ruination
(n.)
the act or fact of ruining something or someone or of being ruined

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"failures lead to more failures."

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The pale colored car of the Starks' cut through the darkness of the bleak night as the drove down the going down the dirt road. Howard was paranoid, yes. But he was not nearly as bad as his wife was. Maria hired one of the best mission operatives of the time to protect she and her husband.

But little had she known, the efforts had failed. Just as Natalia told her it may.

And he was there.

Waiting.

Waiting for just this moment. The inconvenience arrived at a very convenient time. Just long enough for him to knock the Black Widow unconscious.

As the engine of his motorcycle roared to life, he looked over to see the Widow laying on the ground unmoving and bleeding from her nose. He didn't know who she was, why she'd want to kill him, or how she'd know he was here.

But she was skilled. Skilled enough to find him. Skilled enough to rival him. Skilled enough to put a little fear in his bones.

And she had called him something. A name.

She had called him James. He had never had a name that he remembered. The Users had always called him Soldier. Though he only remembered one User, he was sure he had more in the past. The User spoke as though it was a known fact.

He spoke like most things were common knowledge. But not for him. Nothing was really common for him. He only knew what the User wanted him to know. No more. No less. And that was just how it needed to be. They were the Users and he was the device.

As he revved the engine a bit, he glanced back over to look at her again. The sight of her blood-stained and bruised porcelain skin made him feel somethings that he wasn't used to. If he had known the feeling or the word that they had erased from his memory, he would have known that he felt ashamed and sad. And her soft voice and crimson hair made him feel... comfortable? At home? He didn't know.

But he shook off the feeling and released the clutch, letting the bike speed off out of the tree line and into the road, right behind the Starks.

He added some gas to speed up beside them and slipped a dagger out of his belt, slashing the back tire. It was all one fluid motion that felt so very common.

That was what was common for the Winter Soldier. The fighting. He understood that. He always understood that. They never took that away from him. His knowledge of combat was the absolute only constant in his life.

The car did just as the Winter Soldier expected it to. It swerved out of place and hit a tree with the force of hundreds of pounds speeding 40 miles per hour. The couple probably would have died if he left them there. But he had to be sure. He had to finalize it. No witnesses.

The Winter Soldier turned around his bike and parked it next to the car, pointing towards the passenger door, leaving it on for light. He pushed the kickstand down and made his way to the trunk.

The package was the most important objective of the mission. Using his metal arm, he destroyed the lock and ripped open the truck, revealing a few luggage bags and a sleek black briefcase on top. A briefcase that was heavily guarded by locks. It was obviously the one he was looking for. The old man could have hidden it.

He pulled them off and lifted open the box, revealing five doses of electric blue super soldier serum. There they were.

He closed the case and left it in the back, for he heard the diver door open and someone fall out. He walked around to see a bloodied Howard Stark crawling towards him on his hands and knees.

"Please," he begged in a strained whisper. "Help."

"Howard!" Maria cried from within the car. The Winter Soldier laid no attention.

Natalia could feel her senses coming back to her. Usually it was a rush, but right now it was snailing back to her like molasses.

She could taste the metallic flavor of blood and the mossy dirt in her mouth. Her head throbbed from the hit she received. Everything was spinning. Her throat burned and her neck was sore. But she smelt the smoke of the very thing she came here to avoid.

She could hear the muffled whimpering of Maria Stark. Natalia looked up, squinting through the bright headlights from the Winter Soldier's motorcycle and the Starks' car. The car was blocking everything from view. But she saw enough. Stark was on his knees before the towering assassin. She could see their feet.

"Sergeant Barnes," she heard Howard stutter. He remembered his friend. He sounded relieved. Saved. But Natalia knew better than everyone that I was quite the opposite.

She wanted to throw up. But that may have been the head injury she sustained. She doubted it, however. Only one other time in her entire life had she felt such a guttural failure. This mission was over. And she failed. Maybe she could still get to the Serum.

She stood up quickly to grab the steroids and run, but immediately regretted the decision. All the blood rushed to her head and caused such a dizziness that she collapsed back to the ground, the world fading to black yet again.

Howard stood up on his knees and held his hands out to the Winter Soldier as the assassin picked his head up by his wispy, white hair. He did his best to look up at his assaillant but all he saw was a friend. Not a killer. It was Bucky. Little Bucky from Shelbyville. Captain America's best friend. A wonderful soldier unlike anyone else. All he ever wanted to do was go home.

A war casualty.

How was he to know that the truth was that he was actually the longest serving war prisoner.

"Sergeant Barnes," he said with relief and surprise. After everything's had seen, he was not surprised to see his old friend standing before him. But why? He looked him up and down. He was bigger than when he last saw him. But so much less healthy. A metal arm. Black leather. A gun on every edge of his body. All he could do at this moment was give him the benefit of the doubt. "My wife," he said. "Help her."

