Bucky

Six hours later my shaking hand shuts the file, having finished the very last page.

And somehow I know that what I've read isn't even half of it.

I sit frozen for half an hour longer until I can bring myself to consider what comes next, until I'm certain that I won't be sick, and the photographs within that file are at the forefront of my mind. Mutiliated and tortured bodies, with her own among them. Evidence of the executions and interrogations she was ordered to undertake, and the sheer violence that she wasn't spared from.

The information on her operations as a Soviet agent is vague, scattered and speculative, with her being accused of dozens more assassinations than they've actually been able to definitively find her guilty of. The marks of an agent who doesn't leave loose ends or witnesses, so it's no wonder she's freaked out over that Russian one getting away.

The only concrete evidence against her is from the testimony she gave Carter when she was recruited, and that's only what she confessed to. That's apart from one specific image, taken when she couldn't have been older than fourteen, of her shooting what appears to be a Russian prisoner - a military officer. While it's jarring, it's nothing that I didn't already know.

It's her medical files that are the most detailed since they contain the notes of the German scientist who oversaw her experimentation with Hydra, and then her recruitment to the SSR. It seems he was able to escape Germany with several of his journals considering he kept notes on her from 1936 until he was killed. Detailing everything from her mother handing her over for what they've called the Winter Soldier project, to her capture by American forces in 1942, and the countless suicide attempts she made during that year of captivity.

But one story recorded in those entries disturbs me more than any other.

October 7, 1936

Test subject #11 has continued to violently object to experimentation, gravely injuring a second laboratory assistant in the process. My recommendation that she be removed from the program has been dismissed as she is the only test subject to have survived the latest round of enhancements. However, as the results are not as dramatic as Madame Vetrova desires, Zola has decided that electric shock therapy may trigger a physiological activation of underlying chemical mutations resulting from the serum. As per usual, my objections were ignored.

The dates written line up with the timeline she's given me, that they began experimentation when she was fourteen. As far as I can recall Germany and Russia weren't in any official alliance then, not like they were before 1941, but Ada's vehemently insisted at every turn that Hydra's end goal is to expand beyond any set government, that the Nazis are merely a means to an end. She's often said that she fears they'll once again offer their services to the Soviet Union once the Nazis are defeated, and unfortunately it doesn't sound that far-fetched.

November 9, 1936

Test subject #11 continues to refuse to participate in the tests Zola has instructed she undertake. Bloodwork shows that chemical enhancements have occurred, but she has stated she would sooner "kill the beady-eyed Nazi bastard and suffer the firing squad" than cooperate with this experiment. Zola's frustrations led to the subject's mother being contacted, and a shocking scene ensued. The mother, Madame Vetrova, entered Adelina's cell with an infant daughter, six months old or so. She requested a basin of water be brought in, and I had agreed on the assumption it would be to clean Adelina, who was covered in dried blood from her last escape attempt, only for her to place the infant in the filled basin. Understandably, this caused Adelina to become hysterical as the infant became submerged, but the mother merely watched on until Adelina, using an enhanced strength she had not yet displayed, broke free of her leather bindings to rescue the infant from drowning. She clutched the child in her arms and screamed at her mother in Russian until receiving a strike across the face. Much of what was said was lost in translation, but Adelina had no further protest to any part of the experiment following this incident, with the child no doubt being used as leverage to ensure her cooperation.

Ada once swore that her mother only had a second child in order to have something to hold over her head, but this story is beyond anything I could have imagined. The only other part of the file that truly horrifies me is her treatment in an American asylum by American doctors, who treated her no better than the Nazis with the electro-shock therapy that rivals her torture by Zola.

And I read one particular report from her time incarcerated.

Incident report #79

On the 26th of November 1942, prisoner Vetrova, aware of understaffing due to Thanksgiving celebrations, made her fourth escape attempt three months on from her last on August 18th. Having built a rapport with Officer Parks, a security guard, she seduced him into entering her cell under the illusion of a sexual tryst, before taking his pistol and beating his face in with this own baton, killing the officer. The prisoner stole his set of keys and made her way through the high security wing, proceeding to either kill or severely maim the remaining eight security staff present without firing a single shot. At this point the wing was sealed, and a sedative gas was deployed. Special forces entered the wing twenty minutes later, finding her seemingly unresponsive amidst the haze, before she fired on the nearest officer, eliminating nine of the men in what can be appropriately deemed a massacre, before one managed to inject her with a liquid sedative. As such she is to be held within a straight jacket for the foreseeable future and staff are forbidden from interacting with the prisoner.

I've seen her in the field. I've seen her single-handedly take out upwards of twenty men, just as she did before we returned back to London. The thought of her seducing a guy just to kill him is what stuns me more than anything else I've read. Even so, while I'm used to her killing Nazis, killing Americans is something that doesn't sit as easy. But then I read what was done to her and I can't blame her for doing everything in her physical power to escape.

Since she was a child, it seems that all she's done is try to escape, and she still isn't completely free.

It seems that attempt was the last since there are no further incident reports under her name, which leads to her recruitment to the SSR. It's then that Stark, Carter, and Erskine are the ones signing off on her reports, on the tests that she's a willing, but still reluctant, participant in. There's no record of any other experimentation or treatment after her release from the asylum, but I can't erase the images of her torture under Zola.

The experimentation, the contraption they fitted to her head, the shocks...

Abruptly I push myself from my chair and stumble blindly out of the room, to the only person I want to see right now.

To her.

~

Ada

The clock strikes three am, but despite my deprivation of it, sleep is still a distant dream.

Instead I stand poised on pointe in my undergarments, pushing myself despite the knife wound in my side, despite the weakness in my leg. With each pirouette, each agonising turn, I remake myself from this failure.

Doreteya should be dead, but I faltered. In the Red Room I'd have never recovered from this severe a failure. With each turn I see a different way I could have escaped. An opportunity I didn't take to kill her.

I've become slow.

Sloppy.

Soft.

