Content warning for themes of suicide in this chapter, being an intention to commit suicide (while plans are made no attempt is made and it is kept non-graphic), and a related fight between Bucky and Ada that turns physical. These themes will be carrying over into the next chapter, which will mark a dark turn of events for which there will be another set of content warnings.

Ada

Steve stumbles right into the back of me as I come to an abrupt stop in the entryway, and they proceed to all walk around me with the exception of Bucky who stands at my side as my mother tsks. In my peripheral vision I see him looking at me, trying to initiate a silent communication, but I can't do anything but stare in shock at the sight of her.

"It's not like you to be so clumsy, Adelina," she patronises, and they all look at me in confusion until Phillips enters and sets eyes on her.

"You," he says, and she smiles.

I can't recall ever seeing her smile.

"Chester," she greets. "It's been a while."

It takes Peggy a moment, but she does a double take as she recognises her face from the photographs within my file, and Peggy looks at me as Phillips seethes. "The hell are you doing here?"

"You know exactly what I'm doing here," she says, and her eyes fall on me. "Adelina, it's good manners to make introductions."

But I can't speak, I can't even bring myself to open my mouth, and so she tilts her head in disappointment.

"I don't remember raising you to be rude," she says, and that's when Steve and Howard catch on. "Well, considering my daughter's lost her voice, allow me to introduce myself. Madame Vetrova, a representative of the Soviet Union's foreign intelligence agency."

"Madame?" Phillips scoffs. "Call yourself what you are. A damn spy."

"I've risen above such a monicker, as I'm sure you're no doubt aware," she says, and she steps closer to me, but I can't bring myself to look at her. "Aren't you going to introduce me to your friends?"

"My name is Agent Carter, and this Captain Rogers, Sergeant Barnes, and Howard Stark," Peggy says, speaking with the strength I can't muster. "And we are all well aware of who you are."

"Are you now?" she says, eyeing Peggy in curiosity before looking at me. "Adelina, it's not like you to be quiet." She reaches up to cup my face and it takes every last bit of discipline I have to not recoil. "Haven't you missed me?"

I refuse to look at her, I refuse to speak, and her fingers wrap around my chin to forcefully pull my face towards hers.

"Look at me when I speak to you," she scolds, and a shudder leaves my lungs as Phillips forcefully pulls her hand away and steps between us.

"You do not lay a hand on my agent, do you understand me?" he says to her as Peggy tugs me back, out of her reach, and Bucky stands firmly at my side, positioning himself just in front of me.

"Your agent?" she repeats, dismissing him entirely as she sets her sights on me. "You used to be so much better at hiding your nerves. Now look at you."

"Free you mean?" Peggy remarks, and Mama raises an eyebrow in judgement.

"Chester, you could learn a thing or two about handling your female agents," she chastises. "Even now, from what I've heard, you've been unable to handle the one I placed in the palm of your hand."

She's going to take the credit for my decision to join the SSR. She's going to frame me as a double agent. She's going to jeopardise everything.

But Phillips doesn't take the bait despite all his accusations and suspicions.

"Placed in the palm of my hand huh?" Phillips says doubtfully. "You know, I'd believe that if she didn't spend a year trying to crack her head open on any hard surface she could reach and refusing to cooperate with any SSR agent that came her way." He tilts his head, having waited decades to go toe to toe with her. "You do realise that she became compromised at Pearl Harbor? That whatever scheme you'd set her up for was never gonna work."

"Is that so?" she says, looking towards Howard. "She seems to have done exactly as instructed."

"Sorry to disappoint, but I haven't been screwing your daughter," Howard says smugly, and Steve chokes beside him, not knowing the context behind his statement. "But I've been making sure she has everything she needs to do a damn good job serving our country, and not yours."

"Ah, Mr Stark, speaking of which, I heard you were at Finow?" Howard's jaw clenches, and she says, "I best return this to you then." She looks over her shoulder into an adjoining room and calls, "Dottie!"

My heart stops as Doreteya walks in with my bloodstained suit laid on a silver tray, and only now at the sight of her do my instincts awaken, shaking me out of my frozen state.

"Oh Adeline, I am so glad to see you're well," Doreteya says as she puts the tray into Howard's hands without ever taking her eyes off of me. "There was so much blood on that uniform, I can't imagine the trouble you must have found yourself in."

She reaches to hug me and my hand reflexively comes up hard across her face, backhanding her harshly enough to make her stumble. The room jolts in shock, aside from my mother, who watches on indifferently as Doreteya clutches her cheek and scoffs.

"If you're going to kiss me you could at least greet me a little more nicely," Doreteya remarks, and those words are met with varied reactions. "Sorry, I'm guessing you didn't tell your boyfriend?"

Again, she means Howard, and I let her think as much.

"How about I find some more cyanide and we finish the job properly this time?" I suggest, and she looks upon me with a magnetism that's rare in even the most disarming of agents. With a glint of obsession that's more dangerous than false charm could ever be.

I'm her mission, and she will not fail again.

And neither will I.

"Or," I say, stepping forward and cupping her reddened face before letting my hand slip down until it sits right beneath her jaw, resting over the still-healing cut across her throat that I left, and her pupils flare with something that isn't fear. "We could finish this how we were taught, in a locked room with no weapons."

There's a spark in her eye as my fingernails dig into her neck and her lips curl into a smirk as he says, "I'm assuming you don't mean the sex, and that fight simply wouldn't be fair with all that serum running through your veins."

And so I take the blade strapped to a special garter built into my stockings, something my uniform's never complete without, and press it into her hand.

"Are we even now?"

Her smile only widens until my mother's voice breaks the tension between us.

"That is enough girls," she says, but neither of us are willing to stand down first, and so she claps her hands. Final warning. "I will not ask again."

With a shove as I release her throat and she puts the knife down on the table between us. I step back to find Peggy and Steve both gaping with wide eyes while Bucky shifts uncomfortably, Howard however only looks intrigued.

Phillips looks at the lot of us and shakes his head before approaching my mother. "I don't know what the fuck that was, but you do not get to come here and-"

"And what, Chester?" she asks. "I'm standing in a Soviet Embassy on British soil, and last I checked, you aren't British. We're both foreigners here, and allies considering my daughter was smart enough to bury the mess your arms dealer caused at Finow."

"Allies until those Nazi bastards are dealt with," Phillips says. "Then you're next."

"That's quite a threat to make in the middle of an embassy," she says, and that's when Steve interrupts.

"If you aren't here to discuss Finow then what are you here for?"

She looks at him in dismissive amusement. "Captain America, the famed super-soldier, Erskine truly chose the most peculiar specimen before he was shot dead."

I can almost hear Steve grinding his teeth, but then Bucky backs him up.

