exclaimed with a shaky voice.

"Y/n I-"

"I'm so sorry I didn't mean to wake you! Please forgive me I'll leave!" You ran off, genuinely terrified that the woman you loved would possibly resent you.

Alcina quickly grabbed you, pinning you up against her body, electing a gasp from your body.

"Draga mea, be good and stay still," The black-haired woman said sternly, turning you around to squat down in front of you.

"Yes M-"

"Also none of that, you will call Alcina," Her eyes narrowed. "Now tell me what you were doing,"

"Making cookies for the girls and you... I've just...never seen you or your daughters celebrate Christmas as long as I've been here, and I wanted to give you the special holiday you deserve since you guys can't go out in the cold," You explained, shutting your eyes as your head fell to face the floor.

"Oh Y/n," Alcina cooed, pulling your chin up to face her. "Why would you care so much? After all, I'm just your boss,"

"But you aren't," You sniffled, wiping a single tear from your eyes.

"What do you mean Draga?" The maiden asked, "Don't cry, it's okay, just tell me," She assured you.

"You're more than an employer to me Alci! I love you! And I wanted some way to show it!" You finally confessed, your legs nearly giving out on you from the weight lifted off your chest.

You felt her golden eyes pierce through you, and before she could even speak, you did.

"I'll leave if it makes you uncomfortable I'm sor-"

Your words were cut off by Alcina pressing her lips against your own, squeezing at your body softly, trying to take all of you at once. Her lips were soft and plump, and she tasted delicious and addictive.

"You don't know how long I've been waiting for you to say that Y/n," She smiled softly before pressing a kiss to your neck.

"Are you serious Alci?" You asked meekly, to which the woman in front of you nodded.

"I've never been it any more than I am right now," Alcina nodded, grabbing a cookie off the plate before taking a bite. "Besides, how could I pass up a good baker like you to be my partner?" She chuckled.

You laughed softly, before pulling her into another kiss, tasting the fruits of your labor in her.

"I think this may be the best Christmas I've ever had, and it's all thanks to you, Y/n," The golden-eyed woman looked at you with adoration, before taking your hand in hers. "Why don't we make it even better and you come to my bedroom with me? We can have more of your cookies when it's a reasonable time to be up,"

...

If you enjoyed reading this, don't forget to like, reblog and comment! Thank you and you are loved <3

-Akira

[darkjazmin11]

Winter Romanian Folklore: The Goat, The Old Man and The Bear.

Romanian folklore is rich in traditional customs related to agricultural work and shepherding, many of which have been preserved to this day, although their function has changed, focusing more on spectacle. Winter Holidays, celebrated between December 24 and January 7, mark the transition to the New Year, with Christmas and New Year's Eve as central points. They include carols (sung by children and adults), prosperity wishes (Plugușorul, Buhaiul, Sorcova, Zorile), traditions like Vasilca (still practiced in one locality in Olt), mask dances (Capra, Cerbul, Malanca), dances (Căluții, Bumbierii, Călușerii), and star songs. There are also plays such as Vicleimul (about the birth of Jesus) and folk theater with haiduc(outlaw or hero, depending on the situations) or religious themes. These customs vary by region, influenced by historical development and local specifics. Although costumes and performances differ, the essence of the traditions remains unchanged.

[traumacatholic]

I went to the Christmas Carols at the local Romanian Orthodox Church, and I've really come to treasure local community. Like, real local community and being actively involved in it. Just in the way they all bring different foods and drinks for after each Liturgy. The way they're always offering food, drinks, friendship, or advice and support. I've had people that I can have actual conversations with in real life, and we get constantly pulled into other conversations with other people. There's something very beautiful and meaningful about that, and I think that's why things have worked the way they have for me.

I really have struggled to socialise my entire life. I've always been dreadfully shy, and I've struggled to find opportunities to kind of make friends and connect with people. Some of the Churches I've been to in the past, had no social opportunities. You went to Mass and then you went home. And it was terribly lonely. So really do try and get involved in your local Church community. Seek out those opportunities where you can, or try and get the Church involved in making these social opportunities. You never know the people you're going to connect with - what they can offer you, and what you can offer them. And I've found it deeply meaningful for my faith, especially as someone that grew up with a family that isn't religious. Just seeing other people's habits and traditions in the faith, and being able to hear their stories and their journeys in the faith have all been deeply helpful to me.

[depressedtheatrekiddo]

Hii!! How are you all doing?? I hope everything's good ⭐✨💫

Get to know me a little if you keep reading and feel free to introduce yourself after it if you want <3

• You can call me Dio and I use they/she pronouns 🫶🏻

• I'm a teen!!

• I enjoy reading, writing, listening to music and doing crafts 🍁🍂

• I would like to study history and maybe archeology too!! But some other things that would interest me would be communication (traduction specially), philology, becoming a museum guide or working at preservation of them <3

• Some of the fandoms I'm at are: the Marauders Era, Nimona, Doctor Who, DC, Sherly world (I've read the original books a few times and almost consumed every piece of media that I can access #looking at ya Sherlock Hound) <3

• Some of my fav ships: Steddie, Buckingham, Pandalily, Wolfstar, Dorlene, Jily, Dickkory and Sherliam 💞💗

• Fav characters: Enjolras (I didn't even read where he appears yet but fuck it), Stevie Harrington, Diomedes, Lily Evans, Achilles, Alucard, Sherly, Irene Adler (or James on MTP <3), Dick Grayson, Jaime Reyes, Laszlo (!!!!!), Donna Noble, Robin Buckley and McCoy!! ⭐

• Get to know me (and my gender of this month) through songs!!

🌨️ | Drain Me! - Towa Bird (Terminal 5 live will always save my life)

💥 | El Café del ABC (The Spanish version will forever be the dearest and superior for me I'm sorry) (also listen to it it's so fucking perfect please)

🪻 | Rat Race - Towa Bird (again) (sorry sorry (pun intended) I'm obsessed)

🍓 | I Eat Boys Like You for Breakfast - Riot Grrrl Sessions

💚 | Adoctrinad@s - Ska-P

**Here is my Spotify profile if you wanna take a look!! You can share yours in comments too if you want to <3

• More curiosities!! I have two little sibs + I'm a leo (8th of August) + I only drink water because I don't like gas + I've got my first Sherly book when I was 8yo + I speak Spanish, Catalan, English, a little of Romanian (my mom's from there) and would like to learn Korean, Greek and Latin (I'm doing Latin at school this year actually BAHAHAH)

• Some (kinda?) fanfics I have here!!

🌟 | Steddie Famous AU <3

❄️ | Stevie + Tommy + Carol on Christmas

🔧 | Steddie (School teacher Stevie and fix-things-guy Eddie)

🕯️ | Screaming the name of the foreigner's god <3 (Steddie, kinda?)

💓 | Platonic stobin my babes <3 (Maneater moment!!)

• Reading Blue Beetle (2006) with me!!

🫶 | 1-4 issues <3

💙 | 5 & 6 !!

🪲 | 7 & 8 :D

💌 | Jaime Reyes (kinda?) analysis by me heheh

And that's all loves!! Have a nice day <3

[maia-radfemdu]

i had a dream Lorde was Romanian and her name was Kristina-Maria Romania de Medici and she had an album of Romanian Christmas Carols and her dad was a neurosurgeon in Chicago with a Wikipedia page and she spoke Romanian??? I don't even listen to Lorde 😭

[buckybarnestales]

Christmas Feathers

The frostier iciness of December gustily enwreathed over the historic-gothicsque environs of Venice, iron spire of the monolithic cathedral gleamingly caught the orangish sconces of lampposts that veristically decorated the picturesque stone bridge of Ponte dei Ferali as the festive ambiance of Christmas scenically infused the hot-bed of Instgraming tourism. Burgandy ribbons rapted against the iron-mounted lampposts, contrasting with the golden twinkle-lights wrapped ethereally over fir steams of garland fused on railings-Venetian gondola boats ferried the glitzy-highborn aristocracy over the canals in mirrored sync. Bracing his tenser back against the marble-Baroque stone pillar of Doge's Palace, edgily, the roguish-dynastic heir of the Romanian province of Brasov-James Buchanan Barnes-the son of King Gheorghe and Irish duchess Winfred gripped onto the ebony-feathered Columbina domino, evading the stuffy cortege of invited guests-social media notoriety that vexatiously swarmed the entrance station with their pass-cards.

Gazing upon the soft flurries falling from the heavens in a slow cadence, he felt himself drifting from the cold grip of reality that surrounded him and into a haze of remembrance. Recalling a time when those specs of purity once brought him a sense of warmth and joy, he let himself get carried away until all he could see was sprites of each flurry as vivid as a crystal rock. Somewhere in that crystal was a dim reflection of the man-the boy-he used to be. A naive and hopeful boy with dreams of love and adventure. It had been nearly ten years since that boy had died, leaving only a withered husk for a new soul to be birthed into. A grim and pessimistic man had been birthed the day his entire world had been unended from the joyous existence it once was. The anniversary of that night edged closer as winter covered the Earth. He inhaled deeply and let loose a shuddering breath, watching it billow in the air.

In the distance he could hear the soft serenading of carolers and Christmas melodies playing on the radio of passing cars. Teeth clenched behind pressed lips, his blood flooding with the heat of discontent that came with the knowledge that the holiday he dreaded most was close around the corner. "Overrated," he murmured to himself behind his mask, crossing his arms and he took in the view and shook his head. What good had Christmas ever done him?

Dashingly garbed in a black Parda tailor-cut suit that aesthetically delineated the bulkier tautness of his athletic-honed rigidity as the vibrant Romanian crest was stitched on his left sleeve-the insignia of his sovereign birthright as he swaggeringly advanced his cool-footed into the immaculate ballroom, the fantastical grandeur of Moorish- Renaissance ballroom was glitzily adorned with bulky golden candelabras and prismic chandeliers that haloed above banquet tables draped with cranberry-satin. Evading the minefield of influencers-herpes- that beckoned him for a selfie.

With a dismissive scrunch of his Romaniansque nose, staunchily, Bucky grounded his impassive poise near the grand staircase, tactfully adjusting the domino over the razored smoothness of his knife-edged cheekbones as the mesmeric steeliness of his gray-aquamarine ireses became forbiddenly shadowed with virile-hunkier allure. Brushingly, the smoothness of his palm threaded over his rakish chestnut tresses askew over his temples as he detected the disfavored proximity of his stone-faced-protection detail Anton-who grudgingly bespoke uncanny vigilance of a stealthy hawk. "Oh c'mon...Really...Uh...Damnit..." he dragged out a grumpier breath, huffishly, whirling on his polished shoes behind a marble pillar, to vanish onto a garlanded terrace.

"Domnule? Oaspeții vă întreabă unde vă aflați. Nu ar trebui să intrăm înăuntru? (Sir? Guests are inquiring of your whereabouts. Should we not go inside?)" Anton asked with a neutral expression. Whether his sole reasoning for beckoning his charge to return to the party was about appearances and not safety, he gave no hint.

But James Buchanan Barnes was no fool.

"Prefer să mă bucur de priveliște mai mult timp (I prefer to enjoy the view a little while longer)," was Bucky shrugged, casting a look towards his body-guard. Anton was a big dangerous man over six feet tall and arms the size of pythons. His stature would make any eager person second guess approaching the Romanian heir. But James, in his dim mood, felt no sense of security with or without him. "Return to the party if you want, I'll be fine on my own," James waved him off. At 28 years old, having served two tours in the Middle-East with SHIELD training under his belt, he felt mildly self-assured he could protect himself and didn't need an extra set of eyes watching him tonight.

With the measured tack of being a proficient-expandable sentry to the Brasov heir, reactively, Anton flashed his dead-straight gaze over the pandemonium of costumed-, faux guests, with hot-wired alertness for the umpteenth time, knowing Prince James deceptively concealed a Gerber-tactical blade in his tailored pocket-a combative safeguard-that wouldn't be dismissed if an unprecedented threat deadlocked him into the vengeful crosshairs. " Cel mai înalt nivel, nu te pot lăsa în aer liber așa... Treaba mea este să te protejez...(Your highest, I cannot leave you out in the open like this...My job is to protect you)..." he prompted, insistently, watching Bucky's shapely-bow lips twitchily rapt with chargined annoyance at his forwardness. Ești moștenitorul coroanei tatălui tău, nu un soldat(You are the heir of your father's crown, not a soldier)..."

"Nu contează ce sunt acum, nu? (It doesn't matter what I am now is it?)" A dry chuckle escaped Bucky's lips that felt more like a scoff. "Bărbații sunt destinați să se schimbe ori de câte ori soarta consideră că este potrivit. Prinții nu fac excepție (Men are destined to change whenever fate deems it appropriate. Princes are no exception)." It didn't matter who he was to the world or who he was inside himself. Nothing had brought peace to his life other than the mental distraction of a bottle of whiskey or the cold grip of a gun in his hands. Try as he would to stem the tide of his negative emotions, they were threatening to boil over now that he had an unintended ear to vent his grievances towards. But his training and self-reclusive nature prevailed as he flicked his gaze from Anton and bit his tongue. His guard showed the barest hint of confusion towards his comment, and Bucky released a tired sigh. "Watch over me if you must, but do it quietly and without interrupting me..." Moving from his spot, Bucky began walking, "unless you think someone's trying to kill me."

He almost longed for the chaotic distraction that would at least give him something to release his frustration towards. He walked around a secluded path, sensing Anton's quiet steps following but keeping a respectful distance. Bucky's gaze wandered, searching and pondering for some kind of clarity that would diminish the deep-seated longing in his heart that was keenly felt this time of year.

Nearly ten years... Ten years since his world had become so lonely. Ten years since he'd lost her...

The chocolaty scent of decadent milkier cocoa was addictively entrenched over the spartan brownstone loft. The pristine ambiance of royal-honed neatness contrasted with the blizzardy squalls that gustily whirled against the windows as gossamer snowflakes powdered the iron-railed balcony. Evading the rowdy-jock-headed flocks of Stuyvesant High Schoolers who jovially lobbed snowballs onto the gridlock below him, eighteen-year-old James Barnes warringly remained crouched onto his denim-clad haunches on a granite stairway, clutching into a threadbare book: A Tale of Two Cities-a novel classic he unabashedly indulged during the hours of daybreak-a formidable custom of being a dynastic heir-legacy of his imperious father's tight-gripped reign-a deadbolted province that he rebelliously desired to run from.

With his swoopy tousled chestnut tresses rakishly askew under the brim of his Dodger's baseball cap, tensely, against the despondent sullenness of being detached from his Romanian homeland, Bucky fixed the steeliness of his grayish-aquamarine ireses onto the wooden door, staving down a heart-thumping impulse to blindingly race out into the hallway to meet his expected-gorgeously sexier visitor. "Okay...You can do this..." he murmured, throatily, gnawing his poutier underlip, while lasering his gaze into the direction of a dining room table adorned with a heated keg of Starbucks' hot chocolate-a festive beverage that he tactfully ordered for Christmas Eve morning. "It's gotta be perfect for her..."

He stood still for a moment to ponder if he should've just gotten her her favourite coffee instead of hot chocolate. She'd been drinking a lot of caffeine lately, did she outgrow the warm beverage they'd enjoyed since they were kids? Should he have gotten muffins instead of cookies? What if she already ate? Bucky grimaced with shuttered eyes as the gnawing grip of nervousness began taking hold of him. "You've got this, just keep it together," he encouraged himself. Running a hand through his short strands he let loose a shuddering breath to regain his composure while his eyes scanned the room. It was only mid-afternoon and the house was already bustling with activity as he watched a few of the waiting staff move around, checking on the dishes being prepared. His parents were entertaining their own guests in the dining hall, leaving their son to share his own private Christmas with his girlfriend.

Checking his Cartier-Aviator watch he knew that she should be arriving at any minute. His gaze centred on the small gift box kept separate from the other gifts placed under the tree in the living area. He fought to quell the racing of his heart as heard the sound of a car pulling up outside. His heartbeat grew faster, accelerating to the point he could hear his pulse thumping in his ears. "That's gotta be her..." He murmured under his breath. He was almost tempted to check out the window but the sound of soft footsteps crunching beneath the snow moved up the steps until a gentle rapping against the door followed.

He was at the door in a heartbeat and pulled it open. He thought his heart might burst from his chest as he laid sight on the most gorgeous girl he'd ever seen in his life. "Hey…you made it," he said, lips stretching into a huge grin.

Hearing the murmurous velvetiness of his whispery timbre, arrestingly, Felicia braced the svelter planes of her leather-garbed back against the doorframe, the whitish smokiness of her platinum whorls alluringly draped over her lithe shoulders as the paleness of the December afternoon became ethereally captured on the kittenish delicateness of her elfish-sirenic features. Quirking up the pillowy lushness of her glossier lips into a coquettish smirk, brazenly, she eased up her gloved hand, distractingly traced her index finger over the dimpled notched of his pudgier chin with kiss-soft pressure-beckoning a throatier groan to resonate within him. "I'm guessing that you weren't keeping track of time, charm-boy..." she purred, friskily, watching him become excitedly grappled into a lovestruck thrall. Flitting her doe-like brandy ireses onto the glittery heap of packaged gifts that shinily adorned his granite flooring. "And here I thought you didn't like traditional spoils..."

"Only if I got my best girl to share them with," Bucky replied smoothly as he looked at her with a deep yearning, his blue eyes soft with the depth of his affection. "Merry Christmas, Felicia," he said, his voice thick with warmth as he stepped closer to her, the chill of the weather disappearing as the heat of her proximity engulfed him. He leaned in, placing a gentle kiss upon her cheek, feeling the warmth of her skin under his lips. His hand took her, giving it a gentle squeeze as he brushed her ear with his lips, "You look beautiful, darlin'," he whispered, breathing in the scent of her silvery locks that eased the nervous tension he had been feeling.

As the feverous mintiness of his breath headily ghosted against the fine-bone contours of her angled jaw, Felicia staunched the evocative hunger that intensified with the velvety smoothness of his pouty-bow lips, tantalizingly coaxing an insuppressible-riotous need that clashingly thrummed within her veins at the stunted moment she cravingly caught a whiff of the vanilla-sandalwood fragrancy-the musky infusion of his virile scent addictively wafting off his black iron-pressed shirt. "Hmm..You smell go..." she quipped, naughtily, breathing the raciness of his sensuous cologne- anesthetic that heatedly pacified her. "You really know how to steal the moment, Barnes..."

"That's nothing. This is stealing the moment," with a grin that showcased his dimpled cheeks, Bucky wrapped his arm around her waist, hoisting her upwards as she laughed softly with protest. "Just don't tell anyone, alright?" He joked, playfully carrying her over the threshold. The warmth of the interior washed over them both like a blanket as the door shut behind them, closing away the wintery chill. "Here, let me get that for you," he said as he set her down, and took her coat. Felicia's gaze traveled over the room, absorbing all the Christmas decor and the nourishing scent of homemade delicacies and purchased treats. Bucky hung her coat and watched as she slowly ventured inside. "You sure your uh, family won't mind if you're spending the day with me?" He asked a little worriedly, knowing how tight-knit her godfather was towards her in the past few months.

"Playing down the family card are we,..." Felicia countered in a sassier undertone, devaintly, advancing her sashaying paces closer to the 14-foot spruce that was gleamingly decorated with the prismic vibrancy of diamondized string lights, the heaviness of the needle-point branches were looped with silvery baubles and intricate crystalline stars that dazzlingly contrasted the frostier window- an underrated tradition that she guardedly evicted against the corruptive prominence of her industrialized-heavyweight godfather who delivered his reckoning of prodigious vengeance in spaces of being a titanic mogul of syndicated consortium within the slum-holes of Hell's Kitchen. He was cut-in-deep with political financiers-dynamos who staked down high-rolling gambits to secure a foothold into the election campaign. Despite that Wilson Fisk was a notorious-closefisted 'kingpin', Felicia harboured a visceral regard for him, since he lovingly adopted her after her flighty-greedy mother unforgivingly bailed out on home life. "Don't worry, Barnes, my godfather is occupied with certain affairs that will keep him off your doorstep..."

Bucky nodded, his smile slipping slightly at the mention of her godfather. Wilson Fisk was a force to be reckoned with and always seemed to keep her close to his hip in recent years. In the hopes demonstrating his commitment to Felicia, Bucky had even offered getting to know the businessman and win his trust. Felicia had shot-down the idea as quick as Bucky had offered it. He remembered the vivid intense discussion had nearly escalated into a full-blown argument until Bucky graciously let the topic slide. Ever since then, the teen couldn't help but feel that his girlfriend wanted to keep at arms-length from her family. He wasn't sure how he felt about it. Bucky's parents liked Felicia and approved of his relationship with her, but they had no prior dealings with her godfather that would sway their opinion of her relationship with their son.

"My parents are having their own little get-together with some friends and extended family on the other side of the house. So...I guess that means we can have our little Christmas party right here," Bucky said as he offered her a cup of hot cocoa, his generous smile returning with an air of sweetness.

Gripping onto the ceramic mug of succulent-fudgy cocoa that sugarcoated his tactful pizzazz, smirkily, Felicia pressed the cherry glossiness of her full-bow lips against the delicate sip as the chocolaty rush meltingly surged down her throat on flavorous succession. "You mean we're alone in here...?" she whispered in a naughtier pitch, huskily, flitting her darkish gaze at the quick-footed silhouettes of the employed wait-staff behind the pristine glass doors that had an etching of the crest insignia of his sovereign birthright-a diplomatic branding of political unions-an inevitable reminder that her Charm-Boy was a monarchial heir. A tremorous wariness rapted over the hard-edged angularity of his cheekbones as he rascally jutted his shapely lips into a duck-pout while cautiously pouring himself a mug of cocoa from the keg. "You know, we could get into so much trouble and never get caught..." she purred, deviously, gesturing her lithe hand at the doors. "Maybe even find some mistletoe since you enjoy traditions..."

Bucky's gaze had become smouldered with a playful heat while watching her tongue slyly lick a flake of whipped cream on her plumper upper lip. His eyes narrowed, contemplating as he spied the mistletoe he hadn't had the sufficient time to install before her arrival, sitting expectantly upon the mantel-piece of the fireplace. He stepped closer to her, the warmth of their bodies colliding. "Felicia, darlin'..." he began, his voice a gruffer whisper as he took the mug from her hand and gentle wiped off a dab of cream near the corner of her lips. His gaze held hers with a coy gleam. "I love tradition, but I'm glad I don't need mistletoe to kiss you," he said, his gaze locking onto hers, edging closer until he could feel the waft of her breath ghosting across his lips.

An arrestive potency of his cool mintiness shudderingly floored her as the velvety-soft pressure of his poutier lips featherily dragged the fine-bone delicately of her jaw with armorous-dampish heat-a sensuous reverence that draggingly blazoned her veins with a feverous promise of untamed havoc. Against a heart-galloping pulse of duelling hunger that stoked her feminine awareness, enticingly, Felicia poised her curvaceous-svelte form against the frostier window on sirenic accord, twining her lithe arms over his broader nape as the bustier snuggness of her voluptuous swells cushily fused against the athelic-honed solidity of his garbed chest. The possessive flexion of his tauter-corded muscles bulkily angled with a riotous heartbeat command of virile desire underneath his black shirt. With tremorous precision, he cradled the sleekier underside of her jaw as his thumb grazed kiss-soft caresses over the suppleness of her fevered cheeks, delivering a headier tracery of gentlemanly-wonderous devotion invested with his reined ministrations-the smoothness of his vein-threaded hands were akin to silken feathers against her milky-alabaster skin-a cherishing softness that he only graced on her.

As their lips met in a hottish kiss that was both tender and fierce, Bucky poured his deep longing into it, which had been building since their childhood. His arms tightened around her as if she were the most precious gift given to him on this holiday that he'd held close to heart. Feeling Felicia kiss him back was euphoric. But even in this shared intimate moment, Bucky felt a soft hesitation in her embrace, a slight tension that made him sense that something was amiss. As he leaned in for another kiss, he noticed the subtle shift as she leaned back from his touch. It was faint, but clear. Looking into her eyes, he could see her flushed state but also a clouded stare. "What's wrong, darlin'?" he murmured, his voice a soft caress, tenderly caressing her cheek.

"Bucky...You have to know that I..." A bone-racking iciness shunted through her veins as Felicia caught a portentous glimpse of the matte-black limousine ominously parked near the gridlock- an undeniable harbinger of a grevious reality she would become damningly leashed to. With tampered reluctance, blearily, her dark-brandy ireses mistily gleamed with unwarranted heartache as her daintier fingers clung onto the material of his shirt, resigtering the suffusive heat of his bulkier rigidity. Against the high-octane surge of hottish ecstasy that aphrodiscally intensified with the coupling demand of white-hot pulses of their revamped heartbeats, abandonly, Felicia stole his panty breath as her kiss-swollen lips hungrily pressed deeper with decadent fusion-passion-that couldn't be held back. Everything was increasingly careening into a glorious maelstrom of teenage-razed desire. She wanted to deafen out the limo's blaring horn that ratcheted against her ears as the velvety-softness of his melding lips gapingly streched with the desperate-bruising rampancy of her unsuppressible awareness of heartbreakingly shutting him out at the moment she opened the limo's door. "I-I have to go..."

The words hung in the air, a cold dread began to seep into Bucky's heart as he saw the turmoil in her eyes masking what he knew to be sorrow. "Go? W-What? You just got here." He said with a dry chuckle, his eyes squinting with confusion. It wasn't uncommon for Felicia to have to suddenly cut their dates together short due to her forced curfew with her territorial godfather. He had hoped things would changed when they had both turned eighteen a few months ago, that Felicia could be more independent from the demands of her family. But in his gut, he suspected things wouldn't be that simple, for either of them.

"Please tell me you're joking?" When she gave no immediate response, he released a disappointed breath and gently released her hands. "Today of all days, Felicia? Guess your godfather really is in the Grinchy mood this year," he wasn't able to keep the bitterness from his voice as he ran a hand through his hair.

Easing up her lithe hand, vehemently, Felicia clutched onto his thicker wrist, offishly prying the affectionate reverence of his caresses with defensive precision in a heart-tugging attempt to desperately push him away; she couldn't evade the iron-fisted grip of her tyrannous-overbearing godfather who possessively trammelled her from chasing her naive-brazen desires of running away with a Romanian charm-boy. "I have to play by his rules with no distractions..." she murmured, bluntly, glancing at the backdoor of the limo intimidatingly open to reveal the rhino-sized proximity of Hell's Kitchen's industrial dreadnought who impatiently gave his toadish-duteous- chauffeur a commanding nod to knock on the brownstone's door. Gnawing her plushier underlip, tartishly Felicia dragged out a sourish breath, doing her utmost to compose herself against the cheapened-deadbolted reality of being unforgivingly severed from Bucky. "Y-You don't understand what he's forcing me to do, Bucky..."

The dread he felt had turned sharp as a dagger that began to twist and Bucky could only struggle not to let the pain show as he met her gaze. "I understand more than you think, darlin'. You're not his puppet," he said firmly, his eyes blazing with determination as he took her hand back into his. He wasn't one to shy away from a fight and he felt like this could be the most important one he would ever face. "Today is our day. You don't have to do anything you don't want to," he assured her, his voice beginning to climb as his thumb traced comforting circles over her smooth wrist. He coaxed her to meet his gaze, his blue eyes beseeching. "Don't shut me out, darlin'. I don't care how powerful he is, my family can protect you. Let me help you." He shot a dead-straight glare at the limousine through the window, catching sight of the bald-headed silhouette that was the cause of this pain they were both feeling.

Hearing the scratchier gravelliness of his whispery drawl tamping with hard-pressed dejection, guardedly, Felicia glanced mistily at the boyish pudginess of his heavier jaw brandishing a tenser rapt as he unwaveringly fixed the icier steeliness of his grayish-aquamarine ireses onto the palm-sized box that was glitteringly sheathed with snowflake-printed wrapping that was on the armrest of the leathered couch-a keepsake token of his soul-deep affection that he wouldn't discard. "Your parents will be used as expandable collateral...He doesn't care if you wear a crown because he wants to rule this city..." she rasped out, trenchantly, watching his vein-threaded knuckles reactively pulsing into a rigid fist as he emitted a throatier breath-she wouldn't drag him into the murderous crosshairs of her godfather's cut-throat vendettas, making him expandable -damaged goods-Fisk amputated moral virtues by using leverage to obtain corruptive loyalty in his rigged decks. If he discovered that Bucky was a Romanian-Brasov- prince-he would possessively use that monarchical permanence for his own gain of reigning over New York City. "It's complicated Bucky..." she murmured, grittily. "I can't risk losing you to him..."