Doreteya had every reason to be disappointed.

I was the standard, and now...

A cry of frustration escapes past my lips as my leg gives way and I hit the floor, finding blood leaking from the stab wound in my thigh. I pound my fist into it, choking back the pain as I put pressure on the healing wound so the blood doesn't drip onto the floor.

I've been blind.

Naive.

Stupid.

Doreteya is only one of my failures.

Only one of my lapses in judgment.

My greatest one has been right in front of me this entire time.

I've been sleeping with it.

With him.

I reach for the bottle of whiskey on the floor beside me, drowning the last mouthful from it before slamming it down hard enough the glass it cracks with the force.

I should have known the moment I found him in that lab. I should've put it together then and there.

But I didn't.

Despite everything I know, despite everything I've seen, I'd convinced myself he was one of the lucky ones. That he escaped before any serum could be administered. That they were merely testing him to see if he'd survive it. To see if he was even worth administering it to.

At some point the thought had to have occurred to me, it was right in front of me, but I shut my eyes to it.

And now I need to know for certain.

Zola would know his face, his name. After all, he's Captain America's fucking wingman.

If Zola administered the serum he knows that Bucky survived it.

Something no one else has managed.

Except for me.

Which means Hydra will be wanting the fruits of their labour back.

Just as the Red Room does.

Perhaps I can forgive myself for turning a blind eye to the situation with Bucky, but I can't forgive myself for turning away entirely from the truth that had been told to me months ago.

"Were you truly naïve enough to think she'd just let you go?" Sofia asked in that alley, straining against my grip. "Or that she'd actually let them believe you'd gone rogue?"

"I betrayed the Soviet Union."

"That might be so," she said. "But do you really think she'd let your failure reflect badly on her?"

My shaking hands light a cigarette and I bring it to my lips, inhaling the smoke and shutting my eyes.

The Soviet general examined me carefully before saying, "So it is true what I'm told. Beria did it after all. They placed one of their operatives in the heart of the Allied spy network."

I take the lit end of my cigarette, bringing it to the bone of my ankle and pressing hard until my tears dry, until my hand stops shaking, and again I rise to my feet.

If I'm still injured then Doreteya will be maimed. If they didn't kill her they'll send her to complete her mission, but her injuries will buy us both time. Time for me to get the answers I seek when it comes to Bucky. To discover if it is indeed a supersoldier serum he was administered, or another incomplete enhancement to prep him for Zola's recreation of the serum.

And if I'm right... the only way to keep Bucky safe is to kill Zola, and so my work with the Howling Commandos will continue until it is done. Then comes the Red Room and Doreteya will be the first to fall. When Germany is defeated it will only be a matter of time before the Soviet Union moves to fill the power vacuum left, and the Red Scare will once again be in full effect. Right now they may be our allies, but once our common enemy is defeated I can fight for the clearance to take down the Red Room.

To burn it to the ground.

But I don't know if they'll be any American dream to follow.

Even if the Red Room is destroyed, I'll forever be the Soviet Union's most wanted. There's simply no universe in which I will be allowed to live in peace, and I've been a fool to ever believe otherwise.

Peggy will ensure Katya is cared for, she's young enough that she can be given a new identity and be made unrecognisable to Soviet forces by the time she grows into an adult, but I don't have that advantage. My face has been plastered on every billboard and poster in America.

I'm a spy with no anonymity.

With no future.

No place in this world.

And so I keep going, I follow my routine until my feet bleed, and finally the sound of a desperate knock on the door brings me back to the present. My first instinct is to reach for the knife I've kept above the nearby fireplace, only to stop at the sound of his voice.

"Lina, baby," Bucky calls out, sounding breathless. "You in there?"

With a lump in my throat I bend down to quickly untie my pointe shoes, shoving them beneath the couch I'd moved, and slip on socks to hide the bleeding before approaching the door.

"Lina?" he calls again as I wrap a robe around myself, and I'm bracing myself for an argument as I hesitantly open the door, but instead he brings me straight into his arms, stumbling back inside the apartment. He buries his face in my hair, breathing me in and clutching my body with shaking hands.

"James?" I ask in concern, despite knowing exactly how we last parted. "What's-"

I'm cut off when his lips meet mine and the words are lost on my tongue, not knowing if the liquor I taste belongs to myself or to him. Likely both. He clutches me with sheer desperation, but also with a tenderness that leaves me reeling.

"James-" I begin, but he cuts me off with a thousand words at once.

"Are you alright? What the hell happened? You disappeared and then you were arrested, and now-"

"James!" I say firmly, looking up at his startled face. "I'm fine."

Those seem to be the wrong choice of words. "Ada, you've been in a cell-"

"And now I'm not, trust me, it's the shortest stint I've ever had in one," I assure him, but it brings him no comfort, especially as he takes my wrists, still irritated from the cuffs they had me in.

He holds them up to the light and his brows crease as he examines the old scars and new marks. "Lina..."

"It's nothing I'm not accustomed to," I sigh, shaking his hands away before catching sight of the bruised knuckles he's sporting. "James-"

"It's not what it looks like."

"So you didn't punch the Colonel?" I counter and his lips part, realising that someone's told me what's happened these past few days. "Also, I recall Howard only having one black eye when I left him in Finow."

He doesn't deny it, or even make any argument in his defence, but instead reaches inside the pocket of his jacket to present me with a pack of cigarettes and a lighter.

Wordlessly I accept his peace offering and he lights the cigarette I draw for me, keeping his mouth shut as I turn away and pace the room in exhausted contemplation, not having planned on seeing him until the morning at the very least.

"What was your punishment?" I finally ask now that I have a cigarette between my fingers.

"A lecture from Phillips," he answers, and I look back at him in doubt. "He knows about us."

"Well, that much was always a given," I remark, that being the least of my worries. "But you didn't answer my question. How much trouble are you in?"

"Steve took care of it and I had a meeting with Phillips earlier. It's fine," he lies with an ease that's unlike him, and I begin walking into the kitchen to find another drink. "Ada, considering you shot a General I'm not the one you should be worried about here."