"We've got two supersoldiers and you've got an injured spy," he observes, and I'm careful not to react to his attitude, to exhibit any type of emotional attachment to him while I'm standing in front of my mother. "You're not the one in control here."

He says those words less to her and more to me, an indirect reminder, but he has no idea how wrong he is.

"Chester, I must ask why you've brought a group of petulant children to a diplomatic negotiation," she mocks. "No one in this room could even be remotely close to thirty, let alone a reasonable adult."

"And how old's that one, eighteen, nineteen?" Phillips asks as he looks at Doreteya. "Let me guess, this is the one that Morgan's been ordering us to hunt down?"

"Morgan?" my mother repeats, and just as a wave of cold anger washes over me Howard intervenes.

"I don't think there's a reasonable adult standing in this room," Howard remarks, and Doreteya tilts her head as he pulls out a hundred dollar bill and waves it. "But there is a multi-millionaire, so if this is a negotiation how about we set a starting price?"

"Alright," my mother says, and she looks directly at me. "Her."

My blood runs cold as I stare her down, my mouth twisting into a grimace as my worst suspicions are confirmed. Even if I knew this moment was inevitable.

"No way in hell," Phillips says just as Bucky opens his mouth. "That girl's an American citizen, and you have no right to take her from this country."

"We can do this the complicated way in which I charge her with treason against the Soviet Union and file for her to be extradited, or she can return of her own free will," she says slowly, and despite wanting to fight, I know how this ends. "And no one gets hurt."

Resigning myself to my fate, I ask only one question. "Where's Ekaterina?"

Her expression changes to one of disappointment, almost of disgust, and she scolds, "How dare you ask after her now, you stupid girl. You took a Jewish girl into Nazi territory and you let her get taken." My body turns utterly rigid now as she pries a blade into my deepest shame, tearing it open. "You know what soldiers do to little girls they deem as less than human, and yet you risked it anyways for what? This illusion of freedom?" She steps closer and I force back tears. "You are selfish, and reckless, and good for nothing but the blood in your veins, and you should be grateful I've raised her to be stronger than you ever could." The way she looks at me now will be forever scarred into my memory. "You couldn't even kill yourself right let alone protect her."

And in an instant I've swiped the blade off the table and lunged. She deflects the attempted blow to her neck and throws me into a nearby chair as Doreteya reaches for me, but I recover quickly and smash the chair into the side of her head.

Doreteya hits the ground, conscious but no doubt concussed, and I reach into the hidden pocket inside my jacket to pull free a pocket pistol as I kick Doreteya onto her back and step down onto the still-healing gunshot wound in her stomach.

She cries out and I pull the gun on my mother who stands several feet away, watching on in complete calm.

"Assassinate me in an embassy and the Soviet Union will declare war."

"Matricide isn't the same as assassination," I dismiss, flicking down the back of the revolver, but she still has cards left to play.

"And kill the only person who knows where Ekaterina is?" she counters, knowing she has me right where she wants me. "And no, Doreterya knows nothing that you can torture out of her."

"But you do," I say without a moment of thought behind those words, without considering the weight behind them, and her eyes narrow. "You know what I'm capable of. You know that I don't give a shit what will happen to me as a consequence."

"No, but they do," she says, looking at the people who stand behind me. "And they won't let you jeopardise your future just so you can take out some anger on your mother, all to try and save a girl who would kill you for trying to take her away a second time."

And like that my worst fears are confirmed and my finger rests over the trigger.

"What did you do?" I ask, but she doesn't react even as my voice raises to a scream. "The hell did you do to her!"

She only blinks at me, and says, "I didn't do a thing, Hydra did, and I saved her from it while you were busy failing to kill yourself, because that's what a mother does. She protects her children."

Phillips knocks the gun out of my hand the second I pull the trigger and the bullet hits the wall as he throws me over to Bucky and Steve, yelling, "She is not spilling blood in a goddamn embassy!"

"You bastard!" I scream at him as Bucky and Steve both have to hold me back, but Phillips won't even look at me as he picks up the discarded gun and empties the bullets. "No-"

"Ada, you need to calm down-" Peggy begins in an effort to de-escalate, trying to block the sight of my mother from me, but my anger only finds a target in her.

"Get out of my fucking way!" I snap, and Steve's shocked enough that I manage to break free from his grasp only for Bucky to pull me back with a strength that he shouldn't have.

"Lina," Bucky says in my ear as I strain against him, loud enough only for me to hear. "Be smart about this."

Only then do I stop and look at the scene around me. At how my anger's destabilised me.

At the control I've given up.

And so I shake Bucky off and I look at my mother, who examines me in a way only a mother can. Picking me apart to the bone with a mere look.

But I'm still not done.

"You said I'm worth nothing except for the blood in my veins," I state, and that's when I grab an empty wine glass off a display cabinet by the side of the room and I hold my wrist over it. "Give me that knife and I'll bleed myself dry if that's what you want. Give it to Leviathan, give it to Hydra, give it to whoever the fuck you're actually working for. I don't care. If you've done what I think you have to Katya then you've already taken the only person in this world that I love from me-"

"If that was true you wouldn't hesitate to cut your wrist and be done with it," she states matter-of-factly. "You wouldn't be offering me a thing unless you still had something to live for." She looks at the people behind me. "Do you think Sofia was the only Widow we sent to keep an eye on you? No. She was just the only one you caught."

She plucks the glass from my hand and proceeds to fill it from the bottle of red wine on the table as she makes my world crumble.

"Tell me Adelina, do they know who you really are and what you've done?" she asks, and my eyes fall to the floor. "Adelina Viktorovna Vetrova, the Red Widow, hero of the Soviet Union for the blood you've spilt in its name. The blood of innocent men, women, and children, with more confirmed kills than the NKVD's most prolific firing squads. Or, do they only know Adeline Morgan, this lovely identity you've crafted for yourself as Miss America? A commendable nurse turned symbol of the nation, or rather, a pretty face on a poster that's painted over your scars."

I remain silent, but she doesn't stop.

"Does Mr Stark know I sent you to sleep with him and infiltrate the SSR?" she asks, and Phillips scoffs under his breath now. "Does Captain Rogers know how desperately you tried to convince Erskine not to follow through with Project Rebirth? Does Agent Carter know that she's been sleeping next to someone who's killed every woman she's ever grown close to?" She then looks at Bucky, and my blood turns cold. "Does Sergeant Barnes know that his fiancé can't have children?"

No.

"Yeah actually," Bucky says, placing a protective hand on my back as my heart stops and fear unlike anything I've ever known washes over me. "And I'm going to marry her. We know what you did to her, what you made her do, and that stops now."

She looks as if she could laugh, a very rare thing, and then she meets my eye, knowing exactly what leverage she holds over me. Standing in the very room as my greatest weaknesses.

