Bucky

I'm on my third lap of the SSR's headquarters looking for Ada, hell I even went and checked every damn Catholic church in the neighbourhood before coming back to try again, but she's nowhere to be found.

She's an important person, and we both figured that she'd likely be given some work separate to her work with the Howling Commandos when we got back here. Even in the field her mission objectives are usually different to ours; we're left to destroy the bases while she gets whatever intel the SSR requires before she rejoins the fight.

Her and Steve have clashed at times over it, but she's made it firmly known to everyone on the team that we have to do our jobs while she does hers, and that her whereabouts should be our last concern when we're in the middle of a fight. That didn't go over well with either me or Steve and after that argument we compromised that she'd at the very least give us a heads up before disappearing, which is why I'm worried now even if I shouldn't be..

We're in London and she was called into headquarters for some sort of meeting or assignment. We aren't in the middle of nowhere at risk of a Nazi ambush, but she's been unsettled since we got back and I know she isn't being upfront about something. I try to give her the space she needs when she gets like she does, and that's sure as hell a lot more than most women need, but I knew who I was proposing to.

Still, I can only bite my tongue so much.

I trust her capabilities completely, but I don't worry any less about her. I've had to train myself not to be out of my mind worrying about her whenever she isn't in my line of sight, it's why I like being a sniper, because I'm in a position where I can keep an eye on her and keep her safe. She might think she's invincible but she's had too many close calls, just like Steve has, and it's my job to keep both of them safe and cover them when they rush into the thick of the fight to do what the rest of us physically can't.

Now she's god knows where, doing god knows what. She's a trained spy so I'd be naive to think that the SSR wouldn't put that to use while she's in London, and I can't get mad at her for disappearing considering orders are orders and we're still sneaking around. Which is also why I can't exactly go and ask the colonel where she is despite the fact we're both sure it's an open secret at this point, one she's still firm about keeping, and I haven't been able to find Howard or Peggy either since they're the only other two people who'd have a clue.

I'm walking through the hallway outside her room once again when the door opens and I'm quickly pulled inside by Peggy, but there's no sign of Ada in here either.

"Carter have you seen-"

"Ada? No," she answers, also in a state of distress which is what finally allows the alarm to set in. "So you can't find her either? I'd naturally assumed she was with you."

"She was and then I lost her a few hours ago", I say and she only looks increasingly worried. "Stark rang and asked us to come in, but I haven't seen him either."

"Now you mention it neither have I," she says and shakes her head in frustration. "I swear those two will be the death of me."

I let out a short laugh. "You haven't had to deal with Ada the past four months." She quickly raises her eyebrows in judgment and I clear my throat. "Look, I'd die for her but we both know what she can be like."

"Yes, indeed I do know," she agrees before suddenly stopping. "Wait a moment-"

She walks over to the vanity she shares with Ada and finds a note tucked beneath Ada's perfume, somewhere I hadn't thought to check when I was looking before. I walk over to Peggy's side, picking up the perfume bottle and inhaling the lingering scent on the nozzle to calm myself down if nothing else. I'd bought it for her on Valentine's Day while we were stationed in France. It smells like plums and ever since then I've sure as hell grown to have a love for them.

Peggy sighs and I look over her shoulder. "What does it say?"

"Helping Howard with business. Be back soon. Hopefully..." she reads and we look at each other in concern, but she tries to play it off. "Perhaps we're worrying about nothing. Chances are she's simply accompanying Howard on some sort of meeting."

"Why?" I ask rather bluntly.

"She's an operative trained in both espionage and assassinations and Howard tends to have questionable acquaintances," she answers bluntly in return which doesn't do anything to put me at ease. "It's Ada, I'm sure she'll be fine and we both know she hates being fussed over."

"But she'll fuss over everyone else," I remark and she nods in agreement. "I don't suppose you could use your own training to find out how long it'll be until she gets back."

"That is a highly unethical request," she chastises before answering "And yes I will."

It's then there's a knock on the door and Peggy opens it to Steve. I'm about to offer to give them their privacy before Steve says "Phillips has called us for an emergency meeting."

Peggy's eyes widen and there's a pit in my stomach.

This meeting isn't a coincidence.

~

We're sat in the meeting room with Phillips and the rest of the Howling Commandos, although one is very noticeably missing and Phillips gets straight to business.

"Would anybody like to tell me where Agent Morgan is?" he asks and Peggy and I look at each other upon realising that wherever she's gone hasn't been with his knowledge. "I know that one of you three has to know something." He gestures to Steve, Peggy and I before his eyes fall on me. "Sergeant Barnes? I can only assume that you were one of the last people to see her."