"Who was going to kill me," I remind him as he follows me in and watches me pour a glass without offering him one. "Surely Howard filled you in properly at some point while you were evening up his face."

"Yeah, he did, which is why I did it," he says with little apology while I take a deep breath through my cigarette, chasing it with a mouthful of whiskey. "I don't give a shit about what you did to that General, but Ada, you could've been arrested by the Russians that found you. You should've been-"

"According to who?" I fire back, turning the interrogation back onto him. "You don't know anything about the Red Army and how they operate. I was there as a representative of an Allied army, trying to give them answers if nothing else. Why would they have arrested me?"

He inhales deeply, falling into my trap. "Carter said that they would've had the right to arrest you for treason after you deserted-"

"I didn't realise you and Peggy were so close," I remark, picking apart the extent of him and Peggy's collusion.

"Considering we're the only two people that give a damn about you we tend to share notes," he says, and his choice of words causes a sharp exhale to leave my lungs before he quickly tries to backtrack. "You know I didn't mean it like that-"

"You missed Howard in that assessment," I say to return the blow, and his face hardens as I meet his eye. "And thank you for your concern, but I'd like to rest now."

I skull down the rest of the glass before turning on my heel and marching into the bedroom on aching feet, but he follows me in.

"You're right, I should've included Howard, because why the hell would you disappear with him and go to Germany without even a warning-

"I left a note."

"You- you left a note?" he repeats back to me. "Yeah you did, one sentence and not even for me."

"I knew Peggy would tell you and I didn't exactly intend on being gone more than a few hours since I didn't even know I'd be leaving the country!" I exclaim before moving to calm us both down. "It was nothing I couldn't handle."

He just shakes his head in pure disbelief. "Nothing you couldn't- are you serious Ada?" There's an edge to his voice that has me raising an eyebrow in warning. "You're not even going to apologise, are you?"

And I know what I'm doing, but I can't seem to stop myself from it. "For what?"

"For what?" he incredulously repeats back.

"What do you want me to say? That I'm sorry I wasn't quick enough to not get captured?"

"That's not- Jesus you don't even see the problem do you?" he says with a slight laugh as he rakes a hand through his hair. "You ran away and I didn't know if you were alive or dead!"

"I didn't run away!" I argue. "I left a note saying I'd be coming back-"

"Yeah well you wouldn't have if we didn't find you," he harshly points out, and despite it being the truth I refuse to back down.

"I was in the process of strangling that Widow to death when you opened those doors so I can assure you that I was fine."

"And how far would you have gotten running naked on foot?"

"Well I would've taken my uniform back after I killed her," I say, as if it's obvious, but somehow that only riles him up more. "I had it handled."

"No you didn't," he says, and he sees the way I roll my eyes. "I can't deal with you right now."

He marches to the door, but I can't let him go. Not without knowing.

"So, you haven't spent the last few days drinking yourself to sleep every night?" I say, and he freezes. "How's that been working for you?"

"Just fine actually," he fires back, but neither of us believe him. "How about you Ada? Judging by that empty bottle out there it didn't work quite as well for you."

"Well I haven't slept since I was arrested, so it's nice to know you have," I say, but I can see the bags under his eyes, the sheer exhaustion that only ever reaches that point when we haven't gotten a restful moment in days. "From the way Peggy was talking I thought you'd have alcohol poisoning by now."

I see the flash of betrayal at realising that Peggy's the one who gave him up, along with a deeper paranoia, but he stands his ground.

"Yeah? Well you'd be the reason for it." His deflection is unusually cruel, and my silence makes him break. "No, that's-" He drags a hand over his lower face and sits down on the end of the bed I'm standing by in visible shame. "I'm sorry, I've just been stressed."

A genuine laugh slips out. "Really? I never would've thought."

He exhales through his nose and looks up at me, taking my hand in his and running his thumb along my ring finger. "How do you do this? How- how do you not lose your damn mind with everything going on around us?"

"I lost it a long time ago, James," I say quietly. "You know that."

"I'm starting to wonder if I did too," he whispers, and nothing else matters to me as I take his face in my hand.

He turns rigid beneath my touch and his eyes glaze over with tears, a look in them I know too well, and wordlessly I bring him into my embrace. He buries his head in my stomach, wrapping his arms around my waist and clutching me so tight I forget all pretence and my only concern is him.

"James?" I softly ask as his fingers clench in the fabric of my nightgown. "Darling?"

Gently I raise his chin, and he looks up at me with a tear-stained face. "Lina-"

He tries to form words, but they get stuck in his throat.

"It's okay, Buck," I say, running my fingers through his hair. "Whatever it is, it's safe with me."

His breath escapes past his lips in a shudder, but his confession isn't the one I was anticipating.

"Phillips gave me your file."

My body turns to stone, cold and rigid, but he only takes my hands in his and holds them close.

"You didn't read it?" I gather, if he did he wouldn't be touching me let alone bringing me closer.

"I read it cover to cover," he reveals, and my body's poised to run, to escape, even if he poses no danger to me. "Every damn page."

My body begins pulling away from his, but his grasp only tightens, refusing to let me step away. "You know that file's not even half of it?"

"I know," he says, his brows furrowing together. "And it breaks my heart."

"I'm sorry," I say under my breath, not knowing what else there is to say to a man who's no doubt realised he's been sleeping with a woman who may as well be a stranger. "I thought my past could stay buried, I thought-"

"Lina," he gently interrupts. "I read what Erskine wrote in his journals."

"Erskine?' I question, confused why that would be the first thing he brings up.

"And I-" his words catch in his throat. "Lina, if there's a reason the Soviets didn't arrest you, if they're using your sister to twist your wrist-" he looks up at me, studying my unchanging face. "I'm not going to hold it against you, please, just don't leave me in the dark here."

I inhale shakily and lift my chin. "I am not a double agent."