He stepped closer to her, his eyes filled with determination. "I can handle myself. You're worth fighting for, Felicia," Bucky said with a firm resolve. His desperation was steadily shifting towards anger and frustration, feeling as if his entire world was about to be unjustly ripped away from him and there was nothing he could do to prevent it. Despite his bold claim, he could see his words didn't appease her in the slightest as she shrugged. "He can't-" Felicia made to brush past him but Bucky quickly seized her hand, bringing her gaze back to him, "He can't keep us apart forever, none of them can! We don't need them!" He didn't know what he was saying, but if it meant taking Felicia and running far away where Fisk and his parents couldn't find them, he'd do it in a heartbeat. "My parents only give a damn about their business interests, anything else is secondary. Just say the word and I'll run far away with you-" He said with a pained look, blue eyes fierce with wet emotion.

Against the heart-slamming revelation of his professing devotion-love-Feliica resigtered the dampish saltiness of knifing heartbreak blearing her vision as the bone-vising pressure of his fingers over her daintier wrist, bodily grounding her against the muscled-banded rigidity of his garbed chest. The underlying rawness of his panic-razed urgency stabbingly glissaded through his veins-he wasn't letting her go. With a defensive reaction, she wrenched her arm back from his reach against the doorframe, stingingly watching his furrowing brow rapt into a half-stunned-agast pinch as he breathlessly became grappled into throes of unbidden defeat. "Y-You're a damn fool for believing that, your highness.." she choked out, sniffily, reaching for the doorknob. "We're not living in a fairy-tale...Just face that reality before it shuts a door in your face..."

The dagger Bucky felt in his heart began to twist and his strong exterior began to crumble with heartbreak. "Felicia...please," he said with a cracked voice, feeling helpless in the face of what seemed to be the inevitable. She said nothing else, her own eyes swimming with unspent emotion. "I can't lose you-I can't-" he couldn't say anything else as she began to walk away from him, heading for the door. The last image he would see of her, one he couldn't bare. Panic gripped him, spurring him to rush to her as she opened the door. "Wait-" She turned around as he cupped her face and kissed her, hard and desperately, pouring all his love and grief into the warm contact that would be the last that they would ever share together.

It was a kiss goodbye. Steadily he placed the gift-box into her coat-pocket, feeling her own hands playing against his own. "I-" he couldn't say the words in his heart, they were lodged inside scraping against the dryness of his throat.

"Have a wonderful Christmas, Bucky..." Vanishingly, Felicia sauntered out the Barnes's residency with tremorous paces closer to Fisk's limo as gossamer flurries dampishly powdered her Versace black-wool overcoat, staunching down a warred vestige of utter repulsion at the moment her godfather streched out his beefier hand to welcomingly guide her into the luxurious backseat with a half-smirk of approval tamping over his jowelly features. There was no relevance of trade-off hope against the mechanisms of survival as errant wetness feverishly trekked over her supple cheek-a glistening tear that she didn't wipe away. Curbing down the impulse to race back to her charm-boy, impassively, Felicia slipped inside the leathered seat, feeling deadened to breathe for an anguished moment while her gloved hand was snuggly tucked into her coat's pocket, only to grip onto a delicate box. "W-What..." Flitting her doe-like brandy ireses onto the silvery adorned gift box, cautiously, she ripped the wrapping paper as bluish felt with the golden Cartier emblem stuntedly jarred her curiosity, baiting out a hitching breath, she opened the box, discovering a yellow-topaz-studded ring-her birthstone. "I-I will always love you..." she murmured, sobbingly, holding the precious box against her bustier chest as the limo's back door shut away her world. "Bucky Barnes..."

With a resounding thump, the door closed shut; it was like the final nail in the coffin of their love story. Wilson Fisk's deep voice filled the silence as the limo drove away into the snowy streets. "You will forget him, child," he assured Felicia, his words as cold as the air outside. "He is not meant for your world. Moving on from childhood is a part of life, and I promise you your next journey in life will be worth the heart-ache you feel now," he said, gazing out at the passing scenery with cool indifference.

Bucky stood in the cold snow covered drive-way, watching as the limo drive away until it vanished like a dark spec in the distant. He felt his chest tighten, his eyes blurring with tears as a cry of anger and pain erupted from within him. He watched the snowfall around him, each flake covering him with cold comfort. A decorative statue of a reindeer, decked with lights and a shiny red nose, stood a few feet away. It was a bitter reminder of the festive holiday that now felt so hollow without her. His vision clouded with anger he knocked it over a fierce kick, sending it flying into the air, smashing into a hundred plastic pieces as it hit the ground.

He felt anger, he felt a pain so great there was nothing he could do to ease it. He felt like a fool, he felt like trash. A silly stupid kid who let himself believe he was loved, that love would prevail against all obstacles. None of that real; it was all a fairy-tale, just like she said. Closing his eyes, he breathed in deep, trying and failing to gain control of his emotions, to latch onto some train of thought that could give him strength against this heartbreaking experience. He thought of going inside, but the warmth of the house would feel suffocating. Like a prison that held nothing but painful memories that they shared.

So he crashed to his knees in the snow, feeling the cold seep through his pants and into his bones. The cold numbed his body, the flakes of snow causing his short locks to become wet against his brow. He wasn't sure how much time had passed as he reached into his pocket and pulled out the small velvet box that had been her gift to him. With trembling hands, he pried off the ribbon and opened.

Inside lay a swan-shaped necklace, gleaming like a pearl in the afternoon. It was made of pure white gold with a silver chain. The swan's neck was delicately arched, as if poised for flight. He didn't know much about swans except that they loved and mated for life. Reading the gift tag on the box, it read "With Love, Felicia".

Bucky pulled the necklace out and wrapped it in his fist, kissing the pendent as the pain in his heart softened only slightly. He sat there for a while longer, knees frozen to the ground, holding onto the pendent as if it was a piece of her he could keep forever. He wouldn't come back inside until him mom found him almost an hour later. Seeing his heartbroken state, she understood what happened and gently coaxed him back inside. Bucky was too drained to resist, his slow footsteps carrying what felt to be dead weight.

He said nothing as he walked past the Christmas tree where numerous guests and distant relatives were seated, concerned as they noticed his appearance. Bucky didn't care. Christmas would never be the same to him ever again.

It wasn't worth it anymore.

Eviting the grevious apparitions of deep-seated heartache, grumblingly, with a crestfallen scowl twitchily rapting over his shapely-bow lips, he braced the satin material of his ebony Parada suit against a marble pillar that was prismatically embellished with starlit-festive lights veristically contrasting the iciness of the frozen-picturesque lake-a niveous purity of wintery ambiance. Evading the swarms of highborn-smug-faced revelry within the ballroom while staving off callbacks of unrelenting insomnia, swaggeringly Bucky advanced closer to an iron-railed fence that bordered the lake, measuringly catching a glimpse of svelte-girthed whitish feathery swans exquisitely gliding in the water on balletic unison-angelic birds that emitted trumpet-like honks as they streched their graceful-elongated necks against the gustier flurries. Clutching onto the railing with a modicum of stiff-footed restraint, edgily he slumped his tauter shoulders, dragging out a starchier breath that vaporously puffed up his throat. "O-Okay...Just get your ass inside and smile, Barnes..." he rasped, starchily, knowing that he would definitely be on the receiving end of his mother's scolding disappointment. "Urgh...Let's get this over with..."

The faster he got over the appearances, the faster he could just retire for the evening and do his own thing. But then, he wasn't sure exactly what that would be. His modest bachelor penthouse apartment in the city offered only a cold couch and an open liquor bar he could drink his way through until he could fall asleep. If the ghosts of Christmas paid him a visit, he'd be sure to offer them all they can drink if they just left him alone to brood. If the ghosts of war came...Bucky shuddered as he paused in his steps, his jittery hands finding a beaded chain in his pocket. A reminder of his days as a soldier, or the man he'd become after leaving childhood behind.

If the ghosts of the fallen came to haunt him tonight, Bucky would just tell them to do their worst because he believed there was nothing left in life that could faze him. Reaching into his pocket he pulled out his cell, flipping through a few unanswered texts from acquaintances, security and even one from Steve. "Hmm," he smiled. Maybe he'll give Steve a call and find out if he wanted to have drinks this weekend.

With a deep breath, he pushed away from the fence and made his way back to the party. His mother would be expecting him soon. Walking into the grand hall, the warmth of the room washed over him along with the sound of laughter, music and chattering guests. The chandeliers above cast a warm glow on the marble floors and all the lavishly dressed guests ranging from business people to even a few wealthy celebrities. He eyed a few of the women in glittering gowns that walked past him, each of them grinning with expectancy as they sought his attention. Bucky looked at Anton and shook his head. His guard nodded and proceeded to usher the disappointed girls away. Bucky really wasn't in the mood to play the swinging royal bachelor.

A predacious aura malignantly radiated off a lankier stranger who clutched onto the rhinestone satchel of crumbs as his chiselled-hawkish features were macabrely shadowed by an ebony-feathered DOTTORE PESTE mask that had a pointier beak angled over his broader jaw while a leathered tricorn hat gothically adorned his blondish tresses. A hawkish lankiness edged over the chiselled planes of his Nordic features as he belied a ceremonious semblance of gentleman-like decorum, grinningly he shifted his viperous gaze at Bucky who grounded his defensive footing a breadth at the stairway. "Not one to blend in with the crowd, your Highness..." he whispered, slitherily, powdering dried remnants of bread onto the scarlet carpet. "I sense you desire to take flight away from this swarm of these insatiable vultures of high society..."

Bucky shrugged, wondering how long he could go with unwanted company. The voice that greeted him wasn't familiar, neither was the face that it belonged to. Though the man's face was difficult to glean from behind his ornate mask, Bucky got the sense he must've been either a plus one, or a very wealthy businessman that worked with his mother.

"I guess you can say that," he sighed, realizing this wasn't a guest he could just brush off. "Dealing with too many people at once is just not something I'm good with," he added. Bucky searched in his coat-pocket for his pack of smokes. The party had a no-smoking indoors policy but Bucky couldn't bring himself to care as he fished out an opened Marlboro and toyed with one of the sticks between his digits. "I guess it's a good thing there's only one of you here talking to me," Bucky said to the mystery man as he stuffed the stick between his lips and searched for his lighter. "Where the hell did I leave that damn-" He flinched ever slightly as the man in question pulled out a golden engraved lighter from his own pocket in front of him.

"I find these decadent places give you the opportunity to make fitting acquaintances..." he divulged under his breath, maliciously, flicking his thumb over the lighter's spark-wheel mechanism as Bucky cautiously lowered the cigarette against the flame. "Blending into flocks like these pretentious fools grants you a perspective on how they discard the world outside their avarice, the pieces of bread I lay before their feet is a reminder of the hunger that will never be quenched until they peck off the crumbs ..."

Bucky took a drag from his cigarette, watching the smoke billow out with his deep breath. He didn't know what to make of this man and what the deal was with his metaphors about birds. But he appreciated he seemed to at least sympathize with his mood regarding this party. "You sound like you know a thing or two about that," he murmured, not sure if he was being judged or empathized with. He met the man's gaze, curious to see he was meeting his own stare with an analytical squinting of his eyes. Bucky inwardly frowned, feeling a little on edge as he held the man's stare unflinchingly through his mask. It was an unsettling feeling, one that he hadn't felt in a long time and made the soldier inside of him erect a stern posture. "I've never seen you around these parties before. Who are you?"

Hearing the murmurous gravelliness tamped against Bucky's whiskey-roughened drawl, shiftily, he glanced at the incredulous glint melded within the young standoffish prince's silvery-aqueous ireses bordered dashingly with the feathery-trim of his Columbina domino mask that fused over the hard-bone curvatures of his razored cheekbones, exquisitely angled with the Itailanesque visage of a swan. Detecting Bucky's full-measured-soldiery vigilance, restrainedly, he fostered a modicum of gentleman-honed-customary decorum against the proximity of a piteous-disposable royal as he vehemently gestured a poise of mock-off reverence. "I've learned that keeping a name a close to the vest can be convenient for the right moment, your Highness..." he returned, snidely, watching Bucky's dimpled chin reactively jutting into a tenser clench at his invidious wordplay. "Sometimes people use your name for their own devices of identity...Like you, Prince James Barnes, a handsome paragon of Romanian nobility who the media vultures love to wrest the reality of your name..."

Bucky's unease surrounding this mystery man had begun to grow into suspicion the more he listened to him, feeling a little frustrated by his vague answers and cryptic observations. Flicking his cigarette onto a nearby platter, Bucky turned to regard him fully with an air of authority. "Look, I really don't care for games. If you have business with me or my family, it'll be easier for both of us if you just get to the point." He studied the man, unable to make out his face entirely from behind his mask, but he carried a Swiss accent that was unmistakable and he carried himself with a calm posture that was disarming in a sense but also unnerving, almost as if he didn't fear anything. Bucky could see Anton making his way towards him, no doubt sensing his charge's discomfort with this unknown man. Bucky looked at him sharply and shook his head, halting him with a reassuring glance. Looking back at the man in front of him, he smirked at him without humour, "But if you're only here to philosophize about breadcrumbs and vultures, I think I've had my fill of metaphors for the night."

Hearing that impetuous snarkiness cockily tamping against his velvety drawl, sneeringly, against reined toleration of the pretty-boy royal's snappier repulsion of his sinistrous proximity of belied formality, incredously his piqued gaze icily fixed onto a golden-medallion entrancedly tucked against the iron-pressed collar of his blazer-a pearled insignia of a swan. Damningly leashing craven-piteous victims into morphic dregs had sated the untenable indulgence of the socerous dregs of his feathery menagerie until they pathetically fattened into a dormant existence of being paunchy-girthed nesters. Harnessing the eldritch incantations of demonic witchery evilly fueled his covetous-demented appetite for purging visages of humanity-beauty into bird-drudges to overstuff with mouldy crumbs. "I can assure you, Prince James, that my presence here isn't for your family...I have a little vixen at my heel arranging a business proposal for one of my esteemed clients...Wilson Fisk."

'Fisk…Little Vixen…' Bucky felt his heart sink into his stomach, the hairs on his neck rising up as he put two and two together and realized what the mystery man meant. 'It couldn't be. It just couldn't…' But what if it was? He stood still, struck with disbelief but also a stab of anger believing this was all some kind of ruse. The blonde man in front of him looked a little too smug and knowing for Bucky's liking. But rather than sell his emotional vulnerability, Bucky masked his affliction with a firm mask of indifference. "Wilson Fisk, huh? Haven't heard that name in awhile. Can't see what he has anything to do with this party, or my family…or me," he said with a dismissive shrug. An edge of bitterness dripped off his tongue as he considered the implications of this. He felt anger as his eyes scanned the room, wondering if he'd catch a glimpse of a bald-headed brute…or a wisp of silver hair.

He almost hoped for the latter, but he couldn't bring himself to dive back into old feelings he had been struggling for nearly ten years to move past. Bucky would have to have a word with his mother and father, and find out if and why anyone associated with Fisk would be here tonight. Seeing Anton heading towards him, Bucky for once was grateful for his security who came to him and whispered into his ear, telling him a special agent wanted to speak with him. Bucky turned took back at the blonde man, only to discover, to his confusion that he was gone.

"Anton, find out everything you can about that man I was just talking to. Check the guest-list," Bucky said to him. Antone nodded as Bucky cast a furtive look around the ball-room, eyes still searching, and despite himself, his heart began to hope.

Driving his menace-honed paces with an intimidating -deadlier swagger, edgily, Bucky advanced out of the ornate-wooden doors of the stuffy ballroom, pushily shouldering an emerald-clad jester with no avail. Shifting the mesmeric steeliness of his grayish-aquamarine ireses underneath his domino mask, unwaveringly he gazed at the secured door where he grudgingly remembered his stringent father was having a 'close-door' audience with a two-faced Latverian ambassador-a snakebit taskmaster of military governance-compartmentalization of seditious alliances of high-grid technology.

He wasted no time in looking for answers. Excusing himself from the main ballroom, Bucky went in search of his parents who he knew were in their private sitting room entertaining a few close friends. Having Anton stand guard at the end of the hall, Bucky made his way down the corridor. He took note of how eerily quiet it felt, as if the moment the doors shut behind him, the music and chatter of the party had vanished and he now stood in a dim world. Unease was already shifting through his body, but now he almost missed the days when he carried a side-arm out into the field.

Poising his unmoveable footing a breadth at the ochre door, shudderingly, Bucky registered a portentous-stalkerish aura of the raven-masked intruder mephitically enwreathing the room as his vein-threaded hand clenched with defensive reaction-a combative mechanism of being a decorated proficient marksman-sniper. Warding off a beastlier ferocity imploding through his veins, grippingly, he twisted the knob clockwise, readying for a scolding glower of the Romanian monarch. "Father..." he rasped out, throatily, raping his hand against the wood. "I request to have a word with you..."

The mystery man's words lingered at the back of his thoughts, haunting him every step of the way as he made towards the sitting room. To his confusion, there were no guards present. Bucky's steps slowed to a crawl, his confusion only increasing as his sharp hearing detected the noise of what sounded like poultry. "What the hell?" That was when he saw what looked to be bird-feathers around the vicinity where the guards should've been. Looking at the doors with mounting dread, Bucky pushed them, expecting to find the guards inside with his parents.

But there was nothing and no one inside. "Mom? Dad?" Bucky rushed into the room, finding nothing but the surreal sight of an empty room alarmingly covered with bird-feathers...and breadcrumbs. "No..." He reached into his pocket and pulled out his cellphone, searching for his mother's contact number and hit ring.

'Brrock...' A full-throated squawk of panic-riddled anguish startlingly erupted from underneath a banquet table as stubbier brownish-striped feathery wings rackingly flapped against a chair on panicked succession while Bucky grounded his stunned footing as the owlish intensity of his wide-blown pupils' confusingly roved onto a pudgier-girthed hen clumsily waddle on gnarly clawed-feet, strenuously jutting out her yellowish beak with throat-gurgling clucks. "Brrock..." Grappled into a dumbfounded vigil of trepidatious-jacked-off confusion, tensely, Bucky clutched onto his cracked iPhone, readily waiting to hear the melodic Romanian cadence of his mother. "C'mon Mamă...Pick up."

The phone chimed once before it went straight to voicemail. His concern only increased, not recalling an instance where his mother never answered. Almost instantly, he saw a text from her pop up on his screen. 'James dear, your father and I had to step out to meet an unexpected guest. We'll be indisposed for a few hours. Please don't disturb us. Enjoy the party and don't cause a scene. Love, Mother.'

He stared at the phone in his hand, feeling confused but also baffled. The room had been quiet until he noticed two chickens clucked and move across the floor, their eyes wild with fear as they pecked at the breadcrumbs scattered around. "Where did these come from?" He wondered. Something was off, way off. The smugness of the blond man's voice echoed in his head and he couldn't shake the feeling that this was somehow connected to him. He answered his mother's text with a polite, "Okay, Mom," and nothing else. Feeling the need to still find answers, he left the room and the clucking chickens behind.

In a shadowy corner, a cold pair of eyes watched him leave while cradling the royal family's phone's in his hands, a cruel smirk pulling at his lips. "So moves the next piece across the board."

Against the golden sconces of the Murano chandelier haloing above the ornate grandeur of the Doge's Palace ballroom, contrasting the angelic murals, her silken whitish-platinum whorls alluringly cascaded over the matelissé silk lamé of her black Versace dress that Itailanesquely emphasized the svelter curviness of her mid-drift; a lacy-damask corset bustily fringed against the sweetheart décolletage of her voluptuous breasts. Enchantingly, fused over the delicate-bone curvatures of her vixenish-pearlescent features was a black rubied-studded Columbina domino with intricate engravings of wing-swept designs gracefully arching over her temples-Venetian swan-princess. Quirking up the luscious glossiness of her full-bow lips, devaintly, Felicia roved her autumn-brandy ireses with thievish intensity onto wealthy-cheap-faced marks of interest, glitzily flaunting their Bvlgari 18 k chain pendants over their model-thin necks while tipsily sipping crystalized flutes of bubbly champagne. "Guess Christmas will be coming early," she quipped, breathily, sauntering near a banquet table of chocolate-surgery pastries lavishly displayed on platters, only to be arrestingly stunted with a delicious amora of gooey custard-a decadent cake of Romania-cremeschnitte. "Bucky..."

She couldn't shake this feeling inside of her that something about tonight was different. She knew this party was hosted by the Romanian royal family, but after spending so many recent years observing these functions and the regular attendees, she didn't expect to run into a certain someone tonight. But something in the air had changed. She could almost taste it on her lips and it made her both nervous and excited.

Exiting from the corridor and back towards the ballroom, Bucky stuffed his phone back into his pocket with a tightness in his posture, concern washing over him as he failed to get in touch with his parent's security team. "What's going on Anton, why aren't they answering?"

Anton's brow furrowed under his mask, his eyes scanning the room before returning to Bucky's. "I don't know, Sir. The usual channels are unreachable. I'm getting no response from their private suite or any of the palace security."

Bucky's heart sunk, his eyes searched the room again, feeling an eerie sense of déjà vu as the whispers of the party-goers grew distant and muffled in his ears. "Keep trying. I want to know what's going on with them and who they're meeting." He said. Anton nodded as he reached to his security radio and began to channel in the other guards around the palace.

Bucky shrugged tiredly as he plucked a glass of champagne off a waiter. And then, amidst the sea of masquerade, he saw it, a glint of silver-white hair that stopped him in his tracks. He hadn't seen hair of that shade in a decade. But he'd know it anywhere. It was like a ghost from his past that had manifested right before him. Could it be? His heart raced with the possibility that he wasn't hallucinating. Before he knew what he was doing, he was pushing his way through the crowd, his eyes locked onto the ghostly apparition caused a spark of life to reignite in his chest.

The woman's back was facing him, but he knew the shape and swagger of her body like the back of his hand. Inwardly he frowned at the small group of eager men in front of her, eager to grasp her attention. The moment they saw him approaching, their smiles fell and shock colored their features as they stepped back from the woman. Bucky fought to control the beating of his heart and keep the edge out of his voice as he called. "Lovely night for a masquerade, isn't it, Miss?"

The whispery velvetiness of his raspier timbre murmurously stole her pulse with electrified fervency burningly akin to a lightning strike through her veins; the masked pursuer wasn't a debauched-charismatic sleaze-ball that lustily chased her within throngs of the masquerade carnival-there was genuine boyish suaveness of his advancing tack as she registered the smoothness of his vein-threaded hand caressingly gracing her curvier back with delicate ministrations of reverent-feathery-soft precision. Guardedly, Felicia didn't pivot on her stiletto-heels as flirty whistles of cheap-faced business tycoons-dicers maddeningly beckoned her until a weasely-lankier man fiendishly garbed in a tailor-cut Armani suit maliciously dismissed them from her untouchable proximity. Quirking her glossier pillowy lips into a kittenish smirk, coquettishly, Felicia gripped onto the stranger's larger hand with a quick-strike reaction, feeling a metallic-gold ring on his index finger-obviously a fashion-boy. "I guess you're a guy who likes to steal the moment, huh..." she whispered, breathily, slipping off the ring as her lithe fingers shiverily brushed over his tenser knuckles. "Maybe I'll take something to remember you by..."

Bucky felt the warmth of her hand sliding across his palm. He felt a familiar jolt of electricity shoot through his body, feeling that same hand he had held so many times long ago. But his eyes remained locked onto hers, not noticing the subtle gesture in her gaze. The contact was brief and fleeting until it was gone. His hand suddenly felt lighter than it did before-colder. He only realized his hand was short one signet ring on his index finger as she strode past him without a second glance, heading towards the patio doors to the courtyard. He thought of catching her wrist her when she was within reach but instead inwardly smiled with fond nostalgia, recalling a time when he'd often lose his last curly-fry by smooth thieving fingers.

"Smooth, kitten," he whispered with a dry smirk.

Against his better judgment, Bucky decided to follow her outside, the cold night air hit him in the face as he stepped onto the terrace palace. The masquerade ball continued where he'd left it. The moon cast a glow onto the lush greenery of the courtyard, making it almost look like a mystical thing straight out of a fantasy movie. Bucky watched as the woman with silver hair moved through it with an unnatural grace that seemed almost inhuman. The light reflected off of her, giving her an ethereal quality that made her appear to glow in the darkness. He followed her fearlessly, the light of the moon reflecting off the ornate mask he still wore. "I see you haven't lost your touch for stealing away spoils," he called to her as he strode across from her, keeping a curious distance.

Clutching onto the ring, impassively, Felicia sashayed near the marble-stone pillar that was gleamingly adorned with prismic string lights as gossamer flurries wispily powdered her cascading whorls of silvery-platinum; exceedingly shutting off the distraction of the handsomely masked stranger who advanced with stealthier prowess, riskily, she opened her daintier palm to glance at the pocketed treasure she thievishly swiped. "Well, you don't know when to quit..." she quipped, jauntily with a impish quirk kittenishly playing over her full-bow lips, aware of his violating-seductive intentness against her proximity. Dragging out a frostier breath, craftily she ireses gazed at the engraving on the signet ring-the Romanian crest of a golden eagle -aquila��holding an Oxrothdox cross with ruby, topaz, and sapphire gemstones of the Romanian flag. With tampered confusion, whirlingly she half-spun to mirror the cool smokiness of his grayish-aquamarine ireses that hypnotically gleamed with voltaic heat underneath the shadowing border of his black embroidered domino as she unblinkingly glimpsed at the prominent-dimpled notch of his broad-heavier chin with a faint tracery of boyish pudginess. "W-Wait...You look...So much like..." she hitched out, breathlessly.

Hearing her velvety voice was like dipping into familiar waters, warm and reassuring, he could drown in its cadence. His heart hammering against his chest had become so rampant he thought it would burst. The small bit of denial he'd been clinging to over this mystery woman's identity had evaporated almost instantly, he felt himself freeze over with crippling disbelief. But his hardened disposition hadn't wavered and he kept his distance, playing along with a sense of mystique that made him curious to see the woman in front of him for what she was not who he remembered her as. "I get that impression of familiarity a lot, Miss. I've been to many places lately. But tonight, let's just say I'm a curious guy chasing a dangerous game...And something tells me...you play in dangerous circles, kitten."

"Playing down the mystery card are we...?" Felicia countered back, snarkily, flitting her dark-brandy gaze incredulously over the smoother contours of his Romaniansque nose waggishly scrunching up as he flashed her toothier-puckish smirk that made his poutier lips gapingly stretch with rascally playfulness-obviously he sweetened his kicks with charm-boy tack. "So you're just a guy looking for a good chase on the dance floor..." With friskier precision of her lithe fingers, brushingly, she traced his feathery domino with tantalizing-evocative pressure and disarmingly stole his desire-razed heartbeat as he unabashedly emitted a throatier breath. "Guess this girl will have to wait until midnight for the mask to come off..."

With a smouldering look in his eyes, Bucky leaned in closer, his breath warm against her neck. "This mask doesn't come off easy, darlin'." He whispered, trying yet unable to keep the edge of sorrow out of his voice. "I've been wearing it for almost ten years now, you could say its become part of me." He watched as she visibly inhaled and went still, the hint in his words painting a dim picture of a Christmas long past. "If there's a Romeo lost somewhere underneath, he lost his Juliet a long time ago when she ran off." Looking into the sparkling pearls of her eyes, he felt his resolve threatened as long entered his heart. His heart that raced with the desire to take her into his arms, to let himself forget and pretend that the last ten years of his life weren't spent mourning what had been lost. What had been thrown away. But he couldn't. He couldn't be that man. She wasn't his woman anymore. She'd walked away, she'd spread her wings and flown towards greater heights leaving him to trudge forward on his own.

Hearing the sullen gravelliness of his Brooklyn drawl, a modicum of warring urgency exhilaratingly intensified through her veins at the heart-arresting moment, her fingers delicately glided against his rakish chestnut tresses unkemptily askew over his domino-the addictive-headier closeness of his bulkier solidity-a flexion of hunkier resilence as he cautiously angled the corded tautness of his Parda-sheathed chest fusing with voluptuous cushiness of her breasts, inexorably branding a fevered promise of sensuous heat. They starvedly edged into the fringe of amorous-forbidden intimacy that underscored their duelling resistance. The mintiness of his breath icily ghosted over her flushed cheek, as his larger hand achingly cradled the fine-bone curvatures of her jaw-a featherlight grace that Felicia did her utmost to deny. Gripping onto his wrist on defensive reaction, she gave him a point-blank glare as she murmured out, saucily. "You shouldn't get this close...I might give you some bad luck, charm-boy..."