My jaw clenches at the confirmation that he's aware of at least some sort of relationship with Ada. There's no doubt in my mind that he thinks it's just sexual, we know that rumours get around, but only the Howling Commandos know about our engagement with the exception of Peggy and Howard. She's been worried constantly about us being seen together while I've been trying to reassure her, but it seems that my theory was right, that as long as we do our jobs and don't cause any trouble he'll turn a blind eye to it.

Even so, the tone of his voice sure doesn't help.

"She left a note in our room saying she was assisting Mr Stark with some business," Peggy interrupts and he nods slowly.

"Business? Very well," he says and places a typed message on the table. "In that case we have a problem."

"Sir?"

"We just received this from a messenger who's flown directly from Finow in Germany to bring this to us. This was written by the aide to General McGinnis informing us of an incident... can anybody take a guess as to what it says?" he asks us, as exasperated as I've ever seen him. "We have hundreds of dead Soviets and a dead General McGinnis along with a handful of other dead American soldiers. Can any of you take a guess as to who the last people to see General McGinnis alive were?" My stomach sinks when he puts a flight log on the table. "Mr Stark and Agent Morgan."

"They're in Germany?" Steve asks and that's when the colonel's face hardens.

"Approximately six hours ago Morgan and Stark landed to independently investigate the battlefield for whatever reason. When they got back to camp Stark was apparently in pretty bad shape and she was claiming that everyone else who accompanied them was killed in a Nazi ambush that the Soviets interrupted, and somehow nobody questioned why the Soviets didn't end up taking her prisoner."

It's then he hesitates and glances towards me before continuing.

"They never made it to the airfield to return back to London," he says and my blood runs cold. "Their vehicle was run off the road and Stark was found hanging through the windscreen with serious wounds. He's alive but Morgan's nowhere to be found."

I can feel the men's eyes immediately fall on me and I swallow hard. "What- what do you mean that they don't know where she is?"

"I was hoping one of you would have a theory," Phillips says, immediately assuming some worse conspiracy that I can't even fathom, but Peggy can.

"The Red Army identified Ada during whatever incident occurred and she never made it back to Howard's plane?" Peggy exclaims and surmises "Colonel Phillips if you are insinuating that Ada killed a General and other American soldiers and then somehow tried to kill Howard-"

"Does it truly sound that far fetched?"

"Yes," I immediately interrupt and Steve gives me a warning look but I'm not having it and neither is Peggy.

"What I think is less far-fetched is the possibility that they were attacked and then intercepted by Soviet soldiers who left Stark for dead while taking her captive," Peggy says and we're both getting to our feet. "Captain Rogers-"

"Already on it," Steve says and orders the men. "Get ready, we're flying out now."

"I haven't approved this mission," Phillips says and Dugan puts himself between Phillips and I.

"Well I have," Steve says and that's that. "And I'd ask to borrow Agent Carter for this assignment considering she's the only person here that's fluent in Russian."

"Don't get her killed," Phillips grants and I'm already halfway out of the room and down the hall when Steve wraps his hand around my arm.

"Buck-"

"What the hell was she doing over in there?" I ask even though he knows as little as I do. "In Germany at a Russian battlefield-"

"I don't know, but we're going to find out," he says, desperately trying to keep me calm, and my voice is hoarse.

"Steve-"

"Buck," he says with both hands on my shoulders. "We're going to find her."

"She'd kill herself before letting anyone take her alive," I quake and he can't look me in the eye. "If it's too late-"

He cuts me off and orders "Get ready and meet me in ten minutes. We'll be on our way there within the hour."

My heart pounds and I'm fighting to maintain any composure as he pushes me towards our room to prepare to return to the field and I don't know what's waiting for us. All I know is that I need to get to her before I lose her for good.

Either to her own hand or theirs.

~

Two and a half hours later we're flying through German airspace. It's been twelve hours since I last saw her and almost nine since she went missing.

She could be anywhere by now.

The plane is silent until we near Finow and Peggy finally speaks up.

"I would remind you men that we are still formally allied with the Soviet Union and that Ada would not want that peace to be broken," she says and my hand rests over my side-arm. "I have no doubt that they are responsible for this knowing Ada's history, but whatever action we take must be either measured or done discreetly."

Steve's head turns at the last word and I give an affirmative nod, having picked up a few things from Ada over the past few months, but I only grow ill as she goes on.

"If she was identified by Soviet soldiers I can almost guarantee that they sent an operative, or perhaps even multiple, from Ada's academy in order to subdue her since it would make little sense for them to kill her on sight when she holds Leviathan's only key to replicating a Soviet version of the serum."

"Leviathan?" Steve asks.