He sets his jaw now and asks, "Then why weren't you arrested for desertion?"

"Because my mother let them think that I am one," I answer, having to force that dangerous truth out. "She let me rot in a cell. She let me integrate myself into the SSR. She let me start a new life. She let me think I was free." A lump forms in my own throat now, but I manage to spit out the words. "And now she's decided she wants me back."

His face hardens. "That's not gonna happen."

My lip quivers just slightly and I have to look past him to the floor, otherwise tears will begin to spill. "The Red Room's never going to let me go."

"Lina-"

"James," I interrupt, desperation creeping into my voice. "You don't understand-"

"Then help me understand," he pleads, taking my hands in his and grasping them tight. "I read that file, I read about Zola, your stint as a nurse, your imprisonment, and all the bodies you wracked up just trying to be free. There isn't anything you can't tell me-"

"The widow that escaped," I say, and he catches his sigh of frustration before it can escape fully. "If they didn't execute her for failing her mission they're going to send her after me, and she'll ensure I'm left with no choice but to bend to the Red Room's will, and you have no comprehension of the things that women like her and I do when we're given the order to break someone."

He's silent now upon seeing the tears that spill down my face.

"I used to only have one person in the world who I loved, one person who I was responsible for," I continue. "Now I have no shortage of open wounds for them to exploit."

After comprehending my words he shakes his head, looking at me in hurt. "Is that really how you see us? Open wounds?"

"When you're raised in my profession you learn that all love is, all people are, is a weakness to be exploited," I say, and never before has he looked at me like this. As if I've lost my mind. "I've made myself weak, and there are consequences for that weakness, and I will not let you be the one who bleeds because of it-"

"Ada!" Bucky harshly interrupts, as if he's trying to shake some sense into me. "We're in London, they can't touch us here-"

"You don't know that!" I half-scream, finally snapping, and he stares at me with wide eyes, his lips parting in shock as my own registers. "This is a mistake." I step back from him, clutching my chest as the weight of my own selfishness finally hits me, and what it may yet cost. "All of this has been a mistake."

"Ada!" he calls as I dash out of the bedroom and to the apartment door. "Ada!"

He catches me right as I've got my hand on the doorknob, slamming it shut again with a strength that startles me. My breath comes out in shallow pants as he moves to de-escalate this and I refuse to look at him, instead staring at the dog tags around his neck.

"Lina, sweetheart-"

"Move," I warn, and he switches strategy.

"Or what?" he counters, and the tone of his voice has me immediately reassessing my approach. I may be stubborn, but so is he, and this isn't a fight I'm going to win by force alone. "You'll break a bottle over my head too?"

I laugh now, looking up at him and putting a hand on his chest, although he doesn't know if it's to push him away or bring him closer. "Baby, you're the one that gave him a black eye, not me."

"You're the one pretending to be mad about it after nearly setting him on fire," he says, and my mouth curls into a smirk. "You're a hypocrite, you know that?"

"You're the one marrying me," I point out, and something in his eyes shifts as he reaches around to place a hand on the small of my back, pulling my body against his.

"I am," he says resolutely, and his eyes bore into mine. "Because I love you, and nothing's going to change that." His grip on me tightens in unsubtle desperation. "It's not like you to run from a fight, so please, don't run now."

I open my mouth to lie and reassure him that I'm staying, but when I falter I bring his lips to mine instead. His hand reaches up to cup my face as he kisses me back with aching need, and I begin tugging him back toward the bedroom.

He seems surprised by my haste, but he doesn't rebuff it, and so I do what I was taught. I begin stripping his clothes off to pull him into bed, to ensure he gets his and then put him to sleep. I'll be able to leave then, to have one more selfish night with him and disappear before he wakes. To remove myself from his life before the Red Room can remove him from mine.

But the moment my robe comes off he stops, turning pale as he looks down at the still healing wounds I'd momentarily forgotten about.

"I'm fine-" I say, trying to pull his lips back to mine, but he stops me.

"What the hell happened out there?" he asks gravely, running a hand along the band of my bralette as he examines the wound in my side.

"I don't want to-"

"Lina," he pleads. "This isn't a scratch. If you weren't you, you'd be dead."

And so with a heavy sigh I decide to give him what he wants, to overload him with information until he decides he doesn't want anymore.

"Well, after the jeep I was driving got rammed and I thought Howard was dead I was a little disorientated. I took cover and was preparing myself for a firefight when I felt a knife against my throat and saw an old friend. The Widow cut an artery in my leg before she sedated and captured me, and then I woke up chained in a truck with her wearing my uniform," I say, and he's visibly disturbed by the numbness I recall the encounter with. "I called her a crazy bitch and she seemed to interpret it as a compliment, so we exchanged insults until she pulled out cyanide and began wondering how much it would take to kill a supersoldier."

"Jesus," he murmurs under his breath, not having realised where the cyanide came from.

"She shoved the pills in my mouth and I spat them out except for one," I continue, giving him just a hint of the transparency he's asking for. "So then I goaded her into kissing me and I spat the cyanide into her mouth and tried to make her swallow it. Didn't quite work so we started trying to kill each other the hard way and then ended up in the position you found us in."

He gapes at me. "What?" When I don't react to his shock, he exclaims, "She kissed you?"

"Yes," I answer simply.

"And she's a woman?"

"Yes."

And somehow, despite everything he's read today, that's what he's most scandalised by. I don't know what's in that file, I've seen glimpses but I've hardly read it cover to cover. But, there are certain things I know would be in it, and seduction with the aim to kill is one of them.

"And you aren't phased by that?" he asks, as if I could possibly still be shocked by anything a woman like me would do. Kissing's the least of them.

"I'd counted on it," I say, watching his expression carefully. "And besides, it's hardly the first time a girl's kissed me." He continues to gape at me and I merely shrug. "It's what girls do."

"What girls do?" he repeats incredulously. "I have three sisters and I've sure as hell never heard of that being something girls just do."