He was torn between his anger and his heartache. The sum of many years of longing and confusion had boiled into an unhealthy mixture that could lead to his undoing, but he stowed away that toxic feeling. Recoiled from it knowing that it could only lead to ruin like so many times before. But he couldn't escape his sorrow as felt a pool of emotion threatening to build in his eyes. "I'm used to bad-luck. You could say we're almost old friends," he said humorlessly. He could almost see the frown in her eyes behind the polished mask she used to conceal her features. Bucky didn't full allow himself to appreciate the fact that the years had been visibly kinder to her. The thin curvy girl who had allured him in their teens had grown into a fuller and more fit young woman who carried herself with a sense of being untouchable.

That's the way she felt to him, now more than ever. The one person he loved most in life but he wasn't allowed to have. It pained him and threatened to destroy his entire being. In his heart he dared to allow himself to feel hope. Could he win her back? Did she still feel the same way?

"But maybe...tonight luck is on my side. It brought us together again...Felicia." Leaving no further room for doubt, he raised his hand and pulled off his mask, revealing to her the man that the boy she loved had become.

The heart-stopping moment became alarmingly eclipsed with dredged-up resistance, apprehensively Felicia gazed at the feathery-domino tremorously slipping off the knife-edged contours of his razored cheekbones-the frostier steeliness of his aquamarine ireses mesmerically gleamed with diamondlike intensity against the golden-white sconces of the scenic garden as he gripped onto the domino. It wasn't a damn illusion of cheated-out desire that she vehemently staunched down with apparitions of unwarranted-grevious heartache. She was irrevocably leashed into a perpetual reality of wearing deceptive charades of seduction to gain high-interest alliances for her godfather's syndicated enterprise. Against a riotous tumult of underlying confusion, Felicia reeled back with guarded traction, her mistier brandy ireses flitted over his suaver-hawkish features that cuttingly edged with hard-boned fierceness-maturity of a tenacious Romanian prince. The baby-faced chubbiness had forbiddenly melded with untamed beauty-decadence that hunkily rode over the angular smoothness of his cheekbones."B-Bucky..." she rasped out, gaspingly, as he sombrely lowered his head with the crestfallen surrender of his identity, while she caught a bleared glimpse of his golden 'swan' medallion shinily fastened around his broader neck. "Y-You're still wearing..."

"The necklace," he murmured, the corners of his mouth lifting into a sad smile. "Yeah...I guess never stopped. Sometimes it feels a part of me," He exhaled roughly, struggling against the crippling emotions that threatened to overwhelm him. He almost hated the feeling of being so vulnerable. A decade of heartache and training with the discipline of a solider had taught him to keep his emotions in check. All that training and mentality seemed to have fled the moment he'd laid eyes on her. That hopeful naive boy had been given a new shot of life and Bucky felt that same urgency he did the night she had walked away from him. But he felt stronger too. A sense of purpose and maturity that helped him to face this reunion with a new set of eyes.

"Ever since that night you left, I've tried to move past everything. It hasn't been easy, but seeing you here tonight...I know I can't expect things to be the same way as they did before. I just gotta know, Felicia." He said with a desperate hitch to his tone, standing close to her, their noses almost touching. He gazed into the light of her eyes, lost and searching.

Bucky took a moment to gather his thoughts. The words he wanted to say were jumbled in his mind, fighting to come out. "I just want to know if what we had was real. If you still feel anything for me. I know things are complicated, but I need to know if there's a chance."

The velvety somberness of his murmurous drawl stealingly robbed her warring heartbeat-the savorous-irresistible closeness of him paralyzed her into a trepidatious deadlock as she registered the heated ministrations of his larger hand tentatively caressing her arm with feather-soft reverence of a cherished-undeniable promise that achingly grounded her to a kiss-starved reality of hungrier abandon. Crossing that forbidden threshold would peg him onto the expandable chessboard machinations of her bigshot godfather's corruptive-imperious reign of black-out criminality. Having the Barnes's family locked in the crosshairs of his territorial-blood-stamped vendettas would tragically usher political mayhem-bloodshed in spades. Wilson Fisk was a bulldozing titian against syndicated-drug-breeding Triads of Hell's Kitchen, utilizing royal emissaries to stake down a foothold of his enterprise supremacy: nothing was beyond his reach of conquest.

Gnawing on her plushier underneath, hesitantly, Felicia shifted her darkish ireses offishly at the gossamer flurries gustily streaming against an iron-mounted lamppost-she couldn't give him a straight-up answer. "Look, you need to know that I never meant to walk out..." Dragging out a shakier breath, she ruefully pinched her eyelids against the saltier wetness fervidly dampening her mascara-curled lashes underneath her domanio. "I-I wanted to run back to you, Bucky, spend every moment of that Christmas with you...It was all I ever wanted from that moment Baldy's limo drove away..."

That much Bucky understood. Inwardly, at the time, he had hoped that he and Felicia could weather the storm that was Wilson Fisk with the aid of his own parents. But as quickly grew to understand, nothing worth fighting for is ever easy to be won. He was desperate, afraid of losing the one friend-the one person-he'd grown up with and loved more than anything. He lost her because of one man's selfish desire to control her life. He hated Wilson Fisk more than anything. "Will you run back to me this time?" He asked with a whisper of hope in his voice, his eyes raw with building emotion he was finding harder to control. Reaching out his hand, he gently cupped her cheek beneath the ornate domino mask. She inhaled sharply, her hand coming up to catch his own as if she were afraid of something. "Or will you let me chase you this time?" He was more than ready to fight for her, to do whatever it took to be with her again.

"Bucky, don't take it off..." Bracing herself against the gentled-reverent pressure of his fingers tantalizingly gliding over the delicateness of her graceful neck as his thumb shakily caressed her supple cheek with kiss-soft precision over the intricate border of her rubied-studded domino, keeping her captured against the savorous-gloried onrushes of their escalating ardency-need-that starvingly tempoed within their aligned bodies. A sensuous vibrance blushingly flushed over her pearlescent-elvish features as resistance had disarmingly collapsed tenfold-every hot-blooded demand was increasingly edging to become answered within fervid throes of rampancy. The velvety-softness of his kissable lips headily ghosted over hers as wafts of his mintier breaths shiveringly chilled down her throat at the exhilarative second his fingers tremorously angled underneath the domino, blindly readying to lift the material off her elvish features as she arrestingly clutched onto his wrist. "I-I have to play by the rules until midnight..."

Her whispery protest had become set something off inside of Bucky who felt all semblance of control snap inside of him. The sight of her full pillowy lips, the earnestness of her eyes was too much for him to bear. "Felicia..." He whispered full of desperation. He couldn't hold back anymore. With a ragged breath, he crushed his lips to hers, his eyes closing with a sigh. The kiss of her lips against his was something he'd dreamed about. The warmth, the heat, the outpour something so deep it felt like his soul was singing in his chest. All the love, longing, and passion that had been bottled up for a decade was suddenly released as he held her lips, feeling tears fall from his eyes.

It felt like a homecoming, and he couldn't have felt more complete.

He felt her go still against his touch before her resolved seemed to crumble and she melted into him. His hands reached up to cup her face, holding her as the kiss grew deeper, their lips moving together to a song and dance they were familiar with but took their time to relearn. He drank in her soft sighs, his own breaths heavy with emotion. His teary eyes blinked open to see her lidded gaze behind the domino mask. He had to see all of her. His hands had their own mind as they wandered up and reached for the mask.

Against the passion-blank dizziness that grippingly surged through her veins, bitingly, Felicia tugged on his poutier underlip with give-or-take pressure on a headier succession of urgent fervency that raged bone-deep; the ambrosial fusion-sweetness of his unbroken kiss meltingly suffused her with a breathtaking revelation that she wouldn't turn her back on him, desperately, she wanted to fall deeper into an unsuppressible mania of bone-liquifying ecstasy-nothing would divide them again. Guttually, Bucky jutted his scruffier jaw with virile fercoity as the bruising pressure of his thrusting shapely-bow lips crushingly surged into open-mouthed kiss of pure-dampish heat. In those steamier moments of coupled decadence, abandonly, she was careened into white-hot firestorm of duelling intimacy, unaware that his fingers curled underneath her domino as the heaviness of velvet-silken material slipped off her kittenish nose.

He pulled her mask off in what seemed like a natural act to unveil the full face of beauty that laid underneath it. A face that he had, until now, only seen in old pictures during his somber moments to remember the times they'd shared. But the moment he had peeled away the masquerading object, his moment to appreciate the full-view of her womanly beauty was short-lived. Felicia had felt a gust of cool wind brush across her exposed face, causing her eyes to widen with alarm. Her audible gasp made Bucky blink at her sudden shift in mood. It happened so suddenly, the haze of their passionate reunion having distracted both of them from anything but each other. Bucky leaned towards her to resume their kiss only for to react with sharp panic as she reached for the mask in his hands. "Felicia-it's okay," he attempted to reassure her.

"N-No..." Onrushes of jack-up panic crescendoed against a heart-stunting-earshot reaction as her brandy ireses flitted dead-straight intensity onto the reddish hexagonal glyphs that eldritchly striated over the rubied domino-a mordacious safeguard of parasitic-demonic witchery. A fevered clamminess sweatily dampened her whitish tresses as she registered the possessive incantation damningly tethering her into the sorcerous dregs-she broke the one rule. "Put the mask back on...Now!" With teeth-gnashing strain, hissingly Felicia gripped onto his wrist on desperate tenor, her polished fingernails scrapingly grazed over the vein-thread contours of his arm, forcing him to drop the mask onto the snowy ground. "If he sees me without it..."

"Who?!" Bucky demanded, confused but also wary. Her urgent words hit him like bullet, his training and experience making him realize that there was something foul at play that he hadn't noticed. He half anticipated Fisk or his men to come out of the shadows and surround them with guns pointed. The mask had fallen out of his grip the moment Felicia had rushed to him in a panic to retrieve it. He was shocked by the suddenness of it, and alarmed by the reddish glow that seemed to emanate from it. 'What the hell?' He couldn't help but think with bewilderment. The ominous-looking light looked alive and chaotic as it surged from the mask and lanced through his right leg like some kind of parasite that seeped into his being.

He felt nothing at first, as if he were just hit by a laser pointer that immediately switched off. One look into Felicia's eyes as she retrieved the mask made him realize something terrible was about to happen. "Felicia, what the hell is going on?" He asked her as she immediately tried to slip the mask over her face. The draw-strings that were attached to it seemed to have been ripped, almost as if the energy itself had snapped them off, rendering it useless. He felt a tightness in his chest that couldn't explain, his breathing was heavy as if he had been underwater for too long. His stomach groaned with a pinching twist as if his intestines were folding in on itself. He gasped loudly, almost keeling over at the sudden onslaught. "F-Felicia-what's-"

"N-No.." Hitching out a choke-off breath, gaspingly, Felicia watched him vertiginously lower into a knee-buckling crouch on his muscled haunches as his strenuous-anguished mobility became irrevocably floored with a pukish onrush; bilious rancidity gurgled up his throat, grimacingly, Bucky dragged his tenser fingers over the iron-fenced barrier, consciously bolstering himself as bone-numbing iciness surged through the corded-litheness of his sleeved forearm on paralyzed fruition as she pressingly gripped onto the material of his suited-jacket with tampered steadiness, vehemently aware of the infectious-morphic conjury possessively suffusing within him. "Bucky...Stay with me..." she urged, threadily, gazing at his shapely-wide lips jutting into a 'duck-pout' as blackish-feathery skeins were puffily hedging over his broader nape. "Oh no..."

Hearing her call out to him was the only life-line Bucky felt thrown his way as he was being swept away by a wave of panic and pain. It felt like something sick and foreign was crawling beneath his skin, twisting him from the inside out. "W-What's h-happening..." He couldn't speak beyond the deep throated honks that were escaping him. The fear gripping him was unreal, as if he were back in the scorching deserts of Iraq, burrowing through a trench to elude an unseen enemy that he couldn't escape. This thing inside of him was something he couldn't escape.

He felt a wave of cold wash over him as if his blood had turned to ice. He raised his hand, not realizing his body was changing from the inside out, until he touched his cheek. His fingertips were brushing against something rough and unnatural. Looking down, he saw the beginnings of feathers sprouting from his skin. He tried to stand, but his legs felt like lead. The horror of what was happening filled him and he reached out to Felicia, needing her touch, her comfort, anything to ground him in reality.

But before she could say another word, a voice called out into the courtyard accompanied by the sound of booted footsteps.

"Înălțimea voastră, unde sunteți? Trebuie să plecăm! (Your highness, where are you? We must leave!)" Anton called as he entered the courtyard with his side-arm clutched in his hands.

"A-Anton..." Staving down a throat-gurgling honk, raggedly, Bucky attempted to recover his clumsier balance against the vomitous upheavals spasmodically contracting within the bulkier rigidity of his garbed chest; he was being mortifyingly deadened into a back-catcher squat as his rubberized feet became oozily dissolved into gloppier sludginess against his designer shoes-a freakish—paddle-thinned deformity. Against the heart-knifing betrayal of abandoning him, vanishingly, Felicia harnessed her feline-acrobatic graces as she vaulted over the iron-barrier at the second, her dark ireses caught the fleeting glimpse of a carbon-metallic Glock deathily clutched into Anton's hands."Grah...Help me..." A breathless heave tremorously railed out of Bucky, while bone-racking onrushes of intensified agony glissaded through his veins on morphic succession. The hazier bleariness of his wide-blown aqueous depths swimmingly fixed onto the quarterback-honed Romanian security detail thuggishly propelling his bearish momentum towards him."M'gonna be sick..."

"Alteța Voastră? (Your Highness?)" Anton was at his side, missing the sight of the silver-haired woman vanishing over the fence as his sole focus was on his downed charge. "Oh no..." The bodyguard voiced with mounting despair as he realized the state in which the prince was. Once he had realized the security teams were being incapacitated or missing around the palace, he had returned to the ballroom in search of his charge only to find the place a chaotic spiral of...live-stock of all things. The sight of a few guests fleeing in panic and others being turned before his very eyes had crippled him with shock and for the first time in many years, he felt fear.

"We must go. The palace is no longer safe," he said, grabbing a hold of Bucky's shoulder's and pulling him to his feet. He didn't know what he could do to help the prince other than get him far away from this place.

"M-My parents..." Distressingly, Bucky gripped onto the material of Anton's Kevlar jacket against the heart-vising tumult of unwarranted panic notching through his veins as he registered the hellish-deafening pandemonium of terror-filled clucking that berserkly amplified unison within mania of the panic-razed guests. A sulphurous rancidity putridly entrenched the palace grounds as feathery remnants became whirlingly discarded near the marble-stone pillars. Keeping himself bodily drooped against the weighted solidity of Anton's bulkier form, nauseatingly, he retched up throat-gurgling heaves as his footing became cripplingly heavier with every strained pace around the obstructive cortege of lavish 'high-priced' vehicles. Sweatily, his rakish chestnut tresses clung to his fevered temples, aware that he was being rampantly ushered to his parents' black-matte BMW Z4 regally adorned with twined Romanian flags clamped the hood. "Y-You gotta find my parents...Save em'..." he urged against throatier breaths, gutturally, hunching against the stomach-vising pressure revamping against his tauter abdomen. "Argh..."

A grim expression came over the bodyguard's face, believing the worse to have befallen the king and queen after he entered their suite and finding only clucking chickens inside. It was easy to put the pieces together, despite how impossible it all seemed, but now wasn't the time to reveal the truth. Instead, he opened the backseat door and ushered his charge inside, trying not to gaze too hard upon his transformed features.

"I've sent word to out to the authorities. I must see you to safety," Anton said, his voice tight with his own concern as he shut the door. His eyes scanned the chaotic scene around them, searching for any sign of his comrades. His eyes landed upon a menacing shape standing at the edge of the parking lot. A lone man in a suit, watching them with a calm disposition. For a guest to display such calm in light of what was happening did not paint a favorable image in Anton's mind as he eyed the figure distrustfully. Quickly, he made for the driver's seat and entered inside.

He could hear the prince groaning in pain in the back-seat, the sounds of which made his anxiety worsen with the thought that he could be too late to save him. He thought he heard him mentioning a name. Felicia...

Releasing a tired shrug, Anton set the keys into the ignition and the engine roared to life.

"I've called for extraction. There is a helicopter being fueled. We're getting you out of here now!"

Emmiting guttural honks, thrashingly, Bucky clutched into the seat-belt strap cuttingly draped over his broader shoulder as spasmodic-contractive barrages excruciatingly imploded through his tenser veins as his rangier-webbed feet expandingly protruded on mutative fruition, tatteredly riving his shoes against the clover-shaped deformity uncontrollably jutted out into blackish leathery 'duck' feet. Steadily, against a pendulum shift of his warring sanity, Anton fixed the periphery his onyx-brown ireses on the rearview mirror with passive composure brandished over his chiselled features, gazing at the ebony-cindery feathers disturbingly sheathing over the hard-angled smoothness of Bucky's temple as his swollen lips uglily puckered into a reddish duck-bill. "Hraggh..."

"Rămâi cu mine... Înălțimea Voastră (Stay with me...Your Highness)"

Hearing the breathless urgency of Anton's gruffer timbre ratcheted against his ears, blindingly he gripped onto the leathered cushioned-seat, the acceleration of the BMW's torque whooshingly propelled through blizzardy squalls; with teeth-gnashing strain, Bucky registered the bone-raking onslaught of mortified panic that was inexorably notching through his veins with no avail. Vertiginously, he braced his muscled forearm against tauten muscle-bands of his washboard abdomen that blimpishly swelled with doughier pudginess his navel jutted against his waistband-a girthier rotundity chubbily bulging underneath his suited-jacket. Gaspingly, Bucky quashed down a vomitous surge of pukish bile as he moaningly pillowed his feathery cheek against the coolness of the backseat window. "Urghonk..." A rubberized honk noncommittally resonated out of him as puffier blackish skeins pinchingly sprouted on his misshapen knuckles with feathery tuffs downily melding over the contours of his lengthening fingers. "W-What..."

Anton was anxious as he listened to his charge's anguished cries in the backseat. His concentrate was torn between the road and searching for any possible threats lurking. He wasn't aware of the unseen threat standing outside the gates until the car was suddenly hit by an invisible force that caused the world to erupt in a blinding flash of light. The world spun out of control as the vehicle was thrown into a violent roll that ended with a smashing crunch of metal grinding against the pavement. The sound of glass shattering and metal twisting was deafening as Bucky's head smacked against the window. His body was thrown around like a ragdoll, the impact sending stars swirling in his vision. The world went dark for a brief moment before he realized they were upside down, the car a twisted mess of metal and shattered glass.

The sound of groaning metal was the only sound that filled the air. "P-Prince James, are you all right?" Anton called, his voice filled with pain. He felt his body j*** as if it were being pulled in every direction by an invisible force, his skin stretching and reshaping with a pain that was almost too much to bear. He could see through the broken windshield a shadowy figure approaching, and his instincts told him to draw his weapon.

"S-Stay back!" He yelled.

A predacious aura vampirically radiated off the wraith-like denizen who grounded his unmoveable-stalkerish poise a breadth at the warpage of the upturned BMW-pythonic reaper with an unquenchable delectation-tantamount of sadistically morphing his victims into feathery-verminous drudges. With ghostlier traction, slitherily, he drove his imposing advances near the dented rear-door, as his gnarled fingers scrapingly dragged over the cracked glass, veering his callous gaze onto the ganglier blackish-chestnut appendage of silken feathers heftily thrashing over the metallic door on frantic tempo as vaporous -malachite-energy malignly wheeled from his fisting hand. With viper-strike readiness, he thrusted his arm into the window, viciously reaching to grapple Bucky's scrawny-elongating neck into an immobilizing choke-hold. "You desired to see her forbidden beauty and now your handsome face will be a pitiful mask of feathers, little prince..." he rasped out, sneerily, detecting the mechanized 'click' of Anton hastily reloading his Glock-the full-measured loyalty he stowed for Prince James was viscerally potent."I find it so predictable when a man of your talent defends a royal brat who now will be leashed into dregs of squawking misery..."

Anton gripped his side-arm and aimed at the figure approaching the car. He fired off a few shots, but they all missed as if the man was a phantom in the night. And then, without warning, a red light filled his vision and he felt his body being attacked by an invisible force. A strangled gasp escaped his lips. The pain he felt was intense, unlike anything he had ever felt before. In his mind's eye he saw all those guests left behind in the palace, unrecognizable as their bodies were twisted in a harrowing display of insanity. Magic. That was the word that came to mind, and with it a sense of hopelessness as his arms stretched from his sockets. His words were choked on as pressure built in his throat, released in a loud honk of distress. His neck elongated, and his body mass began to shriningly diminished as well as inflated as the feathers grew in, coating his skin.

Bucky crawled from the wreckage, his eyes wide with horror as he watched his trusted protector succumb to an unbelievable fate. The same one he could feel seeping into his own bones as his body continued to slowly unravel and transform from within. "No!"

"And where do you think you're going, Little Brat?" The assailant stalked towards Bucky and grapped him his coat, turning him over to reveal the snarling visage of the mystery man who had approached him in the party. "I see you nipped the the largest of the breadcrumbs I laid out, just for you." He chuckled sadistically.

"Y-You won't get away from...Hrronk..." Unriddled agony whipsawed through his veins as the corded-muscled rigidity of his fingers dissolvingly shrunk with the puffier featheriness that weightily outstretched into a duck-like wing. Saltier bleariness feverishly robbed his vision as he swimmingly gazed with heavy-lidden intensity at the maniacal conductor of demonic witchery-an insatiable parasite-vulture- that mercilessly delivered a morphic reckoning within the palace. Trying his damnest to cling onto vestiges of trepidatious resistance, gnashingly, Bucky torqued onto the silkiness feathery-wings on breakneck accord-harnessing a callback of his tenacious-hellbent spirit to aggressively deliver a head-whamming assault while his bulkier mass shrinkingly vanished into a torn heap of his Parda tuxedo. Emitting out choke-off honks, breathlessly, he thrust his feathered-wing, registering the bone-stretching pressure in the misalignment vertebraes of his bulging neck mortifyingly elongating against the frigid ground as his puckered lips freakishly jutted into a sleekier duck-bill. "Arghonk...!"

Alexander's eyes gleamed with a sadistic delight as he watched the prince's desperate attempts to fight the transformation. Of all the poor pathetic souls he'd seen succumb to the power of his magic, nothing filled him with greater satisfaction than watching the elite and powerful be made humble by greater power. The prince of Romania was an icon as both a celebrity and renown soldier seen by many as the most handsome man alive. If his admirers could only see him now, he chuckled to himself as he took a step closer. "How fitting, don't you think? That a prince would become a swan? It's almost poetic, really. Like something out of Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake, but alas, Prince James, your fate will be anything but graceful."

Bucky's pain was unbearable, as if his entire being was being ripped apart and put back together in the most twisted way imaginable. His focus was on the man circling above him, feeling trapped but also defiant under his penetrating gaze. "M-My parents...Felicia...What did you do..."

"It doesn't matter now, little prince," A churlish snideness bitingly fringed in his Swiss-accented cadence, he evilly gazed at the chiselled-hawkish contours-the pretty-boy handsomeness of Bucky's hard-edged features morphically vanishing into a feathery deformity-unkempt-roughish tresses of chestnut wispily moulted as his skull rampantly began to shrink until a sleekier-feathery-head of piteous-ethereal bird heavily weighted down the graceful plumage of his longish neck: he was agonizingly morphing into a full-fledged swan. "Your beloved parents were deterrents of my conquest, not to why, your mother will soon be hatching another royal brat, or maybe I will enjoy scrambling a few eggs..."

With a furious snarl, Bucky lashed out with what he perceived to be his arm, only to recoil with shock to see a feathered wing whoosh out in front of him. The anger was momentarily forgotten as shock took hold of him, his thoughts fell into a downward spiral of despair to see his human body fully transforming to the magical spell coursing inside of him. He tried screaming out, for his parents, for Steve, for Felicia, but even his own words were lost to himself as the distressed honking of a fully turned swan registered in his thoughts. His ability to breathe became difficult as the shock wore on, paralyzing him as a burden of new sensations coursed through him, diminishing all sense of conscious thought. He continued to fall, the world growing darker as the arbiter of his torment stood above him, reaching down to grab him. Bucky's world went dark as he finally fell into slumber. Somewhere in the dark recesses of his mind rang the haunting tune of Carol of the Bells, mocking him with his newfound existence.

As the whitish sconces of daybreak gleamingly became captured over the frostier pond that veristically bordered a castlelike estate of gothicsque Byzantine white-granite stone with embellished lancets that adorned the roof; lumberingly, a paunchier brownish-feathered Siberian goose heavily waddled on his leathery-webbed feet, rapting his stubbier wings on jovial tenor at the intrusive proximity of the newest captive to his frigid domain-a harbour-point of refuge against the gustier squalls that ravaged the desolated pond. Flashing his darkish orbs in the direction of a feathery mass of cindery plumage, he advanced with stealthier tack, detecting laden hostility pulsating within the exquisite newcomer's curvaceous-svelte rotundity. "We have a very fancy bird with us...So cool..." A boisterous honk excitedly resonated from his girthier form. "It's good...We needed more company."

"You should give him some space, Lexi. The new ones don't react well when they wake up," a thick velvety Russian accent spoke from a fair distance away. The morning rays of sun-shine bathed the small avian creature with a golden light. Her yellow feathered wings fluttered against the wind as she surveyed the small pond with a curious eyes. "Don't say I didn't warn you," she said to the pauncy goose as he continued to hover over the unconscious newcomer that was slowly beginning to stir and twitch awake.

"Ah, he's fine," the goose said with a upbeat chuckle. "Look he's waking up-"

"W-What the hell..." Lurchingly against his stupefied-defensive reaction, Bucky thrusted up his sleekier-feathery head as his pointier bill dragging grazed the bulgier paunchiness of a dough-like mass that cushily squished him. Shifting his dilated aqueous orbs blearily onto an outstretched ebony-feathered wing that flappingly rapted over a soggier reed, warringly, he staved off the groggier neaustic onrushes barraging within his bow-shaped-curvier girth. Reining down the skyrocketing panic that alarmingly racked him bone-deep, he reeled back from the smothering plumage of the obesefied goose, resigtering the pencil-thinned stubbiness rubberily that melded with blackish-webbed feet. "W-Wait...My feet...What happened to my feet...!" A murmurous honk gratingly resonated out of his elongated neck as he waddled on clumsier traction while his feathery-wing blindingly thrashed against the goose's chubbier form. "S-Stay back..."

The feathered smack rang about as loud and a dinner bell going off, sending the goose groaning backwards on drunken webbed feet. The wagtail bird to looked on with dry amusement. "I told you," she chirped.

Alexi blinked, surprised by the strength of the swan bird's swing and how sudden it came. It was as quick and precise, like rousing a soldier up from his slumber. He shrugged off a flurry of snowflakes that had peppered his beak when he stumbled and looked at the confused swan. "This one is a fighter, Yelena. Don't worry, I will keep him calm," The goose honked at the swan who looked at him as if he had grown a second hand. "Relax, boy. It is important not to panic-"

"W-Woah...A talkin' goose...Yeah...M' officially dreamin'..." Against hitching breaths, stammeringly, Bucky jutted his longish neck with edgier-cantankerous feistiness that jack-up through his veins as he lasered dead-straight intensity of his beadier whitish-sapphire orbs confusedly at the plumpish goose's skin-capped head-a pinkish balding spot-evident to his dishevelled-grungier brownish-gray feathers. "Okay that looks kinda rough..." he rasped, snarkily, gripping onto every bridled callback of sanity as his feathery wing reactively stretched out like a sensu fan a breadth at the placid goose. "Huh...Whonk...Whonk..." Owlishly his aqueous depths gleamed full-blown wide at the heart-stopping revelation that grippingly floored him into a panicky-mortified stupor as he tremorously caressed his bottle-sized head—it wasn't a damn hallucination. The velvety poutiess of his shapely-bow lips morphically vanished into hard-boned 'duck' bill. "Urghonk...My face...I-I have duck-face..!" A full-throated honk railed out of him as he quakingly slapped his feathery wing over the curvier length of his graceful neck. "Oh...No...M' a stupid duck!"

"You are not a duck, you are a swan," the Russian bird corrected him, Yelena's own amusement showing through her voice. "Count yourself fortunate, at least you are still handsome. You could've been a fat goose like Alexi here waiting to be plucked and served on a holiday platter."

"Yelena, you wound me. But I welcome Alexander to try me. This goose does not cook easily," the goose retorted with a deep chuckle.

Bucky's feathery wing slapped over his face, his heart racing as the reality of his transformation set in. Seeing this, Alexi sobered with a degree of compassion for the young swan who likely just had his entire world turned upside down. "But the devochka (girl) is correct, young friend. You may be a swan, but you still have qualities about you that may give you and us an edge to our current predicament."