"The Soviet Union's own deep science division," she reveals, the name new to both Steve and I, and I begin to fear how much I still don't know about what was done to Ada. "We had long suspected their existence but Ada confirmed it. They collaborated with Hydra prior to the German-Soviet alliance falling through, and Ada was their main project. When she officially defected to the SSR she freely revealed all the Soviet classified information she knew which is why we cannot let her remain in their Soviet custody considering their punishments for treason..."

She can't meet my eye and I'm sick to my stomach. Steve watches me with a cautious eye as the plane lands and I'm the first to get to my feet with a rifle in hand.

"Buck-" Steve begins but I'm already pulling the hatch open and my feet are on the ground a moment later and he's quickly following me out as we're met by an aid.

"Captain Rogers, it is an honour," the Englishman says. "My name is Edwin Jarvis and I have been sent to bring you to the main camp."

"Where's Stark?" I ask and his face is pale.

"He has undergone medical treatment at the main camp and is recovering," he informs us and Peggy steps forward to take over.

"Were the injuries serious?"

"We believe that the only reason he wasn't captured by Nazi forces were because they already believed him to be dead," he says and I glance towards Peggy.

"Nazi forces?" she inquires. "Is that a statement or a theory?"

"Nazi forces are the only ones who could have done this," Jarvis states and I'm marching towards one of the jeeps while she picks his brain for answers that we already know.

"Buck, I know you're afraid but you need to follow our lead," Steve reminds me but I don't have any words for him as I start the jeep and he elects to get in beside me. "You don't even know where you're going."

Jarvis rushes up to the side of the jeep. "If you wait just a moment I will lead you and your unit to the sight of the crash and then on to the main camp."

"Thank you, Sir," Steve says when I don't speak and by the time the men have finishing piling into the jeep we're moving along an isolated dirt road, surrounding my forest on either side. Perfect for an ambush.

Ahead there's a crossroads, the side roads concealed by foliage, and my blood runs cold at the sight of the jeep ran off into a ditch. I'm skidding to a halt and jumping out of the jeep to march to the wreckage with my rifle in hand, taking note of the dirt tracks from either side.

They tried to slam Ada's jeep between two trucks and from the damage at the back they must have just nicked it enough to send it hurtling off the road. But it's not the damage on the jeep that makes causes my heart to stop, nor even the shattered windscreen considering it's Howard that had been thrown through it, but the blood on the ground and the bullet holes scattered across the jeep.

I'm stopped in my tracks by it and Peggy's by my side taking it in with parted lips.

"This blood doesn't belong to Howard," she states and Jarvis nods gravely.

"Mr Stark was found through the windscreen, so it's apparent that the blood is not his."

He doesn't make assumptions, but Peggy does. She approaches it like any other crime scene and steps around the blood. "She was stabbed, most likely in the leg since this is arterial bleeding and it's pooled too low for it to have come from her neck and spray at this angle."

It's only then I take in the spray of blood across the side of the jeep and the blood pooled in the dirt, a body clearly having been dragged through it. Peggy bends down to examine a knife that lays in the dirt and looks at me.

"Is this one of Ada's?"

A shake of my head is all I can muster and she examines a bloody handprint along the side of the jeep with curiosity, raising her hand up and comparing it before affirmatively saying "It's a woman's hand, but it's not Ada's, the palm's too long."

A glint of metal catches my eye and I bend down to find a bloody bullet, custom made. "This is one of Ada's."

"She wouldn't have gone without a fight," Steve says and looks around at the dirt tracks. "They went along one of the side roads after they dragged her into a vehicle, two sets of tracks."

"We need to see Howard," Peggy decides. "He may have seen something."

"We need to follow the tracks," I argue and Dugan steps forward.

"I'll take the men to follow the trail, you talk to Stark and see what he knows," he says and puts a hand on my shoulder. "We'll find her."

Before I can argue Steve nods and moves me back towards the jeep and we're on our way to the main camp. My hands shake and I haven't felt this cold since I was in that prison.

When we arrive at camp it's in a state of chaos and we're led to one of the medic tents to find Howard half-conscious with a black eye and an impressive welt on his head.

"Peg," he calls out anxiously and Steve doesn't appreciate the informality. "You're here. Did Ada tell you what happened?"

"Ada's missing," Peggy states and he turns pale. "What the hell happened and why did the two of you take off without a word of notice to anybody?"

"What do you mean she's missing?" he exclaims. "She- I thought she must have been brought back to camp while I was still out?"

"No, no one's seen her since the two of you left camp," Peggy says and he lowers his eyes, as distraught as I've ever seen him. "Howard, what happened before you went through the windscreen."