"You have twenty-four hours, Adelina," she informs me. "Choose your next actions wisely."

"Or what?" Bucky asks, and I can't stop myself from visibly wincing.

"She knows what," she answers, dismissing us. "Now, you will all leave this embassy at once."

She leaves into the adjacent room, with an injured Doreteya following, and I can't stumble out into the hallway fast enough.

"Lina," Bucky says, but I don't dare stop moving until I've reached the entrance to the embassy and marched out onto the pavement, forcing myself to keep my composure until the very moment I've entered into the back of the truck I came in.

And then I break down.

Bucky tries to reach for me, to comfort me, but I push him off and with a guttural scream slam my fist hard enough into the metal wall of the truck to dent it.

Tears spill down my face and Bucky catches me as I collapse, holding me to his chest and speaking into my ear, but it's white noise against the ringing in my head.

It's over.

It's all over.

~

The journey back to base is a blur in which I'm guided by Bucky back inside headquarters and into a meeting room. I'm not interrogated over her revelation that she assigned me to intiltrate the SSR, but in the background I hear them debating what should be done.

Bucky never leaves my side, keeping a hand on me at all times, while all I can do is stare numbly.

Paralyzed.

"Morgan!" Phillips finally snaps. "I need you to wake the hell up and pay attention. We need a plan of action."

Finally, I manage words, "There's no plan. I have to go home."

And I can't recall the last time I sounded so childlike, and Peggy gapes at me with tears in her eyes.

"No," she says firmly, and I can't bring myself to look at Bucky. "Ada. I understand that you're afraid and I understand why, but this is what she's relying on. She's bluffing-"

"She doesn't bluff," I say, and I wince as Bucky speaks.

"Lina, you aren't going anywhere. We're going to deal with this-"

"How?" I counter. "I've been compromised. We've all been compromised. She has more leverage than she ever has and she will not hesitate to use it."

"Then we kill her," Bucky says, and my lips part at his next words. "I'm a sniper. Set me up outside the embassy and I'll take care of it."

"Buck," Steve gapes in shock, but he means every word.

And I've never loved him more.

"You said we can't kill her inside an embassy," Bucky says to Phillips, whose respect seems to have grown immensely for Bucky with those few words. "I'll wait until she heads for an airfield and take care of it."

"James, my love," I say, taking his hands in mine with a shaking voice. "If it was that simple I'd do it myself."

"Why can't it be that simple?" he asks me, growing more desperate by the second, and squeeze his hands tight. "She has protocols in place in the event that she's killed," I say, knowing little of them but able to guess enough. "And if it's at my hand she will ensure that everything I love is taken from me before I'm killed, and I'm not going to let that happen."

Bucky opens his mouth, but Phillips speaks first.

"I'd authorise her assassination," he states, and once those words would have made me smile. "But Morgan's right about what the consequences would be, and I can't afford for the Howling Commandos to get taken out in an accident that we wouldn't be able to pin on the Soviets."

"So you're just going to let her mother win?" Steve asks in disbelief, and Phillips and I look at one another, knowing that there's simply no way out of this, but still he tries.

"I'd sooner put a bullet in my head than ever give her that joy," Phillips assures us. "But this is a tough situation and the Soviets have more intel than we'd given them credit for. Barnes, Carter, I dare say you'd be the first ones up in the line of fire if she went rogue, and then they'd make an example out of the rest of the Howling Commandos as well as you Stark."

Howard shifts uncomfortably, and asks, "There's no way we can negotiate with them?"

"No," I answer. "All I can do now is minimise the fallout from this."

"No," Bucky argues. "Lina, you aren't just giving up-"

"I'm with Sergeant Barnes on this," Peggy adds, and Steve nods in support. "We have twenty four hours to put a plan together, and I'll be damned if we waste another minute of it. Ada, take some time to compose yourself so you can think clearly, and we'll bring you in when we have a plan of action."

I want to argue, but instead I nod.

"I'll come with you," Bucky says, but I shake my head and gently pat his hand as I slip out of his hold.

"There's no point sitting around with me when you could be helping them," I say, at least pretending that I believe there could be another way this ends, and so I kiss his cheek. "Thank you."

Knowing that there'll certainly be orders to stop me if I attempt to leave base I head to the room I share with Peggy and lock the door behind me. Only now that I'm completely alone do I slide to the floor and bang my head into the door as tears of frustration fall.

And then acceptance as I let myself mourn the life I'm surrendering and picture what lies ahead.

Upon my surrender I'll be taken directly to Moscow, and then transported either to the Sukhanovo gulag where I was held after Pearl Harbor, or taken to the Red Room depending on how they want to approach my reconditioning. Likely the Gulag and then the Red Room cells as was done before. Either way, it will be torture before they proceed to cycle me once more through the Red Room.

And then... I dare say my conditioning will be different from before. Whatever they've done to Katya, whatever they've tested on her, will be done to me. They'd spared me from the most painful attempts of mind control out of fear they'd permanently damage my mind, my cognitive function, but they won't have such reservations now.

This is their last attempt at breaking me before I'm discarded of.

And I know I won't come back from it.

My eyes catch the glint of the revolver on my nightstand and it hits me that there's only one true way out. If I return to Russia my mother wil hold them over my head until the day I die. They'll never be safe.

But this way...

I should want to live for Katya, but perhaps my mother's right. That she's better without me. Stronger without me.

Someday, I know the SSR will set their sights on the Red Room, and perhaps then she'll be freed, but I can't protect her. I can't protect any of them.

But I can ensure their lives will never be held over me again.

And like that, my decision is made.

With a shaky hand I reapply my lipstick and smoke one last cigarette, crushing it in my hand when it's at its last and reaching for the revolver.

My hand's steady now as I load a single bullet.

Seeing little point in prolonging the inevitable I raise it to my head with an ease that should startle me, but it's the closest to true freedom I've ever been. I shut my eyes and my finger hovers over the trigger, only for me to then hesitate. Not out of any desire to live, but upon realising just how I would be found.

No. I can't do it like this.

Not bloody.

Not with a hole in my head and my brains splattered on the wall.

No.

I'm not doing that to Bucky.

I'm not letting that be his last memory of me.

And so I go in search of a chemical solution.

Howard's lab is vacant as I find my way to a special selection of vials I've had him prepare for use in the field, and I've never felt so peaceful as I load a syringe with my poison of choice, calculating what my lethal dose would be and tripling it.

It doesn't feel right that I should get a peaceful end.

But I owe it to the people I love to die pretty.

To give them a nice body to dress up before they bury me.

Hopefully in the dress I wore the night of Stark Expo, the night I met Bucky. I only wish I had my engagement ring, but it's safe in Brooklyn. Perhaps, if Bucky can ever forgive me, he'll pass it on to my sister so she has something of me to keep.