Hearing the rueful somberness raspily tamping against the chunkier goose's Russian cadence, defensively, with fiercer quickness huffily, Bucky jutted out his razored-edged bill on aggressive tenor while untrammelled panic implosively crescendoed through his feathery girth with no avail. Everything was betrayingly coming in spades against him-he couldn't evade the hellish reality of being pathetically downsized into a feathery snow-bird. Crestfallenly, Bucky tucked his feathery-wings against his curvaceous-pudgier rotundity, harnessing a grounded poise on his stubbier-webbed feet as he gutturally vented out a snortier honk, underlying his dejection-heartache. "I-I can't be this..." The croakiness of his murmurous drawl threadily garbled into a squeakier pitch as he wonkily strutted closer to the slushier ground of the Olymic-size pond, indigent to blizzardy flurries powdering his chestnut-ebony feathers. "That demented bastard turned everyone into-birds..." he whispered out, sniffily, and warded off the heart-vising urge to swim abandonly into the frostier water. "Guess M' gonna be Ducky Barnes..."

The Siberian goose watched him with a knowing look in his eyes, remembering just how crestfallen he had been when first awoke in his new cursed form. "As difficult as this may seem to you, you are not alone," he assured him with a gentle honk. "We are all in this together. Me, Alexi, Yelena, and you..." The swan looked at him with a mix of anger and despair. "Mr. Barnes?" The goose tested his name on his beak, his brown scrunching with confusion before he looked towards Yelena with confusion. "Prince James of Romania?"

Yelena, the wagtail bird, fluttered closer to the pond, her eyes gleaming with scrutiny. "You are a prince, yes? This is the doing of someone who enjoys watching the mighty fall. Alexi and I were once on his trail before we..."

Bucky's feathers ruffled as he tried to stand tall, his human dignity refusing to be fully snuffed out. But he felt about as helpless in his new form as a log trapped in a raging tide. "Look...I just want to be left alone."

With tinier paces, coaxingly, Yelena hopped onto a dampish nest of sludgier reeds, beadily, her impish dark-umber orbs flitted onto the enchanted princey swan who derisively shrugged off their pond-talk formality-welcomeness. "Look we are basically defective in the grips of this wicked spell, your Highness..." she rasped, chirpily, gazing at Bucky's webbed-feet evidently tensing over the slushier ground. Being a fugitive-'cut-loose' Siberian operative who proficiently harnessed a lethal calibre of undetectable -kill-shot espionage, she had been unforgivingly weaponized to react against compromised-hostile marks of interest-she was pegged into the crosshairs of rigged deception-a cautionary expandable-pawn that was used for morbid witchery. "Growing out feathers is a part of Alexander's contingency to remove anyone who shows resistance against him..." Downcastedly, she eased up a yellowish-black striped wing that was unmistakably singed by the voltage of a cattle pod. "To keep you from drifting into empty numbness, you can't give up the fight...You have a chance to fly before he locks you down like us..." she urged out, whisperingly, glancing at the doughball goose who had metallic clips tragically fused over his stubbier wings. "Don't be a stubborn bird, your Highness...We can train you before your wings belong to him..."

Bucky listened, even as part of his mind was determined to shut away the insanity of this whole situation and pretend it was all a nightmare, he knew there was no escape. No escaping this reality and this fate that he'd been thrust into. The talking goose and wagtail-Alexi and Yelena offered words of motivation that he just couldn't be swayed by. Not now, probably not ever. Her words stung and he felt like a condemned prison doomed for execution. He knew there was wisdom in their plan to train him and escape. But for what end?

"There's no escaping from this," he said with a defeated honk, tears blearing in his eyes. "I've lost everyone and everything I care about. There's nothing left me out there to run to." He hated how helpless he sounded, how his own words cracked a dam of self-discipline allowing for emotion to pour through. "I'm not getting out of this one..." He turned away from Yelena and stared out into the vastness of the pond, staring at the rippling reflection of a harrowing bird that had become his new visage. The ice around his heart only grew colder. "If Alexander wants to come out here and put me out of my misery...what's the point in fighting it?"

There was a pit inside of him growing larger. Emptiness. He felt empty and alone. He thought of her face, her voice, the one person in life who gave him hope. She knew, she tried to stop him before he lifted that damn mask from her face. Thats what triggered this. He wondered about her, where she had gone. What had become of his parents? Anton? Would Steve be out there searching for him? There were many what-ifs, but there was no certainty he could ever get out of this icy prison. Not unless his family had a mage on their payroll.

Against the squally gustiness that whippingly jet-streamed over her tinier form, deftly, Yelena propelled a breadth closer to his testier proximity, her pent-up inquisitiveness became unwaveringly fixed onto the golden chain beautifully fastened over his longish neck- an insignia of swan embellished the locket pendant-definitely a cherished-priceless memento that he kept close to vest. She was viscerally aware of his receptive hesitancy underlyingly strumming within the chesty paunchiness of his curvier girth. "I like your style, Prince Barnes..." she murmured, chummily, gesturing her marred wing at his necklace on strenuous accord. Sulkily, Bucky tucked his svelter head into the cradling arch of his feathery ebony-chestnut wings, evading her tentative approach-he was playing down the card of defeat. "If you want to stay warm, my Dad...Uh...I mean Alexi will share his nest with you..."

The plumpish goose waddled closer, his feathery bulk shaking with his own grief. "We're all here for a reason, Prince James. Maybe, together, we can find a way out of this..." he said, his eyes glazed with a nostalgic sadness that seemed to beckon at a shared pain.

Bucky looked up at the goose, his feathers ruffling with the intensity of his emotions. He couldn't deal with this right now. He just couldn't accept that this was his reality and that everything he knew in life had been taken from him. The ache in his chest began to throb and the swan dipped his head into his feathers. "I just want to be left alone...Please, just go." The words were barely a whisper, the desperation in his honk almost inaudible over whooshing wind that picked up a haze of flurries across the pond.

Alexi shared a glance with Yelena, both of them communicating even in their new forms. They knew he needed time. All they could do now was hope he'd find his resolve before it was too late. "As you wish, your Highness." Alexi stepped back, his webbed feet carrying him away. Yelena lingered a moment longer, pondering quietly as she gazed at the locket hanging from the swan's neck.

A blearing wetness saltily dampened his feathered plumage, sobbingly, Bucky hitched out throat-gurgling whimpers that eruptively railed out his longish neck, he buried his lankier head into the pillowy warmness of his velvet-like feathers, resigtering the weight of his locket that unavailingly gripped him into perpetual drags of unbidden-soul-crushing heartache-he was a destitute snow-bird-a cheapen mockery of his dynastic birthright. Trying his damnest to stow the vestige of his tenacity, unmovingly, he nestled onto a feathery-ball against the icier reeds, sniffily, detaching himself into a refuge of pacifying solace against the heart-stunting dosage of betrayal-the bone-racking frigidness was anesthetic that numbingly deadened him into a catatonic stupor as hedragged his blackish-webbed underneath his curvaceous rotundity -allowing exhaustive grogginess to rope him down-maybe he was on the fringe of being a snappish-chagrined bird who dismissively shutout the joyous hope-love- for Christmas. "M'nothin'...Just a damn swan..."

Inwardly he contemplated if this would be his fate in life that would lead to his ultimate end. His young life had been filled with so many ups and downs but nothing could have prepared him for the prison he had been thrown into. Life as a swan felt hopeless. Even as a human he still had people who cared about him surrounding him, tolerating his broken-hearted spiel that he'd been unable to recover from. He had no one now.

He was alone. With Christmas on the horizon. How fitting.

The swan's eyes closed, grief and anger coursing through him. He'd grown to loathe the holiday. A constant reminder of what he'd lost and the one person in life he loved more than anything. Holding Felicia in his arms last night felt like he'd come home after being away for so long. He missed that feeling. A dark part of his mind wanted to still be upset with her, wondering what she had to do with the man who put him here. But he couldn't get past his own longing and hope that somewhere out there, she was safe from all of this.

It was the best he could hope for.

The vacuous emptiness of insipid-flagrant wealth ambiently contrasted the immaculate vastness of the grand room as orngish sconces of the marble-stoned hearth fierily gleamed over the ebon sleekness of the granite bartop as Felicia vehemently grounded her impassive poise against a chrome stool, garbed into a black-wool Versace long-coat that delectably emphasized her svelte curves as the whiteness smokiness of her glossier platinum whorls tousledly draped over her delicate shoulders. Flitting she roved her dark-brandy ireses riskily onto the 65' inch flat-screen that tragically displayed an Italian news broadcast of emergency response vehicles stationed at the ironed gates of lockdown Doge's Palace, a yellow barrier tape obstructed throngs of media vultures pushily thrusting out their microphones over the barrier as a red 'Breaking New" banner steamed over the screen: Romanian Prince James Barnes Missing...No Body Found in the Car Wreckage. "Bucky..." she rasped, shakily, refusing to cater to the relevance of her unforgivable betrayal that condemningly leashed her down into the pythonic coils of an occultic-covetous monger. "Where are you, Charm-Boy...?"

Her eyes were drawn to the door when the sound of footsteps approached the room. The door swung open to reveal a man dressed in a pair of black slacks and a white dress-shirt. The sleeves to his shirt were rolled up, revealing an expensive $10,000 Rolex and a set of powerful forearms. His blonde hair was slicked back and a smug smirk played on his cruel lips as he gazed on upon her.

"Ah, Miss Hardy," Alexander greeted her, his Swiss accent thick. "Good of you to join me. Would you care for a drink? Vodka is still your poison is it not?" He said, making his way for the bar. His cavalier attitude made it seem like nothing was amiss, but the way his cold eyes viperously flicked to the news broadcast on the television, there was a glint of dark amusement in those depths. "What an eventful evening this has been, wouldn't you say? I suppose all the money and prestige in the world is useless when put against real power."

"Do you always have to be a killjoy that ruins the spoils..." Felicia purred in a huskier undertone, sultrily, detecting his knife-point rabidity that intensified as she coquettishly played down the flirtous card -her godfather was an imperious-iron-fisted dreadnought of syndicated industry of deceptive taskmasters who utilized political machinations to gain a foothold onto a bureaucratic margin of supremacy-payoffs on shipping ports to deliver Triad freight into the scummier-murderous environs of Hells Kitchen. The installations of allied prominence with black-market trade was a financial gambit Fisk refused to lose momentum against his competitive-snakebit- rivals. "And here I thought you invited me for a drink without big talk..." she rebuffed, jauntily, watching him maliciously pour a iced bottle of Russian-imported Vodka into a crystalline shot-glass with delicate precision.

Alexander's smirk grew as he set the bottle down with a slam, the glass not even trembling. "I did not invite you for a drink to flatter your ego, Miss Hardy," he said, his eyes glinting with an eerie coldness. His facade was a mask woven through years of manipulation and worldly connections as an information broker and asset mover. His special talents for the arcane and mystic arts were a well-kept secret that not even Fisk knew about. "You know the stakes of this game. I've done you a favor, spared you from Fisk's claws...for the moment. If you really want to be free of his shadow, you'll have to dance to my tune, however unpleasant the melody may seem to you."

He approached her with his hand held out to offer her the glass of vodka. Hesitantly she took it. "I have much at stake too, and I won't tolerate any...distractions," his gaze pivoted towards the news broadcast. A journalist was attempting to question a SHIELD liason on the disappearance of the missing royals. "You let him get too close," with a slow curl of his index finger, he ran his digit down the smooth expanse of her exposed cheek, admiring her beauty as if she were a sculpted work of art. "But at least without the mask, I get to appreciate a sight that he could not..."

Against tractable poise, repulsively, Felicia became aware of the wanton-seditious possessiveness of his violating ministrations that caressed delicate-bone suppleness of her cheek lustily branding her as the flexion of his roughened palm cringingly delivered a lecherous promise of untrammelled carnality-hunger-that wouldn't be slaked. There was no feather-soft tracery of addictive-masculine sweetness that savorily rivalled with Bucky's reverent-cherishing touch-this was damn covetous. With fractional restraint, she tamped down the vicious 'cat-like' urge to lashingly swipe him with her polished fingernails, composedly, she eased the shot-glass to her pillowy-glossed lips with a brassier smirk and drained the glass with one throat-burning gulp, while his predacious gaze cold-bloodedly roved over the curvier exquisiteness of her lithe form. "Well, you better take a good look because that's all you're going to get..." she rasped, grittily.

Alexander chuckled darkly, his laugh a mirthless as he relentlessly approached Felicia from behind, cornering her with his intimidating presence pushed against her back. "Still playing hard to get, are we? If there is nothing that I appreciate more is the challenge. The thrill of the chase. And like a cat you think to run astray with your spoils. My dear, where would you go?" Daring to push further, his hands reached up and caressed the sides of her shoulders, his grip firm and possessive, feeling her muscles tense up under his invasive touch. "It is the time of year to be festive. Think of all that I could give you once the royal purse is in my grasp. Think of all we can achieve together..."

"Sorry to disappoint but you're not my type..." Felicia murmured in a blunter pitch, deviously, clutching onto his broader-veined wrists on defensive tenor as she eased the vising pressure of his larger hands off her garbed shoulders-she wouldn't become an expandable pawn of trade-off seduction. With fluidic precision on her stiletto heels, whirlingly, she half-spun, dodging his viperous grip at the earshot moment a clucking 'brok' noise distressingly ratcheted in alarmed unison within the pristine vastness of the castle-like mansion. Arching her whitish eyebrow, cautiously, she fixed her dark-brandy ireses at brownish feathery remnants eerily discarded on the bartop. "Having company tonight are we...?" she teased, breathily, and scooped up the silken feathers into her daintier palm. "Your friends must be fun to dance with..."

A darkened scowl crossed Alexander's features at her rejection. While he often played off her evasive nature as a challenge, his patience had been running thin, especially after he had witnessed a good portion of her "reunion" with a certain Romanian Prince the night before. Realizing her observation, his mood was quick to turn dry as he turned to the bar and snatched up the bottle of vodka, pouring himself a glass. "You would think so, but you would rue to find out for yourself, my kitten. Do not let your curiosity get the better of you," he poured the glass and down its contents, his veins tensing as the heat of ire was raised by the shot of hard liquor. His eyes glazed over, assessing Felicia with dark amusement.

"You play games as too often as you play with that ring you conceal in your pocket," he said, having noticed her tight grip of the yellow-topaz ring she had been clutching in her somber moments. He had a fair suspicion of whom she received it from. To match her move, he pulled something dark and feathery from his own pocket. Something he plucked from a certain swan that lay unconscious in his pond. "But this is one game you dare not play-not with me," he warned. Approaching her, he cocked his head, feigning listening to something, a cold smile pulled at his lips.

"Ah, the song of the night," he mused, his eyes glinting with an eerie light. "Do you hear the music, Felicia?" It wasn't the faint sound of a Christmas carol playing off the radio somewhere in the mansion. It was the distant squawks of distressed birds and a cold wind that seemed to cut through the terrace door. Felicia revealed nothing but her posture was tense as she recognized the dark look in his eyes. "The symphony of my pets," he murmured, "don't forget to dance to my tune, or you may find yourself joining the symphony..."

Hearing the waspish snideness of his vituperative cadence, unblinkingly Felicia glanced at the sleekier ebony-chestnut feather tauntingly clutched into his larger hand-a flashpoint revelation that her 'charm-boy' was irrevocably pegged into the socerous dregs of a morphic enchantment. The warring rampancy of heart-shunting desperation explosively surged through her veins as he pinched his fingers over the gossamer feather on twirling accord with no deviance of cheap-shot empathy. A portentous malevolence villainously radiated off the chiselled angularity of his lankier-edged features as he mockingly gestured his larger hands akin to a stoic conductor heralding a demonic rhapsody with the squawky dissonance of his feathered captives.

Feigning a semblance of restraint, Felicia wouldn't cross the fracturing threshold of disloyalty-Bucky was a collateral-disposable pawn used for the headway of his corruptive-ambitious supremacy against Fisk. Having a royal under his shadow would grant him influential notoriety-high-grade unions that would generously benefit his financial security as he swept off the desks of her godfather's alliances. "So you're telling me that you gave Prince Barnes a new makeover..." she bantered out, scoffingly, refusing to call his bluff as she purposely dropped the shot-glass at his polished shoe, watching crystalline shards explode onto the granite floor the wake of her offhanded clumsiness as she drove the point-blank intensity of her darkish gaze into the direction of a snow-capped terrace-she needed to find Bucky. "Oops, guess you'll have fun cleaning up..."

Alexander's smile fell as he stared at her, all traces of mirth vanishing as the tension built. The question of her loyalty had been one he thought to test at the gala. To assess whether she still remained fixated on her old attachments. He had a clearer answer now. "Pettiness does not suit you, Felicia. Nor does ignorance," he sneered. "It wasn't me who turned your precious prince into a feathered stray to be plucked. It was you. The moment you allowed him to get close enough to remove your mask. Now he is paying the price." His voice grew colder as he leaned in, whispering into her ear, "You think you still love him, my dear? You think you can save him? I know you. Love is a fleeting emotion that can be turned into a weapon against you. Like this holiday sentiment, it makes you weak."

Leaning back, he reacted sharply as he felt the brushing force of Felicia's hand come up to smack him across the face. He caught her wrist with an aggressive chuckle, clutching her arm. "That's the spirit, my cat. Show me your claws, at least that is something genuine to be trusted."

A heart-scything iciness freeingly wormed through her veins as he pythonically bracketed onto her lithe wrist, the vising pressure of his fingers squeezed with merciless fercoity. Hissingly, Felicia thrashed against his deadlock hold, attempting to wrench her arm back on defensive tempo. White-hot voltage intensified as he whirled her bodily against the Viking-honed rigidity of his garbed torso-immobilizing her into paralytic throes of his desirous- fragrant seduction. "I'm done being your little kitten" she gritted, tersely, and bleedingly nicked her fingernails into the veiny contours of his wrist, forcing him to brutishly push her down onto floor with headrushing momentum. "I-I will never wear a damn mask for you..." Clutching onto her bruised wrist, glaringly, against her touseled whitish-silvery whorls, she dizzily flashed her brandy ireses onto the ebony feather gripped in his fisting hand. "You will take me to him...Now!"

"Be rational, Felicia. What good is your freedom from the Kingpin's shadow if you look to exchange one prison for another?" Alexander huffed with deep angry breaths while gazing down at her. "That's what awaits you if you think to jump into the abyss to save a doomed man from his fate." Crouching down onto his haunches, Alexander shifted forward, taunting her like a predator stalking cornered prey. "You are too valuable to me to throw away for the sake of some spoiled buck-toothed jaded prince. Soon he will leave this veil of tears, as well the rest of his family and entourage. Nothing can save him. Not even you." Seeing the defiance in her eyes threaten wilt ever slightly with realization, Alexander shook his head, playing a charade of sympathy. "But if it will give you closure, here!" He tossed the feather out to her, "say your goodbyes to your soon to be dearly departed swan prince. At midnight you will see him." He stood up, smoothing out his shirt as he did so. "But I grow weary of this conversation. There are other matters to attend to," he said with a wave of his hand dismissively. "Make yourself at home, you won't be leaving this place until you dance to my tune."

Turning sharply on his heels, he stormed out of the room, the sound of the door locking soon after. Felicia was left trapped within the room with only her thoughts and the feather on the floor. With a slow determination, she leapt to her feet and picked up the feather, clutching it tightly in her hand. She had to get to find Bucky before it was too late.

An exhaustive onrush of unwarranted grogginess sleepily deadened his feathery mass against the slushier reeds that pinchingly grazed over the arcing length of his twitching wings, groaningly, Bucky registered a cushier-pillow-like-toastiness against his curvaceous girth as the doughier roundity of intrusive proximity bloatedly squished over his ruffled plumage. The odorous vapours of briny feathers reekingly entrenched him, while nasally snoring vexatiously deafened his tinier ear-holes akin to a revving engine."Urgh...What is that smell..." he rasped in slurrish pitch, grumpily, easing his razored bill up with conscious traction of his longish-svelter neck that alarmingly jutted against rotund bulginess of a blimpish nest-mate. "W-Woah..." Reactively, he flitted his dilated blackish-sapphire depths onto the slumbering-obese water-bird cozily snuggling against him. "S'not happenin'..."

With a grunt of effort, he shimmied his feathery body out of the snug embrace of the sleeping goose. Alexi's eyes fluttered open briefly before he dismissively rolled over and went back to whatever the bird-equivalent of snoring was. The feathers on Bucky's neck ruffled as he sighed heavily, glancing around at darkness of the courtyard pond that was covered with mounds of untouched snow. He felt the chill of the late night temperature envelope him and he was loathe to admit it, but the goose had provided some unintentional warmth as they slept. "Yeah, s'not happenin' again. I'd rather freeze," he recoiled at the smell of the fat bird and wanted to avoid it for awhile.

The crunch of snow beneath his webbed feet was loud through the still night. His eyes searched the towering trees that masked the horizon, and the stone sculptures that decorated the yard. There were worse places to be kept, but inwardly longed for the feeling of his cozy mattress and warm covers to comfort him as he slept. His wings twitched as if they had a mind of their own, an aching feeling to soar encompassed him. He toyed wtih the idea of doing what Alexi and Yelena mentioned and attempt to fly. It felt impossible, but something strange inside of him burned with hopefulness. Before he could attempt anything, he listened and reacted as the crunching sound of human foot-steps moved towards the pond.

"Who's there?!" He called, realizing but not caring how fruitless his honking might sound to human ears. He turned his neck, only to feel his heart leap into his throat as he saw the one face he'd been longing for most framed by a flowing cascade of silvery white locks.

Bracing herself with fractional hesitance invested with her cautious advances, riskily, Felicia caught a heart-stopping glimpse of an gorgeous ebony-feathered swan despondently waddling near the fringe of an ice-sheathed pond, the svelter bustiness of his curvier form exquisitely accentuated his longish-graceful neck that half-bent over his feathery roundity as he grounded his blackish webbed feet, moodily emitting grumpier honks while his razored bill snappishly jutted on defensive traction-obviously he was playing down the stubborn card. Gnawing on her plushier underlip, shakily, Felicia eased onto her denim-clad haunches, aware of his soured reaction to her. "Look, I don't know if you're Bucky..." she rasped, breathily, watching him twitchily rapt his tail-feathers, almost like shrugging her off. "I-I never meant for this to happen..." Evicting the unhampered apparitions of her cheap-out betrayal, tentatively, she grazed her lithe hand over a clumpier snow-mound, attempting to reach him. "If you can understand me...Please just look at me, Barnes..."

The swan stared at her with silent fixation. He understood her as clearly as if he were human, the vestiges of his former existence were still prevalent inside of his new form. The sight of Felicia should have brought him only comfort and relief by the knowledge that she was safe, that she hadn't suffered the same fate as himself. But those feelings were now mixed with a corroding anger and distrust as he contemplated her part in all of this. How much did she know and fail to mention? Why was she hear in the home of his captor free to walk the grounds as if she owned them? Was she...was she together with him? The thought of that was like a knife to his stomach and Bucky was almost afraid to find out what could be a bitter truth. His silence and deep staring must've been telling enough as Felicia reached out to touch him.

Bucky recoiled before she could touch him, his wings flapping rhythmically as if he were defending himself. "Did you know, Felicia?" He asked, a fair drip of accusation in his voice, "Did you know what was going to happen to me and my family?" He didn't know if she could understand him, but the way she clutched a black feather in her hands made her tense up and inhaled deeply, eyes widening with recognition.

The murmurous gravelliness of his suave-timbered drawl anguishedly knifed against her traitorous heart as he jutted his sleekier head against the reeds, aggressively yanking a mouthful with destructive-breakneck momentum, scowlingly lasering the frostier intensity of his beadier whitish-sapphire orbs at the discarded feather she gripped in her gloved hand-a damn token of heart-crippling betrayal. Attuned to his pent-up stubbornness, Felicia caressed his feathery wing as he tactlessly pecked on swampier reeds, huffily fostering a hinged modicum of resistance while he gulpingly swallowed the muddier seaweed-like grass. "S-Stop acting like a damn bird and just listen to me, Bucky..." she urged with a hitching breath, pressingly, as Bucky expressively eased his feathery head down, frustratedly, slapping his webbed feet onto the snowier ground-his fissionable anger-heartache didn't ebb. Inadvertently, Felicia pinched his feathery wing, jarring his vexatious resolve while he twisted his elongated neck against her sleeved arm. "Hey, you need to calm down...I didn't know that bastard's rigged game of using the mask..."

"But you are working with him?" He couldn't keep the anger out of his voice, the hurt and confusion behind it was palpable he was almost to overcome with emotion to force more words out. A heavy silence ensued before he pushed himself to continue. "Or are you with him? Gotta say, darlin', you sure can pick em." He knew he was a low-blow comment but he couldn't control the jealous feeling inside of him as his dark thoughts took hold in his vulnerable state where he believed the whole world had turned against him, that fate itself had decided to wrap him in a prison of misery while flaunting his heart's desire in front of him having been taken by the jailor that held the key to his freedom.

Mirroring the voltaic steeliness of his aqueous orbs that swelteringly misted alight with underlying rawness, Felica dragged out a tartish breath, gripping onto vestiges of receptive composure as the Brasov swan-prince jerkily thrust his lankier neck against the reeds on fiercer accord-red-hot surges of his revamped jealousy clashingly became incendiary-he wasn't holding back. Gutturally, he emitted a full-throated honk that squawkily caromed over the scenic pond, while he aggressively plucked at his feathery wing-he was irrevocably roped down into a backstabbing-grevious reality because she was demandingly forced to push him away. Nothing was tangible between them as the Eldritch infusion of the demented conjurer's morphic-sinsterous -witchery damningly exorcised the promise of connection-love. "Y-You think that cheap-faced sleaze owns me...?" she hissed out, irascibly, clenching her delicate-boned jaw with stonier tension edging over her alabaster-elfish features. "I'm not some pawn for him to control..." Feverently, she drove her leather-clad knuckles into the slushier ground with fisting pressure. "If you want the real truth, Bucky, you were never this kitten's target of interest at the party..."

"What's that supposed to mean?" The swan released an assertive honk. He ripped a reed out from the bushy nest, flappingly pivoting on his webbed feet to glare at her. "You vanished from my life for 10 years without contact, then you just happened to show up at the gala my parents were hosting. For what? Who the hell is this guy?" The questions he'd had since waking up in this pond had been stowed in his depressive state, but now that he was confronting the situation, he wanted answers more than anything. Seeing the apprehensive look on Felicia's face, he waddled closer to her and stared up at her. "Tell me..."

Hearing the choke-off honk sniffily fringing against his murmurous timbre, Felicia resigetered the saltier potency of his dampish ebony feathers -he tremorously hankered down onto his webbed-feet on defensive traction, hard-edged sharpness of his orangish bill uncontrollably jutted against her denim-clad knee as he fluffily tucked back his lissome neck into the pudginess of his feathery girth. A viscerous callback of teenage-driven brazenness thrillingly strummed through her veins, the addictive-decadent closeness of her snarky Romanian 'prince-charming' reactively made feverish rosiness contrast over the milky-white alabaster of her cheeks-she needed warn him. "I guess this girl owes you a good reason, huh, Barnes..." she breathed out, ruefully, glancing at the icier radiance of the pond he was enduringly leashed to nest against the snowy frigidness. "The bastard who gave you this feathery makeover is named Alexander Árbenz...He's a real killjoy who never stops taking what he wants by using occultic methods on his targets...Let's just say that witch-boy has a deranged fix with birds."

"Yeah, I think I picked up on that." The swan said, filled with dark angry thoughts brought on by frustration with both himself and the situation he'd found hismelf himself in. He should've listened to his gut instincts at the party when they told him that mystery man was bad news. Felicia's cold and callous description of him made wonder what she could possibly be doing with such a sadistic individual. Keeping his webbed feet rooted in a mound of snow, he craned his neck and turned it to the side, looking at her inquisitively. "What does he want? Why turn me, my whole family into this? What does Fisk have you both doing his dirty work?" His suspicion over what the New York kingpin might have to do hadn't wavered. In the years since he and Felicia had separated, he remembered on more than one occassion his parents talked about not wanting any of their interests allied with the man and those who partnered with him. Could that spurned action had blown back on them?

"I-I can't tell you right now..." Registering the predacious-stalkerish advances creepily worming near them on manic tempo, in earshot, with measured caution, Felicia shifted her dark-brandy ireses in the direction of Alexander's proximity as he caught a glimpse of a paper-bag maliciously gripped in his larger hand-obviously stagnant bread crumbs, tensely Bucky rapted the silkiness of his feathery- obsidian wings against the snowier ground on aggressive fruition. "You need to swim from his reach, Barnes..." she urged, breathily, caressing the swan-prince's feathered plumage with kiss-soft ministrations, coaxing him to stealthily waddle into the frigidiness of the water as she eased onto the spike-heels of her boots, steelily mirroring the insidious leech with a deviant smirk foxily playing over her full-bow lips. "Well, that was a disappointing chat with feathers over here..."