He struggles and he winces as he sits himself up. "I'd gotten a black eye so she insisted on driving us back to the plane. We were maybe halfway back when we got to a crossroads and two trucks came out of nowhere and tried to ram us from either side. She slammed down on the gas and saved us from getting crushed, but we ran off the road and that's all I remember."

Steve stays firmly by my side while Peggy leads the interrogation. "Did the trucks have markings?"

"Not that I could tell, but they weren't American or German make," he says and the realisation hits him. "The Russians have her."

"How did the Russians come to know she was here?" Peggy asks and Steve goes forward to help him as he tries to get to his feet. "Howard time is ticking-"

"I know, which is why I'm going to bring you to the battlefield," he reluctantly says. "You won't understand otherwise."

He can't meet my eye as Steve helps him out towards the jeep and not long later we're pulling up to a sight that none of us will ever forget.

"Jesus christ," Peggy murmurs under her breath at the sight of the carnage and my stomach sinks as Howard explains the gas to us, because I know that despite the country she serves that these are still her people and that she wouldn't have let this go unpunished.

"She'd already decided to kill them before we even stepped foot here," Howard reveals as we look at the bodies of the American soldiers. "The General hated Jews and Russians and his men weren't any better."

Peggy asks a question that leaves all of us uncomfortable. "Did she shoot him in the groin for any relevant reason?"

"She pinned him as the type to take more liberties with prisoners of war than the average soldier, but he never tried to hurt her," Howard affirms and I can't bring myself to speak. "But he did threaten to kill her and cover it up just like the rest of this." He looks at me now. "Turns out your lady has a real sense of poetic justice, just a warning."

I don't react and he quickly looks away in guilt while I look around with a lump in my throat, knowing the worst things that they could be doing to her right now.

"She killed a general and other soldiers, and the two of you were just going to fly back like nothing happened?" Steve exclaims, dumbfounded, but Peggy looks less scandalised.

"We were going to lie our asses off and cover it up, but well, things didn't go to plan," he says, wincing as he looks at the bodies. "Speaking of which, what is the plan?"

"Dugan and the rest of the men are following the trail. We came to see what you know," Steve says and we look around, despair seeping in as he admits. "I just don't know where to go from here."

"I have a plane, we can scout the area and check the intel back at base to see where the nearest Soviet camps are," Howard decides and Peggy nods in agreement. "She was here because of me, I'm not abandoning her now."

He limps back to the jeep and there's crackling over the radio.

"Cap, come in," Dugan says. "We've lost the physical trail but we've been scouting the area and looking at maps. Looking at the locations of Soviet airfields and bases there's only one road they could have taken if they're set on taking her back to Russia. They have a headstart but-"

"We have a plane," Peggy finishes and with those words we snap into action.

~

Ada

When I regain consciousness my wrists are in handcuffs above my head, and for just a moment I'm back in the Red Room until I feel movement beneath me and open my eyes to find my wrists suspended from chains attached to a wall.

"Adeline," a singsong voice chimes and my stomach drops as I raise my head to find Doreteya sitting opposite to me. We're in the back of a moving truck and I can scarcely recall how I ended up here, but when I look down to find a bandage wrapped around my thigh it slowly comes back to me.

It's only then I feel the chill of cold air and realise I'm naked with the exception of my undergarments, and she's wearing my damn uniform.

"Crazy bitch," I mutter in Russian and she just smiles.

"I'm disappointed in you Adelina, you used to be so much sharper," Doreteya chastises. "After all, the infamous Red Widow who took out four of us widows should be able to handle little old me, but then again, you didn't have the advantage of killing me in my sleep did you?"

"Since when did you care about a fair fight?" I question and she just shrugs, eyeing me with the same calculating precision as a catlike predator in what she believes to be a silent assertion of dominance.

"I was hoping I'd get one with you, but despite all that serum you truly don't live up to your name after all," she says, looking my almost naked form up and down. "I've got to say, the pinup posters don't do you justice. Although it does look like they painted over those nasty bullet scars you've got there."

She could kill me in more excruciating ways than any man has the intellect to imagine or the skill to perform, but at least I'm safe from her doing to me what those men would in this state. "Was stripping me necessary?"

"Of course it was, I couldn't let you sit there with god knows what stashed away in those clothes," she says and runs her hands over the fabric of my uniform. "Carbon polymer, it's a good thing I decided to use my good knives otherwise you would've just ended up with a nasty bruise on that thigh."

I look down at the blood soaked bandage wrapped around my leg, lightheaded from blood loss but recovering. "How considerate of you."