If she still holds any love for me in her heart after failing her.

At the very least I can find joy in this final act, in proving my mother wrong.

That I can do this one thing right.

For just a moment I debate saying my goodbyes, to give myself one more selfish moment with the people I love before ending it all, but I don't.

There's no closure it could give, and I can't allow them even a chance to look me in the eye and realise what I plan to do since they'd knock me out cold to prevent it.

But, at least I know with one certainty that I will die loved.

And that's more than I could have ever dreamed of.

With quick steps I make my way back to my room, only to stop upon finding Bucky outside the door, and quickly I tuck the syringe into the pocket of my jacket.

"Lina," he exhales in relief upon seeing me. "You've gotta stop disappearing on me, babe."

"I went for a walk," I say, doing my best to appear restless. "I just couldn't sit still."

He nods in understanding and meets me halfway in the hallway, cupping my face and kissing my forehead in a manner that tells me little progress has been made on their plan.

"We're gonna work this out," he tells me, and I force a nod. "Come on."

He takes my hand, and reluctantly I follow him back inside my room where he brings me close and sets a hand on my waist.

"I was thinking that you and me should disappear until she's left England, or at least make it look that way," Bucky says, and the longer he talks the more disturbed I grow as I realise how much I've brushed off on him. "You said they can't know that you're responsible for killing her, but there's ways to work around that. We can sabotage the plane-"

I reach for his face, holding it between my hands. "James, my love, you're a soldier. Not an assassin."

"The only thing I care about is keeping you safe," he says, and I begin to realise we may be more alike than I've given him credit for. "And I don't care how dirty I have to get my hands to do that." He sees my aching expression and asks, "Would you love me any less for it?"

"No, I'd only love you more for it," I answer truthfully. "There's nothing you could do that would horrify me, no sin you could commit that would make me ever love you less, but I know you, James. You are a good man and I'm not going to let you compromise that for me."

"And what do you think I'd do if I lost you?" he asks, and I don't have an answer. "Ada. I'm not letting you go back there. I don't care what we have to do. I don't care how far we have to go. I promised you that you'd never go back there, and I'm keeping my word."

"James-" I begin, but he poses a question to me.

"If a Hydra agent came here and said that they're going to kill everyone I love unless I go back to being Zola's prisoner, what would you do?"

Tears fill my eyes, and I say, "I'd keep you safe, and I wouldn't rest until Zola and everyone involved is dead."

"Exactly, and we've still gotta deal with him." His voice breaks now as he tugs me closer. "Ever since you rescued me we've promised each other that we'd kill Zola. That we would bring down Hydra and get answers for what they did to us. You might be only person in the world who understands how personal this is, so please, don't let me do this alone. Don't- don't leave me to face him alone."

He knows precisely what those words do, and he says them with a tact that makes me think he could almost be an agent himself, but then his hand adjusts on my waist and he stills upon feeling something in my pocket.

I pretend not to notice, disregarding it as if he's simply felt the lipstick or lighter I'd typically keep in there, but his face falls and his hand slips inside. I react with careful confusion as he pulls the syringe out and holds it up with a visible lump in his throat.

"What's this?"

"It's just something to help me sleep," I shrug, but he doesn't believe a damn word. "Sleeping pills don't exactly cut it with me."

"This is to help you sleep?" he asks, and I nod but he doesn't believe a word, and so I turn to my vanity and pick up one of my lipsticks.

Something I had Howard make for me not too long ago, based on a Soviet variant, but I've never had the chance to test it. A few seconds of contact on his lips and the chemical agent should be absorbed, rendering him unconscious for at least a few minutes.

Giving me enough time to slip away without a fight.

"It helps calm my nerves," I say, absentmindedly applying the lipstick before I turn back to him and loop my arms around his neck. "But you tend to do it better." I go to lean in before stopping for just a moment, letting myself give him a goodbye. "I love you."

"And I love you," he says, tugging me closer while keeping his hand firmly wrapped around the syringe. "So don't shut me out."

"I- I never thought I was capable of loving someone the way I love you," I tell him, and his face draws together in pain. "And I know we've been a mess at times, but I've had the best days of my life with you, and you will never know how grateful I am to you for them. I-" I falter now as my lips hover just below his, and I look up into his eyes one last time. "I love you so damn much and I'm so sorry."

I press my lips to his just as he goes to speak, the last kiss we'll ever share, and he'd rigid beneath my touch, ut I suppose it doesn't matter. I won't live to remember it. I kiss him hard until he abruptly pulls back and I wait for him to grow faint.

But he doesn't.

And that's when my stomach sinks.

"Don't be sorry, just be honest with me, Lina," he quietly pleads as he holds up the syringe, but I don't know how to be. "What the hell is in this?"

"Like I said, it's a sedative, but maybe I use a stronger dose than I should," I admit to try to throw him off, but he still looks on blankly. "But can you really blame me for wanting to knock myself out right now?"

"Alright.

Then he decides to call my bluff, and without warning he goes to plunge it into his neck.

"No- no!" I panic, smacking it out of his hand just as the tip of the needle grazes his skin and the syringe hits the floor.

But still I try to play it off.

"James!" I exclaim. "The dose I use wouldn't put you to sleep, it'd put you in a coma!" He stares at me with a clenched jaw while I throw a fit. "The hell's wrong with you!"

But then he looks past me and his eyes fall on what I know rests on my bed.

And just like that the game's over.

His lips part and I refuse to meet his eye, looking at the lapel of his uniform until his shock passes and he exclaims, "The hell's wrong with me? The hell's wrong with you!"

I don't make any attempt to argue, and my silence only worsens the situation.

"Ada!" he yells, and when I refuse to look at him he pulls my face up to his. "No- no! You don't get to do this. You don't get to tap out and put a bullet in your fucking head-"

"I wasn't-"

"Like hell you weren't!" he yells, and I go to reach for the syringe to prove my point but he pulls me back with a rough hand around my arm. "I don't think so."

"You don't think so?" I repeat back to him, and I push him off hard. "This isn't your choice to make!"

And that's when he breaks.

"It isn't a choice, it's fucking suicide!"

"And you're not going to take that from me!"

I scoop the syringe up off the floor and march for the door, to make a run for it and lock myself somewhere he can't get to me, only for him to grab my wrist as he attempts to tear it from my hand, but I twist free of his grip.

"Ada, stop!"

I ignore him, and the moment I touch the doorknob he grabs me by my collar and pulls me back hard. He throws me off balance and attempts to trap me in his embrace, to wrestle the syringe from me, and when I try to dash forward my feet are lifted off the ground and I'm half thrown across the room into my bed.