Alexander's cruel chuckle entered the courtyard as he sauntered over to the edge of the pond, tossing breadcrumbs into the water as he went. "Do not expect much from him anymore, my dear. His days of conversation, let alone charming the hearts of women, will soon over. He is but a mere addition to my flock soon to be forgotten." His eyes glinted with malicious amusement as he watched Bucky in his swan form awkwardly try to avoid them. "Looks like the little birdie is smarter than I gave him credit for," he taunted, "but not quite smart enough to outfox his new master." His smile grew as he watched the swan's graceful neck crane down to snatch up the crumbs, his hunger betraying his pride.

"They are all stubborn when they are turned, believing they can hold onto a shred of dignity that once made them human," he said, tossing more crumbs into the pond, and more to the point, onto the grumbling mass of the slumbering goose who debauchedly picked up a crumb in his mouth and ate in his sleep. "They all succumb sooner or later to their new instincts. Birds to be stuffed and plucked when their time comes."

Against the bleared mistiness of her vision, unmovingly, Felicia gazed at the soggier crumbs repulsively drifting around the enchantingly graceful swan-prince as he tactlessly pecked his orangish bill into the water on gluttonous abandon, slurping up a mouthful as teeming urges of slobbish hunger rampantly notched through his paunchier girth-he was detachedly grappled into a listless stupor. Thrusting his longish neck, Bucky dunked his sleekier head into the water, as instinctive urges stirringly glissaded through him at the second the yeasty scent of crumbs wafted underneath clusters of reeds. With the broadsided momentum of his flapping wings, he plunged deeper, snappishly, gulping down the mouldy bread-crust in the gorging wake of his untrammelled appetite-he was becoming an extension of Alexander's sordid delectation. Warding off the depth-charge impulse to viciously, sucker-punch Alexander into his lantern-edged jaw, blindingly, Felicia swiped her lithe hand at the crumb bag. "No...Stop it...Please..."

Her voice was desperate and pleading causing Alexander to pause and sneer at her. "Are we still playing this game? You still cannot let go of your feelings for him, can you?" He tossed more crumbs into the water, the bread saturating and turning the murky water darker. "It's a pity. I need you focused for the next task, and your sentimentality will only get in the way." Seeing the questioning look in her eyes, Alexander shrugged as he tossed the bag and crossed his arms at her. "There is still the matter of the royal purse. With the royal family missing, it is only a matter of time before their assets are seized by government officials. You know the ins and outs of their estate. You can get all that we need. Do this for me, my little swan-whisperer?"

There was a tense stand-off before the quiet was disturbed by the loud frantic honks of the swan who could no longer linger off to the side as he listened to the mage plot the theft of his family's fortune and assets.

As the virulent raspiness of his cavalier-timbred undertone arrestingly struck accord, Felicia resigtered the unadulterated urgency effusively tempoing within her veins-she wouldn't allow her charm-boy to irrevocably become a leashed commodity in the morphic dregs of that vulturous-leeching conjurer's soul-reaping witchery. The knifepoint betrayal of her deceptive-thievish stint at the Doge's Palace was unredeemable-King George had confidentially allied himself with an extension of deep-pocket cashflow from Sokovia for a military budget of stocking up on high-grade weaponry-a profitable safeguard countermeasures to ensure no political insurgence against his Brasov reign.

"You expect me to steal for you again..." Felicia questioned, bitingly, aware of the encrypted security codes of the reinforced vault within the Palace's throne room-a trip-wired hotspot of binary scanning designed by Stark Industries technology. A corruptive symmetry of an enterprised usurpation was positioning disposable rooks onto their rigged chessboard to dethrone the king-the Brasov royals were now feathery pawns- ransom-pegged in the crosshairs. With a devious smirk craftily quirking up her pillowy lips, she now had a card to play down. "Hmm...Don't tell me you're playing the sabotage decks with Sokovia's jerk-face Zemo, because that would make you get written on Baldy's naughty list..."

"T-That's whonk...He's after...My father's vault..." A full-throated honk ragingly vented out of Bucky as the heart-stunting revelation of his father's close-door summits with the Sokovian envoy-a taskmaster of Baron Helmut Zemo was staking down a bargaining chip for defensive-smokescreen contingencies against the globalized escalation of political trajectory-loyalists fringing the borders of Romania. Expressively, his silvery-aqueous orbs gleamed with anguished intensity against the slap-in-the-face validity that he was a convenient-effective pawn of his father's gambit of winning a hand over Sokovia-that every callback of his soldiery valour of being a battle-tested sergeant of the 107th infantry-the best damn sharpshooter that stealthily completed 'kill-shot' assignments-terminations on the military-grind of Petropavlovsk where he was branded with the deadlier moniker-Winter Soldier-a lethal-honed operative-phantasm- who complied to his King's targeted directives. Maybe that was the warranted reality of being sired for the birthright of wearing a crown-a prince was an expandable hatchling that nested under his father's overbearing shadow and could never soar to the heights of his freedom-dreams. "Arghonk...I got these damn feathers because my father made a deal with Sokovia...Son of a...Honk!"

Alexander's eyes glinted with satisfaction at the swan's reaction. "Indeed," he said, his smile widening into a sinister grin, "your father had quite the appetite for power. And like any good father, he was willing to sacrifice his son to satiate it. How poetic, really, that you should end up like this." He took a step closer to the pond, the breadcrumbs forgotten as he leaned down, his eyes locking onto Bucky's own. "But fear not, my dear prince. You will be more than a mere pawn in my game. By the time your usefulness has run its course...well, let's just say you will be commemorated in a very special way."

"Hraggonk..." Emitting an ear-piercing squawk, lividly, Bucky outstretched his feathery wings on defensive sync as he became driven by onrushes of unbridled fury; a reddish haziness fierily blotched his vision against the heart-vising urgency, he attempted to lunge strenuously at the Armani-clad occultist with aggressive-breakneck momentum explosively cannoning through his curvier form. Thrashingly, he jutted his razor-edged beak over the reeds, droplets of water freezingly rained over his scything wings as he glided onto the jagged rocks, his stubbier webbed feet draggingly slipped off with clumsier traction. "I'm not gonna let you get away with this," he warned, lashingly, growlier panty breaths raggedly erupted out from his longish neck. "T-The people of Romania will bring justice to you for these sick crimes against my family, bastard...!

"You can't stop me. No one can," Alexander chuckled as he slowly took steps away from the pond. Beyond him, Bucky had watched Felicia's reluctant departure that left a void heart. He saw the mutual anger and sadness in her doe-like eyes and knew that there was nothing she could do. Nothing but play along with the twisted hand that she had been dealt.

"Save your energy, Barnes. You'll be needing it," a clucking honk whispered to him with a Russian accent. Bucky glanced towards the nest and could see Alexei's bulbous form twitchily stirring from his rest, but the rotund goose made no effort to make himself obvious to their sinister captor. Despite his earlier indignation, Bucky found the goose's words to be an odd source of reassurance that he clung to as he watched the mage vanish from view.

He had to find a way to break this curse. To save Felicia-to save his family. He'd die if he had to.

{Flashback}

The prismic luminance of Crăciun (Christmas) twinkle lights vitreously adorned the grand hallway of the Romanian emissary building as shinier golden, red, and silver baubles were melded with scarlet ribbon loops of garland that ambiently draped over the banister railing of the marble stairway-a fantastical array of tradition-honed decor that contrasted with the dynastic emblem of his father's reign. Brandishing his gentlemanly poise of a well-mattered prince, fifteen-year-old- James Barnes nonchalantly strutted near the wide-ochre door- two uniformed sentries -doorman were stiffeningly grounded, deterring intrusive wonderers from advancing into the 'forbidden' area where an 'eighteen-foot' spruce-pine was stationed for the Christmas banquet with stuffy New York City liaisons-tycoons of prominent 'deal-making' industry. The promise of the American dream was a fallacy that emigres unremittingly aspired to obtain with foundations of wealthy conquest- opportunity- unswerving resistance against economic hardships-curveballs.

Evading the customary routine of being a groomed- tenacious- Romanian prince, stealthily, Bucky crouched on his Parda tailor-pressed haunches near the stairway, rascally lasering his grayish-aquamarine ireses onto the back door-a gateway of teenage curiosity of exploring the skyscraper labyrinth of traffic-clogged Manhattan. "O-Okay you can do this, Bucky..." he murmured under his breath, stammeringly, dragging his buck-tooth insciors decisively over his poutier underlip, as he registered the boot-thumping footsteps of his babysitter guard-Anton-maddeningly encroaching to his position. "Asta nu e bine (That's not good)..."

"Bună seara, înălțimea voastră (Good evening, your highness)..." With a semblance of attentive formality hawkishly brandished over his broader-edged features, the 'line-backer' sized guard-a retired sergeant of Forțele Armate Române-Romanian Armed Forces-quirked his chiselled lips into a cheekier smirk as he passively gazed down at the disgruntled suavely-baby-faced- teenager who risked a slapdash vanishing act from his eagle-eyed sight. Chucklingly, he eased down onto his clunkier tactical boots, as his bearish-like hand gripped heavily onto the black wool of the young prince's dapper long-coat the stylishly delineated for Bucky's alethic-honed rigidity. "Încercând să evadez din nou în oraș, văd (Trying to escape out into the city again, I see)..."

"Y'know it's kinda not fair...I only get to see New York behind the glass of a limo..." A brattish snarkiness offishly hitched in his whispery-roughed drawl as Bucky scowlingly eased to his measured height of 6' feet and vexatiously clutched onto a ribboned garland with his fisting hand, evident to a duck-pout that sulkily jutted his shapely-bow lips as he vented out his pent-up-backtalk frustration. Since his parents relocated to Brooklyn from the boiling-pot communism-revolts of insurrection that overran Romania against corruptive-genocidal tyrannizer who had every monarchial family blood-stamped on his ledger of vengeance, Bucky was enrolled in Stuyvesant High School, where he formed an inseparable brotherhood with a foolhardy runtish asthmatic who endured the 'hard knocks' of medical conditions but never gave up the fight. "My friend Stevie Rogers told me everyone likes skatin' around this huge..uh...Crăciun tree at the Rockefeller Center, but I can't go because I always need a damn babysitter watchin' my six every time I step outside..."

A particular sharp set of ears picked up his grumbling of discontent, which was followed by a rumbling chuckle. A heavy-set man in a tailored suit, built like a mountain of muscle gave him a friendly pat on the shoulder.

"It is not for your amusement that you are here," his bodyguard named Gregor said, his deep voice making him sound like a seasoned-bear. His steely-gray eyes were normally piercing but around his charge they appeared as soft as clouds to offer him comforting reassurance. "After this weekend you will have plenty of time to gallivant off like a normal boy. Enjoy the sights and chase girls. But not tonight, I'm afraid. Your parents just called. They have duties, important ones, that require them to be out longer than expected. They've instructed me to bring you home so you may resume your studies."

"Amenda(Fine)..." An underlying reluctance to dutifully comply with his father's deadbolted commands tamped against his murmurous drawl as he chalk-up the riotous urge to protestingly hammer-drive his fist into the wooden railing as his poutier shapely-bow lips quirked into starchier grimace. He refused to be chauffeured in the king-sized limo that was adorned with Romanian pennons on the hood for a royal entourage of NYPD cruisers to usher them against the congested traffic. Every night he was roped to the mundane duties of being uninterestingly tutored by a British NYU professor -Doctor Curt Conners who had a PHD jacket in medical-genetic- sciences. Keeping himself poised with a measure of his regal-princey tack, scowlingly, Bucky flashed his grayish-aquamarine ireses at his burly-girthed security detail and gave him a subtle nod. "For once can we just ditch the flags, Gregor..." he quipped, cockily, with a derisive nose-scunch, knowing that he would surely get a backhand from his father as discipline for his smart-mouthin' request. "I'll rip em' myself if you don't obey my command..."

"Your country's flags should be something you carry with pride, young James; not with annoyance. You know how your father would feel. Strongly enough that he would not begrudge me refusing such a command, even from you." The bodyguard said with faint amusement. Having grown used to the young prince's brat-like tendencies over the years, he carried enough patience not let his rude behavior afflict him. He understood the prince's desire for discretion in public, especially when his status prevented him from socializing with ordinary kids his age. Seeing the frown on his face, the bodyguard shrugged as he considered a compromise. "Tell you what, we'll ride in the follow-up vehicle. Inconspicuous SUV, new with a built-in gaming system. You'll love it." He chuckled. He received a call suddenly on his ear-piece radio, causing his friendly demeanour to become serious as he touched his ear. "Go on? What do you mean there is a roadblock? Find us a clear route."

With a rascally glint in the cool steeliness of his aquamarine depths, toothily, Bucky quirked his shapely-wide lips into a puckish smirk as he listened to Gregor's tight-clipped frustration with the NYPD patrol entourage, baiting out a shakier breath, edgily, he glanced in the vacant direction of the staff-public- washroom-a convenient distraction to sneakily evade his stern-faced bodyguard. "Uh...I gotta use the bathroom..." he whispered in a threadier pitch, sheepishly, feigning a strained grimace over the knife-edged angularity of his boyish features as if he effectively rehearsed his jerky urgency and dragged his slightly buck-teeth pinchingly over his jutting underlip. "Ooh...C'mon, Gregor, I can't hold it..." he piped out, doggedly, rapting his polished shoe onto the granite flooring. "Yeah...Maybe havin' a big gulp wasn't the best choice..."

Gregor's attention was divided between the urgent request of the young prince and the dispatch coming through the call he was connected to. Seeing the pleading look in James' eyes he shrugged, "make it quick, my prince. We are set to depart at any minute now." He said. Immediately he was drawn back into the call, barking orders to the forward convoy to make sure their new route would be safe. Bucky nodded and briskly rushed towards the restroom of the nearby coffee shop.

Once inside, the Romanian Prince quickly scanned the room, ensuring no one was watching, before making his way to the back exit. The cold December air hit him in the face as he stepped into a draft out into the alley. The city was bright with gray clouds hovering overhead. Bucky could see the beginning of flurries coming down. His heart raced, anticipating Gregor coming up behind him at any minute to snatch him up like a big lumbering orc. He had to disguise himself somehow. He watched a movie with Steve a few weeks ago and an idea came to mind as he spotted what looked like a homeless teenager next to a dumpster.

"Hey, you!" He called to the kid who looked at him confusedly. Bucky took off his warm jacket adorned with the royal crest. He approached the street-kid who was shivering in the cold, huddled in a torn jacket. Bucky held out the warm garment to him. "Take this, it's yours," he said, his voice low and earnest.

The street-kid's eyes grew wide at the sight of the well-tailored coat. "For what?" He asked with distrust in his eyes, believing there was some kind of string attached.

"Your jacket," Bucky replied, pointing at the tattered garment. "Let's just say someone might be looking for me."

The boy looked skeptical for a moment before shrugging and trading his thin jacket for the warm, expensive one. "Whatever you say."

Bucky pulled out a $100 dollar bill and stuffed it into the pocket, winking at the bewildered kid. "Go to the arcade or somethin', just hurry and go." He said. No sooner had he said this did the backdoor to the coffee-shop burst open. An employee quivered as the towering frame of Gregor stepped outside, shouting for the prince with frantic eyes searching the area.

The homeless kid ran off in one direction while in the other direction a casually-dressed teen strode across into the open without a care in the world, intermingling with the normal everyday citizens of Manhatten as he took to the streets. The taste of freedom on his lips was accompanied by the beat of excitement in his chest as he easily became lost in the sea of people while Gregor and the security team gave chase in an opposite direction in search of the missing prince. Bucky grinned to himself, skipping and twirling in a shuffling dance as he made his way towards a cab-stand.

A cab picked up the teen moments later. "Coney Island, please." Bucky said, feeling his day would only get better from here on out.

Gripping onto the metallic handle of his walking stick, cautiously, Matthew Murdock braced his leather-garbed back against the iron-gates of a shutdown Coney Island, his foppish auburn-brunette tresses shaggily clung askew over his bruised temple as he readily grounded threadbare sneakers with measured footing, aware of the seismic vibrations of gridlock traffic-the vaporous fumes of gasoline smoggily wafting from exhaust-pipes of taxi-cabs-the electrified frequency of power-lines above him-cacophonic symphony that deafeningly amplified with the palpitations of his rampant heartbeat. Slanted onto the prow of his chiselled nose, reddish lens sunglasses concealed the dilated vacantness of his wide-blown pupils as his vision burningly strobed with red-hot fireiness.

Every conscious reaction was viscerally measured with a pulse as he splayed his gloved fingers over the roughness of a wooden planked fence that hemmed the boardwalk amusement park with tattered posters of the Cyclone rollercoaster, Matthew kept himself poised over the slushier ground on the unmoveable steadiness of ninja-style graces. It wasn't an easy feat for a fifteen-year-old to master, he relied on the elements of the city to guide him, using callback vestiges of memory and his enhanced hearing to bravely step out of the door of Clinton Church while harnessing onto hope-driven faith of surviving another day in the slummier-mayhem-infested borough of Hell's Kitchen.

Being a modest-hearted Chalothic boy-a blinded orphan-Matthew faltered on his spearheaded path of virtue by following a gorgeous-sassier Midtown High cheerleader-Felicia Hardy-who used her acrobatic-thievish calibre for 'rule-breaking' kicks. Despite masquerading like a stray kitten, she was vexatiously grappled into the popular crowd of divalike 'mean girls' since her mother stone-faced Anastasia was a first-class businesswoman- charitable emissary for the imperious dreadnaught of snowballing enterprise-Wilson Fisk. "T-This is going to get us in big trouble with the law..." he murmured, hushedly, tilting his broader jaw at the vibrations of tires draggingly rolling onto the icier pavement. "There's a car...probably a taxi coming near the curb side...Keep yourself hidden, Felicia..."

The taxi pulled up to the desolate amusement park that looked as lifeless as a graveyard. Bucky's heart sank with realization as he paid the driver and stepped out into the biting cold air. "No no no no," the youth mumbled as he rushed towards the gate. The wind whipped around him, the cold barely registering as his small hands seized the metal links and pulled at them with frustration. "Come on!" He grunted with frustration. The metal was as unyielding as the reality of the park being shut-down. The sign on the fence read "Closed for Maintenance", the message taunting Bucky with the cruel irony that his efforts to escape his security detail had all been in vain. "Just my luck!" He growled, kicking the fence with his good shoe. He gazed beyond the metal barrier towards the towering rides and concession stands. This was his first time here. His friend Steve had mentioned it to him with such vivid detail, Bucky could almost imagine the flocks of people moving about having fun.

The howling wind whistled in his ears. He thought for a moment he could hear the distant laughter and music that was absent. With a heavy sigh, he surveyed the closed gates and the padlocks that held them firmly in place. "There's gotta be way in."

If he couldn't ride the Ferris Wheel, at least he could get a closer look at it. There was a gap in the fence nearby. Too small for an adult, but someone of his size and stature could squeeze through. As he tested the fence's durability, he prepared himself to slip through the gap, when he was distracted by the sound of a voice creeping up on him.

"The gates are closed, pal...I can't see the sign but the chains will keep you out..." As his whitish breath gustily smoked over his chiseled-plushier lips, nonchalantly, Matthew rapted his walking stick a breadth at the runaway prince, scrunching his nose against greasier odorous-banana peel scent of dumpster trash ripely saturating the material of Bucky's ratty coat as he brandished a placid demeanour over his hard-edged features. He wouldn't discard a free-hand of Christmas spirit to a 'down-in-the dumps' teenager who maybe took a cheapshot with a thuggish gangbanger."Look, my friend and I aren't here to start trouble, we just want to enjoy Christmas fun over the fence..." he smirked, cheekily, grazing his leather-sheathed palm brushingly over the clunkier padlock while detecting Bucky's jack-up apprehensiveness fervently strumming through his veins."If you want to join us for a free ride, you'll have to keep up, kid..."

"You've got a light-step," Bucky commented, wary and a little unnerved by the kid who just snuck up on him like some kind of shadow. He didn't look much older than himself, but he spoke and carried himself as if he were an older person. Bucky's first inclination was to brush him off and just proceed to head inside the way he'd intended, but once he realized the kid was wearing heavy shades with red-tinted lenses, he became curious. Then he noticed the walking stick and he felt suddenly sympathetic but also confused. How was the blind-kid gonna get in without help? "What do you mean keep up? How else are you gonna get in-"

But the words barely left his mouth when he watched the blind-kid drop his walking stick, then without missing a beat, he launched himself at the fence. The sight was surreal as the teenager began to scale it with a cat-like grace that seemed impossible for someone who was supposed to be blind. His movements were swift, sure, and silent. Bucky's jaw fell slightly in amazement as the kid threw himself over the top and scaled down before landing gracefully on his feet. "Whoa..." He couldn't help but say, despite himself.

The blind-kid reached down and stuck his hand between the links, searching before finding his stick. The sound of snow crunched under his feet as he straightened himself and flashed a smile in the direction he assumed Bucky to be standing. "Aren't you blind? How did you do that?" Bucky called, approaching the fence. The blind-boy said nothing as he merely inclined his head, gesturing for Bucky to "keep up".

"Guess I'm goin' up. Better not get me killed," he grumbled as he found his foot against the steel-links and began to pull his weight up. He was annoyed to admit he had trouble getting himself up, his pudgy weight flabbily sagging beneath the hem of his shirt that pulled out of his pants. He needed to lay off of the junk-food and exercise like his mom would tell him. Once he made it over, he all but keeled over as he panted for breath. "Okay, that sucked," he grumbled, tucking his hands into his sleeves. "Hey wait up!" He called to the blind-kid, seeing him heading further into the park. He raced after him to keep up.

As gossamer flurries wispily powdered over the glossiness of the lacquered-white Frissan horse that was the frontal attraction of the B&B Carousell-vibrant motifs of golden and turquoise roses were intricately painted on the ebony paint of craved mane as the horse's prancing stance was grounded with brass-spiral-groove pole mechanically fused over the decorative-batwing saddle. The motorized carousel had become a whimsical escape from the back-breaking hardships of the deadlocked reality of the economic bust that infectiously ravaged the Tri-State bourghs. Evading her mother's charity benefit gala that was stacked with donations for the construction of a tenant projection in Hell's Kitchen, brazenly she hopped the lockdown parkland fence to ride switch-on the carousel.

Gripping onto the whirly pole, deftly, Felicia, splayed her lithe palm over the sleekier curvature of the wooden stallion as her whitish-platinum whorls tousledly were snugged underneath a black knitted hat cascading over delicate-bone litheness of her leather-garbed shoulder as she brazenly poised the shapelier exquisiteness of her curvaceous form onto the wooden ramp, fixedly, her autumn-brandy ireses shifted onto the padlocked gates of the darkened entranceway, naughtily searching for her vison-impaired lookout-partner. Impishly, quirking her burgundy pillowy-bow lips into a devious smirk, balletically, Felicia hopped onto the bulkier carousel stallion with feline-like-slinkier graces as the whitish sconces of the park light alluringly kissed over milkier-white suppleness of her elfish features-she was a vixen incarnate. "Where did you go, church-boy..." she purred in a melodic undertone, breathily, gliding her sleeve up to glance at the Catrier diamond-studded watch she thievishly swiped from her mother's splurgy jewelry collection. "Well, I guess curfew hours will be a hard pass..."

Bucky's heart was racing as he followed the blind-kid's footsteps crunching through the snow. "Do you even know where you're walking?" Bucky called to him, seeing the kid moving with a fast-pace forward with his walking stick tapping the snow-covered ground they walked across. Bucky's attention was faintly drawn to the fliers and ads for upcoming attractions, staring at the closed concession stands that had their shutters drawn down. He could only imagine how busy it would be on a business day.

"A friend of mine is straight ahead. You can't miss her," the blind-kid responded.

"Who?" Bucky wondered curiously. His gaze whipped in the direction ahead, wondering if perhaps the boy had an older guardian of sorts to look after him, as unlikely as it seemed, the boy didn't seem to need much help finding his way around. Bucky's gaze landed on the Merry-Go-Round ahead where he saw the shape of a girl moving about with her back turned. She looked small yet curvy enough to captivate him. He heard her voice call out, mentioning the name "Matt,". Was that the blind-kid's name?

"I found someone looking for a good time like we are," Matt responded to her with a raised voice. As they drew closer, that was when the girl turned around to face them. Bucky nearly froze in his tracks, his heart leaping as if he had been struck by a thunderbolt. The girl was so beautiful it almost hurt. She was dressed in warm clothes that clung to her maturing figure, her silvery white locks were radiant in this desolate gray wintry landscape. Her brandy eyes sparkled with mischief and a hint of danger. He had never seen anyone like her before. He felt a strange jolting in his chest, a mix of fear and excitement.

She looked over at him, and their eyes met. It almost felt like the world around them melted away, and all that was left was the sound of the whistling wind. "H-Hi..." He said, feeling mildly awkward and suddenly self-conscious of himself as he tugged on his torn jacket that only an hour ago belonged to a homeless kid. He must look like a bum to her.

As the stammering gravelliness of his Romanian-accented timbre murmurously hitched with boyish trepidation, stuntedly, Felicia arched her whitish eyebrow as she incredulously gazed at the baby-faced teenager swaggeringly advancing onto the ramp of the carousel with the 'prince-charming' tack of measured distance with her. Unabashedly a rosiness flushed over the chipmunk pudginess of his suaver hard-edged cheekbones, evident to his rubied shapely-bow lips as his heavier dimple-notched chin pudgily jutted against the frayed collar of his shabby jacket.

"I like your style..." she quipped, teasingly, mirroring the mesmeric steeliness of his gray-aquamarine ireses that smoulderingly gleamed like cool sapphire against the fringe of his darkish eyelashes as his tongue unconsciously jutted against the toothier overbite of his buck-teeth when he poutily half-smirked. Coquettishly, Felicia whirled onto her thermal boots with kittenish graces, aware of the charm-boy's teeming reluctance as he dorkily stuffed his tremorous hands into the frumpish coat's pockets, waggishly feigning a brattish scrunch of his Romaniansqe nose. "Usually I don't allow weird boys on my playground, but since you didn't make fun of my friend...I guess you're a lucky exception..."

Bucky felt his cheeks reddening as he met her gaze. Something about her stare was deep and unyielding, lacking the timorous strength he was used to seeing by girls at school who often fell into a blushing mess. This mystery girl looked coy and confident; definitely not an average girl that could be easily impressed. "Thanks," he replied, trying to play it cool. He glanced over at the blind-kid who had stopped a few paces behind, leaning casually on his walking stick with a knowing smirk playing across his face. "I'm Bucky," he offered, hoping it didn't sound as forced as it felt. He didn't think they would know who he really was and Bucky felt encouraged to keep his royal status a secret, if only to see how they'd treat him as a normal kid. "Guessing you're "Matt"? He asked the blind-kid who nodded."

"Matt Murdoch, right out of Hells Kitchen," the boy answered. Bucky blinked with surprise, having heard what a rough borough that place was in New York. Flicking his gaze on the white-haired girl in front of him, Bucky let his cool smile play out across his face.

"How about you? Does the pretty girl have a name? Let me guess: Princess Leia?" He flirted, testing the waters. For a moment he felt dread in his stomach as he saw the furtive glance shared between Matt and Felicia that made him wonder if he misjudged the situation. What if they were boyfriend and girlfriend? That dread turned to a stab of disappointment.

"Are you always this charming, Sky-boy..." A brassier snarkiness jauntily tamped in her melodic undertone, offishly she played down the hard-to-get- card, gripping her lithe fingers over the whirled pole. The boyish sweetness of his toothier smirk rascally kicked up his pouty-bow lips as she brusquely glanced at the ratty material of his jacket that cannily gave him the rebellious style of a Tatoonie drifter. With a vixenish gleam naughtily alight within her doe-like brandy ireses, Felicia knew how to balance on the common ground of his flirtatious tack of being a Star Wars buff-her rhino-like godfather Wilson Fisk was like an Imperial: Grand Moff-a prominent contributor of dealing with political alliances to secure financial gain in Hell's Kitchen. Caught in the evocative rush of mirrored-teenage attraction, kittenishly, Felicia quirked the luscious crimson of her pillowy into a devious smirk as she craftily glanced at the mechanical box with a lever at the center of the merry-go-round. ""Hmm..Tell you what, charm-boy, if you can switch on this ride, maybe I'll give you my name for keeps..."