"Ah, you've developed a sense of humour while you've been parading about as Miss America," Doreteya notes and my eyes follow her as she walks in a circle, tapping a blade against her palm before posing for me and putting on an American accent that's far too similar to my own voice. "What do you think? With a bit of hair dye and some brown contact lenses do you think I could pass for Miss America?" She changes her accent slightly, upbeat and girlish. "Or, do you think I could be Dottie Underwood, a ballerina looking for a big city adventure in New York." She changes accent again, something deep and sultry. "Or perhaps Ida Emke, a socialite looking for an illicit affair with a stupidly rich man."

"Or you could be Doreteya Undakova, sold off by her parents during famine," I say and her face darkens while I only take pleasure in unbalancing her. "Unwanted, unloved, and despite all your efforts... still second best."

She takes one of my own pistols and aims it at my head, but if she was allowed to kill me then I'd already be dead. I don't know how long's passed since the crash, I don't know if Howard's alive, and I don't know where I am, but I'm face to face with an extremely deadly and utterly unstable woman, and being one myself I know exactly how to exploit those qualities.

She's eighteen, perhaps even nineteen by now, and at the age where she has everything to lose and everything to prove. She's always been high strung, always desperate to distinguish herself from the rest, and I've killed many girls just like her.

"So cruel," she says, trying to feign a calm composure. "Especially when your own mother sold you off to German scientists because she knew that you could never have survived your graduation without that serum."

I could almost laugh at the fact she truly believes that and I target every raw nerve that she has, because I share those same wounds.

"And how was your graduation ceremony, Doreteya? Was it everything that you dreamed of?" Her face hardens and I mock "Did you think that if you were something special that they'd send you over to America to become some rich bastard's wife and have his babies? Live out your life as a sleeper cell spy and enjoy the American dream?" Her mouth curls into a grimace. "Ah you did, didn't you? After all it's what all the girls dream of isn't it, to be stationed in the land of the free, but I'm the only one that actually got it."

"And where are you now Adeline?" she mocks in return and I just smile.

"I don't know Dottie, where am I?" I ponder and her face is neutral. "Germany? Russia? Somewhere in between? You must have stopped at a camp to mend your wounds as well as my own with the way you're carrying yourself after that gunshot, and those do take a bit of time to fix up." I raise my eyebrows to assess the lump that had been forming after the crash. "And my head seems to have healed and knowing how long that stuff you injected me with typically knocks me out for I'd say it's been eight or so hours, taking into consideration having to stop for treatment and with how fast these trucks drive I'd say that we're somewhere west of Warsaw and heading for Belarus."

Her careful control of her expressions affirms that I'm correct, because if I wasn't she'd gladly throw it in my face, and so instead she tries to hit a nerve of my own. "I wonder if you told Captain America where you were going, because I can't imagine that the men back at that camp would have been too eager to report you missing after you killed their general."

I merely shrug, trying to play off the pounding fear in my chest that Howard didn't make it, or worse that he's in their custody. "I was quite proud of that work."

"You might have learned to act like you don't care what happens to you, but the cyanide pills in your pocket say otherwise," she says and my face slowly falls as she pulls the pills out of the compartment in my breast pocket. "I wonder how many of these cyanide pills it would take to kill someone with your enhancements. Considering there's five in here it seems you don't know the exact answer either but that you wanted to be sure they'd do the job."

She steps closer with those pills and my body tenses.

"You know, despite this face you put on I don't think you actually want to die," she says and there's a sick gleam in her eye. "Let's see."

She pops the pills in my mouth and reflexively I spit them out onto the ground with the exception one which I keep hidden within my mouth, tucked between my lower gum and cheek.

One isn't enough to kill me, but it may just be enough to kill her.

"That's what I thought," she says, smiling in satisfaction. "Do you really think that I can't smell the fear on you, wondering if your boyfriend's alive?"

In my lightheadedness there's the slightest moment of fleeting panic at the thought of something having happened to Bucky, but quickly I realise she means Howard. I look her up and down, dressed in my clothes and fantasising... although her fantasies are nothing new. After all I was always her rival, the older protege that she aspired to uncrown with a title that she wanted for herself.

She has a mind more twisted than most widows I've known, a seething jealousy that never seems to be satiated, and with that jealousy there's the slightest edge to her obsession that I can manipulate. A desire that's both suppressed and weaponised against us.

Something that I unfortunately know well.

She wants to be me, she wants my reputation and my standing. She wants my freedoms. All of those are so far out of reach for her, but I'm not. Everything she craves I embody in her eyes, a living slice of the American dream and an opportunity to finally dominate her greatest rival.

And perhaps something far more indulgent for her.

"Oh Doreteya, surely you of all people know that it's not always men that catch a woman's fancy," I say and her face immediately changes, revealing something I'd been relying on as I extend my half naked body, lying back against the wall to leave myself exposed. "But then again, us girls always told ourselves that it never counted if it was just practice?"