"James-" I warn as my shins hit the metal frame, and I look back at him as he extends his hand with a look in his eye that's familiar, the one I saw when I crawled into that vent when we were cornered in the field.

The look of a terrified and desperate man.

A man who's trying to keep me alive.

"Give it to me."

"No," I say, and that's when he becomes forceful.

He reaches for me and I swing back at him but he only smacks my hand aside, pushing me face down into the mattress with a hand on the back of my skull as he pins me down with his body weight. He reaches for my flailing hand, prying the syringe out of it as I try to fight back, try to get him off of me, but we've never been in this position before.

Never been in a position where he's exerting his full strength to keep me down.

And any last doubts I had, any last hopes I'd held about that serum, are shot to hell.

Which is why I need to do this. If the Red Room investigates him fully, beyond just his connection to me, and discovers he was Zola's prisoner they'll put two and two together, and then we'll both be going to hell.

I drive the heel of my boot hard into his shin and he curses out as I grab the bedpost to pull myself out from under him and I run for the door now, grasping the knob of it just as he grabs my ankle and pulls my leg out from beneath me. I hit the floor hard and my moment of shock is all he needs to drag me back from the door, the syringe slipping from his hand in the midst of the fight as he needs both to keep me from breaking free.

The syringe may be out of reach, but the gun isn't.

My hand wraps around the grip, and I twist back enough to bring it up hard across his face. He stumbles back and a hard kick to his chest sends him into the wall, giving me a window to escape. Finally, my hand closes around the syringe only to stop upon finding broken glass and liquid spilled on the floor.

"Damn it," I exhale in defeat as Bucky picks me up off the floor and pushes me into the wall, taking the pistol from my hand and emptying the chamber while keeping me pinned back with a forearm across my collarbone.

We look at one another now, at the mess we've made of each other, and tears spill down both our faces, but he's far from exhausted his anger.

"Is this seriously how you were gonna go huh? No goodbye, no nothing, not even a damn note!" he yells, and I flinch at the harshness of his voice. "You were just gonna let me walk in and find you like that!"

"Why do you think I went for poison over blowing my head off?"

And that's when he loses it. I shut my eyes, his words blurring together in the fit of anger, but there's nothing he could say that would hurt more than having his blood on my hands. The door opens in the midst of his rage, and Peggy and Steve stand there to find Bucky pinning me to the wall in the aftermath of what was visibly a fight.

"Bucky," Steve says slowly. "Let her go."

"Alright," Bucky says, and he lets me go with a slight shove. "Go on Adeline, tell them what you were doing."

"You're being hysterical, Bucky," I reply, and he scoffs as he picks up the broken syringe and places the now empty pistol in Peggy's hand. "I told you that it was just a sedative."

"Yeah bullshit," he says, and that's when Steve steps between us, putting a hand on Bucky's shoulder to keep him back. "I'm giving you solutions, Ada. I'm trying to find a way out of this. I'm trying, but you've just decided to take the easy way out before even giving us a shot-"

"Sergeant Barnes, that's quite enough," Peggy says curtly. "Steve, take him outside."

"Like hell I'm-" Bucky immediately protests, but Peggy remains firm.

"Steve, I'm not going to ask again."

"Come on, Buck," Steve says, and Bucky pushes back against Steve but inevitably walks out willingly, slamming the door shut behind him as Peggy takes me in.

"You tried to kill yourself?"

"I hadn't exactly gotten to trying, but I'd planned to, yes," I answer matter-of-factly, and she grimaces in pain, but she doesn't erupt as Bucky did, instead she looks at me in concern.

"Did he hurt you?"

"No more than necessary to try to disarm me," I answer, but it brings her no comfort. "Then the syringe broke, so he succeeded it seems." Her silence leaves me uncomfortable and I say, "He's a good man, but he's also my match it seems in more ways than one."

The meaning of those words goes over her head, and her face is grave.

"You didn't even give us two hours to come up with a solution let alone twenty four," she says, and I look away. "Either you truly are suicidal, or you don't believe there's a way out of this."

"There is one way, and it's the only way that keeps you and everyone else I love safe," I say, and I instruct, "Make sure you give them a few bags of my blood as a peace offering in the aftermath."

Silently she steps forward and she looks at me for a moment longer before bringing her hand up hard across my face. I exhale sharply and raise my hand to my cheek, more offended than upset.

"Really, Peg?"

"Yes, really," she spits, anger finally overcoming her. "Considering violence seems to be the only language you understand."

And she may just be harder to subdue than Bucky.

I sigh and turn away from her as she descends into a lecture I pay little mind to, taking the lipstick and re-applying it while doing my best to conceal the tube from her so she doesn't recognise it, and then I light a cigarette.

"Ada," Peggy scolds. "Can you be any more inconsiderate? You could at least have the decency to listen to me without blowing smoke in my face when I'm trying to help you."

She takes the cigarette from my hand before I've even taken a draw from it and puts it out on the dresser, stepping close and lowering her voice.

"Ada, I know you have your mind made up, but you can still change it," she pleads. "At least give us these twenty-four hours, and then go from there."

"Peg, you know how this ends-"

"You aren't going to save anyone by killing yourself," she bluntly interrupts. "Suicide isn't noble, it's just suicide. You aren't going to be a martyr, and certainly not a saint. You're just going to be another dead girl from that academy."

Her words sting more than any Bucky spat at me, but only a woman could attack another so intimately, so visciously with such precise calculation.

And I smile.

At least she'd learned something from me.

"I'm proud of your methods, Peg. I really am."

"Don't. Don't applaud me for stooping to your level," she says, and my smile disappears. "I don't like being cruel, but it's what you need to hear because frankly I don't know how else to make you see sense."

"There's no more sense to be had," I dismiss. "This is the only solution, so you can at least give me the dignity of dying how I choose."

She exhales in desperate frustration and reaches for my face to keep me from turning away if nothing else.

"We love you, Ada, and all we're asking for is twenty four hours," she pleads with me. "Can you give us that?"

Somehow she believes me as I nod my head, and I tell her, "I love you too, Peg."

Her body eases as I lean in and embrace her, noting the smell of her perfume as I pull back just slightly, hesitating for only a moment before making my decision.

I press my lips to hers and she jolts in surprise, but she doesn't pull away as I deepen the kiss, ensuring the chemical agent is absorbed properly. She leans into me as her body starts to go weak, grasping the collar of my blouse as her knees buckle. I hold the weight of her as her lips break away and her head falls onto my shoulder, unconscious.

Gently I lower her down onto her bed, estimating that I have anywhere from two to ten minutes until she comes to, and so I pick up the pistol Bucky had taken from me and reload it, holstering it before carefully opening the bedroom door.

Down the hall Bucky and Steve are arguing, and it gives me an opportunity to slip around the opposite end undetected. I could shoot myself dead where I stand, but Peggy's words stick, and I decide that disappearing is the best course of action until I'm certain of what action to take.