The Winter Soldier gave Howard a strange look. Sergeant Barnes? James? What the hell? He did his best to ignore that strange names he had been call and raised his metal fist, then drove into into the nose of his old friend repeatedly until he was dead.

"Howard!" his wife cried from inside the car. "Howard!" she cried.

It didn't take too much. Now it was as if he died on impact of the car crash. The Winter Soldier placed him back in his car and put his head neatly on the steering wheel, all the while getting annoyed by the constant cries of the woman in the passenger seat.

The mission called for no witnesses. She was a witness. She had to die too.

Maria couldn't feel her body from the waist down. She had hit her head so hard on the dashboard that she was sure that her senses weren't picking up quite right. She could smell the thick smoke in the air quite well. But her hearing was muffled. There was a ringing in her ears. Everything she saw was blurry and filled with spots.

She knew it wasn't just an accident. Howard wouldn't have lost control of a car like that. Her hired help had failed. They lost. She and Howard were dead and the serum was gone.

She laid back on the seat, trying to subdue the pain radiating in her head and back, doing her best to hear Howard.  It wasn't until she felt five cold fingers wrap around her neck and squeezed, did the remained shred of life finally dissipated from her small frame.

The Winter Soldier shot out the video camera on the corner post and took the briefcase from the trunk, putting it on his bike. He was set to return back to Siberia. All he had to do was get rid of that redhead he left in the tree line so he could carry out his time-sensitive mission.

As he parked his bike on the side of the road next to where she was located, he noticed a red star that was sewn into the shoulder of her stealth suit that was made out of the same leather as his. He glanced over to his heavy, attention-drawing prosthetic arm that made his back ache every day of his life. He stared at the crimson star long and hard enough that he was sure that he saw blood seeping from it.

He stepped into the trees toward the woman. All it took was three large steps. He noticed that she had moved. Was she doing a bad job of pretending to still be unconscious?

He nudged her a bit, but realized that anyone could stay limp like that. The next nudge was much harder in a sensitive area to females. She made no move. She was still out cold. Unconscious for sure.

It would only make her easier to kill. He took his hand gun from his belt and raised it to where it was pointing at her head. The fact that her pale face was bruised and bloodied made him feel another emotion he couldn't name. And it confused him. It was a bad emotion. He didn't want her to look like that.

She was sweating in the winter. She obviously had recollapsed. She had a concussion most likely. His eyes traveled down her body. Why he hadn't killed her yet was beyond him. But for some reason, his mind kept distracting him from it. But it did catch something. In her hip.

It was her handgun. But the strange thing about it was that it was the exact same as his. Same make and model. Barrel length. Everything.

He took it out of her holster and compared it. Same metal. He knew his was Soviet made. One of a kind. The only person that could get one was someone like him. Did that mean she was someone like him?

The thought automaticity made him feel sorry for the woman. No lady should have to do the things he did. He scanned her more thoughougly. She just seemed so familiar. His hand somehow found his way into hers, tracing the fine lines porcelain skin. It was so soft. It felt like a completely new surface that his fingers had never touched before...

Yet it was as if it were meant to be that way. He eyes traveled back up to see a emerald oval cut necklace.

With his left, he picked the pendant up off her chest and observed it harder. It was almost as familiar as the woman herself.

He let his gun drop to the ground. His hands were numb. So was his head. He didn't know what to think. He knew this woman. She called him James earlier. Maybe she knows him too.

But why can't he remember? He shook the feelings away. He had never see that woman before in his life.

But why was she here? Was she Hydra Russian like he was? Was that the explaination for the star and gun? Was she here for help? No. She had attacked him. Surveillance? No. She had attacked him.

So who was she? He wipe the blood away from her face and moved her hair out of her eyes. She was so beautiful.

The mission called for no witnesses, yes. But she didn't see him kill them. Besides, she wore a red star.

She was on his side, he lied to himself. He didn't have to kill her. No.

His mind searched frantically for all the reasons to not kill the redhead. He didn't think about why he should, even though it was clearly the right choice. He didn't know what it was about the woman, but it was something.

There was something. She was torn up when she though she had killed him. And she hesitated. Why can't he?

By he knew that answer to that. He can because he's programmed not to. He picked up the gun to kill her, but when he looked down the barrel, he realized that it was hers. Her identical weapon to his. He wasn't going to kill her with her own weapon.

Then he made a decision. One that he would probably be proud of many years from now. But there was no way to know that now. But he sat her gun next to his like a mirror, stood up, looked at the woman and looked at their weapons that sort of formed and diamond shape and walked away with the strangest of thoughts circling his mind.

Maybe the gun will let her know that he understood. No... he didn't understand any of it. More like... he acknowledges... he didn't know. That he acknowledges something. Whatever this is, he knows it's there. Maybe that will convey when she wakes up.

Such ruination of such a pure organism.

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