"Kissing or trying to kill each other with cyanide?" I jest, but he isn't exactly in a joking mood. "It's common in the Red Room. After all, how else are we meant to learn?"

"Learn?" he repeats, as if he's had sudden memory loss. "Learn to do what?"

"James," I say slowly. "You know what."

"I thought that you weren't-" he begins only to trail off and a different sort of numbness takes over, knowing every girl I kissed died at my hand, one way or another.

"We were taught that sex and torture were equally effective methods of acquiring information, with their own benefits and drawbacks depending on how sensitively a situation must be handled. Some girls preferred sex, I preferred torture, but we were all trained for the same job. Taught that sex is less about desire and more about power, domination and submission. An act of asserting power over another person, or a means to an end if you're taught to exploit it properly," I explain to him. "It was only by chance that I hadn't been given such an assignment before I deserted."

And that lie rolls off my tongue easily enough, but it still doesn't sit well with him.

I'd be concerned if it did.

"And is that how you still see it?" he asks, and I can see him reassessing certain moments where sex wasn't always lust, but a way to divert his attention.

"Well, when you put all of that aside the primary purpose of sex is reproduction," I state factually, and he grimaces as I begin to question everything. "So, when that's taken away what else is left?"

"Love," he finishes without missing a beat and an involuntary scoff leaves my throat. "Lina?"

"Love," I find myself repeating, and my tone says everything he needs to hear, but he can only look at me in bewilderment.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

A lump forms in my throat and I can't look at him properly.

"You see, James," I unevenly begin. "You physically cannot comprehend an upbringing in which any love was something reserved for children, and that it simply does not exist once that innocence is ripped away. I loved my father, but I always kept him at arms length out of guilt for lying to him. I loved my sister, but I also kept her at arms length because I knew any affection I showed would be punished. Then for a year I was under the impression they were both dead and that love was gone."

Tears well in my eyes and I can't think back to that time without threatening to break down completely.

"To lose everything, to be completely and utterly alone in this world..." I shake my head and my voice breaks. "My point is that love can always be ripped away."

He reaches for me in concern. "Come on Lina, you've read enough stories to know that's not the point-"

"I've read plenty, and I believe the words of Dostoevsky, that to love is to suffer and there can be no love otherwise. That love in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in dreams," I recite. "There was a time where I didn't understand those words, but I learned what suffering love brings. Love is real, I know that, but there is no world where there's such a thing as a happy ending. Love is always bound to end. Either with death or our own devises."

Bucky blinks at me, taking those words in, and he finally says, "That's the saddest thing I've ever heard, and the stupidest."

"James-" I sigh, but he cuts me off.

"No, you-" he stands up now, putting space between us and shaking a finger at me. "You've had a screwed up life, I get that. I get that you were taught that love's just something that can be used to hurt you, and that it has been. I understand-"

"No you-"

"Adelina," he interrupts and I raise my eyebrows in warning at him for using my proper name, and so he corrects himself. "Sweetheart, angel, I love you, but you're full of shit."

"Me?" I exhale, and he suddenly straightens up. "I'm the one who's full of shit?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"I don't know, Bucky," I say, and now he's the one who blinks in offence, unable to recall a time I've ever called him anything but James, or simply Buck. "You tell me."

"Alright," he says, moving back towards me. "You're scared."

"Takes one to know one," I counter, but he ignores the accusation in those words.

He's a smart man. He's observant. He's a fucking sniper. It's his job to pick up on the little things that the rest of us don't. If Howard of all people's picked up on this with two black eyes he can barely see out of then he has to know.

He has to at least suspect it.

He wouldn't be this defensive if he doesn't, but I need to know for certain before revealing something that could change everything.

"Of course I'm scared Ada, all I've been since you disappeared is scared out of my damn mind," he says, and I want to look away, but I hold his eye. "Hell, I've been scared since the day Hydra got me, and I've been scared every damn day we've been out in the field because I learned that death isn't the worst thing that can happen to us, but you've made it damn clear that I can't let it get to me. That I just have to shut up and keep going. That I have to compartmentalise-"

"James," I say in quiet panic at his interpretation of my commands in the field. "No-"

"And I have been, but-" his voice breaks now as it raises. "How do you expect me to act when I don't know if you're alive or dead and now you're standing here and getting at- getting at what Ada? We're engaged and now you're saying that there's no point?!"

The tears in his eyes cause my resolve to break and I'm stammering now. "No, you're right, it- it did happen and it was bad, but you aren't listening to me! I'm not saying there's no point, I'm saying that I'm fucking terrified because I know what they'll do, what they'll take from me and you're still in denial-"

"Because you're safe here!"

"I killed a widow in Brooklyn, so no, I'm not fucking safe!" I finally scream and he falls silent now, staring in shock as a shaky exhale escapes my lungs.

My chest tightens and all that can be heard are my shallow, panting breaths as I bring a hand up to my throat, turning away from him but making no attempt to escape this time.

And of all the questions I expect, the one he asks is the last.

"New Years?"

I slowly still, chilled to the bone at the long forgotten feeling of being perceived like this.

Of being the one caught out..

And I make no attempt to lie. "Yes."

"When I woke up and you were missing-"

"I'd seen her watching the apartment, and so I dealt with it before she could report back to her handlers," I state matter-of-factly. "I eliminated the threat and made sure no one knew a thing."

He brings a hand up to his brow and drags it down to pinch the bridge of his nose in exasperation, but he decides to let that incident go for now to focus on another.

"So what happened at Finow wasn't your first run in with the Red Room since deserting it?"

Again, I'm truthful. "No."

In the reflection of the window I face I see him nod slowly with a clenched jaw, and if I were with anyone but him I'd be preparing for a physical fight.

If it were Peggy I'd already be subduing her.

"New Years, was that the first time then?" he finally asks. "Or did you never really desert them?"

And if he were anyone else I'd be throwing a fist into his face for daring to make that accusation.

"You read my file," I say, numb with disgust. "You already know the answer."