How to end this with the least damage possible.

I come to the elevator only to stop in my tracks when it opens and Phillips is standing there.

"Morgan, you're coming with me."

"I'd rather not," I say, and he gives me a warning look. "Just make it quick."

He brings me away from the lift into a private room and crosses his arms over his chest. "My secretary came running to tell me that she heard you and Barnes having some sort of blue."

"Oh, Lorraine told you that did she?" I inquire. "I thought I told her to keep her nose where it belongs."

"Morgan-"

"Stressful situations tend to result in arguments," I dismiss, and one look is all it takes for him to put it together.

"Suicide won't help anyone."

I scoff, but then a question comes to mind, one I'd neglected to ask even myself until now. "If I killed my mother and then myself-"

"No, they wouldn't be spared," he bluntly answers. "Even if you don't kill her and just take yourself out, she won't let it go unpunished. The Soviets will come after them whether you're alive to see it or not."

Well, that complicates things.

"So what do I do?" I ask him, knowing that he's the only person who won't bring emotions into it. "To keep them alive."

"You know what you have to do." I struggle to keep my face neutral at finally hearing someone tell me what I know to be true. "But it doesn't need to be a waste. What was the offer you made me at Pearl Harbor?" he asks, and suddenly I find myself right back where I started, but with so much more to lose. "Something about working for me as a double agent?"

"If I'm caught they'll be killed," I say, and he doesn't argue with my assessment.

"Then you won't fail, will you?" he remarks, and I shake my head. "Who knows, you might even do some actual work and figure out a way to end that damn operation she's been running."

The idea's not a new one, but an impossible dream, until I exhale shakily.

Maybe having found a lifeline.

"I want to see my father."

"You're- Morgan," he warns, but I'm not done.

"I found him and learned he's working on acquiring blackmail to use against her," I tell Phillips, and his protest suddenly fades. "If I can prove she kept working with Hydra after the Nazis attacked the Soviet Union I can secure her execution as a traitor, and then her name and everything attached to it would be disgraced. The Red Room could be disbanded."

"Alright," he reluctantly permits. "You've got about twenty one hours left. Make them count."

He leaves me with that and many regrets as I make my way above ground and out onto the street, only to stop when I find Bucky smoking a cigarette by the building entrance.

I stop in my tracks and he looks back at me with regret in his own eyes. "I figured that if you tried to run you'd end up here."

Cautiously I step closer, leaning against the wall beside him and wordlessly putting my head on his shoulder considering they already know about us. Since there's little more damage that can be done if they're watching.

"I might've gotten carried away," I admit, and he shakes his head in quiet anger, but mostly in exhaustion as he wraps an arm around me.

"Me too," he says quietly, and he looks down in shame. "I'm sorry, I- I'm sorry."

"You weren't trying to hurt me, you were trying to keep me alive, there's a difference," I say, even if he might not see it that way. "You and Steve were arguing when I snuck away."

"Yeah, I took off to calm down since you were with Peggy," he says, and I realise that if Steve found her Bucky wasn't with him. He doesn't know what state I left her in. "She talked some sense into you then?"

"Only a little bit," I say, wrapping both arms around his waist and holding him close. "But enough. Told me I wouldn't be saving anyone, that I'd just be another dead girl from the academy, and that..."

I trail off and he kisses the top of my head as I cling to him, but I can't bring myself to tell him about my plan with Phillips. Not yet.

"I'm sorry, Buck. For all of this."

"Just don't leave," he quakes, and I'm fighting tears. "There's going to be a way out of this."

I nod weakly and say, "I need you to do me a favour."

"What's that?"

"I need you to find my father and bring him to base," I say, and he's perplexed more than hesitant. "He might have blackmail that can help us. He's stayed under the radar since he left Russia, and if I go to find him I'll be leading the Red Room straight to him. I'm going to go to church and draw any agents my way, and you're going to go to this address and bring him back. He'll know the best way to avoid detection."

Bucky has questions, but he doesn't ask them now, he just nods as I tell him the address and kiss him deeply with that lipstick still coating my lips, but it doesn't effect him one bit.

I want to tell myself that we'll deal with that later, but time's running out.

"I love you," I tell him, and his tender face softens. "So damn much."

"I love you too, Lina. Just tell me one thing." I look up at him and he holds my face gently. "Tell me that you don't want to die, that all of that... it was because you thought you had no other choice."

And my next words are only the truth.

"I don't want to die, Buck," I swear to him. "But I don't want you getting hurt. I don't want them to hold your life over my head, and if I'm dead then..."

I trail off, but I believe Phillips when he says not even my death would spare them. If that wasn't true this would all be simpler.

"If you die, then you'll be seeing me sooner than later," he says, and my heart breaks.

"My love, we both know we aren't ending up in the same place."

I say it as a joke, but he doesn't laugh.

"Then I'm gonna need to have a few words with God aren't I?" he says, drawing an emotional smile from me. "I don't know if I believe in that. I don't know if I believe in heaven or hell, but I believe that you and me finding each other wasn't by chance. That-" he pauses now, but finally breathes the words out loud. "That what happened in that lab-"

"I know," I quietly say, and he grimaces in pain as I take his face in my hands. "I know, James."

He falls into my embrace and buries his head in my hair, utterly vulnerable as he whispers, "You're the only thing that's been right since then, and I- I need you, Lina. I need your help to understand this. To understand what I am."

"What you are, James Barnes, is a good man. You're still you, still that man I met in New York," I tell him, bringing his face up and looking him in the eye. "War changes people, torture changes people, that's true, but your heart's still the same... even if your blood isn't."

Tears shine in his eyes and he's pale. "I- I don't know what any of this means. I know I'm no Captain America-"

"What it means is that a German scientist used you as a test subject, that he tortured you, and you survived," I tell him. "It means that you're a fighter, and that you're going to see the end of this war and be responsible for Zola meeting his end. It means that you're going to live a long life while he rots in hell for what he's done to us. That he's never going to be able to hurt us, or anyone else, ever again."

The moment those last words leave my tongue his lips collide with mine, kissing me in aching desperation, and I give into my own selfishness by kissing him back. By kissing him as if I mean to stay, only to have to pull away before we end up stumbling down the street to a hotel.

Our breathing's heavy as we compose ourselves and I put a hand on his chest. "Tonight I'm all yours, but we need to-"

"I know, I know," he says, taking my hand and kissing it as he steps away. "I'll meet you back at the church."

Breathlessly I let him go and the sun shines warm on my skin, a rarity in England, and it may as well be a slap to the face. I don't want to do this. I don't want to play the role of a double agent and I don't want to die.

I just want to go home to Brooklyn.