He could see the challenge in her eyes with a bit of mischief. Bucky smirked, feeling this was a chance to prove himself and impress her. "Don't worry, I've got this," he assured her. He'd taken a few lessons on engineering in school that taught him the basics of machinery. Advanced stuff that went way over his head, but being a son of the royal family, he was expected to catch on ahead of normal kids his age. He hoped at least some of that knowledge had stuck. He knew the merry-go-round's power supply was fed through a breaker box somewhere nearby. "Follow the power conduit," he murmured to himself as he stepped away from the carousel, his eyes scanning the ground.

Matt followed him, leaning close to discreetly whisper towards him. "You sure you know what you're doing, Bucky?" He asked with a touch of concern if not amusement. He knew what the other kid was up to and he was half tempted to urge him that he could try to impress Felicia in other ways that wouldn't be hazardous to his health.

Bucky took a deep breath, trying to steady his racing heart. "I think so," he whispered back, trying to sound more confident than he felt. "How hard can it be? It's just a switch, right?"

The blind-kid nodded, a knowing smile playing on his lips. "Just don't electrocute yourself, alright?"

Bucky chuckled dryly as he turned his gaze back to the task at hand. He spotted the power conduit, a thick cable leading from breaker box to the carousel and followed it. His hand reached out to the metal box, feeling the coldness of it against his palm. He paused for a moment, his heart thudding in his chest before he flipped the switch.

The merry-go-round sprang to life with a gentle whirl, the painted horses rising and falling to the tune of a carnival melody that filled the cold air. The lights flickered on, casting a warm glow over the trio, and for a moment, the desolate amusement park felt alive again. Bucky released a laugh of both relief and success. "Got it!" He high-fived Matt who had a hard time figuring out where Bucky's hand was.

As live-wire currents of voltage strummed over the array of glass bulbs above her, dazzlingly, golden sconces burnished over her platinum-whitish cascades, Felicia angled her delicate-boned jaw with a breathless rush of untampered joy against the instrumental melody of Carousel Waltz that whimsically became in sync with the mechanized prancing of the horses. "Impressive..." she murmured, breathily, easing her svelte form onto the white-painted stallion with feline-like precision as she readily straddled her curvier denim-clad thighs onto the wooden saddle, roving her darkish-brandy ireses at Bucky who swaggeringly edged closer with hunky-suaver prowess as he unabashedly snorted out a throatier chuckle when Matthew cheekily whispered in his ear-typical boys. "Hey, you guys want to come up here before we get caught?" she prompted, coaxingly, gesturing her gloved hand at the lacquered black stallion with intricate designs of red stars on the carved mane. "Don't be shy, Charm-Boy..."

With a grin, Bucky hopped onto the carousel horse next to her. The surface felt cold and smooth under his hands but the ceiling offered minimal protection from the chilling winds. The ride began to spin, the gears and winds grew louder as they picked up speed. Bucky shuddered as the cold wind hit him and for a moment he missed the warmth of his coat he had handed-off to that homeless kid. "Hold tight," he yelled out to Matt over the wind, seeing the blind-kid had taken a seat on another horse close-by. The boy had a big smile on his face, seeming fearless despite his impaired state. Bucky watched as Felicia's platinum hair fluttered around her, creating a halo around her pretty face that made him stare with wonder. The smile on her face was entrancing as she took a moment to savor the speed and splendor before her gaze landed on him.

Bucky gulped but tried to play it cool. "So uh, you come here often?" He tried weakly, "What does a cool girl like you do when you're not sneaking into fun-parks?"

The murmurous velvetiness of his contralto drawl entrancingly ghosted through her veins in that heart-thumping moment she gazed evasively over her lithe shoulder at his kissable shapely-bow lips puckishly quirking into a flirtier smirk, playfully evident to a waggish rapt of his eyebrows. "I just maybe like breaking a few rules..." Felicia answered, coyly, hemming up her sleeve to deviously reveal the starlight diamond-studded Cartier watch that was her mother's socialite-influencer accessory. Her mother- was a thirsty barracuda who cunningly latched onto the wealthier-political donors of her charity stints, using a good face to earn applaudable credit for revamping the infested slum-holes of Hell's Kitchen. "I never get caught...Especially from my stick-ass mother who only looks in the mirror instead of at me..." she played off in a breathier pitch, trenchantly, glancing at his dimpled-chin pudgily jutting against the frayed collar of his threadbare jacket, he wasn't prepared for the bone-shunting iciness of the Hudson River freezingly entrenching the boardwalk parkland. "I guess you're not used to being on the street..."

"I guess you can say I'm workin' on it," he gave a flustered laugh that felt forced. "My parents are bit overbearing. I don't get to be a free-spirit often. Sneaking out here wasn't what I'd planned," Bucky admitted, his voice carrying a tint of embarrassment. He felt the urge to tell her the truth, that he wasn't just some random kid, but the crown prince of Romania. Yet, the words stuck in his throat. After hearing what she thought about her mother, he guessed she didn't have a very high-opinion towards high-society. "But I saw an opportunity so I ran with it."

Their conversation continued to flow as they rode the Merry-Go-Round a few more times. They exchanged stories about antics at school, about their favorite movies and ongoing tv shows. Once Bucky realized she enjoyed Star Wars about as much as she did, he felt enamored in a way he couldn't begin to describe. Matt for his part listened in on them, wondering to himself when the two of them would realize just how closer they'd drifted as they sat next to each other on the edge of the carousel, the heat of their shoulders rubbing against one another helping them to combat the cold as they talked.

Despite the chilly air, Bucky felt warmth blossom in his chest that he hadn't felt in a long time. Felicia was different from the girls at the boarding school. She was fiery, genuine and full of spirit that made him want to soar to greater heights with her. He stared at her through the corner of his eye as she bit on her bottom lip. He stared at bit too long, his boyish thoughts drifting towards something that before today would have felt "gross" to him. He'd never thought of kissing a girl before. Why did this experience feel so different?

He felt a nudge against his shoulder and blinked, realizing Felicia had said something to him. "Um, what was that you said?" He asked a bit nervously.

"Do you always get this close...? Felicia teased, purringly, captured into the snugged heaviness of his athletic-honed form on wonderous tenor as the carousel lights dizzily became a kaleidoscope against her feverish vision. His boyish shyness intensified at the second, Bucky gulpingly readied himself to shakily edge his poutier lips over the sleekier underside of her jaw. She couldn't ward off the alarming sensations that implosively struck a cord through her veins, duelling against her pulse as she became aware of the underlying fervency-the rush of irresistible heat of tantalizingly being so close to him; the muscled rigidity of his tauter-corded arms hesitantly braced over her lissome back while she gripped onto the mechanized whirly pole, doing her utmost not to convey the girlish vulnerability of a sirenic beckon. Thuddingly, Felica dragged over a shivery breath that icily racked her throat, while his smooth fingers brushingly caressed her daintier hand with feather-soft pressure as if every curvature was delicate porcelain-so trustingly addictive. "Felicia...My name is Felicia..." she rasped on flirtier abandon, hushedly.

"Felicia..." He said, testing her name on his tongue, and the very sound of it causing something warm and fuzzy to blossom in his chest that he couldn't explain. "I...like it...and I think I like you too," he admitted, feeling his cheeks turned red. The softness of her smile caused his heart to flutter and he felt himself drawn into a trance he couldn't pull himself out of as he gazed into her eyes. The world around them seemed to fade away as they leaned closer, their cool breaths billowing on the wind caressed each other's chins. Bucky had never kissed a girl before, not really. But just as it seemed his luck was about to reward him with this first experience, Matt's voice broke through tension as he called from nearby.

"Sorry to interrupt, but I think we've got company," he said urgently.

Bucky's stomach sank as he pulled back from Felicia, his mind racing with dread as he heard the sound of police sirens and roaring engines of a motorcade. "Damn it, they found me..." He whispered, his voice tight with dread.

"Who..." A breathless gasp threaded up her throat, blearily, Felicia whipped her gaze at the strobing flashes of red that beamingly contrasted the parkland gates as twined NYPD patrol motorcycles were intimidatingly stationed at a breadth of a matte-black limousine that was decked with the Romanian flags on the hood-a royal entourage. It was like they crossed a threshold of a forbidden reality. Answering the high-adrenaline surge of being caught in the headlights like a spooked kitten, blindingly, Felicia gripped onto his frayed collar on an evocative-headier rush, listening to Bucky noncommittally resonate a throatier 'whoah' as the savorous mintiness of his panty breaths hitched against her pillowy lips. An impulsive urgency swept through her against restrictions of girlish modesty as he frustratingly jutted his poutier underlip, fully aware of his 'pick-up' escort.

"W-Wait...You're that Romanian prince I hear about..." she whispered against the heavier roundness of his dimpled chin, breathily while being avidly floored by the sensuous maelstrom she was rebelliously careened into as Bucky moaningly streched his shapely-bow lips agape with melding pressure of dampish heat on steamier accord, hottishly capturing her volumiously cherry-gloss underlip with ardent-gloried hunger intensifyingly coupling an opened-mouth kiss as he gripped on the curviness of her sleekier back, hunkily angling the bulkier solidity of his tauten chest against the cushiony-suppleness of her breasts, while dizzyingly falling onto the mechanized ramp, evading the high-beam flashlight that his quarterback-sized bodyguard vexatiously clutched at the opened gates with a disapproving scowl broodily edged over his rugged features.

"I-I was gonna tell you before I-" Bucky was torn between so many emotions. The panic-stricken 15 year old shifted his stare between the fence with alarm and frustration over being discovered but also a desperate eagerness to hold onto this moment with Felicia just a moment longer. He tried to explain himself, hoping she didn't resent him for hiding who he was. He felt her fingers caress his cheek and that was when he felt all sense of self-control snap inside of him as he decided to steal the moment back.

He leaned in and kissed her fully, his lips brushing against hers in a soft tentative touch that sent his heart-racing. The warmth that had blossomed in his chest seemed to burst like fireworks causing everything to flutter uncontrollably. Her lips were softer than pillows and sweet like candy, he froze up for a moment to absorb the feeling-the meaning of it. His first real kiss. The gentle urgency grew as he felt her fingers glide across his face and pulled him in as she responded in kind.

Matt didn't need eyes to see what his friend Felicia was doing, but his ears were enough to decipher the shortness of their breaths and the quickening of their heartbeats. He smirked at the moment, knowing he'd tease her over this later. But his worry over the creeping authorities hadn't wavered as he could see a big burly man in a suit pushing through the fence. "Felicia, I think we should go."

Bucky broke from the kiss, shaken as his cheeks were red with heat. He took a moment to savour the heat of Felicia's proximity, the flustered state of her angelic features and the softness of her eyes. "Y-You're a good kisser," he complimented. This was a moment he'd never forget and he felt heartbroken to think he may never see her again. "But Matt's right, you should probably go. They'll have questions..."

"Wait...I-I want to give you a Christmas gift..." Registering his trepidatious heartbeat of amplified panic as his vein-threaded hand desperately clutched onto her wrist despite his tactful readiness to drive his feverent paces in the direction of the parked limousine, hastily, gnawing on her kiss-swollen underlip, Felicia eased down her lithe hand with a quick-handed swipe into the pocket of her leathered jacket, gripping onto a crumbled napkin that had the printed Odeon restaurant logo, she inventively used a crimson lip-stick to scribble down her phone number and rampantly stuffed the napkin into his ratty coat's pocket. "Maybe I'll meet you under a mistletoe, Charm-Boy..." she whispered, huskily, watching his flushed shapely-bow lips toothily quirking into a dopier-appreciative smirk as she whirled on her thermal boots and stealthily vanished into the shadows of the parkland with Matthew attentively guiding her across the boardwalk with rapts of his walking stick.

Bucky watched her retreat into the night, his heart filled with excitement as he touched the folded napkin in his pocket. He couldn't believe she gave him her phone number! Maybe he would see her again after all?! His youthful enthusiasm blossomed into a big grin the likes of which he had never expressed before.

But reality crashed back down as he heard the crunching of snow and soon the gruff voice of Gregor, his bodyguard, calling out to him. "Your Royal Highness. Fun time is over. It is time to leave," Gregor said, his voice stern and unyielding. The look on his face revealed his mild disapproval but it was his eyes that showed the depth of his remorse. Bucky wasn't sure about what. Interrupting his fun? The answer became apparent when Gregor inclined his head towards the limo where someone stood outside. "Your father is waiting for you."

Bucky felt his shoulders slump and his heart race with a different feeling now: panic. His shocked gaze landed on Gregor, hoping he wasn't serious, but the old bodyguard's face was a stony mask of stoicism. For his father to come to collect him personally away from his business engagement...Bucky knew he'd messed up. He said nothing as followed Gregor towards the limo. His father, King George stood looking down on him with clear disappointment.

His father shrugged as he opened the door and ushered him inside. Bucky knew his punishment would come when he got home. The snow continuing to fall and paint the roads white with their numbing cold as Bucky watched the scenery pass by.

But the folded napkin in his pocket kept him warm with the thought he'd see her again. Hopefully in time for Christmas.

Against the frigid-hypothermic iciness of the blizzardy squalls that penetratingly knifed against her fluffier yellowish plumage, chirpily, Yelena latched her tinier feet over a flimsy branch that negligently swayed underneath her pudgy-girthed form as she roved her beadier greenish-hazel orbs at gossamer snowflakes glitteringly cascading over the barren environs of the castle-like manor. "Urgh...Worse cold ever..." she rasped in a huskier pitch, snarkily, tucking her feathery head into the silken delicateness of her blackish-stripped wings. "Nuzhny boleye tolstyye per'ya(Need thicker feathers)..." With pent-up readiness, determinedly, Yelena eased up her quivery wing, catching a gustier updraft that would soaringly glide her to Alexi's messier-gross nest. "O-Okay...Ready for lift-off..." Unlatching the clamped pressure of her feet, inadvertently, she flapped her wings against the flurries, only to become blurrily tossed around like a deflating balloon as she crashingly plunked into the frigid water. "Ahhh...That's cold..." she piped out with beak-chattering hitches, and thrashed her wings splashingly closer to a jagged stone. "A-Alexi-Dad...Pomoshch'(Help)..."

Keeping her smallish head frantically braced against the depths against heart-racking desperation, Yelena felt herself being grippingly dragged with exhaustive strain, a whooshing rush of glacial water slashed against her pudgier form as she fervidly gazed at twined ebony-feathered wings that embracingly scooped her up with tentative precision instinctively nestled into the cozier velvetiness of the swan-prince's cradling wings. The visceral receptiveness of trust increasingly duelled against her warring heartbeat while snuggling deeper into his curved wings. Angling his longish neck, Bucky gently nudged his bill with brotherly-soft pressure over her drenched form as he tactfully eased her out of the water. "Hang on, I got you, Yelena..." he murmured, raspily, propelling his webbed-feet near the slushier ground where the obese-butterball Russian goose plumpishly squatted over a heap of dried reeds on grouchier tenor. "Alexi...!" A trumpet-like honk gratingly blared out of his throat as he stiltedly watched Alexi lumberingly waddle to his position. "S-She needs heat...Now!"

"Yelena...Needs me...Hold on!" In an earshot, huffily, Alexi drove his bulbous-girthed rotundness saggily against the frigid ground as he rackingly outstretched his fraying wings to reach his adopted daughter, his fissionable-underlying vulnerability exponentially whipsawing against the hammer-pulse of his thumping heartbeat. "B-Bring her to me..." he urged, breathlessly, watching the swan-prince deftly carry the precious canary-sized bird within the velvety embrace of his larger wings. "That's a good fancy bird...Uh...I mean prince..." he commended, gruffily, sidestepping on his wobblier traction as Bucky unfalteringly strutted with regal-honed waddling towards his oversized nest, and delicately lowered her shivery form into the gnarly reeds.

With a surprisingly graceful flap of his wings, Bucky gently placed Yelena into Alexi's waiting embrace. The goose's eyes were gleaming with a fierce protectiveness that Bucky found to be very human. It surprised him, to be able to see past the feathery visages they all wear now and recognize what lay beneath. He watched as Alexi's feathers fluffed out and the heat from his body began to warm Yelena's shivering form. The smaller bird visibly shook, her beady eyes blinking as she huddled closer to the larger bird. It was both heartwarming and heartbreaking.

"Will she be all right?" Bucky asked Alexi with worry. His mind had been intently focused on keeping himself distracted from his darker thoughts of depression and more towards action. He wouldn't let his two mutual bird-companions suffer in their imprisonment.

"Yes. Th-Thank you, Bucky," Alexi murmured, his voice thick with emotion as he nestled the smaller bird closer to his ample chest, his own feathers ruffling against her. "You're a good man...Even in this..." He didn't need to finish the sentence for Bucky to understand what he meant. The swan-prince nodded solemnly as he watched them.

"I never asked. Is she your daughter?" He wondered aloud.

Hearing the gravelly scratchiness of his murmurous timbre, quakingly, Yelena eased up her laden wing as her darkish orbs beadily glanced into the expressive gleam of solemnity alight within his grayish-aqueous depths.."A-A loyal family is very complicated..." Yelena whispered, groaningly, pillowing her tinier form against the feathery doughiness of her surrogate father-Alexei Andreovitch Shostakov's girthier form. The Balkan swan-prince deserved a semblance of grounded trust for saving her. Being a spunk-hearted -deviant orphan-a expandable pawn who enduringly was given a chance of homebound relevancy in a residential Ohio neighbourhood where her adoptive family had been assigned by KBG splinter fraction of a Sleeper contingency conducted by a sadistic-murderous Soviet officer: Dreykov who had a butcherous tantamount of macabrely weaponizing orphaned girls-ballerinas- into kill-shot marionettes of deceptive-tactical seduction-espionage: the Widows. Now she was a defective pint-sized operative morphically chastened to an inescapable reality of being a feathery hostage of a verminous menagerie-gaggle. "Alexi is all I have left from the past...We survive together."

"Sem'ya...Vse li(Family is everything)..." Alexia honked in a jovial pitch, chucklingly, lowering her onto the dirtier twigs of his makeshift nest as he blobbishly squatted over her, infusing her with thermic heat that warmly radiated off his thicker plumage. Expressively, he quirked his flat-stubbed bill, wondrously resigtering the fluff-ball nuzzling as Yelena drowsily curled against his leathery-webbed feet. Tucking his wide-span wings tensely against the curvier rotundity of his feathery girth, downcastedly Bucky wrestled against the instinctive urges of abandonly shimming closer as the pacifying serenity of Alexi's nest coaxingly beckoned him like a warm bed. Detecting the swan-prince's chagrined restraint, Alexi slapped a wing with a chummier honk. "You know tomorrow will be Christmas Eve...Lots of good memories."

Bucky remained silent, his gaze drifting to the steady snowfall beyond the pond's banks. Christmas had been a sour topic for him since the day he lost Felicia. Every Christmas since then was one filled with emptiness, a harrowing reminder of all the warmth and joy that was missing from his life for nearly a decade. But he still remembered the last Christmas he'd spent with Felicia, where they had actually been together. The year before they parted ways; they had spent Christmas in Paris. The snow had been falling like a gentle blanket over the cobblestone streets of the city, the warm glow of the lamp-posts, and the sweet smell of her fragrance. They didn't need gifts nor festivities, they only needed each other.

"Most of my Christmas memories aren't good," Bucky finally murmured. "The recent ones anyway. They're filled with...regrets." His eyes searched Alexi's, looking for some semblance of understanding in the goose's gaze. "To me Christmas has only been an anniversary of the day I lost the person I love most. Remembering the fonder times doesn't come as easy as I'd like."

Hearing the sullen dourness of the swan-prince's whispery drawl, placatingly, Yelena hopped a breadth closer to him as she titled her fluffier head against the feathery bulginess of his plushier-curverous girth. Whitish glints of drifting snowflakes wispily twirled over the radiance of the pond like remnants of tinsel. Aware of Bucky's hard-pressed reluctance to welcome a tempered resurgence of the Christmas spirit, Yelena alarmingly perked her tinier wings against the salty potency of heated wetness drippily trekked off his razored bill dampening her yellowish-tanwy feathers. Sulkily, he tucked his longish neck deeper into his arching wings on moodier accord. "Christmas has always been real to me...Good or bad...It's something that I will always cherish even with these wings..." she chirped, hushedly, kneading her delicate feathered-wing tinily against his ebony-cindery plumage, coaxing him out of his dejected stupor-he needed to grip onto a vestige of hope to fight the sorcerous-telestic dregs of Alexander's soul-reaping conjury that mephitically leashed them into dormant throes. "We need to hold onto Christmas...It's all we have left, Prince Bucky..."

The swan-prince's gaze remained cast downward, his thoughts a storm of painful memories and thoughts that he had, until now, kept bottled up and stowed away; unwilling to confront them and let himself relive the anguish they brought him. But he couldn't hide from them anymore. They felt as overwhelming and powerful as the magic that had turned him into a feathery prisoner.

"Every Christmas, I feel like I'm just going through the motions," he murmured. "Like I'm a ghost haunting the day that should be filled with joy. I've just...always felt alone." It was a sad truth he realized. His parents were always away on business, Steve had become too wrapped up in his SHIELD-life and time with his new fiancee Natasha, and Bucky just could never bring himself to open up his heart to someone after Felicia. He didn't realize he'd been crying until he felt the tentative embrace of the two birds in front of him who seemed to understand perfectly what he was going through.

Aware of his mounting heartache, bouncily, Alexi eased the heftiness of his marred wing over the swan-prince's feathery back, cozying him into a hearty embrace of his plumpish form "Stick close to us, Prince Bucky..." he chuckled out, jocundly, while fattish mass bulbously sagged against Bucky's curvier side, gazing at the bluish smokiness of the fancy-bird's wide-blown orbs as Bucky noncommittally emitted a grouchier honk. "What you need is a flying lesson to brighten your spirit...I used to be the best Soviet pilot..." With a flapping gesture of his wing, tubbily, Alexi waddled onto a snow mound with burlier traction. "If we can teach you to fly, maybe you will have a good Christmas..."

Despite himself, Bucky felt his heart swell with a warmth he hadn't felt in years. As reluctant as he'd been to accept the gravity of his new form, he understood now the necessity of it if he wanted to not only soar free but also do whatever he could to stop Alexander. He remembered fondly as a boy watching Peter Pan, wondering what it would feel like to fly. His eyes would often be fixed to the skies, watching the birds move through the air. Serving as a pilot in the military had given him wings, but the inner-child within him still wondered what it would be like to feel the wind whipping against his body and the sun on his face. Maybe being a swan could offer him that much?

"You think I can do it?" He asked. "Don't swans need to stick close to the water?"

"We don't have time for questions..." Yelena chirped in a raspier pitch, testily, driving her beadier gaze at the auroras of rising daybreak ominously haloing against the bordering forest as she flutterily glided her dwarfish form onto an icier mound of snow. "You still have time to save yourself, Bucky..." she prompted, urgingly, flashing the point-blank intensity of her darkish-green orbs at the immense span of his ebony-feathered wings. "Now, first you must get the pose right for take-off...A good pose always helps..." Lowering her fluffier head, comically, Yelena outstretched her wings like a Japanese Uchiwa fan, angling her sleekier girth up with balletic fluidity. "Use the water to gain speed and just fly..."

Bucky took a tentative step towards the pond, his legs all of a suddenly feeling wobbling underneath him. He felt self-conscious of everything: the cold air, the wind, the heaviness of his wings, his unbalanced posture. Inwardly he felt worry crawl under his skin. What if he fell on his first attempt and broke a wing? What if he soared too far and lost his way? He'd seen swans fly before but it was nothing he ever paid close attention to. He felt so out of place, he almost felt like he was in the palace with his dutiful parents and the bureaucrats who sucked up to them. "All right," he said, knowing he couldn't afford to let himself get timid now. "Here goes nothing," he shrugged his feathered wings.

He took a deep breath and began to flap his wings, feeling the push and pull of the air against his feathers. The whooshing sound filled his ears, loud and strong. He felt an ache sudden creep up his back as he attempted to waddle into a sprint so he could kick up momentum to fly. All of a sudden, his wings collapsed in on themselves and he released a panicked honk. "WHOA!" He stumbled forward, his webbed feet slipping on the ice. With a loud splash, he found himself falling head first into the freezing water. His wings flayed and splashed about in a panic as he attempted to pull himself out. The water was too cold, he felt he couldn't breathe.

Alexi's honk reached his ears once he climbed back to the surface.

"That wasn't funny," Bucky grumbled, narrowing his beady eyes at the fat goose who shook with a blend amusement and encouragement.

"Bucky, calm down," he ruffled his feathers. "You're trying to fight the air like you're swimming. It's not about control; it's about letting go." He spread his own wings out, demonstrating his movements. "Imagine the wind beneath your wings, lifting you up, carrying you...Just like it does in the water, but without the water. Do not try to control the wind, but let it guide you."

"Right...I'll remember that," Bucky honked with an annoyed tone. He took a deeper breath, focusing on the wind direction and Alexi's advice. He felt ridiculous and for a moment contemplated trying another time, but he knew he was short on time. Everyone counting on him was too. So he spread his wings wide, and steadily began to build up momentum by flapping with the air pushing towards him. With each flap, his wings grew stronger, his body felt lighter.

"Huh, I think I'm feeling something diff-WHOA!" Bucky honked, shocked into disbelief to realize how far off the ground he was steadily climbing as the draft took him higher and higher. The next moment, he was airborne. The world below slowly shrinking away as he felt a rush of freedom he could never have imagined.

Keeping his elongated neck determinedly poised against the blizzardy gustiness that whooshed over his wide-spread wings, Bucky resigtered the streamlining-exhilarative rush of his graces. Staving off a vertiginous upheaval of reactive dizziness, flappingly, Bucky glided above the snow-capped vistas of the castle-like estate, tucking his webbed feet instinctively underneath his rear tail-feathers as his tenacious heartbeat abandonly became coupled with a euphoric surge of indescribable freedom. Pulses of white-hot voltage intensified as he felt acceleratedly unstoppable-weightless against gravity, almost like he was parachuting into a snowy vortex. Stretching his larger wings on mirrored sync, breathtakingly, he thrusted faster, testing the adrenalized kickback of his momentum. "Wohooo...This is amazin'..." A deep-throaty honk giddily railed out of him. "M' flyin'...Yeah.!"

He'd never felt such a rush of excitement, such an uplifting sense of freedom than he did now The cool winds carried him airborne, allowing him to see the trees surrounding the property along with the dazzling cityscape beyond the borders. The air felt cool against his feathers and for a moment, he allowed himself to close his eyes and soak in the feeling of escape, this moment of a childhood dream come to life. But his moment of joy was abruptly cut short the moment he opened his eyes and released a startled honk.

The western wall of the estate was closing in fast as the winds carried him with relentless speed towards a closed glass window.

"Brake! Brake!" He yelled at himself, attempt to steer his trajectory but there was nothing but solid brick wall that waited to crush him the moment he attempted a sudden turn.

Unable to stop himself, he felt his head smack-dab into the large glass door with a crashing thud, the impact sending tremors of pain through his feathery body. He thought he could hear Alexi somewhere down below honking, exclaiming his crashing blunder with an emphasizing "ouch".

The glass to the door cracked as Bucky felt his body slowly slide down as if he were a cartoon character being reminded of gravity. His feathery girth fell ungraciously across the balcony, feeling a velvety rug beneath him. "Argh! That's...that's gonna leave a bruise," he grumbled as he climbed up onto his wobbly webbed feet. The door he crashed into was slightly ajar, allowing the reek of a barn-like smell to hit him full-force. Bucky's beak flapped, his eyes blinked as he detected the honking and clicking of other animals inside.

"What's in here?" Before he could stop himself, he waddled forward and pushed through the door and into the room. It was dark, the wooden storage-like room was devoid of any sense of furnishings and amenities. There were rows of gnarly cages and crates of animal feed. "Someone here?" He honked out as he identified the cackling of terrified chickens. He could see bird feathers all around the floor, some droppings and even more unpleasant: bloodied stains on the cage doors. He felt dread enter his stomach as he slowly entered the room. "Hello?"

Bracing the roundish pudginess of her stumpy-buxom form against the steel-wired cage, distressingly Queen Winfred jutted her pointier beak as the rubberized fleshy growth that sprouted from her tinier head-a comb-twitchily rapted with sensory-reciprocal defensiveness against the lanky-neck intruder -a ebony-feathered swan-clumsily waddling on his blackish-webbed feet. "Brock..." The puffier hen clucked out, noisily, rapting her stubbed-chestnut wings on feverent tenor, giving him a snappish warning on rampant succession. "Brock...Stay...Broo..ack..." In that Heart-stopping moment of untampered alarm, her dilated gaze beadily flashed into the male swan's grayish-aqueous orbs that mesmerically gleamed with hellbent tenacity: the fieriness of a roguish prince. "N-No...You can't...Brock...Be my băiat frumos(handsome boy)..."