"Do I?" he counters, inching ever closer to the truth that I've done precisely what they wanted.

Now they're poised to burn my world down, to ruin everything I've built in this temporary slice of the American Dream.

And so I decide to take control of my own destruction.

"The last assignment I received was in February of 1942, the day I deserted," I begin, turning to face him. "My mother brought me into her office and pushed forward an American newspaper with Howard's face on it." His body tenses as whatever suspicions he's held are finally given merit. "I never told her that my cover had been blown at Pearl Harbor, so she ordered me to return to America as a sleepercell spy and fuck Howard Stark."

He's deathly silent, but his question's clear in his eyes.

"My mission was to infiltrate the SSR and to move onto someone else if Howard got bored," I say, and I give him the answers he's looking for. "Then I ran away and everything went to hell. Then by some ironic twist of fate Peggy's walking me into the SSR's headquarters and right into Howard's path. I smiled and flirted and had every intention of doing exactly what I needed to secure my position, to secure my freedom with America's favourite arms dealer and his lawyers backing me, but it seems that I never had to sleep with him to get everything I needed."

Bucky studies me with a more critical eye than he ever has before asking, "Who knows?"

"I came clean to Howard and no one else," I answer in full honesty. "Peggy sure knew what I was doing in the beginning with Howard and that I was working to get intel on the SSR whilst I was a nurse, but she has no knowledge of the orders I was given prior to deserting. Although it seems she has worse suspicions now."

"So why the hell did you desert if they were going to send you back to America anyways?" he asks, and it's a sensible question to ask, but unfortunately my answer is the same as it's always been.

"That part of the story was always true," I tell him. "I had to get my sister out, and you know the rest."

His face draws in pain and he swallows hard. "In your file, Erskine recorded something that happened with your sister. When your mother..."

He trails off, hoping I know which instance he's talking about, but there's too many.

"You'll have to be more specific."

"You weren't cooperating with Hydra when your sister was a baby, and your mother set her in a basin to drown," he says, and I'm digging my injured toes into the floorboards to get some control over the tears I'm forcing back. "She used her to make you submit to what Hydra was doing."

"She used her to make me submit to everything that's happened to me since I was fourteen," I whisper, and I see the question in his eyes. This time I don't blame him for it. "No, she hasn't used her to blackmail me since my escape, but she will. I haven't had contact with my mother or the Red Room since then, outside of the widow I killed on New Years and the one that was in Finow, but-"

I cut myself off and he steps close, gently holding me by my arms until I can manage the truth.

"In the Soviet Union, failure and incompetency are met with arrest, torture, and then either a slow death in the gulag or execution, often for the person's entire family as well as themself," I tell Bucky, having been involved in every stage of the process as an NKVD agent. "If Stalin believed I'd gone rogue and gave classified intelligence to the United States they would blame it on my mother as she was my handler, and thus the Red Room itself would be seen as a liability. A failure."

"She covered it up?" Bucky realises, and finally I force myself to nod. To admit it.

"The Widow in Brooklyn first brought what should've been obvious to my attention, asking if I really thought she'd let them believe I went rogue. I could have gotten more information out of her, but I couldn't risk her getting away and so I killed her on the spot," I confess, but by now he barely blinks. "I decided to believe that she was just taunting me, that it wasn't true, but then I got to Finow and met with the Soviet General. I spouted fake oaths of allegiance so he thought I was acting as a double agent, but it seemed he was already under that impression. He said he couldn't believe that the NKVD had done it, that they'd placed an agent into the heart of the United States spy network."

Bucky nods slowly as he takes the information in. "And Howard heard all of that?"

"Hence why I came clean to him," I explain, but Bucky only lowers his eyes in hurt.

"So you could trust Howard with all of this, but not me?"

"I wanted to protect you," I say, and he shakes his head in quiet frustration. "And I failed."

And I can't fail again.

I know what I have to do, and somehow this is worse than any torture I've endured.

The act of tearing one's heart out.

"We can end this now," I say, and he's confused until he meets my eye and the meaning behind those simple words dawns on him. He tilts his head, silently pleading with me not to say it, but I do. "We can end this engagement."

He opens his mouth to protest before closing it, actually considering the possibility. He exhales shakily and I want to reach out, to comfort him, but I don't out of fear of causing further pain.

Finally, all he asks is, "Do you love me?"

With tears in my eyes I answer, "Yes."

He steps closer, taking my face in his hands with heartbreaking tenderness "We said to hell and back, so don't give up on me now, baby." Tears spill down his face and his voice breaks. "Please don't give up on me."

And with those words, I know I won't be able to walk away.

I bring him into my arms and he buries his face in my hair as I swear, "Never, I promise." When there's no response from him but a muffled sob I lift his face back up to mine, looking into the eyes of the man I love. A man who may just bleed the same as I do. "James, the one thing in this world I can promise is that I will never give up on you. Never."

He brings my lips to his and I taste tears on my tongue before he pulls back to say, "And I'm not giving up on you either, you hear me?" I give a strained nod, having to force myself to not recoil at his words. At what such devotion will cost him. "To hell and back?"

"To hell and back," I repeat, knowing that we'll be going to hell sooner than later.

I just don't know if we'll be making it back.

~

The days pass slowly, during which some things start to heal, but nothing is as it was.

I revert back to old habits, finding myself isolated in Howard's lab while the team does whatever it is they do when we're waiting for an assignment. I tell Bucky I'm working on crafting an improved uniform and weapons, which is true, but only a small part of it.

Howard treats me as he always has, which I'm thankful for. He still feels guilty, over both the gas and my arrest, but he understands that what happened happened and that all we can do is carry on.

He hasn't explicitly asked about Bucky, but he's indulged me in the questions I've had regarding how these enhancements show in bloodwork. I just need to figure out how to make a slide of Bucky's blood without him noticing.

It would be rather easy if I had proper access to him, but Phillips has ordered that we return to our sleeping quarters on base. Meaning that we're under surveillance. Phillips and I haven't spoken directly since the incident at Finow, but he passes on any orders to Peggy and she certainly makes sure that they reach me.