But something tells me I'm never going home again.

~

Bucky

I make sure my face is clean of Ada's lipstick as I look for the address she gave me, doing my best to stay out of sight of rooftops and other lookouts. Just as she taught me months ago.

I'd thought she was paranoid, but unfortunately she's been proven right. Her mother, who may be more twisted than any Nazi I've met, knows too much.

Ada's terrified, and so am I, but for different reasons.

She was going to kill herself. No warning. No goodbye.

She was just going to leave.

And I-

I swallow hard, knowing that I don't have the time to beat myself up over that fight when I'm trying to keep her, not just alive, but free. Even so, the weight of shame's heavy and Steve sure made sure it stuck. I know damn well what it looked like to him and Carter, and what it was, and despite all his own fights with Ada he tore me to shreds over it.

She's the love of my life, and I won't apologise for what I did to keep her from sticking that needle into her neck, but what came after that syringe was broken...

When we have the time I'll sit down with her, I'll make this right and apologise for breaking my promise to her. She grew up in violence, what I saw earlier with her mother was only a hint of it, and she sure as hell doesn't need any more of it from me.

I was ugly and scared out of my mind and seeing red. None of that makes it right. None of it changes that fight, but if it kept her alive then it kept her alive. She doesn't want to die, and as long as I can convince her that we're safe, I can work with her instead of against her.

That's if she'll let me.

I've never seen her like I saw her today. Paralyzed with fear to the point she couldn't speak.

It was only when that Russian girl walked out that she seemed to snap back to herself, or rather someone I've seen glimpses of in the field. What I witnessed today left me disturbed and there's no way around that. Ada often speaks of herself in the Red Room as a different person, one I've struggled to reconcile with the woman I know, and today hasn't made it easier. She dominated that agent, completely, and I understand why she must be so infuriated with men like Phillips calling the shots when she'd used to being the one forcing others to submit.

And answering only to one person.

Her mother. Not that I could call her a mother in any sense of the word. What shocked me most wasn't her cruelty towards Ada, no, it was the control she exerted over her when she'd berate Phillips and any other commanding officer for daring assume such authority over her.

But she fell right into line the moment that woman clapped her hands.

Until she snapped.

I wasn't going to stop her, but I can understand why Phillips did. It's an embassy and spilling blood would make Ada a wanted criminal in the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union. He saved her from life in prison, but I meant every word about finishing this when that woman's no longer protected by the walls of an embassy.

Steve was horrified by the suggestion of assassinating Ada's mother, but I meant every word.

Hell, I still might and ask her for forgiveness in the aftermath.

She'd give it to me, even if she'd be scared out of her mind of the consequences, but once time passed and she calmed down then we'd be okay. She might be upset she wasn't the one to do it, she should be the one to do it, but Viktoriya Vetrova needs to die.

Sooner than later.

Which is why if her father doesn't have a plan for her I'm going to make my own.

Who knows, when enough time passes she might just be proud.

I touch my tender face from where she pistol-whipped me, and it's strange to know that in hours it won't hurt anymore. I should be thankful for it but I'm not.

I don't know when Ada put two and two together, if she did the moment she found me or more recently, but from her recent questioning I'd be willing to bet she figured it out in the last week or two. She might have suspected it beforehand, she might have been in denial just as I've been, but she knows and neither of us can pretend otherwise now.

For months I've been terrified of breathing a word to anyone, of people knowing just what I was subjected to. Steve's always seen his experimentation as a blessing, and from looking at him I can understand why, but I didn't get any of that. I look the same as before, and more or less I am the same as before, but nothing feels right anymore. Steve would try to convince me that it's not a bad thing, that I can use it to my advantage, but I don't want to hear that.

He's my best friend, my brother, but this isn't something he can understand. Not when I'm reminded of how I became this way every single damn time I notice something that isn't right. That shouldn't be happening.

But Ada does. She understands.

When her and I have the time I'll sit with her and tell her all of it, the things I'd pieced together since my rescue, but the clock's ticking and my only priority right now is keeping her safe.

I approach a white door and sigh heavily, having already met one in law today and the last thing I want is to meet another. I don't know much about this guy except for the jumbled words Ada had said when she got home last night. Hell, he might not even be her father. She seemed sure of it, but she also said that for the last one so I'm not exactly holding my breath.

Regardless, she thinks he has intel that can help us and I'm not letting her down.

I raise my hand to knock, but the door opens before I can make contact and I find myself looking at a man in his late forties with a worn face and familiar features. The same dark almond-shaped eyes and thick brows, the same strong nose and structured face. Features that are harsher than hers, but still familiar.

"Sergeant Barnes," he says, and it seems her mother isn't the only spy in the family. "You better come in."

He opens the door just wide enough for me to slip inside and he shuts it behind me, already knowing why I'm here. "Adelina, is she alright after seeing her mother?"

"She was planning to kill herself so not really, but she seems to have talked herself out of that for now," I remark, and he grimaces as he speaks in a Russian accent that's not too unlike Ada's, although stronger.

"If you're here then she sent you as a messenger."

I should probably shake his hand and introduce myself properly, but he already knows who I am and these aren't exactly normal circumstances, so instead I look about the room to find stacks upon stacks of books scattered around the small apartment along with countless files.

Definitely an agent alright.

I see the Communist Manifesto sat next to one of Dostoevsky's works and that may as well be a positive paternity test.

No wonder she didn't have any doubts after she came back from here.

I lift up the book and recognise it as one of the many Ada wants me to read. "This is one of her favourites."

"I understand she has a love for philosophy," he mentions. "Though you strike me as a practical man rather than a philosopher."

"I am," I say, and I get to the point. "Her mother's given her twenty four hours to surrender herself or things are going to get bloody. I offered to kill her but she thinks that would only give the Red Room a reason to retaliate, so, she sent me here to see what blackmail you have and bring you back to base."

"Phillips is going to love that," he remarks under his breath, and again, any lingering doubts rapidly disappear.

"Can you help her or not?" I ask shortly, but he remains patient.

"You certainly have the demeanour of a man who's just tangled with Viktoriya Vetrova," he sighs as he lifts up an unmarked file and puts it on the table between us. "As I told Adelina, I've spent two decades trying to get something substantial enough that she'll be tried for treason and imprisoned if not executed. She has ties with Hydra that still persist, I know it for a fact, but proof is another issue. If those ties were exposed she'd be executed as a traitor and the Red Room program would likely be discarded of due to its association with her."

I nod slowly, "Can you get that proof in the next few hours."

"Regrettably not."

"So, we kill her then?"

His eyebrows raise in surprise, but he's not exactly opposed on personal grounds. "If we did then the Red Room would make Adelina's life a living hell, whether or not she's implicated in it. I'd debated it myself when I learned she arrived at the embassy, but it's too dangerous."