The other hen inside of the cage with her began to stir from what appeared to be a deep slumber, his plumpish mass appeared too heavy for his legs to lift himself up as he waddled like a weakened bird in search of sanctuary. The Old Hen recognized the distressed clucking of his wife and stood up and prepared to fend off anyone who might come through their cage. That was when his ears registered her words and the implication of them caused him to snap his gaze towards the dark feathered swan who had entered the rookery in which they were being kept. "J-James? M-My son?"

The swan-prince's felt his heart sink into his stomach as stared at the two chickens in the cage in front of him. Try as he would to deny the familiarity of their eyes, their voices were unmistakable.

"M-Mom...Dad?" He stuttered, his eyes blinking rapidly as he stumbled closer to the cage. The two chickens, his parents, George and Winifred Barnes, stared back at him with their beady eyes, their feathers ruffled with fear and confusion. "It's...It's me. It's James," he honked out, his voice cracking. "Your son..."

Nothing else was said, but the emotional silence that followed spoke volumes of the shock and pain they were all feeling. Bucky felt anger, heartbreak and desperation gnaw at him to see his parents in this state-locked up and waiting like livestock to be slaughtered. He should've known, he should've realized, but they were those exact same chickens he'd seen inside of their room in the palace when he'd gone in search of them. This whole time, they had been under his nose but never knew of the fate Alexander had forced onto them. How could he have?

What kind of monster would do this to people? "I was afraid you were both..." He swallowed a lump in his throat, his beady eyes wet with emotion as he pushed his head against the bars of the cage. "Are you both all right? Has he hurt you?" He whispered to them, his voice trembling.

Against the shiveriness of bone-racking trepidation, exhaustively, the fattish hen slipped her wing over the steel-mesh of the knotted barbed wire that piercingly scraped over her grayish-chestnut feathers, tremorously reaching for her precious son. The carious pungency of astringent suffocatingly wafted off the vacant cages as feathery remnants of clucking prisoners-humans- lingeringly ghosted over the wire, a soul-crippling revelation that she was doomily on the precipitous fringe of triphammer survival. "Y-You have to leave us, James..." she gurgled out, hushedly, caressing her wing over the velvetiness of his ebony feathers with cherishing ministrations-nothing warded off the onslaught of knifing heartache-her mothery bond was being grievously amputated as Bucky hitched out a throat-racking honk. "S-Seeing you alive is all this mother can ask for Christmas...You are a beautiful symbol of grace that can never be caged...a prinț lebădă(swan prince)..."

King George shakily repositioned his bulging frame to stand alongside his queen, his eyes gleaming with a fiery resolve made Bucky stand straighter. "You are our greatest treasure, son. Not some vault of money or chest of trinkets. Your mother is right," he clucked, firmly. "No matter what happens to us, it is enough to know that you're far from this place. Don't let our sacrifice be in vain, son."

"I can't just leave you here! I won't!" Bucky protested, his feathers bristling with emotion as he pushed his beak through the bars, trying to get as close as possible to his mother. "I won't let that b*** take away everything from us."

"You must let go," his father insisted, his voice steady despite the tremble in his body. "You have the power to fly, to escape. We have always known you were destined for greatness, James. Do not let our fate be yours."

Their words caused his soul to shatter, knowing that deep down there was nothing he could do in his present form. The feathery touch of a swan couldn't undo the cages made by man, no matter how hard he tried. Bucky looked between his mother and father, their postures appearing stronger than he'd ever seen before. It was a testament to their words that they only cared about him above all else. It warmed his heart but also filled him with remorse to think of how many years he never truly appreciated his parents-how they never came together as a true family on holidays such as Christmas.

"You know...I almost wish Christmas miracles were real," he sniffed. "Maybe we could've really been a family this year."

Threads of resistance were inevitably fraying against the unprecedented-damnable scourge of morbid witchery that perpetually severed their warranty of Christmas hope against the soul-neutralizing dregs of being fatteningly shackled to slake the voracious-unquenchable indulgence of a parasitic scavenger who leashed their mortality. Their dynastic province of Brasov would be tragically razed by corruptive-insidious machinations of purging the virtues-legacy of the crown. Inadvertently, she wobbled back on her stick-like feet as Bucky lovingly nuzzled the hard-bone sleekness of his bill against her feathery head with tentative caresses of kiss-soft pressure, viscerally evident to the boyish radiance that gleamed alight in his whitish-sapphire orbs-a reverent sweetness that she beautifully harboured when from the heart-arresting moment she welcomingly embraced her delicate-chubbier baby boy into the protective cradle of her arms-never wanted to let him go. "Now you listen to me, James Buchanan Barnes, miracles do exist when you believe in something with your..." Steadily, the hen splayed her wing against the feathery curviness of his paunchy girth, feeling a thump of his resilient heartbeat. "Now go save that beautiful woman you love before you lose her forever to this wicked evil..."

The swan-prince nodded solemnly, his mother's words comforting him and filling him with a measure of hope he didn't realize he'd been yearning for all this time. He knew he couldn't stay here with them. Time was ticking away and all their lives hung in the balance the closer Alexander came to achieving his goals. Bucky wasn't sure what he could do beyond interference. But he had to try-he had to hope. With a heavy heart, he forced himself to turn away and flap his wings, carrying himself towards the balcony door.

He could feel the cold air hitting him, instilling a sense of dread that came with the grim reality that awaited. He was leaving the warmth of family behind and about to venture into the cold unknown. Before leaving, he turned and faced his parents, gazing at them with his deep blue eyes. "I'll be back. I'll save you both." He honked out a promise to them as he flew away, his wings carrying him back over the courtyard where Yelena and Alexi stood below, watching him soar beyond the walls and the tree-line.

"Godspeed, Swan-Prince." Alexi murmured as he and Yelena watched him vanish into the night-skies.

The desolate grandeur of the Doge's Palace was icicily enwreathed with vacuous frigidness as the ornate grotty chandeliers that prismatically captured whitish sconces of moonlight above the glass-pane dome of the banquet hall, the earthy scent of pine wafted off the drooping needle-pine branches of the 18-foot spruce that imposingly obstructed the marble-stone Baroque fireplace as Felicia glided her daintier fingers against the golden rhinestone baubles that ambiently contrasted with the satin-cloth roses of blue, yellow and red-the colours of the Romanian flag beautifully clamped onto the heftier branches. Shifting her darkish-brandy ireses, riskily, Felicia glanced at the spiralled-carved railing of the staircases as brownish feathery tuffs were eerily discarded on the polished steps. Reactively, her kittenish nose scrunched against the odorous rancidity of eggs that smearily globbed over a torn heap that was unmistakably a scarlet Parda gown. "I-I never wanted this..." she whispered, sorrily, warding off upheavals of heart-crippling achiness, as she cautiously advanced with stealthier paces into the surveillance-monitored direction of the King's study room.

With an underhand swipe, lithely, she removed an EMP-disk from her accessory-belt holstered around the curvaceousness her svelte mid-drift as she lowered onto her neoprane-clad haunches with balletic ease and placed the EMP over the binary keypad. "Guess this girl is really going to be on the naughty list..." she quipped, ruefully, as the electrified pulse fizzingly tasered every failsafe senor of the keypad. Clutching onto the brass doorknob, collectively, she entered the furniture-ravaged library, only to unblinkingly gaze at the framed portrait of her charm-boy -the painted visage of hunkish Prince James Barnes handsomely garbed in a tailored black ceremonial uniform that had the Romanian crest on the left side of his bulkier chest. There was an untamed fierceness that smolderingly gleamed in his bluish-gray eyes, as the razored smoothness of his knife-edged features cuttingly fused with the heaviness of his dimpled chin-the rakish sweep of his chestnut tresses were burnished with vibrant hues: he was a true prince. "I just want you back, charm-boy..."

She didn't want to admit to herself that she had yet to find a trump card to use against Alexander so she could leverage Bucky's freedom, and to an extent-her own. Getting into the palace had required a great deal of finesse as after she had snuck her way past a swarm of Interpol agents and SHIELD operatives stationed around the property, searching for clues on the missing royals and all of those in attendance. She had found her way into the study, using her skills of stealth and past experience with the royal family to gauge the habit of where they might have stowed their secrets. She didn't realize a curious set of eyes had been following her until firm hands wrapped around her arms. "Something tells me you're not lost, ma'am. And you certainly weren't a guest of the royal family."

She reacted impulsively, lashing out with an array of kicks that were blocked by hard forearms framed by tight tactical clothing. She found herself gazing into the piercing blue eyes of a studly blonde, a face she hadn't seen in nearly as long as she had seen Bucky's. "Felicia Hardy. Its been a long time," SHIELD Commander Rogers said, releasing his hold on her but keeping her way blocked with his looming presence.

"Come here to spoil this girl's Christmas fun, are we, Rogers..." she razzed under sassier breaths, jauntily, countering his adamant-unshakeable poise as the hard-edged angularity of his chiselled features tensely rapted with expected disapproval of her perimeter breach intrusion. The Spartan-like resilence of his athletic solidity was bulkily delineated with navy-blue Kevlar of his tactical uniform adorned with the circular SHIELD emblem of a silvered eagle patriotically stitched on the material: definitely a tailormade boy scout.

Fiercely, his stormier azure ireses gleamed with the hawkish intensity that unnervingly conveyed his measured resolve of deterring her from thievishly decrypting the binary keypad of King Georges's 'Stark Industries' reinforced vault. He wouldn't give her a free-pass. Smacking her pillowy lips into a coquettish smirk, distractively, Felicia glided her lithe finger over the muscle-corded tautness of his garbed chest-playing down the friend card. "Look, I'm not here to steal for an extra fence...Your royal friend is being held hostage by a demented sicko who gave him a freaky makeover and if I don't open the king's vault, Bucky won't make it..."

"You know where he is?" Steve asked, his stormy eyes softening into a hopeful gaze. He knew that Bucky and Felicia hadn't seen each other in years, but during his time at SHIELD, Steve had kept tabs on her as he watched Wilson Fisk's empire grow and his list of suspicious associates along with it. Felicia Hardy's face had popped up on SHIELD's radar on more than a few occasions as they caught her interacting with persons of interest that had ties to organized crime or suspected terrorist activities. They'd never directly linked her to any involvement, but Steve knew enough to suspect her paths would one day cross with his friend again. Realizing that Bucky's life was still at stake, he softened his hostile approach as he entreated her.

"You have to tell me who has him. His parents too-" Numerous voices moved outside the hall. Steve held a finger to his lips as he moved briskly to the door and closed it behind him. He faced Felicia, lowering his guard. "Look I know things between you two ended bad. But if you still care about him, you have to let me help."

Hearing the deep-timbered gravelliness of his Brooklyn drawl, stonily, Felicia brandished a cool impassiveness over her elfish features as unstaunched apparitions of heart-razed desperation anguishedly knifed through her feverish veins, riskily, her tigerish-brandy ireses shifted in the direction of the high-rigged sensor vault; she couldn't bail on the heist, no when your feathery charm-boy was damningly pegged into the morphic crosshairs of being disposable collateral in Alexander's possessive grip of Eldritch witchery. Despite that Steve carried the battle-test mantle of soldiery valiance for his full-measured acts of heroism-he wasn't prepared to dance with a demonic occultist that would verminously downsize him into a pudgy Christmas goose."I-I can't get you involved..." she murmured against gritted breath, shakily, pivoting on her spiked-heeled boots with slinker evades against the door-frame. "Unless you have a friend that plays with magic tricks, you can't help me, Rogers..."

Steve's jaw tensed, his gaze flickering to the EMP device clutched in her hand. He didn't like where this was going, but he knew he had to tread lightly here. "You don't have to do this alone," he assured her, his voice gentle yet firm. "We both care about, Bucky. We both want him safe, no matter what." That and he had a job to do that meant saving the royal family. He could see the reluctance and growing sense of urgency in Felicia's eyes and if he were a guessing man, it meant that she was running out of time to do whatever it was she was sent here to do. "Look, I-"

The sudden crackle of his radio interrupted him, Natasha's voice piercing through the quiet of the room. "Steve, come in. What's your status?"

Steve shared a look with Felicia who appeared apprehensive as he reached for his radio. Keeping her stare, he held the radio to his mouth and responded. "I'm sweeping the upper floor," he said into the mic, "I'll report back soon."

"Copy," Natasha's voice crackled back.

With a sigh, Steve handed Felicia a small device, believing in his gut that she had Bucky's best interests at heart and she would do the right thing. "When you find him, when he's safe, you press this button." He pointed to the tiny button on the side of the transmitter. "I'll be nearby."

Baiting out a shakier breath, undeviatingly, Felicia watched him drive his vigilant-honed paces from the study-room as she clutched onto the activated transmitter, knowing that it was a fail-switch beacon that would grudgingly signal an unwelcomed noise-party-crashers of weaponized SHEILD -laser-point drones to swoop crashingly into the palace with immobilizing contingencies of tranquillizer darts-like a Imperical viper probe droid. "Yeah...This should fun..." she rasped, tersely, flitting her darkish ireses at the titanium vault that was obviously hot-wired with thermal sensors detecting the heartbeat of her proximity."They never make easy..."

She narrowed her gaze at the vault once he had gone. The tension she felt in her body had briefly fled believing the SHIELD boyscout would allow her her privacy. The room felt colder as she felt the whipping wind of a draft coming from the open balcony doors. She didn't like how exposed she felt, but at least she had an exit strategy in place. Returning her focus back to the vault, she used her vast experience with cracking hi-tech infrastructures to her advantage. The lock was hot-wired to a the property's own power-grid. Removing the alarm would mean knocking out the lights, but she knew that would alarm SHIELD towards what she was up to which gave her a small window to drill through the lock.

The lock had only 3 login attempts. She kept dusted the thumb-pad and discerned the familiar fingerprints to hint towards Bucky's birthday. She smiled somberly, wondering if Bucky knew how sentimental his parents still thought of him. The first digit was '8', the month of his birth. The second 13', the day. With trembling hands, she was about to enter the last four digits when a gust of wind swept into the study. Her eyes flickered towards the balcony, and she froze.

A swan-shaped silhouette hovered outside the window, its feathers carrying him into the room. "Felicia...Stop, you don't have to do this," Bucky said to her.

Against onrushes of jack-up alarm, breathlessly she gazed at the enchantingly tenacious swan-prince gliding above her with the velvetiness of his feathery ebony wings outstretched to maneuver his graceful descent flappingly onto a cherry-wood desk. "B-Bucky..." she whispered in a raspier pitch, evicting all vestiges of reluctance as she cautiously sauntered to him. Rearing his lithe neck back, he emitted straining honks of choke-off urgency, jutting his razored beak at the deactivated vault while his feathered wing tremorously reached for her. "N-No...You can't be seen here...I have to get into that vault to keep you alive..." A blearing mistiness stole her vision as she lovingly cradled his feathered head into her gloved palm with amorous reverence. "Please leave, Bucky and let me save you..."

He looked into her eyes, his own brimming with a fierce determination that she hadn't seen before. It was the gaze of a soldier who had seek the darkest parts of war and was willing to sacrifice everything to protect what he loved. "I'd rather save you," he croaked, his swan's voice still carrying the barest hint of his human inflection. "I've seen the world you've lived in all these years, Felica. And I think I finally get it. I understand why you left me behind all those years ago..." She had hurt him, it was true, but she wanted to protect him from people like Alexander who used and discarded people on a whim. "To keep me away from all this. To protect me...I'm sorry, darlin'." He honked.

All he had done all these years was harbour so much bitterness inside of him to the point he let himself become a shadow of the boy she fell in love with-who saw the best in people and believed in Christmas. He could see the emotion in her eyes building. He waddled towards her, his feathers fluttering with his movements. "If you open that safe...Don't do it to save me. I want you to run far away from him-"

"Bucky..." She wouldn't become pegged into throes of grevious surrender as unwarranted heartache throbbingly became a revelation that he was irrevocably gripped into the perpetual-unforgivable existence of being a feathery captive into dregs of hellish witchery. Now, she registered the underlying detachment-loneliness as dosages of iciness numbingly shunted through her veins. With a kiss-soft tracery of her daintier fingers brushing over his feathery plumage, she mirrored the bluish steeliness of his beadier-aqueous orbs that smolderingly gleamed with the unspent rawness of his unbidden heartache-he was sacrificing his life-humanity to give her what she always wanted...freedom. "I can't let you live as a grumpy swan..." Delicately, she cradled his sleekier head against the steadiness of her palm, listening to his resonate whispery coos as his ebony feathers puffily tensed on reactive tenor-she wouldn't let him go. "You don't owe me this...Just stop being a stubborn prince and let me fix this...Please. "

The swan's gaze had visibly become moist as emotion bubbled within him. Chokingly he forced the words out as he fought to maintain his strength. "Felica...I love you. All these years, I never stopped," he whispered. His eyes searched hers with a fierce intensity that revealed his undying affection. He couldn't keep the words contained any longer, he felt he might never have a chance to say them again. "But you have to go..." He squawked painfully. If he couldn't save his family, himself nor his new friends, he would give his life to at least ensure Felicia was safe.

Before she could respond, before she could even process the gravity of his confession, the air behind Bucky rippled. He felt a harrowing chill creep up his spine. Reality distorted and cracked, revealing a burst of of spiraling light. A portal snapped open as reality tore away, revealing a void beyond. The room felt colder, the light dimming as a hand reached through. Then came an arm, then a face-and all sense of composure evaporated as Alexander stepped through.

Bucky flapped his wings attempting to put himself between the mage and Felicia. "There you are!" Alexander seethed, his luxurious suit now replaced by a harrowing cloak that befitted his sorcerous nature. His hand wrapped around Bucky's neck, squeezing cruelly as he pulled him towards the swirling void. "You thought you could escape me?" he sneered, his teeth gleaming maliciously. "You have a date with destiny."

Felicia shouted over the chaos, Bucky couldn't hear what she said as his pulse pounded in his ears and he struggled to catch his breath. Alexander fixed Felicia with a penetrating stare, seeing the shock and defiance in her eyes. "Finish your job, woman. Or you'll be next."

As the swan-price thrashingly honked against the bone-vising pressure of his gloved fingers brutishly gripped over Bucky's lithe neck, maniacally, Alexander dragged his protesting-defensive captive away from the wheeling fieriness of the Sling-Ring portal before Felicia could desperately lunge at him. Squeezing the lithe frailty of Bucky's elongated neck with murderous-homicidal viciouness, sneeringly he listened to the railing squawks of dredged-up tenacity wheezily emitting from his feathery drudge. "Like all royal brats of centuries I have reaped, you will never fly again, little prince..." he murmured in a snarlier cadency, tauntingly, as psionic energy of crimson-aster telekinetically scythed into runic tetrahedron mandalas over the snowy eeriness of a desolated garden that was hauntingly adorned with statuesque visages of six ebon-granite swans gracefully poised around a marble- stone fountain.

"You carried a laden heart of stone against the wretched hopes of Christmas..." Virulently, he jerked Bucky's longish neck, chokingly ushering him near the fountain as his lankier austere-cut features ghoulishly edged with manic-deadlier hunger. "Now you will join my collection of worthless birds...Impetuous hatchlings who desired to soar into the heights of their freedom." Eldritchly, Alexander gestured his gloved hands on possessive sync as glyphs of treble notes reddishly veined swans-harnessing the anarchic incantation of warping Tchaikovsky's Swan Lake. "Once the moonlight of this arriving midnight touches your wings...You will become my new Christmas oradement ...

Panic-stricken, Bucky's eyes darted to the fountain's edge where the six statuesque swan-shaped monoliths stood. There was an eeriness to their postures that made it look like they had been frozen in the throes of death. Fallen princes from history long past, the oldest appearing showing the cracks of time. Bucky's mind tried to deny the horror of this situation, that none of this could be real. But it meant that Alexander was far older and dangerous than he had imagined. Something inside of Bucky resonated with the statues, his ears twitching as he sensed a ghostly wail on the breeze as if the spirits of the fallen princes were still trapped in this mausoleum. It made him realize exactly what Alexander intended to do with him.

"N-No!" He honked. With a surge of adrenaline, he thrashed and flapped his wings, desperately trying to free himself from the sorcerer's vice-like grip. His heart hammered in his chest, the beat getting faster by the minute. He tried in vain to stab his beak into the sorcerer's hand, wishing for once he had been turned into a bird of prey such as a raven or a hawk that could fight back. But the more he struggled, the tighter the mage's grip became. His breath grew ragged, the edges of his vision darkening. "Y-You w-won't win..."

"You have nothing left, Prince Barnes..." Vampirically, his slate-bluish ireses dilated into predacious blankness as paralyzingly deadened Bucky's waddling mobility on soul-numbing fruition. Against untrammelled surges of his mortified desperation, staggeringly Bucky torqued on his webbed-feet and berserkly yanked his lithe neck out of the Christmas-reaper's merciless grip with bone-jerking traction. "Urgh..I grow exhausted of your pitiful resistance..." Harnessing vestiges of demonic ferocity as crimson trigon glyph searingly branded his forehead-the mark of Dormmamu-a hellish fusion of astral unity that he morbidly wielded by forbidden incantations -tomes of Book of Cagliostro-purging mortal-etheric vitality from his feathered captives that calamitously sated the celestial titian-sentient of the Dark Verse.

Ravingly, he clutched onto Bucky's paunchier girth as his gloved fingers morphically lengthened into a talon-like deformity, piercing the silkiness of the swan-prince's ebony feathers. Viciously, he launched Bucky with a body-slamming impact against a granite swan. "I should have divested your pretty-boy looks into a cygnet hatchling to squawk underneath that fattening hen you love so much...Mama's boy."

The mage scoffed, his eyes gleaming with malice, "Struggle all you want. I already have won."

Bucky tried to make another move towards Alexander, forcing his wings to propel him into the air so he could lunge at his hooded face. But an invisible force slammed into him, knocking him low to the ground. It felt as if he'd hit an invisible ceiling. Sickly magical energies surrounded him in the shape of a dome as he attempted to rise up. "Your spirit will be my sustenance, Swan-Prince, and the woman you love will be trophy along with your empty remains," he taunted. "Once the moonlight touches you, you'll know nothing but empty horror."

The moon was rising from behind the clouds, casting an eerie glow over the fountain. Bucky tried to put as much distance between himself and the creeping light moving across the ground towards him. Alexander grinned, feeling his victory to be imminent. Suddenly, the air was disturbed by the furious honking of an angered goose. "Let him go!" he squawked, his voice a battle charged from the shadows, his feathers ruffled, his eyes rage as he threw himself at Alexander and stabbed his beak into the mage's leg.

"Urgh...Pochuvstvuyte moshch' Krasnogo Strazha(Feel the might of the Red Guardian).." Bleedingly, tarry resin oozed from the beak-sized gash that purplishly discoloured zealot harvester's muscled calf, emitting a boisterous honk, chubbily Alexi waddled back on retractable tenor, dragging his stubbier-webbed over the frigid ground as he intimidatingly puffed out his blimpish girth with battle-crazed joviality. "Oh, this will be much fun...Just like a dance in Mother Russia..." he chuckled, heartily, shifting his beadier gaze unwaveringly onto the malachite-virescent energy that pulsatingly entrapped the swan-prince into an impenetrable barrier. Thrusting his longish neck, frantically, Bucky swatted his lengthy wing against the greenish fieriness of the dome, only to electrifyingly feel a psionic blowback of white-heat kinetically zapping against his tenser feathers as Alexi devastatingly heard a throat-railing squawk anguishedly caroming within the dome. "H-Hold on, Prince Bucky..."

Aware of the pudgier goose's insurmountable-rampageous determination to blindingly charge into the eldritch dome, gnashingly, Bucky eased up his singed wing on a variance of desperate urgency as notching panic excruciatingly amplified within his curvier form. "N-No Alexi, you gotta stay back...!" A full-throated honk quakingly scored up his throat as the ethereal luminance of the Christmas Eve moon whitishly encroached over the niveous snowiness of the manor being demonically ushered by a telekinetic mantra of Alexander's sadistic incantation-a tenebrous communion of soul-reaping witchery. Gaspingly, Bucky resigtered the iciness possessively worming his thermal extremities as he raspily choked out wheezier breaths against the bone-crippling onslaught of his velvety-cinder wings morphically solidified into an obsidian granite at the heart-wrenching moment the scones of moonlight radiantly burnished his laden feathers. "No..." A saltier wettness bleared his vision as he sobbingly honked in the petrified wake of being a lifeless trophy of stone. "A-Alexi...Tell Felica... I love her more than anything...I love her...Forever."

"You will get to tell her yourself!" Alexi crowed loudly as he dodged and weaved around Alexander's reaching hands.

"Andreovitch," Alexander seethed with malice. "I will cooking you for my Christmas Supper after tonight." The mage bore a slight limp, the stabbing beak of the rooster against his calf had caused blood to drip from his wound. His hands reached out to grab ahold of the goose that was surprisingly fast for his bloated size. "Hold still!" Alexander's magic was being used to fuel the spell that would petrify the Swan-Prince into stone for all of time, he could't use the sum of his magical might to last out at the rooster which left him exposed to the chirping attack of a Russian wagtail flying into the courtyard. "You?" Alexander eyes widened and he hissed as he felt Yelena's tiny beak and wings flapping against his face. "Get off!"

"I will not let you take Bucky from us..." With dive-bombing graces of her dwarfish form, swoopingly, Yelena flexed her tinier feet as she clawingly latched onto his damask hood, yanking the material aggressively over his lankier face while speedily dodging Alexander's larger hand viciously poised to swat at her. "Alexi free that moody swan..." she chirped out, breathlessly, glancing at the energy dome fierily pulsating over the immobilized swan-prince who groggily hunkered onto his webbed feet into a defeated-exhaustive stupor of weakening mobility. Hope was becoming collapsible in desperate succession as runic hexagonal glyphs hellishly striated over the stone barrier of the fountain."W-We're running out of time...Be the Red Guardian again!"

Alexi seized the distraction Yelena provided by throwing himself towards the magical dome that had trapped the helpless Swan Prince inside. The moment his feathery mass collided with the energy-field he felt a burning blowback that sent him flying backwards with a loud shriek of pain. The goose groaned as he forced him back up, shaking his head as if he had just recovered from a hangover. "Ngh! I hate security systems!" The goose threw himself back towards the barrier, ignoring the pain that pierced his body as he attempted to force his way in and disrupt the energy. "It will take more than a sting to deter the Red Guardian!" He roared.

Bucky looked on as Yelena and Alexi fought for him, touched but also paralyzed with fear as he believed they were fighting a hopeless fight to save him. The moonlight paused as a cloud in the sky covered its luminescence. Bucky exhaled with relief and worry.

"Come here you little-" Alexi attempted swatted away at Yelena. Just then, the sound of shattering glass and screeching metal pierced through the air. Alexander's gaze snapped towards the entrance of his courtyard, seeing that a car had literally crashed into his home. He could only guess who it was. With a roar, he threw himself at the two birds, ignoring their biting attacks as his hands locked around the goose and wagtails necks. They struggled in his grasp as Alexander, with a scratched face, glared at them mercilessly, preparing to snap their necks. "You are both finished-"

"Not today..." A metallic clanging whizzed piercingly against the snowier gusts as a circular shield bonked over Alexander's garbed back forcing him to snarlingly release his bone-choking grip onto the feathery defenders while the shield ricocheted back into the leather-sheathed hand of Steve Rogers in that heart-pounding moment. Clenching his broader jaw on teeth-gnashing strain, acrobatically, he vaulted over the obstructive snow-banks, his cool azure ireses steelily gleamed with hawkish ferocity-unwavering valour of his full-measured assault of protecting his best friend. "Release em' now..." he demanded with fiercer pitch as he grounded his battle-readied poise with the vibranium shield defensively braced over his Kevlar-clad mid-drift. Twany-blond tresses sweatily clung askew over his temples as he controlled his reactive tack with combative evades."I won't ask a second time..."

"Steve?!" Bucky honked with absolute shock, the swan prince's eyes were as wide as saucers, his feathers ruffling with renewed vigor he hadn't anticipated to see the last person he would've expected to come to his rescue. Steve stood taller than the last time he saw him, his jaw clenched with determination, his blue eyes hard as steel as he stared down Alexander fearlessly.

"SHIELD..." Alexi crowed with a weak tone as the rooster laid on the ground, trying to gather his breath as he watched the Spartan-like warrior in indigo tactical garb confront the mage with his gleaming shield. "N-Never thought I'd be glad to see you-"

"Good because I hate repeating myself...Commander Rogers," Alexander snarled in response to Steve's demand. "Felicia must've sent you-treacherous little minx she is. You are insignificant to me. You have no idea how many would be heroes I've put down who thought they could stop me."

"You need to go, Steve. He's too dangerous! He's a damn wizard, punk!" Bucky honked with desperation, hoping his friend could hear and understand him.

