It had been a relatively quiet day in the Sam Wilson household, where Natasha Romanoff, Steve Rogers, and Bucky Barnes were taking residency for the time being. A month had passed since Maria Hill had decided not to continue her search for Marlena Claire and a month since Natasha and Bucky had decided not to let her decision effect them or the rest of the team. They had been working just as diligently as Maria had in trying to find Marlena, but with their lack of Stark or S.H.I.E.L.D. technology the matter proved to be increasingly difficult for them. The team didn't give up on the search, though. They were determined to find Marlena, and they would stop at nothing until they did.

Sam lay half asleep on the couch in the living room, admiring the quietness of the temporarily empty house. To Sam, trying to sleep in a house full of super soldiers or assassins was almost impossible for him. Bucky, Natasha, and Steve barely ever slept, which kept him up a lot, and when they actually did sleep, Sam would either be woken up by Steve snoring, Bucky having a nightmare, and Natasha or Steve waking up to comfort him because of his nightmare. The three of them were out with Sharon, though, and Sam stayed back to see if he could begin to catch up on the sleep he was lacking.

Just as he was about to completely drift off, his computer dinged loudly, alerting him that he had a video call. Sam groaned and sat up, groggily making his way into his bedroom. He was annoyed with the fact that his computer had woken him up and even more annoyed with the fact that Maria had instructed him to keep the device on and at its loudest setting in case she needed to contact the four of them regarding anything suspicious she could possibly stumble across.

Sam stumbled towards his computer, very narrowly managing to avoid tripping over his dresser. He hurried towards the computer, and, without even bothering to check and see who it was that was calling him, he accepted the call. The screen lit up with the face of Maria Hill. She seemed disturbed by something, maybe even slightly upset, and Sam couldn't begin to understand why. He had never seen such an expression on her face before, and it worried him. Something was wrong, and he didn't know whether or not it had to do with her or something else, but he wanted to find out.

"Sam, I found something," Maria told him, her voice strained. "Or I was sent something."

Sam furrowed his eyebrows and sat himself down in front of the computer screen. "What is it, Maria?"

Maria sighed sadly, and before Sam could even think another window popped up on the screen.

It was a picture, a picture that almost made Sam want to throw up. In the picture was a small, brown-headed girl laying on what looked to be some sort of cot. Blood stained just about every inch of the small bed, including the shredded clothes the girl wore. The girl's eerily pale skin was covered in a countless amount of contusions and lacerations, an amount that was sure to result in death from an excessive amount of blood loss.

Sam knew who the girl in the picture was, although in that moment he really wished that he didn't. He could recall listening to Bucky talk so fondly about her on the days when the pain of missing her wasn't consuming him. The girl in the picture was Marlena Claire; the girl that they had so desperately been trying to locate for almost the past two months; the girl that Bucky Barnes was so dangerously in love with that he'd do absolutely anything for.

Marlena was dead, though, and not even Sam knew how he should feel about it. He didn't even know the girl, yet the way Bucky spoke about her made him wish that he had known her.

Looking at the picture and coming to the realization that Marlena was gone registered within Sam two completely different ways. What upset him was knowing that such an innocent person had their life so wrongly taken away from them after all of the effort he—along with Steve, Natasha, and Bucky—had put into saving it. What scared him was thinking about how Bucky would react to the news of Marlena's death. Everyone knew—and could practically feel—just how important Marlena was to Bucky Barnes. He cared about her and he loved her, and Sam was sure that seeing this or even hearing about it would absolutely destroy him inside.

Sam ran a hand over his face and looked back at Maria whose expression now seemed to be mirroring his own. "I honestly don't know what to say, Hill. This is going to destroy Barnes."

"I know," Maria squeaked. "The worst part about it is that I couldn't trace it back to where it came from. All I received was this strange note attached to the picture."

Another window popped up, and Sam averted his attention to it. He read over the several words printed onto the document and sighed, still having a bit of trouble trying to grasp the entire situation.

"This is going to destroy him," Sam repeated as he stared at the words.

Maria sniffed and nodded her head, although Sam wasn't paying a bit of attention. "I shouldn't have given up on trying to find her. If I would've just tried harder then maybe she would be at home safe right now."

Sam snapped his head towards her. "Don't blame yourself for this, Hill. You did the best you could do," Sam tried to assure her.

Maria shook her head and wiped her face. She was crying, but that was only because she felt that she was at fault for Marlena's death. Steve had entrusted her with trying to locate Marlena, and she had failed him, and because of that an innocent girl was now dead. "Please tell everyone that I'm sorry. I'm going to transfer the file links to your computer so you can show them to the team and then I'm going to get back to work. Once again, I really am sorry I couldn't do more."

Maria's face disappeared, and Sam was left with the two windows that displayed the very files that were bound to break Bucky Barnes in two.

He let out a sigh and stood up, running his hands over his face. He hoped Steve, Natasha, and Bucky would remain gone for at least another few hours, but the word hope didn't seem to exist for him anymore. . .for anyone, actually.

He listened as the back door opened and in walked the three people he was most dreading to see. The sound of Bucky laughing only made Sam feel worse than he already did. Bucky was actually in a good mood for once, and he was about to ruin that by telling him that the girl he loved was gone.

"Sam!" Steve called with a chuckle.

Sam snapped out of his thoughts at the sound of Steve's voice and hurried out of his room. He wondered why the three of them were in such a good mood, especially when they were about to be robbed of it.

"What's up?" Sam spoke as calmly as he could when he approached the three of them in the kitchen.

Natasha made a face when she took notice of his demeanor. "What the hell happened to you?" she chuckled as she took a sip of her soda. "You look like you've just seen a ghost."

Or the dead body of the very girl we've been trying to find for months, but yeah, ghost works too, Sam thought.