She's suddenly sheepish, flustered even, and that's exactly what I want. In my months with Bucky I've learned more about seduction than I have in all the lessons the Red Room gave. To women like her true passionate sex is as much of an unattainable myth as the American dream. Even if she's been given those assignments I know that it would have been mechanical for her, a means to an end, but this, giving her an opportunity to finally satiate both her obsession and those desires may just be the salvation I need.

Her eyes trail over me and I know I don't have long before the capsule begins to dissolve in my mouth considering it was designed to be fast acting after all, and I look at her in the same way I'd look at Bucky all those nights together in Brooklyn to get him on his knees for me.

All I need is to get her closer.

"You want it don't you?" I continue and her jaw's clenched as she takes me in, knowing damn well that I have ulterior motives, but also tempted to tread closer. Unable to resist an opportunity to best me in every way that she can. "To be me. To walk freely. To talk freely. To be whoever you want. Fuck whoever you want." Her eyes darken. "You want it."

I can see her assessing the risk. I'm chained to the wall and injured, any attempt I make to harm her should inevitably fail. She's undressed me and ensured I have no weapons, the only thing I could use to harm her are my legs and those aren't exactly in top condition. She knows I'm going to try something, but for just a moment of selfish indulgence and domination that's a risk she's willing to take when she truly believes she has the upper hand.

She steps closer and lifts my chin up in an attempt to establish control over the situation, and I'm docile as I oblige and look up at her with inviting eyes, glancing down at her red lips.

She runs her thumb over my own lips and I give her what she wants, submission. I've played this game enough times with Bucky to know how it's won, the doe eyes and flushed cheeks before taking control when they least expect it. Like him she'll end up beneath me but she won't be naked.

She'll be choking.

Her hand slips down around my throat and I bite the inside of my cheek to draw enough blood to mask the taste of the cyanide as she leans in and experimentally presses her lips to mine. Her second hand trails up along my body until it comes to grasp the handcuffs around my wrists, establishing what she believes to be control as she moves to fully straddle me, purposefully putting weight onto the wound on my thigh.

"You'll want to put a bit more weight on me than that," I remark and I only smile as she squeezes my throat, but my momentary snark seems to ease her into believing that this is less of a plot and more of a desperate attempt to gain my captor's affections.

Still, she does as I instruct before moving back in with a firm grip around my neck and her lips are soft against mine. It's different to the graze of Bucky's stubble and lips that have been more often chapped than not in the harsh conditions we've been in. It doesn't elicit the same emotions, not the swell of my heart or the butterflies, but it causes some reaction on a physical level as my lips part and her tongue slips in.

The taste of blood only seems to excite her and her nails dig into my neck as she tilts my jaw back for better access. Her body grinds down into mine just as I break away to bring my lips down to her jaw, giving me enough time to bite down on the capsule without her noticing. She roughly brings my lips back to hers and the moment her mouth opens for mine I spit the pierced capsule into her mouth and twist her around, wrapping one of the long chains around her throat before mustering every last bit of chemically given strength to break the link connecting the handcuffs to one another and to the wall in two, and cover her mouth with my hands.

She screams against my hand in recognition of the taste, attempting to spit it out but my hold's stronger than she anticipated as I attempt to strangle her with the chains, making her choose which fight she's going to pick when I kick away the pistol she reaches for.

She chooses the chains and flips us over so she's on top of me and I'm yelling out at the knee she digs straight into the knife wound she left in my leg. In return I bring a leg up straight into the bullet wound I gave her and she chokes at the force of the kick, falling back against the ground and shoving her fingers down her throat to try to vomit up the cyanide she'd swallowed.

Immediately I reach up for the chain and bring my legs up against the wall, using my body weight and the force of the kick to break the chain off the ring it was attached to and I turn back to Doreteya who's on her knees gagging and clutching her throat.

There's a stumble in my step as I reach for her and wrap the chain around her neck from behind but she grabs my wrists and rasps "Wait-wait! Your sister-" I pause and she coughs out "She isn't at the academy. She- she's with Zola."

"Bullshit!"

"Zola's looking for an escape for when Germany loses the war," she gasps as I tighten the chains. "The headmistress, she gave him Ekaterina to replicate the serum as a condition of his recruitment to Leviathan."

"Which base?" I ask and she doesn't answer. "Which base!"

She's gasping for breath and I loosen the chains just slightly but she's hardly dying. She spat out most of the cyanide out so she doesn't have an excuse.

"Stop choking and answer me," I scold, grabbing her by the hair of her scalp. "I only need a location."