I sit at a microscope with Howard, comparing a slide of my blood with his own, taking note of the differences in structure as he treats each with certain chemicals. It's a pit in my stomach, seeing how different I am on a cellular level to another human such as Howard, but I need to understand it.

Now more than ever.

"This tranquilliser here, with your metabolism and the training you received to resist toxins, you'd need three to four times the standard dose given to the average male," Howard explains to me. "But then you look at someone like Steve, accounting for his metabolism and all the rest, he'd need about five to be safe."

"So if he pisses me off six to be sure?" I joke, and Howard laughs.

"Well, it wouldn't be fatal so you may as well to be sure, hypothetically of course."

He shows me how Steve's blood cells react under the microscope, and I notice the similiarites between mine and his, despite us having received very different versions of the serum.

"So," Howard finally says, slipping me a syringe with two standard dosages of the tranquilliser they typically use against me. "If doesn't knock Barnes out then you have your answer."

For a moment I contemplate it before shaking my head. "No, I'm not experimenting on my fiancé."

"Ada," Howard says, lowering his voice. "You need to know, he needs to know."

"Look, I've given him the chance to open up if he suspects anything, but he just gets defensive," I tell him in full honesty, knowing that Bucky certainly wouldn't want me discussing this with Howard. He still hasn't been able to look at him after I admitted to planning to seduce him. "I've hardly had a moment with him-"

"You two spent a whole day shacked up together before Carter dragged you back to base."

"I'm trying Howard, okay," I insist. "I love him, and I want answers, but this is where I draw the line. I've tried speaking to him, tried touching on it with the alcohol and the rest, but if he suspects anything he's in denial-"

"You're both in denial," Howard points out before meeting me halfway. "Look, there's the serum like what Steve received, one dose and done, but you're the culmination of years of experimentation rather than one single serum. Maybe that's what they started with Barnes and they haven't developed a serum far enough to actually-"

"I'll try to get him drunk and if I make him sick then I'll have my answer," I decide to end this conversation. "I'm not jabbing him with a goddamn syringe."

"I never thought you'd do that, I thought you would've done what assassins do and put it in his coffee or something," Howard shrugs, and upon seeing the look I give him he changes subject. "So, what are your plans for this evening?"

"Dinner with the team and another no doubt quiet night with Peggy since we're still barely speaking," I remark, considering no more words than necessary have been spoken since I turned my back on her after my release.

"Well, you were kind of mad at someone who was just trying to save your life," Howard points out. "Again, my bad for that, but look, maybe you should just be the bigger person and apologise."

"You're telling me to be the bigger person?"

"I know, trust me I'd never recommend it if it was anyone but Peggy," he says, and I sigh in quiet guilt. "You know I'm right."

"I know," I reluctantly admit. "I just... that widow getting away is going to bite me in the ass sooner rather than later. I know it."

"Yeah well until then how about you ease up a bit, drown another bottle of whiskey, and let Barnes take you out dancing," he orders more than suggests, and right on queue the door opens and Bucky strolls in.

"Buck," I smile as he walks over, only for it to quickly fall at his expression. "What is it?"

"Got a meeting in twenty, Carter sent me to get you," he says and I sigh heavily. "Yeah, I know, but we both knew they'd be sending us back over there before the start of June."

After glancing in Howard's general direction he takes my hand and brings it to his lips, and while I'm not a fan of the spite, it's a better alternative to giving him a black eye.

"And is Phillips actually going to let me out into the field or is he worried I'm going to go and skip off into the sunset with all my old communist comrades?"

A quiet laugh slips past his lips. "I'd say that's what the meeting's about."

"Do you realise that was part of my interrogation? I don't know how many agents I recited the Communist Manifesto to out of spite when they started grilling me over ideology," I remark, and Bucky shakes his head in amusement as I look at Howard. "Howard, I just figured out what to give you for your birthday."

"And people said a millionaire and a Marxist couldn't be friends," Howard jests while I flash him a grin. "But then again, you're only a Marxist until you're telling my poor underpaid interns to hurry up making your weapons, or when you want to shack up in one of my apartments."

"I never said I was a good Marxist," I admit. "But, considering we're both working in the interest of the people I think Marx would give us a pass."

"So what you're saying is I would've been spared in the revolution?" Howard asks, mostly jokingly, until he sees me cringe. "Or not?"

"Communists didn't even spare different types of communists in the revolution, so no, Stark Industries would have been seized by the government and if you were smart you would have fled the country, otherwise you likely would've been pushed into a blast furnace," I remark, remembering hearing of one such incident. "Lenin was bad for it, but Stalin..."

I whistle and the two men share a concerned look considering what they know of my past, which thankfully isn't as much as Peggy's put together despite all of them having read my file, or at least parts of it.

"I was only a child during the first lot of the purges, although my mother was quite involved. You see, she made sure I was born in America for the citizenship but then took me back to Russia for a few weeks as a baby with the excuse of introducing me to distant relatives while my father was stationed in London," I say and Bucky lowers his eyes, but considering what he knows about my mother I don't pay much mind to it. "But in truth she was presenting me to the Bolshevik leaders."

"Tell me again how they didn't charge you as a communist?" Bucky asks, and it's a genuine question.

"My lawyers," Howard answers, and that seems to be the most rational explanation.

"That and the fact I'm not a communist, I'm a socialist," I say, even if Bucky doesn't see much difference between the two. "And I believe you said we have a meeting?"

"Go on, take her before I start getting nightmares of the government taking my factories away from me," Howard says to Bucky. "And my properties, and my cars..."

Howard's still going on even when Bucky's put a hand on my back and guided me out of the lab, shaking his head with a knowing smile.

"For the record, I was cleared of being a communist"

"I wasn't gonna say anything," he says, wrapping an arm around my shoulder and bringing me into an empty office that just happens to be Phillips', and maybe we're both more than a little spiteful considering he gave Bucky that file with the intent of breaking us up. "Except for the fact that I've hardly seen you these past few days."