Alexander brandished a knife from his sleeve as he slowly and deliberately reached into the magical dome to seize the swan prince by his neck. "First I'll make you watch your precious, Bucky die-"

"Hey creepball..." Hissingly, Felicia breathed against the angular curvatures of his jaw, her whitish-platinum whorls tousledly draped over his tenser shoulder like cool silk, arresting his murderous rabidity as he slipped his gloved hand into the greenish fieriness of the psionic dome, lunging to chokingly grapple Bucky with viper-strike precision with lurid-manic repulsion berserkly alight in his shark-like gaze. He was on the homicidal fringe of tragically delivering a Christmas execution of Brasov crown-prince the as his dagger tauntingly grazed knifepoint pressure against Bucky's sleekier head. Curbing the insuppressible panic tempoing against her warred heartbeat, sneakily, Felica splayed her lithe palm over his vampireque cloak as she placed an activated EMP disk onto the material. "Merry Christmas bastard...!"

With a soundless explosion of light, the EMP device detonated in a blinding flash. The courtyard went dark, all the lights in the estate went dark at the same time. There was a deafening silence that fell, only to be pierced by the high-pitched whine of electronic components frying and the sorcerer's pain-filled gasp. Alexander's body jerked and spasmed as the energy surged through him. His eyes fell back into his head as he let out a silent scream.

Everyone watched as the mage's body grew rigid and the force of the EMP threw him backward towards the edge of the pool. He landed hard against a stone statue of a gargoyle, the thorned edge of the stone wing piercing through his back as the sluicing noise of his flesh-tearing onslaught intensified at the retractable second his chiselled lips hung gaspingly hung agape when he crazily angled his neck against the impaling force of the gargoyle's wing driving into his jutted ribs, splurts of blood viscidly gushed over the snowy ground as he sneerily crackled out a death-rattling breath, the stale-bluish intenisty of his wide-blown ireses blankly dilated-the ghostlier scourge of his perpetual malignancy seismically tremored over the darkened estate.

Alexi, Steve, Yelena, and Felicia stared in silent shock at the sudden, violent end of the man who had orchestrated their torment. Alexi was the first to break the silence, "Dosvidania, ty ublyudok (Goodbye, you b***)."

A denotive pulse of whitish-amethyst salvos ethereally radiated off Alexander's unmoveable-gutted form as tornadic energy swirlingly funnelled over the paunchier goose and yellowish-feathered wagtail against the blizzardy flurries glisteningly powdered over their receding feathers as runic glyphs of treble clefs symphonically fused into a melodious concerto. The malachite-greenish dome that eldritchly pulsated the swan-prince like a snowglobe dissolvingly cracked into prismic shards of iridescent energy. Against unbidden heartache, desperately, Felicia lowered onto her shapelier haunches a breadth at the fountain, her tremorous palm caressingly graced Bucky's ebony feathers with kiss-soft ministrations with reverent-cherishing fervency as wisps of astral energy bluishly glowed over his granite-sheathed wings. "Please, stay with me, Charm-boy..." she hitched out, sniffily, easing her gloved hand underneath his delicate-feathery neck as she brushed her pillowy lips with shakier pressure, achingly infusing him with her evocative-tantalized heat; doing her damnest to evict the heart-racking tumult of detachment as she alarmingly registered the strenuous thumping of his tinier heartbeat-he was fading. "No...Bucky...Stay with me...Just stay with me..."

Alexi and Yelena looked down at themselves, astonished and in disbelief to see their human forms had been restored to them. Clad in the tactical garb they wore at the time of their transformation, they saw not a single feather on their bodies, leading them to release soft exhales of relief. "Yelena-we are back," Alexi took his surrogate daughter into his arms and hugged her tight. She reciprocated in kind and patted his back. Steve watched this play out with varying degrees of relief, bewilderment but also concern as he noticed Bucky…Bucky hadn't changed back yet.

"Felicia…" Steve hovered over her, placing a hand on her shoulder as she held the motionless, seemingly lifeless swan against her as if he were the most precious thing in the world. "Is he…" Fear gnawed at his heart to see the feathered swan's body partially turned to stone. Whatever Alexander had intended to do to him had already begun to take shape before they had stopped him. Were they too late?

Hinging a vestige of hope against the heart-crippling awareness of being grounded into a deadlock of emotional compromise that knifed through his veins, defeatedly, Steve registered the errant wettness of anguish trekking over the hawkish angularity of his cheek as he blearily roved his tear-sodden azures depths onto the feathery captive that was his Bucky. With a callback of resistance, strugglingly, he fought the knee-buckling onslaught of abandonly collapsing onto the slushier ground into dregs of soul-razing heartache. "I had a chance to serve in the palace and never took it..." he murmured, regretfully, fisting his leather-sheathed hand, not caring if his Brooklyn drawl vanished into the white-noise of his brotherly failure-the cost of his distance was staked down with an unbidden price of losing his best friend. "M'sorry Buck..."

"No…Bucky…" Alexi murmured, his own sorrow rising to the forefront as he watched silent tears track down Felicia's face. "He…He told me to tell you he loved you more than anything…" He said to Felicia. "All he thought about was saving you-saving us. He…He was a good man. A worthy prince."

Glancing over her leather-clad shoulder at the grayish-wiry bushiness of Alexi's grizzled beard, Felicia watched his lips quirking with a passive semblance of grevious serenity over Alexi's rugged-scruffier features as his bearish hand reverently eased onto the ebon-granite curvatures that beautifully sculpted Bucky's leaden wing. A dynamical fusion of warranted trust clashingly radiated off his burly form while he tentatively conveyed a Santa-like friendliness that was comfortingly placid. Against the lung-seizing achiness of her throat, sobbingly, Felicia angled her head down over the swan-prince's roundish girth as the golden locket fastened clingily over his longish icily pressed onto her cheek-she wouldn't accept this irreversible detachment of heartbreakingly losing him a threshold of eternity. "R-Remember that Christmas...When I gave you this and you never stopped wearing it, Barnes..." she rasped, quiveringly, and splayed her palm over his velvety feathers with a fractional measure of hope that she would feel the surge of the resilience of his vitality poundingly chasing her pulse at the glint of her topaz-birthstone ring captured the luminous radiance of the moonlight ethereally contrasting his ebony-cinder features- a flashpoint revelation that he was infinitely everything to her. "You need to know that I never stopped wearing this ring...because I made a promise that I would always love you, Bucky Barnes..."

Her whispered words seemed to resonate within the residual magic left in the air after Alexander's death. Everything fell silent as if the magic itself were listening and reacting. Alexi and Yelena's eyes widened as magical energy began to encapsulate the swan's body in Felicia's arms. Steve tensed back for a moment, but Felicia's eyes remained firm and her hold on the swan was unyielding as she cradled him in her lap. The magic that surrounded them was unlike the putrid reek that had tormented them before. This magic was benign and wondrous.

"Look," Yelena whispered. Everyone watched as the swan's body quivered and the stone began to crack. Pieces fell away, revealing the surface of human flesh beneath. Felicia inhaled sharply, watching with hopeful eyes as the magic stretched the mass of the form in her arms and the stone continued to crumble away, piece by piece to reveal Bucky's human form beneath. Her words of love chiseled the remnants until the princely human laid coughing in her arms-blue eyes opened and full of life and shock.

"Felicia...?" He whispered, his human voice raw with emotion. She nodded, a smile blossoming across her face. "You saved me..." He reached out a trembling hand to touch her face.

As the feather-soft gentleness of his vein-threaded hand shakily cradled the delicate underside of her jaw, breathlessly, Felicia twined her lithe arms over his broader nape, shiveringly resigtering the athletic bulkiness of his tauter-corded resiliency that hunkily flexed underneath his black shirt as his muscled forearm braced over her sleekier back, embracingly grounding against him. An onrush of amorous heat fervently pulsed through her veins with escalating-gloried hope that they would finally have a Christmas together. "Bucky..." Catching her breath, Felicia reeled back as she chastely traced her daintier palm over the razored-suaveness of his knife-edged features, memorizing every hard-bone contour, the cleft-divot of his pudgier chin as his shapely-wide lips toothily quirked into a rascally smirk. It wasn't a damn illusion conceived by girlish story-book fantasy-he was undeniably real in her arms. Kneading her fingers over his dishevelled chestnut tresses, mistily, she gazed into the mesmeric smokiness of his grayish-aquamarine ireses that dazzlingly gleamed with the boyish radiance of heart-soaring joy as he affectionately pressed his brow against her temple, branding a new unbreakable promise while his Romanianque nose headily scrunched into her feverish cheek-she wanted to breathtakingly kiss him with passionate decadence-intimacy until the daybreak of Christmas morning.

"I've missed you so much..." He said as he tilted her face to claim her lips, the waft of her cool breath on his lips caused his heart to flutter with joy. A distant commotion interrupted the moment as a new set of voices were moving closer towards the courtyard. Felicia snapped away from the impending kiss, causing Bucky to look away to follow her gaze. They recognized the voices immediately. "My parents..." he gasped.

Steve helped Bucky up to his feet while one arm maintained its hold around Felicia and the other on his friend. "Its good to see you, Steve. Wouldn't be a Christmas without you," Bucky said with a soft smile. Before he could say more, the door to the courtyard opened and out walked the reserved yet focused shape of his bodyguard, Anton carrying a club as a make-shift weapon. The bodyguard was dressed in his disheveled suit the night he was transformed, his eyes frantic as he searched for signs of a threat. His gaze landed on Bucky and his group and he tensed up.

"At ease. Its safe," Steve said to the guard who relaxed immediately, recognizing the SHIELD commander.

"Felicia-" Bucky felt an absence of warmth in his hands and looked around. His heart sank as confusion clouded his brain to see the empty space where she had stood. Felicia had run off. Why? Where did she go? "Felicia?" He called again. He looked at Alexi who shrugged his shoulders at him.

"Your friend must not want too much attention. Don't fret. You will see her again. Lyubov' nakhodit put' (Love finds a way)." He assured him with a smile. Bucky wanted to run after her. There was so much he wanted to say to her, he didn't want to lose her again. But he knew Alexi was right.

"James? Son? You are all right!" Bucky reacted sharply as his mother's voice called out to him with his father's soon joining. He looked to see his parents being escorted out by Alexi into the courtyard. His parents! They had both been restored-alive and more full of life than he'd ever seen.

Bucky rushed over to them, his legs feeling wobbly after his recent transformation and the rush of emotions that came with it. His mother, Queen Winnifred, was the first to embrace him with a loving hug.

"Mom, Dad..." Bucky's voice cracked as he reached out to embrace them both. The warmth of their arms around him felt fierce and protective. It was the first real hug he'd felt from his parents in many years, he couldn't help but allow himself to be pulled into its warmth. "Guess you were right, miracles do exist," he sniffed.

Their reunion was a tumult of hushed whispers and gentle sobs. Steve watched them with a sense of relief and joy while calling in SHIELD to secure Alexander's estate. Yelena approached him and gave his chest a gentle fist-bump. "Tell my sister, hello, for me would you?"

"You should tell her yourself, she's been worried the past couple of months about you." Steve responded.

Yelena shrugged, knowing Natasha certainly wouldn't let her hear the end of if if she knew she'd been pecking insects from trees the past few weeks.

As the reunion between the royal family continued, Bucky's somber expression became apparent to his parents who, so concerned over their son's well-being, were quick to question him. "What burdens you, son?" King George asked. Bucky swallowed, torn between his desire to make his parents proud but also chase after his heart's desire. He knew deep down he'd never been happy and know peace if continued down this path at court he wasn't cut out for.

"So much has become clear to me, father...dad," he said, a lukewarm smile on his lips. "My whole life I've always wanted to be the son you could feel proud of, the prince that our country needs...but I can't. I'm...I'm just a man. A man who hasn't been happy in so many years, I-" he swallowed, struggling to maintain his composure under his parent's stares. His mother looked at him knowing while his father seemed inquisitive. "I forgot what it felt like to feel joy not just on Christmas but in life entirely. But I realize what I've been missing this entire time, what I desperately need."

King George inhaled deeply, sharing a small look with his wife. "What are you asking us, son?"

"That you allow me to be the man I want to be. A man who has more to offer the world than...just being a prince," Bucky said with a firmness in his eyes that his father couldn't help but admire. It was the look of a soldier. George smiled, placing his hand on his son's shoulder and squeezing tight.

"I've always been proud of you, James. All I have ever wanted was for you to find your own way. To have more out of life than what a ordinary man could have. I've always known your strength doesn't come from your regal status, it is from your heart, my boy. If you must chase your heart's desire, then that is what you must do. Just be safe for both of us," he inclined his head to his wife.

Holding onto the visceral warmth of his beloved mother that unreservedly suffused him into a euphoric mania of joyous release; they were no longer feathery hostages listlessly caged to become trade-off ransom-collaterals against the insidious notoriety of Sokovia. Featherily Bucky dragged the kiss-soft reverence of boyish sweetness invested with his shapely-bow lips over the suppleness of her fuller cheek as she lovingly threaded her delicate hand over his unkempt-roguish tresses on the pacifying accord.

"Ești în siguranță, băiatul meu frumos(You're safe, my handsome boy)..." she whispered in her Romanian cadence, tearily, brushing off a loose strand from his temple, while detecting a heart-knifing achiness of being inevitability detached from the vixenish thief he truly loved. Finding high-born female suitors for the alliance with two provinces of Romania was the deadlocked future of his birthright-it wasn't easy to make a votive choice that betrayed his heart, Cradling the heaviness of his scruffier jaw, Queen Winfred gently quirked her rubied lips into a half-smirk as he consciously slumped his broader shoulders against the gravity of underlying heartache. "I know what you want for Christmas..." Gracing her preciously handsome boy's forehead with tentative-cherishing pressure of her lips of all measured belief that he would finally welcome Christmas, hushedly, she whispered. "Ia zborul, James(Take flight, James)..."

Bucky's eyes met hers with a frenetic glint of hope. He knew what she was saying to him, it was the same thing she would whisper to him since he was a child. "Thank you, both," he whispered back to them. He turned to his father, who nodded solemnly, understanding what he was about to do. The king's hand rested heavily upon his shoulder, granting his silent blessing as the swan-prince shakily took the first steps away from his royal duties.

He turned around to meet Steve's encouraging smile, his friend having a good sense where he was headed. "She's at the Carlton Grand Hotel. SHIELD pinged her location. If you hurry, you'll get to her in time."

Frantic, Bucky looked about, as if hoping a car would drop out of the sky to lend him assistance. "I need a ride. Please tell me you have one?" He asked Steve. Before the blonde could reply, Alexi stepped forward dangling a set of keys in his hands.

"I have a car waiting for us outside. It's not much, but it'll get you where you need to go," He said with a grin. The burly man was surprisingly sprightly on his feet as he led Bucky to the edge of the courtyard. His parents, Steve and Yelena watched as they drove away as the sight of police sirens and a SHIELD convoy entered the picture of the estate, sealing the grim chapter on this holiday. Bucky gazed out at the passing scenery as Alexi drove, blasting and singing along to a Mariah Cary Christmas song which made the younger man groan. "Maybe I should've called an Uber."

Alexi merely laughed and turned up the volume.

Evading the savorous creamier fudginess of artisanal hot chocolate that addictively enwreathed over the scarlet carpeted hallways of the Carlton Grand Hotel as bourghs of fir gnarled festively looped over the polished tables with starlit golden lights ambiently contrasting with burgundy ribbon, apprehensively, Felicia zipped up her Versace suitcase, as her darkish-brandy ireses flitted involuntarily, onto the passport booklet that readily had a plane ticket stuffed inside-she needed to leave Venice behind her. It was a naive gambit of her thievish heart to believe that she could dance with a prince. Gripping her mobile phone, she dialled the number, listening to the whispery raspiness of her best friend's murmurous timbre loweringly answer. "So things turned out here rather complicated and I'm flying back to your playground tonight before unwanted party crashes knock on my door..." she breathed, tersely, pivoting on her stiletto-heeled boots near the curtain-draped window of the luxurious hotel suite as she unblinkingly gazed at the wooden gondola's sailing over the canal waters adorned with prismic lights-fantastical serenity of a picturesque Christmas tourist hub. "I'm not looking back, Murdock...Not when the gift I want the most belongs on a Romanian throne..."

The silence in the room was distrubed by the sharp, unexpected knocking against the suite's door. It was rushed and hurried, carrying authority with it. Felicia halted her conversation, dread settling in her stomach as she anticipated Interpol or SHIELD kicking down her door. Gently she spoke to Matt into the receiver that she had to go as she pocketed her phone and made for the door. Her heart-raced as she contemplated sneaking out from a window but there was no other way in or out but through the single door. Throwing caution to the wind, she opened the door.

Her breath hitched as she found Bucky standing before her, out of breath and disheveled as if he ran the eight floors up instead of taking the elevator. He looked at her with mild relief as if he'd feared he'd missed her and she was gone forever. "Buck-"

Reacting to a heart-racking pulse of unwarranted anticipation tempoing within her, kittenishly, Felicia gnawed on her plushier underlip, catching herself fringing into the sensuous-headier moment that stole her awareness; there was no forbidden distance-compromise of their fractured realities between them-he suavely braced his muscled shoulder against the doorframe, waggishly quirking his shapely-bow into a toothier smirk while he reached for her. The cool silverness of his aquamarine ireses was piercingly laser-focused on her at the moment the sconces of the hallway light enthrallingly burnished over the hard-edged ruggedness of his scruffier-boyish features-before she could utter a word, he grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her into his arms. The embrace was so fierce she could feel his heart pounding against her chest. His lips were on hers then, warm and full of desperate yearning.

Against the dizzier-feverous mania of answering the dampish heat that groaningly surged into an open-mouthed kiss, breathlessly Felicia gripped onto the material of his shirt, anchoring herself against the corded bulkiness of his athletic rigidty that menacingly flexed against the bustier cushiness of her delectable swells as duelling hunger thrillingly intensified with every revamping demand of his passion-driven ferocity. She needed to catch her breath. Clinging onto his velvety-soft lips, moaningly, she angled her jaw against the unresistible-sensuous pressure that gapingly streched her luscious mouth with every kiss-thrusting rush of his controlled passion. Their aligned bodies were consciously grounded as the rapturous fusion of their intimate surrender was dangerously edging them into a firestorm—it wasn't a girlish fantasy-it was damn real."D-Don't stay anything...Just follow my lead, Swan-boy..."

Bucky responded by sweeping her off her feet and hoisting her up into his arms, her legs instinctively looping around his waist. The passion that had sizzled between them had burst into desperate yearning to reconnect what was once lost. The fierce warmth of their kiss was both wanton but also tender, full of all the love that was finally free to soar. As they parted for breath between kisses, Bucky set her down but kept her close to his chest, gazing deep into her eyes that were clouded with desire and longing.

"Wherever you want to go, I'll go," Bucky murmured, caressing the her cheek with the palm of his hand with reverence. "I don't care if it's back to New York or an uncharted island, I just know I belong with you...not on a throne." His eyes searched hers, conveying the depth of his promise and the reality that he had willingly given up his royal status to be with her.

"Bucky we should..."

"You gorgeous people must celebrate with these fancy treats..." Alexi blared out, merrily, lumbering down the red-carpeted hallway with his larger fingers clutching onto an ochre-wicker basket that was deliciously packed with decadent assortments of shortbread cookies, golden bars of Sperlari chocolate, and a bottle of Moët & Chandon Brut Imperial champagne. With a naughtier jovially gleaming alight in his grayish-silvery ireses as he imposingly grounded his bearish form at the doorframe, hoisting up his pilfered Christmas goodies that he snagged off a wait-staff trolley. "Now this is what I call room service, moi druz'ya..."

Bucky nearly growled with irritation as Alexi entered the room, carrying with him a gift-basket he probably swiped off of a room-service cart. His irritation fled rapidly as Alexi's grin was too infectious to not be reciprocated. The burly man was about as upbeat and jolly as a retired Santa entering the room, carrying nothing but unabashed happiness after being stuck as a goose for so long. Bucky couldn't help but feel his spirits lift while Felicia released a soft breath that sounded like a chuckle.

"Don't get too cozy, pal," he said, taking the basket from him. "Champagne, really?"

Alexi swiped the bottle back with a dangerous smile etched across his face. "Don't be a spoil-sport, my fellow. What's a victory without a little indulgence, right?" He said, popping the cork and allowing the foaming drink to pour messily into a few glasses. He looked at Bucky with a knowing smile. "Have you told your woman the news?" He looked over at Felicia, handing her a glass, "We're forming a team. Nothing too showy that would bring us undo attention. Would like to think of it as-a family of misfits doing what we do best."

Bucky's smirked and shook his head while accepting his own glass. "Yeah, well, if we're going to be a duo, its time you learn to call me by name: The Winter Soldier."

Alexi's eyes widened. "The Winter Soldier? That's...that's epic!" He clapped Bucky on the back with a thump that made him stumble forward slightly. "Felicia, what say you? Are you in? We could use a stealthy cat to watch our backs."

Hearing the Santa-level jovially temping against his gruffer timbre, Felicia eased up her glass with a devious gleam of thievish intensity naughtily melding in her coffee-brandy ireses as she reached for the foiled chocolate within the basket that Alexi unwaveringly gazed at with a quick-handed swipe of her deceptive precision. "So we're forming a bad-ass club that includes a lethal runaway prince, a Russian Santa, and a girl that just loves to play in the dark for kicks..." Popping her glossier kiss-swelled lips, devaintly, she fixed her darkish on her passport. "All we need is a Horn-Boy to join us..."

Suddenly a shadow fell over the doorway, and they all turned to see Yelena standing there, her eyes wide with faux outrage. "You guys were seriously going to do this without me?"

Alexi looked over, his expression a mix of surprise and delight. "Yelena! I knew you'd have good timing! What's Christmas without spending it with those closest to you? Come," he said, handing her a glass as she joined them. She accepted the glass as she gave a cool welcoming look to Bucky and Felicia who stood close to each other. The group of four would spend the next few minutes in warm discussion, trading laughs and stories over Christmas' past and the joys that they looked forward to.

In the corner of the room stood a small Christmas tree that looked as if it were made for Charlie Brown, but all their eyes were focused on it, staring at the bright enchanting sight that caused warmth to bloom in their hearts.

They all raised their glasses in a silent toast, the champagne sparkling in the warm glow of the Christmas tree lights. The sound of clinking glasses rang through the room as they shared their first victory together as a team-a family. Bucky's eyes caught the twinkling of the tree's ornaments, remember a time just last year when they brought him only bittersweet feelings. Now they felt like a home-coming as he held Felicia in his arms, stealing a warm kiss from her.

Felicia's eyes searched his, and she saw the sincerity in his gaze. "Merry Christmas, darlin'," he said, his voice softer than she had ever heard it.

As the group continued to sip their drinks and nibble on their room-service treats that Alexi had brought, they felt the bonds forming between them growing even stronger as they celebrated their first holiday together. Bucky had no idea what the next chapter in their lives would hold, but for now, they had each other-he had his best girl back-and that was the best Christmas gift he could ever ask for.

The End

[notafunkiller]

Do you guys celebrate December 25th as the end of Communism in Romania? If so what do you do?

Yes, most Romanians celebrate Christmas on December 25th (we follow the Gregorian calendar)

How do we celebrate Christmas? Well, many people clean the house, put up Christmas trees, string lights, and decorate their homes with ornaments, garlands, and nativity scenes.

We buy and wrap presents for our family, friends etc, we male special dishes (including sarmale, cozonac, salată de boeuf), cookies, and cakes.

We also attend Christmas markets, concerts, or charity events, some people go to the church... after fasting.

On 24th:

Families often gather for a special dinner somtimes or some even decorate the Christmas tree. Some people, especially kids go door-to-door singing carols or attend community caroling events + the presents are exchanged on Christmas Eve. I personally always open my gifts on 24th before midnight.

For many, Christmas morning involves unwrapping presents under the tree, though, then the day is spent with loved ones, watching Christmas movies, playing games, or simply enjoying each other's company.

We celebrate 3 days of Christmas (the first two we do not bave to go to work, the third is Saint Stephen but we go to work unless you take the day off or it's weekend ofc)

[we-got-that-power-power]

Concert "Sub fereastră la om bun" Suzana si Daciana Vlad 🌺 🌸 ❤️ 🎉 🎈🎄🎊🌼

[sgiandubh]

Sunday sounds: a most peculiar encounter

Yesterday, many of us celebrated the Epiphany, marking the end of the holiday period in the Christian world.

The journey of the Magi is probably one of the most mysterious and enticing episodes of the New Testament. It is also, as I told you before, something deeply sentimental and personal, and as such, a natural choice for today's Sunday sounds.

For anyone living in Bethlehem at that particular moment in time, the arrival of three affluent, sophisticated and possibly even powerful men, purportedly guided by a star and asking around for the new King of Kings, must have provided some mighty gossip material. That the above King of Kings was found in a humble manger, together with his sublimely humble, even vagrant family, only adds to the power of this most unlikely encounter between two worlds which never should have collided.

What happened then is nothing short of revolutionary and it sets the tone for everything that followed. Forever changing our world, the same way the star forever changed these Three Wise Men's lives.

Curiously enough, there are very few Christmas carols celebrating this moment. This is one of the most beloved Romanian ones, written by the formidable Anton Pann, sometime around 1823. Half Gypsy and half Greek, Pann was also a very gifted psalm singer, as this particular carol uncharacteristically (but brilliantly) shows us. In the best Byzantine tradition, the soloist's voice is, therefore, timeless, ageless and even genderless. That is because the psalm singer always symbolizes, in this particular universe, the Angel.

[winter-snow-winter]

Romanian Christmas Carols

[eurovision-revisited]

Eurovision 2006 - Number 61 - Millenium – "Cred în steaua mea"

The history of Formația Millenium (yes, one 'n') resembles a K-pop band formed of Soviet child musician heroes. They've had different generations of members, recruited in their teens to sing, record, perform everything from rock to pop to Christmas carol compilation LPs. They rehearsed and recorded in the basements underneath Chisinau State Circus, an abandoned Soviet monument to entertainment where they would freeze in winter and boil in summer. Their leader, impresario, and mentor was Vlad Gorgos.

The first incarnation started in the late 1990s and consisted of a group of kids including Vlad's own son. That band was 'replaced' in 2003 by a new brood of teenagers and students from the Chisinau music academy. They could sing, play instruments, perform - it was a modern day musical circus production line and I truly hope the conditions had improved by then.

It's this second generation of Millenium that found themselves on the second try that TRM had a national final in 2006. I'm not entirely sure which members of the band are on stage as there were more than six of them in the band at the time, but I'm fairly certain that the woman violinist and singer is Olga Gorcinschi. Until very recently one of their members had been a certain Natalia Gordienko - but she had other plans this year...

There was a semi-final and a final on TV. They sang Cred în steaua mea (I Believe in My Star) a turbo-folk fuelled rock workout started by a man cracking a whip. An allusion to their circus based home. It's a song sung by wide-eyed youngsters dreaming of a big, bright futures. They're fit, tanned and profess their belief in love just a little bit too much.

They cruised through the semi-final and the fun, young, vibrant group appealed both to the judges on the jury, who placed them second of the thirteen songs in the final and to the watchers at home who placed them fourth. That put them on seventeen points. Unfortunately for them, the three winners tied for first place, on eighteen points. Millenium were one point away from success!

Or so it seemed. That tie proved problematic for TRM. In order to resolve it, the took the unusual step of cancelling the entire national final after it had happened and scheduling a second one at short notice. They did invite the three bands who won, but only one of them agreed to take part. A completely new slate of another four acts were also invited to join in and it was one of those new acts (including former Millenium member Natalia Gordienko) that won. Obviously there were complaints, accusations of fixing and worse, but the new result stood.

The band were so close! As you might expect for a group managed by others, this wasn't going to be their final attempt and since 2006 they've taken part in two more Moldovan finals and one Romanian one. They've also continued to perform, record and churn out music with a line-up that has increasingly stayed static. Even now their members and former members release music under the Millenium banner. Olga Gorcinschi has even released a single on their YouTube channel within the last two months.

[patfurstenberg]

Romania, Incredible Winter Traditions

#Romania, Incredible Christmas and Winter Traditions: Saint Nicholas, Caroling, Bear Dance, Goat Dance, Calusarii, Epiphany, lighting of Fires, Cozonac. #WinterSolstice #Im4Ro #Christmas

Romania knows some millennial, incredible Christmas and winter Traditions. I am excited to share them with you. Admit it, Winter Solstice time and there’s a tingle in the air, a crispness in the wind, a shadow nearly caught out of the corner of one’s eye. After all, the life-giving Sun is the furthest away… But before modern telescopes or even sundials were used, people relied on their inner…