"She had only one agent with her who was injured-"

"One agent that you saw," he corrects, and I clench my jaw. "I spent time undercover as a guard in the Red Room in its early stages when Adelina was only seven or so. The things I saw, even then, horrify me to this day. Torture. Execution. Children killing children... for one of those girls to survive to graduation marks them as more dangerous than you and I could ever fathom."

"You know that you're daughter's one of those girls right?" I defensively remind him. "She didn't have a choice."

"I'm aware that she is," he says slowly, and he chooses his next words carefully. "But, what you don't understand Sergeant Barnes, is that she did have a choice. All those girls had a choice between dying and killing to survive. Adelina, like all the rest, made her choice long before her sister was born to be used as leverage. She chose to not just survive, but to kill, just as she has a choice now."

I open my mouth to argue but he cuts me off.

"Her medals speak for themself," he states, and I clamp my mouth shut, having seen them. "I'm not saying that she does not have a good heart, because she does, but her ability to compartmentalise exceeds both yours and mine."

"I know her," I say, leaving no room for argument. "I know the woman I'm marrying, and I know what she's capable of, which is why I'm terrified to see her like this. Scared into submission and ready to throw in the towel without even giving us a chance to find a way out of this-"

"She's afraid because she knows that you and the rest of those she holds dear won't be spared," he tries to explain. "You underestimate how her former organisation operates, and I dare say the only reason she's still breathing isn't strength of will, but fear of what will be done to you if she escapes her orders to return."

The meaning of his words sinks in and my throat tightens. "Neither of you know that-"

"No, but we know her mother," he says, and I'm looking into the eyes of a scarred man who resembles Ada too greatly. "Do not underestimate the brutality she was raised amidstt, that she became to survive. I tried to free her from it fifteen years ago, and she shot me. I dare say that if she returned to free her sister she'd be met with a similar reception, because they are taught self preservation and loyalty to their organisation at any cost. At any means necessary. Ada knows what her fellow agents are capable of, and she is right to be terrified."

"Then what?" I ask him. "We just abandon her-"

"No, certainly not," he dismisses, and he looks away in shame. "I failed her once, and I will not do so again."

Ada's father alright.

"So what do we do?"

"Return to your base and stay out of the line of fire," he instructs. "They've given her twenty-four hours to make her decision, but they won't refrain from applying pressure in the meantime. Keep yourself safe, and I'll find a way inside your base when I've collected the files that may be of importance to her."

I nod my head, guessing that he's well aware of where our secret headquarters is considering just how much he seems to know, but instead of returning directly to base I make my way to the church to meet Ada, to bring her back to base myself in case she's intercepted by an agent looking to apply a little pressure.

Because god knows she doesn't need much more to crack.

~

Ada

Numbly I pray the rosary, trying to find some small in the distraction from the pounding in my chest, to find clarity.

But there's none.

Only a dozen different paths that end in the same pit of hell.

The only question now is what I can salvage in my descent.

I hear the doors of the church swing open, but it's only at the sound of familiar heels clinking against the floor does my body stiffen.

Peggy.

Shit.

She marches right to where I kneel and stands over me with her arms crossed over her chest.

She waits silently, and finally I say, "I've decided to not kill myself."

"Clearly," she huffs, but despite all her anger, words fail her as she looks at me in equal disbelief and betrayal, and all she can say is my name. "Ada."

I offer no apology, no explanation, and I look away. My eyes fall on my rosary and with a sigh she kneels beside me in the pew, still fuming.

"You have a lot of explaining to do," she says, but still I don't speak. "From your orders to seduce Howard, to whatever the hell your display was with that Russian girl."

"I'm not a lesbian if that's what you're asking," I say, and she suddenly clams up. "You know that I love Bucky, but a means to an end is a means to an end."

"Such as me?" she finishes, and I struggle to keep my expression blank. "No, I know what you're doing. Burning bridges won't make whatever it is you're plotting easier-"

"Peg-"

"Or perhaps you simply aren't plotting anything because you haven't been thinking straight for weeks," she scolds. "I had to talk Steve out of throttling you when he found me how he did, although I certainly didn't tell him the specifics of how I got there."

"Considering I've already gotten a throttling from you and Bucky I think another would be a little excessive," I dismiss, and she scoffs.

"Necessary you mean," she says, and she still can't look at me as she asks, "What are you doing here?"

"It's a Sunday, I'm praying," I answer, but she knows me better than that. "I was going to kill myself an hour ago Peggy, can you let me have a moment to myself?"

"Clearly not considering you're an active suicide risk," she says, but then she relents. "I understand your fears, but she is relying on your conditioning still being in effect. Without that fear she loses her power."

"Yes, and she'll do anything to get it back," I warn her. "Peggy, this isn't some children's story where the good guys win. I've always known how this ends for me."

"If that were true you wouldn't have been planning a different future," she says, and my hand clenches around the small metal cross until the skin cracks and bleeds. "One where you have a goddamn life that belongs to you and no one else. Where you capture Zola and escape the clutches of your former handlers. Where you attend university considering you could well be one of those great philosophers you read so much of, studying politics and religion and psychology, and writing a damn good thesis on it. Where you marry Sergeant Barnes and adopt-"

Abruptly I push myself to my feet and walk down the aisle of the church for what will no doubt be the last time, pushing open the tall wooden doors and stumbling out onto the street where the sun's hidden behind the dark clouds that have rolled in.

"Ada!" Peggy calls as she marches out after me, but I don't look back.

Not until a gunshot fires.

I turn just in time to watch her body fall forward as a second bullet lands in the back of her shoulder and I rush forward to catch her. She's heavy in my arms as I drag her back inside the church and lower her to the floor as blood stains her white blouse.

"Peg-" I panic, putting pressure on the wounds as I look around in desperation and yell, "Ambulance- ambulance!"

The priest rushes out to find help and Peggy draws a painful breath as she looks up to the ceiling and orders, "Go. Find the shooter."

And if she were anyone else I would, but I can't leave her to simply bleed out.

"No- no," I plead, trying to stop the bleeding, but I'm a hollow shell of the nurse whose composure never faltered on that fateful day in 1941. "Peggy, I need you to stay alert."

She groans in pain, certainly alert, and I look up as the doors are swung open only to find Bucky rushing in.

"James!"

"Shit," he curses, not needing my guidance on what to do from here considering I trained him damn well in treating bullet wounds the moment we entered the field. "Go, I've got her."

"Don't you dare leave this church," I order him as I run outside with bloody hands and my pistol drawn, scanning nearby rooftops and windows only to find fifty possible locations a shooter could have fired from.

They told me I had twenty-four hours.

Twenty-four hours until they took matters into their own hands.

And this was only a warning.