He lifts me up onto Phillips' desk, standing between my legs as I bring him in close. "I've missed you too, but once we're back in the field we won't have Phillips and the rest watching us. Just our own men, and I don't really care what they catch us doing."

He grins and kisses me, murmuring, "You know, maybe we should let someone else catch us on this desk, send a message."

My eyes widen at how usually rash he's become, but my lips curl into a smirk. "Now we'd definitely be getting a discharge for fucking on his desk."

"Making love, sweetheart," he corrects, certainly having placed an emphasis on the love part since the conversation we had. "I don't know how many times I've said this, but I can't wait to go home."

"I know," I assure him, stroking his cheekbone despite the sinking feeling in my gut. "Me too, my love."

"Home to our apartment," he continues, drawing a small smile from me. "Our bed."

"We'd sleep for days," I jest, and he hums in agreement, but something seems to be on his mind. "James?"

"Lina, sweetheart, there was something else Phillips mentioned," he awkwardly begins. "I've been wanting to bring it up but I haven't known how."

"Oh," I say, genuinely confused more than anything else.

"It was about your mother," he says, and now I'm definitely confused. "He um, look there's no easy way to say this but he said that she was having an affair around the time she got pregnant with you."

I blink in quiet bewilderment before exhaling with a slight laugh. "It's no secret that she slept with whoever gave her what she wanted, but if Phillips is trying to say that my dad-"

"He was," Bucky says shortly, almost in panic, but I just brush the mere suggestion off without even stopping to consider it.

"I look just like my dad," I dismiss and he nods, having seen the photos. "And besides, I'm still half sure that Phillips slept with her at some point so I don't trust anything he says."

He seems surprised by how quickly I dismiss it, but he's relieved to have that weight off his shoulders. "I know, I just thought that you should know what he said."

I nod in thanks, trying to bite back my frustration with Phillips for making that type of accusation, even if it's nothing new. "I shouldn't be surprised that he'd try to kick me when I'm already down, but sometimes I underestimate how low he's willing to go."

"And now we're about to find out where he's sending us," Bucky says, running a self-soothing hand along my thigh. "Chances are we'll get into less trouble in the middle of Nazi Germany than we would if we stay here."

I can only laugh in agreement. "Oh definitely."

He exhales through his nose and leans in to kiss me, gently cupping the back of my head as I shut my eyes and meet him halfway. Neither of us can deny the exhaustion that's seeped into our bones over these past months, an exhaustion that's reared it's head this past week, and he kisses me slowly until the sound of the door opening has us jumping apart, but it's only Steve.

"Seriously?!" he exclaims at the position we're in, and despite it being innocent Bucky's still standing between my legs. "On the colonel's desk!" He shakes his head and points to the clock in exasperation. "At ten am!"

"I don't expect you to know this, but sex isn't just an in bed at night thing," Bucky jests, making a jab at his closest friend who flushes in embarrassment. "What is it they say about variety-"

"Meeting, now," he says shortly before shutting the door and we share a flustered laugh as I press my lips to Bucky's cheek.

"You've gotta stop tormenting poor Steve."

"Sweetheart, I'm just educating him," he says in his defence. "Carter will thank me for it."

I smack him on the chest, only half playfully. "Don't let her hear you say that or you'll be the one with a black eye."

He hums in agreement with that, kissing me as I slide off the desk and only parting as we step out into the hallway. Considering Phillips knows about us and showed his cards, and that his stunt with the file didn't have the outcome he wanted, Bucky and I could damn discretion to hell out of spite alone, but I have other reasons for wanting our relationship to remain secret aside from the disapproval of the higher-ups.

We enter the meeting room and fill the two seats that separate Steve and Peggy, finding our fellow Howling Commandos present for what's no doubt a briefing, and Dugan asks, "What have you got for us, Carter?"

"Well, the plan was to discuss your next deployment to one of our marked Hydra bases, however, we've received word that the Soviets burned it to the ground," she says, opening a file. "But our intelligence has found something that's rather disturbing."

"It won't be disturbing to Agent Vetrova here," Phillips says, and I'm pursing my mouth. "Go on, show her the photograph her old comrades sent us."

Peggy hesitates, giving me a forewarning, "Our intelligence received these photographs from an officially unknown source which depict a young girl executing a high ranking Nazi officer. It is our belief that she is a student of your former academy."

I don't react as she pushes the photograph forward, expecting to see a girl I'd only vaguely recognise at best while the men express their usual enthusiasm at the prospect of one less Nazi.

But the moment I take the photograph in hand my heart stops.

"Guys, I get that it's a dead Nazi, but can we agree that brainwashed child soldiers shouldn't be executing prisoners," Steve says, vouching for the codes we're meant to abide by, but all I can do is stare in horror at a face I haven't seen in two years.

"Lina?" Bucky quietly asks, being the only one to notice my silence, and the moment I meet his eye he knows. "Sweetheart-"

I push the photograph across the table, away from me, and the men still don't notice my distress as they pick it up and show each other.

"Jesus, how old would she be?" Dernier asks as Bucky taps Peggy on the shoulder, trying to draw her attention over.

"Ten?" Falsworth estimates.

"Eight," I whisper, and they all turn to me. "She's just turned eight."

"You know her?" Morita asks, and when I struggle to form words Bucky says them for me.

"Her name's Katya, she's her sister."

The room's silent until Steve breaks it, "Ada-"

And I push myself from my seat, stumbling out into the hallway where I'm caught by familiar arms as my knees buckle. My shaking hand covers my mouth, muffling the sob of utter guilt that threatens to break free.

Bucky tries to soothe me, to get me to breathe, but I can't.

I can't when I know the Nazi isn't the first man she's killed. When I know the blood she must have on her hands for them to send her into the field. When I know the torture she's endured to comply with those orders.

When I know that I've failed her.