It's then she smiles and immediately I slam her head into the wall just as the truck comes to an abrupt stop and we both tumble to the ground. There's the muffled sounds of men yelling and gunshots but still I reach for her, grabbing the knife from the inside of the boot that she wears and she rolls just in time to avoid the blade severing the artery in her neck, but still it slashes deep and I throw myself on top of her. My knee's pressed into her bullet wound as I wrap my hands around her bleeding throat and she drives her own blade into my side and twists but I refuse to falter.

Her eyes bulge and begin to turn bloodshot, she struggles from beneath me and I grunt as she tears the knife out. Blood rushes and I have to quickly pull a hand away from her neck to grab her wrist as she tries to bury the blade in my neck. The tip just knicks my collarbone and in the struggle for the blade it's knocked from her hand and slid across the length of the floor.

She tries to flip me, to go after the knife, but I slam her head back down into the floor and grab the chain that lies just above her. Her eyes widen as she feels the metal wrap around her throat again and this time she knows there's no fighting it as I dig my knees into her chest, putting my entire weight directly on her lungs.

The hand that reaches for the blade in vain falls limp as she loses consciousness, but before I can finish the job the doors of the truck are thrown open. Immediately I launch into a defensive position, grabbing the pistol I'd kicked away and preparing to shoot first until I catch sight of the navy uniform.

"Oh god," I breathe at the sight of Bucky while all he can do is stare at horror at the sight in front of him. He immediately lowers his rifle and just as quickly Peggy's by his side, taking me in with the same horrified eyes.

"Ada," Peggy panics, clambering inside while Bucky yells orders at the men and I look down at the blood running from the wound in my side. "Steve she's in here!"

Bucky follows her inside, cursing as he takes me in, immediately removing his jacket to cover me. He moves to bring me into his arms but in my paranoia I brush him off, looking to ensure Doreteya's unconscious before letting them help me to my feet. Before I can fire a headshot they've pulled me out of the truck into the dead of night and Bucky's holding me up as I stumble.

I look to see the Howling Commandos gathered several stopped trucks with Leviathan's soldiers on their knees at gunpoint. Twelve in total with others already dead.

"Ada you need medical attention," Peggy says and she tries to urge me to one of our own trucks but I wave her off, also pushing Bucky aside when he tries to take me over to them regardless. The men lower their eyes at my current state but it's the last thing I could care about right now.

"The soldiers?" I manage to ask and the Howling Commandos look at each other, having no idea just what they've intercepted. The Soviet Union's most classified agency whose existence is only known because of my treason.

"I say we take them prisoner," Dugan says and Steve nods in agreement.

"Herd them into the trucks," Steve orders but I shake my head before reloading my pistol.

"No."

Before anyone can protest I've begun firing at point blank range and despite Steve's verbal protest no one moves to physically stop me. When the last body falls I again have to push Peggy and Bucky away as I stumble to the truck I'd been kept within to take care of Doreteya.

Only to find her gone.

"Fuck!" I curse and throw my pistol down in anger before grabbing the submachine gun of one of the fallen Leviathan soldiers. "Hunt her down. She can't be allowed to escape."

I move to follow the faint trail of blood left in the dirt only for Steve to grab me by the arm and I whip around with a glare.

"You need medical attention-"

"And I don't give a shit. That girl needs to be put down," I hiss and his eyes widen as he lets me go, but none of the men have moved. "Did you hear me? Hunt her down!"

"She's gone Ada," Peggy finally says since none of the others will. "And we need to leave in case more troops come."

"You have no idea how dangerous she is-"

"And she's running for her life so she poses no imminent danger to any of us," she argues, not understanding the consequences of the Soviet Union knowing what happened here today.

"I killed those men for a reason," I state roughly. "No witnesses."

"Get in the damn truck before I put you in it," Peggy orders and Bucky physically takes the gun from my hands and moves me towards the truck despite my resistance, but I'm quickly stopped in my tracks when I see the person in the drivers seat.

Howard.

I let out a breath of relief so violent my knees finally buckle and I'm pliant now as Bucky moves me into the back of the truck. I know that he's furious with me, but he's still not my main worry.

"If you pinpoint our location I can track her and stop her before she gets back to the nearest Soviet camp," I say but he doesn't even acknowledge anything I'm saying as he takes a medic kit and begins packing the wound in my side. "Bucky I'm not asking. Give me a damn map-"

"No," Steve says as he gets into the back of the truck with us, followed by Peggy. "You're injured and you're going back to camp."

"And yes, we know about General McGinnis," Peggy chimes in as the truck starts moving and I purse my mouth. "Howard's already gotten his lecture, but Ada-"

"I don't care about that pig-"

"You should considering a Soviet general knows that you killed him in retribution," Peggy argues and my eyes narrow. "And that there are witnesses who can testify to you stating your loyalty to the Soviet Union."