He was trying to find a way to begin the conversation, but his mind was drawing a blank. The only thing he could seem to think of was that picture and the girl in it.

"I'm fine," Sam answered quietly.

The three of them were all growing suspicious in regards to Sam's mood, but none of them commented on it. Instead, Steve spoke in an attempt to lighten the mood.

"So, we've got good news," he chimed, his smile bright. "It took a bit of convincing because of Bucky, but Sharon and her boss have agreed to help us try to locate Marlena. With members of the CIA willing to work with us and allow us to use their tech, we might possibly be able to locate her sooner rather than later."

Sam swallowed the lump in his throat and shook his head as if to rid his mind of Steve's words. "Goodness, um—there isn't exactly a need for that anymore."

Bucky narrowed his eyes at Sam and took a step forward. "What are you talking about, Sam?"

"There's something you need to see, Barnes," Sam said before glancing at Natasha and Steve. "There's actually something you all need to see."

Sam took off back towards his bedroom and the three of them followed behind him, more than confused about what he could possibly need to show them.

They watched as he hurried over to his computer and sat down, and when Bucky got a good enough glance at the large screen he rushed over as well, the fear already setting into his body.

"Oh my, God," Natasha muttered from behind him.

Bucky looked over the picture on the screen with pained eyes, unable to make sense of what exactly it was that he was looking at. His mind was running so dangerously fast that he could barely even seem to grasp the fact that the pale and lifeless girl on the cot laying in her own blood was in fact Marlena. He didn't want to believe that it was her, of course, but there was no other logical explanation for who else it could be.

"No," Bucky breathed as an abundant amount of negative emotions began to manifest themselves inside the soft tissues of his brain. "Please, no."

"That isn't all, I'm afraid," Sam sighed, pulling up the word document.

Bucky squeezed the back of Sam's chair tightly as he attempted to read the cursed document through the warm tears pooling in his eyes.

(To whomever it is that has been trying to hack into our databases for the past couple of months, I'd advise you to stop and deliver this urgent message to Sergeant James Barnes.)

Now, Mr. Barnes, I know I originally told you that I would send your little friend back to you in a body bag, but I thought this would be a lot more fun; plus, she is a very photogenic young girl, is she not? Anyway, I really am sorry that it had to come to this, but I needed to do something drastic to grab your attention. I assume I grabbed it, did I not? But you see, we are very much aware of how deeply you care about this girl. You may be wondering exactly how we know that, but I'll be the first to tell you that Hydra knows everything, regardless of what it may be. Not to mention the fact that she seemed to care deeply about you when she wondered where you were every second of the day, so we could only assume that you reciprocated those emotions. That's beside the point here, though.

The point is that we need you to return and finish the work Hydra built you to do, and with the one person you care most about gone you really have nothing else to do except return. You can't run to Captain Rogers without being turned over to authorities (who, by the way, will no doubt sentence you to death for everything you've done), and you can't exactly run back to Marlena's family. You wouldn't want to put them in anymore danger than they're already in, now would you? So, surrender yourself to us, Barnes; that's your only other option here.

We were even nice enough to reveal our whereabouts to you. Just look at the inscriptions on the wall in the picture, and I guarantee you'll figure it out. At least we weren't so heartless as to allow Marlena to leave without some piece of you.

B.R.

The anger and the pain was becoming far too much for Bucky to handle—it was unbearable. He didn't care about anything; not the picture, not even the words inscribed onto the meaningless document.

They took Marlena away from him; that was the only thing that he cared about.

Without realizing what he was doing, Bucky's metal fist slammed into the computer screen, shards of glass flying in every direction. The image of his love, his Marlena, no longer on the screen.

The image was gone, the note was gone, but the pain was not. The pain Bucky felt only grew stronger and his anger was getting the better of him. He squeezed his eyes shut, his palms digging into his eye sockets just as the tears had begun pouring from his blue eyes.

"This is all my fault." Bucky's voice was hoarse and he felt as if his heart was being ripped through his chest. "Marlena," he sobbed, sitting on the edge of Sam's bed, "she's gone."

"Buck," Steve clenched his jaw, glancing over at Natasha, her face full of sympathy and guilt. "I'm so sorry."

Steve placed a hand on his friend's shoulder as Bucky leaned forward into his embrace. His forehead rested against Steve's chest as sobs shook his body. Never in his entire life had Bucky felt this much pain; not even when he had fallen from the train in the 1940s had he felt this kind of pain. It was not just physical, but emotional.

He felt as if every piece of happiness that he had found since Marlena had become a part of his life was now being stripped away from him. He was sure that he would never recover from this—from losing her.

"Steve," Bucky choked out, feeling nauseous and heartbroken, "We have to find the people who did this." His voice was growing colder and Steve was concerned by this.

"I know," Steve sighed, still hugging his broken friend.

"I want them dead." Bucky pulled back and stood up, unintentionally building walls up to hide his pain.

This was Winter's response to the hurt—not Bucky's. This anger that had been buried deep inside of him ever since Marlena was taken was now breaking the surface and he didn't care. All he cared about was Marlena and her well-being, and now she was dead. She had been murdered. But for what?

"They killed her to get to me," Bucky said through gritted teeth, his cheeks still stained with tears, though no more were falling. "And they will pay for what they've done."

This cold, angry man that stood before them was no longer a man searching for someone he'd lost. This was a man who was going to use lethal force to get justice for Marlena, because he could no longer get what he truly wanted—to have his Marlena back. No, killing every last Hydra soldier that was apart of this scheme to destroy his life was now his mission.

Bucky Barnes died when he saw Marlena's lifeless body laying in her own blood in the photo. However, Winter was returning.

If only he knew that he was turning back into the very weapon that Hydra had made him to be.