My throat tightens upon remembering the confrontation. "Am I being charged with treason?"

"No, but Colonel Phillips has already asked why you weren't arrested by the Russians for treason against them when they came across you," she says and Bucky can't look me in the eye as it hits me all over again.

"I told them that the Nazis were responsible for Finow," I counter. "I've just saved the United States from entering into a war with the Soviet Union that they would not win. Phillips should be on his knees thanking me for what I did."

"And how did you explain the dead American general to your old comrades?"

The edge to her voice leaves me tense and Bucky keeps a hand on my arm to keep me in place while Steve opens his mouth to de-escalate the situation, but he can't find the words.

"I said only the truth," I swear. "That he was going to kill me."

"And the part about you executing him in the name of the Soviet Union?" she reminds me and I realise Howard didn't leave out any details, not when telling these three at least.

"I was saving my skin," I argue and my words are harsh. "If you want to interrogate me then you can drag me into a damn interview room in handcuffs because I don't have to tell you a goddamn thing."

Peggy shakes her head at me now in disbelief. "You have yet to thank us for saving your life you know."

"I'd be more thankful if you let me hunt down that widow so that there were no witnesses."

"Adelina," Bucky says and my jaw clenches. "Let it go."

"No," I say firmly and hold his eye until he backs down with a shake of his head. "You don't realise-"

"No, I don't realise because you never tell me a damn thing," he says sharply and I scoff. "God knows you make me wonder sometimes..."

"Oh really?"

"Enough," Steve interrupts and finally I look at him. "Ada, you have to understand how bad all of this looks to the people back in London."

"And an American general gassing an entire Soviet unit doesn't?" I counter and he backs off. "Do you understand what the Red Army would have done to every American soldier they could find if I told them the truth?" They're finally quiet but I'm far from finished. "I saved lives today by lying my ass off and saying a few fake oaths, so if they want to arrest me for it then I can damn well take that lie back and they can deal with the bloodshed."

Peggy's eyes widen and I know the leverage I have, but she looks at me the same way she did outside of that interrogation room in London.

"And is this another one of your empty threats?"

Bucky and Steve look at each other in alarm and I know exactly what Peggy's doing, but unlike Doreteya she doesn't frighten me and a small smile creeps across my face.

"Do you want to find out?"

She leans forward and I hold my ground until she says "You know, the last time I saw that look in your eye you were sitting across from me in handcuffs."

My face falls and my voice is serious "And there's at least a dozen more like me sworn to keeping the organisation you rescued me from a secret."

"A secret you exposed," she reminds me and I look her up and down.

"And you still think I'm a traitor?"

She speaks to me in Russian now so only I understand. "You can't betray something you were never loyal to." My mouth tilts upward but again, it doesn't last. "Which is what makes you dangerous Adelina, because you have no loyalties."

"And do you know what makes you dangerous Margaret?" I ask her in Russian and her face remains neutral. "You put your loyalty to a government that would throw you to the dogs above those who would defend you. That's the difference between me and you."

Her expression sours and she replies "If that were true I would not be here and you know it."

She stands abruptly and I flinch as she bangs on the back wall, the impact echoing into where Howard's driving. The truck comes to an abrupt stop and she finds her way out, no doubt into the passenger seat with Howard, slamming the doors of the truck shut behind her.

Steve shakes his head at me. "What did you say to her?"

"If we wanted you to hear we would have spoken English."

"She's lost a lot of blood," Bucky says to try to find some excuse and his brows crease as he looks me over. "Did they give you anything?"

"Stuck me with a sedative, woke up in that truck," I answer and he struggles to keep calm. "I'm fine Buck."

"See Buck, she says she's just fine," Steve says and Bucky gives him a warning look not to push it, but he ignores it. "Do you realise that we left without even a moments notice to come and track you down? That we-"

I manage to tune out the rest of what he says, leaning against Bucky with a pounding headache, and only when his lips stop moving do I ask "Does anyone have a cigarette?"

Steve stares at me dumbstruck while Bucky pulls one out of the pocket of the his jacket that I wear and lights it for me. None of us say anything more and when Bucky turns his head away I'm crushing the lit cigarette in my palm with dread washing over me.

I thought I was free. I thought that I couldn't go back. That the Red Room was done with me.

I've never been more wrong.

A/N: Sorry it's been so long! I had to take a hiatus while finishing my last uni assignments and then once I stopped it was hard to pick up the story again but updates will continue to come while I have an existential crisis over my future.

Also, I have had quite a bit of fun writing Ada's pov this chapter now that she's face to face with another Black Widow and she's falling back on her training. Let's just say she might regress a little into that supposedly abandoned state of mind and re-embrace that training in the chapters to come.